Bulletin N° 885
The Man Who Knew Too Much/L'Homme qui en savait trop – 1934
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xrv0REuFGI
by Alfred Hitchock
v.o.
(1:12:13)
March 6, 2020
Grenoble,
France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
The
axiom that “power is self-serving” is followed by a postulate: “In a class society, those in power must
maintain their power by disempowering
those who challenge them.”
The
history of the origins of the First World War serves to illustrate this “first
principle” of empirical political science. World War I was, among other things,
an
investment
opportunity, which required winning the submission of the general
population to collude in a prolonged period of war, at an unprecedented human
and financial cost. (For a detailed discussion of the financial manipulations
of European central banks before WW I, see Hidden
History: The
Secret Origins of the First World War (2013), by Gerry Docherty and Jim
Macgregor.
In
his analysis of the economic causes of the First World War, F. William Engdahl (b. 1944) writes in A
Century of War (1992) that by 1880 the unchallenged leadership of the
British Empire among the world’s industrial nations was “clearly over.”
The free trade dogma of 19th
Century British Empire and its Malthusian rationalizations were doomed to
eventual failure. Its foundations were based on cannibalizing the economies of
increasing parts of the globe in order to survive. It was only a quarter
century after the repeal of the Corn Laws [in 1846] when the British Empire
sank into the worst and longest economic depression of its history as a
consequence. After 1873, British efforts to spread the virus of the “English
Disease,” Adam Smith’s “cosmopolitan economic model” of absolute free trade,
became markedly less successful, as nations of Continental Europe, led by
Germany, initiated a series of national economic protectionist measures which
allowed them to unleash the most dramatic rates of industrial growth seen in
the past 200 years.
This all set the stage for a new debate within
the British elite over how to maintain Empire and power in a rapidly changing
world. Into this debate the geopolitics of petroleum was introduced in 1882, in
the realm of a debate on how to maintain British naval supremacy.(p.11)
Engdahl introduces the
second chapter of his book on 20th century war with the following
historic problematic:
Growing
divergence after 1873 between the depressed economy of the British Empire, and
the emerging industrial economies of Continental Europe, above all the German
Reich, created the background to the outbreak in 1914 of the Great World War.
The role of petroleum in this conflict already had become central, though few
outside a tiny elite of London and New York bankers and financiers realized
fully how central until years after.
Toward the final decade of the 19th
century, British banking and political elites had begun to express first signs
of alarm over two specific aspects of the impressive industrial development of
Germany. The first was emergence of an independent, modern German merchant and
military naval fleet. Since 1815 and the Vienna Congress, the English Navy had
been unchallenged lord of the seas. The second strategic alarm was sounded over
an ambitious German project to construct a railway linking Berlin with,
ultimately, Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman Empire.
In both areas, naval challenge and
building a rail infrastructure linking Berlin to the Persian Gulf, oil figured
as a decisive, if still hidden, motive force for both the British and the
German side. We will see why these two developments were regarded as virtual casus
belli by the Anglo-Saxon establishment at the turn of the century.
By the 1890’s, British industry had been
surpassed in both rates and quality of technological development by an
astonishing emergence of industrial and agricultural development within
Germany. With the United States concentrated largely on its internal expansion
after the Civil War, the industrial emergence of Germany was seen increasingly
as the largest “threat” to Britain’s global hegemony during the last decade of
the century.
By the 1870’s, decades of piecemeal German
adoption of the economic reforms of Friedrich List, in creation of a national
modern rail transport infrastructure and tariff protection for emerging
domestic industries, began to bring notable results, more so in the context of
the political unity of the German Reich after 1871.
Until approximately the 1850s, imitation
of the apparently successful British economic model was the dominant policy
followed in Germany, and the free trade economics of such British economists as
Adam Smith or David Ricardo, were regarded as holy gospel in German
universities. But increasingly, after England went into prolonged depression in
the 1870’s, which hit Germany and Austria as well, Germany began to realize the
serious flaws in continuing faithfully to follow the “British model.” As
Germany turned increasingly to a form of national economic strategy, and away
from British “free trade” adherence, in building a national industry and
agriculture production, the results were remarkable.
As one indication of this shift away from
the English model, from 1850 to the eve of the First World War in 1913, German
total domestic output increased five-fold. Per capital output
increased in the same period by 250%. The population began to experience
a steady increase in its living standard, as real industrial wages doubled
between 1871 and 1913.(pp.15-16)
Nowhere
is the story of the financial interest behind WW I better told than in the work
by G. Edward Griffin (b.1931), The
Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the
Federal Reserve (1994). The breathtaking cynicism he describes
is almost beyond belief and is supported by the earlier research of Eustace
Mullins (1923- 2010), in The
Secrets of the Federal Reserve (1952), and Carroll Quigley (1910-1977), Tragedy
& Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1959).
What follows is a lengthy passage from The Creature from Jekyll Island (2014 edition), in which the author
provides much detailed evidence of the False Flag operation concocted by the
Winston Churchill, Woodrow Wilson & Co., at the behest of international
banking interests, to bring the United States into the First World War, despite
the massive opposition of US public opinion.
"THE LUSITANIA"
The Lusitania was a British passenger liner that sailed
regularly
between Liverpool and New York. She was owned by the Cunard
Company, which, as previously mentioned, was the only major
ship
line which was a competitor of the Morgan cartel. She left New
York
harbor on May 1, 1915, and was sunk by a German submarine off
the coast of Ireland six days later. Of the 1,195 persons who
lost their
lives, 195 were Americans. It was this event, more than any
other,
that provided the advocates of war with a convincing platform
for
their views, and it became the turning point where Americans reluc-
tantly began to accept, if not the necessity of war, at least its inevita-
bility.
The fact that the Lusitania was a passenger ship is
misleading.
Although she was built as a luxury liner, her construction specifica-
tions were drawn up by the British Admiralty so that she could be
converted, if necessary, into a ship of war. Everything from the
horsepower of her engines and the shape of her hull to the place-
ment of ammunition storage areas were, in fact, military
designs.
She was built specifically to carry twelve six-inch guns.
The con-
struction costs for these features were paid for by the British
govern-
ment. Even in times of peace, it was required that her crew
include
officers and seamen from the Royal Navy Reserve.
In May of 1913, she was brought back into dry dock and
outfit-
ted with extra armor, revolving gun rings on her decks, and
shell
racks in the hold for ammunition. Handling elevators to lift the
shells to the guns were also installed. Twelve high-explosive can-
nons were delivered to the dry dock. All this is a matter of
public
record at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England,
but whether the guns were actually installed at that time is
still hotly
debated. There is no evidence that they were. In any event, on
September 17, the Lusitania returned to sea ready for the
rigors of
war, and she was entered into the Admiralty fleet register, not
as a
passenger liner, but an armed auxiliary cruiser] From then on, she
was
listed in Jane's Fighting Ships as an auxiliary cruiser and in the
British
publication, The Naval Annual, as an armed merchant man.
Part of the dry dock modification was to remove all the passen-
ger accommodations in the lower deck to make room for more
military cargo. Thus, the Lusitania became one of the most impor-
tant carriers of war materials — including munitions — from the
United States to England. On March 8, 1915, after several close calls
with German submarines, the captain of the Lusitania turned in
his
resignation. He was willing to face the U-boats, he said, but he was
no longer willing "to carry the responsibility of mixing
passengers
with munitions or contraband."
CHURCHILL SETS A TRAP
From England's point of view, the handwriting on the wall
was
clear. Unless the United States could be brought into the war as
her
ally, she soon would have to sue for peace. The challenge was
how
to push Americans off their position of stubborn neutrality.
How
that was accomplished is one of the more controversial aspects
of
the war. It is inconceivable to many that English leaders might
have
deliberately plotted the destruction of one of their own vessels with
American citizens aboard as a means of drawing the United
States
into the war as an ally. Surely, any such idea is merely German
propaganda. Robert Ballard, writing in National Geographic, says:
"Within days of the sinking, German sympathizers in New
York
came up with a conspiracy theory. The British Admiralty, they
said,
had deliberately exposed Lusitania to harm, hoping she would be
attacked and thus draw the U.S. into the war."
Let's take a closer look at this conspiracy theory. Winston
Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty at that time,
said:
There are
many kinds of maneuvers in war . . . . There are
maneuvers in time, in
diplomacy, in mechanics, in psychology; all of
which are
removed from the battlefield, but react often decisively
upon it....
The maneuver which brings an ally into the field is as
serviceable as that
which wins a great battle. The maneuver which
gains an
important strategic point may be less valuable than that
which placates
or overawes a dangerous neutral.
The maneuver chosen by Churchill was particularly ruthless.
Under what was called the Cruiser Rules, warships of both
England
and Germany gave the crews of unarmed enemy merchant ships a
chance to take to the lifeboats before sinking them. But, in
October
of 1914, Churchill issued orders that British merchant ships
must no
longer obey a U-boat order to halt and be searched. If they had
armament, they were to engage the enemy. If they did not, they
were to attempt to ram the sub. The immediate result of this
change
was to force German U-boats to remain submerged for protection
and to simply sink the ships without warning.
Why would the British want to do such a stupid thing that
would cost the lives of thousands of their own seamen? The answer
is that it was not an act of stupidity. It was cold blooded
strategy.
Churchill boasted:
The first British
countermove, made on my responsibility,... was to
deter the
Germans from surface attack. The submerged U-boat had to
rely
increasingly on underwater attack and thus ran the greater risk of
mistaking neutral
for British ships and of drowning neutral crews and
thus
embroiling Germany with other Great Powers.
To increase the likelihood of accidentally sinking a ship
from a
neutral "Great Power," Churchill ordered British ships to
remove
their names from their hulls and, when in port, to fly the flag
of a
neutral power, preferably that of the United States. As further
provocation, the British navy was ordered to treat captured U-boat
crew members not as prisoners of war but as felons.
"Survivors,"
wrote Churchill, "should be taken prisoner or shot—
whichever is
the most convenient." 2 Other orders, which now are an
embarrass-
ing part of official navy archives, were even more ruthless:
"In all
actions, white flags should be fired upon with promptitude."
The trap was carefully laid. The German navy was goaded into
a position of shoot-first and ask questions later and, under
those
conditions, it was inevitable that American lives would be lost.
A FLOATING MUNITIONS DEPOT
After many years of investigation, it is now possible to
identify
the cargo that was loaded aboard the Lusitania on her last
voyage. It
included 600 tons of pyroxyline (commonly
called gun cotton),
six-million rounds of ammunition, 1,248 cases of shrapnel shells
(which may not have included
explosive charges), plus an unknown
quantity of munitions that completely filled the holds on the lowest
deck and the trunkways and passageways
of F deck. In addition,
there were many tons of "cheese," "lard,"
"furs" and other items
which were shown later to be falsely labelled.
What they were is not
now known, but it is certain they were at least contraband if
not
outright weapons of war. They were all consigned through the / P.
Morgan Company. But none of this was suspected by the
public,
least of all those hapless Americans who unknowingly booked a
passage to death for themselves and their families as human decoys
in a global game of high finance and low politics.
The German embassy in Washington was well aware of the
nature of the cargo being loaded aboard the Lusitania and filed a
formal complaint to the United States government, because almost
all of it was in direct violation of international neutrality
treaties.
The response was a flat denial of any knowledge of such
cargo.
Seeing that the Wilson Administration was tacitly approving
the
shipment, the German embassy made one final effort to avert disas-
ter. It placed an ad in fifty East Coast newspapers, including
those
in New York City, warning Americans not to take passage on the
Lusitania. The ad was prepaid and requested to be placed on
the
paper's travel page a full week before the sailing date. It read as
follows:
°°°°°°°
NOTICE!
TRAVELERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage
are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany
and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone
of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles;
that,
in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial
German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great
Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction
in
those waters and that travelers sailing in the war zone on
ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY
Washington, D.C., April 22,1915.
°°°°°°°
Although the ad was in the hands of newspapers in time for
the
requested deadline, the State Department intervened and, raising
the specter of possible libel suits, frightened the publishers
into not
printing it without prior clearance from State Department attorneys.
Of the fifty newspapers, only the Des Moines Register
carried the ad
on the requested date. What happened next is described by
Simpson:
George Viereck [who was the editor of a G e r m an- o wne d
newspaper at that
time and who had placed the ads on behalf of the
embassy] spent
April 26 asking the State Department why his
advertisement had not
been published. Eventually he managed to
obtain an
interview with [Secretary of State, William Jennings] Bryan
and pointed
out to him that on all but one of her wartime voyages the
LllSltania had
carried munitions. He produced copies of her
supplementary
manifests, which were open to public inspection at the
collector's office.
More important, he informed Bryan, no fewer than
six million
rounds of ammunition were due to be shipped on the
LllSltania the
following Friday and could be seen at that moment being
loaded on pier
54. Bryan picked up the telephone and cleared the
publication of the
advertisement. He promised Viereck that he would
endeavor to
persuade the President publicly to warn Americans not to
travel. No such
warning was issued by the President, but there can be
no doubt
that President Wilson was told of the character of the cargo
destined for the LuSlttinW. He did nothing, but was to concede on the
day he was
told of her sinking that his foreknowledge had given him
many sleepless
hours.
It is probably true that Wilson was a pacifist at heart, but
it is
equally certain that he was not entirely the master of his own des-
tiny. He was a transplanted college professor from the
ivy-covered
walls of Princeton, an internationalist at heart who dreamed of
help-
ing to create a world government and to usher in a millennium
of
peace. But he found himself surrounded by and dependent upon
men of strong wills, astute political aptitudes, and powerful finan-
cial resources. Against these forces, he was all but powerless
to act
on his own, and there is good reason to believe that he inwardly
suffered over many of the events in which he was compelled to par-
ticipate. We shall leave it to others to moralize about a man who,
by
his deliberate refusal to warn his countrymen of their mortal
peril,
sends 195 of them to their watery graves. We may wonder, also,
about how such a man can commit the ultimate hypocrisy of
condemning the Germans for this act and then doing everything
possible to prevent the American public from learning the truth. It
would be surprising if the extent of his private remorse was not
greater than merely a few sleepless hours.
THE FINAL VOYAGE
But we are getting slightly ahead of the story. While Morgan
and Wilson were setting the deadly stage on the American side
of
the Atlantic, Churchill was playing his part on the European
side.
When the Lusitania left New York Harbor on May 1, her orders
were
to rendezvous with a British destroyer, the Juno, just off the
coast of
Ireland so she would have naval protection as she entered
hostile
waters. When the Lusitania reached the rendezvous point, however,
she was alone, and the captain assumed they had missed each
other
in the fog. In truth, the Juno had been called out of the area
at the last
minute and ordered to return to Queenstown. And this was done
with the full knowledge that the Lusitania was on a direct
course
into an area where a German submarine was known to be operat-
ing. To make matters worse, the Lusitania had been ordered to
cut
back on the use of coal, not because of shortages, but because
it
would be less expensive. Slow targets, of course, are much easier
to
hit. Yet, she was required to shut down one of her four boilers
and,
consequently, was now entering submarine-infested waters at only
75% of her potential speed.
As the Lusitania drew closer to hostile waters, almost
everyone
knew she was in grave danger. Newspapers in London were alive
with the story of German warnings and recent sinkings.
In the map
room of the British Admiralty, Churchill watched the play unfold
and coldly called the shots. Small disks marked the places
where
two ships had been torpedoed the day before. A circle indicated
the
area within which the U-boat must still be operating. A larger
disk
represented the Lusitania travelling at nineteen knots directly into
the
circle. Yet, nothing was done to help her. Admiral Coke at Queen-
stown was given perfunctory instructions to protect her as best
he
could, but he had no means to do so and, in fact, no one even
both-
ered to notify the captain of the Lusitania that the rendezvous
with
the Juno had been canceled.
One of the officers present in the high-command map room on
that fateful day was Commander Joseph Kenworthy,
who pre-
viously had been called upon by Churchill to submit a paper on
what would be the political results of an ocean liner being sunk
with
American passengers aboard. He left the room in disgust at the
cynicism of his superiors. In 1927, in his book, The Freedom of the
Seas, he wrote without further comment: "The Lusitania
was sent at
considerably reduced speed into an area where a U-boat was
known to be waiting and with her escorts withdrawn." Further
comment is not needed.
Colonel House was in England at that time and, on the day of
the sinking, was scheduled to have an audience with King
George V. He was accompanied by Sir Edward Grey and, on the
way, Sir Grey asked him: "What will America do if the
Germans
sink an ocean liner with American passengers on board?" As
recorded in House's diaries, he replied: "I told him if this
were
done, a flame of indignation would sweep America, which would in
itself probably carry us into the war." 2 Once at Buckingham
Palace,
King George also brought up the subject and was even more
specific
about the possible target. He asked, "Suppose they should
sink the
Lusitania with American passengers onboard...."
A MIGHTY EXPLOSION, A WATERY GRAVE
Four hours after this conversation, the black smoke of the
Lusitania was spotted on the horizon through the periscope
of the
German submarine, U-20. The ship came directly toward the
U-boat, allowing it to full-throttle out of her path and
swing around
for a ninety-degree shot at her bow as she passed only 750
yards
away. The torpedo struck nine feet below the water line on the
star-
board side slightly forward of the bridge. A second torpedo was
readied but not needed. Quickly after the explosion of the impact,
there was a second and much larger explosion that literally blew
the
side off of cargo hold number two and started the great ship imme-
diately toward the bottom. And what a hole it must have been. The
Lusitania, one of the largest ships ever built, sank in less
than eight-
een minutes!
Survivors among the crew who were working in the boiler
rooms during the attack have attested that the boilers did not
blow
at that time. Simpson tells us:
The G
torpedo had failed to blow in the inner bulkhead of No 1
boiler room, but
just further forward something blew out most of the
bottom of the
bow of the ship. It may have been the Bethlehem
Company's
3-inch shells, the six million rounds of rifle ammunition or
the highly
dubious contents of the bales of furs or the small
forty-pound boxes of
cheese. Divers who have been down to the wreck
unanimously testify
that the bow was blasted by a massive internal
explosion, and
large pieces of the bow plating, buckled from the
inside, are to
be found some distance from the hull.
When a search team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Insti-
tute surveyed the wreckage in the summer of 1993, they reported:
"When our cameras swept across the hold, we got a big
surprise-
There was no hole.... We found no evidence that U-20's torpedo
had
detonated an explosion, undermining one theory of why the liner
sank."
It is difficult to share the team's surprise. Photographs
show that
the wreck is resting on its starboard (right) side. Since that
is where
the torpedo struck, it is logical that the hole would not be
visible. It
would be on the side buried in the ocean floor. The team reported
that they were able to inspect only part of the hull's
underside. That
is because most of it — plus the entire starboard side — is
buried in the
muck. Since the torpedo struck only nine feet below the
waterline,
the hole would not logically be anywhere near the bottom of the
hull but at a point midway between the main deck and the bottom.
In other words, it would be at the midpoint of the side that
is now
facing down. Failure to see the hole does not undermine the theory
of internal explosion. It is exactly what one would expect.
In any event, it should be obvious that the Lusitania would
not
have gone to the bottom in eighteen minutes without a hole some-
where. Even the search team had to acknowledge that fact
indirectly
when it addressed the question of what might have caused the
second explosion. In an obvious effort to avoid giving support to
a
"conspiracy theory," the
report concluded that the explosion prob-
ably was caused, not by munitions, but by coal dust.
In the final analysis, it makes little difference whether
the explo-
sion was caused by munitions or coal dust. The fact that it
could have
been caused by munitions is sufficient for the case.
[Note: Griffin published in the 2018 edition of this book that,
“The controversy over the cargo was finally resolved
in 2008 when divers moved inside the Lusitania’s hull
and found millions of rounds of military ammunition,
Sam Greenhill, writing for Mail Online, reported:
‘Divers
have revealed a dark secret about the cargo
carried by the
Lusitania on it final jouney in may 1915.
Munitions
they gfound in the hold suggest that the Germans
had been
right all along in claimoing the ship was carrying
war materials
and was a legitmate military target . . . .
The diving
team estimates that around four million rounds
of U.S.-m&nufactured Remington .303 bullets lie in the
Lusitania’s
hold at a depth of 300 ft.’”] *
___
* Source: “Secret of the
Lusitania: Arms find challenges Allied claims
it was
solely a passenger ship,” by Sam Greenhill, Mail
Online, Dec. 20, 2008, posted to Internet.
A HURRIED COVER-UP
An official inquiry, under the direction of Lord Mersey, was
held to determine the facts of the sinking and to place the
blame. It
was a rigged affair from the beginning. All evidence and
testimony
was carefully pre-screened to make sure that nothing was
admitted
into the record which would reveal duplicity on the part of
British
or American officials. Among the papers submitted to Lord
Mersey
prior to the hearings was one from Captain Richard Webb, one of
the men chosen by the navy to assist in the cover up. It read:
"I am
directed by the board of Admiralty to inform you that it is consid-
ered politically expedient that Captain Turner, the master of
the
Lusitania, be most prominently blamed for the
disaster."
The final report was a most interesting document. Anyone
read-
ing it without knowledge of the facts would conclude that
Captain
William Turner was to blame for the disaster. Even so,
Mersey
attempted to soften the blow. He wrote: "...blame ought not to
be
imputed to the captain.... His omission to follow the advice in all
respects cannot fairly be attributed either to negligence or incompe-
tence." And then he added a final paragraph which, on the
surface,
appears to be a condemnation of the Germans but which, if read
with understanding of the background, was an indictment of
Churchill, Wilson, House and Morgan. He wrote:
The whole
blame for the cruel destruction of life in this
catastrophe must rest
solely with those who plotted and with those
who committed
the crime.
Did Lord Mersey know that there could be a dual meaning to his
Words? Perhaps not, but, two days after delivering his judgment,
he
wrote to Prime Minister Asquith and turned down his fee for serv-
ices. He added: "I must request that henceforth I be excused
from
administering His Majesty's Justice." In later years, his only com-
ment on the event was: "The Lusitania case was a damn dirty
business."
THE CRY FOR WAR
The purposes of the Cabal would have been better served had
an American ship been sunk by the Germans, but a British ship
with
195 Americans drowned was sufficient to do the jo
wasted no time in whipping up public sentiment. Wilson sent a note
of outraged indignation to the Imperial German Government, and
this was widely quoted in the press.
By that time, Bryan had become completely disillusioned by
the
duplicity of his own government. On May 9, he sent a dour note to
Wilson:
Germany
has a right to prevent contraband going to the Allies
and a ship carrying
contraband should not rely upon passengers to
protect her from
attack-it would be like putting women and children
in front of
an army.
This did not deter Wilson from his commitment. The first
note
was followed by an even stronger one with threatening overtones
which was intensely discussed at the Cabinet meeting on the first
of
June. McAdoo, who was present at the meeting, says:
I remember
that Bryan had little to say at this meeting; he sat
throughout the
proceedings with his eyes half closed most of the time
After the
meeting he told the President, as I learned later, that he could
not sign the
note.... Bryan went on to say that he thought his
usefulness as
Secretary of State was over, and he proposed to resign.
At the request of Wilson, McAdoo was dispatched to the
Bryans'
home to persuade the Secretary to change his mind, lest his resigna-
tion be taken as a sign of disunity within the President's
Cabinet
Bryan agreed to think it over one more day but, the
following morn-
ing, his decision remained firm. In his memoirs, annotated by
his
wife, Mrs. Bryan reveals that her husband could not sleep that
night
He was so restless I suggested that he read a little till he
should
become drowsy. He had in his handbag a copy of an old book
printed in 1829 and called A Wreath of Appreciation of Andrew
Jackson. He found it very interesting." 3
What irony. In chapter seventeen we shall review the total
war
waged by President Jackson against the Bank of the United States,
the predecessor of the Federal Reserve System, and we shall be
reminded that it was Jackson who prophesied:
Is there
no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that
in its
nature has so little to bind it to our country?... [Is there not] cause
to tremble
for the purity of our elections in peace and for the
independence of our
country in war?... Controlling our currency,
receiving our
public monies, and holding thousands of our citizens in
dependence, it would
be more formidable and dangerous than a naval
and military
power of the enemy.
One can only wonder what thoughts went through Bryan's
mind as he recalled Jackson's warning and applied it to the artifi-
cially created war hysteria that, at that very moment, was being
generated by the financial powers on Wall Street and at the newly
created Federal Reserve.
From England, Colonel House sent a telegram to President
Wilson which he, in turn, read to
his Cabinet. It became the genesis
of thousands of newspaper editorials across the land. He said
piously:
America
has come to the parting of the ways, when she must
determine whether
she stands for civilized or uncivilized warfare. We
can no longer
remain neutral spectators. Our action in this crisis will
determine the part
we will play when peace is made, and how far we
may influence
a settlement for the lasting good of humanity. We are
being weighed
in the balance, and our position amongst nations is
being assessed
by mankind.
In another telegram two days later, House reveals himself as
the
master psycho-politician playing on Wilson's ego like a violinist
stroking the strings of a Stradivarius. He wrote:
If,
unhappily, it is necessary to go to war, I hope you will give the
world an exhibition
of American efficiency that will be a lesson for a
century or more.
It is generally believed throughout Europe that we
are so
unprepared and that it would take so long to put our resources
into action,
that our entering would make but little difference.
In the
event of war, we should accelerate the manufacture of
munitions to such
an extent that we could supply not only ourselves
but the
Allies, and so quickly that the world would be astounded.
Congress could not resist the combined pressure of the press
and the President. On April 16, 1917, the United States
officially
declared war on the Axis powers. Eight days later, Congress duti-
fully passed the War Loan Act which extended $1 billion in credit
to
the Allies. The first advance of $200 million went to the
British the
next day and was immediately applied as payment on the debt to
Morgan. A few days later, $100 million went to France for
the same
purpose. But the drain continued. Within three months the British
had run up their overdraft with Morgan to $400 million dollars,
and
the firm presented it to the government for payment. The
Treasury,
however, was unable to put its hands on that amount of money
without jeopardizing its own spendable funds and, at first, refused
to pay. The problem was quickly solved, however, through a
maneuver described at some length in chapter ten. The Federal
Reserve System under Benjamin Strong simply created the
needed
money through the Mandrake Mechanism. "The Wilson Admini-
stration found itself in an extremely awkward position, having to
bail out J.P. Morgan," wrote Ferrell, but Benjamin Strong
"offered to
help [Treasury-Secretary] McAdoo out of the difficulty. Over the
following months in 1917-18 the Treasury quietly paid Morgan
piecemeal for the overdraft." By the time the war was over, the
Treasury had loaned a total of $9,466,000,000 including
$2,170,000,000 given after the
Armistice.
That was the cash flow they had long awaited. In addition to
saving the Morgan loans, even larger profits were to be made from
war production. The government had been secretly preparing for
war for six months prior to the actual declaration. According
to
Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
the
Navy Department began extensive purchasing of war supplies
in
the Fall of 1916. 2 Ferdinand Lundberg adds this perspective:
By no
accident all the strategic government posts, notably those
concerned with
buying, were reserved for the Wall Street patriots. On
the most
vital appointments, Wilson consulted with Dodge [President
of
Rockefeller's National City Bank], who ... recommended the
hitherto unknown
[Bernard] Baruch, speculator in copper stocks, as
chairman of the
all-powerful War Industries Board....
As head of
the War Industries Board, Baruch spent government
funds at the
rate of $10,000,000,000 annually.... Baruch packed the War
Industries
Board and its committees with past and future Wall Street
manipulators,
industrialists, financiers, and their agents ... who fixed
prices on a
cost-plus basis and, as subsequent investigations revealed,
saw to it
that costs were grossly padded so as to yield hidden profits....
The
American soldiers fighting in the trenches, the people
working at home,
the entire nation under arms, were fighting, not only
to subdue
Germany, but to subdue themselves. That there is nothing
metaphysical about
this interpretation becomes clear when we
observe that the
total wartime expenditure of the United States
government from April
6, 1917, to October 31, 1919, when the last
contingent of troops
returned from Europe, was $35,413,000,000. Net
corporation profits
for the period January 1,1916, to July, 1921, when
wartime
industrial activity was finally liquidated, were
$38,000,000,000, or approximately the amount of the war
expenditures. More
than two-thirds of these corporation profits were
taken by
precisely those enterprises which the Pujo Committee
had
found to be
under the control of the "Money Trust."
The banking cartel was able, through the operation of the
Federal Reserve System, to create the money to give to
England and
France so they, in turn, could pay back the American banks —
exactly as was to be done again in World War II and again in the Big
Bailout of the 1980s and '90s. It is true that, in 1917, the
recently en-
acted income tax was useful for raising a sizable amount of
revenue
to conduct the war and also, as Beardsley Ruml
pointed out a few
years later, to take purchasing power away from the middle class.
But the greatest source of funding came, as it always does
in war-
time, not from direct taxes, but from the hidden tax called
inflation.
Between 1915 and 1920, the money supply doubled from $20.6 bil-
lion to $39.8 billion. 2 Conversely, during World War I, the purchas-
ing power of the currency fell by almost 50%. That means
Americans unknowingly paid to the government approximately
one-half of every dollar that existed. And that was in addition to
their
taxes. This massive infusion of money was the product of the
Mandrake Mechanism and cost nothing to create. Yet, the
banks
were able to collect interest on it all. The ancient partnership
between the political and monetary scientists had performed its
mission well.
SUMMARY
To finance the early stages of World War I, England and
France
had borrowed heavily from investors in America and had selected
the House of Morgan as sales agent for their bonds. Morgan also
acted as their U.S. purchasing agent for war materials, thus
profit-
ing from both ends of the cash flow: once when the money was bor-
rowed and again when it was spent. Further profits were derived
from production contracts placed with companies within the
Morgan orbit. But the war began to go badly for the Allies when
Germany's submarines took virtual control of the Atlantic
shipping
lanes. As England and France moved closer to defeat or a
negotiated
peace on Germany's terms, it became increasingly difficult to
sell
their bonds. No bonds meant no purchases, and the Morgan cash
flow was threatened. Furthermore, if the previously sold bonds
should go into default, as they certainly would in the wake of
defeat, the Morgan consortium would suffer gigantic losses.
The only way to save the British Empire, to restore the
value of
the bonds, and to sustain the Morgan cash flow was for the
United
States government to provide the
money. But, since neutral nations
were prohibited from doing that by treaty, America would have to
be brought into the war. A secret agreement to that effect was
made
between British officials and Colonel House, with the concurrence
of the President. From that point forward, Wilson began to
pressure
Congress for a declaration of war. This was done at the very time he
was campaigning for reelection on the slogan "He kept us
out of
war." Meanwhile, Morgan purchased control over major
segments
of the news media and engineered a nation-wide editorial blitz
against Germany, calling for war as an act of American patriotism.
Morgan had created an international shipping cartel,
including
Germany's merchant fleet, which maintained a near monopoly
on
the high seas. Only the British Cunard
Lines remained aloof. The
Lusitania was owned by Cunard and
operated in competition with
Morgan's cartel. The Lusitania was built to military specifications
and was registered with the British Admiralty as an armed
auxiliary
cruiser. She carried passengers as a cover to conceal her real mis-
sion, which was to bring contraband war materials from the
United
States. This fact was known to Wilson and others in his administra-
tion, but they did nothing to stop it. When the German embassy
tried to publish a warning to American passengers, the State
Department intervened and prevented newspapers from printing
i t
Whenthe Lusitania left New York harbor on her final voyage, she
was vitually a floating ammunition
depot. The British I
would mean the difference between defeat and victory and any-
thing that could accomplish that was proper even the coldly calcu-
lated sacrifice of one of her great ships with E . s n , h » . . aboard. But
the trick was to have Americans on board also in order to
create the
proper emotional climate in the United States. As the ]
moved into hostile waters, where a German U-boat was known to
be operating, First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill
ordered her destroyer protection to abandon her. This, plus the
fact
that she had been ordered to travel at reduced speed, made her
an
easy target. After the impact of one well placed torpedo, a
mighty
second explosion from within ripped her apart, and the ship that
many believed could not be sunk, gurgled to the bottom m less
than
eighteen minutes.
The deed had been done, and it set in motion great waves of
revulsion against the Germans. These waves eventually flooded
through Washington and swept the United States into war. Within
days of the decoration, Congress voted $1 billion in credit for
England and France. $200 million was sent to England immediately
and was applied to the Morgan account. The vast quantity of
money
needed to finance the war was created by the Federal Reserve
System, which means it was
collected from Americans through that
hidden tax called inflation. Within just five years, this tax had
taken fully
all they had saved. The infinitely higher cost in American
blood was
added to the bill.
Thus it was that the separate motives of such diverse
personalities as
Winston Churchill, J. P. Morgan, Colonel House, and Woodrow
Wilson
all found common cause in bringing America into World War I.
Churchill
maneuvered for military advantage, Morgan sought the profits of war,
House
schemed for political power, and Wilson dreamed of a chance to
dominate
a post war League of Nations. (pp.247-261, excerpt taken from the 2014
edition
posted on the
internet @ https://archive.org/stream/pdfy--Pori1NL6fKm2SnY/The%20Creature%20From%20Jekyll%20Island_djvu.txt)
According to Eustace Mullins, Woodrow Wilson ( 1856-1924) died, at the age of 67, a broken man. His naïve
sincerity had been only partially useful for the financial interests in
creating a “New World Order” dominated by the international forces of financial
capital. The hypocritical role he played in mobilizing populations to follow
docilely the dictates of central bank prerogatives was finally recognized, and
he drew little solace from his former supporters who now gathered to hold him
accountable at public assemblies as his began his campaign in 1920 for a third
term.
Wilson, who seems to have lived in a world
of fantasy, was shocked when American citizens booed him during his campaign to
have them sign over their hard won independence to [the League of Nations] what
appeared to many, to be, an international dictatorship. He promptly went into a
depression, and retired to his bedroom. His wife immediately shut the White
House doors against Col. House, and from September 25, 1919 to April 13, 1920,
she ruled the United States with the aid of an intimate friend, her ‘military
aide’, Col. Rixey Smith. As everyone was shut out of
their deliberations, no one ever knew which of the pair functioned as the
President, and which was the Vice President.
The admirers of Woodrow Wilson were led
for decades by Bernard Baruch, who stated that Woodrow Wilson was the greatest
man he ever knew. Wilson’s appointments to the Federal Reserve Board, and that
body’s responsibility for financing the First World War, as well as Wilson’s
handing over the United States to the immigrant triumvirate during the War,
made him appear to be the most important single effect or of ruin in American
history. It is no wonder that after his abortive trip to Europe, where he was
hissed and jeered in the streets by the French people, and snickered at in the
halls of Versailles by Orlando and Clemenceau, Woodrow Wilson returned home to
take to his bed. The sight of the destruction and death in Europe, for which he
was directly responsible, was perhaps more of a shock than he could bear. The
Italian Minister Pentaleoni expressed the feelings of
the European peoples when he wrote that:
‘Woodrow
Wilson is a type of Pecksniff who was now disappeared
amid universal execration.’
It is
America’s misfortune that our subsidized press and educational system have been
devoted to enshrining a man who colluded in causing so much death and sorrow
throughout the world.(pp.113-114)
The severe judgment against Wilson holds for the entire
pro-war establishment, where private profit is of paramount importance. The
gullibility of the general population is easily manipulated by the corporate
media and at an unconscious level the masses are easily led to believe in their
most cynical leaders instead of acknowledging their genuine self-interests and
their collective power.
For
more on the “hidden history” of the origins of the First World War and the role
played by high finance, see Ceimsa bulletin N°866 and N°870.
And
for more on past criminal conspiracies within the US government, see Ceimsa bulletin N°387, N°841, N°853, & N°855.
And
for the contemporary etymology of the CIA’s use of the term “conspiracy theory”
for purposes of disinformation in psychological warfare, see Ceimsa bulletin N°861.
The 15 + items below include articles and essay which shed light on the
massive criminal activities that continue to be committed under the umbrella of corporate capitalism,
a shelter for cynical violence at home and abroad, hidden in large part by
ideologies of one kind or another and by self-deception and collusion, all of which are guaranteed by a
pervasive fear of sanctions.
Sincerely,
Francis
Feeley
---
Professeur honoraire de l'Université
Grenoble-Alpes
Ancien Directeur de
Researches
Université de Paris-Nanterre
Director of The Center for the Advanced Study
of American Institutions and Social Movements
(CEIMSA-in-Exile)
The University of California-San Diego
a.
US Biowarfare Act Author: Studies Confirm Coronavirus
Weaponized
http://thealtworld.com/thealtworld/us-biowarfare-act-author-studies-confirm-coronavirus-weaponized
with
Francis Boyle
(36:23)
+
CORONAVIRUS: THE HIDDEN DANGER REVEALED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVizW1OgQZQ
with
Del Bigtree
(1:57:08)
+
“Trump
Calling Coronavirus 'Hoax' Is Dangerous”
with Michael Moore
(3:07)
===========
b.
Coronavirus: The “Cures”
Will Be Worse Than the Disease
https://www.minds.com/blog/view/1080314433557057536
by
James Corbett
+
Fact check:
Comparing coronavirus to common cold
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LwH02lmMmU&feature=youtu.be
with
Rick Sanchez
(28:02)
+
Gunnison, Colorado: the town that dodged the 1918
Spanish flu pandemic
by Rory Carroll
+
Coronavirus: Quarantined inside Italy's red zone
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51651099
by Rozina Sini
===========
c.
The Day Israel
Attacked America
(48:59)
by
Richard Belfield
In 1967, at the height of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day
War, the Israeli Air Force launched an unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty, a
US Navy spy ship that was monitoring the conflict from the safety of
international waters in the Mediterranean.
Israeli jet fighters hit the vessel with rockets,
cannon fire and napalm, before three Israeli torpedo boats moved in to launch a
second more devastating attack. Though she did not sink, the Liberty was badly
damaged. Thirty-four US servicemen and civilian analysts were killed, another
171 were wounded.
Later Israel apologised
for what it claimed to be a tragic case of mistaken identity. It said that it
had believed the ship to be hostile Egyptian naval vessel. US President Lyndon
Johnson was privately furious but publicly the White House chose not to
challenge the word of its closest Middle East ally and accepted that the attack
had been a catastrophic accident.
However, as this exclusive Al Jazeera
investigation reveals, fresh evidence throws new light on exactly what happened
that fateful day - and the remarkable cover up that followed.
+
New Documentary Explores Five Largely Unknown Truths
about Israel/Palestine
https://therealnews.com/stories/documentary-solidarity-five-unknown-truths-israel-palestine
with
Greg Wolpert and Bob Peck
(10:36)
See the entire film by Bob Peck @ https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/solidarity-five-largely-unknown-truths-about-israel-palestine-and-the-occupied-territories/
(1:10:28)
+
Bloomberg to AIPAC: I'll never condition aid to
Israel, no matter who's PM | The Times of Israel
+
Israel's UN
ambassador calls Sanders an 'ignorant fool': 'We don't want him in Israel'
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53062.htm
by Justin Wise
Israel’s ambassador to the United
Nations on Sunday lambasted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
over the critical comments he recently made about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, describing
the presidential candidate as "a liar, an ignorant fool or
both."
Speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) conference, Danny Danon offered
a searing rebuke to Sanders for calling Netanyahu a "reactionary
racist," according
to The Times of Israel.
“Whoever calls the prime minister of Israel a
‘racist’ is either a liar, an ignorant fool or both,” Danon
said as he spoke on the first day of the pro-Israel lobbying group's annual
conference. “We don’t want Sanders at AIPAC. We don’t want him in Israel.”
Sanders, one of two Jewish candidates running for
president this year, has for years been an outspoken critic of Israel and some
of its policies. He said last month that he would not attend the AIPAC
conference because the group provided a platform to “leaders who express
bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights.”
Addressing that decision and his past comments about
Israel, Sanders emphasized during the Democratic debate in South Carolina
that U.S. foreign policy should "absolutely" work to protect the
independence and security of Israel.
"I'm very proud of being Jewish. I actually
lived in Israel for some months. But what I happen to believe is that right
now, sadly, tragically, in Israel, through Netanyahu, you have a
reactionary racist who is now running that country," Sanders said.
+
Israeli Election
Results: The Tribe Has Spoken
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53066.htm
by Gideon Levy
Israel is a
right-wing country, where racism is politically correct and personal corruption
is irrelevant. When generals fresh from the army are the alternative, there is
none. We must hope a true Jewish-Arab partnership will
emerge
+
Zionism's Jewish
Enemy
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23893.htm
by Alan Hart Interviews Professor Ilan Pappe, Israel’s leading
“new” or “revisionist” historian.
(Video posted November 04, 2009)
or see:
Palestine History Alan Hart with Ilan Pappe videos on YouTube
https://www.google.com/search?q=Palestine+History+Alan+Hart+with+Ilan+Pappe&client=firefox-b-d&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiR7K6dxYjoAhVJ8uAKHZYQC70Q_AUoAXoECAsQAw&biw=1280&bih=879
===========
d.
Bernie Sanders'
Foreign Policy Trap
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53056.htm
by Margaret
Kimberley
It is time for
leftists to stop giving Sanders a pass and make demands on him and all other
candidates for office.
“The belief that
peace must be sacrificed for domestic issues on the altar of lesser evilism is a canard.”
Russiagate, the invention
of the Democratic Party and the surveillance state, will never be allowed to
die. The ongoing fraud is quite useful to the people who invented it.
Well placed
media leaks recently claimed that the Russian government was interfering in the
2020 election on behalf of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The New
York Times, Washington Post and MSNBC didn’t say what form
the interference took, a sure sign that the story was made up. Within days, what
was obvious all along came to light. The intelligence briefing “overstated ” evidence of a Russian
interference.
This won’t be
the last effort to fool the public with tales of Russian skullduggery. But it
should be the last time that Bernie Sanders isn’t called to account for
repeating the same tropes that are used against him.
Sanders was informed
about the latest intelligence agency lie and his response was to proclaim that
Putin is a thug and Trump loves him, but he doesn’t love Putin, he hates all
dictators, etc. Sanders isn’t stupid. It is hard to
believe that his foolish words aren’t part of a misguided effort to be shrewd.
He thinks he is doing what is politically expedient when he is actually laying
a trap for himself and dismissing his defenders.
“It should be
the last time that Bernie Sanders isn’t called to account for repeating the
same tropes that are used against him.”
Sanders already
made clear his support for imperialist policy. During the 2016 campaign he
referred to the late Hugo Chavez disparagingly as “a dead communist dictator.”
He has followed up with attacks on Kim Jong Un,
Nicolas Maduro, and Xi Jin Ping. The effort to
burnish his establishment credentials is an indication that left supporters
must be wary and should expect him to follow through on continuing imperialist
policy unless they speak up forcefully.
Sanders is certainly the
most progressive Democratic party candidate on domestic issues but he has shown
no such inclinations regarding foreign policy. It is time for leftists to stop
giving him a pass and make demands on him and all other candidates for office.
Foreign policy should not be treated as
icing on the cake that can be ignored in exchange for medicare
for all or student loan debt forgiveness.
Skipping the
AIPAC conference is certainly new to presidential candidates. But Sanders said
he won’t undo Trump’s decision to move the United States embassy to Jerusalem.
He said he would use the same discredited doctrine that caused the invasion of
Iraq in order to prevent Iran or North Korea from even testing nuclear weapons.
“Sanders is
laying a trap for himself and dismissing his defenders.”
===========
e.
Syrian journalist corrects the record on
mainstream media’s absurd Idlib coverage
with Anya Parampil
(23:13)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53058.htm
+
Are Russia and Turkey on a Collision Course?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53058.htm
by The Saker
+
The fabrication
of the myth of the "Syrian revolution" by the United Kingdom
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53059.htm
by Thierry Meyssan
New
documents have leaked on the organization of British propaganda against Syria.
They provide insight into how bona fide journalists could have been permanently
intoxicated by the myth of the "Syrian revolution" and why the UK
withdrew from Syria despite the success of this operation.
Democracy presupposes the ability to hold honest
public debates. Therefore, propaganda would be the prerogative of
non-democratic regimes. Yet history teaches us that modern propaganda was
conceived in the United Kingdom and the United States during the First World
War, and that the USSR and Nazi Germany were pale copycats.
During the war against Syria, we have often
explained that the reality on the ground did not correspond in any way to the
image that Westerners had of it. We denounced the fabrication of evidence by
the US, British, French and Turkish secret services to conceal Western aggression
and to incite a revolution against a dictatorship.
While the United Kingdom has not been present on the
ground since 2018, journalist Ian Cobain has just published official British
documents in the Middle East Eye
that shed light on how London massively intoxicated bona fide journalists and
then withdrew (1) He had already published in the Guardian, in 2016, revelations on the organisation
of MI6 in this matter (2)
Above all, it is important to remember that the
British were not pursuing the same objective at all as their US ally. London
hoped to regain its influence from the colonial era (as did Paris). The United
Kingdom did not believe that the United States intended to destroy the state
structures of the broader Middle East as a whole (Rumsfeld/Cebrowski
strategy). That is why it had conceived the "Arab Spring" operation
on the model of Lawrence of Arabia’s "Great Arab Revolt" (the Muslim
Brotherhood now playing the role of the Wahhabi of
World War I). Their propaganda was therefore designed to create New Syria
around this Brotherhood and not to divide it as the CIA wanted and still wants.
Westerners had already been convinced of revolutions
in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. It was therefore easier to sell them a fourth
field of operations.
Good-faith journalists had been led by
revolutionaries (actually Turkish and NATO secret services) to a Syrian
village, Jabal Al-Zaouia,
to attend and film Free Syrian Army rallies. Many of them were intoxicated and
believed in a popular uprising. When Daniel Iriarte
denounced this production in the Spanish daily ABC - because he had recognized on the spot not Syrian but
Libyan fighters under the orders of Aldelhakim Belhaj and Mehdi al-Harati (3) -
the press refused to recognize the manipulation to which it had been subjected.
The inability of journalists to admit their mistakes, even when some of their
colleagues confuse them, remains the best asset of the masters of propaganda.
As always, the British RICU (Research, Information
and Communications Unit) had recourse to a scientist, here an
"anthropologist", to supervise the manipulation. It entrusted its
implementation to several subcontractors, including a "former" MI6
officer, Colonel Paul Tilley; the word "former" is important here, as
it means that he could deny all responsibility if the operation went wrong. To
get closer to the field, three ad hoc
offices were opened by MI6 contractors in Istanbul, Reyhanli
(Turkey) and Amman (Jordan), while the CIA operated from Germany.
===========
f.
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2020
Subject: [MCM] Trump ordered Assange's seizure
by British cops, and wanted—wants—him dead
Fascism is
upon us—and with bipartisan support.
MCM
Trump ordered Assange’s seizure by British police and wanted him dead
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/03/assa-m03.html
by
Thomas Scripps and Chris Marsden
Journalist
Cassandra Fairbanks has revealed an explosive series of communications on the
case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
between herself and Republican operative Arthur Schwartz.
They confirm that the
attempted extradition of Assange is a criminal
enterprise, aimed at silencing someone who has exposed US war crimes in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and to intimidate all opponents of imperialist war. They
prove that all methods of doing so are being discussed, including the death
penalty.
Assange is part-way through a hearing that began last week
to decide on his extradition to the US where he faces 175 years in prison on
espionage charges. He was imprisoned after being illegally dragged out of the
Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had claimed political asylum, by British
police in April 2019.
According to
Fairbanks’s leaked conversations, high-level US officials arranged a deal with
the Ecuadorian government in 2018 to secure Assange’s
seizure, ostensibly in return for their taking the death penalty, which the
Trump administration clearly wanted, off the table.
+
US plotted to murder Julian Assange
https://fifthestatepress.com/posts/status-2020022932274
with
George Galloway
(8:19)
+
Assange Rips the Matrix
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53057.htm
by Finian Cunningham
+
18 Ways Julian Assange
Changed the World
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/18-ways-julian-assange-changed-the-world/
by Lee Camp
+
ASSANGE EXTRADITION: The Armoured Glass Box
is an Instrument of Torture
by
Craig Murray
+
Julian Assange's
father: My greatest worry is he will die in jail
+
Assanage Show Trial:
Your
Man in the Public Gallery The Assange Hearing Day 3
& 4
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53049.htm
by
Craig Murray
In yesterday’s proceedings in court, the prosecution
adopted arguments so stark and apparently unreasonable I have been fretting on
how to write them up in a way that does not seem like caricature or unfair
exaggeration on my part. What has been happening in this court has long moved
beyond caricature. All I can do is give you my
personal assurance that what I recount actually is what happened.
As usual, I shall deal with procedural matters and
Julian’s treatment first, before getting in to a clear account of the legal
arguments made.
Vanessa Baraitser is under
a clear instruction to mimic concern by asking, near the end of every session
just before we break anyway, if Julian is feeling well and whether he would
like a break. She then routinely ignores his response. Yesterday he replied at
some length he could not hear properly in his glass box and could not
communicate with his lawyers (at some point yesterday they had started preventing
him passing notes to his counsel, which I learn was the background to the
aggressive prevention of his shaking Garzon’s hand
goodbye).
Baraitser insisted he might only be heard through his
counsel, which given he was prevented from instructing them was a bit rich.
This being pointed out, we had a ten minute adjournment while Julian and his
counsel were allowed to talk down in the cells – presumably where they could be
more conveniently bugged yet again.
On return, Edward Fitzgerald made a formal application
for Julian to be allowed to sit beside his lawyers in the court. Julian was “a
gentle, intellectual man” and not a terrorist. Baraitser
replied that releasing Assange from the dock into the
body of the court would mean he was released from custody. To achieve that
would require an application for bail.
Again, the prosecution counsel James Lewis
intervened on the side of the defence to try to make
Julian’s treatment less extreme. He was not, he suggested diffidently, quite
sure that it was correct that it required bail for Julian to be in the body of
the court, or that being in the body of the court accompanied by security
officers meant that a prisoner was no longer in custody.
+
On Contact: Julian Assange
Extradition
with Joe Lauria
and Chris Hedges
(28:49)
+
WikiLeaks – public enemy Julian Assange
(28:24)
+
Julian Assange
is Being Prosecuted for Exposing Human Rights Abuses-
UN Torture Rapporteur"
with UN’s Special Rapporteur
on Torture Nils Melzer
(28:16)
+
Julian Assange Court
Updates - Recap by Taylor Hudak & Interview with George
Galloway
(10:25)
+
Julian Assange - Summary
of Court Hearings
with Taylor Hudak
(2:26)
+
This Assange “Trial” Is A Self-Contradictory Kafkaesque Nightmare
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53050.htm
by Caitlin Johnstone
+
Seth Rich,
Julian Assange and Dana Rohrabacher - Will We Ever
Know the Truth About the Stolen DNC Files?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53063.htm
by Philip Giraldi
The media is doing its best to make the Seth Rich
story go away, but it seems to have a life of its own, possibly due to the fact
that the accepted narrative about how Rich died makes no sense. In its Iatest manifestation, it provides an alternative
explanation for just how the information from the Democratic National Committee
(DNC) computer somehow made its way to Wikileaks. If
you believe that Jeffrey
Epstein committed suicide and that he was just a nasty pedophile rather
than an Israeli
intelligence agent, read no farther because you will not be interested in
Rich. But if you appreciate that it was unlikely that the Russians were behind
the stealing of the DNC information you will begin to understand that other
interested players must have been at work.
For those who are not familiar with it, the backstory to the murder of apparently disgruntled
Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, who some days before may have
been the leaker of that organization’s confidential
emails to Wikileaks,
suggests that a
possibly motiveless crime might have been anything but. The Washington D.C.
police investigated what they believed to be an attempted robbery gone bad but that theory fails to explain why Rich’s money,
credit cards, cell phone and watch were not taken. Wikileaks
has never confirmed that Rich was their source in the theft of the proprietary
emails that had hitherto been blamed on Russia but it subsequently offered a
$20,000 reward for information leading to resolution of the case and Julian Assange, perhaps tellingly, has never publicly clarified
whether Rich was or was not one of his contacts, though there is at least one
report that he confirmed
the relationship during a private meeting.
Answers to the question who exactly stole the files
from the DNC server and the emails from John Podesta
have led to what has been called Russiagate, a tale that has been embroidered upon and
which continues to resonate in American politics. At this point, all that is
clearly known is that in the Summer of 2016 files and
emails pertaining to the election were copied and then made their way to WikiLeaks, which published some of them at a time that was
damaging to the Clinton campaign. Those who are blaming Russia believe that
there was a hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server and also of
John Podesta’s emails that was carried out by a
Russian surrogate or directly by Moscow’s military intelligence arm. They base
their conclusion on a
statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security on October 7, 2016,
and on a longer assessment
prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on January 6,
2017. Both government appraisals implied that there was a U.S. government
intelligence agency consensus that there was a Russian hack, though they
provided little in the way of actual evidence that that was the case and, in
particular, failed to demonstrate how the information was obtained and what the
chain of custody was as it moved from that point to the office of WikiLeaks. The January report was particularly criticized
as unconvincing, rightly so, because the most important one of its three key
contributors, the National Security Agency, had only moderate confidence in its
conclusions, suggesting that whatever evidence existed was far from solid.
An alternative view that has been circulating for
several years suggests that it was not a hack at all, that it was a deliberate whistleblower-style
leak of information carried out by an as yet unknown party, possibly Rich,
that may have been provided to WikiLeaks for possible
political reasons, i.e. to express disgust with the DNC manipulation of the
nominating process to damage Bernie Sanders and favor Hillary Clinton.
There are, of course, still other equally
non-mainstream explanations for how the bundle of information got from point A
to point B, including that the intrusion into the DNC server was carried
out by the CIA which then made it look like it had been the Russians as
perpetrators. And then there is the hybrid point of view, which is essentially
that the Russians or a surrogate did indeed intrude into the DNC computers but
it was all part of normal intelligence agency probing and did not lead to
anything. Meanwhile and independently, someone else who had access to the
server was downloading the information, which in some fashion made its way from
there to WikiLeaks.
Yanis Varoufakis: "They're trying to destroy Assange's soul and body for doing journalism"
===========
g.
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2020
Subject: [MCM] Who knew? In Europe, US military
holding largest war game in over 25 years.
NB
that this is under Donald Trump, a/k/a "Putin's Puppet."
MCM
99.9 PERCENT
OF US CITIZENS UNAWARE OF LARGEST US WAR GAME
IN EUROPE IN
25 YEARS
by Ann Wright
February 28, 2020
99.9 percent of citizens of the United States have no
clue that the new “Cold War” against Russia is manifesting in the largest U.S.
military war practice in Europe than in more than 25 years.
They have not heard that the U.S. military is
sending 20,000 soldiers from the U.S. to Europe to join 9,000 U.S. troops
already in Europe and 8,000 soldiers from ten European countries to practice
waging a war against Russia. 37,000 military from the U.S. and Europe
will be a part of the war maneuvers named Defender 2020.
The U.S. political environment is so confused that
many in the U.S. will question why the U.S. is having provocative actions
against Russia such as these big war games on the border of Russia when U.S.
President Donald Trump seems to be such a good friend with Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
It’s a valid question that brings into the focus of
the need of the U.S. bureaucracy to have an enemy in order to justify its huge
$680 billion military budget. With war games against North Korea
suspended in South Korea over the past year and reduced military operations in
Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, confrontation in Europe is the next best location
for attempting to keep the military-industrial complex, with all of its major
election donors, in business during the 2020 U.S. Presidential election year.
In an effort to generate U.S. national support and
publicity for the revival of the Cold War, U.S. military units will come
from 15 U.S. states, including important
electoral states of Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania,
South Carolina, and Virginia.
In an effort to spend all the money allocated to the
U.S. military, over $680 billion for 2020, 20,000 pieces of equipment will
be sent to Europe for the division-size mobilization. The equipment
will depart from seaports in politically important electoral states of South
Carolina, Georgia and Texas.
===========
h.
Capitalism and White Supremacy
with Cornel West and Richard Wolff
(25:29)
+
The Darker Myths of Empire: Heart of Darkness Series
with Michael Parenti
(1:23:01)
===========
i.
Parenti: communism did work for millions of people
(3:19)
+
Economic Update: When Stale Debates Distract - Democracy at Work
https://www.democracyatwork.info/eu_when_stale_debates_distract
with Richard Wolff
+
Reading Marx's Grundrisse
with David Harvey
Part 1
(1:53:45)
&
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EROA-ttUBVs
(1:52:25)
&
Part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9_U4DX_vn8
(2:00:22)
&
Part 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE3zLH8w0zQ
(2:00:13)
===========
j.
Princes of the Yen: Central Bank Truth Documentary
by filmmaker Michael Oswald
(1:32:39)
+
97% Owned – “Economic Truth documentary - How is
Money Created”
by
Michael Oswald
(2:10:22)
===========
k.
Why are 1000s of Americans being detained for
dissent?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksr7_MuSKBo&feature=youtu.be
with
civil rights attorney John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute
(5:17)
===========
l.
Super Tuesday: Live Coverage From The
Intercept and “Democracy Now”
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/03/super-tuesday-analysis-livestream-democracy-now/
+
Super Tuesday: Which Side Are You On?
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/03/super-tuesday-which-side-are-you-on/
(audio, 53:05)
+
Super Tuesday results: follow the votes live
+
"This Biden story is beyond preposterous"
From Jon Jeter (on Facebook yesterday):
I have a good friend who is a former prosecutor and he has always said that narrative beats evidence at a trial. In other words, you can show a jury that a defendant murdered someone because it was physically impossible for anyone else to have murdered him; but if you can't provide the motive, even though it's not required by law, you are likely going to lose at trial.
So, with that in mind, WHICH of these narratives sounds more plausible: (A) that Joe Biden, who didn't have a pot to piss in and even less infrastructure on the ground in Texas, rose like Lazarus from the dead, and swayed blacks and presumably Latinos to vote for a candidate that is the political twin of Hillary Clinton? That the same Joe Biden won Minnesota, a state that elected Paul Wellstone, and has a tiny black electorate? That the same Joe Biden somehow won over voters in Maine and Massachusetts, when their cousins in New Hampshire just turned out overwhelmingly for Sanders?
Or (B) that Hil and Bill and Barry told Tom Perez to rig the vote for Biden the same way it was rigged for Hil in '16 (what about that Brooklyn apartment complex that was wiped from the rolls?) because if they didn't stop this fool Sanders now, he was gonna run away with this shit, and they'd be unable to give it to ol' Joe at the convention? Oh, and, by the way, you can say that the darkies love ol' Lock-'em-Up Joe because no one in the media will talk to them.
Which one of those scenarios is more plausible, Fam?
+
Four reasons why Biden shocked Sanders
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/04/biden-victory-super-tuesday-campaign-120746
===========
m.
After Biden’s Super Tuesday
Surge, Sanders Campaign Faces Questions About
African-American Support
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/4/super_tuesday_african_american_voters_roundtable
(video, 25:02)
+
Stop Calling It A “Stutter”: Here Are Dozens Of Examples Of Biden’s Dementia Symptoms
by Caitlin Johnstone
+
DNC Scrambles to Change Debate Threshold After Gabbard Qualifies
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/05/dnc-scrambles-to-change-debate-threshold-after-gabbard-qualifies/
by Caitlin Johnstone
=========
n.
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2020
Subject: [MCM] A caveat on Bernie's (likely?) win in Massachusetts
From Jonathan Simon (whose Code Red is the best book out there on computerized election theft):
M - Not that anyone ever does anything about such things, but this would be a very sketchy snippet of evidence to go to the mat over. It is NOTHING like E2016 evidence or E2004 evidence or Coakley-Brown evidence or Ossoff evidence... I'm not questioning Ted's numbers, just the conclusions ("Bernie won MA") that you among others are drawing from them. Ted can be pretty stubborn and will probably never do business with me again, but screaming fraud from the rooftops on these analyses (so far) is a really bad idea. I'm not sure whether you're on the list I sent this to but, assuming not, here's why:
Agreeing with you [Brad F.] on exit polls (and DBIs), at least when used to verify/challenge results in primaries. As you know, I pretty much started this whole thing on November 2, 2004 and I've put a lot of weight behind exit poll-based forensics. But there are subtleties and limits to what we can conclude. Exit poll analysis is stronger when it is pattern analysis (that is, a pattern discernible over many individual contests) and much stronger when there is a baseline allowing a second-order comparison to be made (a perfect example is the 2016 general election, where the national exit poll was accurate while the swing state exit polls were massively red-shifted - extremely hard to explain as mere exit poll inaccuracy). We don't have that here. We have a few exit polls showing pro-Biden shifts in primaries in a very volatile political moment. Here's why we should slow down:
EPs are more problematic in primaries. Quite a few reasons for this, but mainly it's that gauging the turnout and composition of the electorate (which is what exit pollsters are obliged to do) is a lot trickier than in the general, and the pollsters also can't stratify by party ID as they do in the general. MOE looks like a really solid measure, but all it tells you is the variance of a perfectly random sample of a given size. EPs are NOT perfectly random samples, so there is another measure called TSE (Total Survey Error) that gives a much better idea of accuracy.
In the general election, TSE is usually about MOE x 1.4. In primary elections the multiplier is harder to pin down and may vary a great deal based on a number of factors - but it may be closer to MOE x 2.0. So jumping on any single primary's EP/VC disparity is dangerous. Exit polls can be useful (especially, as noted above, where there is a baseline, as in 2016, where the national EP and the swing-state EPs varied so dramatically in accuracy) for analysis, but you have to recognize that they really come down to turnout guesswork (informed but not always correct), which is much tougher in primaries, especially when events and race dynamics are volatile.
In the case like South Carolina, we also should be looking at it from a potential rigger's standpoint, asking what was to be gained. Riggers are presumptively rational - it doesn't make much sense to rig a whole state to give Biden a slightly bigger win that hardly changes the delegate count at all. Exit poll disparities, especially in primaries, are not such strong evidence in themselves that we can just ignore context and factors such as motive and reward/risk ratios. We don't do ourselves any favors to scream fraud from the rooftops on such quarter-baked forensic evidence. - Jon
Jonathan D. Simon
Executive Director, Election Defense Alliance
Author: CODE RED: Computerized Elections and the War on American Democracy
www.CodeRed2020.com
@JonathanSimon14
617-538-6012
=========
o.
Hisorians for Peace and Democracy
From: Jim O'Brien via H-PAD
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2020
Subject: [H-PAD] H-PAD Notes: Links to recent articles of interest
Links to Recent Articles of Interest
"Gene Genovese and Our Criminally Reckless Wars"
By Andrew J. Bacevich, The American Conservative, posted March 3
On one of many phases of the late controversial historian's career. "His lessons from Vietnam could teach us a lot about the havoc we've wreaked in the Middle East." The author is a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University.
"A New Pentagon Papers or the Same Old Almost Endless War?"
ByHoward Machtinger, Portside.org, posted March 2
A very helpful reminder and capsule analysis, from an anti-imperialist perspective, of the Washington Post's "Afghanistan Papers" expose in December '19, which showed that high-level US officials held views on the war in Afghanistan radically different from what they were telling the public.
"Trump Is Ignoring the Lessons of 1918 Flu Epidemic That Killed Millions, Historian Says"
By Gilliam Brockell, Washington Post, posted February 29
Based on an interview with John M. Barry, author of The Great Influenze: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague in History.
"The Trumps Don't Have a Right to the Taj Mahal"
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment blog, posted February 26
On the travesty of the anti-Muslim politicians Trump and Modi visiting a Muslim shrine. The article includes historical background on Muslims and Hindus in India. The author teaches Middle East history at the University of Michigan.
"Centuries of Fire: Rebel Memory and Andean Utopias in Bolivia"
By Benjamin Dangl, The Abusable Past website, posted February 26
The author teaches at the University of Vermont. This article is drawn from his new book The Five Hundred Year Rebellion: Indigenous Movements and the Decolonization of History in Bolivia (AH Press).
"The Paradoxof America's Endless Wars: They Persist Because They Don't Exist (For Americans)"
By William J. Astore, TomDispatch.com, posted February 25
Compares the "home front" in World War II and the present, while highlighting the ghastly realities of the ongoing wars. The author is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and history teacher.
"Why America's Longest War Has Lasted So Long"
By Paul R. Pillar, Responsible Statecraft, posted February 23
Analyzes reasons for the US's long failure to avoid, and then exit, the Afghanistan quagmire. The author is a 28-yer veteran of the CIA and a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic Studies.
"Has America Ever Been in Such Crisis Before? Yes, Three Times"
By Heather Cox Richardson, History News Network, posted February 23
The author teaches US history at Boston College.
"Where Have You Gone, Smedley Butler? A Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to (Someone Like) You..."
By Danny Sjursen, TomDispatch.com, posted February 20
Smedley Butler was a highly decorated officer during three decades in the Marine Corps who became a prominent antiwar and anti-imperialist public figure in the 1930s. The author, himself a retired US Army major who has taught history in military and civilian schools, asks why no retired generals have spoken out about present-day US wars.
"The Anonymous Women Who Embroidered the Cruel History of the Chilean Dictatorship"
By Rosa Boshier, Hyperallergenic, posted February 20
A short but richly illustrated article based on an ongoing exhibition at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for suggesting articles included in the above list. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.
+
Draining the Intelligence Community Swamp
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/53067.htm
by Philip Giraldi
===========
p.
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2020
Subject: [MCM] Two anti-war vets confront Joe Biden in Oakland:
"Their blood is on your hands!" (MUST-SEE)
Veterans Confront Biden on
War Record at Oakland Super Tuesday Campaign Stop
https://twitter.com/VetsAboutFace/status/1235026472940625921
About
Face: Veterans Against the War
Two veterans confronted
about his record of supporting war during his campaign stopover
in Oakland on Super Tuesday. Read more here- http://bit.ly/bidenvets #DroptheMIC #NoMoreWar