After the British report exposing falsehoods to justify
invading Iraq in 2003, a new U.K. inquiry found similar misconduct in the 2011 attack on Libya, but no
lessons are learned for the West's new propaganda about Russia
A British parliamentary inquiry into the Libyan fiasco has reported what should have been
apparent from the start in 2011 -- and was to some of us -- that the West's military
intervention to "protect" civilians in Benghazi was a cover for what became another
disastrous "regime change" operation.
The report from the U.K.'s Foreign Affairs Committee confirms that the U.S. and other
Western governments exaggerated the human rights threat posed by Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi and then quickly morphed the "humanitarian" mission into a military invasion
that overthrew and killed Gaddafi, leaving behind political and social chaos.
The report's significance is that it shows how little was learned from the Iraq War fiasco in which George W. Bush's administration
hyped and falsified intelligence to justify invading Iraq and killing its leader, Saddam
Hussein. In both cases, U.K. leaders tagged along and the West's mainstream news media
mostly served as unprofessional propaganda conduits, not as diligent watchdogs for the
public.
Today, we are seeing an even more dangerous repetition of this pattern: demonizing
Russian President Vladimir Putin, destabilizing the Russian economy and pressing for
"regime change" in Moscow. Amid the latest propaganda orgy against Putin, virtually no
one in the mainstream is exercising any restraint or finding any cautionary lessons from
the Iraqi and Libyan examples.
Yet, with Russia, the risks are orders of magnitude greater than even the cases of Iraq
and Libya -- and one might toss in the messy "regime change" projects in Ukraine and Syria. . . .
[Former Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, chief U.S. prosecutor at the first
Nuremberg trial, called waging aggressive war "the supreme international crime"--Enver
Masud, "Iraq War: 'Supreme International
Crime'," The Wisdom Fund, June 29, 2005]
[This project, . . . consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence
extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the
borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.--Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, "Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a 'New
Middle East'," globalresearch.ca, November 18, 2006]
[Russia is being encircled by US and Nato bases and missiles in
violation of a pledge by the United States not to expand Nato "one inch to the
east".--John Pilger, "The New World War -- The Silence Is A
Lie," johnpilger.com, September 24, 2008]
[During 17 years of assault on a defenceless civilian population, veiled with weasel
monikers like "sanctions" and "no fly zones" and "building democracy", more people have
died in Iraq than during the peak years of the slave trade.--John Pilger, "Iraq: The Crime of the Century,"
New Statesman, December 10, 2009]
Victoria Nuland, Asst. Sec. of
State for Europe, phone call to Geoffrey Pyatt, US Ambassador to Ukraine: F**k the EU,
Youtube, February 4, 2014 -- She is married to Robert Kagan, the co-founder of PNAC
[Fuck the EU--"Ukraine
crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call," bbc.com, February 7, 2014]
Victoria Jane
Nuland was . . . at the United States Department of State under Obama. She served
as Vice President Dick Cheney's deputy national security adviser from July 2003 to May
2005. She is married to Robert Kagan, the co-founder of Project for the New American
Century. ("some
catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" (page 51).
[Elmhurst, Illinois-born Natalie Jaresko, obtained a second
citizenship (Ukrainian) on December 2, 2014, the day of, get this, her appointment as
Minister of Finance of Ukraine.--Robert Wenzel, "Criminal: Former US State Department Official to Buy
Ukraine's Largest Telecom Company," Ron Paul Institute, April 13, 2016]
Virginia Senator Richard Black tells the truth about Syria and Libya, May 17, 2016
[the American propaganda system, the one that supposedly doesn't exist, has gone berserk
- targeting RT America (formerly Russia Today).--Andrew Levine, "America's New Demons and the Second Coming of the Neocons,"
counterpunch.org, September 16, 2016
[It says: "The [British] government failed to identify that the threat to civilians was
overstated, and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element. By the summer
of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist
policy of regime change."--Jonathan Marcus, "An obituary for the age of
intervention?," bbc.com, September 17, 2016]
[In the case of Russia, some American leaders actually believe a potentially nuclear war
can be won and should be considered while at least one general has taken steps to bring
about such a conflict.--Philip Giraldi, "Deep State America,"
unz.com, September 20, 2016]
[The final blow apparently came from the Russian-Syrian side, but what provoked the decision
to end the ceasefire was the first ever US strike against Syrian government forces on 17 September.
That convinced the Russians that the US Pentagon had no intention of implementing the main
element of the deal that was most important to the Putin government: a joint US-Russian air
campaign against the Islamic State (IS) militant group and al-Qaeda through a "Joint Implementation
Centre". . . .
The Pentagon was motivated by an overriding interest in heading off such high-profile
US-Russian cooperation at a time when it is pushing for much greater US military efforts
to counter what it portrays as Russian aggression in a new Cold War.--Gareth Porter, "How the Pentagon sank the US-Russia deal in Syria - and the
ceasefire," middleeasteye.net, September 23, 2016]
[British parliamentarians released a report which condemned the U.K. government under
David Cameron for its role in the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya.--James W Carden, "How
Libyan 'Regime Change' Lies Echo in Syria," consortiumnews.com, September 25, 2016]
[Bell Pottinger's output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news
networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched
them, according to a former employee.--Crofton Black & Abigail Fielding-Smith, "Pentagon Paid for Fake 'Al Qaeda' Videos," thedailybeast.com,
October 1, 2016]
[The White Helmets were founded in collaboration with USAID's Office of Transitional
Initiatives - the wing that has promoted regime change around the world - and have been
provided with $23 million in funding from the department. USAID supplies the White
Helmets through Chemonics, a for-profit contractor based in Washington DC that has
become notorious for wasteful aid imbroglios from Haiti to Afghanistan.--Max Blumenthal, "How the White Helmets Became International Heroes
While Pushing U.S. Military Intervention and Regime Change in Syria," alternet.org,
October 2, 2016]
[The Syria Campaign is registered in England as a private company called the Voices
Project at an address shared by 91 other companies. Aside from Asfari, most of The Syria
Campaign's donors are anonymous.
Looming over this opaque operation are questions about its connections to Avaaz, a
global public relations outfit that played an instrumental role in generating support
for a no-fly zone in Libya, and The Syria Campaign's founding by Purpose, another PR
firm spun out of Avaaz.--Max Blumenthal, "'Inside the Shadowy PR Firm That's Lobbying for Regime
Change in Syria," alternet.org, October 3, 2016]
[Not since the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq has Official Washington's
political/punditry class clamored more single-mindedly - and openly - for the U.S.
government to commit a gross violation of international law, now urging a major military
assault on the government of Syria while also escalating tensions with nuclear-armed
Russia.
. . . there are two key facts about Syria that Americans are not being told: one, U.S.
regional "allies" have been funding and arming radical jihadist groups, including Al
Qaeda terrorists, there almost since the conflict began in 2011 and, two, the claim
about "moderate" Syrian rebels is a fraud; the "moderates" have served essentially as a
P.R. cut-out for the U.S. and its "allies" to supply Al Qaeda and its allies with
sophisticated weapons while pretending not to.--Robert Parry, "New
'Group Think' for War with Syria/Russia," consortiumnews.com, October 5, 2016]
[consider what the reaction in this country would be if an alliance dominated by another
major power, say China, began to add the Caribbean countries, the Central American
countries, and the northern tier powers of South America to a military alliance that it
controlled. Consider further the probable reaction if the Chinese equivalents of
neoconservatives campaigned to bring Canada and Mexico into such an alliance and deploy
Chinese military forces in those countries. Would any U.S. leader - indeed, any prudent
American - not consider that a threat to the nation's security?--Ted Galen Carpenter, "Why
Russia Fears NATO," antiwar.com, October 10, 2016]
[Evidence now suggests that we are seeing a replay of Curveball and the Iraqi WMD in
2003 and the bogus hysteria about stopping a Libyan "genocide" in 2011--Rick Sterling, "The
'White Helmets' Controversy," consortiumnews.com, October 19, 2016]
[The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the
leader in each of these countries was not a puppet of the West. . . .
The same fate awaited Slobodan Milosevic once he had refused to sign an "agreement" that
demanded the occupation of Serbia and its conversion to a market economy.
. . . it was only when the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2009
rejected an oil pipeline, running through his country from Qatar to Europe, that he was
attacked.--John Pilger, "Inside the Invisible Government; War, Propaganda, Clinton
& Trump," counterpunch.org, October 28, 2016]
[Raqqa to be established as the de facto capital of so-called moderate Syrian
forces--John Wight, "Understanding
Aleppo," counterpunch.org, November 2, 2016]
TRANSCRIPT: So in late 2011 there is an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock
that was produced for Hillary Clinton, and it's the chronological description of how she
was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around
40,000 deaths within Libya; jihadists moved in, ISIS moved in, leading to the European
refugee and migrant crisis.--"Julian Assange Speaks About
Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Election and the Litany of Charges Against Him,"
truthdig.com, November 5, 2016
[But the blunder was not in staying out of Syria's civil war, but in going in--Patrick J. Buchanan, "Lessons
of Aleppo - for Trump," antiwar.com, December 16, 2016]
Israel: "as long as Sunni and Shia are at each other's throats, . . . Israel has nothing to fear" @ 24 min
CIA Analyst Ray McGovern, LPAC, January 16, 2017
[For instance, you could release what the U.S. government actually knows about the Aug.
21, 2013 sarin gas attack in Syria; what the files show about the origins of the Feb.
22, 2014 coup in Ukraine; what U.S. intelligence analysts have compiled about the July
17, 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. And those are
just three examples of cases where U.S. government propagandists have sold a dubious
bill of goods to the American and world publics in the "information warfare" campaign
against the Syrian and Russian governments.--Robert Parry, "Trump's
Foreign Policy at a Crossroads," consortiumnews.com, February 9, 2017]
CIA and Mossad work in tandem with British intel. The goal for the CIA was to replace
Assad with a puppet and to topple Iran so we could access their oil. Israel works
closely with it's "sister", Saudi Arabia, to help this dark cause. . . .
The travel ban included 7 countries chosen by both Jared Kushner and Rudy. Why did it
not include Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan, or Turkey or other countries that hate us? The
seven nations mentioned were chosen by Israel, that's why. . . .
Understand that if Trump and Putin work together to defeat Isis, they are actually
defeating a CIA/Mossad creation, and furthermore, Syria and Iran grow stronger, which
the Saudis and the Israelis fear.--Tyler Durden, "DHS
Insider Warns 'It's Spy Versus Spy'," zerohedge.com, February 17, 2017]
[it comes without Congressional authorization, without UN authorization, and without the
authorization of the government of Syria.--Daniel McAdams, "Trump Invades
Syria," antiwar.com, March 8, 2017]
[Villainizing the Kremlin - without much evidence - for crises from Washington and
Europe to Syria, Ukraine, and Afghanistan is increasing the possibility of a US-Russian
war.--Stephen F. Cohen, "Mounting
Incitements to War With Russia," thenation.com, April 26, 2017]
["The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting
Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991,"
George Washington University National Security Archives researchers Svetlana Savranskaya
and Tom Blanton wrote. "That discussions of NATO in the context of German unification
negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German
territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about
NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the
highest levels."--Dave Majumdar, "Newly Declassified Documents: Gorbachev Told NATO Wouldn't
Move Past East German Border," nationalinterest.org, December 12, 2017]
[Stepan Bandera were recruited by a Nazi intelligence organization to commit espionage
and sabotage against the Soviet Union--Sam Shipman, "The roots of
fascism in Ukraine: From Nazi collaboration to Maidan," liberationschool.org,
January 4, 2018]
[The White Helmets are a mostly British funded propaganda organization embedded with
Hayat Tahreer Al-Sham, the current incarnation of al-Qaeda in Syria which rules Idleb
governorate.--"Syria -- New 'Chemical Weapons' Fake
Planned," moonofalabama.org, February 15, 2018]
John Pilger, "Skripal case is a carefully-constructed drama," RT, March 18, 2018
Out of Control: Ukraine's Rogue Militias, VICE International, May 25, 2018
[Not only do they only operate in rebel-controlled areas but they are a source of
propaganda about the war, indeed their very existence is an element in the larger
propaganda campaign to rally international support for a "regime change" war in Syria.
The "White Helmets" brand was conceived and directed by a New York-based marketing
company named "The Syria Campaign," which itself was "incubated" by a larger politically
oriented marketing company called Purpose.--Rick Sterling, The
'White Helmets' Controversy," consortiumnews.com, July 22, 2018]
[Trump had entered the White House with a clear commitment to ending U.S. military
interventions--Gareth Porter, "Could
Trump Take Down the American Empire?," truthdig.com, October 2, 2018]
"If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the
... border of Ukraine again, then there will be ... no longer a Nord Stream 2.
We, we will bring an end to it," Biden said. Asked how, given the project is in
German control, Biden said: "I promise you, we'll be able to do
it."--Andrea Shalal, Andreas Rinke, Jeff Mason, "Biden pledges end to Nord
Stream 2 if Russia invades Ukraine," reuters.com, February 8, 2022
[North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has made deep inroads into Ukraine's political and defence system.--M K Bhadrakumar, "Putin anticipates a new regime in Kyiv," rediff.com,
February 24, 2022]
[We are referring, of course, to the legendary George F. Kennan, who
had been ambassador to Russia during the Stalinist era and had authored the famous "X"
article in Foreign Affairs published in 1947. The latter laid out the subsequent US
policy of Soviet 'containment' and was the foundational document for the creation of
NATO in 1949.--David
Stockman, "George Kennan Warned NATO Expansion Would Lead to
This," antiwar.com, February 24, 2022]
Ukraine: Questions for the US Anti-War Movement w/ Abby Martin & Brian Becker, Empire Files, February 26, 2022
Why Russia is Invading Ukraine, RealLifeLore, February 26, 2022
[The far-right neo-Nazi group has expanded to become part of Ukraine's armed forces,
a street militia and a political party.--"Profile:
Who are Ukraine's far-right Azov regiment?," spectatorworld.com, March 1, 2022]
[Viewing the Ukraine war as starting with the current Russian invasion leads to very
different conclusions than if you consider that the starting point of this war was the
2014 US-orchestrated coup in Ukraine.--Roger Harris , "When
Did the Ukraine War Begin?," counterpunch.org, March 10, 2022]
Headline Buster: The Russia-Ukraine conflict, CGTN, March 11, 2022
'This is a war of propaganda': John Pilger on Ukraine and Assange, Talking Post with Yonden Lhatoo, SCMP, July 8, 2022
[The Russian president, whose entire argument with the West is that a
just and stable order in Europe must serve the security interests of all sides, was
simply restating objectives the trans-Atlantic alliance had once signed on to
accomplish.--Patrick Lawrence, "The
Imaginary War," consortiumnews.com, July 13, 2022]
[Since Russia views its vital security interests to be at stake in
the current conflict, the war in Ukraine is rapidly escalating to a nuclear
showdown.--Jeffrey Sachs, "The
great game in Ukraine is spinning out of control," johnmenadue.com, October 1, 2022]
[The US and its European allies, who represent and back the global
financial sector, are essentially engaged in a battle against the world's energy
sector.--Karin Kneissl, "Global finance vs global energy:
who will come out on top?," thecradle.co, October 13, 2022]
Ukraine Soldiers Sing Praises Of WW II Era N@zi, Jimmy Dore Show, October 22, 2022
Russia-Ukraine War: What Can We Learn from History? Intelligence Squared, October 27, 2022
Scott Ritter: Ukraine cannot win this war. It's a 'fantasy.' therealnews.com, November 15, 2022
[He wrote that "the notion of a cordon sanitaire of East European nations
integrated into NATO is not and never will be acceptable to any Russian regime.
Fortunately, it is also not acceptable to the nations of Western Europe and the
US, which have no intention of blithely issuing 'security guarantees' to the
newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe."--Reuven Brenner, "Is
the US constantly misreading Russia?," asiatimes.com, March 17, 2023]
VIDEO: Tucker Carlson,
"Kakhovka Dam Blown Up," Twitter Ep. 1, June 6, 2023
VIDEO:
Tucker Carlson,
"The Vladimir Putin Interview," tuckercarlson.com, February 8, 2024
