TBR News December 16, 2016

 

The Voice of the White House

 

Washington, D.C.  December 16, 2016: “There exists a loose aggregation of internet information sites that is often spoken of as the ‘Deep Internet.’

It is not possible for government snoops to access because it is compartmented and subject to strict secrecy.

There is a small branch of the NSA who have been vainly attempting to crack into the sites but so far, they are not able to do so.

It is on these loosely connected sites that advanced computer people communicate and highly sensitive information is passed from group to group.

The story, found on all establishment-controlled print, and television, media is that Russia “hacked” into the DNC files, extracting sufficient negative information to tilt the last presidential election.

This story is pure invention but spread about to explain the destruction of one arm of the triumvirate that controls the United States propaganda machine.

One branch of this machine is the captive and controlled media.

Another are the government agencies established to observe, and report, on almost every aspect of American life and the third are the business oligarchs and their allies who dictate official policy.

The Deep Internet has been circulating more and more highly negative information to its participants and little by little, much of this is beginning to surface.

There is a story that Senator McCain, while a prisoner of the Viet Cong, sold out to Russian KGB people in return for decent medical treatment of his injuries.

There is another story that President Obama is involved in a social scandal that happened when he was in Chicago, the so-called Boystown episodes.

There are similar highly negative reports about the private lives of various very influential members of Congress and sexual and business-connected abuses by very highly-placed members of the national business oligarchs.

None of this potentially devastating information comes from the Russians.

It comes from dissatisfied insiders, often called Whistleblowers.

That the Russians can access some of this growing lake of liquid manure is probable and that the public will learn of it in coming months, and years, is absolutely certain.

The oligarchs, obedient media and establishment are an entrenched entity and in military science, an entrenched enemy is a defeated enemy when faced with a fluid, and often unseen, opponent.

Believe that fear of exposure and subsequent economic and political destruction will drive these hitherto all-powerful controllers into a frenzy of attempted prevention and punishment.

An empire in decay always turns away from external aggression to internal. Remember, children,that the Watchbird is watching you!”

The Leak That Came in From the Cold

Craig Murray tells all – media ignores him

December 16, 2016

by Justin Raimondo

AntiWar

What difference, at this point, does it make?

As the frantic attempts by die-hard Democrats, the media, and the CIA to prevent Donald Trump from being sworn into office reach a fever pitch, Hillary Clinton’s anguished cry seems like the only appropriate response. Trump won the election, he’s now announcing his Cabinet, and that’s the end of the matter.

Or is it only the beginning?

When the CIA targets a country for regime change, I wouldn’t bet the farm on the targeted government surviving. And while this isn’t quite Allende’s Chile, America’s increasing resemblance to a banana republic is augured in the CIA’s refusal to appear at a congressional oversight committee to explain leaks in the press charging that Russian intelligence actively worked to elect Trump. So who’s in charge here – the CIA or the people’s elected representatives?

The White House has joined the fray, implying that the PEOTUS is directly colluding with Moscow. White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated that Trump was “obviously” aware, “based on whatever sources were available to him,” that the Russians were behind the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta. Because, you see, Trump has a direct line to the Kremlin: after all, how else could the Russians issue their marching orders?

It’s unlikely, albeit possible, that this brouhaha is going to prevent Trump from taking office: the “Hamilton electors” campaign doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, in spite of the best efforts of  Christine Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s daughter – gee, how did she become an elector, I wonder?

The game plan of “the Resistance” – yes, that’s what these drama queens call themselves – seems to be to block what the CIA and the neoconservative NeverTrumpers fear the most: Trump’s vow to turn US foreign policy around, align with Russia against Saudi-jihadist elements in the Middle East, and bring an end to the policy of “intervention and chaos,” as the President-elect put it in one of his “victory tour” speeches. Their strategy is to Russia-bait him into exhaustion, block his nominees to national security positions – Rex Tillorsen will face the McCain-Graham inquisition, to be sure – and utilize the media to unleash a tsunami of fake news designed to smear him as Putin’s poodle.

The first phase of this assault is slated to be endless congressional hearings on the subject of Russian “influence” in American politics: think of the old House Un-American Activities Committee. “Are you or have you ever been …?” And the outgoing administration is going to leave a turd in the icebox with the “report” on the whole matter ordered by President Obama to be placed on his desk before January 20.

Yet this whole ginned-up controversy is starting to come unglued, as congressional Republicans start to push back, both the FBI and the ODNI distance themselves from the CIA’s assessment, and even John Bolton challenges the narrative, calling into question the entire basis of the conspiracy theory at the heart of the “Putin did it” campaign. Technical experts are also raising their voices, pointing out the manifold holes in the publicly available case of those who claim to know that the Kremlin is behind an elaborate plot to upend the American political system. An excellent article in the Intercept asks such pertinent questions as why, if the Russians are so diabolically clever, did they leave Cyrillic comments on their cyber-trail? “Would a group whose ‘tradecraft is superb’ with ‘operational security second to none” really leave behind the name of a Soviet spy chief imprinted on a document it sent to American journalists?”

Speaking of American journalists: the media-industrial complex, which was clearly an arm of the Clinton machine during the election campaign, is steadfastly ignoring the biggest development in this ongoing story: Craig Murray, a close confidante of Julian Assange, has now revealed the real story of how both the DNC emails and the Podesta email archive were acquired by WikiLeaks.

Murray, the United Kingdom’s former Ambassador to Uzbekistan, says “Neither of the leaks came from the Russians. The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks.” The leakers were “disgusted whistleblowers” disillusioned with the Clinton campaign’s sidelining of Bernie Sanders and what they viewed as the corruption of the Clinton Foundation.

According to Murray, while someone may have hacked the DNC and John Podesta, the fact is that hackers were not Assange’s source. In the Daily Mail version of this story, the British tabloid reports that Murray said he flew to Washington, D.C., and met a go-between “in a wooded area near American University,” which is in the northwestern part of the city. The hand-off of what is described as a “package” took place there, and the rest is history.

However, in an extensive interview with Antiwar Radio’s Scott Horton, Murray doesn’t say he personally received the materials, although he does say he took a trip to Washington in September that was somehow connected to this affair. He is firm in his contention that a) Both the DNC and Podesta leaks were the work of Americans, not Russians, and b) The leaks were separate, and the perpetrators were different people. Furthermore, Murray strongly implies that John Podesta — whose brother, Tony, is a registered lobbyist for Saudi Arabia, and whose public relations firm, the Podesta Group, received $140,000 monthly payments from the Kingdom – was hacked by American intelligence officials, who were perhaps motivated by undue Saudi influence on the Clinton campaign. (Judge Andrew Napolitano has a similar take.) As for the DNC leaks, this too was, according to Murray, the work of Americans, although he is less explicit about their identity: the implication is that the individual or individuals who provided WikiLeaks with the emails supported Bernie Sanders, although this isn’t clear. (In an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, Julian Assange is asked about Murray’s story, and he basically refuses to answer: “I don’t want to go anywhere near that,” he says.)

Here is someone intimately involved with the WikiLeaks operation claiming to have significant knowledge of the leaks and their provenance. One would think the media would be eager to interview him, and get the biggest story to come down the pike in quite a while. Yet, so far, there has been almost no mention of Murray’s revelation in any major US media outlet, save for a few short pieces on Fox News and the Washington Examiner.

Why is that?

As I pointed out last summer:

“What’s striking is that for all this subjective ‘analysis’ and cyber-sleuthing, no one is pointing to what should be the first suspicion in such a case: that the hacking of the DNC server was an inside job. Is it all that improbable that someone working for the DNC is a supporter of Bernie Sanders – or just someone who believes in elemental fairness –  who saw how the DNC was rigging the game and used their access to supply WikiLeaks with the emails? As WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told ‘Democracy Now’ in an interview, ‘If we’re talking about the DNC, there’s lots of consultants, lots of programmers’ with means, motive, and opportunity.

“Why isn’t this very broad hint by someone who’s in a position to know who was responsible admissible evidence? It’s being studiously ignored because it doesn’t fit the narrative that the media and the Democrats – or do I repeat myself – want to push on the public.”

Now that the Facebook/Legacy Media alliance is setting up mechanisms to filter out “fake news,” i.e. news and opinion they would rather you didn’t read or even know about, the truth is going to be even harder to get out there. Yes, both the Washington Post – which ran the PropOrNot smear as front page “news” – and ABC News are slated to be official “fact-checkers” who will rule on what sort of “fake news” you won’t be allowed to see.

Russophrenia: Western elites ignore their own citizens’ anger and blame Russia instead

December 16, 2016

by Bryan MacDonald

RT

At the start of 1917, rumours reached London that something was stirring in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). As a result, the concerned Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, urgently dispatched Lord Milner, a diplomat of some repute, to the Russian capital.

His Lordship visited the Tsar and spoke to ministers and members of the Duma, who informed him that enemies of the state were spreading groundless yarns. Sadly, being a creature of his class, Milner believed that only the elites mattered so he neglected to consult any of the general public. Thus, cocooned in his bubble, the peer reported to London that there was nothing the government could not handle and no need to expect no major changes.

However, the same British traveling party also included Lloyd George’s private secretary Philip Kerr. A little more clued in, Kerr walked the streets and interviewed the plain folk. Armed with their predictions, he sent a telegram to Downing Street which asserted that Russia was on the verge of an unstoppable revolution. As it happens, the man who stepped out of the comfort zone was right because Nikolai II was shorn of his crown before the British delegation made it home. We know this story because many years later the ‘Welsh Wizard,’ Lloyd George, revealed the details to Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to London. And almost a hundred years later, it is a salutary lesson in the dangers of the establishment refusing to acknowledge ordinary people’s concerns when evaluating the causes of political upheaval.

Today, it manifests itself in the electoral earthquakes which have recently shocked America and Britain. Not to mention the increasing popularity of alternative movements across Europe and the diminishing support for traditional centrist parties and their candidates. This has the perennial powers-that-be running scared but, almost uniformly, they seem unwilling to address their own failings.

Heroes and Villains

Instead, they seek bogeymen on which to pin the blame. And Russia has found itself in the cross hairs with alarming frequency. Indeed, it has reached the stage where many popular media outlets see the Kremlin’s hidden hand everywhere. To paraphrase Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Putin’s here, Putin’s there, Putin’s busy everywhere.”

But in reality, he’s not. Because, even if it had the will, Russia simply does not have the resources and capability to interfere in elections across the western world. Sure, Moscow might be able to influence one or two, if it seriously targeted them, but the notion that the Kremlin is playing puppet master in countries as disparate as Bulgaria, Italy, France, Germany and the US is pure hokum.

Despite this, we have the sad spectacle of some Hillary Clinton supporters trying to explain away her failure in the recent Presidential election on Russian meddling. We have seen them blame Moscow for Wikileaks’ exposure of how her own party rigged its primary to ensure her candidacy. Also, the Kremlin is fingered for leaking damaging information on Clinton’s use of personal email servers, rather than official channels, when Secretary of State. Naturally, the fact that these things actually happened seems to be an aside point.

Then there was the almost comedic sideshow of recounts in certain states where Hillary lost relatively narrowly to Donald Trump. Which is Dylan Thomas stuff, raging “against the dying of the light.”

There’s also a schizophrenia at play here, or “Russophrenia” to use a term I coined some time ago. American elites, almost simultaneously, ascribe super powers to Russia and then claim the country is dying. Even those from the same party. Here’s another Democrat, Barack Obama, only two years ago: “Russia does not make anything.  Immigrants aren’t rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity… The population is shrinking.”

Reality Bites

Now, never mind that these statements are false; they not only reflect a peculiar type of thinking, but also suggest that the quality of advice US leaders are getting on Russia is extremely poor.* Reading the op-ed pages of outlets like The Washington Post and the New York Times reveals the same. Because in these organs, the most prominent voices on Russia tend to be writers with very little (if any) contemporary practical experience of the country. And they are usually blinded by strong ideology, which means they simply cannot countenance Moscow’s point of view.

In parts of Europe, we have a very strange terminology which divides political parties and candidates into “pro-Russia” and “pro-Europe” camps. And never the twain shall meet. This curious branding ignores domestic concerns in various nations and infantilizes debate. It has also come to mean that any individual who does not unequivocally admonish Moscow is dubbed a “useful idiot”. Thus, Bulgaria’s incoming President Rumen Radev is smeared as “pro-Russian,” despite the fact that he was literally a NATO general until a few months ago.

This carry on is very dangerous. Because it creates a new dividing line on the continent. Not a physical one as during the Cold War (although NATO is trying hard in that regard) but an artificial equivalent. One where if you oppose US hegemony, hyper-liberalism, the expansion of Brussels’ power across Europe, mass migration and fast-tracked globalization, you are doing Moscow’s bidding. In this unhinged worldview, politicians as different as Jeremy Corbyn, Sigmar Gabriel, Francois Fillon and Viktor Orban are branded “pro-Russian.” Which is, frankly, insane.

What’s the Story

Then we have the Russian media. There’s also a lot of mental gymnastics taking place when it comes to Moscow-funded broadcasters like RT and Sputnik. On the one hand, we have analysts claiming that the former’s viewing figures are negligible and, on the other, often the same people warn that these entities are a danger to western civilization as we know it. It has now gotten so ridiculous that Westminster and Washington have held committees of inquiry.

What seems to be forgotten is that almost every major country in the world has its own foreign TV channels these days. America boasts RFE/RL and VoA (which have a budget around three times higher than RT), Paris and Berlin bankroll France 24 and Deutsche Welle respectively and Britain’s BBC is a staggeringly large organization which all UK households are obliged to fund via a license fee. In fact, nonpayment can lead to imprisonment.

Indeed, the current hysteria about RT and Sputnik reminds me of the flak thrown at Al Jazeera during the heady days of the “war on terror”. Back then, the Qatari station was considered sympathetic to Al Qaeda and pro-Wahabi and viewed with suspicion. It is notable that since Doha and the West took the same side on the Libya, Syria and Yemeni conflicts we almost never hear anybody criticize Al Jazeera anymore. Perhaps the same will be true of RT a few years from now, if Russia and the US find common ground on foreign policy.

One reason for RT’s popularity has been its willingness to promote stories that are largely ignored by the establishment media. For example, UKIP leaders were regulars on the channel at a time when the UK mainstream considered them to be “fringe.” It is now ridiculous how, instead of learning from this mistake, certain prominent figures in Britain would rather pressurize RT and force it off the airwaves. Perhaps they believe that restoring the old status quo in the UK information space will prevent more movements like “Brexit?”

If so, they are making the same mistake Lord Milner made in 1917. Across the West, there are a lot of very upset citizens who are tired of a neoliberal order which has gutted the middle class and condensed wealth and power into large cosmopolitan cities, while ignoring traditional heartlands.

Blaming Russia for this anger is absurd. And it may also have a parallel to the fate of Nikolai II, who considered the Germans to be the greatest threat to his rule, when the real danger was at home. Look how that ended.

*As it happens, Russia makes a lot of things – such as rockets which launch US satellites into space, for instance. It’s also the world’s third most popular migration destination, after the US and Germany and the population has grown in recent years. In addition, Russia has a higher birthrate than most other European countries.

After Aleppo, a chapter closes on Turkey’s ambitions in Syria

December 15, 2016

by Nick Tattersall and Humeyra Pamuk

Reuters

ISTANBUL-The recapture of Aleppo by Syrian government forces deals a humiliating blow to years of Turkish policy in Syria, leaving in ruins its efforts to force President Bashar al-Assad from power and handing a major victory to main regional rival Iran.

But Turkey’s support for the Syrian rebels withdrawing from their last major urban stronghold is far from over, as it intensifies a campaign to drive Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters from a strip of Syria’s north.

Some of the rebel brigades from Aleppo are expected to be redeployed as part of “Operation Euphrates Shield”, an offensive launched by Turkey four months ago to secure a roughly 90-km (56-mile) stretch of Syrian territory across its border.

“The work on this is already under way,” said a senior official from the Turkmen Sultan Murad brigade, one of the Turkish-backed groups pulling out of Aleppo. Fighters would initially join Turkey’s effort to drive Islamic State from the city of al-Bab, around 40 km northeast of Aleppo, he said.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s role negotiating the safe exit from Aleppo of the largely Turkmen and Arab insurgents he has backed for the past five years was hardly the outcome he could have wanted. For years, he led calls for international intervention to force Assad from power.

But it marks the culmination of a shift in Turkish policy which began months ago as Ankara sought to mend broken ties with Assad’s ally Russia, and as the threat to its national security from Islamic State and Kurdish groups in Syria grew.

Turkey itself pulled some of the rebel fighters it backs out of Aleppo in August to take part in Euphrates Shield, further weakening their ability to confront the onslaught from Assad’s forces and their Russian and Iranian-backed allies.

“The situation in Syria has morphed into one reality and then another since 2011 and all regional actors … have muddled through, trying to adjust to new realities. In this respect, Turkey is no exception,” said Gulnur Aybet, professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University.

“Turkey’s priorities with regards to the war in Syria now and for the foreseeable future are two pronged: national security and humanitarian relief.”

“TERRORIST TRAINING GROUND”

A chain of suicide bombings over the past two years blamed variously on Islamic State and Kurdish militants have brought into sharp focus the threat from Syria to Turkish cities hundreds of miles from the frontlines.

“Syria has turned into a training ground for terrorist organizations,” a senior government official said. “Our Syria policy is adjusting according to the realities on the ground.”

In the latest attack last weekend, Kurdish militants claimed a twin bombing outside an Istanbul soccer stadium which killed 44 people, most of them police officers.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday one of the bombers was thought to have come from Syria, and officials in Ankara believe the attacks may have been in revenge for Turkey’s actions against Kurdish militias in northern Syria.

“They are not pleased with the advances of the Turkish army in Syria, and they’re trying to send a message to Turkey through terrorist attacks,” said a second Turkish official.

“Our fight against terror in Turkey and the Turkish-backed rebel advance in Syria will continue.”

The official from the Sultan Murad brigade said rebel fighters withdrawing from Aleppo to Syria’s Idlib province would be vetted by Turkey before being sent to join the Euphrates Shield operation as quickly as possible.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the aim was to flush out members of the Nusra Front, which is among the rebel groups fighting Assad but was until recently affiliated with al Qaeda. The Nusra Front is considered a terrorist group by both the United States and its NATO ally Turkey.

“It won’t take a lot of time, definitely not weeks. The al-Bab operation is vital for Turkey, and from there it wants to move onto Manbij,” the Sultan Murad official said, referring to a town 50 km (30 miles) east of al-Bab which Erdogan has said he wants brought under control of the Turkish-backed forces.

The Turkish army dropped leaflets on al-Bab this week urging civilians to seek shelter, as rebels backed by Turkish tanks and warplanes closed in on the city. The rebels seized at least two villages west of al-Bab last week.

SHIFTING ALLIANCES

Turkey’s shifting priorities in Syria have much to do with its rapprochement with Russia in August, after nine months of strained ties caused by Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian fighter jet over Syria.

Russia has backed up forces loyal to Assad in Aleppo by providing training, equipment, advice and air support.

The Turkish government says the restoration in ties has not changed its position that Assad must go to restore peace in Syria, but it has been forced to work with Moscow. Erdogan has spoken repeatedly in recent weeks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to find a solution in Aleppo.

There have also been contacts between Turkey’s foreign minister and his Iranian counterpart in recent days, and Turkish officials have said there will be a tri-partite meeting between Turkey, Russia and Iran to discuss Syria later this month.

Ankara’s change of tack has partly been driven by its long-standing frustration with U.S. policy in Syria.

Turkey has been angered by U.S. support for Kurdish militia groups and has shared a sense of betrayal among Syrian rebels who feel President Barack Obama encouraged their uprising by calling for Assad to go but then abandoned them, failing even to enforce his own “red line” on Syria’s use of chemical weapons.

“The fight that should have been taken on by global powers has not been assumed by them at all,” the senior government official said. “If someone is looking for a scapegoat for what’s happening in Syria, it is neither Erdogan nor Turkey.”

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun; Writing by Nick Tattersall, editing by Peter Millership)

 Twitter blocks government ‘spy centers’ from accessing user data

ACLU investigation revealed fusion centers could access monitoring tech to target activists and journalists while racially profiling people deemed ‘suspicious’

December 15, 2016

by Sam Levin

The Guardian

San Francisco-Twitter has blocked federally funded “domestic spy centers” from using a powerful social media monitoring tool after public records revealed that the government had special access to users’ information for controversial surveillance efforts.

The American Civil Liberties Union of California discovered that so-called fusion centers, which collect intelligence, had access to monitoring technology from Dataminr, an analytics company partially owned by Twitter. The ACLU’s records prompted the companies to announce that Dataminr had terminated access for all fusion centers and would no longer provide social media surveillance tools to any local, state or federal government entities.

The government centers are partnerships between agencies that work to collect vast amounts of information purportedly to analyze “threats”. The spy centers, according to the ACLU, target protesters, journalists and others protected by free speech rights while also racially profiling people deemed “suspicious” by law enforcement.

“These are massive hubs for information collection and monitoring and surveillance of individuals,” said Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of California. “The information they collect is often about innocent people.”

The revelations about the potential collaboration between the government centers and private technology companies are particularly alarming given heightened concerns about mass surveillance under President-elect Donald Trump.

Records that the ACLU obtained uncovered that a fusion center in southern California had access to Dataminr’s “geospatial analysis application”, which allowed the government to do location-based tracking as well as searches tied to keywords. That means the center could use Dataminr to search billions of tweets and monitor specific demographics or organizations.

In one email, Dataminr told Los Angeles police that its product could be customized to track protests, adding: “Twitter owns part of Dataminr (5%) so our access to their data is unmatched – no other company ingests the full firehouse of 500 million tweets in real-time … Twitter has been very clear with my CEO: ‘Dataminr is the only company with full, unrestricted access.’”

A Dataminr brochure touted the use of the company’s geospatial analysis application to monitor a student demonstration in South Africa by tracking hashtags and keywords.

Although Twitter has since cut off the spy centers’ access, some have argued that social media companies should have had stronger protections in place so that this kind of partnership and data sharing doesn’t happen in the first place.

By giving government agencies access to these tools, Dataminr was also clearly violating Twitter’s policy prohibiting the use of its data for surveillance, according to the ACLU.

“It’s really even more important now than ever that the companies have strong policies in place and that they have the right auditing and enforcement to make sure those rules are followed,” Ozer said.

In October, the ACLU obtained government records revealing that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram had provided users’ data to Geofeedia, a software company that aids police surveillance programs and has targeted protesters of color. The revelations prompted all three companies to remove access to certain data streams.

In the spring, Twitter also blocked US national security agencies, including the FBI and CIA, from buying bulk data on its users from Dataminr.

The announcement on Thursday applies to all 77 fusion centers in the US. Ozer said she hoped other companies would follow suit, noting that Dataminr’s technology “is probably not the only type of tool that fusion centers may have access to. It’s really important for other companies to be taking action to protect their users.”

Spokespeople for Twitter and Dataminr pointed to their letter to the ACLU this week, which noted that Dataminr only received public Twitter data. The letter also said Dataminr had “refined” its product for public sectors, focusing on a “breaking news alert” that helps first responders learn about events as quickly as possible.

“Dataminr is committed to privacy and civil liberties protections,” the company said in a statement. “We have worked closely with Twitter to modify our product and incorporate feedback that ensures the strongest safeguards are in place for people who use Twitter.”

The Diminishing Number of Alleged Jewish Dead in Auschwitz

December 15, 2016

by Harry von Johnston, PhD

 

9,000,000

Source: Cited by the French pseudo-documentary, Night and Fog, which has been shown to millions of school students worldwide.

8,000,000

Source: The French War Crime Research Office, Doc. 31, 1945.

7,000,000

Source: Also cited by the French War Crime Research Office.

6,000,000

Source: Cited in the book Auschwitz Doctor by Miklos Nyiszli. It has since been proven that this book is a fraud and the “doctor” was never even at Auschwitz, even though the book is often cited by historians.

5,000,000 to 5,500,000

Source: Cited in 1945 at the trial of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss, based on his confession which was written in English, a language he never spoke.

5,000,000

Source: Cited on April 20, 1978 by the French daily, Le Monde. Also cited on January 23, 1995 by the German daily Die Welt. By September 1, 1989, Le Monde reduced the figure to 1,433,000.

4,500,000

Source: In 1945 this figure was cited by another witness at the aforementioned Höss trial.

4,000,000

Source: Cited by a Soviet document of May 6, 1945 and officially acknowledged by the Nuremberg War Crimes trial. This figure was also reported in The New York Times on April 18, 1945, although 50 years later on January 26, 1995, The New York Times and The Washington Post slashed the figure to 1,500,000 citing new findings by the Auschwitz Museum officials. In fact, the figure of 4,000,000 was later repudiated by the Auschwitz museum officials in 1990 but the figure of 1,500,000 victims was not formally announced by Polish President Lech Walesa until five years after the Auschwitz historians had first announced their discovery.

3,500,000

Source: Cited in the 1991 edition of the Dictionary of the French Language and by Claude Lanzmann in 1980 in his introduction to Filip Muller’s book, Three Years in an Auschwitz Gas Chamber.

3,000,000

Source: Cited in a forced confession by Rudolf Höss, the Auschwitz commander who said this was the number of those who had died at Auschwitz prior to Dec. 1, 1943. Later cited in the June 7, 1993 issue of Heritage, the most widely read Jewish newspaper in California, even though three years previously the authorities at the Auschwitz museum had scaled down the figure to a minimum of 1,100,000 and a maximum of 1,500,000. (see below).

2,500,000

Source: Cited by Rudolf Vrba (an author of various fraudulent accounts of events he claims to have witnessed at Auschwitz) when he testified on July 16, 1981 for the Israeli government’s war crimes trial of former SS official Adolf Eichmann.

2,000,000

Source: Cited by Leon Poliakov (1951) writing in Harvest of Hate; Georges Wellers, writing in 1973 in The Yellow Star at the Time of Vichy; and Lucy Dawidowicz, writing in 1975 in The War Against the Jews.

2,000,000 to 4,000,000

Source: Cited by Yehuda Bauer in 1982 in his book, A History of the Holocaust. However, by 1989 Bauer revised his figure to 1,600,000.

1,600,000

Source: This is a 1989 revision by Yehuda Bauer of his earlier figure in 1982 of 2,000,000 to 4,000,000, Bauer cited this new figure on September 22, 1989 in The Jerusalem Post, at which time he wrote “The larger figures have been dismissed for years, except that it hasn’t reached the public yet.”

1,500,000

Source: In 1995 this was the number of Auschwitz deaths announced by Polish President Lech Walesa as determined by those at the Auschwitz museum. This number was inscribed on the monument at the Auschwitz camp at that time, thereby “replacing” the earlier 4,000,000 figure that had been formally repudiated (and withdrawn from the monument) five years earlier in 1990. At that time, on July 17, 1990 The Washington Times reprinted a brief article from The London Daily Telegraph citing the “new” figure of 1,500,000 that had been determined by the authorities at the Auschwitz museum. This new figure was reported two years later in a UPI report published in the New York Post on March 26, 1992. On January 26, 1995 both The Washington Post and The New York Times cited this 1,500,000 figure as the new “official” figure (citing the Auschwitz Museum authorities).

1,471,595

Source: This is a 1983 figure cited by Georges Wellers who (as noted previously) had determined, writing in 1973, that some 2,000,000 had died.

1,433,000

Source: This figure was cited on September 1, 1989 by the French daily, Le Monde, which earlier, on April 20, 1978, had cited the figure at 4,000,000.

1,250,000

Source: In the book, The Destruction of the European Jews, by Raul Hilberg (1985).

1,100,000 to 1,500,000

Source: Sources for this estimate are Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum in their 1984 book, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. This estimate was later also cited by Walter Reich, former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, writing in The Washington Post on September 8, 1998. The upper figure of 1,500,000 is (the new) “official” figure as now inscribed at Auschwitz, with the earlier figure of 4,000,000 having been removed from the memorial at the site of the former concentration camp.

1,000,000

Source: Jean-Claude Pressac, writing in his 1989 book Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers. This is interesting since he wrote his book to repudiate so-called “Holocaust deniers” who were called that precisely because they had questioned the numbers of those who had died at Auschwitz.

900,000

Source: Reported on August 3, 1990 11, by Aufbau, a Jewish newspaper in New York.

800,000 to 900,000

Source: Reported by Gerald Reitlinger in his book, The Final Solution.

775,000 to 800,000

Source: Jean-Claude Pressac’s revised figure, put forth in his 1993 book, The Crematoria of Auschwitz: The Mass Murder’s Machinery, scaling down his earlier claim of 1,000,000 dead.

630,000 to 710,000

Source: In 1994 Pressac scaled his figure down somewhat further; this is the figure cited in the German language translation of Pressac’s 1993 book originally published in French. Again, this is substantially less than Pressac’s 1989 figure of 1,000,000.

Using all available wartime records from the various camps it has been claimed that between 400,000 and 500,000 people died in the German concentration camp system (from all causes)between the years 1935-1945.

Note: All of the above information was suppositional, based on myths, legends and political expedience. Here is the actual listing of all inmates lodged in Auschwitz camp from the beginning to the end from the complete German records now in Russian archives.

Russian Central State Archives No 187603, Rolls 281-286 (Auschwitz)

Total non-Jews in Auschwitz, 1940-1944: 161,685

Sources: CSA No. 187603: Roll 281-1940: Frames 107-869-Roll 282-1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852- Roll 286-1945: Frames 001-329.

Total Jews in Auschwitz, 1941-1944: 173,000

Sources: CSA No. 187603: -Roll 282-1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852.

Total number of inmates in Auschwitz, 1940-1944

334,785

Sources: CSA No. 187603: -Roll 282-1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852.

Total deaths by typhus in Auschwitz, 1941-1944

103,447

Sources:  CSA No. 187603: 1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852- Roll 286.

Total Jewish deaths by typhus in Auschwitz, 1942-1944

58,240

Total non-Jewish deaths by typhus in Auschwitz, 1940-1944

45,207

Sources: CSA No. 187603:  Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852.

Death by natural causes (other than typhus), 1940-1944

4,140

Sources: CSA No. 187603: Roll 281-1940: Frames 107-869-Roll 282-1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852- Roll 286.

Total Jewish deaths by natural causes (other than typhus), 1941-1944

2,064

Sources: CSA No. 187603: 1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852- Roll 286.

Total transferred from Auschwitz, 1940-1944

121,453

Sources: CSA No. 187603: Roll 281-1940: Frames 107-869-Roll 282-1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852.

Total number of Jews transferred from Auschwitz, 1941-1944

100,743

Sources: CSA No. 187603: 1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852- Roll 286.

Administrative Executions at Auschwitz, 1940-1943

Sources: CSA No. 187603: Roll 281-1940: Frames 107-869-Roll 282-1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42:Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852- Roll 286.

Total number of inmates executed: 1359     Total Russians executed: 19

Total Gypsies executed: 19                         Total Poles executed: 1208

Total Jews executed: 117                            Total Czechs executed: 6

Total number of Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz, May-October, 1944:  23,117

Note: Number of Hungarian Jews claimed sent to Auschwitz, May-October, 1944:

Lucy Dawidowicz. The War Against the Jews, New York, 1975.: 450,000

Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, New York, 1985.   180,000

Total number of Hungarian Jews entering Auschwitz, May-October, 1944:  23,117

Total number of Hungarian Jews transferred from Auschwitz, May-October, 1944: 21,527

Total number of Hungarian Jews remaining in Auschwitz after October, 1944: 1,590

Sources: CSA No. 187603: Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852- Roll 286-1945: Frames 001-329

Summation: From July, 1941 through October, 1944

Total number of Jewish prisoners in the Auschwitz camp system: 173,000

Total number of Jewish prisoners who died of typhus: 58,240

Total number of Jewish prisoners who died of natural causes: 2,064

Total number of Jewish prisoners transferred to other camps: 100,743

Total number of Jewish prisoners executed: 117

Total number of Jewish prisoners in camp after German evacuation on January 15, 1945:  11,839

Sources: CSA No. 187603: Roll 281-1940: Frames 107-869-Roll 282-1940-41: Frames 001-875-Roll 283-1941-42: Frames 001-872-Roll 284-1942-43: Frames 003-862-Roll 285-1943-44: Frames 019-852- Roll 286-1945: Frames 001-329.

Who Are the Neo-Cons?

December 10, 2016

by Arthur MacGregor

1. Richard Perle: One of George W.Bush’s top foreign policy advisors, he was the chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. Perle was expelled from Senator Henry Jackson’s office in the 1970s after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing highly classified (National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy. He later worked for the Israeli weapons firm, Soltam. Perle came from one the above mentioned pro-Israel think tanks, the AEI.

Note: On March 27, 2003, it was announced in the media that Perle had resigned as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board. His involvement in assisting the Global Crossing bankrupts and his purported $700,000 fee for his work was apparently too much for even the corrupt Bush administration to swallow. A subsequent official report completely exonerated Perle of “any wrongdoing whatsoever” and claimed his actions were “completely within official regulations.” In February of 2004, Perle reluctantly resigned his official duties so as “not to become an embarrassment to President Bush’s reelection campaign.”

2. Paul Wolfowitz: Former Deputy Defense Secretary, and member of Perle’s Defense Policy Board, in the Pentagon. Wolfowitz was a close associate of Perle and had close ties to the Israeli military. Wolfowitz holds Israeli citizenship and his sister lives in Israel. Wolfowitz was connected with the think tank, JINSA. Wolfowitz was the number two leader within the administration behind the disastrous Iraqi war. He has been targeted by Iraqi resistance fighters on several occasions and they only narrowly missed blowing him up in his well-guarded headquarters in Baghdad. Wolfowitz was subsequently appointed by President Bush to head the World Bank
3. Douglas Feith: Former Under Secretary of Defense and Policy Advisor at the Pentagon. He was a close associate of Perle and served as his Special Counsel extremist, advocating anti-Arab policies. Feith has run a small law firm, Feith and Zell, which only has one International office, in Israel. The majority of their legal work represents Israeli interests. His firm’s own website stated, prior to his appointment, that Feith “represents Israeli Armaments Manufacturers.” Feith, like Perle and Wolfowitz, campaigned intensely for war against Iraq. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy, 1984-1986 and was Special Counsel to Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Peale 1982-1984. In 2001, Feith returned to DoD as Donald Rumsfeld’s Undersecretary for Policy, and it was in his office that “OSP”, the Office of Special Plans, was created. The OSP was created to manufacture intelligence information to justify the invasion of Iraq. This intelligence flowed directly from Ariel Sharon’s office to the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon. The OSP also miss-planned the post-war reconstruction there, and continues to point an accusing finger at Iran and Syria, as per Zionist plans to control the Middle East and funnel Arab oil to Israeli refineries. Feith is a graduate of Harvard College and Georgetown University Law Center and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Like Perle and the others, Feith is a pro-Israel extremist, who has advocated anti-Arab policies in the past. He is closely associated with the extremist group, the Zionist Organization of America, which even attacks Jews that don’t agree with its extremist views. Feith frequently speaks at ZOA conferences. Feith runs a small law firm, Feith and Zell, which only has one International office, in Israel. The majority of their legal work has been representing Israeli interests. His firm’s own website stated, prior to his appointment, that Feith “represents Israeli Armaments Manufacturer.” Feith basically represented the Israeli War Machine. Feith, like Perle and Wolfowitz, campaigned hard for the Israeli proxy war against Iraq
4. Edward Luttwak: Former Member of the National Security Study Group of the Department of Defence at the Pentagon. Luttwak is an Israeli citizen and has taught in Israel. He frequently writes for Israeli and pro-Israeli newspapers and journals. Luttwak is an extremist whose main theme in many of his articles is the necessity of the U.S. waging war against Iraq.
5. William Kristol: Co-Founder of PNAC. Kristol publishes the Weekly Standard, a Rupert Murdoch-financed magazine that promotes the neocon credo, reportedly a must-read in Cheney’s office. In 2002, Media Bypass reported, “In what has been called ‘punditgate,’ conservative journalists Bill Kristol and Erwin Stelzer of The Weekly Standard … have been exposed for accepting Enron largesse. … Kristol, chief of staff to former Vice President Dan Quayle, took $100,000 without disclosing the payments at the time.
6. Henry Kissinger: One of many Pentagon Advisors, Kissinger has sat on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board under Perle. For detailed information about Kissinger’s evil past, read Seymour Hersch’s book, Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. Kissinger had a part in the Watergate crimes; Southeast Asian mass murders under the CIA’s Operation Phoenix (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos); overthrowing the legitimate government of Chile and installing Chilean mass murdering dictator Pinochet; Operation Condor’s mass killings in South America; and later served as Serbia’s ex-dictator Slobodan Milosevic’s advisor. He consistently advocated going to war against Iraq. Kissinger is the Ariel Sharon of the U.S. Typically, President Bush nominated Kissinger as chairman of the September 11 investigating commission. This was tantamount to selecting Enron’s Ken Lay to investigate a fraud scandal. The ensuing public outcry about this nomination caused Kissinger to beat a hasty retreat and he promptly resigned.
7. Dov Zakheim: Formerly Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Department of Defense. He is an ordained rabbi and holds Israeli citizenship. Zakheim attended the Jewish College in London and became an ordained Orthodox Jewish Rabbi in 1973. He was adjunct professor at New York’s Jewish Yeshiva University.
8. Kenneth Adelman: One of many former Pentagon Advisors, Adelman also sat on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board under Perle, and was another supporter of war against Iraq. Adelman frequently was a guest on “Fox News” and often expressed extremist and often ridiculous anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views.
9. I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby: Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff. As the chief pro-Israel Jewish advisor to Cheney, Libby was in a perfect position to influence Cheney’s stand on invading Iraq. Libby is a longtime associate of Wolfowitz. Libby was also a lawyer for convicted felon and Israeli spy Mark Rich, whom Clinton pardoned in his last days as president. In October 2005, Libby was indicted by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson.On June 5, 2007, the presiding trial judge, Reggie B. Walton, sentenced Libby to 30 months in federal prison, a fine of $250,000, and two years of supervised release, including 400 hours of community service, and then ordered Libby to begin his sentence immediately. On July 2, 2007, when Libby’s appeal of Walton’s order failed, President Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence
10. Robert Satloff: Former U.S. National Security Council Advisor, Satloff was the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
11. Elliott Abrams: Former National Security Council Advisor. Abrams previously worked at Washington-based “think tank” Ethics and Public Policy Center. During the Reagan Administration, he was the Assistant Secretary of State, handling, for the most part, Latin American affairs. He played an important role in the Iran-Contra Scandal, which involved illegally selling U.S. weapons to Iran to fight Iraq, and illegally funding the contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. He also actively deceived three congressional committees about his involvement and thereby faced felony charges based on his testimony. Abrams pled guilty in 1991 to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to a year’s probation and 100 hours of community service. A year later, former President Bush (Senior) granted Abrams a full pardon. He previously worked at Washington-based “Think Tank” Ethics and Public Policy Center. Abrams is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, editor emeritus of Commentary, whose magazine has for decades branded critics of Israel as anti-Semites. Abrams is a diehard PNACer, having “authored the chapter on the Middle East in the 2000 blueprint for U.S. foreign policy by the Project on the New American Century. Edited by PNAC founders William Kristol and Robert Kagan, Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy is a chapter-by-chapter playbook on how to deal with America’s current and future adversaries.”
12. Marc Grossman: Formerly Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources at the Department of State. Grossman is one of many of the officials from the Clinton Administration that Bush had promoted to higher posts.
13. Richard Haass: Formerly Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Ambassador at large. He was also Director of National Security Programs and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Haass was one of the more hawkish pro-Israelis in the first Bush Administration and sat on the National Security Council, consistently advocating war against Iraq. Haass was also a member of the Defense Department’s National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon. Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Ambassador at large.
14. Robert Zoellick: Formerly U.S. Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position. He was also one of the more hawkish members of the George W. Bush Administration who advocated invading Iraq and occupying a portion of the country in order to set up a Vichy-style puppet government. Zoellick was (2005) promoted to Deputy Secretary of State. Formerly U.S. Trade Representative and Under Secretary of State in the Bush administration. It is no accident that Robert Zoellick was in line with the loudest chicken-hawks in promoting the Iraq War, and at the same tme acted to increase our unemployment lines in America. Robert Zoellick was been instrumental in fostering outsourcing of American jobs to the Third World.
15. Ari Fleischer: Official White House Press Spokesman for the Bush (Jr.) Administration. Fleischer was closely connected to the group called the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidics, who follow the Qabala and hold very extremist and insulting views of non-Jews. Fleischer was the co-president of Chabad’s Capitol Jewish Forum. He received the Young Leadership Award from the American Friends of Lubavitch in October, 2001. Fleischer subsequently resigned his White House post.
16. James Schlesinger: One of many Pentagon advisors, Schlesinger also sat on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board under Perle and was another supporter of the war against Iraq. Schlesinger was also a commissioner of the Defense Department’s National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon.

17 David Frum: White House speechwriter behind the “Axis of Evil” label. Frumm lumped together all the Administration’s outright lies and accusations against Iraq for Bush to justify the war.

18. Joshua Bolten: Formerly White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Bolton was previously a banker, former legislative aide.
19. John Bolton: Formerly Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton was also a Senior Advisor to President Bush. Prior to this position, Bolton was Senior Vice President of the above mentioned think tank, AEI. In October 2002, Bolton accused Syria of having a nuclear program so an attack Syria could be justified after a subjugation of Iraq. President Bush has appointed Bolton, an extremely opinionated and abrasive individual, to the post of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. His appointment was the subject of strong controversy and as of this writing, Bolton has not been officially appointed. Yale graduate. A prime architect of Bush’s Iraq policy, Bolton served Bush Snr and Reagan in the state department, justice department and USAid and was later under-secretary for arms control and international security in Bush Jnr’s state department. His appointment was intended to counter the dove-ish Colin Powell. Bolton is part of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Project for the New American Century and is a vice-president at the American Enterprise Institute. He was also one of Bush’s chad-counters during the Florida count. Bolton has long advocated Taiwan getting a UN seat — he’s been on the payroll of the Taiwanese government. The US unilateralist is a regular contributor to William Kristol’s right-wing Weekly Standard and vilified UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Bolton was an opponent of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and a cheerleader for the Star Wars Defense System. He had hinted at targeting Cuba in the war on terror. His financial interests have include oil and arms firms and JP Morgan Chase, like Shultz. It is said that Bolton believes in the inevitability of Armageddon. Like Woolsey, Bolton is said to believe we are in the midst of world war four which he estimates could take 40 years to finish. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary they believed Iraq was involved in September 11. With Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Khalilzad, Bennet, Woolsey, Perle and Kristol, Bolton co-signed a letter in 1998 urging President Bill Clinton to take military action in Iraq.
20. David Wurmser: Was Special Assistant to John Bolton (above), the under-secretary for arms control and international security. Wurmser also worked at the AEI with Perle and Bolton. His wife, Meyrav Wurmser, along with Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence, co-founded the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a Washington-based Israeli outfit which distributes articles translated from Arabic newspapers portraying Arabs in a bad light. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, which on July 7, 1996 which issued a paper by six ”prominent opinion makers” laying out ”a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership” that urged an end to ”land-for-peace” concessions. Among many suggestions was to ”focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”

Wurmser, of American Enterprise Institute joined his former colleague, John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, to be a special assistant. While at AEI Wurmser wrote that any attack on the U.S. military overseas should be met by Washington with a response of massive killing of civilians in the offending nation. Bolton is known for arguing that Washington should disregard international law. He “promptly dismantled or obstructed nearly every multilateral treaty in sight,” He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, which on July 7, 1996 which issued a paper by six ”prominent opinion makers” laying out ”a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership” that urged an end to ”land-for-peace” concessions. Among many suggestions was to ”focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”

21. Eliot Cohen: Former member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board under Perle; another extremist pro-Israel advisor. Like Adelman, Cohen often expressed extremist and often ridiculous anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views.Later, he wrote an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal openly admitting his racist hatred of Islam and claiming that Islam and not terrorism should be the enemy.
22. Mel Sembler: Formerly President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. A prominent Republican and Former National Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Export-Import Bank facilitates trade relationships between U.S. businesses and foreign countries, specifically those with financial problems.
23. Michael Chertoff: Formerly Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, at the Justice Department. Mr. Chertoff subsequently was appointed to head the Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security Czar Holds dual Israeli citizenship.
24. Steve Goldsmith: Formerly a Senior Advisor to the President, and Bush’s Jewish Domestic Policy advisor. He also served as liaison in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (White House OFBCI) within the Executive Office of the President. Goldsmith was the former mayor of Indianapolis.
25. Christopher Gersten: Formerly Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families at HHS.
26. Mark Weinberger: Formerly Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy.
27. Samuel Bodman: Formerly Deputy Secretary of Commerce. He was the Chairman and CEO of Cabot Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts.
28. Bonnie Cohen: Formerly Under Secretary of State for Management.
29. Ruth Davis: Formerly Director of Foreign Service Institute, reporting to the Office of Under Secretary for Management. This Office is responsible for training all Department of State staff (including ambassadors).
30. Lincoln Bloomfield: Formerly Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs.
31. Jay Lefkowitz: Formerly General Counsel of the Office of Budget and Management.
32. Ken Melman: Formerly White House Political Director.
33. Brad Blakeman: Formerly White House Director of Scheduling.
34. Stephen David Bryen : In 1979 Bryen was investigated for espionage. He had been overheard in the Madison Hotel Coffee Shop, offering classified documents to an official of the Israeli Embassy in the presence of the director of AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. It was later determined that the Embassy official was Zvi Rafiah, the Mossad station chief in Washington. Bryen refused to be poly-graphed by the FBI on the purpose and details of the meeting; whereas the person who’d witnessed it agreed to be poly-graphed and passed the test. The investigation was squashed by Philip Heymann. Bryen was asked to resign from his Foreign Relations Committee post shortly before the investigation was concluded in late 1979. For the following year and a half, he served as Executive Director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and provided consulting services to AIPAC.

In April, 1981, the FBI received an application by the Defense Department for a Top Secret security clearance for Dr. Bryen. Richard Perle, who had just been nominated as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, was proposing Bryen as his Deputy Assistant Secretary! Within six months, with Perle pushing hard, Bryen received both Top Secret-SCI (sensitive compartmented information) and Top Secret “NATO/COSMIC” clearances.

In 1988, while serving as the Director (and founder) of DTSA (Defense Technology Security Administration) in the DOD office, Bryen was involved attempting to export sensitive military technology to Israel. In late 1988, Bryen resigned from his DOD post, and for a period worked in the private sector with a variety of defense technology consulting firms.

35. Michael Ledeen: A fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Ledeen holds a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. In 1983, on the recommendation of Richard Perle, Ledeen was hired at the Department of Defense as a consultant on terrorism. While being investigated as a security risk by his supervisor, Noel Koch, it was learned from the CIA station that Ledeen had been carried in Agency files as an agent of influence of a foreign government: Israel.

After having his access to classified materials blocked he ceased working there. He next appeared at the National Security Council as a consultant working with NSC head Robert McFarlane. Ledeen was involved in the transfer of arms to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair — an adventure that he documented in the book “Perilous Statecraft: An Insider’s Account of the Iran-Contra Affair.” A prominent member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) board of governors and the Center for Security Policy (CSP), he advocated “total war” in line with the “Grand Strategy for the Middle East” which advocates “Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot and Egypt as the prize.” Ledeen later was serving member on the China Commission and, with the support of DOD Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, he had been, since 2001,employed as a consultant for the Office of Special Plans OSP). He was involved in the handling of classified materials and had high-level security clearances

36. Michael Joyce: The former president of the Bradley Foundation, one of the largest and most influential right-wing organizations in America. It set up the PNAC led by William Kristol. Kristol’s Weekly Standard is viewed in Washington as the in-house paper for Team Bush. The Standard is bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch. Joyce once said that Bush’s key people such as Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz “were clearly influenced by Bradley Foundation thinking”.

IDF concerned Trump administration may cut defense aid

Slashing multi-billion dollar package by new president would put burden on security capabilities, officer says

December 14, 2016

by Judah Ari Gross

Times of Israel

A senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces expressed concerns on Wednesday over possible cuts to the US defense package provided to the Jewish state each year, in light of the election of Donald Trump.

Speaking about belt-tightening measures the army will be putting into place as part of a multi-year program called the Gideon Plan, the officer noted that the army’s planning was to an extent restricted by potential “external” changes, which are out of its control.

Among those possibilities was a decrease in the aid package provided to Israel by the US government as part of the so-called memorandum of understanding between the two countries, the senior officer told reporters.

If President-elect Trump were to make such a cut, the officer said, it would be a burden on Israel’s security capabilities.

Though there is a formal agreement dictating the amount of money given each year — currently $3.3 billion, increasing to $3.8 billion in 2018 — that is not legally binding and can be changed by the US president.

While Trump has said he supports Israel’s security, he has also indicated he will pursue a policy of being more conservative than past administrations in foreign aid disbursements.

“The MOU is an Executive Branch agreement with Israel. That’s all it is,” Benjamin Wittes, an expert on presidential authority and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The Times of Israel last month. “The next president can do what he wants. He can take it into the bathroom and wipe his ass with it if he feels like it.”

On the campaign trail, Trump said he might force Israel to pay for defense aid, along with other allies like South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia. “There are many countries that can pay, and they can pay big-league,” Trump said during a press conference.

According to some analysts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to a more modest aid package from the Obama administration as opposed to waiting until after the November election from fear of the uncertainty of a Trump administration.

A hint of the possible effects of a Trump presidency on Israel’s security capabilities came earlier this week, when the president-elect criticized the F-35 fighter jet program, calling its costs “out of control,” hours before Israel’s first two F-35s were set to arrive.

Since Trump’s election, Netanyahu has expressed only good vibes toward the incoming administration, telling CBS’s 60 Minutes that Trump will be “pro-Israel president.”

“I know Donald Trump. I know him very well…his support for Israel is clear. He feels very warmly about the Jewish state, about the Jewish people and about Jewish people. There’s no question about that,” he said.

Challenges and changes

With the first year of the streamlining Gideon Plan coming to a close, the senior IDF officer said the army is expected to trim some NIS 200 million ($56 million) from its budget annually for the next four years.

That streamlining does not come without costs.

As the IDF noted last month, the decrease in service time for male soldiers from 36 to 32 months has created a shortage of soldiers needed in combat, cyber and technical units.

A further decrease to a 30-month army service, which was approved by a Knesset committee last week, is expected to result in a further reduction in the number of male soldiers serving in the IDF in the coming years.

In order to address some of those deficiencies, the army is considering extending the service for some female soldiers, who currently serve in the IDF for two years, though that measure has thus far been blocked by politicians.

In addition, within the next year, the army will increase the number of soldiers from elite combat units who are able to sign on additional time to their service, as a way to make up the difference.

However, the Gideon Plan is not meant to be solely a cost-cutting endeavor, but is designed to increase the army’s efficiency as well.

As such, the IDF plans to renovate some of its bases, including the training bases for the Givati and Nahal Brigades, as well as the army’s headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The underground command center, known in Hebrew as the bor (literally, the pit), from which the IDF runs its military campaigns and operations, will undergo a large-scale renovation to better protect it from attack in future wars, the officer said.

The Syrian civil war and the Russian presence in Syria continue to present a challenge to Israel’s army, as the uncertainty inherent in the conflict complicates long-term strategic planning efforts, the officer said.

The multiple conflicts throughout the Middle East have sparked a regional arms race, with countries purchasing advanced air defense systems, along with helicopters, submarines and fighter jets — threats for which Israel has yet to properly prepare.

As such, in the next month, the IDF General Staff will begin work crafting a vision for how the army will look in 2030, the officer said.