Patrick Clawson, Director of Research at Washington Institute Of Near East Policy (WINEP), was in the news last month for suggesting that a false flag attack should be used to incite a war with Iran and now, in a new exclusive interview, he candidly admits to the existence of "shadow wars" in the middle east and acknowledges the deep history of false flag attacks in western military culture.
In his most recent interview, Patrick Clawson was asked about his false flag comments by radio host Bob Tuskin.
He went on to make some very telling comments in reply to the questions.
At one point Tuskin asks "a lot of people are concerned that the other side striking first would be a manufactured incident and.... there is a good percentage of people who have looked at declassified government documents that show that this would be manifested through our own powers that shouldn't be".
Puppet Masters
If there was any need for a further refutation of this shabby political argument it has been provided in the form of the exposé run by the Washington Post this week on the Obama administration's institutionalization of assassinations orchestrated from the White House.
"Disposition Matrix," sounding like the title of a science fiction film, is the term crafted by Obama's intelligence and military advisers to describe a new system that is "codifying and streamlining" the extrajudicial killings that are being carried out on the orders of the US president on virtually a daily basis.
The media's bloodless reports referring to unmanned aircraft carrying out strikes against "compounds" and killing unnamed "militants" serve to mask the reality of US drone warfare, which in Pakistan alone has torn to pieces and incinerated thousands of civilians, men, women, children, while leaving entire communities in a permanent state of terror. An untold number more have been killed in Yemen and Somalia and no doubt elsewhere.
Here in sub-Saharan Africa, over two children die every minute of malaria - which in 98% of cases can be cured with US $6 worth of genuine drugs. A spokesman for the WCO on BBC World Service radio last night said that the number of deaths caused directly by counterfeit medicine in Africa every year was in the hundreds of thousands. He called it "genocide".
I might not use that word, but it is beyond doubt true that supplying counterfeit drugs to Africa causes more deaths than narcotics, than the wars in Syria, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East combined, and several hundred times more deaths than terrorism.
© The Guardian
A senior Greek police officer has claimed that the far-right Golden Dawn party has infiltrated the police at various levels. He has laid the blame on consecutive governments and the leadership of the police force for turning a blind eye to what he describes as "pockets of fascism".
Speaking to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, the officer said the Greek state had been fully aware of the activities of Golden Dawn for several years, with the National Intelligence Service and other security agencies monitoring it closely. The officer claimed police chiefs had had the opportunity to isolate and remove these small "pockets of fascism" in the force but decided not to. The state, he said, wanted to keep the fascist elements "in reserve" and use them for its own purposes.
© CNN
The Rolling Stone's Douglas Brinkley
The Rolling Stone's Douglas Brinkley
Last month, Vanity Fair featured a major profile of President Obama by Michael Lewis, who was given what the New York Times called "rare" and "extraordinary access". Lewis "conducted multiple interviews with the president"; "rode in the official presidential limousine"; "was given a special lapel pin that identified him to the Secret Service as someone who was allowed to be in close proximity to the president"; and "flew with the president on several foreign and domestic trips" -- "not with the rest of the press corps in the back of Air Force One, but near the front." And, noted the Times, "the president even allowed Mr. Lewis to play on his basketball team."
But in exchange for such access, Lewis, unbeknownst to readers of his profile, had agreed to a journalistically corrupt practice - now banned by many large media outlets - whereby the only quotes he was permitted to use were ones the White House approved in advance. Unsurprisingly, the profile was pure hagiography that left Obama's most devoted media fans gushing with ecstacy.
Though I would have thought it impossible, Rolling Stone somehow just managed to top that profile when it comes to sycophantic, power-worshiping "journalism". This week, it features a cover story on Obama by its contributing editor, the historian Douglas Brinkley, largely based on a 45-minute interview in the Oval Office. The questions Brinkley posed are so vapid and reverent that it is hard to believe it's not satire.
© Steenpoel Golf Club/AP
ExxonMobil executive Nicholas Mockford (center)
ExxonMobil executive Nicholas Mockford (center)
A British oil executive has been shot dead in front of his wife in Belgium.
Nicholas Mockford, 60, an executive for ExxonMobil, was shot three times as he left an Italian restaurant in a suburb of Brussels. His wife, Mary, was left beaten and covered in blood, cradling her husband and shouting for help.
Witnesses said they saw the couple walk across the street to their Lexus car before shots were fired. Reports suggest two men were spotted running away from the scene, one holding a motorcycle helmet.
The shooting is understood to have happened on 14 October, but the news has only now emerged after Belgian police imposed a reporting blackout.
The Daily Telegraph said police in Belgium were considering all possible motives for the shooting, including an attempted carjacking, although Mockford's car was not stolen.
© David Gadd/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd
Silvio Berlusconi and his co-defendants were also told to pay damages provisionally set at €10m.
Silvio Berlusconi and his co-defendants were also told to pay damages provisionally set at €10m.
Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to four years' jail by an Italian court on Friday at the end of a lengthy trial for tax fraud related to the acquisition of TV rights by his company Mediaset - but it remains unlikely he will ever see a prison cell.
Under the Italian legal system, the country's former prime minister will be entitled to two appeals before a definitive sentence. Berlusconi's sentence will also be reduced to one year under a 2006 measure that stripped three years off sentences for crimes committed before that date.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, responsible for MI6, with mega-predator Jimmy Savile
BBC shelved Jimmy Savile sex abuse investigation 'to protect its own reputation'
A woman told Newsnight that Savile molested her when she was 14 or 15.
Newsnight found several women who said that Savile groomed and abused teenagers.
Newsnight was told of claims that two other TV celebrities, still alive, sexually abused girls at Television Centre in the 1970s.
The BBC bosses ordered that the investigation be dropped.
© Screenshot from YouTube user InteractiveHealing
Hector Reynaldo Cuellar.
Hector Reynaldo Cuellar.
Hector Reynaldo Cuellar, of Woodbridge, Virginia was picked up by police on Monday following a law enforcement probe that investigated accusations that the man sexually assaulted the girl several times between August and October of this year, Fox News reports.
The US Secret Service has offered little comment on the arrest, but has issued a statement to Fox confirming the agency has been made aware of the charges. Cuellar, the statement reads, "has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of judicial action."
© hispantv.com
Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on counter-terror operations, told an audience at Harvard law school this week that a sub-section of the international organization will begin focusing next year on the Obama administration's extrajudicial killings of suspected insurgents and the innocent civilians all too often executed in the process.
Speaking before a room of students Thursday afternoon in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Emmerson told the crowd that he will be launching "an investigation unit within the special procedures of the [UN] Human Rights Council to inquire into individual drone attacks."
According to Emmerson, the probe will be spearheaded by himself and Christof Heyns, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
