VOLTAIRE NETWORK | MOSCOW (RUSSIA) | 14 OCTOBER 2015

AP Photo

2015 – the world we live in, at the beginning of the third millennium, is sexist and exclusive. Quite apart from spending trillions of dollars a year, every year, on weapons systems to murder one another, quite apart from decimating the species sharing our planet with us, apart from polluting the seas, air and land, just over half the countries have achieved gender parity in education.

Chilling statistics

The new report released this week by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) provides some chilling statistics – namely that despite combined efforts, just over half the countries in the world have managed to achieve gender parity in primary and secondary education. This, in a world which spends literally thousands of billions of dollars on weapons, in a world which is desecrated by Humankind as swathes of habitat are destroyed, killing countless species of animals and plants even before they have been discovered, apart from killing the ones we know.

The report, Gender and Education for All (EFA) 2000-2015, was drawn up by UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report and UN Girl’s Education Initiative and reveals some telling statistics which should make Humankind, collectively, ashamed. For instance some fifteen million girls will never even step into a classroom. For instance, not one single country in Sub-Saharan Africa was able to meet the gender parity goals in education and this area, together with the Arab States, has the worst record.

In Chad and the Central African Republic, the number of boys in education is double that of girls despite the fact that the number of boys dropping out of secondary education is higher in percentage terms than the figure for girls. By 2015, less than seventy per cent of young women in Sub-Saharan Africa will be literate and 65% of adults who cannot read or write are women and not men. In Arab States, 20 per cent of girls from poor families have never once set foot inside a school. Worldwide, 62 million girls of school age do not attend any education program.

Worse, the figure has not moved or improved since 2000.

Gender violence and rape at schools

Gender violence and rape at schools is rife and is a factor which underlies the disparity in attendance, as is child marriage, in which girls are forced to marry while minors and are then excluded from education by the husband and his family. In 2012, 20 per cent of women who married worldwide were aged between 15 and 19.

The report concludes that unless there is a fundamental change in attitudes and unless there is a worldwide focus on achieving change, women and girls will never achieve parity in education.

True, progress has been made, and this is referred to in the report. However, the focus should be on the tremendous challenge ahead, making sure education is accessible and affordable to all, making sure education is regarded as a fundamental birthright and not a privilege or a business, making sure that secondary schooling options should be available for those adolescents forced to work or barred from attending a school.

Communities must be mobilized, all those involved in education must be involved to address the issue of gender equality. How can we call ourselves civilized if during the same timeframe when we have seen wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sirya and Libya. Somalia, Yemen, Mali, Sudan, Mali, Central African Republic, among others, gender parity in education has been paralyzed?

What a telling statement on Humankind, 2015.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

(timothy.hinchey@gmail.com)

*Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, deputy editor, editor, chief editor, director, project manager, executive director, partner and owner of printed and online daily, weekly, monthly and yearly publications, TV stations and media groups printed, aired and distributed in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe Isles; the Russian Foreign Ministry publication Dialog and the Cuban Foreign Ministry Official Publications. He has spent the last two decades in humanitarian projects, connecting communities, working to document and catalog disappearing languages, cultures, traditions, working to network with the LGBT communities helping to set up shelters for abused or frightened victims and as Media Partner with UN Women, working to foster the UN Women project to fight against gender violence and to strive for an end to sexism, racism and homophobia. A Vegan, he is also a Media Partner of Humane Society International, fighting for animal rights. He is Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru.

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/14-10-2015/132315-sexist_world-0/

By Paul Craig Roberts

October 14, 2015 “Information Clearing House” –  When I read that the report on the downing of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine was being put in the hands of the Dutch, I knew that there would be no investigation and no attention to the facts.

And there wasn't.

I did not intend to write about the report, because Washington's propaganda has already succeeded, at least in the Western world, in its purpose of laying the blame on Russia. However, the misrepresentation of the Dutch report by Western media, such as NPR, is so outrageous as to make the media the story and not the report.

For example, I just heard NPR's Moscow correspondent, Corey Flintoff, say that the missile that hit the airliner was fired by Ukrainian separatists who lack the technical ability to operate the system. Therefore, the missile had to have been fired by a Russian.

There is nothing in the Dutch report whatsoever that leads to this conclusion. Flintoff either is incompetent or lying or he is expressing his view and not the report's conclusion.

The only conclusion that the report reaches is one that we already knew: if a Buk missile brought down the airliner, it was a Russian-made missile. The Dutch report does not say who fired it.

Indeed, the report places no blame on Russia, but it does place blame on Ukraine for not closing the airspace over the war area. Attorneys have stated in response to the report that families of those killed and the Malaysian airline itself are likely to file lawsuits against Ukraine for negligence.

Of course, there was nothing of this in Flintoff's report.

As I wrote at the time of the airliner's destruction, the Western media already had "the-Russians-did-it" story ready the moment the airliner was reported to be shot down. This story was very useful to Washington in hardening its European vassal states into sanctions against Russia, as there was some dissent. What Washington has never explained and the Western media has never asked is: What motive did separatists and Russia have to shoot down a Malaysian airliner?

None whatsoever. The Russian government would never allow such a thing. Putin would have immediately strung up those responsible.

Washington's story makes no sense whatsoever. Only an idiot could believe it.

What motive did Washington have? Many. The demonization of Russia made it impossible for European governments to resist or abandon the economic sanctions that Washington is using to break economic and political relationships between Europe and Russia.

The Russian manufacturer of the Buk missile has proven that if a Buk missile was used, it was an old version that exists only in the Ukraine military. For some years the Russian military has been equipped with a replacement version that has a different signature in its destructive impact. The damage to the Malaysian airliner is inconsistent with the destructive force of the Buk missile in Russian service. The reports were given to the Dutch, but no effort was made to replicate and verify the validity of the tests conducted by the manufacturer of the missile. Indeed, the Dutch report does not even consider whether the airliner was downed by Ukrainian fighter jets. The report is as useless as the 9/11 Commission's report.

Don't expect any acknowledgement of this by the Western media, a collection of people who lie for a living.

The reason that the West has no future is that the West has no media, only propagandists for government and corporate agendas and apologists for their crimes. Every day the bought-and-paid-for-media sustains The Matrix that makes Western peoples politically impotent.

The Western media has no independence. An editor of a major German newspaper has written a book, a best-seller published in Germany, in which he states that not only he himself served the CIA as a reliable purveyor of Washington's lies, but that every significant journalist in Europe does so also.

Obviously, his book has not been translated and published in America.

NPR, like all of Western media, has lost its integrity. NPR claims to be reader-supported. In fact, it is supported by corporations. Pay attention to the ads: "NPR is supported by xyz corporation working to sell you this or that product or service."

The George W. Bush regime destroyed NPR by appointing two Republican female ideologues to oversee NPR's public function. The two Republicans succeeded in making job security, not reporting integrity, the motive of NPR journalists.

As a person who worked with President Reagan to end the Cold War and associated nuclear threat, I am dismayed that the Western media has failed life on earth by resurrecting the prospect of nuclear armageddon.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43132.htm.

Indian agriculture is in crisis. Indian farmers are in crisis. These crises are human made. Over 300,000 farmers have committed suicide in India during the past 18 years. Most of these are due to farmer indebtedness resulting from economic liberalisation, expensive inputs and the production of cash crops for export. In Punjab, the original 'poster boy' of the green revolution, there are falling water tables and cancer rates have increased markedly. Indian soils are being severely depleted due to chemical-intensive farming, and now the government is considering introducing genetically modified food crops into the country in a non-transparent way, against the recommendations of a series of major high-level reports.

What is happening in India is a microcosm of all that is wrong with modern agriculture: the imposition of cash monocrops and the subsequent undermining of local food security (leading to food-deficit regions and to a reliance on imports); the introduction of costly and hazardous (to health and environment) chemical inputs and company seeds; crop failure (or, in many cases, the inability to secure decent prices on a commercial market dominated by commodity speculators in the US or rigged in favour of Western countries); and spiralling debt.

The situation for India's farmers is dire across the board. Consider that 670 million people in India's the rural areas live on less than 33 rupees a day (around 50 US cents) a day. And consider that than 32 million quit agriculture between 2007 and 2012. Where did they go? Into the cities to look for work. Work that does not exist.

Between 2005 and 2015, only 15 million jobs were created nationally. To keep up with a growing workforce, around 12 million new jobs are required each year. Therefore, if you are going to displace hundreds of millions from the land and put them at the mercy of the 'helping hand' of giant agribusiness companies or the whims of the market, you may well be consigning them to the dustbin of history given the lack of options for making a living out there.

In fact, that is exactly what the Indian government is doing by leaving farmers to deal with agribusiness and the vagaries of the market and having to compete with heavily subsidised Western agriculture/agribusiness, whose handmaidens at the WTO demand India reduces import restrictions.

While the West tries to impose its neoliberal agenda of cutting subsidies to agriculture and dismantlingprice support mechanisms and the public distribution system (that if effectively run would allow Indian farmers to receive a decent stable income), farmers are unsurprisingly leaving the sector in droves as agriculture becomes economically non-viable. Forcing farmers to leave the land is a deliberate strategy. Just like it is a deliberate strategy to give massive handouts to industry and corporate concerns who are not delivering on jobs. It's all about priorities. And farmers are not a priority. They are being driven from farming, while all the advantages are being given to a failing corporate-industrial sector.

So what can be done to reverse this trend?

Mines as economic platforms for rural development?

Before the British arrived, India was a pre-eminent global economic powerhouse. Economist Angus Maddison noted that India was the richest country in the world and had controlled a third of global wealth until the 17th century. India was an exporter of spices, food grains, handicrafts, handloom products, wootz steel, musk, camphor, sandalwood and ivory items, among other things, and was highly agriculturally productive.

The village was the lynchpin of a rural economy and a centre of entrepreneurship. But the British Raj virtually dismantled much of this this system by introducing mono-crop activities and mill-made products, and post-independent India has failed to repair the economic fabric and seems intent on destroying it completely. As a result, rural/village India is thus too often (wrongly) depicted a 'basket case'.

But a businessman called Charles Devenish reckons he has the answer to reinvigorating rural India and returning it to its former status. He recently contacted me and said he had a solution for India's agrarian crisis and the plight of farmers. He revealed his background in mining; thoughts about the mayhem being caused by the extraction industries in the tribal belt, secretive Memorandums of Understanding and para-military violence driving people from their lands immediately sprang to mind.

But as far as Charles is concerned, maybe I was missing something. It turns out that Charles has a vision for India. And he is very passionate about it. It involves bringing people together under the banner of a Gandhian dream of an Independent Village Republic… centred on mining.

His vision for rural India is based on a commercial model of raising capital for mineral exploration and mining development and then using the resulting wealth to reinvest in agroecology, social infrastructure and rural enterprises. Charles listed his company Deccan Gold Mines on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in 2003 to raise capital for mineral exploration and mining and get the public involved and interested in this field. He says that it has been a difficult road, but the company now has 20,000 shareholders and a "great package of assets."

In 1958, at 17, Charles walked much of the way from northern France to India. His journey through Pakistan and India was a big turning point. Nehru and Congress were in full swing. Charles met up with student groups from Delhi University and became caught up in the general spirit of the development of a nation.

At some stage, he bought a run-down jewellery shop in Australia. It lasted 35 years and morphed into what was probably one of Australia's top jewellery business enterprises. One day a customer came into the shop with an emerald crystal. It became his first introduction to mining. Over the years, mainly through his huge customer base in the shop, he became involved in various mining companies. Charles listed his first diamond exploration company in about 1986 and was responsible for opening the first diamond mine in Zimbabwe.

He says:

The general attitude of my board members was make money and to hell with everybody else. It was that mine that really gave me the clear picture of what not to do and what enormous potential a mine has for regional development. Unfortunately my board had a different view.

Charles helped open the first diamond mine in the US. He started the first ruby cutting factory in Hanoi, shipped the first container of buffalo meat from Delhi to Angola, operated for five years exploring in Angola during the civil war and was responsible for opening the first zinc mine in Burma in partnership with the Chinese.

His view on business is simple:

It should be social capitalism with a small 'c'. I am a strong advocate of the "The Small is Beautiful," concept and the Gandhian view of small cottage industry. And I strongly believe that this is where India needs to go and not follow the Western, Chinese model of large soul-destroying mass production.

While Charles (74) brings his mining expertise to the table, his associate Stuart Newton (77) has dedicated his life to botany. Charles says that Stuart has totally opened his eyes to the amazing aspects of Indian agriculture and what could happen if a few simple steps were taken.

Charles reckons India is sitting on a wealth of minerals that it currently imports but has no need to, given what is beneath the ground. This is the untapped wealth that could reinvigorate farming and villages.

In April I994, he was invited to a mining conference sponsored by the United Nations in Delhi. The Government of the day announced that they were open for business and there was to be complete transparency and single window clearances and that companies could apply for unlimited areas for exploration.

Charles says:

Based on our knowledge of the geology of India, we moved quickly and covered most of the critical gold areas surrounding the famous Hutti and Kolar gold mines. We also covered areas covering zinc, copper and nickel. This was the start of years of pain and grind. Just for the rights to risk our money on exploring, we had to travel to 140 desks before the granting of our first exploration license… The more we explored from the North East to the South of India the more we became aware of the enormous untapped resources of India.

As the years went by, Charles and Stuart began to appreciate how these mines, if properly developed in a holistic manner, could become the engines for agricultural growth.

Charles continues:

This is the nation's wealth and it belongs to society and must be extracted in a way that it can maximise the benefit to as many people as possible and especially to communities existing close to the mine.

He says that 95 percent of mineral wealth is still lying buried and untouched and can never be discovered by government agencies as they lack the billions of dollars that are required for high-risk exploration. He also argues that government also lacks the technical expertise for modern exploration.

Since the 1994 Delhi mining conference, India's gold production has gone from 3 tons to 2 tons, whereas Chinese production has gone from 3 tons to 425 tons. During this same period not one single gold mine has been discovered by government agencies in India (no new discovery of a single diamond or nickel mine either for decades).

Charles calls for a friendly Mining Act based on international best practices. He also believes in making mandatory regulation and tax incentives to help mining boost agriculture. Crucially, he believes that all funding for mine development should have strict agricultural development clauses.

The extraction industries are a mixed bag. I have seen some of the best mines with some if the best social support systems in the world in Jharkhand and Orissa. The cynics only look at the land rapists, which is a pity.

He adds:

I want to create independent small-scale business in the rural sector, using the mine as the economic platform. I want the miner to spend part of his revenue stream to go into agricultural co-operatives where he takes a minority shareholding for helping to organise and finance the co -op. These are profit making ventures for which the miner gets a vested financial interest. I see the co-op with attached soil lab, supplying correct fertiliser and trace elements for the particular soils. The co-op will provide high quality seeds, advice, marketing and new niche high-value crops.

What is important here is that the vision is for an agriculture that rejects the petro-chemical/GM model and is based more on indigenous developed agro-ecological approaches.

He describes his vision for mining, investment in rural infrastructure and the role of rural co-operatives:

My dream for Jonnagiri in AP is an underground gold mine. A large solar farm at the surface with panels at least 12 ft off the ground and horticulture underneath these panels. The farmer hopefully will get a small gold revenue stream, energy revenue stream for allowing the panels on his land and then of course his agricultural cash flow. This is the ideal model that I would like the co-op to achieve. My investors have to support this, but one thing is for sure: if we do not help the farmer, our mining business will never really succeed. Shareholders have to learn that it must be a win-win for all participants. If that model is adopted by miners then we will see wonderful results.

His current mining lease covers 600 small farms, but his company will be mining on only a small part of the lease. Charles wants to bring these farms under a co-op and make farmers feel like partners in the project, not least by helping to increase production with basic soil management and agroecology practises.

What is described above has the potential for keeping farmers on the land. It is in contrast to the current model which is running down the rural economy and driving farmers from the land. But should we question some of the motives behind Charles Devenish's model and its emphasis on mining and private enterprise?

I asked him whether the concern about Indian agriculture was not a public relations tactic in order to help get his mining interests off the ground.

He replied:

I have no interest in money apart from it putting food on the plate and a roof over my head. My granddaughter works with me and understands fully what our mission in life is all about and that is to make the Gandhian Independent Village Republic become a reality. 600,000 villages, virgin untouched mineral resources and enormous agricultural potential excites my imagination. I see middle class India buying into this dream as investors. I want a bit of that $70 billion they are spending annually on gold and gambling come into the BSE. The BSE can drive this mineral revolution, but for this to happen we need a minimum of at least 100 listed BSE exploration companies similar to Deccan Gold Mines.

His company currently has 20,000 shareholders. He wants a million and feels Deccan Gold Mines and raising capital via the BSE is the ideal platform for developing mining and exploration. He asserts that India does not need international mining concerns but small to medium-size enterprises. It has its own first-class geo scientists and its own potential investors.

From 20 years of exploration in India, Charles has discovered potential for at least 100 new mines. Based on his experience in Zimbabwe, he says the economic ripple effect of a diamond mine there impacted positively on child malnutrition up to as far away as 70 km from the mine. In India, 100 new mines would involve a capital expenditure each of $100 million, an average production annually of $100 million and a cost of production of about $40 million. According to Charles, this would have an economic ripple effect of up to 100 km from the mine. In terms of the impact on agricultural development, including cottage industries, by implication there would then be 100 economic platforms all over India each with an economic reach of 100 km.

There is an underpinning to the vision outlined here that places a certain amount of faith in capitalism and the private sector to deliver for the poor in an age of rampant neoliberalism, which has boosted inequality and place added burdens on ordinary folk and the poor. If the agriculture sector is to be reinvigorated then there are other ways of doing this that do not involve mining (for example, see this 'Manifesto for farming', here, here and here). It is just that the political will is lacking to move in an appropriate direction.

However, for the time being, not least because of the specific small-is-good Gandhian-type model being proposed, we should keep an open mind regarding what Charles Devenish is passionate in proposing: a vision for unlocking the potential of mining and ultimately rural India.

What Charles Devenish proposes can be examined in more detail in this report:

THE CRISIS IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE AND HOW THE MINING INDUSTRY COULD HELP SOLVE THE PROBLEM (1)

While most of the world is chuckling with Schadenfreude over the US' apparent $500 million waste on training "moderate rebels" in Syria, American taxpayers are furious at their government's perceived ineptitude in wasting such an astronomical sum for the sake of only 60 fighters. It seems as though the policy was such a miserable failure that not a single success could be gleaned from it, hence what most people falsely assumed was the project's full cancellation last Friday. That's not exactly what happened, however, in either sense – the scheme wasn't as bad of a failure as the US is purposely making it out to be (although it was definitely an absolute embarrassment relative to its publicly stated goals), and secondly, it was tweaked, not scrapped. Let's pull back the curtain for a moment and see what's really going on with what everybody assumes is the US' largest covert flop in decades.

Exposing The False Narrative

The popular understanding among most people is that the US ran through half a billion dollars in less than a year, all in the name of vetting and training what turned out to be a little more than half a hundred "moderate rebels". Reuters has contributed to this myth by calculating that the cost came out to around $10 million per trained fighter, leading readers to assume that the money had already been spent in full and solely on those individuals. Well, if that truly was the case, then the program would ironically have been the US government's most 'successful' one ever, as it would mean that unlike anything else ever attempted by Washington (let alone its intelligence agencies), for once all of the funds went entirely and solely towards their stated objective, no matter how failed it ultimately turned out to be.

Of course, when viewed from that perspective, the myth is dispelled and it becomes clear that such a scenario isn't at all what happened. Looking at the facts, no US government representative ever indicated that the full sum was entirely spent, and there's no conceivable way that it could ever cost that much money to vet and train such a small amount of people. The New York Times also reported that the US "will instead use the money to provide ammunition and some weapons for groups already engaged in the battle" as per its tweaked policy, thus confirming that enough of it still exists from January to fund the reworked and expanded operation. Nonetheless, Washington seems content with cleverly feeding the myth that the whole initiative was a failure, and it's doing this to distract attention away from what it was really up to this entire time.

A Convenient Excuse

Between when Congress allocated the money in January until the time that the program was terminated in early October, the casual information consumer is led to believe that the US government was clumsily bungling its Syrian-directed efforts on this epic mess of a project, and that it somehow occupied all of its time and resources. Average people all across the world are so overwhelmed with the ubiquitous criticism of the moment that many of them have forgotten that the American destabilization of Syria actually began as early as the mid-2000s, as documented by independent investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh in "The Redirection". With the US' grand strategy in forcefully creating "The New Middle East" being dramatically disrupted by the Russian anti-terrorist intervention in Syria, Washington is eager to look for an excuse to occupy the masses' attention until it can fully formulate its response, and the globally flogged scapegoat of the "moderate rebel" program fits the role perfectly.

Not only that, but the US also wanted to retroactively obscure its prior activity in Syria through the unveiling of a ridiculously expensive program that would 'justify' any of its earlier investments that might accidentally leak out to the public. For example, the American arming of ISIL , Al Nusra, and other terrorist groups could now be explained away as a 'mistake' of "rebel weapons""falling into the wrong hands", be it through "surrender"," retreat", or "accidentally" airdropping such equipment to them. It doesn't matter if such evidence emerged before the program was publicly announced or even if it happened in Iraq and not Syria, since the intended narrative was always to pin it on this project, 'for better or for worse'. The problem was that the 'plausibly deniable' intermediaries, the so-called "moderate rebels", never materialized in the number that they were supposed to, but such a point is moot and never dwelled on by Washington's narrative guiders, who have shifted all Syrian-related criticism to this much-hated project.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., (left) and Jack Reed, D-R.I., hear testimony on operations against ISIS from Gen. Lloyd Austin, Sept 2015

Using the $500 million "moderate rebel" program as the unquestionable scapegoat for the US' failures in Syria is copied from the same tactic that it uses against Russia to explain away whatever happens in Eastern Europe. The massive weapons-running operation that the US conducted throughout the course of the War on Syria (including looted deposits shipped from post-Gaddafi Libya by former US Ambassador Christopher Stevens) and the 'untraceable' Toyotas that it supplied to the Wahhabis can always, if push came to shove, somehow be linked to the training program in order to absorb any domestic criticism. And that's the thing – this psychological operation of self-effacing 'civil servants''admitting' the supposed grand failure of one of their previous plans is only aimed at the domestic (Western) public, not at the multipolar media or foreign intelligence agencies that know better. By accepting one highly publicized false failure (which as was explained, only failed in the sense of not establishing the proper media cover for terrorist-destined weapons and equipment transfers), the US can shield itself from rising public anger over its other unsavory actions towards Syria, which are increasingly being brought to light by international media outlets such as Sputnik.

From The Darkness To The Light

This brings one to the topic of what the US' tweaked program actually looks like in practice, and how much it really differs from that which was going on before it. Remember, it was reported that the US would give "ammunition and weapons" to its allied proxies in Syria, and no sooner was this announced than an entirely new umbrella organization was created called the "Democratic Forces of Syria", described by Reuters as compromising " the [Kurdish] YPG, various Arab groups including Jaysh al-Thuwwar (Army of Rebels) and the Arab tribal Jaysh al-Sanadeed, and an Assyrian Christian group", with the Arab gangs forming a subgroup called the "Syrian Arab Coalition". The same day that it was announced, it was revealed that the US airdropped 50 tons of weapons to the northeast Syrian-based entity, thus proving that it had a hand behind its formation and intends for the group to be its on-the-ground proxy from now on (or until it's defeated by or surrenders to ISIL, at least).

When one thinks about it, the only thing that's changed between the 'failed' policy and the tweaked one is that what was previously being done covertly is now being carried out in the open. The US has been arming and equipping militants in Syria since before the conflict first started, it's just that back then, it vehemently denied that this was the case. When irrefutable evidence continued to emerge that the US was lying, it invented the meant-to-fail spectacle of the "moderate rebel" training program to 'explain away' all the material that ended up in the terrorists' hands, even if it's means of doing so were intellectually sloppy and acceptable only to the largely uninformed and politically naïve American public. The scarecrow diversion of the 'failed'"moderate rebel" training program has served its domestic purpose, since it's engendered such anger on both sides of the partisan divide that Democrats and Republicans have gone through the playacting of 'uniting' to support its 'stepped-up' successor, which in reality is neither a 'stepped-up' program nor a 'successor'. The only difference between then and now is that what was previously done in the darkness is openly being admitted to in the light.

The End Of The Charade

The US had initially planned to keep the 'failed'"moderate rebel" program running indefinitely, as it provided a perfect cover for directly supporting terrorism in the Mideast and 'justifying' the huge expenses involved with maintaining a private army of jihadists. Plus, it's the perfect scarecrow for absorbing all sorts of domestic criticism related to the US' Mideast policies, as there's near-unanimous hate for the program among the American people and it makes for a self-effacing distraction from the bigger problems that Washington has cooked.

This charade was brought to an abrupt halt after Russia's anti-terrorist intervention forced the US' hand into the open, since Washington suddenly became desperate as it watched Moscow mop up its proxies in the course of a week. From the American standpoint, there was no foreseeable way that it could continue to retain any influence whatsoever over Syria (no matter how rapidly fading) if its depleting forces were still supplied via covert channels, so it publicly pulled the plug on its made-to-fail 'covert'"moderate rebel" project in order to replace it with its 'tweaked' overt counterpart.

Therefore, out of strategic desperation, the US has shifted gears by confirming to Americans what the rest of the world already knew as an open secret – the US has always had a direct role in supporting all manner of anti-government forces in Syria. But, in accordance with domestic political and media imperatives, because this 'revelation' was announced with a dash of readily believable self-effacing criticism and misleadingly appeared to be a lot better than its 'predecessor', the easily manipulated American public has been tricked into cheeringly welcoming something that it never would have accepted over four years ago, and that's official acknowledgement that the US is playing a direct and guiding role in managing the War on Syria.

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentaror currently working for the Sputnik agency.

Hamsa Haddad is the Syrian researcher based in Moscow.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/training-moderate-terrorists-a-half-a-billion-dollar-wasteor-was-it/5481992

The Dog Still Not Barking

The Dutch Safety Board report concludes that an older model Buk missile apparently shot down Malaysia Airline Flight 17 on July 17, 2014, but doesn't say who possessed the missile and who fired it. Yet, what is perhaps most striking about the report is what's not there – nothing from the U.S. intelligence data on the tragedy.

The dog still not barking is the absence of evidence from U.S. spy satellites and other intelligence sources that Secretary of State John Kerry insisted just three days after the shoot-down pinpointed where the missile was fired, an obviously important point in determining who fired it.

On July 20, 2014, Kerry declared on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "we picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar."

Russian-made Buk anti-missile battery.

But such U.S. government information is not mentioned in the 279-page Dutch report, which focused on the failure to close off the eastern Ukrainian war zone to commercial flights and the cause of the crash rather than who fired on MH-17. A Dutch criminal investigation is still underway with the goal of determining who was responsible but without any sign of an imminent conclusion.

I was told by a U.S. intelligence source earlier this year that CIA analysts had met with Dutch investigators to describe what the classified U.S. evidence showed but apparently with the caveat that it must remain secret.

Last year, another source briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts told me they had concluded that a rogue element of the Ukrainian government – tied to one of the oligarchs – was responsible for the shoot-down, while absolving senior Ukrainian leaders including President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. But I wasn't able to determine if this U.S. analysis was a consensus or a dissident opinion.

Last October, Der Spiegel reported that German intelligence, the BND, concluded that the Russian government was not the source of the missile battery – that it had been captured from a Ukrainian military base – but the BND blamed the ethnic Russian rebels for firing it. However, a European source told me that the BND's analysis was not as conclusive as Der Spiegel had described.

The Dutch report, released Tuesday, did little to clarify these conflicting accounts but did agree with an analysis by the Russian manufacturer of the Buk anti-aircraft missile systems that the shrapnel and pieces of the missile recovered from the MH-17 crash site came from the 9M38 series, representing an older, now discontinued Buk version.

The report said:

"The damage observed on the wreckage in amount of damage, type of damage, boundary and impact angles of damage, number and density of hits, size of penetrations and bowtie fragments found in the wreckage, is consistent with the damage caused by the 9N314M warhead used in the 9M38 and 9M38M1 BUK surface-to-air missile."

Last June, Almaz-Antey, the Russian manufacturer which also provided declassified information about the Buk systems to the Dutch, said its analysis of the plane's wreckage revealed that MH-17 had been attacked by a "9M38M1 of the Buk M1 system." The company's Chief Executive Officer Yan Novikov said the missile was last produced in 1999.

Who Has This Missile?

The Russian government has insisted that it no longer uses the 9M38 version. According to the Russian news agency TASS, former deputy chief of the Russian army air defense Alexander Luzansaid the suspect warhead was phased out of Russia's arsenal 15 years ago when Russia began using the 9M317 model.

"The 9M38, 9M38M, 9M38M1 missiles are former modifications of the Buk system missiles, but they all have the same warhead. They are not in service with the Russian Armed Forces, but Ukraine has them," Luzan said.

"Based on the modification and type of the used missile, as well as its location, this Buk belongs to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. By the way, Ukraine had three military districts — the Carpathian, Odessa and Kiev, and these three districts had more than five Buk anti-aircraft missile brigades of various modifications – Buk, Buk-M, Buk-M1, which means that there were more than 100 missile vehicles there."

But Luzan's account would not seem to rule out the possibility that some older Buk versions might have gone into storage in some Russian warehouse. It is common practice for intelligence services, including the CIA, to give older, surplus equipment to insurgents as a way to create more deniability if questions are ever raised about the source of the weapons.

For its part, the Ukrainian government claimed to have sold its stockpile of older Buks to Georgia, but Ukraine appears to still possess the 9M38 Buk system, based on photographs of Ukrainian weapons displays. Prior to the MH-17 crash, ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine were reported to have captured a Buk system after overrunning a government air base, but Ukrainian authorities said the system was not operational, as recounted in the Dutch report. The rebels also denied possessing a functioning Buk system.

As for the missile's firing location, the Dutch report said the launch spot could have been anywhere within a 320-square-kilometer area in eastern Ukraine, making it hard to determine whether the firing location was controlled by the rebels or government forces. Given the fluidity of the frontlines in July 2014 – and the fact that heavy fighting was occurring to the north – it might even have been possible for a mobile missile launcher to slip from one side to the other along the southern front.

The Dutch report did seek to discredit one alternative theory raised by Russian officials in the days after the shoot-down – that MH-17 could have been the victim of an air-to-air attack. The Dutch dismissed Russian radar data that suggested a possible Ukrainian fighter plane in the area, relying instead of Ukrainian data which the Dutch found more complete.

But the report ignored other evidence cited by the Russians, including electronic data of the Ukrainian government allegedly turning on the radar that is used by Buk systems for targeting aircraft. Russian Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov called on the Ukrainian government to explain the movements of its Buk systems to sites in eastern Ukraine in mid-July 2014 and why Kiev's Kupol-M19S18 radars, which coordinate the flight of Buk missiles, showed increased activity leading up to the July 17 shoot-down.

The Dutch-led investigation was perhaps compromised by a central role given to the Ukrainian government which apparently had the power to veto what was included in the report. Yet, what may have spoken most loudly in the Dutch report was the silence about U.S. intelligence information. If – as Kerry claimed – the U.S. government knew almost immediately the site where the fateful missile was launched, why has that evidence been kept secret?

Given the importance of the conflict in eastern Ukraine to U.S. intelligence, it was a high-priority target in July 2014 with significant resources devoted to the area, including satellite surveillance, electronic eavesdropping and human assets. In his rush-to-judgment comments the weekend after the crash, Kerry admitted as much.

But the Obama administration has refused to make any of its intelligence information public. Only belatedly did CIA analysts brief the Dutch investigators, according to a U.S. government source, but that evidence apparently remained classified.

The second source told me that the reason for withholding the U.S. intelligence information was that it contradicted the initial declarations by Kerry and other U.S. officials pointing the finger of blame at the ethnic Russian rebels and indirectly at Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stood accused of giving a ragtag bunch of rebels a powerful weapon capable of shooting down commercial airliners.

Despite Russian denials, the worldwide revulsion over the shoot-down of MH-17, killing all 298 people onboard, gave powerful momentum to anti-Putin propaganda and convinced the European Union to consent to U.S. demands for tougher economic sanctions punishing Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. According to this source's account, an admission that a rogue Ukrainian group was responsible would take away a powerful P.R. club wielded against Russia.

Among the organizations that have implored President Barack Obama to release the U.S. intelligence data on MH-17 is the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of mostly retired U.S. intelligence analysts.

As early as July 29, 2014, just 12 days after the shoot-down amid escalating Cold War-style rhetoric, VIPS wrote,

"As intelligence professionals we are embarrassed by the unprofessional use of partial intelligence information. …As Americans, we find ourselves hoping that, if you indeed have more conclusive evidence, you will find a way to make it public without further delay. In charging Russia with being directly or indirectly responsible, Secretary of State John Kerry has been particularly definitive. Not so the evidence."

But the release of the Dutch report – without any of that data – indicates that the U.S. government continues to hide what evidence it has. That missing evidence remains the dog not barking, like the key fact that Sherlock Holmes used to unlock the mystery of the "Silver Blaze" when the sleuth noted that the failure of the dog to bark suggested who the guilty party really was.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/mh-17-dutch-safety-board-report-does-not-mention-supposed-us-intelligence-data/5482063

At best, the United States, its NATO allies and the regime they have collectively created in Kiev, Ukraine, will be able to claim Russia, or militants defending eastern Ukraine from Kiev's armed incursions, accidentally shot down Malaysia Airlines flight 17 (MH17) after air controllers in Kiev recklessly sent it on a course over a battlefield other airliners had made a point to circumvent.

At worst, the US and its junior partners across Europe and the remnants of the British Commonwealth, will be implicated either in shooting it down accidentally themselves, or worse still, shooting it down on purpose in order to frame Russia and anti-regime militants in eastern Ukraine.

Russia certainly had nothing to gain by shooting down a civilian aircraft over a battlefield anti-regime militants have been aptly able to hold and defend. But what of NATO and its Ukrainian allies? In a war they are losing, could they have benefited from creating a pretext for NATO to intervene more directly?

The gain they have already wrought in terms of propaganda against Russia has been impressive. From the moment the airliner was shot down, the US, NATO and Ukraine have used the incident to indict Russia and more specifically, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the court of public opinion. It has used legal maneuvering and its well-oiled press to turn the investigation of the disaster into a witchhunt with an inevitable outcome already eagerly determined to implicate Russia.

The Western media has intentionally twisted the words of investigators to misrepresent evidence and preliminary and very cautious statements to portray them as definitive conclusions to establish Russia's guilt.

The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) looking into the disaster provided the following cautious statement in August 2015 regarding anti-air Buk missile parts found near the wreckage of MH17:

The parts are of particular interest to the criminal investigation as they can possibly provide more information about who was involved in the crash of MH17. For that reason the JIT further investigates the origin of these parts. The JIT will internationally enlist the help of experts, among others forensic specialists and weapon-experts.

At present the conclusion cannot be drawn that there is a causal connection between the discovered parts and the crash of flight MH17.

The JIT conducts the criminal investigation and the DSB the investigation into the cause of the crash. Both investigations are conducted separately but JIT and DSB occasionally share material. In its final report the DSB will report on the discovered parts.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-mh17-malaysian-airlines-crash-from-syria-to-ukraine-when-lying-catches-up/5482044

Note: This article originally appeared at German Economic News. Translated from the German by Boris Jaruselski

Huge reversal: the EU seeks a normal relationship with Russia. It seems that the EU is being greatly affected by the actions of Vladimir Putin in Syria: suddenly the EU President Jean-Claude Junker is saying that the EU must not let the US dictate their relationship with Russia. He has demanded a normalization of relations – and indirectly, the end of sancitons. 

The EU Commission President advocated a relaxation in the conflict with Russia. "We have to achieve a sustainable relationship with Russia. It's not sexy, but has to be done. We can't go on like this anymore", he said on Thursday in Passau. It isn't necessary to achieve overall understanding, but a sensible conversational basis. "The Russians are a proud people", the country has "a role to play", said Junker: "One must not remove them from the bigger picture, otherwise they'll call again, very quickly, as we seen already." He critisized US Presidnet Barack Obama, for having downgraded Russia as "regional power". "Russia needs to be treated correctly", the Luxemburgian explained. "We can not have our relationship towards Russia dictated by Washington. It's simply not on."

This statement is particularly noteworthy. Until now, the EU always placed emphasis on having complete accord with the Americans, with the placement of the Russian sanctions. Some time ago, the US Vice President Joe Biden made it clear that the US had urged the EU to impose the sacntions. Junkers' big back flip is confirming the statement made by Biden. It's hard to discern what's really going on Junker's mind: as late as March, Junker was demanding the establishment of a EU army, which was expressly directed against Russia: such a European army would "give Russia the impression, that we are seriously intending to defend European Union's values", Junker said word for word, back then.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/eu-cannot-go-on-fighting-russia-we-can-not-have-our-relationship-towards-russia-dictated-by-washington-eu-commission-president/5482055

Israel bears full responsibility for premeditated violence and brutality, unleashed without mercy against defenseless Palestinians – reminiscent of how Nazis persecuted Jews.

Decades of vicious Israeli persecution explains the root cause of ongoing turmoil. People take so much before reacting in self-defense.

The trigger for things exploding now is multifold, a combination of:

• days of Israeli soldiers and police rampaging through the sacred Al Aqsa Mosque, brutalizing worshipers, forcibly removing them so extremist settlers could enter the compound where they don't belong;

• longstanding repressive security force viciousness; and

• vigilante settler thuggishness, near daily violence and vandalism against Palestinians ignored or supporting by Israeli soldiers and police: the most horrendous example was immolating three Dawabsha family members, Israel knowing the perpetrators, yet refusing to arrest them, while at the same time kidnapping Palestinians and charging them with offenses they didn't commit or are too minor to matter.

Western, mainly US, and Israeli media suppress what demands headlines, instead play perhaps the oldest of dirty games – blaming victims, holding them responsible for premeditated, cold-blooded Israeli crimes, committed unaccountably.

An October 13, B'Tselem expressed "deep shock at contempt for human life," decades of ruthless occupation entirely responsible.

Palestinian Scholars Association chairman Marwan Abu Ras called Palestinian anger a justifiable reaction to Israeli state terror. Netanyahu and complicit thugs are "cowards," he said.

"(T)hey are neither legally, nor religiously, not ethically, nor morally entitled to grab hold of our land."

Physician, political analyst, human rights champion Mustafa Barghouti believes a third intifada already began.

Since October 1, daily clashes left 30 Palestinians dead, mostly youths, women and children, nearly 1,600 injured, around 4,000 harmed by toxic tear gas, hundreds arrested, and an entire population under attack – reflecting longstanding Israeli collective punishment in flagrant violation of international law.

Instead of holding Israel accountable for ongoing violence and brutality, complicit media blame ruthlessly persecuted Palestinians, effectively endorsing Netanyahu-ordered state terror.

On Tuesday, The New York Times headlined "Attacks by Palestinians Kill 3 Israelis and Wound More than 20,"– quoting Netanyahu saying "(w)e are in a struggle, a struggle for all of us, and we will face it together."

The Times highlighted a handful of Palestinian attacks against Jews. Not a single word about decades of state sponsored terrorism against a defenseless population, ruthless persecution demanding accountability, and Israel's full responsibility for ongoing violence and the horrific toll so far explained above.

The Washington Post headlined "Palestinians kill 3 Israelis as violence mounts in 'day of rage.'"

Saying Israelis are "deeply shaken and fearful…" Quoting Netanyahu saying "Israel will settle the score with the murderers and those who help them. We will cut the hands of whoever tries to hurt us."

His full responsibility for daily violence and atrocities is ignored. He's shockingly treated like a human rights defender, instead of a brutal executioner.

Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page director Bret Stephens headlined "Palestine: The Psychotic Stage, The Truth about why Palestinians have been seized by their present blood lust."

No responsible editor or publisher would touch this type rubbish – a vicious, racist mischaracterization of reality. Palestinians alone are responsible for ongoing violence, according to Stephens and likeminded propagandists.

Israeli media are just as unconscionably one-sided, downplaying or ignoring Israeli violence, blaming Palestinian victims unjustifiably.

Headlining Palestinian terror attacks, killing Jews. It's all their fault, urging tougher crackdowns, ignoring nightmarish conditions they face.

Heavily armed Israeli soldiers and militarized police are using live fire against unarmed Palestinian men, women and children. World community indifference to their suffering lets Israel rampage, brutalize and kill unaccountably.

The only viable solution is ending decades of brutal occupation. Peace and stability are impossible otherwise.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ; Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/anti-palestinian-viciousness-rages/5482065

Image: Suleiman Abdullah Salim, who survived the CIA's brutal torture regime, was released after five years of being held without charge. (Photo via ACLU)

The two psychologists credited with creating the brutal, post-9/11 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture regime are being sued by three victims of their program on charges that include "human experimentation" and "war crimes."

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday filed the suit against CIA contractors James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, on behalf of torture survivors Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, as well as the family of Gul Rahman, who died of hypothermia in his cell as result of the torture he endured.

The suit, which is the first to rely on the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, charges Mitchell and Jessen under the Alien Tort Statute for "their commission of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; non-consensual human experimentation; and war crimes," all of which violate international law.

The pair, both former U.S. military psychologists, earned more than $80 million for "designing, implementing, and personally administering" the program, which employed "a pseudo-scientific theory of countering resistance that justified the use of torture," that was based on studies in which researchers "taught dogs 'helplessness' by subjecting them to uncontrollable pain," according to the suit.

"These psychologists devised and supervised an experiment to degrade human beings and break their bodies and minds," said Dror Ladin, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "It was cruel and unethical, and it violated a prohibition against human experimentation that has been in place since World War II."

In a lengthy report, the ACLU describes each plaintiff's journey.

After being abducted by CIA and Kenyan agents in Somalia, Suleiman Abdullah, a newly wed fisherman from Tanzania, was subjected to "an incessant barrage of torture techniques," including being forced to listen to pounding music, doused with ice-cold water, beaten, hung from a metal rod, chained into stress positions "for days at a time," starved, and sleep deprived. This went on for over a month, and was continually interspersed with "terrifying interrogation sessions in which he was grilled about what he was doing in Somalia and the names of people, all but one of whom he'd never heard of."

Held for over five years without charge and moved numerous times, Abdullah was eventually sent home to Zanzibar "'with a document confirming he posed no threat to the United States." He continues to suffer from flashbacks, physical pain, and has "become a shell of himself."

Mohamed Ben Soud was captured in April 2003 during a joint U.S.-Pakistani raid on his home in Pakistan, where he and his wife moved after fleeing the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Ben Soud said that Mitchell even "supervised the proceedings" at one of his water torture sessions.

Describing Ben Soud's ordeal, the ACLU writes:

The course of Mohamed's torture adhered closely to the "procedures" the CIA laid out in a 2004 memo to the Justice Department. Even before arriving at COBALT, [a CIA prison in Afghanistan] Mohamed was subjected to "conditioning" procedures designed to cause terror and vulnerability. He was rendered to COBALT hooded, handcuffed, and shackled. When he arrived, an American woman told him he was a prisoner of the CIA, that human rights ended on September 11, and that no laws applied in the prison.

Quickly, his torture escalated. For much of the next year, CIA personnel kept Mohamed naked and chained to the wall in one of three painful stress positions designed to keep him awake. He was held in complete isolation in a dungeon-like cell, starved, with no bed, blanket, or light. A bucket served as his toilet. Ear-splitting music pounded constantly. The stench was unbearable. He was kept naked for weeks. He wasn't permitted to wash for five months.

According to the report, the torture regime designed and implemented by Mitchell and Jessen "ensnared at least 119 men, and killed at least one—a man named Gul Rahman who died in November 2002 of hypothermia after being tortured and left half naked, chained to the wall of a freezing-cold cell."

Gul's family has never been formally notified of his death, nor has his body been returned to them for a dignified burial, the ACLU states. Further, no one has been held accountable for his murder. But the report notes, "An unnamed CIA officer who was trained by Jessen and who tortured Rahman up until the day before he was found dead, however, later received a $2,500 bonus for 'consistently superior work.'"

The ACLU charges that the theories devised by Mitchell and Jessen and employed by the CIA, "had never been scientifically tested because such trials would violate human experimentation bans established after Nazi experiments and atrocities during World War II." Yet, they were the basis of "some of the worst systematic brutality ever inflicted on detainees in modern American history."

Despite last year's release of the Senate Torture Report, the government has prosecuted only a handful of low-level soldiers and one CIA contractor for prisoner abuse. Meanwhile, the architects of the CIA's torture program, which include Mitchell and Jessen, have escaped any form of accountability.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) issued a statement saying they welcomed the federal lawsuit as "a landmark step toward accountability," and urged the U.S. Department to follow suit and criminally "investigate and prosecute all those responsible for torture, including health professionals."

In the wake of the Senate report, the group strongly criticized Mitchell and Jessen for betraying "the most fundamental duty of the healing professions."

In Tuesday's statement, Donna McKay, PHR's executive director, said: "Psychologists have an ethical responsibility to 'do no harm,' but Mitchell and Jessen's actions rank among the worst medical crimes in U.S. history."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/victims-file-suit-against-cia-torture-architects-for-systemic-brutality/5482131