Puppet MastersS


Megaphone

'We are not a launchpad for aggression': Iraqi president says keep regional proxy war out of Iraq


RT
Thu, 26 Sep 2019 02:02 UTC
Barham Salih
© Reuters / Lucas JacksonIraq's President Barham Salih addresses the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York City, September 25, 2019.
Iraqi President Barham Salih has warned of the dangers of a new war in the Middle East, insisting that Iraq must not be drawn into another costly conflict by neighboring states looking for a fight.

Though he spoke with optimism about Iraq's "promising future" before the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Salih was emphatic about regional actors who seek to settle their disputes using Iraq as a battlefield, arguing that the country has seen enough bloodshed.

"We don't want our country to be part of any regional or international conflict," Salih told the assembly through a translator. "Nor do we want our country to be used to settle regional and international scores. Our people have paid a high price by wars and conflict."

Comment: See also:

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Vader

Best of the Web: The Empire Strikes Back Everywhere

Tom Luongo
Gold Goats 'n Guns
Tue, 24 Sep 2019 02:26 UTC
I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further.

- Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back
Darth Vader
© Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back
You know I think there are no coincidences in politics. Everything happens on a particular schedule. So when I see a day as crazy as today I have to ask the question, "Why this, why now?"

Look at the headlines and you'll see what I'm talking about. All of these things happened since I woke up at 7:30am Monday morning in Florida:
  1. The British Supreme Court just arrogated unprecedented power to itself by inserting itself into any dispute between the Government and Parliament. This upends more than 300 years of constitutional process.
  2. The Democrats have announced they will pursue impeachment charges against President Trump because an unverified, hearsay whistleblower made a complaint about a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski. Impeachment odds soared overnight as someone was tipped off about the Democrats' plan.
  3. Bitcoin's hashrate mysteriously flash-crashed more than 40% presaging a massive $1500 drop in price.
  4. Donald Trump delivered a blistering critique of socialism at the United Nations General Assembly. Too bad he's nearly as bad as the ones he's fighting on the far left.
  5. Europe's Trio of Faded Glory — The UK, France and Germany — joined in the chorus of unverified condemnation of Iran in the attack on the Saudi oil field on the 14th.
  6. The Federal Reserve continues to bail out banks to the tune of $65 to $75 billion per day through overnight repo operations that no one can give us an explanation as to why they're needed.
This feels to me like a multi-level coup against those that dare stand athwart the global power structure. Both British and American leadership institutions are under sincere attack with these moves.
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MIB

Danske Bank executive caught in money-laundering scandal found dead

Ott Ummelas
The Independent
Wed, 25 Sep 2019 22:13 UTC
Danske bank
© ReutersDanske Bank
The former head of Danske Bank in Estonia, who was a witness in an investigation into a €200bn (£177bn) money-laundering scandal, has been found dead in an apparent suicide.

The body of Aivar Rehe, who went missing on Monday, was found near his home, the local police said on Wednesday. Police had warned that the 56-year-old, who ran the bank branch until his departure in 2015, was a suicide risk.

"The body has no signs of violence, neither does anything point to an accident," police said, declining to provide further details out of courtesy to Mr Rehe's family. There will be no investigation into his death, they added.

Comment: Ten to one, if there's a banking scandal connected to Eastern Europe, Bill Browder, of Magnitsky Act infamy, is in the middle of it. He doesn't disappoint:

The Postimes reported in July:
Lidmets claims to remember transfers of hundreds of millions, but said that these had been verified by hundreds of pages of documents.

"It was all closely examined so that the client came with a briefcase full of confidential documents and showed them to us," Lidmets said. There were suspicions, according to him, which led to informing the risks manager and sometimes the Financial Intelligence Unit.

Lidmets would blame the relaxed regulations of the day, which permitted the transit of shady money. He denies any conspiracy.

"We are aware of the claims of Hermitage Capital Management and the fact that they submitted similar claims to the Danish police in 2013. These were rejected due to expiry," Danske Bank Group PR manager Kenni Leth commented. "We are waiting for the response of the police and continue with the internal inquiry concerning the Estonian case," he added.

Kaarel Kallas, spokesman of the Prosecutor General's office, assured that the office had received the report of crime and that particular interest is paid to the prevention of money laundering. A criminal procedure would be launched if and when the evidence of crime should be detected. The Prosecutor General's office has not started it earlier.

"In order to present charges in money laundering, it is necessary to prove that the money was earned as a result of crime. If the crime preceding possible money laundering had been committed a long time ago in foreign countries and by foreign citizens and the possible legal entity perpetrator has ceased to operate, it is complicated to collect evidence about the possible initial crime to present charges and the process may end with a stalemate," Kallas said.


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Fire

Best of the Web: British Parliament's Anti-Democratic Brexit Blockade is Tempting Dictatorship

George Galloway
RT
Wed, 25 Sep 2019 10:44 UTC
brexit protest england
The pitchforks are out
Britain never had a "Supreme Court" in the way it never had a "Constitution". Yet somehow the political system seemed to work after a fashion, if in a typically British way.

When I was serving for nearly 30 years in the British Parliament, the "Law Lords" shared a rickety corridor and a single secretary high above the chamber of the House of Lords. They were the final court of appeal, all of them members of parliament, albeit by appointment rather than election.

Before Tony Blair set up a separate Supreme Court (who else would be responsible for the distinctly un-common law "modernisation" of a US style "Supreme Court"), the delicate balance between legislature, executive courts and Crown was something to behold. A Heath Robinson Affair no doubt. But it worked.

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Newspaper

China's role in joint drill with Iran and Russia limited to anti-piracy forces say analysts

Minnie Chan
South China Morning Post
Mon, 23 Sep 2019 10:30 UTC
peacekeeping
© XinhuaChina will probably send only peacekeeping, anti-piracy, and humanitarian relief personnel to the drill, a Chinese analyst says.
China is expected to limit its involvement in a joint naval drill with Iran and Russia to non-combat forces to underline its desire not to be drawn into Middle East conflicts, according to Chinese military analysts.

Instead of sending a regular naval mission to take part in the trilateral joint exercise, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) might send only its routine anti-piracy fleet, which has been deployed to Somali waters to protect commercial vessels, the analysts said.

Last week, General Ghadir Nezami Pour, head of international affairs and defence diplomacy of Iran's General Staff of the Armed Forces, was quoted by the semi-official Iran Press news agency as saying that China, Russia and Iran were planning a joint naval drill in the Sea of Oman and northern Indian Ocean "soon".

Comment: See also:

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Bad Guys

Pakistani Army trained Al-Qaeda, but back when 'jihadis were heroes', PM Khan admits


RT
Tue, 24 Sep 2019 16:11 UTC
Osama bin Laden
© AFPThis photo dated 19 June 2001 shows a TV grab of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks, received training in Pakistan back in the 1980s, but the aim was to fight the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, Imran Khan has said.

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Monday, the prime minister was asked if Islamabad had carried out an investigation into how Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was allegedly able to live in Pakistan for years before being found and killed by US Navy Seals in 2011.

Comment: What he's not saying is how entrenched the CIA has been in those operations with the Pakistani ISI.

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Play

The Syria that the US media will not show you: Max Blumenthal on visiting Damascus after the proxy war

Aaron Maté
The Grey Zone
Tue, 24 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
Syria ignored by Western media
The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal discusses his reporting trip to Damascus in the aftermath of Syria's proxy war.

Blumenthal interviewed residents who were caught between Western and Gulf-backed extremist insurgents and the Syrian government's war to retake territory, and who now struggle to recover under a US-led economic blockade.

"They want to attack and intimidate people from the West who want to have cultural and personal contact with Syrians in the area where most Syrians live," Blumenthal says. "I went there and I took that opportunity to have contact with them because I'll take any reasonable opportunity to break the media blockade in countries targeted with regime change, and to show my fellow citizens what's on the other side of the corporate media and the US national security state's information war."

Guest: Max Blumenthal, Senior Editor of The Grayzone and author of "The Management of Savagery."

Video by Ben Norton


Comment: The other side of the Western-backed war in Syria (that is largely missing from US mainstream media outlets) has been well covered by those who dare to speak truth on the subject:

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Beaker

Jeffrey Epstein and the silence of the scientists who cashed his checks, worked in his labs

Michael Egnor
Evolution News
Tue, 24 Sep 2019 04:51 UTC
SantaFeInstitute/Jeffrey Epstein
© Rick Friedman/Corbis News, Eddie Moore, Albuquerque Journal/KJN
Literary scholars have an adage about the interpretation of texts. They point out that the really important things in a text are often what is not said, more so than what is said. To really understand a story, you have to read between the lines. What should be in the story, but was left out? What was the motive for the omissions? This often reveals deep purposes and themes that are obscured in the explicit words on the page. It's analogous to Sherlock Holmes's dog that didn't bark. Silence is often the real meaning in a story.

The scientific scandal involving pedophile Jeffery Epstein is horrifying, but it's vital that we understand the real meaning of the collaboration between Epstein and the science elites. The most important meaning in that partnership between Epstein and leading Darwinists and computer scientists isn't in the depravity of the man and his elite scientific friends. The most important meaning is in the silence in the scientific community in the midst of this atrocity. It is, I believe, a revelation about our scientific culture and particularly about the trust we should place in a "science consensus" that should shake us to our bones. It is what didn't happen in the Epstein story, even more than what did happen, that reveals the most.
Epstein Pinker Krauss
© TwitterJeffrey Epstein with scientists Steven Pinker and Lawrence Krauss, Epstein's Island

Comment: See also:

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Dollars

Giuliani hits Bidens with new money laundering accusation: The $3M 'Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus' connection

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 24 Sep 2019 03:05 UTC
Biden Giuliani
© Florida Politics/Mark Reinstein/ShutterstockFormer VP Joe Biden (L) Lawyer Rudi Giuliani (R)
Rudy Giuliani leveled serious new claims at the Bidens in a series of Monday morning tweets. Chief among them is a claim that $3 million was laundered to former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, via a "Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US" route - a revelation he claims was "kept from you by Swamp Media."

Giuliani also says that Obama's US embassy instructed Cyprus not to reveal the dollar amount.


Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Lavrov: West preaches rules, human rights, liberalism but fails to use or uphold them


RT
Mon, 23 Sep 2019 22:05 UTC
Lavrov
© Novinite.com/KJN
Western countries pride themselves on defending human rights and upholding order across the globe, yet their actions undermine trust and peace and create more chaos and suffering, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

The rhetoric of liberalism, democracy and human rights "goes hand in hand with the policies of inequality, injustice, selfishness and a belief in their own exceptionalism," Lavrov wrote in an essay published in the Russia in Global Affairs magazine. While maintaining diplomatic decorum, the essay is a scathing condemnation of unipolar hypocrisy that the Russian FM argued represents a betrayal of principles laid down by the victorious allies at the end of World War II and the founding of the United Nations.

Faux-liberalism

Individual rights and freedoms are incompatible with sanctions, economic blockades, and "overt military threats" to states like Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran and Syria, the minister said. Bombing and regime change campaigns in places like Libya and Iraq have destroyed their statehood and killed tens of thousands.
"How does the bombing of sovereign nations [and] the deliberate policy of destroying their statehood ... add up to the imperative of protecting human rights?"
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