© AFP/Getty
Find out more about the doublespeak that underpins our political unreality on this week's edition of The Eyeopener report.
Puppet Masters
Find out more about the doublespeak that underpins our political unreality on this week's edition of The Eyeopener report.
The crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 in east Ukraine.
"The US government has grown strangely quiet on the accusation that it was Russia or her allies that brought down the Malaysian airliner with a buck anti-aircraft missile," Paul wrote in an article published by Voices of Liberty on Thursday.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all the 298 people on board. The Boeing plane was en route from the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, to Kuala Lumpur when the accident happened at an altitude of 10 kilometers above eastern Ukraine.
US officials claim the plane was downed by a missile fired by pro-Russian forces in Ukraine but Paul says that claim is baseless because the US has not provided any evidence for it.
Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Danylo Lubkivsky said that there would be no need for humanitarian aid.
"We are concerned that Russia could try to use a humanitarian or peacekeeping operation as a pretense for inserting elements of its military force into Ukraine," the unnamed official told The Hill on Tuesday.
Nearly 300 Russian trucks have set off from Moscow, carrying 2,000 tons of aid, including medicine, food, sleeping bags and power generators. Ukraine, however, rejected the convoy.
Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Danylo Lubkivsky said that there would be no need for humanitarian aid.
Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said on Tuesday, "If this is some sort of Trojan Horse, it would be illegal."
During a press briefing on Tuesday, State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf condemned Moscow's aid move.
"Russia has no right to move into Ukraine unilaterally, whether under the guise of humanitarian convoys or any other pretext, without Kiev's permission," she said.
Comment: Notice how the U.S. catapults its propaganda with zero evidence, using only suggestion and conjecture: "could try", "if", "would be", "guise of". Harf's inner psychopath comes out here. Only a monster would condemn humanitarian aid to the people of east Ukraine.
Comment: Kiev rejected the convoy because it wishes Novorussians to suffer and die. The U.S. says Russia wants to invade because the U.S. is itching for war.
© RIA Novosti / Valery Melnikov
People in Lugansk carry the bodies of those killed during an artillery attack on the city.
People in Lugansk carry the bodies of those killed during an artillery attack on the city.
"This corresponds to a clear escalating trend," UN human rights spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly told Reuters in response to a query.
Over 60 people have been killed or wounded every day, Pouilly added.
Almost 5,000 have been wounded.
The figures comprise Ukrainian military, self-defense forces, and civilians. However, those are "very conservative estimates," Pouilly said.
The Ukraine crisis has been widely described as a humanitarian catastrophe. According to the UN's latest estimates, over 110,000 people have been internally displaced in the conflict. Moscow has reported that 730,000 people have fled across the border into Russia.
President Obama has approved the deployment of 130 more "military advisers" to northern Iraq, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced on Tuesday.
In addition, the Obama administration is considering deploying American ground forces to Iraq despite repeated assurances that it would not put boots on the ground in the crisis-hit country.
The proposed military mission, officials said, is aimed at rescuing thousands of Izadi refugees who are trapped by ISIL terrorists atop a barren mountain in northern Iraq, The Wall Street Journal reports.
"All US troops are trained combat troops. They are probably Special Forces, meaning they are 'trained killers' and where a 130 show up, you can expect more to follow," Lendman, author and syndicated columnist, told Press TV in a phone interview on Wednesday.
What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview
Press TV: Well Paul Craig Roberts, this crisis keeps escalating. My first question initially of course is what does Russia have in mind do you think?
Roberts: If Russia wanted to invade Ukraine they would not need a pretext much less would they use a pretext of sending humanitarian aid. If Russia wants to invade the parts of the Ukraine that have voted to disassociate from Ukraine and rejoin Russia it can do so it will, no one could stop Russia from this.
And so I think the Ukrainian government continues to show how ridiculous it is in these stupid kinds of public statements that it makes. Clearly what is going on in Ukraine is the absence of Russian help and that is why the "separatists" as they are called are having their apartment buildings blown up, their homes blown up and their civilian infrastructure blown up.
Essentially what the American stooge government in Kiev is doing in Ukraine is what the Israelis are doing to Gaza. They are slaughtering civilians and if the Red Cross recognizes that this is a humanitarian crisis and is cooperating with the Russian government to send aid, then you can bet that exactly that is what is going on. They are sending aid; people were being murdered by the American stooge government in Kiev.
© RIA Novosti / Alexey Druzhinin
Russia's President Vladimir Putin
Russia's President Vladimir Putin
Of all people who took part in the poll, 52 percent said they were ready to vote for Putin. In January 2014, the share of such people was about 29 percent and that means that Vladimir Putin's presidential rating has doubled over almost seven months.
Putin's closest contenders were the head of the Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov who got seven percent of potential votes and the leader of the populist nationalist party LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky with 5 percent. Current Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who was President between 2008 and 2012, currently has only 2 percent of supporters.
Another influential sociological think-tank, the Public Opinion Foundation, conducted similar research in early August which found that 68 percent of all potential voters were ready to support Putin at presidential elections, compared to 58 percent in March and 46 percent in January.
Obama's unexpected visit to Martha's Vineyard Golf Club leads to frisks and pat downs for all guests
Obama smiles as he pats Cyrus Walker's arm.
"There was security on the way in, but no word as to why they were there." The member added, "While eating, overlooking the golf course, guests had to stand up and be wanded." One asked if he could finish his hot soup first, and an Obama security man cracked, ominously, "So, you're not cooperating?"
But Obama did "go around and shake everyone's hand waiting on the course." His vacation's been called "tone-deaf" by some amid new military action in Iraq.
© Reuters / Guillermo Granja
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa
"I want to immediately say that we don't need to get anybody's permission to sell products to friendly countries: as far as we know Latin America isn't a part of the European Union," as RIA cites Correa's Tuesday comments to the Andes press agency.
His comments come a day after the Financial Times said the EU was going to persuade Latin American countries not to replace its agricultural exports to Russia.
"Let's wait for the official complaint from [from the EU] and we'll give a response to that," Correa said.
At present, bananas, cut flowers, coffee, and tea are the key goods exported by Ecuador to Russia. Data from the country's embassy in Moscow says that revenue from sale of bananas and roses are the second biggest outside of oil. In the first five months of 2014 Ecuador exported 580,000 tons of bananas and 9,300 tons of roses.
© n/a
It's the exact thing US officials have repeatedly promised never to do - send ground troops into combat roles in Iraq. Yet with the Pentagon now having committed to air drops of aid to Yazidis, part of the new air war, they're already looking toward the next step: a "rescue operation" that would put US boots on the ground, in direct combat with ISIS at the base of Mount Sinjar.
Comment: Don't be fooled for a second that US forces care one iota about the Yazidi suffering. This is a cover story for securing oil resources and ousting democratically-elected al-Maliki.
Comment: They've 'gone quiet' because they have absolutely no evidence, and they know any 'evidence' they produce would quickly be exposed as fake.