TBR News February 3, 2017

The Voice of the White House 

Washington, D.C. February 3, 2017: “For many years, the United States has been controlled, very tightly, by an oligarchy consisting of business, banking, and other entities. The military has now become the most powerful group influencing the government in that it wants, and gets, a huge amount of money from the tax revenues. The American media, print and television, are a working part of this oligarchy in that they supply the propaganda necessary to secure pubic acceptance of various governmental policies. The candidacy of Trump, a rich and strong-minded outsider, was anathema to the oligarchy who pulled out every stop to prevent him from ever gaining power. That he won has wrecked their plans for a business-as-usual plottings and we now can clearly see this wreckage and the rage accompanying it it a flood of ‘Hate Trump’ soundings in the captive media. The roars of anger are so childish and so obvious that all they are doing is to shut the door on public belief and make themselves obvious to anyone able to read the labels on a ketchup bottle.”

 

Descending into Darkness: The Making of a Wartime President

By Brian Harring

www.amazon.com  kindle ebooks $3.99

 “THE HARRING REPORT IS ANOTHER ‘DEEP THROAT’”

Published for the first time ever, Descending Into Darkness shows the actual, as opposed to the propaganda, background to the upheavals in the Middle East and the reasons for the 9/11 attacks. It also includes the complete, as contrasted with the false, official (at the time this book went to press) DoD listings of U.S. Military casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Also in Prelude to Disaster:

• Events leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom
• War in Iraq – Russian Military Intelligence Reports & Assessment [March 17-April 8, 2003]
• The “Nazi” Neocons – Who are they?
• The Secret Downing Street Memo – Setting the Stage for 9/11
• Israeli Espionage Against the United States

Table of Contents

 

• Our Lying Media“Fake news” and Trump Derangement Syndrome
• The End of Employees
• Fake news did not influence 2016 election, study finds
• U.S. eases sanctions on Russian intelligence agency
• Turkish Officers Seek Asylum in Germany
• Trump Tells Israel to Hold Off on Building New Settlements
• Artillery fire shakes eastern Ukraine as Russia accuses Kyiv of escalation
• SECRECY NEWS

• The Zipper Documents and the Assassination of Kennedy- Part 6

• Disruptions: How the FBI Handles People Without Bringing Them To Court
• Who is Sorcha Faal?

 Our Lying Media“Fake news” and Trump Derangement Syndrome

February 3, 2017

by Justin Raimondo,

AntiWar

 

The headline was alarming: “Trump to Mexico: Take Care of ‘Bad Hombres,’ or US Might.” The Associated Press story went on to report:

“President Donald Trump warned in a phone call with his Mexican counterpart that he was ready to send U.S. troops to stop “bad hombres down there” unless the Mexican military does more to control them, according to an excerpt of a transcript of the conversation obtained by The Associated Press….’You have a bunch of bad hombres down there,’ Trump told Pena Nieto, according to the excerpt given to AP. ‘You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.’

“A person with access to the official transcript of the phone call provided only that portion of the conversation to The Associated Press. The person gave it on condition of anonymity because the administration did not make the details of the call public.

“The Mexican website Aristegui Noticias on Tuesday published a similar account of the phone call, based on the reporting of journalist Dolia Estevez. The report described Trump as humiliating Pena Nieto in a confrontational conversation….

“Americans may recognize Trump’s signature bombast in the comments, but the remarks may carry more weight in Mexico.”

While the denials of the Mexican government were interspersed throughout the text, the context clearly framed their statements as self-serving: after all, who wants to admit to being humiliated? Certainly not Nieto, whose approval ratings are in the mid-teens.

So, is Trump getting ready to invade Mexico?

No way, Jose: the AP story turned out to be fake news, just as I said it was. As none other than Jake Tapper of CNN, hardly a Trump fan, reported a few hours later:

“According to an excerpt of the transcript of the call with Peña Nieto provided to CNN, Trump said, ‘You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with. We are willing to help with that big-league, but they have be knocked out and you have not done a good job knocking them out.’

“Trump made an offer to help Peña Nieto with the drug cartels. The excerpt of the transcript obtained by CNN differs with an official internal readout of the call that wrongly suggested Trump was contemplating sending troops to the border in a hostile way.

“The Associated Press report said Trump threatened to send US troops to stop criminals in Mexico unless the government did more to control them, but both the US and Mexican governments denied details from the story. Sources described the AP’s reporting as being based upon a readout – written by aides – not a transcript.”

Quite a difference between the AP story and the reality. One wonders how many people still believe the AP version. My guess: quite a few. Once fake news gets out there, it’s hard to reel it back in. After all, there are still people who believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Which goes to show that fake news isn’t new, and yet one could make a good case that, ever since Trump won the White House, it’s turned into a pandemic. Just off the top of my head, here’s five recent examples:

• The New York Times story that cooked up a nonexistent presidential executive order reinstating CIA “black sites” – false!
• The “news” that Trump had moved the bust of Martin Luther King out of the Oval Office – fake!
• Politico’s allegation that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin foreclosed on the home of an elderly widow for 27 cents – wrong!
• The much retweeted tweet that had Trump blowing a kiss to FBI director James Comey at a White House reception (the implication being that Trump was thanking him for releasing information on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails) – untrue!
• The story that a Russian bank was directly connected to the Trump campaign via computer, presumably in order to transmit Putin’s cash (and orders) directly to his “puppet” – debunked!

I could go on, but you get the idea. A veritable tsunami of unverified (and unverifiable)”news” about Trump and his administration has spewed forth from the open spigot of the “mainstream” media on a daily basis, only to be disproved shortly afterwards. The corrections, when they are printed, often come too late to undo the damage – and that’s the whole point. The effect is to create a penumbra of disaster and dark menace around the Trump White House, and one can’t help but think that this is what is intended.

And then there’s a more sinister development, exemplified by the latest news about the Special Forces raid carried out against an alleged al-Qaeda target in Yemen, in which a large number of civilians were killed in addition to one US soldier (four others were injured). What we are hearing now is that al-Qaeda had foreknowledge of the raid, either because drones were flying much lower prior to the raid or for other reasons: in any case, their redoubt was fortified, and the terrorists were ready and waiting. On the way to their target, the Special Forces team realized all this, but decided to go ahead anyway. The result was a slaughter: an entire village was wiped out, we sustained losses (including a crashed helicopter) and the mission, in retrospect, seems like it was a disaster. We are also hearing that the mission was disapproved at least twice by the Obama administration, and that Trump approved it when it was brought up again. Which raises the question: why was the military reiterating this proposal when it had already been rejected at least twice? Presidents don’t make these decisions in a vacuum. One has to assume that the military said they had intelligence that augured success rather than what actually occurred.

And intelligence is the key word here. Who is responsible for supplying the President with intelligence in situations like this? Why, it’s the same “intelligence community” that has been conducting a rather open war on Donald J. Trump.

Which brings to mind Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s ominous warning to Trump: “You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you.”

In short, this whole incident screams “set up”: do the Never Trumpers in the CIA have blood on their hands?

From fake news to fake intelligence – this is the world we find ourselves in. And the problem is compounded by a systematic campaign against alleged fake news by those who are doing the most to generate it – the “mainstream” media.

We here at Antiwar.com have been among the targets of this campaign: the professional witch-hunters at “PropOrNot” (in tandem with the Washington Post) putting us on their list of “Russian propaganda” sites, and the much-touted “fake news” list put out by Melissa Zimdars, a media professor at Merrimack College in Massachusetts, which labels us as “biased” and “unreliable.” Marcy Wheeler does a good job of debunking Zimdars’ methodology, but one has to wonder how one of the only news outlets to accurately predict that the Iraq war was based on a lie, and warn that it would turn into an utter disaster could be dubbed “unreliable.”

This collapse of the journalistic profession couldn’t have come at a worse moment. We are heading into uncharted waters with the Trump administration, and the media’s constant barrage aimed at him actually undermines any real scrutiny: they’ve cried “Wolf!” so many times that when the real wolf is at the door they’ll have lost all credibility. This is particularly true in the international arena, where the threat of war is looming large: from the Persian Gulf (Yemen, Iran) to Ukraine (where Kiev is engaging in dangerous provocations), to the South China Sea, the arc of crisis is getting bigger and more volatile by the day.

Yet the “news” media is so busy bickering with the new administration over such burning issues as the crowd size at the Inauguration that they have little time or use for such trivial matters as war and peace. And when they do concern themselves with such questions, their bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome prevents them from seeing – and telling us – what’s really going on.

This presents us here at Antiwar.com with a difficult problem: we rely on reporting from other media to give our readers an accurate picture of events as they unfold. However, our job is made much harder if a large section of the media has simply given up reporting the facts. The solution, if there is one, is to be very careful about what we report as news: to check and re-check, without jumping to conclusions, and then check again.

In short, we are doing our best to navigate these troubled waters, and I can say unequivocally that we are absolutely committed to reporting the truth rather than merely repeating the conventional wisdom. I am pledging to our readers right here and now that we aren’t letting our biases take precedence over factual reporting.

Yes, Professor Zimdars is correct, at least to some extent: we do have a bias in favor of peace. But that doesn’t mean that the information we impart to our readers is “unreliable.” The reason for this is simple: our readers aren’t stupid. Once burned, lesson learned: we would soon lose all credibility if we took to reporting only what seemed to conform to our ideological preferences. Our readers would find that neither convincing nor worth supporting – and we do depend on our readers for the resources we need to keep this web site going.

We’ve been bringing you the news of the world, from an anti-interventionist perspective, for over fifteen year now, but I have to say we’ve never faced challenges quite like this in all the time we’ve been online. The air is thick with propaganda, and – worse – hysteria, on both sides of the spectrum. In the face of all this, we are doing our best to pursue the straight and narrow path of truth before ideology, avoiding both the Scylla of confirmation bias and the Charybdis of groupthink.

Wish us luck: we’re going to need it.

The End of Employees

Never before have big employers tried so hard to hand over chunks of their business to contractors. From Google to Wal-Mart, the strategy prunes costs for firms and job security for millions of workers

February 2, 2017

by Lauren Weber

The Wall Street Journal

No one in the airline industry comes close to Virgin America Inc. on a measurement of efficiency called revenue per employee. That’s because baggage delivery, heavy maintenance, reservations, catering and many other jobs aren’t done by employees. Virgin America uses contractors.

“We will outsource every job that we can that is not customer-facing,” David Cush, the airline’s chief executive, told investors last March. In April, he helped sell Virgin America to Alaska Air Group Inc. for $2.6 billion, more than double its value in late 2014. He left when the takeover was completed in December.

Never before have American companies tried so hard to employ so few people. The outsourcing wave that moved apparel-making jobs to China and call-center operations to India is now just as likely to happen inside companies across the U.S. and in almost every industry.

The men and women who unload shipping containers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. warehouses are provided by trucking company Schneider National Inc.’s logistics operation, which in turn subcontracts with temporary-staffing agencies. Pfizer Inc. used contractors to perform the majority of its clinical drug trials last year.

The contractor model is so prevalent that Google parent Alphabet Inc., ranked by Fortune magazine as the best place to work for seven of the past 10 years, has roughly equal numbers of outsourced workers and full-time employees, according to people familiar with the matter.

About 70,000 TVCs—an abbreviation for temps, vendors and contractors—test drive Google’s self-driving cars, review legal documents, make products easier and better to use, manage marketing and data projects, and do many other jobs. They wear red badges at work, while regular Alphabet employees wear white ones.

The shift is radically altering what it means to be a company and a worker. More flexibility for companies to shrink the size of their employee base, pay and benefits means less job security for workers. Rising from the mailroom to a corner office is harder now that outsourced jobs are no longer part of the workforce from which star performers are promoted.

For companies, the biggest allure of replacing employees with contract workers is more control over costs. Contractors help businesses keep their full-time, in-house staffing lean and flexible enough to adapt to new ideas or changes in demand.

For workers, the changes often lead to lower pay and make it surprisingly hard to answer the simple question “Where do you work?” Some economists say the parallel workforce created by the rise of contracting is helping to fuel income inequality between people who do the same jobs.

No one knows how many Americans work as contractors, because they don’t fit neatly into the job categories tracked by government agencies. Rough estimates by economists range from 3% to 14% of the nation’s workforce, or as many as 20 million people.

One of the narrowest definitions of outsourcing, workers hired through a contracting company to provide on-site labor for a single client, rose to 2% of all U.S. workers in 2015 from 0.6% in 2005, according to an academic study last year.

Companies, which disclose few details about their outside workers, are rapidly increasing the numbers and types of jobs seen as ripe for contracting. At large firms, 20% to 50% of the total workforce often is outsourced, according to staffing executives. Bank of America Corp. ,Verizon Communications Inc., Procter & Gamble Co. and FedEx Corp. have thousands of contractors each.

In oil, gas and pharmaceuticals, outside workers sometimes outnumber employees by at least 2 to 1, says Arun Srinivasan, head of strategy and customer operations at SAP Fieldglass, a division of business software provider SAP SE that helps customers manage their workforces.

Janitorial work and cafeteria services disappeared from most company payrolls long ago. A similar shift is under way for higher-paying, white-collar jobs such as research scientist, recruiter, operations manager and loan underwriter.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25% of all medical transcriptionists, who type medical reports recorded by doctors and nurses, were employed in what the agency calls the business support services industry in 2015. The percentage has jumped by more than a third since 2009, a sign that transcriptionists are being pushed out of many doctors’ offices and hospitals.

“I haven’t yet met a CEO who’s not surprised by how many people who touch their products aren’t their own employees,” says Carl Camden, president and CEO of staffing agency Kelly Services Inc. Outsourcing and consulting brought in 14% of Kelly’s revenue in 2016.

Eventually, some large companies could be pruned of all but the most essential employees. Consulting firm Accenture PLC predicted last year that one of the 2,000 largest companies in the world will have “no full-time employees outside of the C-suite” within 10 years.

Accenture is one of the world’s largest providers of outsourced labor. Along with many rivals, it is pitching chief executives on the idea that their company’s core business is smaller than they think.

“We’ve shown we can do core parts of their business better than they can do it themselves,” says Mike Salvino, who ran Accenture’s outsourcing business for seven years until he left in 2016.

Steven Barker, 36 years old, says companies often dangle the possibility of full-time employment but seldom follow through. He has worked contract assignments at Amazon.com Inc., where it was common during orientation sessions for someone to ask if the job could become permanent.

He says the answer usually was: “We’ll see. Anything’s possible!”

At Amazon, Mr. Barker applied to become a full-time employee on X-Ray, which lets customers access actor biographies and other information while watching movies and television shows. He was an X-Ray contractor since it was in the development stage, he says, but wasn’t offered a job interview and eventually received a generic rejection letter from the company. Amazon declines to comment.

(Tell us about your experiences working as a contractor, and go here to join our Facebook group for contract workers.)

Companies sometimes try outsourcing and then change their minds. About 70% of Target Corp. ’s information-technology jobs were outsourced when Mike McNamara became chief information officer at the retailer in 2015. About 70% of those jobs now are done by employees.

“I’m a strong believer that if you can get competitive advantage out of something, you want it in-house,” he says. “That I have better supply-chain algorithms than [my competitors] really matters.”

Few companies, workplace consultants or economists expect the outsourcing trend to reverse. Moving noncore jobs out of a company allows it to devote more time and energy to the things it does best. When an outside firm is in charge of labor, it assumes the day-to-day grind of scheduling, hiring and firing. Workers are quickly replaced if needed, and the company worries only about the final product.

Steven Berkenfeld, an investment banker who has spent his career evaluating corporate strategies, says companies of all shapes and sizes are increasingly thinking like this: “Can I automate it? If not, can I outsource it? If not, can I give it to an independent contractor or freelancer?”

Hiring an employee is a last resort, Mr. Berkenfeld adds, and “very few jobs make it through that obstacle course.”

Visitors arriving at SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, likely don’t notice that about 30 receptionists at its U.S. facilities work for contractor Eurest Services, part of Compass Group PLC. It happened in 2014 after SAP executives concluded during a review of potential outsourcing opportunities that some managers were paying their receptionists above-market wages.

SAP handed over hiring, training and oversight of receptionists to an outside firm. They were told they could leave SAP or keep their jobs through Eurest, which pays the receptionists in line with the overall market.

SAP says the move left the company with less to manage. “Internally, when [an employee’s] skills aren’t up to par, there’s a protracted process of managing performance,” says Jewell Parkinson, the human-resources chief for SAP’s North American division. “Working through the vendor, it’s a more efficient turnaround.”

Some economists liken the strategy to Hollywood studios, which greenlight movies and then hire directors, actors, editors, special-effects teams and marketing agencies for production. All those outsiders work together to deliver the movie, but the studio has no long-term obligations after the film’s release.

When jet-engine maker Pratt & Whitney no longer wanted to handle coordinating deliveries to its factories, it hired United Parcel ServiceInc., which has thousands of logistics experts and specialized automation technology.

For years, suppliers delivered parts directly to Pratt’s two factories, where materials handlers unpacked the parts and distributed them to production teams. Earl Exum, vice president of global materials and logistics, says Pratt had “a couple hundred” logistics specialists. Some handlers were 20- or 30-year veterans who could “look at a part and know exactly what it is,” he adds.

As Pratt wrestled with plans to speed production of a new jet engine and open three new factories, executives decided in 2015 to centralize delivery and distribution of parts in one facility. That facility would receive all the parts, pack them into assembly kits and send them to the five factories.

UPS custom-built a 600,000-square-foot facility, roughly the size of 10 football fields, for Pratt in Londonderry, N.H. About 150 Pratt employees who handled parts at the two factories were offered a chance at retraining for production jobs. Many did, and the rest left the company or retired. UPS has hired about 200 hourly workers for the facility.

Most of the UPS employees had no experience in the field, and assembly kits arrived at factories with damaged or missing parts. Pratt and UPS bosses struggled to get the companies’ computers in sync, including warehouse-management software outsourced by UPS to another firm, according to Pratt.

The result: a 33% decline in engine deliveries by Pratt, a unit of United Technologies Corp. , or about $500 million in sales, in the third quarter of 2015.

Production was back on schedule by the following quarter, and Pratt’s Mr. Exum says the facility is running well now. The 200 UPS employees can do work for five factories that 150 Pratt employees used to do for two. Pratt’s employees were unionized, but UPS’s aren’t. The union representing Pratt workers objected to the move.

The flexibility of outsourced labor helps Southwest Airlines Co. shield its employee base from the ups and downs of the airline industry. The fourth-largest U.S. carrier by traffic has about 53,000 employees and 10,000 outside workers.

The nonemployees range from wheelchair pushers in airports to information-technology professionals. “We’ve never had a layoff in our history,” says Greg Muccio, Southwest’s head of recruiting. “When we look at contingent workers, we’re protecting that because what we don’t want to do is balloon up and then be in a situation where we need to lay people off.”

Outsourced workers at Google parent Alphabet arrive through staffing agencies such as Zenith Talent, Filter LLC and Switzerland’s Adecco Group AG , which alone bills Alphabet about $300 million a year for contractors and temps who work there, according to an Adecco executive.

Google wouldn’t comment on how it decides which jobs are done by contractors rather than employees. A former contractor in the search division says he got the impression from conversations and meetings that he was a nonemployee because his skill set wasn’t a core feature of the product on which he was working. He says managers also needed the ability to ramp down quickly if the project wasn’t successful.

The contractor eventually became a full-time employee. He says he was told the decision to put him on the regular payroll had to be approved by Google co-founder Larry Page, now Alphabet’s chief executive, at a product-review meeting.

The trade group Staffing Industry Analysts estimates businesses spend nearly $1 trillion a year world-wide on what it calls “workforce solutions,” or outside services to place and manage workers.

As more companies outsource jobs, the resulting improvement in some measurements of productivity puts pressure on other companies.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. executives were asked in a 2015 earnings conference call to explain why its revenue per employee trailed other banks.

Todd Gibbons, BNY’s vice chairman and chief financial officer, said investors should focus on a different indicator “because it’s just too hard to tell exactly what’s going on with head count and how people compute it and whether they’ve got contractors in versus full-time employees and so forth.”

BNY Chairman and CEO Gerald Hassell vowed to “drive down the labor component of our company” with technology that can perform tasks currently done by people. Other companies view contracting as a stopgap until more jobs are automated, freeing firms to dispense with some workers altogether.

In January, BNY told analysts and investors that the bank has “more than 150 bots now in production.”

Fake news did not influence 2016 election, study finds

February 3, 2017

RT

Believe it or not, while fake news was more prevalent than ever during the 2016 election, it did not change the outcome, according to a new study.

In a study released on January 18, titled “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election,” NYU economics professor Hunt Allcott and Stanford economics professor Matthew Gentzkow conducted a series of tests to determine which fake news articles were being circulated, how much they were shared and viewed, and what impact they had on voters.

Allcott and Gentzkow conducted a 1,200-person post-election online survey and used previous studies and web browser data to conclude that social media was an important source of information, but it was not a dominant source of information.

Their survey found only 14 percent of Americans viewed social media as their “most important” source of election news

Allcott and Gentzkow tracked stories that were categorized as fake news by fact-checkers, and found that pro-Trump stories were shared over three times more than pro-Clinton articles. Pro-Trump stories were shared a total of 30 million times, compared to pro-Clinton articles, which were only shared a total of 7.6 million times

Researchers also polled the number of Americans who believed fake news articles by asking if they recalled fake news headlines, and if they thought they were true.

In their survey, researchers found that 15 percent of Americans could recall seeing a fake news headlines, and 8 percent said they believed them.

At the same time, a separate survey, conducted by Craig Silverman and Jeremy Singer-Vine, found that 10-22 percent of respondents said they recalled fake news stories.

However, for their study, Allcott and Gentzkow also added their own fake news headlines as a placebo, and found that the number of people who remembered the placebo headlines were almost identical to the number of people who recalled the fake news headlines that were in circulation.

Subtracting the placebo recalls from the fake recalls, Allcott and Gentzkow suggest that the true recall and belief of fake news articles was quite low.

A recent survey from Pew Research Center showed that 62 percent of voters get their news from social media sites, however, of these, only 18 percent said they often do so. Another 18 percent said they never get their news from social media.

By comparison, the survey showed that 46 percent of voters say they primarily get news from local television, and 31 percent from cable television. Only 34 percent of voters say they trust information they get from social media, while 76 percent have faith in national news organizations and 82 percent believe local news organizations to be credible.

When Allcott and Gentzkow asked which news source was the most important for voters during the election, the four most common responses were cable TV, network TV, websites, and local TV, with social media coming in as the fifth most common response.

Allcott and Gentzkow suggest that television still remains more important “by a large margin.”

The study concluded by stating “for fake news to have changed the outcome of the election, a single fake article would need to have had the same persuasive effect as 36 television campaign ads.”

U.S. eases sanctions on Russian intelligence agency

February 2, 2016

by Joel Schectman and Dustin Volz

Reuters

Washington-The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday eased sanctions on Russian intelligence agency FSB put in place by former President Barack Obama last year over accusations that Moscow launched cyber attacks to try to influence the U.S. presidential election.

The Treasury Department said in a statement it would allow U.S. companies to make limited transactions with the intelligence service that are needed to gain approval to import information technology products into Russia.

The broader significance of the sanctions exemptions were not immediately clear. The Treasury Department often issues general licenses such as the one announced on Thursday to help U.S. companies overcome unintended business consequences of sanctions.

U.S. intelligence agencies accused the FSB of involvement in hacking of Democratic organizations during the election, won by Republican Donald Trump.

The agencies and private cyber security experts concluded the FSB first broke into the Democratic National Committee’s computer system in the summer of 2015 and began monitoring email and chat conversations.

They say FSB was one of two Russian spy agencies believed to have been involved in a wide-ranging operation by top-ranking individuals in Russia’s government to discredit Democrat Hillary Clinton and help Trump win the election.

In December, Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian suspected spies and put sanctions on two Russian spy agencies. He also sanctioned four Russian intelligence officers and three companies that he said provided material support to Russian cyber operations.

Trump has said he wants better relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

(Editing by Alistair Bell)

Turkish Officers Seek Asylum in Germany

In the wake of purges ordered by President Erdogan following last summer’s coup attempt, a number of Turkish NATO officers have applied for asylum in Germany. The issue is a highly sensitive one — also for Chancellor Merkel, who is visiting Turkey today.

February 2, 2017

by Peter Müller Brussels

Spiegel

Murat Karasu still has a very clear memory of the day that he rejected an order for the first time. The Turkish army officer had studied in the United States and flew fighter jets. His superior had already assigned him several times to highly desired NATO posts — most recently in Germany. Following orders and obedience had been as important to Karasu as his love of his country.

After parts of the military conducted a coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July, Karasu continued serving in the military until, at the beginning of September, his superior suddenly placed a letter in his hand. The order stated that Karasu must leave the military and return to Turkey.

“My termination came out of the blue,” Karasu, a purposeful man in his mid-40s, says four months later. “No reason was given.” Karasu is sitting in a pastry shop in a small town in western Germany. “I want to stay in Germany,” he says. The former officer, who had, until recently, been responsible for the surveillance and defense of NATO air space along the border to Russia, has applied for political asylum in Germany.

Karasu, his wife and their children are victims of Erdogan’s purges, as are around 40 other mostly high-ranking Turkish NATO soldiers in Germany. For months now, they’ve been living more or less inconspicuously near NATO facilities in places like the town of Geilenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia, in Uedem or the area near the U.S. air base in Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate. In interviews with DER SPIEGEL and German public broadcaster ARD, they are now going public with their stories for the first time. They want to make clear that they had nothing to do with the coup attempt and yet they are still unable to return to their home country. “This is about our reputations,” says Karasu. He wants to defend his honor.

The conditions set for the interviews were the product of lengthy negotiations. Karasu and his colleagues did not want their real names to be used and they also requested that their faces not be shown in photos or videos. The meetings took place in cafes and in a broadcasting facility. The soldiers fear reprisals by Erdogan supporters, and not without reason. Turkish television stations have been inciting against the soldiers, who they have described as “terrorists” and “traitors to the motherland.” The fact that Germany is home to 3 million people of Turkish descent is another factor.

Highly Sensitive

The cases are also highly sensitive for Germany in diplomatic terms. When NATO soldiers apply for political asylum in another NATO member country, it becomes an issue that is not be decided by the usual immigrant and asylum authorities alone.

There is very little doubt that the soldiers cannot expect fair trials back in Turkey. Indeed, two soldiers were recently sentenced to life in prison for their alleged participation in the putsch attempt. But the last thing German Chancellor Merkel needs right now is renewed tensions with Turkey. Merkel doesn’t want to jeopardize the European Union’s fragile refugee deal with Ankara, which has halted the mass influx to Europe from Syria. The tensions that broke out over a resolution passed almost unanimously by the German parliament in June recognizing the murder of up to 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Turks as genocide already demonstrated just how thin-skinned Erdogan can be to criticism.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizìere of Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is aware of the efforts by the Turkish officers to obtain asylum in Germany, but he has recused himself from the matter. Merkel is currently on a trip to Turkey and it is possible the topic will be broached during her Feb. 2 visit.

Karasu had been at home with his family when, on the night of July 15, he received an SMS from Turkey. “Have you seen what is happening?” Karasu thought to himself that it might be another terrorist attack, a bomb. But when he turned his television on, he could see how Turkish tanks were rolling toward people. “I didn’t think something like that was possible,” he said. “I was afraid.” Karasu tried to get information out of Turkey, flipping through the Turkish television channels until he got in touch with his superior at the NATO base. Then he slept for a bit. “Whoever was responsible for this coup should be punished,” Karasu says. He also wants to prove his own innocence. He has submitted a petition to a Turkish military court. “I will fight until the very end, even at the European Court of Human Rights if I have to.”

‘They’ve Branded Me a Traitor’

Karasu’s mobile phone rings. His daughter isn’t feeling well and he finds someone to pick her up at school. Karasu is trying to ensure that things remain as normal as possible for his children, that they have friends and go to school, but normalcy isn’t something he will be able to enjoy himself. Karasu has exchanged his uniform for a black suit, but many other aspects of his life have also been upended since the coup attempt. “I was expecting that I would be promoted to the level of general in the next few years,” he says. “Now they’ve branded me a traitor.”

Karasu is puzzled over why he and his colleagues became the subjects of the purge actions. He says he’s now certain that his career in the West led to his becoming a target. “The soldiers who have been effected by the purges have one thing in common,” he says. “We are successful, oriented toward the West and stand for a secular state.”

In Turkey, politicians and the media alike are openly trying to stir public sentiment against NATO and the Turkish officers. Karasu believes that Erdogan and his supporters are seeking to prepare the public for Turkey’s eventual withdrawal from the military alliance. In a report that is now being reviewed by the state office of criminal investigation in Rhineland-Palatinate, a Turkish reporter with the TV magazine show “Yaz Boz” described the NATO base in Ramstein as a safe harbor for “terrorists.” He also claimed, without providing any evidence, that “they managed the coup attempt from here that night.” The camera then cut to a string of duplexes in the neighboring village of Mackenbach, which the Turkish television station depicted as the epicenter of the insurgency against Erdogan. The reporter claimed that the putschists “continue to live here in luxurious villas.”

Karasu says he considers broadcasts like that to be tantamount to appeals for lynch justice. He still has his diplomatic passport, but it no longer provides him with any protection. Instead he pulls out the thin piece of paper that is the only thing preventing his extradition to Turkey — the document confirming that his asylum application is currently being reviewed in Germany. “If I go back to Turkey, I risk arrest and possibly torture,” he says. The apartment of his parents, who are in their seventies, has already been searched by police hoping to find Karasu.

Waiting in Vain

But as clear as their case appears to be, the officers have been waiting in vain for decisions on their asylum requests. “This will get decided at a high level,” says one official at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). Officials at the Interior Ministry and BAMF say that the NATO officers aren’t being given special treatment with their asylum applications. But in smaller circles, top officials admit that the issue has been temporarily placed on the backburner in the hope that the situation in Turkey will quiet down and that the matter will resolve itself.

At the moment, however, it appears that a return to law and order will not happen any time soon in Turkey, and pressure to make a decision on the asylum applications is mounting. “Germany cannot be allowed to become Erdogan’s henchman in the fight against his critics,” says Sevin Dagdelen, a member of parliament with the Left Party who is the daughter of Turkish immigrants. “There is no doubt that we cannot send these soldiers back to Turkey,” says Stephen Mayer, a domestic policy expert with the conservative Christian Social Union. “They will land in jail there.” Norbert Röttgen, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee in parliament as a member of Merkel’s conservative CDU, also considers diplomatic concerns on the issue to be misguided. “Asylum procedures are purely legal in nature and political considerations are not and will not play a role.”

The uncertainty is also taking its toll on the officers. They haven’t been receiving their military salaries since September and are forced to live off their savings. Neighbors have sought to be helpful. After learning that Karasu had been fired by the military, his neighbors dropped by with a loaf of bread. “They thought we could no longer afford to buy food,” says Karasu. His wife cried — the present had been brought over with the best of intentions, but it still symbolized the fall they had just experienced. “We are devastated,” says Karasu. “Believe me, I have no sympathy for the putschists.”

Update: Following the original publication of this story in German on Friday, Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik requested that the German government hand over the soldiers in question

Trump Tells Israel to Hold Off on Building New Settlements

February 2, 2017

by Peter Baker

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump, who has made support for Israel a cornerstone of his foreign policy, shifted gears on Thursday and for the first time warned the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off new settlement construction.

“While we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal,” the White House said in a statement.

The White House noted that the president “has not taken an official position on settlement activity,” but said Mr. Trump would discuss the issue with Mr. Netanyahu when they meet Feb. 15, in effect telling him to wait until then. Emboldened by Mr. Trump’s support, Israel had announced more than 5,000 new homes in the West Bank since his Jan. 20 inauguration.

The statement resembled those issued routinely by previous administrations of both parties for decades, but Mr. Trump has positioned himself as an unabashed ally of Israel and until now had never questioned Mr. Netanyahu’s approach. Mr. Trump picked as his ambassador to Israel a financial supporter of West Bank settlement, and he harshly criticized former President Barack Obama in December for not blocking a United Nations resolution condemning settlements.

But Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition government seemed to take Mr. Trump’s inauguration as a starting gun in a race to ramp up its construction in the occupied territory. Since the president was sworn in, the government announced that it would authorize another 2,500 homes in areas already settled in the West Bank, and then followed that this week with an announcement of 3,000 more. On Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu took it a step further, vowing to build the first new settlement in the West Bank in many years.

For Mr. Netanyahu, the settlement spree reflects a sense of liberation after years of constraints from Washington, especially under Mr. Obama, who like other presidents viewed settlement construction as harmful to the chances of negotiating a final peace settlement. It also represents an effort to deflect criticism from Israel’s political right for complying with a court order to force out several dozen families in the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona.

The Israeli housing ministry on Thursday announced tenders for 2,000 homes, which appeared to advance some of those announced earlier this week.

Peace Now, an advocacy group that opposes settlement construction, accused Mr. Netanyahu of trying to shore up his political position at a time when he is under fire for the Amona evacuation and under investigation on corruption allegations.

“Netanyahu must not let the two-state solution be the casualty of his fight for political survival,” the group said in a statement. “Yesterday’s announcement include the promotion of housing units deep in the West Bank and in highly problematic areas for a future agreement.”

Mr. Netanyahu vowed earlier on Thursday to continue settlement construction in the West Bank. He made the comments while attending a memorial service marking fourth anniversary of the death of Ron Nachman, a founder and longtime mayor of the settlement of Ariel.

“There are perhaps 20,000 residents here today, and I promise you: There will be many more,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Just recently the government I head approved another 1,000 units, which means 5,000 people, and means significant growth. There is no way that Ariel will not be part of the State of Israel — it will always be part of the State of Israel.”

The Ariel settlement bloc is considered one of those that Israel intends to keep in any eventual final settlement with the Palestinians, possibly in exchange for land elsewhere. But for the Palestinians, it is particularly problematic because its location in the heart of the West Bank would threaten the continuity of a future state.

The White House statement on Thursday was gentler in tone than those in past administrations, while sending a similar message. The The White House went further in a statement given to The Jerusalem Post. Noting that Mr. Trump wants to reach a deal, an unnamed official told The Post that “we urge all parties from taking unilateral actions that could undermine our ability to make progress, including settlement announcements.”

The shift in position came hours after Mr. Trump met briefly with King Abdullah II of Jordan, who raced to Washington to appeal to the new president not to forgo Arab concerns over Israeli policy. In particular, Jordan has been concerned about Mr. Trump’s promise to move the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the city Israelis and Palestinians would divide and each make their capital in most versions of a peace deal.

The king came to Washington with no meeting with Mr. Trump on the schedule, and some administration officials were leery of setting up such a meeting before Mr. Netanyahu’s visit. Instead, the king was hosted for breakfast on Monday by Vice President Mike Pence at his official residence. But in the end, the king was able to talk with Mr. Trump on the sidelines of the national prayer breakfast on Thursday morning.

The White House had already slowed down the embassy move, saying that it was only beginning to consider it. Mr. Obama and other presidents declined to make such a move in part out of concern that it would set off a violent response and influence the terms of a final peace settlement.

Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.

Artillery fire shakes eastern Ukraine as Russia accuses Kyiv of escalation

Artillery fire intensified as night fell with more civilian deaths reported. At least 15 people have died since the fighting around Avdiivka and Donetsk intensified in the last five days.

February 2, 2017

DW

Government troops and Russia-backed separatists continued fighting into Thursday night with shelling appearing to intensify after night fell.

Two civilians were reported to have died in the government-held industrial town of Avdiivka just north of Donetsk, and one in Donetsk city, the largest rebel-controlled city.

The head of the Ukraine-controlled Donetsk regional administration, Pavlo Zhebrivsky, said a humanitarian aid point in Avdiyivka had been hit by mortars late on Thursday. “According to preliminary figures, one person has been killed and one wounded in the attack. Shelling continues,” he said on Facebook, blaming Russia-backed rebels for the attack.

Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have recorded frequent use of heavy weapons banned by the Minsk peace agreements.

During a visit to Hungary, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of starting the latest escalation to rally support from the new US administration. “The Ukrainian leadership needs money, and the best way to get the EU, the US and international organizations to pay is by posing as a victim of aggression,” Putin said in Budapest on Thursday after a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Damaged infrastructure

Damage from the fighting has cut power and water supplies to thousands of residents. Freezing winter temperatures have prompted warnings of a potential humanitarian crisis from aid agencies. The International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine called for all sides to hold fire to allow the emergency repair work to be carried out on damaged utilities.

There has been “a dangerous intensification of the conflict” between government and rebel forces in eastern Ukraine in the last days, Undersecretary-General Jeffrey Feltman told the UN Security Council on Thursday. He said the damage raises “serious concerns about possible violations of international humanitarian law by all sides.”

European Union President Donald Tusk said  “the fighting must stop immediately. The cease-fire must be honored. Russia should use its influence to disengage the Russian-backed separatists.”

The clashes have come as Kyiv works to persuade the US and EU to maintain economic sanctions against Russia linked to its involvement in the conflict and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley on Thursday condemned Russia’s “aggressive actions” in Ukraine and pledged strong US support to Kyiv. “Until Russia and the separatists it supports respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, this crisis will continue,” Haley told the Security Council.

SECRECY NEWS

From the FAS Project on Government Secrecy

Volume 2017, Issue No. 9

February 2, 2017

SPY SATELLITE AGENCY:  WINTER IS HERE

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has modified its classification policies in favor of heightened secrecy, withholding budget records that were previously considered releasable and redesignating certain unclassified budget information as classified.

NRO is the U.S. intelligence agency that builds and operates the nation’s intelligence satellites.

Since 2006, and for most of the past decade, the NRO has released unclassified portions of its budget justification documents in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

But in a January 23, 2017 letter, the NRO said it would no longer release that unclassified budget information, which it now deems classified.

“The NRO has determined that a series of unclassified items in the [FY 2016 budget justification] document in the aggregate reveals associations or relationships not otherwise revealed in the unclassified items individually; thus, in the aggregate, this information meets the standard for classification under E.O. 13526 Section 1.7(e),” wrote Patricia B. Cameresi, NRO FOIA Public Liaison, in her FOIA denial letter.

As a purely technical matter, the latter claim is probably a misreading of the Executive Order, which states in Section 1.7(e):

“Compilations of items of information that are individually unclassified may be classified if the compiled information reveals an additional association or relationship that:  (1) meets the standards for classification under this order; and (2) is not otherwise revealed in the individual items of information.”

Properly understood, the fact that various unclassified items reveal additional information in the aggregate does not mean that those items meet the standard for classification. That requires a separate determination which, in any case, is discretionary. Classifying compilations of unclassified budget information is a threshold which was never crossed in the past and which has not been explicitly justified by NRO here.

The NRO also invoked a statutory exemption in 10 USC 424, which says that NRO (along with DIA and NGA) cannot be compelled to disclose “any function” at all.

The upshot is that the NRO is abandoning the budget disclosure practices of the past decade, and is positioning itself to withhold anything and everything that it prefers not to release.

An administrative appeal of the NRO FOIA denial was filed yesterday.

THE GORSUCH NOMINATION, AND MORE FROM CRS

“Predicting how a nominee to the Supreme Court could affect the Court’s jurisprudence is notably difficult,” according to the Congressional Research Service. But see Neil Gorsuch’s Nomination to the Supreme Court: Initial Observations, CRS Legal Sidebar, February 1, 2017.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Supreme Court Appointment Process: President’s Selection of a Nominee, updated January 27, 2017

U.S. District Court Vacancies at the Beginning and End of the Obama Presidency: Overview and Comparative Analysis, CRS Insight, January 31, 2017

Import Tariff or Border Tax: What is the Difference and Why Does It Matter?, CRS Legal Sidebar, J anuary 30, 201

U.S. Crude Oil Exports to International Destinations, CRS Insight, January 30, 2017

Endangered Species Act (ESA): The Exemption Process, January 27, 2017

Trump Administration Changes to the National Security Council: Frequently Asked Questions, CRS Insight, January 30, 2017

Russian Compliance with the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: Background and Issues for Congress, updated January 27, 2017

Mexican-U.S. Relations: Increased Tensions, CRS Insight, February 1, 2017

Barriers Along the U.S. Borders: Key Authorities and Requirements, updated January 27, 2017

UNDER PRESSURE: LONG DURATION UNDERSEA RESEARCH

“The Office of Naval Research is conducting groundbreaking research into the dangers of working for prolonged periods of time in extreme high and low pressure environments.”

Why? In part, it reflects “the increased operational focus being placed on undersea clandestine operations,” said Rear Adm. Mathias W. Winter in newly published answers to questions for the record from a February 2016 hearing.

“The missions include deep dives to work on the ocean floor, clandestine transits in cold, dark waters, and long durations in the confines of the submarine. The Undersea Medicine Program comprises the science and technology efforts to overcome human shortfalls in operating in this extreme environment,” he told the House Armed Services Committee.

See DoD FY2017 Science and Technology Programs: Defense Innovation to Create the Future Military Force, House Armed Services Committee hearing, February 24, 2016.

REFUGEE LAW AND POLICY AROUND THE WORLD

The Law Library of Congress last year prepared a survey of legal frameworks affecting refugees and asylum seekers in twenty-two countries around the world.

The survey covers “laws and regulations governing the admission of refugees and handling refugee claims; processes for handling refugees arriving at the border; procedures for evaluating whether an applicant is entitled to refugee status; the accommodations and assistance provided to refugees in the jurisdiction; requirements for naturalization; and whether asylum policy has been affected by international emergencies, such as the current refugee crisis in Europe.”

In practice, states “vary significantly in their receptivity to asylum seekers and the extent to which conflicting national policies affect adherence to norms prescribed in the [Geneva Convention on Refugees].”

See Refugee Law and Policy in Selected Countries, Law Library of Congress, March 2016.

Another Law Library report examines the diverse legal and regulatory regimes concerning the use of drones or unmanned aerial systems in twelve countries and the European Union. See Regulation of Drones, Law Library of Congress, April 2016.

The Zipper Documents and the Assassination of Kennedy- Part 6

February 2, 2017

by Gregory Douglas

The Alternative Theory

 

And Everybody Else….

According to a document found in R. T. Crowley’s papers, the officially organized assassination of John F. Kennedy by the CIA had the code name: “Operation ZIPPER.” This document, which is entitled “OPERATION ZIPPER Conference Record,” is reproduced in the appendix of this book, with this author’s subsequent explanation of the abbreviations used in it.  In the following, the events unfolding between March and November 1963 are reconstructed using both this document and R. T. Crowley’s comments to this author.

Early in March of 1963, the matter of the actual assassin became a pressing issue. Because of Crowley’s connections with the mob in Chicago (his father had been an important Chicago politician, parks commissioner, in the Kelly-Nash machine), he received the task of personally contacting members of the Chicago Mafia for advice and possible assistance.

Chicago mob leader Sam Giancana, who had assisted in locating persons to carry out the CIA’s murder plots against Fidel Castro, loathed the Kennedy brothers but was far too shrewd to lend any of his identifiable men to cooperate in such a project. In two conferences in the Drake Hotel with Crowley, Giancana agreed to locate assassins who could be expected to perform in a professional manner. It was suggested that perhaps this recruitment might be better done outside of the United States. Rather than involve the Sicilian Mafia, Giancana had one of his connections in that entity contact someone in the Corsican Mafia, the so-called Unione Corse, and it was from the ranks of this Marseille-based, well-knit, and very professional criminal organization that the assassins were found.

The plotter’s reasoning was that if the killers were somehow caught before the CIA could kill them first, they could only identify the Chicago Mafia as their employers, and the Mafia would never identify the CIA as the real moving force. If this question arose, the Mafia could much more easily be silenced than foreign killers could.

Before the Corsicans were finally brought on board, a co-worker suggested shopping in Beirut, Lebanon, then a center of assassination professionals. The argument against this was that Corsicans would have no problems blending in the background in race conscious Dallas. Darker complexioned Lebanese or Arab professionals would certainly attract unwelcome notice in the provincial southern city.

Cuban militants had been ruled out in the beginning as too volatile and inclined to emotional excesses.

It would be Marseilles, then, instead of Beirut, that would supply the killers.

Early March 1963, the Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone, began a series of delicate contacts outside his immediate circle.

The first government agency contacted was the FBI. The first conferences with its director John Edgar Hoover and Deputy Director William Sullivan were held on March 4th. According to the ZIPPER Document, the head of the FBI was permanently kept informed about the CIA’s actions by his top aide William Sullivan. Since Sullivan is described in the ZIPPER Document as a “participant” in the entire plot, it must be assumed that the FBI as a government department was collaborating with the CIA to achieve the projected goal.

On March 13 and 15, the next delicate contacts were made to Walter Jenkins and Abe Fortas, top aides of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. According to the ZIPPER Document, Jenkins and Fortas, and with them of course the Vice President, were also kept informed about the rising plot.

Not a bold man, Johnson’s concerns were entirely typical for him. He had forced himself on the 1960 Democratic ticket against Kennedy’s wishes, and throughout the thousand days of the Kennedy presidency, Johnson was treated with contempt by Kennedy’s people. Their favorite epithet was “Uncle Cornpone,” and it became common knowledge that Kennedy was planning to replace Johnson on the 1964 ticket. To accomplish this, Bobby Kennedy was preparing criminal charges against Bobby Baker, one of Johnson’s top aides.

Johnson was aware that such charges would give the Kennedy faction the ability to force him off the ticket. Since Vice Presidents traditionally have run for the Presidency at the expiration of the mandatory two-term limit, any hope of gaining the White House would have been dashed. Johnson, therefore, became a willing if very timid participant in the ZIPPER project.

The two most important groups, the FBI and the future President of the United States, were hence quickly convinced to support the CIA:

“11. As both the Vice President and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been slated for replacement by the Kennedy faction, their support for this project was practically guaranteed from the outset.

12. The Vice President came to believe that an attempt would be made on his life at the same time and was greatly concerned for his own safety.[ ]
13. As the Vice President and the Director of the FBI were longtime neighbors and very friendly, the Director has repeatedly assured the [Vice] President that he was not considered a target and that no shots were fired at him in Dallas.” [LBJ was riding two cars behind JKF.]

There was, of course, another power to be taken into consideration, which could successfully prevent or reverse the attempted coup d’état: the Armed Forces of the United States of America. To integrate the U.S. Army into their putsch, the Director of the CIA conferred on March 28 with James Jesus Angelton to coordinate the objectives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Army with the CIA’s objectives within Operation ZIPPER.

The fourth cautious contact was made on 9 April by James Jesus Angleton: Lt. Colonel Bevin Cass, United States Marine Corps, was U.S. Military Attaché to the Dominican Republic and had been involved with the logistics of the Trujillo assassination.  Cass was later Commanding Officer of the Marine Corps infantry training center at Quantico, Virginia.

Cass obviously served as a liaison officer between the Joint Chief of Staffs and the CIA, as an entry on 14 April 1963 indicates, according to which Cass was recommended by the Chairman of the JCS, General Lyman Lemnitzer. The fact that LtCol. Cass, as a “participant,” received a copy of the ZIPPER Document, that the Chairman of the JCS was either directly or via LtCol. Cass in frequent contact with the CIA regarding Kennedy’s assassination, and finally because the JCS is expressly mentioned as a “government department directly concerned” in the ZIPPER document that had specific knowledge about the assassination, it must be concluded that the U.S. Armed Forces are the fourth big cornerstone of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and, hence, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of the people of the United States of America.

In the middle of April, Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana advised Crowley that a team of Corsicans had been assembled. Their price for the job was one hundred thousand dollars per man and there were four involved.

The immediate overseer of the execution of the plot was William King Harvey, former FBI agent and head of the Berlin operations base of the CIA.

Harvey was responsible for the construction of the famous Berlin tunnel. Soviet intelligence was fully aware of this interdiction of their secure telephone lines in the Soviet sector of Berlin, and Harvey proudly garnered crates full of creative Soviet disinformation.

In addition to this, Angleton contacted Israeli intelligence for assistance.  The man he contacted was Amos Manor, then head of Israeli counterintelligence, the Shin Beth, and an old friend of Angleton.  Angleton had worked closely with Zionist organizations in Italy during and after World War II and in 1951 had been appointed to be the CIA’s top liaison with both the Shin Beth and the Mossad. Through Angleton’s good offices, the CIA developed a close working relationship with both Israeli agencies, and in order to facilitate his plot against Kennedy, Angleton sought an Israeli agent who would oversee the entire operation.

In actuality, the Israeli’s sole reason for existence, as far as Angleton was concerned, was to make entirely certain that the Corsican assassins were removed as soon as possible after their work was done.

The man sent to him was known as Binjamin Bauman and he came well recommended.  He had been one of the Stern Gang members, a terrorist group controlled by Menachim Begin, later Israeli Prime Minister, who had assisted in blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 with heavy loss of life. Begin was still wanted for murder in England, but Bauman had merely changed his name and went to work for the new state in an official capacity. This is a classical example of a terrorist becoming a freedom fighter.

John F. Kennedy was decidedly unpopular in Israel because of his firm determination to prevent that state from developing atomic weaponry.

A safe house was to be set up in Maryland and there the Corsicans were to be killed, their bodies dissected and put into crab pots. The science of DNA had not yet been discovered, and what the famous soft-shelled crabs could not eat was to be dumped back into the water. Bones do not float.

In September of 1963, the visit by Kennedy to Dallas in November was announced and the Angleton assassination plan now had a specific time frame and geographical location with which to work.

The Corsicans would be flown to Canada at the end of October, met by members of the Mafia, and driven into the United States over the Windsor, Ontario, International Bridge. They would remain in a Mafia safe house in the Detroit area and then be flown in a private aircraft to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area:

52. French intelligence sources have indicated that a recruitment was made among members of the Corsican Mafia in Marseilles in mid-1963.
53. French intelligence sources have also indicated that they informed U.S. authorities in the American Embassy on two occasions about the recruitment of French underworld operatives for a political assassination in the United States.
54. It is not known if these reports were accepted at the Embassy or passed to Washington.
55. In the event, the Corsicans were sent to Canada where they blended in more easily with the French-speaking Quebec population.DIA analysis

The Corsicans were under no circumstances to be told of the role of the CIA in their project. They always considered that they were working solely for the American Mafia and no one else.

Weapons for the assassination were procured from Sam Cummings, CIA agent and head of INTERARMCO, a “proprietary” branch of the Agency.  This company, run by a British expert living in Warrentown, Virginia, specialized in gun running for the CIA. It was an easy matter for Cummings to procure two silenced .38-caliber pistols, two 7.65-mm surplus Argentine army Mausers, and a specially constructed .223-caliber rifle, which was cut down and modified from a standard NATO weapon. Special bullets for the latter weapon, filled with mercury and designed to explode when entering a body, were manufactured and accompanied the weapon.

A check of CIA records located the names of several persons of interest to the Agency in the Dallas area. One was Lee Harvey Oswald, the returned defector, and the other was a man with whom the CIA had extensive and documented dealings. This was the Baltic aristocrat George De Mohrenschildt. Born into the lesser Russian nobility, De Mohrenschildt had served in a Polish cavalry unit, the Promorski Brigade. After the Russian revolution, he immigrated to the United States and acquired a degree in petroleum geology. He traveled in establishment social circles, spent a good deal of time out of the country, and certainly worked for the CIA. He had encountered Oswald quite by accident through his connection with the Russian community in Dallas and became his mentor and, according to a later CIA classified report, his lover.

When De Mohrenschildt passed on the information that Oswald had been hired at the Texas School Book Depository on October 16, it was later realized that this building immediately overlooked the route that Kennedy would take on his November 22 visit to Dallas. Oswald was now viewed as the perfect foil:

14. Oswald also was intimately connected with de Mohrenschildt who was certainly known to be a CIA operative. Oswald’s connections with this man were such as to guarantee that the CIA was aware of Oswald’s movements throughout his residence in the Dallas area.
15. When Oswald secured employment at the Texas Book Depository, de Mohrenschildt, according to an FBI report, reported this to the CIA. DIA analysis
16. The pseudo-defector, Oswald, became then important to the furtherance of the plan to kill the American president. He had strong connections with the Soviet Union; he had married a Soviet citizen; he had been noticed in public advocating support of Fidel Castro. His position in a tall building overlooking the parade route was a stroke of great good fortune to the plotters. Russian Intelligence study

In the first week of November, the assassination team had been flown to Dallas and spent two weeks in reconnaissance of the entire presidential route. It had initially been felt by the Corsican team leader that the shooting could be done as the cavalcade turned from Houston to Elm Streets. The presidential car would be moving very slowly as it negotiated the right angle turn and would present an excellent target. A shooting blind could be constructed on the top of the Dallas County Records Building on Houston Street that had an excellent line of sight to the Elm Street corner, but flanking buildings were higher and could provide an undesired observer a clear view of the shooters.

It was finally decided to use the Book Depository as one base. The railroad overpass was considered another excellent position but eventually ruled out because it was sure to be guarded. To its right, however, the heavy bushes and fences of the elevated “grassy knoll” proved to be irresistible. The official car with the President would be moving slowly past the spot and would permit a slightly downhill shot at very close range. Also, the extensive railroad yards behind this position gave ample room for an unobserved escape.

The final disposition of the assassination team was:

–         A shooter in the Texas Book Depository, sixth floor;

–         A shooter in the ornamental bushes just before the underpass;

–         Two English-speaking personnel in suits and equipped with false law enforcement identification in the railroad yard behind the second shooter.

It was later reported that if anyone tried to investigate or interfere with the escape of the shooter, the two faux law enforcement agents would be able to display their identification and deflect pursuit.

Through his friendship with Oswald, De Mohrenschildt was aware that Oswald had bought a rifle from Klein’s Sporting Goods through the mail in March of that year. Both Oswald and his wife had mentioned this rifle to De Mohrenschildt and he also learned where the weapon was kept.

16. The existence and location of Oswald’s mail order Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in the garage of his wife’s friend, Ruth Paine, was also known to de Mohrenschildt at least one week prior to the assassination. DIA analysis

Oswald was a bad shot with a rifle, the Warren Commission Report to the contrary, and had never even test shot this surplus Mannlicher-Carcano Italian army weapon.  Stories about him going to Dallas rifle ranges with others and firing the Carcano were total fabrications as was an accepted tale of him driving a car. Oswald had never shot the purported murder weapon, possessed no driver’s license, and did not know how to drive any kind of a car.

On September 26, Oswald went to Mexico City by bus. He returned to Dallas on October 3. During this period, the official story is that Oswald went to the Soviet and Cuban embassies and made very vocal attempts to secure visas for trips to Russia via Cuba.  He was told, the official version explains, that a visa to go to Soviet Russia would take four months to process and the Cubans would not grant a visa for Cuba without a Soviet visa.

After the assassination, the CIA sent out a number of reports to various American agencies containing their version of the Oswald visit to include physical descriptions and photographs. All of this material was totally incorrect, and the person depicted was very obviously not Lee Harvey Oswald. What Oswald did while in Mexico is not known, but a CIA report of his dramatic visits to the two embassies is a deliberate falsehood:

78. Oswald was then reported by the CIA to have gone to Mexico City on 26 September, 1963 and while there, drew considerable attention to his presence in both the Soviet and Cuban embassies. What Oswald might have done in the Cuban embassy is not known for certain but there is no record of his ever having visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico at that time. CIA physical descriptions as well as photographs show that Oswald was not the man depicted. This appears strongly to be a poor attempt on the part of the CIA to embroil both the Soviet Union and Cuba in their affairs. Russian Intelligence study

79.Reports from the CIA concerning Oswald’s September/October visit to Mexico City are totally unreliable and were rejected by the FBI as being ‘in serious error.’ The reasons for Oswald’s visit to Mexico are completely obscure at this writing but the individual allegedly photographed by CIA surveillance in Mexico is to a certainty not Lee Oswald. As the CIA had pictures of the real Oswald, their reasons for producing such an obvious falsity are not easy to ascertain at this remove. DIA analysis

The famous Mexican trip was a typical official red herring deliberately dragged across the investigative trail. In point of fact, it matters not what Oswald did while in Mexico because this trip had no possible bearing on the allegations of assassination heaped onto a dead Oswald.

The patently obvious disinformation put out by the CIA about Oswald’s visit either indicates a frantic desire to be current with intelligence matters or, in a more sinister interpretation, a crude attempt to somehow link the assassination to the Soviet Union and Cuba via the predetermined assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Had this course been followed during the sittings of the Warren Commission, it might well have forced the timid new President to make accusations against both Russia and Cuba that could quite conceivably lead to armed conflict. Since this is the one thing that Johnson frantically wished to avoid, the Mexico City visitation was relegated to the oblivion of the Warren Commission Report without official attention, but certainly deserving of the subsequent sarcasm from a legion of anti-establishment historians.

Kennedy was shot on Friday, November 22, 1963.

Oswald was shot on Sunday, November 24, 1963.

Chicago Mafia leader, Sam Giancana, was shot to death in the basement of his home in June of 1975, prior to when he was supposed to appear before a Congressional committee.

Oswald’s CIA connection in Dallas, George De Mohrenschildt, is alleged to have shot himself just prior to his scheduled appearance before a Congressional committee in March of 1977.

Arranging a murder is relatively simple, but arranging a suicide is much more difficult.

The Warren Commission was instituted shortly after the Dallas murders, evidence was gathered and presented to the Commission and a final report was duly released. Predictably, it named Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole assassin and, further, carefully played down the strong connections his killer, Jack Rubenstein, had with the Chicago mob.

Historians have discussed the number of witnesses who died in the following months and years. The number tends to raise suspicions of foul play but, so far, no hard evidence of a concerted effort to silence witnesses has been produced. Considering the vast extent of the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy and overthrow his administration, the conclusions are more than obvious.

The Warren Report included a number of issues intended to bolster their case against Oswald. One was the attempt to shoot General Edwin Walker, a retired right wing professional Army officer resident in Dallas, on April 12, 1963. That Oswald had nothing to do with this incident is obvious from examining the published evidence and investigative reports. The General was shot at by a .30-06 rifle. Eyewitnesses all agreed that two dark complexioned men were seen driving away from the scene. Oswald did not own such a gun, was not dark complexioned, and did not drive. The Walker story was supplied by Oswald’s terrified widow who desperately was attempting to avoid being sent back to Russia. She spoke no English and, in general, did what she was told.  Her story of the Walker incident has no value whatsoever and could never have been used in a court of law.

Of the four Corsicans, three vanished from the face of the earth after being escorted to a private plane at a Dallas area airfield about 2:30 on the afternoon of November 22. They were accompanied by Mr. Bauman and were informed they would be flown first to New Orleans, where the pilot, David Ferrie, was based, and thence to a safe house in Maryland. From the moment they climbed into the two-engined aircraft, they were never seen again.

One of the assassins, the man who fired at Kennedy from nearly point blank range and blew out the presidential brains, decided to work his way back to Marseilles on his own. For some unknown reason, he took a commercial bus to Mexico and from there he ended up in Barcelona, Spain. All that is known of him is the name he used on his passport: Guidobaldo Fini.

78….It is understood that the actual assassins were subsequently removed in a wet action but that one apparently escaped and has been the object of intense searches in France and Italy by elements of the CIA. Russian Intelligence study

80.The hit team was flown away in an aircraft piloted by a CIA contract pilot named David Ferrie from New Orleans. They subsequently vanished without a trace. Rumors of the survival of one of the team are persistent but not proven  DIA analysis

There was one other murder that bears directly on the Kennedy assassination. On October 12, 1964, shortly after noon, Mary Pinchot Meyer, 44, former wife of Cord Meyer, Jr., a senior CIA official, was found shot to death in a wooded area near her Georgetown studio. She had been shot once in the head and once in the upper body, a professional technique of assassination.

A dazed black day-laborer was found in the vicinity by police and, although not matching the description of an eyewitness, was arrested and put on trial for murder. The suspect, Ray Crump, had no coherent statement for the police at the time of his arrest, and an intensive search of the area failed to locate the handgun used in the killing. This, in spite of the fact that the suspect was apprehended in the immediate area of the killing.

Period press reports indicate that a large number of CIA personnel were present immediately after the discovery of the body.

Crump was acquitted at his subsequent trial.  The prosecution depicted him as a rapist, but he had no record of such offenses. He had been seen waiting on a Washington street corner for day labor prior to being found in a dazed condition on the towpath near Mary Meyer’s body.

Her husband, Cord Meyer, Jr., was a close personal friend of James Angleton and a very bitter enemy of John Kennedy. Meyer’s intense hatred of Kennedy was due to the attentions that Kennedy had once paid to his ex-wife. In point of fact, Mary Pinchot Meyer had been Kennedy’s long-term mistress subsequent to her divorce from her husband. Mrs. Meyer had introduced LSD to the President during her many visits to the White House.

Immediately after her murder, Crowley associate James Angleton was caught in her Georgetown studio going through her papers. He later removed her diary and kept it. Robert Crowley, who saw it, stated that it contained a significant number of references to her connection with Kennedy, the use of drugs at White House sex parties, and some very bitter comments about the role of her former husband’s agency in the death of her lover the year before.

Mary Meyer had made angry and indiscreet comments about her views on her suspicions of CIA involvement in the Kennedy killing to a number of her neighbors, a significant number of whom had husbands that were senior CIA officials.

This murder is still listed as unsolved, and the police records have disappeared. Shortly after her murder, her bitter former husband painted “Tough luck, Mary” on the Key Bridge near the site of her death.

John Kennedy may have been a charismatic man but neither he nor his family could be considered either ethical or moral. The President and his brother, the Attorney General of the United States, repeatedly betrayed their wives, their criminal associates, their loyal Cuban supporters, and many others with alacrity when it suited them to do so.

According to the CIA, the FBI, the Vice President, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they also betrayed important intelligence secrets to the Soviet Union for political gain. Hence, John F. Kennedy had to die:

“6. This removal [of JFK] is the result of a consensus between the various concerned official agencies.”

79 From this brief study, it may be seen that the American President was certainly killed by orders of high officials in the CIA, working in close conjunction with very high American military leaders. It was the CIA belief that Kennedy was not only circumventing their own mapped-out destruction of Fidel Castro by assassination and invasion but actively engaged in contacts with the Soviet Union to betray the CIA actions.

80. The American military leaders (known as the Joint Chiefs of Staff) were also determined upon the same goals, hence both of them worked together to ensure the removal of a President who acted against their best interests and to have him replaced with a weaker man whom they believed they could better control.
81. President Johnson, Kennedy’s successor, was very much under the control of the military and CIA during his term in office and permitted an enormous escalation in Southeast Asia. The destruction of the Communist movement in that area was of paramount importance to both groups. Russian Intelligence study
82. The Soviet analysis of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy contains material gleaned from American sources both official and unofficial i.e., media coverage, etc. Some of this material obviously stems from sources located inside various agencies. To date, none of these have been identified. Russian Intelligence study
83. A study of the Soviet report indicates very clearly that the Russians have significant and very high level sources within both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Their possession of material relating to certain highly classified American military papers has been referred to the CIC for investigation and action. DIA analysis

 Disruptions: How the FBI Handles People Without Bringing Them To Court

January. 31 2017

by Cora Currier

The Intercept

When the FBI puts a halt to criminal or terrorist activity without bringing anyone to court, it claims to have achieved a “disruption.”

The guide defines a disruption as an action that neutralizes a threat by impeding the activities of an individual or group of suspects. Some of the tactics the FBI uses to this end are familiar: interviewing the subject, for instance, or seizing financial assets. Others were not previously known: deportation, media campaigns, and feeding suspects disinformation.

Since 9/11, the FBI has taken on the disruption not only of crimes but of acts of terrorism. Techniques familiar from drug and mob cases — sting operations, for example, and the attempt to recruit informants by arresting suspects on lesser charges — have become counterterrorism staples.

The FBI maintains that disruptions are a means to stop dangerous people before they act, rather than a work-around for cases likely to fail in court, say, due to the absence of sufficient evidence.

The FBI can use a “media campaign” in a disruption

The notion that the FBI reserves the right to use a “media campaign” to publicize a suspect’s activities, even when there is no legal action pending against the suspect, sounds chilling. An FBI spokesman explained that this guideline is meant for situations when a subject is at large and presents a public safety threat — for example, if a terrorist whom the FBI hasn’t been able to apprehend is believed to be on the verge of carrying out an attack

“If we know he represents a real problem, stopping him is the most important thing,” the spokesperson said. “There are situations where we are out of time and we’ve got to use the media to alert the public.”

The disruption stats game

The FBI uses disruption statistics to help justify spending $5.3 billion — more than half its budget — on counterterrorism. The guide offers a window into how the stats game is played: While “only one field office may claim the disruption of a given subject as a statistical accomplishment,” other offices that made a “significant contribution to the disruption (e.g., serves a warrant or conducts interviews) may claim a disruption assistance as a statistical accomplishment.”

In its budget request for the 2015 financial year, the FBI included the somewhat perplexing statistic that it had achieved 440 “terrorism disruptions,” compared to about 60 terrorism-related charges publicly reported in 2015. (The number of disruptions was also three times the bureau’s “target” of 125 for the year.)

The budget gave only a vague indication of exactly what qualified as an accomplishment, saying only that the FBI achieved them by “leveraging its workforce and ensuring the use of the latest technology to thwart emerging trends.” As this document shows, the FBI likely counted a range of actions toward that total.

Who is Sorcha Faal?

February 3, 2017

by Harry von Johnston, PhD

Sorcha Faal turns out to be a nom de plume for one David Booth, a retired computer programmer from New Hampshire who stirred up limited controversy in conspiracy circles  with the promotion of his book ‘Code Red: The Coming Destruction of the United States 2004.’

Booth claimed the book originated in a  “consecutive ten day dream he alleged he experienced in 2003 in which he saw a large sized planetary body pass close to Earth causing an explosion.  This was then built up into the story about ‘Planet X’ a heretofore unknown planet in our solar system on a very long, elliptical orbit. In May 2003, it was alleged by the lunatic fringe that the non-existent “Planet X” would pass close enough to the Earth to affect it in some way, causing it to flip over (what many call a “pole shift”) and spur many other huge disasters. The end result was solemnly predicted be the deaths of many billions of people.

There are a large number of web pages, chat rooms and books about Planet X and its horrible effects on the Earth.

So the question is, does this planet exist, and did it come close enough to Earth in May 2003 and cause great catastrophes? Did an atomic bomb explode over downtown Houston, Texas, on December 25th, 2004 by orders of Paul Wolfowitz? Many internet readers were breathlessly informed of this by a Canadian masquerading as the “German Guy,” a purported senior intelligence official in the German BND.

Houston still stands, undamaged, and as far as the mythical ‘Planet X’ is concerned, here is a comment from the official NASA website:

From the NASA website:

There is no known Planet X or 10th planet in our solar system. Scientists have been looking for about a hundred years. It was believed that such a planet was required to explain the orbital characteristics of the outer planets Uranus and Neptune. Many searches have been performed and, to date, no evidence of such a planet has emerged. In addition, better information about the masses of outer planets has also now shown that no other planets are necessary to explain the planetary orbits.

There also is no Sorcha Faal in St. Petersburg, Russia or Florida. None of the Russian scientific bodies listed in the Faal accounts, specifically the Russian Academy of Science, has any record of such a person and a good deal of interesting information on this whole subject can be found at:http://www.rense.com/general51/plagiar.htm