The Integrity Initiative is moving its smear machine into the US through a quiet partnership w/ the State Dept's Global Engagement Center. The ex-director of this shady taxpayer funded outfit says he supports domestic propaganda - and that it was his job.
Max Blumenthal added,
2:16
William Craddick@williamcraddick
At a Council on Foreign Relations forum about "fake news," former Editor at Time Magazine Richard Stengel directly states that he supports the use of propaganda on American citizens - then shuts the session down when…
all the hysteria over russia and there's still no evidence.
yet the same people whining about russia continue to ignore the reality of the integrity initiative.
that's propaganda and its aimed at americans.
in england, it's attempted to destroy jeremy corbin - among other things.
we should be very worried about it.
margaret kimberley ('black agenda report') explained: Thanks to the Anonymous hacker community the work of the Integrity Initiative has
been exposed to the public. The Integrity Initiative is a British
“charity” founded in 2015. Its mission is to “bring to the attention of
politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties
the threat posed by Russia to democratic institutions in the United
Kingdom, across Europe and North America.” That mission is suspect in
and of itself, a phony trope meant to cover up its own imperialist wrong
doing. The Integrity Initiative is an arm of the British government and
has received more than $2 million in funding from the British Foreign
Office and Defense department. It has also raised money from NATO,
Facebook and rightwing foundations. The Integrity Initiative is a means of undermining the sovereignty of
the British people by manipulating them with lies. It engaged in
numerous efforts to libel Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and prevent
him from ever being elected prime minister. Corbyn has been accused of
Soviet era espionage, anti-Semitism and anything else his enemies choose
to use against him. Academics and writers who spoke out against UK
involvement in attacks on Syria were likewise targeted by The Timesand
other influential British media. The reporters involved were part of
this Integrity Initiative campaign. The attacks are consistent and are
obviously coordinated at a very high level. Integrity Initiative director Christopher Donnelly is
a former member of the British Army Intelligence Corps. He also helped
to create the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort
Leavenworth, and served as an advisor to several Secretaries General at
NATO. After the NATO instigated coup against the elected Ukrainian
government Donnelly recommended placing mines in the Sevastopol harbor,
an obvious provocation. When Integrity Initiative isn’t planning to start wars it plots to
interfere in the affairs of other countries through orchestrated
“clusters” of journalists and academics. The Spanish cluster quashed
the appointment of a new defense secretary through the use of a
coordinated social media campaign. They were also involved in subverting
the Catalan independence vote. Clusters are operating not just in the UK and Spain but in France,
Germany, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway and Lithuania.
After Julian Assange revealed the extent of interference in Spain the
cluster targeted the Ecuadorean government to end his asylum.
There is evidence that the Integrity Initiative sent an operative
into the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign for the Democratic Party
presidential nomination. An Englishman named Simon Bracey-Lane got
much media attention for volunteering in the Sanders Iowa caucus
campaign. Bracey-Lane is now a research fellow at the Institute for
Statecraft, the Integrity Initiative’s parent company. There was foreign
meddling in the 2016 election but it came from British spooks like
Christopher Steele and undercover operatives, not Russian agents.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in Iraq in an unannounced stop on his Mideast tour meant to promote the White House's hard-line position on Iran. abcn.ws/2CYeX09
0:22
4,167 views
The Iraq War, the ongoing Iraq War, hits the 16 year mark in two months
and still US officials have to make "unannounced visits." All these
years later.
ABC avoids
reality by allowing Elizabeth McLaughlin and Conor Finnegan to insist,
"The president visited Iraq, also unannounced, the day after Christmas,
saying the U.S. still could use bases there for operations in Syria."
BAGHDAD
— In an unannounced visit shrouded in secrecy, Vice President Joseph R.
Biden Jr. came to Iraq on Thursday for the first time in almost five
years, ...
New York Times
As US president, Barak Obama made one visit to Iraq in his two terms (eight years). Guess what? It was unannounced.
BAGRAM
AIR BASE, Afghanistan — President Obama arrived in Afghanistan on
Sunday for an unannounced visit to mark Memorial Day with U.S. troops,
now in ...
Almost every visit by a Western figure to a warzone since the US-led
invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 has been done without warning. US President Barack Obama made regular unannounced visits to Afghanistan, as did Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair to Iraq. Earlier
this year Secretary of State John Kerry turned up in Somalia, a
war-ravaged state currently waging an armed campaign against al-Shabab
Islamist rebels - with reports suggesting even Somali officials believed
a more junior US official would be attending. But clearly these
leaders - and their advisers - judge that the advantages of paying these
visits outweigh the attendant security risks, both in terms of boosting
morale of personnel overseas and in giving the leader in question a PR
lift.
For those attempting to provide 'context,' grasp that there was a world
before President Donald Trump (and there will be a world after him).
Back to Pompeo:
Pompeo Makes Surprise Stop In Iraq During Mideast Trip To Rally Allies
AP notes: In Baghdad, Pompeo met with Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi,
President Barham Salih, Foreign Minister Mohamed Alhakim and Parliament
Speaker Mohamed al-Halbousi. Pompeo and the Iraqi officials made no statements to the media.
The US State Dept issued the following this morning:
Readout
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
January 9, 2019
The below is attributable to Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino:
Secretary Michael R. Pompeo met today with Iraq’s Council of
Representatives Speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi and members of the Council
of Representatives Foreign-Relations Committee. The Secretary emphasized
U.S. support for the long-term bilateral partnership, anchored by the
Strategic Framework Agreement, and the necessity of supporting Iraq’s
democratic institutions, economic development, energy independence, and
sovereignty. Secretary Pompeo emphasized the U.S. commitment to
addressing Iraq’s security challenges, including the continuation of our
security partnership with Iraqi Security Forces.
U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo made an unannounced visit to
Baghdad on Wednesday, which appeared partly aimed at patching up
relations strained during Donald Trump’s surprise visit last month.
The
U.S. president upset Iraqi lawmakers when he visited troops at the Ain
Al-Asad base west of Baghdad but didn’t meet with the country’s new
prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, though the two leaders did speak by
phone.
If that was the point of the visit, it doesn't appear to have been very successful:
Iraqi Council of Representatives’ Foriegn Affairs Committee met today and called for reviewing US-Iraq relations following Pres Trump’ “uncoordinated” Visit to Iraq’s Anbar Province last month.
If US Gov fails to handle Iraq file properly, it may lose it.
Again, if that was the purpose of the trip, it doesn't appear to have
been successful. But when has the US government ever delivered success
in Iraq?
Never.
Well, that's not fair of me. They have helped Big Business make tons of
money off the lives of Iraqis because -- blood stained or not -- greed
requires dollars, dollars and more dollars.
I'll tell you who is *really* unhappy at the thought of pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan. The contractors and the generals connected to the contractors. $$BILLIONS$$ @realDonaldTrump
Iraqi persecution of Sunni men helped to transform Al Qaeda in Iraq into ISIS. Now Iraq is doing it again--collective punishment of Sunnis that may help transform ISIS into ISIS 2.0. bit.ly/2FlzsFZ
In Iraq, the government’s harsh counterterrorism strategy, which is widely perceived as collectively punishing the
Sunnis, is generating new grievances that could increase local support
for an Islamic State 2.0. More than 19,000 people have been detained on
terrorism-related charges since 2014. Over 3,000 have been sentenced to
death in rapid-fire trials that are sometimes decided in less than 10 minutes.
Convictions are often based on thin and circumstantial evidence, the
testimony of secret informants, or confessions induced through torture,
making it easy for innocent people to be falsely accused and unfairly
punished.
These injustices are fueling anger, and with it, a new wave of violence. Since 2016, the average number of Islamic State attacks in Iraq — including suicide bombings and targeted assassinations — has risen to 75 per month. In August, U.S. and U.N. reports estimated that the number of Islamic State fighters active in Iraq and Syria might exceed 30,000.
In our working paper based
on an original household survey of over 1,400 Mosul residents — the
Islamic State’s former de facto capital in Iraq — we identify two
serious flaws in the government’s approach to prosecuting and punishing
individuals accused of joining or supporting the Islamic State. First,
it is unwilling to recognize variation in the severity and voluntariness
of “collaboration.” Second, it relies heavily on unproven criminal
justice and counterterrorism theories.
