zaterdag 23 januari 2016

MH 17 Mystery 99

MH-17: Kerry Pressed for Evidence by Father of Sole American Citizen on Flight

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The father of Quinn Schansman, the only American citizen to die in the 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, has asked Secretary of State John Kerry to release the U.S. data that Kerry cited in claiming precise knowledge of where the suspected anti-aircraft missile was fired.
One of the mysteries of the MH-17 case has become why the United States – after asserting that it possessed information implicating ethnic Russian rebels and the Russian government – has failed to make the data public or apparently even share it with Dutch investigators who are leading the inquiry into how the plane was shot down and who was responsible.
Quinn Schansman, who had dual U.S.-Dutch citizenship, boarded MH-17 along with 297 other people for a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014. The 19-year-old was planning to join his family for a vacation in Malaysia.
In a letter to Kerry dated Jan. 5, 2016, Thomas J. Schansman, Quinn’s father, noted Kerry’s remarks at a press conference on Aug. 12, 2014, when the Secretary of State said about the Buk anti-aircraft missile suspected of downing the plane:
“We saw the take-off. We saw the trajectory. We saw the hit. We saw this aeroplane disappear from the radar screens. So there is really no mystery about where it came from and where these weapons have come from.”
Quinn Schansman, a dual U.S.-Dutch citizen killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014. (Photo from Facebook)
Image: Quinn Schansman, a dual U.S.-Dutch citizen killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014. (Photo from Facebook)
Yet, where the missile launch occurred has remained a mystery in the MH-17 investigation. Last October, when the Dutch Safety Board issued its final report on the crash, it could only place the launch site within a 320-square-kilometer area in eastern Ukraine, covering territory then controlled by both Ukrainian and rebel forces. (The safety board did not seek to identify which side fired the fateful missile).
Meanwhile, Almaz-Antey, the Russian arms manufacturer of the Buk systems, conducted its own experiments to determine the likely firing location and placed it in a much smaller area near the village of Zaroshchenskoye, about 20 kilometers west of the Dutch Safety Board’s zone and in an area under Ukrainian government control.
In the days immediately after the shoot-down, Kerry and other senior U.S. officials pointed the finger of blame at ethnic Russian rebels who were resisting a military offensive by the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev. The Russian government was faulted for supposedly giving the rebels a powerful Buk anti-aircraft system capable of downing a civilian airliner flying at 33,000 feet.
But – in more than 18 months since the tragedy – the U.S. government has never made public its alleged evidence, while Russia has denied supplying the rebels a Buk system and the rebels have asserted that they did not possess functioning Buk missiles.
An Anguished Father
Thomas Schansman, who lives in The Netherlands, wrote to Kerry, noting that “celebrating Christmas and New Year without my son Quinn Schansman, was difficult for my family and myself” and then pressing the Secretary of State to release U.S. information about the case.
“It is my understanding, that neither the Dutch government nor the Dutch Safety Board [DSB] have officially received the radar information from the US that you referred to. It is not included in the [DSB] report and it is not in the public domain,”
Schansman wrote.
“On behalf of the bereaved parents and to assist in the pursuit of justice, I would like to request that the United States provides the DSB with the radar data you referred to at the press conference and all other available and relevant information (like satellite data and infrared satellite data) that is in your government’s possession.
“I would be most grateful if the United States either directly or through NATO would publicly hand over to the Dutch Safety Board radar and satellite data of the minutes before and after the crash. … This would enable the DSB to reopen the investigation and include a chapter with this information, which is essential for a successful criminal prosecution. I count on the support of the government of the United States to find and prosecute those responsible for my son and your citizen’s death.”
Kerry has yet to reply although a U.S. consular official, Pamela J. Hack, sent Schansman a letterdated Jan. 14, expressing condolences for his son’s death and saying “We expect that you will receive a separate response … from Washington.”
A Rush to Judgment
In the days after the shoot-down, Kerry took the lead in accusing the ethnic Russian rebels (and implicitly their supporters in Moscow) of shooting down MH-17. Just three days after the tragedy, Kerry made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to leave little doubt that the rebels and Russians were at fault.
After mentioning information gleaned from “social media,” Kerry said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”:
“But even more importantly, we picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.”
Two days later, on July 22, 2014, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a “Government Assessment,” also citing “social media” seeming to implicate the rebels. Then, this white paper listed military equipment allegedly supplied by Russia to the rebels. But the list did not include a Buk missile battery or other high-powered anti-aircraft missiles.
The DNI also had U.S. intelligence analysts brief a few select mainstream reporters, but the analysts conveyed much less conviction than their superiors may have wished, indicating that there was still great uncertainty about who was responsible.
The Los Angeles Times article said:
“U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 [the designation for a Russian-made anti-aircraft Buk missile] was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.”
The analysts’ uncertainty meshed somewhat with what I had been told by a source who had been briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts shortly after the shoot-down about what they had seen in high-resolution satellite photos, which they said showed what looked like Ukrainian military personnel manning the battery believed to have fired the missile.
The source who spoke to me several times after receiving additional briefings about advances in the investigation said that as the U.S. analysts gained more insights into the MH-17 shoot-down from technical and other sources, they came to believe the attack was carried out by a rogue element of the Ukrainian military with ties to a hard-line Ukrainian oligarch. [See, for instance, Consortiumnews.com’s “Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts” and “The Danger of an MH-17 Cold Case.”]
Creating a Pariah
But, officially, the U.S. government never retracted or refined its initial claims. It simply went silent, leaving in place the widespread belief that the ethnic Russian rebels were responsible for the atrocity and that the Russian government had been highly irresponsible in supplying a powerful Buk system to the rebels.
That Western conventional wisdom convinced the European Union to join the U.S. government in imposing economic sanctions on Russia and treating President Vladimir Putin as an international pariah.
As the U.S. government clammed up and hid the evidence that it claimed to possess, it became clear that U.S. intelligence agencies lacked evidence to support Kerry’s initial rush to judgment blaming the rebels and the Russians.
Despite intensive overhead surveillance of eastern Ukraine in summer 2014, U.S. and other Western intelligence services could find no proof that Russia had ever given a Buk system to the rebels or introduced one into the area. Satellite intelligence – reviewed both before and after the shoot-down – only detected Ukrainian miltary Buk missile systems in the conflict zone.
One could infer this finding from the fact that the DNI on July 22, 2014, did not allege that Buks were among the weapons systems that Russia had provided. If Russian-supplied Buks had been spotted – and the batteries of four 16-foot-long missiles hauled around by trucks are hard to miss – their presence surely would have been noted.
But one doesn’t need to infer this lack of evidence. It was spelled out in a little-noticed Dutch intelligence report from last October citing information from the Netherlands’ Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD). Dutch intelligence, which as part of NATO would have access to sensitive overhead surveillance and other relevant data, reported that the only anti-aircraft weapons in eastern Ukraine – capable of bringing down MH-17 at 33,000 feet – belonged to the Ukrainian government.
MIVD made that assessment in the context of explaining why commercial aircraft continued to fly over the eastern Ukrainian battle zone in summer 2014. MIVD said that based on “state secret” information, it was known that Ukraine possessed some older but “powerful anti-aircraft systems” and “a number of these systems were located in the eastern part of the country.”
But the intelligence agency added that the rebels lacked that capacity, having only short-range anti-aircraft missiles and a few inoperable Buk missiles that had been captured from a Ukrainian military base. “During the course of July, several reliable sources indicated that the systems that were at the military base were not operational,” MIVD said. “Therefore, they could not be used by the Separatists.”
Ukrainian Motives
In other words, it is fair to say – based on the affirmative comments from the Dutch MIVD and the omissions from the U.S. “Government Assessment” – that the Western powers had no evidence that the ethnic Russian rebels or their Russian allies had operational Buk missiles in eastern Ukraine, but the Ukrainian government did have several batteries of such missiles.
It also would have made sense that Ukraine would be moving additional anti-aircraft systems close to the border because of a feared Russian invasion as the Ukrainian military pressed its “anti-terrorism operation” against ethnic Russians fighters, who were resisting the U.S.-backed coup of Feb. 22, 2014, which had ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, whose political base was in the east.
According to the Dutch Safety Board report, a Ukrainian warplane had been shot down by a suspected air-to-air missile (presumably from a Russian fighter) on July 16, 2014, meaning that Ukrainian defenses were probably on high alert. The Russian military also claimed that Ukraine had activated a radar system that is used to guide Buk missiles.
I was told by the intelligence source that U.S. analysts looked seriously at the possibility that the intended target was President Putin’s official plane returning from a state visit to South America. His aircraft and MH-17 had similar red-white-and-blue markings, but Putin took a more northerly route and arrived safely in Moscow.
Other possible scenarios were that a poorly trained and undisciplined Ukrainian squad mistook MH-17 for a Russian plane that had penetrated Ukrainian airspace or that the attack was willful provocation designed to be blamed on the Russians.
Whoever the culprits and whatever their motive, one point that should not have remained in doubt was where the missile launch occurred. Kerry said repeatedly in the days after the tragedy that U.S. intelligence had detected the launch and knew where it came from.
So, why did the Dutch Safety Board have to scratch its head about the missile coming from somewhere in a 320-square-kilometer area, with the Russian manufacturer placing the launch site about 20 kilometers further west? With the firing location a key point in dispute, why would the U.S. government withhold from a NATO ally (and investigators into a major airline disaster) the launch point for the missile?
Presumably, if the Obama administration had solid evidence showing that the launch came from rebel territory, which was Kerry’s insinuation, U.S. officials would have been only too happy to provide the data. That data also could be the only precise radar evidence available. Ukraine claimed that its principal radar systems were down at the time of the attack, and the Russians — while they asserted that their radar screens showed another plane closing on MH-17 — did not save the raw data.
Thomas Schansman noted in his letter to Kerry:
“the DSB [Dutch Safety Board] stated that it did not receive the (raw) primary radar data from any State. …. The UN Security Council Resolution 2166 explicit[ly] requested Member States to provide any requested assistance and cooperate fully with the investigation. The (raw) primary radar data is crucial for determining cause, and for identifying and prosecuting those responsible for this heinous act.”
Conventional Wisdom
Despite the strange evidentiary gaps and the U.S. failure to present the proof that it claims to possess, the West’s “conventional wisdom” remains that either the ethnic Russian rebels or the Russians themselves shot down MH-17 and have sought to cover up their guilt. Some of this certainty comes from the simpleminded game of repeating that Buk missiles are “Russian-made,” which is true but irrelevant to the issue of who fired the missiles, since the Ukrainian military possesses Russian-made Buks.
Despite the lack of U.S. cooperation in the investigation – and the failure of Western intelligence to detect Russians or ethnic Russian rebels with a Buk battery in eastern Ukraine – the Dutch criminal prosecutors who are working closely with the Ukrainian government say they are taking seriously allegations by bloggers at a British Web site called Bellingcat who have identified Russian soldiers assigned to a Buk missile battery as prime suspects in the shoot-down.
So, the possibility remains that this Dutch-led investigation – in coordination with the Ukrainian government – will indict some Russian soldiers even as the U.S. government withholds its data that could resolve such key questions as where the fateful missile was fired.
An indictment of Russian soldiers would make for more useful anti-Putin propaganda and would be sure to produce another chorus of denunciations against Moscow from the mainstream Western media. But such a development might do little to resolve the mystery of who really shot down MH-17, killing Quinn Schansman and 297 other people aboard MH-17.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

Vluchtelingenstroom 60

Een onderonsje in de wandelgangen tussen George Soros en John McCain.

Zowel in West-Europa als in Amerika bij een zeer groot deel van het publiek de vaderlandslievende eerzucht en de strijdlust verloren [zijn] gegaan. 
Henk Hofland. Mondiale krachtmeting. De Groene Amsterdammer. 12 maart 2014 

Augustus 1994 publiceerde The Soros Foundations een lezing van George Soros, waarin deze bekende Hongaars-Amerikaanse miljardair onder andere opmerkte:

I am a student of revolutionary change. I had developed a theory of history in my student days which I proceeded to test successfully in the financial markets. When the Communist system began to disintegrate, I was better prepared than most people to keep up with the ever-accelerating pace of events.  It was my hope that the foundations would help lead the transformation from a closed to an open society; but I can't say that we have succeeded. I anticipated events reasonably well. I set up a foundation in Moscow in 1987, and I established separate foundations in Ukraine and the Baltic States well before those countries became independent. But the foundations could not lead the transformation because they themselves got caught up in the process. The foundation in Moscow went through two Kremlin-like coups and all it could show for the first five years of its existence was that it survived.  Only in the last year or so has it become truly productive. But the time we have lost cannot be recaptured. The Ukrainian foundation, which started later, has been much more successful. I can honestly say that many of the institutions which are necessary for the functioning of a modern state and a civil society are supported by my foundation. Unfortunately, that may not be sufficient to allow Ukraine to survive.

Soros, die door de mainstream-media wordt gepresenteerd als 'filantroop.' heeft gelijk wanneer hij zich 'een student' noemt van 'revolutionaire verandering.' De neoliberale ideologie is zonder enige twijfel een 'revolutionaire' leer. Voor het eerst in de geschreven geschiedenis van de mensheid bezitten namelijk, als gevolg van dit wereldwijd afgedwongen systeem, op dit moment slechts 62 mensen op aarde evenveel als de helft van de hele wereldbevolking. Dit dient zonder enig voorbehoud als een 'revolutionaire verandering' te worden gezien. In feite is er zelfs sprake van een breuk met de geschiedenis, want nooit eerder is het mogelijk geweest dat een miljardair als George Soros zo obsceen rijk kon worden zonder ook maar iets te hebben geproduceerd of ook maar één dienst te hebben verleend. De miljarden hebben de schatrijken bijeen gegaard door louter en alleen te speculeren met vaak niet bestaand geld, en dit is absoluut uniek in de wereldgeschiedenis. Hoewel elites altijd een parasitair fenomeen zijn geweest, spant Soros de kroon. De man die zichzelf aanprijst als 'a prominent international supporter of democratic ideals' moest naar aanleiding van de kredietcrisis in november 2008 samen met 

enkele andere hedgefund-managers verschijnen voor het Amerikaanse Congres om vragen te beantwoorden over hun rol in de kredietcrisis. Soros gaf toe dat hedgefunds mede verantwoordelijk waren voor de bubble in de financiële markten. Maar instanties als de Federal Reserve en regulators lieten het gebeuren, aldus Soros. Hij pleitte voor meer regulering. Het ongebreidelde vrije markt-kapitalisme ligt aan de wortels van de crisis, meent Soros. In 2007 verdiende hij 2,9 miljard dollar.

Soros staat ook bekend als 

'The Man Who Broke the Bank of England' because of his short sale of US $ 10 billion worth of pounds, making him a profit of $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis. Soros is one of the 30 richest people in the world. 

In één dag een miljard dollar verdienen met een beurstruc, waardoor het Verenigd Koninkrijk gedwongen werd de pond te devalueren en de Britse schatkist 3,4 miljard pond verloor, is inderdaad het werk van een 'student of revolutionary change.' Vroeger moest een nieuwe rijke zich hard inspannen en vindingrijk zijn, vandaag de dag is gewiekstheid en vooral een keiharde immorele en asociale mentaliteit voldoende om zich ten koste van miljarden medemensen te verrijken. Soros is zelfs trots op die prestatie en laat openlijk weten dat  

[s]ince we are aiming at a systemic transformation, I have been willing to fund practically any initiative that seemed well-conceived and fitted into our sphere of operations… We are eager to mobilize both financial and intellectual resources from the outside, but we have no particular mechanism for doing so. 

Het mag geen verbazing wekken dat de commerciële massamedia in het Westen Soros prijzen als een 'filantroop' die alles in het werk stelt om koste wat kost de neoliberale democratie in elke uithoek op aarde te verspreiden. Dit 'revolutionaire' systeem heeft tot grote chaos geleid in veel van de landen die de zegeningen van Soros 'systemic transformation' al dan niet met geweld over zich heen hebben gekregen. Oekraïne is daarvan het meest recente voorbeeld.   

The United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine -- beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004 -- were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president -- which he rightly labeled a 'coup' -- was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West. 

Putin’s pushback should have come as no surprise. After all, the West had been moving into Russia’s backyard and threatening its core strategic interests, a point Putin made emphatically and repeatedly. Elites in the United States and Europe have been blindsided by events only because they subscribe to a flawed view of international politics. They tend to believe that the logic of realism holds little relevance in the twenty-first century and that Europe can be kept whole and free on the basis of such liberal principles as the rule of law, economic interdependence, and democracy.

But this grand scheme went awry in Ukraine. The crisis there shows that realpolitik remains relevant -- and states that ignore it do so at their own peril. U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border. Now that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.

Boven: v.l.n.r. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Oleh Tyahnybok van de neonazi Svoboda-partij en John McCain.
Beneden: De met geld van Washington en Soros aan de macht geholpen Oleh Tyahnybok groet zijn volgelingen.


Hieronder, de stoottroepen van de 'democratische oppositie' ten tijde van de gewelddadige omwenteling in Oekraïne.


In het september/oktober nummer 2014 van het prestigieuze tijdschrift Foreign Affairs zette de prominente Amerikaanse politicoloog, professor John Mearsheimer, onder de kop 'Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault. The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin,' uiteen dat:

the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine -- beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004 -- were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president -- which he rightly labeled a “coup” -- was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West. 

Putin’s pushback should have come as no surprise. After all, the West had been moving into Russia’s backyard and threatening its core strategic interests, a point Putin made emphatically and repeatedly. Elites in the United States and Europe have been blindsided by events only because they subscribe to a flawed view of international politics. They tend to believe that the logic of realism holds little relevance in the twenty-first century and that Europe can be kept whole and free on the basis of such liberal principles as the rule of law, economic interdependence, and democracy.

But this grand scheme went awry in Ukraine. The crisis there shows that realpolitik remains relevant -- and states that ignore it do so at their own peril. U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border. Now that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.

De 'student of revolutionary change,' George Soros was samen met neoconservatieve beleidsbepalers in de regering Obama de financier van de gewelddadige verdrijving in 2014 van de democratisch gekozen regering in Oekraïne. Deze 'democratische revolutie' bracht de miljardair Poroshenko aan de macht. Na de val van de Sovjet-Unie wist deze inmiddels uiterst onpopulaire zetbaas in de chaotische, corrupte en failliete Oekraïense staat in korte tijd miljardair  te worden, en zijn reputatie is, om het op zijn zachtst te stellen, slecht. Desondanks was zowel Washington als Brussel bereid om zijn regime miljarden aan subsidies te verstrekken. Dit alles terwijl al sinds de kredietcrisis van 2008 op de eigen bevolking in de EU-landen en in de VS sterk wordt bezuinigd. Dit absurd lijkend beleid is alleen verklaarbaar als men weet dat 'de liberaal-democratische orde van onze tijd grotendeels op Amerikaanse initiatieven teruggaat,' om even de formulering te lenen van Ruud van Dijk, docent geschiedenis van de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Buiten het reactionaire UVA-bolwerk van de geesteswetenschappen heerst evenwel het besef dat deze 'democratische orde' zo'n grote wanorde heeft geschapen dat 62 van de meest meedogenloze rijken op aarde anno 2016 evenveel bezitten als de helft van de hele wereldbevolking tezamen. Juist daarom houdt dr. Van Dijk bij hoog en bij laag vol dat 'Amerika nog steeds de onmisbare natie [is],' die -- in de woorden van bestseller-auteur Geert Mak -- overal als 'ordebewaker en politieagent' optreedt. De 'politiek-literaire elite' spreekt intussen zonder enige terughoudenheid van 'het vredestichtende Westen,' zoals Henk Hofland het neoliberale geweld met zoveel bewonderenswaardige sprezzatura samenvat. In deze chaos kunnen speculanten als Soros hun slag slaan. Zodra de elite elders zich tot het neoliberalisme heeft bekeerd, valt het land automatisch ten prooi aan beursspeculanten die in het Westen hun rijkdom hebben vergaard. Daarbij worden ze via de wetgeving gesteund door zogeheten democratische politici en ideologisch door de 'vrije pers.' Zo voerde de miljonair Geert Mak midden juli 2015 Soros als betrouwbare bron op. Als EU-propagandist liet de 'chroniqueur van Europa' weten dat 

[v]olgens zakenman George Soros het in de eurocrisis pas echt mis [ging] toen bondskanselier Angela Merkel eiste dat elk euroland de financiële gevolgen zelf zou dragen, in plaats van de eurozone als geheel. Daarmee werd de komst van eurobonds en de ontwikkeling van een gemeenschappelijk financieel beleid geblokkeerd. Merkel voelde de hete adem van het Duitse publiek, dat na de dure Duitse hereniging niet wilde opdraaien voor extra lasten. Daar lag volgens Soros het begin van de eurocrisis. Ik denk dat hij gelijk heeft.

Het Belgische weekblad Knack introduceerde mijn oude vriend als volgt:

De Nederlandse schrijver Geert Mak (68) is een van de boeiendste Europawatchers van de lage landen. In 2004 publiceerde hij met In Europa een magistraal boek over het oude continent dat hij een jaar lang, in het spoor van de twintigste eeuw, had doorkruist. De crisis die we nu beleven, stemt hem somber en maakt hem boos.

Vijf jaar nadat een einde kwam aan de oorlogen in voormalig Joegoslavië, waarbij tenminste 130.000 mensen werden gedood, en vier jaar voordat de kredietcrisis een nog steeds voortdurende economische depressie inluidde, concludeerde deze 'boeiende Europawatcher' in zijn 'magistraal boek' dat 'Europa als vredesproces een eclatant succes,' was en 'Europa als economische eenheid ook een eind op weg [is].' Ook in België spelen in de geïdeologiseerde mainstream-media feiten geen rol van betekenis, maar zijn de juiste meningen van doorslaggevend belang. In dit virtuele wereldje is George Soros een 'filantroop' met de juiste inzichten. Volgens Soros en Mak is de oorzaak van de 'eurocrisis,'  -- waarbij de kloof tussen arm en rijk, nu ook in het Westen, almaar is toegenomen als gevolg van het systeem van dereguleren en privatiseren --  niet het falende neoliberalisme, maar 'het Duitse publiek' dat weigerde de rekening te betalen van landen die door de speculerende en zwendelende elite aan lager wal waren geraakt. Deze zienswijze voldoet in elk opzicht aan de definitie van simplisme: 'the tendency to concentrate on a single part of an argument and to ignore or exclude all complicating factors.' In een poging een zo groot mogelijk publiek te behagen en tegelijkertijd hun opdrachtgevers én hun peergroup niet voor het hoofd te stoten, zien de opportunistische opiniemakers van de mainstream media zich permanent gedwongen de werkelijkheid om te draaien, en kan bijvoorbeeld een Mak moeiteloos doorgaan voor een 'boeiende Europawatcher,' en kan Soros onweersproken worden geportretteerd als een scherpzinnige analist van de 'eurocrisis.'


Soros samen met medewerkers van de Open Society Foundations in onderhandeling met de Oekraiïense president en miljardair Poroshenko.

Hoewel de speculant Soros door de journalist Mak wordt opgevoerd als een belangeloze waarnemer die objectief kan vaststellen hoe het Europa van 'Geen Jorwert zonder Brussel' in een ernstige crisis is geraakt, worden de 'filantropische' miljardairs alleen gedreven door hun eigen belangen, en wel bijzonder grote belangen. Voor niets gaat alleen de zon op. De gezaghebbende Amerikaanse, aan Harvard University en de London School of Economics afgestuurde,  onderzoeksjournalist Michael Massing wees in dit verband op het volgende in The New York Review of Books van 14 januari 2016: 

Over the last fifteen years, the number of foundations with a billion dollars or more in assets has doubled, to more than eighty. A significant portion of that money goes to such traditional causes as universities, museums, hospitals, and local charities...

The tax write-offs for such contributions, however, mean that this giving is subsidized by US taxpayers. Every year, an estimated $40 billion is diverted from the public treasury through charitable donations. That makes accountability for them all the more pressing. So does the fact that many of today’s philanthropists are more activist than those in the past. A number are current or former hedge fund managers, private equity executives, and tech entrepreneurs who, having made their fortunes on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley, are now seeking to apply their know-how to social problems. Rather than simply write checks for existing institutions, these 'philanthrocapitalists,' as they are often called, aggressively seek to shape their operations.

When donors approach a nonprofit, 'they’re more likely to say not "How can I help you?" but "Here’s my agenda,"' Nicholas Lemann, the former dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, told me. Mainstream news organizations haven’t caught on to this new activism, he said, adding that most of them are into covering 'the "giving pledge,"' by which the rich commit to giving away at least half their wealth in their lifetime. David Callahan, the founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, a website that tracks this world, says that 'philanthropy is having as much influence as campaign contributions, but campaign contributions get all the attention. The imbalance is stunning to me.'

Geert Mak's voorstelling van zaken als zou de beursspeculant George Soros in staat zijn onbevangen, onbevooroordeeld en belangeloos naar een financiële crisis te kunnen kijken, kenmerkt het opportunisme van de poseurs in de massamedia. De goed geïnformeerde Massing daarentegen stelde vast dat:  

After Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced their plan to donate nearly all of their Facebook stock to charitable causes, the initial laudatory coverage was followed by a series of stories that raised many important questions about their decision, including its implications for avoiding taxes, the large sums it would potentially cost the US government, and the huge amount of power it would place in the hands of two people. As John Cassidy observed in The New Yorker, 'The more money billionaires give to their charitable foundations, which in most cases remain under their personal control, the more influence they will accumulate.' Such influence makes regular scrutiny of these kinds of investments all the more urgent...

much of today’s philanthropy is aimed at 'intellectual capture' — at winning the public over to a particular ideology or viewpoint. In addition to foundations, the ultra-rich are working through advocacy groups, research institutes, paid spokesmen, and—perhaps most significant of all — think tanks. These once-staid organizations have become pivotal battlegrounds in the war of ideas, and moneyed interests are increasingly trying to shape their research...

Think tanks are also being targeted by foreign governments eager to shape their research to reflect their national interests. As The New York Times reported in 2014, these contributions have 'set off troubling questions about intellectual freedom,' with some scholars saying that they 'have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to the government financing the research.' Norway for example committed at least $24 million over four years to an array of Washington think tanks, transforming them 'into a powerful but largely hidden arm of the Norway Foreign Affairs Ministry.' [...]

The 2010 documentary Inside Job showed how some economic professors, including Columbia’s Glenn Hubbard and Frederic Mishkin, expressed views about the economy without revealing that they’d received income from interested parties. The film set off a vigorous debate at Columbia, which led its business school to adopt new guidelines requiring professors to disclose all outside activities that create possible conflicts of interest. But the influence of big money on campus extends far beyond disclosure forms, with banks, corporations, and entrepreneurs setting up chairs and institutes that apparently are intended to promote capitalism and free enterprise.

In 2009, for instance, the billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson gave New York University $20 million to create both an Alan Greenspan Chair in Economics and a John A. Paulson Professor of Finance and Alternative Investments. In 2010, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which is dedicated to reducing government spending and the national debt, gave a three-year $2.45 million grant to Columbia University’s Teachers College to develop a curriculum 'about the fiscal challenges that face the nation,' to be distributed free to every high school in the country. The philanthropic arm of BB&T, a financial services company in North Carolina, has given millions to more than sixty colleges and universities to examine the 'moral foundations of capitalism' and promote the works of Ayn Rand. What has been the impact of these donations? How much control, if any, do the donors have over what’s taught?


De dubieuze houding van de hoogleraren Glenn Hubbard and Frederic Mishkin van de Columbia Universiteit is met het oog op het feit dat westerse universiteiten door het neoliberale bezuinigingsbeleid steeds afhankelijker worden van financiering door particulieren een teken aan de wand. Zo krijgt de Universiteit van Amsterdam in 2017 'waarschijnlijk 8 miljoen euro minder van het Rijk dan in 2015,' en dreigt de UVA tussen 2015 en 2018 een tekort van 15 miljoen euro op te lopen. Op 5 april 2012 berichtte de onafhankelijke journalistieke website Follow The Money dat 'UvA op jacht naar commerciële gelden' is. FTM:

De economische faculteit van de UvA is al een tijdje bezig om actief fondsen te werven bij commerciële partijen. Vorig jaar mei werd door professor Arnoud Boot een sponsorovereenkomst  met optiehandelshuis  Optiver binnengehaald. ‘Ik hoop nog heel veel geld voor de UvA binnen te halen,’ zei Boot toen tegen Follow the Money. ‘Hoe meer geld hier naar toekomt hoe beter. De academische top bereiken in het internationale krachtenveld vereist dit.’

Niet iedere hoogleraar aan de UvA is tevreden over de grotere verbondenheid met het grote geld. FTM-columnist en professor financiële geografie Ewald Engelen spreekt zelfs van ‘bedriegersstoelen’. 'Het Financieele Dagblad staat er vol mee: ingezonden stukken van Bijzondere Hoogleraren in de Accountancy, het Recht, de Fiscaliteit, de Vastgoedkunde, het Actuariaat en andere oplichtersvakken, die met botte pen en kromme zinnen het particuliere belang van de geldschieter behartigen en dat verdoezelen met een onderschrift waarin de oetlul zich presenteert als Professor,' schrijft Engelen. 

Bovendien is bekend dat het

sponsoren van leerstoelen op Nederlandse universiteiten een goed gebruik [is]. Vooral de financiële wereld rammelt graag met de geldbuidel wanneer behoeftige universiteiten en lieden met professorale ambities op de koffie komen. Wie niet compleet naïef is, beseft dat dit gevolgen heeft voor de onafhankelijkheid van de wetenschap. Tal van hoogleraren, die vaak ongeclausuleerd door journalisten worden geciteerd, blijken in de praktijk praatjes te verkopen die vaak verdacht veel te maken hebben met de belangen van hun geldschieters. En niet zelden zijn leerstoelen op ondoorzichtige wijze tot stand gekomen en hebben ze een twijfelachtig nut.

De vraag in hoeverre het wetenschappelijk personeel van de Universiteit van Amsterdam daadwerkelijk onafhankelijk is, blijft daardoor een relevante en actuele vraag. Vooral ook aangezien bijvoorbeeld de faculteit geesteswetenschappen van de UVA een blank bolwerk is dat de onwetenschappelijke propaganda van docent geschiedenis Ruud van Dijk kritiekloos laat passeren. Zoals ik heb proberen duidelijk te maken verspreidt dr. Van Dijk zowel publiekelijk als op de universiteit klinkklare nonsens, waardoor de vraag moet worden gesteld: welk belang dient hij? Niet dat van de wetenschap, maar louter en alleen dat van de neoliberale ideologie. Waarom accepteert de UVA dit? Die vraag is belangrijk zoals  Michael Massing in The New York Review of Books aangaf naar aanleiding van het optreden van Dean R. Glenn Hubbard and Columbia B-school professor Frederic S. Mishkin, in de onthullende documentaire 'Inside Job,' over 'de systematische corruptie van de Verenigde Staten door de sector financiële dienstverlening en de gevolgen van die systematische corruptie.' Daarom even de achtergrond van deze affaire. Beide hoogleraren

granted the filmmaker Charles Ferguson on-air interviews that did not show either of them in the best light. Hubbard, who among other things is a MetLife director, came off as imperial and arrogant when asked about his consulting arrangements. Mishkin, who advises investment firms, was revealed to have written a positive white paper on Iceland not long before the country went bankrupt. It was paid for by Iceland’s Chamber of Commerce. His often-befuddled responses to questions made him appear, in the words of a rival dean, 'a deer caught in the headlights' (see clip from movie). http://youtu.be/8lHvTKzfu8Q

The documentary noted that Mishkin did not disclose publicly that in 2006, he was paid over $100,000 by the Iceland Chamber of Commerce to co-author a paper in which he praised the stability of Iceland’s economy — two years before it collapsed. It also criticizes Hubbard for not disclosing that he is paid $250,000 per year to serve on the board of the insurance giant MetLife.

The film sparked a debate about conflict of interest policies at Columbia, prompting the administration to reexamine the issue and leading the campus newspaper, The Columbia Spectator, to write a series of stories on the university’s conflict of interest rules. Among other things, the newspaper reported that some peer institutions have more comprehensive disclosure policies than Columbia’s. These schools include the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, and Stanford University. Those schools require faculty members to disclose their consulting activities — including those unrelated to academic research — on annual, confidential forms.

Under Columbia’s new policy, Business School professors will be required to publicly disclose all outside activities — including consulting — that create or appear to create conflicts of interest. The new policy requires B-school professors to publish up-to-date curricula vitae, including a section on outside activities, on their Columbia webpages. They will be mandated to list all outside organizations to which they have provided paid or unpaid services during the past five years, including but not limited to consulting work, research, membership on a company’s board, and expert witness testimony. They will also have to describe the nature of those services.

The policy resolution approved by the faculty acknowledges that the B-school’s reputation has been called into question, noting that 'increasing transparency about research and real or apparent conflict of interests and commitments helps Columbia Business School strengthen its reputation… When faculty members speak, write, or provide testimony, the public should understand their sources of compensation outside the University that might indicate any possible conflict of interests.'


Daarom nogmaals: waarom accepteert de Universiteit van Amsterdam dat haar docent geschiedenis  Ruud van Dijk onwetenschappelijke propaganda verspreidt? Welke wetenschappelijke verdienste heeft deze propagandist? Het is vanuit maatschappelijk oogpunt noodzakelijk om niet alleen zijn drijfveren te traceren, maar ook die van de faculteit geesteswetenschappen, een faculteit die zichzelf aanprijst als een 'brede faculteit' die 

niet alleen een waaier van gevestigde en eerbiedwaardige disciplines [herbergt] -- zoals vreemde talen, Nederlands, geschiedenis, de kunstwetenschappen, archeologie, religie-studies en wijsbegeerte -- maar ook jonge, pionierende vakgebieden - zoals nieuwe media, digital humanities, conservering en restauratie en nog veel meer,

en die zichzelf ook nog eens kwalificeert als 'hoogwaardig, vernieuwend, geïntegreerd.'

Maar twijfelachtig blijft hoe 'hoogwaardig, vernieuwend, geïntegreerd' Ruud van Dijk's is met zijn niet met feiten onderbouwde bewering dat 'Amerika nog steeds de onmisbare natie [is].' Deze bewering verwacht men niet van een onafhankelijke wetenschapper, maar van een neoliberale propagandist of van een neoconservatieve politicus. Het lijkt erop dat, net als in het geval van de Columbia University, dat ook de 'UvA' in haar 'jacht naar commerciële gelden' wetenschappelijke criteria minder belangrijk acht, en liever een populistische docent aantrekt dan een serieuze wetenschapper. Hetzelfde proces van verpaupering en gelijkschakeling heb ik van nabij in de journalistiek gezien. En zo komen we als vanzelf weer terug bij de 'boeiende Europawatcher' Geert Mak met zijn 'magistraal boek,' en de speculerende miljardair annex 'filantroop' George Soros. Hoe betrouwbaar is dit fortuinlijke tweetal? Dit is een essentiële vraag nu miljardairs direct en indirect invloed uitoefenen op de interne aangelegenheden van soevereine staten. De door mijn oude vriend als deskundige opgevoerde Soros is een illustrerend voorbeeld. Om Soros salonfähig te kunnen maken bij het Nederlandstalige publiek, verzwijgt Mak ondermeer de belangrijke rol die Soros heeft gespeeld bij het creëren van de chaos in Oekraïne. Zo werd op 14 april 2011 bekend dat 

Ukraine’s leading political party has said that the international financier George Soros has been preparing a 'Libyan scenario' for the country.

The information about George Soros’s involvement in Ukrainian politics was openly voiced by Yulia Timoshenko in 2008. Timoshenko, then the country’s prime minister, said that she was attempting to minimize the effect of the global financial crisis by following George Soros’s advice. This raised suspicions that through such advice George Soros could influence the rate of the Ukrainian national currency in his own speculative interests.

Waarom zou de miljardair Soros, die via beursspeculaties een gigantisch vermogen bijeen wist te schrapen, de westerse politieke intriges in de Oekraïne financieel hebben gesteund? Op woensdag 26 februari 2014 gaf hij daar zelf de volgende verklaring voor:

Ukraine is a potentially attractive investment destination.

Ondermeer daarom moest het democratisch gekozen bewind in Oekraïne met geweld ten val worden gebracht. Het voormalige Oostblokland met zijn 55 miljoen inwoners is voor een speculant een 'aantrekkelijke investerings bestemming.' Het is namelijk een lage lonen land dichtbij de EU, én met de 11 miljard subsidie van de Europese Commissie kan de basis worden gelegd voor een neoliberale markteconomie die, zoals overal elders in het Westen, de kloof tussen arm en rijk vergroot dankzij deregulering en privatisering en dankzij de 'baanloze groei,' veroorzaakt door de automatisering. Om de geplande neoliberale toekomst van Oekraïne mogelijk te maken moest volgens Soros en zijn volgelingen nog wel het volgende worden georganiseerd:

To encourage participation, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) could invest in companies alongside foreign and local investors, as it did in Central Europe.

Ukraine would thus open its domestic market to goods manufactured or assembled by European companies’ wholly- or partly-owned subsidiaries, while the EU would increase market access for Ukrainian companies and help them integrate into global markets.

Aldus geschiedde, binnen één werkweek werd de neoliberale elite op haar wenken bediend en zegde de Europese Commissie via de European Bank for Reconstruction and Development miljarden toe aan het nieuwe regime, waarvan leden van de neonazi partij op vitale posten deel uitmaakten.

Desondanks is, volgens George Soros, al dit geld van de Europese belastingbetalers, lang niet voldoende. Twee weken later voorspelde de miljardair dat 'Ukraine Could Ruin The EU.' De bevolking van de Europese Unie, op wie al jarenlang wordt bezuinigd in de verwachting dat daarmee de kapitalistische economische crisis verdwijnt, moet onmiddellijk met nog veel meer geld over de brug komen:

The billionaire financier says in its tepid response to Russia’s Crimea land grab, the EU flubbed a key chance to breathe new life into the stale union.

George Soros, one of the world’s leading investors, has warned that the European Union is in danger of falling apart if it fails to confront Vladimir Putin’s naked aggression in Ukraine.

The billionaire financier told The Daily Beast that European governments should have seized on Russia’s land grab in Crimea to breathe new life into a union that is disintegrating and stumbling towards oblivion. Instead, he argued, squabbling European nations have failed to meet the challenge and continued to act in their own narrow self-interest. 'Europe was totally unprepared for this crisis and Putin outmaneuvered Europe with no difficulty,' he said.

Soros, who became known as the Man Who Broke the Bank of England after making $1 billion by betting against Europe’s previous financial union, has long insisted that the Euro was being fatally mismanaged. His latest book, published this week, is entitled The Tragedy of the European Union. A loud supporter at the launch of the Euro currency and a cheerleader for a united Europe, Soros has been confounded by what he calls the 'nightmare' reality 15 years after its introduction.

Speaking in London, he said it was heart-breaking to see European governments shrug their shoulders at the precise moment the continent was finally witnessing an unprecedented popular uprising in the name of the European Union. 'Ukrainians have effectively proved that they are willing to sacrifice their lives to get closer to a Europe that is, at the same time, in the process of disintegration,' he said.

With Putin’s troops in Crimea and a referendum on joining Russia due to be held over the weekend, Soros said there was still time for Europe to act, and reinvigorate the European Union’s withering soul.

'I would argue passionately that [the European Union] should not be a failed experiment and events in Ukraine are a wake-up call to face that issue,' he said. 'It’s a challenge, and I hope that Europe will respond to it and actually really rediscover its original mission because that’s what got lost in this distortion that has occurred.'

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, indicated that Europe was willing to increase pressure on the Kremlin on Thursday during her most emotional and strident speech since the start of the Ukrainian crisis. She said a referendum orchestrated by Crimea’s pro-Russia parliament would be a 'catastrophe,' and indicated that the EU was willing to impose travel bans and asset freezes on people and firms accused of helping to violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity as soon as Monday.

Soros argued that it was more important for Europe to offer positive assistance to the struggling Ukrainian government. 'It’s very important to respond and respond the right way, which is not necessarily to impose sanctions on Russia, but to actually help Ukraine financially, and also with technical assistance—something  like a European Marshall Plan for Ukraine—that would be the right response,' he said.

De miljardair George Soros.

In verband met de lengte stop ik. Volgende keer meer over Soros, Mak, en de schending van de soevereiniteit van staten, en de 'Libyan Scenario' die heeft geleid tot een dreigende oorlog met de Russische Federatie. Dan ook meer over het feit dat de miljardair George Soros 

medefinancier [is] van de Nederlandse campagne voor een 'ja' bij het Oekraïne-referendum in april. Stem voor Nederland krijgt voor die campagne 200.000 euro van de Open Society Foundations.



De miljonair Geert Mak.




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