On the Brink of WWIII, A Primer on Russian History-- Facts and Fantasy by Deena Stryker

On the Brink of WWIII, A Primer on Russian History-- Facts and Fantasy by Deena Stryker

When today's pundits talk about Russia as the greatest threat since Hitler's Germany, it's time for a look at Russian history.

The first crucial piece of information in the present context is the fact that Russia began in Kiev. Kievan Rus was "a loose federation^[3] of East Slavic tribes in Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century,^[4] under the reign of the Rurik dynasty. The modern peoples of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestors," Wikipedia reports. No rational discussion of the present crisis is possible without this knowledge.

Image taken from page 457 of 'Russia, Past and Present. Adapted from the German (.Das heutige Russland.) of Lankenau and Oelnitz by Henrieta M. Chester. With map and illustrations'
(image by The British Library)

Now picture the world's largest landmass, (nine time zones to the US's three), much of which lies in the same northerly latitudes as Canada, but, in a crucial difference, with access to the ocean only on its Eastern tip, while the areas bordering on southern seas are inhabited by Muslim peoples. Add now that Russia is the seat of Orthodox Christianity, which in the 13th century was repeatedly attacked from the Roman Catholic and Protestant North and West. (Sergei Eisenstein made a famous film about the attacks by the Teutonic Knights, titled Alexander Nevsky.) According to Wiki, to the Orthodox Church and most princes, the fanatical Northern Crusadersseemed a greater threat to the Russian way of life than the Mongols, who protected and assisted Alexander Nevsky in fighting them.

Russia had been subjugated by Ghengis Khan's Golden Horde's from 1223 to 1240, to which it paid tribute for another four hundred years. For more on the lasting impact of that subjugation see my book review of TIbor Szamuely's The Russian Tradition . (In a similar scourge, the Ottoman empire took over half of Europe, their advance only halted with an unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1529. More on that later in this article.)

Starting with Kievan Rus, Russia, Poland, the Baltic princes, Sweden and Iran fought each other for centuries, so there is no historical record of a specifically 'aggressive' Russia. For hundreds of years, today's Baltic countries, facing onto the northern sea, were Russian principalities, as were Ukraine - and at times, Poland. Following are excerpts devoted to Russia's interactions with its neighbors, from the Wikipedia article on Russian history:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia:

In the 15th century, the grand princes of Moscow went on gathering Russian lands to increase the population and wealth under their rule. The most successful practitioner of this process was Ivan III^[41] who laid the foundations for a Russian national state. Ivan competed with his powerful northwestern rival, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for control over some of the semi-independent Upper Principalities in the Dnieper andOka River basins.^[45][46]

Ivan refused to pay further tribute to the Tatars and initiated a series of attacks that opened the way for the complete defeat of the declining Golden Horde. Ivan and his successors sought to protect the southern boundaries of their domain against attacks of the Crimean Tatars and other hordes.^[49] Although his longLivonian War for the control of the Baltic coast and access to sea trade ultimately proved a costly failure,^[54]Ivan managed to annex the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia.^[55] ". Through these conquests, Russia acquired a significant Muslim Tatar population and emerged as a multiethnic and multiconfessionalstate. Also around this period, the mercantile Stroganov family established a firm foothold at the Urals and recruited Russian Cossacks to colonize Siberia.^[56]

At the end of Ivan IV's reign the Polish--Lithuanian and Swedish armies carried out a powerful intervention in Russia, devastating its northern and northwest regions.^[60] During the Polish--Muscovite War (1605--1618), Polish--Lithuanian forces reached Moscow. The Seven Boyars, a group of Russian nobles recognized the Polish prince WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw IV Vasa as the Tsar of Russia on 6 September [O.S. 27 August] 1610.^[63][64] The Poles entered Moscow on 21 September [O.S. 11 September] 1610, setting the city on fire.^[65][66][67] This "Time of Troubles" resulted in the loss of much territory to the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Russo-Polish war, as well as to the Swedish Empire in the Ingrian War. Fortunately for Moscow, its major enemies, the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden, were engaged in a bitter conflict with each other, which provided Russia the opportunity to make peace with Sweden in 1617 and to sign a truce with the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1619. Recovery of lost territories started in the mid-17th century, when the Khmelnitsky Uprising in Ukraine against Polish rule brought about the Treaty of Pereyaslavconcluded between Russia and the Ukrainian Cossacks.

According to the treaty, Russia granted protection to the Cossacks state in the Left-bank Ukraine, formerly under Polish control. This triggered a prolonged Russo-Polish War which ended with the Treaty of Andrusovo(1667), where Poland accepted the loss of Left-bank Ukraine, Kiev and Smolensk.^[41]

Peter the Great's first military efforts were directed against the Ottoman Turks. His aim was to establish a Russian foothold on the Black Sea by taking the town of Azov.^[76] Peter still lacked a secure northern seaport except at Archangel on the White Sea, whose harbor was frozen nine months a year. Access to the Baltic was blocked by Sweden, whose territory enclosed it on three sides. Peter's ambitions for a "window to the sea" led him in 1699 to make a secret alliance with the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth and Denmark against Sweden resulting in the Great Northern War.

The war ended in 1721 when an exhausted Sweden sued for peace with Russia. Peter acquired four provinces situated south and east of the Gulf of Finland, thus securing his coveted access to the sea. Russian intervention in the Commonwealth marked" the beginning of a 200-year domination of that region by the Russian Empire. In celebration of his conquests, Peter assumed the title of emperor as well as tsar, and Russian Tsardom officially became the Russian Empire in 1721.

By this time, the once powerful Persian Safavid Empire to its south was heavily declining. Taking advantage of the profitable situation, Peter launched the Russo-Persian War (1722-1723) in order to be the first Russian emperor to increase Russian influence in the Caucasus and Caspian Sea. After considerable success and the capture of many provinces and cities in the Caucasus and northern Persia, the Safavids were forced to hand over the territories to Russia. However, 9 years later they would be ceded back to Persia, as part of a Russo-Persian alliance against the Ottoman Empire.^[77]

^{Catherine the Great extended Russian political control over the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth and} successfully waged war against the decaying Ottoman Empire^[80] advancing Russia's southern boundary to the Black Sea. Then, by allying with the rulers of Austria and Prussia, she incorporated the territories of the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth, and during the Partitions of Poland, pushed the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe. Catherine waged a new war against Persia in 1796 after they had again invaded Georgia, expelling the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. By the time of her death in 1796, Catherine's expansionist policy had made Russia into a major European power. This continued with Alexander I'swresting of Finland from the weakened kingdom of Sweden in 1809 and of Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812.

After the Russian armies liberated allied Georgia from Persian occupation in 1802, they clashed with Persiaover control of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Dagestan, and also got involved in the Caucasian War against the Caucasian Imamate. To the south west, Russia attempted to expand at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, using Georgia at its base for the Caucasus and Anatolian front. In the 1828-29 Russo-Turkish War Russia invaded northeastern Anatolia and occupied the strategic Ottoman towns of Erzurum and Gumushane and, posing as protector and savior of the Greek Orthodox population, received extensive support from the region's Pontic Greeks. Following a brief occupation, the Russian imperial army withdrew back into Georgia.

In 1826 another war was fought against Persia, acquiring Armenia, Nakhchivan, Nagorno-Karabakh,Azerbaijan, and IÄŸdır\. By the 1830s, Russia had conquered all Persian territories and major Ottoman territories in the Caucasus.^[91] In 1831 Nicholas crushed a major uprising in Congress Poland; it would be followed by another large-scale Polish and Lithuanian revolt in 1863.

One can see this history as that of a conquering power, or more accurately, as that of powerful neighbors vying for control over various parts of the great Eurasian plain. Europe was no different, the problem being the presence on a very small peninsula of some fifty different nationalities and languages, but Americans do not study either European or Russian history. When the US reluctantly entered the first world war, the common wisdom was that the Europeans couldn't stop squabbling, and the same was true in spades with the Second World War. Although Germany was fingered in both as the aggressor - and by the French as the aggressor in the war of 1870 - Russia was never seen as 'the aggressor' of the Eurasian plain. And for Russians, the problem has always been that of encirclement and access to warm waters.

Napoleon attempted to conquer Russia in the early nineteenth century, courting an ignominious defeat. In the early twentieth century, Russia lost a war with Japan over access to the warm water port of Port Arthur in southern Manchuria. The West tried to roll back the Russian revolution in a war that lasted in various phases and fronts from 1917 to 1925 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War. 

It was invaded by Hitler in World War II, prompting it to hold on to the Baltic States and the countries of Eastern Europe that had been his allies. It was because of the history of attacks on Russia that Roosevelt and Churchill agreed at a meeting with Stalin in Yalta that Eastern Europe, through which these attacks came, would be a Soviet sphere of influence after the war. 

(Notwithstanding today's revisionist allusions, Russia did not 'conquer' Eastern Europe, but rather liberated it from the Nazi occupation. Most historians now admit that without Russia, Germany would not have been defeated.)

At present, 'fears' of Russian 'aggression' center on Poland, the Baltic states, and Moldova (Bessarabia), all of which were the locus of wars in centuries past. With the end of the Cold War, the Baltic States were let go, and the countries of Eastern Europe resumed the task of building independent polities they had started after World War I. Rule by the Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, had contributed in no small measure to their economic and political backwardness with respect to Western Europe. I witnessed the psychological effect of that history first hand when I lived in Poland, then in Hungary, from 1965 to 1971. Poland carries the added burden of having been literally carved up by its European neighbors no fewer than three times over the centuries. All the European countries I have lived in had an acute sense of history, but none so much as Poland. Poland's current attitude toward the conflict in Ukraine is as much tributary of that history as it is of European Union politics, which is why it is so contradictory, ultimately coming down on the side of Ukraine, yet unable to resist bashing it at the same time.

This brings us to the crux of the fabricated dispute that currently risks turning into World War III, complete with nuclear weapons: the accusation, repeated enunciated by President Obama and Secretary Kerry, that by respecting the referendum of the inhabitants of Crimea in favor of rejoining Russia, Vladimir Putin has arbitrarily modified the post-World War II borders. The border between Crimea and Russia was modified in 1954 when Khruschev 'gave it' to Ukraine, which at that time was one of the Soviet Socialist republics that constituted the Soviet Union. As the above history shows, Crimea had been part of Russia since the time of Catherine the Great, AND IT REMAINED SO AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II. So the return of Crimea to Russia cannot be construed as a modification of the borders agreed upon by the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the latter maintaining a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, while Great Britain retained an upper hand over Greece, preventing that country's strong Communist Party from gaining power.

Notwithstanding these historical facts, the Putin-bashing continues. On Fareed Zakaria's GPS Sunday, Christa Vreeland, a journalist who is also a member of the Canadian Parliament, painted a picture of a struggling Russia, claiming that Putin had thought Yanukovich would bring the Ukraine into his Eurasian customs union and 'all would be fine'. But the coup put intolerable internal pressures on Putin, 'his cronies were unhappy, the bourgeoisie destroyed. He didn't want this crisis.' We are expected to believe that without notoriously backward and corrupt Ukraine, Russia would be doomed! Apparently, Vreeland hasn't heard of the BRICS, the Silk Road, and the deepening Russia/China alliance".

On the same program, Bill Browder, grandson of the one-time leader of the American Communist Party and (no small irony) Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, had this to say: 'Putin is entirely rational but he has no morality. He will kill, start wars if it makes him wealthier, or saves him from being arrested. He started a war in Crimea, and says the Ukrainian leaders are fascist nazis backed by US, provoking nationalist fervor.'

To decide how much credibility to grant this man's testimony, starting with his apparent ignorance of the weight of the Neo-Fascist Right Sektor and Svoboda parties within the Ukrainian government, notwithstanding the many videos featuring their thuggish behavior, I suggest you read the lengthy interview he gave to Barrons

http://online.barrons.com/articles/SB51367578116875004693704580437562326826610 in which he details his business dealings in Russia starting in the nineteen-nineties. Readers will be familiar with the death of Barron's lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison, but whatever the circumstances of that death, they do not change Barron's participation in the rape of that country, which he relates with undisguised gusto. Claiming that he wanted Russia to become a normal country where 'the valuations (of stocks) were the same as the West', he is not talking about the rule of law. And this is the man who accuses Putin of being an oligarch!

Finally, as France, Germany and Russia try to resolve the Ukraine crisis through diplomacy, Washington, oblivious to the fact that it is the Europeans who would be on the front-line in a war with Russia, continues to insist that it must 'protect' these allies from Putin's 'aggression'! Possible presidential candidate and uber hawk ally of John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham made the following astonishing statement a few days ago, referring to his colleagues who are against arming the Kiev government: (They) "don't see how arming those who are willing to fight and die for their freedom makes things better (my emphasis)."

On RT this morning, anticipating tomorrow's crucial meeting in Minsk between Ukraine, Russia France and Germany, a retired Deputy Ambassador to NATO and Ambassador to Germany, John Kornblum, echoing Victoria Nuland's famous quip "F.. the EU!", affirmed that 'the real power lies in Washington'. But it doesn't look like a convincing sign of power to claim, as Washington is currently doing, that Vladimir Putin suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, a mental condition whose main symptom is an inability to read social cues! Distancing itself from this latest 'stupid stuff', the psychiatric community is probably wondering why Washington failed to diagnose the severe alcoholism of Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, to whom the Browders of this world are beholden.

Neocons try to run another forgery on the international public by Wayne Madsen

Neocons try to run another forgery on the international public

by Wayne Madsen

The one thing that neo-cons deserve credit on is persistence. Even after the neocons sought to fool the international public with obviously forged foreign ministry documents from Niger that were used by the George W. Bush administration to justify going to war with Iraq and forged Iraqi Oil Ministry documents that were used to tarnish the reputations of several political leaders who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the neocons are at it again. 

This time, a purported arrest warrant for Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman for reaching a deal with Iran to shield Iranian officials wanted for planning the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires was reportedly "found" by investigators in a rubbish bin at the home of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, the alleged author of the arrest warrant. 

Nisman is said to have committed suicide in the bathroom of his Buenos Aires apartment on January 18 of this year. Forensics have shown that there was no other DNA found on the gun Nisman is said to have used to fire a single bullet into his head. Kirchner alleged that Nisman's death may have been a murder carried out by shadowy intelligence figures trying to discredit her and her administration. Kirchner has taken a decidedly anti-Israeli position with her support for Palestine and the establishment of friendly relations with Iran. Kirchner's foreign policy has irked the Israelis and Mossad, which have a heavy presence in Argentina. Kirchner announced that because of her suspicions about agents within the Argentine SIDE intelligence service carrying out a hit on Nisman, she was scrapping the agency and replacing it with a new federal intelligence agency. Presumably, such a move would clean out any Israeli intelligence plants who may have assisted in the possible murder of Nisman -- what would amount to a classic Mossad "false flag" operation in sacrificing a single Jew -- Nisman -- for the greater goals of Israel.

Only photographs of the alleged 26-page arrest warrant were published by the anti-Kirchner newspaper Clarin. Goldman Sachs is a major investor in the Clarin Group, Clarin's parent company. At first, Nisman's assistant prosecutor, Viviana Fein, denied the existence of the arrest warrant. However, she later changed her story and confirmed that the warrant published by Clarin was authentic and that she "mis-spoke" in her earlier statement. It is instructive to note that Nisman was Jewish as is Fein, an important fact that The New York Times chose to ignore in its reporting on the story.

The role of Clarin in disseminating anti-Kirchner is no surprise. The Western media has failed to report that Foreign Minister Timerman, named in the dubious "arrest warrant" is himself a newspaper editor and a longtime competitor, as was his father, Jacobo Timerman, of Clarin. The elder Timerman published the leftist La Opinion and his son, the present Foreign Minister, was editor-in-chief of La Tarde, also left-wing. Attempts by the Israel Lobby to tar Kirchner fall flat in the face of the fact that the Timermans are Jewish but not beholden to Israeli or Zionist interests in Argentina..

Nisman alleged that Kirchner has agreed to swap Argentine grain for Iranian oil in return for dropping Argentina's investigation of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA. On October 24, 2014, WMR reported on the steady warfare being waged by Israel and its allies against Kirchner, both at home and abroad:

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner witnessed her September 24 speech to the UN General Assembly interrupted by what UN officials called "technical difficulties." In fact, Kirchner's speech was censored by the UN amid catcalls from the Israeli delegation and New York Zionist Jews specifically placed by the Israelis in the public gallery to boo those world leaders who criticized the Jewish state's policies.

Kirchner has been subjected to a vicious Zionist campaign launched against its financial system by the Elliott Management Fund, the "vulture" hedge fund owned by New York Zionist and neo-conservative Republican Paul Singer. In 2002, after Argentina defaulted on its debt, Singer's Cayman Islands-based NML Capital Limited bought the devalued Argentina bonds knowing full well he would be lucky to get 30 cents on the dollar. However, Singer began a shake down of Argentina to squeeze more money out of its financially-troubled economy. NML convinced Ghana to seize the Argentine naval training ship Libertad in 2012. Mark Brodsky, Singer's former Elliott Management Fund executive and now head of Aurelius Capital Management, joined in the extortion of Argentina in demanding that a portion of the $1.2 billion debt be paid not only to Singer but also to his fund.

The Israeli media avoids the use of "vulture" funds to describe contrivances like those of Singer and Brodsky. It prefers to use "hold-out funds," which places the onus on the debtors and not the unscrupulous collectors.

A Singer-owned U.S. federal judge in New York, Thomas Griesa, ordered Argentina to pay all the money Singer was demanding instead of a reduced amount. Griesa is 85 years old and is known for taking naps on the bench while hearing cases.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court, on which three American Jews [Ruth Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan] sit and who did not recuse themselves from the case, decided to reject Argentina's appeal of Griesa's ruling.

The Supreme Court's ruling on the Argentina case was purely political. Argentina had determined, contrary to Zionist and neocon myth, that Iran was not responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, which killed 84 people. Kirchner and other Argentine investigators later discovered that the bombing was an Israeli-inspired false flag operation intended to embarrass Argentina's President Carlos Saul Menem, who was the son of Syrian immigrants to Argentina.

Israel was upset with Menem because he strengthened Argentina's ties to Iran. Menem was forced to abandon an Argentine nuclear cooperation deal with Iran following the 1994 bombing of the AMIA.

The U.S. ambassador to Argentina at the time of the bombing James Cheek, told The Nation magazine, "To my knowledge, there was never any real evidence [that Iran was responsible]. They never came up with anything." The only evidence of any links between the bombing and any Iranians is the fact that "evidence" of the Iranian government's alleged involvement was manufactured by the anti-Tehran Iranian terrorist group Mojaheddin-e-Khalq (MEK), which receives funding and other support from Mossad and the CIA.

After the bombing of the AMIA, Mossad planted evidence at the scene. Two years earlier, after a bomb at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires killed 22 people, Mossad also planted evidence suggesting Iran was behind the attack.

Realizing that Menem had been subjected to a vicious character assassination campaign by the Zionist media, Kirchner set about to inform the General Assembly of Israel's culpability in false flag attacks. Perhaps no better setting than the UN could have been used by Kirchner less than a two weeks after the commemoration of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, which amounted to yet another false flag operation that bore all the trademark Mossad handiwork.

After the appearance of the dubious Nisman arrest warrant in Clarin, it was discovered in U.S. State Department cables released by WikiLeaks that Nisman had maintained extensive contacts with the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, which helped him prepare his "case" against Kirchner's government over the AMIA bombing. Nisman continuously met with U.S. embassy officials who helped him hammer out his strategy against Kirchner.

An October 28, 2009 cable from the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires states that Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes David S. Cohen, recently selected to be the deputy director of the CIA, met with Nisman to coordinate efforts to undermine Kirchner:

VZCZCXYZ0000 
OO RUEHWEB 
DE RUEHBU #1168/01 3011522 
ZNY CCCCC ZZH 
O 281522Z OCT 09 
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4526 
INFO RUCNMER/MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE PRIORITY 
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO PRIORITY 0003 
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 001168 
SIPDIS 
TREASURY FOR RFEDEWA 
SAO PAULO FOR WBLOCK 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/28/2029 
TAGS: ECON [Economic Conditions], EFIN [Financial and Monetary Affairs], 
PGOV [Internal Governmental Affairs], 
AR [Argentina] 
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA TRIP REPORT OF A/S TREASURY DAVID COHEN 
Classified By: DCM Tom Kelly for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D).
¶1. (U) Summary. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes David S. Cohen traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 2 to address members of the U.S.-Latin America Private Sector Dialogue (U.S.-LA PSD) and conduct meetings with the Central Bank of the Republic of Argentina (BCRA) and Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (MOJ) . . .
¶7. (C) A/S Cohen also met with Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who in late 2006 formally accused the government of Iran of directing the 1994 Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) bombing, and Hizballah for carrying out the bombing. Earlier this year, Nisman formally requested that the governments of Germany and France freeze four bank accounts containing over US $48 million associated with the AMIA suspects. Nismansaid that he has yet to receive a substantive reply from either Germany or France, and A/S Cohen offered, on behalf of the Treasury Department, to engage counterparts in these two countries to follow up on Nisman's requests. Nisman added that he has also requested that a judge order the arrest of former Argentine president Carlos Menem for participation in a cover-up after the AMIA attack. 
-----------
An additional cable, gated May 2009, shows that Nisman was in Washington to hold meetings with the State and Justice Departments and "other U.S. government agencies." Other cables indicate that the U.S. Justice Department and FBI assisted Nisman in preparfing INTERPOL arrest warrants for Iranian officials suspected in the AMIA bombing.
-----------
VZCZCXYZ0000 
OO RUEHWEB 
DE RUEHBU #0592 1392245 
ZNY CCCCC ZZH 
O 192245Z MAY 09 
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3744 
INFO RUCNMER/MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE 
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT 0051 
RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 1896 
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC 
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC 
RHMCSUU/FBI WASHINGTON DC 
RHMFISS/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC 
RHMFISS/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHINGTON DC 
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 000592 
SIPDIS 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/19/2029 
TAGS: PTER [Terrorists and Terrorism], PREL [External Political Relations], ASEC [Security], MASS [Military Assistance and Sales], 
PHUM [Human Rights], SNAR [Narcotics], KJUS [Administration of Justice], IR [Iran], 
LE [Lebanon], AR [Argentina] 
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA: AMIA SPECIAL PROSECUTOR READY TO ANNOUNCE INDICTMENT OF AMIA BOMBING SUSPECT 

REF: BUENOS AIRES 0247 AND PREVIOUS 
Classified By: Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne for reasons 1.4 (b) & (d). 
¶1. (C) Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman called on the Ambassador May 19 to notify us that the following day he would ask Judge Rodolfo Canicoba-Corral to indict a new suspect in the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA). Nisman described his painstaking effort to establish the suspect's links to both the environs of the AMIA site, a mosque in Buenos Aires, and his links via cell phone calls to Iranian diplomat and bomb plot suspect Mohsen Rabbani and a cell phone in the Tri-Border Area registered in the name of "Marques." Although the suspect, Samuel Salman El Reda, is Lebanese-Colombian, Nisman considered this a first step against a "local connection" -- that is a resident or Argentine citizen who had helped the Iranian and other suspects, a connection long of interest to the victims of the attack and AMIA. Nisman said El Reda has an Argentine wife and thought both are now living in Lebanon. 
¶2. (C) Nisman described the indictment of El Reda as a substantial breakthrough and as asked that we closely hold his name until it is made public, probably on May 20. Post notes that El Reda has been named in the past as a suspect in the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing and the 1994 AMIA bombing, based in part on investigations by the Argentine intelligence service (SIDE) and others. For Nisman, the breakthrough appears to be that he has pieced together enough evidence independently of the discredited first AMIA investigation to single out El Reda and pursue the indictment. 
¶3. (SBU) Post will report further on local reaction when the indictment is made public. 
¶4. (SBU) Action request: Nisman said that he will be in Washington June 15-20 and would be available to visit the Department of State or Department of Justice or other USG agencies for briefings. Washington offices are asked to contact Poloff Ted Craig by email (craigtj@state.gov) or phone (54 11-5777-4858) to arrange a meeting. 
WAYNE
***********

The alleged arrest warrant for Kirchner and Timerman was supposedly drafted by Nisman in June 2014. Two successive judges, Ariel Lijo and Daniel Refecas have passed on considering Nisman's case against Kirchner due to lack of evidence and other procedural issues. 





The alleged Argentine prosecutorial arrest warrant for Kirchner, Timerman, and National Deputy Andres Larroque has the same neocon "taint" about it as did the forged Niger government and Iraqi Oil Ministry documents. The neocons' stock-in-trade, thanks to the sometimes half-witted efforts of their Mossad allies, include crude forgeries, fake passports, and fake videos and photographs.



   
Forged Niger Foreign Ministry documents purprting to show that Iraq had obtained yellow cake uranium Niger. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the CIA determined the documents were crude forgeries.


British MP George Galloway's meetings with Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz were used by the neocons to intimate that he had received bribes from Saddam's government as part of the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program. Crudely forged documents, with "Liquid Paper" edits clearly visible were "found" by Western intelligence at the Oil Ministry and used to tarnish anti-war Western politicians in Britain, France, Russia, and other countries.

Anglican vicar a target of "Anti-Gentilism" from Zionist quarters by Wayne Madsen

Anglican vicar a target of "Anti-Gentilism" from Zionist quarters

WMR has recently reported on the growing threat of "anti-Gentilism" in Europe most notably seen in the virulent anti-Christian and anti-Islamic cartoons published by the recent Rothschild family-acquired French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, sexually-explicit attacks on churches and mosques by George Soros-funded and -inspired feminist groups like FEMEN and Pussy Riot, and attacks by Zionist groups on mainstream Christian denominations that support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) initiative against Israel.

Reverend Stephen Sizer, Church of England vicar of Christ Church of Virginia Water in Surrey, England and a staunch defender of the rights of Palestinians and repressed Christians in the Middle East is facing a barrage of crticism over posting on his Facebook page a link to an article titled "9/11: Israel Did It." Sizer posted the following question and statement: "Is this anti-Semitic? It raises so many questions."

Although there is overwhelming evidence from law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world that Israel was culpable in organizing and carrying out the 9/11 attack on the United States in a typical Israel "false flag" operation, Sizer is facing demands by the Board of Deputies of British Jews for his dismissal by the Church of England. Although Sizer apologized for posting the link, the Jewish Board has always had Sizer in its cross hairs for his principled pro-Palestinian stance.

The Diocese of Guildford, which oversees Sizer's church, appeared ready to carry out the British Jewish board's demands and throw Sizer under the bus. A spokesman for the diocese said, "It [the Facebook post] was particularly insensitive in that last week coincided with Holocaust Memorial Day."
 
Whether its their condemnation of Stephen Sizer [left] or Pope Francis [right], the hypocrisy of the spokesparties for political Jewry has no end.

However, for Zionists, any comment critical of their Talmudic political movement and Israel always comes at "insensitive" times considering the number of holidays that Talmudic Zionism celebrates in a single year. And the demands by Zionists to sanction Christian prelates for their views on Israel and Zionism are growing with the Zionists launching a vicious attack last June against Pope Francis I after he prayed on Israel's "Separation Wall" that divides Israelis and Palestinians. The neocon Jerusalem Postcalled Francis a "liar" for pointing out that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew and intimated that the Christian messiah was a Palestinian, not an Israeli. Of course, the Zionists charged Francis with anti-Semitism, the only canard those who have no other arguments, rely on when they are called out on their blatant historical and biblical revisionism. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that a sect based on exceptionalism and exclusion finds it necessary to attack the leaders of a religion based on inclusiveness.


WMR editor top tier, third from right, at Tehran policy conference with Rev. Stephen Sizer, bottom tier, 7th from left

Israel supporters want to have it both ways. They condemn and want sanctioned Christian leaders who point out the evils incarnate with modern-day Israel. However, when it comes to rabbis supporting "price tag" arson, window breaking, and graffiti attacks against Christian properties in Israel and the Occupied Territories, they remain silent. There are no calls for offensive rabbis to be stripped of their religious titles and tossed out of Jewish institutions. Haredi Orthodox rabbis have urged their followers to spit on Christians in Israel and the Occupied West Bank. Where were the calls by international Jewry to ostracize and abandon three rabbis -- Rabbis Yitzhak Ginzburg, Yaakov Yosef, and Yitzhak Shapiro -- for endorsing the following statement in 2009?: "If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments -- because we care about the commandment -- there is nothing wrong with the murder." Why was not Rabbi Yaacov Perrin dismissed from his office for making the following statement in 1994 at the eulogy for Baruch Goldstein who opened fire and killed 39 Muslims praying at a mosque in Hebron?: "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail."

Christians expect their leaders to always tell the truth, even when that truth hurts a Christian or someone other than a Christian who attacks Christianity. Dr. Stephen Sizer and Pope Francis I have told the truth about Israel and the Talmudic Zionists who pose a threat to the peace of the entire planet.

In the interest of full disclosure, this editor's first intended career path was to attend St. Olaf College in Minnesota on an Air Force ROTC scholarship and eventually become a Lutheran minister after serving a chaplaincy in the Air Force. Although that career trajectory went off into a different area entirely, I have great respect for mainstream and traditional Christian ministers like Stephen Sizer who "answered the call" and serve their congregations, their nations, and those around the world, like the Palestinians and the dwindling Christian population of the Middle East, who are caught between Talmudic "anti-Gentilism" and foreign-supported cults like Daesh that falsely claim to represent Islam. Both notions are foul and deserve nothing but ostracism and condemnation. Perhaps the Board of Deputies of British Jews should look in their own backyard before they make demands of a religion they neither recognize nor historically respected.

Ukraine's "Flying Dutchman" Weapons Transport Makes Its Rounds by Wayne Madsen

Ukraine's "Flying Dutchman" Weapons Transport Makes Its Rounds

In a repeat of the Central Intelligence Agency's globe hopping weapons transport cargo planes of the Iran-Contra scandal and the more recent Libyan rebel supply caper to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi, a Ukrainian Antonov AN-124 (tail number UR-82072) heavy lifter military transport plane, denoted as an "International Cargo Transport" and belonging to the "Antonov Transport Bureau," astonished residents around Belgrade's Nikola Tesla International Airport in Serbia when it landed there on January 28, 2015. The Ukrainian plane, the world's largest aircraft, was a rare sight at an airport in a country that generally supports Russia in its conflict with Kiev.

In September of last year, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that a number of NATO countries have agreed to deliver weapons to Ukrainian forces, which consist not only of regular Ukrainian troops but irregular battalions supported by billionaire Ukrainian-Israeli warlord Ihor Kolomoisky consisting of neo-Nazis, U.S. and other private military forces, and ex-Israel Defense Force personnel. At the time of the September 2014 NATO summit in Wales, Ukrainian presidential adviser Yuri Lutsenko said that the United States, France, Poland, Norway and Italy had agreed to supply weapons to Ukraine and Canada later revealed that it had also commenced weapons transfers to the Kiev putschist regime.

Ukraine's military forces have received so much NATO military aid and assistance and personnel, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said that the Ukrainian Army is acting as NATO's "foreign legion." There are also credible reports that NATO has supplied the Kiev regime with deadly cluster bombs that are being used against the largely Russian-speaking civilian population of the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.


Antonov AN-124 (UR-82072) military transport plane suspected of ferrying weapons to Kiev seen on January 29, 2015 at Belgrade airport.

The AN-124 that landed in Belgrade appears to have been ferrying weapons from a number of known NATO air terminals used for such purposes. After arriving in Bucharest, Romania on January 23, 2015 from the Italian island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Libya, the aircraft departed on January 23 for New Jersey in the United States. Lampedusa was a major staging base for NATO weapons supplies to Libyan rebels during the Western- and Islamist-inspired rebellion against the Qaddafi government. Bucharest has become a major base for NATO military support to Kiev.

On January 25, the Antonov departed Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey for Trondheim, Norway. On January 26, the Ukrainian transport plane left Trondheim for Prestwick Airport, Glasgow, Scotland. The plane departed Prestwick on January 28 and touched down the same day at Belgrade. Prestwick was a favorite transit hub used by the CIA for the rendition of detainees following 9/11.

The United States has positioned six storage units located in the mountains of Norway’s central Trøndelag region, the capital of which is Trondheim. U.S. military equipment, including tanks and armored personnel vehicles, are stored at two Norwegian Air Force stations in the area, one of them being co-located with Trondheim Airport Værnes where the Ukrainian Antonov landed on January 26.


Antonov (UR-82072) coming in for a landing at Nikola Tesla International Airport in Belgrade on January 28.

Ukrainian transport UR-82072 plane flight from Glasgow to Belgrade on January 28.
The Antonov's destination after it left Belgrade was Mombasa, Kenya via Athens. The plane was reported by Serbian sources to be carrying "special cargo" weapons. It is conceivable that UR-82072 dropped off in Athens for further shipment to Ukraine weapons loaded at NATO airports in Lampedusa, Glasgow, and Trondheim, as well as Serbian caches placed on board in Belgrade and, perhaps, U.S. weapons stored at Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County, New Jersey, the Defense Department's Specialty Site for Guns and Ammunition, and Naval Weapons Station Earle, New Jersey. Both weapons bases are in close proximity to Newark Liberty International. The AN-124 is permanently based at Kiev's Gostomel Airport.


Helicopter being placed on board Ukraine's "Flying Dutchman" weapons transport.
Ever since fighting broke out between Ukrainian forces and Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine, the mysterious Ukrainian AN-124 has been spotted around the world, likely picking up weapons. On June 18, 2014, it was seen at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport. Before that, it was seen on May 22, 2014 at Las Palmas, Canary Islands, in what may have been a refueling stop. On January 1 and 6, 2015 and November 23, 2014, it was spotted at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany; on July 2, 2014, it was Luqa International in Malta (Malta was another staging base for weapons supplies to anti-Qaddafi forces during the Libyan civil war); and on April 15, 2014 at Francisco Sa Carneiro Aiport, Porto, Portugal and a week later, on April 27, at Schwechat Airport in Vienna.

SPECIAL REPORT. Epstein plea deal with feds protected Bill Clinton and the House of Bush by Wayne Madsen

SPECIAL REPORT. Epstein plea deal with feds protected Bill Clinton and the House of Bush by Wayne Madsen

WMR obtained the heretofore sealed Non-Prosecution Agreement (NPA) struck between lawyers for billionaire Florida registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and George W. Bush-era federal prosecutors. Epstein received the NPA after he was charged with soliciting sex from an alleged "prostitute." However, the so-called "prostitute" was actually a 14-year old girl who was recruited by a network of Epstein's employees who basically served as child sex traffickers and pimps.

Lawyers for Epstein attempted to block federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Kenneth Marra from unsealing the NPA as per the wishes of attorneys for four child sex trafficking victims known as Jane Does 1 through 4. However, Marra decided to unseal the NPA on January 21 and WMR was present at the Paul G. Roberts Federal Building to obtain a copy of the NPA. However, it was also discovered that the publicly-accessible case database maintained in the court's clerk's office has been malfunctioning recently and court records are difficult to retrieve. An employee for the clerk's office told WMR that the computer system was to have been fixed but that no steps have been taken to restore ease of access to court records.

The NPA was agreed to on October 30, 2007 by U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta. Although Acosta later criticized the plea deal in an open letter, he did not respond to WMR's request for an interview on the current case in which four of Epstein's victims are suing the U.S. government claiming that the NPA violated their rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act. The victims, who are now adults, claim that the federal government's NPA with Epstein violated the 2004 CVRA. The government argues that because Epstein was never charged with a federal crime, the victims have no rights under the CVRA. In their request to Marra to unseal the NPA, the attorneys for the Jane Does, said that the federal government and Epstein colluded "to avoid a firestorm of public controversy that would have erupted if the sweetheart plea deal with a politically-connected billionaire had been revealed."

The NPA was signed on behalf of Acosta by A. Marie Villafana, the then-Assistant U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida who is now the U.S. Attorney under Attorney General Eric Holder. The plea deal with Epstein was concluded after the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami and the FBI investigated Epstein separately from the investigation conducted by the Palm Beach County Police Department and the Florida Attorney's Office.  The deal cut between Acosta and Villafana and the state of Florida, which was then under the governorship of then-Republican Governor Charlie Crist and Republican Attorney-General Bill McCollum stated that the federal government would defer to Florida the prosecution of Epstein. Acosta has gone on to become the dean of the law school of Florida International University in Miami.

The NPA also stipulated that a list of individuals who the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami and the FBI has identified as victims of Epstein's sexual abuse and trafficking would be provided to Epstein's attorneys who included Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. Jane Doe 3, identified as Virginia Roberts, has claimed that Dershowitz has sex with her while she was a minor. Dershowitz has vigorously denied the allegations and he has cited a "conspiracy" against him by anti-Semites who are getting even for his longtime support for Israel. Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories by Dershowitz aside, the fact remains that the NPA immunized all of Epstein's co-conspirators, who allegedly include Dershowitz, former President Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew of Britain from future federal prosecution. The NPA states: ". . . the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Goff, or Nadia Marcinkova." The NPA also suspended the federal Grand Jury investigation against Epstein and held ion abeyance all federal Grand Jury subpoenas in the case against Epstein. These subpoenas presumably included those directed to witnesses in the case, individuals that likely include Dershowitz, Clinton, and Andrew.

Flight manifests of Epstein's Gulfstream jet and Boeing 727 indicate that Epstein's passengers were often a mix of underage sex traffic victims and some of the world's most powerful politicians and businessmen. These include Clinton, Dershowitz, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Chicago Pritzker family chieftain and Hyatt Hotels executive chairman Thomas Pritzker (the first cousin of U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker), and failed Palm Beach mayoral candidate Gerry Goldsmith.

Epstein's Gulfstream II-B (N909JE) has, along with his Boeing 727, been spotted at Paris's Le Borguet Airport in frequent occasions. Epstein's Sikorsky S-76B helicopter has been seen flying between Palm Beach International and Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. Epstein's Cessna 172-XP has flown to and from Double Eagle II Airport outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico.



Epstein's Boeing 727-31 on ground at Prague's Vaclav Havel International Airport in May 2004. Tail number N908JE. It's the same plane that Bill Clinton flew on.

Also appearing on the flight manifests are the names of some of the alleged victims of Epstein's sex trafficking: Virginia Roberts, Cindy Lopez,   Other passengers are only listed by their first names: Colleen, Tatianna, Margarita, Carolina, Lisa, Margaret, Dana, Julie, and Jessica. Epstein's two major pimps are also frequent flyers on Epstein's "Pederast Airlines" -- Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of the late publishing tycoon and Mossad asset Robert Maxwell, and Sarah Kellen (now Sarah Kensington), the girlfriend of NASCAR driver Brian Vickers.




Alan Dershowitz's name appears on Epstein flight manifests on flights from Bedford, Massachusetts to Teterboro Airport, New Jersey (Feb. 5, 2004) and Pierre Trudeau International in Montreal (Nov. 17, 2005). "AD" appears to be Alan Dershowitz on a Nov. 17, 2005 flight from Teterboro to Palm Beach International Airport along with"JE" (Jeffrey Epstein) and "SE" (Sarah Kellen) and another flight from Bedford to Teterboro with Epstein ("JE"), Tatianna, and an "AM."


Larry Summers's name appears on a Sep. 14, 2005 flight with Epstein from Bedford, Massachusetts to Westchester County Airport, New York.


Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's Boeing 727 from Miami to Westchester, New York on February 9, 2002 with Epstein, four Secret Service agents (has the recent prosecution of Secret Service agents for liaising with prostitutes been an attempt to intimidate them if they ever decide to speak out about Clinton on Epstein's flights?), "2 males" (unidentified), "1 female" (unidentified), Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen, and a "BP."

It is noteworthy that Charlie Crist, who became a Democrat after leaving the Republican Party and becoming an independent, received the enthusiastic backing of Bill Clinton in Crist's failed bid to oust GOP Governor Rick Scott last year. It now appears that Clinton may have owed Crist more than a political favor as details begin to emerge of the Crist administration's deal with Acosta in Miami to immunize Clinton from any future prosecutions in the Epstein case. Although the NPA with Epstein was agreed upon during the Crist and McCollum tenure, Epstein's 2005 arrest for having sex with a 15-year old and the onset of his attorneys' back-and-forth with the government occurred during the Jeb Bush administration and his Attorney General Crist. The U.S. Attorney General from 2005, when Epstein was first charged with having sex with an underage minor, to October 2007, when the plea deal was signed with Epstein, was Alberto Gonzales, President George W. Bush's former chief counsel. The Epstein case, therefore, tarnishes both the Clintons and the Bushes.

Up to 40 women have been identified as being the victims of sexual abuse by Epstein. Court records indicate the number may be higher with one reference to a Jane Doe 103.

Epstein's 97-page address book, called the "Holy Grail," contains the personal phone numbers and email addresses for some of the world's most rich and famous, which, in addition to Clinton, includes Prince Andrew, John Kerry, Donald Trump (also a resident of Palm Beach), Tony Blair and his chief spokesman Alastair Campbell, Ehud Barak, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, George Mitchell, Henry Kissinger, Andrew Cuomo, Itzhak Perlman, Dustin Hoffman, Tea party financier David Koch, former newspaper tycoon and convicted felon Conrad Black and his extreme pro-Israel wife Barbara Black, Andrew's former girlfriend and porn actress Koo Stark, and Mick Jagger. Epstein is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Prince Andrew used the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland as a platform where he denied allegations that he was involved in Epstein's underage sex ring. Virginia Roberts  (Jane Doe 3) alleges that she had sex with Andrew when she was still a minor.




Andrew [far left] with 17-year old Virginia Roberts (Jane Doe 3) [center] and Ghislaine Maxwell [right] in 2001.
WMR also obtained from federal court records unsealed on January 21 a partially-released transcript of an April 7, 2011 telephone conversation between attorneys Brad Edwards, who is representing Roberts and other Jane Does, and Jack Scarola, who was representing Edwards. In the conversation, Roberts recounts that Epstein was presented with two 12-year old girls from France as a "birthday gift." The two girls were said to be from poor families in France. Roberts recalled how Epstein sent her when she was 19 to Thailand to learn Thai-style massages. However, in Thailand, Roberts said she met an Australian kick boxer, fell in love with and married him, and moved to Australia. Before that Epstein asked Roberts to bear his child and sign it over to him and Maxwell. Epstein offered Roberts a mansion and a monthly allowance if she agreed to the terms. Roberts opted instead to move to Australia with her husband. 

Epstein Non-Prosecution Agreement with Bush-era Justice Department with connivance of Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum:

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The victims of Epstein's sex slave ring may never see justice or adequate compensation. Attorneys for the victims, who are scattered from West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, appear as interested in grabbing hefty contingency fees in the event of successful suits against Epstein as much as Epstein's well-paid attorneys are interested in limiting Epstein's financial drain.