Government Spin

   Behind Syria chemical attacks

Germany, Britain, America, Israel - VT provides proof of chemical warfare and war crimes.

[Editor’s Note:   VT has long covered the “aiding and abetting” of terrorists by the US coalition, and by derivation NATO, for some time now. We view its going on unchecked as a major national security threat to all countries.

Unfortunately Western corporate media, with financial resources far beyond VT, has played Mickey the Dunce on this whole story, the case usually being that the respective country ...read more


   The Real Reason for the Afghan War?

When the United States decided to invade Afghanistan to grab Osama bin Laden—and failed, but stayed on like an unwanted guest—could it have known that the Afghans were sitting on some of the world’s greatest reserves of mineral wealth?

 We noted the dubious 2010 claim, published by the New York Times, that “the vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was [recently] discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.” Other evidence, and logic, point to the fact that everyone but the Western public knew for a long time, and before the 2001 invasion, that Afghanistan was a ...read more



   ISIS and Islam: The Ugly Truth

The world has not seen such brutality and savagery in modern times. Horrible Stories were told about the Celts, the Aztecs and the Mongols; nevertheless they always remained stories of the remote past. But what the militants of the so called “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – ISIS” are doing is something else, what they are perpetrating defy any literary power to try and put it into words.

Driven by what they see as divine command and wreaking havoc and devastation only thought possible in Hollywood productions the Islamic militant group ISIS has pushed the definition of terrorism to a new and ...read more



   America Hell-Bent on War

“I'm 80 years old. I was never scared throughout the Cold War years. I'm very scared now.” That is what Stephen Lendman, a Research Associate for the Centre for Research on Globalization told Sputnik in an exclusive interview regarding recent developments related to the military conflict in Ukraine.

As the Normandy Four are set to meet in Minsk on Wednesday to discuss possible ways out of the deteriorating military conflict in eastern Ukraine, Stephen Lendman forecasts that the US won’t drop its idea of waging a full-size war in the region.
Washington under the Democrats or Republicans wants war, not peace, he said. "In the post-9/11 era alone, not a single day of peace has ...read more



   Another Fake Bin Laden Story

RT, one of my favorite news sources, has fallen for a fake story put out by the Pentagon to support the fantasy story that a SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden, who died a second time in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a decade after his first death from illness and disease. http://rt.com/usa/202895-navy-seal-shot-binladen/

This fake story together with the fake movie and the fake book by an alleged SEAL team member is the way the fake story of bin Laden’s murder is perpetrated. Bin Laden’s alleged demise at the hands of a SEAL team was a propaganda orchestration, the purpose of which was to give Obama a hero’s laurels and deep six Democratic talk of challenging his nomination for a ...read more



                                            
   Facebook - The Perfect Mass Surveillance Tool

The National Security Agency and the FBI teamed up in October 2010 to develop techniques for turning Facebook into a surveillance tool.

Documents released alongside security journalist Glenn Greenwald’s new book, “No Place To Hide,” reveal the NSA and FBI partnership, in which the two agencies developed techniques for exploiting Facebook chats, capturing private photos, collecting IP addresses, and gathering private profile data.

According to the slides below, the agencies’ goal for such collection was to capture “a very rich source of information on targets,” including “personal details, ‘pattern of life,’ connections to ...read more


                                             
   Distorting Russia

The degradation of mainstream American press coverage of Russia, a country still vital to US national security, has been under way for many years. If the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory articles in leading newspapers and magazines—particularly about the Sochi Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin—is an indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm.

There are notable exceptions, but a general pattern has developed. Even in the venerable New York Times and Washington Post, news reports, editorials and commentaries no longer adhere rigorously to traditional journalistic standards, often failing to provide essential facts and context; to make a clear distinction between reporting and analysis; to require at least two different political or “expert” views on major ...read more


                                             

   Apartheid Amnesia

On Nelson Mandela's 95th birthday, the world is celebrating the former South African president and cheering for his recovery. The U.S. Congress even managed a rare display of bipartisanship for the occasion, with members of both parties taking turns to laud Mandela as they stood in front of the Statue of Freedom in Emancipation Hall. "At times it can almost feel like we are talking about an old friend," said Rep. John Boehner (R-OH.) "He never lost faith in the strength of the human spirit," added Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).Today, Nelson Mandela is a celebrated elder statesman that both Democrats and Republicans heap praise on.

 This wasn't always the case. When Mandela was imprisoned and struggling to end apartheid, the Republican Party -- through the policies of the Reagan administration and the work of party activists -- opposed U.S. sanctions against the white supremacist regime. Though they didn't support apartheid by any means, they turned a blind eye towards the cruelty of the system and failed to support Mandela in his time of greatest need. Today, Republicans will cheer on Mandela, but the Republican Party's historical relationship with ...read more


                                             

  Lying about war

Public diplomacy is a catchall term for the various ways in which the United States promotes itself to international audiences (as opposed to “regular” diplomacy, which targets foreign governments). These include international media, such as the Voice of America; cultural and educational exchanges, such as the Fulbright Program; and a wide range of information activities, including foreign press centers, speaking events and publications. As the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy notes, the term “was developed partly to distance overseas governmental information activities from the term propaganda, which had acquired pejorative connotations.”

  In the United States, public diplomacy’s legislative history also involves propaganda. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which provided a legal framework for public diplomacy activities, forbids the government from disseminating within ...read more 


                                             

  Lying about war, Part 2

The morning of June 20, 2006, an email message circulated amongst US Defense Department officials.” Jed Babbin, one of our military analysts, is hosting the Michael Medved nationally syndicated radio show this afternoon. He would like to see if General [George W.] Casey would be available for a phone interview,” the Pentagon staffer wrote. “This would be a softball interview and the show is 8th or 9th in the nation.”

Why would the Pentagon help set up a radio interview? And how did they know that the interview would be “softball”?

 From early 2002 to April 2008, the Department of Defense offered talking points, organized trips to places such as Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, and gave private briefings to a legion of retired military officers working as media pundits. The Pentagon’s military analyst program, a covert effort to promote a positive image of the Bush administration’s wartime performance, was a multi-level campaign involving ...read more  


                                             

  Totalitarianism and dictatorship - Obama's New Year's gift

Happy New Year America, for the gift you get totalitarianism and dictatorship. With disbelieving look in the signature of President Obama approved a draft law on the defense authorization, with whom the U.S. military can no court decisions: to prosecute, investigate, and arrest people around the world, and without being guilty of anything!

President Obama signed on Saturday the defense authorization bill, formally ending weeks of heated debate in Congress and intense lobbying by the administration to strip controversial provisions requiring the transfer of some terror suspects to military custody.

 "I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of ...read more 


                                             

  Cyber - Warfare

The cyber war escalated to a whole new level yesterday. The U.S. government shut down the popular website MegaUpload at the behest of corporate interests. The Feds accused MegaUpload of stealing $500 million in potential lost revenue from copyright holders.

Almost immediately, the hacktivist group Anonymous retaliated by launching massive DDoS attacks on several websites including the US Copyright Office, Department of Justice, FBI.gov, Universal Music Group, Music Picture Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America. The attack called “Operation MegaUpload” is also said to be targeting Whitehouse.gov.

  Many Internet freedom and privacy activists are cheering Anonymous’ assault against the U.S. Government and the corporate interests that ...read more 


                                            

  SOPA, ACTA and Internet Freedom

Last week, 3 million of us beat back America's attack on our Internet! --- but there is an even bigger threat out there, and our global movement for freedom online is perfectly poised to kill it for good.

ACTA - a global treaty - could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties -- even prison sentences -- against people they say have harmed their business.

  Europe is deciding right now whether to ratify ACTA -- and without them, this global attack on Internet freedom will collapse. We know they have opposed ACTA before, but some...read more 

                                             


  FBI - Internet Privacy is Suspicious Activity

When you use the Internet in a public place, do you prefer to have as much privacy as possible? Well, that makes you a potential terrorist. According to the FBI, Internet privacy is now considered to be suspicious activity. If you are out in public and you attempt to keep snoopers from peeking at your computer screen, then according to the FBI they should gather as much information about you as they can and they should report you to the authorities immediately.

If this seems completely and totally ridiculous to you, then you are not alone. Millions of Americans have become deeply concerned about the constantly expanding definition of "suspicious activity" in the United States. Sadly, the federal government is now engaging in an all-out attempt to have us all spy on one another. All over America, the Department of Homeland Security is running ...read more 
                                           


  Which Obama should we believe?

As the news of the Connecticut school massacre sinks in, it would take a hard-hearted person not to feel for the parents, families and friends of the victims. It is the sort of event which most of us will not experience first-hand, but some of us may know someone who has gone through a similar tragedy.

In fact, a good friend of mine lost one nephew in a bomb attack in 2008 and last month another nephew was seriously wounded in almost identical circumstances. On the second occasion, President Barack Obama gave the people who wounded the young man - one leg was blown off, as was half of an arm - the green light to continue with their maiming and slaughter of innocents "in self-defence".


My friend, as you might have guessed, is a Palestinian from Gaza; his nephews' attackers were Israelis. There was no sign of any grief from Obama, the newly-elected US president on...read more 

                                             

  Kill The Petrodollar

Petrogold: Are Russia And China Hoarding Gold Because They Plan To Kill The Petrodollar?

Will oil soon be traded in a currency that is thousands of years old? What would a "gold for oil" system mean for the petrodollar and the U.S. economy? Are Russia and China hoarding massive amounts of gold because they plan to kill the petrodollar? Since the 1970s, the U.S. dollar has been the currency that the international community has used to trade oil around the globe. This has created an overwhelming demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. debt.

But what happens when the rest of the globe starts rejecting the increasingly unstable U.S. dollar and figures out that gold can be used as a currency in international trade? The truth is that it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure that...read more 

                                             

   Hollywood and the CIA

“One of the most pervasive trends in 21st century western culture has become somewhat of an obsession in America. It’s called “Hollywood history”, where the corporate studio machines in Los Angeles spend hundreds of millions of dollars in order to craft and precisely tailor historical events to suit the prevailing political paradigm.” Patrick Henningsen

Black Hawk Dawn, Zero Dark Thirty and Argo, those are only a few major recent productions showing how today’s movie industry promotes US foreign policy. But the motion picture has been used for propaganda since the beginning of the 20th century and Hollywood’s cooperation with the Department of Defense, the CIA and other government agencies is no modern trend.

With Michelle Obama awarding Ben Affleck’s Argo the Oscar for best movie, the industry showed how close it is to Washington...read more