USA, Western Govts, Gulf States & Turkey Knowingly Sponsor Islamic Terrorism

SOURCE https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092 Pentagon report predicted West’s support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS  Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to ‘isolate’ Assad, rollback ‘Shia expansion’ by Nafeez Ahmed     This story is published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project.     Support us to break the stories that no one else will — become a patron of independent, investigative journalism for the global commons. A declassified secret US government document obtained by the conservative public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad. The document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, and that these “supporting powers” desired the emergence of a “Salafist Principality” in Syria to “isolate the Syrian regime.” According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the ‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of this strategy, and warned that it could destabilize Iraq. Despite anticipating that Western, Gulf state and Turkish support for the “Syrian opposition” — which included al-Qaeda in Iraq — could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the document provides no indication of any decision to reverse the policy of support to the Syrian rebels. On the contrary, the emergence of an al-Qaeda affiliated “Salafist Principality” as a result is described as a strategic opportunity to isolate Assad. Hypocrisy The revelations contradict the official line of Western governments on their policies in Syria, and raise disturbing questions about secret Western support for violent extremists abroad, while using the burgeoning threat of terror to justify excessive mass surveillance and crackdowns on civil liberties at home. Among the batch of documents obtained by Judicial Watch through a federal lawsuit, released earlier this week, is a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document then classified as “secret,” dated 12th August 2012. The DIA provides military intelligence in support of planners, policymakers and operations for the US Department of Defense and intelligence community. So far, media reporting has focused on the evidence that the Obama administration knew of arms supplies from a Libyan terrorist stronghold to rebels in Syria. Some outlets have reported the US intelligence community’s internal prediction of the rise of ISIS. Yet none have accurately acknowledged the disturbing details exposing how the West knowingly fostered a sectarian, al-Qaeda-driven rebellion in Syria. Charles Shoebridge, a former British Army and Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism intelligence officer, said:     “Given the political leanings of the organisation that obtained these documents, it’s unsurprising that the main emphasis given to them thus far has been an attempt to embarrass Hilary Clinton regarding what was known about the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi in 2012. However, the documents also contain far less publicized revelations that raise vitally important questions of the West’s governments and media in their support of Syria’s rebellion.” The West’s Islamists The newly declassified DIA document from 2012 confirms that the main component of the anti-Assad rebel forces by this time comprised Islamist insurgents affiliated to groups that would lead to the emergence of ISIS. Despite this, these groups were to continue receiving support from Western militaries and their regional allies. Noting that “the Salafist [sic], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” the document states that “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition,” while Russia, China and Iran “support the [Assad] regime.” The 7-page DIA document states that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the precursor to the ‘Islamic State in Iraq,’ (ISI) which became the ‘Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,’ “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media.” The formerly secret Pentagon report notes that the “rise of the insurgency in Syria” has increasingly taken a “sectarian direction,” attracting diverse support from Sunni “religious and tribal powers” across the region. In a section titled ‘The Future Assumptions of the Crisis,’ the DIA report predicts that while Assad’s regime will survive, retaining control over Syrian territory, the crisis will continue to escalate “into proxy war.” The document also recommends the creation of “safe havens under international sheltering, similar to what transpired in Libya when Benghazi was chosen as the command centre for the temporary government.” In Libya, anti-Gaddafi rebels, most of whom were al-Qaeda affiliated militias, were protected by NATO ‘safe havens’ (aka ‘no fly zones’). ‘Supporting powers want’ ISIS entity In a strikingly prescient prediction, the Pentagon document explicitly forecasts the probable declaration of “an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria.” Nevertheless, “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey are supporting these efforts” by Syrian “opposition forces” fighting to “control the eastern areas (Hasaka and Der Zor), adjacent to Western Iraqi provinces (Mosul and Anbar)”:     “… there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).” The secret Pentagon document thus provides extraordinary confirmation that the US-led coalition currently fighting ISIS, had three years ago welcomed the emergence of an extremist “Salafist Principality” in the region as a way to undermine Assad, and block off the strategic expansion of Iran. Crucially, Iraq is labeled as an integral part of this “Shia expansion.” The establishment of such a “Salafist Principality” in eastern Syria, the DIA document asserts, is “exactly” what the “supporting powers to the [Syrian] opposition want.” Earlier on, the document repeatedly describes those “supporting powers” as “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey.” Further on, the document reveals that Pentagon analysts were acutely aware of the dire risks of this strategy, yet ploughed ahead anyway. The establishment of such a “Salafist Principality” in eastern Syria, it says, would create “the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi.” Last summer, ISIS conquered Mosul in Iraq, and just this month has also taken control of Ramadi. Such a quasi-state entity will provide:     “… a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy. ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of territory.” The 2012 DIA document is an Intelligence Information Report (IIR), not a “finally evaluated intelligence” assessment, but its contents are vetted before distribution. The report was circulated throughout the US intelligence community, including to the State Department, Central Command, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, FBI, among other agencies. In response to my questions about the strategy, the British government simply denied the Pentagon report’s startling revelations of deliberate Western sponsorship of violent extremists in Syria. A British Foreign Office spokesperson said:     “AQ and ISIL are proscribed terrorist organisations. The UK opposes all forms of terrorism. AQ, ISIL, and their affiliates pose a direct threat to the UK’s national security. We are part of a military and political coalition to defeat ISIL in Iraq and Syria, and are working with international partners to counter the threat from AQ and other terrorist groups in that region. In Syria we have always supported those moderate opposition groups who oppose the tyranny of Assad and the brutality of the extremists.” The DIA did not respond to request for comment. Strategic asset for regime-change Security analyst Shoebridge, however, who has tracked Western support for Islamist terrorists in Syria since the beginning of the war, pointed out that the secret Pentagon intelligence report exposes fatal contradictions at the heart of official pronunciations:     “Throughout the early years of the Syria crisis, the US and UK governments, and almost universally the West’s mainstream media, promoted Syria’s rebels as moderate, liberal, secular, democratic, and therefore deserving of the West’s support. Given that these documents wholly undermine this assessment, it’s significant that the West’s media has now, despite their immense significance, almost entirely ignored them.” According to Brad Hoff, a former US Marine who served during the early years of the Iraq War and as a 9/11 first responder at the Marine Corps Headquarters Battalion in Quantico from 2000 to 2004, the just released Pentagon report for the first time provides stunning affirmation that:     “US intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a US strategic asset.” Hoff, who is managing editor of Levant Report — an online publication run by Texas-based educators who have direct experience of the Middle East — points out that the DIA document “matter-of-factly” states that the rise of such an extremist Salafist political entity in the region offers a “tool for regime change in Syria.” The DIA intelligence report shows, he said, that the rise of ISIS only became possible in the context of the Syrian insurgency — “there is no mention of US troop withdrawal from Iraq as a catalyst for Islamic State’s rise, which is the contention of innumerable politicians and pundits.” The report demonstrates that:     “The establishment of a ‘Salafist Principality’ in Eastern Syria is ‘exactly’ what the external powers supporting the opposition want (identified as ‘the West, Gulf Countries, and Turkey’) in order to weaken the Assad government.” The rise of a Salafist quasi-state entity that might expand into Iraq, and fracture that country, was therefore clearly foreseen by US intelligence as likely — but nevertheless strategically useful — blowback from the West’s commitment to “isolating Syria.” Complicity Critics of the US-led strategy in the region have repeatedly raised questions about the role of coalition allies in intentionally providing extensive support to Islamist terrorist groups in the drive to destabilize the Assad regime in Syria. The conventional wisdom is that the US government did not retain sufficient oversight on the funding to anti-Assad rebel groups, which was supposed to be monitored and vetted to ensure that only ‘moderate’ groups were supported. However, the newly declassified Pentagon report proves unambiguously that years before ISIS launched its concerted offensive against Iraq, the US intelligence community was fully aware that Islamist militants constituted the core of Syria’s sectarian insurgency. Despite that, the Pentagon continued to support the Islamist insurgency, even while anticipating the probability that doing so would establish an extremist Salafi stronghold in Syria and Iraq. As Shoebridge told me, “The documents show that not only did the US government at the latest by August 2012 know the true extremist nature and likely outcome of Syria’s rebellion” — namely, the emergence of ISIS — “but that this was considered an advantage for US foreign policy. This also suggests a decision to spend years in an effort to deliberately mislead the West’s public, via a compliant media, into believing that Syria’s rebellion was overwhelmingly ‘moderate.’” Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer who blew the whistle in the 1990s on MI6 funding of al-Qaeda to assassinate Libya’s former leader Colonel Gaddafi, similarly said of the revelations:     “This is no surprise to me. Within individual countries there are always multiple intelligence agencies with competing agendas.” She explained that MI6’s Libya operation in 1996, which resulted in the deaths of innocent people, “happened at precisely the time when MI5 was setting up a new section to investigate al-Qaeda.” This strategy was repeated on a grand scale in the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, said Machon, where the CIA and MI6 were:     “… supporting the very same Libyan groups, resulting in a failed state, mass murder, displacement and anarchy. So the idea that elements of the American military-security complex have enabled the development of ISIS after their failed attempt to get NATO to once again ‘intervene’ is part of an established pattern. And they remain indifferent to the sheer scale of human suffering that is unleashed as a result of such game-playing.” Divide and rule Several US government officials have conceded that their closest allies in the anti-ISIS coalition were funding violent extremist Islamist groups that became integral to ISIS. US Vice President Joe Biden, for instance, admitted last year that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Turkey had funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Islamist rebels in Syria that metamorphosed into ISIS. But he did not admit what this internal Pentagon document demonstrates — that the entire covert strategy was sanctioned and supervised by the US, Britain, France, Israel and other Western powers. The strategy appears to fit a policy scenario identified by a recent US Army-commissioned RAND Corp report. The report, published four years before the DIA document, called for the US “to capitalise on the Shia-Sunni conflict by taking the side of the conservative Sunni regimes in a decisive fashion and working with them against all Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world.” The US would need to contain “Iranian power and influence” in the Gulf by “shoring up the traditional Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan.” Simultaneously, the US must maintain “a strong strategic relationship with the Iraqi Shiite government” despite its Iran alliance. The RAND report confirmed that the “divide and rule” strategy was already being deployed “to create divisions in the jihadist camp. Today in Iraq such a strategy is being used at the tactical level.” The report observed that the US was forming “temporary alliances” with al-Qaeda affiliated “nationalist insurgent groups” that have fought the US for four years in the form of “weapons and cash.” Although these nationalists “have cooperated with al-Qaeda against US forces,” they are now being supported to exploit “the common threat that al-Qaeda now poses to both parties.” The 2012 DIA document, however, further shows that while sponsoring purportedly former al-Qaeda insurgents in Iraq to counter al-Qaeda, Western governments were simultaneously arming al-Qaeda insurgents in Syria. The revelation from an internal US intelligence document that the very US-led coalition supposedly fighting ‘Islamic State’ today, knowingly created ISIS in the first place, raises troubling questions about recent government efforts to justify the expansion of state anti-terror powers. In the wake of the rise of ISIS, intrusive new measures to combat extremism including mass surveillance, the Orwellian ‘prevent duty’ and even plans to enable government censorship of broadcasters, are being pursued on both sides of the Atlantic, much of which disproportionately targets activists, journalists and ethnic minorities, especially Muslims. Yet the new Pentagon report reveals that, contrary to Western government claims, the primary cause of the threat comes from their own deeply misguided policies of secretly sponsoring Islamist terrorism for dubious geopolitical purposes. Dr Nafeez Ahmed is an investigative journalist, bestselling author and international security scholar. A former Guardian writer, he writes the ‘System Shift’ column for VICE’s Motherboard, and is also a columnist for Middle East Eye. He is the winner of a 2015 Project Censored Award, known as the ‘Alternative Pulitzer Prize’, for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian work, and was selected in the Evening Standard’s ‘Power 1,000’ most globally influential Londoners. https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092 COMMENT I'm guessing that the roving religious extremist proxy army, that's creating a state of its own across the Middle East, is probably something new (in recent history, at least). But Western support for religious extremists isn't at all new, although perhaps the intelligence report revelations may be something out of the ordinary (I don't know enough in that regard). The West was supporting the Mujahadeen back when the Russians were fighting them.  The West supported Chenchen terrorists versus Russia.  The West supported Kosovo terrorists versus Serbia (pay-off:  US now has a nice, big military base in Kosovo).  And there's probably more examples for anyone that cares to investigate. Washington’s «Civil Society» and CIA Financing of Chechen and Other Caucasus Regional Terrorists http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/04/29/washington-civil-society-cia-financing-chechen-other-regional-terrorists.html Kosovo’s “Mafia State” and Camp Bondsteel: Towards a Permanent US Military Presence in Southeast Europe http://www.globalresearch.ca/kosovo-s-mafia-state-and-camp-bondsteel-towards-a-permanent-us-military-presence-in-southeast-europe/30262 So I guess you can say that the West has a fair history of promoting Islamic extremism for strategic gains.  But the big deal here is that the intelligence report indicates they knew support of extremists was likely to create an ISIS style movement, but they went along that road anyway. Surveillance and other control measures have been stepped up to a suffocating level - or that's how it seems when you notice what's going on.  While much of it may well be an opportunistic move on the part of allied Western governments to step up controls over the rabble, I wouldn't discount the risks that those in the West have been gambling with. I'm guessing that religious-political fanatics are probably the most dangerous kind of violent threat, and the West has contributed to creating a religious-political fanatic blowback threat in a number of ways: (a) alignment with fundamentalist religious states, eg Saudi Arabia; (b) support of various Islamist terrorist groups in various regions; (c) interventionist foreign policy - Middle East; (d) promotion/support of extremism in the Middle East; (e) the importation of extremists (or potential extremists) among immigrants and displaced persons, admitted on the basis of non-restrictive immigration policy. Everybody that dismisses Tony Abbott's 'death cult' reference ought to take a look at severed head photos online, streets awash with blood, kids standing around watching head-cutting, kids holding up severed heads, heads on spikes, crucifixion killings, hand chopping, street floggings, young men thrown from buildings, to be stoned by waiting crowds below, women stoned by crowds, and so on. That's just one facet of violence associated with religion in the Middle East.  There's also the constant attacks in places like Kabul.  Every other day there's some attack or suicide bombing. Shia Mosques are also targets of frequent attacks.   The religious-political violence manifested even in France (Charlie Hebdo), followed by: violent clashes by adherents in Niger (45 Churches torched; French cultural centre torched, 4 killed, 45 injured; other: 2 days of protests leave 10 dead) Pakistan (protests outside French consulate, photographer was shot in the back;  passes senate resolution condemning 'wilful slander & insults' in French media;  Lawyers Assoc / Lawyers protest blasphemy);  Dakar and Senegal torching French flags;  Qatar and Bahrain (issuing warnings publishing cartoons will fuel hatred);  Sudan (protesters besiege French embassy in Khartoum / teargas & baton dispersal; demanded expulsion of French ambassador; Sudan prevented French ambassador from speaking at press conference);  Muslims from Asia to Mideast to Africa rage at CharlieHebdo (source: interaksyon);  largest protests in capitals of Algeria and Jordan (ynet);  student protest in Iran;  Iran shuts down newspaper for running Hebdo story with photo of George Clooney wearing Hebdo badge;  Grozny, Chechnya protest against Hebdo cartoon;  Turkey - court ordered a block on websites featuring images of Hebdo cover.  And that's just *some* of the behaviour in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on workers at a French publication.  Someone needs to do a full catalogue, because I think it would be worthwhile studying the reactions. Israel's then Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, declared that Israel would not allow radical Islam to intimidate; and his political party, I think it was, bought up big on the satirical magazine. In a weird way, I find the Israelis reassuring.  But it's a conflicted feeling, because I also find destroyed olive groves and settler attacks on the Palestinians upsetting - and the militant Israeli religious right is rather disturbing in its own right (eg the recent mob march through Jerusalem's Arab quarter, I think it was, and the even more disturbing manhandling of journalists by mobs of soldiers, police or security). Looking at all the religious-political chaos and violence mentioned above as well as, for example, Islamic terrorist attacks on Russian citizens blown up on trains (from some time ago), and the commonplace hacking killings of atheist writers in Bangladesh, as another example, one would think that encouragement of Islamic extremism would be completely out of bounds for any Westerner that appreciates the safety and freedoms that we all take for granted, such as the freedom from belief, the freedom of expression, the freedom from religious/moral police, freedom from the collective - personal freedom / individual freedom, and just freedom from restriction, I suppose. So regime change in Syria is the prize, followed by Iran.  But what then?  Just chaos all over, like Libya? The press lying to everyone about 'moderate rebels' is pretty crap. The further controls on media don't make much sense, when the media is willing to dish out whatever the political agenda is.  I don't get why they're shutting down the compliant press.  That's spooky.  Are we going to war? PS   This comment is just my non-expert view / feelings, based on my limited experiences and knowledge, and how I simply feel at this point in time.

VIDEO - Frost over the World - Julian Assange - 2010

Frost over the World  Julian Assange  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U6mcSXge4Qo Al Jazeera English Video Upload:  22 December 2010 – Duration:  24:00. Frost over the World - Julian Assange Al Jazeera English Video Upload:  22 December 2010 – Duration:  24:00. Sir David Frost Hello and welcome to a special edition of Frost Over the World.  I’m joined tonight – today – by the, well, probably the most talked about man in the world, at the moment:  Julian Assange.  He’s the founder of WikiLeaks, WikiLeaks website and so on, which is currently releasing over a quarter of a million – quarter of a million – confidential, although not necessarily top secret, American diplomatic cables.  He’s here in the UK fighting extradition to Sweden, where he’s wanted on charges* of sexual behaviours, sexual violence.  He’s here now, though, and we’ll start, obviously, and then continue with him. Julian, just to start with, do you feel that any state has a right – any government has a right – to have secrets at all, ideally? Julian Assange There’s a practical need to have secrets in certain circumstances for particular bodies and institutions for particular bodies and institutions.  That is a long-term matter of history.  Your doctor has a need to keep your medical records secret, in nearly but not all circumstances.  But that is not to say that all others must obey that need.  The media has a right and obligation to the public to get out information that the public needs to know.  Similarly, some intelligence services have an obligation to go about their activities to the best of their ability and that sometimes involves secrecy.  But what is not a right is for a General or Hillary Clinton to say that they want to use the criminal law on every person in the country to stop talking about embarrassing information that has been revealed from her institution or from the US military.  She does not have the right to proclaim what the law is.  That’s a matter for the court.  She does not have the right to use the coercive power of police – armed police – to stop journalists and publishers from publishing.  She does not have that right.  Sir David Frost What about, though, the right that, for instance, that the Brits and the Americans and others had to conceal where they were going to strike back at Germany, where in France they were going to strike back?  The revelation of that secret ahead of time could have destroyed the whole attempt to strike back at Germany.  Would that be valid? Julian Assange We don’t need to go to hypotheticals.  We have a four-year publishing history.  During that time we have published millions of documents.  We can see what actually happens in practice in the 21st century with our organisation, with me as Editor in Chief.  And what we see:  there is not a single incidence of anyone being physically harmed by what we’ve done.  There’s not even a single incidence of a government alleging that we have - not even the Pentagon allege that – in fact, the Pentagon admits that it cannot find a single incidence of anyone being harmed.  Sir David Frost Do you, at the moment, fear the possibility of, some form or other, of being delivered back to the United States? Julian Assange It’s a serious problem.  I mean, lawyers are discussing this every day.  US officials are making public statements that they are trying to do that – the Attorney General, Eric Holder, spokespeople for the Justice Department and so on.  There is pressure that has been applied to one of our alleged sources, Bradley Manning, in his prison cell.  He’s a young, former intelligence analyst, being held in Quantico in Virginia for some 6 months now prior to trial, and there is pressure on him through his physical cell conditions, according to lawyer, David Coombs, to coerce him into testifying against me or against our organisation, to try and suggest that there is some kind of conspiracy to commit espionage – which there is not.  I’ve never heard of his name before it appeared in the media.  But that’s what they’re trying to push forward.  It’s a serious business.  And why are they going after WikiLeaks?  Well, they want to stop this publication of information that embarrasses them.  Why are they going after me?  There is a particular reason, which is they have been tremendously embarrassed.  The State Department, the US military, has been tremendously embarrassed by these abuses being revealed.  So what do you do if you’re embarrassed?  Well, you want to save face.  How do you save face?  You have to slap the face of the person who is perceived to have embarrassed you and, because I’m the most recognisable person for WikiLeaks, I am the target. Sir David Frost That makes you the – therefore in that situation, do you think – you said deportation [audio unclear to transcriber]  – do you fear that you will end up in an American gaol? Julian Assange That’s a problem.  My lawyers certainly fear that; that I will end up in an American gaol, either directly through extradition from here or from extradition from Sweden.  There’s a serious problem – Sir David Frost Which do you think would be more dangerous to you?  Is it worse if they’re trying to extradite you from the UK or from Sweden?  Or are you equally vulnerable from either to the United States? Julian Assange The advice of my lawyers is that Sweden is much more dangerous. Sir David Frost Much more? Julian Assange Much more dangerous. Sir David Frost Dangerous. Julian Assange Because there’s political – the way these extradition treaties are done, there is usually an exemption for political reasons.  So you don’t have to extradite someone if it’s a political issue and espionage is the classical political offence, so if they tried to frame publishing as espionage and then latched onto this ‘conspiracy to commit espionage,’ that would then activate, if you like, a defence for saying that the extradition was political in nature. Sir David Frost Just going back for a moment to early days.  When you co-founded WikiLeaks what was your action motto – phrase – what was your basic aim? Julian Assange Our phrase was ‘Courage is Contagious’ but – which it is.  There – Sir David Frost It’s a great slogan. It’s – Julian Assange We look at trans-Atlantic aeroplane flight.  In the 1930s this was – in the 1920s – this was one of the most heroic acts you could perform and almost no-one did it.  Now, everyone does it.  Why?  Because there’s examples of other people doing it and succeeding.  Now no-one thinks anything about how courageous it is to get on an aeroplane to cross the Atlantic.  So we could see early on that we could encourage, through successful examples, people to step forward to reveal abuses by governments, and by doing that we could produce a more just civilisation.  Sir David Frost America was possibly your leading target, wasn’t it?  Not your only target, but your leading target? Julian Assange No, it was actually the most closed societies in the beginning and the most corrupt ones; and the United States is not the most closed or the most corrupt.  On the other hand, what we found in practice was that the United States, as the dominant empire, is connected to all the other countries and has a tendril in them and being the largest security state, spending approximately the same amount as all the rest of the world combined, on its military and intelligence sector, it generates a tremendous amount of secrets.  And being involved in two wars – two very unpopular wars in the United States – it also generates a lot of dissenters, and those dissenters tap into the great American tradition of free speech, of government accountability, and they’re saying my institution is not accountable in the way that I thought it was, that I [was] told it was, and then they pass this material out.  But that’s why we’ve had such a focus recently on the United States; it’s not that we go asking for material from the United States, rather these people within the United States – good people – dissenters in the United States – come forward and they give us material.  We are source driven:  we can only publish what people are giving us.  And the United States they are giving us a lot of material.  Sir David Frost So that would mean that, therefore, as you say, you are source driven, you’re never going to get a fair, equal share of material from China, North Korea, etc? Julian Assange China, we are getting some decent material from and have, as it’s becoming more Internet connected.  North Korea, you’re right.  We haven’t received anything directly from North Korea.  North Korea is blockaded from the Internet, so that’s not a surprise.  But we do get, because the world is connected, actually, we do have a lot of material about North Korea, from other countries – providing angles on what is going on in North Korea. Sir David Frost Do you ever pay for the secrets you get? Julian Assange No.  No.  We have no philosophical objection to paying, actually.  Sir David Frost You just need the money? Julian Assange Why should journalists and lawyers be the only one to be compensated for their risks when actually it’s the source that is taking the greatest risk.  Though it is simply being that we are overwhelmed with the amount of material that courageous whistleblowers are giving to us.  So we’re not at the stage where that extra incentive needs to be given, but we have absolutely no philosophical objection to that. Sir David Frost How do you finance the operation and is it profit-making or loss-making? Julian Assange Well, until the beginning of this year, I financed – together with some of my friends – the entire operation, with the majority of money coming from me. Actually, there’s a reason why investigative journalism has never been historically funded by the government, it has not been funded by big business:  it has been funded by readers and advertisers. Sir David Frost And do you think of yourself when – do you see references to yourself as anarchic or an anarchist – is that an accurate description of what you are? Julian Assange No, it’s not at all an accurate description. Sir David Frost Why not? Julian Assange Well, that’s not what we do.  We’re an organisation that goes about and has a long record all over the world, of exposing abuses by exposing concrete documentation – proof of bad behaviour – that’s not anarchy; that’s what people do when they’re civil, is that they engage in organised activity that promotes justice. Sir David Frost So, therefore, in that sense, you’re not anarchic because you actually – you’re in favour of authority if it’s doing the right thing – Julian Assange Correct. Sir David Frost – you’re not automatically opposed to authority. Julian Assange Correct. You know, having run an organisation I understand the difficulties in building an institution and having a good institution.  Institutions are very important.  I mean, anyone who’s worked in Africa, as I have, knows that successful civil institutions don’t just come from nowhere.  It’s a – you will find a difference going between particular African countries, or European and African countries, that, well, clean roads and so on don’t just come from nowhere; there is an institutional infrastructure behind this.  But secret institutions start to become corrupted in their purpose. They’re able to engage in secret plans, which would be opposed by the population if the population knew, and then carry them out for their own internal purposes; so not performing the function that the people demand that they perform   Sir David Frost And in terms of the situations that you’ve come across and so on, that – did – is there anybody who is really leading the campaign against you at the moment, or do you feel that it’s a rather opaque group? Julian Assange I think that it’s fascinating.  We have seen MasterCard, Europe Visa, Amazon, PayPal, the Swiss Bank, all financially censor us after pressure from the United States government.  Not legal pressure; all done under the table.  So, what’s going on there?  Who – is MasterCard leading the campaign against us?  Of course not.  It is the Washingtonian network of big business, politicians, people in a military-diplomatic area, that network of friends, cross-shareholdings, that spreads out from Washington and into Western countries.  It’s not purely American in form [?]; it’s interlinked across the Western world.  Sir David Frost And there’s a sort of – which even you’re the subject of this you’ve see the humour, if that’s the right word, in it; but I mean, obviously, you’ve got a situation that you’re coming up with all this material that’s revealing things about people that they would prefer not to be published and then you get absolutely lumbered in a situation where, in reverse, that’s what happening to you in Sweden, and you don’t want all this stuff published in Sweden about the alleged rape, which was then withdrawn as a rape and talking about sexual advances and so on.  But, I mean, it’s ironic in a way, that it’s you getting it – or someone putting it back to you, or is it not ironic?  Is it –  ? Julian Assange Not really.  It’s not ironic.  It’s actually much deeper and dangerous than that.  We’re an organisation that – a little organisation – that helps individual people inside abusive organisations expose the abuse by some powerful group.  What has happened to me is that a powerful organisation – at least the Swedish police, prosecution service, maybe Swedish intelligence (we don’t know precisely what the interference is with this case) – has breached their stated internal obligations; breached the law; to, first, pump out my name and, just recently in the last few days, to selectively take bits of the court – of the police investigative file – the most prejudicial bits they could find – and pump this out to The Guardian newspaper, just before my court hearing, pump it out to La Monde, pump it out to The New York Times.  Why?  Who’s doing that?  That’s a dirty trick.  That’s a clear, clear dirty trick – Sir David Frost Some of those journals were the allies of yours a few days ago and you were feeding them stuff.  The Guardian, for instance, The New York Times, and so on. Julian Assange No.  That’s not true.  We have a business arrangement. But the particular journalist – you know, Guardian’s a big place; it has lots of journalists.  The particular journalist that they picked has a public record, because of some ridiculous dispute we had about an embargo arrangement, has publicly said that he is personally opposed to me and, in fact, refused to work on Cablegate, the biggest journalistic story in the past ten years.  He is the one that was picked to launder that information through; someone they knew would write in a negative way. Who would do that?  Who had access to that material?  Who was sophisticated enough to send it out to our media partners, to the particular journalist that they knew would write in a negative way?  Sir David Frost And the answer to your question – your answer to that question? Julian Assange I don’t know.  Maybe we can see who benefits, who might have the ability to do it. Clearly, someone connected, at some stage, to the government in Sweden.  Maybe something was stolen from the government of Sweden.  Who would have the capacity to steal something from the government of Sweden?  Sir David Frost Why would the government of Sweden obviously care about this? Julian Assange Well, it’s not – whenever we talk about a government, we’re actually talking about individuals – yeah – we’re talking about lots of people, individuals in government who work in particular sectors, who have friends, family and so on.  In Sweden, we, two weeks ago, had the front page with Cablegate material in every major newspaper – the biggest newspaper the Aftonbladet, the SvD, we had a 44 minute documentary on Swedish television, the equivalent to the BBC – showing how – what the US Ambassador was writing about Sweden – and what he was writing:  Sweden is really in NATO, we pretend that it’s not; but really it is.  He was writing that there is intelligence sharing arrangements of all types and we have to keep it secret from Parliament; not even most members of the government known what’s going on; it is arguably a violation of the Swedish Constitution, so we’re going to keep it all quiet.  We saw the opposition leader in the recent election being hauled in to the US embassy.  Why?  Because she had made statements saying that when we get elected we’re going to take Swedish troops out of Afghanistan.  She came in and she said:  don’t worry about that; that’s just all for the people; once we’re in government, we’re not going to do that.  That opposition leader, head of the Social Democrats.  Social Democrats is the same political party that Claes Borgstrom is from.  Claes Borgstrom is a politician who ran in the last election; he’s also the principal public advocate for the two women who are alleging these crimes.    Sir David Frost And, obviously, you denied the crimes in that case – vigorously, obviously, and so on – but you presumably – you don’t deny having had sex with them? Julian Assange I don’t talk about – there’s things about this matter that are of public record – but I think it’s not right for me to do a couple of things.  And it’s hard because of different cultural values.  But my cultural values are:  is that a man does not talk about his private life and a man does not criticise women; certainly he doesn’t criticise women before he knows all the facts are in.  In this case, we have just recently got a translation of part of one of the statements, by a close friend of one of the women, and she says that she – only one of the women – told her that she was bamboozled by police and other people into this position and that she’s very unhappy about it.  So maybe it’s not actually all a scheme from the women, although there is some suggestive evidence that that is true; but maybe it’s not.  Maybe they are innocent victims who were bamboozled into making statements that they didn’t really want to make. Sir David Frost So, but, why wouldn’t you go back to Sweden, in the sense, does it mean you feel, which would be a clear point, I mean, do you feel you can’t get a fair trial in Sweden, at the moment?  Julian Assange Well, it’s very interesting that you ask that point, because this was a point made by the prosecution here, who applied to make sure I was in solitary confinement; that I was denied bail; then when bail was granted – rightly so – appealed all the way to the High Court, to prevent me from being out on bail; and one of the arguments used was that they thought that I would not– that I thought I would not get a fair trial in Sweden.  So if I say that I believe I’m not going to get a fair trail in Sweden:  that there’s no juries in Sweden, that half the juries are appointed by the Social Democrats – that’s how – sorry, not juries – that half the panel – the judge, he’s appointed by the political party that is involved in this – if I say that sort of thing, suggest that I do not have confidence in the Swedish judicial system, then my bail will be cancelled and I will go to prison. So, I have – to look into the situation as to whether there is a fair trial possibility in Sweden or not.  That is something that we are researching.  That is something I want to understand before I’m extradited back to Sweden.  What I want to understand is what are the charges*?  Who is behind this?  The prosecution has refused to give to the British courts any evidence, has said that it doesn’t need and doesn’t want to give any evidence – and by ‘evidence,’ I don’t mean photographs or something like this.  By evidence, I mean even the statements, even the initial complaint; it’s refusing to hand over.  That’s not a situation that I feel that it is right to walk into.  I feel it is right that, since I haven’t even been charged, since I am offering to do all sorts of interviews, for them to come here and say – well, we want to talk to you about – what exactly.  That should happen first and we have an opportunity in the British legal system, which is more open, to get some of this information out, to find out what this is really about and demonstrate publicly that something is not going on here that is right, that there are clear dirty tricks, at least in the abuse of process:  how did my name get out in the first place; why did the most senior prosecutor in Sweden say not only that there was no evidence, she said:  I’ve read everything, but there is not even a suspicion that he has committed a rape.  Then intervention of this politician Claes Borgstrom comes about, passed off to another prosecutor in Gottenburg, not in Stockholm, what is going on? Sir David Frost And that’s the question, you most of all, but everybody will be interested to know the answer. Julian Assange, we look forward to talking to you again.  Thank you for this. Julian Assange Thank you, David. _____________________ *  . Note:  Assange was not ‘charged’ at the date of the above interview, and has not been charged with any crime to date (25 May 2015).

Putin Vindicated: Ukraine Fascists & Potential Ukraine-Jewish Aliyah

JPOST - ARTICLE Putin says Ukraine being overrun by fascists - and he may be right 05/16/2015     Candidly speaking: Putin, Ukraine and the Jews     The crisis in Ukraine and ‘the new Jewish question Kiev has now handed the Kremlin "evidence" for Putin’s claim that Russia is facing off against fascists. Ukrainians greeted the Nazis as liberators during the Second World War Ukrainians greeted the Nazis as liberators during the Second World War. (photo credit:Courtesy) As Ukraine continues its battle against separatists, corruption and a collapsing economy, it has taken a dangerous step that could further tear the country apart: Ukraine’s parliament, the Supreme Rada, passed a draft law last month honoring organizations involved in mass ethnic cleansing during World War Two. The draft law - which is now on President Petro Poroshenko’s desk awaiting his signature - recognizes a series of Ukrainian political and military organizations as “fighters for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century” and bans the criticism of these groups and their members. (The bill doesn’t state the penalty for doing so.) Two of the groups honored - the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) - helped the Nazis carry out the Holocaust while also killing close to 100,000 Polish civilians during World War Two. The law is part of a recent trend of contemporary Ukrainian nationalism promoted by those on the extreme right to break with the country’s Communist past and emphasize Ukraine’s suffering under the Soviet regime. In addition to the moral problem of forbidding the criticism of Holocaust perpetrators, the law hinders Ukraine’s European ambitions - and validates Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims that the country is overrun by neo-Nazis. The OUN was founded in 1929 as a revolutionary organization designed to liberate Ukraine from Soviet rule and create an independent Ukrainian state. Many OUN leaders were trained in Nazi Germany, and the group’s philosophy was influenced by Nazi racial theorists such as Alfred Rosenberg. OUN literature, for example, declared the need to “combat Jews as supporters of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime… Death to the Muscovite-Jewish commune! Beat the commune, save Ukraine!” The OUN fought both the Nazis and the Soviets, and many Ukrainian nationalists have argued that the OUN was primarily a national liberation movement. But while the OUN’s core goal may have been the creation of an independent Ukrainian state, along the way its members were responsible for terrible atrocities. Starting with a pogrom in Lviv shortly after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, OUN militias - with the support of the Nazis - embarked on a killing spree in Western Ukraine that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Jews. After the Nazis dissolved these militias, many of their members joined the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in German service, where they received weapons-training and became one of the most important instruments of the Holocaust in Belarus and Western Ukraine. By 1943 the OUN had seized control of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary group, and declared itself opposed to both the retreating Germans and the oncoming Soviets. Although no longer in Nazi service, the UPA nevertheless continued to target and kill Jews, herding them into labor camps for execution. The UPA also engaged in the mass ethnic cleansing of Poles during this time, killing nearly 100,000 people. Even after the Red Army pushed the Germans from Ukraine in the summer of 1944, the UPA continued to fight a partisan war against Soviet forces well into the 1950s, before it was finally crushed by the massive power of the Red Army. It is this legacy of sacrifice that explains the Rada’s decision to pass a law honoring the OUN and the UPA. This law echoes a recent trend of glorifying right-wing Ukrainian nationalist organizations with controversial pasts. Under former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, a number of leading Ukrainian nationalists were honored with a memorial at Babi Yar - site of the single-worst massacre of Jews during the Holocaust. Yushchenko also bestowed the highest government honor of “Hero of Ukraine” upon the controversial former OUN leader Stepan Bandera - a step roundly condemned by the chief rabbi of Ukraine, the president of Poland and the European Union. More recently, radical nationalists played a key role as “shock troops” on the Maidan, and the anti-government camp was full of OUN-UPA flags and cries of “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” - chants that originated with the OUN. Currently, a number of OUN-UPA apologists occupy important government positions, including the minister of education, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine and the director of the Ukrainian government’s Institute of National Memory. Even Poroshenko has gotten into the act, laying a wreath in honor of the OUN at Babi Yar last year. The draft law has a number of downsides beyond the moral problem of giving the OUN and UPA a free pass for atrocious crimes. Most obviously, making criticism of Holocaust perpetrators illegal is not compatible with Ukraine’s European ambitions. It is natural that many Ukrainians would wish to define themselves in opposition to the former Soviet Union, but as a budding democracy, banning criticism of any organizations - particularly those with such dark pasts - is the wrong way to build national identity. Kiev also must remember that its conflict with Putin’s Russia is taking place in cyberspace as well as the Donbass. Kiev has now handed the Kremlin “evidence” for Putin’s claim that Russia is facing off against fascists. Not surprisingly, Russian state-owned media outlets have had a field day condemning the law. Perhaps the worst effect of this law is the way it would split the country. Eastern and western Ukrainians already possess widely diverging views on recent political events such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Maidan revolution. The law would only exacerbate these regional differences. Historically, support for the “OUN-cult” originated primarily in the western Ukrainian regions of Galacia and Volhynia, where they are seen as heroic freedom fighters against Soviet oppression. Eastern Ukrainians, by contrast, grew up viewing these groups as Nazi collaborators to be feared and condemned rather than celebrated. The Rada’s passage of this law has already greatly harmed Ukraine. It is now up to Poroshenko to mitigate the damage by vetoing it. Josh Cohen is a former USAID project officer involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union. He contributes to a number of foreign policy-focused media outlets and tweets at @jkc_in_dc .  http://www.jpost.com/International/Putin-says-Ukraine-being-overrun-by-fascists-and-he-may-be-right-403205 RT NEWS - ARTICLE EXTRACT Poroshenko signs laws praising Ukraine nationalists as ‘freedom fighters’ Published time: May 16, 2015 01:46 The ‘de-communization’ package of laws signed by Poroshenko on Friday also included a legislation banning communist-era symbolic and propaganda, condemning Soviet government on par with German Nazi regime. He also signed laws that will see the release of Soviet-era KGB archives to public, and scrap the term Great Patriotic War from official use replacing it with World War II. FULL ARTICLE - here. COMMENT So there you have it.  Ukraine's glorifying Nazi collaborators & those that have committed other WWII atrocities,  according to Jerusalem Post.  And the anti-Russian West can hardly brush off JPost as a 'Kremlin troll' or a Russian cyberwar psyop. It looks as though this love of homegrown Nazis is entrenched, as it was former Ukrainian (pro-West) President Viktor Yushchenko that first instigated the formal recognition.  So the love of Nazi collaborators would have been known to USA, UK, Germany, and the rest of the EU-NATO parade of clowns that supported the CIA coup in Ukraine. Yushchenko was in office 2005-2010 and is supposed to be the Orange Revolution president who was given a dose of Agent Orange (which sounds pretty fitting): Another murky chapter in recent Ukrainian history involves the 2004 poisoning of pro-Western politician Viktor Yushchenko. His successful run for the presidency that year against a Moscow-backed candidate triggered Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. During the campaign, Mr. Yushchenko ingested dioxin, a powerful toxin that left him in severe pain, his face discolored and bloated. Shortly before becoming ill, he had attended a small private dinner with Ihor Smeshko, then SBU chief. Ukrainian investigators zeroed in on the dinner as a possible site of the poisoning. Mr. Smeshko, whom Mr. Yushchenko had fired upon becoming president, was interrogated by prosecutors. Mr. Smeshko denies he had anything to do with the poisoning, which remains unsolved. [Wall Street Journal - here] Anyway, I thought that was rather a quirky detail.  Although it's superficially interesting, I'm not interested enough to dig through the ins and outs of 2004 Ukraine to get a feel for what may have really been going on.  While I don't believe what mainstream media has to say, I've provided a link to WSJ regardless, for anyone that does want to read what likely amounts to US propaganda about 'Russian sabotage'. Not sure why there's a discrepancy between the JPost article and the RT News article:  the former reporting that the pro-Nazi Ukraine law has been prepared for signature, while the latter's reporting that the law's been signed into effect (along with a ban on communist-era symbolism and "propaganda" and so forth). Do that note that the JPost writer is a former USAID project officer, who managed projects in the former Soviet Union. As I've a poor memory and can only remember a vague USAID and CIA connection, checked to see how USAID is connected to the CIA.   Looks like I'm not the only one checking on USAID as a CIA front: The following are a couple of USAID articles that discuss the CIA connection.  I'll never remember the ins and outs of the CIA connection, so knowing that there is a connection is going to have to be enough for me in the short-term (unless I force myself to read an endless series of these articles, over and over again, until I finally get it.  No chance.  Too lazy.  Also, CIA is too abstract for me:  it's this thing that nobody ever sees; it seems almost like a myth, although I know it's not.  Anyway, hoping that drip-type tiny bits of exposure, here and there, will eventually get the related information to sink in.  LOL). CIA Front, USAID, “Spreading Democracy”, Gearing Up in Ukraine – Suharto II? By Scott Creighton Global Research, May 08, 2014 USAID has a history of working with the CIA as a front operation to help them spread that special kind of “democracy” (read as IMF inspired brutal repression) in nations where we have installed brutal dictators in support of our neoliberal economic agenda. http://www.globalresearch.ca/cia-front-usaid-spreading-democracy-gearing-up-in-ukraine-suharto-ii/5381174 The murderous history of USAID, the US Government agency behind Cuba’s fake Twitter clone By Mark Ames On April 8, 2014 “In a number of countries, including Venezuela and Bolivia, USAID is acting more as an agency involved in covert action, like the CIA, than as an aid or development agency.” —Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research Last week, we learned from the Associated Press that USAID (United States Agency for International Development) — the government agency which manages billions in overseas “humanitarian” aid programs — plotted to overthrow Cuba’s communist regime via a covertly-funded fake Twitter platform. http://pando.com/2014/04/08/the-murderous-history-of-usaid-the-us-government-agency-behind-cubas-fake-twitter-clone/ I've kind of gone off track here with the USAID diversion, so back to fascists of the Ukraine kind. Seeing that there's definitely a fascist / neo-Nazi revival in Ukraine, it's interesting that US pro-Israel lobby groups (Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre) have blocked US legislation that would have left Ukraine without US Department of Defence support (ie arms, equipment and training). This was described as a decision based on 'geopolitics,' but I don't fully understand why organisations that promote what I assume is a Zionist cause are involving themselves in geopolitics. However, if Ukraine continues to attack the ethnic Russian, pro-independence, population of the east - or if war eventually breaks out between Ukraine and Russia - Israel stands to gain a sizeable additional Jewish population departing from Ukraine, and Jewish population growth is something Israel welcomes and encourages: Ukraine’s 70,000-strong Jewish community, the world’s 11th-largest, is undergoing what members describe as its biggest upheaval since the Second World War. While most of the country’s Jews live in Kiev, up to a fifth reside (at least until recently) in the conflict-hit east. Convinced they would return home after the fighting ended, many now face the brutal reality of all-out war on Europe’s fringes. Some are resettling elsewhere in Ukraine, while others are immigrating to Israel (an act known as aliyah). The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) estimates that more Ukrainian Jews will make aliyah this year than in the last three years combined. Through September 1 of 2014, 3,252 Jews had relocated to Israel from Ukraine, compared with 1,982 in 2013, according to the IFCJ, which helps foot the bill for the move. In 2012, that number was 2,030. The IFCJ expects to spend some $2 million this year on securing plane tickets to Israel and predicts the number of immigrants could hit 7,000, Yechiel Eckstein, the organization’s founder, told me by telephone from Jerusalem. Under Israel’s Law of Return, any Jew in the world is entitled to Israeli citizenship. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/ukraine-jewish-community-israel/380515/ I'm wondering if increasing Israel's population may be one of the motivators behind the pro-Israel organisations' move to block legislation that would have prevented the US military from providing assistance to the Ukraine fascists. * PS    Both Israel and US probably stand to gain from war in Ukraine.  Israel would gain a Jewish population boost and the US gets to sell arms, cause Russia grief and divert Russia from other things.  That being so, it would not be unreasonable to expect Mossad to be part of the Ukraine action - maybe stoking things.  So maybe that ambush of Alexei Mozgovoi was a Mossad job?   OK, I'm probably getting a bit carried away here guessing wildly about Mozgovoi's end. But the premise that Mossad would have an involvement overall seems a sound one, given they operate closely with CIA and given the expected population gains for Israel if conflict continues or war is ignited with Russia. The other pay-off of war between Ukraine and Russia might be that Russia would perhaps be less focused on events in Syria and the Middle East.  I don't know that for a fact, but it seems reasonable that you'd be more worried about your own backyard than goings on in the Middle East if you had a war on your doorstep to deal with.  If so, that would mean the US-Israeli and Saudi sides could maybe finally get the upper hand in Syria and get on with the mission of destabilising Iran. * PPS  I don't know what I'm talking about.  LOL I'm just guessing what could happen, but I don't really know enough for anyone to take this seriously.  For all I know, Russia is capable of 'multi-tasking' and any potential war with Ukraine is primarily about weakening Russia economically and politically, in terms of maybe domestic support for the government (which would be a bonus for the West, as the West is bent on getting rid of Putin and installing some puppet that will let them suck Russia dry). Tempted to delete the rambling thoughts above, because it really is crap, where I'm not referring to news sources, and I'm just taking wild guesses at what's going on. Will let it stand, although it's rather embarrassing to get this carried away guessing at players and motivations in Ukraine.