INTELLEGENGE APPARATUS

GARETH PORTER—Cybersecurity firm FireEye, which boasts that it has contracts to support “nearly every department in the United States government,” and which has been used by Department of Homeland Security as a primary source of “threat intelligence,” also influenced Facebook’s crackdown on the Tribune. CNN cited an unnamed official of FireEye stating that the company had “assessed” with “moderate confidence” that the AHT’s website was founded in Iran and was “part of a larger influence operation.”

CYNTHIA CHUNG—This was anything but a formal victory. It was to set a precedent in the international community that a country’s right to national sovereignty would be favored over Britain’s imperial “claims”, which were exposed during these two very public trials as amounting to nothing more than the threats and bribes of pirates.

CJ HOPKINS—Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who bragged about “grabbing women by the pussy” and jabbered about building “a big, beautiful wall” and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, was a loudmouth bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?

MOA—U.S. intelligence on North Korea is notoriously bad. The North Korean missile launches and nuclear tests last year were only detected when they were imminent. It is unlikely that U.S. spy services know what senior North Korean official “discuss” about “potentially asserting” something. The U.S. services probably “gathered” that through South Korea’s spy service. But whatever South Korean agencies say about North Korea is colored by their traditionally very hawkish position. They pay up to $860,000 to those North Korean defectors who make up the most scary stories. Such stories are often false.

STEPHEN LENDMAN—On Monday, Syria’s military and Russian reconciliation center members in the country found heavy weapons supplied by US-dominated NATO to ISIS and other terrorists, along with gas masks, and other protective gear for use during a CW attack.  According to retired Lebanese General Amin Hteit, the cache suggests preparation for another false flag CW incident to be wrongfully blamed on Syrian forces like earlier ones – used as pretexts for US-led aggression on Syrian military targets.