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Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: Insider report forecasts multi-billion-dollar profits from global riot 'contagion': Elites poised for global chaos?

Nafeez Ahmed
Insurge Intelligence
Sat, 07 May 2016 19:55 UTC
riot gear expo
© IB TimesShiny suits, coming to a town near you soon (unless they're already there): Riot gear on sale at the 2015 Milipol security expo in Paris
Forecasts of relentless civil unrest in the US, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia seen as massive 'investment opportunity'

The next five years will see the international market for 'riot control systems' boom to a value of more than $5 billion at an annual growth rate of 5%, according to a new report by a global business intelligence firm.

The report forecasts a dramatic rise in civil unrest across the world, including in North America and Europe, driven by an increase in Ferguson-style incidents and "extremist attacks."

The Middle East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific regions will also experience a persistent rise in conflicts.

This increasing trend in instability promises billions of dollars of profits for global defence firms, concludes the report, published last month by Infiniti Research Ltd., a market intelligence firm whose clients include Fortune 500 companies.

Comment: Not included in this picture is the potential for mass infrastructural damage, mass death, and mass migration resulting from the increasingly extreme weather and environmental chaos in general.

They do seem to have some idea of what's in store on that front, but in the end, the Powers That Be will be blindsided by seeing only what they want to see...



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Георгиевская ленточка

Best of the Web: Worldwide 'Immortal Regiment' marches pay tribute to Second World War heroes


RT
Mon, 09 May 2016 21:55 UTC
Local residents carry portraits of their ancestors and participants in World War Two as they celebrate the 70th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis in St. Petersburg
© Dmitry Lovetsky / APLocal residents carry portraits of their ancestors and participants in World War Two as they celebrate the 70th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis in St. Petersburg, May 9.
The "Immortal regiment" movement has spread from Russia to cities worldwide, with thousands of people in 42 countries across the globe already marching or getting ready to march in commemoration of their loved ones who fought in World War Two.

The marches, which are taking place from May 7 through May 9, are an act of admiration and remembrance of all those who showed bravery during perhaps the most terrifying time in our recent history. They serve to show that each person who died or suffered in World War II was someone's family, someone's loved one.

Since its inception in 2007, the Immortal Regiment initiative has been met with unprecedented support, and by 2015 it had received national status. Last year it was held in seven other countries in post-Soviet space and Europe for the first time. This year's map of the Regiment movement, however, is unprecedented.

Comment: The Reds' victory banner was also held high in Syria, where Russian and Syrian forces marched side-by-side:
Russia's Khmeimim airbase in Syria has held its own parade commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany. Both Russian and Syrian servicemen participated in a celebratory march on the airfield which was followed by a procession of military vehicles.

The proceedings began with flag-bearers entering the field carrying the Victory Banner, a symbol marking fascism's defeat. The commander of the Russian operation in the country, Colonel-General Alexander Dvornikov, then officialy opened the parade, with its Russian participants performing the country's national anthem.



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Books

Best of the Web: Victory Day: American narrative of World War II 'falsifies history'


Sputnik
Mon, 09 May 2016 21:14 UTC
The Great Patriotic War
© Sputnik/ Vladimir Grebnev
As Russia celebrates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany 71 years ago, Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear talks with historian Peter Kuznick about the West's habit of downplaying the USSR's role in World War II and the United States' part in sparking the Cold War that followed.

"The Americans and the Soviet have such different memories of World War II," Kuznich, a professor at American University, told Loud & Clear's Brian Becker. "Americans see it in the triumphalist sense. The Good War, the victory against fascism. But the American sacrifice was relatively minimal compared to the Soviet sacrifice."

"The Soviets lost 27 million people in World War II. Everybody was affected. All families lost people and they all suffered immensely during the war."
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Pirates

Best of the Web: Pentagon plan: Convert Daesh caliphate into US-backed Syrian rebel redoubt

Stephen Gowans
what's left
Fri, 06 May 2016 21:11 UTC
special forces
US Special Forces are recruiting and equipping Sunni Arab fighters to capture Raqqa, the capital of ISIS’s caliphate. Once captured, the territory will likely remain in the hands of the US surrogates and almost certainly won’t be returned to the legitimate Syrian government. Instead, it will form the core of a US-puppet regime in Syria.

Comment: The scenario Gowans describes in this article is definitely plausible. It accounts for much of the U.S.'s 'strategy' in Syria today, and some of its more perplexing talking points. Whether or not it will actually happen is a different story. Syria and her allies are likely clued in to what's really going on, and doing everything in their power to prevent it. We'll just have to wait and see.


Washington is preparing to mount a campaign to transfer control of Syrian territory currently held by ISIS to rebels who operate under US influence, forming a rebel redoubt from which US proxies can continue to wage war on Damascus, and establishing the foundation of a US puppet state in Syria.

A key to US strategy is the artificial division of the conflict into a part to be resolved by military means, involving ISIS, and a part to be resolved through a political settlement, involving all other rebel formations. Nusra Front, the exception, is to be ignored, and rebranded. As Al-Qaeda's Syria franchise, it can hardly be embraced openly by the United States, though there is evidence of its being equipped covertly by the CIA.


Comment: And according to Lavrov, the Americans even tried to get it included in the latest Aleppo ceasefire!

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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: The storm of lies surrounding Syria's humanitarian crisis: Aleppo Is Burning campaign calls for Syria no-fly zone

Vanessa Beeley
21st Century Wire
Tue, 03 May 2016 09:41 UTC
aleppoisburning
The latest slick propaganda campaign from the RealityCreators, sourced from one man's bedroom in Coventry, UK, also known as "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights"

"I would like to point out something, if you open the trending section in Facebook you will see that Aleppo, Syria is trending. They say the Syrian government is continuing air-strikes on Aleppo. The funny thing is we dont see or hear any planes." ~ Marianne R Bedoun, Aleppo

The following photo was taken from Soros funded ANA Press director, Deiaa Dughmoch's Facebook page. Translated as Aleppo citizens searching the skies for war-planes. According to Marianne Bedoun, they might be there some time.

aleppo looking for planes
Marianne was immediately targeted by hate speech from the followers of mainstream media and the US NATO governed propaganda outlets who are controlling the Aleppo narrative. This from one UK based Facebook responder:
"Its about hiding the truth that Assad is massacring the Syrian people to keep himself in power and the US and NATO are backing him up rather than engaging in any Wahhabi terrorist support operation. Its really quite racist to call those defending their homes and lives NATO backed terrorists but I guess you are so deep in this shit you cant see." ~ Dick Gregory. [Juggler, also available for childrens parties]
Marianne responded from inside Aleppo:
You are right I am so deep in this I cant exit because I am a Syrian living in Aleppo. And please tell me where did you get your facts? Your brain-washing western media? I am telling you what I see every minute. Racist? We are the ones defending our homes against their brutal ways...hell cannons, hand-made missiles etc every day since day one"

Comment: The propaganda war has raged intensely since the battle of Aleppo began, but those peddling the most nonsense about the evils of the Assad government are the exact same parties heavily invested in regime change in Syria and plunging the Middle East into chaos. Sadly, the short memories of the idiots parroting the propaganda do not allow them to remember the lies we were told about Iraq, Libya and the countless other interventions or CIA proxy wars which ended in disaster for the countries being 'liberated'.

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Cloud Lightning

Best of the Web: The catastrophic events that have a high probability of leading to an American 'apocalypse'

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Sun, 01 May 2016 00:00 UTC
Apocalyptic scene
Is the strongest and most powerful nation on the planet headed for an apocalypse which will bring it to its knees? We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and apocalyptic themes have become very common in books, movies, television shows and video games. It is almost as if there is an unconscious understanding on a societal level that something very big and very bad is coming, even if the vast majority of the population cannot specifically identify what that is going to be. Last week, the Global Challenges Foundation released a new report entitled "Global Catastrophic Risks 2016" in which they discussed various apocalyptic events that they believe could wipe out more than 10 percent of the population of our planet, and they warned that these types of events "are more likely than we intuitively think"...
Sebastian Farquhar, director at the Global Priorities Project, told the Press Association: "There are some things that are on the horizon, things that probably won't happen in any one year but could happen, which could completely reshape our world and do so in a really devastating and disastrous way.

"History teaches us that many of these things are more likely than we intuitively think. Many of these risks are changing and growing as technologies change and grow and reshape our world. But there are also things we can do about the risks."

Comment: Do not be surprised if some of these probable developments occur in quick succession, or even more or less simultaneously. It's a good time now to prepare for them.

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Eye 1

Best of the Web: NATO-linked think tanks control Europe's reaction to refugee crisis

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 28 Apr 2016 03:14 UTC
usa-nato flags
© Unknown
A flood of uncontrolled war refugees from Syria, Libya, Tunisia and other Islamic countries destabilized by Washington's 'Arab Spring' Color Revolutions, has created the greatest social dislocation across the EU from Germany to Sweden to Croatia since the end of World War II. By now it has become clear to most that something quite sinister is afoot, something which threatens to destroy the social fabric of the very core of European civilization. What few realize is that the entire drama is being orchestrated, not by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, or by faceless EU bureaucrats of the Brussels EU Commission. It is being orchestrated by a cabal of NATO-linked think tanks.

Last October 8, 2015 amid the great stream of hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding into Germany from Syria, Tunisia, Libya and other lands, a newly self-confident German Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed on a popular German TV program, "I have a plan." She took the occasion to take a sharp dig at coalition partner, Bavarian CSU head, Horst Seehofer, a staunch critic of Merkel's open arms refugee position since spring 2015 that saw more than one million refugees enter Germany last year alone.

Since that point, with iron-hard resolve, the German Chancellor has defended the criminal Erdogan regime in Turkey, an essential partner in her "plan."

Comment: The Empire of Chaos' role in the refugee crisis continues to come into the light. With this article we can see who exactly is funding and promoting the preposterous deals between Erdogan and Europe, thus further strong-arming and destabilizing the EU. For more on the deal itself, check out: The EU-Turkey Refugee Deal & Other Strange Tales

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Play

Best of the Web: RT Documentary: In the Name of Profit - Daesh's dirty oil secrets, ties with Turkey (VIDEO)


RT
Sat, 30 Apr 2016 00:48 UTC
name of profit
Exclusive eye witness reports and documents, abandoned by retreating jihadists and found by RT Documentary crew members in a region liberated by Syrian Kurds, point to commercial scale oil smuggling operations and cozy relations between ISIS and Turkey.

Exclusive and unprecedented footage, along with witness accounts, was filmed by the RT Documentary crew only ten days after the town of Shaddadi in Syrian Kurdistan was liberated from Islamic State terrorists. The area surrounding the town is well known for its vast oil reserves and extraction activity that for months was reaped by ISIS command to generate revenue.

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No Entry

Best of the Web: Mission Accomplished? Snowden 'NSA Leak' had 'chilling effect' that scared people away from learning truth about terrorism


RT
Wed, 27 Apr 2016 20:24 UTC
snowden CIA
"Hi I'm Ed. Everyone knows I was a subcontractor for the NSA, but no one knows I was first recruited by the CIA."
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations on government mass surveillance have apparently scared a significant number of people away from searching for terrorism-related information on Wikipedia, as a new study shows readers are afraid of being investigated.

The conclusions come as the online encyclopedia giant showed a 30-percent drop in searches on terrorism-related topics - the most direct evidence yet of something called the "chilling effect,"described by University of Oxford and Toronto's Jonathon Penney as the measure of the negative impact on legal conduct that arises out of the leaks by the former NSA contractor who exposed the PRISM program.

Many in academic circles have been denying that such an effect exists, as well as its potential negative fallout. This prompted Penney to delve deeper into the issue, which has steadily been rising in popularity across academic disciplines.

His findings are published in an upcoming paper in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. There he analyzes the fall in traffic after taking a look at 48 Wikipedia topics monitored closely by the US government on national security concerns. "Al-Qaeda," "jihad" and related searches top the list compiled by the Department of Homeland Security.

Comment: This is what we said on Sott.net at the time, that the purpose of these 'leaks' was to let people know, or make them think, that they are being watched. This would have the same effect of dampening dissent as the actual terrorism itself: making people fear the authorities.

PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel

Behind the Headlines: NSA's PRISM offers neither privacy nor security

And we were right.

The very fact that the Chilling Effect is 'controversial' in mainstream academic circles tells us that it's very well understood (and applied) in elite circles: they don't want people to understand why they do what they do.

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No Entry

Best of the Web: Brazil's 'constitutional coup, color revolution' two-step

Andrew Korybko
Oriental Review
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 17:21 UTC
brazil rally
An anti-coup rally in Brasilia, March 2016
Brazil is in the midst of a prolonged regime change operation, as documented step-by-step by Pepe Escobar in his articles for Sputnik, RT, and the Strategic Culture Foundation. The author's intent isn't to get into the situational specifics of each and every detail behind the US' techniques, but to provide a general overview of the strategies that are at play and their contribution to Hybrid War theory. Brazil is an important New Cold War battleground not just because of its institutional multipolarity, but particularly because of its role in China's One Belt One Road global vision. The Chinese announced last year that they plan to build the Twin Ocean Railroad between Brazil's Atlantic Coast and Peru's Pacific one in order to facilitate transoceanic trade between the two BRICS members by enhancing Brasilia's transcontinental trade capability. Because this mega project is located in the US' own hemisphere, the "Monroe Doctrine"-obsessed Exceptionalists accelerated their existing regime change plans for Brazil with the intent of overthrowing its government and replacing it with a pro-unipolar quisling.


Comment: For more on Obama's revamped Monroe Doctrine, see Wayne Madsen's recent piece: Monroe Doctrine becomes Obama Doctrine: "The Western Hemisphere is ours"

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