Exclusive: A prominent neocon paymaster, whose outfit dispenses $100 million in U.S. taxpayers’ money each year, has called on America to “summon the will” to remove Russian President Putin from office, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The neoconservative president of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy [NED] has called for the U.S. government to “summon the will” to engineer the overthrow of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that the 10-year-old murder case of a Russian journalist should be the inspiration.
Carl Gershman, who has headed NED since its founding in 1983, doesn’t cite any evidence that Putin was responsible for the death of Anna Politkovskaya but uses a full column in The Washington Post on Friday to create that impression, calling her death “a window to Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin autocrat whom Americans are looking at for the first time.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, following his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
Gershman wraps up his article by writing: “Politkovskaya saw the danger [of Putin], but she and other liberals in Russia were not strong enough to stop it. The United States has the power to contain and defeat this danger. The issue is whether we can summon the will to do so. Remembering Politkovskaya can help us rise to this challenge.”
That Gershman would so directly call for the ouster of Russia’s clearly popular president represents further proof that NED is a neocon-driven vehicle that seeks to create the political circumstances for “regime change” even when that means removing leaders who are elected by a country’s citizenry.
And there is a reason for NED to see its job in that way. In 1983, NED essentially took over the CIA’s role of influencing electoral outcomes and destabilizing governments that got in the way of U.S. interests, except that NED carried out those functions in a quasi-overt fashion while the CIA did them covertly.
NED also serves as a sort of slush fund for neocons and other favored U.S. foreign policy operatives because a substantial portion of NED’s money circulates through U.S.-based non-governmental organizations or NGOs.
That makes Gershman an influential neocon paymaster whose organization dispenses some $100 million a year in U.S. taxpayers’ money to activists, journalists and NGOs both in Washington and around the world. The money helps them undermine governments in Washington’s disfavor – or as Gershman would prefer to say, “build democratic institutions,” even when that requires overthrowing democratically elected leaders.
NED was a lead actor in the Feb. 22, 2014 coup ousting Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych in a U.S.-backed putsch that touched off the civil war inside Ukraine between Ukrainian nationalists from the west and ethnic Russians from the east. The Ukraine crisis has become a flashpoint for the dangerous New Cold War between the U.S. and Russia.
Before the anti-Yanukovych coup, NED was funding scores of projects inside Ukraine, which Gershman had identified as “the biggest prize” in a Sept. 26, 2013 column also published in The Washington Post.
In that column, Gershman wrote that after the West claimed Ukraine, “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” In other words, Gershman already saw Ukraine as an important step toward an even bigger prize, a “regime change” in Moscow.
Less than five months after Gershman’s column, pro-Western political activists and neo-Nazi street fighters – with strong support from U.S. neocons and the State Department – staged a coup in Kiev driving Yanukovych from office and installing a rabidly anti-Russian regime, which the West promptly dubbed “legitimate.”
Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine’s Azov battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)
In reaction to the coup and the ensuing violence against ethnic Russians, the voters of Crimea approved a referendum with 96 percent of the vote to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia, a move that the West’s governments and media decried as a Russian “invasion” and “annexation.”
The new regime in Kiev then mounted what it called an “Anti-Terrorism Operation” or ATO against ethnic Russians in the east who had supported Yanukovych and refused to accept the anti-constitutional coup in Kiev as legitimate.
The ATO, spearheaded by neo-Nazis from the Azov battalion and other extremists, killed thousands of ethnic Russians, prompting Moscow to covertly provide some assistance to the rebels, a move denounced by the West as “aggression.”
Blaming Putin
In his latest column, Gershman not only urges the United States to muster the courage to oust Putin but he shows off the kind of clever sophistry that America’s neocons are known for. Though lacking any evidence, he intimates that Putin ordered the murder of Politkovskaya and pretty much every other “liberal” who has died in Russia.
Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy.
It is a technique that I’ve seen used in other circumstances, such as the lists of “mysterious deaths” that American right-wingers publish citing people who crossed the paths of Bill and Hillary Clinton and ended up dead. This type of smear spreads suspicion of guilt not based on proof but on the number of acquaintances and adversaries who have met untimely deaths.
In the 1990s, one conservative friend of mine pointed to the Clintons’ “mysterious deaths” list and marveled that even if only a few were the victims of a Clinton death squad that would be quite a story, to which I replied that if even one were murdered by the Clintons that would be quite a story – but that there was no proof of any such thing.
“Mysterious deaths” lists represent a type of creepy conspiracy theory that shifts the evidentiary burden onto the targets of the smears who must somehow prove their innocence, when there is no evidence of their guilt (only vague suspicions). It is contemptible when applied to American leaders and it is contemptible when applied to Russian leaders, but it is not beneath Carl Gershman.
Beyond that, Gershman’s public musing about the U.S. somehow summoning “the will” to remove Putin might — in a normal world — disqualify NED and its founding president from the privilege of dispensing U.S. taxpayers’ money to operatives in Washington and globally. It is extraordinarily provocative and dangerous, an example of classic neocon hubris.
While the neocons do love their tough talk, they are not known for thinking through their “regime change” schemes. The idea of destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia with the goal of ousting Putin, with his 82 percent approval ratings, must rank as the nuttiest and most reckless neocon scheme of all.
Gershman and his neocon pals may fantasize about making Russia’s economy scream while financing pro-Western “liberals” who would stage disruptive protests in Red Square, but he and his friends haven’t weighed the consequences even if they could succeed.
Given the devastating experience that most Russians had when NED’s beloved Russian “liberals” helped impose American “shock therapy” in the 1990s — an experiment that reduced average life expectancy by a full decade — it’s hard to believe that the Russian people would simply take another dose of that bitter medicine sitting down.
Even if the calculating Putin were somehow removed amid economic desperation, he is far more likely to be followed by a much harder-line Russian nationalist who might well see Moscow’s arsenal of nuclear weapons as the only way to protect Mother Russia’s honor. In other words, the neocons’ latest brash “regime change” scheme might be their last – and the last for all humanity.
A Neocon Slush Fund
Gershman’s arrogance also raises questions about why the American taxpayer should tolerate what amounts to a $100 million neocon slush fund which is used to create dangerous mischief around the world. Despite having “democracy” in its name, NED appears only to favor democratic outcomes when they fit with Official Washington’s desires.
CIA Director William Casey.
If a disliked candidate wins an election, NED acts as if that is prima facie evidence that the system is undemocratic and must be replaced with a process that ensures the selection of candidates who will do what the U.S. government tells them to do. Put differently, NED’s name is itself a fraud.
But that shouldn’t come as a surprise since NED was created in 1983 at the urging of Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director William J. Casey, who wanted to off-load some of the CIA’s traditional work ensuring that foreign elections turned out in ways acceptable to Washington, and when they didn’t – as in Iran under Mossadegh, in Guatemala under Arbenz or in Chile under Allende – the CIA’s job was to undermine and remove the offending electoral winner.
In 1983, Casey and the CIA’s top propagandist, Walter Raymond Jr., who had been moved to Reagan’s National Security Council staff, wanted to create a funding mechanism to support outside groups, such as Freedom House and other NGOs, so they could engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly. The idea emerged for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this money.
In one undated letter to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese III, Casey urged creation of a “National Endowment,” but he recognized the need to hide the strings being pulled by the CIA. “Obviously we here [at CIA] should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor should we appear to be a sponsor or advocate,” Casey wrote.
The National Endowment for Democracy took shape in late 1983 as Congress decided to also set aside pots of money — within NED — for the Republican and Democratic parties and for organized labor, creating enough bipartisan largesse that passage was assured.
But some in Congress thought it was important to wall the NED off from any association with the CIA, so a provision was included to bar the participation of any current or former CIA official, according to one congressional aide who helped write the legislation.
This aide told me that one night late in the 1983 session, as the bill was about to go to the House floor, the CIA’s congressional liaison came pounding at the door to the office of Rep. Dante Fascell, a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a chief sponsor of the bill.
The frantic CIA official conveyed a single message from CIA Director Casey: the language barring the participation of CIA personnel must be struck from the bill, the aide recalled, noting that Fascell consented to the demand, not fully recognizing its significance – that it would permit the continued behind-the-scenes involvement of Raymond and Casey.
The aide said Fascell also consented to the Reagan administration’s choice of Carl Gershman to head NED, again not recognizing how this decision would affect the future of the new entity and American foreign policy.
Gershman, who had followed the classic neoconservative path from youthful socialism to fierce anticommunism, became NED’s first (and, to this day, only) president. Though NED is technically independent of U.S. foreign policy, Gershman in the early years coordinated decisions on grants with Raymond at the NSC.
For instance, on Jan. 2, 1985, Raymond wrote to two NSC Asian experts that “Carl Gershman has called concerning a possible grant to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD). I am concerned about the political dimension to this request. We should not find ourselves in a position where we have to respond to pressure, but this request poses a real problem to Carl.
“Senator [Orrin] Hatch, as you know, is a member of the board. Secondly, NED has already given a major grant for a related Chinese program.”
Neocon Tag Teams
From the start, NED became a major benefactor for Freedom House, beginning with a $200,000 grant in 1984 to build “a network of democratic opinion-makers.” In NED’s first four years, from 1984 and 1988, it lavished $2.6 million on Freedom House, accounting for more than one-third of its total income, according to a study by the liberal Council on Hemispheric Affairs that was entitled “Freedom House: Portrait of a Pass-Through.”
The Washington Post building. (Photo credit: Daniel X. O’Neil)
Over the ensuing three decades, Freedom House has become almost an NED subsidiary, often joining NED in holding policy conferences and issuing position papers, both organizations pushing primarily a neoconservative agenda, challenging countries deemed insufficiently “free,” including Syria, Ukraine (in 2014) and Russia.
Indeed, NED and Freedom House often work as a kind of tag-team with NED financing “non-governmental organizations” inside targeted countries and Freedom House berating those governments if they crack down on U.S.-funded NGOs.
For instance, on Nov. 16, 2012, NED and Freedom House joined together to denounce legislation passed by the Russian parliament that required recipients of foreign political money to register with the government.
Or, as NED and Freedom House framed the issue: the Russian Duma sought to “restrict human rights and the activities of civil society organizations and their ability to receive support from abroad. Changes to Russia’s NGO legislation will soon require civil society organizations receiving foreign funds to choose between registering as ‘foreign agents’ or facing significant financial penalties and potential criminal charges.”
Of course, the United States has a nearly identical Foreign Agent Registration Act that likewise requires entities that receive foreign funding and seek to influence U.S. government policy to register with the Justice Department or face possible fines or imprisonment.
But the Russian law would impede NED’s efforts to destabilize the Russian government through funding of political activists, journalists and civic organizations, so it was denounced as an infringement of human rights and helped justify Freedom House’s rating of Russia as “not free.”
Another bash-Putin tag team has been The Washington Post’s editors and NED’s Gershman. On July 28, 2015, a Post editorial and a companion column by Gershman led readers to believe that Putin was paranoid and “power mad” in worrying that outside money funneled into NGOs threatened Russian sovereignty.
The Post and Gershman were especially outraged that the Russians had enacted the law requiring NGOs financed from abroad and seeking to influence Russian policies to register as “foreign agents” and that one of the first funding operations to fall prey to these tightened rules was Gershman’s NED.
The Post’s editors wrote that Putin’s “latest move … is to declare the NED an ‘undesirable’ organization under the terms of a law that Mr. Putin signed in May [2015]. The law bans groups from abroad who are deemed a ‘threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.’
“The charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED’s grantees in Russia last year ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a healthy democracy but are seen as threatening from the Kremlin’s ramparts.
“The new law on ‘undesirables’ comes in addition to one signed in 2012 that gave authorities the power to declare organizations ‘foreign agents’ if they engaged in any kind of politics and receive money from abroad. The designation, from the Stalin era, implies espionage.”
However, among the relevant points that the Post’s editors wouldn’t tell their readers was the fact that Russia’s Foreign Agent Registration Act was modeled after the American Foreign Agent Registration Act and that NED President Gershman had already publicly made clear — in his Sept. 26, 2013 column — that his goal was to oust Russia’s elected president.
In his July 28, 2015 column, Gershman further deemed Putin’s government illegitimate. “Russia’s newest anti-NGO law, under which the National Endowment for Democracy … was declared an “undesirable organization” prohibited from operating in Russia, is the latest evidence that the regime of President Vladimir Putin faces a worsening crisis of political legitimacy,” Gershman wrote, adding:
“This is the context in which Russia has passed the law prohibiting Russian democrats from getting any international assistance to promote freedom of expression, the rule of law and a democratic political system. Significantly, democrats have not backed down. They have not been deterred by the criminal penalties contained in the ‘foreign agents’ law and other repressive laws. They know that these laws contradict international law, which allows for such aid, and that the laws are meant to block a better future for Russia.”
The reference to how a “foreign agents” registration law conflicts with international law might have been a good place for Gershman to explain why what is good for the goose in the United States isn’t good for the gander in Russia. But hypocrisy is a hard thing to rationalize and would have undermined the propagandistic impact of the column.
Also undercutting the column’s impact would be an acknowledgement of where NED’s money comes from. So Gershman left that out, too. After all, how many governments would allow a hostile foreign power to sponsor politicians and civic organizations whose mission is to undermine and overthrow the existing government and put in someone who would be compliant to that foreign power?
And, if you had any doubts about what Gershman’s intent was regarding Russia, he dispelled them in his Friday column in which he calls on the United States to “summon the will” to “contain and defeat this danger,” which he makes clear is the continued rule of Vladimir Putin.
[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The Victory of Perception Management.“]
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).
YET ANOTHER brilliant article by Robert Parry. However, I don’t like his use of the pejorative “Nazi”. They never called themselves that. It is like using the pejoratives “In-Juns”, “Redskins”, “Gooks”, “Slant-Eyes”, etc.
ronald reagan is so respected and deemed such a wonderful leader when infact he was a criminal.iran contra and libya bombing killin ghadafis wife and son, and granada island and the savings and loan cover up and union busting [[think air traffic controllers]] and much more.he was a disaster.what he did lead the neo cons to get a major strangle hold on the nation. he let in the soviet chekka that were given state dept jobs and think tank positions as advisers on soviet russian affairs. and the republican party was eager to help.all criminals .but don t let the democrats off they were just another flavor of the same garbage.
When does scribbling propaganda for a paycheck become participation in a scheme to initiate a war of aggression? We need to string up a bunch of these warmongering scoundrels.
One way to define a clean and committed USA in foreign affairs is to disallow all dual citizens any role in government-funded agencies. Can you imagine a State Department, the FED, the treasury, the CIA, the military run by persons who are only USA citizens? Dual citizens wear two hats and often the one does not operate for the good of the home country.
This comment is directed as a response to blam: The synagogue of Jehovah had indeed excommunicated Philadelphian Christians and their leaders had no authority to do so (to open or shut the door into the “kingdom” ..in this biblical passage) Jesus had the key to the door, set before the Philadelphians, an open door, that that no-one could shut. These contemptuous Jews are not representative of today’s Orthodox-Conservative Jewry. By this I mean to say, the first five books of the Christian bible cannot be simply torn away from the rest nor can the Gospels be dismissed by the Jew. The door of spiritual privilege and thus Messianic glory, is wide open to anyone who truly believes in love of neighbor and love of God, rejects violence, and all those who side with the “goat”. As a Christian, I fully recognize the truths and beauty found in the first five books (Torah, Nevi’im, Kethuvim) and acknowledge that Orthodox and Conservative Jews have found their (spiritual) way by believing in the words of Jesus without believing in his Authority. Jesus said, if you cannot believe in Me (no faith in me) than believe in my ways..John 10:38. Thus, by acknowledging good works of Jesus, one acknowledges the one who sent him, the Father-Who is and remains the cornerstone of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. No authority on earth can know, how the Father will judge each individual on that final, and terrible day, when His forgiveness and patience ceases.
American citizens can’t be bothered right now….Get back with you later ….maybe
As far as this observer is concerned, depending on its foray into policy and how it has shilled for Israel, the NED and its Director, may not only have been disloyal to our national interest, but also crossed the line and engaged in criminal activity as well- certainly, some of its involvement and agitation in the ‘orange revolutions’ it has fomented may have violated international law. My own sense is that citizens should begin to watch these people and document any violations, and not only report them to the authorities, but post all records of them on the internet. If these guys (and gals) are compromising the nation, everyone should know about it- and they themselves should know they are now in the public’s sights.
As for the hacking of Clinton and the DNC’ emails, any college age techie worth his weight could do the job, and I dare say, many more of them than we can easily count have been more than motivated to do it, especially after Bernie was so unceremoniously disposed of by the DNCC like just another piece of garbage (before turning around to become another of Hillary’s lapdogs for the promise and prayer of a few scraps and a bone).
Is inciting war crimes also a war crime?
It’s tough living in a really nice country with really nice people who have abandoned their responsibilities to pay attention to what’s being done in their name with all their tax dollars and expecting their secretive government to live up to their democratic ideals.
I’d never heard of NED. What a nice and friendly sounding name!
National Endowment for Democracy!
However, just to assure myself, as I always do when there’s a pretty sounding name to an organization or that I’ve never heard of and that seems to be spouting propaganda, I go see who is on the board:
“Board[edit]
NED’s long-serving president (since April 30, 1984[7]) is Carl Gershman, former Senior Counselor to the United States Representative to the United Nations and former Executive Director of Social Democrats USA.[8]
The Endowment’s bipartisan board is composed of a wide range of people. The group includes government officials like former Congressmen Martin Frost and Vin Weber, former deputy assistant to George W. Bush Elliot Abrams, former Senator Norm Coleman, Congresswoman Karen Bass and Margaret Spellings, former US Secretary of Education and president of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. The board also includes former Ambassadors Robert Tuttle, Zalmay Khalilzad, Stephen Sestanovich and Princeton N. Lyman, as well as Melanne Verveer, former Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues and current director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. In addition, positions are held by scholars of Political Science and International Affairs, Andrew Nathan of Columbia University, author and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, William Galston, Francis Fukuyama of FSI, George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Azir Nafisi of Johns Hopkins SAIS, as well as Senior associates at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Michele Dunne and Moises Naim. Other members include business leader Marilyn Nelson of Carlson, Attorney Jayne M. Kurzman, union leaders James Boland and Fred Redmond, and Vice President of Global Public Policy at Facebook, Marne Levine. The Board also includes: John Bohn, Republican political advisor Barry Jackson, Progressive Policy Institute President Will Marshall, and former World Bank President Robert Zoellick.”
I hadn’t heard of most of the people. I recognized a few neocons sprinkled throughout but several I would need to check out. However one name stood out for me:
Francis Fukuyama!
Sorry Francis, but you’re a right wing nutty thinker.
And blam! if you read this, that doesn’t mean that all people with Japanese sounding names are right wing thinkers. Much to the contrary, here’s a brilliant historian with a Japanese name whose ideas are the very antithesis of the thinking of Francis Fukayama. Hajimu Masuda who I’ve mentioned here before, who wrote Cold War Crucible sees through the mass hysteria and paranoia that can be harnessed to drive people to war.
http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2015/02/social-politics-imagined-realities-masuda-hajimu.html
Masuda is a nuanced historian who delves into the sociology and psychology that underpins the illusions and distortions that lead to violence and war.
He understands that those seeking “order” try to demonize those they portray as “dissidents”, “malcontents”, “nonconformists” in order to discredit differences of opinion or creativity.
Taxpayers SHOULD NOT subsidize NED. It is NOT a peer reviewed non partisan intellectually honest organization that serves our democratic principles. It has an agenda. A dangerous agenda,IMO that serves the delusions of its members and sponsors.
Thanks to Robert Parry and the very interesting writers and commenters here. I’m just trying to understand why and how we follow such crazed and dazed policies instead of pursuing peaceful sustainability. Y’know, sanity.
All of these comments appear to be directly on target regarding the sources of our peril, yet their assumption that the internet can make billions of proles aware that something more must be done just now than cringe and complain, that without regime change right here in the good ol’ JuSA, civilization will relapse into barbarism for everyone. Nor does “Election 2016” offer any avenue out of this fever swamp whatsoever. For the Hasbara’s 1/2 percent minority, which like the Mossad specializes in doing wars by deception, outvotes sites such as consortiumnews 100 to 1, the same way they did last century via their now-fading print mediacracy. With the money that’s behind them, an internet search for “White pride” will continue returning 100 “white supremacism” and “racism” hits for every straight answer. So let’s keep at what we’re doing, but ALSO give more support to the mere handful of straight and honest hardcopy newspapers jumping into that void slowly being vacated by those no-longer-relevant metropolitan rags. One such highly-readable “Southern agrarian” monthly, a 24-page tabloid, would be The First Freedom out of Silverhill, Alabama. It’s even online, for those too cheap to subscribe, at http://www.firstfreedom.net/1.pdf .
White pride? You just lost the argument.
I couldn’t help but recall that in Glasgow there are lots of “NEDs” i.e. “Non-Educated Delinquents”. This coincidence with the Glaswegian vernacular is awfully appropriate, no?
Ineptly vile Hasbara troll jumps up and down and waves arms.
Probably an American college student making Aliyah and trolling for beer money.
Agreed.
Yeah that is why you 2 have to comment whenever something is said about jews, because you are not Hasbarat trolls, O O O O k. Nice try though
Result of coup in russia
Nazis take over
Gershon is a real menace. Imagine the hubris of his pushing for the ouster of President Putin. As a big player in the Ukrainian coup, he got his head handed to him along with Victoria Nuland’s when Putin took over the Crimea. That will teach them.
Q: How do you stop an attacking Pit Bull?
A: With your bare hands…
– Smash the Pit Bull’s head (Boycott)
– Break the Pit Bull’s knees (Divestment)
– Choke the Pit Bull (Sanctions)
– Gouge the the Pit Bull’s eyes out (Arrest all agents in your government)
– Stop feeding and breeding Pit Bulls (Immediately cease all military and economic aid)
Q: How do you stop an attacking Hasbara Troll?
A: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/how-to-defeat-someone-made-furious-by-how-to-defeat-a-pit-bull-with-your-bare-hands/Content?oid=3800677
Note to Langley and Herzliya:
Cool it with the Hasbara troll comments on Parry’s news site.
Americans actually may start thinking about the preponderance of Jewish neocon cheerleaders gloriously spreading “Freedom™ and Democracy™” around the world, and we can’t have that.
I am deeply grateful that Robert Parry is courageous enough to write on this critically important matter. I find myself intimidated by the fierceness of the neocons and the atmosphere they have created. Russia in indeed vilified to an extent that cannot have been since the days of McCarthyism, with both Democrats and Republicans taking part.
This country has lost it’s collective mind! Is WW III really what the psychopaths in Washington wants? Seems so to me so much so that I am getting over a major depressive episode which left me hospitalized for 9 days. Putin will not go quietly and Russian history is rife with bad outcomes for the attacking parties. I do hope some sensibility prevails or the next decade could prove fatal to much of the worlds population. This is even more pressing than the disastrous global warming which is a slow motion event just as pressing but harder for short sighted humans to see. Thanks Robert for keeping us informed on Washington’s collective madness.
Ah yes, the obligatory Hasbara troll remark.
Pro-Israel Hasbara trolls, as well as US and Western-sponsored trolls, attempt to trash the information space. They typically aim at confusing the audience, rather than convincing it.
Hasbara propagandist trolls strive to discredit articles, videos, and websites critical of Israel and Zionism.
Hasbara tactics of deception include:
1) accusing anyone who offers legitimate criticism of Israel or Zionism of being “anti-semitic”
2) deliberately posting incendiary comments with links to “anti-semitic” and “Holocaust denial” material
3) posting extreme “anti-Zionist” and “anti-Israel” comments
4) posting comments and links to articles that contain egregious factual errors and obviously spurious logic
These smear tactics have intensified due to Israel’s collusion with the United States in regime change projects from the Middle East to Eastern Europe.
Consortium News articles about the US/NATO sponsored neo-Nazi coup d’etat in Ukraine and its aftermath have been frequent targets for Hasbara trolls.
Readers of Consortium News are alert to these deceptive tactics.
Jews are not the problem, the jewish extremists called the Zionists or Ziocons are.
Consortium News
“it’s all the jews” – Blam
You are proven incorrect on this point by an excellent ant-zionist article, Why I left the cult, by a Jewish psychologist who grew up in Israel, published at an anti-zionist website run by Jews, who are working hard for universal justice.
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/10/why-i-left-the-cult/
Your posts remind me of a long series of posts at CommonDreams.org some time ago that mixed fair points about Israel in with absurdly bigoted statements about ALL Jews. Eventually the poster was discovered to be an extreme Zionist, attempting to discredit critics of Israeli policies.
The “success” of the NED-backed coup d’etat in Kiev is “pivotal” for Gershman:
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/why-ukraines-success-pivotal
In an April 2015 address at a conference in Kiev, Gershman glorified the “existential challenge” imposed by US/NATO intervention in Ukraine.
Gershman even managed a reference to Israel:
“This reminds me of something that was said in the aftermath of the Six-Day War by the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, who was born in Kyiv in 1898.. Our secret weapon, she said, is that we have no alternative.
“Ukraine also has no alternative […]”
The reality is that Washington and its allies will allow no alternative to Western diktat for Ukraine.
Now the desperately shrill Hasbara troll tries the hackneyed “anti-Semitic KremlinTroll™” masquerade.
The “troll army” meme has been heavily overplayed by US-sponsored organizations like Gershman’s fave Freedom House, a long-time agent of CIA “information activities” (see https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/08/cias-hidden-hand-in-democracy-groups/)
Every time Bellingcat work frauduct gets exposed, Higgins shrieks that he’s being menaced by Russkies.
Truly pathetic.
A good question for presidential candidates, “Do you support U.S. taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for Democracy [NED]?
How many other illegal organizations like this do taxpayers support? Why is this? Why are we arming and training 180 of the 196 countries on this planet? Why is the U.S. violating its obligations as signatory to the UN Charter?
Mr Parry,
I highly respect your work. I have very rarely seen you overstate a situation, but I believe you may have here. The column calls for the US to “contain and defeat this danger”. This can certainly be interpreted in other ways than signifying the overthrow of Putin.
Best,
Bruce Dodds
Please note: Why would the enemies of Clinton dump merely portions of her Wall Street speeches, and dump them in America’s designated dead news zone, Friday night? If one were to inoculate Clinton from revelations of her speeches to the 1%, releasing it on Friday night, in the midst of an East Coast hurricane simultaneously with the public indictment of Trump for crotch-grabbing, no one will notice what Clinton said as of Monday morning in the next news cycle, buried with the ugly debate Sunday night and the death and destruction of Matthew.
That is, this release of Clinton’s mindset is a modified limited hangout. And who’s behind it? Hint: What organization has been moving money, spreading propaganda and otherwise using dark methods to influence elections and political structures around the world since WWII? Not that it wasn’t clear, but we know who the CIA’s betting on in this election. The bigger the war the more money to be made.
Thanks, Robert Parry, for finally comparing the so-called facts about Putin and Russia to the long time interventionist (and to my mind, contravention of the UN’s strictures against interfering in the internal affairs of other countries) that the NED has always been; it’s a cover for CIA activities. The ‘democracy’ pursued by the NED is a code word for American political, military and economic hegemony. Another hubristic left-over from the Reagan years as is the stripped down regulation of banks, and the huge, unending militarization of American society…
Mike Locklear – you are right, where there’s smoke, there often is fire. There ARE deaths following the Clinton’s, but I doubt they called for these deaths themselves. They probably didn’t mind that they happened and were not surprised when they did, but I think there are others (the ones the politicians take their orders from) who are calling for the deaths. These are very dangerous people. Look at Michael Hastings. He tried to strike at the root, and his reward is he’s now down living among the roots, Oswald’s roommate.
Of course Kennedy was assassinated by these people and Oswald was set up to take the fall. But for them to do this in broad daylight speaks volumes. These are the minds of psychopaths, the most evil among us. They will stop at nothing. You can’t really fight them by going after them; they’ll just have you killed as a lesson to everyone else who might try to expose them. The American people just have to wake up more (and they are, finally!) and insist on all money being taken out of politics (and jail time to anyone who takes any), get rid of unelected political arms like NED…..and on and on.
I’ve lived with a psychopath; you don’t win by fighting them. They will bury you because you would never do what they are capable of, and they know that. It must come from the bottom up, and it will. They are so brazen and out in the open now that it’s fast becoming noticeable by any who look that they are there. People ARE noticing the lies, the propaganda, realizing they’re not being listened to, that they’re being robbed.
They tried to reinflate the economy, get everything going again just to shut us up, take our minds off them, but it didn’t work. All of their twisting and turning is becoming evident. The tide IS going out and people are noticing their nakedness. If people like Robert Parry keep hammering away and pointing out their machinations, more and more people will see.
Cheers.
So the President of Russia is said (without any evidence at all) to have been associated with the murder of one journalist ten years ago.
Meanwhile, the President of the USA unashamedly authorizes dozens of blatant murders every week – he has even publicly boasted of it in media interviews. So presumably he is dozens of times more a candidate for removal.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-presidents-kill-list
Given that fewer US voters disapprove of Putin than Clinton or Trump. perhaps Putin should run for President of the US. Although not a citizen, it would be greatest joke in history, and he might do very well if he were. Of course the extreme right and extremely ignorant would be put off by an endorsement from him, and no one so endorsed would likely win.
this little tid-bit didn’t make National News yesterday ?
::
Vladimir Putin Banner Unfurled Over Manhattan Bridge
A giant banner featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin was unfurled on the side of the Manhattan Bridge on Thursday afternoon.
The banner, which shows Putin’s portrait along with the word “Peacemaker” began flapping over the side of the span shortly before 2 p.m.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Vladimir-Putin-Banner-Unfurled-Manhattan-Bridge-New-York-City-NYC-396198291.html
Good one J’hon Doe II
People Power against the media trying to push us into another war for no reason.
It is amazing that Mr. Gershman has not suffered some international sanction for the harm that he does and has done. Only a fool would not recognize the mischief he and other Americans are up to around the world, let alone the official spies, saboteurs and planted armed insurrectionists. The pity is that the proliferation of other similar organizations funded by wealthy Americans, corporate and otherwise, is an overwhelming force against countries whose national budgets barely match the pin-money that is directed at sowing chaos and political destruction within these states. Of course, international law and much domestic law everywhere makes this activity illegal, as is spreading lies and propaganda. Ask Julius Streicher or Joseph Goebbels; but maybe that is a matter of degree.
michael fish – who is going to sanction Mr. Gershman? Mr. Gershman is in the position he’s in (and has been since 1983) because he’s doing exactly what the Deep State want him to do; otherwise, he’d have been removed long ago. According to the people who are pulling Mr. Gershman’s strings, he is doing a stellar job. The U.S. controls who gets sanctioned and who doesn’t; no one else has a say, not really. The U.S. most likely controls who sits on the international courts. The U.S. IS the law. That’s why Gershman isn’t sanctioned.
The US has refused to sign the Treaty of Rome accepting jurisdiction of the ICC, and is the only country which has threatened to attack the Hague militarily of it arrests and prosecutes US personnel for war crimes. Apparently they couldn’t corrupt the Hague as easily as NATO.
Re: “Mysterious deaths” lists represent a type of creepy conspiracy theory that shifts the evidentiary burden onto the targets of the smears who must somehow prove their innocence, when there is no evidence of their guilt (only vague suspicions)…
The sad litany of suspicious deaths of people plausibly in-the-know regarding President Kennedy’s public execution demonstrates how at least occasionally “where there’s smoke there’s fire.” But Robert Parry’s commitment to learning and disseminating the evidence that our democratic republic was essentially stolen from Us in 1963 never has impressed. As Thoreau said, “There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil for every one who is striking at the root.”
Well, there are always going to be critics and doubters; if investigations are through and transparent, and the politician is relatively corruption free, they have nothing to worry about, IMO. Then there is Hillary Clinton and the establishment media.
JFK got it totally right way back in 1963 when he declared that the CIA should “be broken into a thousand pieces.” NED is a grandchild of those all too bright Georgetown Set gatherers who were simply too smart to deal with Democracy. It’s very telling that on the eve of the obvious failure of The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, shares of sugar companies soared when the really smart insiders realized that Cuba was really about commodification and not politics. So too with the ME and Ukraine and all of the other “tensions” worldwide. The big shots of entities like NED advising governments worldwide, are the real enemy of all peoples, people exactly like Carl Gershman not the President of Russia.
How many journalists have been murdered in Turkey since 1980. The list runs into 3 figures. Why is this significant? Because Turkey is, our noble ally and a member of NATO and therefore represents freedom and democracy … blah, blah, blah. US double standards are now so common that the are really starting to believe their own vacuous verbiage.
Additionally, the hue and cry about civilians being killed by so called deliberate targeting is terrible. Of course our side would never do such a thing. Well our side did the same thing but of many magnitudes worse. The attack during the last week of July 1943, Operation Gomorrah, created one of the largest firestorms raised by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces in World War II, killing 42,600 civilians and wounding 37,000 in Hamburg and virtually destroying most of the city. This was followed up by the raid on Dresden in 1945. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city.The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed over 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of the city centre. An estimated 22,700[3] to 25,000 people were killed. Finally there was the US fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945 estimated to have killed up to 100,000 Japanese civilians
But that was okay:
Sir Arthur (Bomber) Harris. Commander in Chief RAF Bomber Command 1942-1945 Invented ‘Area bombing’ of German cities directed against civilian population. Hamburg and Dresden in particular were on the receiving end of fire bombing.
• ”Dresden? Is there such a place any longer? I want to point out that, besides Essen, we never actually considered any industrial sites as targets. The destruction of industrial sites was something of a bonus for us. Our real targets were always the inner cities.”
Curtis Le May (1906-1990) US Airforce Commander 1942-45. Chief of the 8th Air Force in UK was responsible for daylight bombing of Germany. Later moved to Pacific theatre preoccupied with fire-bombing Japanese cities
• ”There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders.”
• ”If we had lost the war, we would have all been prosecuted as war criminals”.
Not forgetting of course, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Agent Orange chemical warfare in Vietnam and the use of depleted uranium, and the latest innovation -drone warfare. This is total war as practised in the 20 and 21 centuries.No-one is innocent, though the victors will always downplay what they did. The winners of course write the history books.
Of course it could be argued that this is what happens in wars. Yes, but isn’t that what exactly is going on in Syria at the moment.
American hypocrisy never ceases to astound me.
Thank you Lee, as you mentioned Dresden, a city often never reported or simply forgotten. The war was practically over when these pilot heroes flattened a remarkable city, just to ‘teach’ the Germans a lesson since the city was under-defended. It was easy for them and they caused many needless deaths of civilians.
My ex-Grandfather was in Dresden at the time of the fire-bombing on the civilian population which destroyed a beautiful city. His stories described the horror of bombs out of the sky.Targeting military assets was never the point, and if there was a point, it was to bring devastation and starvation to the citizens of Dresden. This example is unconscionable, and the ones who ordered the massacre were criminals.
If the argument is the Germans deserved the death and destruction, this argument could also be used to wipe out US cities for their complacency during the Middle East wars. I see no difference here.
It’s high time the people of the US learn about the ‘fake’ NGOs the world over and put a monetary stop to most of them. I really get
fatigued reading about the likes of Gershman and his buddies (McCains NGO too). Defund them now! And let him take a job helping the poor and the maimed caused in the world by their arrogance. This would be a just reward.
From Kerry on down these people are lunatics, and I use that euphemism only to not be tossed from this site, as I can think of much better descriptions for their countries of death, caused by them, but they still find even more countries to rape and murder the innocents and civilians.
The planet is being held captive by two rogue terrorist states:
The United States and Israel.
Behaving like rabid dogs on the world stage, these two enormous threats to world peace are content to spread their imperial hubris throughout the globe, invading weaker countries and laying siege to millions of defenseless innocents while condemning those who resist Israeli-American imperialism as ”terrorists,” “threats to peace” and “rogue actors.”
The two backwards regimes occupying Tel Aviv and Washington want to lecture the world about “human rights” and “democracy” while they extinguish millions of lives in the Middle East. These two behemoth military powers – international gangster outfits masquerading as countries — have converted entire cities and villages, and even whole countries, into smoldering ruins. They have transformed beautiful landscapes into desolate burial grounds polluted with depleted uranium, white phosphorous and other ecology-destroying chemical weapons.
-Brandon Martinez
On Carl Gershman’s Wiki page, it says:
“NED is structured to act as a grant-making foundation, distributing funds to private non-governmental organizations for the purpose of promoting democracy abroad. Approximately half of NED’s funding is allocated annually to four main U.S. organizations: the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), and the International Republican Institute (IRI). The other half of NED’s funding is awarded annually to hundreds of non-governmental organizations based abroad which apply for support.”
According to the following author, they didn’t include the “labor” component just to be nice. It appears (at least from my reading) that they are using the AFL-CIO as another arm of the Deep State, going in and stirring up trouble.
“Not only that but, in fact, the AFL-CIO has a long-established history of undermining progressive, democratically-elected governments that try to extend human liberties-such as freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of economic security-to working people. We see that in Guatemala, Guyana, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua and, most recently, in Venezuela.
It seems the AFL-CIO really only supports these values in certain cases. Claims of support for universal values, such as freedom of association and speech, are found to be, upon closer inspection, only tools to whip those with which the AFL-CIO disagrees. Freedom of Association belongs only to those who kowtow to the US Empire.”
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1239
“And while there has been personnel turnover on the NED Board of Directors over the years, it has always included people who have served at some of the highest levels of the foreign policy apparatus of the US Government. Notable among these have been former US Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger (Nixon) and Madeleine Albright (Clinton), former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci (Reagan), former National Security Council Chair Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter), former NATO Supreme Allied Command in Europe, General Wesley K. Clark (Clinton), and the current head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz (George W. Bush). Another notable, Bill Brock, served as a US Senator, a US Trade Representative, and US Secretary of Labor, and then Chairman of the Board of NED.”
I found this to be a fascinating read. If true, labor leaders are clearly right in there with these neocons, stirring up trouble to effect change in favor of the U.S., and they’re knowingly doing it. Truly scary.
The article posted above is entitled: “An Unholy Alliance: AFL-CIO and NED in Venezuela”.
Robert Parry – excellent work! Another great article is this one on hybrid wars, color revolutions, NGO’s, the use of terrorism:
“Still, the essence of using one’s own people against them as militant proxies on behalf of another power is unsettling and will always remain so, because somewhere in the mix of things the targeted authority will be faced with the uncomfortable decision of having to strike back at its own citizens out of self-defense, which is as unnatural for a country to do against “unarmed protesters” as it is for a sibling to strike their own “unprovoked”.
In both cases, however, things are not as they seem, it’s just the weight of ‘human conscience’ that holds back the defending actor. Nobody wants to feel like “Cain” who mercilessly killed their brother – everyone needs to feel as though there’s some kind of justification for their response. Visually, it might not look like the “protesters” are a threat, and in many cases of legitimate protest, there’s nothing for anyone to fear, neither the state nor the protesters. But when a “protest” becomes cover for a foreign intelligence-organized regime change attempt, and there’s hundreds or maybe even thousands of unwitting and unaware human shields tricked into attending, then the situation is beyond critical and the risks of violence are extraordinarily high.
In this case, the state will be very reluctant to defend itself and the rest of the non-protesting citizens that it represents (always the vast majority of the population) because it doesn’t want to inflict collateral damage against the human shields, but if provoked to do so because of petrol bombs or other ordinances being used against it by professional provocateurs (urban terrorists/guerrillas, but identified in the US as “protest organizers”), there might not be any choice. It’s just that by the time it takes decisive action, it might be too late to stem the critical anti-government mass that has formed, or the action itself might unwittingly lead to the creation of the very same scenario that the state is trying to avoid.”
http://thesaker.is/andrew-korybkos-interview-with-serbias-geopolitica-magazine-english-exclusive/
The Neo Cons will end up destroying the U.S.
There destructive policies the foundation of which I do not understand cannot be supported in any escalation against Russia.
“Wild Bill” Casey, his nickname, has returned to us! His ghost (and the Dulles Bros) continue to attend organized labor meetings, instigate the assassination of political leaders, promote Gladio B programs, and they have appeared in congress, not as apparitions, but like a broken record in the ear of every senator and representative of NeoCon persuasion. The three keep grinding away,..”Do You Want A total war!!” -echos from Nurenburgs the 1943 Sportpalast Speech. Our indoctrinated “leadership” all say in unison, Heil Hitler! Yes! and Goebbels; what did he say? “It will be a war like no other! more total and radical than anything today!” Heil! Yes! the beltway crowd proclaims!..The three ghost(s) continue…People, rise up! and let the storm break loose! Heil! Yes! we want it!..thus WW III began, it started some weeks ago. CONSORTIUMNEWS readers know the old California expression; whatever goes around comes around, and WE have the Nazi bug now..Sing it folks! (NATO, NATO, Uber alles) Surely, a painful song for Mother Russia to hear, but she will once again be the cure…with or without a Putin at the helm. “Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg” (“Total War – Shortest War”) YES! it will be a short duration war, -alright!!
oops my error 1943 Berlin speech not Nuremberg
Think of the long gone days of when a returning ship from the new country could whip up the enthusiasm of their homies by showing them their captured riches, and to then go on with their adoring homies to the local tavern, drink for free, and tell heroic stories all night long of how you vanquished the savage natives in this far off new land, and then took what is rightfully yours, because you the noble traveler are the civilized one. This was a time before the Internet. It was a simple time, and there were no accompanying photos or videos for the homies to see. The homies had to put their faith in what the returning conquistadors had to swear by. The savages in all these places were so savage by the returning conquistadors accounts that the homies insisted we send missionaries to the new country to civilize these barbaric herds of godless natives who occupied our new land, and bring these satanic pagans into Gods fold. The stay at home homies truly thought that by their continuing this practice that they would somehow, besides reap benefits from this new country, would just by their noble civilized presence in this new heathen world raise, or erase these illiterate tribesmen. The war seekers honestly thought that they just by their magnificent leadership would be enough to pull the indigenous of this new colony up to becoming just like them…God fearing respectable bankers and merchants. It was an easy sell for the war seeker profiteers to use on the naive homies, and it worked well for a very long time.
Today in the Internet age the war seekers need a different kind of propaganda platform. The war seekers are the first to run to the microphones, and quick to suggest in their most loudly definitive voice that their target enemy is the one who did it. With the largest microphone they can find the war seeker, who also controls the volume dial, will overwhelmingly drown out their rivals whispering and gain the news. ‘Leaders’, war seekers wish to unseat will now going forward be declared ‘Dictators’. Spreading ‘democracy’ now means ousting one government Adminstration to replace it with a leader whom the war seekers prefer, it’s often called a coup d’eta against a democratically elected leader. When the war seekers Air Force kills civilians during a bombing mission that’s collateral damage, but when the rivals Air Force kills civilians during a bombing raid then the war seekers are the loudest ones to sight this as a war crime because the war seekers rival targeted the innocent people. All of a sudden these poor civilian pawns on the board have names, and they are woman and children, who the war seekers rival have murdered…why we would be committing an ever bigger crime than our rival for if we war seekers did not intervene on the side of God and all that is right for mankind…wow, I can see how it could get easy to get wrapped up with all of that.
The good news is we do have the Internet to help us stay better informed, and it’s good we have Robert Parry.
Read this, my narrative here is better said in the following link;
http://theduran.com/modern-imperialism-and-the-corruption-of-language-the-us-and-syria/
Joe – great article! Thanks for sharing.
The UK “humanitarian” warmongers are meeting the US ziocons in a letter to Corbyn: https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/various/dear-jeremy-its-time-to-speak-out-on-syria
The bloody hypocrites from Labor Party have suddenly discovered that Syria is drowning in blood. Instead of taking a close look at who has been arming the “freedom fighters” of ISIS and Al Nusra (al Qaeda) that invade the territory of the sovereign Syria, the chorus of the dishonest joins the US ziocons in accusing Syrian president and Russian Federation.
Anna it’s good that you can see through what’s going on there with that letter. As peace laced as that letter sounds, it’s back drop narrative drives it home how Russia and Syria are the ones killing innocent people. Where have all the letters been for over that last four years? Where were the ardent peace activists when the U.S. And NATO were the ones dropping the bombs? A ceasefire by all sides would have been nice, but our proxy mercenaries wouldn’t observe any ceasefire, so here we are. Assad is a democratically elected leader, and Syria is still a sovereign nation, so what other option does Assad have to use against the uncooperative hired rebels? Now that Russia has installed S300 and S400 defense systems in Syria I am expecting the demonization of Putin and Assad to go up dramatically. At some point for the U.S. this Syrian war won’t be about anything more than America saving it’s face.
Anna, although not directly related to the letter that you quote, I liked how the Internet converted the R2P, that is the hypocritical “Responsibility to Protect” of the faux-humanitarians into “Resolve-to-Plunder“. For me, nothing describes better and shorter how the military interventionists have turned humanitarianism into the cause to kill for. The US Democrats could copyright the humanitarian intervention, the US Labor is right behind (this is why I am not surprised at all by such letter). TPTB have understood that coopting left-wing into its schemes is highly productive, because left-wingers tend to be ideological absolutists and prone to extremism, the good little useful idiot soldiers of the empire. Luckily, not all of the left-wing has fallen for such TPTB tricks, especially not the people frequenting this website. But most Hillary voters have.
Here is a good article on how a skillful politician can co-opt left wingers to serve his personal goals (of becoming a billionaire) and the goals of those paying him off: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/07/roaming-charges-intimations-of-apocalypse/
Sorry to type so, but the left-wingers are sometimes like flies keen to find the fly-glue to get attached to, whilst Hillary has now co-opted all three: the Death, the Blood and Gore for her election.
Let’s hope the neocon controlled “soft totalitarian” yankee regime doesn’t bring about nuclear armageddon. This is the logical endpoint of their desire to overthrow the Russian government and is not only criminal but profoundly stupid. People like this Gershman should be in a lunatic asylum rather than acting as agents of what has become a rogue regime. The latest “war crimes” accusations redouble the cynicism of a regime responsible for the entire war in Syria after their role in the destruction of Iraq, Libya and elsewhere.
I’ve been saying for years: Hillary wants to bomb Iran for the Israelis, and she will. I’ve been saying for years, Hillary next wants to attack Russia to make a regime change and is arrogant enough to go for it. The insane are in charge of the asylum.
P.S. Have you seen the cover of Time with Putin on it? Another step toward war with Russia. All the MSM are on board in the Putin-bashing. All these “leaders” think about is power, money and control of the world’s resources and they are hell-bent on getting it no matter how many millions die for their greed. Revolution, anyone?
Rob Roy – you’re right. But how did ALL of the MSM get on board? Was there a meeting calling all of them together, because they definitely are ALL together. It’s insane how they’re going after Putin, every single one of them. Is it because they’re fearful that Hillary might lose and they’re going all out in order to scare the American public re Putin? I cannot understand why they’re so blatant in showing their cards. I mean, the one-hour bombing of the Syrian army by the U.S. (one hour isn’t an accident) is right in our faces. Is this all just a ruse to defeat Trump and his admiration of Putin? Are they bluffing in order to win votes? What is going on?
When I researched this in the 1980s, between 40-60% of US mass media were directly controlled by staff with Jewish surnames. The balance were indirectly controlled by advertisers or parent organizations. More than half of US Jews do not have surnames that an expert can identify as Jewish. The exceptions were media in New Jersey (all Italians) and Texas-Louisiana (said to be controlled by oil companies). That is the cause if uniform propaganda in favor of Israel and Jews generally. There are no significant exceptions.
You’ve already said this – I hate it when people repeat themselves for no reason.
As the great Russian scholar Stephen F Cohen keeps noting, Putin’s successor will likely be a dangerous Russian nationalist, far more willing to go to war, even to thermonuclear war, than the utterly-rational Putin.
In extending the PNAC hegemony hit list to Russia, the Neocons have proven themselves to be not only psychopaths, but suicidal psychopaths.
If monsters such as Gershman are not stopped somehow, they may be the death of us all.
I like Stephen C. but I think he is wrong on this. Putin has maybe already picked the man to take his place. The new leader of Duma.
It would be good if these real con men/women, their families and close friends were the fighters carrying out the deadly missions around the world. Unfortunately, the majority of fighters doing the slaughters and destruction and are themselves dying both physically and mentally in the process are recruited from financially depressed families of the world. The oligarchs children, relatives and friends are not in the battle fields!
There no genuine nationalists in Russia, of that extinct sort of Russian nationalists like the great tsars Alexander II or Alexander III. All other self-proclaimed contemporary nationalists are a sham. There is nothing to fear. I really wonder where this strange idea of dangerous Russian nationalists, who may come to power, have come from. Have such people played too much in “Call of Duty” and “C&C: Red Alert”?
Presumably, it would be too much to ask Mr. Gershman to consider the old saw about people living in glass houses not throwing stones.
WHAT, no pictures?
Perhaps someone will be inspired to kick this idiot’s butt all the way to Poughkipskie [ha ha] Poughkipsie?…and then the good folks there will insist that he never leave—ever again..
Seriously….I hope I never encounter this Carl Gershman in his synogog or anywhere else, I would be so strongly tempted to upend him…..
Dennis Morrisseau
USArmy Officer[Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
FOR TRUMP
Lieutenant Morrisseau’s Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT 05775
[email protected]
802 645 9727
Let me guess, Carl Gershman is khazar Jewish. Am I right?
“In 1968, he worked in the research department of B’nai B’rith, and in 1972 he served on the Governing Council of the American Jewish Committee…. In 1972 he and Irving Howe edited a collection, “Israel, the Arabs and the Middle East.”
Carl Gershman was well-vetted by the Lobby. He is a standard bloody ziocon – an obnoxious idiot with no sense of personal responsibility. This scoundrel needs to be taken on a tour to a hospital in a war zone to see children dying as a result of his enthusiastic warmongering in service to plutocracy and the idea of Eretz Israel.
What was your first clue???
With Putin sitting there they can’t take Russia for themselves and in so doing control the East as well as the West.
Reagun had it right, The US is the evil empire.
Forget about ISIS…When is Putin going to start killing the neocons ?
When the neocons start getting killed frequently they’ll stop thirsting for war. Until death is brought to those who frequently promote war, we will continue to see them thirst for war. Until their family members are affected by the wars they promote, expect them to continue promoting war.
He’d really be doing the world a great big favor!
As far as I’m concerned, advocating war without just cause is no different than conspiracy to murder. Such people are just plain evil and do not deserve citizenship in any civilized country. (Please, I know what you are thinking, but let’s pretend we are a civilized country, huh?)
Like Cheney, Gershwin himself is beyond any personal risk but will cause others will die for his personal aggrandizement. You don’t get more evil than that.
Look, I fully realize that it makes some people uncomfortable and may offend the sensibilities of certain petty bourgeois liberal types, but it’s high time that a few brave souls call a spade a spade in that many of the officials, rich campaign benefactors, think [sic] tank scribes and talking heads tub thumping for ever more Washington warmongering throughout the Middle East, Maghreb, horn of Africa, Eastern Europe and south central Asia are American-Jewish Zionists, many of them dual Israeli citizens.
No matter the sensibilities involved it is NOT anti-Semitic to point out this pink elephant that’s comfortably ensconced in the war room. Until American citizens say enough is enough and demand that Israel’s fight is none of our concern, we’ll continue to see kids from the heartland coming home whacked out of their skulls or lying in coffins draped in flags. We’ll continue to see militarist war budgets plundering and pillaging every resource in sight across the country.
It’s unconscionable that often it’s the execrable anti-Semitic right that’s often the only source — not always though, witness the wonderful works by Mearsheimer and Walt, James Petras, Jeff Blankfort, Allison Weir, Paul Findley and Mr. Parry will touch on it not infrequently — pointing out that the major players behind Washington’s imperial wars over the last two decades have primarily been Jewish pro-Israel zealots. These zealots have browbeaten and intimidated vast sectors of the anti-war left, they’ve browbeaten and intimidated academic scholars and members of the mass media at all levels and they’re expert at mounting smear campaigns against any intelligent and courageous voice who points out Israel’s crimes against humanity and Tel Aviv’s grip on Washington’s overseas violence.
Yes, most readers here see that opposition to zionist fascism is not anti-Jewish, and that their fraudulent denunciation of “anti-semitism” is fascist propaganda, designed to prevent criticism of any and all wrongdoing. They are not alone in their attacks upon US democracy, but they control the mass media, and exploit the US failure to protect democracy from economic power. The zionists have indeed disgraced their kind as utterly selfish, did so to the Germans before Hitler, and if history is any lesson, they will be hated again. In many ways the fate to which the zionists have doomed the Jews presages the destiny of the US under control of its own extreme right wing.
The problem is that they are just the “point men” in leading the charge for the REAL powers-that-be: those powerful, obscenely wealthy, ruling families in Europe who have been in the driver’s seat since the late Roman Empire days. Scattered throughout Germany, Italy, Netherlands (remember the Middle Ages Holy Roman Empire?…yet another reconstruction of their power base), Venice (where they began again, immediately after the fall of the Western Roman Empire), U.K., and elsewhere in Europe; also spread out into the former colonies to manage colonial affairs-of-Empire (we still have Tories here, “minding the store” for the ruling families back in the Mother Country). Since the Holy Roman Empire days, when they had to tie themselves to Church Dogma (keeping up appearances before the subjects) concerning interest in money-handling, they’ve made use of the Jewish community to be their money-handlers, while the jews were relieved to be of service to them, to blunt the sharp edge of anti-semitism. To focus so intensely upon the servants is to let the REAL culprits escape, once again, into the shadows; but then this is the expected duty of a well-rewarded servant who enjoys a powerful and privileged place at the feet of their Masters.
Not sure if you’ll see this, Brad Owen, but Thank You for your brief historical slant on the oligarchic powers running our world, and especially for your perceptive comment:
“To focus so intensely upon the servants is to let the REAL culprits escape, into the shadows; but then this is the expected duty of a well-rewarded servant who enjoys a powerful and privileged place at the feet of their Masters.”
No myopia here.
The tail is indeed wagging the dog over roughly the last 20 years as it relates to Zionist warmaking and other Washington power centers. In fact, big oil and other market driven empire builders have lost out on lucrative contracts in the Middle East due to pro-Israel war and sanctions policies.
See the following books for further reading: James Petras’ “Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of U.S. Power”, Mearsheimer and Walt’s “The Israel Lobby” and Petras’ “Power of Israel in the United States.”
You hit the nail on the head. The Palestinian area always had importance for trade in the Middle Ages. Then it was for luxury goods from China and India via the silk road which had to pass at some stage through Palestine or areas close by. In the late 1800s oil was discovered, most of it in the Middle East. The British Navy realised they had a good use for it i.e. convert steam ships to diesel ships. And therefore the colonial outpost now called Israel was created after the Ottoman empire was destroyed in WW1. If it wasn’t for oil, I doubt if this Jewish colonial outpost would have been established. For the British Empire WW1 had two main objectives 1) to eliminate competition from Germany and Russia and 2) too establish a permanent hold on the ME through the creation of Israel and other projects in the old Ottoman empire e.g. the creation of the House of Saud and helping them to rule Saudi-Arabia.
That’s incorrect at this point in time. The tail is wagging the dog in many cases over the past 20 years to the detriment of “big oil” and other market driven empire builders. In fact, big oil lost out on lucrative contracts due to Zionist driven warmongering.
You really hurt my enjoyment of a fine day, Still, I appreciate that you did not offend any ladies, nor did you engaged in mass slaughter (today’s specialty is blackened and minced Yemeni, with a double tap). In my declining years, I cannot be sensitive about everything on a particular day.
” have primarily been Jewish pro-Israel zealots. These zealots have browbeaten and intimidated vast sectors of the anti-war left, they’ve browbeaten and intimidated academic scholars and members of the mass media at all levels and they’re expert at mounting smear campaigns against any intelligent and courageous voice”>>>
Agree.
But remember the Zio cult can do nothing to average citizens like ourselves. Cant take our jobs or money or intimidate us—-they only have that power over the politicians and the media figures—so we can speak out and call a spade a spade.
A friend recently told me that when I first told him about the Jewish Lobby(ies), USA & Israel and etc it scared him because he thought I was adopting some Nazi like view of ‘the Jews”. However he said after some research of his own he now understands exactly what I was talking about and warning about regarding the ”Zionist Cult within’ the Jews and its control of the US.
We have to keep pointing to the real culprits…even though it means we have to spend time giving a lot of factual back history as to how they came to control so much of America.
Did any of you see the latest rip on Putin just moments ago? I’ve been pre-occupied, not able to visit here recently, first hunkering down trying to survive Hurricane Matthew as the Cat 4 storm ripped through coastal SE Florida and today doing some clean-up in the aftermath. When I come back into the house Chris Matthews is on his Hardball program discussing the “unbelievable scandal” surrounding Donald Trump for disrespecting women in a recording of an intercepted phone call. It was true, he did use the kind of gutter language that practically every guy I’ve ever known has used with a wink and a nod to appear as macho as the next guy. I swear, I’ve heard the highest university administrators ( including an academic vice president of an entire state flagship university system) speaking in these terms to be considered “one of the guys.” That alone shouldn’t disqualify someone to be elected president of the United States (it didn’t hurt Bill Clinton for sure). But that isn’t my complaint. Matthews had Ruth Marcus, Andrea Mitchell and some other female on his panel to discuss the matter. In the course of the discussion, Mitchell opines that the telephone intercept was certainly provided by Russian operatives and its release ordered by Vladimir Putin himself. Matthews objected not the least, did not request proof of this provocative charge. No, he simply picked up the ball and used it as ammunition for the ubiquitous charges of Russian interference in American politics and this presidential campaign specifically. These remarks are casus belli, and it sounds like that’s what they ultimately want to use them for. If Matthews, the women on his program, or anyone else in media were the least bit objective they’d be demanding proof of such inflammatory accusations. In a pig’s eye is Putin trying to stir this pot and precipitate the war that will be the result of it, very possibly the war that Hillary Clinton and her neocon puppet masters seem to long for. The narrative these warmongering insiders incessantly try to push are totally beyond belief–at least to anyone rational, who does not want a global conflict. This “incident” does nothing to help Trump, Putin, or anyone in the political process except Hillary Clinton. Look to her, as the beneficiary of this for the source of it, not to Putin, whom she and her people lambast as Trump’s puppetmaster. How this contrived “scandal” is supposed to redound to Putin rather than Clinton can be believed only by morons. Unfortunately, morons represent the greatest part of the American electorate.
Upon learning more of the story, it was not an intercepted telephone conversation (I tuned into the show late). It was a direct conversation with producer Billy Bush, which Bush must have recorded himself and now made available. This makes it even more ludicrous for Andrea Mitchell to blame the Russians and Putin, personally, for putting this before the American public.
Andrea Mitchell – an ugly consort of the criminal “exuberant” Greenspan? That’s a company!
If claims that Hillary has some brain injuries are true, why is this mentally incapable woman being pushed to occupy an office in which the safety and lives of billions citizens of the world depend?
Do we know the names or the faces of the individuals who will be helping Mr. Carl Gershman to fill in Hillary’s mental blanks/amnesia in this homicidal confrontation with Russia? Innocent people are going to die by the millions! Why can’t this guy, Carl Gershman and his group just give us reasons why this confrontation must go on?
Already there are dangers associated with this revival of the cold war with Russia and/or China to the citizens living here in USA, particularly, in Arizona and New Mexico as indicated in the link below. That would mean testing of bombs will escalate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hILU6LgBLUY
Don’t forget their regime change(white coup)in Brazil lately with absurds accusations against D Roussef by a bunch of really corrupted MP’s from 6 political parties and from the STF(supreme court).Now they continue with even more BS against Lula as he is the most popular president ever and if candidate in 2018 he would win easily.
It was organized by the NED and the Koch brothers and probably also by Soros who has his candidate ready(from the green party..)for 2018(she lost largely the election in 2014).Argentina was also a white coup funded by the US.Next are: Chile,Ecuador(wikileaks of course..)and Bolivia.Venezueala being their top priority(for oil).
The NED should be happy today as Putin announced the return of a military base in Cuba and in Vietnam.
Ukraine is de facto bankrupted and will cost to the US,EU and IMF hundreds of billions in the years to come.
Nice job guys.
Much of what you say may be true, but to connect Soros with Jill Stein makes all your points come into question. Craziest thing I’ve ever heard.
I think he meant green party candidate in Brazil.
The green candidate in Brazil.
Soros is backing Jill Stein in the upcoming? That must be difficult since she doesn’t accept money from big donors. One would think she’d be doing better than the 3% of the vote I saw in the latest poll.
You might want to follow the money to see who he is *really* backing. Anything else is likely a smokescreen.
An amazing story, haven’t we had enough of US-sponsored regime change. Someone should “summon the will” to fire Gershman or defund NED. Otherwise, we are involved in foreign wars forever of our own volition.
To anyone not suffering from US/Corporate State indoctrination, it is clear where the crisis of legitimacy lies and it’s not in Russia.
This is getting scary. I’m assuming this is the same crowd that lied about WMD until we sent the tanks into Iraq. Why are they still relevant? Why are they in a position to poison more voters minds with lies? The American public went to war based on lies told by these very people in 2003. How is it that anyone of them is still in a position to affect our government? These people should be prohibited from any endeavor that involves influencing our government or our people. They lied to take us to war. I cannot think of a more egregious offense against a democracy then what they perpetrated in 2002-2003 in the run up to war. It was a steady diet of lies and misinformation meant to scare American voters into attacking an innocent victim. There was no 911 guilt in Iraq. Unless you were in Jerusalem or an AIPAC agent. What do we have to do to rid ourselves of these dangerous, lying, demigods that have a platform to manipulate voters? Anybody. What do we do?
Stop cooperating.
We must get money out of politics and mass media; that is the disease of the US. That requires constitutional amendments to restrict their funding to registered limited individual contributions. But we cannot because those tools of democracy are already controlled by economic concentrations. It is incurable.
The US will continue to be a fake democracy controlled by money until it is destroyed by external powers, probably economically. It has nothing to teach the world, and will be remembered in history as nothing but an example of what happens when a democratic constitution regulates direct power but not economic power. That is all the US stands for: corruption. Savagery by other means. Long live the economic tyrant.
Do you believe this has come to pass in an organic fashion, or was it engineered by conspiratorial forces to this point?
My reading of history does not support a broad conspiracy theory, despite the clear intention of the richest. Other groups have had similar intentions to dominate. But the richest, and their greedy sycophants and enablers, found that the acquisition of steadily increasing power was facilitated by the failure of the Constitution to protect elections and mass media from economic concentrations. Their dominance of mass media since WWII made this irreversible.
The Constitutional Convention apparently did not debate the issue. Economic concentrations were no larger than a plantation or a ship, still a small business by SBA standards today (1500 employees). Concentration of private wealth had primarily private effects. So they made no provision to protect elections and mass media, a fatal and irreversible error.
(a) They have infiltrated every influential functioning body of the US government. In US Congress, they are instrumental in financing the majority of people who get elected to the Presidency and Congress regardless of party affiliation. That means the elected officials, particularly, those who are vetted and financed by them, carry orders directly from these elites; the livelihoods of these chosen elected and women depend on it.
(b) While the rest of Americans citizens concentrate heavily on demonizing and hating other people of color for the bread crumbs that fall from the masters’ tables, these wise guys have focused, like laser beams, on those individuals who must occupy powerful government positions or whose arms can/must be twisted (using all means necessary) to implement their financial, fiscal and foreign policies both here in USA and around the world. I suspect this is what is being attempted in Russia!
Think I am nuts for saying this? Investigate the rise of Bill and Hillary Clinton from Hope, Arkansas.
Voters no longer determine the outcome of elections. Until this system changes, we are in for a rough and bloody ride!!
— (((They))) have infiltrated every influential functioning body of the US government. In US Congress, (((they))) are instrumental in financing the majority of people who get elected to the Presidency and Congress regardless of party affiliation. That means the elected officials, particularly, those who are vetted and financed by (((them))), carry orders directly from these (((elites))); the livelihoods of these chosen elected and women depend on it. —
There! I fixed it for you. Also, let’s not forget, besides every influential functioning body of the US government, (((they))) also control the media, Hollywood, and academia — virtually all information sources, and not to mention the money, the Federal Reserve. There’s sure a lot of tip-toeing going on around here, all while America is being deliberately destroyed by (((you know who))).
” Anybody. What do we do?’>>>
Well I don’t suggest waiting around for money , zios and neocons to be gotten out of government and politics.
The world will be blown up before that happens.
I saw a movie a long time ago on TV—(it couldn’t have been much of a box office success as I had never heard of it before or since then) –it was about a group of Vietnam marine vets who formed a swat team and took out the US war mongers and political criminals and blew up some major weapons plants in the US.
Then several years ago I read the suicide letter of a Iraq vet. In it he mentioned how he considered getting some vets together to go after and execute all the instigators of the Iraq war.
I dare say there are more than we think out here who harbor secret visions of this.
Would’ve been a gift to the people. Especially to get all of the Ziofascists out. That’s a must.
Sure cure—expose Israel operatives and hacks who planned and did 911 attacks.
The zealot always thinks he has God on his side.
Your hated is ENORMOUS.
George, Your hated is ENORMOUS.
Wow, this isn’t libya or His duras we’re talking about here. This is nuts.
Regime change. Great! It has worked so well everywhere we have succeeded hasn’t it?
Regime Change has worked great… it has destroyed all the enemies of Israel outlined in “Operation Clean Break” … and turned the Mediterranean into an American Lake.
You’re just too narrow minded to see the big picture of Global Hegemony by genocidal destruction… against all rivals or even possible rivals.
“Can’t we just drone him?”
– Hillary Clinton
I personally pledge to pay $100,000,000 to anyone who removes Putin from power.
We live in Democracy: one dollar counts as one vote.
I voted. Did you?
Well, you are Gershman’s best buddy (lol). You are united around the same cause and you copy each other’s writings and statements.
I have said it before – the new 38 Billion loot for Israel is but a tip of the iceberg. Greater Israel costs US people much, much, much more than this piddly amount of “assistance”. DoD and US Military, CIA, NSA, all MSM, and so on they all operate primarily for Israel’s interests. Therefore, it is impossible to calculate how many trillions the Ziocons and Israel syphons off US. At $100M annually, NED is just another pimple on the skin of the US taxpayers.
But the Ziocons have bitten their biggest bite yet – regime change in Russia. It is not any more about a few trillions $ or the deaths of a few trailer trash volunteers. This time either you (the Ziocons) will win or we will all die.
Thank you for gambling with our lives for the noble cause of Greater Israel, to include part of Syria and beyond.
Rather NED is a boil on the ass of the US taxpayer.
Mr. Soros, put on your combat boots and head out! The false patriotism you show is disgusting! War will follow! Maybe some country will decide to overthrow our oligarchy! No more deaths! No more war!
Kiza, You are so right – ethically, rationally, not politically – I mean! There appear to be (NEOCON) interests and organisations around the world, always it seem with spokes running from an Israeli hub, that are playing a high risk game, intent on denegration and confrontation with Putin’s Russia. We know the strategy: first make the enemy, then use the enemy to justify the action. Invariably this will include the common people meeting the military/industrial complex bill and paying in young blood. However the stakes are much, much higher, with the future of all human values and culture on the line. These arrogant, interfering militarists need to be booed off the stage.
But we know with computerised voting that 1 person does not equal 1 vote. Computers can make some voters have more powerful votes (1> )and others less powerful (<1) in an effort by the ruling elite to destroy democracy and steal elections.
Old info, regurged endlessly.
George sorts is wanted dead or alive in Russia and has no regard for the common people tha he parasites off!
I will give anyone a pat on the back if they shut up Soros.
Dankof to Cyber Warriors on the Planet: If you oppose the Cabal’s deliberate ignition of World War III for the New World Order, we must Stop Clinton. Send the following package to your groups and lists everywhere: http://mondoweiss.net/2016/10/panicked-netanyahu-rallying/. And http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=51277. And The Bombshell: http://theduran.com/wikileaks-bombshell-hillarys-8-point-plan-to-destroy-isis-and-syria-qatar-and-saudi-arabia-providing-financial-support-to-isil/.
John Pilger would agree that The Future is Now. See https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/. Joachim Hagopian has an unmistakable Roadmap of your future and mine if Clinton and her Cabal win the American Presidency at
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/10/joachim-hagopian/elite-will/.
End Run the War Party Media Cabal. Game Time. Yes, we have a flawed Trump as our only choice. But he is the Only Choice. We must take that admittedly grave risk. Do you and I desire Syria’s targeted destruction and genocide on a global scale? If Clinton wins, our fate and that of humanity is assuredly sealed. Let’s Go. The Future is Now.
I’m waiting for Putin to remove Soros from his life!