Puppet Masters

US evacuates Iraqi base after mortar attack, citing 'potential security threats'

RT
Fri, 21 Jun 2019 17:29 UTC

© REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Tony R. Tolley
MQ-1 Predators sit on the Bravo South parking ramp at Balad Air Base, Iraq

Hundreds of US defense contractor personnel will evacuate Balad Air Base in Iraq due to "potential security threats," Iraqi military sources have told the media.

Nearly 400 employees of Lockheed Martin and Sallyport Global stationed at the base north of Baghdad are due to leave the country in a two-stage process due to continuing tensions with Iran, according to Reuters. The evacuation follows last month's recall of hundreds of non-emergency diplomatic staff from the US embassy in Baghdad, which was also attributed to rising tensions with Iraq's neighbor.

US contractors working at Balad provide security, training, and other basic operations as well as assisting the Iraqi military in maintenance of its F-16 fleet. The base was subject to investigation by the US Government Accountability Office and Department of Justice over alleged mismanagement, bribery, verbal abuse, and racism by some contractors.

Militants reportedly fired three rockets into Balad Air Base on Saturday, causing no casualties but starting small brush fires which were quickly extinguished, according to Iraqi military sources. The otherwise unremarkable attack came amid a buildup of tensions between the US and Iran that culminated Thursday morning in the downing of a US surveillance drone over Iranian airspace near the Strait of Hormuz.

Comment: The rocket attack on Balad was just one of many in the region:

Really? Trump is giving up on regime change in Venezuela because it's complicated and he got 'bored' former insider reports

Tom Porter
Business Insider
Sat, 22 Jun 2019 16:14 UTC

President Donald Trump is losing interest in Venezuela after a bid to oust President Nicolás Maduro by US-backed opposition figures in April failed, according to The Washington Post.

In April, a US-backed bid by the Venezuelan opposition to remove Maduro failed, when senior Venezuelan government and military officials reneged on promises to switch sides and instead stood by the president.

According to US officials who spoke with The Post, Trump had viewed the prospect of a US-backed toppling of Maduro as an "easy win" at a time when other foreign-policy initiatives had stalled.

Comment: Bored? Or Trump recognizing that he was misled by the neocon advisors who told him the Venezuela debacle would be a good idea. No matter. Bolton, Pompeo et al. have given him a new headache with the drone shootdown in Iran.They are determined to get themselves a war, and don't seem to be particular about its location. The neocons have many hotspots they could activate.

Iran and US officials attend a Russian Security Forum but nobody is talking about it

Federico Pieraccini
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 21 Jun 2019 12:53 UTC

The tenth international meeting on security has just concluded in the Russian the city of Ufa. The forum has been under-reported, but it represents one of the few global examples of multilateral meetings between high-level representatives of countries that are in conflict. Hundreds of representatives from as many as 120 countries attended the meeting over three days to discuss humanitarian crises, hybrid warfare, terrorist threats and ways to recover from armed conflict.

President Putin's opening speech was read aloud by Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev, which explained the forum's agenda and objectives, namely, to create a positive atmosphere that should succeed in reducing various areas of tension between countries around the globe.

"I expect your communication to be substantial and fruitful, and will help achieve our common goal of creating a reliable, flexible, indivisible and equal for all security system at the regional and global level. US exit from arms reduction treaties undermines global security. This forum has fully proved to be in demand and effective, ensuring a dialogue on countering global challenges. The meeting's agenda addresses problems requiring joint solutions and collective action, overcoming the consequences of armed conflict and humanitarian problems, as well as ensuring information security."

A trip through Crazyland this week

James Howard Kunstler
kunstler.com
Fri, 21 Jun 2019 12:27 UTC

Surfing the cable channels the evening before my Friday a.m. blog duties, I came upon Sean Hannity at Fox News completely losing his shit in a colloquy with Geraldo Rivera about the Iran drone incident. "Bomb the crap out of them!" Mr. Hannity ranted, several times, the veins in his neck throbbing visibly on the high-def screen. I thought I was having an acid flashback to Doctor Strangelove. Geraldo himself seemed a bit nonplussed and embarrassed by Mr. Hannity's tantrum, but his attempts to calm down the raving anchorman only ramped up the hysteria. One wondered: are there any adult producers off-screen on that network?

Perhaps the Golden Golem of Greatness, our president, who is also known to follow the Cable TV news, witnessed the cringeworthy incident and realized that every other head-of-state on this nervous planet would also see it, and might infer he was doing the bidding of a crazed boob-tube performer if he actually went forward with an air strike. Earlier, he'd told reporters, "You'll soon find out," what the USA's response to the drone shoot-down would be. He should have just kept his mouth shut. Planes and ships were on their way to the bottleneck in the Persian Gulf known as the Straits of Hormuz. Before they could deliver any payloads, Mr. Trump called the whole thing off suggesting that maybe some "loose and stupid" Colonel Borat type on Iran's side had gone rogue in the incident.

Democracy? Putin says it's odd that UK's PM is elected by 'his party's get-together' but we'll work with anyone

RT
Sat, 22 Jun 2019 12:16 UTC

It's "odd" that the UK Prime Minister comes to power after a closed-door vote within his own party and not through a nationwide election, but Moscow is ready to work with anyone who will end up in Number 10, Vladimir Putin said.

While the UK loves lecturing Russia on democracy, the peculiarities of its own political system may raise more than a few eyebrows, Putin told Rossyia-1 broadcaster on Saturday. "Take the way the first man in the country, the head of the UK's executive branch, is propelled to power," he offered.

"[Is he elected] in a nationwide vote? No, [he is elected] by his party's get-together. Truth be told, this is strange to me but this is how the [British electoral] system works."

Creepy Biden's campaign faces more fallout from son's messy personal life, business deals

Lukas Mikelionis
Fox News
Sat, 22 Jun 2019 10:45 UTC

Aside from Joe Biden's seemingly self-inflicted controversies, the campaign of the Democratic Party's 2020 presidential frontrunner is also facing questions about the messy personal life and shady business activities of the candidate's son, Hunter Biden.

The 49-year-old offspring of the former vice president made more headlines this week after the New York Post reported that an Arkansas woman says Hunter is the father of her child.

Previously this month, the son made news after he married a South African woman, whom he reportedly had only recently met, just months after splitting from Hallie Biden, the widow of his brother Beau, who died in 2015.

EU leaders warn next British PM there will be 'no Brexit renegotiation'

France 24
Sat, 22 Jun 2019 10:45 UTC

© AP
Pro-Brexit leave the European Union supporters attend a rally in Parliament Square after the final leg of the "March to Leave" in London

The EU's leaders Friday fired a Brexit warning to whoever wins the battle to become the next British prime minister, insisting the existing divorce deal will not be changed.

Hot favourite Boris Johnson faces foreign minister Jeremy Hunt in a run-off vote to decide who takes on the tricky task of piloting the country's departure from the EU.

Both say they want to renegotiate the deal that outgoing PM Theresa May struck with Brussels after two years of painful negotiation -- a deal which British lawmakers have rejected three times.

Explaining Russia's position on Idlib

Ollie Richardson
The Saker
Tue, 04 Jun 2019 12:00 UTC

Over the past five years my work in the information space has been consciously aimed at explaining why the Russian military does and doesn't do certain things, whether it be in relation to Ukraine, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, etc, and why demanding that Putin bombs everything in sight is exactly what the CIA wants so-called "pro-Russians" to say. Yet I haven't exhausted (maybe I never will exhaust it?) this topic because it is so vast and, ultimately, complex. And it is because of this seemingly insurmountable complexity that questions like "Why doesn't Russia liberate all of Ukraine", "Why doesn't Russia save Donetsk and Lugansk in the same way it saved Crimea?", "Why doesn't Russia boot America out of Syria?", etc are asked on social media.

But one statement that I haven't really addressed (until now) is "Why doesn't Russia liberate all of Idlib in one fell swoop?". Many "geniuses" like to say that Putin is in bed with the "Ottoman butcher" Erdogan and has thus "betrayed Syria", similar to how shaking hands with Netanyahu means that Putin is a Zionist and has "betrayed Syria", or even that a visit of the Saudi King to Moscow means that Putin has the blood of Yemen on his hands.

Comment: See also:

And check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Israeli-French Deception Downs Russian Spy Plane Off Syria, US Escalates 'Regime Change' Against Iran

Pepe Escobar: Brazilgate is turning into Russiagate 2.0

Pepe Escobar
Consortium News
Thu, 20 Jun 2019 20:00 UTC

Brazilian Judge Sergio Moro gestures as he leaves the house of Brazilian President-elect Jair

The Intercept's bombshell about Brazilian corruption is being ludicrously spun by the country's media and military as a "Russian conspiracy," writes Pepe Escobar

It was a leak, not a hack. Yes: Brazilgate, unleashed by a series of game-changing bombshells published by The Intercept, may be turning into a tropical Russiagate.

The Intercept's Deep Throat - an anonymous source - has finally revealed in detail what anyone with half a brain in Brazil already knew: that the judicial/lawfare machinery of the one-sided Car Wash anti-corruption investigation was in fact a massive farce and criminal racket bent on accomplishing four objectives.

Comment: See also:

Cyber-sleuths responsible for Russiagate now warn of 'Iranian hackers'

RT
Sat, 22 Jun 2019 06:39 UTC

Iranian hackers are threatening US computer systems, cybersecurity firms FireEye and CrowdStrike have claimed, just as tensions between Washington and Tehran pulled back from the brink of war.

"Really, we're seeing increased cyber activity that seems to be focused on the West," Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike, told Politico. "In early June, mid-June is when it really started to kick off."

Ben Read, senior cyber-espionage analyst at FireEye, confirmed the timeline and told the paper that the latest campaign is led by a government-connected Iranian hacker group known as APT33 or "Refined Kitten."

Comment: See also:

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Puppet Masters

US evacuates Iraqi base after mortar attack, citing 'potential security threats'

Really? Trump is giving up on regime change in Venezuela because it's complicated and he got 'bored' former insider reports

Iran and US officials attend a Russian Security Forum but nobody is talking about it

A trip through Crazyland this week

Democracy? Putin says it's odd that UK's PM is elected by 'his party's get-together' but we'll work with anyone

Creepy Biden's campaign faces more fallout from son's messy personal life, business deals

EU leaders warn next British PM there will be 'no Brexit renegotiation'

Explaining Russia's position on Idlib

Pepe Escobar: Brazilgate is turning into Russiagate 2.0

Cyber-sleuths responsible for Russiagate now warn of 'Iranian hackers'

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