The infamous aluminum tubes that were a vital piece of the tapestry of lies making the case that Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear weapons was a critical component in selling the American people on the need for the Shock and Awe attack on Iraq. The story was given added heft in that it was published in the exalted New York Times and was used by the Bush-Cheney regime despite the fact that the story was a lie but not revealed as such until well after it had served the purpose. It was a neocon plant in the nation's newspaper of record although that led to the attack and invasion of a country that did not even remotely threaten Americans.
The writers responsible for that whopper of an aluminum tube story were the now disgraced Judith Miller - who was later embroiled in the intentional outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame that ultimately resulted in the takedown of Dick Cheney's hatchet man Scooter Libby - as well as another reporter named Michael Gordon. Mr. Gordon however is back as an embedded stenographer for the warmongers and his recent piece (where he shares the byline with two others) in the New York Times once again serves as a vital cog in the war propaganda machine.
The NYT story, featuring pictures that proved that Russian provocateurs were indeed instigating the anti-austerity rebellion in Eastern Ukraine, were a big hit. The problem is that the pictures were bogus and the story was quietly retracted just days after it was published. It didn't pass the smell test from the onset, that is at least with professionals like Robert Parry of Consortium News who immediately questioned Gordon's involvement and then did a well-deserved victory lap over the retraction - once again the alternative media put the establishment to shame. But in the surreal world the piece was picked up as the latest critical piece of 'evidence' in the Obama regime's case to justify the bizarre and furious push towards a war with Russia.
Not that the retraction - buried inside the paper - matters. The damage was done and the public that has been conditioned to get their McNews in bit-sized bits and pieces, being the headline readers that they are, won't notice that it was all more Kiev crap. Gordon and the White House made a big deal out of the legitimacy of the photos, as per the original piece "Photos Link Masked Men in East Ukraine to Russia." I excerpt:
For two weeks, the mysteriously well-armed, professional gunmen known as "green men" have seized Ukrainian government sites in town after town, igniting a brush fire of separatist unrest across eastern Ukraine. Strenuous denials from the Kremlin have closely followed each accusation by Ukrainian officials that the world was witnessing a stealthy invasion by Russian forces.
Now, photographs and descriptions from eastern Ukraine endorsed by the Obama administration on Sunday suggest that many of the green men are indeed Russian military and intelligence forces -- equipped in the same fashion as Russian special operations troops involved in annexing the Crimea region in February. Some of the men photographed in Ukraine have been identified in other photos clearly taken among Russian troops in other settings.
That the pics provided by the coup regime and "endorsed by the Obama administration" were exposed as based on lies (they weren't taken in Russia) is not in any way stopping the ongoing push towards confrontation with Russia and the detested Putin whose humiliation of Obama with saving NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden from a US torture gulag then preventing a war on Syria based on more lies has the man of hope and change hellbent on not being punked again. Preceding the Michael Gordon presstitution was of course that discredited hoax about masked men handing out leaflets in Donestk demanding that Jews register with the authorities. The word that this was a crock of sh*t (interestingly coming right after CIA director John Brennan visited Kiev) either did not reach Obama administration officials or they are in on the con because they are still using it. The anti-Semitism card is a very powerful tool; this is especially so in The Homeland where those with agendas that serve the right-wing regime of Benjamin Netanyahu play it early and often to discourage honest reportage on the Israel-Palestinian crisis. That is another story for another time though. The point is that the leaflets are still being used by those in the US power structure to further demonize Russia.
Joe Biden, possibly the dumbest motherf*cker to occupy the office of Vice President - at least since Dan Quayle - who just completed his virtuoso whirlwind tour of bullshit visiting the coup government in Kiev invoked the anti-Semite talisman once again. In a piece published by The Times of Israel entitled "Biden in Kiev: "'No place' for anti-Semitism in Ukraine" I excerpt the following:
Addressing a reported uptick in anti-Jewish actions in Ukraine, including a flyer distributed in the eastern city of Donetsk calling on Jews to register with pro-Russian authorities, Biden said the US condemned any threat or attack on the Jewish community in Ukraine.
"Just as corruption can have no place in the new Ukraine, neither can anti-Semitism or bigotry," said Biden, standing alongside acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Let me say that again, neither can anti-Semitism or bigotry. No place. None. Zero. The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms all threats and attacks against Ukrainian Jewish communities as well as Roma and others, as you do, as well, I know, Mr. Prime Minister."
In his remarks, Yatsenyuk did not address anti-Semitism or attacks on Jewish institutions, making do with a broader reference to meeting "the highest standards of protecting human rights and the rights of citizens."
Biden also warned Russia on Tuesday that "it's time to stop talking and start acting" to reduce tension in its neighbor to the southwest, offering a show of support for the besieged nation as an international agreement aimed at stemming its ongoing crisis appeared in doubt.
That this asinine man can dare to stand right next to the US puppet "Yats" and get on his high horse over some black propaganda anti-Semitic leaflets ignoring the fact that "Yats" occupation was accomplished largely with the help of neo-Nazis and fascist extremists from Svoboda and Right Sector who are really Jew haters is jaw-dropping. That this massive scandal in the use of American taxpayer money to finance neo-Nazis even more so. Those US-backed anti-Semites in the Ukrainian government are never mentioned by any of the corrupt water carriers in the American media, particularly when it comes to turds like David Gregory and Michael Gordon and certainly not by Biden nor the buffoon that is Secretary of State John Kerry. It doesn't fit the Putin-as-Hitler narrative.
While Biden may be the dumbest VP since Quayle he pales in comparison to Secretary of State John Kerry who in the aftermath of his latest foreign-policy disaster - the Israel-Palestine peace talks going up in flames - continues his trademark finger-wagging and bloviating about sanctions on Russia. The latest Kerry threat being that of an "expensive mistake" and Obama, who is nothing more than a foot stool for corporations and Wall Street, is doing likewise in pushing the EU t o support upping the financial punishment against Russia - at some point, if not already, this is an act of war and Putin is to be commended for his restraint. These rich f*ckers just don't get it; they like the rest of the American looter capitalist class think that everything can be reduced to money and that in declaring economic warfare against a nuclear power, especially Russia with its nationalist history, resentment about being screwed over the terms of the breakup of the USSR after the Cold War by double-dealing American political swine who then expanded NATO and began surrounding Russia with missiles and the fact that the US establishment started this mess in the first place. The hysterics over the 40,000 Russian troops on the border of Ukraine is nonsense because the forces are IN RUSSIA although thanks to the Obama administration and the imminent coming rampage of US-backed extremist death squads Russia has ordered the commencement of military exercises. With Obama's dispatching of hundreds of special forces troops to Poland this thing just continues to verge on spinning completely out of control.
The reigning US political class, poisoned by years of exposure to a toxic neocon ideology and presided over by easily offended nincompoops like Obama, Biden, and their man over at Foggy Bottom, are just lusting for a new Cold War. Kerry, being prone to chronic bouts of diarrhea of the mouth, said as much when he waxed nostalgic the other day about the good old days in a moment when the veil slipped during a speech at the State Department (from RT because something this idiotic will likely be scrubbed from US accounts):
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
6
5
4
