Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Bipartisan members of Congress sponsor bills for declassification of 9/11 report segment - Bush family behind opposition to 28-pages declassification.




SPECIAL REPORT. Bipartisan members of Congress sponsor bills for declassification of 9/11 report segment - Bush family behind opposition to 28-pages declassification.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, today urged support for a bill to declassify 28-pages from the joint congressional report on the failures of intelligence that led to the 9/11 attack. Joining Paul were members of the House of Representatives who previously introduced a companion bill urging that the 28-pahes be declassified by President Obama. Paul was flanked at a June 2 press conference in the Congressional Visitors Center by the House members who support the declassification of the pages believed to point to senior members of the Saudi government having provided financial and other support to the 9/11 hijackers. The House members joining Paul were Representatives Walter Jones (R-NC), Stephen Lynch (D-MA), and Thomas Massie (R-KY).

Paul and Jones both voiced their misgivings about the lack of interest of their colleagues of both parties in advancing the legislation. Paul's bill, the Transparency for the Families of 9/11 Victims Act, has two Democratic co-sponsors, Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). However, the bi-partisan leadership of both parties has been virtually silent on supporting the bill. Former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), the final author of the 9/11 Intelligence report as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was also present at the press conference. Graham displayed a more voluminous copy of a Treasury Department report on Saudi financing of the 9/11 attack. Graham, leafing through the report from the press conference podium showed the press that it was entirely blacked out. Graham called on that report to also be declassified.


Rand Paul with 9/11 family members behind him


Former Senator Bob Graham [right]. To Graham's right, in order, Reps. Stephen Lynch, Thomas Massie, and Walter Jones (head bowed). At the far left is a former New York City fireman, a 9/11 first responder.


Paul said he would also introduce the declassification bill as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act next week. When asked why he would not simply read the 28-pages into the Congressional Record, which is the prerogative of all members of Congress, he replied that he was trying the standard method first before considering the use of senatorial automatic declassification privilege with regard to the Congressional Record.

A number of family members of the 9/11 victims joined the members of Congress behind the podium and they appealed to President Obama to order the declassification of the 28-pages as quickly as possible.


One page from the 28-pages

WMR spoke to a few congressional sources on background on the congressional leadership opposition to the declassification bill. We learned that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), has been under pressure from the family of George W. Bush, oil industry lobbyists, and the Saudi government to prevent the declassification.

WMR asked Senator Paul about his comment that declassification was even supported by the Saudi government. Considering that the present-Saudi King Salman was the Governor of Riyadh Province prior to and after 9/11 and that he reportedly facilitated the travel for and cash payments to Al Qaeda members, including some of the hijackers, to Pakistan and Afghanistan through Riyadh, WMR asked Paul whether Salman was also supporting declassification. Paul replied that he saw an account of a Saudi official having supported declassification and that he would have to try to locate the actual quote and the individual. After the press conference concluded, one of the members of Congress present who has read the 28-pages thanked this reporter for the question posed to Paul, saying it was a "good question."

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Kiev becomes the new center for mercenaries and brigands



Kiev becomes the new center for mercenaries and brigands 
by Wayne Madsen

Just as Bangkok became a nexus for U.S. special forces and other ne'er-do-wells during the Indochina War and San Jose, Costa Rica and Tegucigalpa, Honduras (called "Tegu City" by American mercenaries and special forces) were focal points for the covert U.S. contra war against the Sandinstas in Nicaragua, Kiev has joined their ranks by attracting a motley crew of U.S. and NATO active duty personnel, Western intelligence operatives, mercenaries from private military contractors, and neo-Nazis from across Europe.

In an exclusive report to WMR, one hangout for these soldiers of fortune and social misfits is located just a five minute walk from Maidan Square, where Assistant Secretary of State fort European Affairs Victoria Nuland handed out rolls during the U.S.-backed "Euromaidan" revolt against the democratically-elected president Viktor Yanukovych. Part of the reason the pub attracts international military and mercenary personnel is its close proximity to the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where many U.S. and Western military personnel on temporary duty, reside. The free Wi-Fi also attracts Westerners eager to read their e-mail  from abroad. This tidbit should be of interest to the Russian external security service, the SVR.

O'Brien's Irish Pub is the place to go if one wants to associate with ex-military and police from around Europe and the United States now employed in "security" positions in Ukraine. There have been credible reports that as few as 300 and as many as 500 mercenaries of the private military company Academi, the former Blackwater, are in Ukraine fighting for the Western-backed government. Russian news reports claim the Academi mercenaries are actually paid by Greystone, Ltd., a Barbados-based subsidiary of Academi that was used by Blackwater founder Erik Prince to dodge corporate reporting requirements in the United States, as well as U.S. taxes.

The service and food at O'Brien's are poor but good service and the "English-style" baked beans, which are actually red kidney beans doused in ketchup, are definitely not the reason for going there. Like Rick's CafĂ© in Casablanca, O'Brien's is a favorite smoke-filled gathering place for Kiev's new international cadre of mercenaries and active duty types, most of whom appear to have never served a day of combat in their lives. Televised football matches attract a number of British soccer fans who have the appearance of "military types."


The Western-initiated civil war in Ukraine has attracted a number of mercs and other dodgy types to Kiev. Many hang out at Western-style pubs like O'Brien's [above].

The general impression is that if the "green" soldiers of fortune who belt down pints of Guinness at O'Brien's ever encountered the seasoned Russian-speaking separatist armies of the eastern Donbas region the Western amateur soldiers would be easily slaughtered.

And for turning Kiev into Eastern Europe's version of Bangkok or Tegu City, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. What is even more astounding is that the nomination came from the U.S. chargé d'affaires in Oslo, Julie Furuta-Toy. Below is the May 29, 2015, letter from the Zionist chairman of the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) Volodymyr Groysman to Furuta-Toy thanking her for her nomination of Poroshenko.