Puppet MastersS


Propaganda

Regime Change Template: The ocean of lies on Venezuela recalls the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq


Blog Factory
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 00:22 UTC
Bush Blair
Minutes after the Coalition Provisional Authority transferred authority to Iraq's interim government, President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair shake hands during a work session at the NATO Summit in Istanbul, Turkey, Monday, June 28, 2004.
There are clear and disturbing parallels between the events that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the current frenzy promoting regime change in Venezuela. From the state actors to the massive disinformation campaign, Washington and its "coalition of the willing" appear to be following the same old imperialist formula.

The Canary spoke to activist journalists Mike Prysner and Fiona Edwards about the parallels between the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and current events in Venezuela. Prysner was 19 years old when he was deployed to Iraq in March 2003. He is now an anti-war activist, producer and writer for The Empire Files, and co-host of the Eyes Left podcast. Edwards, meanwhile, is a national officer of Stop the War coalition (a central organising force against the Iraq invasion) and a writer on Latin America.

Comment: See also:

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Propaganda

US re-brands mosques as ISIS bases to avoid criticism over Syrian casualties, analyst says


RT
Wed, 13 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Damaged mosque in Al-Jina
© REUTERS / Ammar AbdullahA mosque in al-Jina damaged by a US airstrike in March 2017.
For several months now, the US-led coalition in Syria has been deliberately targeting mosques - religious objects that have protected status under international law. The trick is to say that they are no longer actually 'mosques'.

There are rules on what types of targets the US military is not allowed to bomb to avoid direct civilian deaths and long-term harm from damage to civilian infrastructure. Mosques, of course, are on the list, along with schools, hospitals, embassies, and refugee camps.

Yet since October of last year, the US-led coalition had apparently changed its approach to hitting mosques in eastern Syria as its warplanes prop up Kurdish militias trying to take over what is left of territory held by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).
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Sherlock

US judge orders medical examiner to turn over all files regarding death of RT founder Mikhail Lesin

Mike Eckel
RFE/RL
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 11:50 UTC
Mikhail Lesin
© ReutersWashington officials concluded that Mikhail Lesin died of blunt force trauma in a hotel room on November 5, 2015.
A Washington judge has ordered the city medical examiner to turn over dozens of autopsy records and other files in the investigation of Mikhail Lesin, the former Russian press minister who was found dead in a D.C. hotel room under suspicious circumstances more than three years ago.

The February 13 ruling came in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by RFE/RL, which has sought the files as part of its ongoing probe into Lesin's November 2015 death.

Once a powerful media adviser to President Vladimir Putin, Lesin fell out of favor sometime around 2012 and had largely been out of sight before his body was found in the Dupont Circle Hotel. Despite the official conclusion that his death was "accidental," suspicion has focused on whether he was killed to keep him from sharing information with the Justice Department.

Comment: Also see:

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Cut

Turkey aiming for S-400 missile deal with Russia despite US threats to cancel offer of F-35s and Patriot missiles


RT
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 20:43 UTC
S400
© FILE PHOTO Russian Defense Ministry
Ankara will stay on course to get the Russian-made S-400 anti-aircraft system despite Washington's carrot-and-stick offer of alternative Patriot missiles and threats to jeopardize other arms deals, a top Turkish MP has confirmed.

There will be no change to the multi-billion deal Moscow and Ankara inked back in 2017, according to Volkan Bozkir, head of Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee. Bozkir, who is in Washington this week, said purchasing the S-400 has nothing to do with Turkey's plans to possibly buy the Patriots as well.

"With regard to Patriots, if the opportunity is at a level we desire, we have expressed we could also buy those too," he stated. Expanding on that, the Turkish MP said Ankara had already paid most of the price for the S-400s and the weapons systems are expected to arrive in November.

Comment: It seems Turkey continues to benefit from playing both sides, although it's clear Russia is the safer and more beneficial partner:

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Bizarro Earth

At Trump summit Netanyahu declares "common interest of war with Iran" sparking backlash from Tehran

Allison Deger
Mondoweiss
Wed, 13 Feb 2019 12:00 UTC
Netanyahu Yusuf bin Alawi
© Amos Ben-Gershom/GPOIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Omani Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf bin Alawi meet in Warsaw for a sideline discussion, Wednesday, February 13, 2019.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stole the show during a Trump administration summit in Warsaw, Poland focused on "peace and security" in the Middle East when he said the meeting would be helpful "to advance the common interest of war with Iran." Although the the statement was quickly scrubbed from social media and replaced with a message of "combatting Iran," the Iranian government, and many others, took notice.

The initial statement was made in a press release issued by the Prime Minister's office this afternoon in Poland.
"From here I am going to a meeting with 60 foreign ministers and envoys of countries from around the world against Iran. What is important about this meeting - and this meeting is not in secret, because there are many of those - is that this is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran."

Comment: Sputnik provides proof of what Netanyahu really said, along with more details and Twitters reaction:
While Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to comment on the now-deleted tweet on the "PM of Israel" account mentioning a meeting with Arab nations and a "common interest of war with Iran", the message has already reached Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif took to Twitter to blast a now-removed tweet posted on the official account of the Israeli Prime Minister's office the other day that appeared to mention a "common interest of war with Iran" that Tel Aviv and a handful of Arab nations could share as "Netanyahu's illusions":


Some of Zarif's followers shared his stance, suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to "gain support for war and more destruction":



Others, however, maintained that the initial tweet by the PM of Israel was a misleading translation from Hebrew:



Netanyahu's office removed a Wednesday tweet posted ahead of a key conference on the Middle East, co-hosted by Poland and the US. It was spotted by several journalists, who noted that the initial tweet with the "war" part was later replaced by "combating Iran".



While some suggested that it could have been the result of a mistranslation from Hebrew, others insisted that Netanyahu did say the word "war" and tried to erase it from history.

"From here I am going to a meeting with 60 foreign ministers and envoys of countries from around the world against Iran. What is important about this meeting - this meeting is not in secret, because there are many of those - is that this is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran", the now-deleted tweet read.



The Israeli prime minister, who has become increasingly open about the IDF's activities in the region, has yet to confirm or deny whether it was a misleading translation, a Freudian slip, a Kinsley gaffe, or something else.

The remark came amid heightened tensions between Israel and Iran, with the former consistently expressing concern over Tehran's alleged "entrenchment" in the region, namely in Syria. Tel Aviv has blasted Tehran for its purported efforts to expand its clout in Syria and establish a permanent military presence in the Arab Republic.

The Israeli Defence Forces have been conducting airstrikes against what they claimed were Iranian military targets in Syria, while Tehran has on a multitude of occasions argued that it has only been sending military advisers to Damascus to help it fight terrorism.

Iran has also ramped up its rhetoric against Israel, promising to wipe it off the political map.

On 28 January, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps second-in-command Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami said that "if Israel takes any action to wage a war against us, it will definitely lead to its own elimination and freeing of occupied territories. Iran's strategy is to remove the Zionist regime from the political map, and the Israelis contribute to this by their criminal activities".

Several weeks ago, Iranian Air Force Commander Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh made a related comment, saying that "current and future generations [of air force pilots] are impatient and ready to fight against Israel and eliminate it from the Earth".
More from Sputnik:
When the "PM of Israel" Twitter account posted comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, it translated his words into English as having held a meeting with other Arab nations on their "common interest of war with Iran" ‒ and Twitter had thoughts.

While the account handlers quietly deleted the original tweet thread and reposted the remarks with a different translation, critics were quick to point out that the Hebrew words Netanyahu used can only mean one thing.

[...]

However, this tweet was soon removed, and a new translation was put up, 52 minutes after the first post, that substituted the phrase "combating Iran" for "war with Iran."

​Several news agencies sent inquiries to the Israeli leader's office asking for clarification of his comments, but none received a reply. The PM of Israel account hasn't issued a retraction or a correction of any kind, just a replacement of one tweet with another.

Many reporters quickly put things together and decided it must have been a simple translation error. Those happen all the time, right? Big oops!
Netanyahu's team translated a Hebrew phrase you'd normally render as "combatting Iran" as "war with Iran," thus setting a new bar for initiating an international crisis with bad tweets. https://t.co/BZSKKUJysu

- Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 13, 2019
​However, while mistranslating a word might be a common error, even if letting it get through to the press in such an egregious way isn't, critics were quick to point out that in the original Hebrew, Netanyahu did, indeed, say the word "war."​​

​



​Here's a screenshot of the PM's comments in Hebrew, to verify directly:

war in iran netanyahu
© Sputnik ScreenshotA screenshot of the "PM of Israel" Twitter account's post in Hebrew referencing "war in Iran"
On Tuesday, Sputnik spoke with Peter Ford, the former British ambassador to Syria, about Israeli shelling of an abandoned city in southern Syria the previous day, as well as bombastic comments made by Netanyahu following inquiries about them.

"We are in a pre-election period in Israel," the diplomat noted. "This sounds like Netanyahu flexing his muscles, showing that he's the best military leader... He's brushing up his military credentials, trying to ramp up the crisis atmosphere in which he tends to flourish, ramping up the Iran threat."

"I don't think the Iranians and their allies, like Hezbollah, will be stupid enough to play into Netanyahu's game by overreacting," Ford continued.

Netanyahu faces a serious military leader in April's Knesset elections: Benjamin Gantz, the former of chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, who's founded a new party, Israel Resilience.


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Snakes in Suits

Sounds about right: Russia calls latest US sanctions 'just another schizoid story'


RT
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 11:01 UTC
Jack Nicholson
© Getty ImagesActor Jack Nicholson in a scene from the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. USA, 1975
Russia is not afraid of sanctions and new penalties won't hugely harm the economy, according to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. However, he added that the measures may slow development.

The latest bill pushing a fresh round of economic sanctions against Moscow was introduced to US Congress by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez. It is the second attempt to expand anti-Russia penalties after the previous version was defeated last year. If approved, the new package will target Russia's banking and energy sectors, as well as its foreign debt.

Medvedev added that potential US sanctions demand special attention from the country's government and the Central Bank of Russia. The top government executive also urged state officials to drop the careless approach to the issue.

"These sanctions do effect our economy. But they do not cause any substantial damage. We will continue to follow our path. But there's no doubt that they are not helpful, because they slow down growth," Medvedev said during his speech at the Russian Investment Forum in Sochi.

According to the prime minister, potential anti-Russian penalties are mostly caused by the internal political struggle in Washington, and pressure on US President Donald Trump amid the so-called "Russia story."

"When it comes to the sanctions, and this latest splash, it's just another schizoid story," Medvedev said.

Comment: Having been the under various sanctions over the past few years, Russia has been forced to adapt and become more self-sufficient. Any new sanctions will likely fail to achieve the desired effect. See also:

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Bullseye

The Saker interviews economist Michael Hudson on Venezuela

The Saker
The Unz Review
Thu, 07 Feb 2019 10:24 UTC
venezuela
© Reuters / Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Introduction: There is a great deal of controversy about the true shape of the Venezuelan economy and whether Hugo Chavez' and Nicholas Maduro's reform and policies were crucial for the people of Venezuela or whether they were completely misguided and precipitated the current crises. Anybody and everybody seems to have very strong held views about this. But I don't simply because I lack the expertise to have any such opinions. So I decided to ask one of the most respected independent economists out there, Michael Hudson, for whom I have immense respect and whose analyses (including those he co-authored with Paul Craig Roberts) seem to be the most credible and honest ones you can find. In fact, Paul Craig Roberts considers Hudson the "best economist in the world"!

I am deeply grateful to Michael for his replies which, I hope, will contribute to a honest and objective understanding of what really is taking place in Venezuela.

The Saker

Comment: See also:

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Eye 2

Democratic darling Kamala Harris packed California prisons with people for selling pot

Charles Fain Lehman and Brent Scher
The Washington Free Beacon
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 05:00 UTC
Kamala Harris
© Getty Images
At least 1,560 people were sent to state prisons for marijuana-related offenses between 2011 and 2016

Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) admitted in an interview this week to using marijuana, an act that landed thousands in prison while she was California's Attorney General and opposed legalization of the drug.

The drug use admission to the "Breakfast Club" came as part of Harris' attempt to erase the reputation she earned as a California prosecutor. She is now calling for legalizing marijuana as a first step to end the War on Drugs, but opposed marijuana legalization during both her 2010 campaign for Attorney General and 2014 re-election campaign, when she notably lost support from the marijuana industry after she laughed at her Republican opponent for supporting legalization.

Under Harris's six-year tenure, hundreds were sent to state prisons for marijuana-related offenses, crime records show.

Comment: Harris is a political hack who will likely do and say anything she thinks will help her climb the ladder. And she wants to be the next US president. See also:

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Whistle

Best of the Web: Germany Pulls Rank on Macron and American Energy Blackmail

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 22:39 UTC
macron may
It was billed politely as a Franco-German "compromise" when the EU balked at adopting a Gas Directive which would have undermined the Nord Stream 2 project with Russia.

Nevertheless, diplomatic rhetoric aside, Berlin's blocking last week of a bid by French President Emmanuel Macron to impose tougher regulations on the Nord Stream 2 gas project was without doubt a firm rebuff to Paris.

Macron wanted to give the EU administration in Brussels greater control over the new pipeline running from Russia to Germany. But in the end the so-called "compromise" was a rejection of Macron's proposal, reaffirming Germany in the lead role of implementing the Nord Stream 2 route, along with Russia.

The $11-billion, 1,200 kilometer pipeline is due to become operational at the end of this year. Stretching from Russian mainland under the Baltic Sea, it will double the natural gas supply from Russia to Germany. The Berlin government and German industry view the project as a vital boost to the country's ever-robust economy. Gas supplies will also be distributed from Germany to other European states. Consumers stand to gain from lower prices for heating homes and businesses.

Comment: Macron is siding with Trump on this because Trump's 'America First' agenda here coincides with the globalist agenda: against Russia. Macron is an Anglo-Saxon creature, a bankers' globalist, through and through. De Gaulle is rolling in his grave.

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Red Flag

Despite majority support from NYers, Amazon pulls out of building HQ in Queens after backlash from radicals like AOC

Chris Ciaccia
Fox News
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 21:20 UTC
amazon
Amazon announced Thursday it was turning back on its plans to build its second headquarters in New York City, the company said in a statement. The move comes after backlash from lawmakers, notably Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who bemoaned the project.

"After much thought and deliberation, we've decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens," the Seattle-based Amazon said in the release.

"For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City," the statement reads.


Comment: A Siena College poll asked: "Do you approve or disapprove of the recently announced deal between Amazon and New York, which grants up to $3 billion in state and city incentives to Amazon in return for Amazon locating its corporate offices in Queens, where it is projected to generate 25,000 jobs?"

The result: 56 percent of voters statewide approved, while 36 percent didn't.

In New York City, 58 percent of registered voters backed the plan, while 35 percent were opposed. Also, minorities were the biggest Amazon boosters.

Among black voters, 70 percent backed the deal while only 25 percent objected. Among Latinos, 81 percent supported Amazon while only 17 percent were opposed.

Apparently crazed liberals like AOC care less about the wishes of their constituents and providing them with jobs than in fighting against "corporate greed". How exactly that works, only AOC in her distorted worldview knows.

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