zaterdag 29 november 2014

Trouw Propaganda 2

Anti-Putin Hysteria



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Der Spiegel Tones Down Anti-Putin Hysteria

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opednews.comHeadlined to H2 11/28/14
Reprinted from Consortium News

Last summer, the German news magazine Der Spiegel was swept up in the Western hysteria over Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine crisis, even running a bellicose cover demanding "Stop Putin Now" and blaming him for the 298 deaths in the July 17 crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine.
"Vladimir Putin has shown his true face. Once seen as a statesman, the Russian president has exposed himself as a pariah of the international community. The MH17 dead are also his; he is partially responsible for the shooting down of the flight," a Der Spiegel editorial declared on July 28. "Nobody in the West continues to harbor serious doubts that the plane was shot down with a Buk surface-to-air missile system -- one that was almost certainly provided to the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine by Russia."
Actually, by then, a number of people in the West, including U.S. intelligence analysts, were doubting the blame-Putin narrative because they could find no evidence that the Russians had supplied the ethnic Russian rebels with a sophisticated anti-aircraft missile system that could bring down a commercial plane flying at 33,000 feet.
At the time, I was being told by a source briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts that the emerging scenario pointed more toward an extremist group associated with the Ukrainian government although not under the control of Kiev's senior leadership. But the major media in the U.S. and Europe refused to rethink the early "conventional wisdom."
However, in October, Der Spiegel quietly reversed itself regarding Moscow supposedly supplying the Buk missiles, reporting that the German foreign intelligence agency, the BND, had concluded that Russia did not supply the battery suspected of bringing down the plane, saying the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian military missile captured by the rebels from a Ukrainian military base (although I was later told by a European official that the BND's conclusion was less definitive than Der Spiegel reported).
Creating a Crisis

In another reversal of sorts, this leading German-language news magazine has acknowledged that the European Union and German leaders were guilty of miscalculations that contributed to the Ukraine crisis, particularly by under-appreciating the enormous financial costs to Ukraine if it broke its historic ties to Russia in favor of a new association with the EU.
In November 2013, Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych learned from experts at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine that the total cost to the country's economy from severing its business connections to Russia would be around $160 billion, 50 times the $3 billion figure that the EU had estimated, Der Spiegel reported. The figure stunned Yanukovych, who pleaded for financial help that the EU couldn't provide, the magazine said.
Western loans would have to come from the International Monetary Fund, which was demanding painful "reforms" of Ukraine's economy, structural changes that would make the hard lives of average Ukrainians even harder, including raising the price of natural gas by 40 percent and devaluing Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia, by 25 percent.
With Putin offering a more generous aid package of $15 billion, Yanukovych backed out of the EU agreement but told the EU's Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, Nov. 28, 2013, that he was willing to continue negotiating.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded with "a sentence dripping with disapproval and cool sarcasm aimed directly at the Ukrainian president. 'I feel like I'm at a wedding where the groom has suddenly issued new, last minute stipulations,'" according to Der Spiegel's chronology of the crisis.
That was when the U.S. neocons stepped up their strategy of using the popular disappointment in western Ukraine over the failed EU agreement to topple Yanukovych, the constitutionally elected president.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, a prominent neocon holdover who advised Vice President Dick Cheney, passed out cookies to anti-Yanukovych demonstrators at the Maidan Square in Kiev and reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European aspirations."
Meanwhile, neocon Sen. John McCain joined Ukrainian rightists onstage at the Maidan urging on the protests, and the U.S.-funded, neocon-led National Endowment for Democracy deployed scores of its Ukrainian political/media operatives in support of the disruptions. Even earlier, NED President Carl Gershman, a leading neocon, had identified Ukraine as "the biggest prize" and an important step toward toppling Putin in Russia. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Neocons' Ukraine-Syria-Iran Gambit."]
By early February, Nuland was telling U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt "f*ck the EU" and discussing how to "glue this thing" as she handpicked who the new leaders of Ukraine would be; "Yats is the guy," she said about Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
As violent disorders at the Maidan spun out of control, the State Department and U.S. news media blamed Yanukovych, setting the stage for his removal. On Feb. 22, a putsch, spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias from the Maidan protests, forced Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives.

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http://www.consortiumnews.com
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at more...)



Trouw Propaganda

IS valt Kobani vanuit Turkije aan


Extremisten van de terreurgroep Islamitische Staat hebben de Syrische grensstad Kobani vanuit Turkije aangevallen. Dat is voor het eerst. Volgens een woordvoerder van de Koerdische Democratische Unie Partij vielen IS-strijders de grenspost aan die Turkije met Kobani verbindt. De Turkse autoriteiten hebben nog niet gereageerd op de aanval.
Het Syrische Observatorium voor de Mensenrechten zei dat het offensief begon met twee zelfmoordaanslagen op de grensovergang. Eén van de aanslagen vond aan het begin van de dag plaats met een aanslag met een autobom. De tweede gebeurde iets later op dezelfde plek, door middel van een vest met explosieven. Later vonden er nog twee zelfmoordaanslagen plaats aan het zuidwesten van de stad.

Kobani wordt nu van vier kanten aangevallen, aldus de organisatie. Ook in het zuidwesten van Kobani werd vandaag gevochten. IS zette daar tanks in om zijn strijders te ondersteunen. Het offensief eiste de levens van minsten 30 personen. 21 hiervan waren strijders van IS, inclusief de zelfmoordterroristen. De rest zijn Koerdische troepen.

Stategisch belang

Het offensief van IS tegen Kobani begon medio september. De stad is van groot strategisch belang voor IS, omdat het de grensplaats is van Syrië en Turkije.

Turkije houdt zich tot dusverre afzijdig van de strijd...

Om te kunnen verklaren hoe het kan dat ISIS vanuit het NAVO-land Turkije de Syrische stad Kobani kan aanvallen, moet de redactie van Trouw de leugen verspreiden dat 'Turkije zich tot dusverre afzijdig van de strijd [houdt],' terwijl al langere tijd bekend is dat Turkije een conflict met de VS heeft omdat het ISIS-fundamentalisten steunt in hun strijd tegen de Koerden. Turkije laat al maandenlang ISIS-terroristen vanuit Turkije het buurland Syrië infiltreren. Maar omdat voor Trouw de waarheid er niet toe doet, moet het NAVO-land buiten schot blijven. Turkije staat op de veertiende plaats van 'World's top 15 military spenders in 2013,' en toch niet in staat om ISIS buiten de deur te houden?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures 

Isabel Allende

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2014 FULL SHOW | HEADLINES

Novelist Isabel Allende on Her Literary Career and Memories of Chile During the CIA-Backed Coup

In a holiday special, we spend the hour with Isabel Allende, one of Latin America’s and the United States’ greatest novelists. Just this week she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Allende is the author of 20 books, including "The House of the Spirits," "Paula" and "Daughter of Fortune." Her latest is a mystery novel titled "Ripper." Her books have been translated into 35 languages, sold close to 60 million copies around the world. Allende now lives in California, but she was born in Peru in 1942 and traveled the world as the daughter of a Chilean diplomat. Her father’s first cousin was Salvador Allende, Chile’s president from 1970 until Sept. 11, 1973, when Augusto Pinochet seized power in a CIA-backed military coup. Salvador Allende died in the palace that day. Isabel Allende would later flee from her native Chile to Venezuela. In April, Amy Goodman conducted a public interview with Isabel Allende at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas in New York shortly after the publication of "Ripper." In this wide-ranging conversation, Allende discusses her literary career and her memories of Chile before and during the coup.

U.S. Democracy 10


Guantanamo force-feeding is illegal, says UN body: Reprieve comment

A United Nations panel has said that the force-feeding of hunger-striking detainees at Guantanamo Bay is a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.

The report, released today by the UN Committee Against Torture, said that the practise"constitutes ill-treatment", and called on the US to halt it. The Committee also noted that"detainees’ lawyers have argued in court that force feedings are allegedly administered in an unnecessarily brutal and painful manner" - an apparent reference to US litigation brought by international human rights NGO Reprieve on behalf of cleared Syrian detainee Abu Wa'el Dhiab.

As part of those legal proceedings, the Obama Administration has until Tuesday (December 2) to appeal a recent court order to release over ten hours of classified footage showing the force-feeding of Mr Dhiab.

Commenting, Cori Crider, Strategic Director at Reprieve and Mr Dhiab's attorney,  said: “The UN is entirely right – abuse at Guantánamo is still happening on Obama’s watch, and I’ve seen the force-feeding footage to prove it. This assessment could not be more timely – the Obama administration has until next week to either face up to a court order to release these force-feeding videos, or to file an appeal, in hopes of covering up the evidence. The right course is clear – the American public has a right to see what’s being done in their name. Obama should release the tapes without delay, and end these abuses once and for all.”

FAIR


Nov
26
2014

NYT Columnist's Faulty Attack on Elizabeth Warren's 'Rage'

New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin has earned a reputation over the years for being friendly with the Wall Street giants he covers. If you read his bizarre rant against Senator Elizabeth Warren, it's not hard to see why.
Elizabeth Warren (cc photo: New America Foundation)
Elizabeth Warren (cc photo: New America Foundation)
Warren, who has spent years loudly criticizing the failure to properly regulate and punish finance industry wrongdoing, wrote a piece for the Huffington Post (11/19/14) to say she disagreed with the White House's nomination of Antonio Weiss as undersecretary for domestic finance at the Treasury Department.
What's the problem? Weiss has "spent the last 20 years of his career " at a giant financial firm Lazard, "most of it advising on international mergers and acquisitions." To Warren, that makes him the wrong kind of person for the job:
Neither his background nor his professional experience makes him qualified to oversee consumer protection and domestic regulatory functions at the Treasury…. There are a lot of people who have spent their careers focused on these issues, and Weiss isn't one of them.
She goes on to argue that this is part of the "larger, more general issue of Wall Street executives dominating the Obama administration, as well as the Democratic Party's, overall economic policymaking apparatus."
Andrew Ross Sorkin (cc photo: David A. Grogan)
Andrew Ross Sorkin (cc photo: David A. Grogan)
So what's wrong with the idea that the White House hasn't been tough enough on Wall Street? Lots, according to Sorkin. Under the headline "Senator Elizabeth Warren's Misplaced Rage at Obama’s Treasury Nominee" (11/24/14), he  uses words like "furious," "wrath" and  "ferocious" to describe her "rage." And it's not just that she's mad–she's "misinformed."
What did Warren get wrong, exactly? Sorkin tells readers that Weiss "works at Lazard, not Citigroup." Yes; no one said otherwise. He adds that Weiss
is hardly the prototypical banker. He is a protégé of the writer and editor George Plimpton and is the publisher of the Paris Review, the literary magazine, giving it financial support it for years to keep it alive.
He's helped support the Paris Review. Well, this changes everything!
He goes on to point out that Weiss was "a staunch supporter–and campaign donation bundler–for President Obama and is considered relatively progressive, especially by Wall Street standards." Sorkin even mentions that Weiss "is one of the few people within financial circles who might have been friends with Ms. Warren."
That Warren is critical of someone she might be friendly with is, if anything, a sign that Warren is taking a principled stance.
The real problem, for Sorkin, is that Warren misunderstands the Tim Hortons/Burger King merger–the "so-called inversion deal on which she bases much of her opposition."
Antonio Weiss
Antonio Weiss on CNBC
But things aren't nearly as clear as Sorkin would like them to be. Warren writes that a corporate inversion is a tax avoidance strategy "that allows them to maintain their operations in America but claim foreign citizenship and cut their US taxes even more." Weiss's firm worked for Burger King on the deal–and has done similar work on other inversions.
Not so fast, says Sorkin–this is no normal inversion: "While the merger is technically an inversion, it isn't comparable to so many of the cynically constructed deals that were done this year simply to reduce taxes."
That's what Burger King says–though Stephen Shay (Reuters9/2/14), an expert on corporate taxation from Harvard Law School, says, "I would be surprised if in five years' time, their tax rate does not come down reasonably dramatically."
In any case, Warren used the Burger King merger as a high-profile example of the kind of corporate tax dodging that Weiss's firm works on routinely. As she put it, Lazard "has helped put together three of the last four major corporate inversions that have been announced in the US." She also notes that Lazard itself has engaged in the same kind of maneuvering, moving its corporate home address to Bermuda "to  take advantage of a particularly slimy tax loophole."
This is the crux of Sorkin's argument that Warren "is, to put it politely, mistaken." She calls this a tax inversion, and it's not–or actually it is, since it's "technically an inversion." Is that clear enough for you?
Near the end of his piece,  Sorkin admits that Warren could have had a better argument if she wasn't so blinded by her rage:
It is true that Mr. Weiss doesn't have a lot of experience in the regulatory arena, and at least part of the role he is nominated for involves carrying out the remaining parts of the Dodd/Frank overhaul law. It is also true that Mr. Weiss, if confirmed, will be the beneficiary of a policy at Lazard that vests his unvested shares–some $20 million in stock and deferred compensation–by taking a government job. That creates its own conflicts.
Ms. Warren might be more persuasive if she focused on those issues.
Good point: Warren should have focused on his lack of regulatory experience.
Oh wait, she did. Right there in the fourth paragraph:
That raises the first issue. Weiss has spent most of his career working on international transactions–from 2001 to 2009 he lived and worked in Paris–and now he's being asked to run domestic finance at Treasury. Neither his background nor his professional experience makes him qualified to oversee consumer protection and domestic regulatory functions at the Treasury.
Free tip for Andrew Ross Sorkin: Don't say someone should have emphasized a point they in fact raised as "the first issue." It makes it seem like you didn't read the article you're critiquing.
http://fair.org/blog/2014/11/26/nyt-columnists-faulty-attack-on-elizabeth-warrens-rage/

TR-3B


TR-3B are real.




TR-3 Black Manta


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
TR-3 Black Manta
RoleStealth spyplane
ManufacturerNorthrop
Primary userUnited States Air Force
The TR-3A Black Manta is the name of a reconnaissance airplane of the United States Air Force speculated to be developed under a black project. The only real "evidence" for such an aircraft is based on speculations about several "Reported" sightings of mysterious flying wing aircraft in a track of the California desert known as Antelope Valley. This stretch of desert draws black project fanatics because it is close to several known military research and testing areas, such as Edwards Air Force Base in California, United States Air Force Plant 42, and Groom Lake in Nevada.[1]

Rumors[edit]

The TR-3A is claimed to be a subsonic stealth spy plane with a flying wing design. It was alleged to have been used in the Gulf War to provide laser designation for F-117A Nighthawk bombers, for targeting to use with laser-guided bombs (smart bombs). The TR-3A is supposedly manufactured by Northrop Grumman.[2]
How the TR-3 designation came up in publications is unclear. It is clearly not a continuation of the R-for-Reconnaissance series, since ER-2 (NASA designation for U-2aircraft modified for earth resources study) stood for "Earth Resources", not "Electronic Reconnaissance". It's therefore possible that TR-3 is merely a corruption of Tier III, a name given to a cancelled large reconnaissance UAV flying wing designed in the timeframe of alleged sightings of the Black Manta (circa 1988/1990). (The Tier III Minus program that resulted in the unsuccessful RQ-3 was a scaled-down derivative of the original Tier III.)

Potential candidates for TR-3[edit]

Because there is no evidence to support TR-3's existence, it is possible that the mysterious flying wing sightings associated with Black Manta could be a technology demonstrator for a potential new-generation tactical reconnaissance aircraft.[3] This contention is supported by USAF sources in the late 1980s confirming that the US had no short-term plans to develop a low-observable U-2 successor.[4]
Another candidate for the alleged spyplane is a design from Teledyne Ryanpatented in the United States on April 26, 1977, under number 4,019,699.[5] This aircraft of low observability as it is called, was invented by Robert W. Wintersdorff and George R. Cota, employees at Teledyne Ryan, a firm specialized in building unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. On May 10, 1977, a design of an aircraft was patented by Teledyne Ryan under number Des. 244,265,[6] and closely resembles the earlier mentioned example. This design was made by Waldo Virgil Opfer. The first design is unmanned, the second one manned. Whether one of these designs is related to the above-mentioned TR-3A is not positively identified, but it is a coincidence that TR also stands for Teledyne Ryan. Teledyne Ryan was procured by Northrop Grumman in 1999. The Teledyne Ryan designs also strongly resemble the unidentified flying objects photographed in Belgium in 1989/1990,[original research?] which were chased by the Belgian Air Force and seen by hundreds of people in what is called the Belgian UFO wave.

See also[edit]

Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era
Related lists

References[edit]

  1. Jump up ^ Pope 1991, p. 34
  2. Jump up ^ Pope 1991, p. 32
  3. Jump up ^ Pope 1991, p. 34
  4. Jump up ^ "Stealth Recce," Aviation Week & Space Technology, 28 November 1988, page 19.
  5. Jump up ^ Google Patents
  6. Jump up ^ Google Patents

Further reading[edit]

  • "TR-3A Evolved From Classified Prototypes, Based on Tactical Penetrator Concept" Aviation Week and Space Technology, June 10, 1991. p 20-21
  • “Triangular Recon Aircraft May be Supporting F-117A” AW&ST, June 10, 1991. p 20. William Scott
  • "America's New Secret Aircraft" Popular Mechanics, December 1991. p. 32-5. Gregory T. Pope
  • "Possible Black Aircraft Seen Flying In Formation with F-117As KC-135s." Aviation Week, March 9, 1992. p. 66-67
  • Popular Science, March 1993
  • "Stealth Watchers" Wired, Issue 2.02 Feb 1994. Phil Patton (article)
  • Google Patent Search, patent 4,019,699, issued April 26, 1977 (description)
  • Google Patent Search, patent Des. 244,265, issued May 10, 1977 (description)
  • NBC Nightly News, August 6, 1997 segment showing U-2 with triangle on undercarriage (CIA, USAF)

External links[edit]