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Fire

Best of the Web: Victory or fire: The plan for Hong Kong

ProtestersHK
© Unknown
It's become quite clear to me that the situation in Hong Kong is now about regime change through economic terrorism. What started as peaceful protests against an extradition law and worry over reunification with China has morphed into an ugly and vicious assault on the city's economic future.

These are being perpetrated by the so-called "Black Bloc," roving bands of mask-wearing, police-tactic defying vandals attacking randomly around the city to disrupt people going to work.

Pepe Escobar has been doing exemplary work in recent months covering the ins and outs of Asian politics. His latest article covers the "Black Bloc," their tactics and who's likely behind them in Hong Kong:
"More likely to be informed is Hong Kong garment and media tycoon Jimmy Lai, billionaire publisher of the pro-democracy Apple Daily, the city's Chinese Communist Party critic-in-chief and highly visible interlocutor of official Washington, DC, notables such as US Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and ex-National Security Council head John Bolton.

"On September 6, before the onset of the deranged vandalism and violence that have defined Hong Kong "pro-democracy protests" over the past several weeks, Lai spoke with Bloomberg TV's Stephen Engle from his Kowloon home.

"He pronounced himself convinced that - if protests turned violent China would have no choice but to send People's Armed Police units from Shenzen into Hong Kong to put down unrest.

"That," he said on Bloomberg TV, "will be a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre and that will bring in the whole world against China..... Hong Kong will be done, and ... China will be done, too."
Jimmy Lai is telling you what the strategy is here. The goal is to thoroughly undermine China's standing on the world stage and raise that of the U.S. This is economic warfare, it's a hybrid war tactic. And the soldiers are radicalized kids in uniforms bonking old men on the heads with sticks and taunting cops.

Propaganda

Best of the Web: NYT has been 'duped by spooks and terrorists' - Russian military corrects flaws in report on hospital bombings

field hospital
© AFP/George DurfalianRebel shelled field hospital in Furqan neighborhood of Aleppo, 2016.
A damning report by the New York Times, which accused Russia of bombing four UN-protected hospitals in Syria, is a product of misinformation by Western intelligence services and jihadists, the Russian military said.

On Sunday, the leading US newspaper said it had irrefutable proof that Russian warplanes had bombed four sites in Syria, which it knew to be locations of civilian hospitals. The accusation stems from analysis of social media, interviews with witnesses, data provided by local plane spotters and records of communications of the Russian military deployed in Syria. The bombings, which happened on May 5 and 6, are just a faction [sic fraction] of attacks on civilian infrastructure, for which Moscow carries responsibility, the newspaper alleged.

Responding to the accusation on Monday, the Russian military said Times report was flawed for several reasons, including failure to explain that Idlib Governorate, where the four alleged bombings took place, lives under rule of brutal jihadists. That detail affects the entire narrative, indicating its flawed sourcing.

Comment: From Sputnik, 14/10/2019: Hospital allegedly 'destroyed' in Syria is well-protected terrorist bunker
The New York Times previously claimed that the Russian Air Forces had bombed several hospitals in Syria back in May. The newspaper said that local journalists had filmed the bombing and proved the incident via a radio recording of a ground controller giving the coordinates of the facility to the pilots.

The Russian Ministry of Defence stated on Monday that the "bomb-destroyed" hospital in Syria mentioned in the NYT reports was actually a terrorist base in a cave, adding that 80 journalists saw it.

The Russian military representative pointed out that "the hospital for civilians" was located in an area far from settlements in an "isolated cave", where medics couldn't have upheld any standards for treating injured people.

According to Gen. Major Igor Konashenkov, the media fell for another disinformation stunt, propagated by the British intelligence services, masked as news from "activists".

He also dismissed claims about "eavesdropped" dialogue between pilots and ground controllers, stressing that the military does not use open radio channels to transmit coordinates.



Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: 'It's an assembly line': De-transitioned man says parents encouraging kids to become transgender are guilty of 'child abuse'

LGBTQ propaganda kids
© Reuters / Tyrone Siu
A man who lived for eight years as a trans woman before de-transitioning has called out the "child abuse" from adults who encourage transgenderism in kids, saying it's an "abhorrent" interference in their natural development.

Born male, Walt Heyer began transitioning to female at 42 years-old. He lived that way for eight years before realizing he had been a victim of childhood abuse and began the process of returning to his birth-assigned gender.

In an explosive interview with controversial conservative host Candace Owens, Heyer re-told the story of his troubled childhood; how his grandmother sparked gender confusion by encouraging him to wear a purple dress at the age of four - and how he suffered sexual abuse at the hands of an uncle as a direct result.


Pirates

Best of the Web: Two female Islamist terrorists sentenced to 25+ years for Notre Dame 'bombing' attempt in 2016

notre dame fire
© Getty ImagesIf the cathedral was attacked by Muslim extremists in 2016, was it also attacked by Muslim extremists in 2019?
Two French members of an all-female Islamic terror group linked to ISIS have been sentenced to over 25 years in prison each for their failed attempt to blow up Notre Dame cathedral with a car packed full of gas cylinders.

Inès Madani and Ornella Gilligmann received 30 and 25 years in prison, respectively, on Monday after a French court found them guilty of the September 4, 2016 plot to blow up Notre Dame which prosecutors claimed would have killed at least 60 people if it had been successful.


Comment: Madani is a Muslim name, but Gilligmann is almost certainly Jewish.


Comment: The two hapless 'terroristas' were clearly put up to it, presumably for the purpose of catching them and generating 'terror scare' stories for the media.

Given that Notre Dame was targeted in 2016 - however crudely - and was then subsequently destroyed in a fire at a time when other cathedrals in France were deliberately targeted by mystery arsonists, the obvious questions are:
  • Was Notre Dame deliberately burned down by Muslim extremists in April this year?
  • Who put them up to it?
  • Assuming it was deliberately targeted this year, why are the govt and media covering this up?
See also:

Chief architect of Notre Dame: 'We installed new detection system in 2010, and completely rewired the cathedral, so the fire wasn't caused by electrical short-circuit'

Notre Dame Cathedral worker claims Paris' largest church was DELIBERATELY set on fire


Yellow Vest

Best of the Web: Catalan uproar over jail sentences for independence leaders could seal Spain's fate - Alex Salmond

barcelona airport protest
The sentences were "antidemocratic, oppressive and totally counterproductive" for the Spanish government, because "now [the pro-independence politicians] will achieve martyrdom," Salmond explained.
This is the day that these Spanish judges actually sealed the fate of the Spanish state. I don't see the Catalan crisis ending now anywhere except in Catalan independence.
The Catalans were found guilty of sedition, but not rebellion, the most serious of the charges they faced over the 2017 declaration of independence. The secession attempt followed a referendum, banned by the Madrid government, that saw 90 percent of Catalans vote for independence despite a heavy-handed crackdown on those 42 percent who turned out to polls.


Comment: As we can see from that result, it was not a clear mandate from Catalonians in favor of secession from Spain. But that doesn't excuse the Spanish state's heavy-handed approach to brutalizing first the referendum proceedings two years ago, and now protesters voicing support for their jailed leaders.



Comment: Yup, Spain is in trouble. Protests have also erupted in cities outside the breakaway Catalonia region.

For the sake of Spanish unity, Madrid has to climb down from this and commute the leaders' sentences, pronto.

While those who are pro-independence tend to be left/liberal, repeatedly beating them over the head risks drawing conservative Catalans to their cause.

More footage coming out of Catalonia:



Whether one supports the secessionists or Spain in this matter, the take-home point of all this is the rank hypocrisy of Western leadership when it comes to so-called freedom and democracy:




Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: 'Equation of power changed': Top Iranian official says Middle East is 'safer place' without US

Iranian Missile Test
© AP Photo / IRNA/ Mostafa Qotbi
Following the start of the Turkish military operation in northern Syria, the US announced that it would pull out some of its troops from the area, with President Donald Trump criticising the efforts of previous administrations that dragged Washington into wars in the Middle East.

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani has stated that the Middle East would be "a safer place without the US", stating that Washington should withdraw its troops from the region entirely and not just from Syria. He argued that even US officials have acknowledged that getting involved in the region's wars was a mistake, apparently referring to US President Donald Trump's recent criticism of past US administrations' Middle East policies.

Commenting on the recent statement by the POTUS, Shamkhani alleged that his administration has realised that "the equation of power and politics in the Middle East has changed" and that the US can no longer claim the leading position in the region.

Comment: See also:


Binoculars

Best of the Web: Kurds face stark options after US pullback

kurd syria
© AFP / Delil SouleimanSyrian Arabs and Kurdish civilians arrive to Hassakeh city after fleeing bombardment on Syria's northeastern towns along the Turkish border on October 10, 2019 amid fears of a new humanitarian crisis.
In the annals of bombastic Trump tweets, this one is simply astonishing: here we have a President of the United States, on the record, unmasking the whole $8-trillion intervention in the Middle East as an endless war based on a "false premise." No wonder the Pentagon is not amused. Trump's tweet bisects the surreal geopolitical spectacle of Turkey attacking a 120-kilometer-long stretch of Syrian territory east of the Euphrates to essentially expel Syrian Kurds. Even after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cleared with Trump the terms of the Orwellian-named "Operation Peace Spring," Ankara may now face the risk of US economic sanctions.

The predominant Western narrative credits the Syrian Democratic Forces, mostly Kurdish, for fighting and defeating Islamic State, also known as Daesh. The SDF is essentially a collection of mercenaries working for the Pentagon against Damascus. But many Syrian citizens argue that ISIS was in fact defeated by the Syrian Arab Army, Russian aerial and technical expertise plus advisers and special forces from Iran and Hezbollah.

As much as Ankara may regard the YPG Kurds - the "People's protection units" - and the PKK as mere "terrorists" (in the PKK's case aligned with Washington), Operation Peace Spring has in principle nothing to do with a massacre of Kurds.

Comment: See also:


Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Pepe Escobar: Behind Hong Kong's black terror

Hong Kong black bloc
© The Yomiuri ShimbunA radical protester throws a molotov cocktail at a government building in Hong Kong on Sept. 15, 2019.
"If we burn, you burn with us. Self-destruct together." (Lam chao.)
The new slogans of Hong Kong's black bloc - a mob on a rampage connected to the black shirt protestors - made their first appearance on a rainy Sunday afternoon, scrawled on walls in Kowloon.

Decoding the slogans is essential to understand the mindless street violence that was unleashed even before the anti-mask law passed by the government of the Special Administrative Region (SAR) went into effect at midnight on Friday, October 4.

By the way, the anti-mask law is the sort of measure that was authorized by the 1922 British colonial Emergency Regulations Ordnance, which granted the city government the authority to "make any regulations whatsoever which he [or she] may consider desirable in the public interest" in case of "emergency or public danger".

Yellow Vest

Best of the Web: Spain sentences Catalonia independence leaders to 13 years imprisonment for sedition - Protests erupt in Barcelona - UPDATE: Airport occupied

barcelona protest referendum
© REUTERS / Rafael MarchantePeople march through Via Laetana Avenue during a protest after a verdict in a trial over a banned independence referendum.
Former Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by Spain's Supreme Court for his role in the attempted secession by authorities in Barcelona in 2017.

Junqueras was among nine separatist leaders who were sentenced to between nine and 13 years in prison for sedition for their part in the region's failed 2017 independence bid which captured headlines around the world.

A further three defendants were found guilty of disobedience but were not handed prison sentences for their participation in both the banned referendum and short-lived independence declaration. All defendants were acquitted of the most serious charge of rebellion.

Comment: Update 21:45 CET

Barcelona resembles Hong Kong today, with police going all-in to clear protesters who have gathered at the airport:











It's not just the airport either; protests have erupted across Barcelona and the whole Catalonia region. Here people are banging pots and pans out their windows as a form of 'prison protest' in support of the jailed leaders:


We can confirm that Spanish police are firing 'flash-balls' at them - the same thing the French police used to suppress Yellow Vest protesters:


Macron, Merkel, MSM, corporate media, alt-media, et al... any comment?? Should Spain not be "respecting the democratic rights" of Catalans? Should it not be "engaged in political dialogue"? Y'all have so much to say about Hong Kong ought to be run...

Or is this latest symptom of the 'Western House Divided on Itself' all Russia's doing?!

What's deliciously ironic about this development is that pro-independence Catalans were probably watching what has been happening in HK, what was happening in the Spanish courts, and hand planned beforehand to storm Barcelona's airport when their leaders' sentences were handed down...

They were thus inspired by pro-independence Hong Kongers, who were trained and at least partially funded by Western NGOs... and so it all feeds back into the system against the system itself.


NPC

Best of the Web: Busted! ABC News caught using old gun range footage to push fake news about Turkish 'slaughter' of Syrian Kurds

abc fake news gun footage kurds
© ABC News/YoutubeDavid Muir lies through his teeth on 'ABC World News Tonight'
ABC News was just busted using two year old gun range footage while reporting on Turkey 'slaughtering' the Kurds in the wake of a US withdrawal from the region.
This video right here appearing to show Turkey's military bombing Kurd civilians in a Syrian border town. The Kurds, who fought alongside the US against ISIS now horrific reports of atrocities committed by Turkish-backed fighters on those very allies" -ABC News

Comment: ABC, YOU ARE FAKE NEWS!