Petraeus may be called in U.S. inquiry on Benghazi: Feinstein

Reuters
Deborah Zabarenko

(Reuters) - Despite an adultery scandal that ended David Petraeus' tenure as CIA chief, the general may be called to testify in a Senate inquiry into the killing of four Americans at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Senator Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.

Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on the "Fox News Sunday" program that Petraeus' resignation on Friday "was like a lightning bolt."

She said there will be an investigation into why the FBI failed to inform her and others on the intelligence committee before Friday about the extramarital affair between Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, when the FBI probe had been proceeding for weeks.

The California Democrat said there was no connection between Petraeus' resignation and the September 11, 2012, killings in Benghazi. Petraeus had been scheduled to testify about the Benghazi case on Thursday in a closed session of the committee; Mike Morrell, the acting CIA director, is now expected to do so.

She said the committee may decide to call Petraeus in a future meeting of the intelligence panel on the Benghazi killings. Four U.S. citizens were killed, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

"My biggest concern is, there are literally hundreds of threat warnings in the material that has been accumulated," Feinstein said. "There were five attacks during the year, one prior attack on the consulate itself. The question I have is ... why wasn't something done about it?"

U.S. Representative Peter King, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, raised questions about why it took FBI investigators so long to inform President Barack Obama and others in his administration that Petraeus was involved.

FBI TIMELINE QUESTIONED

"The timeline has to be looked at and analyzed," the New York congressman said on CNN's "State of the Union. "Because obviously this was a matter involving a potential compromise of security and the president should have been told about it at the earliest stage."

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he was ready to turn the page on the scandal that prompted Petraeus to resign, but said the former general must testify before Congress about what he called a "national security failure" at Benghazi.

Graham, of South Carolina, called for a Watergate-style joint select committee of members of the House and Senate to investigate the matter.

Speaking on "Face the Nation" on CBS, Graham said the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community have much to explain in this case, but singled out Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, for her role.

"I don't, quite frankly, trust her rendition of Benghazi," Graham said. Rice initially described the attack as a spontaneous outburst rather than a planned attack. Her handling of the matter provided fodder to Republican opponents in the final months of Obama's re-election campaign.

Rice has been mentioned as a possible choice by Obama to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but Graham said Rice's nomination to this post "would have incredibly difficult time getting through the Senate."

"I would not vote for her unless there's a tremendous opening up of information explaining herself in a way she has not yet done," Graham said of Rice.

From Fantasy To Fact: Four Ways The Fake Media Creates A False Reality

The Excavator
Saman Mohammadi

1. Hyper-attention On A Particular Event, Issue, and Mantra.
The mainstream media exclusively focuses on a single storyline about an event or an issue, which has the effect of marginalizing other points of view that are equally valid, if not more so. Narratives, not facts and objective data, have taken center stage in the aspiring journalist's mind. Journalists and editors who oversee the making of the news play the same role as screenwriters in the filmmaking process. Their power stems from the fact that the public looks at news as "real," whereas they know movies are totally fake. But news in the United States and the West is the farthest thing from being real.

Journalists who are in the service of the U.S. intelligence community and other government intelligence agencies are messengers for power. Their job is to repeat government narratives and government mantras. For example, Al-Qaeda is a mantra, not an international terror organization that is at war with America. Read, "Al Qaeda And Human Consciousness: Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda. . . . An Incessant And Repetitive Public Discourse," by Prof Michel Chossudovsky. The "Arab Spring" is another mantra that Washington has used to fulfill its foreign policy objectives in the Middle East.

The latest mantra that the mainstream media is using in a domestic context is the "fiscal cliff." Media messengers for the tyrannical establishment do not discuss how the Federal Reserve's private money machine, Wall Street bailouts, and the military-industrial complex's wars have caused the skyrocketing of U.S. debt. They just keep repeating "fiscal cliff," and then offer bipartisan solutions that will benefit the banksters in power while destroying the living standards of middle class taxpayers and workers.

By focusing on the "fiscal cliff," rather than the Grand Canyon of Deception that is the unconstitutional Federal Reserve system, the mainstream media legitimizes the looting and pillaging of the American people by the transnational banksters.

2. Production of Fake News Reports.

War propaganda is not a new feature of warfare, but the modern Western mass media has taken this art to its highest technological development. What the American, Israeli, and Western media accomplished on the day of September 11, 2001, is simply astonishing. 9/11 was a riveting Hollywood production, from start to finish, from morning to nightfall. It made Hitler's propaganda team weep from the beyond. But the official 9/11 story is just one example of how news is manufactured by the government in tandem with the press.

Examples abound in Syria. Propaganda stations like CNN, Al Jazeera, and BBC have reported on fake massacres by the Syrian government, made up the size of anti-Assad protests, and generally exaggerated the intensity of the hatred for Assad within Syria. We cannot rely on the official number of the people who have died in the conflict because the malicious media routinely makes up figures and repeats them until they become accredited as facts.

Up to now, the Western media has painted a very rosy picture of the anti-Assad "rebels" who are foreign-funded Jihadist terrorists, while minimizing the suffering and needless deaths of Assad's supporters like Syrian-Palestinian actor Mohamad Rafea.

We can clearly see that the revolution in Syria is an imagined revolution and not a real revolution. The Arab Spring is not like an organic plague that spreads from country to country. The U.S., Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia transported the Arab Spring into Syria, and it met resistance from the politically aware Syrian people and the powerful Syrian state. This is natural because there was never a demand for a violent Jihadi revolution in Syria. The anti-government sentiments in Syria never reached the level of despair, unlike in Egypt, Bahrain, and other countries in the region.

3. Omission of Facts and Alternative Opinions.

CNN bans own documentary critical of Bahraini regime

PressTV

CNN international English-language television network has refused to broadcast a documentary which was produced by the US-based network itself but heavily criticized the Bahraini regime’s repression against anti-regime protesters.

The CNN-produced documentary, iRevolution, pictured the use of extreme brutality and violence by the Manama regime against peaceful anti-government protesters in Bahrain.

The program was however banned from being broadcast in the international network, with the editorial staff citing "purely editorial reasons” for the decision.

A Tuesday report by the British daily Guardian, however, linked the network’s move to ban the show to what it described as the CNN’s “aggressive pursuit of money” from the Bahraini government.

The report cited the CNN’s pursuit of “a business strategy of extensive, multifaceted financial arrangements” with several of the repressive Arab regimes, disclosing CNN’s “financial dealings” with the US-backed regime of Bahrain and branding the dealings as “deep and longstanding.”

According to the report, CNN’s reliance on revenue from the dictatorial Arab regimes increased significantly after the 2008 financial crisis.

“It (the CNN) thus pursued all-new, journalistically dubious ways to earn revenue from governments around the world. Bahrain has been one of the most aggressive government exploiters of the opportunities presented by CNNi (CNN International),” it said.

The report added that the CNN was long engaged in a type of “fawning coverage” of the Bahraini regime, citing numerous reports by the network praising Bahrain’s policies.

According to the report, besides the financial relationship, the fact that Bahrain is a close ally of the US government also constituted an obstacle to the network’s truly critical coverage of the kingdom.

Despite claims by the CNN that its journalistic work has not been compromised, Amber Lyon, the investigative correspondent who featured in the banned documentary, said that CNN journalists and producers complain persistently about the type of business-motivated censorship that is prevalent at the US-based news network.

Lyon, who was "laid off" by the CNN in March 2012, said that few are willing to speak out lest they might endanger their careers.

The CNN documentary was produced in early 2011 as the wave of Islamic Awakening swept across the Middle East and North Africa.

Bahrain, which is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been the scene of anti-regime protests since February last year and scores of people have been killed and hundreds more injured in the Saudi-backed crackdown on the protests.

Why media neutrality over the US presidential election is fuelling lies

Journalists' failure to challenge Paul Ryan's Tampa speech showed the lack of rigour and challenge

The Guardian
Emily Bell

When Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan closed his speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa last week with the emphatic incantation "let's get this done!", the inner pentagram of the Republican party was on its feet cheering its approval.

Cut back to the CNN studio where anchor Wolf Blitzer noted how enthusiastic the delegates seemed, although he also noted there were one or two items the fact-checkers might want to come back on. He had, he said, made a list of "seven or eight points" that might be contentious, but didn't mention what they were. Cut to a panel discussion for instant reaction, cut to Ryan and family looking pleased, cut back to the studio. Still no specifics on those pesky facts.

Meanwhile Democrats and those with reasonable knowledge of US politics were furiously filling the internet with accusations that the speech was at best disingenuous, at worst deliberately misleading. What about the car plant Ryan referred to – mocking Obama for talking about it lasting 100 years, yet it was closed within a year of his becoming president – when the Bush administration had closed it? Or chiding Obama for failing to act on a fiscal report when Ryan himself had sat on the committee which blocked the adoption of its recommendations ? Or his Medicaid calculations?

Back in the CNN studio, Blitzer finally felt comfortable listing the points where Ryan had clearly created a misleading impression, noting that "emails and Twitter" had raised such questions, rather than producers and correspondents. For the viewer, it was puzzling.

A major news network that doesn't say, even as the ovation continues, "hang on a minute", is surely falling short. The reluctance of American journalists to tackle the substantive issues raised by politicians, lobbyists, pressure groups and others for fear of being seen as "biased" forms part of a culture of "neutrality" that is essentially driven by economic forces but which is presented as an ethical touchstone.

"The view from nowhere" is a phrase coined by philosopher Thomas Nagel, which was applied to American journalism by academics and commentators like Jay Rosen and James Fallows. It describes a flawed process of delivering "unbiased" reporting. The "neutral" journalist conveys two sides to an argument without forming a judgment. The theory sounds fine until you try it out: "some scientists believe in the Darwinian theory of evolution, but many other people believe that God created men and monkeys from different pieces of magic clay'. An extreme, and absurd example perhaps, but one which illustrates the fundamental bankruptcy of "the view from nowhere".

The culture that favours "neutrality" over "truthiness" was illustrated by Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin's now infamous assertion that "legitimate rape" carries almost no risk of pregnancy, when his interviewer Charles Jaco allowed it to slip by unchallenged. Again, this local interview rapidly found an international audience through the hyper-connected web of consumers and commentators, making the journalistic failure to tackle this at source even more egregious.

The existence of a "fact-checking movement" which runs parallel to, but is not part of, the press shows how disjointed the process of informing the public has become. So much so that a former public editor of the New York Times attracted some ridicule earlier this year when he asked if it was the job of journalists to be "truth vigilantes".; given the prevailing conditions, however, one can see why he was asking the question even it if was phrased in a rather unfortunate way.

Every one of the 15,000 editors, correspondents, producers, gofers and commentators who packed into the convention last week should be asking themselves the same question. If the job of journalism is to strengthen democracy, and if you can't move in downtown Tampa for accredited press, why did Ryan and his team of speechwriters produce something so wilfully misleading? The ugly truth is, they did it because they could.

Congress Investigates WH Taxpayer-Funded Payoffs to MSNBC’s Olbermann, Maddow

Stimulus funds allegedly directed at Obama’s worthless “green job” ads created zero jobs

InfoWars

Melissa Melton

Still unsure where all of the president’s $831 billion dollars in stimulus went?

So are a lot of Americans, including a House committee currently demanding records on half a million dollars in phony MSNBC ad buys the White House procured to promote job opportunities that did not exist.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce wants to know what, if anything, came of the over 100 “green jobs” initiative commercials purchased through the 2009 contract that ran exclusively on Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC programs. According to the Washington Times:

“Spending reports showed that no jobs were created through the contract. The Washington Times first reported on the contract earlier this month, quoting one taxpayer watchdog who questioned not only the lack of jobs but why the commercials aired only on MSNBC, considered the most liberal of the major cable news outlets.”

If the assertions of this inquiry prove correct, it is, like the Solyndra scandal and others, further evidence that stimulus money was used not to stimulate the economy as promised, but to sell the public on the perception that the President has been effective in tackling the financial quagmire that continues to unravel society and destroy jobs — all while subsidizing his allies with lucrative deals, or in this case, ad revenue.

MSNBC’s leftist agenda is no secret; it’s “Lean Forward” branding, which launched circa 2010, mimics the president’s “Forward” campaign slogan, and the channel has been caught in the past demonizing anyone who would dare criticize Obama. As political talk show hosts, neither Maddow nor Olbermann have ever really challenged the Obama Administration’s agenda, leading to the obvious conclusion this contract was little more than a presidential media payoff for public influence.

This tired White House tactic of using the mainstream media to promote hollow promises to the people is sadly nothing new. Infowars has previously reported on a 2005 Government Accountability Office investigation which concluded the Bush Administration’s influential journalist payoffs and fake news planting were an illegal “covert propaganda” push. In the case of Armstrong Williams, it was revealed that the Bush Administration had funneled more than $240,000 to the commentator in return for glowing reports on No Child Left Behind. Obama took a lesson from Bush in his attempt to gain favorability through fooling the public into thinking there were actual employment opportunities in place of meaningless propaganda.

As the bought-and-paid-for dinosaur mainstream media continues to die a slow and agonizing death, its ability to influence anyone is quickly slipping away. Market viewership for the “big 3″ networks continues to decline, and CNN recently felt the sting of the worst ratings the channel had received in over two decades.

UK Sends £5 Million to Listed Terrorists in Syria

Land Destroyer

US-UK listed terror organization Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) fighters and commanders are clearly amongst militants underwritten by latest UK funding. 
by Tony Cartalucci 

UPDATE August 12, 2012 - It was recently pointed out that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) currently arming, funding, and commanding entire brigades of the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) is designated an Al Qaeda affiliate by the United Nations pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999) and 1989 (2011), in addition to being listed by both the US State Department and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf) as a foreign terrorist organization and a proscribed terrorist organization respectively.

This means that the United States, the UK, NATO, and the Gulf State despots of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are knowingly and willfully funding designated affiliates of Al Qaeda contrary not only to US and British anti-terror legislation, but contrary to UN resolutions as well. Western and Gulf State support of the FSA constitutes state sponsorship of terrorism. Should the UN fail to enforce its own resolutions, while playing host to further sanctions and considerations for military intervention against the Syrian government, it will have entirely resigned its legitimacy and authority as nothing more than a tool of Western corporate-financier interests.

August 10, 2012 - In direct violation of both American and British anti-terrorism legislation, particularly provisions regarding providing material support for listed or proscribed terrorist organizations, the United Kingdom has just announced that it will provide armed militants that include listed terror organizations with a £5 million tranche of what it calls "non-lethal practical assistance."

Image: Little else could accentuate the hypocrisy and unhinged madness of US and British foreign policy more than  Foreign Secretary William Hague announcing his government's decision to fund genocidal sectarian extremists murdering under the flag of Al Qaeda in Syria.

....

Both British and American journalists have clearly identified and documented the presence of foreign fighters with militant extremist ties pouring over the Turkish-Syrian border, most recently in an attempt to overrun the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. CNN, whose Ivan Watson accompanied FSA terrorists over the Turkish-Syrian border and into Aleppo revealed that indeed foreign fighters were amongst the militants. It was admitted that:

Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade's ranks.

A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a "platoon" of Libyan fighters to armed movement.

 CNN also added:

On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.

The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.

Foreign Policy magazine in an article titled, "The Syrian Rebels' Libyan Weapon," has gone as far as writing a two page profile on Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) commander Mahdi al-Harati and his role in leading the so-called "Free Syrian Army." Also recently, the Council on Foreign Relations, a premier Fortune 500-funded US think-tank, wrote in their article, "Al-Qaeda's Specter in Syria," that:

"The Syrian rebels would be immeasurably weaker today without al-Qaeda in their ranks. By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and ineffective. Feeling abandoned by the West, rebel forces are increasingly demoralized as they square off with the Assad regime's superior weaponry and professional army. Al-Qaeda fighters, however, may help improve morale. The influx of jihadis brings discipline, religious fervor, battle experience from Iraq, funding from Sunni sympathizers in the Gulf, and most importantly, deadly results. In short, the FSA needs al-Qaeda now."

Clearly then, British aid is being sent to the FSA whose ranks are admittedly filled by Al Qaeda.

Also, to be clear, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) is in fact an affiliate of Al Qaeda with its commanders having occupied the highest echelons of Al Qaeda's command structure and having participated in every combat engagement Al Qaeda has conducted since its inception via US-Saudi cash and arms in the mountains of Afghanistan in the 1980's. This was documented meticulously in the US Army's West Point Combating Terrorism Center report, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq."

LIFG is also listed by both the US State Department and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf) as a foreign terrorist organization and a proscribed terrorist organization respectively.

Foreign Policy's admission of al-Harati's role in organizing and leading the FSA in Syria, and the inclusion of Libyan terrorists in his brigade are by no means the only role LIFG is playing in the Syrian violence. LIFG commander Abdul Hakim Belhaj had visited the Turkish-Syrian border in late 2011 pledging Libyan arms, cash, and fighters to the FSA - with the nation of Libya itself having already become a NATO-created terrorist safe-haven.

It is clear that LIFG, and by implication Al Qaeda, is playing a significant role in the violence in Syria, not only undermining the narrative of the unrest being an "indigenous" "pro-democracy uprising," but also implicating foreign nations who are funding and arming militants as state sponsors of terrorism.

Included amongst these state sponsors of international terrorism are Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Hariri faction in northern Lebanon, as well as the NATO-installed government of Libya. This also includes both the United States, who is admittedly providing cash and equipment for the FSA as well as coordinating efforts to arm militants, and now the UK once again with their latest announcement.

With an increasing number of overt atrocities being carried out by the FSA and its ranks of extremist sectarian militants, including kidnappings, abuses, and massacres observed recently in Aleppo, it is unconscionable for the West to even rhetorically back what is clearly a sectarian-driven conflict, let alone provide equipment, cash, and arms. However, British Foreign Secretary William Hague calls it, "the right thing to do."



Image: The Western media is covering - or more accurately, "spinning" - an unfolding sectarian genocide in Syria's largest city Aleppo. In the alleys of seized streets, FSA terrorists are detaining, torturing, and killing anyone suspected of supporting the government. Such suspicions coincidentally run along sectarian divisions. By using the label "Shabiha" for all of FSA's victims, the Western press has given a carte blanche to genocidal sectarian extremists and by doing so, has become complicit in war crimes themselves. For the British, or any other nation for that matter, to provide the FSA with even rhetorical, let alone material support, is an egregious act of international terrorism. 

REPORT: ABC, NBC Evening News Shows Ignore Massive Banking Scandal For More Than A Month

Media Matters

American television news outlets continue to devote sparse time to one of largest banking scandals in history. The controversy over whether major banks have been manipulating the LIBOR, a crucial interest rate that banks use to borrow money from one another, has been gathering steam for more than a month since U.S. and U.K. regulators fined British bank Barclays $450 million for its role in trying to rig the rate. 

CNN's Erin Burnett has explained that LIBOR is "an interest rate at the core of our entire economy," adding, "It's really not wrong to say that if you can't trust LIBOR, you can't trust anything in banking." According to The Economist, the LIBOR is used "as a benchmark to set payments on about $800 trillion worth of financial instruments." Baltimore City filed a lawsuit against major banks in the first of what may be a wave of such actions, alleging that the LIBOR manipulation potentially cost it millions of dollars in investment returns.

Despite the enormous implications of the scandal, ABC's World News and NBC's Nightly News both ignored the story in the 16 days after news of the Barclays fine broke, as we documented earlier this month. In the 16 days following the period of our original study, the LIBOR blackout has continued on ABC and NBC's flagship evening news programs. Those programs have gone more than a month without mentioning the controversy. 

CBS Evening News devoted more than five and a half minutes to the story in the first 16 days following the Barclays fine, but has not returned to the scandal in the subsequent 16 day period despite a host of new developments.

After spending roughly six and a half minutes combined covering the scandal on their evening newscasts and opinion programming between June 27 and July 12, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News devoted less than 32 minutes to stories related to the controversy from July 13 to July 28, with more than two-thirds of that coverage coming from CNN. 

These same news outlets spent significantly more time on trivialities like shark sightings and the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes divorce than on the banking scandal. For context, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN spent 44 minutes combined on the LIBOR scandal during their evening programming from June 27 to July 28. By contrast, these same outlets devoted nearly 65 minutes to stories about sharks for only the first sixteen days of that period.

Far from being a dormant story, fallout from allegations that the LIBOR has been manipulated has been steady.

CNN Pressures RNC to dump Ron Paul & Newt

RunRonPaul

CNN is pushing RNC Chairman to dump Ron Paul and Gingrich out of the race so they can call the election for Romney.

Join us at MSMBoycott.com now and participate in the boycott of mainstream media advertisers. We can’t expect a different kind of mainstream media unless we take action!

CNN Scolds Marine Discharged for Website Critical of Obama

Is Traditional Media Dying? The Numbers Indicate Just That

Wake Up World
Madison Ruppert

So-called mainstream media is quickly falling out of the mainstream. I am attempting to push the title of mainstream media out of my lexicon completely, replaced by “traditional media,” “legacy media,” “dinosaur media,” or “establishment media.”

This is because in the near future, calling it mainstream media will be about as accurate as calling Wake Up World Nazi media (that is to say, ludicrously inaccurate).

In March, the well known news organization and cable broadcaster CNN dropped a shocking 50% in total viewers and a whopping 60% in the age 25-54 demographic (A25-54) over the total day according to reports from TVNewser.

On the other hand, during primetime they fell 21% in total viewers and 26% in A25-54 viewers compared to March of last year.

CNN was not alone in losing a huge amount of their viewers, as the infamous Fox News was hit hard in March and overall in the first quarter (Q1) of 2012.

For the month, Fox lost a whopping 17%, which further shows that the biased, misleading dinosaur media is on the way out, and fast.

This is hardly surprising to someone like me in the alternative media, as it reflects exactly what we have been seeing: a crumbling paradigm of media that serves corporate interests and is little more than a dog sitting on the lap of government.

Most notably, CNN completely ignored the freedom-crushing National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 here in the United States.

Sections 1021 and 1022 of this legislation, now known as the indefinite detention provisions, completely eradicate our right to due process by authorizing the indefinite military detention of anyone the government says might be a terrorist.

It seems quite clear to me that the American people – and people around the globe for that matter – are beginning to wake up to the fact that we have been, and are currently being, deceived by the media on a daily basis.

That is likely why people are rapidly fleeing the insanely misleading establishment media which continues to tell them that they should be concerned with the lives of celebrities, the non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons, while completely ignoring the poison in our food and water, the increasingly tyrannical governments of the world, and the completely fabricated so-called “War on Terror.”

The people of the world are likely increasingly turning to the internet and social media to get the real news, as it is highly doubtful that suddenly 50% of CNN’s total viewers stopped consuming news altogether.

Wikileaks - CIA's tool

Rafik Lutif explains his reasoning behind Wikileaks & CNN's sudden documentary on Homs.

http://www.facebook.com/SyrianTruthEnglish
http://www.SyrianYouth.com

Kissinger: We should ignore intelligence and assume Iran wants nukes

Raw Story
Agence France-Presse

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said in an interview Sunday that the United States should assume that Iran is actively preparing to build nuclear weapons.

Kissinger, 88, was asked on the CNN show “GPS” if the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon was so dire that Israel would need to launch a military strike in the near future.

“I am very uneasy with the so-called intelligence report that say we don’t know whether they are actually working on nuclear weapons,” Kissinger told CNN.

“I think we should start from the premise that they are undergoing all this in order to achieve a military capability. I don’t think that is a disputable point.”

US intelligence analysts believe there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb — an assessment broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program, The New York Times reported in February, citing unnamed US officials.

The assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies, the Times reported.

The US administration maintains that tough sanctions on Iran and diplomatic efforts need to be given more time before any resort to bombing raids.
Israeli leaders however say time is running out for any pre-emptive strike. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that sanctions against Iran have not worked, and “none of us can afford to wait much longer.”
US President Barack Obama has cautioned against “bluster” in talking about possible war with Iran, saying there still exists a window of diplomacy.

Murder in Afghanistan, the Coverup Begins

Veterans Today

Gordon Duff

Sixteen Dead, Nameless “Lone Gunman,” We Have Heard It All Before

The village is Balandi, outside Kandahar in Afghanistan.  Thus far the dead are 16, shot in their homes, not just said to be “women and children” but actually infants murdered in their mother’s arms and set afire.

The US claims the perpetrator to be an unnamed “Army Staff Sergeant who has turned himself in.”

There are inconsistencies.

This is the report from Reuter’s today:

Afghan officials also gave varying accounts of the number of shooters involved.

Karzai’s office released a statement quoting a villager as saying “American soldiers woke my family up and shot them in the face.”

“They (Americans) poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them,” Samad told Reuters at the scene.

Neighbors said they had awoken to crackling gunfire from American soldiers, who they described as laughing and drunk.

“They were all drunk and shooting all over the place,” said neighbor Agha Lala, who visited one of the homes where killings took place.

“Their (the victims’) bodies were riddled with bullets.”

The village is outside the gate of an American base.  A single soldier without a vehicle would have had to evade security and tunnel under the wire and walls to reach the village or, much more likely, this was more than one man?

This is how CNN has it as for the morning of the 12th.  Story embellishment, as you will note involves a “bed count” and a “search patrol.”  I believe the next story will include rocket flares and bloodhounds.  We will wait for this one.  To impart credit to the Army, their belated response is much more creative but as full of holes as a sieve.  A minor thing to add here, of course, is that a Staff Sergeant, as the perpetrator or suspect, whichever you choose, “patsy” if you will, is a Staff Sergeant, rank E 6.  At 3:AM, those of such rank typically do not “stand watch” on towers or in bunkers.

Then, of course, we will return to the forgotten jerrycan, taken off the nonexistent vehicle to burn the bodies of the dead.  I did, however, feel a need to get this response added in so that readers in the Western Hemisphere would be better informed.  Another minor error in the report below, noted in our earlier evaluation and reiterated here, above that text, is the nature of the armed response team.

They “came a runnin’” based on someone missing from a bed rather than from gunfire, screams and flaming bodies a short distance away.  As is so easily noted, as one begins lying, one lie ties to another, one absurdity to another and, in the end, it is always a “malcontent” and “lone gunman.”  By now we would have seen a list of antipsychotic medications but “legal” was already informed by pharmaceutical companies that there is already a rash of murder/suicides for those on medications the military and Departmetn of Veterans Affairs has prescribed for those suffering from combat stress ( or misdiagnosed as suffering from “personality disorders” or “pre-existing trauma”).

In order to leave the many “blameless,” this will have to be a singular occurrance of magical proportions, no pre-indications, no signs of any kind, no diagnosis and medical records entering shredders, being wiped from hard drives, flaming in trash cans as we speak.  But for how many, one or four or perhaps more?  CNN:

“We call this an intentional act,” Karzai said. He said the dead included four men, three women and nine children, calling the killings “acts of terror and unforgivable.” Another five people were wounded, he said. 

Capt. Justin Brockhoff, an ISAF spokesman, said the wounded Afghans were being treated in ISAF facilities. The allied command did not give its own estimate of casualties. 

Brockhoff said officials do not yet have a motive for the shooting, which is under investigation by both NATO and Afghan officials. And Maj. Jason Waggoner, another ISAF spokesman, said the soldier “was acting on his own.” 

There were no military operations in the area, either on the ground or in the air, at the time, according to two senior ISAF officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. They said only one soldier, an Army staff sergeant, is believed to have been involved. 

A U.S. military official told CNN later Sunday that the suspect is from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. The official said the soldier is assigned to a Special Forces unit. 

A third ISAF official said Afghan troops spotted the soldier leaving his combat outpost around 3 a.m. Sunday and notified their American counterparts. The U.S. military did an immediate headcount, found the soldier was missing and dispatched a patrol to go look for him, the official said. 

The officials said they have no knowledge at this point whether he had any previous medical or mental health issues in his record. 

The patrol met him as he returned and took him into custody. He said nothing, and it was unclear whether they knew what had happened, the official said. 

“We don’t know what motivated this individual, and we’re not sure where this is going to take us,” Capt. John Kirby, an ISAF spokesman, told CNN. But he said ISAF’s commander, Gen. John Allen, “has made it clear this investigation is going to be thorough. It’s going to be done rapidly, in an expeditious way, and we’re going to hold the perpetrator of these attacks to account.”

Why? Only a vehicle with more than one man, one that could claim it had been tasked with some sort of “rendition” or “search and destroy” mission could have been allowed out by security.

Ron Paul wins first caucus; mainstream media calls it for Romney

Russia Today

Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul won his first caucus over the weekend, but the mainstream media by-and-large reported Mitt Romney the victor instead.

Voters in the US Virgin Islands hit the polls on Saturday to nominate an opponent for Barack Obama, and although Texas Congressman Ron Paul garnered more popular votes than any of his rivals, mainstream media outlets were quick to call the contest in favor of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. While more votes were cast for Ron Paul, Romney walked away with the most delegates this weekend. For The Associated Press and others, that was enough to call the contest in favor of the conservative founder of Bain Capital.

Not only does that decision inaccurately represent poll figures from the weekend, but goes against the formula the mainstream media relied on for other caucuses and primaries thus far this election year. Jack Hunter, a blogger for the Ron Paul campaign, writes that the media is “trying to have it both ways.” Although Congressman Paul had failed to achieve the most votes in any other state contest in 2012, he has developed an unorthodox strategy of collecting delegates in districts that have been awarded to his Republican Party rivals in terms of the popular vote. In those instances, the mainstream media has reported the winner in terms of popular votes; in the Virgin Islands, they decided to switch things up.

Although Paul won 29 percent of the popular vote to Romney’s 26 percent, the mainstream media called the contest for Romney, who won seven delegates to the congressman’s one. In the wire report filed by the AP on March 11, the outlet declares Romney the winner while never revealing the tally of popular votes cast.

“The media is reporting that Mitt Romney won the US Virgin Island Caucus when Ron Paul actually won the popular vote,” the Paul campaign explains to supporters in an email over the weekend. “If the popular vote means you’ve won, then Ron Paul just won the US Virgin Island Caucus. If collecting delegates equals victory, then Paul stands to do well there too.”

The Paul campaign has explained in the past that while coming up short time-and-time again in terms of collecting the popular vote in state-wide contests, a strategy the relies on delegates was expected to be key for the congressman’s vie at the GOP bid. “We think that’s the way a party should really pick its nominee,” campaign manager Jesse Benton told the National Review earlier this year. “We think that the activists that are most tuned in to the issues, most engaged in the process should be the ones selecting the nominee.”

CNN Fake Newscast Best Quality

Charles Jaco was the CNN reporter famous for covering the 1990 Persian Gulf War.

The first part of this video shows the stage set he was on, and he was clowning around with fellow CNN staff. The Saudi Arabian "hotel" in the background were fake palm trees and a blue wall in a studio. This clip was leaked by CNN staff.

The second part of this video was a live CNN satellite feed recorded onto VHS showing the final cut. Charles Jaco was wearing a different jacket, but he had the same act. The acting was terrible as Charles Jaco wore a gas mask, and his fellow correspondent Carl Rochelle wore a helmet. The sirens and missile sound effects are part of the stage set. The camera never pans out or shows the sky.

These clips are the highest quality of this newscast and behind the scenes.

Yes, Charles Jaco was a reporter for CNN. Google his name and read the results.

This is the reason why I don't trust mainstream news. It is all theater and it's completely staged. I only use the news as a guide to get an idea of what is going on, and then I do further research myself.

You can start your own research by visiting my website http://www.patriotportal.yolasite.com

I also suggest reading the books of Edward Bernays to learn how the media and government fool the masses on an unprecedented scale.

This video is FAIR USE depicting an historical event. I encourage this video to be downloaded, and re-uploaded to other websites to get more people to see this.

Charles Jaco currently works as a reporter for FOX 2 NOW in Saint Louis, Missouri. I highly encourage you to send this video to their newstips inbox here:
http://www.fox2now.com/about/station/contactus/

CNN Attempts to Counter Scandal Over “Syria Danny” Propaganda

IntelHub
Madison Ruppert



CNN Attempts to Counter Scandal Over “Syria Danny” Propaganda

Anderson Cooper attempted, and miserably failed, to mitigate the damage from the discovery that one of the poster boys for foreign intervention in Syria was manufacturing complete propaganda for Western consumption.

The video below is the original video exposing “Danny” as a vicious propagandist actively working against the interests of the Syrian people.

This is just more exploitation of the good intentions of people around the world for nefarious ends.

These revelations further damage the credibility of the already highly untrustworthy Syrian rebels, much like the Libyan rebels delegitimized themselves.



Stay weary of the effort to push us into military intervention in Syria and question all sources of information and the “statistics” we are fed by the Western establishment media.

Keep in mind none of this is confirmed, the sources have a political interest in disseminating disinformation and so do those who report the claims made by so-called activists as gospel.

This article originally appeared on End the Lie

Syria: Game Over for Western Propaganda As Syrian Activists Caught Lying, Rebels Caught Committing Atrocities

IntelHub
Tony Carlucci

Why should the West intervene in Syria when it turns out “activists” giving daily body counts, the sole source of “evidence” for the UN’s ever climbing grand total, are caught not only lying, but staging entire interviews complete with fake gunfire directed “off stage?”

Why should the US, UK, EU, or the West’s stable of Arab proxy-regimes be allowed to arm Syrian rebels admittedly carrying out their own horrific atrocities?

Clearly Syria’s opposition have turned out, just as they have in Libya, to be craven, murderous, and ultimately deceitful extremists – making any further contact with them by the West a direct violation of their own national and international laws.

Video: Classic war propaganda – complete with staged-gunfire off camera and the intrepid actor “Danny” relaxed and joking before getting into character to give a hysterical “casualty report” to his co-star, CNN’s Anderson Cooper – just one of many he regularly gives to Western media networks.
….

The omnipresent “Danny” from Syria has been recently exposed in a video showing him relaxed, joking, and preparing off-camera staged-gunfire, before getting into character for a hysterical “casualty report” given to CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

“Danny” isn’t the first fraud caught being used by a duplicitous Western media to sell military intervention in Syria, there was also “Gay Girl in Damascus” who turned out to be a 40 year-old American man based in the UK.

It is exactly “activist-based” reports like this, that the UN and corporate media have used shamelessly to advocate Wall Street and London’s mandates.

Image: Pictured is “Gay Girl in Damascus.” Far from an editorial oversight, “Gay Girl in Damascus” was in reality a 40 year-old American man living in the UK. The Western media shamelessly exploited his narrative until it unraveled, and simply moved on to other actors, like “Danny” who directs fake gunfire off-camerawhile giving casualty reports to CNN. ….
It was revealed that the UN Human Rights Commission UNHC report late in 2011, was based entirely on “witness accounts” recorded not in Syria, but rather in Geneva.

It was further revealed that the report itself was compiled by a director of a corporate-funded US think-tank representing the collective interests of the very corporations pushing for Syrian “regime change.”

Since then, the UNHC has inflated their numbers, and organizations including Soros-funded Human Rights Watch have likewise weighed in with reports based entirely on “witness” and “activist” accounts, with one exception – they also include grainy satellite images implying that every pockmark visible, every crater imaged, was the result of Syrian security forces, excluding the possibility that the admittedly armed “Free Syrian Army” may also share responsibility.

Many times these casualty numbers are not even phoned in from Syria, but instead based on “third-hand” reports out of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in London.

Despite this, the UN has still admitted that Syrian rebels are likewise committing “abuses” comparable to the “widespread, systematic and gross human rights violations, amounting to crimes against humanity” the UN has accused the Syrian government of, only on a lesser scale.

SUPER TUESDAY: CNN Televised VOTE FRAUD against Ron Paul?

Ron Paul warns sanctions will motivate Iran towards a nuke

Russia Today

President Barack Obama insists that sanctions are propelling Iran into a “world of hurt,” but Congressman Ron Paul — who's currently vying to face Obama in the 2012 election — says it is the US that’s being endangered with those actions.

From the campaign trail this week, Texas congressman and GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul said that the current efforts being waged on Iran by the Obama White House by way of sanctions are doing nothing to stop Iran from advancing any nuclear program it could have in the works. It doesn't stop there, though. According to Paul, these sanctions will only spur Iran to invest more of its energies towards procuring a nuke.

Speaking Monday on CNN’s State of the Union show, Congressman Paul was outspoken about what he says the real dangers of ongoing sanctions on Iran really are — and it’s the exact opposite of what America would hope for.

“I think sanctions gives the motivation for them to want a nuclear weapon,” explained the congressman, who has in the past insisted that America lacks any evidence to suggest Iran is involved in procuring a nuclear warhead. “We have 45 bases around them, we can demolish them within hours.”

On the congressman’s part, the US has indeed heavily added manpower on seemingly all fronts surrounding Iran, mobilizing both ships and troops and equipping neighboring countries with ammunition as well. Although the US has put troops of all types around Iran, President Obama continues to stand by his plan of solving the nuclear warhead dilemma with diplomatic sanctions, not strikes.

Last week President Obama told The Atlantic that the sanctions would cripple Iran and force the nation to abandon its rumored nuclear program, but Paul — a long time opponent of unnecessary military interventionism — says this maneuver only makes it seem like America is asking for trouble.

“And the worst thing the sanctions do, and Republicans and Democrats both support it and the other GOP candidates want war even more, the whole thing is there is a lot of dissension in Iran and we should encourage it by not interfering, once we get involve and threaten to bomb them, it becomes nationalistic – everyone joins the Ayataollah and Ahmedinejad,” explained Representative Paul. “So there is a blowback – unusual circumstances and unintended consequences.”

Journalists Mike Murphy of NBC and Donna Brazile of CNN to speak at conference promoting Iran war

MondoWeiss

AIPAC's list of confirmed speakers for its upcoming policy conference includes some network journalists-- notably liberal commentators Paul Begala of CNN and Donna Brazile of CNN and ABC. Brazile formerly headed the Voting Rights Institute. I wonder what she's going to say about Palestinian rights. And there's Mike Murphy of NBC, a Republican strategist hired by the network as a political analyst.

All these folks will be speaking at a gathering that will be pushing war on Iran... As the Forward reports (thanks Annie Robbins):

A proposed Senate resolution, supported by the pro-Israel lobby, would shift America’s red line in dealing with Iran from preventing the Islamic Republic’s acquisition of nuclear weapons to stopping it before it achieves “nuclear capabilities.”

The resolution, now gaining signatures in the Senate, will be the legislative centerpiece of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as it convenes for its annual Washington conference, to take place in early March.

What are the networks' ethics policies on this sort of appearance?
Oh and AIPAC denied my application for credentials.