Puppet MastersS


MIB

Flashback Best of the Web: WikiLeaks: Russia Gave Israel Codes to Iranian TOR-1M Air-Defense Systems

Yaakov Lappin
The Jerusalem Post
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:18 UTC

Comment: And why is this interesting? Because the US, immediately after the Ukraine Airlines plane was shot down near Tehran last week, said a missile or two fired from an Iranian TOR-1M air defense system (bought from Russia) was the culprit...


TOR-1M air-defense system
Latest round of leaks suggest Russia gave Israel codes to access Iran's Tor- M1 air-defense systems.

Russia provided Israel security codes to access Iran's Tor- M1 air-defense systems in exchange for an Israeli handover of codes to "hack" drones sold to Georgia, according to a leaked email from a private American intelligence company.

An employee for Stratfor wrote the report, dated February 2009, and cited a "Mexican source," described as a former police officer and a current military analyst.

WikiLeaks published the email and announced this week that it was targeting Stratfor by releasing over 5 million emails stolen from its servers.

Comment: Ynet further reported at the time that the Wikileaks document in question states that Russia made this trade in advance of the Russia-Georgia war in 2008.

A caveat here is of course that the above leak is third-hand information from 'a guy in Mexico who knew a guy...'

Nonetheless, we could well imagine such a 'trade' occurring. We could also imagine that Iran might have long since patched the above problem (given that it was publicly leaked in 2012, 8 years ago), but something along these lines (cyberwarfare, hacking, etc.) may have played a key role in the downing of the Ukraine Airlines flight near Tehran last week.

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No Entry

Russia and the Olympics: The politics behind the WADA ban

Michael Averko
The Strategic Culture Foundation
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 20:06 UTC
Sochi olympics
© Anton Denisov/Sputnik2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Sochi, Russia
There've been ongoing propaganda pieces that skirt over some inconvenient realities, for those seeking to unfairly admonish Russia in the Olympic movement. One case in point is the January 2 Reuters article "Use 1992 Yugoslavia Precedent for Russians in Tokyo - Historian". With a stated "some Russians", that article suggestively under-represents the actual number of 2018 Russian Winter Olympians at Pyeongchang, while supporting a hypocritically flawed aspect, having to do with Yugoslavia in 1992.

The downplaying of Russian participation at Pyeongchang, is seemingly done to spin the image of many Russian cheats being kept out. At the suggestion of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) closely vetted Russians for competition at the 2018 Winter Olympics. In actuality, the 2018 Russian Winter Olympic participation wasn't so off the mark, when compared to past Winter Olympiads - something which (among other things) puts a dent into the faulty notion that Russia should be especially singled out for sports doping.

Comment:

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Mr. Potato

SecDef Esper admits he didn't see evidence that Soleimani was planning attacks on US embassies


RT
Sun, 12 Jan 2020 19:58 UTC
esper
© REUTERS/Tom BrennerDefense Secretary Esper arrives to brief U.S. Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington
President Donald Trump warned that Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani was planning "imminent" attacks against Americans, but his own defense secretary seems to be unable to back this claim.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper revealed in a Sunday interview with 'Face the Nation' on CBS that he "didn't see" specific evidence that supported the president's claim that Soleimani was planning attacks on four US embassies, which Trump touted in a Friday interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

"The president said that he believed that there probably could have been attacks against additional embassies," Esper said to host Margaret Brennan. "I shared that view. I know other members of the national security team shared that view."


Comment: In other words, he pulled it out of his nether regions. It was an unjustified murder. Why don't these cretins just come out and say it? They think they are above the law - just like practically all other administrations, in the U.S. and elsewhere. State power is an illusion of legality papered over the threat and use of brute force. These guys know it. That's why they do what they do, and get away with it. But most people still think their leaders have some kind of moral legitimacy when it comes to coercive action involving "national security". It might work that way in specific moments, but when it comes down to it, the people with the biggest guns get to do what they want.


"'Probably and could have been,' that is — that sounds more like an assessment than a specific tangible threat with a decisive piece of intelligence," Brennan replied.

"Well, the president didn't say there was a tangible — he didn't cite a specific piece of evidence," Esper said.

Asked if there was any specific evidence, Esper then replied, "I didn't see one with regard to four embassies. What I'm saying is I shared the president's view that probably, my expectation is they were going to go after our embassies."

Esper later told CNN's Jake Tapper that the president never claimed to have "specific evidence" of the imminent attacks he has warned Americans about.

Comment: More from Esper, this time telling Iran it needs to become a more "normal country":
"We're willing to sit down and discuss without precondition a new way forward, a series of steps by which Iran becomes a more normal country," Esper said on Sunday, speaking on CBS's 'Face the Nation'.


Asked whether there was a contradiction between calling the Iranian authorities "corrupt" and openly siding with anti-government protesters, yet expressing readiness to talk at the same time, Esper assured the show's host that it was a perfectly fine thing to do. Iranian authorities are "still a legitimate government" of the country he said, and therefore Donald Trump's offer to come and talk "without preconditions" still stands.
If U.S. leadership sets the bar for "normal", other countries should be forgiven for wanting nothing to do with such normality.

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Question

Was the crash of PS752 a case of russian roulette in the Iranian sky?

Clive Irving
The Daily Beast
Fri, 10 Jan 2020 19:31 UTC
ukraine plane crash iran
© Nazanin Tabatabaee / WANA via Reuters
Why did Iran not ground flights as its air space became a war zone? And why would a missile battery be so close an international airport? Those are just a couple of the questions surrounding the crash of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752. Well over 1,000 people flew out of Tehran on the night when Iran launched its cruise missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq early Wednesday morning local time, and they were on exactly the same flight path, but only PS752 turned into a fireball and crashed minutes after takeoff.

Airlines from seven different countries had flights leaving Tehran between midnight, local time, and 6:12 a.m. when the Ukrainian Boeing 737 took off.

Western intelligence experts believe that Flight PS752 was hit by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. If so, the 176 people who died seem to have been the victims of a grim game of Russian roulette-why would this jet be targeted when nine others that preceded it were not?

Comment: Of course, since this article was written, Iran, to the surprise of the entire West, has taken responsibility for the tragedy. Rhouhani has apologized to the victim's families and promised restitution. It is now to wait for the results of the investigation of the decision to launch the missile.

Still, SOTT political analyst Niall Bradley poses some urgent questions:
But it remains to be seen how an air-defense system operator mistook a Boeing 737 for a cruise missile.

Unless it was fiddled with in some way, the Ukrainian Airlines jet's transponder should have told the operator of the TOR-1M system that the object he was seeing on his radar screen is a Boeing 737.

Additionally, the plane's appearance on his screen should have in no way surprised him - it was the TENTH flight out of Tehran's Khomeini Airport that night. Prior to Flight 752, the last flight movement there was the departure - from the same runway and in the same direction - of QR8408 at 05:39 local time.

Why then was the air-defense operator surprised by this flight?


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Vader

Best of the Web: Iran has apologized, but it's clear Trump & other US presidents will never say sorry for what they've done to Middle East

Finian Cunningham
RT
Sun, 12 Jan 2020 18:57 UTC
Iran shrine Ukraine plane crash
© YouTube, RuptlyIranians mourn plane crash victims with vigil
Commendably, Iran has apologized for shooting down the passenger jet and killing all 176 people on board. It shows integrity to take responsibility for the disastrous loss of life at a time of intense adversity.

Now will other parties also show similar humility in admitting their role for creating precarious conditions where death seems an inevitable outcome? Specifically, can US President Donald Trump recognize that his administration's policy of hellbent hostility towards Iran is driving up conflict and, ultimately, the loss of innocent lives?

The shoot-down of Flight 752 was a heartrending tragedy for countless families of several nationalities. Most of the dead were Iranians, which must add to the pain felt by that nation. But at least by owning up to the truth, the Iranian authorities have spared grieving victims from prolonged anguish of not knowing what happened.

Comment:

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Heart - Black

US threatens to close Iraq's Federal Reserve bank account if it tries to kick out troops - Iraq wants S-400


Sputnik
Sun, 12 Jan 2020 19:27 UTC
fed reserve bank new york
© CC BY-SA 4.0 / 0x010C / Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Washington has reportedly warned Baghdad that it could lose access to its central bank account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York if it goes through with its decision to expel US troops from the region, according to Iraqi officials quoted by The Wall Street Journal.

The publication cites other means of pressure that the US administration could resort to, such as refusing to re-issue waivers on sanctions against Iran. Washington currently allows Iraq to import Iranian gas to fuel generators that supply a large portion of the country's power, despite sanctions, but the arrangement is set to expire in February.

An official in Adel Abdul-Mahdi's office is cited as saying the Prime Minister received a warning regarding the bank account, which holds billions from oil revenues, during a phone call on Wednesday, 8 January.

Iraq, like numerous other countries, maintains government accounts at the New York Fed, via which it manages its national finances, including revenue from oil sales; it takes out that money to pay government salaries and contracts.

While there is no information as to how much of Iraq's money the Fed currently holds, according to WSJ it had $3 billion in overnight deposits from the country's central bank at the end of 2018.

The threatened measure, which could inflict significant damage to the country's economy, is believed to have left some members of the Iraqi government stressing the need to maintain friendly ties with the US.


Comment: Nothing like a good old fashioned threat to bully the vassals into submission. The U.S. no longer has a legitimate presence in Iraq. It is a military occupation. National Security Adviser O'Brien has revealed what will be acceptable to the Empire:
"The president said we want to be out of the Middle East. But what we need to do is leave on our terms, and we need to leave in a fashion in which ISIS/Daesh has been fully eliminated. We took care of the physical caliphate and we're working very hard now to mop up the rest of ISIS," O'Brien said, speaking to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.

"I think we'll come up with a resolution, we had a team from NATO this week. I think you're going to see far more NATO involvement in Iraq," O'Brien added.

Pressed on whether the US would respect Iraq's sovereign choice, O'Brien said that the US looked forward "to leaving an Iraq that's safe and that's secure and that's independent, and that's what the Iraqis want as well."

Commenting on the Iraqi parliament's resolution demanding the complete withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country, O'Brien downplayed its significance.

"With respect to the resolution you're talking about that was a non-binding resolution, so it seems they've learned something from our democracy with non-binding resolutions...This was a non-binding resolution passed by a Shia-only group of legislators. The Sunnis boycotted it, the Kurds boycotted it."
Meanwhile, Iraq is considering acquiring some Russian S-400 systems:
Baghdad is considering the purchase of S-400 advanced Russian missile systems amid fears that the US may stop supporting Iraq, the Wall Street Journal quoted Karim Elaiwi, a member of the Iraqi parliament's Security and Defence Committee as saying. "We are talking to Russia about the S-400 missiles but no contracts have been signed yet. We need to get these missiles, especially after Americans have disappointed us many times by not helping us in getting proper weapons," Elaiwi underscored.

The Iraqi Defence Ministry as well as the Pentagon and US State Department have yet to comment on the matter.

Another Iraqi parliament defence committee member, Abdul Khaleq al-Azzawi, confirmed Baghdad's move to negotiate the purchase of the air defence systems from Moscow. "We authorised the [Iraqi] Prime Minister to get air defence weapons from any country he wants and we authorised him to spend the money for it, from any country. From Russia or anyone," al-Azzawi pointed out.

The statement was preceded by the head of the Iraqi parliament's Security and Defence Committee Mohammad Reza stating earlier this week that Baghdad had resumed talks with Russia on buying S-300 air defence systems. He declined to elaborate.


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Pumpkin

'Random Guy' Guaido suffers third humiliation - storms Venezuela's parliament building in failed stunt

Joaquin Flores
Fort Russ
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 19:14 UTC
Juan Guaido
© ReutersVenezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido speaks at Venezuela's National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela December 17, 2019
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido staged another stunt in the wake of being rejected by the very U.S friendly opposition which he claims to lead. Two days ago, timing his move 'wisely' to achieve maximum world-news attention at the height of the Iran crisis, Guaido broke through the cordon of the police, and entered the parliament building. Here is where he once again swore an oath and proclaimed himself the country's interim president. This was reported on Twitter by the opposition.

The oath of Guaido was taken by the first vice president of the National Assembly. Popular reports indicate this was the result of a direct promise or exchange of favors, as the assembly's opposition bloc has already declared Guaido a persona-non-grata.

Comment: Twitter had a laugh at Random Guy's antics:



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Airplane

Best of the Web: "We accept full responsibility'' - Watch IRGC press conference confessing accidental downing of Ukrainian plane


IFP News
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 17:51 UTC
Ukrainian plane crash tehran
Commander of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Amir-Ali Hajizadeh has, in a press conference, outlined the details of the "unintentional" downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane, which crashed in Tehran Wednesday.

In his comments on Saturday, Brigadier General Hajizadeh said the IRGC Aerospace Force accepts full responsibility for the tragic incident, and is ready to obey any decision made by the country's top officials.

"I heard about the heart-breaking crash of the Ukrainian Airline's passenger plane when I was in the country's west following the missile attacks operation against the US bases. When I became sure that was indeed what had happened, I really wished I had died and not lived to see it," he said.

Video of Commander Hajizadeh's press statement:


Comment: That's the end of the matter as far as international diplomacy is concerned.

But it remains to be seen how an air-defense system operator mistook a Boeing 737 for a cruise missile.

Unless it was fiddled with in some way, the Ukrainian Airlines jet's transponder should have told the operator of the TOR-1M system that the object he was seeing on his radar screen is a Boeing 737.

Additionally, the plane's appearance on his screen should have in no way surprised him - it was the TENTH flight out of Tehran's Khomeini Airport that night. Prior to Flight 752, the last flight movement there was the departure - from the same runway and in the same direction - of QR8408 at 05:39 local time.

Why then was the air-defense operator surprised by this flight?

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Hardhat

US sanctions will delay Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline but won't end it, Polish PM admits


RT
Sun, 12 Jan 2020 12:56 UTC
A worker during construction
© Anton Vaganov / ReutersA worker during construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Leningrad region of Russia, June 5, 2019.
The Polish prime minister has admitted that US sanctions will fail to torpedo the major Baltic Sea pipeline intended to supply Germany with Russian natural gas, and says he wishes the project had "never begun in the first place."

"I believe the US sanctions will delay the project but will not end it," Mateusz Morawiecki told German newspaper Die Welt in an interview.

Swiss-Dutch pipe-laying company Allseas stopped its work on the pipeline in December through fear of getting hit by the sanctions, which were adopted by the US earlier that month.

Morawiecki, whose government argues that the project will make the EU too dependent on Russian gas, called Berlin's decision not to abandon Nord Stream 2 a "step in the wrong direction."

Comment: See also: Merkel: Washington's stance is wrong! Nord Stream 2 project benefits Germany AND Europe

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Airplane

Best of the Web: The accidental downing of Ukrainian plane by Iran is already being used to smear MH-17 skeptics

Max Parry
The Unz Review
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
MP blast airliner
© Unknown
When the Pentagon confirmed the assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, U.S. President Donald Trump took to social media to post a single image of the American flag to the adulation of his followers. Unfortunately, most Americans are ignorant of the other flag synonymous with U.S. foreign policy, that of the 'false flag' utilized to deceive the public and stir up support for endless war abroad. While the chicken hawk defenders of Trump's reckless decision to murder one of the biggest contributors in the defeat of ISIS salivated over possible war with Iran, their appetite was spoiled by Tehran's retaliatory precision strikes of two U.S. bases in Iraq that deliberately avoided casualties while in accordance with the Islamic Republic's right to self defense under Article 51 of the United Nations charter. The reprisal successfully deescalated the crisis but sent a clear message Iran was willing to stand up to the U.S. with the backing of Russia and China, while Washington underestimated Tehran which forewarned the Iraqi government of its impending counterattack so U.S. personnel could evacuate.

Comment:



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