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Once Shocking, U.S. Spying on Its Allies Draws a Global Shrug

April 13, 2023, New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/us/politics/us-spying-allies.html

The last time a trove of leaked documents exposed U.S. spying operations around the world, the reaction from allied governments was swift and severe.

In Berlin, thousands of people protested in the streets, the C.I.A. station chief was expelled, and the German chancellor told the American president that “spying on friends is not acceptable.” In Paris, the American ambassador was summoned for a dressing-down.

That was a decade ago, after an enormous leak of classified documents detailing American surveillance programs by … Edward Snowden. The latest leak of classified documents that appeared online this year, the motive behind which remains unknown, has again illustrated the broad reach of U.S. spy agencies, including into the capitals of friendly countries such as Egypt, South Korea, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates.

Though the documents mainly focus on the war in Ukraine, they include C.I.A. intelligence briefs describing conversations and plans at senior levels of government in those countries, in several cases attributed to “signals intelligence,” or electronic eavesdropping.

Unlike in 2013, however, U.S. allies appear to be mostly shrugging off the latest examples of apparent spying. So far, the only evident political fallout from the latest leaks has occurred in South Korea, where one classified U.S. document described a debate among senior national security officials about whether to send artillery shells abroad that might wind up in Ukraine, potentially angering Russia.

April 27, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Leaks Reveal Reality Behind U.S. Propaganda in Ukraine

The inability of either side to decisively defeat the other in the ruins of Bakhmut and other front-line towns in Donbas is why one of the most important documents predicted that the war was locked in a “grinding campaign of attrition” and was “likely heading toward a stalemate.”

What U.S. intelligence officials know, but the White House is doggedly ignoring, is that, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, top Ukrainian officials running this endemically corrupt country are making fortunes skimming money from the over $100 billion in aid and weapons that America has sent them.

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, World BEYOND War, April 19, 2023

The U.S. corporate media’s first response to the leaking of secret documents about the war in Ukraine was to throw some mud in the water, declare “nothing to see here,” and cover it as a depoliticized crime story about a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman who published secret documents to impress his friends. President Biden dismissed the leaks as revealing nothing of “great consequence.”

What these documents reveal, however, is that the war is going worse for Ukraine than our political leaders have admitted to us, while going badly for Russia too, so that neither side is likely to break the stalemate this year, and this will lead to “a protracted war beyond 2023,” as one of the documents says.

The publication of these assessments should lead to renewed calls for our government to level with the public about what it realistically hopes to achieve by prolonging the bloodshed, and why it continues to reject the resumption of the promising peace negotiations it blocked in April 2022.

We believe that blocking those talks was a dreadful mistake, in which the Biden administration capitulated to the warmongering, since-disgraced U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and that current U.S. policy is compounding that mistake at the cost of tens of thousands more Ukrainian lives and the destruction of even more of their country.

In most wars, while the warring parties strenuously suppress the reporting of civilian casualties for which they are responsible, professional militaries generally treat accurate reporting of their own military casualties as a basic responsibility. But in the virulent propaganda surrounding the war in Ukraine, all sides have treated military casualty figures as fair game, systematically exaggerating enemy casualties and understating their own.

Publicly available U.S. estimates have supported the idea that many more Russians are being killed than Ukrainians, deliberately skewing public perceptions to support the notion that Ukraine can somehow win the war, as long as we just keep sending more weapons.

The leaked documents provide internal U.S. military intelligence assessments of casualties on both sides. But different documents, and different copies of the documents circulating online, show conflicting numbers, so the propaganda war rages on despite the leak.

The most detailed assessment of attrition rates of troops says explicitly that U.S. military intelligence has “low confidence” in the attrition rates it cites. It attributes that partly to “potential bias” in Ukraine’s information sharing, and notes that casualty assessments “fluctuate according to the source.”

So, despite denials by the Pentagon, a document that shows a higher death toll on the Ukrainian side may be correct, since it has been widely reported that Russia has been firing several times the number of artillery shells as Ukraine, in a bloody war of attrition in which artillery appears to be the main instrument of death. Altogether, some of the documents estimate a total death toll on both sides approaching 100,000 and total casualties, killed and wounded, of up to 350,000.

Another document reveals that, after using up the stocks sent by NATO countries, Ukraine is running out of missiles for the S-300 and BUK systems that make up 89% of its air defenses. By May or June, Ukraine will therefore be vulnerable, for the first time, to the full strength of the Russian air force, which has until now been limited mainly to long-range missile strikes and drone attacks.

Recent Western arms shipments have been justified to the public by predictions that Ukraine will soon be able to launch new counter-offensives to take back territory from Russia. Twelve brigades, or up to 60,000 troops, were assembled to train on newly delivered Western tanks for this “spring offensive,” with three brigades in Ukraine and nine more in Poland, Romania and Slovenia.

But a leaked document from the end of February reveals that the nine brigades being equipped and trained abroad had less than half their equipment and, on average, were only 15% trained. Meanwhile, Ukraine faced a stark choice to either send reinforcements to Bakhmut or withdraw from the town entirely, and it chose to sacrifice some of its “spring offensive” forces to prevent the imminent fall of Bakhmut…………………………………….

The inability of either side to decisively defeat the other in the ruins of Bakhmut and other front-line towns in Donbas is why one of the most important documents predicted that the war was locked in a “grinding campaign of attrition” and was “likely heading toward a stalemate.”

Adding to the concerns about where this conflict is headed is the revelation in the leaked documents about the presence of 97 special forces from NATO countries, including from the U.K. and the U.S. This is in addition to previous reports about the presence of CIA personnel, trainers and Pentagon contractors, and the unexplained deployment of 20,000 troops from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Brigades near the border between Poland and Ukraine.

Worried about the ever-increasing direct U.S. military involvement, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz has introduced a Privileged Resolution of Inquiry to force President Biden to notify the House of the exact number of U.S. military personnel inside Ukraine and precise U.S. plans to assist Ukraine militarily.

We can’t help wondering what President Biden’s plan could be, or if he even has one. But it turns out that we’re not alone. In what amounts to a second leak that the corporate media have studiously ignored, U.S. intelligence sources have told veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that they are asking the same questions, and they describe a “total breakdown” between the White House and the U.S. intelligence

community.

Hersh’s sources describe a pattern that echoes the use of fabricated and unvetted intelligence to justify U.S. aggression against Iraq in 2003, in which Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan are by-passing regular intelligence analysis and procedures and running the Ukraine War as their own private fiefdom. They reportedly smear all criticism of President Zelenskyy as “pro-Putin,” and leave U.S. intelligence agencies out in the cold trying to understand a policy that makes no sense to them.

What U.S. intelligence officials know, but the White House is doggedly ignoring, is that, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, top Ukrainian officials running this endemically corrupt country are making fortunes skimming money from the over $100 billion in aid and weapons that America has sent them.

According to Hersh’s report, the CIA assesses that Ukrainian officials, including President Zelenskyy, have embezzled $400 million from money the United States sent Ukraine to buy diesel fuel for its war effort, in a scheme that involves buying cheap, discounted fuel from Russia. Meanwhile, Hersh says, Ukrainian government ministries literally compete with each other to sell weapons paid for by U.S. taxpayers to private arms dealers in Poland, the Czech Republic and around the world…………………….

First-hand reporting from inside Ukraine by New Cold War has described the same systematic pyramid of corruption as Hersh. A member of parliament, formerly in Zelenskyy’s party, told New Cold War that Zelenskyy and other officials skimmed 170 million euros from money that was supposed to pay for Bulgarian artillery shells.

The corruption reportedly extends to bribes to avoid conscription. The Open Ukraine Telegram channel was told by a military recruitment office that it could get the son of one of its writers released from the front line in Bakhmut and sent out of the country for $32,000.

As has happened in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the wars the United States has been involved in for many decades, the longer the war goes on, the more the web of corruption, lies and distortions unravels…………………………….

These leaks and investigative reports are not the first, nor will they be the last, to shine a light through the veil of propaganda that permits these wars to destroy young people’s lives in faraway places, so that oligarchs in Russia, Ukraine and the United States can amass wealth and power.

The only way this will stop is if more and more people get active in opposing those companies and individuals that profit from war–who Pope Francis calls the Merchants of Death–and boot out the politicians who do their bidding, before they make an even more fatal misstep and start a nuclear war.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.  https://worldbeyondwar.org/leaks-reveal-reality-behind-u-s-propaganda-in-ukraine/

April 20, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Ukraine-Russia war – live: Damning Pentagon leak has not affected relations, Kyiv says

Sravasti Dasgupta,Liam James,Vishwam Sankaran, Independent UK, 15 Apr 23

Documents hinted Ukraine faced challenges in massing troops, equipment, and ammunition

Top officials in Kyiv said that information on Ukraine’s war efforts against Russia — that was part of leaked US Pentagon documents — was already known and not surprising.

The leaked documents hinted that Ukraine faced challenges in massing troops, equipment, and ammunition and that Kyiv may fall short of counter-offensive goals.

A senior Ukrainian official told BBC that the problems faced by the country were already known, adding that the leaks would not affect relations between the two countries.

Meanwhile, Moscow’s defence ministry has claimed that military pilots from Belarus have completed training to use Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons.

Belarusian defence minister Viktor Khrenin threatened the West that “it could be the next step” to also host part of Moscow’s strategic arsenal, claiming: “We are already preparing the sites that we have.”

On the battlefield in Ukraine, Kyiv has been forced to concede ground in the bloody battle for Bakhmut after being bombarded with “particularly intense” Russian artillery fire over the past 48 hours, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said.

It suggested Ukraine may fall short of its goals to launch a counter-offensive against Russia.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council head Oleksiy Danilov said the leaks did not affect the military’s plans, adding that “everything will be decided at the last moment”.

Sravasti Dasgupta,Liam James,Vishwam Sankaran

April 15, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

‘No Business In The Public Domain’: National Security Council spokesman Kirby Warns Journalists Not To Report On Leaked Pentagon Documents

Biden administration and National Security Council spokesman John Kirby addressed the media on Monday, asking in so many words that pretty please would journalists not report on the trove of highly classified documents which were leaked online. 

“This is information that has no business in the public domain… It has no business… on the front pages of newspapers or on television.” But Kirby is a bit late, given already days ago major outlets from the NY Times to Washington Post to foreign outlets like The Guardian and RT have widely reported on them. They classified reports have circulated widely on English-language and foreign social media as well.

Independent media outlets have also widely shared images of the documents, which Pentagon officials claim could have been altered by the Kremlin to make the US look bad……….

Some observers have speculated that given the high number of documents marked SECRET/NOFORN, which literally means Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals (and thus it can’t be shared with even close allied services of the US), this points to the leak originating within the US chain of command. Others have said the leak may have come from the Ukrainians, given the high numbers of Ukraine-related battlefield assessments that were part of the trove that appeared online.

The Pentagon and DOJ meanwhile says they are still “working around the clock” to assess the source and scale of the massive breach of highly classified data. New bombshell documents have continued to trickle out in media stories into Monday and Tuesday, likely with more revelations to come throughout the week.

FT and others have called the breach the “most significant since Edward Snowden released a trove of classified documents about US intelligence activities a decade ago — included apparently highly classified documents.” Officials have also noted they “appear mostly authentic”. 

“These photos appear to show documents similar in format to those used to provide daily updates to our senior leaders on Ukraine and Russia-related operations as well as other intelligence updates,” Meagher explained, though agreeing with other officials that some of them appear doctored. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/kirby-asks-journalists-pretty-please-dont-report-leaked-pentagon-documents

April 14, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | 1 Comment

Leaked documents expose US-NATO Ukraine war plans

Perhaps the most notable piece of information contained in the leaked documents relates to military death tolls, with Ukrainian and Russian losses estimated at about a 4:1 ratio. According to one document, 71,500 Ukrainian troops have been killed in action.

That figure is close to the 100,000 KIA’s cited by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a November 2022 speech, before her comments were retracted.

ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN·APRIL 7, 2023, https://thegrayzone.com/2023/04/07/leaked-documents-us-nato-ukraine-war-plan/

Classified Pentagon documents containing information about US and NATO plans for a Ukrainian offensive and key details of the ongoing war have leaked. And the Biden administration is reportedly demanding they be scrubbed from the internet. Is there a hidden agenda behind the leak?

Update: We have added a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency document at the end of this article outlining potential scenarios in which Israel would provide Ukraine with lethal weapons. [on original]

The New York Times has reported “a significant breach of American intelligence in the effort to aid Ukraine” through the leak of classified documents which have been shared on social media. It correspondents cited “senior Biden administration officials” who apparently tipped the outlet off to the story. Documents circulating on Telegram which closely resemble those referred to by the Times are reproduced at the end of this article.

The Times writes, “Military analysts said the documents appear to have been modified in certain parts from their original format, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed. The modifications could point to an effort of disinformation by Moscow, the analysts said… The analysts warned that documents released by Russian sources could be selectively altered to present the Kremlin’s disinformation.”

Neither the New York Times nor the “military analysts” it cited explain how the documents were altered, or why they have the appearance of tampering. However, because the leaked documents have arrived in the form of photographs of printed documents, rather than original files, the possibility of forgery or alteration must be considered.

The leaked documents claim that Russia has sustained troop losses ranging from 16,000 to 17,500 while Ukrainian losses amount to as many as 71,500 – a staggering differential that stands at odds with the triumphalist narrative projected by Kiev. They are dated March 1 2023 and appear to be part of an ongoing briefing effort to analyze the war’s progress and plan a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The Grayzone obtained the documents from a public Telegram channel. Though they resemble those described by the Times, we can not confirm their authenticity.

According to the New York Times, the Pentagon is investigating the leak while the White House is “working to get them deleted.” Twitter owner Elon Musk appears to have confirmed the pressure campaign, sarcastically commenting, “Yeah, you can totally delete things from the Internet – that works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all.”

Perhaps the most notable piece of information contained in the leaked documents relates to military death tolls, with Ukrainian and Russian losses estimated at about a 4:1 ratio. According to one document, 71,500 Ukrainian troops have been killed in action.

That figure is close to the 100,000 KIA’s cited by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a November 2022 speech, before her comments were retracted. It also tracks closely with statements by one of Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky’s top advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, who told the BBC in June of last year that Ukraine was losing between 100 and 200 soldiers per day (200 deaths per day over the course of 370 days between the launch of Russia’s military operation and the date of the documents would total 74,000.) 

Other American and EU state officials have offered dramatically different figures placing Russian KIA’s over the six figure mark. For instance, Norway’s defense chief has charted 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers dead to Russia’s 180,000, while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Miley asserted that Russian losses are “significantly well over 100,000.” 

Another key detail in the documents pertains to the size of the front lines in Donetsk: Russia maintains 91 battalions in the “Donetsk axis” with around 23,000 total personnel, while Ukraine maintains eight brigades and 40 battalions, with 10,000 to 20,000 total personnel.

The documents also outline expectations of weapons deliveries to Ukraine from the US and other NATO countries along with training schedules for Ukrainian forces as a Spring counteroffensive approaches. The timeline spans from January through April, detailing twelve Ukrainian brigades under construction and the weapons they have been or will be supplied. Nine brigades are said to be armed and trained by the US and NATO allies, and six are said to be ready by the end of March, while the rest will be in action by the end of April. The brigades are said to require 253 tanks, 381 mechanized vehicles, 480 motor vehicles and more.

While the documents distributed on Telegram contain important details about NATO and Ukrainian military capacity, and highlight the astounding depth of American involvement in the war, their publication raises a number of questions.

If the documents were partially faked, were they disseminated to help Russia advance its public relations goals, perhaps by minimizing their casualty numbers or inflating those of their foe? They certainly would not be fooling anyone at the Department of Defense, since they obviously have the original files on hand. Or could it be that the United States leaked the documents with faulty intelligence strewn throughout their contents to confuse Russia ahead of a Ukrainian offensive? 

There is also the possibility that they are one hundred percent authentic. If so, Ukraine and its Western patrons may have more serious problems than a few leaked documents.

April 14, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Zelensky losing control of intelligence agents – media

Rt.com 12 Apr 23,

The US believes that the Ukrainian intelligence service attacked a Russian plane in Belarus without Kiev’s permission, Breaking Points reported.

The US believes that elements of Ukraine’s intelligence service carried out a cross-border attack on a Russian spy plane in Belarus without approval from the Ukrainian government, Breaking Points journalist Saagar Enjeti reported on Monday, citing leaked documents. 

The attack saw a drone inflict minor damage to a Russian A-50 early warning and control aircraft stationed at the Machulishchy air base in Belarus last month. Belarusian authorities arrested a number of suspects, one allegedly linked to the Ukrainian secret police organization, the SBU, which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused of orchestrating the attack with help from the CIA.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry “categorically” denied any involvement by Kiev, while Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podoliak blamed the attack solely on “local partisans.”

The Pentagon, however, assessed that the SBU carried out the attack without seeking the approval of President Vladimir Zelensky or his officials, Enjeti said in a video report on Tuesday. The alleged Pentagon documents containing the assessment were leaked on social media last week, and have since received considerable media attention.

The report on the plane attack raises the question of “how much control does Zelensky actually have” over his own intelligence apparatus, Enjeti said. “Perhaps this lends credence to the idea that there are a bunch of rogue elements inside the [Ukrainian] government that are basically doing whatever they want,” he continued, citing a string of terrorist attacks within Russia as potential SBU operations.

The Kremlin has repeatedly blamed Ukraine and its intelligence services for these attacks, which include the bombing of the Crimean Bridge and the assassinations of journalist Daria Dugina and military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

……………….. Other files in the leak detail the US’ war plans in Ukraine, its surveillance of its allies, Kiev’s rapidly depleting ammunition situation, and other “sensitive” material related to Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and terrorism.  https://www.rt.com/russia/574502-ukraine-attacked-plane-belarus/

April 14, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Corruption in the Ukraine government, as Zelensky skims $millions from USA for diesel, while buying cheap diesel from Russia

“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.

Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks.

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY Amid rampant corruption in Kiev and as US troops gather at the Ukrainian border, does the Biden administration have an endgame to the conflict? Seymour Hersh, Substack, Apr 12

The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zelensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.

What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”

“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.

Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. Many of those companies are in Poland and Czechia, but others are thought to exist in the Persian Gulf and Israel. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are others in places like the Cayman Islands and Panama, and there are lots of Americans involved,” an American expert on international trade told me. 

The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie. The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.” 

Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me………………………………………………………………………….. https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/trading-with-the-enemy?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1377040&post_id=114123549&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email

April 13, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Westminster keeps nuclear secrets to avoid upsetting Scottish Government

The Ferret, Rob Edwards, April 10, 2023

The UK Government is refusing to say why it is keeping nuclear safety reports secret because it is worried about “anti-nuclear arguments from the Scottish Government”.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) won’t give its reasons for failing to release annual assessments of the safety of nuclear weapons on the Clyde so as not to “prejudice relations between the UK and Scottish governments”.

The secrecy has been condemned by the Scottish Greens as “outrageous, undemocratic and frankly dangerous”. It was akin to nuclear policies in Russia, China and North Korea, according to a campaigner — and it was described as “totally unacceptable” by a former nuclear submarine commander.

The Scottish Government urged the MoD to be “open and transparent” about the handling of nuclear materials in Scotland. The MoD said it had to “strike a balance” between public interest in safety and protecting information about nuclear weapons.

Annual reports from the MoD’s internal watchdog, the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR), were released for ten years, but ceased being published in 2017. A freedom of information appeal to a UK tribunal to force the MoD to again release the reports was rejected in July 2021.

The Ferret previously revealed that the reports for 2005 to 2015 highlighted “regulatory risks” 86 times, including 13 rated as high priority. One issue repeatedly seen as a high risk was a shortage of suitably qualified and experienced engineers.

Now the MoD has rejected another freedom of information request asking for documents that set out the rationale for refusing to release more recent DNSR reports. It disclosed that the decision was taken in 2017 by then secretary of state for defence, Michael Fallon, but has withheld information on why……………………………………..

The MoD letter also argued that information on reasons for withholding the reports should be kept secret “for the purpose of safeguarding national security”. Secrecy was also necessary so as not to prejudice “the defence of the UK” or “the relationship between the UK and the US” as well as to allow a “safe space” for officials to advise ministers.

Nuclear secrecy ‘totalitarian’

The Scottish Greens argued that the people of Scotland have a “fundamental right” to know the risks they face from hosting weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. Suppressing information that may support arguments against nuclear weapons poses a “clear and present danger” politically, it warned.

“The extraordinary admission in this letter that the MoD and UK Government are actively concealing key pieces of information from the Scottish Government is outrageous, undemocratic and frankly dangerous,” said Green MSP, Mark Ruskell.

“The MoD is basically saying they won’t share this information because they are scared Scotland won’t like it and it might upset the US. You simply can’t get any more totalitarian than that and this should be challenged further.”

Ruskell added: “If they want to reassure people that there are no unnecessary added dangers, they should share the information urgently and transparently. If not they should pack up and ship out. Scotland doesn’t want nukes here and they know it.”

The nuclear researcher and campaigner who has been challenging the MoD’s refusal to release the nuclear safety reports is Peter Burt. UK citizens are allowed to know “virtually nothing” about the hazards of nuclear weapons despite paying billions of pounds for them, he said.

“We’re not allowed to know whether the Ministry of Defence’s safety watchdog thinks the nuclear weapons programme is complying with public protection arrangements, and Scottish Ministers are not trusted to know what is going on at the Navy’s nuclear bases in Scotland,” Burt told The Ferret.

“It’s pretty clear that this has more to do with politics than security. While the US government regularly releases information about its nuclear weapons programme, the UK Government has decided to model its own nuclear policies on those of countries like Russia, China, and North Korea.”

Rob Forsyth, a former Royal Navy nuclear submarine commander who now campaigns against nuclear weapons, described the MoD’s justifications for secrecy as “totally unacceptable”.

He said: “The way to avoid any misinterpretation is to be honest and fully transparent over matters affecting public safety and our national defence. The notion that government should not allow public discussion is not conduct expected of a democracy.”

The Scottish Government reiterated its opposition to the possession of nuclear weapons and its support for world-wide nuclear disarmament. ……………………………………………………………….. more https://theferret.scot/nuclear-secrets-scottish-government/

April 12, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

After leak of secret documents, South Korea to raise spying allegations with U.S.

 https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/apr/9/after-leak-secret-documents-south-korea-raise-spyi/

Leaked papers reportedly show that U.S. gathered signals intelligence from Seoul, a close all

South Korean officials said Sunday they will “come up with our response accordingly” after revelations that the U.S. reportedly spied on its close ally and gathered signals intelligence related to South Korea‘s internal debate over weapons sales to the U.S., and Seoul‘s fears that those weapons would ultimately end up in Ukraine.

Officials in Seoul said they’ll raise the alleged spying — which came to light as part of a major leak of sensitive documents over the weekend — with their U.S. counterparts.

For both countries, the timing is delicate. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is scheduled to visit Washington and join President Biden for a state dinner at the White House on April 26.

We will review precedents and instances involving other countries, and come up with our response accordingly,” a South Korean presidential official said Sunday after being asked about the revelations, according to the country’s Yonhap News Agency.

The New York Times first reported the leak Friday.

April 12, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, South Korea | Leave a comment

Washington Says “Journalism Is Not A Crime” While Working To Criminalize Journalism

There is no greater threat posed to world press freedoms than the one the US is presenting with its persecution of Julian Assange

Caitlin Johnstone  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/washington-says-journalism-is-not?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=113393100&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email 9 Apr 23

After a certain point criticizing the hypocrisy and contradictions of the US-centralized empire starts to feel too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel. But hell let’s do it anyway; the barrel’s right here, and I really hate these particular fish.

Russian security services have formally filed espionage charges against Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in Russia since his arrest last month. Gershkovich reportedly denies the spying allegations and says he was engaged in journalistic activity in Russia.

This news came out at the same time as a joint statement was published by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell condemning Gershkovich’s detention as a violation of press freedoms.

“Let there be no mistake: journalism is not a crime,” the senators write. “We demand the baseless, fabricated charges against Mr. Gershkovich be dropped and he be immediately released and reiterate our condemnation of the Russian government’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish independent journalists and civil society voices.”

The use of the phrase “journalism is not a crime” is an interesting choice since the most common individual case you’ll hear it used in reference to is surely that of Julian Assange, who has been locked in a maximum security prison for four years while the US government works to extradite him for the crime of good journalism. Every pro-Assange demonstration I’ve ever been to has featured signs with some variation of the phrase “journalism is not a crime,” and any Assange supporter will be intimately familiar with that refrain.

So as an Assange supporter it sounds a bit odd to hear that slogan rolled out by two DC swamp monsters who have both enthusiastically supported the persecution of the world’s most famous journalist.

“He has done enormous damage to our country and I think he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And if that becomes a problem, we need to change the law,” McConnell said of Assange after WikiLeaks published thousands of diplomatic cables in 2010.

“Neither WikiLeaks, nor its original source for these materials, should be spared in any way from the fullest prosecution possible under the law,” Schumer said in 2010.

“Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government,” Schumer tweeted when Assange was dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy in London almost exactly four years ago. (Assange has not been charged with anything related to Russia or the 2016 election, and allegations of collusion with Russia remain completely unsubstantiated to this day.)

These are two of the most powerful elected officials in the world, puffing and posing as brave defenders of press freedoms after having actively facilitated their government’s attempts to destroy those very press freedoms. Their government is working to extradite and imprison Assange under the Espionage Act for engaging in what experts say is standard journalistic activity, which will allow them to set a legal precedent in which any journalist anywhere in the world can be extradited and prosecuted for exposing US war crimes like Assange did.

There is no greater threat posed to world press freedoms than the one the US is presenting with its persecution of Julian Assange, a persecution which has been fervently endorsed by Schumer and McConnell and all the other Washington swamp creatures who are melodramatically rending their garments about Evan Gershkovich today.

Which is of course ridiculous. You don’t get to say “journalism is not a crime” while literally working to criminalize journalism. Those positions are mutually exclusive. Pick one.

It’s worthwhile to point out the hypocrisy of US empire managers, not because hypocrisy in and of itself is some uniquely grave evil but because it shows that these people do not stand for what they pretend to stand for. The US empire does not care about press freedoms, it cares about power and domination, and the noises it makes in support of journalism are only ever made as a cynical ploy with which to bludgeon disobedient foreign governments on the world stage.

Assange exposed many inconvenient facts about the US empire in his work with WikiLeaks, but none have been so inconvenient as what he’s exposed by forcing them to come after him and reveal their true face in their brazen persecution of the world’s greatest journalist.

April 11, 2023 Posted by | media, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

SECOND BATCH of Classified Documents Detailing US Ukraine War Secrets Is Leaked Online –

By Jim Hoft Apr. 8, 2023  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/second-batch-of-classified-documents-detailing-us-ukraine-war-secrets-is-leaked-online/

Secret details of US analysis of Ukraine War, China, terrorism and the Middle East.

The documents contain information on Ukrainian losses in the war and an alleged upcoming assault by Ukraine and its allies into Russian controlled eastern Ukraine.

The Western mainstream media called the leaks a “suspected Russian plot.”

The first documents appeared on 4Chan and Discord.

The Daily Mail reported:

A second batch of classified documents detailing the United States’ analyses of global hotspots has been leaked online in a suspected Russian plot.

More than 100 documents are feared to have been obtained in what a senior intelligence called ‘a nightmare for the Five Eyes,’ – a reference to the intelligence sharing agreement between the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The documents cover the war in Ukraine, China, terrorism and the Middle East.

The Pentagon confirmed the leak, but said that some of the documents – as with the earlier reported leak – had been doctored to downplay the strength of U.S. allies.

The first tranche of documents appeared to have been posted in early March on the social media platform Discord, according to Aric Toler, an analyst at Bellingcat, the Dutch investigative site.

Friday’s documents were published on the controversial message board 4Chan, and subsequently spread on Twitter.

Russia Today reported on the leaked documents.

The state-run media outlet says the “secret plan” does not add up.

Which information is most suspect?

The probable locations of Russian units, indicated on the combat map in red, appear to have been collected from open sources. Several pro-Kiev resources that track military operations contain almost identical information.

Also, the ratios of killed and wounded for the Ukrainian and Russian Armed Forces which initially appeared in these ‘secret plans’ have since been changed. When first posted, the losses for the Ukrainian side were underestimated at about 16,500 –17,000 people. Then (probably to be more realistic), they increased almost fivefold, up to 65,000 – 75,000. At the same time, the numbers given for Russia’s purported losses of vehicles and equipment coincide with data published by Kiev’s Ministry of Defense.

What else is wrong with the published AFU offensive plans?

The blatant falsification of data on the readiness of Ukrainian military formations catches the eye. The document states that, of the nine supposedly to be trained up to US and NATO standards by March 31 and April 30, five of Kiev’s brigades have had zero training: these are the 82nd Airborne, the 32nd, 117th, and 118th Territorial Defense, as well as the 21st separate mechanized.

Even if only two or three companies in these brigades were trained, and self-preparation wasn’t completed, their level of training couldn’t be zero. At the same time, the highest percentage of readiness was recorded only in the 47th mechanized(40%) and the 46th airborne assault (60%).

April 11, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

‘A nightmare for the Five Eyes’: New batch of classified documents leaked to social media

Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, SMH, April 8, 2023

Washington: A new batch of classified documents that appear to detail US national security secrets from Ukraine to the Middle East to China has surfaced on social media sites, alarming the Pentagon and adding turmoil to a situation that seemed to have caught the Biden administration off guard.

The scale of the leak – analysts say more than 100 documents may have been obtained – along with the sensitivity of the documents themselves, could be hugely damaging, US officials said. A senior intelligence official called the leak “a nightmare for the Five Eyes”, in a reference to the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the so-called Five Eyes nations that broadly share intelligence.

The latest documents were found on Twitter and other sites on Friday (US time), a day after senior Biden administration officials said they were investigating a potential leak of classified Ukrainian war plans, include an alarming assessment of Ukraine’s faltering air defence capabilities. One slide, dated February 23, is labelled “Secret/NoForn”, meaning it was not meant to be shared with foreign countries………………….

One analyst described what has emerged so far as the “tip of the iceberg”.

Earlier, senior national security officials dealing with the initial leak, which was first reported by The New York Times, said a new worry had arisen: Was that information the only intelligence that was leaked?

By Friday afternoon, they had their answer. Even as officials at the Defence Department and national security agencies were investigating the source of documents that had appeared on Twitter and on Telegram, another surfaced on 4chan, an anonymous, fringe message board. The 4chan document is a map that purports to show the status of the war in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the scene of a fierce, months-long battle.

But the leaked documents appear to go well beyond highly classified material on Ukraine war plans. Security analysts who have reviewed the documents tumbling onto social media sites say the increasing trove also includes sensitive briefing slides on China, the Indo-Pacific military theatre, the Middle East and terrorism………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/a-nightmare-for-the-five-eyes-new-batch-of-classified-documents-leaked-to-social-media-20230408-p5cz07.html

April 10, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

ARMY PUTTING ‘OUTRAGEOUS SPIN’ ON DEPLETED URANIUM SCIENCE

Scientist cited by British military to justify sending depleted uranium shells to Ukraine had previously criticised use of such ammunition in Iraq.

DECLASSIFIED UK, PHIL MILLER, 28 MARCH 2023

  • Sole body cited by UK military to defend Ukraine receiving depleted uranium weapons has not published new research on the subject for over 20 years
  • Italy’s defence ministry has compensated soldiers who developed cancer after exposure to depleted uranium on service in the Balkans
  • After the invasion of Iraq, the UK military accepted it had a ‘moral obligation’ to help clear depleted uranium debris from the rounds it had fired.

The Ministry of Defence claimed last week that research by the Royal Society – Britain’s premier scientific group – supported its controversial decision to send depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine.

An MoD official briefed the media: “Independent research by scientists from groups such as the Royal Society has assessed that any impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be low.”

The Royal Society was cited despite the group rebuking the Pentagon in 2003 for using their exact same research to justify American tanks firing the weapon in Iraq, Declassified UK has found.

When contacted, the scientific body told us: “In 2001/02, the Royal Society published two reports on the health hazards of depleted uranium munitions.” It provided links for the first and second report.

Their spokesperson added that depleted uranium “isn’t an active area of policy research for the Society, [and] we haven’t updated or published on this topic since those reports.”

In 2003, the US military used those Royal Society reports to defend the use of depleted uranium (DU) by coalition forces in Iraq.

That triggered a complaint to the media, with the Guardian saying the Royal Society was “incensed because the Pentagon had claimed it had the backing of the society in saying DU was not dangerous.

“In fact, the society said, both soldiers and civilians were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminated sites were particularly at risk.”

The chairman of the Royal Society’s working group on depleted uranium, Professor Brian Spratt, was quoted as warning that “a small number of soldiers might suffer kidney damage and an increased risk of lung cancer if substantial amounts of depleted uranium are breathed in, for instance inside an armoured vehicle hit by a depleted uranium penetrator.”

“In addition, large numbers of corroding depleted uranium penetrators embedded in the ground might pose a long-term threat if the uranium leaches into water supplies.”

He recommended that fragments from depleted uranium shells should be cleared up and long-term sampling of water supplies needed to be conducted. 

Spratt also countered claims about the safety of depleted uranium made by the UK’s then defence secretary Geoff Hoon, stressing: “It is is highly unsatisfactory to deploy a large amount of material that is weakly radioactive and chemically toxic without knowing how much soldiers and civilians have been exposed to it.”

………………………………………….. Shells containing more than 2.3 tonnes of depleted uranium were fired by British forces in operations against Iraq in 1991 and 2003.

US troops fired far larger quantities, especially around the city of Fallujah, where it has been blamed for birth defects and a spike in cancer cases.

Contamination

The ammunition was also used by NATO on operations in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo during the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Italian soldiers who developed cancer after serving on those missions in the Balkans have successfully sued their defence ministry for compensation. Serbians have attempted similar litigation against NATO.

A study conducted in Kosovo by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) shortly after that conflict ended found “only low levels of radioactivity”. 

However, they were not able to consider the long term consequences and only inspected 11 out of 112 sites where DU had been fired. 

A later UNEP study in Serbia did find more significant corrosion of DU shells and that many of them were lodged deep in the ground.

A subsequent report by the UN in Bosnia found drinking water had been contaminated, albeit at low levels…………………………………………….. more https://declassifieduk.org/exclusive-army-putting-outrageous-spin-on-depleted-uranium-science/

April 3, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

“Clean, clean, clean!”-says Canada’s budget – But still, nuclear power is still dirty

It is time to formally (and very publicly) demand an end, with public retraction, of the false and misleading use of the term “clean” when referring to nuclear energy on the part of provincial and federal levels of government as well as members of the nuclear industry and their advertising media (many articles we see are actually paid advertisements looking like news reports). 

The nuclear energy generation’s constant production and release of Category 1 carcinogens and having perpetually poisonous wastes as byproducts completely disqualifies nuclear energy from being described as “clean”

Page 81:

“Budget 2023 announces that the Canada Infrastructure Bank will invest
at least $10 billion through its Clean Power priority area, and at least
$10 billion through its Green Infrastructure priority area. This will allow
the Canada Infrastructure Bank to invest at least $20 billion to support
the building of major clean electricity and clean growth infrastructure
projects. These investments will be sourced from existing resources.
These investments will position the Canada Infrastructure Bank as the
government’s primary financing tool for supporting clean electricity generation,
transmission, and storage projects, including for major projects such as the
Atlantic Loop.“

We’ve been focused on funds coming from the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) that has an $8 billion envelope and has been the main source of direct funding to SMR companies so far. 

However it was the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) that gave a $970 million “low interest loan” to Ontario Power Generation for its SMR last October.

So the CIB now has $20 billion to spend on ‘clean’ projects? OMG.

We know through an Access to Information request that Moltex made its sales pitch to the CIB and most probably others have been lining up at the CIB trough.  Normally we would assume the CIB could not lend money to Moltex because it’s a startup with no funds of its own aside from previous public grants. But who knows? Now after the announcement a few hours before the budget that SNC Lavalin is a minority partner in Moltex, maybe they would qualify for a CIB “loan.” Follow the money, follow the money…..

To be continued, obviously…

the alarming news is that these fiscal incentives include “processing or recycling of nuclear fuels” which is currently not permitted in Canada. We are expecting the new radioactive waste management policy to be released in the next few days. If the policy has changed to allow plutonium reprocessing, it will be indicated there.

March 30, 2023 Posted by | Canada, secrets,lies and civil liberties, spinbuster | Leave a comment

We need to shine some light on SNC-Lavalin and SMRs

Video above – 8 March 2019

Here’s the other thing we would have discovered: SNC Lavalin does not need to lobby government at all. It has tentacles that reach deeply into our civil service. What SNC Lavalin wants, SNC Lavalin gets.

SNC-Lavalin got the sweetheart deal of all time when then-prime minister Stephen Harper ‘sold’ Atomic Energy of Canada to SNC-Lavalin. Over the years, AECL had received at least $20-billion in public funds for the bargain basement price of $15-million, writes Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

OPINION | BY GREEN PARTY LEADER ELIZABETH MAY | March 27, 2023

I am cursed with an excellent memory which makes me hang on to the unanswered questions. It also makes me want more sunlight, more inquiries, and more answers.

I wish we had had that public inquiry into the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. scandal and I wish the RCMP had not dropped the matter.

My hunch is that we would have discovered two important things.

In December 2018, then-PCO clerk Michael Wernick did not inappropriately pressure former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould at the request of the prime minister. Wernick inappropriately pressured Wilson-Raybould as a favour to his old boss, former clerk of PCO, Kevin Lynch, then chair of the board of SNC Lavalin. I may be quite wrong, but this scenario better fits the facts. Wernick denied he inappropriately pressured Wilson-Raybould and said he told Lynch he would have to talk directly to Wilson-Raybould or to the director of public prosecutions about the matter. SNC Lavalin said Lynch requested a call with Wernick to convey that the company remained open to a deferred prosecution agreement.

But here’s the other thing we would have discovered. SNC-Lavalin does not need to lobby government at all. It has tentacles that reach deeply into our civil service. What SNC-Lavalin wants, SNC-Lavalin gets.

This is a statement that remains true whether the occupant of the Prime Minister’s Office is Liberal or Conservative.

SNC-Lavalin got the sweetheart deal of all time when then-prime minister Stephen Harper “sold” Atomic Energy of Canada to SNC-Lavalin. Over the years, AECL had received at least $20-billion in public funds for the bargain basement price of $15-million.

SNC-Lavalin is the driving force behind the new mania for so-called “small modular reactors”—SMRs.

The two SMRs slated for New Brunswick—ARC and Moltex—keep their promotional materials free of SNC-Lavalin references. You have to dig.

Here, for example, is the lead from this industry press release: “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with ARC Clean Energy Canada (ARC Canada), a New Brunswick-based team working to develop and licence its sodium-cooled advanced small modular reactor (SMR) technology.”

Looking for details in the release, you get this: Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is a world leader in nuclear science and technology offering unique capabilities and solutions across a wide range of industries. Actively involved with industry-driven research and development in nuclear, transportation, clean technology, energy, defence, security and life sciences, we provide solutions to keep these sectors competitive internationally.

It’s the same thing with the Moltex announcement. You have to go to SNC-Lavalin’s website to find its central role in CNL and CNEA: “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is a world leader in nuclear science and technology. … We (SNC-Lavalin) are a majority partner in a consortium which manages and operates CNL, which is currently managing its ageing infrastructure and renewing its laboratories. This investment will ensure the organization stays at the top of its field while strengthening Canada’s status in the international scientific community.”

Looking at other SMR announcements, such as the Bruce Power BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at Darlington, Ont., SNC Lavalin is again a key player with partners Ontario Power Generation (OPG), GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), and Aecon.

Thanks to The Hill Times for publishing Ole Hendrickson’s critical research in December 2020. That article established the links between SNC-Lavalin, its commercial partners, and the nuclear weapons industry.

“In 2015, the Harper government contracted a multinational consortium called Canadian National Energy Alliance—now comprised of two U.S. companies, Fluor and Jacobs, along with Canada’s SNC-Lavalin—to operate AECL’s nuclear sites, the main one being at Chalk River. Fluor operates the Savannah River Site, a South Carolina nuclear-weapons facility, under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy. Jacobs also has contracts at DOE weapons facilities and is part of a consortium that operates the U.K. Atomic Weapons Establishment.”

It is never too late to peel back the layers and ask some hard questions. As federal and provincial governments shovel more millions into unproven technology and false claims of SMRs as a climate solution, shouldn’t we demand transparency on where the new bodies are being buried? And should we not inquire into the deeply buried responsibility of a single corporation for its continual engagement in manipulating federal and provincial policies away from renewable energy resources towards that corporation’s publicly developed, but now privately owned, nuclear technologies?

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.

March 29, 2023 Posted by | Canada, secrets,lies and civil liberties | 1 Comment

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