Why are the rich getting richer? Are they just smarter than the rest of us? Or do the "too big to fail" connected corporations have a hotline to Washington for government assistance? And what about the US involvement in the Middle East? Will it increase or decrease this year? And why? Internationally-renowned trends forecaster Gerald Celente joins today's Liberty Report to tell us what we can expect for 2018.. read on...
There is a growing consensus among many observers in Washington that the national security agencies have become completely politicized over the past seventeen years and are now pursuing selfish agendas that actually endanger what remains of American democracy. Up until recently it has been habitual to refer to such activity as the Deep State, which is perhaps equivalent to the Establishment in that it includes financial services, the media, major foundations and constituencies, as well as lobbying groups, but we are now witnessing an evolutionary process in which the national security regime is exercising power independently.
In a devastating critique former Central Intelligence Agency operations officer John Kiriakou has described how the Democratic Party, as part of its frenzied effort to bring down President Donald Trump, has embraced a whole group of former intelligence and law enforcement officers who appear to be on the same side in seeking a more responsible and accountable executive branch but who are in reality pursuing their own agenda.
Formerly intelligence and law enforcement agencies acted under the direction of the White House but without any political bias. Transitions from Democratic to Republican administrations were consequently seamless for the employees of CIA, FBI, DIA and the NSA, but this has changed. In the 2016 election a line-up of retired senior officers from those organizations openly supported the Clinton campaign and even went so far as to construct elaborate conspiracy theories regarding Trump and his associates, including the claim that Donald Trump is actually an agent of Russia. read on...
Confirming that the US military presence inside Syria had little to do with fighting ISIS, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson unveiled in detail today the real US strategy for Syria: overthrow of the Assad government. In a speech at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and introduced by President George W. Bush's Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Secretary Tillerson vowed that the United States military would continue to occupy Syrian territory until three conditions are met... read on...
While ISIS has been defeated in Syria, the US military has no plans to leave the country. In fact, the Pentagon is building new, permanent military bases on Syrian soil. But the Syrians don't want American troops on their soil and it's pretty illegal to put your troops into another country without permission. So why stay? To "counter Iranian influence in the region." But how did Iran get so much influence in the region? The US invasion of Iraq and the US destabilization of Syria were a shot in the arm to Iran's influence in the region. So if US interventionism in the Middle East keeps making Iran stronger and the US claims to want Iran to be weaker, why does Washington keep intervening in the region? We try to sort it out in today's Liberty Report... read on...
The audacious multiple-drone attack on Russia’s military bases in Syria is increasingly looking like a false flag carried out by the American Central Intelligence Agency. Sophisticated technology and a Ukrainian connection indicate that the swarm attack with 13 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was not the work solely of Syrian anti-government militants.
What’s more the Russian government appears to have the incriminating evidenceon who sanctioned the drone attacks against the Russian air base at Hmeimim and its naval port at Tartus on January 6.
The weapons failed to execute their deadly mission. Of the 13 drones used, seven were shot down by Russian Pantsir S-1 air defenses and six were safely landed by Russian electronic jamming technology. Those captured intact UAVs will have provided forensic information about what agency authored the plot.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said coyly, “We know who did it”, without as of yet specifying the culprit.
Images of the UAVs released by the Russian Ministry of Defense showed rudimentary construction from what appeared to be plywood. read on...
As the new year began, social media and corporate-owned news organizations alike were giving the protests in Iran constant coverage, despite the fact that the protests were relatively small in size and motivated primarily by economics — not politics, as many popular news outlets had claimed. Not surprisingly, these same organizations failed to mention the role of sanctions backed by the West in fomenting the economic troubles facing Iranians.
Soon after — despite US encouragement and financial backing, as well as the key role of the US-trained, Iran-based terrorist group MEK, in fomenting the unrest — the protests in Iran fizzled. It was difficult to know this if one relied exclusively upon corporate media reports, which claimed that the protests were growing by the minute, in some cases using images of past protests from other countries, such as Bahrain and Argentina, and even scenes from movies to support a narrative completely divorced from reality.
Media reports also falsely claimed that the protests attracted thousands of participants while local media and actual video evidence from the protests show much smaller gatherings that — given Iran’s population of 80 million — were insignificant in many cases. The dissolution of the protests understandably left those eager for an excuse to meddle in Iranian affairs, namely the US and Israel, utterly disappointed.
Just as the protests in Iran began to sputter, new protests sprang to life last week — this time in Tunisia. Since Monday night, those protests have escalated significantly and have attracted thousands, despite a violent state response. Unlike those that took place in Iran, the turnout has been continuous, significant and concentrated despite the country’s relatively small size. read on...
President Trump's Nuclear Posture Review, due next month, is expected to call for the development of new, "low yield" nuclear weapons and a lowering of the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Is the Pentagon still fighting the Cold War? We discuss in today's Liberty Report... read on...
When an intelligence agency arranges to disseminated fake news it is called “disinformation” and it is a subset of what is referred to as covert action, basically secret operations run in a foreign country to influence opinion or to disrupt the functioning of a government or group that is considered to be hostile.
During the Cold War, disinformation operations were run by many of the leading players in both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in the opposition Warsaw Pact. Sometimes the activity and the sponsorship were clearly visible, as when Radio Free Europe and Radio Moscow would exchange barbs about just how bad daily life was in the opposition alliance. Sometimes, however, it took the form of clandestinely placing stories in the media that were clearly untrue but designed to shift public perceptions of what was taking place in the world. The Vietnam War provided a perfect proxy playing field, with stories emanating from the US government and its supporters presenting a narrative of a fight for democracy against totalitarianism while the Communist bloc promoted a contrary tale of colonial and capitalist oppression of a people striving to be free.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) inherited the mantle of covert action operations as a legacy from its OSS predecessor, which had had considerable success in conducting disinformation operations during World War 2. But there was from the start considerable opposition to continuing such programs as they were both expensive and subject to devastating blowback when they were identified and exposed. In Western Europe, powerful domestic communist parties were quick to publicize US intelligence missteps, but nevertheless the ability to manipulate the news and information media to place stories critical of the Soviets and their allies led to major programs that funded magazines and books while also seeking to acquire a cadre of journalists that would produce pieces on demand proved too tempting to ignore. read on...
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s own closest advisors begged him to avoid focusing on the Vietnam war. It will alienate President Johnson, who is doing so much for the civil rights movement at home, they argued. MLK ignored them, vocally opposed the war, and found much of the liberal establishment had turned on him. Is that why he was assassinated? Tune in to today's Liberty Report... read on...
Last week President Trump urged Congress to reassert its constitutional authority to direct how federal agencies spend taxpayer dollars. Ironically, many constitutional conservatives and libertarians disagree with the president. The reason is, President Trump wants Congress to reassert its authority by bringing back earmarks. Earmarks are line items in spending bills directing federal agencies to spend federal funds on specific projects in a representative or senator’s district or state. Congress ended the practice of earmarks several years ago after a public outcry fueled by a widespread misunderstanding of the issue. read on...
