Puppet MastersS


Mr. Potato

Delusional ex-ambassador McFaul switches to Russian to celebrate midterm victory over... Putin?

mcfaul
Michael McFaul
Many people celebrated the Democratic Party's takeover over the House, on social media, but one person in particular couldn't help switching to the Russian language to celebrate, what he believes to be, a defeat of Vladimir Putin.

Michael McFaul, who served as Barack Obama's ambassador to Moscow and became an avid commentator on all things Russian after leaving office, is apparently overjoyed to see his favorite party back in control of the lower chamber of the US Congress. He cheered the result with a post in Russian saying: "Victory! Regards to VVP," using the initials of Russia's president, whose full name is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Another post simply said "Yes!" in Russian in response to the expected victory.

Comment: Perhaps McFaul is crowing (currently) because with a House Dem majority he feels a little more insulated against an investigation of his part in passing Bill Browder's fraudulent Magnitsky act. View Andrei Nekrasov's documentary: The Magnitsky Act - Behind the Scenes


Heart - Black

Starving Yemeni children face 'imminent risk of death' due to Saudi assault on Hodeidah

Starvation Yemen
© Reuters / Khaled AbdullahAn eight-year-old malnourished boy lies on a bed in the emergency ward of a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen September 27, 2016.
The Saudi-led coalition's attack on the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah could have catastrophic consequences for civilians, especially malnourished children in urgent need of care, UNICEF has warned.

Heavy bombings and gunfire have already impeded access to Al Thawra hospital, a medical facility that provides much-needed care to children caught up in the fighting, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said in a press release.

Hodeidah and its neighboring governorates account for approximately 40 percent of the 400,000 children in the country who suffer from serious malnutrition, and some of the sickest are taken to Al Thawra for urgent care. Children being treated at the hospital's intensive care unit now face "imminent risk of death," according to the aid group.

Comment:


Arrow Down

MI6 reportedly knew terror-suspect was tortured into giving false Iraq-al-Qaeda info

Hussein statue soldier
© Goran Tomasevic/Reuters/KJN
UK ministers relied on questions from a tortured terror suspect to make their case for the Iraq War, the Middle East Eye (MEE) has claimed. British spies fed questions to the suspect even though they knew of his mistreatment.

According to redacted documents, seen by the MEE, an MI6 officer knew that Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi was placed inside a sealed coffin by the CIA at a US-run Afghanistan based prison. Al-Libi - alive inside the coffin - was then taken, aboard a truck, to an aircraft that was to fly to Egypt.

The MI6 officer and his colleagues reported the incident to their department's London HQ, stating that they "were tempted to speak out" on behalf of al-Libi, but failed to do so, adding: "The event reinforced the uneasy feeling of operating in a legal wilderness."

Once al-Libi was in Egypt, a country with a well-documented history of human rights abuses, both MI6 and MI5 fed questions to the detainee, receiving reports from his Egyptian interrogators.

Al-Libi, under torture, told his jailers that Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda had links to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program. The claim was cited as fact by US President George W. Bush as he made the case for war.

Upon being returned to the CIA, al-Libi stated that he had lied to avoid further torture. By that point the US, along with the UK, had already invaded Iraq.

Comment: This is what the NKVD/KGB used to do. They knew the result they wanted (i.e. the charge with which they planned to find you guilty), and then they tortured you until you told them what they wanted to hear. This confession was then used as proof of their predetermined conclusion.

The U.S. and UK have spent the last years hating on Russia, a holdover of their hatred of the Communist regime. Maybe they should stop and ask themselves: have we become what we hate?


Eye 2

Chutzpah: Saudis launch 'boycott Amazon' campaign over WaPo's coverage of Khashoggi case

protest sign khashoggi murder
© Reuters/Dinauka LiyanawatteA member of Sri Lankan web journalist association holds a placard during a protest condemning the murder of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi in front of the Saudi Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka October 25, 2018
The boycott comes a few days after the Washington Post published Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's op-ed in which he specifically urged Riyadh to answer key questions on the death of Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month.

Thousands of Twitter users in Saudi Arabia have pushed for the boycott of Amazon.com and its regional subsidiary to slam the Washington Post for covering the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi; the Washington Post is owned by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos.

The Boycott Amazon and Souq.com online campaign was launched by Saudi social media users over what they see as the newspaper's biased coverage of the death of Khashoggi, who worked as a contributor for the Washington Post.

Comment:


Attention

Saudi Arabia accused of torturing and killing another dissident journalist while in custody

Turki Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Jasser
© TurkialjasserJ / TwitterTurki Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Jasser (pictured) is said to have been murdered in jail
Another dissident journalist has reportedly been tortured and killed in Saudi Arabia.

Turki Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Jasser is said to have been murdered in jail a month after Jamal Khashoggi was slaughtered in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate.

News site The New Khaleej reported Al-Jasser's death on Saturday quoting human rights sources. The report has not been confirmed.

Human rights groups say the Saudi government believed Al-Jasser secretly ran a Twitter account called Kashkool, which exposed human rights violations by officials and the royals.

Saudi spies in Twitter's regional HQ in Dubai unmasked him and he was arrested in March, according to reports.


The spy ring was said to be run by Saud al-Qahtani, Crown Prince Mohammad's 'thuggish' aide who was demoted after being blamed for the Khashoggi crisis.

If true, the revelations that Saudi Arabia is still killing journalists even after the uproar caused by the Khashoggi scandal will dismay the West.

It comes after Turkish media claimed yesterday that Saudi consulate staff tried to dismantle CCTV equipment at their Istanbul compound to help cover up Khashoggi's murder.

Comment: The Saudis have been doing this (torturing and killing critics and competitors) for years. They're not likely to stop any time soon. And their closest allies aren't likely to take any serious steps to get them to stop, either.


MIB

Sources say Kurdish militia made a swap with ISIS to get back 7 US troops - terrorists got supplies and oil wells

YPG kruds syria
© Reuters / Rodi Said / FileKurdish People's Protection Units fighters take up positions inside a damaged building in Hasaka city, Syria
Kurdish militia made a swap with Islamic state terrorists to get back seven US soldiers captured in September, Turkish media has said. The Kurds had to withdraw from some oil wells under the swap terms.

The American troops were detained during a confrontation between Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and Kurdish YPG/ PKK militias in the embattled Syrian Deir ez-Zor province in September this year, sources told Anadolu agency on condition of anonymity. The talks to retrieve the soldiers started in late September.

In exchange for the troops, extremists pressed the Kurds to withdraw from several oil wells and allow food and medical supplies to some locations. After YPG/ PKK militias left the oil wells, they got the American soldiers.

Comment: Whether the Kurds or IS control oil resources in eastern Syria, it's all the same to the US. Both are under its control. The Kurds are vassals and continued IS presences gives the US military its excuse to remain in Syria illegally.


Biohazard

US to impose 'additional sanctions' on Russia over Skripal poisoning claim - for which there is still no evidence

trump
© Carlos Barria / Reuters
Washington will move to impose additional sanctions against Russia, saying Moscow did not meet its demands by the deadline set by the US and accusing Moscow of a chemical attack against a former spy and his daughter in the UK.

"Today, the Department informed Congress we could not certify that the Russian Federation met the conditions required by the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991," spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Tuesday. "We intend to proceed in accordance with the terms of the CBW Act, which directs the implementation of additional sanctions."


Comment: Note that being unable (or unwilling) to certify Russia meeting of certain conditions is not the same as them actually not meeting said conditions.


Those sanctions may include downgrading diplomatic relations, banning the Russian national carrier Aeroflot from flying to the US, and cutting off nearly all imports and exports, already severely curtailed under a series of sanctions since 2014.

In August, the State Department sent Moscow a note claiming that Russia had violated the CBW Act by using "Novichok" nerve agent against Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.


Comment: Except that there's no evidence they actually did so. Welcome to American geopolitics...


Comment: The Salisbury event did not happen as advertised:


Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: 'Forty years of American hostility': Iran posts video response to Trump's sanctions

Iran FM Javad Zarif
"Taking a long, hard look at its own wrong choices and changing its approach from the failed one it has stubbornly followed for decades, instead of prescribing behavioral changes for Iran, will be far more effective in bringing about resolutions to conflicts…”
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif chastised the US for causing "catastrophes and crises" in the Middle East and vowed that Tehran's allies will stand with it against US sanctions, in a rare video response to US policies.

In the three-minute long video posted to YouTube on Tuesday, Zarif calls sanctions reimposed by the Trump administration on Monday "unlawful" and "fundamentally flawed."

The video was released less than a day after the formerly lifted sanctions were reinstated, targeting the country's banking, energy and transport sectors, and just hours after Iranian banks were suspended from accessing the global SWIFT financial messaging system.


Comment:


Handcuffs

Texas House member wins re-election from a jail cell

Ron Reynolds
Ron Reynolds
A re-election celebration is underway in Pod 2 of the Montgomery County Jail after inmate number 232573 claimed victory in Texas House District 27. That inmate is known as Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, to the people on the outside.

Reynolds was booked into the county jail on Sept. 7. He's serving a year-long sentence after a 2015 conviction on five misdemeanor counts of using a middleman to chase ambulances in order to solicit clients for Reynolds' law firm.

Comment: Un-freaking believable. Only in America.


Family

UN begins investigation into extreme poverty in UK following the 'austerity experiment'

Philip Alston
A 2010 photo of Philip Alston, then-UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, taken at a news conference at the UN offices in Ecuador.
Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, starts a two-week fact-finding mission Monday, visiting some of the country's poorest towns and cities to examine the effects of austerity measures on rising levels of hardship.

Alston, known for his no-holds-barred critiques, will gather evidence on the impact that changes to welfare benefits and local government funding as well as the rising costs of living have had on British families."

The Government has made significant changes to social protection in the past decade, and I will be looking closely at the impact that has had on people living in poverty and their realization of basic rights," Alston said in a statement."I have received hundreds of submissions that make clear many people are really struggling to make ends meet."

Comment: Let's hope Alston's findings are a little more insightful than his trip to the US.

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