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)  

 

 

Subject :  The Crimes of War and Imperialism: A Capitalist Imperative.

 

  

 

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

http://www.ceimsa.org 

 

 

 

 

a.

The Alternative World

 

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”

https://youtu.be/QwIZdQVJAL4

 with Michael Moore

(3:07)

 

===========

 

b.

The Corbett Report

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

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/01/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

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2014/10/day-israel-attacked-america-20141028144946266462.html

(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

https://www.timesofisrael.com/bloomberg-to-aipac-ill-never-condition-aid-to-israel-no-matter-whos-pm/

+

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 TimesWashington 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

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/27/syrian-journalist-corrects-the-record-on-mainstream-medias-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/turkey-russia--arm-wrestling.JPG

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.

News From Underground

 

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

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/02/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

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/julian-assange-father-greatest-worry-die-jail-200301081432110.html

 +

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

https://youtu.be/QXtpaWyNjKg

with Joe Lauria and Chris Hedges

(28:49)

+

WikiLeaks – public enemy Julian Assange

https://youtu.be/pgw6FoFPhjo

(28:24)

+

Julian Assange is Being Prosecuted for Exposing Human Rights Abuses- UN Torture Rapporteur"

https://youtu.be/BU8GXnXjU5U

with UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer

(28:16)

+

Julian Assange Court Updates - Recap by Taylor Hudak & Interview with George Galloway

https://youtu.be/8yytW-QjQzg

(10:25)

+

Julian Assange - Summary of Court Hearings

https://youtu.be/FJ2opbaXurA

 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/julian-seath.JPG

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"

https://youtu.be/I181RKgtPs0

 

===========

 

g.

News From Underground

 

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

https://popularresistance.org/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

https://youtu.be/4zYAH-BZZTs

 with Cornel West and Richard Wolff

(25:29)

+

The Darker Myths of Empire: Heart of Darkness Series

https://youtu.be/OOF56wYTl1w

 with Michael Parenti

(1:23:01)

 

===========

i.

Parenti: communism did work for millions of people

https://youtu.be/6Tmi7JN3LkA

(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

https://youtu.be/NzLMzbR2JJw

(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

https://youtu.be/p5Ac7ap_MAY

 by filmmaker Michael Oswald

(1:32:39)

+

97% Owned – “Economic Truth documentary - How is Money Created”

https://youtu.be/XcGh1Dex4Yo

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

Image result for map of US primary 2020 election results

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2020/mar/03/super-tuesday-results-primaries-democratic-delegates-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

  by Ryan Lizza

 

===========

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

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/05/stop-calling-it-a-stutter%E2%80%8A-%E2%80%8Ahere-are-dozens-of-examples-of-bidens-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.

News From Underground

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.

News From Underground

 

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

@VetsAboutFace

 

15h

Two veterans confronted

@JoeBiden

about his record of supporting war during his campaign stopover in Oakland on Super Tuesday. Read more here- http://bit.ly/bidenvets #DroptheMIC #NoMoreWar