Ray was asked why President Obama told The Atlantic that he is “very proud” at having resisted enormous pressure from what he called the “Washington playbook” people – including top national security advisers, VP Joe Biden, and other “smart” folks – to launch Shock and Awe on Syria in late summer 2013.

http://presstv.ir/Detail/2016/03/13/455398/2013-Syria-chemical-weapons-falseflag

March 11, 2016, (3 and a half minutes)

Ray noted that in 2014, no-longer-in-office ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was highly critical of Obama for calling off the attack on Syria for which the neocons and she had been lusting. She even took a potshot at Obama’s dictum “Don’t do stupid stuff.”

Obama’s remarks to The Atlantic make it abundantly clear that Obama has finally come to understand that the violent disarray in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and in Libya (hat-tip to Hillary Clinton who pressed hard for armed intervention) is what you get once one you prescind from supremely sensible dicta like “Don’t do….”

Ray on the CIA, Torture and Blowing the Whistle

Truthout.org, March 11, 2016

Includes transcript of interview by Zain Raza of “acTVism Munich,” as well as the video (13 minutes)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35185-ray-mcgovern-on-the-cia-torture-and-blowing-the-whistle

Discussed are the Bush/Cheney program of systematic torture; the complicity of over 50 European governments in enabling kidnapping and secret prisons; why President Obama is afraid to take on the CIA and NSA et al.; Edward Snowden; and history’s lessons regarding what happens when there are not enough activists to expose government crimes.

Ukraine: Brian Becker of “Loud and Clear” (radio) interviewed Ray on March 10, the eve of the 2nd anniversary of Crimea’s declaration of independence from Ukraine.

http://sputniknews.com/russia/20160312/1036161954/factors-behind-crimeas-reunification-with-russia.html

(18 minutes)

Ray pointed, inter alia, to a not-widely-known public comment by President Vladimir Putin a month later (April 17, 2014) focusing on the reasons behind Moscow’s strong reaction. One main reason was Russia’s felt need to thwart Washington’s plan to incorporate Ukraine and Crimea into U.S. anti-ballistic missile deployment encircling Russia. Putin:

“This issue is no less, and probably even more important, than NATO’s eastward expansion. Incidentally, our decision on Crimea was partially prompted by this.”

In a formal address in the Kremlin on March 18, 2014, the day Crimea was re-incorporated into Russia, Putin went from dead serious to somewhat jocular in discussing the general issue. (The “Loud and Clear” interview time ran out before Ray could inject this into the conversation, but it is worth noting here.) Putin:

“We have already heard declarations from Kiev about Ukraine soon joining NATO. What would this have meant for Crimea and Sevastopol [the Russian naval port] in the future? It would have meant that NATO’s navy would be right there in this city of Russia’s military glory, and this would create not an illusory but a perfectly real threat to the whole of southern Russia. …

“We are not opposed to cooperation with NATO … [but] NATO remains a military alliance, and we are against having a military alliance making itself at home right in our backyard or in our historic territory.

“I simply cannot imagine that we would travel to Sevastopol to visit NATO sailors. Of course, most of them are wonderful guys, but it would be better to have them come and visit us, be our guests, rather than the other way around.”

During the interview with Brian Becker, Ray quoted from a Moscow embassy cable (“declassified” by Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange) dated Feb. 1, 2008, in which U.S. Ambassador William Burns reported Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s explicit warning that “Nyet Means Nyet” regarding whether Moscow would acquiesce in Ukrainian membership in NATO. In sum, recent Ukrainian history can be said to begin with Lavrov’s unmistakable warning and, six years later, “the most blatant coup in history” – and NOT with the predictable – indeed, explicitly predicted – reaction of Russian leaders beginning the day after.

Given the “mainstream media” coverage (or, better, lack thereof), small wonder that the American people forget about (or never heard of) the Feb. 22, 2014 coup. Last year, when Sen. John McCain feigned short-term memory loss, Ray got this letter into the Washington Post (the censors must have been away at the beach):

Letter to the Editor, July 1, 2015

McCain, Ukraine and Mr. Putin

In his June 28 Sunday Opinion essay, “The Ukraine cease-fire fiction,” ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-russia-ukraine-cease-fire-is-a-fiction/2015/06/26/5cf0cde6-1a9d-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html ) Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation.

What about the coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/protests-in-kiev-a-chronicle-of-key-events/2014/02/22/fe7541e4-9be4-11e3-9080-5d1d87a6d793_story.html ) that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western leaders favoring membership in NATO? Was that not provocation enough?

This glaring omission is common in The Post. The March 10 World Digest item “Putin had early plan to annex Crimea” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-march-9-2015/2015/03/09/1e4e1146-c667-11e4-aa1a-86135599fb0f_story.html ) described a “secret meeting” Mr. Putin held on Feb. 23, 2014, during which “Russia decided it would take the Crimean Peninsula.” No mention was made of the coup the previous day.

I have searched in vain for credible evidence that, before the coup, Mr. Putin had any intention to annex Crimea. George Friedman, the widely respected president of the think tank Stratfor, (https://www.stratfor.com/about/analysts ) has described the putsch on Feb. 22, 2014, as “the most blatant coup in history.” (http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/stratfor-chiefs-most-blatant-coup-history-interview-translated-full/ri2561 )

Ray McGovern, Arlington
The writer is former chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch of the CIA.​​​​​

Hillary Clinton – Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name in Calling out Trump

by The Partnership For Civil Justice Fund

http://www.justiceonline.org/not_just_trump_silent_protester_assaulted_and_ejected_from_clinton_speech

Here’s How She Reacted When Silent Protester Was Assaulted/Ejected from a Speech She Gave at George Washington University. Some of the injuries inflicted directly under Secretary Clinton’s nose:

 

Screen Shot 2016-03-17 at 11.59.25 AM Screen Shot 2016-03-17 at 11.59.37 AM

Hillary Clinton on Thursday said she was “distraught and appalled” in response to Wednesday’s assault on a protestor at a Donald Trump rally. In an interview with Rachel Maddow she stated that security at these events should handle demonstrators in an “appropriate manner,” and defended the right to protest. She called the event “distressing.”

But her concern for the right to dissent apparently only extends to her opponents’ events.

When a 71-year-old man wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt, stood silently and peacefully with his back turned to her while she gave a speech, she allowed security, directly under her nose, to brutally assault him and remove him. Secretary Clinton displayed remarkable sang froid as McGovern was assaulted before her very eyes, as CNN showed in this one-minute video:

Clinton had every opportunity to say something to stop the assault, and she never paused in her speech. To this day she has expressed no regret, no “distress,” or expression of concern over this February 2011 event. The man who was attacked was veteran Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst who used to provide the President’s daily briefings, and is now a peace activist.

Even after her close adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, wrote her to recommend an apology be issued, she stayed silent — and has not apologized to this day.

Here is Hillary Clinton’s hypocritical tweet about the assault at the Donald Trump event:

@HillaryClinton

This kind of behavior is repugnant. We set the tone for our campaigns—we should encourage respect, not violence.

To read more about Mr. McGovern’s case, including how Clinton’s State Department subsequently put him on a “Be On the Lookout” list see http://www.justiceonline.org/ray-mcgovern. The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund represents McGovern.

Coming Attraction: Next Human Catastrophe in Iraq; the Mosul dam on the Tigris is crumbling. Stay tuned for Biblical-scale disaster.

by Giles Fraser, The Guardian

This is BIG. Even if the dam does not break with the spring rains, the very possibility – and the dire warnings by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad — speak to the question of how, under the first George Bush, U.S. forces DELIBERATLY destroyed civilian infrastructure in Iraq; and how, under Bush II, forces were unleashed that made it impossible to take action to stave off what seems in the offing – destruction of Biblical proportions.

Last week those in charge of the glittering new $750 million US embassy in Baghdad warned that the risk of the dam failing is “serious and unprecedented.” There is no sign that riverboats were included in the funding for the new embassy. Will Halliburton win the contract to rush boats to the Green Zone to supplement the evacuation helicopters already on standby?

The experts predict the dam is going to break and the floods are coming; it is just a question of when.

Comment: If catastrophe strikes in the next month or two, it would behoove presidential candidates to be on record in warning about the danger. Some might even point to which country – and which Senators – bear a HUJE portion of responsibility. Imagine living in Mosul, or even downstream in Baghdad, under that kind of threat – with anxiety that must be orders of magnitude deeper than what comes from living on the fault in California.

Hillary Clinton, Tigress of the Tigris, may just reap what she and others have sown in voting to attack Iraq.

As for Trump, who – as is well known – is hujely great at making good deals: There is a rumor (just started here) that his “people” are selling premium flood insurance to oil companies in Iraq at exorbitant rates; and that his lawyers have already drafted the Trump bankruptcy filing for when the dam breaks.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2016/mar/10/the-mosul-dam-is-crumbling-if-it-bursts-it-would-be-a-disaster-on-a-biblical-scale?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H&utm_term=161240&subid=1473532&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

N.B. As many of you know, Ray’s written work often appears first on Consortiumnews.com, which suffered a cyber attack last week. Repair work continues but some links may not work for a while. Here is a brief explanation:

March 7, 2016

 

From Editor Robert Parry:

​Last week Consortiumnews suffered a sophisticated “denial of service” attack via encrypted malware so subtle that it was missed by multiple virus scans and was only spotted by a tech examining the files manually. Whoever was behind this attack, the ugly reality is that such assaults are the modern equivalent of mobs smashing the presses of old-time newspapers that challenged the status quo. In such cases, the goal was to silence dissent by raising the price for telling the truth.

Today, we find ourselves in so-called “information warfare,” an insidious concept in which powerful interests view critical facts as “enemy propaganda” that must be shut down. Though these interests already control much of the major media, they are remarkably sensitive to challenges from independent information sources.

These forces justify attacks to silence sources of dissent that challenge the dominant official narratives. Cyber-attacking Web sites is just one tactic in that “war.” Shutting down contrary information, in turn, makes people easier to manipulate into actual wars and other costly adventures. It is important that such intimidation not be successful.

There were/are too few activists in Germany

Zain Raza of activism Munich e. V. interviewed Ray in Berlin in late 2014. They discussed the Bush/Cheney program of systematic torture; the complicity of over 50 European governments in enabling kidnapping and secret prisons; why President Obama is afraid to take on the CIA and NSA, etc., etc., etc.; Edward Snowden; and history’s lessons regarding what happens when there are not enough activists to expose government crimes.

(13 minutes)

http://www.actvism.org/en/news/interview-former-cia-analyst-ray-mcgovern/