Welcome to Sott.net
Fri, 05 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Eye 1

UK's SAS fought in Syria violating Parliament's decision, military admits


Sputnik
Sun, 24 Feb 2019 18:32 UTC
syria
© AP Photo
Back in 2015, when the British parliament was deciding on the country's participation in a US-coalition it allowed the use of its air forces in the Arab state, but never authorised boots on the ground.

The UK Ministry of Defence has confirmed that its Special Air Service (SAS) have been participating in operations against Daesh* in Syria, The Sunday Times reported citing results a freedom of information request. The request was made in light of the death of SAS soldier, Sergeant Matt Tonroe in Syria in 2018.

According to the media, the wording "British forces embedded in the armed forces of other nations operate as if they were the host nation's personnel" justified the presence of British special forces in Syria, while officially the UK never sanctioned ground operations.

Comment: And the EU apparently intends to leave 1,400 troops in Syria, but why would one believe them? For the UK flouting democracy in the name of war is par for the course: Also check out SOTT radio's:

      Read More...
Attention

History is written by the winners - The truth about the International Criminal Court

James Corbett
Corbett Report
Sun, 24 Feb 2019 17:08 UTC
International Criminal Court
© Corbett Report
As a well-known adage holds: "To the victor go the spoils." But it might well add: "Meanwhile, the losers go to the gallows."

This is the logic of victor's justice. It is the logic of the Treaty of Versailles, which demanded unpayable reparations from the vanquished German nation. It is the logic of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, where perpetrators of war crimes pronounced judgement on the war crimes of the defeated. It is the logic of Abu Ghraib, where the US military tortured and killed its enemy captives.

Throughout human history, victorious nations have gone too far in exacting revenge from their defeated foes. The entire notion of "international law"-from the Geneva Conventions to the International Law Commission to the International Criminal Court-has been sold to the public as a check against this unfortunate tendency to impose victor's justice on the fallen. But just as history is written by the winners, so, too, is justice decided by the victors, and the case of the International Criminal Court is the prime example of that.

Think of international war crimes in the recent era and what comes to mind? America's wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan based on premeditated lies about weapons of mass destruction and 9/11? The indefinite detention of captives at Camp X-ray, Guantanamo, or other military prisons that resulted from those illegal wars? Israel's use of white phosphorous in its 2009 massacre of civilians in Gaza? Saudi Arabia's campaign of genocide in Yemen (made possible by Uncle Sam's unwavering support)?

Well, let's compare that list of violations of international law to the list of "situations" that the International Criminal Court has investigated since its formation in 2003. Notice anything? Like how not a single one of those glaring war crimes we just noted are anywhere on the list? Or how every single one of those investigations (save one) targeted an African conflict?

No justice for Afghanistan. No justice for Iraq. No justice for Palestine. No justice for Yemen. No justice for any victims of any Western-allied aggression. Make no mistake: These "omissions" are not by accident but by design.

The most recent demonstration of this fact-as if another demonstration were needed-came late last month when senior ICC judge Christoph Flügge resigned in disgust over American meddling with the court's activities. Actually, "meddling" is the way many of the headline writers chose to frame America's interference with the ICC, but that word doesn't quite do justice to the situation, if you'll pardon the pun.
      Read More...
Map

Iranian FM not ruling out military action against militants in Syria's Idlib Province


Sputnik
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 16:48 UTC
Idlib Province, Syria
© REUTERS / Khalil Ashawi
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has not ruled out that an offensive against terrorists in Syria's Idlib province could be launched because all other options to secure the area have proved fruitless and armed groups have only strengthened their positions in the region.

"We are moving in this direction. We have never wanted a military operation [in Idlib] and we have been working to avoid it because we know that any kind of military action in Idlib would turn into a catastrophe. However, other approaches have failed, while the Nusra Front has come to control even more [of the province's] territory", Zarif said in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Basler Zeitung, published on 22 February.

The statement comes after Bouthaina Shaaban, a political and media adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad, said earlier the same day that Damascus had decided to regain control over Idlib province and was already discussing the time frame and ways to implement that decision.
      Read More...
Binoculars

Iran fires cruise missile from deep water for first time amid tension with US


RT
Sun, 24 Feb 2019 16:39 UTC
Iranian submarine
© Iranian Navy Office / AFP
An Iranian submarine successfully carried out its first cruise missile deep-sea launch during a naval drill in the nation's southern waters. The maneuvers came as US aircraft carriers returned to the region after a long absence.

A light Ghadir-class submarine fired an anti-ship cruise missile from underwater for the first time on Sunday, the Iranian Navy commander, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, told local media, adding that the missile had successfully hit its target.

It happened during the ongoing large-scale naval drill, 'Veleyat-97'. The war games are taking place in the area from the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to the Sea of Oman and the northern parts of the Indian Ocean. The navy fired numerous cruise missiles from ships and coastal ground-based systems during the exercise. Tehran used the drill to showcase its newest frigate, 'Sahand,' and its Fateh-class submarines that military officials say can also carry cruise missiles.
      Read More...
Snakes in Suits

US puppet Guaido set to meet Pence, requests that partners consider 'all options' to topple Maduro


RT
Sun, 24 Feb 2019 08:19 UTC
Guaido
© Reuters / Marco Bello
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido stands on a truck carrying humanitarian aid in Cucuta, Colombia
Venezuela's self-proclaimed interim leader has 'formally' requested that his international partners consider 'all options' necessary to depose Maduro, as he now heads to the Lima Group summit to meet US Vice President Mike Pence.

"The events of today oblige me to take a decision - to propose formally to the international community that we should keep open all options for the liberation of our homeland, which is fighting and will continue to fight," Juan Guaido tweeted Saturday evening.

Following the chaotic and failed attempt by the opposition to forcefully bring convoys of USAID supplies into Venezuela, US-backed "interim president" Guaido vowed to attend the Lima Group summit in Bogota, apparently to discuss a course of further action with the countries that have supported his claim to power.

Comment: While Guaido courts his 'international partners', the anti-government opposition is courting the media. Venezuela's border with Colombia has become a hot spot in the escalating row over 'humanitarian aid' so the opposition on the Colombian side of the border has shipped in boxes of flowers to 'love bomb' the soldiers guarding the border:


Washington's warmongers, undeterred by the failure to force 'humanitarian aid' into Venezuela are now doubling down on the regime change rhetoric..i.e. 'embrace democracy ..OR ELSE!' Pompeo threatened more sanctions as both he and Bolton denounced the Venezuelan government for stopping aid trucks at the Colombia border claiming (without evidence) that Maduro's thugs were responsible for the fires engulfing the aid convoy. Curiously, the trucks caught fire on the Colombian side of the bridge where they were surrounded by opposition activists. RT reports:


Bolton has now threatened the Venezuelan military with even more sanctions and isolation if they do not accede to Washington's demands to allow in humanitarian aid. As RT notes, most high-ranking Venezuelan officials are already blacklisted by the US, and the country itself is under an economic, political and diplomatic blockade almost on the level of US sanctions against Iran and North Korea, so it is unclear what more Bolton could threaten them with. However, Marco Rubio took a rather mafia-like tone when threatening to target the family of Ivan Hernandez, Maduro's presidential guard: "You should think very carefully about the actions you take over the next few days in Venezuela. Because...your actions will determine how you spend the rest of your life. Do you really want to be more loyal to Maduro than to your own family?"

Spreading 'freedom and democracy'...any wonder the Venezuelans aren't convinced?

      Read More...
Dollar Gold

US and South Korea settle on an agreement for sharing military expenses

Konstantin Asmolov
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 15:49 UTC
soldier training
In a number of previous articles on military cooperation between the USA and South Korea we have tackled the problem of reaching agreement on Seoul's contribution to the expenses involved in maintaining the US military presence in South Korea. These expenses include the salaries of South Korean staff working in US bases, as well as material and technical support for the US's military facilities in the country.

With the previous five-year agreement on the financing of the US's military presence in South Korea due to expire on December 31, 2018, the two countries started discussing the terms of the new agreement on March 7, 2018. By the end of the year there had been 10 rounds of talks, but Donald Trump's repeated demands that the US's ally should pay a greater share of the expenses related to its own security prevented the two sides from reaching a consensus.

Initially the USA had sought to increase South Korea's contribution to $1.6 billion, almost double the existing amount. The demand was then reduced to $1.4 billion, and then again to approximately $1.25 billion a year, which is still almost one and a half times the previous contribution of $860 million, or 960 billion won, which amount was indexed to inflation. The negotiations involved a clash of two different "red lines": 1 trillion won is, for South Korea, something of a psychological threshold, while $1 billion, for the US, is also more than simply a sum of money.

Washington also demanded that Seoul cover the cost of military expansion on the Korean peninsula, in the event that strategic armament became necessary.

In addition, while South Korea was aiming to conclude a new agreement for a term from three to five years, the USA insisted on a one-year term.
      Read More...
Rose

What is Vladimir Putin really threatening? Fake Democracies

Phil Butler
New Eastern Outlook
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 14:11 UTC
Vladimir Putin
Half a century from now historians and social scientists will wrestle with the defining questions at the dawn of the 21st-century. And unless I miss my guess, lucid researchers, philosophers, and professors will discuss what exactly it was that Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened. This should also be the most imperative question for today.

Since the time just before the Sochi Olympics of 2014, Russia and her President Vladimir Putin have been under siege. Make no mistake; the February Ukrainian Revolution was not a coincidence of timing. At that time, the legitimately elected Ukrainian government's decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the European Union, and to renew closer ties with Russia and the new Eurasian Economic Union was a well-planned insurgency. Anyone who tells you differently is either a liar or too dumb to be in any geopolitical discourse.

Comment: A hero and leader in a time of madness - Documentary on Putin, the world's best President



      Read More...
Pirates

Israel will never do harm to 'friendly Iranian people' - Ex-diplomat writes disturbingly dishonest op-ed


Sputnik
Sun, 24 Feb 2019 09:02 UTC
missile launchers
© AFP 2018 / GIL COHEN-MAGEN
Israel does not consider the people of Iran its enemy, Zvi Magen, diplomat, ex-Israeli ambassador to Russia told Sputnik, sharing his views on Tel Aviv's attitude towards Tehran, the idea of creating an Arab NATO, and Russo-Israeli interaction in Syria.

Tel Aviv does not seek to inflict damage on the Iranian people, said Zvi Magen, diplomat, ex-Israeli ambassador to Russia (1998) and an employee of the intelligence department of the General Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), while speaking with Sputnik on the sidelines of the eighth Middle East conference of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

"First, Israel has never regarded the Iranian people as an adversary", the Israeli scholar stated. "We are bound by a very long history of mutual friendship that ceased to exist because of the interests of the current leadership of Iran. They decided that Israel should be seen as a threat and an enemy and mobilised various resources to pursue their interests in the region. But I believe that for Iran, Israel in fact is not the goal in the region: It is only a handy lever for promoting other domestic and regional issues".


Comment: If you reverse everything this writer is saying, then it will make much more sense. As Mossad's motto goes: By way of deception thou shalt do war.


Comment: This article reflects no one except pathological liars and the dangerously deluded: At Trump summit Netanyahu declares "common interest of war with Iran" sparking backlash from Tehran

See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

      Read More...
Bad Guys

"Yankee, go home": Venezuela expels Colombia's diplomats, US 'aid' trucks sent back - Bridge border standoff rundown


RT
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 19:04 UTC
venezuela border colombia
Venezuela has severed relations with its neighbor Colombia and has expelled all diplomats from its embassy, President Nicolas Maduro has declared, during a rally in Caracas.

Maduro had earlier closed the border with Colombia in the run-up to Saturday's attempts by the opposition to deliver trucks of 'humanitarian aid' from Colombia, in defiance of Caracas. A part of the border where a forced crossing might take place has been the scene of a tense confrontation between opposition activists and security forces all day.

Addressing a crowd of thousands of supporters, Maduro condemned his Colombian counterpart Ivan Duque for meddling in Venezuela's internal affairs, calling him a "devil in the flesh".

Comment: Comment: RT provides an overview on US threats and motivations behind the performance:
Venezuelan government condemns US-orchestrated 'propaganda show' at Colombian border

Guaido
© Reuters / Marco Bello
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido stands on a truck carrying humanitarian aid in Cucuta, Colombia
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza has blasted the United States and Colombia for organizing a "propaganda show" at the country's Colombian border. The border is currently the scene of a standoff over aid shipments.

"From the propaganda show organized at the border, the governments of the United States and Colombia have violated practically all the principles and purposes of the UN Charter," Arreaza tweeted on Saturday. "The world community observes them and will take appropriate action within the UN."

[...]

Rabidly anti-Maduro Senator Marco Rubio has visited the border to drum up support for regime change in Venezuela, as has US envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams, best known for smuggling weapons in aid shipments to Nicaragua's right-wing Contras in the early 1980s.

Tweeting in Spanish, Rubio warned the Venezuelan military, the majority of whom remain loyal to Maduro, to lay down their arms. "Now is the time, tomorrow will be too late," he said.


President Trump, who threw his support behind opposition leader Juan Guaido moments after Guaido declared himself interim president last month, was short on analysis and simply tweeted "God Bless the people of Venezuela!"


The United Nations has warned the US against using aid as a political pawn, and called for negotiations between Maduro and Guaido. "Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or other objectives," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York on Wednesday.
More from RT with commentary from Maduro:
'We are defending our borders and freedom': Maduro amid humanitarian aid tensions

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has rallied a large crowd of supporters telling them that the country has been defending its sovereignty. The call comes as the opposition was trying to get 'aid' from the US across the border.

Maduro rejected the attempts by self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido to pressure border guards deployed to border crossings with Colombia to allow trucks in, calling the campaign an "attempted coup". He called on the people of Venezuela to band behind his government.

"It is not a time of betrayal, it is a time of loyalty to the country and the supreme ideals of Venezuela," he said.

Maduro dismissed the defectors, saying what they did was for show, just like the entire situation on the border orchestrated by the US government.

He stated that Venezuela was within its rights to defend its borders and the freedom of its people from a "Washington regime-change operation".


A deadline set by Guaido for the Venezuelan government to let in the American shipment expires on Saturday. Since morning there was high tension in the Venezuelan border town of Urena as well as at the Simon Bolivar bridge about 10 km away. Some clashes occurred between opposition activists and Venezuelan security forces, who used tear gas on several occasions.


The opposition leader traveled to Colombia and is organizing a truck convoy, but so far has failed to force them through the police cordon.

The Maduro government sees the highly-publicized attempt to deliver the aid as a PR stunt to bolster the opposition and as a possible cover to smuggle arms to the opposition. Legitimate international humanitarian organizations like the Committee of the Red Cross refused to take part in the operation.
TASS reports that the Colombian Foreign Minister confirms the convoy was ordered to return - having achieved their objective of stirring up trouble:
Colombian leader orders humanitarian convoy to return
Ivan Duque
© GIAN EHRENZELLER/EPA-EFE
Colombian President Ivan Duque
Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said on Saturday that President Ivan Duque ordered the trucks with humanitarian assistance for Venezuela to return back from the border with Venezuela.

"Measures were taken upon direct instructions by President Duque. Protecting people in the border zone remains the Colombian government's priority, therefore, the trucks are returning," the minister told reporters in the city of Cucuta on the Colombian-Venezuelan border.
Zerohedge provides more info:
Venezuela Aid Trucks Set Ablaze As Maduro Tells Trump: "Yankee, Go Home"
venezuela convoy fire
Update 2: True to his word, it appears the humanitarian aid trucks being sent from the west into Venezuela have been repelled by Maduro's guards as reports come in from social media that they are all now on fire.

Meanwhile, John Bolton is stirring the neocon pot...


Update 1: President Maduro addressed the nation on state-owned television, urging his supporters to revolt if he is harmed and telling Trump "Yankee, go home!" Headlines from the speech include (via Bloomberg):
  • *VENEZUELA'S MADURO SAYS HE WILL HOLD POWER FOR MANY YEARS
  • *VENEZUELA'S MADURO SAYS HE'S NO 'PUPPET OF THE EMPIRE'
  • *VENEZUELA'S MADURO: TRUMP, DUQUE DON'T DECIDE FOR VENEZUELANS
  • *MADURO: VENEZUELANS ARE DEFEATING U.S. COUP ATTEMPT
  • *MADURO: GUAIDO SHOULD CALL ELECTIONS IF HE IS PRESIDENT
  • *MADURO: PROTESTERS INCITING VIOLENCE ARE GOING TO PRISON
  • *VENEZUELA'S MADURO SAYS HE WILL GUARANTEE SECURITY ON BORDER
  • *VENEZUELA'S MADURO: GOVT HAS PLANS FOR ALL POSSIBLE SCENARIOS
  • *VENEZUELA'S MADURO TELLS PRESIDENT TRUMP: 'YANKEE GO HOME'
  • *VENEZUELA MADURO CALLS ON SUPPORTERS TO REVOLT IF HE IS HARMED
  • *VENEZUELANS SHOULD RESOLVE OWN PROBLEMS, MADURO SAYS
  • *VENEZUELAN HUMANITARIAN AID SEEKS U.S. INVASION, MADURO SAYS
President Trump has been quiet so far on Twitter, offering just this earlier today:

As we detailed earlier, unrest in Venezuela is intensifying at border crossings with Colombia after embattled President Nicolas Maduro declared the borders with both Colombia and Brazil closed late this week, and after violence at a town near the border with Brazil left two dead and 17 injured when national guard soldiers opened fire on a group of civilians attempting to keep open a segment of the southern border with Brazil for deliveries of humanitarian aid.


On Saturday CNN crews filmed confrontations between protesters and Venezuela's National Guard at Ureña near Colombia over demands of workers to cross into the neighboring country to work.


Source: Bloomberg Business' Andy Rosati via Twitter from Ureña. "Blocked by national guard, what was meant to be a peaceful protest in Venezuela is turning increasingly violent. Masked protesters hijacked a government bus and set it a blaze trying to break the soldiers' barricade."

"We want to work!" protesters chanted before being dispersed by tear gas and rubber bullets, after which the crowd hurled stones at the soldiers. Some among the crowed tried to dismantle a metal barrier blocking the Simon Bolivar international bridge, one of three major cross-border bridges near Urena, one of which has never been opened and was used by the US administration to claim Maduro had blockaded the country against outside aid.


It's also at this location that three members of Venezuela's Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) defected to the Colombian side on Saturday morning, later confirmed by Colombian authorities, but condemned by Caracas as an act orchestrated and staged by the opposition.


Tensions appear to be coming to head this weekend as previously US-backed Juan Guaido promised to personally lead caravans to ensure aid is brought in from both Colombia and Brazil, in order to undermine and otherthrow the Maduro government.

Footage emerged on Saturday which appears to confirm that "Interim President" Guaido is present at the Tienditas International Bridge which connects Tachira, Venezuela with Norte de Santander, Colombia.

Guaido is vowing to break the border blockade by personally entering Venezuela with an aid convoy.


He's reportedly there with with Colombian president, Iván Duque and President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera - all of which are promising to facilitate the entry of aid.


Meanwhile as unrest at multiple border towns in Venezuela grows, Maduro called on Venezuelans to "mobilize" Saturday.

"Let's all take to the streets to defend our independence with conscience and joy," Maduro said via his official Twitter account.

Juan Guaido on the Colombian side of the Tienditas International Bridge Saturday.

This further comes a day after British billionaire Richard Branson sponsored a Live Aid-inspired show in Cucuta, Colombia, involving popular Latin American singers and appearances by the presidents of Colombia, Chile, and Paraguay.

Guaido himself also made a surprise appearance at the end of the concert in defiance of a ban on him leaving Venezuela.


According to the AP, Guaido may have traveled across the border on a Colombian air force helicopter:
It's not clear how Guaido sneaked into Colombia - in one video circulating on social media he appears running across a bridge near the Colombian town of Puerto Santander, while in another he could be seen boarding a helicopter belonging to the Colombian air force.
Last week, Guaido warned that Maduro had until February 23 to allow aid into the country, which in the US was echoed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who told Axios on Wednesday that Saturday could ultimately decide the fate of Maduro as the standoff over aid comes to a head, given the opposition is ready to force the issue in as visible way as possible.


The provocative actions to undermine Maduro's power have been acknowledged as just that by the opposition, who've recently openly stated that the "humanitarian channel" is a direct political jab at Caracas. Though the tons of much needed aid, including food and medicine supplies, is reportedly piling up along border points especially in Colombia, it's anything but merely "benevolent" - the opposition acknowledges.

"The impact of the humanitarian aid is highly political," Juan Miguel Matheus, an MP for the opposition told CNN earlier this week. "Our first and primary goal is to provide relief for the Venezuelan population, but after that, with this move we want to checkmate Maduro."

"If the aid gets in, Maduro is shown to have lost control of the situation; if it doesn't get in, we show that Maduro doesn't care for the suffering of the people," he added.

The spotlight also remains this weekend on Cucuta, where US aid shipments are being delivered via US Air Force planes and staged for delivery. Meanwhile national security adviser John Bolton has canceled a planned trip to South Korea to "focus on events in Venezuela."

developing...

* * *

Live Feed:




      Read More...
Oil Well

Venezuela struggles to find buyers for its oil after US sanctions

Tsvetana Paraskova
OilPrice,com
Thu, 21 Feb 2019 14:30 UTC
Oil facilities
© Reuters / Isaac Urrutia
FILE PHOTO: Oil facilities are seen on Lake Maracaibo in Lagunillas, Venezuela
Following the U.S. sanctions, Venezuela's oil inventories have swelled to a five-year high, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing satellite data-a sign that Venezuelan oil buyers are fleeing and the country sitting on top of the world's largest crude resources is struggling to sell its oil.

At the end of January, the U.S. imposed sanctions on PDVSA to "help prevent further diverting of Venezuela's assets by Maduro and preserve these assets for the people of Venezuela. The path to sanctions relief for PdVSA is through the expeditious transfer of control to the Interim President or a subsequent, democratically elected government," Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin said.

The sanctions block all payments to PDVSA accounts, and buyers of Venezuelan crude are directed to deposit payments in a separate account, to which PDVSA doesn't have access.

Comment: With Iran, Russia and now Venezuela, all major energy supplying nations under sanctions the US is putting the world in a bind and it's likely this arrogance will, eventually, backfire - or the US will take its nefarious games up a notch: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: US Regime Change Operation in Venezuela - This Time It's Legit?

      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts