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Eye 2

UK military training troops for countries on its own human rights watchlist


RT
Mon, 23 May 2016 12:59 UTC
british troops
© Reuters
British troops in the Kuwait desert
British soldiers are training troops for regimes on the UK's own human rights watchlist, including authoritarian states such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Burma and Bahrain.

Information released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) shows that since 2014 UK military personnel have given training to 16 countries whose record on human rights is dubious to say the least.

These include countries the UK has recently attacked such as Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan; Gulf theocracies such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia; former colonies Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sudan; and even global rivals such as China.

Burundi, Colombia, Egypt, Somalia and war-torn Yemen also feature on both lists.

The UK recently announced it would be stepping up training in Oman, which, while not featured on the watchlist, is reported by human rights NGO Amnesty International to be rife with abusive detention and torture.

Comment: This story is another clear indicator that Western governments could care less about human rights abuses.

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Eye 2

Syrian opposition group Ahrar al-Sham's top figure visited US without trouble


FARS News Agency
Tue, 24 May 2016 12:21 UTC
al-Qaeda-linked Ahrar al-Sham terrorist group

Al-Qaeda-linked Ahrar al-Sham terrorist group
A top figure from the al-Qaeda-linked Ahrar al-Sham terrorist group was allowed to pay a visit to the US on a European passport, despite the group's deadly military campaign in Syria, a report said.

Labib al-Nahhas, who calls himself "a chief of foreign political relations at Ahrar al-Sham," had no trouble entering Washington back in December 2015, the US-based McClatchy DC news network said.

According to the report, he stayed in the US for a few days to speak with "third parties."

The report, citing four unnamed individuals with direct knowledge of the trip, revealed that Nahhas had been in Washington to meet with lobbyists and Middle East researchers.

"They're treating Labib al-Nahhas as an individual," said Faysal Itani, a Syria specialist with the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

"They could make, quickly, the decision that he's persona non grata in the United States and yet they haven't," he said.

US authorities, however, declined to comment on whether they knew about the trip, or whether the State Department had facilitated his entry.
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Bad Guys

While US pushes world to nuclear war Obama focuses on 'bathroom reform'

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Tue, 24 May 2016 12:16 UTC
obama restroom
© endtimeheadlines
Syria is entering its sixth year of a civil war with American involvement growing by the day.

US boots are springing up in Iraq and Yemen. Libya...busted and broken in the name of neo-liberal values.

NATO is rapidly militarizing its Eastern European client states, while US missile shields are coming into force right on Russia's border. Ukraine is more corrupt now, then when Barry decided to overthrow the Yanukovich government.

And the South China sea is turning into a hotly contested flashpoint between the US and China.

The Nobel Peace Prize wining POTUS has been in a state of constant war since he took office. For eight straight years, Obama has bombed, droned, and "regime changed" everything, everyone, everywhere.

Now Obama has turned his attention to the most pressing issue to face American world dominance and exceptional values in nearly a quarter century. It has become the most central, defining issue in Barack Obama's last year in office, and in his legacy as US President.
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Treasure Chest

Delusional Montenegro PM on NATO accession: 'Europe needs to send money, lots of it'


Sputnik
Tue, 24 May 2016 11:56 UTC
John Kerry with Prime Minister Milo Dukanovic
© AP Photo/ Virginia Mayo
Last week, NATO foreign ministers signed an accession protocol for Montenegro, paving the way for the former Yugoslav nation's entry into the bloc. Speaking to Politico Europe, Prime Minister Milo Dukanovic frankly outlined the real reasons his government has pushed for NATO accession: Montenegro needs Western money and Western troops.

On Thursday, Dukanovic signed Montenegro's accession protocol with NATO, a move Russian NATO envoy Alexander Grushko warned would weaken regional security and deepen divisions within Europe. For its part, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten noted that the move was aimed at encircling Russia, and might lead to the destabilization of the European continent.

In the Balkan nation itself, opposition Democratic Front leader Milan Knezevic said that nearly 55% of Montenegrans are opposed to their country becoming a member of the alliance, with nearly 58% in favor of a referendum on the issue. The divide in public attitudes over the bloc is particularly strong given the fact that the country was bombed by alliance warplanes less than two decades ago during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

Comment: Dukanovic may well find that money won't be flowing into Montenegro but rather flowing out in exchange for NATO troop deployments. He should have listened to his people rather than the puppet masters but, then again, the masters must have some persuasive 'rewards'.

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Jet5

War with Russia? Debunking the Empire's lies and illusions

The Saker
The Unz
Thu, 19 May 2016 13:02 UTC
US Russia War
"What would a war between Russia and the USA look like?"

This must be the question which I am most frequently asked. This is also the question to which I hear the most outlandish and ill-informed responses to. I have addressed this question in the past and those interested in this topic can consult the following articles: It would be pointless for me to repeat it all here, so I will try to approach the issue from a somewhat different angle, but I would strongly recommend that those interested take the time to read these articles which, while mostly written in 2014 and 2015, are still basically valid, especially in the methodology used to tackle this issue. All I propose to do today is to debunk a few popular clichés about modern warfare in general. My hope is that by debunking them I will provide you with some tools to cut through the nonsense which the corporate media loves to present to us as "analysis".

Comment: Unfortunately, the Empire IS being run by "unprofessional, incompetent, unpatriotic and dishonorable men" aka psychopaths who do believe their own propaganda about their invincibility. It has only been the consummate skill of Russian diplomacy that has kept our current fragile balance intact.

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Eagle

From villains to heroes: The Empire's ridiculous narrative about Al Qaeda

Ulson Gunnar
New Eastern Outlook
Sun, 22 May 2016 00:00 UTC
Al Qaeda
Syrian President Bashar al Assad would seem like a natural ally to the United States and the European Union. He heads a secular government and presides over a secular nation. It is a nation where extremist political factions like the Muslim Brotherhood are outlawed and armed terrorist groups hunted down and eliminated. There was even a point in history before the 2011 war began within and along Syria's borders that Washington even feigned such an alliance with Damascus.

The London Telegraph in its article, "John Kerry and Bashar al-Assad dined in Damascus," reported:
Mr Kerry visited Damascus in February 2009, when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He said in a press conference during the visit: "President Barack Obama's administration considers Syria a key player in Washington's efforts to revive the stalled Middle East peace process.

"Syria is an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region."

Mr Kerry met with Mr Assad at least six times, and on one occasion - seen in the photographs - dining with the two men's wives at the Naranj restaurant in central Damascus.
Though the US considered at the time Syria to be a "state sponsor of terrorism," that was only because of its support of Lebanon's Hezbollah, not Al Qaeda and its affiliates who the US Army's own reports indicate the government was working against even during the US occupation of Iraq when Syria was used as an entry point into the country along its southern borders. Ironically, the US Army's reports would indicate that many of the networks now considered "rebels," were involved in facilitating Al Qaeda's transit through Syrian territory into Iraq to kill Americans using Saudi cash.
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Black Cat 2

The European Union: Made in the USA!

Martin Berger
New Eastern Outlook
Sun, 22 May 2016 00:00 UTC
made in the usa
As decades go by we witness the change of leaders, governments, and alliances, but US policies remain the same. American leaders grew accustomed to applying pressure on other states, seeking ways to occupy the position of puppeteer that controls capitulating proxies across the globe. Certain politicians that would prefer to yield to the extensive amount of pressure applied on them are to discover relatively soon that the US is only defending its own geopolitical interests, often at the expense of other states.

It's no wonder that US President Barack Obama has recently declared that America must write the rules while other countries have no other option but to follow them, and it would never be the other way around.

At the beginning of its march towards hegemony, back in 1913, the United States' share of world industrial production was 35.8%. Just before the World War II it grew to the level of 40%, to then bring it to its peak at around mid 50's at 54.5%. In the 1960s the US share started shrinking gradually, falling to 46%. To compensate its falling outputs the US started to seek ways of taking advantage of its partners in the European Union. After all, it was Washington that drove European integration in the late 1940s, and funded it covertly under the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.

The fact that the European Union has been an American project from day one has recently been uncovered by The Daily Telegraph. Moreover, it was designed and put into existence by the CIA. The DT would note:
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Stormtrooper

Why US officers believe Pentagon officials take them for a fool


Sputnik
Wed, 18 May 2016 21:39 UTC
us military
© AFP 2016/ Nikolay Doychnov
Serious tensions are simmering between "interventionists" and "America Firsters" in the US Army, American author Justin Raimondo warns.

While the Pentagon and NATO officials are playing the game called "Chicken-Little, sky-is-falling," in claiming that Russia is harboring plans to invade Europe, other US military officers urge their counterparts "to stop waving the bloody red shirt," American journalist and the editorial director of Antiwar.com Justin Raimondo writes in his article.

Predictably, the whole "Russians-are-coming" fuss is all about the money, he stresses.
"In early April, a battalion of senior military officials appeared before a Senate panel and testified that the US Army is 'outranged and outgunned,' particularly in any future conflict with Russia. Arguing for a much bigger budget for the Army, they claimed that, absent a substantial increase in funding, the Russians would overtake us and, even scarier, 'the army of the future will be too small to secure the nation'," Raimondo narrates, referring to Lieutenant General Herbert R. McMaster, Jr.'s testimony at the US Senate Committee on Armed Service.
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Vader

Despite intense opposition, Obama expects corporate-friendly TPP to be ratified


RT
Mon, 23 May 2016 23:20 UTC
obama
© Luong Thai Linh / Reuters
U.S. President Barack Obama attends a press conference at the International Convention Center in Hanoi, Vietnam, 23 May 2016
Even though ratification of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has stalled in the US, President Barack Obama said he's still "confident" the trade deal will earn the support of Congress.

"I remain confident we are going to get it done, and the reason I'm confident is because it is the right thing to do. It's good for the country, it's good for America, it's good for the region, it's good for the world," Obama said during a joint press conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang in Hanoi.


Comment: What kind of psychopath would be "confident" about shoving something down the throats of millions who DO NOT WANT IT?! What part of "NO" does this idiot NOT understand???


Leaders signed the 12-nation TPP, which includes the US and Vietnam as members, back in February, but it still requires ratification from each country's lawmakers before it can go into effect. That process has stumbled, though, as public outcry against international trade deals increases. In the US in particular, all three major-party presidential candidates have come out against the deal.

In Vietnam, Obama reiterated why he believes the TPP is so important, noting that the Asia-Pacific region is the fastest growing part of the world and represents a huge market for the US. He said the TPP would eliminate some 18,000 tariffs that have been placed on American goods sold in Asia.
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Attention

Moscow warns of dire consequences if Taliban chooses warlord Haqqani as new leader


RT
Mon, 23 May 2016 21:56 UTC
haqqani
© fbi.gov
SIRAJUDDIN HAQQANI
There will be severe consequences if Sirajuddin Haqqani, considered one of the most dangerous warlords in the Middle East, becomes leader of the Taliban following the reported killing of Mullah Akhtar Mansour, a Russian Foreign Ministry official has said.

Haqqani, believed to be in his mid-40s, has been largely cited as a possible successor to Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was reportedly killed in a targeted US drone strike in a remote Pakistani area on Saturday.

"There will be hell to pay" if the Afghan guerrilla commander replaces Mansour, Foreign Ministry official and the Russian president's special representative on Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, told Interfax on Monday.

Comment: Thanks, America, for making this possible. And thanks for having the courtesy of letting Islamabad know you were going to carry out this operation over their land... after it had already taken place. Pakistan's foreign ministry responded:
"Pakistan wishes to once again state that the drone attack was a violation of its sovereignty, an issue which has been raised with the United States in the past as well," the ministry said in a statement issued to the media on Sunday.
...
Islamabad said that US officials informed the country's prime minister and army chief of the strike only after it had been completed. US Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been notified of the air strike in a telephone call, but declined to elaborate on the timing.
...
Pakistan also accused the US of interfering in the peace process in neighboring Afghanistan, saying that the strike allegedly killing the Taliban leader was carried out amid international talks aimed at drawing the militant organization into negotiations. "A politically negotiated settlement was the only viable option for lasting peace in Afghanistan," the foreign ministry said.
How arrogant. Kind of like announcing a NATO meeting with Russia, without letting the Russians know they were even invited.

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