Puppet Masters
© CSPAN
Foundation for Defense of Democracies vice president Jonathan Schanzer testifies at a hearing in Congress.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies vice president Jonathan Schanzer testifies at a hearing in Congress.
According to a source who has seen the undercover documentary, it contains footage of a powerful Israeli official claiming that "We have FDD. We have others working on this."
Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former Israeli military intelligence officer, is said to state that the foundation is "working on" projects for Israel including "data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail. This is something that only a country, with its resources, can do the best."
Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, commonly known as FARA, US organizations and individuals who work on behalf of foreign governments are required to register with the counterintelligence section of the Department of Justice.
A search on the FARA website shows that the Foundation for Defense of Democracies is not registered.
Al Jazeera's film reportedly identifies a number of lobby groups as working with Israel to spy on American citizens using sophisticated data gathering techniques. The documentary is also said to cast light on covert efforts to smear and intimidate Americans seen as too critical of Israel.
Israel lobby groups have placed intense pressure on Qatar, which funds Al Jazeera, to shelve the film, fueling speculation it may never be aired.
Comment: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, discussing the issue of Israel's push for an American war on Iran, recently mentioned the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, as the heir to the Project for a New American Century, Bill Kristol's Iraq-bound thinktank, leads that pack of wolves disguised as warmed over neocons lavishly funded by the likes of Paul Singer. It's even spawned the Institute for the Study of the War, a fascinating Orwellian title if there ever was one. It should be the Institute for War.
I've been asked why is it that you ascribe to the FDD and now the ISW such nefarious motives- I was asked this by the New York Times editorial staff when they published my op ed on Iran a few days ago. My answer is simple: Because that is precisely what FDD is attempting to do. Just as Douglas Feith, the under secretary of Defense for Policy, Office of Special Plans, did in 2002 and 2003 for Richard Bruce Cheney, to lead us into the war with Iraq.
© Nguyen Huy Kham / Reuters
U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, docks at a port in Danang, Vietnam March 5, 2018
U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, docks at a port in Danang, Vietnam March 5, 2018
USS Carl Vinson and two other US Navy vessels were greeted in the port of Danang on Monday, marking the largest American military presence in the country since the Vietnam War in 1955-1975.
The five-day visit of the 103,000-ton aircraft carrier is "a minor provocation against China...aimed at inciting or strengthening the anti-Chinese moods among the Vietnamese," said Yury Tavrovsky, a professor at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia.
Comment: Further reading: Vietnam is Russia's key ally in Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)
© Michael Klimentyev / Sputnik
"I'm sorry for creating the Gerasimov Doctrine," Mark Galeotti, a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, wrote in an essay published Monday in Foreign Policy.
Galeotti, a Russia-watcher popular in mainstream Western circles that are eager to source all ills to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, says he came up with the term when he published the translation of General Valery Gerasimov's 2013 speech on subversion and propaganda on his blog, 'In Moscow's Shadows.'
© Edgard Garrido / Reuters
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer leaves the room next to Canadian FM Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, March 5, 2018
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer leaves the room next to Canadian FM Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, March 5, 2018
On Monday, Lighthizer warned that time was running "very short" for the talks in Mexico City to finalize changes to the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "We would prefer a three-way tripartite agreement," he said, but: "If that proves impossible, we are prepared to move on a bilateral basis."
The Washington envoy held out exemptions from the looming tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent imported aluminum, which are set to be formally announced this week, as an incentive for the two neighboring countries to agree on a new deal.
© Frank Augstein / Reuters
Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow was forced to reign in rowdy politicians during UK Prime Minister Theresa May's statement. Despite Bercow's call for order, the UK PM was still met with laughs, cheers, and jeers throughout her now-familiar spiel.
May, who is often accused of making obscure, lightweight comments on Brexit, attempted to make at least one thing clear: a bespoke trade agreement with the EU is not "cherry-picking." After May's address drew laughter from Labour MPs, she paused to allow time for the brief anarchy to die down.
Comment: Wasn't Theresa May supposed to be getting the boot?
See also:
- Jermey Corbyn 'planning coup' against May, telling Brussels he envisions 'very different' Brexit
- George Soros backing secret plot to thwart Brexit
- UK's post-Brexit strategy: Project power by illegally selling weapons to regimes like Honduras
- Warning from Brussels: We will use sanctions to punish Britain post-Brexit
- Every Brexit option will hurt Britain, leaked government report reveals
- Brexit minister Baker backpedals as leaked impact study signals disastrous EU departure
Yemen
The government has signed off on billions of pounds worth of arms deals with Saudi Arabia, one of the UK's largest weapons importers. The kingdom is leading the coalition that is conducting an air-and-sea campaign against Houthi forces in Yemen. The fighting has led to 10,000 deaths and left millions more in need of humanitarian aid.
Comment: The UK is doing much more than arms deals: UK secretly training Saudi troops for war on Yemen, 'against Geneva conventions'
The relationship is such that the kingdom's powerful 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman will visit the UK on March 7. Bin Salman's visit, which will also include being entertained by the royals in Windsor, is expected to be the precursor for further UK-Saudi arms deals.
Comment: With the war on Yemen still ongoing, the causality count is likely to be much higher.
- 50,000 children dead: UK-US-Saudi war on Yemen enters horrific new stage
- MSNBC ignores catastrophic US-backed war on Yemen deflects to fake news instead
- UN humanitarian coordinator "shocked" by Saudi atrocities in Yemen
- "Largest epidemic in the world": Yemen's man-made cholera epidemic pushing its health service to brink of collapse
- Shameless: UK sells 457% more arms to Saudi Arabia since it started bombing Yemen
© Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters
On January 20, Turkey, with the help of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), launched Operation Olive Branch, a massive cross-border operation to clear Kurdish militias and remnants of jihadist fighters from Afrin, Syria. For over a month, the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the backbone of which is formed by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), have split their efforts between battling the Turkish incursion and supporting the US agenda in northern Syria.
On Monday, the Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning acknowledged that the Turkish offensive had affected the US-led fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists on the ground, effectively leading to an "operational pause."
Ground operations against Islamic State in the Euphrates River Valley have been temporarily suspended, Manning told reporters, stressing, however, that US airstrikes in the area are continuing.
Comment: As the terrorists' defense collapses in the Syrian region of Eastern Ghouta, Washington has increased its diplomatic acivity blaiming and shaming the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance for combating terrorist groups [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra), Ahrar al-Sham and others] in the area.
White House Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on March 4 that Moscow had ingored the terms of the UN resolution on a ceasefire in Syria causing deaths among civilians in Eastern Ghouta. However, Sanders forgot to mention that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other militant groups linked to it and cooperating with it closely are exlcuded from the terms of the ceasefire.The Russian foreign minister on Monday said that Western states are demonstrating a lack of negotiability by their stance on the Syrian crisis, as their actions on the ground are in violation of UNSC Resolution 2401.
Leonid Slutsky, a chairman of the Russian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Sanders' statement "is another unproven lie not backed by any facts."
"The US takes advantage of the principle of Joseph Goebbels, a German Nazi politician and propaganda minister of the Third Reich, who said that if a lie is big enough, people will eventually come to believe it," the politician said, according to the Russian state-run media outlet TASS. "The true US goal in this situation is shaking off its own responsibility for the deaths among the civilian population killed by terrorists of the Islamic State (outlawed in Russia), and the US played a role in its creation."
"The major clause of this resolution requires that all - I emphasize, all - the parties to the Syrian conflict agree on a ceasefire in order to provide at least a 30-day pause for delivery of humanitarian aid," Lavrov said at a press conference in Namibia, adding that Damascus is being pressured to stop its military operation despite it targeting al-Nusra Front militants who are not covered by the truce regime.Newly-released satellite images display ISIS convoys move freely under the US-led coalition watch to fight the Syrian forces in eastern Syria.
He went on to say Russia has mounting evidence that "Western partners, especially the United States, would like to take the heat off al-Nusra Front, which has now changed its name - but this does not mean it has changed its nature - and save it, in case they decide to return to plan 'B,' which is to change the regime in Damascus."
The images, taken from the 3rd of December 2017, show scores of ISIS militants moving in their technical vehicles from Raqqa to Deir Ezzor countryside, where they arrived at Hajin and Gharanij towns (200km away from Raqqa) to fight the Syrian Army troops.
This - according to sources - was done following a clandestine deal made between the US and the terror group.
© Zen Adra | AMN
ISIS convoys© Zen Adra | AMN
ISIS convoys
© The Presidential Blue House/Yonhap via / Reuters
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greets Chung Eui-yong, head of the presidential National Security Office, in Pyongyang, North Korea, March 6, 2018
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greets Chung Eui-yong, head of the presidential National Security Office, in Pyongyang, North Korea, March 6, 2018
Hearing the intention of President Moon Jae In for a summit from the special envoy of the south side, [Kim Jong-un] exchanged views and made a satisfactory agreement," North Korea's official KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday. However, no further details of the "agreement" were provided.
Kim Jong-un also reportedly reaffirmed his "firm will to vigorously advance the north-south relations and write a new history of national reunification," and instructed relevant authorities to "rapidly take practical steps" to accelerate the talks.
The sides also emphasized the importance of the new momentum in national reconciliation that was achieved during the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
© MSNBC screenshot
Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg appeared on multiple cable channels
Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg appeared on multiple cable channels
A grand jury subpoena demands Nunberg's appearance on Friday this week, and seeks documents he has related to the Trump campaign, including emails, correspondence, invoices, telephone logs, calendars and "records of any kind" with nine other people. Mueller is investigating allegations that President Donald Trump and his campaign somehow "colluded" with Russia during the 2016 election.
In response, Nunberg opened up to the Washington Post, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC - to proclaim he will not comply.
"Let him arrest me," Nunberg said. "Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday."
Comment: The West is trying really hard to discredit the efforts of Syria and Russia to liberate East Ghouta. More on the topic: