"Intelligence Claim"

Intelligence Claim.  Translation: We tortured some prisoners until they told us this.

In addition to the glaring hypocrisy here (just was with Russiagate!) there's the little thing of lack of credible evidence.

Not Claims from Intelligence whose job elsewhere, at least, is to lie.

The only real factoid is that indeed Afghanistan is awash in dollars, most if not all from corrupt arrangements with US Intelligence Agencies, and the Drug Trade in particular, who would like to keep all these arrangements going, despite the desire of pesky American Citizens who would like to see this war ended for a lot of good reasons.

If the Russians were indeed paying bounties for the murder of US troops, Afhtanis wouldn't be getting much for that, because they haven't gotten many US troops.

In comparison, when the US hires mercenaries, it pays them full time and supplies big equipment!  Such as, for jihadis in Syria.  And war criminals in Saudi Arabia.  And in addiiton to mercenaries it uses drones and endless wars.

The scale of alleged vs real crimes is so vast, the hypocrisy is so glaring, only someone absolutely blinded by American Exceptionalism can't see it.

Truth

Not surprisingly, Wikipedia is heavily edited by advocates of western imperialism, western backed regime change included.  People who don't share their agenda, get banned.

So, what was Roger Stone convicted of?

A question not addressed in Guardian articles, Craig Murray wrote on Feb 18.

So Craig fills in.  He was convicted about his lies of having made the connection between Trump and Wikileaks.  He had done nothing of the sort  He wasted our time with his fantasy.

The exact opposite of what Russiagate conspiracy peddlers like The Guardian were peddling, and continue to do by insinuation.

Wikipedia's version doesn't address what the lies he was convicted of were about.

MLK was Fake?

Though there has been some controversy over this, it appears to me to be true that Martin Luther King, Jr, once uttered these words:

“Don’t talk like that! When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!”

This is extensively investigated, in a chapter which to me sounds fairly written, by Martin Kramer (a distinguished but right leaning Israeli scholar).  He concludes that while these words were probably spoken, we shouldn't take them very seriously, or as anything like King's rather more complex views on the subjects involved.  The words may have had a lot to do with the circumstances...

And the history of this remark is fascinating.  As many recent defenders of King will point out, King had an independent mind on Israel and Palestine, becoming far more critical of Israel after it failed to give up territory taken in the 1967 war.  He cancelled a trip to Israel in late 1967, after considerable indecision, but it was well known to the FBI that he was leaning against the trip as soon as it was clear Israel was not going to give back territory it had taken in the war.  In this way among others, he stood up for principles opposing Zionism, even at cost to himself.

But you could well say, that even that he was in that position, having originally planned a trip to Israel, was a betrayal of many of his clearly enunciated principles.  The students of SNCC had clearly become pro-Palestinian statehood well before that (in in fact, his remarks above, were to an SNCC member or sympathizer).  King meanwhile, continued to accept large donations from Zionists, such as Marty Peretz.  In fact the above remark was made at a dinner party at Marty Peretz' house, where King was soliciting donations!

King was, like many people at the time, trying to find a middle path with regards to Israel and Palestine.  At the time it was still possible to be sincere about this, and he was.  I had no clear mind on this issue myself for decades after 1967.  It would surely be different now.  We've seen what has happened since 1967: the Zionist elimination of Palestine, and all efforts to stop it fail.  We've seen the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, the strangulation of Gaza, the apartheidization, and now annexation of the West Bank, and enabling imperial destruction in Syria and elsewhere.  King would certainly have been aware of these things now.  He was in his time considered the preeminent threat to US culture by the FBI, and ultimately assassinated by them with a well orchestrated coverup by Hoover, who had mastered the art for JFK, but rarely applied it so well.

I still see King in much more flattering terms than, say, Thomas Jefferson (slave owner and fucker, hypocritical "states rights" defender) and even Cesar Chavez (who took over grass roots unions organized by others and turned them into an inextensible top down Alinskyian Organization).

Much of King's work, his organizing and speeches, was heroic and brilliant.  I wouldn't rename any streets or pull down statues of King just yet because he once casually seemed to equate anti-zionism with anti-semitism, or met with Zionists.

All the same, he has also perhaps garnered too much attention, attention taken away from other leading figures like Fred Hampton, who's death was not so well disguised.  Best not talk about a true radical socialist.

And it may partly be because King was willing to take the dollars, and perhaps a tiny bit of rhetoric  from, Zionists and others who might not have fully fit the revolutionary ideals we see in him.*

As a Free Thinker, I sometimes wonder if it it suits me to put much faith in the very faithful King.

But I wasn't a Free Thinker myself, in 1967.  And I try to seek an all encompassing and non-parochial view, in which I have a lot of respect for King.  We should just realize, King or anybody, doesn't represent any ideals completely.  Nor was he ethically and morally perfect by any fair standard.  King's gaffes were minor compared with his efforts and achievements.  He remains a top figure in US history, perhaps even the most fully worthy of respect of all, or at least along with Jonas Salk.

It turns out, a different attribution, a much longer letter defending Israel and Zionism, purported to be by King, is a fake.  Other than that, his most clearly enunciated statement criticizing anti-Zionism, which he well would have understood to be controversial even then, was simply an unplanned remark at a fundraising dinner--which happened to be at a Zionist's house and is recalled only by Zionists.

One question meriting further investigation, might be the relevance of King's trip to Boston to see Peretz and others, vs the cancellation of King's trip to Israel, and/or other subjects at this party.  Clearly if Peretz was trying to convince King to go to Israel, Peretz failed to do that.  King maintained the stance that he would schedule another trip in the future, but King's assassination occurred before any rescheduling.

My feeling continues that a now often unrecognized sea change occurred around the 1967 war (which, btw, we now know well was orchestrated by Israel as a land grab, not a defensive measure against Arab enemies--see Finkelstein and others).  It was in some limited way possible for a universalist to accept Israel when it was arguably not Israel blocking Palestinian statehood.  Prior to 1967, the majority of the UN partitioned Palestinian state was in possession of the Jordanians, and in 19 years Jordan had done nothing to enable a Palestinian state.  After 1967, the Israelis took that obligation upon themselves, and the clock has long run out.  I was persuaded around 1968 to have hope that, unlike "Arab" Jordan, "Democratic" and progressive Israel would get the job done quickly and fairly.  But a fair analysis would point out that Jordan is merely another US Vassal state, ineffective at doing anything well for itself or refugees.  The notion that the Jordanian government is somehow "Arab" just like Palestinians, and Palestinians should be happy there as a result, is racist.  The Zionist POV seems not unlike telling San Franciscans they'll be perfectly happy in Oakland, and Oaklanders will be perfectly happy to take on a few million angry dispossessed San Franciscans.

(*Marty Peretz wasn't the household name we know now either.  He was just a nice guy in 1967, a newly enriched antiwar lefty Harvard sociology professor having married a lefty heiress (and not his first such marriage either).  He helped pay the bills for early leftish-anarchist antiwar magazine Ramparts.  He helped some other civil rights leaders, that was one of his big things then.  Not the guy who later became so well known for anti-arab and anti-black racist remarks that Jim Lehrer never once failed to turn down a request for invitation.  The same who guy who later purchased and then totally discredited the once leftish The New Republic, turning it into a self-parodying bastion of Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and unabashed Zionism during his ownership.  Which has already become the basis of a fictional drama.  So disrespected that as soon as he sold the magazine, his old editor flat refused to publish him anymore.  He must have once been smart once, graduating from Brooklyn high school at 15.  Or maybe they just wanted him out too, but I repeat myself.)

How can I question the Skripal Poisonings ???

A friend has summarily reacted to my disbelief and debunking of the alleged Skripal Poisonings with a tirade that could be described in two words.

Evuul Putin

To which I replied:

The USA has killed far more people outside the USA since 1945.  Not even close.  Far more acts of aggression.  Far more regime changes succeeded and attempted.  We "rule the world" with 180 bases in foreign countries, the dominant economy, the dominant culture, while it lasts anyway.

All my early life I was in constant fear of Soviets and their legendary security forces?  But how much did they actually do compared to their western counterparts?

And, the ultimate regime change of all.  The US regime changed the Soviet Union itself, though it's typically described as "Collapse," it was really more like a western planned and orchestrated Color Revolution.  Which happened not long after a long standing CIA chief became US President.  GHW Bush.  Also, it happens, the same man central to the Kennedy Assassination, and even the Bay of Pigs to overthrow Castro (his "Zapata Oil Company" being an obvious CIA front, located 60 miles from Cuba).  Even Hostage-gate and Iran-Contra.  A man with an extensive record even a comic book Putin constructed by his enemies would have to respect, if those who constructed that comic book stereotype could see themselves.

So, we regime changed them.  And have kept on that path ever since with color revolutions succeeded in Ukraine (the birthplace of Russia) and endlessly attempted in Syria (their only ally in the Middle East).  What have they done to us?

I don't know, just not the Skripal poisoning.  Not as "reported" or "dramatized" by BBC anyway.  Their reporting only makes sense if everything Russian is pure evil, and everything else pure good.  But then that is the way a lot of people think, for the obvious reason that it's the only thing they ever hear.  Did I mention we have the best mind control media also?  All the "more" and "most" superlatives are on one side and go together.  It shouldn't take much free thinking to see where the evil is truly centered, and the rest barely matters.

The Skripal Hoax...now dressed up in a BBC serialized dramatization

I've long followed (loosely) a long line of articles showing the "Skripal Poisoning" affair was a big lie, aka a hoax.

Most of these articles I read at Consortium News when it was newsworthy, however, one of the authors of those stories was Craig Murray, who I am now reading at his own website.

The official unofficial "Skripal Poisoning" story appears to be full of train sized holes, obvious to almost anyone who has an understanding of such things.

Some critics of the hoax view countercomplain that we don't have a good alternative explanation.  The first defense to that is that we don't need one in order to show the official story is a lie.  A serious journalist would stop there to avoid any need for speculation.  I do sometimes go farther because I am not a journalist and speculation is my hobby.  I would say that we don't know (and have in fact been systematically blocked from finding out) what actually happened.  But it was likely one of two things:

1) A false flag attack all the way, contrived to blame Russia.
2) An unfortunate incident of some kind that would have been embarrassing to British Intelligence (Mi6) and so was doctored to blame Russia instead.  (I can weave several stories on the drop of a hat for this, such as a illegal drug deal gone bad, but making them conform to all the known information would take a few more minutes than I have allotted to this.)

Now that BBC is rerunning the official story (?) in dramatized form, Murray and others are putting out more debunking.  Here are some updated versions (and look at the endless stream of comments following each one...comments streams are often far more interesting than the original post).

Craig Murray comments on the BBC dramatization.

Craig Murray comments after the second episode of the dramatization.

Craig Murray's 2019 debunking of the Skripal Affair (ten still unanswered questions).

Writeup by Rob Slane.

Dances with Bears (I'm buying the book).

I'm already convinced the Skripal Poisoning was a British hoax, but find it insufficiently worthwhile to try very hard to convince my BBC loving friends.

The Framing of Jeremy Corbyn and British Socialism

Craig Murray has a most excellent analysis after reading the leaked 851 page report.  Craig is so good I'm going to have to check him regularly, I might add to my sidebar.

I also strong recommend reading and re-reading the comments section, as I have done, to hear the perspectives of many British socialists, and a handful of zionists.  Even the socialists I partly disagree with, I love to read over and over because they express themselves so well.

Many note that Craig doesn't actually describe much anti-Semitism in his article.  In the comments section, he indicates that pages 270-272 are the prime pages describing real anti-Semitism in the report.

I downloaded the report from Off-Guardian (other sources seem to have disappeared, many have been threatened with Data violations which Murray says are not applicable in this case--such violations should not protect crimes) and took a look for myself.

Page 270 is blank (???) and instead I started at page 268 which is where the relevant section begins, up to 272.

About 60% of the examples on those pages refer specificially to Zionism by name, and not Judaism or Jewishness.

Of the remaining 40% we allegations of:

1) Holocaust Denial (one particular member ALT)

2) Claim that Rothschilds invented Naziism

3) Soros and Clinton portrayed as Rothschild puppets

4) talk about "Jewish Power"

5) article "Meet the Jews in Trump's Inner Circle"

6) "Rothschild and the Illuminati"

7) exclamation: "I am sick to death of hearing and reading about moaning Jews..."

Few of those people received suspensions.  Except possibly for #1, I wouldn't consider them very serious either.

The high profile members who WERE suspended, like Ken Livingstone and Tony Greenstein (himself of Jewish background in a famous leftish district--and who came to the defense of his friend Livingstone) were simply repeating historical facts (Agreements between Zionists and Nazis and their effect) in relevant contexts.

(To wit, not only did the Zionists reach the Haavara Agreement with Nazis in 1933 to permit rich enough Jews to buy their way out of Germany and take their wealth in the form of German manufactured goods, but also the Zionists blocked the boycott of Nazis by nearly all other Jews from 1933-37 which might have toppled the Nazi state when it was weak.  These Zionists persuaded major international merchants--many of whom were Jewish--NOT to honor the boycott.  Zionist agreements with Hitler ended in 1937.)

(I know nothing about Rothschild and Naziism.  HOWEVER there is another claim which I believe is true, and that is that Hertzl supported the anti-semitic ruler of Vienna, who may have been a model for Hitler who also lived in Vienna at the time, and that many later mistakenly thought that Hitler would similarly be anti-semitic in rhetoric only.  During this same time period, Hertzl held the first world conference of Zionism in London, where some time later the Balfour Agreement was a letter written to Lord Rothschild--a back room deal that gave much of Palestine to the Zionists.  There could be more connections here, and in fact a number of dodgy websites claim there are.  Meanwhile most people I respect believe that Naziism and Zionism are both ethnic supremacisms cut from different corners of the same 19th century cloth, even while or if not actually fabricated and promoted by the exact same people.)

In my opinion, the damage done to the socialist project within the Labour Party by hyping the lightweight "Labour Antisemitism Crisis" was far worse than the damage, if any, caused to anyone Jewish by these trivial bits of "antisemitism," if they can even be called that.  

It's my reading of Craig Murray that he says much the same thing, though Craig doesn't specifically downplay "the actual" antisemitism revealed in the report--only nobodies in the outback like me can do that.  Craig says there is some serious stuff there, but that the mishandling had nothing to do with Corbyn and the Labour socialists and was simply blamed on them--i.e. Corbyn and his closest associates were framed by those who dislike Corbyn's socialism, and anti-semitism was a conveniently available tool thanks to the new IHRI definition of antisemitism which includes anti-zionism, along sid the longstanding committments to greater rights for Palestinians among Corbyn and his friends.)

I've really come to like Tony Greenstein as well as Murray if not better.  And recetnly he's been writing a lot, with more relevant articles out just today.  Maybe I'll add him to my sidebar.

His second article today carries on from the first talking about the IHRI conflation of anti-zionism with antisemitism.

Tony Greenstein has convinced me that Gilad Atzmon is truly an anti-semite and we do not make such accusations lightly.  Read Tony's incredible deconstruction of Atzmon's writings and sayings.  For me, the key bit is that Atzmon denies the possibility of honest Jewish anti-Zionism, ignoring the 2000 year history of something just like that, and the possibility of Jews (like anyone else) being ethically concerned about racism and the apartheid state of Israel, as they can (and quite often are) if their minds are free from the endless lies of Zionism--which is not solely a Jewish phenomenon either.  Jewish anti-Zionists include a vast number of writers I respect.  To Atzmon, anti-Zionist jews are all liars, ready to turn into Zionists at the next anti-Semitic comment (similar to what Athiests are incorrectly maligned of doing in foxholes).  On the contrary, Jewish Anti-Zionists include many of the most intelligent, honest, ethical and courageous people I know, who would rather (and frequently have) faced severe ostracization and even death before becoming a tool of racist oppression.  We anti-Zionist jews and others are part of many groups, and loyal to them, but not so loyal as break fundamental ethical principles to elevate them, as the Zionists have.  One of those ethical principles, now enshrined if not universally obeyed in all modern societies, is anti-discrimination.  Atzmon has been kicked out of Palestinian Rights organizations for his antisemitism, they won't tolerate it either.  From what I gather in this review of a 2018 boot, Atzmon is basically selling a collection of nonsense ideas, centered around a Nazi-like antisemitism (he's a "former-Jew" after all, after having given up "the Jewish Identity").  It's also strongly anti-socialist and anti-communist, while seeming comfortable to right wing and other extremisms.  But such is the flexibility of his nonsense writing, that it's been published at Counterpunch as well.  But I still feel he would be as entitled to his conspiracy theories as anyone else, as long as they weren't generalized (such as to Jews as a category), or maliciously libelous.  I think Greenstein, like many others, often makes too much of such theorizing.  I'd only accept certain dangerous cases as being unacceptable, notably Holocaust Denial, and even then, only as an offense and not a crime.

An Update on the British Labour situation today from Tony Greenstein's friend Asa Winstanley.

From Jamie Stern-Weiner: A detailed critique of the claim that the British left is full of antisemitism (by fair measures, the British left has less real antisemitism than the conservatives, but more criticism of Israel).

"Rubber Bullets"

https://twitter.com/CNSDallas/status/1268321956744617985

(This is my first attempt to link from Twitter, don't know if it will work.)

"Rubber Bullets" is a euphanism.  They are 40mm rubber coated steel rounds, 15% of which result in serious permanent injury, and 3% in death.

In the past week, many people have suffered serious injury from these weapons, which like tear gas, should be banned for police usage.

(Tear gas is banned in warfare as a "chemical weapon.")

Guy from Dallas shown on Twitter lost an eye and teeth.  Many seem to suffer from these sorts of facial injuries, as it appears cops aim for head.