Puppet MastersS


Star of David

Flashback Israeli spy killed when debris from building damaged in Christchurch earthquake crushes van of Mossad agents

Paul Chapman
The Telegraph, UK
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:55 UTC
The Israeli secret service Mossad has been accused of conducting an intelligence-gathering operation in New Zealand which was unearthed because of February's Christchurch earthquake.
mossad spying new zealand earthquake
© geoffmackley.com
The operation was interrupted when a van used by a spy cell was crushed by masonry falling from a damaged building, killing one man, it is claimed.

Benyamin Mizrahi, 23, the Israeli man who died in the damaged van, was found to have five passports on his person, the Southland Times newspaper reported.

Three surviving Israelis who were in the van with Mr Mizrahi fled New Zealand within 12 hours, making their way back to Israel.

They reportedly paused only to take photographs of the crushed van and return the dead man's Israeli passport to officials from their embassy.

The Southland Times also said the police national computer was being audited because of concerns it had been hacked into.

Comment: What were the Israelis up to in Christchurch in February 2011??

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Bullseye

The US government lies constantly, and the burden of proof is on the accuser

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Sun, 05 Jan 2020 00:01 UTC
Qassem Soleimani
Over the last 48 hours I've been splitting my free time between (A) learning as much as I possibly can about the US assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and (B) arguing with people online who are uncritically swallowing US government claims about why that assassination was necessary. I always engage such political debates because they're a valuable source of information on what propaganda narratives people are buying into, and therefore which propaganda narratives need to be addressed.

What has been made abundantly clear from this particular engagement is that those who have bought into the Trump administration's completely unsubstantiated claims about Soleimani are sincerely unaware that they have unquestioningly bought into unsubstantiated US government narratives. People tend to get their information from tightly insulated echo chambers, and if you inhabit an echo chamber that supports the current president all you'll get is a bunch of officials, pundits and reporters saying in a confident-sounding tone of voice that Soleimani needed to be taken out. Since they're surrounded by chatter affirming that Soleimani had attacked America and/or posed an imminent threat in the near future, they assume that chatter must be based on some actual facts in evidence.

It is not.

Comment: See also:

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Propaganda

NYT floated Soleimani assassination scenario in Baghdad hours before strike

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Fri, 03 Jan 2020 15:45 UTC
Soleimani
Hours before a US strike at Baghdad's International Airport killed Iran's top military leader, Qasem Soleimani, former Obama National Security Council (NSC) official Steven Simon posited in a New York Times Op-Ed that Soleimani could be assassinated using a hypersonic missile while visiting Baghdad.
[H]ypersonics are a weaponized moral hazard for states with a taste for intervention, because they erase barriers to picking fights. Is an adversary building something that might be a weapons factory? Is there an individual in an unfriendly country who cannot be apprehended? What if the former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, visits Baghdad for a meeting and you know the address? The temptations to use hypersonic missiles will be many.
Oddly, he describes Soleimani as the "former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards," when he was in fact in charge of the Guards' Quds Force until his death.

The Times tweeted the article at 1:38 p.m. EST, several hours before the strike.

Comment: See also:

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Newspaper

New York Times reveals America's weapons-makers drive Trump impeachment

Eric Zuesse
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 03 Jan 2020 07:29 UTC
new york times
© Global Look / Alexandra Schuler
A remarkably non-propagandistic news-report, in the New York Times, by Eric Lipton, Maggie Haberman and Mark Mazzetti, included powerful evidence that the impeachment-effort against US President Donald Trump is motivated, in part if not totally, by a desire by US Senators and Representatives — as well as by career employees of the US Departments of Defense, State Department, and other agencies regarding national defense — to increase the sales-volumes of US-made weapons to foreign countries. Whereas almost all of the contents of that article merely repeat what has already been reported, this article in the Times states repeatedly that boosting corporations such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop-Grumman, has been a major — if not the very top — motivation driving US international relations, and that at least regarding Ukraine, Trump has not been supporting, but has instead been trying to block, those weapons-sales — and creating massive enemies in the US Government as a direct consequence.

The article, issued online on Sunday, December 29th, is titled "Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion", and it quotes many such individuals as saying that President Trump strongly opposed the sale of US weapons to Ukraine, and that,
In an Oval Office meeting on May 23, with Mr. Sondland, Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Blair in attendance, Mr. Trump batted away assurances that [Ukraine's current President] Mr. Zelensky was committed to confronting corruption. "They are all corrupt, they are all terrible people," Mr. Trump said, according to testimony in the impeachment inquiry.
In other words, Trump, allegedly, said that he didn't want "terrible people" to be buying, and to receive, US-made weapons (especially not as US aid — free of charge, a gift from America's taxpayers).

Comment: See also:

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Target

Trump: US will strike 52 Iranian sites 'very fast and very hard' if Tehran moves to avenge general's death - UPDATE: Zarif responds


RT
Sat, 04 Jan 2020 23:05 UTC
D.Trump
© Getty ImagesUS President Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump has said the US military have identified 52 sites important to Iran and its culture which it's ready to rain hellfire upon if Tehran targets US citizens or assets to avenge the killing of its top general.
In unleashing yet another dire warning to Iran, Trump appeared to refer to a recent statement by a senior commander within the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who said earlier on Saturday that Iran had identified about 35 vital US and Israeli targets in the region "a long time ago."

"If Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have...targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD," Trump said as he launched into a fresh anti-Iran diatribe on Twitter.

Comment: And right there Trump becomes no better than ISIS, threatening to destroy Iranian cultural sites. There is a special place in hell for those who destroy history.

UPDATE




Pompeo responded with a little gaslighting: "President Trump didn't say he'd go after a cultural site - read what he said," Pompeo said on Fox News. What planet is this idiot living on? In what world is a site "important to Iranian culture" not a cultural site?

It's all bluff and bluster, anyway, but still. The Iranians aren't shaking in their boots, that's for sure:
Iran's army chief, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, rebuffed the warning, however, saying it is "unlikely that the US would have what it takes to carry out its threat."

Meanwhile, Tehran summoned the Swiss envoy to the Islamic Republic to protest Trump's hostile remarks. Such aggressive language is "completely unacceptable and violates international law," the Iranian Foreign Ministry said. Swiss diplomats act as intermediaries between Tehran and Washington, because the countries cut formal ties in 1980.
See also:

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Jet1

SOTT Focus: How Lies And The Bethlehem Doctrine Brought About The Illegal Murder of Soleimani

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk
Sat, 04 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
Qasem S.
© AP/Office of the Supreme LeaderCommander Major General Qasem Soleimani
In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning "Imminent attacks" on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence.

Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu's government and then Blair's, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of "pre-emptive self-defence" against "imminent" attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts and judges, would accept. Including me.

What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the Bethlehem Doctrine - that here "Imminent" - the word used so carefully by Pompeo - does not need to have its normal meanings of either "soon" or "about to happen". An attack may be deemed "imminent", according to the Bethlehem Doctrine, even if you know no details of it or when it might occur. So you may be assassinated by a drone or bomb strike - and the doctrine was specifically developed to justify such strikes - because of "intelligence" you are engaged in a plot, when that intelligence neither says what the plot is nor when it might occur. Or even more tenuous, because there is intelligence you have engaged in a plot before, so it is reasonable to kill you in case you do so again.
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Attention

VIPS memo: US is doubling down into yet another 'march of folly,' this time on Iran


Consortium News
Fri, 03 Jan 2020 23:34 UTC
trump military briefing
© Shealah Craighead/The White HousePresident Trump with senior military leaders
"We write with a sense of urgency suggesting you avoid doubling down on catastrophe," VIPS tells Donald Trump in its latest memo to the president.

January 3, 2020

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Doubling Down Into Another "March of Folly"?

The drone assassination in Iraq of Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani evokes memory of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in June 1914, which led to World War I. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quick to warn of "severe revenge." That Iran will retaliate at a time and place of its choosing is a near certainty. And escalation into World War III is no longer just a remote possibility, particularly given the multitude of vulnerable targets offered by our large military footprint in the region and in nearby waters.

What your advisers may have avoided telling you is that Iran has not been isolated. Quite the contrary. One short week ago, for example, Iran launched its first joint naval exercises with Russia and China in the Gulf of Oman, in an unprecedented challenge to the U.S. in the region.
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USA

Why Trump can't lose in 2020, despite the impeachment charade

Joaquin Flores
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 03 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
Trump 2020 campaign
Cutting through the media noise and outright nonsense in assessing the upcoming election is going to be a necessity for anyone who wants to know what's truly afoot.

Back in October, Moody's Analytics assessed their confidence that Trump will win in 2020. While yet another impeachment fiasco has been advanced by Democrats, this time going as far as a vote in the lower house, Moody's has not issued any change in their assessment. That's probably because this impeachment charade is being seen for what it is.

Many of the figures being discussed otherwise in the news cycle are quite irrelevant. This is because they are national polls, when only the opinions of certain cross-sections within swing states can reasonably said to be of any significance. Republicans still back Trump, Democrats still oppose him.

Here are the three real reasons why Trump will win.
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Telephone

Chinese & Russian FM's agree to coordinate closely to uphold international law amid intensification of US-Iranian conflict

huaxia
Xinhua
Sat, 04 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
China pays high attention to the intensification of U.S.-Iran conflict, opposes the abuse of force in international relations, and holds that military adventures are unacceptable, said Chinese foreign minister.

Tehran mourning Qasem Soleimani
© Ahmad Halabisaz/XinhuaPeople hold posters of Qasem Soleimani, a top Iranian commander, during a mourning ceremony in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 3, 2020.
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi exchanged views and coordinated stances with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a phone call late Saturday over the escalating tensions in the Gulf region.

They also discussed bilateral cooperation at the United Nations (UN) Security Council.

Wang said that China pays high attention to the intensification of U.S.-Iran conflict, opposes the abuse of force in international relations, and holds that military adventures are unacceptable.

China insists that all parties should earnestly abide by the principles of the UN Charter and the basic norms of international relations, Wang said, adding that Iraq's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity should be respected, and that peace and stability in the Middle East and the Gulf region should be maintained.

Comment: See also: Iran, China & Russia execute joint naval exercise: A security trilateral to counter US presence?

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Star of David

Of course they did: Israel 'figured' in US decision to assassinate Iranian general

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Sat, 04 Jan 2020 21:19 UTC
netanyahu
© Benjamin Netanyahu/TwitterNetanyahu praising Trump's decision to kill Suleimani. January 3, 2019.
Donald Trump's justification for assassinating the Iranian military leader Qasim Suleimani on January 2 was Suleimani's alleged threats to American diplomats and soldiers in Iraq. But even the New York Times cites his responsibility for "waves of militia attacks on Israel" and an attack on Saudi Arabia as reasons for the assassination.

Many reports suggest that Israeli interests were taken into account in Trump's decision. Noga Tarnopolsky in the LA Times reports that Israeli officials got advance notice:
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