zaterdag 11 april 2015

ANDRE VLTCHEK


Traitors From Developing Countries Unite!


Those Who Collaborate with the West

by ANDRE VLTCHEK

It is much easier to rule over those people who have lost all their dignity.
There is no reason to fear resistance where cynical consumerism, lack of knowledge, and constant anxiety are shaping the behavioral patterns of a nation; of most of its citizens.
The West made an art form out of controlling the world. Its once rough and simple ‘divide and rule’ tactics have reached, with time, great virtuosity. What Richter, Rostropovich or Argerich did for the art of Western classical music, people like Brzezinski, Kissinger and Negroponte matched with their brilliance in the art of destruction and terror.
In today’s world, everything is upside down. Brothers fear brothers, guerilla fighters are made to spy on each other, and heroes who are fighting for the survival of the planet are labeled by Western regime as demagogues, strongmen or even terrorists.
The Empire successfully mobilized the most regressive elements in each society that it controls. It upheld religions, archaic family compositions and feudalist power structures in order to make rebellion almost impossible.
Albert Camus, a French philosopher, made one of the most important statements of the 20th Century, when he declared: “I rebel, therefore I exist!”
Rebellion is the engine that propels societies and individuals forward. To take it away, to shut it off, means to condemn people and entire nations to stagnation, even to regression.
Which is, of course, the main goal of the Empire. Which is why it employs and grooms entire armies of local collaborators.
***
The Empire created some amazing sights, all over the world: depressing, gore-filled scenes. For much of the planet, it is Halloween every day, every day and every night.
The West has many allies, many collaborators!
Bizarre bearded dudes with machineguns and portable missile launchers, decapitating infidels and blowing up the world heritage sites. That is what the Empire has been trying, painstakingly, to turn Islam into, with full-hearted support of its deranged and blood-drenched allies in the Gulf. First they murdered, sidelined or overthrew progressive, socialist Islamic leaders, and later they manufactured the most fundamentalist brands, from Al-Qaida to ISIS. Bravo! Great success. As long as the oil flows, as long as the Western weapons are sold and ‘defense budgets’ remain above one trillion. As long as there is always someone people can be told to be scared of, someone who can be used as a justification for new weaponry, and a new post-colonialist and imperialist arrangement of the world.
Or look at those weird preachers and priests in Surabaya, Manila, or in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The poor are poor because God hates them. The rich are rich because God loves them”, I heard the other day in Indonesia, while filming one huge Christian gathering that was taking place in a mall. Pentecostal implants from the West, ‘prosperity gospel’, Evangelicals; fanatics resembling the Inquisition-era bigots – there is an entire panoptic of monstrous Christian freaks available in the client states. If destabilizing China is the main goal, of course they are always there and ready! Ukraine, Uganda, Indonesia, Egypt, Oceania? No problem: always ready, always there, always handy!
Or those brands of militant Buddhism, in countries like Thailand, where religion began losing its grip on power many decades ago, but was reintroduced just in time to join the ideological and real warfare during the Vietnam War! It is once again “big” now, as it used to be centuries ago, and ‘suspiciously’ fully supportive of the feudal elites and the throne, all those staunch allies of the West! And what about that brand of horrid feudal usurpers, the Lamas, paid directly by the US government and fully and continuously supported by the Western liberals?
Then there are all those monarchs reigning over the territories from the Gulf to Southeast Asia. Many of them were directly implanted, watered and groomed by the West, or at least upheld, armed and if needed, turned into deities.
Extreme forms of religion and feudalism are essential for effective control of the population. The Brits were well aware of it, and that is why they gave full support to Wahhabis and other local extremists and bigots. “Caste is often thought of as an ancient fact of Hindu life, but various contemporary scholars argue that the caste system was constructed by the British colonial regime”, argues Frank de Zwart from Leiden University. That is also why the Brits were the most effective of all the colonizers: they knew how to get the worst from the locals!
Ancient forms of oppression, from the caste system in India to family oppression, even terror, in Africa, Indonesia or Pakistan, keep people from learning, from becoming individuals, from daring, from mobilizing and fighting for the better world.
And to make sure that the oppression imposed and upheld by the West in foreign countries, is not challenged even at home, the West’s propagandists invented so-called “political correctness” which was soon turned into sacrosanct dogma. This is how it works, in summary: Attack those extreme religious implants from the West, in some poor country controlled by Washington or London, and you will be branded as intolerant, patronizing or at least as insensitive. Attack some brutal monarchy that is surviving only because the West needs it and supports it, and you will be accused of not respecting local culture and the way of life of local people. Say or write honestly, that in some country, after a Washington-administered coup, and after several decades of continuous brainwashing campaign, that the majority of people were successfully converted to idiots, and you will be described as a racist and bigot.
The collaborators, mainly consisting of the top brass military, of business elites, of religious gurus, ‘academics’ who were indoctrinated and bought while on the scholarship abroad, journalists and pop artists, are fully protected by political correctness. They represent the culture of some destroyed culture, “they are the culture”. Mad monarchs, religious freaks, merciless feudal patriarchs – they cannot be touched, because ‘people love them’, ‘people revere them’. Of course, after hundreds of millions of dollars were spent by the West to uphold the most regressive theories, after the children of the elites were put through the standardized brainwashing ‘education’ and after the poor majority was put through almost no education at all, little wonder that everybody is thinking the same, that people “love” what they are suppose to “love”, from abusive husbands and fathers, to military mass murderers, insane religious fanatics and ruthless robbers repainted and rebranded as CEO’s.
***
If a spaceship filled with advanced, refined and objectively thinking beings coming from outer space would visit our planet, the visitors would be surely horrified by observing those individuals who are ruling such countries as Indonesia or Uganda, or those in the Gulf. They would most likely ask: “What kind of Empire is it, that is employing such vile butlers and servants?”
Nobody is laughing or puking, only because all of us, even the most outspoken critics of the regime, were already somehow conditioned. We are all behaving, and to some extent playing the game.
None of us starts rolling on the floor, in total amusement, pointing fingers at the television screen that is showing dozens of former Indonesian generals and officers, responsible for the genocides of 1965, or those in East Timor and Papua, now holding some of the highest positions in their land.
Nobody is throwing up when the UN Secretary General of the United Nations flies to Kampala or Kigali and begs countries responsible for genocide of millions of innocent people in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (according to his own UN staff which produced several detailed reports on the subject), to please not withdraw their ‘peacekeeping forces’ (operating and getting royally paid) from their missions all over Africa.
Nobody is fuming and drawing political cartoons depicting the horrific nature of the Saudi regime and its arch-henchmen, who are giving orders to blast Yemen, killing hundreds and most likely thousands of innocent people, simply because they are Shi’a and because they are demanding social justice.
No Hollywood horror film could match the monsters that are ruling many corners of the globe, controlling, raping, robbing and brainwashing their own people, on behalf of the Empire.
Collaborators…
How many of those cars, those Ferraris and the latest BMWs, in some miserable country that is being fully plundered by Western mining and oil companies, are running on gas, and how many on blood?
How many of those “proud” professors holding doctorates from Western universities, are actually teaching – giving knowledge – and how many are infiltrating the education systems all over the world, as China’s Minister of Education, Mr. Yuan Guiren, wrote recently in a Communist Party journal “Seeking Truth”? “Young teachers and students are key targets of infiltration by enemy forces,” Mr. Yuan argued on Feb. 2, 2015.
They are. All over Africa, Asia, the Middle East. Fortunately, at least in Latin America, the enemy forces have been mostly identified.
How many magazines, newspapers and television stations in the Middle East, Southeast Asia or East and West Africa are actually there to inform people, and how many are serving, dutifully, the propaganda apparatus of the Empire? It is enough to check the sources of the foreign news coverage, in countries like Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the entire Gulf, or even India, and the answer becomes obvious.
***
The level of collaboration with the West is scandalous; it is shocking.
The most notorious forms of collaboration and spite towards the people can be found in what I lately call “the Belt”, which consists of the client states and semi-colonies, spreading from Southeast Asia, to East and West Africa, with the sub-Continent and the Middle East in between. In that part of the world, countries that refused to collaborate (Indonesia before 1965, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Somalia, Congo under Patrice Lumumba, to name just a few) were muzzled, raped, destroyed, annihilated and leveled with the ground.
In that ‘belt’, there is no shame left, and no dignity.
For those of us who worked during the racist anti-Muslim massacres in Gujarat, in 2002, the fact that Mr. Modi (Chief Minister of Gujarat during the mass murder) became the Prime Minister of India, is not only outrageous, it is monstrous. But he is, in his heart, a neocon, a neoliberal, a “nationalist”, not unlike his counterpart in Japan, whose allegiances are more towards the global capitalism and Washington, than towards his own impoverished, humiliated and robbed people. And that is why the Empire supports him.
And what should be said about Egypt, Bahrain, Thailand or Rwanda, to mention just a few client states?
Intellectual cowardice, repulsive egoism and servility in the countries like Malaysia or Indonesia are beyond obscene. They are grotesque, perverse. Almost entire, pathetically shallow, art establishments in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur are living from Western handouts, from so-called “funding”. “Artists” and “intellectuals” say and write and film what is expected of them, what the West pays them to produce, and then of course, what sells. In the meantime, corporate gangsters are plundering land with absolutely no obstacles, murdering indigenous people if they cross their way, and then build their palaces abroad from the booty, all in the plain daylight, with no fear and no shame. There is no real ‘opposition’ in Indonesia and Malaysia. Intellectuals, with some rare exceptions of people like Djokopekik ( the Marxist Indonesian painter), in both countries, were turned into spineless cowards.
It gets even worse in Uganda and Rwanda, countries that are murdering millions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on behalf of Western governments and companies. It gets equally bad in India, whose modern history is dotted with genocides, including the ongoing one in Kashmir.
Most of the countries of that “Belt” are treating their citizens (particularly poor ones) with absolute spite. Most of them, including India, are police states. But they are hailed as “democracies” by Western media and regime, because they are allies, client states and because they collaborate.
In almost all countries of The Belt, collaborators hold power. Without exception, these horrible regimes are mixtures of capitalism, feudalism and fascism.
***
Since WWII, the panoptic of the pro-Western puppets is truly horrifying. It would take an entire book to list at least the most “important”, the most bloodstained names of the collaborators with Western regime. Let us recall just a few, those responsible for the most repulsive atrocities:
Trujillo in Dominican Republic, ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier and ‘Baby Doc Duvalier in Haiti, Batista in Cuba, Somoza in Nicaragua, the military junta in Brazil, Pinochet in Chile, Videla in Argentina, Stroessner in Paraguay, the South African apartheid “governments”, Moi in Kenya, Kagame in Rwanda, Museveni in Uganda, Mubarak in Egypt, Zine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hadi of Yemen, present-day rulers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Oman, Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo, Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran, Lon Nol and Pol Pot of Cambodia, almost entire Thai leadership after the WWII, Marcos of Philippines, Osama bin-Laden of Saudi Arabia, a series of pro-US dictators in South Vietnam, Suharto in Indonesia…
And what about the other side? As horrible as those individuals were, mentioned above, people who resisted and fought for freedom of the mankind were some of the greatest human beings of the 20th Century but that did not spare many of them from being murdered, and then smeared by the Empire and its lackeys. Many of them were aided by the Soviet Union and China in their efforts to break shackles of their people:
Nasser of Egypt, Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Ernesto “Che” Guevara of Argentina, Salvador Allende Gossens of Chile, Dilma Vana Roussef of Brazil, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Ho Chi Ming of Vietnam, Mao Zedong of China, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Mosaddegh of Iran, Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara of Burkina Faso.
To compare two lists would, if one were really willing to see and to compare, destroy all remaining illusions about the West “supporting and aiding democracy”. For years, decades and centuries, the West was actually aiding the most extreme forces of oppression, of terror and nihilism.
***
Direct support given by the West to fascist governments, to right-wing militaries, to religious zealots and feudal family and power structures, is actually something that is visible and easily detectable, at least if one wants to see and to notice.
The West operates in concealed ways,while creating and sustaining an enormous and complex group (or call it army) of collaborators in all its client states, as well as in those countries that have been selected for destabilization and destruction.
It is done through “support for arts and culture”, by funding those artists who are willing to produce empty pop, to put form over substance, refusing to address social and political problems of the country and to bring them to the masses.
It is done through the UN and countless international NGO’s that are, in many loyal and servile countries (like Kenya), hiking salaries and benefits of the local staff, and this way are helping to manufacture and sustain the new elites. These elites (well paid and therefore loyal), instead of serving their people, are actually enjoying the tremendous gap created between them and the impoverished, often starving masses.
It is done through corrupting journalists, by sending them on all-paid ‘training courses’ to London, New York, Paris or Tokyo.
It is done through “education”, through scholarships given to the selected groups of young people who are willing to accept “Western democratic values” and fully abandon revolutionary struggle at home. These people, after returning “home”, are usually joining the ‘fifth column’, infiltrating government offices, academia, and mass media. Be it in business or in the state sector, they are serving their foreign masters and their own pockets, instead of their nations.
It is done through direct corruption, because corruption, as was described by John Perkins in his “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, is one of the main tools utilized by the Western imperialism. The more corrupt, the more pampered are the elites in a client state, the more reliable they become.
The Western colonialist establishment knows perfectly well “how to deal with the locals”, how to tickle the vanity of the elites in the Middle East, the sub-Continent, Africa and Southeast Asia. How to make them feel “exceptional”, “enlightened”, “sophisticated”, oceans away from that “brutal and ignorant” majority. Deep rifts are created, in order to prevent nations from uniting against external enemies.
Elites are sipping cafe lattes, reading books that made it to the New York Times bestseller lists; they are boozing up, watching CNN or BBC or Al-Jazeera and doing all they can, to live “normal life”, as they see it in commercial films imported from the West.
What is grotesque is that it is actually those members of the collaborating elites all over the poor world that are “mass produced”, desperately gray, tugging the same line. They think the same, reason in the same way, and live a similarly empty existence. It is because, no matter on what continent they live, the Empire injects them with the same doctrines, makes them desire same things. Their dreams are mass-produced, and so are their loves and even their betrayals. They shop in the same malls for the same brands, eat in the same chain restaurants, watch the same stupid films and listen to similar crappy music. They use the same social media; the same phones and they succumb to the same extreme individualism. It is “me time” and “me-me-me goes first”, while millions of their compatriots are forced to live in a gutter.
Most of the collaborators support similar political ideas – almost all of them are right wing, pro-Western and neoliberal. Almost all of them are nationalists, but to them nationalism means, as they were taught by Western-style political correctness, a boastful admiration for their horrid failed states that imperialism and neoliberalism turned their exploited countries into. To them, nationalism definitely does not mean a determined fight, a struggle against the foreign dictates, for true freedom and social justice!
After working and living in many client states of the Empire, I now clearly see that even the most ‘uneducated’ farmers in the countryside are more creative, have more dignity and understanding of the world, than the collaborating urban “elites”. Simple people have their individual views, and they have at least some basic human instincts, like compassion and kindness.
The Empire is manufacturing emptiness, nihilism. It is an extremely depressing Empire. Those who are serving it, or more precisely those who are prostituting themselves with it, are actually very sad, even pathetic individuals, lacking character, integrity, and diversity.
In the same time, they are extremely brutal and selfish, and they are looting their own countries, oppressing their own people. But even power does not seem to bring them much joy.
They are scared. They don’t know exactly why, but they sense that they are doing something wrong. The more scared they are the more power they think they need; more power and more wealth. In order to be ‘protected’, in order to be able to build fences and to hire guards, and eventually disappear to their mansions and condominiums abroad, if things explode at home.
***
In India, Indonesia, all over Africa, colonialist empires used to employ local people to control and to terrorize masses. It was more effective that way, more practical. Locals knew locals better. They spoke the languages and they knew “where it hurts” when pain was administered.
Nothing changed. The Empire still gives orders to its servants, to the elites inside the client states. It intervenes directly only when the local cadres become ‘unreliable’ and fail to oppress their people, as happened in Iraq, Libya or Syria.
The organizations like IMF and the World Bank employ great numbers of members of the elites from sub-Continent, Africa and Southeast Asia, as it is understood that they will be extremely effective and brutal towards their own people, stripping them of everything, on behalf of the Empire. They do it in order to impress their masters, or simply out of deep spite for their own people.
This arrangement will not last forever. “The Belt” is gaining a notorious reputation all over the world. Hardy anyone would want to follow its example voluntarily.
Now there is a great number of countries fighting for a better arrangement of the world. Almost all Latin America, Russia, China, South Africa, Eritrea, and Iran, refuse to succumb to the Empire. Others are joining.
No matter how brilliant the masters of the horror scenarios, no matter how well they play their flutes, no matter how many millions of servants are licking their boots, it is certain that their violent art will not be allowed to dominate the world stage for much longer.
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and Fighting Against Western ImperialismDiscussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western TerrorismPoint of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

Racisme Nederlandse Politie

Sonja heeft een nieuwe reactie op je bericht "U.S. Police Terror 2" achtergelaten: 

De korpschef van de Nationale Politie verhaalt over politieagenten die op het bureau tegen elkaar spreken over "die kutmoslims, en dat wij die moskeeën maar in de fik moeten steken, want dan is het probleem opgelost”. Ook komt het volgens de korpschef voor dat moslims willekeurig "van straat worden geplukt” omdat ze "wel een bomgordel zullen dragen”.

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2015/04/11/korpschef-moslimagenten-door-collegas-uitgesloten-en-gekleineerd/ 


Korpschef: moslimagenten door collega’s uitgesloten en gekleineerd

Protesterende politie
Politiemensen voeren actie bij de Hofvijver. Binnen de politie zouden moslimagenten worden uitgesloten en gekleineerd.  Foto ANP / Lex van Lieshout
BINNENLAND 
Binnen de Nationale Politie worden moslimagenten door collega’s uitgesloten, gekleineerd en zonder respect behandeld. Dat schreef korpschef Gerard Bouman op 26 februari in een bezorgd en zeer kritisch intern blog over de sfeer in het korps in de weken na de terreuraanslag in Parijs van begin januari.

„Het gif van de uitsluiting sluipt onze organisatie binnen”, schreef hij. De tekst werd donderdag gebruikt door minister Asscher (Sociale Zaken, PvdA) in een lezing over discriminatie.

MOSLIMS WILLEKEURIG VAN STRAAT GEPLUKT

De korpschef van de Nationale Politie verhaalt over politieagenten die op het bureau tegen elkaar spreken over „die kutmoslims, en dat wij die moskeeën maar in de fik moeten steken, want dan is het probleem opgelost”.
Ook komt het volgens de korpschef voor dat moslims willekeurig „van straat worden geplukt” omdat ze „wel een bomgordel zullen dragen”. Dat blijkt dan bij controle een gebedskleedje en een koran te zijn. Maar die persoon wordt dan „toch geboekt als potentieel terrorist”.

AGENTEN MOETEN ZICH VERPLAATSEN IN MOSLIMCOLLEGA

Bouman vraagt zijn personeel zich te verplaatsen in de gevoelens van collega’s die politieman én toegewijd moslim zijn. „Vertrouwenspersonen hebben momenteel een dagtaak om zulke uitwassen op te vangen”, aldus de korpschef. Hij hekelt de politiecultuur waarin „iedereen die afwijkt van het gemiddelde” het moeilijk wordt gemaakt.
Bouman zegt bevreesd te zijn voor een politie „die niet pal lijkt te staan voor wie anders is. Die geen verbinding, maar repressie uitstraalt”. En: „Hoe kunnen wij buiten instaan voor veiligheid en verbinding als wij binnen collega’s van ons vervreemden?”
Lees meer op onze blog Recht en Bestuur en in de opiniebijlage van NRC Handelsblad vandaag.

Henk Hofland en de Massa 42



De Amerikaanse columnist Thomas Friedman is optimistisch. Laat ze elkaar maar uitputten, schrijft hij. Daar zit iets in. Sinds meer dan een halve eeuw, te beginnen bij de Suezcrisis, put het Westen zich uit in vruchteloze interventies in de regio. De kostbaarste onderneming, in Irak, is nog niet afgelopen. Zou het niet een geweldige opluchting zijn als nu buiten onze verantwoordelijkheid die twee regionale grootmachten in een uitputtend conflict verwikkeld raakten terwijl het Westen geïnteresseerd toekeek?

Henk Hofland. De Groene Amsterdammer. 1 april 2015


In zijn ideologische voorstelling van de werkelijkheid draait H.J.A. Hofland de wereld om. Als bewaker van het Atlantisch bondgenootschap suggereert hij dat het expansionistische Westen, onder aanvoering van Washington en Wall Street, 'vredestichtend' is, en dat het handelt vanuit altruïstische motieven en niet vanuit financiële, economische en dus geopolitieke drijfveren. Het door NAVO-bases omsingelde Rusland verandert in zijn optiek in een gevaarlijke, expansionistische, westwaarts oprukkende grootmacht, en het omsingelde Iran wordt bij hem afgeschilderd als een ernstige bedreiging van de wereldvrede, waardoor de 'druk op Teheran onverminderd gehandhaafd [moet] worden,' terwijl hij het met nucleaire wapens uitgeruste Israel ineens als een bedreigde staat afbeeldt. In een poging dit waanbeeld geloofwaardig te maken bij de lezers van De Groene Amsterdammer verzwijgt de gezagsgetrouwe spreekbuis van de gevestigde wanorde historische oorzaken en onwelgevallige politieke feiten die al te zichtbaar maken hoe propagandistisch zijn columns zijn. De mainstream-consensus dient koste wat kost gehandhaafd te blijven. Vooral dit feit heeft hem juist tot de 'beste journalist van de twintigste eeuw' gemaakt, althans volgens zijn mainstream-collega's in de polder. Maar net als bij alles op aarde, en zeker in een consumptiemaatschappij, is ook Hoflands  propaganda gedateerd geraakt, uitgewerkt, versleten. Wat in de vorige eeuw nog waar leek, blijkt in de 21ste eeuw al geruime tijd niets anders dan kitsch te zijn, 'a marketing phenomenon,' dat 'onze dagelijkse esthetiek en moraal' bepaalt, zoals intellectuelen als Dwight Macdonald en Milan Kundera de houding van de commerciële massamedia hebben getypeerd. Geconfronteerd met de huidige snelle ontwikkelingen en machtsverlies van  Washington en Wall Street is de huidige consensus onhoudbaar geworden. 


Het enige positieve aan Hoflands teksten is dat zijn beweringen vandaag de dag genadeloos onthullen welke benepen opvattingen hij altijd al heeft gehad. Dit is als het ware de straf voor het hoog bejaard zijn. De gedachten bevriezen, waardoor, net als bij ijsbloemen op een ruit, de voorheen verholen patronen ineens zichtbaar zijn. Hofland heeft zichzelf overleefd. Hetzelfde geldt voor De Groene Amsterdammer, die de 87-jarige een platform biedt voor het verspreiden van zijn reactionaire meningen. Een treffend voorbeeld daarvan is zijn nonsens dat de 'kostbaarste onderneming, in Irak' één van die 'vruchteloze interventies in de regio' is geweest, waarbij 'het Westen zich' heeft 'uitgeput,' daarmee de indruk wekkend dat de gewelddadige Amerikaanse 'interventies' in 'Irak' en elders in het Midden-Oosten bedoeld waren om, ik citeer opnieuw, 'het tij' te keren, door daar met massaal geweld een democratisch bestel te introduceren. In werkelijkheid ging het vanaf de door de CIA in 1953 georganiseerde Iraanse staatsgreep tot de 2003 'shock and awe'-inval in Irak — volgens het internationaal recht een oorlogsmisdaad —  de hele tijd om een greep te houden op de olie in de regio waar meer dan 65 procent van alle commercieel exploiteerbare oliereserves liggen. Wat in 2004 de Secretaris-Generaal van de Verenigde Naties, Kofi Annan, kwalificeerde als een 'illegale' Amerikaanse agressieoorlog, die in flagrante strijd was met het 'VN-Handvest,' wordt anno 2015 door opiniemaker Henk Hofland gepresenteerd als één van die 'vruchteloze interventies in de regio,' die niet hebben kunnen voorkomen dat er nu sprake is van het 

failliet van de Arabische beschaving. En sinds het begin van deze eeuw heeft het Westen metterdaad bewezen dat het daar machteloos tegenover staat. Pogingen om het tij met de oorlogen in Afghanistan en Irak te keren zijn uitgelopen op kostbare mislukkingen.

Met deze simplistische vertekening van de realiteit wordt doorgaans in totalitaire systemen de geschiedenis aangepast aan ideologische vereisten. Politiek taalgebruik 'is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind,' aldus George Orwell, en dit is precies wat de in Nederland zo gerespecteerde opiniemaker doet. Ook al verklaarde de openbaar aanklager van het Internationaal Strafhof in 2006 over aanwijzingen te beschikken 'that various war crimes had been committed' door westerse militairen in Irak, dan nog blijft Hofland pretenderen dat deze schendingen voortvloeiden uit nobele motieven, waarmee Washington en zijn NAVO zich vergeefs hebben afgemat. De Koude Oorlogsprofeet heeft geen andere keuze, op zijn oude dag kan hij domweg niet toegeven dat hijzelf een werkzaam leven lang westerse terreur heeft verdedigd. Hij moet, gevangen in zijn eigen leugen, onverstoorbaar verder in de korte tijd die hem nog van de dood scheidt. Voor alle duidelijkheid moet ik hierbij opmerken dat elk economisch systeem gebaseerd is op een valse aanname, en zeker het kapitalistische dat uitgaat van de eeuwige groei die een voortdurende winststijging mogelijk moet maken, en dat zodoende 85 miljardairs dermate rijk heeft gemaakt dat zij nu evenveel bezitten als de helft van de gehele mensheid tezamen. Dit schreeuwende onrecht is vanzelfsprekend niet aan het grote publiek te verkopen zonder leugens. Het is de taak van de 'vrije pers,' overigens net zo vrij als elke andere werknemer die doet wat wordt opgedragen, om dat wat krom is aan te bieden als recht. De opiniemakers van de massamedia moeten het onverkoopbare zodanig presenteren dat het wordt geaccepteerd door een zo groot mogelijk publiek. De achttiende eeuwse Schotse verlichtingsfilosoof David Hume merkte terecht op dat:

as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. Tis therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.

Zolang de massa de heersende propaganda slikt, heeft de macht niets te vrezen, hoe desastreus haar politiek ook mag zijn voor het heden en de toekomst. Pas wanneer de consensus geleidelijk aan verdwijnt, dreigt er gevaar voor de 'elite' en haar opportunistische woordvoerders. Zodra de ijsbloemen op de ruiten zichtbaar worden, zit er kou aan de lucht. Wanneer het gewelddadig westers expansionisme niet langer als normaal wordt aanvaard, verliezen de Hoflanden en Makken hun geloofwaardigheid bij het grote publiek en beginnen hun broodheren zich ongerust te maken. Ik zag onlangs mijn oude vriend Geert Mak bij het Albert Heijn-filiaal op de Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam achter de schappen wegschieten toen hij mij zag aankomen, en deze reactie is tekenend voor de angst van de conformisten om met de inmiddels onontkoombare werkelijkheid te worden geconfronteerd. In plaats van in discussie te gaan, proberen ze zoveel mogelijk de realiteit te ontvluchten. Wat moeten ze anders met de werkelijkheid in hun zelf geschapen virtuele wereldje? In plaats van de oorzaken van de vele oorlogen te onderzoeken waarin de VS zijn hele geschiedenis lang verwikkeld is, beweert opiniemaker Mak verheugd dat de 'soft power'  van de Verenigde Staten 'nog altijd sterk aanwezig,' is, waarbij hij het begrip als volgt verduidelijkt:

Soft power is, in de kern, de overtuigingskracht van een staat, de kracht om het debat naar zich toe te trekken, om de agenda van de wereldpolitiek te bepalen,

zonder te vermelden dat, geheel volgens de Amerikaanse 'speak softly and carry a big stick'-doctrine, de 'soft power' van de VS altijd begeleid wordt door de 'hard power' van 's wereld's zwaarst bewapende staat, waarvan de militaire uitgaven

Dwarfs Rest Of The World. The United States spends 58 percent of the total defense dollars paid out by the world's top 10 military powers, which combined for $1.19 trillion in military funding in 2011. With its unparalleled global reach, the US outspends China, the next-biggest military power, by nearly 6-to-1.

De mainstream-opiniemakers willen geen discussie aangaan over de oorzaken van het feit dat

America Has Been At War 93% of the Time – 222 Out of 239 Years – Since 1776

De Makken en Hoflanden zullen nooit aandacht besteden aan het volgende:

Over the years writers like Bradley have challenged the dominant consensus that Japan, not the U.S., had alone provoked the war and was an expansionist, militarist state, unwilling to compromise—that is, accept American demands that it surrender its leading role in China. Bruce M. Russett’s largely forgotten 1971 book, 'No Clear and Present Danger: A Skeptical View of the U.S. Entry into WWII' argued, instead, that the U.S. contributed mightily to the coming of war by its embargo's (in concert with Britain and the Dutch) of oil and raw materials on a Japan which had none of these vital resources. While 'the threat to Japan of a raw material scarcity was obvious,' the policy of 'gradually tightening economic measures,' Russett concluded, 'was an escalation that was to drive Japan not to capitulation, as it was intended to do, but to war with the United States.'

Bradley’s view is that if the Japanese had submitted to U.S. demands it would have meant abandoning China in favor of an updated imperial and pro-western Open Door Policy. But Japan saw U.S. intervention in China as no different from the Monroe Doctrine, which demanded absolute American control of the Western Hemisphere. Once its oil pipeline was shut down Japan, writes Bradley, was stranded like 'an industrialized beached whale.' Neither Tokyo nor Washington would budge, leading Dean Acheson, Henry Stimson and Henry Morgenthau, among other White House hawks, to 'set the war clock ticking in Tokyo.' Surprisingly, Bradley reveals that neither FDR nor Cordell Hull, his Secretary of State, knew that Acheson & Company had unilaterally cut off oil shipments which, the Japanese historian Akira Iriye concluded in 1981, 'had a tremendous psychological impact upon the Japanese' and led directly to Tokyo’s suicidal decision to go to war.

Geert Mak en Henk Hofland verdwijnen liever zo snel mogelijk achter de schappen van een grootgrutter dan dat ze publiekelijk of privé met iemand als ik in discussie zullen gaan over de geschiedenis van het Amerikaanse expansionisme, of over Hoflands bewering dat

[s]inds meer dan een halve eeuw, te beginnen bij de Suezcrisis, het Westen zich uit[put] in vruchteloze interventies in de regio. De kostbaarste onderneming, in Irak, is nog niet afgelopen. Zou het niet een geweldige opluchting zijn als nu buiten onze verantwoordelijkheid die twee regionale grootmachten in een uitputtend conflict verwikkeld raakten terwijl het Westen geïnteresseerd toekeek?

Het opmerkelijke hierbij is dat de columnist van De Groene onmiddellijk daarop stelt:

Vergeleken met de praktijk die we in de regio hebben klinkt het relatief aanlokkelijk. Maar het is theorie. Ten eerste kan het Westen zich niet veroorloven een van zijn belangrijkste olieleveranciers in de steek te laten.

Met andere woorden: niet vanwege enig respect voor het internationaal recht en ook niet vanuit humanitaire motieven, maar louter en alleen vanwege de olieprijs zijn Hofland en de 'politiek-literaire elite' in de polder bereid af te zien van de 'geweldige opluchting' die het bloedbad in het Midden-Oosten hen zou verschaffen. Van welke psychische stoornis is deze houding een symptoom, en wat is deze gruwelijke onverschilligheid precies? De joods-Amerikaanse Nobelprijswinnaar voor de Vrede, Elie Wiesel, die als overlevende van Auschwitz en Buchenwald zonder overdrijving een ervaringsdeskundige bij uitstek genoemd kan worden zei er dit over:

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

Onverschilligheid. 'Geïnteresseerd' toekijken naar 'een uitputtend conflict' is een ziekelijke reflex van mensen die haten, en geen enkele geloof bezitten in wat dan ook, mensen van wie de ziel dood is. Het verraadt de geestesgesteldheid van een gestoord kind dat met plezier de vleugels van een vlinder aftrekt om te kijken hoe het beestje crepeert. Hofland is bereid van dit 'genot' af te zien vanwege het feit dat

Saoedi-Arabië een van de belangrijkste olieleveranciers van het Westen [is]. Na de Jom Kippoeroorlog speelde het in 1973 een belangrijke rol in de ontwrichtende olieboycot. Dit is een van de redenen waarom we het regime daar zo opzichtig te vriend houden. De vermoedelijke ontwikkeling van een kernwapen door Iran heeft een tegengesteld effect. Het moet verhinderd worden dat het land zich tot een kernmogendheid zal ontwikkelen. Onder de nu geldende omstandigheden zou de Iraanse bom een kernoorlog met Israël onduldbaar dichtbij brengen. Er bestaat tussen die landen geen diplomatie die dit uiterste zou kunnen voorkomen. Vandaar ook het eindeloze internationale overleg in Lausanne.

Na eerder in De Groene beweerd te hebben dat 'Sinds jaren Iran aan zijn eigen kernwapen [werkt],' spreekt hij vervolgens over de 'vermoedelijke ontwikkeling van een kernwapen door Iran.' Naast het feit dat die twee beweringen haaks op elkaar staan,  berichtte bovendien de New York Times op 24 februari 2012:

American intelligence analysts continue to believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb.

Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.

Desondanks blijft Hofland schrijven over 'De Iraanse bom' en 'De bom van Iran' die 'vermoedelijk' in 'ontwikkeling' is. Kortom, de niet in 'ontwikkeling' zijnde 'Iraanse bom' zal volgens hem 'een kernoorlog met Israël onduldbaar dichtbij brengen.' Aan deze redenering ontbreekt logica, maar dat is voor de redactie en het publiek van De Groene Amsterdammer geen merkbaar probleem, de zelfgenoegzame intelligentsia in Nederland slikt van alles voor zoete koek, dus ook de propaganda van een 87-jarige Koude Oorlogsprofeet met een ziekelijke hang naar geweld. Volgende keer meer over de man die het als een groot probleem  ervaart dat

[s]inds 9/11 het Westen [heeft] bewezen dat het zijn politici en generaals ontbreekt aan het krijgskundig inzicht dat nodig is om in de regio een oorlog overtuigend te winnen. Na veertien jaar en een lange reeks militaire experimenten weten we nog niet hoe de oorlog in de regio moet worden gevoerd.

Let op: Hofland schrijft wederom 'we,' wanneer hij de westerse economische elite en haar militair-industrieel complex bedoelt. 'WE.' Weer een leugen, want 'WE' tellen niet mee in een neoliberale cultuur.



Leading Papers Incite ‘Supreme International Crime’

War op-eds in NYT, WaPo
Op-eds in the Washington Post (left) and New York Times called for unprovoked military attacks on Iran.
After the New York Timesprinted John Bolton’s “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran” (3/26/15FAIR Blog, 3/26/15), following the Washington Postpublishing Joshua Muravchik’s “War With Iran Is Probably Our Best Option” (3/13/15), veteran investigative reporter Robert Parry made an excellent point (Consortium News3/28/15):
If two major newspapers in, say, Russia published major articles openly advocating the unprovoked bombing of a country, say, Israel, the US government and news media would be aflame with denunciations about “aggression,” “criminality,” “madness” and “behavior not fitting the 21st century.”
But when the newspapers are American – the New York Times and the Washington Post – and the target country is Iran, no one in the US government and media bats an eye. These inflammatory articles – these incitements to murder and violation of international law – are considered just normal discussion in the Land of Exceptionalism.
Advocating for war is not like advocating for most other policies because, as peace activist David Swanson points out, war is a crime. It was outlawed in 1928 by the Kellogg-Briand Pact, in which the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain, Germany, France, Japan and 55 other nations “condemn[ed] recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce[d] it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.”
Nuremberg defendants
Defendants at Nuremberg were found guilty and hanged for carrying out the policies advocated by the Washington Post and New York Timesop-ed pages.
Kellogg-Briand was the basisfor the “crimes against peace” indictment at the Nuremberg Trials for Nazi leaders, several of whom were hangedfor “planning, preparation, initiation, or waging a war of aggression.” At Nuremberg, chief US prosecutor Robert H. Jackson declared:
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
The spirit of Kellogg-Briand was embodied in the formation of the United Nations, whose charter commits its signers to renouncing war and the threat of war:
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
So to advocate for war, as the Washington Post and New York Times op-ed pages have done, is to incite a crime–“the supreme international crime,” as Jackson noted. How would we react if leading papers were to run articles suggesting that genocide was the best solution to an international conflict–or that lynching is the answer to domestic problems? Calling for an unprovoked military attack against another nation is in the same category of argument.

The Washington Post can be reached at  letters@washpost.com   or via Twitter @washingtonpost. The New York Times‘ email is : letters@nytimes.com and Twitter account is @nytimes. Remember that respectful communication is most effective.

http://fair.org/home/leading-papers-incite-supreme-international-crime/



CNN Wants to Believe: White House ‘Russian Hackers’ Go From Suspects to Perps

Boris and Natasha
On the basis of scant evidence, CNN identified the alleged White House hackers as Russian agents. (Artist’s conception.)
CNN (4/8/15) ran a story about “Russian hackers” getting into the White House computer system that needed to get out of the White House PR system.
The story, by Evan Perez and Shimon Prokupecz, began with:
Russian hackers behind the damaging cyber intrusion of the State Department in recent months used that perch to penetrate sensitive parts of the White House computer system, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.
The phrasing implies that the responsibility of said hackers from Russia for an earlier “cyber intrusion” is proven fact, and what the “US officials” (the main source for the news in this piece, along with “investigators”) are adding is their culpability in a second security breach.
But if you follow the link in that lead, you find another CNN story (3/10/15) written last month by the same writers, and here’s  its complete presentation of the evidence for the “Russian hackers” involvement:
Russian hackers, likely working for the Russian government, are suspected in the State Department hack.
I was going to ask what new evidence in the past month changed the Russians from suspects to convicted criminals, but it actually happened in the space of just eight words, because that much further down in that same piece from last month, there’s a new paragraph that begins:
In part because of the Russian attack on State….
A similar rush from allegation to fact happens in the more recent piece. The evidence, again, could hardly be more cursory:
The intrusion was routed through computers around the world, as hackers often do to hide their tracks, but investigators found tell-tale codes and other markers that they believe point to hackers working for the Russian government.
Unnamed “investigators”–who may come from the “FBI, Secret Service [or] US intelligence agencies,” we learn earlier in the piece–“believe” there are “tell-tale codes and other markers” that “point to” Russian government employees–how much fuzzier does evidence get? Yet immediately CNN is talking about the “Russian hack” as though it’s proven fact:
National Security Council spokesman Mark Stroh didn’t confirm the Russian hack, but he did say that “any such activity is something we take very seriously.”
“The Russian hack”–the definite article is called “definite” for a reason; the sentence would read much differently if it referred to “a Russian hack.”
The Russians reappear as certain culprits in the State Department caper:
The State Department computer system has been bedeviled by signs that despite efforts to lock them out, the Russian hackers have been able to reenter the system.
And the certainty of Russian guilt is a jumping off point for observations about the geopolitical scene:
The ferocity of the Russian intrusions in recent months caught US officials by surprise, leading to a reassessment of the cybersecurity threat as the US and Russia increasingly confront each other over issues ranging from the Russian aggression in Ukraine to the US military operations in Syria.
(Note that in the CNN stylebook, Russia commits “aggression” whereas the US carries out “military operations.”)
A similar lack of skepticism is evident as the article ties the alleged hacking into electoral politics (“The Russian breach is believed to have come after [Hillary] Clinton departed State”) and domestic law-making:
Sen. Susan Collins said the revelations of the Russian hack “are troubling and further expose that our nation’s defenses against cyber-attacks are dangerously inadequate.”
The word “revelations” means that something actual has been revealed–whereas not only doesn’t CNN know for a fact that Russians hacked anything, it doesn’t even claim that the US government is certain about Russian guilt. (The story says investigators say they have evidence they “believe point[s] to” Moscow’s involvement.) That’s why you use a word like “accusations” or “allegations”–or, better yet in this case, “suspicions.”
I do want to commend CNN editors for one decision, namely changing the article’s headline. Here’s the piece’s original title, as preserved by Google (also visible in the article’s Web tab and URL):
CNN: Russians Hacked the White HouseThere’s now a new version of the headline, which appropriately inserts a source for the claim of Russian hacking:
USA Today: How US Thinks Russians Hacked the White House
Now, I’m glad they changed the headline; headlines, as the most-read text of a piece, are important. But they didn’t change it fast enough to prevent USA Today (4/7/15) from picking up the story and giving it this headline:
USA Today: CNN: Russians hacked White House computersUnless CNN has its own experts on cybersecurity who are independently evaluating the evidence, the network is really not in a position to be making charges in its own voice about international computer espionage. By attributing the claim, USA Today‘s headline did it right, while at the same time pointing up how CNN was doing it wrong.




Documents Showing How the Empire Plans to Overthrow Putin

By The Saker and Drakula’s Blog
This information was posted on an anonymous blog Drakula’s bloghttp://drakulablog.com/2015/04/01/west-and-ukraine-against-putin-and-his-politicians/.  It looks very credible to me.  Just take a look here for comparison purposes.
The Saker
West and Ukraine against Putin and his politicians
April 10, 2015 "ICH" - Today I’ve got docs on Russia and Ukraine for you. The West got used to solving its problems using someone else to do the dirty work. Putin’s regime is an eyesore for the U.S., UK and NATO. Regardless whether it’s good or bad (everyone has his own opinion) Russia opposes the unipolar world order and western values exclusiveness. The West has a simple solution; it just needs to overthrow Putin and his close companions.
The West can’t do it openly and directly. Russia isn’t Yugoslavia, or Libya, or Iraq. That’s why they are acting via Ukraine which is undergoing dramatical changes now. Though they are using the old methods of ideological warfare, discredit of leaders, and society values erosion.
The attached docs show that NATO and the U.S. and UK military advisors are acting in Ukraine. Non-governmental organizations are working there under the auspices of the Western and Ukrainian special services.
For instance, here’s a NATO doc testifying that the popularity of the Russian leaders among the population of the Southern and Eastern regions is a challenge for Ukraine.
11 12 13
14 15
Download: COORDINATION MEETING ON STRATCOM TRAINING FOR UKRAINE, GEORGIA AND MOLDOVA
 

The Ukrainian non-governmental organizations mention the same issue in their docs drawn up to win the grant from the UK government.
21 22 23 24 25 26
Download: Conflict Pool Project
 

The Russian leaders such as Putin, Lavrov, Shoigu, etc. should be put under constant pressure. As you can see this task is included in the Free Donbass and Free Russia PSYOPs designed by the Ukrainian special services.
31 32 33 3435 36
Download: FREE Donbass
 

41 42 43 4445 46
Download: Free Russia
 

The later clearly defines primary targets for the information attack. These people are obviously those legs bearing Putin’s throne. And as I see it that will be perfect if the Russian President knock them out by himself.
So they plan to compromise defense minister Shoigu, who is extremely popular in Russia, through facilities management and economic activity of his subordinates as well as through corruption cases revealed by the defense ministry itself. Bortnikov, the head of the secret police, can be blamed for failing to preserve Yanukovich regime in Ukraine. And general Zolotov, the Russian National Guard commander, is to be presented before Putin as a dangerous successor, potential dictator and accuse him of military coup attempts.
Since Russia and Ukraine still have common media space the idea is that Russian liberal media and opposition should take on spreading all info in the net and press created by the Ukrainian and Western secret services. The leading Western mass media are to cover this info as well.
I don’t doubt that the West will initiate color revolution processes in Russia through Ukraine sooner or later.

http://thesaker.is/

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41514.htm