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Senator rips top diplomat after he admits he doesn't know if US drone strike killed Afghan aid worker or ISIS-K terrorist


RT
Tue, 14 Sep 2021 21:15 UTC
Paul Blinken
© newsmax.com/Graeme Jennings/GettyImages/KJN
Senator Rand Paul • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's attempt to evade questions about a drone strike that allegedly killed a Kabul aid worker backfired, as Senator Rand Paul pointed out that the target should have been known before the attack.

Pressed by Paul (R-Kentucky) on whether the August 29 strike killed an aid worker or an ISIS-K operative, Blinken testified in a Senate hearing on Tuesday that the Biden administration is reviewing the incident, and "a full assessment will be forthcoming."

"So you don't know if it was an aid worker or an ISIS-K operative?" Paul asked.
"I can't speak to that and I can't speak to that in this setting, in any event," Blinken replied.
"So you don't know or won't tell us?" Paul continued.
"Uh, I don't know because we're reviewing it," Blinken said.

Paul then stung Blinken with the obvious, saying, "Well, see, you'd think you'd kind of know before you off somebody with a Predator drone whether he's an aid worker or he's an ISIS-K." He added that the US has a recent history of drone strikes with unintended casualties, including "hundreds and hundreds of people" who were killed remotely by the Obama administration, and civilian casualties lead to "blowback."

Of reports that seven children and three other people were also killed in the drone strike, Paul said:
"I don't know if it's true, but I see these pictures of these beautiful children that were killed in the attack. If that's true, and not propaganda, guess what, maybe you've created hundreds or thousands of new potential terrorists from bombing the wrong people. We can't sort of have an investigation after we kill people. We have an investigation before we kill people."

Comment: This tragic incident smacks of gross negligence, ignorance and Pentagon overreach. Obviously, restraints and planning go together in exploring a course of deadly action - except in the Biden administration where whim replaces due diligence in determining a military response. They blew apart children!

See also:

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Magic Wand

Book describes General Milley as hero who saved US from Trump, but actually shows him colluding with CIA, NSA, Pelosi & China

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Tue, 14 Sep 2021 19:34 UTC
Milley
© Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein
Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley at the Pentagon, September 1, 2021.
An upcoming book by two Washington Post writers, just leaked to the corporate press, seeks to paint General Mark Milley as a hero of the resistance to President Donald Trump. If any of it is true, it amounts to an actual coup.

Excerpts from Peril, due to be published in a week, appeared on Tuesday on CNN and in the Washington Post, which employs its two authors - Robert Costa and Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame. It claims to be based on more than 200 interviews with "firsthand participants and witnesses" of the last three months of Trump's presidency.

Comment: Sounds like a real 'Best Smeller'.

See also: Trump calls Milley story 'fake news'

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Cross

Like so many, the Pope misunderstands Orban, who is trying to preserve Hungary's Christian traditions

Paul A. Nuttall
RT
Mon, 13 Sep 2021 17:42 UTC
PopeF/Orban/Adar
© AFP/VATICAN MEDIA
Pope Francis, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Hungarian President Janos Ader (back C) exchanging gifts during their meeting in the Romanesque Hall of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.
Concerns over anti-Semitism and immigration were on the agenda as Pope Francis made a seven-hour visit to Hungary portrayed as frosty by liberal media. But he should be more worried about the decline of Christianity in the West.

During a 40-minute meeting with Viktor Orban, the much-maligned Hungarian prime minister, the Pope was presented with a 13th century letter from Hungarian King Bela IV to Pope Innocent IV, which asked the then-pontiff for help in resisting the Mongol invasion of Hungary and Europe. Of course, this was perceived by media outlets, such as CNN, as having anti-immigrant undertones.

Although the issue of Hungary's hard-line stance on immigration was not broached during the meeting, the Pope later told a crowd in Budapest to "open your arms to everyone," which was seen as a veiled slight at Hungary's determination to not see a repeat of 2015's refugee fiasco. Indeed, Orban later wrote on Facebook that he had asked Pope Francis "not to let Christian Hungary perish."

Following his meeting with Orban, the Pope addressed Christian and Jewish leaders and warned that "the threat of anti-Semitism [is] still lurking in Europe and elsewhere" and that "this is a fuse that must not be allowed to burn." I wholeheartedly agree with the Pope that an undercurrent of foul anti-Semitism still exists, but I am not sure why he chose Hungary to make such a statement.
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Bad Guys

Trump predicts America will cease to exist in three years


The Independent
Wed, 15 Sep 2021 17:45 UTC
newsmax interview spicer trump
© Newsmax
Trump predicted America will ‘come to an end’ in three years in Newsmax interview with Sean Spicer and co-host Lyndsay Keith
The former US president also claimed Joe Biden is 'worse than Obama'

Former president Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that the United States would come to an end in the next three years, without explaining what that might mean in practice.

The US "has gone really downhill in the last eight months like nobody has ever seen before", Mr Trump said during an appearance on Sean Spicer's show on conservative news channel Newsmax.

"[If we] go to these elections coming up in '22 and '24, we are not going to have a country left," he said, falsely claiming that the 2020 election "was rigged" and "we are not gonna have a country left in three years".
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Red Flag

America being taken over by communists - General Michael Flynn

Gregg Hunter
USA Watchdog
Sat, 11 Sep 2021 00:00 UTC
General Michael Flynn
Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), thinks evil communists are out to destroy America and your freedom. General Flynn explains,
"Transitioning to all the noise that is bombarding the American psyche, it's all intentional. Don't think this is all a bunch of haphazard things that are happening within our country. The bigger 60,000 foot strategic view is that the country is being taken over by a very small minority of people that we call the Left, which are really a group of Marxists and communists who have decided over decades, and this is not just about Trump, have decided now is the time to do it . . . and they did. They outmaneuvered the Republican establishment during this last November election. . . .Let's talk about what's coming out of Arizona. Everybody knows this election was stolen. No way in the world 80 million people voted for the administration occupying the White House — no way. . . .This is no longer a conspiracy theory about election fraud. This is a conspiracy alright, but it is a conspiracy within a group of people that stole the U.S. Presidential Election and also stole parts of the down ballot votes, meaning the Senators and Congressmen."
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Pyramid

9/11 and the politics of fear and self-preservation

Whitney Webb
MintPress News
Fri, 10 Sep 2021 00:00 UTC
World trade center
© AP
We will either be remembered as a country that took freedom and liberty for all seriously or we will be remembered as a nation of cowards who, driven by fear, were willing to deprive this group, then that group, of their freedom — before losing that freedom entire

The 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001 is a particularly somber one, not just because of the horrific nature of events of that day reaching its second-decade milestone, but because of how little we seem to have learned in that amount of time.

The fear and trauma generated by the events of 9/11 were used by the U.S. national security state and its civilian allies to great effect to divide the American population, to attack independent reporting as well as independent thought, to gut the anti-war movement, and to normalize the U.S. government's overt and persistent degradation of the country's Constitution. This, of course, is in addition to the illegal U.S. occupations and drone wars in the Middle East and elsewhere that were also born out of this event.

The true beneficiaries of 9/11

As a nation, the U.S. populace has failed to grapple with these realities, and many others, in the two decades since the Twin Towers and WTC Building 7 fell. Far from bringing any benefit to the alleged masterminds of the event, the results of 9/11 instead overwhelmingly favored the ambitions of a powerful faction within the U.S. national security state that had long sought to bring the dissident-elimination efforts it spent decades implementing abroad - from the Phoenix Program in Vietnam to Operation Condor in South America - home to roost.

Comment: The analogy between 9/11 and the medical tyranny we are now witnessing is an accurate one. It is, for many, quite unimaginable and/or too frightening to consider the very high level of malevolence that must exist by elements of our government - to consider and accept in their assessment of reality. And yet that is exactly what is required in order to protect one's self - mind, body and soul - from the crushing agendas that are held by a very dangerous number of powerful individuals.

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Toys

New Chinese ambassador to UK barred from parliament, follows tit for tat that Britain started with unilateral sanctions on Chinese officials

Patrick Wintour
The Guardian
Tue, 14 Sep 2021 17:00 UTC
Zeguang
© Jason Lee/Reuters
Zheng Zeguang was due to attend a meeting of the broadly pro-Chinese all-party group on China.
The new Chinese ambassador to the UK has been barred from parliament by the Speakers in the Commons and Lords after the imposition of sanctions on British MPs by Beijing.

The new ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, was due to attend a meeting of the broadly pro-Chinese all-party group on China, but after a letter from MPs who were subjected to sanctions by China, including the former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, the Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has said the meeting is not appropriate.

A similar decision has been endorsed by the Lords Speaker, John McFall.

Comment: State affiliated media outlet China Times had this to say:
UK Parliament's banning of Chinese ambassador from attending events reflects the narrow and parochial mindset of some individuals in the UK. It is a shortsighted, reckless and cowardly move, and the Chinese embassy strongly condemns it.

In response, spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in the UK said that China's sanctions on a handful of anti-China parliamentarians of the UK, announced in March, were completely justified and reasonable.

It was a necessary response to these people who spread slanderous rumours and disinformation about China's Xinjiang and to the unilateral sanctions on relevant personnel and institutions in China by the UK side on the pretext of Xinjiang-related issues.

The spokesperson said Chinese embassy strongly condemns the UK parliament's decision.

On issues that are China's core interests, the Chinese side always responds resolutely and never tolerates wrong moves. Our firm position will never be shaken by such tricks on the part of the UK Parliament, said the spokesperson.

In obstructing the Chinese Ambassador from attending an event in the UK Parliament upon invitation as a retaliation, the UK Parliament is disregarding the fundamental interest of the Chinese and British people and ignoring international protocol. This is totally wrong and doomed to failure. We urge the handful of individuals in the UK Parliament to stop playing political tricks, or they will only make things worse for themselves, according to the spokesperson.
Whilst the West and its allies try to assert the dwindling influence they have left, China is busy setting up viable alternatives to the current system, with countries desiring to work on a mutually beneficial basis: How China's Realpolitik approach to Venezuela, Iran & Afghanistan upends US' geopolitical game

See also: John Pilger: The Coming War on China

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Health

Czech President Zeman hospitalised with diabetic neuropathy


Sputnik
Tue, 14 Sep 2021 12:00 UTC
Czech President milos Zeman
© AFP 2021 / MILAN KAMMERMAYER
Zeman is known to have been suffering from diabetic neuropathy in the feet and that is why he has started using a wheelchair recently. Czech President Milos Zeman, 76, has been hospitalised, Jitka Zinke, a spokeswoman for the Central Military Hospital in Prague said. "About an hour ago, the president of the republic, Milos Zeman, was hospitalized," Zinke said without providing further details.

Zeman reportedly arrived at the hospital at 11:00 local time, accompanied by his wife Ivana. His hospitalisation will probably last a long time, media reports suggest.

Comment: Just going off reports of the last few years, it would appear that Zeman is a man of principle and reason, who's brave enough to question and confront the establishment, all qualities sorely lacking in the vast majority of today's leaders:

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Megaphone

Trump calls Milley story 'fake news'

Mychael Schnell
The Hill
Tue, 14 Sep 2021 19:55 UTC
donald trump
Former President Trump on Tuesday blasted new reporting about Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley as "fake news" after the release of a bombshell passage from an upcoming book by veteran journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

Trump said the account written by Woodward and Costa in their book "Peril," which is set to be released Sept. 21, was "concocted by a weak and ineffective General together with two authors who I refused to give an interview to because they write fiction, not fact."

His comments come after The New York Times and CNN, which obtained copies of the book, reported that Milley called his Chinese counterpart in the waning months of the Trump administration to reassure him that Trump did not have plans to attack China as part of a ploy to remain in power.

Comment: Perhaps this could be an attempt to distract from the terrible press the General is currently getting on the botched Afghanistan withdrawal - virtue signalling to the "Resistance".

See also:

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Better Earth

How China's Realpolitik approach to Venezuela, Iran & Afghanistan upends US' geopolitical game

Ekaterina Blinova
Sputnik
Tue, 14 Sep 2021 16:34 UTC
china us flag
© AP Photo / Andy Wong
China is dealing a blow to Washington's sanctions strategy by stretching a helping hand to developing states labelled by the US as "pariahs" which have been subjected to tough restrictions. This shows that the world has reached a point of no return along with the accelerating decline of the US, says Asia Pacific commentator Thomas W. Pauken II.

The value of tough US sanctions against Venezuela's oil sector will substantially decline if China steps in to fill the void, energy observers say, citing Bloomberg's September report that China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), once a major investor in Venezuela, is sending engineers and commercial staff to the South American state.

Venezuelan Oil Sector: China is Stepping In

Venezuela's oil industry was subjected to crippling restrictions by the Trump administration. Trump started to tighten the screws on the country's energy sector in 2017 by prohibiting the trading of Venezuelan bonds in US markets. Two years later, the US slapped sanctions on the country's energy giant Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). The move came shortly after the US-backed attempted coup of 23 January 2019 aimed at toppling Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. Washington also went after key trading houses and individuals that propped up Venezuela's oil exports.

Comment: See also:

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