Puppet MastersS


Pirates

SOTT Focus: How the US Pulled off an Armed Robbery of the World's Energy Supply and Created the Petrogas-Dollar

Richard Medhurst
Richard Medhurst's Newsletter
Fri, 01 May 2026 20:45 UTC
A forensic investigation into how Washington leveraged the war in Iran to replace Nord Stream, save the dollar, and establish total command over the world's fuel from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean.
It's tempting to believe that the US war machine is finished. Militarily, Iran has indeed dealt the US its worst humiliation in modern history — one I covered in clinical detail.

But in the background, Washington has quietly been carrying out an armed robbery of the world's oil and gas supply. All of it.

american piracy oil gas blockades
© richardmedhurst.substack.com
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Big Bomb

Not so quiet death - the US orders to kill the Iranian Navy's Dena and its crew

John Helmer
Dance with Bears
Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00 UTC
IRIS Dena's US dissension makers to torpedo her
In the early morning of March 4, Sri Lanka time, the Islamic Republic of Iran Ship (IRIS) Dena was attacked by the US submarine USS Charlotte with two torpedoes.

The first destroyed the Dena's propeller shaft and stopped her dead in the water. Her position was at coordinates 6.0073 degrees North, 79.8654 degrees East: that was nine nautical miles (nm) outside Sri Lanka's territorial waters; 19 nm (35 km) west of the harbour of Galle, a port on the southwestern coast of the island.

At the 30-knot speed the Dena had been moving, she was 18 minutes from the safety of Sri Lankan territory. Immobilized, however, the Dena captain, Abuzar Zarri, gave the crew the order to assemble on the aft deck in full visibility of the Charlotte, and prepare to abandon ship. As the crew mustered, a second torpedo was fired by the Charlotte to sink the Dena and kill the crew.

The torpedo warhead explosion broke the keel; the Dena sank in less than five minutes.
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Warning

Despite his public bravado, Trump is desperate for a deal with Iran

Michael Arria
Mondoweiss
Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00 UTC
White house meeting Trump etc.
© White House Photo/Joyce N. BoghosianPresident Donald J. Trump meets with Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Jay Michael Leiter, and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michael Issa in the Oval Office, Thursday, April 23, 2026
Trump claims Iran has been weakened, but analyst Sina Toossi says it's the U.S. that is desperate for a deal. Mondoweiss speaks with Toossi about the gains Iran has made during the war with the U.S. and Israel and what comes next.

A brittle ceasefire currently exists United States and Iran, but any hope of a longterm agreement has stalled.

In comments to reporters and social media posts, President Donald Trump has claimed that Iran military has been defeated and that the country has been weakened as a result of the U.S./Israeli bombings. However, these assertions are not backed up by reality and it's the United States that seemingly faces longterm risks.

"An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently observed, referring to the U.S.

Mondoweiss U.S. correspondent Michael Arria spoke with Center for International Policy Senior Fellow Sina Toossi about Trump's claims, why Iran doesn't feel compelled to compromise, and more:

Comment: Is Iran desperate for a deal with USA? Not as much as Trump would like.

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Chess

What is the Trump administration's real goal with the latest Comey indictment?

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Fri, 01 May 2026 22:21 UTC
Comey
© Screen Shot 2020-03-09 at 7.12.10 PMFormer FBI Director James Comey testifying before Senate Intelligence Committee, March 9, 2020
On Tuesday, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina handed down a two-count indictment against the former FBI director James Comey, charging him with threatening the life of President Donald Trump and transmitting that threat across state lines.

The basis for the charges: an Instagram post from May 2025 in which Comey shared a photo captioned "Cool shell formation on my beach walk." The shells on the sand spelled out "86 47." Each count carries a maximum of ten years in federal prison.

Comey deleted the post the same day it went up and issued an immediate clarification on social media. "I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence," he wrote. "It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down." He later told interviewers that he and his wife had simply spotted the formation during a stroll along a North Carolina beach and read it as a quirky, possibly restaurant-themed joke. Despite the dubious explanation, from the moment the post became controversial, legal analysts were skeptical that a case against him was possible.
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Eiffel Tower

Lebanon's peace without Paris: US and Israeli strategies reshape diplomatic dynamics, raise questions of balance and legitimacy

Ricardo Martins
New Eastern Outlook
Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00 UTC
Macron and other guy
© UnknownFrench President Emmanuel Macron
While negotiations proceed in Washington, France, despite its longstanding relationship with Lebanon, has been deliberately excluded. This exclusion underscores a US-Israeli preference for controlled mediation and raises concerns regarding the legitimacy and distribution of power in the process.

The exclusion of France and the European Union from the 2026 Israel-Lebanon negotiations signifies more than a diplomatic disagreement. It reveals a broader geopolitical reconfiguration involving mediation power, alliance hierarchies, and competing visions for regional order in the Middle East. The absence of France and the EU highlights a US-Israeli preference for controlled mediation and raises concerns regarding the balance and legitimacy of the process. Lebanon, as a comparatively weak state, is likely to face disproportionate pressure in these negotiations.

Comment: An Israeli 'buffer zone' - we know how that turns out.

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Star of David

New outrage after Israel demolishes historic Salvatorian Sisters' convent and school in Yaroun, southern Lebanon


L'Orient Today
Sat, 02 May 2026 18:58 UTC
israel destroy convent lebanon
© L'Orient TodayThe village of Yaroun, a mixed border locality where Shiite and Christian communities live, before and after the demolitions by the Israeli army. Photos provided to L'OLJ by a resident of the village.
Two weeks after the uproar over the desecration of a statue of Jesus Christ in a village in southern Lebanon, Israeli forces demolished a convent in Yaroun (Bint Jbeil district) on Friday, sparking a new wave of international indignation.

"Let American Christians speak up!!! America can't stay silent and must stop funding Israel to commit such atrocities!!!" wrote former U.S. lawmaker and far-right figure Marjorie Taylor Greene on Saturday, sharing a post showing the extent of the destruction suffered by the convent and the Sisters of the Holy Savior school.

"The Israeli army razed the convent and the Sisters of the Holy Savior school in Yaroun, Lebanon, yesterday. By what right? What does this have to do with disarming Hezbollah? Israel, wake up — your leaders have lost their way," responded European Parliament member Nathalie Loiseau, former French minister and a member of President Emmanuel Macron's allied Horizons party.
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Attention

The Permanent Emergency: How the West traded liberty for the illusion of security

Claudio Grass
Forum Geopolitica
Sat, 02 May 2026 18:02 UTC
From pandemic lockdowns to energy rationing and digital ID laws, Western governments are quietly dismantling individual freedoms — one "temporary" emergency at a time.

Emergency Forever
© Forum Geopolitica
Unlike the centuries that came before it, full of great and truly important ideological and philosophical clashes, full of historical shifts in the trajectory of Western thought, values identity and culture, the story of our time will most likely not feature any grand battles of ideas or any defining crescendos that will captivate the imagination and inspire future students of history. It will be written in a dry, bureaucratic language and it simply consist of a series of "temporary" emergency measures. This is how our remaining liberties and with them, our Western civilization, will end: "not with a bang, but with a whimper", as T.S. Elliot would put it.

To the casual observer, the shift toward authoritarianism in the Western world feels like a series of unfortunate accidents. A pandemic here, an unnecessary war with Russia there, a geopolitical energy crisis after that. But to those who maintain a healthy skepticism of state power, a much more deliberate pattern emerges.

We are witnessing the transition from a society of individual sovereignty (or whatever was left of it) to a society of managed compliance. There is no longer even the need to manufacture consent, as we saw in the past, as the opinion of the governed simply does not factor into the equation anymore. New aggressive policies, mandates, and restrictions of all kinds are just announced one day and implemented the other, without pause to ask for consent. It is always an emergency after all, and there is no time to waste on minor concerns like the will of the people.
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Cruise Missle

Iran damaged 16 US military sites using advanced Chinese satellite, report shows

Lior Ben Ari|
Ynet News
Fri, 01 May 2026 14:28 UTC
US E-3 Sentry aircraft destroyed
US E-3 Sentry aircraft destroyed in Iranian strike at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
CNN investigation finds at least 16 American military facilities in eight countries were damaged in Iranian strikes during the war, including aircraft, communications equipment and radar systems; source says Iran used a secretly acquired Chinese satellite to improve targeting.

Nearly a month after the ceasefire with Iran began, and with the possibility of renewed war still on the table, the depth of the damage to U.S. bases in the region is becoming clear: at least 16 American military facilities in eight countries, effectively most U.S. bases in the Middle East, were damaged in Iranian strikes during the war.

According to a CNN investigation, some of the sites that were hit are currently unusable. "I have never seen anything like this at U.S. bases," a person familiar with the matter said. "These were fast and precise strikes, using advanced technology."

Comment: This kind of "same level of readiness and effectiveness"?

Most advanced US warship retreats as war on Iran challenges American Navy

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Russian Flag

The diplomatic impasse between the United States and Iran and Russia's growing role

Aleena Im
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00 UTC
Trump Putin Aragchi
© UnknownIran FM Abbas Aragchi • Russian President Vladimir Putin • US President Donald Trump
US-Iran negotiations collapse amid rising tensions and mistrust, particularly over the Strait of Hormuz, pushing Iran ever closer to Russia despite internal pressures. Leveraging its balanced relations with all key actors, Russia emerges as the most credible mediator and offers a backchannel for dialogue.

Introduction

Isaac Goldberg once noted, "Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way." And Russia is, no doubt, a master of it. Whether it's Europe or the Middle East, Russia has always outsmarted the US, both on the battlefield and at the table. This time, once again, Russia has emerged as a credible intermediary, chased by both the Americans and Iranians. Since the inception of the US-Iran war in late February 2026, the hostilities have neither ended nor cooled down. A couple of rounds of talks occurred in Islamabad in the last few weeks, but all in vain. The first one failed due to the maximalist demands of the US, while the second one was cancelled by President Trump as the trust deficit increased between the two. Thus, the collapse of negotiations and an immediate trip of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi to Russia highlighted a new trajectory in the ongoing negotiations.

Comment: Trump has triggered a separation of US and Europe for practical and selfish reasons. Redefinition is Europe's option.

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Stop

Meloni's revolt: Italy suspends Israel Defense Pact as Trump turns on Rome

Adrian Korczynski
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00 UTC
Meloni Trump
© UnknownItalian PM Giorgia Meloni • US President Donald Trump
On 14 April 2026, Giorgia Meloni delivered a decision that instantly disrupted the post-Cold War assumption of automatic alignment within the Western security architecture.

A Sovereign Break in the Western Security Chain

The Italian prime minister announced the suspension of the automatic renewal mechanism of the Italy-Israel defense memorandum — signed in 2003 and ratified by Israel in 2005-2006 — a framework covering military technology exchange, equipment cooperation, and defense industry procurement.

The move was not symbolic. It was structural.

It halted a system that had renewed itself every five years without friction for over two decades — a mechanism that embodied the very logic of unquestioned alignment. In Rome, the decision was framed as a matter of national interest and strategic reassessment. In Tel Aviv and Washington, it was read for what it was: a rupture in the chain of automatic Western cohesion.

This was not a policy adjustment. It was an assertion of sovereignty against external strategic pressure.
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