President Barack Obama says in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the United States did things that were wrong and crossed the line. He says, quote, "we tortured some folks."

Obama is commenting on a Senate investigation into the CIA's interrogation techniques. A report on that investigation's results is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

Obama says it's important to remember how horrified Americans were after 9/11. But he says it's important to remember the U.S. must live up to its values.

Obama also says he has full confidence in CIA Director John Brennan. The CIA director has apologized to senators after the CIA's inspector general found agency employees improperly searched the computers of Senate staffers conducting the investigation into post-9/11 interrogation and detention practices.

The Americans are finding out the hard way that a fact-free zone is not a comfortable place to inhabit. The initial knee-jerk allegations, voiced by Obama, by the screechy UN representative Samantha Power, by John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and any number of talking heads, were that the downing of flight MH17 was all Putin's fault. These were swiftly followed by a complete and utter lack of official evidence of any Russian involvement but lots of strange, unexplained coincidences pointing to Ukrainian and American involvement. These were, in turn, followed by an uncharacteristically frank admission from US intelligence that there is no proof of Russian involvement. The newly installed Ukrainian oligarch-turned-president Poroshenko (code-name "Piglet") switched from claiming that he had proof of Russian complicity to being very very quiet.

Incompetently concocted fake "evidence" of this and that continues to appear on social media sites, only to be swiftly disproved. Once disproved, the fake evidence vanishes, only to be replaced by more of the same. The latest fake is of Russian artillery bombardment from across the border. All of this has added up to quite an awkward situation for the Americans. Barefaced lying may be fun and profitable, but it does not provide a solid foundation for foreign policy. Nobody wants to go down in history for blowing up the world over some fake Youtube videos.

Yesterday we reported that with the Russia-China axis firmly secured, the scramble was on to assure the alliance of that last, and critical, Eurasian powerhouse: India. It was here that Russia had taken the first symbolic step when earlier in the week its central bank announced it had started negotiations to use national currencies in settlements,a process which would culminate with the elimination of the US currency from bilateral settlements.

Russia was not the first nation to assess the key significance of India in concluding perhaps the most important geopolitical axis of the 21st century - we reported that Japan, scrambling to find a natural counterbalance to China with which its relations have regressed back to World War II levels, was also hot and heavy in courting India. "The Japanese are facing huge political problems in China," said Kondapalli in a phone interview. "So Japanese companies are now looking to shift to other countries. They're looking at India."

Of course, for India the problem with a Japanese alliance is that it would also by implication involve the US, the country which has become insolvent and demographically imploding Japan's backer of last and only resort, and thus burn its bridges with both Russia and China. A question emerged: would India embrace the US/Japan axis while foregoing its natural Developing Market, and BRICS, allies, Russia and China.

We now have a clear answer and it is a resounding no, because in what was the latest slap on the face of now crashing on all sides US global hegemony, earlier today India refused to sign a critical global trade dea. Specifically, India's unresolved demands led to the collapse of the first major global trade reform pact in two decades. WTO ministers had already agreed the global reform of customs procedures known as "trade facilitation" in Bali, Indonesia, last December, but were unable to overcome last minute Indian objections and get it into the WTO rule book by a July 31 deadline.

NATO has confirmed that Ukrainian forces have started using powerful ballistic missiles against militants in the east of the country. Kiev previously denied the fact, revealed to DW television by NATO sources in Brussels.

The use of missiles starting this week was first broken by CNN's Barbara Starr on Wednesday, who cited "three sources" in the Pentagon who said that evidence had been obtained with satellite imagery.

A source in NATO's press service speaking to Deutsche Welle also cited US intelligence. Confirming the strikes, the official did not provide any further details.

DW, which published the information on its Russian-language and Ukrainian-language websites, says that it has lodged an official query about the use of ballistic missiles with Pentagon, but has so far received no answer.

Most experts thought that the likely weapon involved in shelling the militants, who have been retreating in the face of an intensifying government offensive, was the OTR-21 Tochka.

The post-Cold War status quo in Eastern Europe, not to mention in Western Europe, is now dead.

For Western plutocracy, that 0.00001% at the top, the real Masters of the Universe, Russia is the ultimate prize; an immense treasure of natural resources, forests, pristine water, minerals, oil and gas. Enough to drive any NSA-to-CIA Orwellian/Panopticon war game to ecstasy. How to pounce and profit from such a formidable loot?

Enter Globocop NATO. Barely out of having its collective behind unceremoniously kicked by a bunch of mountain warriors with Kalashnikovs, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is now fast "pivoting" - that same old Mackinder to Brzezinski game - to Russia. The road map will be put in place at the group's summit in early September in Wales.

Meanwhile, the MH17 tragedy is undergoing a fast metamorphosis. When the on-site observations by this Canadian OSCE monitor (watch the video carefully) are compounded with this analysis by a German pilot, a strong probability points to a Ukrainian Su-25's 30 mm auto-cannon firing at the cockpit of MH17, leading to massive decompression and the crash.

No missile - not even an air-to-air R-60M, not to mention a BUK (the star of the initial, frenetic American spin). The new possible narrative fits with on-site testimony by eyewitness in this now famously "disappeared" BBC report. Bottom line: MH17 configured as a false flag, planned by the US and botched by Kiev. One can barely imagine the tectonic geopolitical repercussions were the false flag to be fully exposed.

Malaysia has handed out the flight recorders to the UK; this means NATO, and this spells out manipulation by the CIA. Air Algerie AH5017 went down after MH17. The analysis has already been released. That begs the question of why it is taking so long for MH17's black boxes to be analyzed/tampered with.

The tragedy of WWI reminds us what excessive ambitions, an unwillingness to listen to each other and violations of liberties lead to, Russia's president said. He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the memorial to the Heroes of WWI in Moscow.

According to Putin, the memorial is not only "a tribute to the great deeds," but also a warning that "this peace is fragile."

"And we have to guard peace. And remember that the most valuable thing on Earth is a peaceful and quiet life," he added.

Numerous examples in world history show "what a terrible price" is paid if human rights and liberties are violated for the sake of serving vested interests.

"Humankind should grasp one truth: violence generates violence. And the way to peace and prosperity is made up of good will and dialogue, and the memory of the lessons of the last wars."

He added that Russia stepped for strong and trusting relationships between the countries throughout the centuries.

National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club.

The Senate overwhelmingly approved an emergency measure early Friday that could give $225 million in additional revenue to Israel for the country's Iron Dome missile defense system.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) received unanimous consent from his colleagues Friday morning when he asked them to consider approving the measure, The Hill reported. An attempt one day earlier by the Senate to approve funding the system had failed.

Next, the House of Representatives will be tasked with weighing the request, which if passed will put nearly a quarter of a billion dollars towards Israel's missile defense system as that country continues its campaign against Hamas in Gaza City.

The number of requests for account information Twitter received from countries around the world has increased by 46 percent in the first half of 2014, the social networking site revealed in its fifth transparency report.

Between January and June this year Twitter received 2,058 requests overall from a total of 58 different countries including from eight countries who had previously never lodged requests before.

The US was in first position with 1,257 requests, 72 percent of which resulted in information being handed over. In number two position was Japan with 192 requests, of which just 36 percent were complied with.

In recent years most of humanity has become proudly more tolerant of groups who once seemed to be on the margins of society. But until now it's still been seen as acceptable to be offensive about one minority, which is the child murdering community.

At last it seems the mood is changing, and finally we're beginning to hear the child murderers' point of view.

For example one brave soul, prepared to speak out, is spokesman Uri Drome, who explained on Radio 4 yesterday that although the Israeli government bombed a school in which several children died, the deaths are clearly the fault of the people who live in the areas being bombed.

What a refreshing change from that tired old thinking that always blames murder on the murderer.

Mister Drome, once a spokesman for the Israeli government said the Israelis were "lured into a trap, now Hamas sheds crocodile tears about the dead."

If only more of us understood bombed schools in this way. We always rush to judge some poor kid in an American town who mows down his classmates, without even pausing to consider the dead kids probably tricked him into it, and now to make it worse their parents are all pretending to cry.

Even more imaginative was Michael Oren, ex-Israeli ambassador In Washington, on Channel 4 News. He explained that Hamas was to blame for all this death, because "They are booby-trapping toasters and fridges in their houses."

It goes to show you should never make up your mind too quickly. Many of us see pictures of buildings reduced to rubble with a bomb sticking out, and hastily conclude the bomb had something to do with the explosion. But look carefully and it becomes obvious the cause was the silly sods blowing themselves up with an exploding toaster.

I bet if we went back to Hiroshima and checked what happened more thoroughly, we'd discover the blast was nothing to do with an atom bomb, and was caused by a booby-trapped kettle.