Welcome to Sott.net
Sat, 30 Sep 2023
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

No Entry

"Palestine is entirely wiped out": Netanyahu's skewed map of Israel includes the West Bank and Gaza

Michael Jansen
The Jordan Times
Wed, 27 Sep 2023 00:00 UTC
Israel's wall
The verbal battle for Palestine erupted once again during the opening session of the UN General Assembly, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presenting his skewed version of the current situation and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas describing the reality.

Once again, Netanyahu projected an image to impress the few in the vast auditorium who were prepared to listen to him. In 2012, he presented a cartoon of a bomb to justify military action against Iran's civilian nuclear programme. He claims Iran intends to build an atomic bomb to drop on Israel. He adopted this ploy to instruct ignorant US citizens to adopt aggressive lines toward Iran and exert pressure on the then Obama administration to follow his lead.

This did not impress Obama administration officials who were negotiating with Iran on a deal for limiting its nuclear programme in exchange for lifting punitive sanctions. The agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, was signed in mid-2015 and implemented in January 2016. Iran complied fully with the terms of the JCPOA and derived some benefit from sanctions relief until Israel's pal and patron Donald Trump exited the JCPOA in May 2018. This has given Netanyahu no end of opportunities to castigate Iran, kill its scientists, and threaten war. Tehran has not obliged Netanyahu by drawing up plans for a nuclear bomb and has repeatedly urged the Biden administration to restart negotiations on US re-entry to the JCOPA.
      Read More...
Attention

How Vanguard conquered the World

James Corbett
The Corbett Report
Sun, 24 Sep 2023 21:10 UTC
Vanguard
© The Corbett Report
So, you've watched How BlackRock Conquered the World and you're now aware of how this financial behemoth with trillions of dollars of assets under management has taken over vast swaths of the economy. You know how BlackRock is one of the top institutional investors in seemingly every major Fortune 500 company, and you understand how Fink and the gang are leveraging this incredible wealth to wield political and social power, directing industry and ultimately steering the course of civilization.

And since you did watch that podcastumentary to the very end, you'll also remember how I pointed out that the top institutional investor in most of these companies is not BlackRock, but The Vanguard Group.

Share Owners
© The Corbett Report
So what is The Vanguard Group? Where did it come from? What does it do? And how does this financial colossus fit into the overall BlackRock/ESG/Net Zero plan for the future of the (controlled) economy? Good questions! Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work answering them.
      Read More...
Rocket

US and UK involved in attack on Crimea


RT
Wed, 27 Sep 2023 11:58 UTC
Zakharova
© Sputnik/Russian FM
Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Moscow has "no doubt" about Western complicity in the attack on Sevastopol last Friday, the Foreign Ministry has said...

Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, has asserted that US and British intelligence agencies supported Kiev during an attack on Sevastopol last Friday. The Ukrainian assault targeted the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Speaking at a weekly briefing on Wednesday, she said:
"There was no doubt that this attack was planned with the use of Western surveillance assets, NATO satellite equipment, and spy planes and conducted at the direction of and in close coordination with American and British special services."
The Defense Ministry has reported that the missile strike on the fleet headquarters involved several Ukrainian missiles, with Russian air defenses successfully intercepting some of them. British media outlets have also disclosed that Kiev employed Storm Shadow missiles supplied by the UK in the attack, resulting in significant damage to the building.

Zakharova described the incident as one of many in which Kiev "targets Russian regions, using missiles and shells supplied by NATO states," citing several other recent examples. The goals of the Ukrainian government, she said, are "to draw attention away from the Ukrainian military's failed attempts at conducting a counteroffensive" and to destabilize Russian society.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
X

Elon Musk fires X 'election integrity' team for undermining election integrity

Libby Emmons
The Post Millennial
Wed, 27 Sep 2023 00:00 UTC
X-EM
© Unknown
X CEO Elon Musk
Elon Musk announced on Wednesday that he has cut the Electoral Integrity team at X (formerly Twitter) in half, including the newly brought on board head of the group, Aaron Rodericks.

When the news was reported, Musk replied "Oh you mean the 'Election Integrity' Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they're gone." A person familiar with the circumstances, said that four people had been released, which constitutes the whole of the election integrity unit in Dublin.
      Read More...
Shoe

Scoop: Biden team's don't-let-him-trip mission

Alex Thompson
Axios
Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:00 UTC
shoes
© Ting Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images
US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden
President Biden and his campaign are working on a critical project for his re-election bid: Make sure he doesn't trip.

Driving the news: As voters express deep concerns about the 80-year-old president's age and fitness for office, Biden's team is taking extra steps to prevent him from stumbling in public — as he did in June, when he tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy.
  • With a physical therapist, Biden has been doing exercises to improve his balance as far back as November 2021.
  • Since his stumble in June, he has been wearing tennis shoes more often to avoid slipping — and using the short stairs on Air Force One, entering the plane on a lower deck than before.
Why it matters: Democrats, including some in the administration, are terrified that Biden will have a bad fall — with a nightmare scenario of it happening in the weeks before the November 2024 election.

Zoom in: Some senior Democrats privately have been frustrated with Biden's advance team for months, citing the sandbag incident and noting that the president often appears not to know which direction to go after he speaks at a podium.
  • Often without context, Republicans have used video clips of Biden looking confused about where to go after speeches to raise further questions about his age.
Biden's balance difficulties are likely the result of what his physician has diagnosed as "a combination of significant spinal arthritis" and "mild post-fracture foot arthritis."
  • Biden works out many mornings with physical therapist Drew Contreras, who also worked with former President Obama.
  • Biden's doctor has recommended exercises for balance, which he called "proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers."
  • What the maneuvers entail is unclear.
  • "I have never heard the term 'proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.' It is not a clinical term in standard use," said Professor James Gordon, associate dean and chair of the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California.
      Read More...
Arrow Up

Europa, a girl from West Asia, raped again by an American bull

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik News
Thu, 28 Sep 2023 18:36 UTC
Leopard Tank and Greta
© Strategic Culture Foundation
We may always dream that following an Ariadne's thread we might, just might, extricate ourselves from the current, incandescent geopolitical labyrinth by applying an exceedingly overhyped commodity: logic.

Yet the post-everything, cancel culture West has also cancelled logic.

When in doubt, at least we can go back to foundation myths.

So let's go back to the birth of the West, as in Europe.

Legend tells us that one fine day Zeus happened to set his roving eye on a beautiful girl with big, bright eyes, a daughter from a thalassocratic civilization in the Levant: Europa.

A while later, on a pristine beach in the Phoenician coast, an extraordinary white bull showed up. Europa, intrigued, got closer and started to caress the bull; of course, that was Zeus in disguise. The bull duly annexed Europa and darted towards the sea.

Zeus had three sons with Europa — and left her a spear that never missed its target. One of these sons, as we all know, was Minos, who built a labyrinth.

But most of all what legend taught us was that the West was born out of a girl - Europa - who came from the East.
      Read More...
Cult

Zelensky promises more Ukrainian action against Russia after strike on Black Sea Fleet


RFE/RL
Tue, 26 Sep 2023 17:39 UTC
ukraine attack black sea fleet sevastopol
© Planet Labs via AP
In this satellite photo provided by Planet Labs, smoke billows from a headquarters building for the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, after it was struck in a missile attack launched by the Ukrainian military.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed new Ukrainian action against Russia following a missile strike last week against Russia's Black Sea Fleet headquarters that Kyiv said killed nearly three dozen officers, including its top commander.

"We clearly see which directions of pressure on Russia need to be strengthened to prevent [its] terrorist capabilities from growing," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on September 26.

He also said that an analysis of Russia's military industry shows that pressure on Moscow should be increased.

"We can clearly see which areas of pressure on Russia should be strengthened so that terrorist possibilities do not increase," he said. "Sanctions are not enough."

The Ukrainian military said earlier that 20 combat clashes took place on September 26 along the front line amid air strikes in the Donetsk region and fighting in the area around Bakhmut.

Comment: Seems REF/RL was a little too quick on the propaganda draw regarding the good admiral.



      Read More...
Bad Guys

The 'Last Man' teleology and the Fall of the West

Alastair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 25 Sep 2023 17:35 UTC
cityscape dollar fall of west money empire financial center
The Global South can empathise with those resisting cultural impositions that run against the grain of longstanding civilisational values.

As is well known, the Mackinder 'Pivot of History' doctrine (1904) of 'he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world' was cemented into the U.S. zeitgeist as the unassailable doctrine that a united Heartland - which might challenge the U.S. - must never be allowed. To which Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser, added that the Ukraine, by virtue of its divided national identities, entwined in old complexities, should be seen as the hinge around which heartland power revolved: 'Absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with Ukraine, Russia can and would', Brzezinski averred.

Well, that was the idea - to mobilise fierce Ukrainian ultranationalism versus a weak Russia, and put them to fight each other. But the evolution of the 'Brzezinski doctrine' - quite surprisingly - segued into a series of western mythological errors: First, that Russia was easily defeated in Afghanistan, by a few lightly armed jihadists (not true). Secondly, that the Soviet Union and its satellites were overthrown by 'Revolutions from Below' (also not true). And thirdly, that a powerful U.S. Security-State 'Leviathan' could ensure U.S. hegemony (through mounting 'Revolutions from Below').
      Read More...
Bad Guys

Experts: Ukraine-Poland spat signals resurgence of 'national interests' over NATO's pro-Kiev Agenda

Fatina Gardinier
Sputnik
Fri, 22 Sep 2023 17:21 UTC
ukraine poland duda zelensky
© AFP 2023 / SERGEI SUPINSKY
Polish President Andrzej Duda and Ukraine Presiden Vladimir Zelensky in better times.
More than a year and a half into its proxy war with Russia, NATO is facing a resurgence of national interests on the part of its member states, especially those along the "eastern flank" who have been asked to bear the brunt of the conflict in Ukraine, experts said. However, that doesn't always mean they're backing down from a hawkish position.

Formerly one of Ukraine's largest arms suppliers, Poland has said it will cease sending weapons to Kiev following Ukraine's filing of a lawsuit against Poland with the World Trade Organization (WTO). While on its face, the dispute seems to be over a grain shipment deal, experts told Sputnik that much deeper political currents are sending the governments of Ukraine, Poland, and the United States in different directions.
      Read More...
Attention

Russia's 'Big Push'

Julain MacFarlane
News Forensics / Substack
Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:13 UTC
Everyone's talking about it! But when exactly is that big Russian offensive — the"Big Push" — going to begin?

Will the Russians be celebrating Christmas in Kiev?

Sorry to tell you==there will be no presents under the tree in Kiev for Vladimir Putin this Christmas.

And that's not because mainstream media says Russia is losing and about to collapse. Or because Putin is a Slavic Grinch.

Keep in mind that Putin does Judo. In Judo, you don't push. You get your opponent to push and you use his momentum and force against him,

Judo
© News Forensics
Why why why?

With the Ukrainian counteroffensive stalled and Zelensky increasingly petulant, demanding, and unpopular in the West, it might seem that the time for Russian offensive is ripe -- just like Zelensky's unwashed fatigues. The only person who seems to like Zelensky these days is Justin Trudeau may be because he doesn't have any friends anymore in Canada. Or maybe just because he needs somebody to do coke with.

He is ripe too. Actually rotten.

Moreover....

The Ukrainians are launching a lot of terror attacks — which you would think would give the Russians good reason to finally go in and get it over with.

After all, they have the resources — a new army, somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000 already in Ukraine; plenty of missiles, drones, and of course artillery; air defense systems second to none; the world's most advanced electronic warfare technology and even laser weapons.

Let's not forget hypersonic technology. They are even creating hypersonic bullets!

They have upgraded their ISR including new advanced radar platforms.

Russian losses during the counteroffensive were the lowest of any time during the SMO.
Russian Casualties
© News Forensics
      Read More...
Revolt! T-shirts