[Peace-discuss] NfN notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Some notes to consider discussing on News from Neptune


Russiagate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W_WIE3hiko -- Fake news: No evidence of 
Trump/Russia conspiracy, says Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman 
Richard Burr with no dispute coming from Committee Democrats. Senate 
Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr:

> Well, I'm not sure how to put it any clearer than I said it before--we 
> have no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and 
> Russia.

I'm not sure what "factual evidence" means here or how that differs from 
just plain evidence (why the qualifier?). Burr has said this on-camera and 
you can see him saying this. Therefore it's on the record. Also from Burr:

> If we write a report based upon the facts that we have, then we don't
> have anything that would suggest there was collusion by the Trump
> campaign and Russia.

Democrats confirmed this to NBC on condition of anonymity. More anonymous 
sources for the corporate media.

Former CIA Director John Brennan doubles down on his evidenceless 
insistence on Russian collusion saying:

> Mr. Trump's claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash.

Shall we add this to the list of "bombshells" (as Russiagate conspiracy 
theorists like to say) that turned out to completely fizzle (to no 
reasonable person's surprise)?

Russiagate, contrary to those who saw it as going on the wane, continues 
apace. It was foolish to think it would die out because Russiagate is a 
fact-free narrative -- to believe in it requires one to forget or ignore 
what we know about all of the investigations into every Russiagate story 
published. They all fall apart on investigation either because they just 
weren't true to begin with or because they're wildly overstated (such as 
the effect of Russians posting social media ads prior to the 2016 US 
election). The only substance to come out of it are the ill effects on 
people's lives -- sanctions, censorship, and lost business.

Maddow has been saying insane crap about Russia and getting the highest 
ratings of her career for saying it (even going against NBC as she did on 
Twitter, explained in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb46se6Xp8o). Her 
latest claim is that Russia will somehow turn off our heating during this 
2019 cold winter. There's no evidence behind the claim, it's Maddow's 
speculation based on her desire to keep making lots of money for herself 
and her network. MSNBC gets a lot of money for Maddow's rants. She really 
is, as Jimmy Dore has pointed out in 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bwmhe8t3VQ the corporate-friendly Alex 
Jones (minus the censorship, of course).

MSNBC has a strong history of firing any host that questions the corporate 
line. Phil Donahue, Ed Schultz, Ashley Banfield, and Jesse Ventura have all 
been fired for covering news and telling the truth that contradicted 
corporate narratives. Donahue and Ventura didn't go along with the 2003 
invasion of Iraq and said so on their shows, Schultz interviewed Bernie 
Sanders because he was running for US President, and Banfield gave a speech 
to Kansas State University which challenged the coverage of the 9/11 
attacks naming Fox News as an example of "cable news operators who wrap 
themselves in the American flag and go after a certain target demographic". 
Unlike Donahue and Ventura, Banfield was not bought out of her contract she 
was punished by having her desk, phone, and tools taken away from her but 
expected to report to work every day. After 17 months Neal Shapiro, NBC 
News president, let her leave.

After Aaron Maté left The Real News, TRNN offers a sharply narrowed 
allowable range of debate which goes from TRNN's Marc Steiner buying into 
Russiagate to TRNN's Paul Jay who claimed Russiagate is not important. TRNN 
lost validity on Russiagate when they lost Aaron Maté; that network simply 
has nobody on staff who will properly explain relevant Russiagate issues 
and tacitly encourage good critical thinking skills as Maté did.

There's also a lot of valuable media criticism that goes with Russiagate 
which you're not going to get from most hosts, shows, and networks. RT has 
good coverage of Russiagate and Maté's articles for The Nation are good 
(but The Nation magazine as a whole still finds ways to be subservient to 
the Democrats come election time).

Will that end Russiagate?

No way, evidence-free Russian conspiracy theories like the kind peddled by 
Marcy Wheeler, Rachel Maddow, most of the Democratic Party, and 
uncritically echoed by virtually all of the corporate media and Democracy 
Now's Amy Goodman are far too profitable to stop now.

Related:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUvfZj-Fm0 -- a "super cut" of corporate 
and corporate-repeating media claiming "the walls are closing in", "the 
beginning of the end", "a turning point", "a tipping point", and 
"bombshell" reports which all somehow signal Trump's impeachment, 
resignation, and an end to the Trump administration because Trump "it's 
over", Trump "will resign", Trump "is in a lot of trouble", and he "will 
not serve out his term". Remember when liberals got all worked up because 
TV station owner Sinclair made their employee newsreaders read from the 
same script? Where's the outrage when multiple allegedly independent 
newsreaders effectively do the same thing? Over a bunch of baseless claims? 
Spanning years (the earliest clip is dated February 2017)?

The simple concept of evidence-based reporting appears to be beyond the 
corporate media and their friendly repeaters, and it's perfectly clear why 
they do this: they make money and do political favors for their funders. 
Ironic that the very thing they accuse Russians of doing -- "fomenting 
discord" -- is what they have been doing on this story since the beginning.




Sanctions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2P_0U66j8w -- more Russian sanctions are 
on the way from the US. Sanctions hurt ordinary citizens, not elites.



Fake news possibility: BBC Syria producer Riam Dalati claims the April 7, 
2018 Douma chemical attack video was staged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o63VnLJpwuc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mBZjC69Mg4 -- BBC Syria producer Riam 
Dalati tweets that the Douma chemical attack video (circa April 7, 2018) 
was staged, which agrees with Russian and Syrian claims made at the time. 
claims to have proof. Dalati has not published said proof. Dalati's tweets 
are moderated, but https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DzXWER1XcAEukgj.jpg is a 
screenshot and https://archive.fo/K1mSY is a copy of that screenshot (in 
case the former link is taken down:

> After almost 6 months of investigations, i can prove without a doubt
> that the #Douma Hospital scene was staged. No fatalities occurred in the
> hospital. All the #WH, activists and people i spoke to are either in
> #Idlib or #EuphratesShield areas. Only one person was in #Damascus.
> #Russia and at least one #NATO country knew about what happened in the
> hospital. Documents were sent. However no 1 knew what really happened at
> the flats apart from activists manipulating the scene there. This is why
> #Russia focused solely on discrediting the hospital scene But never
> approached the block of flats and curtailed access immediately after
> #Douma takeover. I can tell you that Jaysh al-Islam ruled Douma with an
> iron fist. They coopted activists, doctors and humanitarians with fear
> and intimidation.






Rumors of war: Venezuela

Update from The Gray Zone courtesy of Anya Parampil (formerly of RT), Aaron 
Maté (The Nation, The Gray Zone, formerly of Democracy Now, formerly of The 
Real News), and Max Blumenthal & Ben Norton (Gray Zone)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LT_O7tI3DY -- Gray Zone report on 
Venezuelans standing in line for hours to sign a letter denouncing US 
intervention and aggression against Venezuela.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq7ngZgzU-k -- Aaron Maté interview with 
Jimmy Dore, very informative.

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duQ_oxPFIAA -- Bill Maher 
championing Trump & Venezuela coup (Maher called Venezuela "in our 
backyard") is interesting because:

If you're for the Venezuelan coup, you're with Pres. Trump whom the 
corporate media calls a Putin puppet (sans evidence).

If you're against the Venezuelan coup, you're with Putin who (rightly) 
objects to the coup (alongside many other countries: Venezuela [go 
figure!], African union, Italy, Mexico, and more), and the corporate media 
will call you a Putin puppet (how dare you side with Putin on anything!)

So both roads lead to the corporate media calling you a Putin puppet. You 
can try to side with Trump's coup and dodge such bad reasoning by not 
mentioning the contradiction like Maher does in his pro-war/pro-coup fervor 
but that ends up making you look as foolish as Maher and his applauding 
audience.

Side note: I'm not sure if Parampil is still with RT but I suspect she is 
not. Her profile page on RT.com -- 
https://www.rt.com/onair-talent/anya-parampil/ -- now redirects to the page 
of other RT "onair-talent". She has not been on RT (such as the very good 
show she launched called "In Question") for some weeks now and my 
2019-02-08 letter to RT (RT-US at rttv.ru) asking about her went unanswered. 
Her profile page on Gray Zone Project -- 
https://grayzoneproject.com/author/anya-parampil/ -- refers to her RT work 
in the past tense ("She previously hosted a daily progressive afternoon 
news program called In Question on RT America").



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI8_JoGzwjk -- Gray Zone interview with 
members of the wealthier public attending a rally for humanitarian aid who 
also support the sanctions. One attendee said "of course [I support the 
sanctions] but the sanctions are so weak", another said "the sanctions 
target corrupt officials".

Two women in this interview supported ending "this dictatorship" (referring 
to the Venezuelan government), and another woman said "[Trump] is fighting 
for the freedom of our country and I applaud that. I may not agree with 
some of his policies, but I applaud him and thank him for the help that he 
is giving us.". One of the two women who saw their government as a 
dictatorship supported "getting us out" of it "as long as it is not a 
military invasion".

Points contradicting their views:

- The Venezuelan elections are widely credited as being more monitored and 
fair than the US elections. There's no evidence for calling that government 
a dictatorship even though people have objections to Maduro's policies.

- The US has long had eyes on Venezuelan oil and fomenting regime change 
wars is hardly new to the US government. Venezuela has the largest known 
reserves of oil. John Bolton has admitted that this regime change action is 
for the oil per RT and teleSUR:

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/John-Bolton-Admits-US-backed-Coup-in-Venezuela-Is-About-Oil-Not-Democracy-20190130-0020.html

https://on.rt.com/9n7i

- US sanctions against countries typically target the citizenry; US 
sanctions against Iraq, for instance, were credited with having killed 
500,000 children (a figure then-Sec. of State Madeleine Albright famously 
remarked was "worth it" when asked about this by corporate media's "60 
Minutes" program):

> Lesley Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died. I
> mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the
> price worth it?
>
> Madeleine Albright: We think the price is worth it.

Albright later said that interview "amounted to Iraqi propaganda" and she 
said that "I had fallen into a trap and said something I did not mean" and 
regretted "[coming] across as cold-blooded and cruel". She was Secretary of 
State participating by choice in a scheduled, no doubt well-prepared for 
interview with sympathetic corporate media. Propaganda? Certainly. Iraqi 
propaganda? No way. Albright meant what she said because it was the truth; 
sanctions achieved what they were designed to do.




Maduro sees such "humanitarian aid" as toppling his government according to 
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14316 . Air cargo shipper "Air 21" 
stopped their shipments to Venezuela one day after McClatchy published a 
report tying one of their customers' shipments to the CIA. Air 21 customer 
"GPS-Air" was the only company that chartered flights for the last few 
weeks to Valencia, Venezuela.

 From the McClatchy report:

> A Boeing 767 operated by 21 Air, which maintains an operating facility 
> at [Miami International Airport], delivered cargo earlier this week that
> included 19 assault rifles, telescopic sights, radio antenna and other
> materiel to the international airport in Valencia, according to a
> Bolivarian National Guard general, Endes Palencia.

Both GPS-Air and 21 Air deny knowing anything about the shipments. But it 
looks like the CIA was trying to create an armed insurgency in Venezuela.






Russiagate: "Are Russian Trolls Saving Measles From Extinction?" US 
state-owned media says so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKSiUSt0mWs -- US state-owned media outlets 
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty claim that Russian misinformation spread by 
Russian bot accounts is causing an outbreak of measles in Europe by fueling 
fear of vaccines amongst the public.

https://www.rferl.org/a/are-russian-trolls-saving-measles-from-extinction/29768471.html 
-- RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty article

The problem with the claim isn't just that it's sourceless, innumerate, and 
unverified, but that the US has a history of using vaccinations to attack 
people. Domestically, Americans purposefully spread syphilis to blacks in 
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male -- 1932 and 1972 
the US Public Health Service infected and then observed untreated syphilis 
in black men. None of the victims received penicillin even after penicillin 
was proven to be effective at treating syphilis.

 From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment

> By the end of the study in 1972, only 74 of the test subjects were
> alive. Of the original 399 men, 28 had died of syphilis, 100 were dead
> of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of
> their children were born with congenital syphilis.

Outside the US, The Guardian reported in 2011 that the CIA organized a fake 
vaccination campaign in order to get to Osama bin Laden's family DNA.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna

> As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in
> May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the
> vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the "project" in a poorer
> part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and
> US officials and local residents.
> 
> The doctor, Shakil Afridi, has since been arrested by the Inter-Services
> Intelligence agency (ISI) for co-operating with American intelligence
> agents.
> 
> Relations between Washington and Islamabad, already severely strained by
> the Bin Laden operation, have deteriorated considerably since then. The
> doctor's arrest has exacerbated these tensions. The US is understood to
> be concerned for the doctor's safety, and is thought to have intervened
> on his behalf.

[...]

> The doctor went to Abbottabad in March, saying he had procured funds to
> give free vaccinations for hepatitis B. Bypassing the management of the
> Abbottabad health services, he paid generous sums to low-ranking local
> government health workers, who took part in the operation without
> knowing about the connection to Bin Laden. Health visitors in the area
> were among the few people who had gained access to the Bin Laden
> compound in the past, administering polio drops to some of the
> children.
> 
> Afridi had posters for the vaccination programme put up around
> Abbottabad, featuring a vaccine made by Amson, a medicine manufacturer
> based on the outskirts of Islamabad.
> 
> In March health workers administered the vaccine in a poor neighbourhood
> on the edge of Abbottabad called Nawa Sher. The hepatitis B vaccine is
> usually given in three doses, the second a month after the first. But in
> April, instead of administering the second dose in Nawa Sher, the doctor
> returned to Abbottabad and moved the nurses on to Bilal Town, the suburb
> where Bin Laden lived.

So it's not unheard of for the American government to use vaccination as an 
excuse to do unethical things or covertly achieve other ends.

But we don't have the evidence to justify a conclusion or suggestion that 
misinformation is at work here. Ironic that the call to stamp out "fake 
news" comes so often from those seeking to publish propaganda unchallenged.






Russiagate: Censorship of messages CNN, US Government doesn't like via 
their apparent partners at Facebook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1at_Wexv7pk -- interview with Rania Khalek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY7MoANYf-w -- Facebook & CNN bans 
RT-linked pages claiming policy of not letting readers know where show "In 
the Now" gets its money from (some of their money comes from Russian 
state-funded Ruptly which is affiliated with RT). The problem: Facebook has 
no such policy. Therefore Facebook never enforced this alleged policy with 
others such as BBC, CBC, Al Jazeera, or other state-owned broadcasters. 
Facebook didn't enforce this with anyone else either: NPR or individuals 
with pages. In the Now was critical of the US's Venezuelan coup and CNN is 
pro-coup. In the Now also has a history of standing against Israeli 
occupation of Palestinian territory and disenfranchisement of the 
Palestinian people including murder. In the Now host Rania Khalek is a BDS 
supporter. CNN has quite the opposite view, when they bother to cover 
Palestinians at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9pWE_PGSGY -- Jimmy Dore on how CNN & 
Facebook coordinate to silence dissent.

It's clear that In the Now didn't do anything wrong, but CNN was working on 
a Russiagate piece about In the Now and learned what Ruptly-funded outlets 
tell their employees -- their paychecks come in part from the Russian 
government. CNN seems to have asked Facebook to censor In the Now's 
Facebook page on behalf of the German Marshall Fund -- what In the Now's 
Rania Khalek said is:

> a US-funded government group that has been involved in projects like the
> Alliance for Securing Democracy which has an advisory board with people
> like Bill Kristol who was a board member of the Project for a New
> American Century that was critical of pushing the Iraq War, people like
> Mike Morrell, the acting CIA Director, people like Jake Sullivan, the
> former National Security Advisor to Joe Biden. And this group is also
> behind Hamilton 68 which claims to be this Russian propaganda tracker
> that tracks Russian bots but has this secret methodology that doesn't
> reveal to anybody and has misidentified actual living breathing humans
> as fake Russian bots.




Citizenship in the UK might be more precarious than UK citizens want or need

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOjKPvFrERI -- 19-year old British citizen 
Shamima Begum seeks to return to the UK with her child. At age 15 in 2015 
Beggam left the UK with 2 other girls to go to Syria. Begum said one of her 
friends later died when her home was bombed. During her 4 years there she 
married a member of ISIS and had a child. UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid 
strongly opposes her return saying

> If you run away to join ISIS, like Shamima Begum, I will use all my
> power to stop you coming back.

UK Justice Secretary David Gauke disagrees and said:

> We can't make people stateless.

It will be interesting to see if her citizenship is respected and allowed 
to return just as any other citizen is, or if citizenship is more tenuous.




War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6K_eN20CqU -- Save the Children report 
says 550,000 babies under 1 year old died between 2013-2017 as a result of 
living in war zones. The babies died from famine, disease, and delays to 
crucial aid supplies.

The figure rises to 870,000 when considering children up to age 5.

175,000 fighters killed over the same period.

420,000,000 children live in conflict zones worldwide, 1/5th of the world's 
children.





War/Russiagate: Julian Assange & WikiLeaks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNOnvp5t7Do -- 2010 TED interview with 
Julian Assange

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ8RoTq9U1o -- Jimmy Dore's reaction 
looking back on this video from October 25, 2018

Dore's take on this is well worth watching. Looking at this interview 
again, you can see the change in opinion in the liberal mindset:

- Assange got the entire audience's support back in 2010 (presumably 
liberals). Not one person in the audience objected to WikiLeaks' 
publications. Assange got a standing ovation at the end.

- What the audience thought of WikiLeaks influencing elections then:

Background: In 2007 WikiLeaks published a secret report about Arap Moi 
family corruption called the "Kroll Report".

> Julian Assange: So this is the Kroll Report. This was a secret
> intelligence report commissioned by the Kenyan government after its
> election in 2004. Prior to 2004, Kenya was ruled by Daniel Arap Moi for
> about 18 years. He was a soft dictator of Kenya. And when Kibaki got
> into power -- through a coalition of forces that were trying to clean up
> corruption in Kenya -- they commissioned this report, spent about two
> million pounds on this and an associated report. And then the government
> sat on it and used it for political leverage on Moi, who was the richest
> man -- still is the richest man -- in Kenya. It's the Holy Grail of
> Kenyan journalism. So I went there in 2007, and we managed to get hold
> of this just prior to the election -- the national election, December
> 28. When we released that report, we did so three days after the new
> president, Kibaki, had decided to pal up with the man that he was going
> to clean out, Daniel Arap Moi, so this report then became a dead
> albatross around President Kibaki's neck.
> 
> Chris Anderson, interviewer: And -- I mean, to cut a long story short --
> word of the report leaked into Kenya, not from the official media, but
> indirectly, and in your opinion, it actually shifted the election.
> 
> Julian Assange: Yeah. So this became front page of the Guardian and was
> then printed in all the surrounding countries of Kenya, in Tanzanian and
> South African press. And so it came in from the outside. And that, after
> a couple of days, made the Kenyan press feel safe to talk about it. And
> it ran for 20 nights straight on Kenyan TV, shifted the vote by 10
> percent, according to a Kenyan intelligence report, which changed the
> result of the election.

The audience applauded. This is a likely liberal audience applauding the 
result of what today is derided as meddling in foreign elections. That 
interpretation is central to an ongoing 2+ year evidenceless Russophobic 
campaign waged to distract you from the establishment candidate (Hillary 
Clinton) losing a rigged election to a political novice...again.

- Consider Assange's response to those who blame the messenger regarding 
WikiLeaks releasing video of soldiers killing innocent people and laughing 
over their victims bodies as we saw in the videos such as the "Collateral 
Damage" video:

> Chris Anderson: And what would you say to, for example, the, you know,
> the parent of someone whose son is out serving the U.S. military, and he
> says, "You know what, you've put up something that someone had an
> incentive to put out. It shows a U.S. soldier laughing at people dying.
> That gives the impression, has given the impression, to millions of
> people around the world that U.S. soldiers are inhuman people. Actually,
> they're not. My son isn't. How dare you?" What would you say to that?
> 
> Julian Assange: Yeah, we do get a lot of that. But remember, the people
> in Baghdad, the people in Iraq, the people in Afghanistan -- they don't
> need to see the video; they see it every day. So it's not going to
> change their opinion. It's not going to change their perception. That's
> what they see every day. It will change the perception and opinion of
> the people who are paying for it all, and that's our hope.
-J