Best of the Web:


Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: Tony Blair, Phantom of the Opera

Pepe Escobar
RT.com
Tue, 17 Jun 2014 16:49 UTC
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© Steve Bell
The Phantom of the (tragic) Middle East Opera is back. A killer without a clue, he can't be blamed for not being consistent.

His most recent opus speaks for itself; like a Kabuki mask high on Earl Grey tea, the Phantom is eviscerated by his own mighty pen, actually sword.

The fact that the Phantom keeps getting away with his vast desert of convoluted lies - instead of languishing in some rotten, extraordinary rendition hotel - spells out all we need to know about so-called Western "elites", of which he's been a faithful, and handsomely rewarded, servant.

So Western "inaction" in Syria has led to the latest Iraq tragedy? Sorry, Tony; it was yours and "Dubya's" 2003 Shock and Awe "action" that set the whole Shakespearean tragedy in motion.

The Phantom always wanted the Obama administration to bomb Syria, as much as he labored for "Dubya" to destroy Iraq. Phantom logic never considered that would have installed in Damascus the same Islamic State of Iraqi and the Levant (ISIL) that is now making a push towards Baghdad.
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Quenelle

Best of the Web: Open letter to Tony 'Scarface' Blair

Alan Hart
alanhart.net
Sun, 15 Jun 2014 19:19 UTC
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This man needs to be locked up
You have stated on your website and confirmed in an interview with the BBC that "We (presumably that's you as prime minister and President Bush) didn't cause the Iraq crisis." The main cause of what is happening in Iraq today is, you said, the "predictable and malign effect" of the Western failure to intervene in Syria. And you are calling for unspecified intervention in Iraq. I presume you mean drone and other air attacks - war without American and British boots on the ground.

I think the leaders of all the major powers are to be condemned for allowing the slaughter and destruction in Syria to proceed, so I agree that intervention to stop it was needed. The question is - what form should intervention have taken?

In my view what was required at a very early point was a private conversation between President Obama and President Putin. In it Obama would have said to Putin something like, "What's your price for requiring President Assad to stand down and make way for internationally supervised elections?" That's the way an American president who was a real statesman would have played it. My speculation is that Putin would have responded positively on terms acceptable to Obama.

Now to your assertion that you and President Bush should not be blamed in whole or in part for what is happening in Iraq today.

Comment: See also: Psycho Blair: Iraq invasion not to blame for rising extremism - Syrian war is

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Magnify

Best of the Web: Saker scorecard for the US "lukewarm war" on Russia - strategic and tactical levels

The Saker
The vineyard of the Saker
Mon, 16 Jun 2014 13:43 UTC
Putin Obama interview

First, I have to explain the title: "A scorecard for US war on Russia": what we are witnessing today is beyond any doubt a US war on Russia, except that it that is is neither quite "cold" nor "hot": it's tepid, lukewarm. Not for the people dying of course, but by it's choice of methods. It is not a Cold War because people are dying, because tanks, artillery and airpower is being used on a daily basis now, but it is not a Hot War either, because while people in the Ukraine are being killed, the real target of this war is, of course, Russia. In other words, this is not a Russian-Ukrainian war, nor is it a US-Ukrainian war, it is a US-Russian war, fought in the Ukraine with "Hot War" methods, but whose real target are not the murdered people in the Ukraine but Russia as a country and a civilizational project. I think that it is crucial to state that to make a correct analysis of what is going on.
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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed
Earth Insight / The Guardian
Tue, 10 Jun 2014 22:19 UTC
The Pentagon
© Jason Reed/ReutersThe Pentagon is funding social science research to model risks of "social contagions" that could damage US strategic interests.
Social science is being militarised to develop 'operational tools' to target peaceful activists and protest movements

A US Department of Defense (DoD) research programme is funding universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world, under the supervision of various US military agencies. The multi-million dollar programme is designed to develop immediate and long-term "warfighter-relevant insights" for senior officials and decision makers in "the defense policy community," and to inform policy implemented by "combatant commands."

Launched in 2008 - the year of the global banking crisis - the DoD 'Minerva Research Initiative' partners with universities "to improve DoD's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the US."

Among the projects awarded for the period 2014-2017 is a Cornell University-led study managed by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research which aims to develop an empirical model "of the dynamics of social movement mobilisation and contagions." The project will determine "the critical mass (tipping point)" of social contagians by studying their "digital traces" in the cases of "the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the 2011 Russian Duma elections, the 2012 Nigerian fuel subsidy crisis and the 2013 Gazi park protests in Turkey."

Twitter posts and conversations will be examined "to identify individuals mobilised in a social contagion and when they become mobilised."

Another project awarded this year to the University of Washington "seeks to uncover the conditions under which political movements aimed at large-scale political and economic change originate," along with their "characteristics and consequences." The project, managed by the US Army Research Office, focuses on "large-scale movements involving more than 1,000 participants in enduring activity," and will cover 58 countries in total.
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2 + 2 = 4

Best of the Web: Lavrov tells it like it is: Iraq developments show total failure of American-British 'adventure'


RT
Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:55 UTC
lavrov
© Reuters/Leonhard FoegerRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, not afraid to tell the truth, proves that not all politicians are lying dirtbags.
The events in Iraq are a result of the actions carried out by the US and the UK, and the situation has spiraled out of control, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists.

"It has been reported that the UK foreign minister declared that the events in Iraq are, according to him, an illustration that terrorism is rampant in the region due to the absence of reconciliation in Syria," Lavrov said.

"We've known that our English colleagues have a unique ability to twist everything. But I didn't expect such cynicism, because the events that are taking place in Iraq are an illustration of a complete failure of the venture started by the US and the UK that allowed it to spiral out of control completely."

"We express our solidarity with the Iraqi authorities, the Iraqi people who should restore peace and security in their country, but the actions of our Western partners raise a lot of questions," Lavrov marked.
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Gold Seal

Best of the Web: The geopolitics of the World Cup

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:17 UTC
FIFA 2014 World Cup Logo
© Wikimedia Commons

Sao Paulo - One of the defining images of the World Cup - so far - has been the sight of the Mannschaft - aka the German team - fraternizing with Pataxo Indians a few hundred meters away from the spot where Brazil was "discovered" in 1500. Call it a European re-discovery of the exotic tropics.

Then there's the English Team frolicking by the seaside, inside a military base, with the Sugarloaf as gorgeous backdrop, backed up by a scientific expert in humidity and industrial ventilators aplenty (after all there's the Rumble in the Jungle against Italy this Saturday "deep in the Amazon rainforest", as British tabloids tell it.)

The World Cup - the greatest show on earth - kicks off just as a relentless Made in the West (client states included) anti-Chinese and anti-Russian propaganda/downright vilification shatters all known hysteria levels.

And that means the BRICS are a target; in the case of Brazil, an emerging power sitting strategically over the bulk of the Amazon rainforest just as progressive Latin American integration has dared to turn the Monroe Doctrine into (branded) toilet paper.

Recently, Brazil brought at least 30 million people out of poverty. China invests in medical care and education. Russia refuses to be bullied as in the drunkard Yeltsin years. In the past few years, the World Cup has been all about the BRICS: South Africa in 2010, Brazil now, and Russia in 2018. Qatar in 2022 - if it ever happens - is more like a Gulf petrodollar-fueled bribery racket gone wrong.

It's amusing to check how the City of London - which loves Russian cash, craves Chinese investment and has a soft spot for Brazilian soft power - takes it all in. With an added strand of British humor, they could easily have interpreted the Rumble in the Jungle as NATO battling it out in the middle of the much-coveted rainforest (think the water wars of the near future).
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Video

Flashback Best of the Web: Who runs Hollywood? C'mon

Joel Stein
Los Angeles Times
Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:04 UTC
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I have never been so upset by a poll in my life. Only 22% of Americans now believe "the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews," down from nearly 50% in 1964. The Anti-Defamation League, which released the poll results last month, sees in these numbers a victory against stereotyping. Actually, it just shows how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run Hollywood.

How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah.

The person they were yelling at in that ad was SAG President Alan Rosenberg (take a guess). The scathing rebuttal to the ad was written by entertainment super-agent Ari Emanuel (Jew with Israeli parents) on the Huffington Post, which is owned by Arianna Huffington (not Jewish and has never worked in Hollywood.)

Comment: See also:

Billionaire Hollywood producer behind Stone's 'JFK' movie, Aaron Milchan, was secret operative for Israel's illegal nukes program and Mossad arms dealer

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Megaphone

Best of the Web: Russia turns its back on the petrodollar

Michael Snyder
Investment Watch
Tue, 10 Jun 2014 13:37 UTC
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The Russians are actually making a move against the petrodollar. It appears that they are quite serious about their de-dollarization strategy. The largest natural gas producer on the planet, Gazprom, has signed agreements with some of their biggest customers to switch payments for natural gas from U.S. dollars to euros. And Gazprom would have never done this without the full approval of the Russian government, because the Russian government holds a majority stake in Gazprom. There hasn't been a word about this from the big mainstream news networks in the United States, but this is huge. When you are talking about Gazprom, you are talking about a company that is absolutely massive. It is one of the largest companies in the entire world and it makes up 8 percent of Russian GDP all by itself. It holds 18 percent of the natural gas reserves of the entire planet, and it is also a very large oil producer. So for Gazprom to make a move like this is extremely significant.

When Barack Obama decided to slap some meaningless economic sanctions on Russia a while back, he probably figured that the world would forget about them after a few news cycles.

But the Russians do not forget, and they certainly do not forgive.

Comment: See also:

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Quenelle

Best of the Web: The Normandy landing and World War II: The lies grow more audacious

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research
Sat, 07 Jun 2014 15:45 UTC
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D-Day was arguably the first 'TV war', with hundreds of reporters and cameramen sent in with US and British troops landing on France's northern beaches.
If there were any doubts that Western "leaders" live in a fantasy make-believe world constructed out of their own lies, the G-7 meeting and 70th anniversary celebration of the Normandy landing dispelled the doubts.

The howlers issuing from these occasions are enough to split your sides. Obama and his lap dog Cameron described the Normandy landing on June 6, 1944, as "the greatest liberation force that the world has ever known" and took all the credit for the US and Britain for the defeat of Hitler. No mention was made of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, which for three years prior to the Normandy landing had been fighting and defeating the Wehrmacht.

The Germans lost World War II at the Battle of Stalingrad, which was fought from August 23, 1942 until February 2, 1943, when most of the remnants of the powerful German Sixth Army surrendered, including 22 generals.
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Bullseye

Best of the Web: End game: Bilderbergers have Russia in their sights

Ekaterina Kudashkina
Voice of Russia
Wed, 04 Jun 2014 16:35 UTC
cello politicians
© Reuters

The first day of the G7 summit in Brussels, the first time in 17 years to be held without Russia, has been dominated by - Russia. The leaders were supposed to come up with a new "Russian" strategy and agree on their policies in the Ukraine crisis.

Yet, the real decision makers were discussing the issue several days back at the 60th Bilderberg conference - a media-shy annual event, held in Copenhagen last weekend. So what are the plans, carved out by the Bilderbergers? The Voice of Russia is getting an insight into the discussion at one of most secretive gatherings in the world, together with Daniel Estulin, political analyst and journalist with a special focus on Bilderberg policies.

"I think their position is very clear from their final objective and, their final objective, obviously, is the end game in Russia. Until Russia can be subjugated, you will not be able to have one world government, one world order, one World Company Ltd - call it whatever you want.
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