Welcome to Sott.net
Thu, 21 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Stormtrooper

Russia boosts Mediterranean fleet for potential evacuation - Kremlin


RIA Novosti
Thu, 05 Sep 2013 17:04 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti. Vitaliy Ankov
Russia Boosts Mediterranean Fleet for Potential Evacuation
Russia has strengthened its naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea for a possible evacuation of Russian nationals from Syria, the Kremlin chief of staff said Thursday.

Asked why Russia is boosting its task force in the region, Sergei Ivanov said: "Above all, given the presence there of amphibious landing ships, they are intended for a possible evacuation of Russian citizens."

Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said earlier on Thursday that the country's increased presence in the Mediterranean is "a legitimate, natural and predictable reaction to the situation developing" in the region.

"Our actions are in strict compliance with international law and the UN Charter," he stressed, adding that the Mediterranean Sea is "quite close to Russia's borders."
      Read More...
Chess

Putin warns of risks that financial crisis will recur


RIA Novosti
Thu, 05 Sep 2013 16:56 UTC
Image
© Photo host agency/ Alexei Kudenko
Putin Warns of Risks That Financial Crisis Will Recur
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the global economy had not yet returned to sustained and balanced growth, and that systemic risks for a recurrence of the crisis remained.

Addressing the first working session of this year's G20 summit, he said that although the US economy was growing, it was not growing fast enough, and there were no guarantees that Japan's economic growth had become a stable trend.

The situation in the euro zone is "disturbing, due to the ongoing recession," Putin said, adding that a 0.6 percent economic decline is expected this year.
      Read More...
Dollar

Kerry tells Congress that oil sheikhs will pay U.S. to execute regime change in Syria

Mark Karlin
truth-out.org
Thu, 05 Sep 2013 16:04 UTC
Image

Saudi sheikhs and Israeli leaders agree: 'We'll basically hire the US military to fight the war against Syria for us'
In a rare moment of diplomatic candor, US Secretary of State John Kerry told a congressional hearing Wednesday that oil sheiks have offered to pay the United States to unseat Bashar al-Assad as Syrian strong man. The surprising admission came in response to congressional pressure on the administration to explain how yet another military operation would be paid for during a period of prolonged budgetary sequestration.

Apparently trying to assuage concerns about billions and billions of taxpayer dollars financing a "punishment strike" that most legislators know in their guts is the opening salvo in another Libyan style war of degrading the Syrian military (while untold numbers of civilians are also killed in the process), Kerry, according to The Washington Post, revealed more than he probably meant to:
Secretary of State John Kerry said at Wednesday's hearing that Arab counties have offered to pay for the entirety of unseating President Bashar al-Assad if the United States took the lead militarily.

"With respect to Arab countries offering to bear costs and to assess, the answer is profoundly yes," Kerry said. "They have. That offer is on the table."

Asked by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) about how much those countries would contribute, Kerry said they have offered to pay for all of a full invasion.

"In fact, some of them have said that if the United States is prepared to go do the whole thing the way we've done it previously in other places, they'll carry that cost," Kerry said. "That's how dedicated they are at this. That's not in the cards, and nobody's talking about it, but they're talking in serious ways about getting this done."
The conundrum for Kerry is that you can't say "nobody's talking about it" when you've just said that an offer is on the table in case the Syrian conflict becomes a full-fledged Libyan style regime replacement operation.

Comment:
So, what do our American readers think of Kerry's proposition: the Saudis and Qataris will pay for this dirty little war if you supply the cannon fodder.

Fair deal?

      Read More...
Info

John McCain was not tortured in Vietnam prison, guard claims

Jon Swaine
Telegraph
Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:15 UTC
Image

It turns out that far from being tortured, McCain's life was saved by the people he was dropping bombs on daily.
Nguyen Tien Tran said: "We never tortured McCain. On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded."

Mr McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, who was a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war, regularly refers to his experiences after being captured when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967.

He was taken to Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton", where he was kept for more than five years and subjected to such brutal beatings that he attempted suicide, he later recalled. Today he is unable to lift his arms above his head and, it recently emerged, finds activities requiring intensive use of his hands - such as typing - extremely painful.


Comment: Apparently this doesn't hinder his ability to draft legislation that enslaves the American people, start new wars or play online poker.


Yet in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Mr Nguyen insisted that conditions in the prison were "tough, though not inhuman". He said that Mr McCain had arrived with the worst injuries he had seen among downed pilots, and that it had been his job to keep the American alive.
      Read More...
X

The Real McCain: Does Senator John McCain even know what a 'fact' is?

Robert Greenwald
Brave New Films
Sun, 18 May 2008 15:21 UTC
Image
The lies continue to fly fast and furious. See for yourself the two (at least) faces of John McCain as he stumbles, bumbles and lies his way through press conferences and interviews. All in all, another typical day in U.S. politics.

If this was from a spoof of the U.S. election it would be hilarious. Unfortunately, this is frighteningly real. This is the U.S. election. The "real" one, in a manner of speaking. However, the U.S. hasn't had a real election in some time. So in a way, this is a spoof of the U.S. election.


      Read More...
Heart - Black

How 'war hero' John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life


Daily Mail (UK)
Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:10 UTC
In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.



McCain with On
©Sinopix
Reunited: Senator McCain and his Vietnamese rescuer Mai Van On in Hanoi in 1996


On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.

In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore.

And when a furious mob at the water's edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, Mr On drove them back.
      Read More...
V

Code Pink protesters hold faux-bloody hands behind Kerry at house Syria hearing

Ben Shapiro
breitbart.com
Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:18 UTC
Image
On Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs over possible military action against Syria. As he testified, members of the antiwar group Code Pink held up their hands, which had been painted red to signify bloody hands. They also wore signs reading "US Out of Syria."

Kerry's history as an antiwar protester during the Vietnam War propelled him to political office originally. After supposedly throwing away his war medals - an account he went back and forth regarding during his 2004 presidential run - and slandering American troops as war criminals in Vietnam during the infamous Winter Soldier hearings, Kerry has now become the hawkish proponent of military action against the Assad regime.
      Read More...
Dollar

Kerry: Arab countries offered to pay for invasion

Aaron Blake
Washington Post
Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:14 UTC

Secretary of State John Kerry said at Wednesday's hearing that Arab counties have offered to pay for the entirety of unseating President Bashar al-Assad if the United States took the lead militarily.

"With respect to Arab countries offering to bear costs and to assess, the answer is profoundly yes," Kerry said. "They have. That offer is on the table."
      Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Liberals reject Obama's case for Syria strikes; believe Obama and Kerry are lying

Stephen Dinan
Washington Times
Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:11 UTC
Image
© Pete Souza/White House Photo
President Obama's liberal activist base is adamantly opposed to military strikes in Syria, according to a new survey the Progressive Change Campaign Committee released Wednesday.

PCCC says more than 57,000 of its activists weighed in, and 73 percent of them opposed the U.S. taking action in Syria. Just 18 percent supported strikes, and just 14 percent said the U.S. should go ahead unilaterally if it can't find any allies.

Indeed, a majority of the activists don't believe Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry are being honest when they lay out their justifications for taking military action.
      Read More...
Megaphone

Putin: Kerry lied to Congress when he said that al Qaeda (CIA) units are not in Syria

Darya Korsunskaya
Reuters
Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:06 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/Kremlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an interview at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow September 3, 2013.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday the U.S. Congress had no right to approve the use of force against Syria without a decision from the U.N. Security Council, and that doing so would be an "act of aggression".

He said "anything that is outside the U.N. Security Council is aggression, except self-defense. Now what Congress and the U.S. Senate are doing in essence is legitimizing aggression. This is inadmissible in principle."

In remarks that could raise tension further before he hosts President Barack Obama and other G20 leaders on Thursday, Putin also said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lied to Congress about the militant group al Qaeda's role in the Syrian conflict.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts