Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

US to keep 400 troops in Syria for 'undetermined amount of time'

US armed forces
© CC0 / Staff Sgt. Jacob Connor / 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
The remaining 400 US troops will stay in Syria to carry out clearing operations for an unidentified period of time, Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey said in a press briefing on Monday.

"Our forces will stay on in very limited numbers in northeast and At Tanf to continue our clearing operations and stability operations against ISIS[Daesh] for a period of time not to be determined at this point", Jeffrey told reporters.

Last week, US President Donald Trump confirmed that a total of 400 US troops will remain in Syria.

White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Friday that the territorial caliphate of the Daesh terror group has been completely eliminated in Syria.

Comment: Also from Sputnik:
Last week, US President Donald Trump said that the US would leave 400 troops in Syria with 200 of them deployed closer to Israel.

US Special Envoy for Syria James Jeffrey said Monday that the fight against Daesh in Syria wasn't over, adding that the US would leave a limited number of its troops there.

"This is not the end of the fight against ISIS. That will go on, but it will be a different kind of fight. ISIS has lost much of its capability to project terrorist power and to have a recruiting base in an area that it controls," Jeffrey told reporters during a press briefing.
Jeffrey neglected to mention to reporters that the efforts of Syria and Russia have decimated ISIS and forced the US to 'mostly' leave the country.


Bad Guys

Pompeo's visit to Lebanon doesn't go over so well - Hezbollah's Nasrallah to respond soon

pompeo berri beirut
© JIM YOUNG/AFP/Getty ImagesUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) meets with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (R) in Beirut on March 22, 2019
The visit of the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Lebanon went over badly among supporters of Hezbollah, mainly in the Christian and Shiite communities, and was welcomed by their political opponents. Concluding his visit to the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, Pompeo used the words "Hezbollah" 22 times and "Iran" 13 times in an eight minute speech. After one introductory minute the remaining seven minutes were devoted to Hezbollah and Iran. Would the US Secretary of State have had anything to say at all if not for Hezbollah? The entire visit would have been meaningless.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will respond publicly on Tuesday the 26that 17:00 local time. Nasrallah will respond both to Pompeo's speech and to President Donald Trump's "gift" to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Syria's Golan Heights, occupied since 1967 by Israel. Hezbollah considers the behaviour and statements of the US guest "arrogant and inaccurate". The group was pleased with the conduct of Lebanese officials, notably President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berry and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil (all Hezbollah's allies), who met Pompeo during his visit to the country last week.

What could Sayyed Nasrallah say?

Well-informed sources said the entire Pompeo speech was misleading and confused. Pompeo misrepresented the real objectives of the US in Lebanon when he professed the desire "to see Lebanon prosper and in peace".

Arrow Down

UN, EU, Gulf allies - including Saudi Arabia - all condemn Trump's recognition of Golan as Israeli

netanyahu trump
© Reuters / Leah MillisU.S. President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pose with a presidential proclamation recognizing "Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights" , March 25, 2019
Donald Trump's decision to recognize Israel's annexation of the Syrian Golan has been met with condemnation by the international community, with the UN and Washington's Gulf and European allies slamming the move.

The US president signed a declaration on Monday recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was present at the signing ceremony, praised Trump's unilateral move, comparing the president to biblical and Zionist heroes. But reactions among the international community - including Washington's closest Gulf and European allies - were considerably less enthusiastic.

The United Nations, which has long maintained that Israel's occupation of the Golan is illegal under international law, signaled that its position had not changed. A UN spokesman said that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will continue to honor a December 1981 resolution which called Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights "null and void and without international legal effect."

The declaration was similarly unpopular among nations which normally follow Washington's foreign policy lead.
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait - Washington's accommodating Gulf allies which host US military bases - have criticized Trump's move.

Comment: The international community has spoken! Not that anything will be done about it: Trump offers occupied Golan to Israel, yet the indignation is verbal only. But as usual it is Israel and its vassals against the world. George Galloway was on point:
Galloway called Trump's declaration "an act of brigandry which will send a clear message to the entire world that the US cares nothing for international law, for treaties, just force."
...
"The US will underwrite any Israeli crime as long as its imperial interests in the Arab world are furthered," Galloway told RT. "The oil reserves in the Golan are already being stolen in absolute violation of international law but for the further enrichment of western businessmen."



Alarm Clock

Russian Duma speaker warns 'US decision on Golan Heights is highway to war'

israel soldiers golan
© Xinhua/JINI/Ayal MargolinIsraeli soldiers stand on an armored personnel carrier in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, on March 25, 2019.
The US decision to recognize the Golan Heights as Israel's territory was taken bypassing the UN Security Council and ignoring the UN dialogue on the issue, said Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia's Lower House.

"All members of the international community should voice their stand on the matter," he said during the meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun.

Such a development could lead to a situation where "everyone is fighting each other," he stressed. "The rule of force would dominate. This is a highway to war."

Comment:


Chess

DOJ sides with court ruling Obamacare is unconstitutional

obamacare
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced that it is siding with a district court ruling that found the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.

The move is an escalation of the Trump administration's legal battle against the health care law.

The DOJ previously argued in court that the law's pre-existing condition protections should be struck down. Now, the administration argues the entire law should be invalidated.

U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor ruled in December that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the rest of law is therefore invalid.

Bullseye

Mueller report post mortem: Clinton needed scapegoats to explain 2016 loss - Wikileaks editor to RT

Kristinn Hrafnsson
© Reuters / Pierre AlbouyWikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson
Wikileaks became the target of baseless conjecture as part of Hillary Clinton's attempt to explain her "humiliating" loss in 2016, the organization's editor-in-chief told RT, following the anti-climactic end of the Mueller probe.

In an interview with Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi, Kristinn Hrafnsson stated it was clear that Russia and Wikileaks had been scapegoated in an attempt to deflect blame for the Democrats' shocking defeat in the 2016 presidential election.
Within twenty-four hours after the election in 2016 it was decided that all blame for the humiliating loss of Hillary Clinton should be placed on the Russians, and of course it was obviously necessary to put Wikileaks in the middle of it.
The full interview will air on RT on Wednesday.


Vader

US introduces new sanctions against 25 individuals and entities connected to Iran

us embassy tehran
© Sputnik/ Anton Bistrov
The United States has published a new list of vessels involved in illegal oil shipments, including more than 46 tied to Iran and Syria, the Treasury Department announced in an advisory on 25 March.

The US has decided to impose sanctions on nine more individuals and 16 organisations in Iran involved, according to Washington, in terrorist activities and the Iranian nuclear programme, the Treasury Department said in a press release.

"The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action against 25 individuals and entities, including a network of Iran, UAE, and Turkey-based front companies, that have transferred over a billion dollars and euros to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), in addition to procuring millions of dollars' worth of vehicles for MODAFL", the release said.

The list of sanctions includes the companies Ansar Bank, Atlas Exchange, Iranian Atlas Company, Colden Commodities LLC, and others.

Che Guevara

Maduro: The Venezuelan people do not want violence or foreign intervention

Maduro
On March 17, Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro, met with the US Peace Council delegation for over an hour, speaking on issues related to the recent power outage, how the Venezuelan people responded, and the US draconian policies against Venezuela.

I filmed around 10 minutes of our over hour long meeting. What President Maduro had to say about US policies against, and obsession with, Venezuela is accurate, and reminds me of their same grotesque policies and propaganda against Syria, Libya, Iraq, Cuba...

Western corporate media will never allow leaders of the nations the US is targeting to speak freely, because that might allow a Western audience to think for themselves, based on the leader's words and not on corporate media's propaganda.

NPC

Mueller meltdown: #Resistance licks wounds, MAGA camp enjoys salty popcorn & memes

trump protest
© Reuters / Kyle Grillot
As the Russiagate conspiracy theory disintegrates in the wake of the Mueller report's conclusions, Resistance Twitter is struggling to cope, while Trump supporters are basking in their foes' suffering.

The anti-Trump coalition largely seized on the line in Attorney General William Barr's report summary stating the document "does not exonerate" Trump of obstruction charges, demanding the release of the special counsel's report. The reality-based community could only look on in amazement. And laugh.

Comment: Some want the peddlers of the fake Russiagate narrative held accountable. Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute, told RT:
"Now that these people have pushed this false narrative, and have damaged lives, and have damaged careers - is this where it's going to end? Are they going to have to pay for their crimes?"
Political analyst Charles Ortel told RT:
The American establishment and mass media not only wasted millions of taxpayers' dollars "fomenting and stoking tensions" between world nuclear superpowers, but also undermining any remaining trust in them.

"Any of these outlets that have been subjecting the world to all this... this is going to mark a death row for a lot of traditional media complexes, and magazines, and newspapers, etc," he said. "Many Americans are sick and tired of this baloney. And we're going to tune it out, we're going to be rejecting them. We're going to be looking for our news in a different way."

Whoever decided to take us down this rat hole cannot be allowed to escape without intense scrutiny.
Patrick Henningsen, an American writer and global affairs analyst, told RT:
"What the president is going to do now is to take this result -or the lack of a result- and use it as a stick to perpetually beat the opposition with, right through the 2020 election cycle,"Henningsen predicted. "This will allow the president to fuel his attacks on the press [because it] vindicated his accusations of the fake news by CNN and others."
Famed lawyer and professor Alan Dershowitz has criticized Mueller's job as lead prosecutor, claiming he "didn't do his job":
"Mueller seems to have conducted a generally fair investigation. But he failed to come to a clear decision about obstruction of justice. That was his job and he should have done it.
A senior Russian lawmaker, Konstantin Kosachyov, who heads the Federation Council's International Affairs Committee, has called for a "reset" in US-Russian relations in light of Mueller's findings.


Black Cat

Third attempt by neocons to sabotage Venezuela's electrical grid foiled

blackout Venezuela
© Associated Press/Natacha PisarenkoA man stands outside his home during a power outage in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, March 25, 2019.
Unbowed after over two months of failed efforts to topple Maduro, failure to win over its military or gain popular support, its paramilitary attack scheme and other tactics foiled so far - the Trump regime cyberattacked Venezuela's electrical power grid for the third time since March 7.

This time, preparations were in place to counter further cyberattacks. The latest one occurred on Monday, affecting much of the country, according to Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez, saying:

"We have experienced a new attack to the transmission and charging center of the National Electric System, aimed to take out the machines of the Simon Bolívar Hydroelectric Power Plant located in Guri."

With countermeasures in place, power was restored in most parts of the country within hours, Rodriguez explaining:

Comment: More from teleSUR:
Update: New power cuts in Venezuela tonight, after the government denounced another attack on the electrical system. Government informs that all teams are on site working fast to restore power.

***

A new attack on Venezuela's National Electric System, which left many sectors of the country without service, was denounced Monday by Vice President of Communication, Tourism and Culture Jorge Rodriguez.

This new aggression happens almost 20 days after a major cyber attack to the country's electrical system resulted in a six-day nation-wide blackout, which according to the national government was executed by the United States.

However, this time, as Venezuela's officials stated, all the countermeasure mechanisms implemented by President Nicolas Maduro performed flawlessly. These worked for the insurance, maintenance, and communication between the different stations, which allowed that in record time almost all the service throughout the country to be restored. Some parts of Caracas and the Metro system in the city are still without service.

The Metro system informed via Twitter that it activated a contingency plan for alternate routes through the Metro Bus from the Zona Rental station to Propatria; La Rinconada to Charallave Norte, as well as in Caricuao, La Rinconada and Petare.

"Although the attack had similar characteristics to the March 7 event, we had the capacity to respond quickly and the service has been restored in almost all the national territory and in the next few hours all the country will have electricity back on", assured Rodriguez. The high ranking official added that the Venezuelan far-right's intention does not pursue any political or ideological basis.

"The real intention is to attack, generate anxiety, plunge the population in a situation of deep distress to be able to seize power and achieve what they have already done, which it is steal all the resources that belong to the Venezuelans," concluded Rodriguez.
RT adds:
Shortly after electricity was restored, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez made a televised statement, claiming that the "fascist right" and their "imperial masters" in the US had attacked key transmission lines, thus plunging the country into darkness.

Rodriguez, who offered no evidence in support of his claims, pinned blame on "the trio of misfortune, perversity and criminality" - namely US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Republican Senator Marco Rubio

"What was the objective of this new attack? It was to deprive Venezuela's people of electricity as happened so terribly just two weeks ago," the top official stated, saying the outage was dealt with in "record time" in most parts of the country.

All three politicians had made a number of incendiary remarks in favor of regime change in Venezuela. Pompeo recently said the "constraint" on any action against President Nicolas Maduro was lifted when all US diplomats left the country. Rubio is one of the most vocal backers of lending all kinds of support to the opposition in Caracas.

For his part, Bolton, a messiah of American expansionism and a Bush-era hawk, has inadvertently vowed military action against Venezuela. Lately, he made it clear that his boss Donald Trump was "very serious" about "all options" to remove Maduro from power.

Another Vice President and Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said the country's lines transmitting power to the west of Venezuela were "attacked using EMP equipment."

Venezuela's beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro blamed that blackout on foreign-sponsored "saboteurs and terrorists." Meanwhile, Juan Guaido, the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela, accused Maduro of letting the country's infrastructure crumble to breaking point.