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Adrian Lamo, best known as the computer hacker who exposed Army whistleblower Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning, died Friday at the age of 37.

Lamo’s father announced the news in a Facebook post, and the cause of death remains unclear.

“With great sadness and a broken heart I have to let know all of Adrian’s friends and acquaintances that he is dead,” Mario Lamo wrote. “A bright mind and compassionate soul is gone, he was my beloved son.”

A spokeswoman for Sedgwick county regional forensic center said that an autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death. 

Police official confirmed to me Adrian Lamo, @6, was found dead by officers on March 14th at around 4pm. His body was found in his apartment along the 4900 block of East Shadybrook in Wichita, Kansas. The coroner is investigating, but “there is nothing suspicious about his death”

— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) March 16, 2018

Lamo, known as the “homeless hacker” for his often transient lifestyle, first made waves in 2002 when he broke into the New York Times‘ intranet, where he added his name to a database of expert sources and then used their LexisNexis account to research high profile subjects. He pleaded guilty, paid a fine and was sentenced to six months of home detention. 

In a subsequent inteview with NBC to discuss the Times hack, Lamo was booted off the show by network lawyers after he cracked into NBC’s servers. 

Lamo says NBC was taping him at Kinko’s while he demonstrated security holes in a telecommunications company’s systems, when the interviewer asked him if he’d be successful hacking NBC.

Five minutes and one guessed password later and Lamo was surfing the television network’s private messaging system and an affiliate scheduling application that included internal memos and information on advertising rates. Screen shots of the hack provided by Lamo and reviewed by SecurityFocus Online include a page from an NBC vendor database with the network’s trademark “living color” peacock and the warning, “All information contained on this Web site is to be held in the strictest confidence,” in all capital letters. “It was a very full service system,” recalls Lamo. –SecurityFocus.com (2002)

Lamo’s most infamous act, however, was dropping the dime on Chelsea Manning after the two had engaged in a private chat in which Lamo gained Manning’s trust. 

(10:22:24 AM) bradass87: uhm, trying to keep a low profile for now though, just a warning

(10:23:34 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: I’m a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection.

(10:24:07 AM) bradass87: assange level?

(10:25:12 AM) bradass87: or are you socially engineering ;P

(10:25:51 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: You must not have done your research 😛

(10:25:57 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: I could have flipped for the FBI.

(10:26:05 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: Gotten a sweeter deal.

During the chat, Manning revealed how he had transferred sensitive information onto a commercial server and uploaded it to WikiLeaks after communicating with Julian Assange. Lomo took advantage of the fact that Manning was emotionally unhinged, and continued to pump him for information – which he then gave to the FBI, which he says he did because he believed “lives were in danger.”

There was no option to interdict just the documents and put him merely in touch with counseling. There was no way to be both kind to Bradley and mindful of the potential for harm to people I had never known and would never know which the situation posed. The reader might think there was some more moderate choice that I overlooked but I looked closely, and no such choice existed. –Adrian Lamo

Lamo was shunned by the hacking community after turning Manning in, and was labeled a snitch. 

Unsurprisingly, Julian Assange wasn’t too broken up about Lamo’s death, tweeting “Coroner says serial FBI snitch Adrian Lamo is dead. Lamo, a fake journalist, petty conman & betrayer of basic human decency, promised alleged source @xychelsea journalistic protection, friendship and support, then sold him to the FBI.”

Coroner says serial FBI snitch Adrian Lamo is dead. Lamo, a fake journalist, petty conman & betrayer of basic human decency, promised alleged source @xychelsea journalistic protection, friendship and support, then sold him to the FBI. https://t.co/SkvbrG7Kyn pic.twitter.com/vZMyJhRWCW

— Julian Assange ⌛ (@JulianAssange) March 16, 2018

pic.twitter.com/A5gk6BgAww

— Julian Assange ⌛ (@JulianAssange) March 16, 2018

Lamo’s death has received a variety of responses:

Fuck you Adrian Lamo, snitch https://t.co/RPPhJ0NXBD

— J0RD∆N (@_comlag91) March 16, 2018

Adrian Lamo has died – he was a central figure in @Suzi3D‘s piece, #BeingJulianAssange.

The circumstances of his death have not been reported as yet. The timing is more than a little bit suspect IMHO.

Read about the history of Lamo’s betrayal ->https://t.co/eu2JATClun pic.twitter.com/KupUO61y3r

— Elizabeth Lea Vos (@ElizabethleaVos) March 16, 2018

My buddy Adrian @6 Lamo has passed. We havent had much recent contact but in the early 00’s he would crash on my couch for weeks or months at a time. He was a troubled guy, but I prefer to remember him the way I said in this ’02 Wired article. Godspeed @6 https://t.co/b4n6xDFSjh pic.twitter.com/Lo1EtvQ2pK

— Stephen A. Ridley (@s7ephen) March 16, 2018

I didn’t expect to read this news about Adrian Lamo passing away today.https://t.co/aDmmZYj1O2

— Kevin Mitnick (@kevinmitnick) March 16, 2018

Ding, dong the snitch is dead. Which old snitch? The bitchy snitch!https://t.co/0smK5Dot01

— Barrett Brown (@BarrettBrown_) March 16, 2018

good riddance Adrian Lamo, you sack of shit

— Nyx 朔望 Land (@realNickLand) March 16, 2018

 

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Having warned it would retaliate proportionately, this morning Russia did just that when it expelled 23 British diplomats – the same number as the UK kicked out a few days earlier as punishment for Moscow’s alleged poisoning of a former double agent. It also ordered the closure of the UK consulate in St Petersburg and the Moscow British Council, a cultural and educational organization.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the British ambassador to Moscow and told him that the measures are “in response to the provocative actions of the British side and the unsubstantiated accusations” against Russia, the ministry said. Russia gave the British diplomats one week to leave. “If further actions of an unfriendly nature are taken against Russia, the Russian side reserves the right to take other retaliatory measures,” the ministry said.

A spokeswoman for the U.K. Foreign Office said that Britain had anticipated Moscow’s response.

“Russia’s response doesn’t change the facts of the matter—the attempted assassination of two people on British soil, for which there is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable,” the spokeswoman said but added that  “we continue to believe it is not in our national interest to break off all dialogue between our countries but the onus remains on the Russian state to account for their actions.”

She said that the UK Foreign Office said the National Security Council would meet early next week to consider the next steps.

The order to close the British Council ends nearly 60 years of its work in Russia as the U.K.’s international organization for culture and education, Bloomberg reported. It opened offices in Moscow under a 1959 agreement with the Soviet Union and expanded to 15 Russian cities after the 1991 collapse of the Communist state. Its presence gradually reduced amid mounting political confrontation between the U.K. and Russia, which also disputed the legal basis for the council’s presence in the country. In 2008, Russia ordered the council to close all its offices except the Moscow headquarters as part of retaliation for the U.K.’s expulsion of diplomats over the radioactive poisoning of former security-service officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. A U.K. public inquiry concluded in 2016 that Putin “probably” approved the killing.

* * *

Diplomatic relations between London and Moscow collapsed to post-Cold War lows following the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence agent living in the UK, and his daughter Yulia earlier this month with a rare nerve agent manufactured during the Soviet era.

As reported last night, UK’s foreign secretary Boris Johnson escalated the diplomatic clash on Friday by accusing Vladimir Putin of personally ordering the poisoning. Boris Johnson said that it was “overwhelmingly likely” that the decision to carry out an assassination attempt was made by the Russian president.

Johnson said: “Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision — and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision — to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK, on the streets of Europe for the first time since the second world war.” The Kremlin responded that his comments were “unforgivable” and “shocking”, while Downing Street declined to remark on the direct accusation.

Russia has denied any involvement in the attack on Mr Skripal, who was convicted of spying for Britain, then sent to the UK in a prisoner exchange in 2010. But Russia has also sent unambiguous messages on state TV about the fate of traitors.

The Russian foreign ministry said the UK’s accusations of Russian state involvement in the poisoning groundless. It said Laurie Bristow, the UK Ambassador to Russia, had been told the expulsions were ordered “in response to the provocative actions of the British side and the unsubstantiated accusations” against the country.

On Thursday, the U.S. joined the U.K., France and Germany in condemning the attack as “an assault on U.K. sovereignty,” saying it constituted a breach of international law and calling on Russia to explain its role in the poisoning in Salisbury, England.

President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel shared the U.K.’s assessment that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack—the first use of a nerve agent in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization country. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has condemned the use of the poison, saying it “has no place in a civilized world.”

* **

Saturday’s retaliation by Moscow also comes after the Trump administration issued its first sanctions against Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, as well as for its role in the NotPetya cyberattack and in the nerve-agent poisoning.

Russia has denied any interference in the U.S. election, while Russian President Vladimir Putin, who runs for re-election Sunday, has steered an increasingly confrontational course with the West. The Kremlin previously expelled some U.S. diplomats in 2017 after Congress passed a Russian sanctions bill.

Moscow has yet to retaliate against the latest round of US sanctions.

 

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After a long day of what seemed like the swamp protecting one of their dirtiest creatures, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, just over 24 hours before he was set to retire and claim his full pension benefits.

McCabe turns 50 on Sunday – the earliest he would have been eligible for his full retirement benefits.

Sessions noted that both the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz as well as the FBI’s disciplinary office had found “that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor – including under oath – on multiple occasions.” 

So, McCabe was involved in leaks and he lied under oath. 

Horowitz found that McCabe had authorized two FBI officials to talk to then-Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett for a story about the case and another investigation into Clinton’s family foundation. Barrett now works for The Washington Post. –WaPo

“I have terminated the employment of Andrew McCabe effective immediately,” said Sessions, who said he based his decision on the findings. 

While the move will probably cost McCabe a significant portion of his retirement benefits, he could challenge it in court. On Thursday he spent almost four hours at the DOJ to beg for his full retirement. 

McCabe responded to his ouster, saying that his firing, along with negative comments by President Trump were meant to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, reported the New York Times.

“The idea that I was dishonest is just wrong,” said McCabe, adding, “This is part of an effort to discredit me as a witness.”

Mr. McCabe was among the first at the F.B.I. to scrutinize possible Trump campaign ties to Russia. And he is a potential witness to the question of whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct justice. Mr. Trump has taunted Mr. McCabe both publicly and privately, and Republican allies have cast him as the center of a “deep state” effort to undermine the Trump presidency. –NYT

While McCabe’s firing is directly related to the disclosure of sensitive information to the media about the Clinton email investigation, the former Deputy Director took a leave of absence in January amid a heated controversy over the FBI’s conduct surrounding the 2016 election.

In December, The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has discovered that edits made to former FBI Director James Comey’s statement exonerating Hillary Clinton for transmitting classified info over an unsecured, private email server went far beyond what was previously known – as special agents operating under McCabe changed various language which effectively decriminalized Clinton’s behavior. 

McCabe’s team also conducted a counterintelligence operation to investigate the Trump campaign, in which they used an unverified dossier and were not forthright with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) over its political origins, in violation of FBI policy. 

As revelations of FBI misconduct spiraled out of control last year, President Trump noted that McCabe was “racing the clock to retire with full benefits.”

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017

On Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said “We do think that it is well documented that he has had some very troubling behavior and by most accounts a bad actor.“

While “background conversations with reporters are commonplace in Washington,” notes the Washington Post, “McCabe’s authorizing such a talk was viewed as inappropriate because the matter being discussed was an ongoing criminal investigation.”

One wonders how long before McCabe writes his multi-million-dollar ‘tell-all’ book… or when he will start his new job? We hear the offers are pouring in…

Congrats to Andrew McCabe on his new job at CNN!

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) March 17, 2018

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There are roughly 36 million millionaires in the world.

That means if you meet someone from the global population at random, there’s a 1 in 200 chance that they could be a millionaire – this makes for surprisingly good odds.

However, as VisualCapitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, the billionaire on the other hand is a much rarer breed. According to Forbes, there are just over 2,000 billionaires in existence, making up just 0.00003% of the global population.

Where do these people live, and what countries have the highest concentrations of them as citizens?

25 COUNTRIES THAT ARE RICH IN BILLIONAIRES

Today’s infographic comes to us from TitleMax, and it shows the 25 countries with the most billionaires in them. It also covers the richest person in each of these countries, as well.

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

Here is the list of countries, sorted by the number of billionaires:

The United States has the most billionaires in total with 565.

In second place is China (319) – a country that is adding billionaires at a rapid pace, but also losing some of its ultra-rich population to capital flight.

BILLIONAIRE CONCENTRATION

Although the United States has the most billionaires by a large margin, the country ranks 6th in terms of billionaire concentration.

In the U.S., there is one billionaire for every 571,858 people, but it is beat out in this measurement by Hong Kong (110k), Switzerland (233k), Singapore (267k), Sweden (319k), and Israel (475k).

Hong Kong, which has the highest rate of billionaires in the world, boasts 67 billionaires in just one city of roughly seven million.

For comparison’s sake, if Mainland China could somehow have the same rate of billionaire occurrences as Hong Kong, the country would amass 12,575 billionaires – more than six times the total amount in the world that currently exist!

LOWEST BILLIONAIRE CONCENTRATIONS

With only roughly 2,000 billionaires scattered throughout the world, it’s estimated that there are over 100+ countries and dependencies that actually have zero billionaires as citizens. For example, Haiti, Lithuania, Ethiopia, Belarus, and Andorra are just a few places that have millionaires, but no billionaires.

As for countries that made the above list, India and Indonesia are pretty scarce in terms of their billionaire concentrations – if you were to hit the street in these countries, the odds are 1 in 13 million that a random person would be a billionaire.

via RSS http://ift.tt/2GzLycZ Tyler Durden

Via GoldCore.com,

Stephen Hawking, the visionary physicist who passed away this week at the age of 76, made five predictions about how and when mankind will face its doom.

In a week when geo-political tensions between the world’s two leading nuclear powers, Russia and the U.S. are worsening with the UK and U.S. accusing Russia of a nerve agent attack and imposing sanctions on Russia, it is a good time to consider and heed Hawking’s doomsday predictions or warnings, especially about nuclear war.

Below is an interesting article which looks at five of Hawking’s doomsday predictions as collated by Qt.com.au:

WE NEED an exit strategy. Fast.

From global warming to artificial intelligence, Professor Stephen Hawking made a number of terrifying predictions about the apocalyptic threats facing humanity.

The celebrated late scientist said humanity is at a “tipping point”, and that our best bet will be to leave Earth completely.

Here are five main factors he said are contributing to the end of the world.

NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY

In 2007, Prof Hawking fronted a campaign to cancel Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons deterrent.

“Nuclear war remains the greatest danger to the survival of the human race,” he said.

“To replace Trident would make it more difficult to get arms reduction, and increase the risk.

“It would also be a complete waste of money because there are no circumstances in which we would use it independently.”

Prof Hawking has also identified “aggression” as the human trait will destroy us all.

He warned it could lead to irrational actions, like sparking nuclear war.

Prof Hawking said nuclear war remains the ‘greatest danger’ to humanity’s survival.

“I fear evolution has in-built greed and aggression to the human genome,” he told the BBC. “There is no sign of conflict lessening, and the development of militarised technology and weapons of mass destruction could make that disastrous. The best hope for the survival of the human race might be independent colonies in space.”

DONALD TRUMP

Prof Hawking made it clear he was not a fan of Donald Trump.

He was particularly critical of the US President after he vowed not to sign the Paris Agreement on climate change.

“Climate change is one of the great dangers we face and it’s one we can prevent if we act now,” he told the BBC. “By denying the evidence for climate change and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”

In a Skype talk delivered at the Starmus science and arts festival last year, he made his case more urgent.

“Unlike Donald Trump, who may just have taken the most serious and wrong decision on climate this world has seen, I am arguing for the future of humanity and a long-term strategy to achieve this,” Prof Hawking said.

“We have given our planet the disastrous gift of climate change … When we have reached similar crises there has usually been somewhere else to colonise … But there is no new world, no utopia around the corner. We are running out of space, and the only places to go to are other worlds.”

On ITV’S Good Morning Britain, Prof Hawking was asked to explain Mr Trump’s ascendancy to the White House.

“I can’t,” he responded. “He is a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.”

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

In recent years, Prof Hawking had raised the alarm about the potential threat of artificial intelligence.

Speaking at the Web Summit in Lisbon in November, the famous physicist said AI has the potential to be the best or worst thing humanity has ever seen and the scary reality is we just don’t know which yet.

“We cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it,” he said.

While AI could be hugely beneficial for reducing poverty, disease and restoring the natural environment, it’s impossible to predict “what we might achieve when our own minds are amplified by AI”.

“AI could be the worst invention of the history of our civilisation, that brings dangers like powerful autonomous weapons or new ways for the few to oppress the many.

“AI could develop a will of its own, a will that is in conflict with ours and which could destroy us. In short, the rise of powerful AI will be either the best, or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity.”

Hawking warned scientists and global governments needed to focus on maximising benefits for society rather than pure capability.

“We need to employ effective management in all areas of its development,” he said. “We stand on a threshold of a brave new world. It is an exciting, if precarious, place to be and you are the pioneers.”

DEATH BY FIREBALL

Overpopulation is going to turn our planet into a red-hot fireball.

Prof Hawking warned the Earth will be reduced to a ball of fire within 600 years when our energy consumption overloads.

In a video appearance at the 2017 Tencent WE Summit in Beijing, he said: “By the year 2600, the world’s population would be standing shoulder to shoulder, and the electricity consumption would make the Earth glow red-hot.”

To save ourselves, he said we must take a leaf out of Star Trek and “boldly go where no one has gone before”.The planet is eventually going to become one big, red-hot fireball.

He has also warned that over the next 100 years, we need to look to colonise Mars and other planets.

Speaking at the Starmus science festival in Norway last year, he said the Moon and Mars would be the best sites to begin new colonies, and said we could establish outposts on these sites within 30 and 50 years respectively, The Telegraph reported.

ASTEROID STRIKES

Prof Hawking has warned that if global warming doesn’t wipe us out, an asteroid strike will.

At the Starmus festival, he said it was only a matter of time before the Earth would be destroyed by either an asteroid, soaring temperatures or overpopulation.

“This is not science fiction. It is guaranteed by the laws of physics and probability,” he said.

“To stay risks being annihilated.

“Spreading out into space will completely change the future of humanity. It may also determine whether we have any future at all.”Prof Hawking warned that becoming a “cosmic sloth” was not an option.

“Wherever we go we will need to build a civilisation, we will need to take the practical means of establishing a whole new ecosystem that will survive in an environment that we know very little about and we will need to consider transporting several thousands of people, animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and insects.”

*  *  *
R.I.P.

Source @MitchellToy

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As the Ghouta campaign continues to unfold, we should expect that both politicians and mainstream media will give us – in the words of philosopher and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr – “necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications” intended to shape our perceptions of events.

It goes without saying that such “emotionally potent oversimplifications” on Syria have formed the dominant paradigm through which the American public has received its information over the past seven years of war. From the State Department officials to think tank “experts” to the Graham/McCain axis to CNN panelists to the neocon twitterati and all the usual interventionistas who cast everything in terms of Manichean good vs. evil, darkness vs. light, bloodthirsty tyrants vs. noble populace – we’ve had to endure and fight seven years of a constant stream of propaganda on Syria.

This worldview is what BBC filmmaker Adam Curtis accurately characterized as a ‘goodies and baddies’ dualistic vision of global events which keeps the Western public under the illusion that its own political leaders are perpetually driven by concern over human rights, defending the weak and oppressed, and spreading democracy over and against the unenlightened megalomaniac dictators of the world who are simply bent on brutalizing their own people.

The BBC’s Curtis concluded of the “humanitarian” wars that followed in the wake of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ (especially Libya and Syria) :

The question at the heart of this whole story is – Who was the ventriloquist? And who was the dummy? Maybe we were the dummy? By allowing perception management with its simplifications, falsehoods and exaggerations to create a simplified vision of the world – we fell into a fake universe of certainty when really we were just watching a pantomime. 

And now as the Arab Spring unfolds and reveals the true chaos and messiness of the real world – above all the horror of what is happening in Syria – we find ourselves completely unable to understand it or even know what to do. So those stories get ignored while we follow others with clearer and more simplified dramas which have what seem to be obvious goodies and baddies – thank god for Iran, North Korea and Jimmy Savile.

Although the Syrian war is almost over, many Americans still don’t understand what transpired over the last seven years, because the mainstream narrative has been an embarrassing mix of propaganda, half-truths and lies.

Below are three versions of the conflict as presented by Chris Kanthan via Sott.net.  

Disney Version

Once upon a time, a country called Syria was ruled by a ruthless dictator named Bashar Al-Assad. He was a cruel man who gassed his own people. His actions caused a civil war in Syria. America and Europe tried their best to stop the devastating civil war, and even generously accepted many Syrian refugees. Eventually America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

This above version is quite popular among many Americans and Europeans and the Western mainstream media.

* * *

High School Version

Oppressed by Assad’s brutal regime, the Syrian people longed for freedom and democracy. One day, people started protesting in a small city. In response, Assad killed many peaceful protesters. However, this backfired and the entire country was engulfed in protests. Soon a civil war broke out, which led to millions of refugees fleeing Syria.

America was appalled and, for humanitarian reasons, decided to help the Syrians who were fighting Assad. When Assad gassed his own people, America intervened and removed all his chemical weapons. Unfortunately, Assad managed to gas innocent civilians again after a few years. Then, America went to Syria, defeated ISIS, and is now trying to restore stability.

The above version is presented in most of the global mainstream media.

* * *

College Version

Simply put, the Syrian “civil war” is an illegal, proxy war waged against Syria. In defiance of international laws, many countries have been sending weapons and terrorist mercenaries into Syria for the last seven years (to gain a deeper understanding of who wants to topple Assad and why, please read: Chaos in Syria: Part 1 – Three Motives and Seven Countries).

2011

In early 2011, US/UK special forces used Jordan’s military base to assist protests against Assad in a border town called Daraa. With the Muslim Brotherhood’s organizational skills and Saudi Arabia’s deep pockets, violent protests spread thru Syria. Soon, an organized and armed militia known as Free Syrian Army (FSA) was created by the outsiders.

After the fall of Gaddafi in late 2011, the US State Department and US intelligence agencies organized the shipment of tons of deadly weapons such as Stinger missiles and Sarin gas from destroyed Libya to Syria, via Turkey. Even with all this help, the American proxy force known as the FSA couldn’t win the war. At this point, NATO and Neocons wanted to bomb Syria, but Russia and China vetoed the motion in the UN, so the imperial war by deception moved on to the next phase.

2012

In early 2012, someone dialed Al Qaeda (referred to as AQ or AQI in government documents). Zawahiri, AQ’s top leader, called for help and experienced Islamic terrorists from all over the world rushed into Syria by way of Saudi Arabia’s international jihadist recruitment agency. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, received an email from her chief adviser, saying that “Al Qaeda is on our side” .

Al Qaeda rebranded itself as Al Nusra, and fearsome weapons such as grenade launchers, mortars, tanks and anti-tank missiles started pouring into Syria via Turkey and Jordan.

The CIA spent $100,000 to train each rebel. Billions of US taxpayers dollars were wasted once again on supporting the same terrorist groups that attacked the USA on 9/11 .

Watching the western media, the average person had no idea that we were supporting Al Qaeda or how heavily armed these “rebels” were.

Western media and politicians also stuck to their talking points and referred to all these fighters as “moderate rebels.” However, many of them are ruthless Islamists who use suicide bombers, behead even children, and commit unspeakable atrocities. They are also religious fanatics who seek out and kill Christians and Shiites. This is described in detail in the book, Deconstructing the Syrian War.

A Pentagon memo warned against this reckless policy and precisely predicted the rise of groups such as ISIS. Obviously the memo was ignored (or even happily accepted) by the White House and other officials.

2012 was also the year when the refugee crisis became a serious international problem. By the end of the year, almost 200,000 people had fled Syria. In the coming years, it would swell to five million.

2013

When FSA and AQ failed to oust Assad, the “powers that be” started recruiting Sunni extremists in Iraq. In April 2013, ISIS was officially established out of the AQI insurgency. In the next year, these barbaric mercenaries would capture much of eastern Syria.

This was also the year when Obama’s red-line was crossed – the use of chemical weapons by Assad. UN experts who went to the site soon found that it was actually the rebels who had likely used the chemical weapons. The report was quickly drowned by the western propaganda machine.

2014-2016

The next two years were just repetitions of the daily brutality of war, with ISIS making huge gains in the east. Whenever the rebels started to lose, either more weapons would flow in, or Israel would fly into Syria and bomb the Syrian army.

In late 2015, the Syrian government sought Russia’s help. Within a month, the Russian air force weakened ISIS by destroying most of the oil tankers that ISIS was using to transport oil to Turkey. By the end of 2016, the Syrian government had the upper hand – Aleppo was liberated from Al Qaeda, and ISIS was running out of cash and morale.

2017

2017 was turning out to be a great year for Assad. By March, ISIS had lost over three hundred towns to the Syrian army. Al Qaeda was facing a similar demise, losing one big city after another.

Furthermore, Trump had stopped arming the rebels in February. In late March, Trump and Tillerson dropped the slogan “Assad must go”.

Finally, Assad was getting ready for an EU-UN peace conference on April 4-5.

This was the moment (when events had turned in favor of the Syrian government) that the alleged chemical attack occurred in an area controlled by the rebels in Idlib province. Plus it happened on the very day that the peace conference began.

Without any investigation, within an hour after the pictures and videos came out, Western warmongers declared that Assad was responsible. No independent doctors or experts were sent to the site. Anyone who took the time to critically analyze the situation could see that the chemical attack was likely either a hoax or a false flag attack.

2018

After Russia had effectively defeated ISIS, the US didn’t just leave Syria, since the real goal is to Balkanize Syria and prepare for a war against Iran. Thus the West is now trying to use Kurds as a proxy tool in this effort. It’s likely that the US will have military bases in Syria for a long time. As long as the US government can keep borrowing money, such wild adventures will continue.

In their quest for hegemonic geopolitical goals, the elites are sowing more chaos around the world and irreparably damaging the western moral compass. The global mafia’s rule seems to be this: if you play by our rules, we will be nice to you. If you don’t…

Those are the three versions of the Syrian civil war. Which one will Americans choose to believe?

* * *

P.S. Here are some links to read if you would like to gain a Ph.D. version of the Syrian conflict:

• a. 1956: CIA plot to overthrow the Syrian government
• b. 1983: CIA document on plans to obliterate Syria to enable an oil pipeline
• c. 1986: CIA document on how to use Muslim Brotherhood to fuel a sectarian (Sunni v. Shiite) civil war in Syria
• d. 2001: Wesley Clark told that USA will take out 7 countries in 5 years (Libya, Syria etc.)
• e. 2005: CNN Interview. Christiane Amanpour tells Assad that the western governments are plotting a regime change in Syria
• f. 2006: State Dept cable: Detailed discussion of various strategies to enable regime change in Syria
• g. 2009: State Dept Email: Saudi Arabia is worried that a Shiite crescent is turning into a full moon (referring to a possible Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon coalition)
• h. 2009: State Dept Cable: Saudi Arabia is the #1 source of funding of terrorism worldwide
• i. 2012 State Dept Email: Conquest of Syria means a weakened Iran and this is important for Israel
• j. 2012: State Dept Email: Use Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to arm/train rebels
• k. 2014: Hillary Clinton admits in an email that Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund ISIS
• l. 2015: Joe Biden says Saudi Arabia and Qatar arming/funding Al Qaeda in Syria
• m. 2016: John Kerry in a leaked audio recording explains how the US trained/armed the opposition and was hoping to use ISIS to force Assad into negotiation
• n. Israel’s Mossad chief admits helping Al Qaeda and says that it’s because Al Qaeda never attacks Israel

via RSS http://ift.tt/2HGjnZ6 Tyler Durden

U.S. Capitol Police have arrested a Democrat staffer from the American Bridge political action committee (PAC) on Thursday for assaulting a female Interior Department communications official after a House budget hearing.

The suspect, whose name is currently withheld, reportedly shoved the woman to the ground while chasing down Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke following his testimony to the House Committee on Natural Resources on the department’s 2019 budget proposal, according to the Daily Caller‘s Michael Bastasch. 

Interior officials filed a police report, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned, but it has not yet been processed, police said. It will be made public in seven to 10 days once processed. American Bridge did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment. –Daily Caller

An officer told Politico that they “arrested an adult male for simple assault against another individual outside room 1234 in the Longworth House Office Building,” adding “The suspect was transported to USCP Headquarters for processing.” 

Interior communications director Laura Rigas told Politico she was “greatly alarmed and extremely irate that a female senior member of my DOI Communications team was physically assaulted today by a Democrat staffer from the PAC American Bridge.”

“We are appalled to hear of the events following yesterday’s hearing where a member of Secretary Zinke’s staff was victim to an assault,” committee spokeswoman Katie Schoettler told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF).

“These actions are reprehensible and have no place in this body. We thank the U.S. Capitol Police for their quick response and professionalism,” Schoettler said. “The USCP is now handling the matter.”

American Bridge is a political action committee founded by Democratic operative David Brock in 2010 and funded in part by George Soros – who donated $2 million to the PAC in 2016. Their mandate is “holding Republicans accountable for their words and actions,” according to their website. 

Looks like @davidbrockdc’s thugs from @mmfa affiliated @American_Bridge are escalating @TheDemocrats’ war on women. https://t.co/O1oqsb8CtW

— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) March 16, 2018

 

via RSS http://ift.tt/2IwLzyP Tyler Durden