Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

The Psychopath speaks: Kissinger on how the Ukraine crisis ends

Henry Kissinger
The Washington Post
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
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© Unknown
Henry A. Kissinger was Secretary of State and a mass murderer from 1973 to 1977.

Public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation. But do we know where we are going? In my life, I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally. The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins.

Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side's outpost against the other - it should function as a bridge between them.

Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia's borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States.

The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709 , were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet - Russia's means of projecting power in the Mediterranean - is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia.

Comment: "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests":

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Kissinger: 'Terrorists are really people that reject the international system'

The Grievous Return of Henry Kissinger

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Eye 1

Court rules NSA must not keep metadata records for longer than five years

Josh Gerstein
Politico
Fri, 07 Mar 2014 16:07 UTC
NSA metadata
© Mark Werker
A judge has denied the federal government's request to allow the National Security Agency to keep telephone metadata past the current five-year maximum in order to preserve the information for use in pending lawsuits.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Judge Reggie Walton said the government hadn't shown a strong enough need to keep the data, especially given the privacy concerns raised by such a move.

"The amended procedures would further infringe on the privacy interests of United States persons whose telephone records were acquired in vast numbers and retained by the government to aid in national security investigations," Walton wrote in a 12-page order posted here. "The government seeks to retain these records, not for national security reasons, but because some of them may be relevant in civil litigation in which the destruction of those very same records is being requested. However, the civil plaintiffs potentially interested in preserving the...metadata have expressed no desire to acquire the records."

"This Court is reluctant to take any action that could impede the proper adjudication of the identified civil suits, and understands why the government would proceed with caution in connection with records potentially relevant to those matters," Walton continued. "However, the Court cannot make the finding required to grant the motion based on the record before it."

Last month, the Justice Department made the request to keep the data indefinitely. A spokesman for the department had no immediate comment Friday.
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Star of David

Israel's future in FIFA is uncertain - accused of deliberately targeting Palestinian national team members

Dave Zirin
The Nation
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 11:25 UTC
israel palestine football soccer
© Associated Press/Tara Todras-WhitehillThe Palestinian national soccer team, a source of pride for many, has been under attack by the Israeli state.
Their names are Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17. They were once soccer players in the West Bank. Now they are never going to play sports again. Jawhar and Adam were on their way home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium on January 31 when Israeli forces fired upon them as they approached a checkpoint. After being shot repeatedly, they were mauled by checkpoint dogs and then beaten. Ten bullets were put into Jawhar's feet. Adam took one bullet in each foot. After being transferred from a hospital in Ramallah to King Hussein Medical Center in Amman, they received the news that soccer would no longer be a part of their futures. (Israel's border patrol maintains that the two young men were about to throw a bomb.)

This is only the latest instance of the targeting of Palestinian soccer players by the Israeli army and security forces. Death, injury or imprisonment has been a reality for several members of the Palestinian national team over the last five years. Just imagine if members of Spain's top-flight World Cup team had been jailed, shot or killed by another country and imagine the international media outrage that would ensue. Imagine if prospective youth players for Brazil were shot in the feet by the military of another nation. But, tragically, these events along the checkpoints have received little attention on the sports page or beyond.

Much has been written about the psychological effect this kind of targeting has on the occupied territories. Sports represent escape, joy and community, and the Palestinian national soccer team, for a people without a recognized nation, is a source of tremendous pride. To attack the players is to attack the hope that the national team will ever truly have a home.

The Palestinian national football team, which formed in 1998, is currently ranked 144th in the world by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). They have never been higher than 115th. As Chairman of the Palestinian Football Association Jibril al-Rajoub commented bluntly, the problems are rooted in "the occupation's insistence on destroying Palestinian sport."

Comment: Israel misses no opportunity to persecute the Palestinian people.

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Attention

John Bolton: 'Our biggest National-Security problem is Barack Obama

Eliana Johnson
National Review Online
Thu, 06 Mar 2014 11:02 UTC
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© AP
With the Obama administration grappling with a crisis in Ukraine, former United Nations ambassador John Bolton took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday and declared that the country's "biggest national-security problem is Barack Obama."

Bolton honed in on the terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, which he described as paradigm of President Obama's foreign-policy failures because the president "has done nothing to avenge Chris Stevens's death."

"That is a terrible lesson for our adversaries," Bolton said. "Under Barack Obama you can murder his personal representative and get away scot-free."

He also warned that the matter will come back to haunt Hillary Clinton if, as most suspect, she launches a presidential bid in 2016. "We will be happy to tell Hillary Clinton in unmistakable terms, 'We know what difference it makes, even if you don't,'" he said.
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Black Magic

International law violater and torture backer Dick Cheney wants 'military options' against Putin for 'blowing off' treaties

David Edwards
The Raw Story
Sun, 09 Mar 2014 13:25 UTC
Vile, psychopathic filth
© APFN.org
Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday cited treaty violations by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a reason that the U.S. should consider "military options" in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

"I worry when we begin to address a crisis, the first thing we do is we take options off the table," Cheney told CBS host Charlie Rose. "I don't think the administration should do that."

"In a sense, [the Obama administration said] no military," he continued. "He seemed to operate that way most of the time. There are military options that don't involve putting troops on the ground in Crimea. We could go back and reinstate the ballistic missile defense program."

Cheney pointed out that Putin had violated commitments "like the Budapest Memorandum, when Russia, the U.S. and Britain guaranteed the borders of Ukraine in return for Ukraine giving up their nuclear weapons. Very important. And Putin is just blowing that off."
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Arrow Down

Arizona senator John McCain least popular in the country

Tal Kopan
Politico
Thu, 06 Mar 2014 14:51 UTC
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© John Shinkle/PoliticoAmong his own party, McCain is at a 35 percent to 55 percent approval.
Sen. John McCain is the least popular senator in the country of those surveyed by Public Policy Polling, with low marks from members of his own party, independents and Democrats.

Just 30 percent of Arizona voters approve of the job the Republican senator is doing, while 54 percent disapprove, according to a PPP release Thursday. That is the worst of any senator's polling in the nation that PPP has found.

Among members of his own party, McCain is at 35 percent approval to 55 percent disapproval; the comparable figures among Democrats are 29 percent to 53 percent, and among independents, 25 percent to 55 percent.

McCain also trails most potential challengers if he chooses to run again in 2016. Former Rep. Gabby Giffords led McCain 42 percent to 35 percent in a hypothetical matchup, and former Surgeon General Richard Carmona led McCain 41 percent to 35 percent.
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Horse

Texas Senator Ted Cruz' crowd-pleasing demand: 'We need to abolish the IRS'

David Martosko
Daily Mail
Thu, 06 Mar 2014 09:58 UTC
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© Dallas NewsA special kinda stupid...
Ted Cruz, the rock-ribbed conservative Texas senator who figures to be a factor in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, told thousands of conservatives Thursday morning that the IRS should go the way of the dodo.

'We need to abolish the IRS,' he said, calling instead for a flat income tax rate and a user-friendly tax return that can be filed on a postcard.

That verbal gauntlet, thrown as much at a near-century of tax collection as at the Obama administration, was Cruz's biggest applause line.

'By virtue of your being here today,' he jokingly cautioned the nation's largest annual gathering of politically conservative activists, 'tomorrow each and every one of you is going to be audited by the IRS.'

On Wednesday the former IRS official in charge of vetting nonprofit groups that seek tax-exempt charitable status refused, for the second time, to tell a congressional committee what she knew about the scandal.
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Life Preserver

Nico and Carla seek gag order to stem 'Sarkoleaks'

Sylvain Peuchmaurd and Nicolas Gaudichet
Yahoo! News
Thu, 06 Mar 2014 12:05 UTC
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© AFP/Martin Bureau
Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni on Thursday launched legal action to prevent further publication of conversations secretly taped during his 2007-12 term as French president.

In a move that will inevitably fuel speculation the tapes could contain a seriously compromising "smoking gun", the couple's lawyers said they would ask a Paris court to issue an emergency injunction against further distribution or publication.

The tapes contain hours of Sarkozy's private conversations with Bruni and close aides.

They were recorded by a political advisor, Patrick Buisson, without the knowledge of anyone in Sarkozy's inner circle.

Some extracts -- without any really explosive content -- have already been published, by satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine and news website Atlantico.

The revelation of what Buisson was doing whilst working as a close confidante of the centre-right president has sent shockwaves through the French political class.
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Dollar

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Confessions of an Economic Hitman: Interview with John Perkins

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Sun, 09 Mar 2014 18:00 UTC
Sott Talk Radio logo
This week we interviewed John Perkins, author, public speaker, and founder of two non-profit organizations, Dream Change and The Pachamama Alliance.

While working as Chief Economist for a consulting firm in the 1970s, Perkins advised the World Bank, United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, and governments in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. When he realized he had become an 'economic hit man' playing a dishonorable role in the economic colonization of the world on behalf of elite multinational corporations, banks and the United States government, Perkins decided he wanted to become part of the solution, not the problem.

Perkins' book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - published in over 30 languages, and selling over 1.2 million copies worldwide - is a startling first-hand exposé of international corruption on a gargantuan scale, while his Secret History of the American Empire, another New York Times bestseller, details the clandestine operations that created the world's first truly global empire.

Our guest's latest book, Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded - And How To Fix It, offers a blueprint for a new form of global economics, away from predatory capitalism and into an era more transformative than the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions.

Running Time: 02:12:00

Download: MP3

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Chess

U.S. led 'regime change' in action: 35 countries where the U.S. has supported fascists, drug lords and terrorists

Nicolas J. S. Davies
Alternet
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
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Here's a handy A to Z guide to U.S.-backed international crime

The U.S. is backing Ukraine's extreme right-wing Svoboda party and violent neo-Nazis whose armed uprising paved the way for a Western-backed coup. Events in the Ukraine are giving us another glimpse through the looking-glass of U.S. propaganda wars against fascism, drugs and terrorism. The ugly reality behind the mirror is that the U.S. government has a long and unbroken record of working with fascists, dictators, druglords and state sponsors of terrorism in every region of the world in its elusive but relentless quest for unchallenged global power.

Behind a firewall of impunity and protection from the State Department and the CIA, U.S. clients and puppets have engaged in the worst crimes known to man, from murder and torture to coups and genocide. The trail of blood from this carnage and chaos leads directly back to the steps of the U.S. Capitol and the White House. As historian Gabriel Kolko observed in 1988, "The notion of an honest puppet is a contradiction Washington has failed to resolve anywhere in the world since 1945." What follows is a brief A to Z guide to the history of that failure.
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