Puppet MastersS


Pirates

Syrian army fully liberates Daraa province of Daesh terrorists


Sputnik
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 18:59 UTC
Daraa Syria
© AFP 2018 / Mohamad ABAZEEDSmoke rises above rebel held territory in Daraa airstrikes by Syrian regime forces.
The Syrian government forces have liberated the last villages in the north-west of Daraa province from militants of the Daesh terrorist organization , thereby completing the rout of terrorists from the entire province, a military source told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"The Syrian army has completely routed the terrorists from Daraa province after taking control of the Yarmouk Basin in the north-west of the province," the source said.

Earlier this month a few hundred militants and their family members were evacuated from the Syrian territory due to a government offensive operation in the southern regions of the country.

The military offensive in the regions, partially controlled by various militant groups, was launched by Damascus in June after its capital and several other cities had been shelled by local militants despite an ongoing ceasefire reached with the help of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria. The Syrian government aims to regain control of its border with Jordan and with the disputed territories of Golan Heights, occupied by Israel.
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Clipboard

Best of the Web: Endangered species: US journalist Seymour Hersh on 'novichok', Russian links to Donald Trump and 9/11

Youssef El-Gingihy
The Independent
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 18:42 UTC
Seymour Hersh
© MediumSeymour Hersh
In a rare interview, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh talks about his illustrious career and how he believes the official versions of some the biggest news stories of our time just don't add up

I'm about to interview the 81-year-old doyen of investigative journalism Seymour Hersh. Sy Hersh - as he is affectionately known by those close to him - was once described by the Financial Times as "the last great American reporter". Hersh has brought out his memoir Reporter covering the span of his career as one of the iconoclastic journalists of the 20th century - the man who exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and who later brought the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in the Iraq War to the attention of the world.

Hersh has recently been in London for a talk at the Centre for Investigative Journalism at Goldsmiths. It makes for a raucously entertaining two hours in which he holds court on everything from Vietnam and the war on terror to the Skripal novichok poisoning, Trump and the alleged Russian hacking of the election. Octogenarian Hersh is already back in Washington by the time we speak on the phone.

Comment: In the US, Hersh is among the last of a dying breed: journalists who can think.

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Attention

Defiant Erdogan refuses to release detained American pastor Andrew Brunson

Kate Pavlich
Townhall
Mon, 30 Jul 2018 16:25 UTC
Erdogan
© Citifmonline.comTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Turkish President Recep Erdogan is refusing to release Christian pastor Andrew Brunson, who was detained after Erdogan's 2016 power consolidation in the country. From CBN:
They cannot make Turkey back down with sanctions," he told Turkish media. "We will not step back."

"The US should not forget that unless it changes its attitude, it will lose a strong and sincere partner like Turkey," he continued.

Brunson is facing a possible 35-year prison sentence on charges that he helped a group that tried to overthrow the government in 2016. His attorneys and the Trump administration say he's innocent and a political hostage of Erdogan.
Last week, President Trump asked Erdogan directly for Brunson's release and threatened new sanctions if the Turkish government does not comply.

Comment: Previously:

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Take 2

The military and Hollywood: US Navy releases script 'suggestions' via FOIA - entirely redacted

Tom Secker
spyculture.com
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 17:14 UTC
script redacted
In March 2016 I submitted a request to the US Navy for copies of entertainment liaison office reports, script notes and production assistance agreements. Over a hundred emails and three appeals later they have finally released some script notes to me, but the document is almost entirely redacted.

Sometimes people ask me why I do this sort of work and why this area of research (government in Hollywood) is so important to me. One of the reasons is that the Pentagon, CIA, FBI and the rest would prefer it if no one knew about their role in censoring and rewriting movie and TV scripts for political propaganda purposes. They would prefer that no one knew they were being manipulated and lied to through innocent-seeming entertainment, because otherwise that manipulation would be much harder and less effective.

The Navy's response illustrates this perfectly. After nearly a year they got back to me to say that they had asked CHINFO West (Chief of Navy Information Office West, the official name for the Navy's entertainment liaison office) and said that they don't keep copies of script notes for the TV and movie projects they support. I appealed this finding, pointing out that they had previously released the script notes for Lone Survivor, which can still be found on the US Navy's website, therefore they do keep script notes and do, on occasion, release them.
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Pirates

Best of the Web: Big revelation: UK's Royal Navy rescued Manchester bomber from Libyan war 3 years before he killed 22

Larisa Brown
Daily Mail
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:56 UTC
HMS Enterprise
© AFP/GettyHMS Enterprise arrives in Malta in 2014, with Abedi among the 110 evacuees from Libya
The Manchester suicide bomber was rescued by the Navy from war-torn Libya three years before his pop concert atrocity, the Mail reveals today.

HMS Enterprise plucked Salman Abedi, then 19, from the Libyan coast and took him to Malta for a flight home to Britain in August 2014.


Comment: 'Home' to Britain? He was a refugee (of Libyan birth/nationality) at that point, surely?


Last May he set off a bomb in Manchester Arena that killed 22, including seven children.

Abedi's younger brother, Hashem, who is in jail in Tripoli facing trial over the attack, was also rescued by HMS Enterprise.

The pair had been caught up in fighting in Libya and were among more than 100 British citizens taken to safety.


Comment: Whoa! So they were British 'subjects' who went to Libya to 'free' it with NATO, then got lucky on the return trip.


Photographs released by Ministry of Defence officials at the time showed the group being brought on board the Navy vessel.

Comment: Not that it comes as much of a surprise. The UK establishment never met a jihadist it didn't like.

See also: British-Libyan terrorists: "MI5 gave us free passage to fight Gaddafi"







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Telephone

India's Modi calls Pakistan's Khan to discuss hopes for peace


RFE/RL
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:46 UTC
imran khan
© AFPImran Khan
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called Pakistan's Imran Khan to congratulate him on his party's victory in Pakistan's general election, and both men expressed hopes for regional peace.

The phone call on July 30 was their first since Khan's Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI) party emerged victorious from a July 25 vote that was marred by charges of preelection rigging and other irregularities.

Relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have been frayed, with direct talks stalled amid diplomatic disputes and occasional skirmishes along the frontier that divides the disputed region of Kashmir.

Khan, widely seen as Pakistan's prime minister-in-waiting, declared in his victory speech that he wanted to resolve the long-standing territorial dispute over Kashmir, saying, "If India comes and takes one step towards us, we will take two."

Khan is now courting independent candidates and minor parties to form a coalition government in a nation that has fought three wars with India.

Comment: See also:

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Bad Guys

Netanyahu's demands that Iran exit Syria not 'realistic,' says Russian ambassador


RFE/RL
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:37 UTC
UN peacekeepers Syria
© Ronen Zvulun (Reuters)UN peacekeeping troops look over the border line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's repeated demands that Iranian forces and their allies leave Syria are not "realistic," Russia's ambassador to Israel has said.

"The Iranians are playing a very, very important role in our common efforts to eliminate the terrorists in Syria," Anatoly Viktorov said in English on Israel's Channel 10 broadcaster on July 30.

"That's why, for this period of time, we see as nonrealistic demands to expel any foreign troops from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic," he said.

Viktorov said the presence of Iran's military advisers and allied fighters in Syria is "fully legitimate, according to UN principles," and Russia "cannot force them" to leave the country.

Syria, with help from Russia, Iran, and Tehran's ally, the Lebanese militia Hizballah, has swiftly regained control over large swathes of territory this year after seven years of a civil war that has killed more than 400,000 people.
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Star of David

Syrian envoy to UN: Israel evacuating terrorists from occupied Golan Heights was a 'criminal enterprise'


Sputnik
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:30 UTC
soldier near Golan Heights
© Associated Press / Ariel SchalitA mock road sign for Damascus, the capital of Syria, and a cutout of a soldier, are displayed in an old outpost in the Israeli controlled Golan Heights near the border with Syria, Thursday, May 10, 2018
Israel previously evacuated several hundred White Helmets and their family members from southern Syria to Jordan at the request of several Western countries. The Syrian government, which believes that the NGO's members have been cooperating with terrorists and plotted several false flag attacks, stated that the transfer was a "criminal operation."

Syrian envoy to the UN Bashar Jaafari has said during Astana-format reconciliation talks that Israel helped to transfer militants, who had previously been evacuated from the Golan Heights to other countries, including the US.

Comment: Let it be noted that Turkey is a NATO member, jockeying to increase its influence in that organization.

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Stop

Rep Nunes tells Fox he's looking into remedies against Twitter censoring conservatives

Pam Key
Breitbart
Sun, 29 Jul 2018 15:38 UTC
Twitter
© AFP Photo/JOSH EDELSON
On this weekend's broadcast of Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures," House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said he was looking into "legal remedies" to use against Twitter for "shadow banning," which resulted in the accounts of some conservatives being harder to find.

Nunes said, "I had no idea what shadow banning even was. For several months, people have been contacting me saying that, 'Hey I tried to find you on Twitter, I couldn't find your account. Why is that?'"

He added, "They don't call it shadow banning but, effectively, we were getting caught up in some type of trap to where people couldn't see our Twitter feed. I don't know what Twitter is up to. It sure looks to me like they are censoring people and they ought to stop it. And we're looking at any legal remedies that we can go through."


Comment:



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Bullseye

Trump: There was no collusion, but even if there was it's not a crime


RT
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:13 UTC
trump
© Ron Sachs / Global Look Press
US President Donald Trump took to Twitter to say that collusion isn't a crime, and that he never colluded with anyone. His tweet came as the first trial from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's 'Russiagate' probe begins.

"Collusion is not a crime," he tweeted Tuesday. "But that doesn't matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!"

Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is set to appear before a Virginia court on Tuesday. While Special Counsel Robert Mueller is tasked with uncovering alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the runup to the 2016 election, Manafort is being tried on unrelated tax and bank fraud charges dating back over a decade.

Mueller will likely draw attention to Manafort's lavish lifestyle, funded by his political consulting work for Ukraine's pro-Russian former leader Viktor Yanukovych.
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