Puppet Masters
None of this is based on fact. To start with, it isn't known that MH-17 was brought down by a surface-to-air missile; it could have been an air-to-air missile, a bomb on board, a mechanical failure, or the same (or different) mysterious force that brought down MH-370 earlier this year. Mysteries abound, and yet western media knows it's Mr. Putin's fault.
Step through the looking glass over to Russia, and you hear a completely different story: the plane was shot down by the Ukrainians in order to frame the rebels and Russia in an attempt to pull NATO into the conflict.
Here, we have numerous supporting "facts," at varying levels of truthiness. But I have no way to independently verify any of them, and so instead I will organize what has been known into a pattern, and let you decide for yourself which story (if any) you should believe.
When trying to catch a criminal, a standard method is to look at means, motive and opportunity. Was the criminal physically capable of committing the act? Did the criminal have a good reason for committing it? Did the criminal get a chance to do it? One more criterion is often quite helpful: does the crime fit the perpetrator's known modus operandi? Let's give this method a try.
More than a decade later, that remains a crucial, if barely noticed, lesson of our moment. Jonathan Schell died this March, but he left behind a legacy of reporting and thinking -- from The Real War and The Fate of the Earth to The Unconquerable World -- about just how, as the power to destroy ratcheted up, war left its traditional boundaries, and what that has meant for us (as well as, potentially, for worlds to come). In The Unconquerable World, published just before the Bush invasion of Iraq, he went in search of other paths of change, including the nonviolent one, and in doing so he essentially imagined the Arab Spring and caught the essence of both the horrors and possibilities available to us in hard-headed ways that were both prophetic and moving.
Today, partly in honor of his memory (and my memory of him) and partly because I believe his sense of how our world worked then and still works was so acute, this website offers a selection from that book. Consider it a grim walk down post-9/11 Memory Lane, a moment when Washington chose force as its path to... well, we now know (as Schell foresaw then) that it was indeed a path to hell. - Tom

President Barack Obama’s economic advisers say millions of people aren’t working because of an aging population, rebutting GOP arguments that the problem is really over-regulation.
The report from President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers also said little can be done to reverse the trend outside of allowing more immigrants to enter the country, which would help create a younger workforce.
Republicans have argued for years now that the private sector has limped along because of government interference through regulation, and an exploding national debt that companies see as a justification for potential tax hikes down the road. The GOP says these government threats are borne out in data that shows Obama has presided over an economy that failed to create jobs at rates seen in past recovery periods.
Republicans have passed dozens of bills aimed at slowing regulation and cutting spending, most of which have been ignored by the Democratic Senate.
The UK's terrorism laws are so broad they could be applied to journalists and their supporters, as well as crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism, according to a new report from the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.
David Anderson QC presented his report to Parliament today, and called on ministers to reverse the increasing "creep" of the laws in recent years.
The report focused on the definition of terrorism in the UK, which among other things currently means that someone can be considered a terrorist if they publish material that is considered to endanger life or to pose a health risk to the public. This could have legitimate purposes, perhaps in the case of a radical cleric calling for violence, or someone distributing plans on how to manufacture bombs.
But the problem is that the law isn't specific enough, meaning that it can be applied to cases that do not have anything to do with terrorism. Anderson makes reference to section 1(1)(b) of the Terrorism Act 2000, which states, "In this Act "terrorism" means the use or threat of action where the use or threat is designed to influence the government [or an international governmental organisation] or to intimidate the public or a section of the public."
That may sound reasonable, but upon closer inspection it's quite wide-reaching, and the report highlights that in other countries, a "terrorist" under this section must additionally have the intention of coercing or intimidating the government. There is concern that this broader definition gives police and the legal system much greater powers where they are not necessary or appropriate.

Orthodox Jews dance with Israeli soldiers near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, on July 20, 2014
The UN Security Council expressed concern for the growing number of casualties in Gaza and issued a fresh appeal for an immediate ceasefire as Israel ramped up a major military offensive with fresh strikes Monday in the Palestinian territory.
"The members of the Security Council express serious concern about the growing numbers of casualties," said Rwandan Ambassador Eugene Richard Gasana, whose country chairs the 15-member council.
The Palestinian death toll soared to 476 after the bloodiest single day in Gaza in five years, with a spokesman for the enclave's emergency services saying more than a third of Sunday's 120 victims were women and children.
The 38 economic agreements are related to the production and development of Venezuelan oil and agriculture, as well as social and cultural expansion, says the BBC. The deals provides a credit line of $4 billion in return for Venezuelan oil and oil products, as well as allocating $691 million to explore Venezuela's gold and copper reserves, and an agreement to develop the countries' third jointly-owned satellite.
China is the second-largest market for Venezuelan oil after the United States.
The underlying purpose of the visit has been to secure more natural resources from Latin America to fuel China's long term economic expansion, BBC cites analysts. The Venezuela negotiations were preceded by visits to Brazil and Argentina.
At the BRICS summit in Brazil the Chinese leader, along with the other emerging powers Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, launched a $100 billion BRICS Development Bank and a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 billion. Both will counter the influence of Western-based lending institutions and the dollar.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (R) makes a speach during the 6th BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, on July 15, 2014
For the past 70 years, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have been the pillars of the world's economic system, coming to the rescue of countries in trouble and supporting development projects, respectively.
Comment: The idea that the IMF and World Bank "came to the rescue of countries in trouble" is one much espoused through the mainstream media, but the reality is that they do anything but rescue those countries. The truth is that those institutions have been at the heart of allowing foreign corporations to invade poor countries and strip them of their natural resources and raw materials, all for the gain of the greedy 1%. The only thing these institutions have been the pillar of is increasing the wealth and power of the psychopathic elite.
But the Bretton Woods institutions are regularly criticised for their inability to reflect the growing and important contributions of the major emerging economies to the global economy.
China, the world's second-largest economy, continues to have just slightly more voting power in the IMF than Italy, about five times smaller. And, since their creation in 1944, the IMF and the World Bank have only been led by Americans and Europeans.
Britain's Independent Police Complaints Commission said a technique known as "drive stun", when a Taser is applied directly to the flesh and the trigger pulled with no probes being fired, is still being used in 16 percent of firings, despite officers no longer being trained to use it in this fashion.
In 2013, Tasers were deployed 10,380 times across England and Wales, provoking 154 complaints, 15 of which related to "drive stun" incidents.
The report also raises concerns about the use of Tasers on people in police custody, and on vulnerable people such as the mentally ill and young people. It also questioned why some smaller police forces were more likely to use them.
The new round of computer crash victims includes David Fish, who routinely corresponded with Lois Lerner, as well as Lerner subordinate Andy Megosh, Lerner's technical adviser Justin Lowe, and Cincinnati-based agent Kimberly Kitchens.
"You stated at the time that document was produced to Congress, the document, the white paper in Exhibit 3[the June 13 memo], that it was accurate to the best of your knowledge. Is it still accurate?," a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigator asked Kane.
"There is an issue as to whether or not there is a ‑‑ that all of the backup recovery tapes were destroyed on the 6‑month retention schedule," Kane replied.
"So some of those backup tapes may still exist?," the investigator asked.
"I don't know whether they are or they aren't, but it's an issue that's being looked at," Kane said.
The move comes as Russia insists it needs to protect domestic markets after Ukraine signed the Association Agreement on June 27, which gives Kiev duty-free trade status with the European Union.
The cancellation of the duty-free relationship with Ukraine will lead to higher import tariffs of around 7.8 percent.
"The circumstances that existed in the time when the CIS free trade area agreements were signed have significantly changed for Ukraine which is historically the main trade partner of Russia being deeply integrated in many areas of the economy," RIA quotes a source from the government familiar with the situation.
Comment: Russia previously warned the Ukrainian government that there would be significant economic consequences to signing this pact with the EU:
Ukraine trade agreement with EU will mean economic suicide says Putin's aide
To deal or not to deal? Ukraine's EU-Russia crossroads in facts and numbers











Comment: As readers of SOTT.NET know, there was more behind the fateful day of 9/11 than an unwildly band of terrorists with boxcutters. 9/11 paved the way for the future human genocide committed by Western forces, led by the US, and the very act that started the wheels in motion needs to be understood in this light. There are many signs that Mossad was behind 9/11 and that Israel soon took advantage of the 'war on terror' tactics reveals once again their fingerprints of deception, the way they 'do war'.
The so called 'war on terror' opened new doors of misperception and pathological infection of the popular mind that fomented a war on people rather than opposing military forces. Since 9/11 America has engaged in, funded and otherwise supported the mass murder against the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, and Ukraine. It's said these are wars, but the slaughter of people and the destruction of whole societies who have no real military force to defend themselves is not war.