Puppet MastersS


Question

Is Saudi Arabia acting independently or doing US bidding by sanctioning Canada?

Andrew Korybko
FRN
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
TrudeauTrumpMBS
© u Ruidong China News Service/VCG, Alexei Druzhnin/TASS Oliver Contreras Getty ImagesPM Justin Trudeau • President Donald Trump • Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Saudi Arabia's sovereignty-supporting sanctions against Canada in response to Ottawa's criticism of the Kingdom's internal affairs are grossly hypocritical but nevertheless in defense of objectively valid principles, though it needs to be considered whether Riyadh's acting independently in this respect or doing so at Washington's urging in order to pile economic pressure on Canada during Trudeau's NAFTA renegotiations with Trump.

Background Basics

Saudi Arabia surprised most observers by reacting in a disproportionately fierce manner to Canada's criticism of its recent arrest of a women's rights activist last week. The latest developments in this fast-moving spat are that the Kingdom expelled the Canadian Ambassador and ordered all of its students in the North American country to leave as soon as possible, announcing that the government will no longer fund their studies there. It will also stop its medical treatment programs in the country and freeze all trade and investment deals with it as well. Furthermore, Riyadh will halt its purchase of wheat and barley products from the agricultural powerhouse and will suspend all flights to and from Toronto next week. There's also a looming chance that Saudi Arabia might stop selling oil to Canada, too, and that a massive $11,5 billion arms deal between the two will also be jeopardized.

Sovereignty Double Standards

Riyadh justified its moves in an uncharacteristically harsh response that slammed Canada's "blatant interference in the Kingdom's domestic affairs, against basic international norms and all international protocol" that attempts to "meddle with Saudi sovereignty". The official condemnation of Ottawa's actions also said that Saudi Arabia "categorically rejects any intervention in its domestic affairs and internal relations with its citizens".

Comment: Overreactions by both Canada and SA, or a two-pronged squeeze play...either way, it looks like the US has a timely back-up bully.

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Attention

Russia backs Riyadh in Canadian dispute over jailed rights activists


RFE/RL
Thu, 09 Aug 2018 01:20 UTC
Justin Trudeau
© Unknown
Russia, on August 8, came out in support of Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Canada over Riyadh's arrest of women's rights activists, saying it is "unacceptable" for Ottawa to lecture the kingdom on human rights.

Saudi Arabia froze new trade and investment with Canada and expelled the Canadian ambassador this week after Canada publicly called for the release of arrested human rights activists.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on August 8 that human rights should be promoted, but with respect for specific national customs and traditions.
"We believe that Saudi Arabia, having embarked on a path of large-scale social and economic reforms, fully has the sovereign right to decide how to move forward in this important area. We have always said that the politicization of human rights matters is unacceptable," Zakharova said. "What one probably needs in this situation is constructive advice and assistance rather than criticism from a 'moral superior.'"
The Saudis have announced an array of sanctions against Canada, from suspending all flights to and from Toronto, to ordering home over 15,000 Saudi students studying in Canada.

Comment: Meanwhile, the US has distanced itself from the kerfuffle by refusing to take sides in the escalating diplomatic feud between Ottawa and Riyadh.

From Vanity Fair, the US State Department's comment:
"Canada and Saudi Arabia are both close allies of the United States," the State Department said, employing a curiously expansive definition of the term. "We have asked the government of Saudi Arabia for additional information on the detention of several activists. We continue to encourage the government of Saudi Arabia to respect due process and to publicize information on the status of legal cases. We address these broad concerns in our annual Human Rights Report."


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Star of David

Israeli Minister: 'It would be better if the Iranian regime would disappear'


Sputnik
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 21:49 UTC
Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan
© HaaretzIsraeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan
While Tehran doesn't acknowledge Israel's right to exist, Tel Aviv suspects Iran of attempting to create nuclear weapons despite the historic 2015 agreement.

Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan has endorsed the US decision to re-implement sanctions against Tehran and expressed his hope that either a better version of the Iran nuclear deal will be struck or that the Islamic Republic's government would just disappear, in an interview with Israel Radio.

"It would be better if the Iranian regime would disappear entirely from this world, but it would also be a blessing to see Obama's bad nuclear agreement replaced with a better one," he said.


Comment: There are those who likewise wish the current Israeli government to disappear. Umbrage, outrage, threats and retaliation are the responses when the shoe is on the other foot.


Erdan explained that the only thing one can influence Iran with is an "economic hammer" and that there is a good chance that such a "hammer" will bring Iran "to its knees." The minister also slammed the EU's attempts to resist US sanctions and to keep the Iran nuclear deal afloat.

"The EU is morally bankrupt, and we need to remember that next time they try to lecture us," he said.


Comment: Now there's a priceless statement coming from Israel's leadership! This is the same guy who brazenly said: "the blood of victims of Palestinian violence is on Facebook's hands." What world does he live in?


Comment: Trump has made eight or so approaches to Tehran for negotiations on the nuclear deal; so far all have been refused.

See also: Bolton: To block the Strait of Hormuz will be Iran's worst mistake; 'come to the table' instead

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Propaganda

Near half of Republicans: Trump should be allowed to close media outlets that are the 'enemy of the people'


RT
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 15:27 UTC
Trump
© Wall Street Journal
President Trump's attacks on the media, whom he dubbed "enemies of the people," have struck a chord with supporters. A new poll found that 43 percent of Republicans want to give him the power to shut down certain news outlets.

Public trust in the press has diminished since the days of Woodward and Bernstein, falling by 30 percentage points since the late 1970s. While an overwhelming majority of Americans surveyed by Ipsos agreed that the concept of a free press is essential for democracy, many are unhappy with how the press behaves in reality.

Less than half of Americans surveyed believe that news outlets strive for honest reporting. Only 29 percent of Republicans believe in the honesty of the media, and 80 percent believe the press treats President Trump unfairly.

Their concerns are shared by Trump, who regularly bashes the "fake news" media for dishonest reporting. Trump reserves much of his scorn for CNN, snubbing its journalists at press conferences and poking fun at its declining ratings on Twitter.

Comment: Unlikely this will happen as the conglomerates are a united force affording themselves the power to dictate news through mainstream press. With or without an independent fact-check review board to adjudicate media on agreed parameters, to clue discernment and call out bias and propaganda, the public has a responsibility to become informed individuals who have the power to turn the channel, diss the fakery and not subscribe to biased news products. We get what we tolerate or ignore. Trump is doing 'what he can'.

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Snakes in Suits

Why the US won't sanction Venezuela's oil

Tsvetana Paraskova
Oilprice.com
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 06:00 UTC
Oil tanker
© Juan Carlos Hernandez/Global Look Press
Over the past year, the US has imposed increasingly restrictive sanctions on Venezuela's finances and debt issuance as Nicolas Maduro continues to tighten his grip over the collapsing Venezuelan state.

Yet, despite expectations that the US would slap direct sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry, Washington appears reluctant to go any further.

The word out of Washington is that the United States is no longer looking at sanctioning Venezuela's oil industry, and not just because Venezuelan oil accounts for a large part of the imports of the refiners on the Gulf Coast. The US Administration doesn't want to be responsible for the total collapse of Venezuela, and doesn't want to be blamed for contributing to it, analysts told Platts's Brian Scheid.

"If you break it, you buy it," George David Banks, a former international energy and environment adviser to US President Donald Trump, told Platts. "The White House doesn't want to own this crisis."

Comment: See also:
Venezuela keeps sending more crude to the US despite its production woes

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Vader

Barbarians: Dozens of children slaughtered as Saudi-led coalition airstrike hits bus in Yemen


RT
Thu, 09 Aug 2018 14:44 UTC
Saudi coalition airstrike in Sanaa
© Mohamed Al-Sayaghi / ReutersSmoke rises after an airstrike in Sanaa Mohamed Al-Sayaghi / Reuters
A bus carrying children in northern Yemen was attacked on Thursday, hit by an airstrike fired by the Saudi-led coalition. The attack killed dozens, many of whom were children under the age of 10, the Red Cross has confirmed.

The bus was in the Dahyan Market in northern Sa'ada, a Houthi rebel stronghold, when it was attacked on Thursday morning. "Following an attack... [an International Committee of the Red Cross-supported] hospital has received dozens of dead and wounded," the Red Cross confirmed, adding that "under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected during conflict."


Comment: The International Red Cross has called for civilian protection in the wake of the horrific bombing:
The International Committee of the Red Cross has confirmed that the bodies of 29 children have been recovered, all of whom were aged under 15 years old. 48 others were also injured, including 30 children.

The UN children's agency UNICEF said it was "very concerned with the initial reports of children being killed" with UNICEF's resident representative in Yemen, Meritxell Relano saying that he is witnessing the "horror the images and videos coming from Saada... Why are children being killed?"

The Saada attack took place less than a week after an airstrike launched by the Saudi-led coalition killed dozens near a hospital in the city of Hodeidah. Mirella Hodeib from the ICRC told RT that the group is calling for the protection of civilian infrastructure.
See: Saudi-led coalition mercilessly bombs Yemen hospital killing 52, injuring over 100
"The humanitarian situation in the country is catastrophic, the population has been brought to the brink of collapse. The movement of the population is growing because of [the ongoing] conflicts and hostilities," Hodeib admitted. She noted that the Yemeni healthcare system has been "decimated," while infrastructure is "weakened" and "would collapse across the country."

According to the ICRC representative, humanitarian organizations can neither feed millions of Yemenis, nor provide access to healthcare for them. "Twenty million Yemeni people are in need of [humanitarian] aid. The ICRC has always called upon all parties of the conflict to [find] a political solution... in order to curb worsening humanitarian conditions," she added.
And here's everything you need to know about the strike:
U.S. Deepens Role in Yemen Fight, Offers Gulf Allies Airstrike-Target Assistance - Wall Street Journal - June 12, 2018
The U.S. military is providing its Gulf allies with intelligence to fine-tune their list of airstrike targets ...


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Arrow Down

Trump's new sanctions on Russia: A backhanded admission that US military dominance has ended

Tom Luongo
The Strategic Culture Foundation
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 16:29 UTC
Trump Cotton Perdue
© Andrea Hanks/White HousePresident Trump with Senators Tom Cotton (left) and David Perdue
On March 1st Russian President Vladimir Putin changed the geopolitical game. During his speech he unveiled new weapons which instantly made obsolete much of the U.S military's physical arsenal.

And the panic in Washington was palpable.

Since that speech everything geopolitical has accelerated. The US government under Trump has shifted its strategies in response to this. No longer were we threatening North Korea with military invasion.

No, Trump sat down with Kim Jong-un to negotiate peace.

On Russia, Iran, China, Turkey, Venezuela and even Europe Trump's war rhetoric has intensified. Trump is only talking about economic sanctions and tariffs, however, leveraging the dollar as his primary weapon to bring countries to heel.

There's no hint of US invasion, no matter how much John Bolton whispers in his ear or Bibi Netanyahu bangs his shoe on the table.

Why?

Comment: Like it's worked up to now? US to impose new sanctions on Russia over Skripal poisoning

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Evil Rays

Saudi-Canada war of words: The Saudis mock the world with their wealth, and some help from Trump

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 15:44 UTC
saudi 28 pages 9/11
The leaders of Saudi Arabia mock western values with supreme confidence by virtue of their money power. Democracy, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom to protest, freedom of expression, and other freedoms are treated as norms imposed by the West. If you wish to violate these sacred principles, all you have to do is pay!

Leveraging its economic power based on oil, Saudi Arabia defied President Obama when Congress approved JASTA (the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act) in 2016 and threatened to pull hundreds of billions of dollars out of the USA if Saudi Arabia were accused of playing a role in the Al-Qaeda terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 (9/11). It is known that Osama Bassnan, whom the declassified 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission Report identified as a financial supporter of two of the 9/11 hijackers in San Diego, received money from Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, and Bassnan's wife also got money from Bandar's wife.

The monarchy also defied the UN when in September 2017 a small group of Western nations sought to create a commission of inquiry to investigate its human rights violations in Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Middle East where millions face death, disease and famine because of western-supported Saudi bombing. And last but not least, a Saudi state media account, which promotes the Saudi Information Ministry's propaganda and is often retweeted by the ministry, appeared to explicitly threaten a 9/11 style attack featuring a plane headed towards a skyscraper in Toronto, Canada. The tweet was a response to the Canadian Foreign Ministry's tweet, expressing grave concern about recent arrests in Saudi civil society and official attacks on women's rights activists.

Comment: Bin Salman's PR makeover notwithstanding, Saudi Arabia remains one of the worst - if not the worst - totalitarian dictatorships in the world. Yet you won't find the U.S. criticizing it for the reasons above. And yet Western pundits have the gall to call Russia an authoritarian country. It's understandable, however. They're delusional and all too willing to put their 'values' up for sale to the highest bidder, regardless of their character.

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Sherlock

DOJ gives Congress emails between Ohr, Steele, Simpson - suggesting ties to 'Putin ally' oligarch Deripaska

Byron York
Washington Examiner
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 15:10 UTC
steel ohr simpson
Emails in 2016 between former British spy Christopher Steele and Justice Department official Bruce Ohr suggest Steele was deeply concerned about the legal status of a Putin-linked Russian oligarch, and at times seemed to be advocating on the oligarch's behalf, in the same time period Steele worked on collecting the Russia-related allegations against Donald Trump that came to be known as the Trump dossier. The emails show Steele and Ohr were in frequent contact, that they intermingled talk about Steele's research and the oligarch's affairs, and that Glenn Simpson, head of the dirt-digging group Fusion GPS that hired Steele to compile the dossier, was also part of the ongoing conversation.

The emails, given to Congress by the Justice Department, began on Jan. 12, 2016, when Steele sent Ohr a New Year's greeting. Steele brought up the case of Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska (referred to in various emails as both OD and OVD), who was at the time seeking a visa to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in the United States. Years earlier, the U.S. revoked Deripaska's visa, reportedly on the basis of suspected involvement with Russian organized crime. Deripaska was close to Paul Manafort, the short-term Trump campaign chairman now on trial for financial crimes, and this year was sanctioned in the wake of Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election.

"I heard from Adam WALDMAN [a Deripaska lawyer/lobbyist] yesterday that OD is applying for another official US visa ice [sic] APEC business at the end of February," Steele wrote in the Jan. 12 email. Steele said Deripaska was being "encouraged by the Agency guys who told Adam that the USG [United States Government] stance on [Deripaska] is softening." Steele concluded: "A positive development it seems."

Comment: What were these men at the heart of creating the Russiagate scandal doing associating with an oligarch widely regarded in the Western press as a close Putin ally - at the same time Steele was compiling his dodgy dossier? Something's fishy here.

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Eagle

Turkish lawyers sue US officers at Incirlik air base for ties to terrorists


Sputnik
Thu, 09 Aug 2018 14:56 UTC
incirlik
© AP Photo / Vadim Ghirda
A group of attorneys loyal to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have initiated legal action against US officers attached to the strategic Incirlik Air Base in Turkey for alleged ties with terrorists, according to a new report.

The Turkish attorneys want to temporarily halt all operations at the Incirlik base to execute a search warrant, Stars and Stripes reported Wednesday. The attorneys involved in the case are part of the Association for Social Justice and Aid, which comprises individuals who back Erdogan, the report said.

The criminal complaint says that scores of high-ranking US officers are linked to Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic cleric living in the US who Erdogan says was instrumental in the 2016 attempted coup against his government.

The attorneys seek the detention of US Cols. John Waler, Michael Manion, David Eaglen and David Trucksa; Lt. Cols.Tim Cook and Mack Coker; and Sgts. Thomas Cooper and Vegas Clark, according to Stars and Stripes. General Joseph Votel, head of US Central Command, is also named in the complaint.

According to exiled Turkish journalists at the Stockholm Center for Freedom, the lawsuit is a form of retaliation against Washington's decision to impose sanctions against two cabinet-level officials in Erdogan's administration: Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu and Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul.

Comment: Tensions between NATO allies Turkey and the U.S. are still high. The U.S. is threatening to withhold F-35s (no loss there), because of Turkey's plans to purchase Russian-made S-400s. Erdogan wants Turkey to join BRICS. Turkey has vowed to continue trade with Iran despite U.S. sanctions. And there seems to be more than meets the eye to the controversy over Pastor Brunson, currently being held in Turkey for his alleged involvement in the 2016 coup attempt (he allegedly has ties to the CIA, as does his wife who remains in the States). There are reports that an assassination attempt was recently made on Brunson - that the CIA is blocking a deal to see him returned to the States, because it would be better PR for them if he were to die in prison, thus giving them the opportunity to further demonize Turkey. See:

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