Zero Hedge, Secret Pentagon Report Reveals US "Created" ISIS As A "Tool" To Overthrow Syria's President Assad, Tyler Durden, May 24, 2015. From the first sudden, and quite dramatic, appearance of the fanatical Islamic group known as ISIS which was largely unheard of until a year ago, on the world's stage and which promptly replaced the worn out and tired al Qaeda as the world's terrorist bogeyman, we suggested that the "straight to beheading YouTube clip" purpose behind the Saudi Arabia-funded Islamic State was a simple one: use the Jihadists as the vehicle of choice to achieve a political goal: depose of Syria's president Assad, who for years has stood in the way of a critical Qatari natural gas pipeline, one which could dethrone Russia as Europe's dominant - and belligerent - source of energy, reaching an interim climax with the unsuccessful Mediterranean Sea military build up of 2013, which nearly resulted in quasi-world war.
The narrative and the plotline were so transparent, even Russia saw right through them. Recall from September of last year:
If the West bombs Islamic State militants in Syria without consulting Damascus, LiveLeak reports that the anti-ISIS alliance may use the occasion to launch airstrikes against President Bashar Assad’s forces, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Clearly comprehending that Obama's new strategy against ISIS in Syria is all about pushing the Qatar pipeline through (as was the impetus behind the 2013 intervention push), Russia is pushing back noting that the it is using ISIS as a pretext for bombing Syrian government forces and warning that "such a development would lead to a huge escalation of conflict in the Middle East and North Africa."
But it's one thing to speculate; it's something entirely different to have hard proof.
And while speculation was rife that just like the CIA-funded al Qaeda had been used as a facade by the US to achieve its own geopolitical and national interests over the past two decades, so ISIS was nothing more than al Qaeda 2.0, there was no actual evidence of just this.
That may all have changed now when a declassified secret US government document obtained by the public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad.
According to investigative reporter Nafeez Ahmed in Medium, the "leaked document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, despite anticipating that doing so could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the ‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of the strategy, but described this outcome as a strategic opportunity to “isolate the Syrian regime.”
And not just that: as we reported last week, now that ISIS is running around the middle east, cutting people's heads of in 1080p quality and Hollywood-quality (perhaps literally) video, the US has a credible justification to sell billions worth of modern, sophisticated weapons in the region in order to "modernize" and "replenish" the weapons of such US allies as Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iraq.
But that the US military-industrial complex is a winner every time war breaks out anywhere in the world (usually with the assistance of the CIA) is clear to everyone by now. What wasn't clear is just how the US predetermined the current course of events in the middle east.
Now, thanks to the following declassified report, we have a far better understanding of not only how current events in the middle east came to be, but what America's puppermaster role leading up to it all, was.
From Nafeez Ahmed: Secret Pentagon report reveals West saw ISIS as strategic asset Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to ‘isolate’ Assad, rollback ‘Shia expansion', originally posted in Medium.
Atlantic Council
Russia is at war with Ukraine. The war’s toll—more than 6,000 dead, tens of thousands wounded, and nearly 1.3 million displaced persons—is the direct result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to establish control over Ukraine. Putin continues to deny Russia’s military involvement, though the evidence that the Kremlin is directing the war is overwhelming.
Please join the Atlantic Council and the Free Russia Foundation for the release of two independently produced reports: Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine and the English language release of Boris Nemtsov's, Putin. War., on Thursday, May 28, 2015, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Atlantic Council (1030 15th St. NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC, 20005).
The Atlantic Council report, Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine, provides irrefutable evidence exposing the breadth and depth of Russian military involvement in Ukraine’s east. Drawing upon publicly available information, the report documents the movement of Russian troops from training camps into Ukraine. It also demonstrates that many artillery strikes on Ukraine originate in Russia and examines the wide array of Russian military equipment in the hands of so-called separatist forces.
Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition leader murdered in view of the Kremlin in Moscow on February 27, 2015, reached the same conclusion: Putin’s war is being fought in Ukraine at the cost of Russian lives. Published posthumously in Russian, Nemtsov’s report, Putin. War., will be released for the first time in English by the Free Russia Foundation.
Citizen journalism has been vital in documenting Putin's illegal actions in Ukraine. The Atlantic Council encourages anyone that may have found their own evidence hiding in plain sight to post it on Twitter under #PutinAtWar.
National Press Club, State Department official commends Club for freedom of the press advocacy, Ken Dalecki, May 19, 2015. The State Department's assistant secretary for public affairs commended the Press Club and President John Hughes for making press freedom a major theme this year and outlined steps the State Department is taking to protect journalists in increasingly hostile environments at a meeting of American Legion Post 20 on May 18. 
Douglas Frantz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and editor before entering government service, said press freedom is an issue that is "professional and personal for me," after having covered conflicts from the first Gulf war to the fighting in Afghanistan. He said that for the first time journalists are being targeted rather than being killed or injured as collateral damage. Frantz said local and freelance reporters are especially vulnerable because they lack support from major news organization. He said the State Department will expand a program that has trained some 350 journalists before they entered hostile environments. The department is also working on a protocol under which foreign journalists would receive the same level of assistance from U.S. embassies that American journalists receive. Frantz said the procedures will be modeled on services offered by the U.S. embassy in Israel. He said that 90 percent of crimes against foreign journalists are never prosecuted, an issue that he said U.S. ambassadors soon will be required to raise during meetings with host country officials. Frantz conceded that press freedom is not the top priority in dealing with countries such as Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Russia, but that it continues to be an issue raised by Secretary of State John Kerry. He said human rights will be a major issue in any normalization of relations with Cuba. The assistant secretary said Russia poses a special threat due to what he called the "weaponization of propaganda," particularly lies aimed at large Russian-speaking populations in the Baltic states. He said the U.S., Germany and Great Britain are developing a cloud-based bank of popular Western programs translated into Russian for use by unbiased broadcasters on their stations. Frantz said Russian speakers would then stay tuned for fact-based news programs rather than the biased reporting on Russian stations airing popular programming.
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Washington Post, State Dept. releases Clinton e-mails on Libya and Benghazi attacks, Karen DeYoung, May 22, 2015. The State Department on Friday released nearly 900 pages of e-mails on Libya and the Benghazi attacks from the private account Hillary Rodham Clinton used while she was secretary of state. The messages have been turned over to a select House committee investigating the Sept. 11-12, 2012, attacks on U.S. compounds in Benghazi, in which the ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans were killed. Few of the e-mails deal directly with events leading up to the attacks or their aftermath, according to those who have seen them. Many contain administrative details, press accounts, speech drafts and other information exchanged between Clinton and her senior aides. But the messages, some of which were published this week by the New York Times, capture the concerns of Clinton and other officials about the political chaos that engulfed Libya during and following the 2011 NATO air attacks that facilitated the overthrow and death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi later that year.
Justice Integrity Project Editor's note: The Justice Integrity Project published in March a three-part series disclosing some of the more explosive emails and concerns about their suppression:
- Arms Smuggling: The Obama-Clinton-Petraeus 'Iran-Contra' Scandal: Part I here
- GOP Pre-Election 2012 Benghazi Plot With Petraeus? Hillary's Email, Part II here
- Conflict of Interest In Clinton Foundation Funding? Hillary's Email, Part III here
Washington Post, Sidney Blumenthal says he will cooperate with Benghazi panel, Karen Tumulty, May 21, 2015. Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime adviser who sent then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton more than two dozen back-channel reports about unrest in Libya, said on Thursday night that he provided it "as a private citizen and friend," and that it was merely information "I thought she might find interesting or helpful." Those messages, sent at a time when Blumenthal was working for the Clinton family foundation and with entrepreneurs who hoped to do business in Libya, have drawn the interest of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which is investigating the 2012 attack in which U.S. ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other American officials were killed. The panel subpoenaed Blumenthal to testify, and he said in the statement, issued through his lawyer James M. Cole, that he "will cooperate with its inquiry and look forward to answering the Committee's questions." Blumenthal's e-mails were among 300 that have been turned over to the panel by the State Department, and were published Thursday by the New York Times. They had been sent to Clinton via a personal e-mail address that she used while at the State Department. Her use of the private account violated White House guidelines at the time, which stipulated using government e-mail for official business when possible. Clinton passed along the information from Blumenthal down the chain to other State Department officials, who reportedly were skeptical of much of it. The Obama White House had previously blocked Clinton's efforts to appoint Blumenthal to a position in the State Department because the president's team believed he was unreliable.
Catching Our Attention on other Justice, Media & Integrity Issues
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will allow Canada to turn back immigrants at Roxham Road, a popular unofficial crossing point from New York for migrants seeking asylum in Canada.
