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Imperialist mouthpieces CNN and WaPo demand that Trump further escalate tensions with Russia

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 08:43 UTC
fareed's take cnn
CNN has aired a segment in which pundit Fareed Zakaria tells the network's audience that the US president has "been unwilling to confront Putin in any way on any issue" and asks "will Venezuela be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?"

The segment is a near-verbatim reading of Zakaria's Washington Post column from a couple of days prior, so that's two massive prongs through which this false and pernicious narrative is being driven into mainstream consciousness claiming that the Trump administration has been far too dovish toward Moscow, rather than dangerously hawkish as is actually the case.

Zakaria begins his segment by describing the Trump administration's (completely illegitimate) efforts to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, then describing Russian efforts to counter this agenda as an attempt to "taunt the United States." He then spends the rest of the segment asking if Trump will be brave and patriotic enough to further escalate tensions against a nuclear superpower. Zakaria concludes by implying that if Trump fails to increase world-threatening nuclear tensions to effect yet another US regime change intervention in yet another oil-rich country, it will be because he is a Kremlin agent.


Comment: See also:

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Star of David

AIPAC gathering in Washington is full of lies and liars

Philip Giraldi
The Unz Reader
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
aipac conference
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just completed its annual summit in Washington. It claims that 18,000 supporters attended the event, which concluded with a day of lobbying Congress by the attendees. Numerous American politicians addressed the gathering and it is completely reasonable to observe that the meeting constituted the most powerful gathering of people dedicated to promoting the interests of a foreign nation ever witnessed in any country in the history of the world.

There are a number of things that one should understand about the Jewish state of Israel and its powerful American domestic lobby. First of all, the charge that the actions of The Lobby (referred to with capital letters because of its uniqueness and power) inevitably involves dual or even singular allegiance based on religion or tribe to a country where the lobbyist does not actually reside is completely correct by definition of what AIPAC is and why it exists. It claims to work to "ensure that the Jewish state is safe, strong and secure" through "foreign aid, government partnerships, [and] joint anti-terrorism efforts...," all of which involve the U.S. as the donor and Israel as the recipient.
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Target

Venezuela is the new Syria, and Russia is a friend to it too

Israel Shamir
The Unz Reader
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Maduro and Putin
A few days ago, an Ilyushin IL-62M liner carried over a hundred Russian soldiers and officers to Caracas. Symbolically, they made a stopover in Syria, as if saying that Venezuela is the next country after Syria to be saved from ruin and dismemberment. The military mission was led by the Head of General Staff, General Tonkoshkurov ("Thin-Skinned", a name that would thrill Vladimir Nabokov).

'Don't you dare, exclaimed John Bolton, meddle in the Western Hemisphere! Hands off Venezuela! It is our back yard!' The Russians didn't buy it. Some time ago they tried to object to the US tanks being positioned in Estonia, a brief drive from St Petersburg, and all they've got was preaching that sovereignty means sovereignty, and Estonia does not have to ask for Russian permission to receive American military assistance. Now they repeated this American sermon verbatim to John Bolton and his boss. Get out of Syria first, they added.

This is a new level in the Russian-American relations, or should we say confrontation. For a very long time, the Russians convinced themselves that their liking for the United States was mutual, or at least would be returned one day. However, this stage is over, the scales fell off their eyes and they finally realised America's implacable enmity. 'These Russians are really dumb if it dawned on them only now', you'd murmur. It is enough to read comments to the New York Times piece regarding Mueller's exoneration of Trump to learn that hatred to Russia is a staple diet of American elites, on a par with love to Israel. That's where we are.
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Bomb

Pacifying the natives: Bombs found in Corsica just ahead of Macron visit


The Local
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
island of Corsica
© AFP
The picturesque island of Corsica has been rocked by attacks in recent days.
Bombs at public buildings and holiday villas going up in flames: a spike in attacks on Corsica has led to worries that nationalist violence could return to the tourist destination known as France's "island of beauty".

The Mediterranean territory, famed for its beaches and as the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, was once a hotbed of anti-French militancy which led to thousands of bombings from the 1970s to early 2000s.

But since 2014, when local National Liberation Front of Corsica announced a ceasefire, French state infrastructure and the luxury holiday homes owned by wealthy mainlanders - still seen as "colonisers" by some locals - have been largely safe.

Comment: The same thing is going on in the UK: mystery persons are leaving bombs lying around and the authorities are suggesting 'it may have something to do with Brexit'.

As the establishment in both countries clings on for dear life, Project Fear is about to be taken up a notch, or ten...

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Bullseye

Pepe Escobar: The Pentagon's obsession with China, and Putin's strategy

Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture
Mon, 01 Apr 2019 12:00 UTC
boat light
Chinese nuclear bombers. Chinese hypersonic missiles. Chinese carrier killer missiles. Chinese cyberattacks. Chinese anti-satellite weaponry. Chinese militarization of the South China Sea. Chinese Huawei spying.

So many Chinese "malign intentions". And we're not even talking about Russia.

Few people around the world are aware that the Pentagon for the moment is led by a mere "acting" Defense Secretary, Patrick Shanahan.

That did not prevent "acting" Secretary to shine in the red carpet when presenting the Trump administration's 2020 Pentagon budget proposal - at $718 billion - to the Senate Armed Services Committee: the top US national security threat is, in his own (repeated) words, "China, China, China".

Comment: See also:

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Handcuffs

With Mueller Report issued, WSJ pushes for investigation into the 'real scandal'

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:38 UTC
cartoon fisa warrents russiagate
© Ben Garrison/GrrrGraphics
Just hours after reports that Rep. Devin Nunes will refer criminal charges against Clinton operatives & high-level FBI & DOJ officials for perpetuating the Russiagate hoax for over three years, The Wall Street Journal's outspoken voice of reason, Kimberley Strassel, stresses that Americans deserve a full accounting of the missteps of Comey and the FBI.

Attorney General William Barr has reported to Congress that special counsel Robert Mueller has cleared President Trump and his campaign team of claims of conspiring with Russia during the 2016 election. This is more than an exoneration. It's a searing indictment of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as a reminder of the need to know the story behind the bureau's corrosive investigation.

Mr. Mueller's report likely doesn't put it that way, but it's the logical conclusion of his no-collusion finding. The FBI unleashed its powers on a candidate for the office of the U.S. presidency, an astonishing first. It did so on the incredible grounds that the campaign had conspired to aid a foreign government. And it used the most aggressive tools in its arsenal-surveillance of U.S. citizens, secret subpoenas of phone records and documents, even human informants.

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Broom

India scrambles jets to border forcing Pakistan's to retreat in latest incident


Sputnik
Mon, 01 Apr 2019 18:11 UTC
Su-30MKI
© AFP 2019 / DIBYANGSHU SARKAR
The Indian Air Force (IAF) detected four Pakistani F-16 fighter jets and an armed drone near the international border with Pakistan on Monday morning in the Khemkaran sector of Punjab.
Defence sources told Sputnik that the IAF scrambled Su-30MKI and Mirage 2000 jets to intercept Pakistani warplanes, forcing them to return to their airspace immediately.

"Indian radars detected the movement of the four Pakistani F-16 fighter jets at around 0300 hrs local time on Monday, in response; the Indian Air Force scrambled its Sukhoi Su-30MKI and Mirage-2000 fighter jets immediately," source added.

The Indian Army and the IAF have remained on high alert after Indian intelligence warned about a possible deployment of armed drones and increased activities of the PAF along the international border since mid-March.

Comment: See also:

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Red Flag

Guaido ready to enact grassroots uprising straight out of US regime-change operations manual

Whitney Webb
MintPress News
Fri, 29 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
Juan Guaido
© Natacha Pisarenko/AP
Pretender Juan Guaido
With its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions - such as those described in the RED Team document - are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.

Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed "interim president of Venezuela" who is supported by the United States government, recently announced coming "tactical actions" that will be taken by his supporters starting April 6 as part of "Operation Freedom," an alleged grassroots effort to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

That operation, according to Guaidó, will be led by "Freedom and Aid Committees" that in turn create "freedom cells" throughout the country - "cells" that will spring to action when Guaidó gives the signal on April 6 and launch large-scale community protests. Guaidó's stated plan involves the Venezuelan military then taking his side, but his insistence that "all options are still on the table" (i.e., foreign military intervention) reveals his impatience with the military, which has continued to stay loyal to Maduro throughout Guaidó's "interim presidency."

Comment: As revealed above, the machinations of the US/CIA playbook for Venezuela are clear and the timetable of this conspiracy - to eliminate and replace its legitimate government - is ticking. Current news, however, indicates Venezuelan supporters of regime change have been significantly absent in recent rallies. A boding of things not to come? That would be a welcome and unexpected twist.

See also:

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USA

Muellergate and the Discreet Lies of the Bourgeoisie

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 20:34 UTC
Russiagate cartoon
This cartoon seems to me very apposite. The capacity of the mainstream media repeatedly to promote the myth that Russia caused Clinton's defeat, while never mentioning what the information was that had been so damaging to Hillary, should be alarming to anybody under the illusion that we have a working "free media". There are literally hundreds of thousands of mainstream media articles and broadcasts, from every single one of the very biggest names in the Western media, which were predicated on the complete nonsense that Russia had conspired to install Donald Trump as President of the United States.

I genuinely have never quite understood whether the journalists who wrote this guff believed it, whether they were cynically pumping out propaganda and taking their pay cheque, or whether they just did their "job" and chose to avoid asking themselves whether they were producing truth or lies.
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Laptop

How American hackers helped UAE spy on Al Jazeera, BBC

Joel Schectman and Christopher Bing
Reuters
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 19:09 UTC
al jazera doha hq
© Reuters/Naseem Zeitoon
A UAE-backed spying mission targeted the host of an Al Jazeera program called “The Opposite Direction,” which gave voice to pressing issues of the day. Here, the company’s Doha headquarters.
A group of American hackers who once worked for U.S. intelligence agencies helped the United Arab Emirates spy on a BBC host, the chairman of Al Jazeera and other prominent Arab media figures during a tense 2017 confrontation pitting the UAE and its allies against the Gulf state of Qatar.

The American operatives worked for Project Raven, a secret Emirati intelligence program that spied on dissidents, militants and political opponents of the UAE monarchy. A Reuters investigation in January revealed Project Raven's existence and inner workings, including the fact that it surveilled a British activist and several unnamed U.S. journalists.

The Raven operatives - who included at least nine former employees of the U.S. National Security Agency and the U.S. military - found themselves thrust into the thick of a high-stakes dispute among America's Gulf allies. The Americans' role in the UAE-Qatar imbroglio highlights how former U.S. intelligence officials have become key players in the cyber wars of other nations, with little oversight from Washington.

The crisis erupted in the spring of 2017, when the UAE and allies - including Saudi Arabia and Egypt - accused Qatar of sowing unrest in the Middle East through its support of media outlets and political groups. The UAE camp demanded Qatar take a series of actions, including shuttering the Qatar-funded Al Jazeera satellite television network, withdrawing funding from other media outlets Doha supports, and cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic movement some Arab governments regard as a threat.

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