Best of the Web:


MIB

Flashback Best of the Web: 'Prevent the rise of a messiah': Hoover's chilling directive to FBI agents explains why Americans have no real resistance

Jonathan David Farley
The Guardian
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:16 UTC
The US government's efforts to discredit Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders illustrate the lengths to which it will go to stifle left-wing movements
mlk hoover
Good man, bad man
Forty years ago today, a bullet severed the spine of a man whom many the world over thought of as a prince. We have all seen the picture of the hotel balcony where that prince stood, and fell, surrounded by his entourage, all pointing - presumably, in the direction from which the bullet came.

All but one.

One man was not standing, not pointing, but kneeling by Martin Luther King's body, presumably checking to see if - or that - he was dead. That man, Merrell McCullough, was an undercover police officer who had infiltrated King's circle. According to Time magazine, he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, at least as far back as 1974.

Comment: Oh for the days when the Guardian wasn't (always) a failing piece of garbage spouting govt propaganda.

They didn't just target left-wing movements/leaders: they targeted anything and anyone that could cross divides and "unify and electrify people".

This evil practice of culling, corrupting or otherwise containing leaders embodying noble virtues, by the way, is why Americans have no real 'resistance', and certainly no 'messiah', at a time when they most need one.

They have Trump, who means well, but he's not exactly cut out for the job.

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War Whore

Best of the Web: Gloves come off: Israel publishes satellite photos of Syrian presidential palace day before downing Russian transport plane

Judah Ari Gross
Haaretz
Mon, 17 Sep 2018 13:42 UTC
israeli satellite damascus palace
© Israeli Defense MinistryA photograph of Syria's Presidential Palace in Damascus taken by Israel's Ofek 11 spy satellite, which was released by the Defense Ministry on September 17, 2018.
Israel on Monday released photographs taken by its newest spy satellite of sites located deep inside Syria, including Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's palace, in an apparent threat to the regime.

The images, taken by the Ofek 11 spy satellite, were released by the Defense Ministry to mark 30 years since Israel's first orbital launch on September 19, 1988.

The three photographs released by the ministry showed the Syrian Presidential Palace, also known as the Palace of the People; tanks on a Syrian military base; and the Damascus international airport, which was reportedly targeted by an Israeli missile strike on Saturday night.

Comment: This was a threat. The message was "we can decapitate the Syrian govt if we damn well want to."

One day later, the Israelis launched what appears to be a coordinated operation with the French military to confuse Syrian air defence systems into shooting down a friendly plane. That may not have been specifically intended; we might have learned today that Russian S-400s took out a Turkish jet, or attacked a US ship. But the provocation certainly was done with a view to provoking something in order to 'alter the facts on the ground'.

Step-by-step the Israelis are taking increasingly overt actions that betray the pretexts used to justify their - and wider Western - intervention in Syria. With the false-flag chemical attack ruse rumbled, they just went ahead and attacked Syrian positions close to the frontline with al-Qaeda/ISIS proxy forces.

This time they're not even bothering to claim that they were attacking 'Iranian' positions in Syria. They executed an explicit attack against multiple Syrian positions, coupled with a barely-veiled attack directly against Russian forces. Its purpose may have been to somehow torpedo yesterday's landmark deal between Turkey and Russia, which the West - because it was calling for 'peace' in Idlib - had no choice but to publicly support.

Thankfully, Russia didn't respond rashly, as usual. Israel may try something like this again, and cause even greater 'accidental fire' - like a Russian missile hitting an American target, for example. At which point the US is 'embroiled' deeper in Syria and has 'just cause' for remaining there. That is apparently what is uppermost in Putin's mind; leaving the US with no 'just cause' for its heavy military presence in the Middle East.

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Better Earth

Best of the Web: Putin and Erdogan agree to establish demilitarized zone in Idlib - Russian defense minister rules out new military operation


RT
Mon, 17 Sep 2018 18:47 UTC
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Vladimir Putin
© Sergey Guneev / Sputnik
Russia and Turkey have agreed a "demilitarized zone" between militants and government troops in Syria's Idlib, President Vladimir Putin said after hours-long talks with Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan focused on solving the crisis.

"We've focused on the situation in the province of Idlib, considering presence of large militant groups and their infrastructure there," Putin said at a press conference after the talks.

"We've agreed to create a demilitarized zone between the government troops and militants before October 15. The zone will be 15-20km wide, with full withdrawal of hardline militants from there, including the Jabhat Al-Nusra."

Comment: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told journalists following the Putin-Erdogan announcement that a new military operation in the Syrian province of Idlib was now off the agenda:
The defense ministries of Russia and Turkey signed a memorandum on Monday on the stabilization of the situation in the zone of de-escalation in Syria's Idlib. The document was signed following bilateral talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, held on Monday in the Russian southern resort city of Sochi.

Asked by a journalist whether it was true that no more military operations were planned to be held in Idlib, the Russian defense minister said "Yes [it is true]."

"In the hours to come, we plan to make final agreements with them [the Turkish side] on the remaining provisions, which are stipulated in this document," Shoigu said.
The press statements by Putin and Erdogan:

Turkey's turn towards the East is all but complete. However this demilitarized zone plays out, Turkish-Russian cooperation is further cemented by this arrangement. We're now a long way from that 'Turkish' shoot-down of a Russian jet in late 2015.

With this memorandum, Erdogan gets his way in protecting 'FSA' militias loyal to Turkey, and preventing another wave of refugees (and who-knows-what terrorists) from crossing the border, while Putin gets to further isolate US/Western forces from having any reason to be anywhere in Syria.

Putin mentioned, in passing, that Damascus is supportive of this arrangement "in general," so Syria has apparently little choice but to accept that this arrangement is 'above its pay-grade'. As much as Russia is serious about honoring its fundamental agreement with Syria to have military presence there in exchange for liberating all of Syria from terrorists, it's apparently more important to Russia at this point to win other friends in the region on the way towards that goal.

See also: Erdogan: Turkey will cooperate with Russia on eliminating terrorists in Idlib, Syria

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Windsock

Best of the Web: Watch as Super-typhoon Mangkhut wreaks havoc in Philippines, Hong Kong and southern China


RT
Sun, 16 Sep 2018 08:17 UTC
typhoon mangkhut
© Jason Lee / ReutersShenzhen, China, September 16, 2018
Terrified residents are holed up inside trembling buildings in southern China, as Typhoon Mangkhut approaches from the Philippines. Winds were seen tearing apart buildings, causing flooding, and flipping over vehicles.

Hong Kong and nearby Macau issued a rare No. 10 warning signal - the highest level possible - for the typhoon on Sunday. The cities are almost entirely shut down and one of Macau's main attractions, local casinos, were ordered to close for the first time in history, CGTN reports. The disaster has already left five people injured in Macao, according to local media.


Comment: The Day After Tomorrow? A record 7 named storms are whirling across the globe

More footage of typhoon Mangkhut:










And check this out - apparently around the same time of the Typhoon, a tornado was reported:




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Attention

Best of the Web: FBI/DOJ violated FISA rules to begin criminal investigation of Trump team without evidence of a crime

Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review
Sat, 15 Sep 2018 08:30 UTC
fbi logo
© Jim Bourg/Reuters
Will this be the week? With bated breath, we wait to find out whether we've reached the moment, after the Labor Day end of summer, just as the critical midterm races heat up, when President Trump will follow through on his threat to declassify and publicize key FISA-gate documents - in particular, the redacted portions of the Carter Page surveillance-warrant applications.

I hope the president follows through, at least to the extent he can do so without putting intelligence methods and sources at risk. Accountability is essential here.

The FBI and the Obama Justice Department launched an investigation of the Democrats' political adversaries, and they used Clinton-campaign-generated, foreign-provided innuendo to do it. They strained to make a case on Donald Trump even as they were burying a daunting criminal case on Mrs. Clinton. As I have previously explained, moreover, the president was misled about his status: not only was he a suspect in the investigation, he was the main suspect.

The main suspect in an investigation with no crime.
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Biohazard

Best of the Web: US global biological warfare program enters the spotlight once again

Peter Korzun
Strategic Culture Foundation
Thu, 13 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
containers on water
© unknown
This is a scoop to bring the US biological warfare effort back into the spotlight. On Sept. 11, Russian media reported that the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research laboratory, a research facility for high-level biohazard agents located near Tbilisi, Georgia, has used human beings for conducting biological experiments.

Former Minister of State Security of Georgia Igor Giorgadze said about it during a news conference in Moscow, urging US President Donald Trump to launch an investigation. He has lists of Georgians who died of hepatitis after undergoing treatment in the facility in 2015 and 2016. Many passed away on the same day. The declassified documents contain neither the indication of the causes of deaths nor real names of the deceased. According to him, the secret lab run by the US military was established during the tenure of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. The viruses could spread to neighboring countries, including Russia, Igor Giorgadze warned.

The laboratory's work is tightly under wraps. Only US personnel with security clearance have access to it. These people are accorded diplomatic immunity under the 2002 US-Georgia Agreement on defense cooperation.

Eurasia Review reported that in 2014 the Lugar Center was equipped with a special plant for breeding insects to enable launching the Sand Fly project in Georgia and the Caucasus. In 2014-2015 years, the bites of sand flies such as Phlebotomins caused a fever. According to the source, "today the Pentagon has a great interest to the study of Tularemia, also known as the fever of rabbits, which is also equated with biological weapons. Distributors of such a disease can be mites and rodents".

Comment: The US has bio-labs in 25 countries without any international protocol or oversight allowed...this amounts to a license to kill within any population.

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Vader

Best of the Web: Tucker Carlson rightly wonders at Washington's Idlib logic: US to bomb Syria to protect Al-Qaeda?


RT
Fri, 14 Sep 2018 17:28 UTC
Al qaeda Syria
© Khalil Ashawi / Reuters
Washington's threats to take military action to deter a Syrian assault on Al-Qaeda-held Idlib province has prompted Fox News host Tucker Carlson to ask the obvious question: Why would the US bomb a country to protect terrorists?

Carlson marveled at how 17 years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the US was now using its military might to shield - rather than eradicate - Al-Qaeda.

"More than 10,000 rebels in that province are believed to be aligned with Al-Qaeda. So that would mean that 17 years after 9/11, America could soon find itself bombing a country to protect Al-Qaeda sympathizers. Why would we do that?" Carlson asked.

Comment: The Empire's hypocrisy is laid bare. Tucker called it when he mentioned that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran in their war, but the US stood by because they approved of the goal to destroy Iran.

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Pistol

Best of the Web: Nevada sociology professor shoots himself on campus to protest President Trump

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Thu, 13 Sep 2018 13:48 UTC

Comment: What can we say about this. Words fail us.


College of Southern Nevada gun
The latest school shooting to occur didn't happen on some high school campus in the suburbs by an angry teen brandishing an AR, but was carried out by a crazed Trump-hating sociology professor who says he wanted to make a shocking political statement.

Contrary to what it may at first appear, this story is not from The Onion, but a bizarre and all too real event which sent students scrambling as they heard a shot ring out in the bathroom of a campus building. And we're quite sure the students who actually rushed to the wounded professor's aid to save his life once they realized what had happened aren't fully appreciative of his "political message".

Mark J. Bird, a 69-year old longtime sociology professor at the College of Southern Nevada shot himself in the bathroom of a campus building where he works, and is now facing felony gun charges after the August 28 incident, revealed for the first time this week based on a police report.

Police confirm in their court report that the professor "had shot himself in protest of President Donald Trump".

Comment: Trump Derangement Syndrome is reaching new levels of mentally-unhinged absurdity.

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Sherlock

Best of the Web: 'We're Not Agents': UK's Suspects in Skripal Case Interviewed by RT's Editor-in-chief


RT
Thu, 13 Sep 2018 15:44 UTC
skripal suspects interview
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov
RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has spoken exclusively to the two men the UK named as suspects in the Skripal poisoning - Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.

UK prosecutors claimed their names were not real, but Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov have confirmed their identities in an interview with RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan.

Both men said emphatically that they were not Russian intelligence agents and were merely sightseeing in Salisbury. They said they wanted to visit the "wonderful town" of Salisbury but realized they came at a bad time - and not just because of the wet English weather.

The subsequent accusations caught them completely by surprise.

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Better Earth

Best of the Web: Putin, Xi & Abe: Greater Eurasia Coming Together in Russian Far East

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Wed, 12 Sep 2018 15:28 UTC
putin xi jin ping
© Russian Presidential Press and Information Office handout / Anadolu AgencyChina's President Xi Jinping, second left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, second right, making bliny [Russian pancakes] as they visit the Far East Street exhibition on the sidelines of the 2018 Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Sept 11, 2018.
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were involved in a joint cooking venture. Pancakes with caviar (blin, in Russian), chased down with a shot of vodka. It just happened at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. Talk about a graphic (and edible) metaphor sealing the ever-evolving 'Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership'.

For a few years now the Vladivostok forum has been offering an unequaled roadmap tracking progress on Eurasia integration.

Last year, on the sidelines of the forum, Moscow and Seoul delivered a bombshell: a trilateral trade platform, crucially integrating Pyongyang, revolving around a connectivity corridor between the whole Korean peninsula and the Russian Far East.

Roundtable topics this year included integration of the Russian Far East into Eurasian logistic chains; once again the Russian link-up with the Koreas - aiming to build a Trans-Korean railway connected to the Trans-Siberian and a "Pipelineistan" branch-out into South Korea via China. Other topics were the Russia-Japan partnership in terms of Eurasian transit, centering on the link-up of the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) upgrades to a projected railway to the island of Sakhalin, and then all the way to the island of Hokkaido.

The future: Tokyo to London, seamlessly, by train.


Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Trump Ditches Europe, Europe Bluffs, Russia and China Carry on With Eurasian Integration

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