Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Israel's latest attempt to steal American high tech communications technology by Wayne Madsen





 Israel's latest attempt to steal American high tech communications technology

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's controversial trip to the United States, where he will address a joint session of the Congress over the wishes of the White House and with a partial Democratic boycott of the speech, has brought up once again the age-old question that afflicts those who support Israel: Are they more loyal to the Jewish State or the United States?

According to information received by WMR, a small company called Demodulation is charging that the U.S. government, the State of New York, the State of Israel, the State University of New York, Alfred University, Corning Glass, the Department of Energy-Oak Ridge, Babcock and Wilson, and other parties have conspired to defraud the firm of its proprietary microwire technology, the core technology for which was originally acquired under an exclusive license from a post-Communist Romanian enterprise. Specifically, the company is charging that the conspirators, called "the Enterprise," are guilty of patent infringement and trade secret violations.

Demodulation reveals the history of its technology from what was then the Communist bloc:


"Critical aspects of the supporting core ų microwire science originated under a patent issued by a Romanian scientist, Dr. Horia Chiriac after 1996 during the fall of the Former Soviet Union (FSU). Dr. Chiriac was of interest to the intelligence community because of his numerous technical publications. He was one of a hand full of technologists in the world that possessed extensive knowledge of amorphous metal materials and their processing. Accordingly, he was a person of enormous interest by the military and intelligence apparatus of many technologically advanced countries. For example, during and after the fall of the FSU, the United States mounted major intelligence efforts to identify and clandestinely acquire FSU technologies of military and intelligence significance. It was during this period, that U.S. military and intelligence agencies first became interested in Dr. Chiriac’s work and clandestinely acquired critical aspects of the supporting core ų microwire science. The core ų microwire science, however, was only one critical part of a complete technology package necessary for the U.S. Federal Government and the other members of the Enterprise to practically apply the ų microwire fiber technology for intelligence and military applications."
The ų wire technology, as described by Demodulation, is based on a glass-coated wire the size of a human hair. There are many commercial, as well as national security, applications. Microwire can be inserted into packages that can be remotely monitored using hand held detectors or even by satellites in space.

Demodulation has presented a case to the FBI that reeks of intelligence agency intrigue. The company even alleges that a murder occurred of an Alfred University employee who discovered financial irregularities at the school. A statement by Demodulation on the case reads: "During the course of our investigation, we discovered probable cause to believe that a homicide was committed at Alfred University in the State of New York. A mid-level accounting official at Alfred University was  accused  of  embezzling  cash  funds from  the  Admissions  Office  and was  later  reported  by  the  University  as having committed suicide. Our interviews of eight individuals either directly or tangentially involved in the matter provided contradicting testimony concerning the circumstances surrounding the death. This testimony includes reports that the Alfred University accounting official was aware of financial irregularities taking place in the University. For example, one witness testified that he, 'wouldn’t be surprised if she found out something and was murdered.'"

Demodulation alleges that it was at Oak Ridge where the Department of Energy and Babcock and Wilson Technical Services began turning over the company's proprietary technical details to other members of the group of patent violators, including the National Security Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the intelligence service of Israel, the Mossad.

Demodulation discovered a link between the theft of its technology and the espionage case brought against U.S. Army employee Ben-Ami Kadish, an employee of the Picatinny Army Arsenal in New Jersey and a spy for Israel. Demodulation states:

"Our investigation reveals that two 155 mm Howitzer shells and detonators were stolen from Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey in 2007. The theft of these munitions from a U.S. Government reservation was allegedly masterminded by a U.S. Army official in collusion with a U.S. Government contracted agent. Our inquiry shows probable cause to believe that the contracted agent involved in the theft may have been an unregistered agent of the State of Israel. The purpose of the theft appears to relate to the application of Demodulation technology for Israeli military purposes. The U.S. Army official who allegedly masterminded the theft is a cleared employee who still works at Picatinny Arsenal. Demodulation attorneys have presented the U.S. Government with a subpoena to compel the sworn testimony of the U.S. Army official but the U.S. Government is refusing the subpoena."
 Main Gate
Picatinny: another hive of Israeli intelligence activity
The Demodulation claims and the Kadish case together point to a major Israeli intelligence operation in northern New Jersey aimed at illegally acquiring U.S. dual civilian-military use technology. On April 24, 2008, WMR reported on the Kadish affair:
"The arrest of of former U.S. Army engineer Ben-Ami Kadish by the FBI on charges of providing classified information, including nuclear data, to Israeli spy Yosef Yagur is part of a wider Israeli espionage ring operating deep within the U.S. government for some four decades. The Israeli espionage and agent-of-influence ring has penetrated U.S. intelligence and the U.S. nuclear command-and-control chain of command.
Kadish was a mechanical engineer who worked at the U.S. Army's Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey. Kadish's handler was Yosef Yagur, assigned as the Consul for Science Affairs at the Israeli Consulate General in Manhattan. In the criminal complaint filed by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York on April 22, 2008, Kadish is referred to as 'CC-1', a co-conspirator not named as a defendant. The complaint states that Kadish took home a classified document concerning nuclear weapons marked 'Restricted' and permitted Yagur to photograph the document in the basement of Kadish's home. Yagur previously worked for Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) along with Kadish's brother. Yagur and Israel's science attache in the Washington embassy, Ilan Ravid, both handled convicted U.S. Naval intelligence spy Jonathan Pollard. Both Yagur and Ravid were hastily recalled in November 1985 after Pollard's arrest.
Yagur and Ravid both reported to Israeli master spy Rafi Eitan, the head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's Lakam—Lishka LeKishrei Mada (Liaison Bu­reau for Scientific Affairs), considered a rival to Mossad. Eitan, now 82, is the had of Israel's 'Gil' pensioners' party.
The arrest of 84-year old Kadish and his reported willingness to cooperate with the FBI may eventually lead to the identification of a Jewish-American spy who was a senior member of the Reagan administration. The agent-of-influence is code-named "Mega," although some reports call him 'Mr. X.' Israel maintained at the time of Pollard's conviction for espionage that he was a lone case and that Israel would never again spy on the United States. The Kadish arrest puts to rest the Israeli claim and the FBI is reportedly doggedly pursuing others in the Israeli spy ring, including the elusive "Mega."
There is reportedly a group of FBI agents who are graduates of Fordham University who have never been happy about Israeli intelligence operations in the United States. During the height of the power of the neocons in the George W. Bush administration, these agents were forced to take a back seat as Israeli intelligence influence grew within U.S. military and intelligence circles. However, with the decline in influence of the neocon
cabal,' the Fordham group is making its move against the Israeli spies.
Kadish also provided Yagur with a Secret document on a modified version of the F-15 fighter the United States sold to another country, reportedly Saudi Arabia. Another Secret document handed over by Kadish to Yagur was on the Patriot missile defense system.
On March 20, 2008, Kadish and Yagur had a phone conversation, during which Yagur told Kadish to lie to FBI agents. Yagur told Kadish: 'Don't say anything. Let them say whatever they want. You didn't . . . do anything . . . . What happened 25 years ago? You didn't remember anything.' The conversation took place in Hebrew.
The following day, Kadish denied to FBI agents that he had spoken to Yagur. However, WMR has learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted the phone call between Kadish in Monroe Township, New Jersey and Yagur in Tel Aviv, Israel. There is also communications intelligence (COMINT) evidence of Yagur's phone calls between at least 1980 through 1985 from his Riverdale, Bronx, New York residence to Kadish's residence in Clifton, New Jersey arranging for visits to Kadish's basement to photograph classified documents.
Kadish's emails to Yagur were also intercepted and in 2004 Kadish traveled to Israel to meet with Yagur. The criminal complaint against Kadish also specifies that there is a current Grand Jury investigation in New York City of Israeli espionage agents in the United States.
Kadish received a Secret security clearance on October 22, 1963, from the Picatinny Arsenal. From August 23, 1979 to July 15, 1985, Kadish signed at least 24 Classified Document Accountability Record (CDARs) forms showing that he borrowed at last 35 classified documents from the library at the Picatinny Arsenal.
Kadish admitted to FBI Special Agent Lance Ashworth that he did not have the required clearance or need-to-know for the nuclear weapons document he gave Yagur. Kadish admitted he provided 50 to 100 documents to Yagur, all of which were classified. Kadish maintained he gave Yagur the documents in the belief that they would "help Israel."
Another member of the Israeli ring that ran Pollard and Kadish was Israeli Air Force Colonel Avi Sella. Sella gave Pollard a laundry list of classified documents wanted by Israel from Pollard's place of work at the Naval Investigative Service's Anti-Terrorist Alert Center in Suitland, Maryland. WMR previously reported at the Pollard-Sella contacts occurred around the same time that current Air Force cyber-security 'czarina' and anti-Iran Operation Checkmate strategist Dr. Lani Kass arrived in at Booz Allen with a top secret clearance after having just left the Israeli Air Force as a major. WMR has previously reported that Kass is a key member of a rival nuclear chain-of-command that was responsible for moving six nuclear armed cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. WMR has learned from knowledgeable sources that the US law enforcement and intelligence are looking at connections in the Israeli Air Force and since between Sella and Kass.
WMR has also learned that contacts between former Pentagon Policy and Plans chief Douglas Feith and Israeli military intelligence officers is also getting a fresh look by investigators. Feith lost his National Security Council job in 1982 after it was discovered that he was passing classified material to Israeli embassy officials. Feith's 1980s connections to Yagur, Ravid, and Sella are also getting a new look by federal investigators."
After pleading guilty to "failing to register as a foreign agent of Israel," a sweetheart deal often extended by the U.S. Justice Department to Israeli agentsU.S. Judge William Pauley merely fined Kadish $50,000 and said it would do know good to put such an old man in prison. Kadish died on July 16, 2012. His various interlocutors continue to spy for Israel.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

On the Brink of WWIII, A Primer on Russian History-- Facts and Fantasy by Deena Stryker



On the Brink of WWIII, A Primer on Russian History-- Facts and Fantasy



When today's pundits talk about Russia as the greatest threat since Hitler's Germany, it's time for a look at Russian history.
The first crucial piece of information in the present context is the fact that Russia began in Kiev. Kievan Rus was "a loose federation[3] of East Slavic tribes in Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century,[4] under the reign of the Rurik dynasty. The modern peoples of BelarusUkraine, and Russia all claim Kievan Rus' as their cultural ancestors," Wikipedia reports. No rational discussion of the present crisis is possible without this knowledge.
From flickr.com/photos/12403504@N02/11143150606/: Image taken from page 457 of 'Russia, Past and Present. Adapted from the German (.Das heutige Russland.) of Lankenau and Oelnitz by Henrieta M. Chester. With map and illustrations'
Image taken from page 457 of 'Russia, Past and Present. Adapted from the German (.Das heutige Russland.) of Lankenau and Oelnitz by Henrieta M. Chester. With map and illustrations'
(image by The British Library)


Now picture the world's largest landmass, (nine time zones to the US's three), much of which lies in the same northerly latitudes as Canada, but, in a crucial difference, with access to the ocean only on its Eastern tip, while the areas bordering on southern seas are inhabited by Muslim peoples. Add now that Russia is the seat of Orthodox Christianity, which in the 13th century was repeatedly attacked from the Roman Catholic and Protestant North and West. (Sergei Eisenstein made a famous film about the attacks by the Teutonic Knights, titled Alexander Nevsky.) According to Wiki, to the Orthodox Church and most princes, the fanatical Northern Crusadersseemed a greater threat to the Russian way of life than the Mongols, who protected and assisted Alexander Nevsky in fighting them.

Russia had been subjugated by Ghengis Khan's Golden Horde's from 1223 to 1240, to which it paid tribute for another four hundred years. For more on the lasting impact of that subjugation see my book review of TIbor Szamuely's The Russian Tradition . (In a similar scourge, the Ottoman empire took over half of Europe, their advance only halted with an unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1529. More on that later in this article.)

Starting with Kievan Rus, Russia, Poland, the Baltic princes, Sweden and Iran fought each other for centuries, so there is no historical record of a specifically 'aggressive' Russia. For hundreds of years, today's Baltic countries, facing onto the northern sea, were Russian principalities, as were Ukraine - and at times, Poland. Following are excerpts devoted to Russia's interactions with its neighbors, from the Wikipedia article on Russian history:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia:


In the 15th century, the grand princes of Moscow went on gathering Russian lands to increase the population and wealth under their rule. The most successful practitioner of this process was Ivan III[41] who laid the foundations for a Russian national state. Ivan competed with his powerful northwestern rival, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for control over some of the semi-independent Upper Principalities in the Dnieper andOka River basins.[45][46]

Ivan refused to pay further tribute to the Tatars and initiated a series of attacks that opened the way for the complete defeat of the declining Golden Horde. Ivan and his successors sought to protect the southern boundaries of their domain against attacks of the Crimean Tatars and other hordes.[49] Although his longLivonian War for the control of the Baltic coast and access to sea trade ultimately proved a costly failure,[54]Ivan managed to annex the Khanates of KazanAstrakhan, and Siberia.[55] ". Through these conquests, Russia acquired a significant Muslim Tatar population and emerged as a multiethnic and multiconfessionalstate. Also around this period, the mercantile Stroganov family established a firm foothold at the Urals and recruited Russian Cossacks to colonize Siberia.[56]

At the end of Ivan IV's reign the Polish--Lithuanian and Swedish armies carried out a powerful intervention in Russia, devastating its northern and northwest regions.[60] During the Polish--Muscovite War (1605--1618), Polish--Lithuanian forces reached Moscow. The Seven Boyars, a group of Russian nobles recognized the Polish prince WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw IV Vasa as the Tsar of Russia on 6 September [O.S. 27 August] 1610.[63][64] The Poles entered Moscow on 21 September [O.S. 11 September] 1610, setting the city on fire.[65][66][67] This "Time of Troubles" resulted in the loss of much territory to the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Russo-Polish war, as well as to the Swedish Empire in the Ingrian War. Fortunately for Moscow, its major enemies, the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden, were engaged in a bitter conflict with each other, which provided Russia the opportunity to make peace with Sweden in 1617 and to sign a truce with the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1619. Recovery of lost territories started in the mid-17th century, when the Khmelnitsky Uprising in Ukraine against Polish rule brought about the Treaty of Pereyaslavconcluded between Russia and the Ukrainian Cossacks.

According to the treaty, Russia granted protection to the Cossacks state in the Left-bank Ukraine, formerly under Polish control. This triggered a prolonged Russo-Polish War which ended with the Treaty of Andrusovo(1667), where Poland accepted the loss of Left-bank Ukraine, Kiev and Smolensk.[41]

Peter the Great's first military efforts were directed against the Ottoman Turks. His aim was to establish a Russian foothold on the Black Sea by taking the town of Azov.[76] Peter still lacked a secure northern seaport except at Archangel on the White Sea, whose harbor was frozen nine months a year. Access to the Baltic was blocked by Sweden, whose territory enclosed it on three sides. Peter's ambitions for a "window to the sea" led him in 1699 to make a secret alliance with the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth and Denmark against Sweden resulting in the Great Northern War.

The war ended in 1721 when an exhausted Sweden sued for peace with Russia. Peter acquired four provinces situated south and east of the Gulf of Finland, thus securing his coveted access to the sea. Russian intervention in the Commonwealth marked" the beginning of a 200-year domination of that region by the Russian Empire. In celebration of his conquests, Peter assumed the title of emperor as well as tsar, and Russian Tsardom officially became the Russian Empire in 1721.

By this time, the once powerful Persian Safavid Empire to its south was heavily declining. Taking advantage of the profitable situation, Peter launched the Russo-Persian War (1722-1723) in order to be the first Russian emperor to increase Russian influence in the Caucasus and Caspian Sea. After considerable success and the capture of many provinces and cities in the Caucasus and northern Persia, the Safavids were forced to hand over the territories to Russia. However, 9 years later they would be ceded back to Persia, as part of a Russo-Persian alliance against the Ottoman Empire.[77]

Catherine the Great extended Russian political control over the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth and successfully waged war against the decaying Ottoman Empire[80] advancing Russia's southern boundary to the Black Sea. Then, by allying with the rulers of Austria and Prussia, she incorporated the territories of the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth, and during the Partitions of Poland, pushed the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe. Catherine waged a new war against Persia in 1796 after they had again invaded Georgia, expelling the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. By the time of her death in 1796, Catherine's expansionist policy had made Russia into a major European power. This continued with Alexander I'swresting of Finland from the weakened kingdom of Sweden in 1809 and of Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812.

After the Russian armies liberated allied Georgia from Persian occupation in 1802, they clashed with Persiaover control of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Dagestan, and also got involved in the Caucasian War against the Caucasian Imamate. To the south west, Russia attempted to expand at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, using Georgia at its base for the Caucasus and Anatolian front. In the 1828-29 Russo-Turkish War Russia invaded northeastern Anatolia and occupied the strategic Ottoman towns of Erzurum and Gumushane and, posing as protector and savior of the Greek Orthodox population, received extensive support from the region's Pontic Greeks. Following a brief occupation, the Russian imperial army withdrew back into Georgia.

In 1826 another war was fought against Persia, acquiring ArmeniaNakhchivanNagorno-Karabakh,Azerbaijan, and IÄŸdır\. By the 1830s, Russia had conquered all Persian territories and major Ottoman territories in the Caucasus.[91] In 1831 Nicholas crushed a major uprising in Congress Poland; it would be followed by another large-scale Polish and Lithuanian revolt in 1863.


One can see this history as that of a conquering power, or more accurately, as that of powerful neighbors vying for control over various parts of the great Eurasian plain. Europe was no different, the problem being the presence on a very small peninsula of some fifty different nationalities and languages, but Americans do not study either European or Russian history. When the US reluctantly entered the first world war, the common wisdom was that the Europeans couldn't stop squabbling, and the same was true in spades with the Second World War. Although Germany was fingered in both as the aggressor - and by the French as the aggressor in the war of 1870 - Russia was never seen as 'the aggressor' of the Eurasian plain. And for Russians, the problem has always been that of encirclement and access to warm waters.

Napoleon attempted to conquer Russia in the early nineteenth century, courting an ignominious defeat. In the early twentieth century, Russia lost a war with Japan over access to the warm water port of Port Arthur in southern Manchuria. The West tried to roll back the Russian revolution in a war that lasted in various phases and fronts from 1917 to 1925 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War
It was invaded by Hitler in World War II, prompting it to hold on to the Baltic States and the countries of Eastern Europe that had been his allies. It was because of the history of attacks on Russia that Roosevelt and Churchill agreed at a meeting with Stalin in Yalta that Eastern Europe, through which these attacks came, would be a Soviet sphere of influence after the war. 

(Notwithstanding today's revisionist allusions, Russia did not 'conquer' Eastern Europe, but rather liberated it from the Nazi occupation. Most historians now admit that without Russia, Germany would not have been defeated.)

At present, 'fears' of Russian 'aggression' center on Poland, the Baltic states, and Moldova (Bessarabia), all of which were the locus of wars in centuries past. With the end of the Cold War, the Baltic States were let go, and the countries of Eastern Europe resumed the task of building independent polities they had started after World War I. Rule by the Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, had contributed in no small measure to their economic and political backwardness with respect to Western Europe. I witnessed the psychological effect of that history first hand when I lived in Poland, then in Hungary, from 1965 to 1971. Poland carries the added burden of having been literally carved up by its European neighbors no fewer than three times over the centuries. All the European countries I have lived in had an acute sense of history, but none so much as Poland. Poland's current attitude toward the conflict in Ukraine is as much tributary of that history as it is of European Union politics, which is why it is so contradictory, ultimately coming down on the side of Ukraine, yet unable to resist bashing it at the same time.

This brings us to the crux of the fabricated dispute that currently risks turning into World War III, complete with nuclear weapons: the accusation, repeated enunciated by President Obama and Secretary Kerry, that by respecting the referendum of the inhabitants of Crimea in favor of rejoining Russia, Vladimir Putin has arbitrarily modified the post-World War II borders. The border between Crimea and Russia was modified in 1954 when Khruschev 'gave it' to Ukraine, which at that time was one of the Soviet Socialist republics that constituted the Soviet Union. As the above history shows, Crimea had been part of Russia since the time of Catherine the Great, AND IT REMAINED SO AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II. So the return of Crimea to Russia cannot be construed as a modification of the borders agreed upon by the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the latter maintaining a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, while Great Britain retained an upper hand over Greece, preventing that country's strong Communist Party from gaining power.

Notwithstanding these historical facts, the Putin-bashing continues. On Fareed Zakaria's GPS Sunday, Christa Vreeland, a journalist who is also a member of the Canadian Parliament, painted a picture of a struggling Russia, claiming that Putin had thought Yanukovich would bring the Ukraine into his Eurasian customs union and 'all would be fine'. But the coup put intolerable internal pressures on Putin, 'his cronies were unhappy, the bourgeoisie destroyed. He didn't want this crisis.' We are expected to believe that without notoriously backward and corrupt Ukraine, Russia would be doomed! Apparently, Vreeland hasn't heard of the BRICS, the Silk Road, and the deepening Russia/China alliance".

On the same program, Bill Browder, grandson of the one-time leader of the American Communist Party and (no small irony) Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, had this to say: 'Putin is entirely rational but he has no morality. He will kill, start wars if it makes him wealthier, or saves him from being arrested. He started a war in Crimea, and says the Ukrainian leaders are fascist nazis backed by US, provoking nationalist fervor.'

To decide how much credibility to grant this man's testimony, starting with his apparent ignorance of the weight of the Neo-Fascist Right Sektor and Svoboda parties within the Ukrainian government, notwithstanding the many videos featuring their thuggish behavior, I suggest you read the lengthy interview he gave to Barrons
http://online.barrons.com/articles/SB51367578116875004693704580437562326826610 in which he details his business dealings in Russia starting in the nineteen-nineties. Readers will be familiar with the death of Barron's lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison, but whatever the circumstances of that death, they do not change Barron's participation in the rape of that country, which he relates with undisguised gusto. Claiming that he wanted Russia to become a normal country where 'the valuations (of stocks) were the same as the West', he is not talking about the rule of law. And this is the man who accuses Putin of being an oligarch!

Finally, as France, Germany and Russia try to resolve the Ukraine crisis through diplomacy, Washington, oblivious to the fact that it is the Europeans who would be on the front-line in a war with Russia, continues to insist that it must 'protect' these allies from Putin's 'aggression'! Possible presidential candidate and uber hawk ally of John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham made the following astonishing statement a few days ago, referring to his colleagues who are against arming the Kiev government: (They) "don't see how arming those who are willing to fight and die for their freedom makes things better (my emphasis)."

On RT this morning, anticipating tomorrow's crucial meeting in Minsk between Ukraine, Russia France and Germany, a retired Deputy Ambassador to NATO and Ambassador to Germany, John Kornblum, echoing Victoria Nuland's famous quip "F.. the EU!", affirmed that 'the real power lies in Washington'. But it doesn't look like a convincing sign of power to claim, as Washington is currently doing, that Vladimir Putin suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, a mental condition whose main symptom is an inability to read social cues! Distancing itself from this latest 'stupid stuff', the psychiatric community is probably wondering why Washington failed to diagnose the severe alcoholism of Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, to whom the Browders of this world are beholden.