CIA’s Favorite Channels: New York Times & Lobbies That Advocate For Fethullah Gulen

Sibel Edmonds (Boiling Frogs Post) - Recently Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey would officially request the extradition of US-based Mullah Fethullah Gulen- a Turkish preacher in Pennsylvania with a $20+ billion network, whose followers have been accused of trying to eliminate PM Erdogan’s government.

The New York Times began parading various agenda-driven analysts and experts, showcasing Gulen-connected figures, and attacking Turkey’s Erdogan in a one-sided lobbying effort. Before I go any further, allow me to illustrate the New York Times’ vehement, bold and one-sided defense of Gulen with verbatim quotes [All Emphasis Mine]:

    Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist government and the supporters of Gulen, who promotes a moderate, pro-Western brand of Sunni Islam that appeals to many well-educatedand professional Turks.

I know our regular readers and supporters don’t need the bold emphases to explain the propaganda with its carefully picked words. For those who are not familiar with our extensive coverage of Mullah Gulen take notice of how Erdogan’s government is being characterized with one word, Erdogan’s Islamist government- a word often used and highlighted by Western propaganda outlets, aka mainstream media, with negative connotations and in close association with global terrorism.
Now, please pay attention to all the false positive adjectives and characterization used by NYT to present Mullah Fethullah Gulen: Moderate, Pro-Western, Well-Educated, Professional.

Oh, golly- Who is the Mullah here?!

You see, this is such a classic with the US government-fed propaganda outlets, aka US mainstream media. They first set the tone based on the objectives handed to them by their bosses. In this case: The CIA and the State Department.

The readers, the uninformed readers, are pointed towards the intended false direction: An Islamist Government versus a moderate pro-Western man with well-educated and professional followers.

Let’s continue [All Emphasis Mine]:

    “This extradition request has no legal basis,” said Ergun Ozbudun, a professor of law at Istanbul Sehir University, noting the considerable difficulty surrounding extradition requests even when suspects are charged with serious crimes. “The request for Fethullah Gulen’s extradition therefore would be a political one, and I don’t think would produce any results.”
    Lawyers for Mr. Gulen, who has permanent resident status in the United States, agreed. “There is neither an investigation nor an arrest warrant issued by court in place to submit to the U.S. authorities,” said Nurullah Albayrak, an Istanbul (Constantinople) lawyer who represents Mr. Gulen. “This is not something that political will can decide.”
    A Gulen-affiliated group in New York, the Alliance for Shared Values, denounced Mr. Erdogan’s move, saying, “The prime minister’s talk about demanding the extradition of Mr. Gulen, when there are no charges or legal case against him, is a clear indication of political persecution and harassment.”

NYT picks one pro-Gulen legal expert, one lawyer who represents Mullah Gulen, and Gulen’s own organization, and establishes the extradition request as political with no legal basis.

Now, let me go over this article for the fifth time, and see whether NYT showcases any so-called legal experts from the other side- one that puts forth the legal basis for this extradition request. I’m looking, looking, looking, and ooops: I have reached the end of the lobby-propaganda piece, and there is not a single legal opinion or analysis from the other side!

How amazing is that?!

Finally, after showcasing Mullah Gulen’s confident denial of all documented accusations against him, without showcasing a single analyst or legal expert for the other side, the New York Times concludes its propaganda-lobby piece with the following paragraph:

    In general, for the United States to approve an extradition request from another country, the person must be accused of a crime recognized in both jurisdictions, and there must be a reasonable belief that the person did commit the crime. It was not clear whether Turkey’s request would satisfy either requirement.

Now that we have established this editorial by the New York Times clearly as a one-sided lobby and propaganda piece for Mullah Gulen, ask yourself the following questions:

Why did the New York Times jump to defend the Gülen Movement and the controversial Mullah?

Whose interests is the New York Times really representing here?

Why?

You see, this propaganda-lobby piece follows another equally propaganda-lobby piece that was published by the Washington Post a few months back.

In January this year, The Washington Post dutifully provided a platform for three outspoken Israel Lobbyists who are jointly calling on the Obama Administration to overthrow the current Turkish Administration.

You heard it right.

Morton Abramowitz, Eric Edelman and Blaise Misztal jointly penned a hysteria-reeked article to declare Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan a despot, and a great threat to democracy and U.S. interests. Let’s provide a few excerpts from this propaganda-ridden article :

    Whatever his achievements over the past decade, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is destroying his country’s parlous democracy. That is a profound problem for Turks and Turkey’s Western allies. Staying silent, out of fear that speaking out would harm some short-term interests, risks Turkey’s longer-term stability.
    Turkey’s democratic decline creates a pressing dilemma for the United States. Erdogan’s current course would take Turkey from an imperfect democracy to an autocracy. Such a fate for a close ally and NATO member would have profound implications for our partnership, the United States’ beleaguered credibility and the prospects for democracy in the region.
    U.S. policymakers should lay aside their reluctance to confront the disastrous impact of Erdogan’s dictatorial tendencies and remind the Turkish leader of the importance the United States attaches to Turkey’s political stability and democratic vitality. Particularly as their influence is greater than it appears…
    Erdogan is doing great harm to Turkey’s democracy. The United States should make clear, privately and publicly, that his extreme actions and demagoguery are subverting Turkey’s political institutions and values and endangering the U.S.-Turkey relationship.

Mort Abramowitz is a known neocon, Israel lobbyist, CIA and State Department Operative, and PNAC signatory, and has been one of Fethullah Gulen’s main handlers and backers.

In fact, when the FBI and Homeland Security Department tried to kick the Islamic Mullah out of the United States, Abramowitz was one of the first Gulen CIA-State Department handlers to step in.

As for Eric Edelman?

Let’s go back nine years and check him out in my State Secrets Gallery: I presented the State Department-CIA’s Eric Edelman as one of the top culprits in my State Secrets Privilege Case – when the government invoked the State Secrets Privilege and several additional gag orders to cover up the FBI’s investigations and files pertaining to CIA-NATO terror operations in Central Asia & the Caucasus since the mid-1990s.

Just like Abramowitz, Edelman is known as an avid Israel lobbyist and a neocon.

If you haven’t already, please refer to my article and interview where I discuss and emphasize the role of Turkish Mullah Fethullah Gulen, who has been residing in the United States since 1998, as a major operative for CIA-NATO operations, not only in Turkey, but also in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

During the past few years I have been a lone voice in the United States when it comes to real coverage of Gulen and his operations under the CIA. Here are a few examples of my coverage since 2009:

• -Boston Terror, CIA’s Graham Fuller & NATO-CIA Operation Gladio B-Caucasus & Central Asia
• -Turkish Intel Chief Exposes CIA Operations via Islamic Group in Central Asia
• -Turkish Imam Fethullah Gulen Nabs George Bush PR Queen
• -The Sanitized Gulen Coverage Continues…
• As a persistent lone voice I am asking you to pay close attention to these historical facts, the documented incestuous connections including the CIA, State Department and the Israel Lobby, and then go back and read this same New York Times article again.

Then, you will be able to answer very quickly and confidently when you are asked:

Whose interests is the New York Times serving?

Who rules and controls the propaganda channels called US mainstream media outlets?

This is why I always question, and almost always write off, whistleblower cases that become the darling adopted pet cases for publications like the New York Times and Washington Post. You see, you can’t have it both ways.

You can’t establish the rulers and ownership and agenda –setters for these publications, aka US media, and then go back and trust them when they begin to sell you a whistleblower or a leak as the real deal. It just doesn’t happen.

One thing you can count on when it comes to this puppetry is consistency. If they advocate and report something it has been declared allowable and kosher by their bosses. And as we all know: nothing good or noble exists on the agenda list of the ruling establishment.

Sibel Edmonds is the Publisher & Editor of Boiling Frogs Post and the author of the Memoir Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story. She is the recipient of the 2006 PEN Newman’s Own First Amendment Award for her “commitment to preserving the free flow of information in the United States in a time of growing international isolation and increasing government secrecy” Ms. Edmonds has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University.

- See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/05/05/cias-favorite-channel-new-york-times-lobbies-for-mullah-fethullah-gulen/#sthash.EAe10Uzm.dpuf

BUSTED Another New York Times :Sort of" Retraction on Case of Ukraine

By Robert Parry (Consortiumnews via Global Research)  - The mainstream U.S. media likes to talk about Ukraine as an “information war,” meaning that the Russians are making stuff up. But the false narratives are actually being hatched more on the U.S. side, as a new New York Times story acknowledges, writes.

The New York Times, which has asserted for weeks that the Russian government is behind the unrest in Ukraine’s east, finally sent some reporters to the region to dig up the proof, but all they found were eastern Ukrainians upset by the coup regime in Kiev that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych.

The Times, which has been an unapologetic promoter of the “pro-democracy” uprising that ousted the democratically elected president through violent extra-constitutional means, has recently been promoting the “theme” that Ukrainians would be happy with their new unelected government if only the Russians weren’t “destabilizing eastern Ukraine.”

Times’ editors thought they had the goods two weeks ago with a front-page scoop featuring photographs supposedly proving the presence of Russian special forces troops. According to the Times, the photos “clearly” showed Russian special forces in Russia and then the same soldiers in eastern Ukraine. However, only two days later, the scoop unraveled when it turned out that a key photo – supposedly showing a group of soldiers in Russia who later appeared in eastern Ukraine – was actually taken in Ukraine, destroying the premise of the entire story.

So, the Times belatedly dispatched reporters C.J. Chivers and Noah Sneider to Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine to talk with the militants who are opposing the coup regime in Kiev. To their credit, the two reporters actually seem to have recounted what they found, albeit with some of the anti-Russian bias that is now deeply embedded in the Western media narrative.

Noting that Moscow says the Ukrainian militants are not part of the Russian armed forces while “Western officials and the Ukrainian government insist that Russians have led, organized and equipped the fighters,” the reporters write:

     “A deeper look at the 12th Company [of the People’s Militia] — during more than a week of visiting its checkpoints, interviewing its fighters and observing them in action against a Ukrainian military advance here on Friday — shows that in its case neither portrayal captures the full story.
     “The rebels of the 12th Company appear to be Ukrainians but, like many in the region, have deep ties to and affinity for Russia. They are veterans of the Soviet, Ukrainian or Russian Armies, and some have families on the other side of the border. Theirs is a tangled mix of identities and loyalties.

      “Further complicating the picture, while the fighters share a passionate distrust of Ukraine’s government and the Western powers that support it, they disagree among themselves about their ultimate goals. They argue about whether Ukraine should redistribute power via greater federalization or whether the region should be annexed by Russia, and they harbor different views about which side might claim Kiev, the capital, and even about where the border of a divided Ukraine might lie.”

Chuckling at Kiev

The Times reporters cited one unit leader named Yuri as chuckling “at the claims by officials in Kiev and the West that his operations had been guided by Russian military intelligence officers. There is no Russian master, he said. ‘We have no Muscovites here,’ he said. ‘I have experience enough.’ That experience, he and his fighters say, includes four years as a Soviet small-unit commander in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the 1980s.

      “The 119 fighters he said he leads, who appear to range in age from their 20s to their 50s, all speak of prior service in Soviet or Ukrainian infantry, airborne, special forces or air-defense units.”

The reporters also discovered mostly well-worn and dated weaponry, not the newer and more sophisticated equipment that is available to Russian forces.

      “During the fighting on Friday, two of the fighters carried hunting shotguns, and the heaviest visible weapon was a sole rocket-propelled grenade,” Chivers and Sneider wrote. “Much of their stock was identical to the weapons seen in the hands of Ukrainian soldiers and Interior Ministry special forces troops at government positions outside the city. These included 9-millimeter Makarov pistols, Kalashnikov assault rifles and a few Dragunov sniper rifles, RPK light machine guns and portable antitank rockets, including some with production stamps from the 1980s and early 1990s.”

Other Western journalists, who have bothered to report from eastern Ukraine rather than just accept handouts from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev or the State Department in Washington, discovered a similar reality.

For instance, on April 17, Washington Post correspondent Anthony Faiola reported from Donetsk that many of the eastern Ukrainians whom he interviewed said the unrest in their region was driven by fear over “economic hardship” and the IMF austerity plan that will make their lives even harder.

     “At a most dangerous and delicate time, just as it battles Moscow for hearts and minds across the east, the pro-Western government is set to initiate a shock therapy of economic measures to meet the demands of an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund,” Faiola reported.

But this on-the-ground reality of legitimate and understandable concerns among the eastern Ukrainians has been missing from the U.S. propaganda barrage, which has overwhelmed the mainstream press as thoroughly as a similar P.R. campaign did during the run-up to the Iraq War, if not more so. Official Washington’s “group think” now is all about blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Ukraine crisis.

One of the more preposterous theories that I have heard from Washington punditry and officialdom is that Putin arranged the Ukraine chaos as part of a scheme to reclaim land lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Though this notion of Putin as the aggressor plotting to reassert Russian imperialism has become something of a “conventional wisdom,” it is fully unsupported by the facts.

To believe that Putin instigated the Ukraine crisis, you would have to believe that he organized the Maidan protests, that he built up the neo-Nazi militias that spearheaded the Feb. 22 coup, and that he intentionally overthrew his ally, Yanukovych, whom Putin seemed to be trying to save. Though this conspiracy theory is ludicrous, it is now widespread in Official Washington.

Caught Off-Guard

The reality was that Putin was caught off-guard by the events in Ukraine, in part, because he was preoccupied with the Sochi Winter Olympics and the threat that the games would be marred by a major terrorist attack. He spent a great deal of time in Sochi personally overseeing the security.

Meanwhile, the Maidan uprising was unfolding in Kiev, cheered on by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and partly financed by American entities, such as the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, whose longtime president Carl Gershmandeemed Ukraine “the biggest prize” in a Washington Post op-ed published in late September, months before the current crisis erupted.

Though many of the protesters from western Ukraine had legitimate grievances over the pervasive corruption in Ukrainian politics and the inordinate power of a handful of wealthy oligarchs, the final violent coup was carried out by well-trained neo-Nazi militias organized in 100-man brigades, known as “the hundreds.”

After the Feb. 22 putsch when Yanukovych and many of his officials were forced to flee for their lives, Putin began reacting to this deteriorating situation on Russia’s border. What he was doing was “crisis management,” not implementing some Machiavellian scheme that had long been contemplated.

But the demonization of Putin in the Western media has been so total that anyone who dares question the most extreme interpretations of his behavior is denounced as a “Putin apologist.” Indeed, any attempt to present a nuanced narrative of what has happened in Ukraine is dismissed as somehow promoting Russian imperialism or spreading Russian propaganda.

This oppressive “group think” has, in turn, made formulating any rational policy toward Russia and Ukraine politically impossible in Official Washington.

In this context of asking who’s the real propagandist, it’s worth looking back on another New York Times front-page story from mid-April by David M. Herszenhorn, who accused the Russian government of engaging in a propaganda war.

In the article entitled “Russia Is Quick To Bend Truth About Ukraine,” Herszenhorn mocked Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev for making a Facebook posting that “was bleak and full of dread,” including noting that “blood has been spilled in Ukraine again” and adding that “the threat of civil war looms.”

The Times article continued, “He [Medvedev] pleaded with Ukrainians to decide their own future ‘without usurpers, nationalists and bandits, without tanks or armored vehicles – and without secret visits by the C.I.A. director.’ And so began another day of bluster and hyperbole, of the misinformation, exaggerations, conspiracy theories, overheated rhetoric and, occasionally, outright lies about the political crisis in Ukraine that have emanated from the highest echelons of the Kremlin and reverberated on state-controlled Russian television, hour after hour, day after day, week after week.”

This argumentative “news” story spilled from the front page to the top half of an inside page, but Herszenhorn never managed to mention that there was nothing false in what Medvedev wrote. Indeed, as the bloodshed has grown worse and a civil war has become more apparent, you might say Medvedev was tragically prescient.

It was also the much-maligned Russian press that first reported the secret visit of CIA Director John Brennan to Kiev. Though the White House later confirmed that report, Herszenhorn cited Medvedev’s reference to it in the context of “misinformation” and “conspiracy theories.” Nowhere in the long article did the Times inform its readers that, yes, the CIA director did make a secret visit to Ukraine.

Perhaps, the Chivers-Sneider story about the backgrounds of the fighters in the People’s Militia of eastern Ukraine – what looks like another New York Times’ “sort of” retraction of its earlier claims – will give some pause to the U.S. propaganda stampede into another unnecessary war.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print or as an e-book (from Amazon andbarnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives

PITIFUL - Sharp Drop In Press Freedom in Greece - Info. Only "Partly Free"

Press freedom is not something that is practised by the Greek media, and according to a recent  report the mainstream media in this country is only "partly free". What is worse, its score in a major international press freedom index experienced the sharpest fall of all countries in the last five years. More precisely, in 2013 Greece was ranked 92nd out of 197 countries, with a score of only 46 on a scale of 100. But hey (yes sarcasm...) look at the bright side, Greece is behind Mozambique but ahead of Angola.

On a broader scale, Greece's press freedom was greater than that of Bahrain and the Central African Republic (both down 16 points), but then again the aforementioned countries ranked 188th and 170th, respectively.

The information -which also shocked us here at HellasFrappe- was released by the Greek daily Eleftherotypia, which in return was quoting a recent Freedom of the Press report that was issued by Freedom House.

IMAGE - Freedom House - In 2009, Greece scored 29 points in the same index, putting it in the "free" press category.

     "Greece, following its decline to the Partly Free category in 2012, fell a further five points in 2013. This was caused in large part by the government’s abrupt shutdown of the public broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) in an opaque manner in June. A new entity, New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television (Nerit), will launch in 2014 with a drastically reduced staff. In addition, the year featured an increase in libel cases and the use of surveillance against journalists, as well as the nontransparent awarding of telecommunications licenses," the report by the US-based Freedom House said.

IMAGE - Freedom House - The 17-point decline in Greece's score was greater than that of Bahrain and the Central African Republic (both down 16 points). However, these countries were placed 188th and 170th, respectively, in the rankings.

While Greece had the worst ranking in the entire European Union, the scene was even worse, and believe it or not it was pitiful in some developing economies in Eastern Europe as well.

The following data was released:

• Press Freedom in Italy ranked 64th
• Press Freedom in Hungary ranked 71st
• Press Freedom in Bulgaria ranked 78th
• Press Freedom in Croatia ranked 83rd position
• Press Freedom in Romania ranked 84th (also deemed only "partly free").

In short, the report found that press freedom across the globe dropped significantly over the last ten years, and what is worse it also said that only 1 in 7 people live in a country that actually has a well functioning “free” press industry. It also noted that the decline was driven in part by major regression in several Middle Eastern states, including Egypt, Libya, and Jordan; marked setbacks in countries such as Turkey, Ukraine, and East African nations; as well as a deterioration in the relatively open media environment of North America, and specifically the United States.

Freedom of the Press 2014 found that despite positive developments in a number of nations, or in the sub-Saharan African region, the dominant trends were reflected in setbacks in other areas across the globe.

IMAGE- Freedom House- In February, a press freedom study from Reporters without Borders put Greece in 99th place out of 180 countries. That news was ignored by most of the Greek media.

BUSTED - Ex-TV journalist Says Planeloads of Cash Flown into Greece in 2012, But Press Buried Story

Questions over the role of the media in Greece's crisis have been re-raised by the admission of a former TV reporter (and current candidate with the governing New Democracy party) that journalists knew that a bank run was underway with emergency cash being flown into the country, yet withheld the information even after the danger had passed.

In June 2012, things were not looking good for Greece. The country was in between elections after a round of parliamentary elections in May failed to result in a government. Meanwhile amid the political instability, with a hard public line emanating from the troika over the country’s emergency bail-out program, the prospect of a disorderly default and exit from the eurozone was looking increasingly likely.

Nervous Greeks began to empty their bank accounts, fearful that their euros may be converted to drachmas overnight. Effectively a bank run was underway. As has since been revealed in the book The Default Line excerpted in this August 2013 article in the Daily Mail - the only reason why Greek banks did not run out of cash during that period is because, under secret orders from the authorities in Brussels and Berlin, billions of euros in hard cash were trucked and flown into the country.

Most Greeks had no idea that such an operation was underway – most but not all. Among those in the know was journalist Maria Spyraki. The reporter turned politician for New Democracy (she recently resigned her position as political correspondent at Mega channel in order to run for a European parliament seat in the upcoming elections) revealed in an interview this weekend that she knew of the operation and related banking crisis at the time but chose not to report it:

      “Greece had a bank run between the elections in May and June of 2012. In reality, people went to the banks and withdrew their money. That is something that no one in my position could say… There was a very painful process. And there was the process of supplying Greece with cash. The plane would leave from Elefsina, go to Italy and return with cash which went to the Bank of Greece where it was shared out to the banks. We never reported that. We never had the right to report it. And obviously I can’t tell you who gave me that information but I got it from people who knew all of the details.”

To not report on an incipient bank run while it is underway can be considered justifiable.

Journalists have a duty to inform, but also to be judicious with the information they obtain when releasing it may cause more harm than good - as in the case of a bank run. However it appears that the decision by Ms Spyraki - and by extension Mega TV itself (it is incredibly unlikely that the editors at the station did not have the same information as Ms Spyraki) may have been less motivated by a desire to act in the public interest and more by a desire to fit the facts to supporting a hard pro-Memorandum line.

Why, after the banking crisis had passed, did the station not report the story about the secret flights?

Why did more than a year have to pass before the story was reported first in the British press?

Was it not in the public interest to know the lengths the eurozone leaders were willing to go to in order to prevent Greece from exiting the euro?

Perhaps even more revealing than Ms Spyrakis’s revelation was another admission by Mega TV’s news anchor Yiannis Pretenderis. In a January 2013 interview regarding a book written by the anchor about the crisis with iefimerida.gr, Pretenderis said the following when asked about errors the press had made during the crisis:

      “The restructuring of the debt: we all knew from the first moment that it wasn’t sustainable, but they told us, don’t say it now, it’s not right. The result was that until 2012 everyone maintained that the debt was sustainable and we didn’t respond, ‘not it isn’t!’ We didn’t tell them that this is nonsense. That was self-restraint.”

Can anyone really blame Greeks for feeling misled by the press as well as the political class when one of the top news anchors in the country effectively admits that he failed to challenge outright lies for months?

Who did that benefit?

Mainstream media in Greece, and particularly Mega Channel, have been criticized because of their ‘incestuous’ (as the State Department qualified the relationship in a now infamous Wikileaks cable) link to the country’s political and business establishment.

According to a 2012 Reuters special report, a nexus of media, business and politics lies behind the country's crisis.

Both Spyraki and Pretenderis worked (and still work) for Mega Channel, a TV station controlled in part by the Bobolas family which has extensive business interests spanning the sectors of construction, highway concessions, waste management, and mining. The family also holds important stakes in newspapers that have been loyal in their support for all governments since the 2009 fiscal crisis.

But while channels like Mega are often more than happy to slam the country’s politicians when it suits them (politicians that they often helped elect), they have been far less willing to turn their criticism on themselves.

The Greek media needs to look long and hard at itself and to make changes if it is to regain the public’s trust.

For democracies to function properly they require a well-informed citizenry. And that can only happen if those responsible for providing information do so objectively in the interest of the public, and not in the service of specific policies, concealing inconvenient facts. Abusing information is what got Greece into its current mess (through concealing the height of its deficits) and once in a hole, one should stop digging.

PressProject

BRAINWASH ALERT - Mainstram Media Says War is Peace, & Makes Us Rich & Safe

Image: An Iraqi woman with her dead child. Source: A Real Cost Of The Iraq War

By Julie Lévesque (Global Research) - War is Peace. What was known as a famous quote from George Orwell’s fiction 1984 has become a reality. Or maybe it is still fiction if you consider that the mainstream media is making up reality on a daily basis.

On April 28, 2014, the homepage of The Washington Post web site featured the picture of a nuclear explosion with the following title: “War is brutal. The alternative is worse.”

Peace is worse than war? Diplomacy worse than a nuclear explosion? I wonder if people in war torn Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and the likes agree.

The subtitle is probably the apex of nonsense: “War may be the worst way imaginable to create peaceful societies, but this professor argues that it’s the only way.” Professor? How can you be a professor and say something so illogical? And how can a newspaper be taken seriously when it publishes such absurdities?

But it gets worse, if that’s even possible. Clicking on the article, you get this:

“Wars make us safer and richer”. Wow. Really?

Who’s “us”? Certainly not the American people:

      The decade-long American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would end up costing as much as $6 trillion, the equivalent of $75,000 for every American household, calculates the prestigious Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government…
      It is also imperative to recall that the Bush administration had claimed at the very outset that the Iraq war would finance itself out of Iraqi oil revenues, but Washington DC had instead ended up borrowing some $2 trillion to finance the two wars, the bulk of it from foreign lenders
     According to the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government 2013 report, this accounted for roughly 20 per cent of the total amount added to the US national debt between 2001 and 2012.
      According to the report, the US “has already paid $260 billion in interest on the war debt,” and future interest payments would amount to trillions of dollars. (Sabir Shah, US Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq to Cost $6 trillion).

So, who’s “us” getting richer? The bankers maybe? Because if war makes some people rich, it’s the bankers:

Bankers are often the driving force behind war.

     After all, the banking system is founded upon the counter-intuitive but indisputable fact that banks create loans first, and then create deposits later.
     In other words, virtually all money is actually created as debt…
     Debt (from the borrower’s perspective) owed to banks is profit and income from the bank’s perspective.  In other words, banks are in the business of creating more debt … i.e. finding more people who want to borrow larger sums...
      What does this have to do with war?
      War is the most efficient debt-creation machine…
      War is also good for banks because a lot of material, equipment, buildings and infrastructure get destroyed in war. So countries go into massive debt to finance war, and then borrow a ton more to rebuild. (Washington’s Blog, War Creates Massive Debt and Makes the Banks Rich).

“Us” is probably also the military industrial complex, for which peace is enemy number one:

      The fact that military activities may become a profitable enterprise leads to the realization that peace is the main enemy of the military-industrial complex.  A simple metaphor can illustrate this problem.  Grape growers, the wine industry and wine marketers would be completely out of business if people stopped drinking wine.  In a similar way, the military-industrial complex would be put out of business by lasting peaceful conditions because the development, production, marketing and use of military equipment would be not needed.
      To stay in business, this complex needed the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the “cold war” with the Soviet Union, war on terrorism and various other wars.  And it needs to be involved in new conflicts, such as in Ukraine at this time. (Vashek Cervinka, Peace is the Enemy of the US Military Industrial Complex)

WE, the people of the world, don’t want wars and WE are not getting “richer” and “safer” with wars. It’s actually quite the contrary. Wars ruin economies and guess what? Wars kill people! How are mass killings and massive debts making “us safer and richer”?

Even though he received the Stanford University Dean’s Award, which “recognizes the efforts of exceptional teachers in the School of Humanities and Sciences” and is “given for excellence in graduate education” and “achievements in teaching”, Professor Morris seems to ignore the existence of what is probably the most important judgement in the history of mankind, The Nuremberg Judgement, which says:

      To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

We live in a world where award-winning Humanities and Science teachers promote war, the supreme international crime. It cannot get more Orwellian than that.

My Brother the Terrorist BBC documentary 2014 (VIDEO)

Filmmaker Robb Leech attempts to understand his stepbrother's journey from middle-class white boy in Weymouth to convicted terrorist. In 2010 Robb spent a year filming his stepbrother Rich after he turned his back on the world in which he grew up to become a fundamentalist Muslim called Salahuddin.

Robb began filming with his stepbrother as he entered a strange new world where everyone talked about fighting jihad and implementing Sharia law. The result was Robb's acclaimed BBC Three documentary, My Brother the Islamist.

When, in 2013, Salahuddin is convicted of preparing terrorism acts and jailed for six years, Robb is desperate to know what triggered his stepbrother, and others like him, to cross the line. Robb seeks out imam and psychologist Alyas Karmani to understand what drives young British-born men and women into radical jihadism. And he confronts Anjem Choudary, the man who converted Rich, about his role in Salahuddin's radicalisation

Click on the YouTube link below to watch the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRiUIj7_HEE

BUSTED - New York Times Admits It Pushed Fabricated Evidence about Iraq, Syria & Ukraine

By Washington's Blog via Global Research -  The New York Times pushed fabricated evidence in the run up to the Iraq war.   A year later, the newspaper apologized for its inaccurate, one-sided coverage.

The U.S. and the New York Times pretended that Syria’s government was responsible for the chemical weapons attack … but that claim was debunked, and even the New York Times was forced to retract itseveral months later.

(The alternative media, including Pulitzer prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh, has also pointed out that it was the Syrians rebels – with the help of the Turkish government – did it).

Then the U.S. and the New York Times pretended that they had proof that Russian soldiers were the mysterious “masked men” seizing government buildings in Russia.  But a couple of days later, they were forced reporting from the alternative media – especially Robert Parry, winner of the George Polk Award for National Reporting – into retracting that claim, and admitting that their “proof” was almost as flimsy as proof of Saddam’s “weapons of mass destruction”.

It seems like the alternative media is forcing the New York Times to retract half-baked, pro-war, propaganda claims more and more quickly.

SIGN PETITION Against Plan to Advance Global Internet Censorship

This is urgent. An Internet censorship plan is being finalized in secret meetings right now. We need all hands on deck at this crucial moment.

Here’s the situation: (US) President Obama himself is in secretive meetings with key political figures and lobbyists in Asia to lock the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Internet censorship plan into place.

We know from leaked documents that this secretive plan will censor your use of the Internet and strip away your rights.[1] If finalized, this plan would force ISPs to act as “Internet Police” monitoring our Internet use, censoring content, and removing whole websites.[2]

It will give media conglomerates centralized control over what you can watch and share online.

We urgently need your help to fight back. Add your voice right now and we’ll project a Stop the Secrecy message on key buildings in Washington D.C. to ensure Obama, the media, and everyone else knows this censorship plan must be stopped.

This is huge: covering 40% of the global economy, the TPP is being called a legal “blueprint” for the rest of the world.[3]

Once key leaders finalize TPP Internet censorship plans, those plans will be used to globalize censorship. You will be affected and this may be our only chance to stop it.

Our attention-grabbing message will shine a light on their secret plan and will make clear to Washington lobbyists that the Internet community will never accept the TPP’s secrecy or censorship. The more who speak out, the larger our projection will become, and the more people we can reach.

This is a decisive moment: we need to act right now. Join with hundreds of thousands of people all over the world to shine a light on the TPP’s job-killing Internet censorship plan. Let’s send decision-makers and the lobbyists pulling the strings a message they can’t ignore: “Stop the secrecy now.”

Thank you for being a part of history,

After signing the petition, please forward this message to your friends.

– The RootsAction.org team

RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, Frances Fox Piven, and many others.

Footnotes:

• [1] WikiLeaks: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
• [2] Electronic Frontier Foundation: TPP Creates Legal Incentives For ISPs To Police The Internet
• [3] U.S. “Bullying” TPP Negotiators Amid Failure to Agree. Source: Inter Press Service News Agency.

War Propaganda - Fear & Disinformation Campaign Is Launched - MUST READ

This text was first published in January 2003, two months prior to the beginning of war on Iraq by Montreal's very own Professor Michel Chossudovsky who heads up Global Research. It may be a decade old, but it is as current today as ipads are and a MUST READ by anyone wishing to understand the media's role in war.

Military planners in the Pentagon are acutely aware of the central role of war propaganda. Waged from the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA, a fear and disinformation campaign (FDC) has been launched. The blatant distortion of the truth and the systematic manipulation of all sources of information is an integral part of war planning. In the wake of 9/11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld created to the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), or “Office of Disinformation” as it was labeled by its critics:

    “The Department of Defense said they needed to do this, and they were going to actually plant stories that were false in foreign countries — as an effort to influence public opinion across the world.1

And, all of a sudden, the OSI was formally disbanded following political pressures and “troublesome” media stories that “its purpose was to deliberately lie to advance American interests.”2

      “Rumsfeld backed off and said this is embarrassing.”3 Yet despite this apparent about-turn, the Pentagon’s Orwellian disinformation campaign remains functionally intact: “[T]he secretary of defense is not being particularly candid here. 

Disinformation in military propaganda is part of war.”4

Rumsfeld later confirmed in a press interview that while the OSI no longer exists in name, the “Office’s intended functions are being carried out” 5 (Rumsfeld’s precise words can be consulted at http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html ).

A number of government agencies and intelligence units –with links to the Pentagon– are involved in various components of the propaganda campaign. Realities are turned upside down. Acts of war are heralded as “humanitarian interventions” geared towards “regime change” and “the restoration of democracy”. Military occupation and the killing of civilians are presented as “peace-keeping”. The derogation of civil liberties –in the context of the so-called “anti-terrorist legislation”– is portrayed as a means to providing “domestic security” and upholding civil liberties. And underlying these manipulated realties, “Osama bin Laden” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction” statements, which circulate profusely in the news chain, are upheld as the basis for an understanding of World events.

In the critical “planning stages” leading up to an invasion of Iraq, the twisting of public opinion at home and around the World, is an integral part of the War agenda, War propaganda is pursued at all stages: before, during the military operation as well as in its cruel aftermath. War propaganda serves to drown the real causes and consequences of war.

A few months after the OSI was disbanded amidst controversy (February 2002), The New York Times confirmed that the disinformation campaign was running strong and that the Pentagon was:

    “…considering issuing a secret directive to American military to conduct covert operations aimed at influencing public opinion and policymakers in friendly and neutral nations …The proposal has ignited a fierce battle throughout the Bush administration over whether the military should carry out secret propaganda missions in friendly nations like Germany… The fight, one Pentagon official said, is over ‘the strategic communications for our nation, the message we want to send for long-term influence, and how we do it….’We have the assets and the capabilities and the training to go into friendly and neutral nations to influence public opinion. We could do it and get away with it. That doesn’t mean we should.’6

Fabricating the Truth

To sustain the war agenda, these “fabricated realities”, funneled on a day to day basis into the news chain must become indelible truths, which form part of a broad political and media consensus. In this regard, the corporate media –although acting independently of the military-intelligence apparatus, is an instrument of this evolving totalitarian system.

In close liaison with the Pentagon and the CIA, the State Department has also set up its own “soft-sell” (civilian) propaganda unit, headed by Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Charlotte Beers, a powerful figure in the advertising industry. Working in liaison with the Pentagon, Beers was appointed to head the State Department’s propaganda unit in the immediate wake of 9/11. Her mandate is “to counteract anti-Americanism abroad.”7 Her office at the State department is to:

     “ensure that public diplomacy (engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences) is practiced in harmony with public affairs (outreach to Americans) and traditional diplomacy to advance U.S. interests and security and to provide the moral basis for U.S. leadership in the world.” (http://www.state.gov/r/ )

The Role of the CIA

The most powerful component of the Fear and Disinformation Campaign (FDI) rests with the CIA, which, secretly subsidizes authors, journalists and media critics, through a web of private foundations and CIA sponsored front organizations. The CIA also influences the scope and direction of many Hollywood productions. Since 9/11, one third of Hollywood productions are war movies. “Hollywood stars and scriptwriters are rushing to bolster the new message of patriotism, conferring with the CIA and brainstorming with the military about possible real-life terrorist attacks.”8 “The Sum of All Fears” directed by Phil Alden Robinson, which depicts the scenario of a nuclear war, received the endorsement and support of both the Pentagon and the CIA.9

Disinformation is routinely “planted” by CIA operatives in the newsroom of major dailies, magazines and TV channels. Outside public relations firms are often used to create “fake stories” Carefully documented by Chaim Kupferberg in relation to the events of September 11: “A relatively few well-connected correspondents provide the scoops, that get the coverage in the relatively few mainstream news sources, where the parameters of debate are set and the “official reality” is consecrated for the bottom feeders in the news chain.”10

Covert disinformation initiatives under CIA auspices are also funneled through various intelligence proxies in other countries. Since 9/11, they have resulted in the day-to-day dissemination of false information concerning alleged “terrorist attacks”. In virtually all of the reported cases (Britain, France, Indonesia, India, Philippines, etc.) the « alleged terrorist groups» are said to have «links to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda», without of course acknowledging the fact (amply documented by intelligence reports and official documents) that Al Qaeda is a creation of CIA.

The Doctrine of “Self Defense”

At this critical juncture, in the month(s) leading up to the announced invasion of Iraq, the propaganda campaign is geared towards sustaining the illusion that “America is under attack”. Relayed not only through the mainstream media but also through a number of alternative internet media sites, these “fabricated realities” portray the war as a bona fide act of self-defense, while carefully concealing the broad strategic and economic objectives of the war.

In turn, the propaganda campaign develops a casus belli, “a justification”, a political legitimacy for waging war. The “official reality” (conveyed profusely in George W’s speeches) rests on the broad “humanitarian” premise of a so-called “preemptive”, namely “defensive war”, “a war to protect freedom”:

    « We’re under attack because we love freedom… And as long as we love freedom and love liberty and value every human life, they’re going to try to hurt us.» 11

Spelled out in the National Security Strategy (NSS), the preemptive “defensive war” doctrine and the “war on terrorism” against Al Qaeda constitute the two essential building blocks of the Pentagon’s propaganda campaign. The objective is to present “preemptive military action” –meaning war as an act of “self-defense” against two categories of enemies, “rogue States” and “Islamic terrorists”:

    “The war against terrorists of global reach is a global enterprise of uncertain duration. …America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.
    …Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction (…)
    The targets of these attacks are our military forces and our civilian population, in direct violation of one of the principal norms of the law of warfare. As was demonstrated by the losses on September 11, 2001, mass civilian casualties is the specific objective of terrorists and these losses would be exponentially more severe if terrorists acquired and used weapons of mass destruction.
    The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction— and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, (…). To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.”12 (National Security Strategy, White House, 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html )

Feeding Disinformation into the News Chain

How is war propaganda carried out? Two sets of “eye popping” “statements” emanating from a variety of sources (including official National Security statements, media, Washington-based think tanks, etc.) are fed on a daily basis into the news chain. Some of the events (including news regarding presumed terrorists) are blatantly fabricated by the intelligence agencies. These statements are supported by simple and catchy “buzzwords”, which set the stage for fabricating the news:

Buzzword no. 1.”Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda” (Osama) is behind most news stories regarding the “war on terrorism” including “alleged”, “future” “presumed”, and “actual” terrorist attacks. What is rarely mentioned is that this outside enemy Al Qaeda is a CIA “intelligence asset”, used in covert operations.

Buzzword no. 2.The “Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)” statement is used to justify the “pre-emptive war” against the “State sponsors of terror”, –i.e. countries such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea which allegedly possess WMD. Amply documented in the case of Iraq, a large body of news on WMD and biological attacks, are fabricated.

The “WMD” and “Osama bin Laden” statements become part of day to day debate, embodied in routine conversations between citizens. Repeated ad nauseam, they penetrate the inner consciousness of ordinary people molding their individual perceptions on current events. Through deception and manipulation, this shaping of the minds of entire populations, sets the stage –under the façade of a functioning democracy—for the installation of a de facto police State. Needless to say, war propaganda weakens the antiwar movement.

In turn, the disinformation regarding alleged “terrorist attacks” or “weapons of mass destruction” instils an atmosphere of fear, which mobilizes unswerving patriotism and support for the State, and its main political and military actors.

Repeated in virtually every national news report, this stigmatic focus on WMD-Al Qaeda essentially serves as a dogma, to blind people on the causes and consequences of America’s war of conquest, while providing a simple, unquestioned and authoritative justification for “self defense.”

More recently, both in speeches by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, as well as in the news, WMD statements are now carefully blended into Osama statements. UK Defense Minister Jack Straw warned in early January “that ‘rogue regimes’ such as Iraq were the most likely source of WMD technology for groups like al-Qaeda.”13 Also, in January, a presumed al Qaeda cell “with links to Iraq” was discovered in Edinburgh, allegedly involved in the use of biological weapons against people in the UK. The hidden agenda of “the links to Iraq” statement is blatantly obvious. The objective is to discredit Iraq in the months leading up to the war: the so-called “State sponsors of terror” are said to support Osama bin Laden, Conversely, Osama is said to collaborate with Iraq in the use of weapons of mass destruction.

In recent months, several thousand news reports have woven “WMD-Osama stories” of which a couple of excerpts are provided below:

      “Skeptics will argue that the inconsistencies don’t prove the Iraqis have continued developing weapons of mass destruction. It also leaves Washington casting about for other damning material and charges, including the midweek claim, again unproved, that Islamic extremists affiliated with al-Qaeda took possession of a chemical weapon in Iraq last November or late October.”14

North Korea has admitted it lied about that and is brazenly cranking up its nuclear program again. Iraq has almost certainly lied about it, but won’t admit it. Meanwhile Al Qaeda, although dispersed, remains a shadowy, threatening force, and along with other terrorist groups, a potential recipient of the deadly weaponry that could emerge from Iraq and North Korea.15

Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair listed Iraq, North Korea, the Middle East and al-Qaeda among “difficult and dangerous” problems Britain faced in the coming year.16

The WMD-Osama statements are used profusely by the mainstream media. In the wake of 9/11, these stylized statements have also become an integral part of day to day political discourse. They have also permeated the workings of international diplomacy and the functioning of the United Nations.

Notes

• 1. Interview with Steve Adubato, Fox News, 26 December 2002.
• 2. Air Force Magazine, January 2003, italics added..
• 3. Adubato, op. cit. italics added
• 4. Ibid, italics added.
• 5. Quoted in Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Secrecy News, http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2002/11/112702.html , Rumsfeld’s press interview can be consulted at:
• http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html .
• 6. New York Times, 16 December 2002.
• 7. Sunday Times, London 5 January 2003.
• 8. Ros Davidson, Stars earn their Stripes, The Sunday Herald (Scotland), 11 November 2001).
• 9. See Samuel Blumenfeld, Le Pentagone et la CIA enrôlent Hollywood, Le Monde, 24 July 2002, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BLU207A.html .
• 10. Chaim Kupferberg, The Propaganda Preparation for 9/11, Global Outlook, No. 3, 2003, p. 19, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP206A.html .
• 11. Remarks by President Bush in Trenton, New Jersey, «Welcome Army National Guard Aviation Support Facility, Trenton, New Jersey », 23 September 2002.
• 12. National Security Strategy, White House, 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html
• 13. Agence France Presse (AFP), 7 January 2003.
• 14. Insight on the News, 20 January 2003.
• 15. Christian Science Monitor, 8 January 2003
• 16. Agence France Presse (AFP), 1 January 2003

WSJ: Greece can now “call its own tune”

The electronic edition of the Wall Street Journal published an article at the weekend which says that Greece is finally able to “call its own tune” and control its politicians. According to the report, the Eurozone crisis is not going to end until doubts over Greece’s perspective have been eliminated. The WSJ article further estimates that based on the latest review of the program designed for Greece by the troika, there are still many reforms that have yet to be implemented.

Of course the WSJ article recognized the significance of the recent agreement between the troika and the coalition government, as it demonstrates Athens’ ability to hold its ground on critical issues, such as the budget, the bank recapitalization and structural reforms. The article even praised Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ management for turning the economy around.

It notes at some point that at the start of the bailout review, the IMF had insisted that Greece faced a substantial deficit in 2013 and demanded further fiscal tightening. The article states that the Greek government stuck by its more optimistic forecasts, refusing to take actions that would prolong the depression. The decision was vindicated when Greek government figures showed that the country achieved a 1.1% surplus before interest costs in 2013”.

Hellinikon site: Did The Gov't Mark Down The Price?

In 2013, and specifically during the month of March, the price for the Hellinikon site -located in the southern part of Athens - was estimated at approximately 1.239 billion Euros by an independent agency, according to an article in the Sunday edition of RealNews. The newspaper says that the recent low offer of Lamda Development, and where that sets the bar for the Hellenic Asset Development Fund (HRADF) prior to the new offer by the Latsis controlled group, is expected this coming Wednesday. The article also states that there are shady connections between the architect Norman Foster of the company seeking the site and a consulting firm advising the HRADF and leaves it to be understood that this should be investigated.

Forbes article on pipeline project vindicates Karamanlis energy policies

The following article appeared in Forbes recently and simply vindicates the policies that were adopted by the Costas Karamanlis government which wanted to transform Greece into an energy hub for all of Europe. It should be reiterated that the pipeline projects were more or less sabotaged under the George Papandreou government, who also once said that natural gas and oil does not exist in Greece (of course today, we know that this statement was a complete lie). Also, we know today that specific American diplomats (such as Mathew Bryza) worked hard against this development (because he was endorsing Turkish interests which want the pipelines running through Turkey instead).

Here is the article:

     As much of Europe spent the last month worrying about what might happen if Russia decided to shut the valve on its gas supply, Athens has apparently decided the time is right to push a new energy role. This week, Greece’s Energy Ministry launched an international tender for a pipeline project that would transport about 8 billion cubic meters of gas into the European market from offshore fields controlled by Cyprus and Israel. According to a Reuters report, the project would link Israel’s Leviathan natural gas field to Europe by way of Greece through the IGI-Poseidon pipeline, managed by Italy’s Edison and Greece’s state-backed utility, DEPA.
     For Israel, the pipeline would provide the country’s first long-distant export option. Israel has recently announced a series of export agreements for its offshore efforts, 40 percent of which is allotted for sale outside of the country. However, so far, they have all been local, including sales to Jordan, Palestinian utilities and talks with both Egypt and Turkey. For Greece, a successful pipeline would help them carve out a long-sought energy role in the area.
     Over the last three years, Athens has made a concerted effort to lay claim to the Eastern Mediterranean’s recent energy rush, both as a potential transport hub for Israeli and Cypriot gas reserves and as a producer itself. The latter role, which has included studies suggesting offshore reserves near Crete, has failed to catch fire beyond political rhetoric. Meanwhile, after this week, it appears the country’s transport aspirations may have some potential.

Continue reading article by clicking HERE

6 Charged With Plotting To Kill Journalist Kostas Vaxevanis

An eight-month investigation, mostly carried out by the HotDoc magazine and subsequently published, led police to the six suspects, who are charged with forming, directing and being a part of a criminal gang with conspiracy to murder, drug offences, blackmail, forgery and fraud.

Specifically, six men, one of whom is alleged to be a member of Greece's secret service, were charged on Thursday by a Greek prosecutor with forming a gang that plotted to assassinate journalist Kostas Vaxevanis.

On September 9th, 2012, just days before the journalist published the Lagarde list of over 2,000 Greeks with accounts in a Swiss bank, five people attempted to ambush Vaxevanis at his home, which they had broken into. Sensing their presence, the journalist called the police, but they failed to apprehend the men.

A few days after the incident, a woman appeared at the offices of Vaxevanis' news magazine Hot Doc, claiming that she was employed by a group of EYP operatives who had rented an office at an address near HotDoc and whose aim, she explained, was to destroy Vaxevanis' reputation and then to kill him.

The woman was later taken into a witness protection program and an eight-month investigation was launched -which was mostly carried out by HotDoc- and which then led police to the six suspects who are now charged with forming, directing and membership of a criminal gang; conspiracy to murder; drugs offences; as well as blackmail, forgery and fraud.

An article on Vaxevanis' Kouti tis Pandoras website named the six defendants as Kostas Angelakis (who it says is an EYP agent and its former espionage director) and his colleague Sofoklis Koukoulitsios, Yiorgos Polyzos, Yiorgos Dimitriadis, Alkiviadis Kastanis and Antonis Kasvikis.

The same article also says that Vaxevanis has always suspected that the group was in the service of certain bankers.

On the same day in May 2012 that HotDoc published a lengthy report alleging that a number of banks and bankers were involved in a network of fraud and embezzlement that included offshore companies. A Greek blog called Fimotro published what claimed to be a receipt bearing Vaxevanis' signature for a 50,000 Euro payment from EYP to Vaxevanis.

An analysis from a handwriting expert later said the signature was a forgery.

     "The same group also used anonymous blogs to slander journalists Stephen Grey (Reuters) and Thomas Landon Jr. (New York Times), both of whom had published stories regarding scandals and corruption inside the Greek banking system," Kouti tis Pandoras said.

Vaxevanis also alleges that the same gang had tried to destroy the credibility of a former bank official, who was dismissed from her job after handing over allegations of wrongdoing at a particular bank.

In October 2012, Vaxevanis in Hot Doc published a list of 2,059 Greek residents with accounts at the Geneva branch of HSBC. In November 2013, an Athens court acquitted him at his retrial on charges of breaking privacy laws by publishing what became known as the Lagarde list.
EnetEnglish, Kouti tis Pandoras

Eleftherotypia

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Debate between Kassidiaris & Valianatos On Triantafyllopoulos Show (VIDEO)

A nice debate was held last night between candidates for Athens mayor Ilias Kassidiaris from the Golden Dawn party as well as Gay rights activist and lawyer G. Vallianatos. The debate was held on the Maki Triantafyllopoulo news show which was broadcasted on Thursday night on EXTRA channel.

The show as separated into three entities.

One third of the show was dedicated to the debate, the second third to a new judicial scandal and the last part aimed at continuing the debate, but it turned out into an interesting conversation on the new -and treasonous- Annan plan that literally aims to destroy Cyprus.

In the first part of the show, the PASOK representative did not wish to take part because Kassidiaris was present, but once the Golden Dawn MP left, he appeared only to receive sharp criticism by one of the panel guests who outwardly slammed the PASOK party and especially its leader Evangelos Venizelos for his stance on the Cyprus issue.

Also interesting to watch is what Athens mayor candidate Mr.Vallianatos said about the Cyprus issue. He and Zouraris begin picking bones and Vallianatos openly admits that if it was up to him then he would have voted in favor of the treasonous first Annan plan that literally wanted to destroy Cyprus and which was rejected by the Cypriot people.

This is not the first time that Vallianatos provokes national sentiment on national issues.

Quite interestingly, Grigoris Vallianatos, was a Media Advisor to former PASOK party president George Papandreou until he expressed his personal views regarding the FYROM issue. Specifically, while stating his personal opinion on Greek national issues on a Greek television show he was asked if "Skopje" should be called "Macedonia". He said "yes" which shocked all those watching the show, and the show hosts asked him the question again to which Vallianatos once again replied "yes" (while he even added that this was his personal opinion.)

Still shocked by his answer the show host then asked Mr. Vallianatos if there was a FYROManian minority in Greece to which Mr. Vallianatos again replied with a "yes"! At this point the show hosts became belligerent, to say the least, and behaved disgracefully towards him demanding that he be immediately fired from his position.

When the news was broadcasted the next day, PASOK´s foreign policy advisor at the time, Andreas Loverdos, attempted to cover up his scandalous comments by denying that Vallianatos had made these remarks, but he was unsuccessful because the public outcry was so strong that Vallianatos was fired from his job at PASOK the very next day.

If you have two hours to spare then watch the video on large screen. It is quite informative.

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Former Andreas Papandreou Son-In-Law Sues Wikipedia

Kostas Efimeros (Press Project) - Theodoros Katsanevas, a Greek politician and one time son-in-law of Andreas Papandreou is seeking 200,000 Euros in damages and the imprisonment for one-year of a young Wikipedia administrator over allegations that the entry about the former MP is defamatory.

Who is Theodoros Katsanevas

Born in 1947 Theodoros Katsanevas is a Greek politician and former MP with the socialist PASOK party (1989 - 2004). Mr Katsanevas was married to the daughter of former PM Andreas Papandreou until their divorce in 2000. Since May 2013 Katsanevas has been the leader of the political party DRACHMA.

What bothered Katsanevas

According to the suit filed against the 21-year-old Wikipedia administrator, Mr Katsanevas had sent a copy of his resume in order for it to be included in the online encyclopedia. Most entries on Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, and the alterations to the entry on Mr Katsanevas were far from his liking.

In particular the section which provoked the former PASOK MP’s wrath was the following, “In 1996 shortly after the death of Andreas Papandreou, father-in-law to Katsanevas (n.b. T. Katsanevas was married to the daughter of Andreas Papandreou, Sofia) his first handwritten will was opened in which he described [Katsanevas] as a ‘disgrace’ to the family and accused him of trying to politically exploit the name of George Papandreou...”

While the former is included in the lawsuit against the wikipedia administrator the continuation of the sentence is not, which reads, “...accusations which Sofia Katsaneva attributed to others and not to her father, while some judges maintain that the will was genuine but backdated.”

The references given in the Wikipedia entry are balanced. In any event the entry cites as sources articles in several newspapers including To Vima, Rizospastis and Protagon.gr, media outlets against which the former MP never filed any defamation suits. All the writer of the entry did was include additional information from other sources in the interest of providing a more complete picture. But wait a minute, who did write the entry?

How did Katsanevas find the Wikipedia administrator?

An interesting question is how Mr Katsanevas identified the particular administrator. The latter has not made his personal information public. Despite this, the administrator told us in a telephone telephone interview that Mr Katsanevas had located him in 2009 at which point he had sent him notice demanding parts of the wikipedia entry be deleted.

Reading the lawsuit it is not difficult to ascertain that neither Mr Katsanevas nor the lawyer that drew it up are particular whizzes went it comes to how Wikipedia works. The 10 page legal document includes a number of inaccuracies including the most fundamental: even if the judge approves temporary protective measures sought and orders the administrator to delete the controversial passage, he is not able to do so. Something which perhaps Mr Katsanevas should know given that when one looks over the history of the entry one can see a series of anonymous accounts logging in frequently to delete exactly the passage which so troubles the former MP. A cursory glance over the entry’s history will also establish that the passage is continually reinserted by a number of different administrators whereas the particular young man accused of ‘defamation’ has not edited the entry in over two years.

Our attempts to contact Mr Katsanevas to ask him how he came to learn the identity of the administrator were unsuccessful. It is worth noting however that Wikipedia itself - which has assumed the legal representation of the administrator - never received a formal request to reveal his identity, something which would have been difficult given that the law (especially as it stood when the first demand for the passage’s deletion was sent) only allows such breaches of confidentiality when there are indications of criminal actions.

Rewriting History

In his lawsuit Theodoros Katsanevas insistently demands for the removal of the Wikipedia passage referring to the description of him as a ‘disgrace’ in the controversial will of Andreas Papandreou. As an additional argument he refers to his 2003 victory in a court battle with Spyros Karatzaferis, a newspaper publisher who for a period in 1998 published daily a front page photograph of Katsanevas with the caption ‘Disgrace’, referring to the Papandreou will.

Referring to this trial, Katsanevas implies that the description of him as a ‘disgrace’ is found in a will the authenticity of which is in question and that this was a point conceded by the court in his victory against Karatzaferis. The truth is somewhat different.

Reading the news articles about the trial from the time, it is clear that nobody doubts that the will was indeed written by Andreas Papandreou. The trial only examined the question of whether it was backdated or not. Furthermore, Andreas Papandreou’s daughter, Sofia claimed that others pressured her father to write the particular comment, not that he didn’t write it. Finally, the court that ruled that Spyros Karatzaferis had committed libel doesn’t appear to have dealt with the issue of the will’s authenticity, only whether the newspaper was deliberately defaming Theodoros Katsanevas.

In light of these details, the ‘disgrace’ reference on Wikipedia is not only not defamatory but does indeed add to (with references and connections) a truly encyclopedic view of our modern political history.

A Bad Habit

In recent years there have been ever greater attempts to control the media through the filing of lawsuits. Theodoros Katsanevas is demanding an active participant in the online community pay him 200,000 euros simply because he doesn’t like the way he is being treated by history. He is not asking the same from the To Vima newspaper, even though that was the source for the “disgrace’ reference.

Mr Katsanevas clearly cannot appreciate how the biggest and most popular encyclopedia in the world works, which depends on the collective participation of its users. He falsely claims that the entry is locked (something which has not been proven from its history) and is demanding that a simple administrator do something that is beyond his power.

Justice Bans Broadcast of Suspicious Documentary on Farmakonisi Incident

The Greek judicial system is working on overdrive. The latest news claims that it has decided to ban the broadcast of a television documentary by investigative -progressive and Leftist- journalist Stavros Theodorakis on MEGA Channel. Judge Antigone Stamoleka rules that the broadcasting of the documentary is going to interfere with the ongoing judicial investigation and as such violates the privacy principle.

Speaking to the To Vima newspaper about the issue, Theodorakis said that his report was objective and that he interviewed people from all sides. MEGA Channel announced that the documentary is being edited and that it is going to broadcast as scheduled on Tuesday, February 18 at 23:30 pm (in other words... the channel is going to ignore the court order!)

The full first instance court decision is available HERE.

Journalist Arrested On Suspicion of Leaking State Secrets

Greek reporter Popi Christodoulidou was hauled before police on suspicion of having revealed top secret military information over a blog post consisting of little more than the text of a recently passed law. A day after Reporters Without Borders published its 2014 World Press Freedom Index according to which press freedom Greece has suffered a ‘dizzying’ decline over the past five years, the authorities seem eager to prove the NGO’s case.

Journalist Popi Christodoulidou was summoned to appear at police headquarters to testify over a blog post she had written two days ago concerning joint operations being allegedly conducted by police and the Coast Guard’s special ‘frogmen’ units.

The blogpost in question (in Greek), contains little more information than the text of a recently passed law that provides for joint operations in certain circumstances between police and Coast Guard Special Underwater Units outside of the Coast Guard’s normal jurisdiction. Ms Christodoulidou, a journalist with 35 years of experience, alleges that she had received information from frogmen protesting that they were regularly required to guard ‘sensitive targets’ normally under the police’s authority. “We looked into the issue and show here that there is a law that provides for just this instance passed on 9/12/2013. We publish it here for your information,” she writes.

According to Ms Christodoulidou the post prompted the Athens Prosecutor for Misdemeanours to order a preliminary investigation as to whether laws regarding military secrecy had been violated by the post, despite the fact that the law

is a matter of public record and little other information was provided in the post.

In fact, according to Ms Christodoulidou the police had rebranded the text of the law as a ‘confidential military document’. There is now a possibility that Ms Christodoulidou will be placed under arrest if she refuses to take down the blogpost.

According to the journalist, the investigation by the authorities amounts to, “an unprovoked attack which has as a goal the creation of climate of fear against all journalists who continue to tell the truth, cannot be purchased, are not cowed by power and are dedicated to providing citizens with truthful and substantive reporting.”

PressProject

Insomnia: A MUST WATCH Short Film With The Aftermath Of The Cephalonia Quakes - VIDEO

From the countless articles about the aftermath of the Cephalonia quakes, perhaps none captures the present state of the island better than the short documentary film that was created by a German family that live on the island.

The 5-minute film was produced by Tim and Nils Kullack, both in their twenties, and they received a lot of support from their parents Daniel and Alexandra. The family is originally from Germany but has made Cephalonia its home for a number of years now. Reference to Enet article Click HERE.

Accompanied by a haunting soundtrack the video shows the extensive damage caused by the two 6.0 magnitude (plus) earthquakes that came within a week of each other on the island. Aside from these two major tremors that have severely damaged buildings, roads and caused a number of landslides, the island has also been shaken by hundreds of smaller aftershocks.

All this destruction, together with a fear that an even bigger quake may occur, has kept island residents on edge. Luckily only a few injuries were reported and we did not mourn any fatalities, nonetheless hundreds of families have been living in cars and tents for over a week in poor weather.

(Let us not forget that it is still winter season in Greece).

Vaxevanis Ordered To Pay 10,000 Euros in damages to Vatopedi Monastery

View of the Vatopedi monastery in Mount Athos (April 2006). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another trial ended on Monday concerning the infamous land swap scandal of Vatopedi. Some may recall that the scandal (which was later proven not to be a scandal at all, but a tool for propaganda), was used to bring down the government of former PM Costas Karamanlis.

On Monday, a court partially vindicated the monastery in a lawsuit against reporter Costas Vaxevanis who was ordered to pay 10,000 Euros compensation to the monastery for two false reports.

The first instance court deemed that Vaxevanis used insulting terms in reference to the monastery in a 2010 article in the Epikaira magazine and later on he attempted to defame and discredit Elder Ephraim in another story which was published in the Unfollow magazine, in 2012.

Both articles apparently refer to Vatopedi’s controversial role in a real estate swap deal with the state.