Exclusive: President Obama and NATO leaders signed on to the false narrative of a minding-its-own-business West getting sucker-punched by a bunch of Russian meanies, a storyline that suggests insanity or lies, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
It’s unnerving to realize that the NATO alliance – bristling with an unprecedented array of weapons including a vast nuclear arsenal – has lost its collective mind. Perhaps it’s more reassuring to think that NATO simply feels compelled to publicly embrace its deceptive “strategic communications” so gullible Western citizens will be kept believing its lies are truth.
But here were the leaders of major Western “democracies” lining up to endorse a Warsaw Summit Communiqué condemning “Russia’s aggressive actions” while knowing that these claims were unsupported by their own intelligence agencies.
President Barack Obama walks from Marine One on arrival on the White House’s South Lawn, July 5, 2016, a few days before leaving to attend the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland. Official White House photo by Lawrence Jackson
The leaders – at least the key ones – know that there is no credible intelligence that Russian President Vladimir Putin provoked the Ukraine crisis in 2014 or that he has any plans to invade the Baltic states, despite the fact that nearly every “important person” in Official Washington and other Western capitals declares the opposite of this to be reality.
But there have been a few moments when the truth has surfaced. For instance, in the days leading up to the just-completed NATO summit in Warsaw, General Petr Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, divulged that the deployment of NATO military battalions in the Baltic states was a political, rather than military, act.
“It is not the aim of NATO to create a military barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment suggests such a thing,” Pavel told a news conference.
What Pavel blurted out was what I have been told by intelligence sources over the past two-plus years – that the endless drumbeat of Western media reports about “Russian aggression” results from a clever demonization campaign against Putin and a classic Washington “group think” rather than from a careful intelligence analysis.
Ironically, however, just days after the release of the British Chilcot report documenting how a similar propaganda campaign led the world into the disastrous Iraq War – with its deadly consequences still reverberating through a destabilized Mideast and into an unnerved Europe – NATO reenacts the basic failure of that earlier catastrophe, except now upping the ante into a confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
The Warsaw communiqué – signed by leaders including President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron – ignores the reality of what happened in Ukraine in late 2013 and early 2014 and thus generates an inside-out narrative.
Instead of reprising the West’s vacuous propaganda themes, Obama and the other leaders could have done something novel and told the truth, but that apparently is outside their operating capabilities. So they all signed on to the dangerous lie.
What Really Happened
The real narrative based on actual facts would have acknowledged that it was the West, not Russia, that instigated the Ukraine crisis by engineering the violent overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych and the imposition of a new Western-oriented regime hostile to Moscow and Ukraine’s ethnic Russians.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a crowd on May 9, 2014, celebrating the 69th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Crimean port city of Sevastopol from the Nazis. (Russian government photo)
In late 2013, it was the European Union that was pushing an economic association agreement with Ukraine, which included the International Monetary Fund’s demands for imposing harsh austerity on Ukraine’s already suffering population. Political and propaganda support for the E.U. plan was financed, in part, by the U.S. government through such agencies as the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
When Yanukovych recoiled at the IMF’s terms and opted for a more generous $15 billion aid package from Putin, the U.S. government threw its public support behind mass demonstrations aimed at overthrowing Yanukovych and replacing him with a new regime that would sign the E.U. agreement and accept the IMF’s demands.
As the crisis deepened in early 2014, Putin was focused on the Sochi Winter Olympics, particularly the threat of terrorist attacks on the games. No evidence has been presented that Putin was secretly trying to foment the Ukraine crisis. Indeed, all the evidence is that Putin was trying to protect the status quo, support the elected president and avert a worse crisis.
It would be insane to suggest that Putin somehow orchestrated the E.U.’s destabilizing attempt to pull Ukraine into the association agreement, that he then stage-managed the anti-Yanukovych violence of the Maidan protests, that he collaborated with neo-Nazi and other ultra-nationalist militias to kill Ukrainian police and chase Yanukovych from Kiev, and that he then arranged for Yanukovych to be replaced by a wildly anti-Russian regime – all while pretending to do the opposite of all these things.
In the real world, the narrative was quite different: Moscow supported Yanukovych’s efforts to reach a political compromise, including a European-brokered agreement for early elections and reduced presidential powers. Yet, despite those concessions, neo-Nazi militias surged to the front of the U.S.-backed protests on Feb. 22, 2014, forcing Yanukovych and many of his officials to run for their lives. The U.S. State Department quickly recognized the coup regime as “legitimate” as did other NATO allies.
On a personal note, I am sometimes criticized by conspiracy theorists for not accepting their fact-free claims about nefarious schemes supposedly dreamed up by U.S. officials, but frankly as baseless as some of those wacky stories can be, they sound sensible when compared with the West’s loony conspiracy theory about Putin choreographing the Ukraine coup.
Yet, that baseless conspiracy theory roped in supposedly serious thinkers, such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who conjured up the notion that Putin stirred up this trouble so he could pull off a land grab and/or distract Russians from their economic problems.
“Delusions of easy winnings still happen,” Krugman wrote in a 2014 column. “It’s only a guess, but it seems likely that Vladimir Putin thought that he could overthrow Ukraine’s government, or at least seize a large chunk of its territory, on the cheap, a bit of deniable aid to the rebels, and it would fall into his lap. …
“Recently Justin Fox of the Harvard Business Review suggested that the roots of the Ukraine crisis may lie in the faltering performance of the Russian economy. As he noted, Mr. Putin’s hold on power partly reflects a long run of rapid economic growth. But Russian growth has been sputtering, and you could argue that the Putin regime needed a distraction.”
Midwifing This Thing
Or, rather than “a guess,” Krugman could have looked at the actual facts, such as the work of neocon Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland conspiring to organize a coup that would put her hand-picked Ukrainians in charge of Russia’s neighbor. Several weeks before the putsch, Nuland was caught plotting the “regime change” in an intercepted phone call with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.
Regarding who should replace Yanukovych, Nuland’s choice was Arseniy “Yats is the guy” Yatsenyuk. The phone call went on to muse about how they could “glue this thing” and “midwife this thing.” After the coup was glued or midwifed on Feb. 22, 2014, Yatsenyuk emerged as the new prime minister and then shepherded through the IMF austerity plan.
Since the coup regime in Kiev also took provocative steps against the ethnic Russians, such as the parliament voting to ban Russian as an official language and allowing neo-Nazi extremists to slaughter anti-coup protesters, ethnic Russian resistance arose in the east and south. That shouldn’t have been much of a surprise since eastern Ukraine had been Yanukovych’s political base and stood to lose the most from Ukraine’s economic orientation toward Europe and reduced economic ties to Russia.
Yet, instead of recognizing the understandable concerns of the eastern Ukrainians, the Western media portrayed the ethnic Russians as simply Putin’s pawns with no minds of their own. The U.S.-backed regime in Kiev launched what was called an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” against them, spearheaded by the neo-Nazi militias.
In Crimea – another area heavily populated with ethnic Russians and with a long history of association with Russia – voters opted by 96 percent in a referendum to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, a process supported by Russian troops stationed in Crimea under a prior agreement with Ukraine’s government.
There was no Russian “invasion,” as The New York Times and other mainstream U.S. news outlets claimed. The Russian troops were already in Crimea assigned to Russia’s historic Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol. Putin agreed to Crimea’s annexation partly out of fear that the naval base would otherwise fall into NATO’s hands and pose a strategic threat to Russia.
But the key point regarding the crazy Western conspiracy theory about Putin provoking the crisis so he could seize territory or distract Russians from economic troubles is that Putin only annexed Crimea because of the ouster of Yanukovych and the installation of a Russia-hating regime in Kiev. If Yanukovych had not been overthrown, there is no reason to think that Putin would have done anything regarding Crimea or Ukraine.
Yet, once the false narrative got rolling, there was no stopping it. The New York Times, The Washington Post and other leading Western publications played the same role that they did during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, accepting the U.S. government’s propaganda as fact and marginalizing the few independent journalists who dared go against the grain.
Though Obama, Merkel and other key leaders know how deceptive the Western propaganda has been, they have become captives to their governments’ own lies. For them to deviate substantially from the Official Story would open them to harsh criticism from the powerful neoconservatives and their allied media outlets.
Even a slight contradiction to NATO’s “strategic communications” brought down harsh criticism on German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier after he said: “What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmongering. … Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken.”
Excoriating Russia
So, at the Warsaw conference, the false NATO narrative had to be reaffirmed — and it was. The communiqué declared, “Russia’s aggressive actions, including provocative military activities in the periphery of NATO territory and its demonstrated willingness to attain political goals by the threat and use of force, are a source of regional instability, fundamentally challenge the Alliance, have damaged Euro-Atlantic security, and threaten our long-standing goal of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. …
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg opens the NATO Warsaw Summit in Poland, July 8, 2016. NATO heads of state agreed to send reinforced, multinational battalions to the eastern part of the alliance’s border with Russia. “These battalions will be robust and multinational,” Stoltenberg said. (NATO photo)
“Russia’s destabilising actions and policies include: the ongoing illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea, which we do not and will not recognise and which we call on Russia to reverse; the violation of sovereign borders by force; the deliberate destabilisation of eastern Ukraine; large-scale snap exercises contrary to the spirit of the Vienna Document, and provocative military activities near NATO borders, including in the Baltic and Black Sea regions and the Eastern Mediterranean; its irresponsible and aggressive nuclear rhetoric, military concept and underlying posture; and its repeated violations of NATO Allied airspace.
“In addition, Russia’s military intervention, significant military presence and support for the regime in Syria, and its use of its military presence in the Black Sea to project power into the Eastern Mediterranean have posed further risks and challenges for the security of Allies and others.”
In the up-is-down world that NATO and other Western agencies now inhabit, Russia’s military maneuvers within it own borders in reaction to NATO maneuvers along Russia’s borders are “provocative.” So, too, is Russia’s support for the internationally recognized government of Syria, which is under attack from Islamic terrorists and other armed rebels supported by the West’s Mideast allies, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and NATO member Turkey.
In other words, it is entirely all right for NATO and its members to invade countries at will, including Iraq, Libya and Syria, and subvert others as happened in Ukraine and is still happening in Syria. But it is impermissible for any government outside of NATO to respond or even defend itself. To do so amounts to a provocation against NATO – and such hypocrisy is accepted by the West’s mainstream news media as the way that the world was meant to be.
And those of us who dare point out the lies and double standards must be “Moscow stooges,” just as those of us who dared question the Iraq WMD tales were dismissed as “Saddam apologists” in 2003.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
I miss the days when NATO used to pick on entities (Serbia, Afghanistan) that couldn’t fight back.
This business of tickling the tail of a REAL dragon that CAN fight back has got me scared to death, and furious that I am so willfully endangered, along with all whom, and that, I love.
DECEMBER 25, 2015 NATO: SEEKING RUSSIA’S DESTRUCTION SINCE 1949
In 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, U.S. president George H. W. Bush through his secretary of state James Baker promised Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev that in exchange for Soviet cooperation on German reunification, the Cold War era NATO alliance would not expand “one inch” eastwards towards Russia.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/25/nato-seeking-russias-destruction-since-1949/
June 28, 2016 US-NATO Prepares for War against Russia. Washington’s Objective: Create Divisions between Europe and Russia
The NATO has increased its presence in Eastern Europe 13 times for the latest years. In order to stop Russia’s revival, the US unwinds military conflicts plots at every possible way.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-nato-prepares-for-war-against-russia-washingtons-objective-create-divisions-between-europe-and-russia/5533377
This is totally irrelevant but I just noticed that there are a lot of “Smiths” on this site – Eliot Smith, Zachary Smith and David Smith – are you guys related? I know totally irrelevant but just an observation that’s all and no insult is intended.
Totally invented name for me. When I first got on the internet tubes I quickly figured out that giving too much personal information was a really bad idea. On one forum an Army officer was posting under his own name out East only to have a fanatical opponent drive several hundred miles to confront his superior at his base.
Even when I give family examples I often change the age, sex, and States of the people involved.
Zachary Smith… that is probably a good practice. I wasn’t sure if it was like a “John Doe” thing, since I believe that Smith is one of the most common last names (at least in our countries) or if there were so many people with the last name Smith. It was just an observation but I do get why not to share too much information especially in the day of the NSA. That is why I do not share my last name and instead abbreviate it. Thanks for the reply and I know that my statement was basically nonsense – just an observation is all.
While we’re analyzing the asinine axioms and bellicose bloviation of those nattering nabobs at NATO…
weren’t you guys on a TV show with a robot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_ewGNA6Ubk
Abe… that’s funny. Or we could look at Agent Smith from the Matrix (again, totally irrelevant):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUAie-X3u8I
“Do we have a deal, Mr. Reagan?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7BuQFUhsRM
“time’s tide will smother you”
The Smiths – “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” from Meat Is Murder (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIyXJxPFVz4
The Smiths’ second album was released in February 1985, right after the first State of the Union address of President Ronald Reagan’s second term, when he articulated the “Reagan Doctrine” and promoted the “Strategic Defense Initiative” (that was re-branded as “Ballistic Missile Defense” by President Bill Clinton in 1993)
The Smiths released “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” as a single in July 1985.
http://www.vulgarpicture.com/images/smiths/hi/2008/hi_2008_singlesbox_thatjoke2.jpg
The sleeve was put together using an uncredited photograph of a child actor from the Ukrainian film “The Enchanted Desna” by Soviet Ukrainian film director Julia Solntseva.
The film was based on the autobiographical novel Zacharovana Desna (1955), a literary masterpiece by Solntseva’s husband, Soviet Ukrainian film director Aleksandr Dovzhenko.
After Dovzhenko died of a heart attack in 1956, Solntseva continued his legacy by producing films of her own and completing projects Dovzhenko was not able to create.
Solntseva shot The Ukrainian Trilogy, an amalgam of illusion and reality, legend and Ukrainian nationalism, in Sovcolor, 70mm and stereophonic sound. This approximated to the way Dovzhenko had seen them in his mind’s eye. “I have enjoyed planning my future work for the panoramic screen,” he wrote. “In 1930, I saw such a giant screen in Paris and it made a profound impression on me. The long horizontal shape suits the elements in my next film: broad steppes, stretching waters of a sea, airplanes, the idea of great spaces.”
Poem of the Sea (1958), which tells of the construction of an artificial sea, necessitating the flooding of a village, is remarkable for its confidence, grandeur and glowing beauty. The Flaming Years (1961), a series of fluid, imaginative and affecting images, which focus on the wartime odyssey of a gallant Ukrainian soldier who survives the war to return to his brave schoolteacher sweetheart, won the Best Director award at Cannes in 1962. The Trilogy concludes with The Enchanted Desna (1964), which depicts the Ukraine of Dovzhenko’s youth: an indelible image of a rural paradise.
“The Enchanted Desna” was one of Jean-Luc Godard’s favorite films.
All this is totally irrelevant. But I just noticed.
Mr Parry,
Excellent article.
However in looking for the reasons take a look at the Executive Orders imposing sanctions and the underlying statutes.
Executive Order 13660 of March 6, 2014
Executive Order 13661 of March 16, 2014
Executive Order 13662 of March 20, 2014
Executive Order 13685 of December 19, 2014
50 USC 1601 and 1701
The POUS is on thin ground with the sanctions imposed upon Russia.
The POUS only has the power to impose sanctions if there is a “national emergency”. In his Executive Orders the POUS has thus stated repeatedly that Russia’s actions constitute “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” and this constitutes the “national emergency”.
This is the reason that official Washington cannot admit there is no such threat as no threat means no sanctions which is what this is all about.
The “disastrous Iraq War” was not really a disaster at all. In fact it was a success. From stand point of bottom line of “Big Arms” Iraq was a resounding success (as were Viet Nam, Libya, Syria, War on Drugs etc etc). US arms industry is significant contributor to US GDP and contributes to tax base (by taxing the the hundreds of thousands of working stiffs who build the stuff). The whole exercise is profits and campaign contributions. Think Tanks provide the rationale, corporate news spreads the propaganda, politicians receive their campaign contributions and bingo: unleash the target practice and unload the excess ordnance. Not hard to understand. Question is how long can it last and how can you stop it, assuming this is something you do not really want.
Whenever I encounter some yammerhead whose article/blog speaks of Russian Aggression in Ukraine, I tend to go into a min-rage. In fact, I’ve recently deleted a goodly number of Bookmarks for that reason alone. If they don’t understand the basics – or are lying about something so obvious, they’re simply not worth a bit of my time.
Kremlin stooge, Saddam apologist and for Jews in Palestine who criticize the genocidal and apartheid policy, they are “self hating Jews”. The nice thing is that day by day more and more people wake up. CIA trolls gatekeeping the comment threads in online news platforms have been overwhelmed. Soon, when want and deprivations kick in, people will override their fear and the propaganda imposed cognitive dissonance will evaporate. Then the Empire will truly be finished.
Thank you, Robert Parry, for your persistence in telling Ukraine’s story truthfully.
Get a load of this stunning pile of BS by the lying NATO maniacs:
https://newcoldwar.org/war-summit-poland-statement-nato-ukraine-commission/
Up is down, black is white, apples fall up, a vacuum pump blows, and everything we don’t like is Russia’s fault and will continue to be Russia’s fault. Frankly, they give absolutely no reason for Russia to cooperate with them in any way whatsoever. If NATO hadn’t already been allowed to become entrenched in Ukraine, Russia’s optimal solution might well be to kick the Nazis out of Kiev, give the Donbass, plus Odessa, their independence, and let the rest of the place rot. Too late for merely that, however, with Uncle Sam champing at the bit for war after two years of basically colonizing Ukraine. I don’t see why the Russians continue to ship gas to or through Ukraine. Always hoping that Uncle Sam will relent, I suppose. He didn’t relent versus Iran, even when he signed a treaty promising to end sanctions. He welched on the deal before the ink dried, and strong-armed Europe into complicity. He shafted Cuba with an embargo for 60 years. PCR is right, my country is run by a pack of scheming warmongering liars and Washington is coming for Russia with a nuclear first strike unless Putin pre-emptively shuts off the West’s gas supply and destroys the missile launchers in Romania and Poland. That’s not “aggression,” it’s self-defense, especially if you spell out the consequences to the NATO aggressors in advance. It’s self defense “American style,” as we do it all the time. I feel so well defended from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and several other hapless countries in America’s crosshairs. The statement by NATO that I cited is tacitly a declaration of war against Russia as it stands. Where else can Russia go from here, short of giving Sam their wallet and keys to the car? I guess we all die when Russia decides it can’t eat any more American shit. So, stop forcing them, you damned fools.
Hillsheep don’t even realize what they are supporting! NATO is currently duplicating Germany’s Operation Barbarossa. This small neofascist cabal that has seized control of our government over the past 40 years has gone far enough.
“Ever wonder how German citizens in the 1930’s allowed the rise of a brutal dictator and the emergence of a military dictatorship? Actually, you’re watching it happen right now in the United States. This is exactly how it happened in Nazi Germany.
“The comparison is no longer metaphorical. It is literal. The U.S. government is following the recipe to the letter: The selling of fear to create a reaction where citizens demand greater ‘security,’ the centralization of power, the suspension of civil rights, the defiance of accepted international law, the control of the press through threats and propaganda, the excusing of war crimes committed by our own military leaders, the arrogance of believing the whole world should think, and act, and govern just like us. These are the ideas of madmen, and yet today, they are now official policy of the United States government.”
Mike Adams, America officially becomes a dictatorship, 2012
NATO was formed after World War II to rebuild Germany, many Nazi supporters included, and in order to complete Hitler’s planned destruction of the USSR. The next and final solution will be World War III starting with nuclear missile attacks launched from Poland, Baltic States, neo-Nazi Ukraine, Romania, Turkey, and elsewhere, all key allies led by the US war machine.
I’d say we need a military coup in Washington, but our generals seem gung-ho for World War III. Any people’s revolution would be crushed within hours, so prepare to die in a nuclear holocaust of our own making.
Realist, you accurately described our future in two sentences.
Great piece, only one tiny detail missing on Maidan’s coup smoking gun: Burisma Holding, the largest Ukrainian gaz and oil company. Hunter Biden (son of current vice president Joe Bidden) and Devon Archer (former senior adviser to Kerry) got appointed on the board of director only 2 months after the coup: http://burisma.com/en/board-of-directors/
Not to mention almost 40 tons of gold from the Ukrainian Treasury, most of which the so called corrupt pro-Russian President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych accumulated for his country. During the coup this gold was loaded onto a Boeing Jumbo by little black men (just like the so called little green men in Crimea) and the gold disappeared never to be seen again. Maybe it ended up in the Clinton Foundation to pay the crime family’s two pensions.
How does Europe see Americans? As “the refuge of Europe”. How does the third world see Europeans? As former colonists. Where to from here. Cold War. And what of NATO? There to ensure it. Is there more? A wider range of proxy wars. Beyond this? Mayhem and “Murder most foul”
I wonder how many of the commenters here are traitors like Parry, who know the truth and lie for Russia, and how many are truly Russian. The time when people could legitimately believe that it was possible that Russia isnt the instigator has passed as all evidence has continually proven that it is the majority of the problem.
Evidence? Isn’t it customary to supply some of that fabled evidence when you mention it? Or is it the same kind as Mr Kerry’s evidence on MH17 shoot-down, of the good old type: “I have the evidence and I know, but I would have to kill you if I told you or gave you any of my evidence”. The evidence in the public domain is that the coup in Ukraine was organized by the US Ziocons with some help from their puppet EU representatives. The Ziocons even appointed the post-coup Prime Minister of Ukraine: “Yats our man” and have been controlling this disaster of a country ever since.
Now regarding traitors, many a self interested scoundrel will accuse others who oppose paying the tribute in blood and treasure to wage war to be “traitors”, whilst his refuge is “patriotism”. In other words, such “patriots” want others to pay for and die in their wars, whilst they keep waving the flags and beating their chests (and maybe making a profit too).
“Walker” is not a real person, it is “Walkers” masters sending a blunt warning.
I see you have bolstered your case with a plethora of facts. Amazing you could work them all into but a single volume of text.
Now, why don’t you go tell your boss, Barack Obama, that he and John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Paul Krugman and the rest of that supposedly liberal menagerie that I used to faithfully support are nothing but a pack of filthy and very dangerous liars who will pay for these outrages at the ballot box for a long time to come. The things I loathe most above all else are being lied to and betrayed. You and the swine now in control of that party have won the daily double.
And, can it with the nonsense about anyone who disagrees with your false narrative being a Russian, a Putin-bot or a traitor. It’s idiots like you who have betrayed American ideals. How can you live with yourself, supporting all the suffering and chaos being spread across the planet by the government of this country? You must be a psychopath, even if you are personally benefiting from the madness.
Ironically, the ‘traitors’ you speak of here, are the ones who believe in the U.S. Constitution. These ‘traitors’ can read, and learned how our first President George Washington warned us, to avoid entanglements with foreign nations. In other words, our dearly beloved Founder had good sense, unlike today’s power hungry bunch we now have, looking over us. No, the traitors are not to found on Mr Parry’s excellent website here, these traitors you speak of, are the very people who have plunged our great country into a world of endless war, and who have whipped the country up with their blowback of enabling endless terror to abound wherever good people gather. There is no reason to stoke the flames of war. Why, we could be living in a time of unknown peace, if it were not for the few who seek short term gain. Between, a military industrial complex who needs fed like a hungry beast, and by our great country defending a nation who shouldn’t be considered a nation in the Middle East, there is nothing patriotic about it. No the true patriots are to be found on this site, and you would be wise to listen and learn, and then you too might see America for how it could and should be. We can do better.
Joe Tedesky… It always makes me cross-eyed when I read someone call someone else a “traitor” or accuse them of being “un-American” if they are not in lockstep with the government. I can imagine “Walker”, in 2003, calling Mr. Parry, and the ilk, traitors for questioning the Iraq War – turns out that they were very right in questioning the Iraq War – a war based on lies that resulted in the deaths of 1/2 Million to 1 Million Iraqis (not too mention those suffering due to the effects of depleted uranium in places like Fallujah) and is one of the greatest crimes of our time. There are just so many points in time such as after the atomic bombs were dropped and the New York Times in complete denial that radiation was still killing people and calling anything that said different “Japanese Propaganda”. On and on this goes and people continue to wave the flag calling themselves “patriots” totally ignoring history or oblivious to what has occurred – maybe even accepting “red scares” as justification.
Then yesterday, I was reading an article on the Intercept called “Newt Gingrich Pals Around With Terrorists Saddam Hussein Once Armed”. Newt Gingrich had to fly to Paris to appear at a gala celebration for the Mojahedin-e Khalq, or People’s Mujahedin, an Iranian exile group that wants Washington’s backing for regime change in Iran. I then wonder how people can be so bloody stupid because it is support for groups like this that get us to the point that we are with Ukraine, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa etc. How can people be so stupid? It just makes me so angry that people can still buy into the propaganda dispelled by our governments against us and then people like “Walker” come waving the flag to denounce anyone that even questions our government’s motives. Stupid, stupid, stupid…
Joe L when it comes to our politicians doing what Newt did, well these politico hacks are without a doubt the traitorous ones by their very nature. The Clintons are very well documented as to their selling their influence to everyone, including foreign nations. Not bad to be a gatekeeper who for a little sum, will open up the gate for whoever, and whenever the cost of admittance is guaranteed to their liking.
Kennedy’s response to the Cuban missile crisis while guiding our nation through a narrow divide between peace and a nuclear confrontation with Russia, was considered to be a traitorous act by some amongst him within his own administration, and for this he sealed his demise. Thinking back to our supporting LBJ and then Nixon, and how this support was considered a patriotic pledge to our country’s very existence, is now an oxymoron of sorts of the worst kind.
My mother use to tell me, how one lie only leads to another lie, and eventually everyone gets caught in their lie. What my mother wasn’t thinking about at the time, was when the liars are given cover from their lying by a news media who has lost the journalistic integrity to report the news in an honest way. That is why, America not only needs serious campaign reform, but at the same time America requires an independent news reporting agency who will not hide certain elements from transparency, but a media which will expose the fraudsters for what they are.
Joe Tedesky… Sometimes I am a little hit and miss on Kennedy though he was a much better President than almost all that came before or after. That being said it should be Kennedy that we should be examining right now and the line in the sand that he drew with regards to the Soviets putting missiles in Cuba (even though the US had missiles in Turkey) even threatening nuclear war. This is very relevant in our understanding of NATO expansion and the dangers of doing exercises in Eastern Europe emulating invading Russia. I am sure you have seen the bumper stickers – “What would Jesus do?” well in the same vein in regards to NATO actions in Eastern Europe – “What would Kennedy do?” I believe that we in the west need to get off our high horse because frankly with bombing in 7 countries, covert operations in 75 countries, and “torturing some folks” we have no right to lecture other countries about “human rights” but instead we need to be humbled to try to walk in someone else’s shoes.
One other thing that I find interesting about Kennedy’s times was the fact that the Joint Chiefs of Staff came up with a plan to murder Americans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba, Operation Northwoods, and thankfully Kennedy did not go along with it BUT the fact that people within in the US Administration (in the 1960’s) could come up with such a plan has always made me wonder about 9/11 and if I witnessed the fruition of Operation Northwoods because it certainly presented the “Pearl Harbor” moment spoken about by the “Project for a New American Century” – maybe we will never know. But overall it is deeply disturbing that the government could come up with such a plan but it also shows the severe lack of regard that our government have for us, the governed, let alone those in other countries.
Joe L., I need to be careful here when talking about JFK. For instance, each year curious journalists thru the FOIA continually discover JFK’s heading in the direction of him withdrawing U.S. Forces out of Vietnam. All this is for the good, but JFK actually increased troops during his short time in office. George Washington for all the good that was about him, was still named by the Native Americans, as ‘Town Destroyer’, and traitors among his ranks were executed in front of a firing squad of that traitors dearest comrades in the revolution. So, it’s never easy to paint a mural with the same brush.
I’m not that original, and you may already know about this, but go on YouTube and type in to the search box this…..’Lonegunman March 2001 Pilot’ this show was a tv pilot where the plot centered around a government inside job to crash a plane into the WTC. Vince Gilligan of Breaking Bad, Call Saul fame, was involved in this production.
Okay, just for the shakes and giggles of it, should we all be looking for prophetic signs of things to come? In one way America looks to be very powerful, and yet on the other hand America could be seen as a country in its finally days of greatness. Will the U.S. accept a new reality of it sharing space among say a strong Russia, and a slightly bigger economic powerhouse such as China, and become the better leader nation for it? What will it take for America to clean house, and rid itself of the warmonger and the rabid Neocon, who have infested themselves within the inside of America’s State and Defense Departments? If either a provoked Russia or China were to slap back at the U.S. in some far off place on the globe, would America contain itself long enough to stay rational and pursue a solution through diplomacy rather than retaliate and launch WWIII? JFK by his Cuban missile crisis, and Washington’s Farewell Address, would say to me, that they, for the good, preferred diplomacy.
The world has grown too small for war. If you don’t buy into that feeling, then just go look at the collateral damage assessments and conclusions, and then give me your answer…. Earth has become not too small, but too tiny for war.
Joe L read this about patriotism;
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/07/11/fewer-americans-feeling-proud-their-country.html
We are not a lone!
Joe Tedesky… I admit that even as a Canadian, I don’t feel patriotic at all these days. Personally, I don’t believe that we should be in the Middle East at all and I don’t like us sending troops to Eastern Europe, on Russia’s borders, for NATO exercises to battle “Russian Aggression”. I also believe that if we were as fair and peaceful as we believe ourselves to be then why are we supporting Saudi Arabia? Why are we supporting Israel, an occupier, when at the same time the Liberal Government is trying to mend fences with our First Nations, people that our ancestors stole land from and occupied?
Now don’t get me wrong I don’t hate the military but I believe that our military should mainly only be used to defend our borders not galavant around the world pulling off regime change and destabilizing whole regions. That being said I know that I also don’t view “Remembrance Day” the same anymore – November 11th. I have started to wonder what is the point to commemorate this day because we learn nothing from it. November 11th signifying the end of WW1, the “war to end all wars”, and yet we let war continue. This is where I believe that Smedley Butler had it right all those years ago realizing that war was a racket for profit. Anyway, I used to be proud to show the Canadian flag off at one time, believing that we were a peaceful nation, but no more…
50 point headlines saying “OMG! PUTIN!” are not evidence. When our State Department cites “social networks” as its source of “proof” – that does not mean our State Department proved anything. What it does indicate is that our government is dumping smelly propaganda all over us and expecting us to like the smell.
All-American here, fellow. One branch of the family tree predates the landing at Plymouth Rock – they were part of the Nieuw-Amsterdam gang in New York. (My Mohawk and Cherokee people go back a little further than that…)
So where do you hail from – Ukraine? Israel?
Article indeed nails it=the coordinated lies, propaganda campaign, and on and on.
The question I have and have had for many months is when will the lying stop, or in other words, what will it take to expose the lies as to the absurdity of the liars, i.e. our governments, our “leaders.” To my mind, if the ‘leaders’ continue to lie as they have been, then they are frauds and should be called out for their lies. But that would take a free and responsible press and that does not exist. Robert and others continue to attempt the exposure but does it have any effect. I do not know-the media is all about access and the cia has often bragged that it controls what is published-probably true.
Just watched an interview with James Risen-he was hounded for seven years for attempts to publish information that Bush and then Obama, the most transparent admin, did not want published. At the end of the day, it is very depressing but do not give up, Robert. You do an enormous service.
Let’s hear it for the naysayers, those nattering nabobs of negativism as somebody real smart once called them. Yeah, so the only things that seem to be going right are the reported outcomes of drone strikes and that our NATO buddies are looking at spending some real pocket change on what very well might be ‘NATO standard’ weapons made-in-the-USA.
Glorioski, actually getting paid for weapons might be a pleasant ‘refresco’ to constantly giving them away to needy liberators. Getting off the public tit might just be he ‘spur’ the war industries need to start moving towards contadora rates for the staff to save some significant government borrowing..
Somebody needs to be telling the emperor that his testacles are shocking the childern.
I think NATO’s leadership is both insane and lying. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, and I think they both are symptoms of a greater sickness, a malignancy that has infected Europe and The West since before Western hubris gained the advantages needed to export death and destruction to the entire world. I’ll identify what I think may be three major aspects of this sickness.
I think Christianity is one, with its superstitious belief in a split personality fantasy god, the merciless Old Testament god demanding vengeance and its compassionate Jesus god demanding its adherents personally live ‘good’ lives. This split creates a frankenstein monster in denial of its own monstrousness. That’s some sick shit right there, and the requirement of ‘faith’ locks away the key to a cure for the sickness. Unfortunately, it’s evangelical nature sent this monstrosity sailing to every shore.
Secondly, I think the symptoms themselves, insanity and lying, have become an existential engine driving the sickness further into the recesses of the body of NATO and The West. The lie currently that is self-told and communicated outwardly is that Western colonialism was a good or okay thing for its time. In other words, “We’re off the hook for fucking over the world because ‘that was THEN, and we’re all cool now, right?’. And, in conjunction, the enormous continuing derivative success of its colonialism even to this day has driven it mad with delusions of grandeur, such that it’s addicted to the power and glory of its previous and ongoing successes. More sick shit. In other words, why should it stop encroaching and conquering and exploiting now, when it’s worked so well (for The West) all these centuries? I mean, “What could go wrong?”
And I think that greed might have germinated the illness in the first place and is still the germ driving and replicating the infection today and forever, having become part of the mitochondrial nature of the monster. There is no cure for greed and no cure for NATO and The West’s sickness, just like there was no cure for Nazi Germany’s sickness except death. There’s gonna be a whole lot of sick before it’s all over.
Practicably, in 2016, the fact that NATO held its meeting in the member state of Poland (Warsaw Pact, anybody?) speaks to both the insanity and the lying. NATO and The West, now self-exonerated, lied to the Soviet Union about extending to Russia’s borders. Accompanying and completing this previous deceit is the fact that it is absolutely insane for NATO and The West to have done so, and to continue doing so, extending their dare even further, building ostensible Alamos to be seen from all the watchtowers along Russia’s great western borderlands. Call it Alamos, tripwires, sacrificial soldiers, whatever, but it’s crazy to do so and increasingly self-deceitful to deny to itself it’s not crazy.
Well, the good old polytheistic Pagans said “whom the Gods (and Goddesses) would destroy, They first make mad (sometimes with power).” My guess is each “power group” (Trans-Atlantic Bloc, Asian Bloc, Muslim Bloc (currently down on its’ Imperial luck [or Karma as the case may be]), Pan-African Bloc (striving to “grow legs” but cut off by, first, the Muslim Bloc, then the colonial Trans-Atlantic Bloc), and any other Bloc I’ve over-looked, are circling around each other, like that scene in “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” daring one another to be the first to lay down their “Empire-Building” Zeitgeist. Nobody consults the Gods anymore, for how They plan to manage Their creation and changing Their “Zeitgeists” that we must play with, because, y’know, we all just know for a certainty that They don’t exist, right? (his eyes & Third Eye tightly closed)
Latest Dutch News on MH17- http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/…/rutte-ik-ga-niet-zelf-naar-radarb… Dutch Prime Minister questioned on lack of Ukraine’s MH-17 Radar Data. From Google translate: Rutte: I did not ask Poroshenko about MH17 radar data.
It’s been almost two years since the terrible disaster of flight MH17 in which 298 people were killed. At the NATO summit in Warsaw Prime Minister Mark Rutte spoke with Ukrainian President Porosjenko.
There was plenty to discuss: Like why did Ukraine not provide primary radar images of the crash to the DSB researchers? Survivors had written a letter to Porosjenko, but after six months there was still no answer. Political reporter Fons Lambie spoke with Rutte after his meeting with the Ukrainian president.
1. What have you discussed with Porosjenko about MH17?
“Oddly enough, I always discuss very little with him. Because I think it is of utmost importance to get the Research Council and now the Prosecution doing survey work. If I, apart from those studies also go make calls, I reduce the chance that they will succeed in a conviction. Because then I have been influenced by politics, I have exploited a political direction to what I think happened. ”
2. So you have not talked with Poroshenko about the lack of primary radar images from Ukrainian authorities? Ukraine has not provide researchers their primary radar. According to experts, these images are very important. They include, in addition to flight MH17, the rocket and may even display other aircraft.
“I’ve never talked about it because as soon as I did the prosecution would call me and say we need your help to gain access to an institution or a countries images or information, if we could, we wouldtake immediate action, but we will only do that on the instructions of the Public Prosecutor. We will never do it on our own accord. Then we are less likely to have a successful prosecution. ”
3. You could also say: I am the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. I can do everything. I can get that stone unturned.
“As soon as I myself am going to say: I wish to retrieve these images, there is political interference in the investigation Then the perpetrators of this terrible disaster are less likely to be brought to justice, I can not do it, so I have only one task… : I support the research if they ask me, but in am in no way going to get in the way. ”
4. Do you understand that some people think: Rutte is not doing anything at all regarding MH17?
“The reverse is true. If I was going to do research myself, I stand to make the chance that there could be reduced sentences for the perpetrators”
5. The Prosecution has asked Russia: can you give us those rough, primary radar images. So far, they have received nothing. The Prosecution can already called: Can you help us with the Russians?
“No. Once they do that, then we do that, but the Prosecution states that:…. They are the independent investigation, together with the other MH17 countries concerned When they call, we come into action, but we’re not going to do it ourselvesf.”
6. Six months ago, the survivors have written a letter to Poroshenko. They had no answer. Shouldn’t Poroshenko be held accountable?
“Last night, a letter arrived at our embassy in Kiev. So I just called the representative of the survivors and reported that the letter is now being translated and it will come their way.”
7. It’s been six months and theres still no answer for the relatives. Isn’t that a little late for Poroshenko?
“If I now again review’m going to give … I think there vanalles of Possibly the same as you, but I will not say all I have only one interest:… There was a terrible disaster I want those who have done this to be persecuted and put behind bars. I’ll do anything, anything at all, to make sure I don’t reduce those chances.
The EUkes are delighted to let this pooch fall into the category of ‘legend’. “Putin did it’ was the last memnonic laid before the sheeple . Why mess them up with unnecessary details.
All of this stuff that has our diplomats strutting their hubris around, like border dominance and first strike capability, probably looks good on a Pentagon power point presentation. Will these same brainiac diplomats send us an Instagram of the look on their faces, as a Russian Kalibr K Club missile comes whistling through their office window right pass their snobby noses.
We the people should sue Microsoft for ever inventing power point, because since our elite warmonger state and defense screwballs got their hands on something like that, and well now they can better describe their new realities to each other until their warring hearts contend, and the rest is the world’s current events.
The U.S. should slow down, and rethink it’s position here. Just because you spend more on military hardware than the next nine nations, doesn’t mean you spend your money wisely, and it may one day surprise you when you find out how poorly you had spend it, when you end up not winning.
Read this link I’m posting below. Represent Tulsi Gabbard is sponsoring bill HR4108 to end America’s war on the Assasd government for regime change. So far, in my opinion this Rep. Gabbard is turning out to be the real deal. She is now asking for all of us to get behind her, by calling your local U.S. Representative and telling that representative to vote for her bill HR4108….. Gabbard wants to send a message to the new (whoever it turns out to be) President before he or she should take office.
https://www.sott.net/article/321887-Congresswoman-Tulsi-Gabbard-on-US-intervention-in-Syria-and-the-road-to-hell
…………………………………………………………………………….
The most I heard of what Obama’s trip to Polland was all about, was that many thought he belonged in Dallas. Think about that for a moment. Regardless of how sad, or racially problematic, Americans are to see no good, nor bad, of what Obama’s Polland trip was all about. We are a country living inside of a bubble. Everything we do in this country is a bubble. Besides the media stoking the embers in such a way as to keep everyone divided just enough, and then rush a false narrative pass the easily guided public more than enough to control their collective mass response is the speciality of our MSM.
I’ll know when times are a changing, and this is when I quit seeing Putin’s picture with some screwy caption suggesting Putin is saber rattling, or he is shirtless and in America we are allowed no maybe encouraged to make fun of Russian men going shirtless….sorry, but when the day comes,,and I see a headline over Putin’s photo then I will know it’s safe to come out.
Oh BTW, the U.S. has a crummy track record when it comes to living up to treaty’s.
agreed, shes the real deal
Bill, yes she seems, so far, to be that deal.
Call your congressperson, tell them to help bring HR4108 to the floor, and to vote yes. ,
EXCEPT FOR ISRAEL…
Of course similar reasoning is never applied to Israel. Israel
can bomb anywhere it wants, dispossess Palestinians
of their homes, massacre and murder them, annex whatever
they wish. To oppose such acts would be…well, “antisemitic”??
Not incidentally, the very thought of the amount of cash that
American political parties would lose is shocking.
As to the above NATO summit, obviously the US with all
the “cards” (economic etc.) BRIBED its sycophantic NATO
so-called “partners”. The US doesn’t even need to
express the bribe in public. With all those weapons to NATO,
economic benefits from needless bases…the US doesn’t
even need to be specific. The command from the US is
that NATO nations on the receiving end must be OBEDIENT.
As others have written this is no longer a post WW II
“North Atlantic Treaty Organization”. It fights wherever
and whenever the US wishes it to do so.
I fully agree that NATO—all of it, little and today’s vastly
expanded “NATO”—should be disbanded.
Of course, the defense contractors would lose a “market”
for killing machines. Simultaneously, I have always felt
that a jobs program (not a jobs training program) should
be designed and implemented and well funded for those
hundreds of thousands who have spent their lives making
bigger and better killing machines. For their situation
see William Grieder’s FORTRESS AMERICA.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Pèter, I have experience to know how easy it would be to convert weapons over into plow shares. The sad part is convincing people to do it. Brainwashing, discontent, and rivalries, is what our country produces better than anything else, and then there’s Israel.
Gary Leupp, explains the lie that is being told, about Russian aggression. He also notes how the American public, outside of hearing Trump demand we leave NATO (if that’s what he meant), is listening to nothing else. What a shame that Americans have no idea, to how our leadership is stoking the flames of discontent. Read what Mr Leupp has to say.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/12/putins-threats-to-the-baltics-a-myth-to-promote-nato-unity/
General Philip M. Breedlove served as the 17th Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) of NATO Allied Command Operations from May 2013 until May 4, 2016.
Hacked emails from Breedlove’s Gmail account were posted on a new website called DC Leaks
http://dcleaks.com/index.php/portfolio_page/pmbreedlove/
In a series of messages in 2014, Breedlove corresponded with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark, Senior Advisor to the Atlantic Council Harlan Ullman (principal author of the military doctrine of “shock and awe” or “rapid dominance” based on the use of “overwhelming decisive force”), and others in his effort to cajole the Obama administration to adopt a more aggressive military stance against Russia over the situation in Ukraine.
I find it quite funny that American leaders found it necessary to invent the clumsy and pompous phrase “shock and awe”, when what they were really describing already had a well-established military name: “Blitzkrieg”.
For some reason they were averse to using that term.
There was never any war-fighting doctrine in Germany named blitzkrieg, and the word has no coherant meaning. The Kraut used “swerepunkt”(sp) “piercing attack”, an invalid application of Mobile Warfare doctrine in a Positional Warfare environment(Soviet Deep Operations doctrine is the valid one for Positional). Shock And Awe is similarly incoherant, and merely means a sneak attack on the leadership of a nation, USA tried and failed in 2003 to kill Saddam(but did kill innocent civilians). Shock And Awe did not impress Iraqi civilians, who within a week spontaneously organized highly effective irregular operations. The Iraqi resistance destroyed no less that 82 M1 Abrams tanks and more than 200 other armored vehicles(suppressed history in US). Moral? If you are stupid enough to start a fight, you’re gonna get one(listen NATO).
You’re quibbling to avoid the main point, which is US war mongering is a lot like Nazi Germany’s war mongering.
Besides that, there was no credible resistance from the Iraqis. The US had to create ISIS for Christ’s sake!
Right, right, right.
Occasionally, some of us “conspiracy theorists” take the Parry “fact-free claims” comments personally. I hereby react as a confirmed 9/11 truther with a reference to the 47-page affidavit I filed in Gallop v Cheney, where the 2nd Circuit judges issued SANCTIONS against us, dishonorably, by ignoring into oblivion our most potent and unanswerable factual assertions about the former vice president, unable to bring themselves to write the name “Cheney” in the body of any of their decisions. “Conclusion of Gallop v Cheney” at vealetruth.com
Bill, thanks first for being one of the two or three commenters on this site who dare to identify themselves. Second, thanks for sticking up for “truthers,” as opposed to liars and ostriches (psycho-deniers). Third, I cannot find the text on your site that you referred to in your comment.
As long as Parry (and others such as Noam Chomsky) continue to write fine articles such as this telling as much of the truth as possible without mentioning (or presumably even seeing) the elephant in the room (9/11), I am willing to also pretend I don’t see it if that will move us forward. Moving forward as I see it is in the first place avoiding 1) nuclear war and 2) environmental catastrophe.
This is why I wrote this
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Age-of-Constipation-an-by-Michael-David-Morr-Dialogue_Issues_People_People-160612-577.html
which has had zero effect on the constipation but I would still rather be constipated than dead.
Anyone of course who actually wants facts on 9/11 needs only to go to the Consensus 9/11 website you link to on your website and to which you are a contributor, or read virtually any of the work of David Ray Griffin. I think there are a good number of commenters here who are on our side of the looking glass — to mix the metaphor. Actually, maybe not a bad metaphor if you consider that the looking glass might be the only thing keeping the elephant from wreaking havoc in the porcelain shop.
David Ray Griffin and Consensus 9/11 are well referenced. I would also strongly recommend “Black 9/11: Money, Motive, and Technology”. “The Anthrax Deception” by Graeme MacQueen is another telling read. Also, “Conspiracy Theory in America” by Lance deHaven-Smith.
here Robert tells it exactly like it is….
I believe if I were POTUS, I would open myself to harsh criticism rather than subject innocent people and the environment to a world based on lies and war.
Let’s stop the madness at its roots! End NATO.
“I believe if I were POTUS, I would open myself to harsh criticism rather than subject innocent people and the environment to a world based on lies and war”.
A sentiment that does you credit, Nancy. Unfortunately, being that kind of person, you could never be POTUS. Only a psychopath would want the job, and only an extremely wealthy and influential, fanatically motivated, charming and deceitful psychopath could even become a candidate.
– Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. made this point with his usual flair and humour when he remarked that:
“There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nutcases want to be president”.
I think only a nutcase would believe that nuttery.
Stop falling for the MSM propaganda, and stop apologizing for the crimes committed by US Presidents.
Yes. NATO should have been dissolved when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved.
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/tremblay=1093.htm
That it was not and was rather transformed from a defensive to an offensive organization means that trouble lays ahead.
How about some “factual” sourced detailed references about Western destabilization in the Ukraine? Article’s conclusions seem to be based on “she said, he said” documentation?? Methinks both Russia (Putin) and the West are equally pushing the envelope of conflict for their own geopolitical strategies.
I do not find this article’s rationale connecting the propaganda preceding Cheney’s War (Iraq WMDs) to NATO’s current actions to be very compelling. ( I find current relations between Russia and the West on the military side to be Cold-Warish, e.g., buzzing planes and ships).
So how does a citizen ever hear the full unvarnished facts of what is going on? Not even the media is immune to self-serving disinformation. Sad commentary, huh.
Putin and the West are equally pushing the envelope of conflict for their own geopolitical strategies?
There is no logic in terms of geopolitical strategy that would compel Putn to push the envelope of conflict. Putin comes across to my understanding as a man able to deal with complexity as a true international partner while adhering to the rightful national interests of his people, including defense of their sovereign territory and defending against corporate oligarchical takeover of the economy.
Yes, Tom, your commentary is sad, indeed. You cannot recognize that US- backed NATO military operations on Russia’s border are provocations, i.e., aggressive in nature and that the Russian operations are on their own border, i.e., defensive in nature. I wonder if you would be so “fair and balanced” (“both Russia (Putin) and the West are equally pushing the envelope”) if Russia were holding military operations on the border of the US and the US responded by going on all-out military alert? Would you say “both the West (Obama) and Russia are equally pushing the envelope”?
tom,
Seriously, you don’t know how to google or how apply critical thinking abilities to what you read?
If you keep asking to be spoon fed, you’re going to keep eating mush.
As always, Robert, you’ve nailed it. A most enjoyable read. Please keep up the brilliant work.
Mr.Parry’s well-documented counterpoint of truth spoken to power is much needed and invaluable.
“Insanity or lies”, Mr. Parry?
Let’s try insanity AND lies. This is America 2016 about to enter into preparations for WW III under a power hungry tyrant, the likes of which the world has not seen before. Controlled by Israel, and with a compliant, apathetic electorate who will realise all too late the mistake they have made by installing Clinton, the Jewish puppet, overseeing a neocon network of spies, fifth columnists and anti-American operatives. America as we all once knew and respected it, has four months to live.
NATO as is well known, is operating 29 missile bases bristling with weapons, surrounding Russia for “defensive” purposes.
There’s lie #1.
Who has the time to count the hundreds of others. Saving time, you can read them every day in the headlines of the Washington Post and the New York Times and anything controlled by the Likudist, Rupert Murdoch.
Your sick obsession with scapegoating Jews overrides your otherwise decent analysis. Answer this please: What drove Europe in the Middle Ages to invade and re-invade the Middle East? There was no Israel then. And today the West doesn’t need anything or any other entity either to instigate its encroachments and invasions. Israel is convenient logistically and opportunistically for the West and that’s about it. The U.S. doesn’t need Israel nor can Israel or anyone else make the U.S. do something it doesn’t already want to do in the first place. Your obsession has you stuck on your own petard of racist small-minded analysis and limits your greater understanding of imperial motivation.
That’s what I keep trying to tell these guys…they got the colonial tail wagging the Imperial Dog. But don’t forget there was a dreaded Muslim Empire that destroyed the East Roman African Provinces, the Byzantines, swallowed Spain and Portugal (before the crusades) and Greece, encroached on France and Italy, pressed sorely upon the Austro-Hungarians. The European Civilization has an intensely serious self interest in seeing that a dreaded Muslim Empire does not revive, so the Israeli colonial “Beach Head” is judged a necessary tactical deployment…it’s just not spoken about too much…sshhh.
Is that why the US has slaughtered over two million innocent Muslims since Dubya started the perpetual illegal wars against the Middle East? And all this time I thought it was about the oil.
I would not say that his comment indicates a “sick obsession with scapegoating Jews.” He is correct insofar as most prominent neocons are Jewish, most Jewish people (not all) support Israel and attack its critics, and more than half of the mass media are directly controlled by Jews, and the rest indirectly controlled. That is not “scapegoating” and it is not prejudice, because it does not apply to all Jews by any means. It merely recognizes the great irony of zionist fascism, the bullied becoming bullies, a universal problem. Germany was social democracy 1922-1933 when Naziism arose and seized power. Is it anti-German to abhor Naziism?
Brad observes correctly that Israel is the colonial tail of the imperial dog, but it is not far-fetched to maintain that the tail is wagging the dog, where the dog was so inclined. The parasite of Fascism always exploits the weakness of its host.
Your point is well taken about the term “Jewish puppet”. “Israeli puppet would have been quite adequate.”
And what on Earth does that have to do with the price of beans? The Vatican in the Middle Ages was simply playing the same role as Israel does today – raising hell for reasons of its own.
The first part of that is perfectly true, and the second total nonsense. Israel owns the US Congress. That little shithole of a thieving and murderous nation-state also has a firm grip on the heartstrings of US Protestant Fundamentalists. The vast majority of these Fundies are End-Timers – they positively welcome the meddling of Israel’s neocons around the world because they’re praying they’ll hear the Trumpet signalling something or other – maybe the beginning of the Rapture – in their very own lifetimes!
Oh yes, Israel has the US by the plums – at many levels.
larry,
the proof is in the pudding …
zionists have an overwhelming influence on washington,
and washington does much to forward the zionist cause to it’s own detriment.
the problem is not the average adherent to the jewish religion …
the problem is with the zionist ideology.
this is not a religious issue, this is an ideological issue.
zionism is to the jewish religion as wahabism is to the islamic religion,
Wrong, it’s always about issuee involving wealth, power and territory.
If anyone is to blame for the state of the planet, it would be the Bilderbergs, not the Zionists.
They are the cause for most war, genocide, starvation, poverty, austerity, totalitarianism, fascism, global warming, pollution and ecocide.
Excellent! Someone who is pro-Palestine and despises Netanyahu but is not anti-Semitic. In other words, you are a person that I like. Thank you!
It would be a mistake to give Israel powers it does not have.
rex,
Thanks for letting us know your comment is insanity and lies.
Now we don’t have to waste our time reading it.
Unfortunately Robert Parry and anyone repeating such silly facts are universally regarded as kooks, conspiracy theorists who are Putin stooges.
This hidden truth is lucky to become a joke if nothing else. NOBODY will accept it, two plus two indeed equals five in the land of the “free”.
YANKEE GO HOME!
Disband nato! Stop building airplane carriers and atomic bombs! Instead, use the money to transform Sahara into fertile land.
Can anyone prove there’s no atomic bomb already smuggled into the US and ready to be detonated from very far away?!
Stop this idiocy of showing muscles and grabbing ridiculous incomes! Stop being a shame for your country and for humankind! You can be something else. Just try!
Yes, overwheming how far the US will go to find enemies or stir up trouble?
These are clearly lies designed to bolster a policy which had already been agreed on ahead of the Maidan. The policy is to isolate Russia from Europe and punish Russia’s economy in an effort to neutralize its influence. The policy, on its face, could not be sold to Europeans as something at all in their best interests, and so a threatening Russian bear had to be conjured into being to achieve the policy goals. Nato’s need to ratchet up invented narratives suggests the actual Russian response to the Ukraine coup was far less than anticipated, but since the policy has gone ahead then the preferred narrative might as well too. Also, demanding that Crimea be “reversed” is belligerent, clearly something that will never happen, and ensures the tensions stoked by NATO will endure. What is insane,then, is that regressive political forces in the region have new influence which will endure, and fanatics among them will have plenty of opportunity to manufacture a tug of the trip-wire.
“The story of NATO post-Cold War has been one of confrontation, not of fostering security or stability.
“Instead of working on a new framework to establish global stability by recognizing a new emerging balance of power between East and West, NATO has attempted to ‘race’ in a reckless bid to expand its own influence as far and wide as possible before this balance of power establishes itself through the realities of military, political, and economic force.
“It appears that NATO may even be contemplating the destabilization and overthrow of the political order in Moscow itself with attempts to foster terrorism in Russia’s southern regions through massive NATO-backed conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as the funding and support of hostile political fronts all across Russia.”
NATO: Lying All the Way to Barbarossa
By Tony Cartalucci
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2016/07/nato-lying-all-way-to-barbarossa.html
In a democracy, a true democracy that is, one of the great crimes should be public officials lying to the public.
When that happens, its a coup against the democracy. The basis of the democracy is that the power is in the hands of the people. It may be a direct democracy, either old town-hall or modern communications, or it may be a representative form of democracy, but eventually the people get to decide the course of their society.
Unless the people have been lied to. Unless secrecy rules have been used to hide the truth from them.
In such a case, the power has been stolen from the people by the liars.
For people who truly believe in democracy and what it truly stands for, a protection of liberty by putting the power in the hands of the people, then this is a great crime.
In America, its so routine that its rarely even commented on anymore
A bunch of good little Muslims asked the mullah what is Democracy (this Democracy that the TV talks so much about). The mullah replied, “Democracy is when I climb up on the minaret and I pee on you, but you also have a right to pee on me”.
Images of minarets (https://www.google.com.au/search?q=minaret&espv=2&biw=1463&bih=753&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjM__yYwO3NAhXFFZQKHRmsDpcQiR4IhQE&dpr=2.63#imgrc=J6lfElvdfeJfhM%3A)
“Democracy is when I climb up on the minaret and I pee down on you, but you also have a right to pee up on me”
I see you like to double down on stupid.
I doubled down only for your kind of stupidity to try and understand.
“In such a case, the power of the people has been stolen by the liars”
What a fitting testimony to all the war fraud , terror fraud, and banking fraud, the “people ” have been forced to swallow for the last fifteen years, Mr Rocker.
Well said! One of the best features of ancient Athenian democracy was that public officials and leaders were not only elected by the assembly of citizens; after their term of office (usually no more than one year, another excellent feature), the citizens again voted on their reward. If they had done a good job, they might be voted a statue, a pension, or some other token of thanks. If, however, they had failed or betrayed the state, they might be fined, imprisoned, exiled, or even sentenced to death. At one point in the Peloponnesian War several generals in succession simply stayed abroad after their terms expired, fearing the worst if they returned to face the music.
Constitutional provisions of a similar kind would allow the British and American people to sentence Bush, Blair and the other war criminals to death. Or, at least, to indict them for trial before a properly authorized court. The way our systems work at present, politics has no downside. If leaders commit frightful crimes or ghastly blunders, they simply retire and live out their lives in wealth, comfort and high repute.
….And a medal of freedom
Yes,and nothing is done to correct it! Worried about PresPutin, we have a CIC who cannot manage to get his SecretaryofState to use secure communication channels for National Safety, cannot order her to correct, and then “iamwith her 1%”1% nearing her EIGHTH decade of life senile and mean, overweight by forty or so, dragging down your body and thoughts, and to drag the country through all this FOR ONE TERM? Yea, now that is scary. PresObama thinks we are going to be secure with Clinton unprofessional “Convenience” excuse while she is very well paid and supported to do her job. The USA democracy is rotting from within, from the head down. Resign and go home. You would not take those excuses from your kids?
Agreed. And unfortunately this deliberate lying by our (US) Government extends all over the planet. A prime example is our Government’s demonization of the Venezuelan government, as to which President Obama lied two years ago about that government supposedly being a “threat to our national security” (in order to meet the statutory requirements for imposing sanctions on a foreign government), then publicly admitted at the Panama Summit meeting that the Venezuelan government was “not a threat to our national security,” — and then repeated the exact same lie a few weeks ago (in order to satisfy the same statutory requirements for renewing the same sanctions on the same Venezuelan government). Our Government’s snow job on the Venezuelan government — happily reported and amplified by essentially all US media — has been so successful that there is virtually no recognition in our country that the Venezuelan government in fact continues to be a democratically elected government, rather than the “dictatorship” that our Government and our national media make it out to be. And of course this false propaganda is having the effect that our Government intends it to have: undermining the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their own destiny, and imposing on the Venezuelan people a government chosen and supported by our US Government. .