Puppet Masters

Pompeo to appoint special envoy for peace in Afghanistan

RFE/RL
Thu, 23 Aug 2018 15:07 UTC

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to appoint Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born former U.S. ambassador to Kabul, as his special envoy on Afghanistan, media reported on August 22.

The decision reported by Reuters and AP, citing anonymous U.S. officials, would send a signal that the United States is serious about engaging the Taliban and making progress in peace talks to end the longest U.S. war, media said.

U.S. military commanders recently have acknowledged little progress is being made on the battlefield or at the peace table despite a reported meeting last month between a U.S. diplomat and Taliban leaders to explore possible negotiations.

Comment: Wow, it only took them 17 years to figure that one out.

The White House and the State Department declined to comment on reports of Khalilzad's expected appointment, and Khalilzad did not return messages left by reporters.

The outgoing U.S. commander in Afghanistan insisted on August 22 that despite a recent wave of violence, Trump's strategy of an open-ended deployment of U.S special operations forces and increased air support for Afghan forces is succeeding.

Comment: Some more on Khalilzad from the SOTT archives:

American economic siege warfare on Yemen, North Korea, Iran: Starve the civilians into submission

Finian Cunningham
RT
Fri, 24 Aug 2018 14:50 UTC

© Naif Rahma / Reuters
Boys place a poster on the grave of a boy killed in a Saudi-led coalition air strike on a bus in northern Yemen, in Saada, Yemen August 13, 2018

Every time a Trump administration official pontificates about this or that, a TV split-screen should simultaneously show the heart-rending burial scenes of Yemeni children killed earlier this month by US-supplied Saudi warplanes.

Not just Yemen. How about children starving in North Korea from US economic sanctions? Or Syrian infants living in refugee camps, forced from their homes by US-backed militants? Or Iranian babies facing the toll of vindictive American policies?

Not just the Trump administration. Every American administration has shown the callous ability to allow the killing of children en masse, either through war or economic siege.

Think of Cuba, blockaded continuously by Washington for over five decades, for no other reason than its having a socialist government.

Think of former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who callously said the sanctioning-to-death of Iraqi children was "worth it".

In Yemen, thousands of children have been killed over the past three years from air strikes in the US-backed war on that impoverished country. For every one of those deaths, Washington bears responsibility for supplying missiles, bombs, warplanes, mid-air fueling and targeting logistics to the Saudi military.

Why does the New York Times keep pushing the idea that Bruce Ohr is a big nobody?

Eric Felten
The Weekly Standard
Mon, 20 Aug 2018 14:40 UTC

He was actually associate deputy attorney general until recently.

Since late 2017, Justice Department official Bruce Ohr has emerged as a central character in the Trump dossier saga, including the contested way the dossier's allegations were presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. He has been an object of the president's ire, of late, and so August 17 a trio of New York Times reporters, Michael Shear, Katie Benner, and Nicholas Fandos, came to the DoJ man's defense with an article titled " Embracing Conspiracy Theory, Trump Escalates Attack on Bruce Ohr." To hear them tell it, Ohr is an innocent bystander. It's an effort at elision so strained it makes one hope the Times writers didn't hurt themselves.

"President Trump threatened on Friday to quickly revoke the security clearance of Bruce Ohr, a little-known Justice Department official" the Times reports, describing Ohr as "a midlevel government worker." Katie Benner had written a solo-bylined story two days before titled " Little-Known Justice Dept. Official Makes Trump's Security Clearance List." Just in case anyone missed the drift, the first graph of Benner's August 15 article describes Ohr as "a little-known career Justice Department official." Two days later, Shear, Benner and Fandos wrote that in targeting Ohr, Trump "reached deep into the bureaucracy."

Comment:

How did Washington become so wrapped up in Central Asia

Grete Mautner
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 23 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC

Central Asia has traditionally been regarded by Washington as "Russia's soft underbelly", since it's a common belief within American think tanks that by establishing control over this region the US will be capable of subjecting the whole of Eurasia to its will, which means that American hegemony should remain uncontested. Even back in the Soviet days, when Moscow launched a military operation in Afghanistan, Washington chose to align itself with terrorist formations to apply pressure on the Soviet Union via proxy forces. It was in the mid-80s that it has also began exporting various radical teachings to Central Asian states in hopes that it could draw even more people in the anti-Russian struggle.

However, it was not until the 9/11 attacks that Washington found itself capable of establishing strong military presence across the Central Asia, while unleashing a wide array of intelligence operations aimed at undermining the positions of the Russian Federation and China.

In 2005, the project of Greater Central Asia was launched, that was envisioned by the founder and chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, S. Frederick Starr that is believed to be pretty fluent in Russian. The aim of this project was to push Central Asia in establishing closer ties with South Asia, while severing all of its links of cooperation with Russia and China.

A Manafort juror speaks out

Sara Carter
saraacarter.com
Fri, 24 Aug 2018 13:04 UTC

A juror on the Paul Manafort trial said there was only one juror standing in the way of convicting the former Trump campaign chairman on all 18 counts.

Manafort was found guilty on Tuesday of eight counts-five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to disclose foreign bank and financial accounts. The jury was unable to reach a consensus on the remaining 10 counts, and Judge T.S. Ellis declared a mistrial.

Paula Duncan joined Fox News' Shannon Bream on Wednesday and explained that there was "one holdout" on the 10 counts - a female juror - who felt those counts could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

"I thought that the public - America - needed to know how close this was and the evidence was overwhelming. I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was and no one is above the law," said Duncan.

Duncan, who is a Trump supporter, said that while the charges were legitimate, "the prosecution tried to make the case about the Russian collusion right from the beginning and of course the judge shut them down on that. We did waste a bit of time with that....," she said.

Duterte rejects US 'imposed friendship', questions reputation as 'peerless' arms supplier

RT
Fri, 24 Aug 2018 00:36 UTC

Despite getting no guarantees that Philippines' colonial-times 'friend' the US would ever supply him with weapons, President Duterte says he'll meet top US officials, who want to stop him from buying arms from Russia and China.

"It's hard to say we are friends. We are friends but remember we are friends because you made us a colony years ago...It was not a friendship agreed-upon, mutually satisfying... It was a friendship imposed on us,"

Duterte said in Davao City after reading out a letter he received from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

In the letter, the US top officials praised the "enduring partnership built on shared history and values" and urged a meeting with the Philippines leader to convince him to buy American defense equipment. In particular, they brought up the potential sale of F-16s and helicopters, which the US officials believe the Philippines army desperately needs.

Comment: A discriminating buyer with principles - is that a problematic combo for US-MIC?

In detaining Peter Beinart, Israel no longer represents millions of Jews overseas

Jonathan Cook
Sun, 19 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC

Academics, lawyers, human rights groups, opponents of the occupation and boycott supporters are facing ever-more difficult interrogations when landing in Israel

There are few places in Israel where its apartheid character is more conspicuous than the imposing international airport just outside Tel Aviv, named after the country's founding father, David Ben Gurion.

Most planes landing in Israel have to circle over the West Bank before making their descent. Below, more than two million Palestinians living under cruel Israeli occupation are barred from using the airport. Instead, they depend on capricious decisions from military officers on whether they will be allowed to cross a land border into Jordan. They are comparatively better off than nearly two million more Palestinians in besieged Gaza, who are denied even that minimal freedom.

Meanwhile, a similar number of Palestinians living ostensibly as citizens inside Israel have to run a gauntlet of racial profiling checks before they can board a flight.

Armed security guards at the perimeter entrance listen for Hebrew spoken with an Arab accent. Passports are branded with barcodes that can entail humiliating interrogations, delays, strip searches and security escorts onto planes.

Mark Levin: The president 'is in the clear'

Larry O'Connor
The Washington Times
Wed, 22 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Nationally syndicated talk show host Mark Levin appeared on Fox News Tuesday evening to give a legal lesson to all the armchair pundits and pretend legal experts trumpeting the Michael Cohen plea arrangement as a looking legal crisis for President Donald Trump.

The host of Life, Liberty, and Levin made an unassailable legal argument that is fully supported by not just federal election law, but by common sense as well. In short: Donald Trump's use of his own, personal money for a legal activity is in no way a violation of campaign finance laws. Period.

DNC retracts claim voter database targeted by 'Russian cyber-attack'

RT
Thu, 23 Aug 2018 16:28 UTC

The latest alarming news on a sophisticated cyber-attack on the Democratic National Committee's voter database may have cemented one's worst fears over Russia hacking into the US elections... except it was really a "phishing test."

Bob Lord, the committee's chief security officer, raised the alarm on Wednesday after detecting a fake login page that mimicked the access page for Votebuilder, a program used by Democratic Party officials across that country that hosts the party's voter database.

"This attempt is further proof that there are constant threats as we head into midterm elections and we must remain vigilant in order to prevent future attacks," Lord said in a statement. However, within a few hours it became clear that blaming Moscow, no matter how tempting, would not be an option.

Comment: The DNC is practicing the art of recanting, on small fake claims, in order to work up to the real and important admission that Russia did not hack their system.

See also: New hacker attempt to break into US Democratic voter files thwarted

Mass Media Is The Enemy Of The People Like The Cage Is The Enemy Of The Bird

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Fri, 24 Aug 2018 15:26 UTC

The Guardian has just published an actual, non-fictional op-ed that is titled "Is my Jewish three-year-old too young to learn about antisemitism?", about a concerned mother who is teaching her toddler about the Holocaust in case Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister.

The Guardian. Not The Onion. The Guardian.

New Lt. Governor of Virginia Winsome Sears: "We're going to have safer neighborhoods, safer communities, and our children are going to get a good...

parzival

Bill Gates is going to be the one with the uncertain future,,, * New Lt. Governor of Virginia Winsome Sears: "We're going to have safer...

parzival

The more we hear about adverse affects the more we will merely shrug. It's a catch 22. Is that an asteroid trail in the photo?

sass

Welcome to the new normal. The more sensory exposure we have about such things, the less it is an issue.

sass

more misbehaving phuqqin' jewzskies starring on the sott; speaks for itself

Jibrish

Puppet Masters

Pompeo to appoint special envoy for peace in Afghanistan

American economic siege warfare on Yemen, North Korea, Iran: Starve the civilians into submission

Why does the New York Times keep pushing the idea that Bruce Ohr is a big nobody?

How did Washington become so wrapped up in Central Asia

A Manafort juror speaks out

Duterte rejects US 'imposed friendship', questions reputation as 'peerless' arms supplier

In detaining Peter Beinart, Israel no longer represents millions of Jews overseas

Mark Levin: The president 'is in the clear'

DNC retracts claim voter database targeted by 'Russian cyber-attack'

Mass Media Is The Enemy Of The People Like The Cage Is The Enemy Of The Bird

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