Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Rand Paul says it's time for a new American foreign policy

Rand Paul
The National Interest
Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
SenatorRandPaul
© Reuters/Joshua RobertsSenator Rand Paul (R/KY)
What kind of job can you have where you are consistently wrong, yet get to still go on TV talking endlessly and making more wild predictions that will no doubt lead to the same failed result?

If you guessed "TV Weatherman" you're close...but the job I'm referring to is "Neocon Foreign Policy Expert" Being a neocon means never having to say you're sorry, even trillions of dollars and decades into doomed wars.

Iraq

Famously, the neocons have told us that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. The thousands of American soldiers killed or wounded might argue otherwise. The architects of the Iraq war forgot to tell us that it would embolden Iran and give Iran a new ally in the 'liberated' Shia majority in Iraq. They forgot to tell us that it would tip the balance of power in the Middle East and encourage Saudi Arabia to go on a military buying spree and become the third largest purchasers of weapons in the world.

Libya

The neocons told us that the Arab Spring would bring Western-style democracy to the Middle East. They told us toppling Muammar el-Qaddafi would bring freedom and stability. They were wrong and instead of stability the overthrow of Qaddafi brought chaos. They failed to understand that the chaos of Libya would become a breeding ground for terrorism.

Comment: It will be a toasty day in hades when neocons give up their mania for conquest and relinquish their ring side seat at the shredding of yet another country in the name of liberty and democracy. They obviously have never learned what those concepts truly mean. And, yeah, it's destroying America from the inside out. (Isn't that their real intention? No one left standing?)

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Top Secret

John Helmer: The Blood Libel of the British Government (SIC)

John Helmer
Dance with Bears
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
The Sunday Times 'Blood Libel' Cartoon
© by The Commentator on 28 January 2013-17-39
Prime Minister Theresa May committed a blood libel against Russians in the House of Commons last week. This was the allegation that the Russian state and all Russians are murderers.

May has subsequently asked the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to correct the record by charging that only one Russian, President Vladimir Putin, is a murderer.

The Canadian Government was also requested by the British to urgently correct the record May has been making in refusing to allow the international rules of the Chemical Weapons Convention to decide what happened in the poison attack in Salisbury on March 4. According to the new Canadian statement, coordinated with the British, the international convention can be suspended by Prime Minister May in order to make her blood libel stick.
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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Doing Putin's 'Dirty Work': Barmy British Incite War With Russia


Sott.net
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 17:00 UTC
Theresa May vial
Vial woman
The strange case of Sergei Skripal began two weeks ago when this former Russian intelligence officer, along with his 33-year-old daughter Yulia, were found unconscious on a public bench in Salisbury, southern England. Fortuitously for them, the people who first found them were a passing doctor and nurse. Their current location is unknown, although British authorities report that they are alive and in a 'stable condition'.

An international scandal has erupted in the meantime, with the British government accusing its Russian counterpart of conducting a chemical weapon attack on its soil. Emergency UN Security Council meetings, more anti-Russia sanctions and other punitive measures have been undertaken by the British government, with varying degrees of support from fellow NATO member-states.

The political climate of anti-Russia hysteria, which was already tense, continues its parabolic curve towards... well, towards what? War? Anyone would be forgiven for thinking so, but with the Russian presidential election taking place today, and the football World Cup coming up in Russia this summer, the more likely impetus for these shrill histrionics stem from a powerful impetus to 'de-legitimize' Putin's government and isolate Russia internationally.

Join us on Behind the Headlines this Sunday 18 March 2018 - from 5-7pm UTC / 6-8pm CET / 1-3pm EST - for some truth antidote to the British terror tactics.

Running Time: 01:30:58


Download: MP3

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Camera

Liberation in sight: Bashar Assad photographed in Eastern Ghouta


Sputnik
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 16:35 UTC
Bashar al-Assad visited army positions in the Eastern Ghouta
© SantaKlaus / Twitter
According to a report by the Syrian state news agency SANA, President Bashar al-Assad visited army positions in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus.

"In the line of fire in Eastern Ghouta... President Assad with heroes of the Syrian Arab Army," the president's Telegram account said.

Pictures showing the Syrian president surrounded by men in military clothing along damaged buildings with several parked tanks in liberated from terrorists areas of Eastern Ghouta quickly spread across social media.

According to the Syrian army command, government troops had already liberated 70 percent of Eastern Ghouta's territory, which has been under terrorists' control since 2012.
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Dollars

US splurging more cash on Balkans arms for Syria

Lawrence Marzouk, Ivan Angelovski, Juliana Ruhfus, Jelena Cosic
BalkanInsight
Thu, 15 Mar 2018 16:08 UTC
Belgrade Airport
© BIRNBelgrade Airport
The Pentagon is planning to spend $162.5 million on weapons, ammunition and other equipment in 2019 to arm Syrian forces fighting Islamic State, ISIS, a recently released budget report reveals.

The amount comes on top of the $2.2 billion already designated by the US for arms to Syrian fighters [and other Pentagon-backed groups] from former Eastern Bloc countries - which BIRN revealed in investigation in September last year.

The operation of arming Syrian rebels already on the ground with former Eastern Bloc arms and ammunition, known as the Syria Train and Equip program, has drawn almost entirely from the Balkans and Central Europe to date, a trend that is likely to continue throughout 2018 and 2019.
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Russian Flag

Maria Zakharova schools West in correct way to deal with Skripal assassination attempt

Seraphim Hanisch
The Duran
Fri, 16 Mar 2018 15:38 UTC
Maria Zakharova
© Russia InsightMaria Zakharova speaking about the British behavior towards the Russian Federation in relation to the assassination attempt on Sergey and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, Great Britain
However, it is unlikely her very reasoned process will fall on receptive ears as the West accuses Russia for the use of Novichok and yet refuses to listen

Maria Zakharova is a powerhouse for the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry. She is the go-to for all matters concerning sanctions against Russia, other accusations and slanderous attacks against Russia and less virulent affairs as well.

Here on video with English subtitles, she clearly, carefully and SANELY lays out the process and rationale for how to solve the matter of the alleged Novichok-utilizing assassination attempt on ex-spy Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
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Map

Erdogan: Syria's Afrin city center 'entirely under control', Kurds already 'fled'


RT
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 15:33 UTC
A Turkish armored vehicle deployed near central Afrin, Syria. March 16, 2018
© Xinhua / Global Look PressA Turkish armored vehicle deployed near central Afrin, Syria. March 16, 2018.
The Turkish military and allied forces have taken full control of the Syrian city of Afrin, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Sunday. Kurdish YPG forces had previously maintained control of the area.

The pro-Turkish forces entered the city before dawn and faced no resistance from Kurdish fighters, who had already withdrawn, according to reports. Erdogan said in a televised speech this morning that all measures would be taken to protect Afrin's residents. He praised the "heroic" actions of the armies, Turkey's NTV reports.

Erdogan said that Turkey and its allies have not invaded Afrin, but rather "saved" the city from the "oppression" of terrorists. "This operation has shown the whole world that Turkey sides with the oppressed," he said, as cited by Rudaw.
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Eye 2

Haley goes enforcer at the UN: Vote to support US policies or we'll cut your aid

Colum Lynch
Foreign Policy Magazine
Thu, 15 Mar 2018 15:22 UTC
nikki haley
© Raad Adayleh/Agence France-PresseNikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., tours a U.S.-funded supermarket in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan on May 21, 2017.
In a proposed aid overhaul, Nikki Haley embraces an "America first" foreign policy.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is proposing a sweeping reassessment of U.S. foreign assistance with a view to punishing dozens of poor countries that vote against U.S. policies at the U.N., according to a confidential internal memo drafted by her staff.

The move to make foreign aid conditional on political support follows a U.S. decision to cut tens of millions of dollars in assistance to Palestinian refugees, a cut made in retaliation for Palestine's sponsorship of U.N. resolutions denouncing U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Haley now wants to apply a similar principle to decisions about aid to other needy countries.

"It is the opinion of the U.S. mission to the U.N. that all U.S. foreign assistance should be reevaluated to ensure that taxpayers dollars are spent to advance U.S. interests, not to fund foreign legacy programs that provide little or no return on investment," according to the 53-page memo, which was reviewed by Foreign Policy. The Palestinian aid cuts "should serve as a fulcrum from which we use our foreign assistance leverage and measure its impact."
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Attention

Bush is gone but not the neocons - they're back

Jefferson Morley
Alternet
Sat, 17 Mar 2018 08:27 UTC
Evil Eagle
© David FoldvariThe turning of eagles into vultures.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signals a coming confrontation with Iran.

Once upon a time there were hopes that Donald Trump as president might pursue a different kind of American foreign policy; call it non-interventionist, or isolationist, or transactional.

He certainly broke with conventional Washington discourse. When the foreign policy establishment of Washington almost unanimously urged President Obama in September 2013 to punish the Syrian government for a chemical gas attack, Trump tweeted, "Do not attack Syria" three times in two days.

Trump denounced previous administrations, Democratic and Republican, for casting America as the "policeman of the world." He criticized President George W. Bush even more harshly than many liberal critics did.

"Bush murdered thousands of r troops & wasted trillions $ in a needless & senseless war-Iraq. TRUE!" Trump tweeted during the campaign. The New Republic's Jeet Heer jested that Trump was the "candidate of the antiwar movement of 2003."

Comment: Trump is creating the swamp above, run by the swamp below. He should scrape his boots while he still can.

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Eye 2

The Skripal incident: WMD lies strike again

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Fri, 16 Mar 2018 15:07 UTC
Theresa May charicature
As the West rallies around recent allegations by the UK against Russia regarding the alleged poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer-turned British spy - Sergei Skripal - it is crucial to point out the alarming lack of actual evidence involved.

It is also important to point out the history of the accusers predicating entire wars on allegations now confirmed to have been intentional lies.

The Skripal Incident

The alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK on March 4 led to a lighting-fast escalation with Russia. Not even two weeks after the attack, UK Prime Minister Theresa May declared a deadline for Russia to provide an "explanation" for the incident the UK had squarely blamed on Moscow.

The Kremlin's explanation was simple - it had nothing to do with the attack. Russia also offered to aid in the investigation, requesting samples of the poison used in the alleged attack.

However, the UK failed to produce any samples of the alleged poison - a Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok - either to the Russians to examine or to relevant international organizations as required under the Chemical Weapons Convention.


Comment: The UK is supposedly letting a third party investigate: BoJo says UK will finally hand over 'evidence' to independent body "to give them the opportunity to confirm our analysis"


The UK also failed to explain why Russia would have carried out such an attack - or how the UK could have confirmed the use of Novichok agents without first possessing samples of the agents themselves. If the UK possessed Novichok agents to compare samples taken from the attack with, the entire rationale of accusing Russia because it is supposedly the only nation in possession of the agents is revealed as entirely false.

Comment: Well there is some disagreement: Dissent in the Western alliance: Irish Times - "Unlikely that Putin behind Skripals' poisoning"

Aslo see: Paranoia in full bloom: British government goes full retard in desperate effort to frame Russia for 'chemical weapons attack'

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