Putin’s Turn to Have his Comments Mistranslated and Taken out of Context

Barroso Represents Just Another Fake Portuguese Socialist

Wayne MADSEN | 05.09.2014 | 00:00

The soon-to-be former President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barosso, is due to leave office at the end of October after having committed a huge breach of diplomatic protocol. Subsequent to a recent telephone conversation between Barosso and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Barosso saw fit to leak a false transcript of the confidential phone call to the media. If this ritual, long practiced by neo-conservatives, sounds familiar, it should. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was constantly subjected to mistranslations of his comments by the Western corporate media in order to paint him in the worst possible light. Now, it is Putin’s turn to not only have his comments mistranslated and taken out of context, but to be «officially» leaked by the European Union’s top «Eurocrat» to a media begging for every scrap to feed Ukraine’s constantly-whining propaganda machine. After Barroso parroted Kiev’s line that up to a thousand regular Russian troops were fighting in eastern Ukraine alongside Russian-speaking separatist forces, Barosso claimed that Putin told him that Russian troops could take Kiev in two weeks. Of course, Putin did not say or even imply that Russian troops would or even planned to enter Kiev but, instead, insisted that Russia had no desire or plans to take such action because if that were its intent, Russia could have done so previously. Barosso has always been a compliant stooge for the Eurocrats of Brussels and their globalist and international banker overlords. Barosso’s curriculum vitae strongly suggests that he was one of many Central Intelligence Agency plants inside the West European «New Left» movement of the 1960s and 70s. In his college days at the University of Lisbon, Barosso was a member of the Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers/Revolutionary Movement of the Portuguese Proletariat (PCTP/MRPP). Barosso boasts that he joined the Maoist front to fight against the much stronger and strongly anti-NATO and anti-European Economic Community (EEC) Portuguese Communist Party. During the 1960s and 70s, the CIA infiltrated a number of «Maoist» and Trotskyist groups in Western Europe in order to divide the left in order to suppress it with right-wing governments. Barosso served his masters in Langley, Virginia well after the 1974 «Carnation Revolution» in Portugal that ousted the «Second Republic» fascist military regime. Hours after the December 4, 1980 fatal crash of the Cessna 421 aircraft that was carrying leftist-oriented Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro, his wife Snu Abecassis, and his Defense Minister from Lisbon to an election campaign rally in Porto, Barosso, sensing the political vacuum created in Sá Carneiro’s Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Alliance coalition of which it was a member, renounced his membership in the Maoist PCTP/MRPP. Barosso joined the Social Democrats. Overnight, Barosso, the consummate opportunist, changed his political stripes from «Maoist» to a center-right and pro-business advocate for NATO and a united Europe. In the succeeding years, Barosso fought successfully to transform the center-left Social Democrats into the right-wing, pro-NATO, and pro-European Union political party that it is today. After a Portuguese government investigation in 1995 determined that Sá Carneiro’s plane had been sabotaged, in what became known as the «Camarate Affair,» a 2004 Portuguese parliamentary inquiry into the crash of the Cessna concluded that there was ample evidence that a bomb had been placed on the plane prior to take off from Lisbon. Almost as if he had foreknowledge of what would befall Prime Minister Sá Carneiro, Barosso immediately joined Barosso’s Social Democrats before the plane’s wreckage was cleared and Sá Carneiro and his entourage were buried. A former CIA contractor named Francisco Farinha Simões came forward in 2012 to reveal that it was he who received orders from CIA deputy director and former U.S. ambassador to Portugal Frank Carlucci and other CIA agents in Lisbon to place a bomb on Sá Carneiro’s aircraft. Simões also revealed that in 1980 he met with Henry Kissinger to plan for the assassination of Sá Carneiro, who was described by the Americans as «no friend» of the United States. Later, Carlucci, who would become Secretary of Defense, deputy CIA director, and national security adviser, became the chairman of the Bush family-connected Carlyle Group. Simões also revealed that Carlucci, who played an important role in the 1961 assassination of Congolese former Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, said that the CIA’s designated next Prime Minister of Portugal was Socialist Party leader Mario Soares. In 1975, Soares, another former Portuguese «Communist,» immediately moved to ensure the purge of Communist ministers from the first post-revolution leftist government of General Vasco dos Santos Gonçalves.  Gonçalves’s policy of bank nationalization was seen as an existential threat to the robber barons of London and Wall Street. Soares became Prime Minister in 1976 and began moving Portugal into the pro-Europe and pro-NATO camp.  Soares, like Barosso, was another faux leftist on the CIA’s payroll. The CIA- and Israel-influenced Wikipedia has predictably called any suspicion that foul play was involved in the crash of Sá Carneiro’s plane a «conspiracy theory,» the throw-away term relied upon by neo-conservatives and neo-fascists who are bereft of facts. Becoming the quintessential Portuguese government bureaucrat, Barroso began to rise within the Portuguese government’s ranks. In 1985, Barosso became Undersecretary of State for Home Affairs under the Social Democratic pro-business and pro-EU Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva, who is the current President of Portugal and was the longest reigning Portuguese Prime Minister since the fascist dictator Antonio Salazar. In 1992, Barasso became Portuguese Foreign Minister. The Georgetown University-trained former «Maoist» was now in a position which would handsomely return the CIA’s early investment. Barosso became noticed by the power structure in Brussels as a willing and useful future EU official, beholden not only to the false democracy of the EU infrastructure but to his patrons in Washington, DC. In 2002, Barosso formed a coalition between his Social Democrats and the right-wing and disingenuously-named People’s Party. Barosso became Portugal’s Prime Minister. Barosso began Potugal’s tortuous policy of austerity, cutting the government budget by attacking social safety net programs. In March 2003, Barosso met with President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Spain’s neo-Francoist Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in the Azores, a Portuguese dependency in the Atlantic and the home of a NATO base, to announce a quadripartite «coalition of the willing» agreement that would see Portuguese and Spanish troops join America’s foolhardy invasion and occupation of Iraq.  In 2004, Barosso helped the EU hammer out the EU’s constitution, which became known as the Treaty of Lisbon. In return for his valued services to the EU, Barosso was chosen as the President of the European Council and in 2009, his loyalty to both Brussels and Washington was rewarded with another five-year term.  Barosso has been a leading war hawk in the EU’s showdown for any country that gets in its way of a federalized and corporatized Europe that would have made Portugal’s dictator, General Salazar, extremely proud. Barosso applied undue pressure on Ireland to approve a referendum on continued EU membership, demanded that Greece adhere to draconian austerity measures, and bluntly told nationhood aspirants Scotland and Catalonia that independence would not mean continued membership in the EU. In other words, Barosso acted as a front-man for the central bankers in Frankfurt and London and the NATO geo-political master planners of the Pentagon and Brussels. The CIA’s original investment in the former Portuguese «Maoist» continued to pay off. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the political chameleon Barosso would violate every modern norm of diplomatic protocol to not only reveal the contents of a privileged communications with Putin but also change the context and meaning of the Russian president’s words. The CIA, NATO, and the EU have come to expect nothing less from the CIA’s second favorite Portuguese «leftist» infiltrator. Only Soares is beloved more by the CIA for his service to America’s premier intelligence agency source:http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/09/05/barroso-represents-just-another-fake-portuguese-socialist.html

Putin, not Ukraine, is Vexing America

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 05.09.2014 | 10:14

Forget about alleged Russian aggression and land grabbing in Ukraine – the real problem for the United States is Vladimir Putin. To be more precise, the real problem is a strong, independent Russia under the leadership of President Putin, a Russia that stands up for its national rights, respect for international norms and which is not prepared to simply roll over to placate American hegemonic selfish interests, like propping up its bankrupt dollar. As the American-led NATO military alliance meets in Wales this week, it is obvious that Washington and its European minions are thrashing around trying to find a new purpose for an organization that was formed 65 years ago during the Cold War. The summit in the Welsh city of Newport is being billed as «the most important meeting of NATO since the end of the Cold War» – might we wonder why? – more than two decades ago. US President Barack Obama is in attendance with 60 world leaders, including those of the 28 NATO member states. Shamelessly, there is much high-flown rhetoric about «defending Europe from Russian aggression». NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen even had the gall to state, at the opening of the conference, that «Russia is attacking Ukraine». «So we continue to call on Russia to pull back its troops from Ukrainian borders, and stop the flow of weapons and fighters into Ukraine», said Rasmussen without a modicum of evidence, or even a semblance of citing evidence.  The day before the NATO summit opened, Barack Obama, speaking in Estonia, used the very same kind of provocative rhetoric, accusing Russia of aggression in Ukraine and violating international law. The American president rolled off slanderous words about «Russian-financed, Russian-armed, Russian-trained, Russian-supported and often Russian-directed separatists in Ukraine».  As Russia’s envoy to NATO, Alexandr Grushko, said of such accusations mouthed by Western leaders, «they are not facts, they are forgeries». Grushko said that NATO was escalating tensions with Russia without any evidence to support its reckless conduct. «There have been no troop build-ups or movements of military hardware», he added. It is astounding that all the militarist hype surrounding the NATO conference, along with bombastic declarations of collective security and vows to protection «our members in Eastern Europe», has been invoked with absolutely no credible proof, such as satellite images of Russian troop and tank movements, missile launches or aircraft incursions of Ukrainian territory. It’s like policy is being made on the basis of fantasy and preconceptions.  However, that’s not to say that there aren’t real concerns at play. There most certainly are. But the Western powers and their dutiful so-called news media are in full propaganda mode to conceal what those underlying concerns are.  What Obama and other senior US figures have been emphasizing over the past six months has been the need for European members of NATO to «step up to the plate» in terms of financing NATO. For most of its 65-year existence, the US has largely funded the workings of NATO, being by far the largest member. There is good reason for this historical American largesse. NATO has served as the US vehicle to exert a dominant military, political and economic presence over Europe. Without NATO, Washington would have significantly reduced influence over its European «allies». In particular, Washington might have to witness a natural historical tendency for closer political and economic ties between Europe and Russia, if it were not for NATO’s grip on the continent.  It is significant that over the past two decades since the end of the Cold War – and hence arguably the end of NATO’s purpose – European funding of the organization fell from over 30 per cent down to nearly 20 per cent. In other words, that suggests that European states were losing interest in NATO as having any relevance in the post-Cold War era. It seems that what Washington is hell-bent on doing is to revive the relevance of NATO by talking up the threat to European security from Russia. A revived NATO means a revived US presence in Europe, which is essential for American global hegemony. This would give the real meaning for why Washington has taken the lead over past year in escalating tensions with Russia over Ukraine. This has in turn led to a growing chasm between Moscow and Europe, where up to recently there were cordial diplomatic relations based on substantial economic and trade partnerships.  Of course in this political endeavour Washington has found willing European accomplices to accentuate tensions. The British government has played a trusted lackey role for the American agenda, as has the US handpicked junta in Kiev led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, as well as the pro-Western regimes in Poland and the Baltic states.  This underlying agenda of American geopolitical hegemony – not alleged Russian aggression – was betrayed earlier this week during the joint speeches of Barack Obama and his Estonian counterpart Toomas Hendrik Ilves. When both leaders were asked about their views on the 1997 Founding Act between NATO and Russia, they said that the commitment to non-expansion by NATO was now redundant because the «landscape had changed».  The American-educated Estonian leader said: «That was the security environment of 1997, when Boris Yeltsin was [Russian] President, and there had been no violations of either the UN Charter or the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the 1990 Paris Charter». Note that Ilves reiterates groundless assertions that Russia has committed violations of the UN Charter and other treaties. But what is telling is his reference to former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was acceptable to American and Europeans because he was seen as a weak, pliable figure that allowed Western capital free rein in the newly opened Russian territory following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yelstin’s era was also a time of rampant corruption by Russian oligarchs who were closely associated with Western capital. That corrosive culture came to a halt with the election of Vladimir Putin twice as president between 2000-2008, and again in 2012. In his speech, Obama concurred that «much has changed» since the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, making the latter non-applicable. But Obama’s words gave more away about the deeper political concerns. He said of Russia: «I’ve said consistently our preference is a strong, productive, cooperative Russia. But the way to achieve that is by abiding to international norms, to improving the economy, to focusing on how they can actually produce goods and services that other people want and give opportunity to their people and educate them. That’s not the path that they’ve been pursuing over the last several years. It’s certainly not in evidence when it comes to their strategy in Ukraine». So what Obama, that is, Washington, is concerned about is not Ukraine or alleged Russian aggression, but rather issues of «economic production and cooperation» – that is cooperation with Western capital. What’s more, «that’s not the path that they’ve [Russian government] been pursuing over the last several years». In other words, that’s not what Russia is permitting the West under the tenure of President Vladimir Putin; and this predates the recent crisis in Ukraine.  These real, underlying American concerns about Putin’s Russia not playing American ball were spelled out in an opinion column in the New York Times earlier this year, on March 23, by the former US ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul. Notwithstanding false claims about annexing Crimea, McFaul writes: «The decision by President Vladimir V Putin of Russia to annex Crimea ended the post-Cold War era in Europe. Since the late Gorbachev-Reagan years, the era was defined by zigzags of cooperation and disputes between Russia and the West, but always with an underlying sense that Russia was gradually joining the international order. No more». The former American ambassador goes on to lament «the collapse of the Soviet order did not lead smoothly to a transition to democracy and markets inside Russia, or Russia’s integration into the West». In other words, Russia did not make a smooth transition that suited American interests. McFaul lays the blame for this lack of Russian «integration into the West» on President Putin, accusing him of being «an autocrat» and of harking back to the days of the old Soviet Union. McFaul’s invective against Putin is just slander, but what it barely conceals is that Washington is acutely disgruntled with how it perceives Putin’s Russia as not acting like a vassal state, as it was intended to be under Yeltsin at the time of signing the Founding Act between NATO and Russia. That is why Washington now wants to scrap the Founding Act, and to push NATO expansion around Russia’s borders.  McFaul ended his NY Times column by calling for isolation and punitive sanctions on Russia, a policy that has become ever more pointed in subsequent months.  And it is more than a coincidence that America’s rulers have stepped up their aggression towards Russia since President Putin has embarked on a raft of regional trade and development alliances with Eurasian countries, Iran, China, and other BRICS nations, as well as Latin America. Putin’s declared moves to replace the US dollar with bilateral currencies for transactions in energy trade has also marked him out as a threat to US hegemonic interests. Putin’s Russia has also stood by its Syrian Arab ally over the past three years rather than relenting to the US-NATO criminal agenda of regime change in that country. This is the context for why Washington is corralling NATO with the «crisis in Ukraine». It is not about Russian aggression. It is about Putin being an independent world leader who is not bowing down to American imperial dictate. source:http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/09/05/putin-not-ukraine-is-vexing-america.html