Video - Assange & Philip Giraldi (ex-CIA) - Topic: RUSSIA, TURKEY & SYRIA

ꕤ ASSANGE VIDEO TOPIC:  RUSSIA, TURKEY & SYRIA SOURCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOu520INXqA&feature=youtu.be ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Video posted on YouTube by Russia Today. Supporters of Russia and Syria aren't happy with Julian Assange's suggestion that Russian intelligence didn't anticipate the Turkish strike on their pilots in Syria. Assange refers to it as the "severe incompetence of the Russian intelligence services".  Ouch.   Assange goes on to say it was "... severe incompetence in relation to Ukraine, and severe incompetence in relation to Turkey because there were plenty of warning signals being given off by the Turks." Assange asks "Why weren't those warning signals properly understood?", before saying that this is not to justify what Turkey did. Assange says that in a realpolitik analysis, those messages should have been understood and that we should think about what will happen in about 6 months time, when the West, Russia and Iran are committed in various ways to the elimination of ISIS, because the establishments in those countries consider it a partial threat to their own interests. He goes on to say this wasn't always the case, and that ISIS was fed in various ways by Western interests and interests of Saudis and so on. Assange suggests that there will come a point in about 6 months time, where ISIS is almost completely debilitated, to the point where it will no longer have organised control of some portion of territory, and that ISIS will be back to being a guerilla group. Assange suggests out that in 6 months time when ISIS is practically eliminated as a significant force, Syria will have had hardware from about 10 or 12 different countries bombing Syria , and he asks:  what are all those forces going to do then, are they just going to go home?     Damascus is 70km away, and they can just steer 70km to Damascus if they want, so it's a very dangerous situation, Assange says. Assange also points out 'nationalistic imperatives' in Turkey and in Russia, and that the Syrian [government] is fighting for its life. Former counter-terrorism specialist and CIA military intelligence officer Philip Giraldi (what was basically said (not entirely word-for-word)): Erdogan has very skilfully (and sometimes clumsily) fear-mongered on a number of levels and on a number of issues to the Turkish people, and the fear-mongering has enabled Erdogan to aggrandise power, in both legal and illegal ways, in Turkey, and now Turkey has a head of state who is an autocrat, who essentially is not limited by any rules and feels himself free to do whatever he wants. Regarding the shoot-down, Giraldi disagrees with Assange to a certain extent: Shooting down a plane is an act of war, particularly when the plane was not threatening Turkey in any genuine way and the disturbing element for me is the fact that this was not a decision made by a colonel or a general on the border defending Turkey's airspace, this was a decision made at the highest levels of the Turkish government, and that means that Erdogan was setting up or provoking an act of war type situation with the Russians with two objectives: One is being to scuttle any plans for a grand alliance against ISIS, as he does not want that, for a number of reasons. The second reason would be to try to pull NATO in, in an attempt to support his view of Assad, his view of ISIS and, most particularly, his view of the Kurds.   The Kurds are essential to Turkish thinking -- strategic thinking.  The Kurds are the enemy.  ISIS is not the enemy.  Assad is only the enemy because, in a sense, they see him as a surrogate for the Kurds. Giraldi thinks Erdogan's created a global crisis by shooting down the Russian aircraft, as it could have escalated.  Giraldi says he thinks Erodogan is reckless and that this was a manifestation of his recklessness. And that's all folks. Lots of interesting points made. I've not watched multi-national conflicts in the Middle East for long enough to be able to weigh up any of this.  I think this is an edit from one of the videos I have banked up to watch.  I think I need to quit messing around with graphics editors and shuffling pictures around. Really enjoyed that. ---------------------- ꕤ The ex-CIA guy, Giraldi, comes across like he might be good natured and unassuming.  Nothing like I imagined CIA.  He seems nice. The Assange audio always seems to be muffled (but this wasn't as muffled as the last video I'd been watching). The last  (French) video I watched (some of) was a shocker.  Tried to transcribe but it was hard going ...  I'm also super tired, which doesn't help.  Kept drifting off to sleep in the bath.  lol  ꕤ

Sweden - Shengen Suspended - Sweden Cuts Railway to Denmark / Passport Controls Reinstated

ꕤ Article SOURCE https://archive.is/pWuc0#selection-4665.0-4665.41 TRANSLATION FROM GERMAN 2015-12-22T08: 21: 17.000 + 0100 Swedish Railways cuts train to Denmark Because of the high number of asylum seekers Sweden has introduced passport control again. The railroad has but to not have the capacity. Therefore, the train from Denmark is simply all set. [Comment:  Swedish government has put the onus on public transport to ID passengers, but public transport hasn't the capacity to do so.  Hence public transport companies are suspending transport to and from Denmark (where those that are seeking to enter Sweden awiat).] The Swedish State Railways has announced a halt to the passenger of Denmark in the country. The reason the company SJ stated on Monday that it was unable, as requested by the government in Stockholm to check the identity of all passengers entering the country to Sweden. The controls aimed at curbing the influx of migrants. This year, in Sweden 150,000 asylum-seekers arrived. The government has therefore temporarily disengaged from the Schengen agreement on freedom of movement and passing a law that prescribes the identity checks on all public transport. From January 4, all transport companies have to reckon with penalties if they bring passengers without an identity document with photo to the country. The railway said it had no capacity for such controls. Therefore they put a passenger until a workable solution is found. The company Öresundståg serving a commuter service between Sweden and Denmark, also said it would reduce from 4 January to traffic during rush hour, in order to have sufficient time for the control of persons. Reuters / RCT Here even say immigrants "It is too much" A third of the population in Södertälje are Iraqis and Syrians. The refugee crisis scares them. They fear that the small city can cope with any additional migrants. Some even choose the right. https://archive.is/pWuc0#selection-4665.0-4665.41 *That company name Öre sund ståg (translates to 'penny good/wholesome stay' (unless something's wrong with Google Translate)  ... lol ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT Wow, this is big news and very unlike Sweden, which is at the forefront of accepting and promoting mass immigration and at the forefront of not giving a stuff about security and other issues this immigration results in. I'm going to guess that this more than just about numbers.  What's the bet that there's a terrorist scare? There's got to be if they're doing all that non-PC passport checking in a country that doesn't bother to contain and control third world immigration -- even those it plans to deport (see IKEA murders). Shengen Agreement for anyone who wants to do some reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement It's a neocon's wet dream and working class and security nightmare (in the better to do countries). Expires 2016, I think.  I've not ready closely. ꕤ

Video - ASSANGE / Paris Attacks - M98 Gun / 'Century Arms' Florida - History of Smugging Arms

ꕤ VIDEO ASSANGE "Les Entretiens du Nouveau Monde Industriel: intervention de Julian Assange par Skype" Translation: Talks New World Industrial:  intervention  by Julian Assange (Skype) SOURCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEF-1_hrXGk ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- No luck finding the recent Russia-1 video, but I've found this recently loaded video on YouTube. It's recent:  refers to gun manufactured by the Serbian arms company that was sold to an American dealer, before finding its way to the Paris Attacks  (Paris Attacks - Sites / Reference). [M92?] - Shortened AK47 Serial number of [M92 ?] (shortened AK47) tracked down. Gun registered to Century Arms, Florida, USA. Gun manufactured by large, Serbian arms company and shipped as a batch to the US, to Century Arms in Florida and then founds its way to the Paris Attacks -- without there being a record of shipment from the US overseas. Assange says Century Arms has been smuggling arms for years: TRANSCRIPT ASSANGE [For quotation, confirm audio] "Century Arms is very well documented in our archives. It's an arms company which people previously people did not find to be interesting, and the characters in it, who we deal with, were not in the last few years viewed to be interesting or important. But, suddenly, they have become important, and we look back and see that Century Arms has been smuggling arms to various terror groups over a number of years. US-backed terror groups. So, for example, in the early 2000s, according to our records, it smuggled more than 3,000 AK47s to the AUC. The AUC is a right-wing terror group in Columbia: they've killed in the 2000's; they've killed the most number of people and kidnapped the most number of people. We've heard about the FARC. Actually, the AUC has kidnapped more people and killed more people than the FARC, but because it's on the right, the United States and Great Britain don't talk about it so much. The person involved is *** the former Israeli commando, who has been the middle-man for Century Arms in acquiring arms and selling arms to the right-wing ..." ------- United Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) ***sounds like Assange said 'Ari Zeigler,' but could not find that name (associated with the gun dealer) on the WikiLeaks database. There is, however, an 'Ori Zoller' associated with the Century Arms company. Note:  sounded like an 'M98' on the video, but I think it might be a 'M92' that is associated with the attack: more on M92 Serbian M92 semi-automatic pistol http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/apnewsbreak-dealer-gun-linked-paris-attack-us-35697324 Palm Beach Post WikiLeaks secret cables detail Delray firm's role in arms trade 10:49 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011 Just before the start of the rainy season in Guatemala City, a U.S. State Department team landed in the bustling Central American capital on a mission to track forgotten guns. The goal: to find out how World War II-era rifles, donated by the United States to Guatemala during the Cold War, made their way from a Guatemalan government warehouse to Century International Arms - a Delray Beach gun dealer and one of the largest movers of surplus military weapons in the world. The April 2008 effort was detailed in secret diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made public 10 days ago, documents reviewed by The Palm Beach Post. The dispatches offer rare glimpses into the shadowy world of the international arms trade. They show how guns can move from the U.S. to foreign military stockpiles, from stockpiles to dealers like Century Arms, and from dealers to buyers worldwide. In this marketplace, Century Arms has prospered, trading in pistols, sniper rifles and assault weapons - sometimes with the help of "unauthorized brokers," according to the cables. To carry out the Guatemala transfer, an Israeli arms dealer with a troubled past took control of at least one shipping container full of American M-1 rifles, guns the Guatemalans were forbidden to sell, and hawked them to Century Arms in 2007. The Delray Beach company, run by the same family for 50 years, offered the weapons for general sale. State Department officials, who declined to comment for this story, ultimately concluded that the transaction was illegal, according to the cables. An attorney for Century Arms maintains the company did nothing wrong. Moving in shady circles During the Cold War, the United States used its now-defunct Military Assistance Program as a way of shoring up friendly governments around the world. Between 1956 and 1989, the American government doled out what today amounts to $131.3 billion in rifles, bullets, jeeps, planes and other items, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Guatemala's share was about $130 million. The cables don't specify when the guns peddled to Century Arms were donated to Guatemala, but as "MAP-origin" weapons, they were subject to the same stringent restrictions that applied worldwide: It was illegal to trade or resell them without first getting U.S. permission. Gun broker Ori Zoller played the middleman in the Century Arms deal. In Central America, Zoller was a savvy operator with spy-novel credentials. He served as an Israeli special forces soldier and worked as an intelligence officer before founding his gun-dealing business in Guatemala in 1996, according to an investigation by the Organization of American States. He sometimes moved in shady circles. In January 2001, eight months before 9/11, Zoller tried to round up "arms and ammunition, including twin- and four-barrel anti-aircraft guns, surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank 'launchers' and small arms" for Samih Osailly, a Lebanese arms dealer with suspected ties to Al-Qaeda, the OAS found in 2003. Century Arms has done business with Zoller for years. In 2006, the Guatemalan government came to owe Zoller a "significant debt" for arming the Guatemalan military, and the Israeli got an idea for how they could pay it back, according to a June 2008 cable, which was marked secret and not to be shared with foreign governments. If the Guatemalans agreed to a barter deal, he would sell off their surplus military rifles to a private buyer and pocket the proceeds - if they could find a buyer. As it turned out, that wasn't a problem. The buyer he lined up was Century Arms. From office to ordnance Founded in Canada in 1961, Century International Arms started out selling office equipment in Montreal. The company entered the arms trade after it bartered used typewriters for a trunk of Enfield rifles and made a tidy profit selling the guns, according to a trade publication. Century Arms moved its headquarters to Delray Beach in 1993, but the company's owners have had ties to South Florida since the 1960s, business records show. It now leases a gray, 78,000-square foot office complex on South Congress Avenue, across the street from a Palm Beach County sheriff's substation. Run by the Sucher family, the closely held company is reaping the benefits of a booming trade in military relics and surplus arms - especially after the 2004 sunset of a federal assault weapons ban. Working with brokers like Zoller, Century Arms scours the world for surplus military weapons, imports and sometimes modifies them, selling them to collectors. In the past six years, it has bought or sold in the Czech Republic, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belgium, France, Israel and Australia, according to the cables. The Guatemala deal wasn't the first time Zoller had called on Century Arms. In 1999, he approached the Delray Beach dealer about buying Kalashnikov rifles, assault weapons he planned to pick up in a trade with the Nicaraguan military, according to the OAS investigation. Century Arms was interested, but the deal fell through. Instead, Zoller sold 3,000 AK-47s to a middleman who routed them to the AUC, a right-wing paramilitary group whose heavily armed death squads have terrorized Colombia. Zoller contended he was duped, but not everybody lost out. Having cut a side deal, Century Arms walked away with a shipment of 9,000 bayonets, according to the report. The company's executive vice president, Brian Sucher, signed for the weapons days before the rifles were shipped to Colombia. 'Proper procedures' Back in Guatemala City, the State Department team sat down with Zoller and heard his side of the story. First, Zoller said, he had insisted he would sell only to an American company, according to the cables. Otherwise, he said, he ran the risk of getting tangled up in "shady deals." Century Arms was a natural choice . He'd been doing business with the company since 1997. But it was Century Arms officials, he continued, who should have followed the U.S. government's rules. They were the ones who produced American import papers that seemed to show authorization. Zoller added that he had no idea he was dealing in donated, and hence off-limits, American weapons until after the transfer. And, he stressed, Century Arms packed and shipped the rifles from the Guatemalan military warehouse. Zoller never touched the guns; he just owned them on paper to get paid, he said. When the team sat down with the Guatemalans, they heard a different story. Zoller's company, not Century Arms, had shown up at the warehouse, loaded a truck full of weapons and rumbled off, acting with little or no supervision from the military. Still, the defense officials said, more should have gone into vetting the transaction. They blamed "confusion over the proper procedures" and admitted that "the necessary time and care were not taken when selecting the material that was to be sold," according to the cables. In this case, fessing up was easy for the Guatemalan department heads: They had been on the job for only three months, installed after the new president took office. Century Arms' attorney and lobbyist, Mark Barnes, said the company did nothing wrong in making the deal. In a letter to The Post, he described the transaction as "a standard international government sale," and laid blame for any broken rules on the Guatemalan government. "Century acted in accordance with the laws of the United States at all times and continues to pride itself on its compliance with export control regulations," Barnes wrote. Ominous items The Guatemala deal was just one of many Century Arms has done in the past few years. The diplomatic cables document two other transfers immediately before and after the State Department's investigation began. In the first, Century Arms sold pistols and revolvers to a Costa Rican gun dealer, a sale in which nothing seemed out of place. In the second, the company shipped weapons to Belgium, a case that again got the State Department's attention, according to the cables. A purchase order provided by Zottegam gun dealer Podevijn Eddy Wapenhandel listed some ominous-sounding items: "'Booby traps,' 'unconventional warfare devices and techniques-incendiaries,' 'sniper training and employment,' and 'improvised munitions handbook.' " Once again, as it had in Guatemala, the State Department set out to investigate. -------------------------------- How we got this story Palm Beach Post staff writer Adam Playford obtained a file containing WikiLeaks archives of more than 250,000 State Department cables and wrote special software to search it. Playford and staff writer Michael LaForgia pored over the dispatches, which detail developments in major areas of U.S. foreign policy. Thousands are marked secret. They also include insights into how South Florida people and companies influence world events. This story, the first in an occasional series, is based on those cables. SOURCE http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/wikileaks-secret-cables-detail-delray-firms-role-i/nLxsM/ PARIS ATTACK  LINK RT News RT News Gun in Paris terror attacks linked to ‘Iran-Contra’ Florida arms dealer Published time: 12 Dec, 2015 03:36 A gun linked to the Paris terror attacks that left 130 people dead and wounded 368 others has been traced back to a Florida arms dealer. It is the same arms dealer that sold arms to the Contras of Nicaragua at the time the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal. The revelation came during an interview with the head of a Serbian arms factory, who said the M92 semi-automatic pistol’s serial number was the same as one that his company delivered to an American online arms dealer, Century International Arms, in May 2013. [ continues ... ] SOURCE https://www.rt.com/usa/325689-gun-paris-attack-iran-contra/ Our internet speed has been wound back to something shocking slow because I did some marathon listening to YouTube videos during marathon sessions online.  Oops. If I sulk enough, I'm hoping we'll get an upgrade so I don't have to spend Christmas going nuts on what may as well be 'dial up' internet, for the time being. Anyway, back to checking out all this stuff. Oddly, I can watch the YouTube Video even though I'm now on slow internet ... but some of my searching is REALLY slow. Wow, Zastava Arms has been operating ages:  founded 1850s (link).  Trivia:  'zastava' means 'flag'. ꕤ

Reference - Paris Attacks

ꕤ Reference SOURCE as marked Paris Attack Sites La Belle Equipe 92 rue de Charonne, 11th district 19 dead in gun attacks Le Carillon bar & Le Petit Cambodge restaurant rue Alibert, 10th district 15 dead in gun attacks La Casa Nostra restaurant 92 rue de la Fontaine au Roi, 11th district 5 dead in gun attacks Stade de France St Denis, just north of Paris explosions heard outside venue 1 dead bystander & 3 attackers dead Bataclan concert venue 50 Boulevard Voltaire, 11th district 89 dead (stormed by gunmen) [via BBC - here] ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Related post(s) Century International Arms, Florida USA reportedly arms smuggling for years *weapon sold in batch to Century Arms found at Paris Attacks Link | here ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- ꕤ

Assange: USA Planning to Oust Syrian President Since At Least 2006

ꕤ Article SOURCE http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151221/1032069516/assange-us-oust-assad.html Sputnik Politics 07:15 21.12.2015(updated 07:33 21.12.2015) WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reiterated that the United States had been planning to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad since at least 2006. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to Assange, WikiLeaks had published information alleging that the United States was planning to oust Assad since 2006. This strategy was implemented partially by provoking the Assad government, the whistleblower said in a documentary that was broadcast Sunday, on Rossiya 1 television channel. Assange stated that Washington was trying to make the Syrian government paranoid and get it to "overreact," as well as to create tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Assange stated that Washington was trying to make the Syrian government paranoid and get it to "overreact," as well as to create tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Assange claimed that members of the US, UK and French air forces met with representatives of Stratfor, a global intelligence company, prior to December 2011. The officials said that there had already been special agents acting in Syria, but they needed more public outrage and bloodshed for a significant pretext to attack the country’s air defense systems. Syria has been in a civil war since 2011, with the government fighting multiple opposition factions and militant groups. The West and several Middle Eastern countries do not consider Assad to be the legitimate authority of Syria. In 2011, Washington imposed sanctions against him in the hope that he would step down. However, in the 2014 Syrian presidential election Bashar Assad won a landslide victory, receiving 88.7 percent of the votes. http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151221/1032069516/assange-us-oust-assad.html ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT Is it still a 'civil war' if you have American, Western, Israeli and Gulf Arabs trying to bring down a democratically elected government, by arming and backing terrorists (many of whom are multi-national Islamists from elsewhere)? US has a record of bringing down democratically elected governments and installing US-friendly dictator puppets, to further the interests of American oligarchs. Covert USA regime change list below, and an idea of just how extensive the American aggression record is: USA REGIME CHANGES Syria 1949 Iran 1953 Guatemala 1954 Indonesia 1958 Cuba 1959 Iraq 1960–63 Democratic Republic of the Congo 1960–65 Dominican Republic 1961 South Vietnam 1963 Brazil 1964 Chile 1970–73 Afghanistan 1979–89 Turkey 1980 Poland 1980–89 Nicaragua 1981–90 Destabilisation through CIA assets Arming the Contras Iraq 1992–96 Venezuela 2002 [Afghanistan] [Iraq 2003] [ Libya 2011 ] [ Ukraine 2014 ] [Syria - *current & ongoing] Source | Link I've added Libya 2011 and Ukraine 2014 to the list above (although they're not listed at the source), as both were definitely US regime changes.  Not sure how 'covert' Libya may be.  I've also listed Afghanistan and Iraq.  But, again, I'm not sure they would qualify as 'covert'.  Or do they?  I've not really focused on what's what in that sense.   Was going to do proper reference list, but I got side-tracked and didn't finish that ambitious project. USA frames regime change in terms of 'human rights' interventions these days. The Voice of Detroit independent newspaper article (2014) - link here -  looks an interesting article about the more recent US driven regime change in:  Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and CIA involvement etc.   I'm about to check that out more closely. Might also see if I can find the Assange TV documentary appearance mentioned. [Oops ... Think I went to the wrong channel:  got soft porn & gaming.] ꕤ

GIF - Symbols of State

ꕤ ★ ★   ★   ★   ★ ★★ ★   ★   ★   ★ ★ 13-stars Great Seal of the United States ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- ꕤ

GIF - U-Boat

Submarine Preussens Gloria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_6AQA4uzD0 Preussens Gloria The Glory of Prussia composed by:  Johann Gottfried Piefke written in 1871 after Kingdom of Prussia's victory in Franco-Prussian War led to unification of German states & to new Prussian-led German Empire Still played today at official ceremonies by German unified armed forces (ie  under federal control) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preu%C3%9Fens_Gloria ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- ꕤ