Welcome to Sott.net
Wed, 27 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Che Guevara

Latin America condemns U.S. espionage at United Nations Security Council

Carla Stea
Global Research
Sat, 17 Aug 2013 20:09 UTC
Image
The United States appears to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar

Throughout the day, on August 6, President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner of Argentina chaired a historic United Nations Security Council meeting that revealed a seismic shift in geopolitical consciousness and incipient strength.

The agenda of Security Council meeting 7015 was: "Cooperation Between the United Nations and Regional and Sub-regional Organizations in Maintaining International Peace and Security."

The prelude to this meeting was held, the prior day, August 5, at a press stakeout given by Elias Jaua Milano, Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Hector Timerman, Foreign Minister of Argentina, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, Foreign Minister of Brazil, Luis Almagro, Foreign Minister of Uruguay and David Choquehuanca Cespedes, Foreign Minister of Bolivia.

      Read More...
Take 2

The Syria 'chemical weapons' media hype: Pushing for military intervention

Patrick Henningsen
Global Research
Sun, 25 Aug 2013 19:26 UTC
Image
Yesterday's report of an alleged 'chemical weapon' attack near Damascus has prompted the US and UK media machines to spin into overdrive in the push for a military intervention and regime change in Syria.

Washington's official response is predictable by now: "The White House is 'deeply concerned' about reports that chemical weapons were used by Syria's government against civilians".

In the UK, the mainstream media has put on a full-court press, clearly delivering a guilty verdict even before any claims can be independently verified, a coordinated trial-by-media which looks to be designed to coax a majority public support for either a direct supply of arms to the confab of 'rebel' insurgencies in Syria.

Pre-Iraq War talking points have been dusted off by the UK press and others, as the PR war begins for the hearts and minds of voters begins. It is alleged that hundreds have been killed by this latest 'gas attack' which is being compared by the UK media to Iraq where thousands of Kurds were gassed by Saddam Hussein in Halabja in 1988.

The focus of the UK and US government-media-complex led efforts to win public support for a "humanitarian intervention" similar that which was perpetrated in Libya in 2011, is now centred around the main victims of the conflict being portrayed as that of children.

No one within the government media complex is asking the most fundamentally important question here: were real military-grade chemical weapons actually used at all? The reason no one is asking this is because the answer to this question so far is a resounding 'no', which means that despite all the media hype neither the UK nor the US governments have a case against the Assad regime regarding the use of chemical weapons during this conflict.
      Read More...
Attention

Syria: Cameron and Obama agree to military strike over chemical weapons

Nigel Nelson
Mirror News
Sun, 25 Aug 2013 19:32 UTC
The US president sealed the deal in a 40-minute phone call to the Prime Minister at his holiday retreat in Cornwall.

Syria
© unknown
Wounded: Injured Assad soldier is carried away
David Cameron and Barack Obama last night agreed to take military action against Syria, the Sunday People has reported.

The US president sealed the deal in a 40-minute phone call to the Prime Minister at his holiday retreat in Cornwall.

The two leaders agreed that Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad was responsible for using chemical weapons against children.

Mr Obama and Mr Cameron will discuss the military options in the next few days.

They include missile strikes, ­disabling the Syrian air force or ­enforcing a no-fly zone across the country. A No.10 source said: "The significant use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response.

"The PM and the President are now looking at all the options."

But they ruled out sending in British and American ground troops.

The source said both leaders ­believe President Assad is deliberately trying to cover up the atrocity in the eastern suburbs of the capital Damascus on Wednesday that left up to 1,000 dead.

Assad forces were yesterday ­shelling the area of the nerve-gas attack to destroy evidence.

The source added: "It seems ­increasingly unlikely the United Nations investigators will be allowed to go there." That was despite requests from UN disarmament chief Angela Kane who was in Damascus yesterday to press for access.
      Read More...
Pills

Terrorists hopped up on amphetamines: Lebanese police seize trucks full of Captagon headed to Syria


The Daily Star
Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:20 UTC
Image
© The Daily Star/Mohammad Azakir
A large quantity of Captagon tablets are displayed at a police station in Beirut on Tuesday, August 13, 2013.
Police stopped an attempt to smuggle trailers filled with large amounts of Captagon pills into Syria Saturday, security sources told The Daily Star.

Six trailers heading to Syria were seized by a patrol of the Internal Security Forces in the town of Saadnayel in the Bekaa Valley.

The trailer trucks were accompanied by another vehicle, a blue Nissan Sunny, which had three Syrians in it.
      Read More...
Cards

Know when to fold 'em: Groklaw and the Total Security State

James Chang
Sott.net
Sun, 25 Aug 2013 17:12 UTC
Image
I'm sure many of you have heard about Lavabit shutting down rather than cooperating with a plan to expose their customers' communications to the government. It was quite a laudable response and, indeed, there was much celebratory banter. Then everybody went home and moved on with their lives.

Then, in response to what had occurred to Lavabit, Groklaw (and separately, SilentCircle), announced it was shutting down, based on what had happened to Lavabit. Response ranged from mystified wonderment, to insinuations that it was a publicity stunt. How that publicity would benefit a company that had just shut down, I don't know. Such is the internet. I suspect that the underwhelming support and negativity arose from the fact that most folks had never heard of Groklaw before the announcement.

So What Was Groklaw?

Groklaw was started in 2003 as a blog that reported and discussed legal issues as they related to software. This was mainly centered on free and open-source software, and also included topics related to software patents, DMCA, RIAA and, as a natural consequence, did some reporting on commercial software and their parent companies.

So, how did Groklaw and Lavabit come to be mentioned in the same sentence?

It's pretty simple. Think of people's communications as candy, and software as the candy machine. The government has a key to pretty much every candy machine on the planet for the moment, and can gorge endlessly on their ill-gotten gains. In the real world, that would be every 8 year old's dream. But, much like that 8 year old's reality, the candy machines are continually being upgraded and being made more secure. So the government, unlike the 8 year old, undertook to perpetually have the key to every new candy machine that came on the market.
      Read More...
Eye 1

Israel's Mossad 'working closely' with NSA over spying


PressTV
Mon, 19 Aug 2013 17:00 UTC

An American journalist has accused the Israeli spy agency Mossad of cooperating with the US government over spying on people.

"Israel was heavily involved with the spying on American citizens, working in cooperation with the National Security Agency," Mark Glenn told Press TV on Monday.

"Hi-tech Israeli companies tied with Israel's Mossad and with Israeli military intelligence were working closely with the National Security Agency," said Glenn, co-founder of Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement.

Israel's involvement with the NSA was mentioned in the media when the story first broke out in June by American whistleblower Edward Snowden, "but then this story quickly lost contraction; it didn't get mentioned anymore," Glenn said.

Comment: See also:

PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel

      Read More...
Airplane

Japan scrambles fighter jets against Russian military planes


South China Morning Post
Sun, 25 Aug 2013 16:57 UTC
TU-95
© Agence France-Presse
A Russian bomber TU-95 flying in airspace near the isle of Okinoshima in western Japan.
Japan scrambled fighter jets on Sunday as a pair of Russian military planes flew along the nation's northern coastline, the defence ministry said.

Two IL-38 planes flew along shorelines of Hokkaido, Aomori and Akita, facing the Sea of Japan (East Sea), but stayed away from Japanese airspace, the ministry added.

Japan's Self-Defence Forces "responded by scrambling fighters," according to a brief press release from the ministry which came with a map of the Russian planes' flight path.

Japanese defence officials could not be reached for immediate comment.
      Read More...
USA

Syria and sarin gas: US claims have a very familiar ring

Robert Fisk
UK Independent
Sun, 25 Aug 2013 16:43 UTC
Is there any way of escaping the theatre of chemical weapons? First, Israeli "military intelligence" says that Bashar al-Assad's forces have used/have probably used/might have used/could use chemical weapons. Then Chuck Hagel, the US Defence Secretary, pops up in Israel to promise even more firepower for Israel's over-armed military - avoiding any mention of Israel's more than 200 nuclear warheads - and then imbibing all the Israeli "intelligence" on Syria's use/probable use/possible use of chemical weapons.

Then good ol' Chuck returns to Washington and tells the world that "this is serious business. We need all the facts." The White House tells Congress that US intelligence agencies, presumably the same as Israeli intelligence agencies since the two usually waffle in tandem, have "varying degrees of confidence" in the assessment. But Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee - she who managed to defend Israel's actions in 1996 after it massacred 105 civilians, mostly children, at Qana in Lebanon - announces of Syria that "it is clear that red lines have been crossed and action must be taken to prevent larger-scale use". And the oldest of current White House clichés - hitherto used exclusively on Iran's probable/possible development of nuclear weapons - is then deployed: "All options are on the table."
      Read More...
Windsock

The Voting Game: Colin Powell - Voting restrictions 'are going to backfire' on Republicans

David Edwards
The Raw Story
Sun, 25 Aug 2013 12:39 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Colin Powell speaks to CBS
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday warned fellow Republicans that voting restrictions designed to reduce the turnout of minorities, young people and seniors were "going to backfire" on the party.

Powell told CBS host Bob Schieffer that the Supreme Court's decision to overturn part of the Voting Rights Act had been followed by states "putting in place procedures and new legislation that in some ways makes it a little bit harder to vote, you need a photo ID."

"And they claim there is widespread abuse and voter fraud, but nothing documented, nothing substantiates that," he pointed out. "There isn't widespread abuse. And so these kinds of procedures that are being put in place to slow the process down and make it likely that fewer Hispanics and African-Americans might vote, I think, are going to backfire because these people are going to come out and do what they have to do in order to vote. And I encourage that."
      Read More...
Eye 1

"I am sorry that it has come to this": a soldier's last words


Gawker
Sat, 22 Jun 2013 10:01 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Daniel Somers was a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was part of Task Force Lightning, an intelligence unit. In 2004-2005, he was mainly assigned to a Tactical Human-Intelligence Team (THT) in Baghdad, Iraq, where he ran more than 400 combat missions as a machine gunner in the turret of a Humvee, interviewed countless Iraqis ranging from concerned citizens to community leaders and and government officials, and interrogated dozens of insurgents and terrorist suspects.

In 2006-2007, Daniel worked with Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) through his former unit in Mosul where he ran the Northern Iraq Intelligence Center. His official role was as a senior analyst for the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and part of Turkey). Daniel suffered greatly from PTSD and had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and several other war-related conditions. On June 10, 2013, Daniel wrote the following letter to his family before taking his life. Daniel was 30 years old. His wife and family have given permission to publish it.

I am sorry that it has come to this.

The fact is, for as long as I can remember my motivation for getting up every day has been so that you would not have to bury me. As things have continued to get worse, it has become clear that this alone is not a sufficient reason to carry on. The fact is, I am not getting better, I am not going to get better, and I will most certainly deteriorate further as time goes on. From a logical standpoint, it is better to simply end things quickly and let any repercussions from that play out in the short term than to drag things out into the long term.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts