Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Feel the fear: Top US spies warn defeating IS won't end terror threat


RFE/RL
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 21:23 UTC
FBI Director James Comey
© Reuters
Even the defeat of the Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria will not extinguish the extremist group's threat to the civilized world, top U.S. intelligence officials say.

"The threat that I think will dominate the next five years for the FBI will be the impact of the crushing of the caliphate, which will happen," FBI Director James Comey told a conference in Washington on September 8.

"Through the fingers of that crush are going to come hundreds of hardened killers, who are not going to die on the battlefield. They are going to flow out."

Comment: When you feed the monster, you might get bitten. But it's always the civilians that get harmed rather than the elites who created the monster.

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Bad Guys

Obama's final jihad in Asia: Securing submission from Asian vassals, pivoting American aggression in China's direction

Wayne Madsen
Strategic Culture Foundation
Tue, 06 Sep 2016 21:15 UTC
obama
President Barack Obama has opted to ratchet up military tensions in Asia as one of his last foreign policy acts as president of the United States. Using climate change and free trade backdrops at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China and the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Vientiane, Laos, as mirages intended to mask his aggressive military posture in the Asia-Pacific region, Obama seeks to cement his «pivot to Asia». It is Obama's sincere hope that his anticipated successor, his former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, will expand on the expansionistic and aggressive regional showdown with China and Russia that his administration launched with his Asia «pivot».

The ultra-protocol conscious Chinese threw diplomacy and decorum to the wind when Obama touched down at Hangzhou International Airport and his national security adviser Susan Rice and deputy national security adviser became embroiled in an argument with Chinese security personnel. When White House officials traveling with Obama began issuing orders to the Chinese personnel, one Chinese official yelled at them, «This is our country. This is our airport». It was as if the Chinese, realizing that this would be their last encounter with Obama as president, were letting him and his war hawk national security team know who was the boss as long as they were on Chinese soil. At least on the tarmac at Hangzhou International Airport, the Chinese swung Obama's Asia «pivot» back to China.
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Pirates

False flags in the DRCongo: Massacres not the work of Islamists - U.S. seeks secession of E. Congo

Ann Garrison
Global Research
Thu, 08 Sep 2016 19:23 UTC
congo
Beni Territory sits in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC's) North Kivu Province, bordering Rwanda and Uganda. Rich in oil, timber, gold, diamonds, wolfram, coltan and cassiterite, Beni is a vivid example of the phrase, "Everybody wants a piece of Congo." Now the indigenous people of Beni are being massacred for their land and its riches.

The massacres in Beni Territory began in 2014. Estimates are that 60 people are killed every month. After the Aug. 13, 2016 massacres, the number of victims rose above 1,200.

There is little doubt that the massacres are occurring because Beni is so rich in resources essential to the manufacture of modern life in the industrialized nations. However, Boniface Musavuli, Congolese human rights defender and author of Congolese Genocides from Léopold II to Paul Kagame, says that the aggression has been falsely attributed to Ugandan Islamist rebels. The truth is, he said, that the killers are Rwandans and Ugandans who want to eliminate indigenous Congolese people.
"In reality, killers in Beni are individuals who are coming from Rwanda and neighboring Uganda. Their goal is to severely eliminate indigenous peoples in order to take ownership of their land, which is rich in resources."

Comment: Hmmm, sounds familiar.


Comment: It really would be handy if someone were to publish the "war on terror" strategy book leaders seem to be passing around to each other. The story is always the same.

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MIB

Mahmoud Abbas and the tale of KGB moles

Nikolai Gorshkov
Sputnik
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 20:50 UTC
Mahmoud Abbas
© AP Photo/ Misha Japaridze
Western media have been making the most of the claim that Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, was a KGB agent in Damascus in the 1980s. The news broke on Israel's Channel 1 and was reported by major media outlets globally.

Israeli researchers with the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez said they came across a document implicating Abbas while studying the famed Mitrokhin archive, smuggled into Britain in 1992 by KGB defector Vasily Mitrokhin.

The document, deposited with the Churchill Archives Center in Cambridge, purportedly shows that Abbas, code-named "Krotov" (a Russian allusion to a mole), was recruited by the KGB in Damascus in 1983.
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SOTT Logo

SOTT Focus: SOTT News Snapshot: September 9, 2016 edition - Korean nukes, creepy clowns, and Syrian solutions


Sott.net
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 12:59 UTC
brandon marshall
Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall kneels during the national anthem before Thursday's game with the Carolina Panthers.
Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall has joined Colin Kaepernick (as well as Eric Reid and Jeremy Lane) in his courageous protest against racism and police brutality, kneeling during the national anthem while his teammates stood. After the game, he told reporters, "I'm not against the military, I'm not against the police or America. I'm just against social injustice." He plans to continue refusing to stand for the foreseeable future, and like Kaepernick, will disclose money to charities that help veterans.

Given the hysterical response to Kaepernick's relatively benign form of protest, Marshall will surely face a firestorm of criticism from ignorant fanatics. Thankfully, other NFL athletes plan to join the protest, and members of Jeremy Lane's team, the Seattle Seahawks, are reportedly planning to make a unified statement on Sunday's game with the Miami Dolphins. Linebacker Bobby Wagner: "Anything that we want to do, it's not going to be individual. It's going to be a team thing because that's what the world needs to see. The world needs to see people coming together versus being individuals."

The game will take place on September 11th. Hopefully they go through with it. The U.S., and the world by consequence, has descended even further into madness since that day. 9/11 convinced Americans that the threat to freedom comes from the outside. It doesn't. America has enough problems of its own. It's past time they were brought to light.
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Arrow Down

Federal judge denies Sioux tribe request to halt Dakota Access pipeline construction


RT
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 19:44 UTC
Dakota protest
© Andrew Cullen / ReutersProtesters demonstrate against the Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S. September 9, 2016.
A federal judge has denied the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's request for a temporary injunction to halt the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

In a one-page ruling issued by US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, DC on Friday, described the government's relationship with the tribes as being "contentious and tragic."

The judge said the Army Corp of Engineers "has likely complied with the NHPA (National Historic Preservation Act) and that the Tribe has not shown it will suffer injury that would be prevented by any injunction."

Judge Boasberg ordered the parties to appear for a status conference on September 16, according to the Associated Press.

In its lawsuit filed in August, the tribe had challenged the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to grant permits at more than 200 water crossings for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners' $3.8 billion pipeline.

They argued the projected violated several federal laws, including the National Historic Preservation Act, and will harm water supplies. The tribe also says ancient sacred sites have been disturbed.

Comment: See also:
  • The Wall Street mega-banks backing the Dakota Pipeline
  • G4S admits it guards Dakota Pipeline as protesters get attacked by dogs


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Dominoes

India seeks more than $200 billion to expand its arsenal


Sputnik
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:18 UTC
Indian soldiers
© AFP 2016/ ROUF BHAT
For India to meet equipment and weapons requirements necessary to expand its military capabilities in the next eleven years the country will need about $233 billion. There is some doubt as to whether the funds can be raised in that time.

The equipment and weapons are listed in the Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP) for 2012-2027 and, according to Defense News, funding will be sourced chiefly through Capital Head, the Indian procurement budget. Defense spending will need to increase by at least 10 percent if the funding target is to be met.

Comment: Also, India plans to acquire Predator drones from US.

For more reading:

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Blue Planet

UK Baroness Cox: 'Peace in Syria can't be reach via Western interference'


RT
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:52 UTC
Baroness Cox
© BBC ONEBaroness Caroline Cox, people's advocate
Bashar Assad has enormous support both from his people and unarmed opposition groups for his fight against Islamic State, despite the West's push for regime change in Syria, says Baroness Caroline Cox. The UK House of Lords peer was speaking to RT after meeting the Syrian leader.

Crossbencher [independent or minor party member] Baroness Cox, who visited Damascus as part of a British delegation earlier in September, spoke exclusively to RT about her trip. She said Syrian President Assad himself wants to see democratic change and a strong civil society in the country, but believes that's unrealistic at the moment unless the threat posed by Islamists is eliminated and Western pressure on the government is stopped.

"My thoughts reflect the voice of the Syrian people who we met, we were in Damascus and Aleppo, we met very many Syrian people, political leaders, faith leaders, Christian and Muslims, and local people," Cox said. "And they would say that the West plans for regime change, which would be disastrous ... and they would become another Iraq."

Comment: Baroness Cox of Queensbury is a distinguished human rights advocate, making secret expeditions to buy freedom for slaves captured by Arab traders in Sudan, hazardous treks into Communist Poland, Moscow, warring Nagomo Karabakh, Burma and NE Africa, taking aid to war victims and bringing back stories and news from dangerous parts of the world. She was appointed a Life Peer and formerly deputy speaker of the House of Lords.

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Binoculars

UK intel watchdog: MI5 spies break dozens of privacy rules...'by mistake'


RT
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 12:43 UTC
Thames House
© Peter Nicholls/ReuterThames House London, HQ MI5
British spies have been censured by the government's intelligence watchdog for breaking dozens of agency rules last year, including failing to obtain authorization to conduct surveillance and plugging cell phones into computer systems. Security services failed to follow procedures on 83 occasions, twice the number of mistakes made in 2014, the watchdog's report stated. Intelligence Services Commissioner Sir Mark Walter said that all of these errors had led to an intrusion into privacy "to some degree."

Errors made by British spooks included failing to obtain authorization to conduct surveillance, failing to renew authorizations, and operating outside the parameters set out in authorizations in the erroneous belief they were authorized.

Some 67 of the 83 mistakes were made by Britain's domestic spy agency MI5, while 11 were made by overseas security service MI6, and three by listening post GCHQ. Walter said MI5 obtains a "significantly larger number of warrants and authorisations" than other agencies and that the error rate is proportionally low.

Comment: Regarding even one 'mistake': at this level of intel and surveillance, the rules and protocol should be crystal clear and impeccably enforced. But, spy rules are cumbersome and commoners are, after all, just a burgeoning bunch of numbers in a system. Sloppy and careless infringements on public rights? Who can (without repercussions) complain about that?

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TV

Tory MP Kawczynski: BBC plagued by groupthink, RT critics ignorant about Russia


RT
Thu, 08 Sep 2016 21:20 UTC
MP Daniel Kawczynski
© www.bbc.co.ukMP Daniel Kawczynski: "We should celebrate broadcasting diversity."
The BBC has requested additional funds to fend off RT, whose audience it says has "increased sharply" and which has a "very successful" social media presence. We asked a politician from the ruling Conservatives to comment on the battle of the international news networks. The BBC submitted its report on the Russian media sphere earlier this year, as part of a wide-ranging parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry that seeks to examine every aspect of the UK's relationship with Russia.

While the authors spent time criticizing the lack of media freedom inside the country, and emphasizing its Russian service's own success in reaching the local audience, a large part of the testimony focused on the rise of RT. While it points out that RT's television viewing audience rose by 60 percent between June and December last year, it says that on key issues, such as coverage of the Ukrainian conflict, "both politicians and media commentators [are] accusing it of acting as a Kremlin mouthpiece."

In contrast, the BBC says that it "has played a significant role in providing impartial and objective reporting of the Ukraine crisis" and claims it needs an "increased digital presence" in Russia's own language internet, as well as "enhanced news bulletins" and more staff to up its news-gathering capacity. The BBC is facing real-terms cuts after being forced to pay for over-75s TV licenses that form the bulk of its budget, though the government has channeled extra money to fund its World Service programs.

But the Polish-born Daniel Kawczysnki, who has served as an Eastern Europe Special Advisor to the government of David Cameron, believes that the BBC's antagonistic approach to its younger Russian rival is unwarranted. Kawczynski, 44, who has been MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham since 2005, also accuses the corporation, and the government of being "narrow" in their approach to Russia, and advocates greater engagement.

Comment: BBC outlined to Westminster's Foreign Affairs Committee why RT's success should create panic within the UK establishment in challenging the Brit message of "truth and fairness." Part of the problem stems from the BBC towing the Whitehall line on all foreign policy issues and has done this for decades. Examples, as exhibited by its political staff recently: biased coverage of the Scottish Independence debate and blatant hostility to Jeremy Corbyn. To counteract RT, which has a fraction of BBC's operating budget, BBC is once again seeking an increase in funding...as if more money will somehow transform spoon-fed propaganda into truth.

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