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Best of the Web: British Security Service Infiltration, the Integrity Initiative and the Institute for Statecraft

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk
Thu, 13 Dec 2018 18:15 UTC
two temple place
The British state can maintain its spies' cover stories for centuries. Look up Eldred Pottinger, who for 180 years appears in scores of British history books - right up to and including William Dalrymple's Return of the King - as a British officer who chanced to be passing Herat on holiday when it came under siege from a partly Russian-officered Persian army, and helped to organise the defences. In researching Sikunder Burnes, I discovered and published from the British Library incontrovertible and detailed documentary evidence that Pottinger's entire journey was under the direct instructions of, and reporting to, British spymaster Alexander Burnes. The first historian to publish the untrue "holiday" cover story, Sir John Kaye, knew both Burnes and Pottinger and undoubtedly knew he was publishing lying propaganda. Every other British historian of the First Afghan War (except me and latterly Farrukh Husain) has just followed Kaye's official propaganda.

Some things don't change. I was irresistibly reminded of Eldred Pottinger just passing Herat on holiday, when I learnt how highly improbable left wing firebrand Simon Bracey-Lane just happened to be on holiday in the United States with available cash to fund himself, when he stumbled into the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Recent university graduate Simon Bracey-Lane took it even further. Originally from Wimbledon in London, he was inspired to rejoin the Labour party in September when Corbyn was elected leader. But by that point, he was already in the US on holiday. So he joined the Sanders campaign, and never left.

"I had two weeks left and some money left, so I thought, Fuck it, I'll make some calls for Bernie Sanders," he explains. "I just sort of knew Des Moines was the place, so I just turned up at their HQ, started making phone calls, and then became a fully fledged field organiser."
It is, to say the least, very interesting indeed that just a year later the left wing, "Corbyn and Sanders supporting" Bracey-Lane is hosting a very right wing event, "Cold War Then and Now", for the shadowy neo-con Institute for Statecraft, at which an entirely unbalanced panel of British military, NATO and Ukrainian nationalists extolled the virtues of re-arming against Russia.
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Clock

Neocon Bolton says no Trump-Putin meeting while Russia holds Ukrainian ships and sailors


RFE/RL
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 18:03 UTC
A Ukrainian serviceman stands on board a Coast Guard ship in the Sea of Azov.
© Yevhen Maloletka / APA Ukrainian serviceman stands on board a Coast Guard ship in the Sea of Azov.
U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton says there will be no meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin while Moscow still holds the Ukrainian ships and sailors it seized near Crimea.

"I don't see circumstances in the foreseeable future where such a meeting could take place until the ships and the crews are released," Bolton told reporters on December 13.

Russia seized three Ukrainian Navy ships on November 25 and arrested 24 sailors in the Kerch Strait that links the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov.

Moscow alleged that the vessels had illegally entered Russian territorial waters near the Crimea region, which Russia occupied and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraine and most UN member states do not recognize the annexation.

Comment: Says the guy whose nation illegally kidnaps, incarcerates and tortures foreigners in total contravention of international law. Guantanamo Bay, Bolton.

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Bulb

Latin American Marshall Plan: Mexico's Obrador has a solution to the border crisis

Patrick Lawrence
Consortium News
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 17:47 UTC
López Obrador's $20 billion development plan gives Washington a chance to help rectify the historic damage it's done to the living conditions of people in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Immigrant caravan from Mexico
With President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatening to shut down the government if he doesn't get his wall, it's good that someone in a position of authority actually has a workable solution to the migrant crisis festering on the Mexican border with the U.S.

The day after Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office as Mexico's president on Dec. 1, his foreign minister flew to Washington to propose a $20 billion development plan to make Central America a place for people to stay rather than flee. Three-quarters of the money would help create jobs and fight poverty. The rest would pay for border control and law enforcement.

The plan would be funded by Mexico, the U.S. and the three Central American that produce the most refugees and migrants, according to the size of their economies. The U.S. would pay most, which seems just given the decades of support-including millions in military assistance and police training-that Washington offered corrupt, anti-democratic dictators who oversaw the impoverishment of Central America. In addition, the U.S. backed the 2009 coup in Honduras that has directly led to an influx of refugees streaming towards the U.S. border.

At last there is a plan that addresses the causes, and not just the symptoms of Central America's migrant and refugee crisis: poverty, unemployment, drug trafficking, gang violence, police corruption, the world's highest murder rates. At last an implicit assertion that the U.S. bears some responsibility-and arguably the largest share-for the unlivable conditions of many Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans appears to be at hand.
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Megaphone

Propaganda rag BBC claims chemical weapons helped Assad's victory...but fails to explain how

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
syria chemical weapons
The BBC published an article in October titled, "How chemical weapons have helped bring Assad close to victory" in which it claims chemical weapons have been "crucial" to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad's "war-winning strategy."

Superficially - the article appears impressive - loaded from top to bottom with colorful charts, graphs, and photographs of supposed victims in gas masks, expended munitions, and craters.

However, never once does the BBC provide an actual explanation as to how chemical weapons brought Damascus closer to victory. Even at face value, the article's entire premise is challenged in each paragraph by the statistics and events the article itself presents.

Alleged Chemical Weapon Casualties are a Drop in the Ocean

The article begins by claiming (emphasis added):
After seven devastating years of civil war in Syria, which have left more than 350,000 people dead, President Bashar al-Assad appears close to victory against the forces trying to overthrow him.
Yet further down in the article under a graph titled, "Estimated number of casualties in the 106 attacks by location 2014-18," the BBC admits that only 55 of the supposed 106 attacks the BBC accuses Syria's government of carrying out even resulted in any casualties at all, and admits that "it was not possible to verify that the casualties reported were the result of exposure to chemicals."

Comment: The BBC, as mouthpiece for the British establishment dutifully prints whatever rubbish its masters wish to promote to the masses...you can bet, IF they had ANY evidence to corroborate their claims, they would be shouting from the rooftops.

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Snakes in Suits

Sen. James Inhofe bought defense stock days after pushing for increased defense spending, then dumped it when questioned

Lachlan Markay
The Daily Beast
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 17:21 UTC
Sen. James Inhofe
© Chip Somodevilla/GettySen. James Inhofe
Just days after signaling his support for unprecedented levels of U.S. defense spending, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, reported purchasing tens of thousands of dollars of stock in one of the nation's top defense contractors.

After The Daily Beast asked about the purchase, Inhofe's office said the senator had contacted his financial adviser to cancel the transaction and instructed him to avoid defense and aerospace purchases going forward.

Inhofe, who took over the top spot on Armed Services after the death of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in August, has repeatedly pressed President Donald Trump to dramatically scale up the Pentagon's annual budget, which currently stands at $717 billion. Last week, after Trump hinted he would like to scale back parts of that budget, Inhofe met with the president and Defense Secretary James Mattis, after which it was announced that the administration would seek even more defense funding: a record $750 billion in spending for fiscal year 2020.
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Snakes in Suits

EU Chief nominee announces intention to 'unite' Europe with Africa, meddle with Hungary and Poland's democracy

Virginia Hale
Breitbart
Tue, 11 Dec 2018 12:00 UTC
Frans Timmermans
© JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty ImagesFrans Timmermans
Named as the centre-left's candidate for the next EU Commission President, Frans Timmermans announced he would crush conservative governments in Europe, insisting that the continent uniting with Africa is "a matter of destiny".

Timmermans, who currently sits as the Commission's first vice-president, was nominated to lead the Party of European Socialists (PES) in next May's elections by delegates at the EU Parliament grouping's annual congress in Lisbon on Saturday.

The former Dutch defence minister, who has previously claimed Europe could "not remain a place of peace and freedom" unless mass immigration-related "diversity" is imposed throughout the continent including across "even the most remote corners", has notably spent much of his time as President Jean-Claude Juncker's deputy ordering eastern EU states to open their borders to third world migrants.

Packed with references to "1940", "Nazi Germany", and "never again", he used his speech at the PES congress to make clear that, under his leadership, the European Commission would have zero tolerance for nations which reject any part of the globalist, 'progressive' agenda including third world migration.

Comment: The man is either a crazed ideologue or a sinister propagandist, regardless, the way things are shaping up in Europe, he's going to be hard pressed to find dupes for his campaign: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Arrow Down

France counting up billions in lost revenues after weeks of Yellow Vest protests


RT
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 17:11 UTC
yellow vests
© Global Look Press / Giorgos PapadopoulosProtester laying down as dead with the French Flag on top, Paris
The Bank of France has lowered the country's economic growth forecast for this and next year from 1.6 percent to 1.5 percent, warning that the longer the unrest lasts the greater the losses will be for the national economy.

Shortly after slashing its assessment of economic growth, in the final quarter, in half, the central bank has cut overall growth on Thursday. Meanwhile, the regulator remains optimistic about unemployment which they expect will continue to fall.

While the new figures show that the economy is expected to slow just 0.1 percent in 2018 and 2019 compared to previous assessment, in real money the sum is quite significant. It may cost the protest-riven EU country up to $28 billion based on the IMF forecast for the country's GDP for 2018 of almost $2.8 trillion.

"Overall the more the movement lasts, the bigger the loss for the French economy," Governor of the Bank of France, Francois Villeroy, told French business newspaper Les Echos.
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Wolf

Flashback Does Mueller's 'pit bull', lead prosecutor Weissmann have a history of ethics violations?

Margot Cleveland
The Federalist
Sat, 08 Dec 2018 16:48 UTC
andrew Weissmann
© New America / YouTubeAndrew Weissman is now now a senior fellow at NYU Law.
These facts raise serious concerns about Andrew Weissmann's continued service on the special counsel's team and justify delving further into the career of the long-time federal prosecutor.

Houston-based attorney Kevin Fulton, of the Fulton Law Group, filed a motion on my behalf Thursday morning to unseal and unredact court records that may expose past misconduct by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's lead prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann.

Since Weissmann took a leave of absence from his top Department of Justice job to join the special counsel's team, critics have questioned his impartiality. Reports suggest the man branded Mueller's pit bull by the New York Times violated internal protocol when he met with reporters from the Associated Press in April 2017. The following day, the AP published an exposé on Paul Manafort's relationship with Ukraine officials.

Comment:

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Network

Decline of the dollar: Russia and Syria to dump dollar in mutual trade, agree on joint energy projects


RT
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 17:08 UTC
syria
© Sputnik / Mikhail Voskresenskiy
The Moscow-Damascus Intergovernmental panel has reached a series of agreements, including switching to national currencies in mutual settlements and commercial energy exploration in Syria.

"Mutual settlements, transport and logistics - as far as I'm concerned these issues have been settled," Vladimir Padalko, Vice-President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry told journalists on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the Russian-Syrian commission for trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation, taking place in Damascus.

The Russian official added that the countries have picked 200 Russian and Syrian companies to take part in joint projects for rebuilding the war-torn country. The parties are set to sign an agreement that includes 10 extensive focus areas for recovering the Syrian post-war economy.

The parties have also clinched a number of commercial agreements on exploration and production of energy commodities in Syria, according to the Russian office. Russia's Ministry of Industry and Trade and Syrian Ministry of Industry has reportedly approved and signed a road map for bilateral industry cooperation.

The countries have reached 30 agreements on investment projects. Syria and Russia have come to material consent in the area of transport and higher education, according to the Head of the Syrian Planning and International Cooperation Commission Imad Sabuni.
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Star of David

Israeli bulldozers illegally raze lands in northern Gaza


Ma'an News Agency
Thu, 13 Dec 2018 16:59 UTC
israel bulldoze gaza
Israeli bulldozers entered dozens of meters into Palestinian lands in Beit Lahiya town, in the northern besieged Gaza Strip, on Thursday.

A Ma'an reporter said that four large Israeli military bulldozers entered dozens of meters into Beit Lahiya and razed lands while drones flew overhead.

No shootings were reported.
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