I am a drone whistleblower.

To support drone whistleblower Cian Westmoreland, click here. With great humility but great hope, I’m writing to you from a hostel room somewhere in Berlin, attempting to reach out to tell you something that I and others like me know -- but governments and weapons companies would prefer you didn't question. My name is Cian Westmoreland, and I am a former U.S. Air Force communications technician who built the signals relay station for receiving and transmitting data -- used in airstrikes -- obtained over 240,000 square miles of Afghanistan. I discovered that in the time I served there, my system was a key component used in bombings from drones and other aircraft thatkilled at least 359 innocent civilians. This was a number derived from a UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan report for the year 2009. Knowledge of my "life's work" at that time took me down a painful path of tremendous guilt, hopelessness, isolation, and nightmares to what ultimately culminated in me looking over a bridge at the Rio Grande, with the plan of taking my own life in October 2015. It was news of a bombing -- using my equipment -- of an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that brought me there that day. I committed myself to the VA to protect me from harming myself. Less than a month later, on November 18, 2015, I decided to join fellow drone whistleblowers Brandon Bryant, Michael Haas, and Stephen Lewis in speaking out as a group for the first time. We drafted a letter to President Obama, General Michael Hayden, and CIA Director John Brennan urging them to stop the extrajudicial bombings, reminding them that this policy is creating more terrorists than it is eliminating. For all of us, there is no turning back. In the past month, I have been connecting with people around the globe, touring with drone surveillance whistleblower Lisa Ling with a film she is in called "National Bird," directed by Sonia Kennebeck, to educate the public about what the drone program really is, and to represent those people who have been psychologically and physically traumatized by drones on all sides of these strikes. As the recipient of the first Drone Whistleblower Fellowship of the RootsAction Education Fund, I ask that you consider supporting my work through this fellowship. If you donate, your tax-deductible contribution will help to strengthen my efforts for peace. Sincerely, Cian Westmoreland

Petr Lvov -- The Far Reaching Consequences Brexit Will Have on the Middle East

01.07.2016 Author: Petr Lvov

The Far Reaching Consequences Brexit Will Have on the Middle East

Also available HERE

Column: Politics

Region: Middle East

It seems that Ankara was the first understand that the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU would have far-reaching implications. The weakening European Union will not be able to oppose Washington’s actions in the Middle East, especially when Hillary Clinton is likely to become the next US president. Therefore, Ankara has immediately turned its attention toward Moscow by apologizing for the downed SU-24 warplane and expressed its readiness to pursue a strategic partnership with Russia. The Turks understand that they won’t have much leverage versus the US, a nation with different approaches to the situation in Syria, Iraq and the Middle East in general. Most importantly, Ankara is well aware of Washington’s plan to pursue the creation of a Kurdish state that will occupy Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. But no regional player is going to feel comfortable enough around such a large geopolitical formation with a total population of 30 million people in the very heart of the Middle East. Russia doesn’t like this idea so much as well, if taking into account the pro-American posture of the Kurdish population of the region. Additionally, Israel will be pleased to obtain an ally in the form of the Kurdish state right at the center of the Arab World, undermining the positions of both Turkey and Iran.

Tony Cartalucci: US Ratchets Up Tension South China Sea

01.07.2016 Author: Tony Cartalucci

US Ratchets Up Tension South China Sea

Also available HERE
Column: Politics

Region: Eastern Asia

Country: China

The United States, as part of its stated agenda of raising tensions in the South China Sea to encourage cooperation across Southeast Asia with the US in encircling and containing Beijing’s regional and global rise, has included several high-profile naval and aviation incidents. However, there is a legal battle lurking just behind these more spectacular headlines, and once again the United Nations is being brought in and undermined in the process.

The Associated Press in their article, “Beijing to ignore South China Sea ruling,” reported that:

China said on Saturday that it would ignore the decision of an international arbitration panel in a Philippine lawsuit against Beijing’s sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea.

“To put it simply, the arbitration case actually has gone beyond the jurisdiction” of a UN arbitration panel, said Rear Adm Guan Youfei, director of the foreign affairs office of China’s National Defence Ministry.

The Philippines has filed a case in the United Nations under the UN Convention on Law of the Sea, questioning China’s territorial claim. An arbitration panel is expected to rule on the case soon. The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled last year that it has jurisdiction over the case despite China’s rejection.

While the Associated Press portrays the lawsuit as “Philippine,” it is in reality headed not by the Philippines, but by a US legal team led by Paul S. Reichler of the Boston-based law firm Foley Hoag. Inquirer.net in an article titled, “US lawyer for PH expert in maritime boundary cases,” would reveal that not a single lawyer representing the Philippines is actually Filipino:

Is There a Difference Between a Democracy and a Western-style Democracy?

01.07.2016 Author: Deena Stryker

Is There a Difference Between a Democracy and a Western-style Democracy?

Also available HERE
Column: Politics

Region: Russia in the World

Democracy has got to be the most overworked and under-defined word in the English language these days – in fact, in any language, given that memes spread across the planet faster than the speed of light. The more ruthless and rash the United States becomes in its determination to rule the world, relying increasingly on the power of words, the greater the urgency of unmasking its use of the word ‘democracy’ as a farce.

According to the conventional ‘wisdom’, if all citizens above a certain age – usually eighteen or twenty-one – are entitled to vote for representatives in a country’s law-making bodies, they are living in a democracy. But if the US were really serious about defending democracy, it would not claim that Cuba, for example, or Russia, fail the test. These two countries, together with a long list of other nations, are not considered members of the ‘club of democratic nations’. In the case of Cuba, there is only one political party, and in the case of Russia, the President wields too much power and elections are suspicious. Yet, as reported by Medea Benjamin at Cuba has pioneered decentralized democracy, and Putin has long enjoyed an approval rating in the eighties!

F. William Engdahl -- ‘Black Friday’ For GMO in Russia

30.06.2016 Author: F. William Engdahl

‘Black Friday’ For GMO in Russia

Also available HERE

Column: Politics

Region: Russia in the World

The destructive global project known as GMO or Genetically Manipulated Organisms is incurring major defeats. The once-formidable muscle of Monsanto, Bayer AG, Syngenta, Dow-DuPont seems to be suffering from a rare form of political muscular dystrophy. In Russia, despite enormous pressure from the western GMO cartel on individual Duma members and Russian scientists, the Duma or state Parliament on June 24, passed the third and final reading of the bill that now bans totally all GMO crop cultivation and GMO animals. This was the very same ‘Black Friday,’ (for the GMO lobby), June 24, when EU member states rebelled and refused for a third time to approve a renewal of the license of the weed-killer glyphosate that is bound up with GMO crop cultivation. That was also the day the EU also realized that British voters had democratically voted to exit the European Union. For the globalists that be all in all June 24 will be remembered as their Black Friday.

On June 24 the Russian Duma took a final vote in the third reading of a bill introduced by the government in 2015 for a total ban on GMO crop cultivation and GMO animal breeding in the Russian Federation. Not only that but the Duma law gives the Russian Government authority to ban import of products containing GMOs in to Russia, if it is revealed that a specific GMO has a negative impact on human health or the environment. The new law also includes fines for violations. Minister of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev, told the press on the occasion, “The Ministry of Agriculture is strongly against GMOs; Russian products will remain clean.”

Fake pro-GMO study

After the first draft of the GMO ban legislation was debated and sent for possible revisions in late 2015, on January 19 this year the pro-GMO lobby made a scientifically shabby attempt to derail the ban.

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF DARK JOURNALIST INTERVIEW OF CATHERINE AUSTIN FITTS

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF DARK JOURNALIST INTERVIEW OF 

CATHERINE AUSTIN FITTS

Also available  HERE

Elite Endgame, Transhumanist Agenda & 2016 Political Race  

   

DJ: Hi, this is Dark Journalist. Today, we're excited to welcome back former US assistant housing secretary and financial expert, Catherine Austin Fitts. Now Catherine's latest Solari Report, "Where to Stash the Cash" contains many references to an "Endgame" being played out among financial elites and sovereign governments, that may have stunning implications for our future.  

Catherine, it's just great to have you back here on the show. 

CAF: It's good to be back.

DJ: One of the things that I noticed, while reading your latest report, "Where to Stash the Cash in 2016?" which is just a fascinating read and really contains some powerful information. What are these frequent references that you make to the "Endgame" and so let's start off with that. What is this Endgame all about? 

CAF: Well, I think what you're referring to is the Endgame on centralization; the assertion of what George HW Bush used to call "Centralizing resources into tighter and Righter hands," and we are watching the shift into a new phase of centralization...

...My subscribers and clients are beginning to feel the pinch; people who hadn't felt that pinch before are now beginning to feel the pinch and it's getting very uncomfortable. 

DJ: Why do you think this is happening now? Why is this the Endgame?

CAF: Daniel, I can't tell you. There's a couple of possibilities. One is that it's like a machine that works from outside in and now, it's getting down to the core! 

The other thing is, as the debt growth model wears out, the system is hungry for resources and cash, so there's all sorts of groups that it's left alone but now, it's coming for them, too... Whereas before, things that would only happen in the poorer neighborhoods. Now, they're happening in the wealthy neighborhoods. 

Tomgram: Thomas Frank, Worshipping Money in D.C.

Tomgram: Thomas Frank, Worshipping Money in D.C.

Posted by Thomas Frank at 7:55am, June 30, 2016.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch.

[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Read today's piece and then get your hands on Thomas Frank's new book, Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?  It's the political must-read of this season if you want to know where liberalism went in the last two and a half decades.  The next TomDispatch post will be on Tuesday, July 5th.  Tom]

I’m no stranger to shakedowns. I’ve experienced them, in one form or another, from Asia to Africa.

Sometimes the corruption is subtle. Sometimes it’s naked. Sometimes you press folded currency into someone’s palm. Sometimes there’s a more official procedure. Sometimes a payment is demanded outright. (A weapon might even be involved.) Other times, it’s up to you to suggest that we somehow work things out privately.

Luckily, I live in the United States, and if the 2016 presidential campaign has reminded me of anything, it’s that America is, by definition (and unlike so many of the other countries on the planet), a corruption-free zone. Mind you, no one would claim that the race for the Oval Office is free of unethical behavior. It’s just that the actions and efforts involved aren’t considered “corrupt” here.