ZIONCONS

JAMES COGAN—”Britain was moving to extradite Assange to Sweden on trumped-up allegations of sexual abuse as the first step in transferring him to the US to face charges of espionage, which carry a possible death sentence. Washington had vowed to punish Assange for having exposed before the world war crimes committed by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as US intrigues against other countries…”

MOON OF ALABAMA—The case of the death and resurrection of the Russian journalist Babchenko in Kiev is even more surreal than it seemed so far. According to Ukrainian sources and court documents the whole hoax was part of an attempt to raid and take over a private company. High levels of the Ukrainian security services staged the whole affair not only to blame Russia but also for someone’s personal gain.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The US-centralized empire has been plotting the destruction of Russia for many years. There is far too much power and money invested in the unipolar world for anyone at the top to willingly risk the re-emergence of another rival superpower, be it Russia, China, or an unsympathetic alliance in the Middle East. Any analyses of the accusations America or its allies make against any of these governments which do not factor in their clear and obvious motives to manipulate the narrative are inherently flawed, but no one ever includes that obvious factor in their analysis. There is a built-in assumption that only governments like Russia or Iran ever lie, and that western governments have safeguards in place to prevent that. Plainly, they do not.

PETR LVOV—The question of who is going to prevail in this struggle is a serious one, because even now the punitive detachments of the Hashd al-Sha’bi and Badr groups, now notorious for atrocities committed against the Sunni population in the struggle for the liberation of Iraq from ISIS, have made it clear that should a pro-Iranian government be formed, they will move most of their units to Syria. But this cannot happen until a stable government capable of finalizing ISIS’ defeat is in place. Iran intends to create a new system and a new factor that will strengthen its position in Syria by assembling groups, consisting of criminal and semi-criminal elements gathered from the whole region, and strengthened by the Iraqi punitive detachments before being sent to war.

ANDRE DAMON—What really stands exposed is the propaganda machine operated by James Bennet, the editorial page editor of the Times, who manipulates the news in the service of the intelligence agencies to promote war abroad and political repression at home. For Bennet, when one lie is exposed, the time has come to reply with an even bigger lie.