The Knives Come Out as Greenwald Splits From the Intercept

The Knives Come Out as Greenwald Splits From the Intercept Citing Censorship

Funded by a billionaire oligarch and increasingly seen as a mouthpiece for the neoliberal establishment, The Intercept suffered its biggest blow yet with the very public departure of Greenwald.

 October 30th, 2020

By  Alan Macleod  

Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of investigative news outlet The Intercept, very publicly resigned from his position yesterday. The immediate trigger for his decision was a refusal to publish his article exploring corruption in the Biden campaign by his editors, but, as the cult journalist explained on his Substack page, there were also long term and deeper underlying factors that forced him to move on. Greenwald created the Substack page for this purpose, posting his resignation letter, then the censored article followed by the email exchange with his editors that preceded his resignation.

 

A bad breakup

Greenwald’s contract stipulates he has virtually complete editorial freedom and control over his own content, but he revealed that he felt like the outlet had slowly become a bulwark of the establishment, mindlessly repeating the same liberal talking points, rather than challenging them. “The pathologies, illiberalism, and repressive mentality that led to the bizarre spectacle of my being censored by my own media outlet are ones that are by no means unique to The Intercept,” he wrote.

These are the viruses that have contaminated virtually every mainstream center-left political organization, academic institution, and newsroom. I began writing about politics fifteen years ago with the goal of combatting media propaganda and repression, and — regardless of the risks involved — simply cannot accept any situation, no matter how secure or lucrative, that forces me to submit my journalism and right of free expression to its suffocating constraints and dogmatic dictates.”

Greenwald revealed that he had harbored serious problems with the conduct of his employers and the direction of The Intercept for some time, but continued on because he was still afforded complete control over his own output.

But the brute censorship this week of my article — about the Hunter Biden materials and Joe Biden’s conduct regarding Ukraine and China, as well my critique of the media’s rank-closing attempt, in a deeply unholy union with Silicon Valley and the “intelligence community,” to suppress its revelations — eroded the last justification I could cling to for staying,” he explained.

The 53-year-old former attorney said he found himself in the position of somehow being silenced from expressing himself days before an election because of the views of “random editors in New York” who wished him to conform to the Democratic Party line. Greenwald will now pursue a reader-supported model of journalism on Substack.

For its part, The Intercept ensured that the event would be an extremely messy breakup indeed, publishing an acerbic response accusing him of throwing a “tantrum” over “preposterous” charges. “He believes that anyone who disagrees with him is corrupt, and anyone who presumes to edit his words is a censor,” they wrote, claiming he was presenting falsehoods in order to falsely make himself look like a victim. “Over the past six years,” they concluded, “it is Glenn who has strayed from his original journalistic roots, not The Intercept.” Greenwald has since published both the rejected story and a lengthy email exchange between himself and his editors.

 

The knives come out

While some Intercept employees, like Ryan Grim, attempted to steer a neutral path between management and Greenwald, others, such as Naomi Klein, went on the attack. “Glenn was not ‘censored’ — he was edited, and edited well. Crying censorship is a marketing ploy to gin up subscribers for his new Substack. Are people really going to fall for it?” she wrote on Twitter, also suggesting he was directly and callously helping Donald Trump win re-election: “Imagine not caring that you are feeding into this garbage at this point in history.”

The Atlantic’s David Frum, the man who coined the term “axis of evil” for the Bush administration, professed his outrage over the emergence of an alliance of reactionary thinkers, including Greenwald and Matt Taibbi on the left and Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and the Federalist Magazine on the right.

Journalist Marcy Wheeler, who has repeatedly clashed with Greenwald over their radically different interpretations of the RussiaGate scandal, congratulated everyone at The Intercept on the news, claiming “a lot of good reporters…have been unfairly tainted by Glenn Greenwald simply making shit up with impunity for too long.”

 

The changing face of The Intercept

Launched in 2014 and featuring a prestigious lineup of journalists, The Intercept immediately became synonymous with hard-hitting, investigative journalism. But it also developed a reputation for not protecting their sources (a cardinal sin in the journalism business).

NSA whistleblower Reality Winner was sentenced to five years in prison, thanks to The Intercept revealing her identity to authorities. One year later former FBI agent Terry J. Albury, who shared documents exposing the organization’s surveillance of journalists and of religious and ethnic minorities, was jailed after his identity was exposed. Amazingly, in 2019, The Intercept burned their third source, as intelligence analyst Daniel Hale was charged with leaking top secret documents on drone warfare the organization’s editor Jeremy Scahill.

The financial backing for the outlet comes from tech billionaire and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. With a net worth of over $17 billion, the French-born tycoon has ample cash to fund a myriad of think tanks and initiatives, all with a neoliberal interventionist outlook, many of whom have direct links to Washington and its agenda of regime change around the world. This has included using The Intercept as a vehicle to publish fawning depictions of the White Helmets in Syria. The result of this, according to Alex Rubenstein and Max Blumental, is that Omidyar is conducting “global information war” and shaping the media landscape in his interests. Thus, while The Intercept may appear radical, it does not challenge the power and interests of its own backer.

A staunch Democrat, Omidyar gave hefty donations to anti-Trump super-PACs, while The Intercept began to turn on Wikileaks, attacking the organization for supposedly being a Trump conduit. At the same time, it continues to refuse to publish its own Snowden archive, last year announcing it would shut down the project with fewer than 10 percent of the documents made available to the public.

Greenwald appears to have become seen as quite a problem for the outlet, his skepticism on RussiaGate clashing horribly with establishment Democratic opinion. As Greenwald continued to undermine the mainstream narrative of widespread Russian interference in the 2016 election, Omidyar hired noted Russia hawk James Risen as “Senior National Security Correspondent” to offer essentially the opposite opinion in its pages. Investigating suggests Risen was paid around $16,000 per article written.

This latest incident only adds fuel to the fire that the outlet has become a mainstream, Democrat-aligned organization. As journalist Matt Taibbi noted, “The Intercept uncritically took dictation from John Brennan, Jim Clapper, and Michael Hayden, and killed a piece by their Pulitzer-winning founder because it was critical of the probable next president.”

MintPress has been covering the evolution of The Intercept, from investigative outlet to “attack dog of the establishment” for some time, and it appears Greenwald is coming towards that same conclusion, writing in his farewell note:

The current iteration of The Intercept is completely unrecognizable when compared to that original vision. Rather than offering a venue for airing dissent, marginalized voices and unheard perspectives, it is rapidly becoming just another media outlet with mandated ideological and partisan loyalties, a rigid and narrow range of permitted viewpoints (ranging from establishment liberalism to soft leftism, but always anchored in ultimate support for the Democratic Party), a deep fear of offending hegemonic cultural liberalism and center-left Twitter luminaries, and an overarching need to secure the approval and admiration of the very mainstream media outlets we created The Intercept to oppose, critique and subvert.

As someone walking away from a well-paid job in a notoriously competitive and shrinking industry, Greenwald’s future is now in doubt. “I am voluntarily sacrificing the support of a large institution and guaranteed salary in exchange for nothing other than a belief that there are enough people who believe in the virtues of independent journalism and the need for free discourse who will be willing to support my work by subscribing,” he wrote. Whether you believe he is a principled truth teller or a reckless crusader helping Trump, there is no doubt that his actions this week were a big step into the unknown.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/knives-come-out-glenn-greenwald-leaves-intercept-censorship/272753/

The Military-Industrial Complex, Israeli-Style.

The Military-Industrial Complex, Israeli-Style. New Docuseries Touts Virtues of “Iron Dome”

A new documentary series produced in Israel tells the story of the Iron Dome missile system, but as Kathryn Shihadah reports, it leaves out crucial details about how the weapon is used and who funded it.

By  Kathryn Shihadah  Kathryn Shihadah 

Anew docuseries produced in Israel chronicles the development and use of Israel’s multi-billion dollar, U.S.-subsidized Iron Dome missile defense system. The mechanism, an extension of America’s own military-industrial complex, is designed to intercept primitive rockets from Gaza and epitomizes Israel’s approach to Palestinian resistance: denial and disproportionality.

These factors also play a part in Israel’s defense industry as a whole – an enterprise that profits from the suffering of Palestinians who are forced to live under the thumb of modern-day colonialism and occupation by Israel’s structure of institutionalized apartheid. Palestinians oppose their systemic oppression in a David vs. Goliath scenario, resisting their occupier with homemade rockets; while Israel, one of the largest militaries in the world, uses the most modern and sophisticated weaponry on the planet to terrorize its victims.

Israel is both joining and competing with the U.S. domination of the global weapons industry. The three-hour series entitled “Iron Dome” premiered around the world last month in Hebrew on Izzy, a platform that calls itself “the new way to experience Israel.”

Denial of facts

The series features Israelis from the town of Sderot, near the Gaza border, as they look back on the past twenty years or so and discuss their two primary enemies: rockets, and an Israeli government that for a long time didn’t seem to care about them.

The first rocket came from Gaza in 2001 and the first rocket fatality in 2004. By 2007, 10 Israelis had been killed – all but one in Sderot – and the Israeli government, at last, got behind the development of a missile defense system: the Iron Dome.

Israel came down hard on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009 in hopes of bringing an end to the rockets that had by then taken 12 Israeli lives. The incursion, which featured Israel’s latest weaponry at the time, killed 1,400 Palestinians, over 450 of them women and children, and nine Israelis.

The “Iron Dome” series does not mention these statistics, nor does it divulge the source of Palestinian anger and resentment: being kept illegally in exile in Gaza, and under occupation since 1967. Gaza is the world’s largest open-air prison, with a dense population of nearly two million people with no ability to leave. Israel retains complete control of its border and not even humanitarian supplies, human rights monitors, or journalists are allowed to enter.

This brutal Israeli blockade has been in place since 2007, severely limiting Gazans’ access to food, medicine, and other staples, and earning the enclave the nickname “world’s largest open-air prison” and the designation “unlivable.” Its two million residents grapple with malnutrition, a severe shortage of drinking water, electricity – and hope. Suicide rates have been increasing at an alarming rate.

Israelis interviewed in the series appear unaware of these realities – and indeed, Jewish Israeli citizens, on the whole, are in the dark about the realities of occupation as the Israeli government keeps Palestinians behind walls and out of sight.

The “Iron Dome” docuseries is a continuation of this invisibility, and by extension, the invisibility of oppressed people under the fist of the U.S. military-industrial complex as well.

 

The Dahiya Doctrine

The Israeli Dahiya Doctrine of “wielding disproportionate force,” as evidenced in the 2008 incursion, and again in 2012 and 2014, has been part and parcel of the country’s wartime strategy since its birth.

Dahiya has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, as well as the destruction of schools, hospitals, United Nations buildings, critical infrastructure, and entire neighborhoods.

Human rights organizations have documented and criticized the unlawful practice for years, including UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Richard Falk, who called this ongoing strategy no less than “state terrorism.”

Both Israel and the U.S. have been vehemently resisting – with support from Congress – global attempts to hold them accountable for war crimes in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Donald Trump has threatened to cut aid to countries that resist American and Israeli impunity.

Israeli disproportionality is conspicuous not just in wartime, but also in times of relative calm. The “Hamas is a terrorist organization” trope is just one example.

Low-Tech Hamas Rockets a Standing Pretext for Israel's Deadly Airstrikes 

Homemade Hamas “bottle rockets” have been used by Israel for over ten years to justify deadly airstrikes and a suffocating blockade of Gaza. 

MintPress News | Whitney Webb | 4 nov.

Israel uses the label “terrorist” to blame Hamas for Israeli airstrikes (which have become so frequent that most media rarely reports on them anymore), and then for Israel’s refusal to allow parts and materials to enter Gaza for repairs to infrastructure and buildings.

The characterization ignores the political and social welfare arms of the group, denies the legal claims to resistance against oppression – and justifies Israel’s many gratuitous human rights abuses.

Near the end of the “Iron Dome.” the mayor of Sderot points out:

The Iron Dome is a device. In order to solve the problem with Gaza, we need a policy. Either use all our might in a military operation and uproot the problem, or strive for peace with all our might.”

Israel chose the former.

But Israel has bigger fish to fry than “just” the Palestinian territories. Its defense industry – of which Iron Dome is the tip of the iceberg – has global ramifications.

 

Free money

Economy-minded Americans should know that Israel is not only front-end unloading their tax dollars as military aid (circa $10 million a day – weekends and holidays included), but also poaching us from the back end, costing the U.S. in both revenue and jobs.

Standard operating procedure requires military aid from the U.S. to be spent in the U.S., but Congress devised special rules allowing Israel to spend about a quarter of our military aid inside its own country. Of the $3.8 billion per year that should cycle back into our economy in the form of weapon purchases, only about $2.6 billion makes it – an amount that still contributes generously to both the U.S. military-industrial complex and its Israeli counterpart.

Since 1948, the U.S. has given Israel $6.9 billion for various missile defense systems – in addition to over $100 billion in other military aid and $34 billion in economic aid (in current, non-inflation adjusted dollars).

 

Playing dirty

Israel has been encroaching on U.S. defense customers – especially since Trump bought Israel some new Arab allies who may now prefer to shop locally.

Not only is Israel undercutting U.S. arms sales, but it doesn’t always play by the rules. In 2018, Israel refurbished and tried to resell American made equipment to Croatia, without U.S. permission.

That sale was quashed, but Israel’s Defense Ministry and defense industry operate secretively, rarely revealing who their customers are. They reportedly have customers in Canada and several European countries, as well as in Africa and Latin America.

Israel is playing fast and loose with its most generous ally in yet another way.

Since 2010, the United States has sunk $5.5 billion of taxpayer money into the Iron Dome project. As reported by Breaking Defense, in 2019 Congress “effectively compelled a reluctant [US] Army” to buy two Iron Domes at a cost of $373 million. After filling the order, however, Israel refused to share critical proprietary information, severely limiting the usefulness of the equipment for Americans. (Ironically, in 2016, the U.S. was willing to disclose F-35 source codes to Israel – and no other countries.)

For those more interested in peace and justice than economics, there is much more to object to. Israel is profiting not only at American expense, but also (and more so) at Palestinian expense – as well as exporting oppression around the world.

 

“Overkill”

While Palestinians have been essentially unarmed since 1993, the Israeli military (IDF) has built a massive arsenal of weapons for use against them – thanks in great part to U.S. aid. Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation consists almost entirely of homemade rockets and incendiary balloons from Gaza, and the occasional individual knife attack by a frustrated resident of the West Bank.

Decades of Land Grabs Betray Israel's "Terror Balloon" Justification for Latest War on Gaza 

Just as with its last three major wars on Gaza, Israel’s stated motive – to stop incoming terror balloons – is much more about land theft. 

MintPress News | Kathryn Shihadah | 29 aug.

The narrator of the “Iron Dome” docuseries describes Gaza’s rockets as “made from stolen metal street poles…a pipe as wide as a Coca-Cola bottle…just a piece of flying metal” stuffed with fertilizer that Gazan Palestinians dried on their roofs.

While the rockets may cost $100 each to manufacture (and incendiary balloons much less), an anti-rocket missile has a price tag of $50,000, and the launcher itself around $50 million. (A new product, the Light Blade, was developed specifically to shoot down the balloons.)

The documentary depicts Israelis running for bomb shelters when an incoming rocket is detected but omits footage of Palestinians who have nowhere to hide during an airstrike.

 

Military-Industrial Complex, Israeli-style

The billions in research and development, and the expense of manufacturing and operating military equipment like Iron Dome, only makes sense in the context of global arms sales.

The Israeli defense sector develops technologically advanced weaponry, spyware, and missile defense equipment – and manufactures about five times more than it needs. Israeli export deals in 2019 alone totaled over $7 billion, making it one of the top defense exporters in the world.

As a floor model, the Iron Dome’s capabilities are showcased for potential customers every time a rocket launched from Gaza is intercepted by a $50,000 anti-rocket missile.

An Israeli defense contractor confirmed that following IDF attacks on Gaza, his industry “[sees] a big leap in the number of foreign customers. We market aggressively abroad as it is, but the IDF’s actions definitely affect our work.” The link between the military and the weapons industry couldn’t be clearer.

 

Profile of a customer

Because rockets from Gaza are rarely lethal, some experts use words like “asymmetrical warfare” and “repression of protests” to describe the Israeli product line.

Economic researcher Shir Hever points out that demand for Israeli arms is “highest among governments facing high inequality and social unrest…”

“In fact,” Hever says, “the Gaza Strip becomes more than a laboratory for Israeli explosives. It is a laboratory for a social experiment in which an entire population is incarcerated and isolated, controlled from the land, the sea and the air, and sustained with the assistance of international aid (for which Israel doesn’t have to pay).”

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who has studied Israeli military weapon use in Palestinian neighborhoods, adds, “Palestinian spaces are laboratories [where] products and services of state-sponsored security corporations” are tested and then showcased for the consumption of the global arms market.

The Great March of Return – Gaza’s 20-month0long weekly protest in 2018 and 2019 that drew tens of thousands of participants – was, for Israel, yet another “opportunity to develop new means to put down demonstrations,” to create yet more high-tech solutions to low-tech issues.

Television shows like “Iron Dome” serve to perpetuate myths and obfuscate truths. Meanwhile, Israel creates new forms of oppression, tests them out on Palestinians, and exports them to those with the money and the will to oppress others.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/military-industrial-complex-israel-style-new-docuseries-touts-virtues-iron-dome/272895/

Media Silence Marks Ongoing OPCW Cover-Up

Media Silence Marks Ongoing OPCW Cover-Up of Syria Chemical Weapons Scandal

“Clearly the U.S. and its allies do not want transparency and open debate about the OPCW Douma investigation, and one can only conclude that this is the case because they know full well that their claims cannot be substantiated. Smears and censorship are the only tactics they have left.” – Propaganda Expert Piers Robinson

November 06th, 2020

By  Alan Macleod  

This should be a global scandal,” said journalist Aaron Maté on the suppression of evidence from experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in order to push for war in Syria. “This is the U.S. government bombing Syria based on allegations that were later found by the investigating team to be false. But then once that team came back to write their report they were pressured by the U.S. government and had their evidence censored.”

Unfortunately, it has not become a global scandal. With very few exceptions, media across the spectrum have refused to report on the fact that the respected Nobel Peace Prize-winning body appears to be suppressing its own experts’ findings on Syria to suit Washington’s agenda. There has been no mention of the continuing scandal in The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, or MSNBC. Even alternative media like Democracy Now! Have made only fleeting reference to it. “Since that censorship there has been a complete media censorship by everybody…all the major networks. Even adversarial progressive networks,” Maté added.

Perhaps the most notable case of omission, however, was Newsweek. Journalist Tared Haddad attempted to cover the story but was continually rebuffed by higher-ups who squashed his reporting. Haddad ended up very publicly quitting, rather than allow the scandal to be brushed under the carpet.

“It is certainly not a lack of facts or evidence that is stopping mainstream media from reporting the issue,” Piers Robinson, co-director of the Organization for Propaganda Studies told MintPress, but “covering it would force mainstream media outlets to ask challenging questions of the U.S., UK, and French governments as well as the OPCW itself.” Thus, readers would be forgiven for not knowing the details of what happened.

Inside Journalist Tareq Haddad's Spectacular Departure from Newsweek 

In an exposé essay that doubles as a goodbye to the profession, Newsweek journalist Tareq Haddad explained why he very publicly quit his job. 

MintPress News | Alan Macleod | 20 dec. 2019

 

The birth of a cover-up

In April 2018, dozens of people were found dead in a suspected chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma. The United States government and its allies immediately blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and responded with rounds of airstrikes, bombing targets around the country. Support for the action was bi-partisan and enjoyed widespread media approval. In fact, a survey by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that not one of the top 100 U.S. newspapers by circulation opposed the Trump administration’s response.

A team from the OPCW was sent to Douma to investigate the incident. Its report gave some credence to Washington’s accusations. While far from conclusive, it did suggest that it was “likely” that there was indeed some form of chemical weapons used, possibly an air attack that involved dropping chlorine canisters on the city. Although the OPCW refused to speculate on who was responsible, the suggestion of an aerial strike indicated Syrian government forces, the most equipped for such an attack, were to blame.

The report was seized upon by the Trump administration and the media (often the last time the organization has been mentioned in their pages) as justification for U.S. actions. However, its credibility was quickly undermined by the leaking of internal memos from experts on the ground who claimed that their opinions had been censored and that in their estimation, the canisters were likely placed at the site of the incident, suggesting an inside job from American-allied forces.

Senior OPCW officials reportedly ordered the removal of “all traces” of dissenting opinion from the published document, however. The organization’s first president, Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, expressed his grave concerns over the news, fearing the OPCW, which was founded in 1997 to represent all 193 of its member states, had become a tool of the U.S. government.

The scandal continued to grow throughout 2020 as OPCW experts came forward to give testimony as to how their findings had been completely manipulated or ignored in order to present a one-sided, incorrect view of events in order to further an agenda.

Things reached a fever pitch last month, however, when Bustani was invited to speak at the United Nations Security Council about his concerns but was blocked by the United States and its allies on the basis that he was not in a position to provide expert details about chemical weapons or the attack. “What has happened now is yet more sad proof that Western delegations fear the uncomfortable truth,” said Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia. The Russian delegation subsequently read out Bustani’s testimony. In doing so, it was accused of undermining the legitimacy of the tribunal.

 

An impenetrable wall of silence

Bustani claimed the truth was being deliberately “hidden behind an impenetrable wall of silence and opacity, making any meaningful dialogue impossible.”

Regardless of whether or not there is substance to the concerns raised about the OPCW’s behaviour in the Douma investigation, hearing what your own inspectors have to say would be an important first step in mending the Organisation’s damaged reputation. The dissenting inspectors are not claiming to be right, but they do want to be given a fair hearing. As one Director General to another, I respectfully request that you grant them this opportunity,” he concluded.

“The censoring of a respected former head of the OPCW is the latest in a sad string of attempts to keep the public wildly misinformed about what really took place in Douma in 2018,” Haddad told MintPress,

Although much of what took place has now been established beyond all doubt, the OPCW’s frankly childish approach to addressing this incident shows how politicized this body has become, severely undermining its impartiality and credibility going forward. These are developments that should be deeply concerning to everyone, especially given that the real perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks are now that much more likely to go unpunished.”

This is not the first time that Bustani has run afoul of the U.S. government. In 2002, he was unlawfully removed from his position as director-general of the OPCW after contradicting U.S. claims over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Bush administration under Secretary of State John Bolton threatened to kill his family if he did not resign; “You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you. We know where your kids live,” Bolton told him.

 
The U.S. has used the Douma attack as justification for increasing sanctions on Syria, a country where at least 83%of people live below the poverty line, according to the UN. Over 13 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. This summer, the World Food Program also warned of a potential widespread famine inside the country. Sanctions have made the importation of foods and medicine profoundly difficult, further immiserating a society already devastated from nine years of brutal civil war, in which virtually every world and regional power has fueled the fighting. Ultimately, it is the Syrian people who are caught in the crossfire.

“The bottom line” from this story, Robinson stated, is that, “clearly the U.S. and its allies do not want transparency and open debate about the OPCW Douma investigation, and one can only conclude that this is the case because they know full well that their claims cannot be substantiated. Smears and censorship are the only tactics they have left.”

https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-silence-ongoing-opcw-cover-up-syria-chemical-weapons/272932/