Voices from Russia

Friday, 20 October 2017

20 October 2017. In Stalin’s GULag, You Had a Sentence… In Gitmo, You Don’t

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During the Stalin years, if a troika sentenced you to a sentence in a labour camp, it was for a set number of years. When your sentence was up, they set you free. They didn’t just keep people locked up because they were “dangerous”. If your sentence was up, it was up. True, many people served more than one sentence. The Americans count the total number of sentences, not people, which inflates the number of those imprisoned. However, you got a set sentence. That was the Stalinist USSR.

In Gitmo, there are no sentences. The Americans put people there indefinitely. There’s no court… not even the American equivalent of a troika. There’s no set sentence. You must stay behind the wire for a long as it pleases the Anglo toddlers. There are those who’ve sat in Gitmo since the inception of this concentration camp in 2001. Therefore, Gitmo is worse than the GULag ever was. America is WORSE than Stalin ever was. It doesn’t even put a legal veneer on its repression. It does put a different face on Potapov’s rants, doesn’t it? As a high middle-level official in a CIA front, he knew of this evil. Knowing his Far Right politics, he probably applauded it.

There are people worse than I V Stalin…

BMD

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Wednesday, 11 October 2017

Russian Journo D K Kiselyov on the USA… I Need Add Nothing

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Isn’t this how the USA acts all over the world though? They destroy countries because civil wars bring sorrow and poverty to entire nations. Just like that. They seem to not even notice the consequences of their actions. They blame others for everything and then gloat about being sinless. With this simple carefree mentality, they can allow themselves everything. America fines European banks and companies, to punish them for defying America. They impose unilateral sanctions in Europe against those who want to buy cheaper Russian gas, instead of more-expensive American gas. They tap phones and read emails of billions of people on the planet, including the leaders of US-allied countries. They arrest foreign citizens all over the world and throw them in secret jails outside of the USA. Of course, outside of the USA… so that they can torture them, without fear of breaking any of their own laws.

They plan and execute coup d’états and colour revolutions. They usually time them with the elections in the victim country. They de facto continue to militarily occupy Germany and Japan. The USA has a huge number of military bases in these countries. A base, by the way, is a foreign military force. It directly limits the sovereignty and the ability of the occupied country to act in their own national interests. They start and execute military operations without sanctions from the UN. They falsely justify their own actions and act on false pretences. For a cover, they gather fake coalitions. Moreover, all of this is done with that simple American air of naïveté. That same mindset allows them to ally with what’s left of Islamic State in Deir-ez-Zor. With the same simple-mindedness, Trump threatened to destroy an entire country at the UN General Assembly. The Americans have already announced that they’re pulling out of the nuclear agreement with Iran without any justifiable reasons, in spite of everything and everyone. Just like that.

When Donald Trump became President, he received the people’s mandate to build a rational relationship with Russia and to implement a more rational policy in the world. He wasn’t supposed to overthrow foreign governments. Right now, Trump acts in direct opposition to his voters’ expectations. Is there, at least, one problem in the world which the USA has helped solve this year? No. What’s worse, he made North Korea even more dangerous and non-complying. South Korea and Japan are in clear danger now. He’s deployed more troops to Afghanistan, but we don’t know what he’s trying to accomplish there either. In Syria, the USA lost its strategic goals and started to directly oppose Russia and the anti-terrorist forces. He’s on bad terms with Turkey, he’s scared off Europe, and nothing good is happening in South America, either. Tensions between the USA and China are growing. Relations with Russia are at an all-time low. It’s bad enough that the US took over Russian diplomatic residencies, but they’re also tearing through them like nobody’s business. How else would one label the actions of those agents in our Consulate in San Francisco? Does it mean that Russia must respond in a mutual manner? Perhaps, as simple-mindedly as the USA does?

If Russia did, it’d ruin the very concept of diplomacy. What’d be next? Or, does Washington prefer not to think about that? Or, do they? The less diplomacy there is, the less politeness and nice words, the higher the demand for US weapons. That’s much better. It’s not as if diplomacy is very lucrative. It’s about airing concerns, which leads to… unneeded restrictions. Taking the high road is difficult, and the low road is always there. It’s coarser, but it does have elements of cheap theatricality. Take for example what Trump did when he went to Puerto Rico after the hurricane. For appearance’s sake, he brought his wife along. She wasn’t wearing her usual high heels, but she specially bought yellow Timberlands. He made the local Americans happy, personally throwing paper towels into the crowd. It looked like one big ridiculous show. It all took place on a day of nationwide mourning in honour of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

10 October 2017

D K Kiselyov

head, Rossiya Segodnya

Wednesday, 18 February 2015

Cuba Demands Closure of Gitmo or No Total Normalisation of Relations

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On Wednesday, Cuban Ambassador to Russia Emilio Losada García said that Washington should close US Naval Station Guantánamo Bay to restore relations with Havana, noting, “No American base should operate in Cuba under the socialist government”. He said that an American withdrawal from the base was a condition for total normalisation of bilateral relations.

18 February 2015

ITAR-TASS

http://tass.ru/en/world/778400

Editor:

This happened soon after the visit of Defence Minister S K Shoigu. Now, it’s clear that Cuba received a security guarantee from Russia. If the USA wants an Embassy in Havana, it has to close Gitmo. This puts Obama on the hot seat. If he closes Gitmo… he’s in the shitter big-time with the GOP (more so than he is now, unbelievably)… if he keeps it open, it knackers his much-ballyhooed opening to Cuba, and makes him look a fool. In short, he can’t win, no way, no how. Methinks that this is a diplomatic pawn… that is, if the USA plays ball with Russia in the Ukraine, Russia MIGHT talk Cuba into softening its demand. Vova’s not a black belt for nothing, kids…

BMD

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

CIA Torture Whistleblower Hero John Kiriakou Released From Prison… War Criminal Pigs Who Approved Torture (Including Antonin Scalia) Still in Office… America, What Happened to You?

00 Torturers Belong in Prison. 05.12

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On Tuesday, authorities released 14-year former CIA veteran John Kiriakou, sentenced to two-and-a-half years in federal prison after disclosing the CIA torture programme, to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest. Kiriakou received a 30-month sentence in federal prison due to his decision to release details about the CIA post-9/11 torture tactics to the press, a disclosure that also leaked the name of a covert officer. His sentence began 28 February 2013, at the Loretto Federal Correctional Institution near Pittsburgh PA and will officially finish in August 2015. In a tweet posted Tuesday, Kiriakou smiled with his children. He referenced Martin Luther King Jr in the post, writing, “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last”.

Kiriakou first revealed details about the CIA’s use of torture, such as waterboarding, back in 2007, during an interview with ABC News. He was the first official with direct knowledge to discuss the programme in public. The criminal investigation that eventually led to Kiriakou began in 2009, when government officials learned that defence lawyers for high-profile al-Qaeda suspects at the Guantánamo Gulag were identifying witnesses to their clients’ interrogations while in CIA custody. The lawyers asserted that the US government tortured their clients, and wanted someone involved to testify. Authorities discovered during a FBI investigation that back in 2008 Kiriakou told a journalist the name of a covert CIA officer involved in interrogating al-Qaeda suspects. Then, the journalist disclosed the covert officer’s name to a researcher working for a lawyer at Guantánamo. With the name of an officer involved in the torture program in hand, Guantánamo lawyers were able to name the officer in their lawsuits. News of this leak led to an uproar within the CIA, which filed a crimes report. The case cleared defence lawyers and the researcher of any wrongdoing, but Kiriakou received indictments in 2012 on one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, three counts of violating the Espionage Act, and one count of making false statements. He agreed to plead guilty to the IIPA violation last October… the first successful IIPA prosecution in 27 years.

Defence lawyers argued that Kiriakou’s actions… giving a journalist the name of a former CIA officer alleged to have taken part in waterboarding… were those of a whistleblower. As a CIA officer from 1990-2004, Kiriakou led an operation that captured Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al-Qaeda facilitator in 2002. CIA records documented that it subjected Zubaydah to waterboarding (simulated drowning) 83 times during interrogation. Prosecutors argued Kiriakou was merely seeking to increase his fame and public stature by trading on his insider knowledge. He later worked as a consultant for an American news network and published a book about his time at the CIA. Kiriakou said that although his conviction was for leaking the name of a covert officer, they really targeted him for revealing the torture programme to the public.

 4 February 2015

RT

http://rt.com/usa/229103-john-kiriakou-released-prison/

Editor:

We hung Nazis for torturing people after World War II, calling it “crimes against humanity”. The objective situation is no different here. Both are cases of “might makes right”. Look at how the USA holds people for years in illegal and amoral detention at Guantánamo! The US Republican Party, in particular, wets its pants in glee at such enormities. In fact, the USA holds Guantánamo illegally, as the Cuban government has repeatedly asked the USA to leave, but it refuses. The Ukrainian triumvirate of the Rabbit, Turdchinov, and Avakov all aided the CIA torture programme… indeed, it’s one of the reasons why the USA supports them… they’re criminals on a level with their CIA enablers. We hung SS officers for torturing people as war criminals… therefore, we should hang James Clapper et al as war criminals… for doing the very same thing! We hung Hans Frank {Oops! I meant “Wilhelm Frick”… one of my Cabinet was kind enough to point up my mistake… sometimes, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. I apologise: editor} for providing the legal basis for the Holocaust… ergo, we should hang Antonin Scalia for providing the legal basis for torture. If you doubted that the Nazi and Republican Parties were similar… look at Frank {“look at Frick”: editor} and Scalia. QED.

By the way, the above is NOT a threat. It’s a historical comparison. Scalia SHOULD hang for his legal whoring, but I doubt that he shall. We don’t live in a perfect world… Scalia’s defence of torture is proof of that. Note well that the “pro-lifers” cream their jeans over this legal prostitute (who defends aggressive war in foreign parts, yet never served in the forces himself… a classic “Chicken Hawk” if there ever were such).

America’s soul is in the shitter… it’ll stay there until we repent of the actions of Scalia and Clapper (and those like them).

BMD

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