Puppet MastersS


MIB

Spy equipment planted in Russian military attache car in The Hague, Moscow summons Dutch Charge d'Affaires

Jonny Tickle
RT
Mon, 17 Aug 2020 14:04 UTC
moscow
© Sputnik / Alexey MaichsevFILE PHOTO
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday expressed its outrage after tracking equipment was found in a Russian military attache car in The Hague, the home of the Dutch government and the International Court of Justice.

Dominique Kuhling-Bakker, the Dutch Charge d'Affaires in Moscow, was summoned to the ministry in Russia's capital.

"The Russian Foreign Ministry lodged a strong protest to the Ambassador of the Netherlands, in connection with the discovery of tracking equipment in the car of the Russian military attache in The Hague," the Russian diplomatic agency said. "The Dutch diplomat was informed that it is immediately necessary to take comprehensive measures to prevent such incidents, which are counter to the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations."
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Document

The Anti-Iran agreement between UAE and Israel

Steven Sahiounie
The Duran
Mon, 17 Aug 2020 06:32 UTC
UAE Israel trump
The recent announcement of diplomatic relations between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel proves that the Arab-Israeli conflict, simmering since 1948, has never been about differences in religion, or ethnic hatreds. The conflict has always been about land rights and human rights. The Israelis got the land and human rights, and the Palestinians got neither.

There is no benefit for the UAE from this deal. Israel benefits from the deal as a public relations stunt, which plays well to its audience in the US Congress. US President Trump benefits the most from the deal, which his son in law Jared Kushner worked to put together, as Trump's November reelection chances are in peril. Middle East experts have rumored that before the US presidential election more Arab nations may follow the UAE lead, and in fact, Bahrain announced yesterday their intention to forge an open relationship with the occupiers of Palestine. Oman, Morocco, Sudan, and perhaps Qatar maybe soon announcing their break-through agreements with Israel, in time to sway the election results.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has achieved a 'peace-deal' with some Arabs without giving up the brutal military occupation of Palestine, which holds five million Christians and Muslims in an open-air prison devoid of human rights.

The Emirati citizens are said to be supportive of the new agreement between their ruler and the Israeli government. The Emiratis traditionally do not give the Palestinian cause political, or religious priority. Their general apathy towards the injustice in Palestine is rooted in the Gulf media, which has portrayed Iran, and the Shia sect as the enemy, not Israel. This media 're-education' of the population began in the 1980s after the Iranian revolution, which removed the Shah of Iran, who was a Shia, but an ally of the US, Saudi Arabia, and its neighbors.

Comment: See also:

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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Narrative control tightens as panicked anti-Trump aristocrats crank up media gaslight machines

Mitchell Feierstein
RT
Mon, 17 Aug 2020 04:39 UTC
protesters
© Getty Images / Giles Clarke
Orange Man Bad. It's a narrative that is being made harder to question every day, even as Democrat-controlled cities descend into chaos and Americans are being fed the same old status quo from the Obama and Clinton era.

The middle and lower classes have been eviscerated, and America's big cities have been decimated and destroyed by the mob. And who is the mob? They are Antifa, BLM, ideologues (aka Democratic elites) and their multi-million-dollar-a-year media propaganda mouthpieces. The mob and its supporters are creating extreme tribalism that is ripping America apart.

Disgracefully, Democratic Party members of the US Congress are actively calling for "unrest in the streets" and the Democratic Party's presidential dream team of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris condone this anarchy, chaos and violence by their silence, as they dance to the mob's tune saying and doing anything to grab power through instilling more fear, terror and uncertainty amongst the voters. Democrats have not denounced the surge in murders, looting, and violence infecting America's biggest cities, but many are instead actively working to defund the police during a massive crime wave. People have to "shoplift some bread," as New York City's member of Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explains.
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Chess

Macron wants EU to back Belarusians standing up for 'rights & freedom'. But what about the Yellow Vests at home, Twitter users ask


RT
Tue, 18 Aug 2020 04:30 UTC
belarus protests and yellow vests
© (R) / Sergei Gapon; Francois Lo Presti / AFP
The French President called on the EU to throw its weight behind Belarusians demanding that their liberties be respected - but the online community was quick to remind him of fellow Frenchmen rallying for the same cause at home.

Emmanuel Macron tweeted his support for the growing anti-government sentiment in Belarus, writing on Sunday that Brussels must continue "to mobilize alongside the hundreds of thousands of Belarusians who demonstrate peacefully for the respect of their rights, their freedom and their sovereignty."


Comment: It should be pretty clear what message Macron is sending. The US Empire supports the overthrow of the Lukashenko regime in Belarus in order to put in power a puppet who will follow the dictates of the West and further destabilize Russia.


The demonstrations that caught Macron's eye have been building since the controversial presidential vote in Belarus, that saw the sitting President Alexander Lukashenko being re-elected for a sixth term. The outcome was rejected by the opposition, who insisted that the vote was rigged.

Comment: The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, rightfully called out Macron on his hypocrisy:
"When will he call on the European Union to be mobilized in support of hundreds of thousands of 'Yellow Vests' demonstrators who peacefully seek to ensure respect for their rights, freedoms and sovereignty?" she said. "When will the European Union stop waiting for calls from presidents of its member states and start to mobilize proactively in support of protests held on its own territory?"
A source in Moscow told RT that the comment also amounted to an open admission that Brussels is already interfering in the crisis, which the Russian government views as concerning.

Meanwhile, the EU will hold an emergency session to discuss the situation in Belarus. No doubt this session will be about how to get rid of Lukashenko and install a leader who is far less friendly with Russia.

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Eye 1

Fascism in the form of a nanny state: France sends in RIOT POLICE to enforce mask-wearing in Marseille


RT
Mon, 17 Aug 2020 04:12 UTC
riot cops
© Reuters / Charles Platiau
The French government has sent 130 riot officers to help enforce face mask wearing rules in the southern city of Marseille as the nation sees a rise in new coronavirus cases amid increased resistance to restrictions.

More than a hundred officers from a special riot police unit, the CRS, will now patrol Marseille after the local authorities expanded requirements on wearing face masks, government spokesman Gabriel Attal told French media.

Face masks are mandatory in all public indoor spaces, as well as on public transport, under the rules introduced by the government. Local authorities could expand the measures further if necessary.
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Vader

Democrats' election platform demands end to 'forever wars' — most of which were launched last time Biden held office

Helen Buyniski
RT
Mon, 17 Aug 2020 20:58 UTC
Joe biden ballistic missile launch warmonger
© Reuters / Carlos Barria / Handout
The Democratic Party's 2020 electoral platform includes a call to end the US' "forever wars" - which sounds great, except that a Democratic president started many of those wars and the party has stonewalled efforts to end them.

"Democrats know it's time to bring nearly two decades of unceasing conflict to an end," the platform, released in draft form on Monday and expected to be approved by Democratic leaders later this week, reads.

It's a relatively uncontroversial statement in itself: at nearly 19 years and counting, the US war in Afghanistan is the longest conflict in American history. The various satellite wars that have sprung up as part of the "War on Terror" have devastated large swathes of the Middle East - and the US itself, which has spent upwards of $6 trillion on fighting them while much of the country slid into a permanent recession - over the past two decades.
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Bomb

Best of the Web: Nasrallah: If Israel is behind Beirut blast, our response will be devastating

Hassan Nasrallah
Resistance News Unfiltered
Sun, 16 Aug 2020 20:12 UTC
nasrallah
Speech by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayed Hassan Nasrallah on August 14, 2020, on the occasion of the celebration of the 14th anniversary of the 2006 victory.

Source: moqawama.org

Translation: resistancenews.org

This video only captions the last section of the excerpt transcribed below

Transcript:

[Israel assassinated a Hezbollah fighter in Syria, and our retaliation in kind is inevitable]

[...] Today there is an equation that protects Lebanon, namely the deterrence equation (against Israel). And this equation grows stronger and stronger (to our advantage) day after day through the development of our equipment, our state of readiness, our personnel, our abilities, our human, military and material capacities (and our experiences on various battlefields — Syria, Iraq, Yemen...). And Israel and its (American) masters know it (very) well, and they fear and dread it. This is the equation that protects Lebanon today. There is nothing else that protects Lebanon. It is the golden equation Army-People-Resistance, and essentially (the) Resistance (Axis) through the equation of deterrence, that protects Lebanon. It is neither the Arab League, nor the Organization of the Islamic Conference — which is now called the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — nor the United Nations, nor the Security Council, nor the international resolutions (that protect Lebanon). And anyone who claims otherwise, let him come forward and enlighten us with his perspective. [...]
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Bizarro Earth

US airstrike kills one Syrian officer, injures two, south of Qamishli


Sputnik
Mon, 17 Aug 2020 08:36 UTC
syria
© Sputnik
Syrian state news agency SANA on Monday reported that one officer was killed and two people injured following a US strike south of Qamishli.

According to the agency, the strike was carried out on an army checkpoint near the settlement of Tell al-Zakhab.

According to the newspaper al-Watan, one of the injured persons is a Syrian Army officer. The newspaper reported that the US patrol tried to break into a zone controlled by the Syrian Army, but did not say whether the aircraft that launched the attack was American or belonged to another country.

Comment: Notably, considering the US' claim to be leaving Syria, Reuters reported just a few weeks ago that a US company had signed an agreement with Kurdish rebels to steal and sell Syrian oil: US signs deal with Kurdish-led rebels to steal Syrian oil

See also: U.S. Didn't 'Withdraw' From Syria - It Redeployed, And Now Controls 75% of The Country's Oil

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Star of David

Netanyahu claims he didn't inform Gantz re: UAE negotiations due to security considerations


Sputnik
Mon, 17 Aug 2020 13:41 UTC
Gantz/Netanyahu
© Reuters/PoolAlt. PM/DM Benny Gantz • PM Benjamin Netanyahu
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced that Israel and the United Arab Emirates had reached a historic agreement to establish diplomatic relations. The UAE is the first Arab-majority nation in the Persian Gulf, and the third in the Middle East, to normalize ties with Tel Aviv after Egypt and Jordan did so in 1979 and 1994, respectively.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he did not inform Defence Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz about peace negotiations with the UAE because he feared that the Blue and White Party might accidentally leak the information to the press, sparking an Iranian response.

"Let them know? I've been dealing with this for years," Netanyahu said, speaking to Israel Hayom, when asked why he didn't tell Gantz about the talks.
"They've been here all of two months. That was the [coalition] agreement - maintain discretion, to prevent Iran and others from torpedoing it."

Comment: What else has Neti not informed Gantz about...! The only way to stay in charge is to withhold vital information, remain indispensable and take all credit.

See also:

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Bullseye

What America can learn from the fall of the Roman Republic - a conversation with Edward Watts

Sean Illing
Vox
Sat, 15 Aug 2020 09:01 UTC
Rome
© shutterstockSunset on the empire.
The Roman Republic destroyed itself. Are we on a similar path?

If you were a Roman citizen around, say, 200 BC, you probably would have assumed Rome was going to last forever.

At the time, Rome was the greatest republic in human history, and its institutions had proven resilient through invasions and all kinds of disasters. But the foundations of Rome started to weaken less than a century later, and by 27 BC the republic had collapsed entirely.

The story of Rome's fall is both complicated and relatively straightforward: The state became too big and chaotic; the influence of money and private interests corrupted public institutions; and social and economic inequalities became so large that citizens lost faith in the system altogether and gradually fell into the arms of tyrants and demagogues.

If all of that sounds familiar, well, that's because the parallels to our current political moment are striking. Edward Watts, a historian at the University of California San Diego, published a 2018 book titled Mortal Republic that carefully lays out what went wrong in ancient Rome — and how the lessons of its decline might help save fledgling republics like the United States today.

Comment: A lot has happened since January, 2019 to suggest America is much farther along in political, economic, societal and moral degradation than anyone wants to consider. Certainly Washington hasn't cleaned up its mess, nor has the public put the brakes on the current social insanity and the Covid nightmare. The topic of a Rome/US comparison is worth exploring beyond academics. At the least, with informed thinking, we might pay attention and read the signs. And, we will be the few.

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