Greenwald on Snowden Leaks: The Worst Is Yet to Come

Revealing details have not yet been published, and could be rolled out in the international media over the coming weeks and months, beginning with U.S. spying activities involving Spain and France. That’s according to Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who broke the Snowden story last June, and whose life has been drastically upturned since. “There are a lot more stories,” he said on Monday in Rio de Janeiro, where he lives. “The archives are so complex and so deep and so shocking, that I think the most shocking and significant stories are the ones we are still working on, and have yet to publish.”

Greenwald was speaking in a packed university gymnasium to hundreds of journalists, who are gathered here this week for the Global Investigative Journalism Conference, a two-yearly event that rotates around the world, bringing together writers, television producers and editors to share information and collaborate on work. Here, Greenwald was something of a hero — the entire thrust of the conference centers on ferreting out secrets and wrongdoing—and the journalist received a rock-star welcome. And while Rio was chosen as the location for the conference years ago, it proved a fortuitous spot. Greenwald recently revealed on Brazil´s hugely popular Globo TV that the NSA had spied on President Dilma Rousseff, as well as the government oil company Petrobras. The news caused a furor in Brazil, not least from Rousseff herself, and she canceled a White House visit, originally scheduled for next week.

But in an hour-long discussion on stage with a Dutch journalist, Greenwald suggested that his life was now immensely complicated. A New York lawyer before turning into a high-profile blogger in 2005, he revealed that he was in daily contact with Snowden—a fact that came as a surprise to most in the audience—in what is an active collaboration to sift through the mountain of documents Snowden carried out of the U.S. Snowden contacted Greenwald and U.S. filmmaker Laura Poitras after taking the information to Hong Kong.

Snowden, who had top-level U.S. security clearance, spent a month in Moscow Airport’s transit area until Russia granted him asylum; the U.S. has indicted him for stealing state secrets and exposing them, charges which would likely land him in jail for the rest of his life.

In addition to his contact with Snowden, Greenwald said he was in daily communication too with Poitras, who is based in Berlin, continuing to dig into what Greenwald says is “thousands and thousands of documents.” The challenge of sifting through the information is now itself a risky endeavor. “We go to extreme lengths to make sure our communication is protected,” he said.

The work has made Greenwald himself a possible target of investigation, and he intimated that returning home to the U.S. would not be simple. British police detained his partner David Miranda at Heathrow airport in August, seizing computer hard drives, as Miranda was switching planes from Berlin, where he’d met Poitras. “We spent yesterday cloistered with British lawyers in a conference room, for the lawsuit against British authorities for detaining him for what amounted to 11 hours,” Greenwald said.

But the truly drastic impact has been on Snowden’s life, of course. And in a long discussion, Greenwald outlined how Snowden’s options for asylum had quickly shrunk after he left Hawaii in early June. Snowden flew initially to Hong Kong, where he made contact with Poitras and Greenwald. The two flew to that city, a Chinese special administrative region governed mostly by its own laws, to meet him.

Greenwald said he and Poitras locked Snowden in a room in Hong Kong for six hours after they arrived to meet him in order to “relentlessly interrogate him,” and to make sure that they were not being set up, or that the documents were not fake. Greenwald said the two were also anxious to ensure that Snowden, just 29 at the time, grasped the permanent impact on his future of exposing state secrets—and of insisting to the journalists that they publish his name. “We spent the bulk of that first week making sure he really understood what the implications were of revealing himself,” Greenwald said.

When it become clear that Hong Kong would not grant Snowden protection from U.S. authorities, he tried to reach Ecuador through Moscow and Cuba, but was stuck after the U.S. canceled his passport. Still, Greenwald said governments who had considered taking in Snowden had made no real effort to do so. “Venezuela could send a jet to Moscow any time to pick him up, but never did. Ecuador the same way,” he said.

So, is Snowden happy in exile in Russia, whose government has itself conducted widespread surveillance programs and routinely cracks down on subversive journalists? Greenwald replied: “Happy, in the sense that if the alternative is a cage in the U.S. for the rest of your life, then Russia looks a lot better.”

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/10/14/greenwald-on-snowden-leaks-the-worst-is-yet-to-come/#ixzz2hsjVIlaH

Source: http://world.time.com/2013/10/14/greenwald-on-snowden-leaks-the-worst-is-yet-to-come/

Hacked Documents Appear to Link U.S. Intelligence Agencies to Chemical Attack in Syria

         

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When dealing with intelligence – it is very difficult to discern fact from fiction. One important life lesson that every human being should learn at some point in their life is that propaganda, lies, and disinformation are directed at all of us … in every country to every person. In the U.S. – we hear about “state sponsored” media in other countries … countries that aren’t to be trusted or so they would have us believe. The inference of course is that Americans are free from this augmented reality; well I’m here to tell you – we aren’t.

The U.S. – like many other countries – has been involved in false-flag operations many, many times. This requires our government telling us the “Big Lie” … a lie so horrible that one should never question it lest they appear to be foolish or unpatriotic. If you think that’s impossible you should reference the Reichsteig, the Lavon Affair, the attack on USS Liberty, Operation Northwoods, the Gulf of Tonkin, and a whole host of other false-flag operations that were manufactured to give pretext for an attack.
And it doesn’t help when CNN is caught trying to staging a fake news interview recently in Syria HERE.

We’ve been in a covert war with Syria for 2 years
Most Americans do not understand that we have spent the past two years trying to overthrow Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad. I wrote about the U.S. covert war with Syria HERE in February 2012. We wrote about a terrorist attack on a Syrian oil pipeline and the resulting currency inflation in March 2012 HERE. About huge bombs taking out military installations in March 2012 HERE. And that’s not even the unsuccessful assassination attempts of Bashar Al-Assad over the past two years. The U.S. and Sunni countries funding the overthrow of the Syrian dictator in April 2012 HERE. And about a car bomb in May 2012 HERE.
In short – we’ve been operating a covert proxy war in Syria for the past two years and it hasn’t been working. If you want to understand the geopolitics behind why – you can read that HERE.
Anonymous hacks the militaryA hacker by the name of €Wagn3r claims to have hacked into approximately 20 members of the Pentagon and some of their spouses. I’ve looked through some of these emails and there is an incredible amount of personal correspondence that would be very hard to replicate or falsify. Another very important thing to note. The emails between the Colonel and his army buddy utilize an intense amount of military acronyms which when looked up – point to a conversation about intelligence budgets and how to fund operations. These people in the email understand military language.
The hacker points us to a treasure trove of emails with a promise to share more later. But he points us to these three emails which you can download and see for yourself below:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3g8rt2l3do33pgr/the-best.rar
http://www.mediafire.com/download/k3dymq2iz5f8uis/the-best.rar
http://depositfiles.com/files/30qx9o4wc

“Then a friend of Anthony MacDonald’s wife Jennifer writes she was shocked seeing on TV the children died after chemical attack in Syria. Jennifer answers she saw the story but Tony calm her down saying children were alive and the scene was staged.”~€Wagn3r

You can read the message and pastebin from the hacker HERE.
The correspondence below shows an email between Colonel Anthony J. MacDonald and Gene Furst – Program Manager at the Department of the Army. Gene says ”congratulations” on “your latest success” and then references the Washington Post article on the chemical attack in Damascus HERE. Two other emails go back and forth from Jennifer MacDonald (the Colonel’s wife) and their neighbor Mary Shapiro. As she puts it, “He said the kids weren’t hurt, it was done for cameras.”
If you can’t read this – you can see a larger version HERE.

 

If you can’t read this email – you can see the larger version HERE.

 

If you can’t read this email – you can see the larger version HERE.

 

 

Regarding the authenticity of these emails – someone actually took the time to contact Mary Shapiro – the person who was on the other end of these emails. And according to that person – during the phone call she acknowledged receipt of these emails and said they were authentic. The only question is whether or not Colonel MacDonald’s wife actually sent these emails; however – they were laced with so many personal details … it’s hard to think they weren’t.

 

A simple Google search for Colonel Anthony J. MacDonald leads one to his LinkedIn account. Unfortunately – it has been taken down. Fortunately – there is a cache version on the internet. You can view that HERE or see below. He has a very impressive resume but most importantly – it is based in intelligence. His entire history is intelligence. That includes PSYOP missions and propaganda; that’s what they do.

 

The evidence from the Obama administration
It is very important to remember that up until this point – we have not seen any independent verification of the chemical attacks. We have seen horrible, gruesome and heart-wrenching videos showing lifeless children but there has been no independent verification of these attacks nor any credible evidence to prove that the Assad government was responsible for these attacks. It is very hard to discern truth from fiction when it comes to intelligence PSYOP campaigns. It is important to note that this is the THIRD accusation that Assad has used chemical weapons despite actually being in the strongest position currently; the first two were proved to be false. So far – the evidence presented by the Obama administration is “trust us”. Up until the UK government voted not to attack Syria – the Obama administration seemed intent to attack Syria as quickly as possible before any potential UN report could be presented.

And remember – the American government is currently supporting – indirectly or directly – the Al Qaeda rebels who literally rip out the heart of Syrian soldiers and eat them. You can see that graphic video HERE. That’s OUR side.

The evidence against the Obama administration’s claims
There were some actual journalists on the ground however to talk to witnesses and get first hand accounts of what actually happened. Dale Gavlak is a veteran journalist who has written for the Associated Press for a long time; he assisted with a story that eyewitness accounts actually claimed the Saudis supplied the “rebel forces” with chemical weapons and they mishandled them. Mintpress News had that exclusive story HERE:

However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.

“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”

Ghouta townspeople said the rebels were using mosques and private houses to sleep while storing their weapons in tunnels.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. That same day, the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, announced that it would similarly attack civilians in the Assad regime’s heartland of Latakia on Syria’s western coast, in purported retaliation.

“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K.’ “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”

As I wrote earlier – this is the third claim that the Assad government used chemical weapons; however – we already know the first two claims were lies. The first attempt happened in January of 2013 and leaked documents showed an attempt to frame Assad for using chemical weapons. Yahoo News writes HERE:

The Obama administration gave green signal to a chemical weapons attack plan in Syria that could be blamed on President Bashar al Assad’s regime and in turn, spur international military action in the devastated country, leaked documents have shown.

A new report, that contains an email exchange between two senior officials at British-based contractor Britam Defence, showed a scheme ‘approved by Washington’.

As per the scheme ‘Qatar would fund rebel forces in Syria to usechemical weapons,’ the Daily Mail reports.

Background ContextWe have to acknowledge that the United States is an imperialist country. That’s what we do. Being imperialist is as American as apple pie and most Americans don’t really seem to comprehend that truth. An objective analysis of American history since the 19th century has demonstrated time after time that the American government wields its vast military and intelligence resources on behalf of the interest of wealthy donors and corporate interests. This was true when we instituted a coup of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in 1953 on behalf of oil interests (source) and it was true in the 1954 coup of the democratically elected President of Guatemala on behalf of the United Fruit Company (source). This was true when the Obama administration pressured the government of Haiti not to raise their minimum wage to $.61 an hour on behalf of corporate interests here in the U.S. (source). Just like apple pie.

As a local Israeli newspaper wrote recently – Israel gave EXCLUSIVE rights to an American-Israeli corporation to drill for oil in the Golan Heights (source). The problem with that is the Golan Heights is occupied Syrian territory that Israel does not have legal claim to; they won this land in the 1967 war and according to international law may not annex it.
There are a few interesting footnotes about this American-Israeli corporation named Genie Energy.

#1 – Former Vice President Dick Cheney is a paid adviser to this project (source).

#2 - News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and former Exxon Mobil executive Gene Renna have joined its strategic advisory board (source).

 

#3 - Jacob Rothschild is involved in the deal and on the board. This guy is as connected to the world stage as any non-President.

 

Another interesting footnote – the American supported Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons on Iran for four years and the American government did nothing. The Atlantic wrote about that HERE:

From 1983 until 1987, the U.S. more or less sat on (and internally discussed) intelligence containing strong evidence of Iraq’s chemical weapons use — early on, that meant mustard gas. Retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona told the magazine that he first learned of Iraq’s chemical weapons use in 1984. All that time, Iran was publicly saying that Iraq had used chemical weapons against them. They just didn’t have any evidence to take to the U.N. Then, Iran concentrated a large number of troops near the Iraqi city of Barash, near a vulnerability in Iraq’s defenses:

- See more at: http://www.classwarfareexists.com/hacked-documents-appear-to-link-u-s-intelligence-agencies-to-chemical-attack-in-syria/#sthash.YWwZT1Ws.dpuf

Source: http://www.classwarfareexists.com/hacked-documents-appear-to-link-u-s-intelligence-agencies-to-chemical-attack-in-syria/