Moscow: Alleged FSB Beating of Suspected American Diplomat Spy

MOSCOW ALLEGED FSB BEATING of Suspected American Diplomat Spy http://belsat.eu/en/news/russian-fsb-attacks-u-s-diplomat-outside-moscow-embassy-washington-post/ http://archive.is/nLYT8 Russian FSB attacks U.S. diplomat outside Moscow embassy – Washington Post 2016.06.29 13:13    In the early morning of June 6, a uniformed Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) guard attacked and beat up a U.S. diplomat who was trying to enter the the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, The Washington Post reports with reference to four U.S. officials. According to the WP journalist Josh Rogin, the previously unreported attack occurred just steps from the entrance to the U.S. Embassy complex. The diplomat suffered a broken shoulder, among other injuries, but then flown out of Russia to receive urgent medical attention, the author states. The State Department in Washington called in Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to complain about the incident. The motive for the attack remains unclear, Josh Rogin says. Spokesmen for the both the State Department and the CIA declined to make a comment on the incident or whether or not the diplomat was in fact an undercover U.S. spy. If the U.S. diplomat attacked on June 6 was not a spy, U.S. officials have no other explanation for why the FSB guard was trying to stop him from entering the embassy, the journalist sums up. In his recent investigation into the issue, Josh Rogin states that Russia keeps harrassing U.S. diplomats all over Europe saying that such acts ‘range from the weird to the downright scary’. At the same time, he writes that many of the recent acts of intimidation by Russian security services have crossed the line into apparent criminality:     “… Russian intruders had broken into their homes late at night, only to rearrange the furniture or turn on all the lights and televisions, and then leave. One diplomat reported that an intruder had defecated on his living room carpet.” Giving the reason for the U.S. poor response to such barbaric behaviour, the investigative journalist quotes the members of Congress involved in diplomacy with Europe who put it down to Obama administration’s attempt to project a veneer of positive U.S.-Russian relations that ‘doesn’t really exist’. Belsat.eu, following the Washington Post http://belsat.eu/en/news/russian-fsb-attacks-u-s-diplomat-outside-moscow-embassy-washington-post/ http://archive.is/nLYT8 Josh Rogin ... Daily Beast reporter Josh Rogin had been accused of secretly recording Secretary of State John Kerry's remarks at last week's Trilateral Commission event in Washington. Kerry drew fire from Jewish organizations for saying that Israel could become "an apartheid state" -- and prompted a personal letter of apology from Trilateral Commission chairman Joseph S. Nye. http://archive.is/8H5Xc Professional comedian Dan Nainan who in the past has performed for President Obama arrested at D.C.'s Funniest Celebrity contest got into a skirmish with Newsweek Daily Beast journo Josh Rogin Nainan approached Rogin (who was tweeting a critique) & (allegedly) punched him ... LOL "... he walked away and about 10 seconds later he came over and punched me again,” LMAO Nainan was unavailable for comment  ... as he was being led out of the venue by D.C. Police in handcuffs. PMSL http://archive.is/vM7Z5 COMMENT Don't know what's going on here. Think the Russians might have more sophisticated methods of dealing with American spies than giving them a hiding as they're entering the embassy in Moscow.  LOL Oh, wait.  This yet another attack on Obama, probably in yet another American capitalist (and their Washington puppet) lobbying attempt to draw the US into conflict with Russia. Washington's no safer than Moscow, judging by the punching that curry-sounding political reporter allegedly got.   And from a mere entertainer.  LOL ... I'd hate to think what the US politicians would like to do to him.  ;)

National Endowment for Democracy ('NED') A CIA Trojan Horse / NED & WaPO Propaganda

SOURCE https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/30/why-russia-shut-down-ned-fronts/ Why Russia Shut Down NED Fronts July 30, 2015 Exclusive: The neocon-flagship Washington Post fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy, but left out key facts like NED’s U.S. government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for regime change in Moscow, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry The Washington Post’s descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda – willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance – apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on “foreign agents.” If you read the Post’s editorial on Wednesday and a companion op-ed by National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, you would have been led to believe that Putin is delusional, paranoid and “power mad” in his concern that outside money funneled into non-governmental organizations represents a threat to Russian sovereignty. Russian President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at Russia's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on May 8, 2014, as part of the observance of the World War II Victory over Germany. The Post and Gershman were especially outraged that the Russians have enacted laws requiring NGOs financed from abroad and seeking to influence Russian policies to register as “foreign agents” – and that one of the first funding operations to fall prey to these tightened rules was Gershman’s NED. The Post’s editors wrote that Putin’s “latest move, announced Tuesday, is to declare the NED an ‘undesirable’ organization under the terms of a law that Mr. Putin signed in May. The law bans groups from abroad who are deemed a ‘threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.’ “The charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED’s grantees in Russia last year ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a healthy democracy but are seen as threatening from the Kremlin’s ramparts. … “The new law on ‘undesirables’ comes in addition to one signed in 2012 that gave authorities the power to declare organizations ‘foreign agents’ if they engaged in any kind of politics and receive money from abroad. The designation, from the Stalin era, implies espionage.” But there are several salient facts that the Post’s editors surely know but don’t want you to know. The first is that NED is a U.S. government-funded organization created in 1983 to do what the Central Intelligence Agency previously had done in financing organizations inside target countries to advance U.S. policy interests and, if needed, help in “regime change.” The secret hand behind NED’s creation was CIA Director William J. Casey who worked with senior CIA covert operation specialist Walter Raymond Jr. to establish NED in 1983. Casey – from the CIA – and Raymond – from his assignment inside President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council – focused on creating a funding mechanism to support groups inside foreign countries that would engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly. To partially replace that CIA role, the idea emerged for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this money. But Casey recognized the need to hide the strings being pulled by the CIA. “Obviously we here [at CIA] should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor should we appear to be a sponsor or advocate,” Casey said in one undated letter to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese III – as Casey urged creation of a “National Endowment.” NED Is Born The National Endowment for Democracy took shape in late 1983 as Congress decided to also set aside pots of money — within NED — for the Republican and Democratic parties and for organized labor, creating enough bipartisan largesse that passage was assured. But some in Congress thought it was important to wall the NED off from any association with the CIA, so a provision was included to bar the participation of any current or former CIA official, according to one congressional aide who helped write the legislation. This aide told me that one night late in the 1983 session, as the bill was about to go to the House floor, the CIA’s congressional liaison came pounding at the door to the office of Rep. Dante Fascell, a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a chief sponsor of the bill. The frantic CIA official conveyed a single message from CIA Director Casey: the language barring the participation of CIA personnel must be struck from the bill, the aide recalled, noting that Fascell consented, not fully recognizing the significance of the demand. The aide said Fascell also consented to the Reagan administration’s choice of Carl Gershman to head the National Endowment for Democracy, again not recognizing how this decision would affect the future of the new entity and American foreign policy. Gershman, who had followed the classic neoconservative path from youthful socialism to fierce anticommunism, became NED’s first (and, to this day, only) president. Though NED is technically independent of U.S. foreign policy, Gershman in the early years coordinated decisions on grants with Raymond at the NSC. For instance, on Jan. 2, 1985, Raymond wrote to two NSC Asian experts that “Carl Gershman has called concerning a possible grant to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD). I am concerned about the political dimension to this request. We should not find ourselves in a position where we have to respond to pressure, but this request poses a real problem to Carl.” Currently, Gershman’s NED dispenses more than $100 million a year in U.S. government funds to various NGOs, media outlets and activists around the world. The NED also has found itself in the middle of political destabilization campaigns against governments that have gotten on the wrong side of U.S. foreign policy. For instance, prior to the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych and installing an anti-Russian regime in Kiev, NED was funding scores of projects. A second point left out of the Post’s editorial was the fact that Gershman took a personal hand in the Ukraine crisis and recognized it as an interim step toward regime change in Moscow. On Sept. 26, 2013, Gershman published an op-ed in the Washington Post that called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and explained how pulling it into the Western camp could contribute to the ultimate defeat of Russian President Putin. “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents,” Gershman wrote. “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” In other words, NED is a U.S. government-financed entity that has set its sights on ousting Russia’s current government. A third point that the Post ignored is that the Russian law requiring outside-funded political organizations to register as “foreign agents” was modeled on a US law, the Foreign Agent Registration Act. In other words, the U.S. government also requires individuals and entities working for foreign interests and seeking to influence U.S. policies to disclose those relationships with the U.S. Justice Department or face prison. If the Post’s editors had included any or all of these three relevant factors, you would have come away with a more balanced understanding of why Russia is acting as it is. You might still object but at least you would be aware of the full story. By concealing all three points, the Post’s editors were tricking you and other readers into accepting a propagandistic viewpoint – that the Russian actions were crazy and that Putin was, according to the Post’s headline, “power mad.” Gershman’s Op-Ed But you might think that Gershman would at least acknowledge some of these points in his Post op-ed, surely admitting that NED is financed by the U.S. government. But Gershman didn’t. He simply portrayed Russia’s actions as despicable and desperate. “Russia’s newest anti-NGO law, under which the National Endowment for Democracy on Tuesday was declared an “undesirable organization” prohibited from operating in Russia, is the latest evidence that the regime of President Vladimir Putin faces a worsening crisis of political legitimacy,” Gershman wrote, adding: “This is the context in which Russia has passed the law prohibiting Russian democrats from getting any international assistance to promote freedom of expression, the rule of law and a democratic political system. Significantly, democrats have not backed down. They have not been deterred by the criminal penalties contained in the ‘foreign agents’ law and other repressive laws. They know that these laws contradict international law, which allows for such aid, and that the laws are meant to block a better future for Russia.” The reference to how a “foreign agents” registration law conflicts with international law might have been a good place for Gershman to explain why what is good for the goose in the United States isn’t good for the gander in Russia. But hypocrisy is a hard thing to rationalize and would have undermined the propagandistic impact of the op-ed. So would an acknowledgement of where NED’s money comes from. How many governments would allow a hostile foreign power to sponsor politicians and civic organizations whose mission is to undermine and overthrow the existing government and put in someone who would be compliant to that foreign power? Not surprisingly, Gershman couldn’t find the space to include any balance in his op-ed – and the Post’s editors didn’t insist on any. Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here. SOURCE https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/30/why-russia-shut-down-ned-fronts/ --------------------- COMMENT So there you go:  expect most of what you read in mainstream media to be US foreign policy serving propaganda. Likewise for Western banking/corporate-controlled, US foreign policy aligned, governments. Here's a bit more on NED: Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy excerpted from the book Rogue State A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/TrojanHorse_RS.html ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ NED (National Endowment Democracy) >> funded Ukraine’s first think tank, Centre for Independent Political Research  ('independent' LOL) #USA 'democracy promoting' organisations  - eg National Endowment for Democracy (NED) & USAID - a front for political interference abroad.  National Endowment for Democracy helped to overthrow democratically elected govts in: >> Bulgaria 1990 >> Albania 1991/92 >> Ukraine 2014  National Endowment for Democracy (NED) successfully manipulated elections in: >> Nicaragua in 1990 >> Mongolia in 1996 #France, #Portugal & #Spain unions (& lefties) are being undermined by US / CIA National Endowment for Democracy   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ And here's China on Washington Post: Chinese embassy rebukes WASHINGTON POST  re unfair accusations - cyberattacks / megaphone diplomacy counterproductive http://www.ecns.cn/2015/08-01/175371.shtml  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Don't know that I'll remember much of this.  Got a shocking memory. All I know is NED's bad news; US govt & mainstream media are hypocrites; and all you'll generally get in MSM is propaganda.  LOL