Puppet MastersS


Attention

The US has been outgunned, outmatched by Russia says top general seeking budget increase


RT
Fri, 09 Mar 2018 04:43 UTC
Scaparrotti
© Marijan Murat/Getty Images/KJN
US troops in the Baltic countries would be "outranged, outgunned and outmatched" by Russians in case of a conflict, the head of the US European Command told lawmakers, seeking to secure funds in the face of a Moscow "threat."

"If you look at it in a concentrated way on the border of Eastern Europe and only on the ground force, I would agree with that statement," General Curtis Scaparrotti told Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday.

Inhofe was referring to the recent RAND Corporation report which found that Russian forces could take the capitals of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania within 60 hours. The report has been compiled over the past several years, with the assistance of EUCOM, Scaparrotti said.

"I don't have any argument with the basis of the report and the threat that we have," he added. Though the RAND report concluded that NATO has "sufficient resources, personnel, and equipment to enhance conventional deterrence focused on Russia," it argued a "more robust posture ... is worthy of consideration". "Hence my comment that I don't have all the forces I need in Europe today," Scaparrotti lamented, despite admitting that the US has "repostured forces" and "rewritten plans" of containing Russia over the past few years.

Last month, EUCOM requested $6.5 billion for its European Deterrence Initiative in 2019, which is roughly $2 billion more than requested for fiscal 2018.

Comment: It's all about inflation: Inflated money, inflated risk, inflated egos, inflated fear. When in doubt, whether justified or not, merely inflate the cause and throw money at it. When that doesn't work, do it again.

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Pistol

Erdogan: Turkey to clear terrorists in N. Syria up to Iraq border


Sputnik
Fri, 09 Mar 2018 16:43 UTC
Turktroops
© BBC/AFP
The Turkish armed forces will clear the territory from the eastern bank of the Euphrates in Syria up to the border with Iraq of terrorists, after it does the same in Afrin and Manbij cities, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday.

"Today we are in Afrin, tomorrow we will be in Manbij, the next day we will ensure that the territory from the east bank of Euphrates will be cleared from terrorists up to the border with Iraq," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Haberturk media outlet.

Speaking further, the Turkish head pointed out that the center of the Syrian city of Afrin was surrounded, adding that the Turkish forces were ready to enter it at any moment.

"Our target is Afrin. We have reached a good point. A total of 3,171 have been neutralized. Afrin's center is surrounded. We are ready to enter the center at any moment," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Haberturk media outlet.

Comment: Sovereignty only seems to mean something when it is your own country being infringed upon. Erdogan has broken international laws by invading Syria for the purpose of eliminating Kurds from its southern border.

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Attention

Khamenei: "We'll talk when we step into America', regional Iranian affairs none of US' business


RT
Fri, 09 Mar 2018 22:52 UTC
Khameini
© AFP/KJN
Tehran won't seek permission from Washington to maintain its presence in the Middle East, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has declared, adding that Tehran will talk with Americans if Iran decides to project power in their neighborhood.

The presence of the US military all across the globe and in the Middle East in particular is "malicious and seditious," Iran's supreme leader Khamenei said on his official website. Thus, Washington is no position to allow or disallow Tehran to increase its influence in the region, he emphasized, according to Reuters. "We will negotiate with America when we want to be present in America," the Iranian leader added.

The statement came as Khamenei was commenting on a recent visit to Iran of French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who reassured Tehran of Europe's commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal. However, Le Drian also relayed European concerns over Iran's missile program and its policies in the Middle East, which pretty-much echoed the US reservations about the Islamic Republic.

"European countries come [to Tehran] and say we want to negotiate with Iran over its presence in the region. It is none of your business. It is our region. Why are you here?" Khamenei wondered.

Comment: Memo to US: If you lay down the rules, you had best follow them yourself. US-created paper tigers do not legitimize buildups of US military might and mission creep, no matter how good the propaganda. By tossing out unending false accusations, eventually the targets are assured to respond -- fulfilling US 'prophesy'. It's rigged.

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Briefcase

Dept. of Justice announces 'Fast and Furious' docs withheld by Eric Holder will be released

Katie Pavlich
Townhall
Wed, 07 Mar 2018 12:45 UTC
EricHolder
© UnknownFormer Attorney General Eric Holder
The Department of Justice announced Wednesday additional documents related to the Operation Fast and Furious scandal during the Obama administration will be released to the House Oversight Committee. The documents were previously withheld by Attorney General Eric Holder, who was voted in civil and criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to turn them over. President Obama invoked executive privilege in June 2012 to prevent their release just hours before the contempt vote was held.
"The Department of Justice under my watch is committed to transparency and the rule of law. This settlement agreement is an important step to make sure that the public finally receives all the facts related to Operation Fast and Furious," Attorney General Jeff Sessions released in a statement.
The Department stated the document release is part of "the conditional settlement agreement, filed in federal court in Washington D.C." and "would end six years of litigation arising out of the previous administration's refusal to produce documents requested by the Committee."
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Star of David

Zionist lobby, backed by Adelson, is greasing the skids for McMaster's oust

Whitney Webb
MintPress News
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Adelson
© Evan Vucci/APSheldon Adelson talking to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
Since replacing embattled former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Gen. H.R. McMaster has been a key fixture of the Trump White House, helping to guide the president's neoconservative foreign policy - particularly in Afghanistan and Syria. Yet recent reports have suggested that McMaster's days may be numbered, owing to differences of "personality" and "style" with the president and months of tensions said to have resulted from McMaster's private criticisms of the president's intelligence.

While mainstream reports have painted McMaster's likely departure as resulting from clashes with the president himself, the more likely reason for his exit is an effort by the pro-Israel lobby, namely the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) - the oldest Zionist organization in the United States. Though it was once considered the most influential Zionist organization in the U.S., ZOA lost prestige after Israel's founding, only to regain influence in recent decades by appealing to hard-line, conservative American Jews and Christian Zionists.

Beginning in August of last year, ZOA has lobbied to have McMaster replaced as the head of the National Security Council owing to what ZOA asserts is an "anti-Israel" bias. ZOA President Morton Klein, a long-time admirer of former Trump advisor and Christian Zionist Steve Bannon, expressed major concerns over McMaster's stance on issues involving Israel and its arch-rival Iran.

Comment: Geez what choices... At least McMaster anchors some perspective. These other potential candidates are zionist cookie cutter stooges. Sometimes the most valuable person on a team is the one that doesn't follow the pack. Is Trump going to allow a lobby and a rich guy to dictate his team? Probably.

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Snakes in Suits

Paul Manafort pleads 'not guilty' to latest charges filed by Mueller probe


Sputnik
Thu, 08 Mar 2018 21:57 UTC
Manafort
© AP Photo/ J. Scott ApplewhitePaul Manafort
Former manager of Donald Trump's presidential campaign Paul Manafort has once again pleaded not guilty to charges filed against him by US Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Robert Mueller. Manafort, who stands accused of a myriad of charges related to income from his lobbying work in Ukraine, has requested a jury trial.

Manafort made the plea on Thursday before federal judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, Virginia. He stands accused of 23 charges: preparing, filing, and subscribing to false tax returns; failing to report foreign bank accounts; bank fraud; and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Ellis set the trial date for July 10.

Should Manafort be convicted, he could face as many as 270 years in prison - but federal sentencing guidelines call for only four or five years.
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Star of David

AIPAC returns to Washington to tell it what to do

Philip Giraldi
The Unz Review
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Israhell flag AIPAC
© Daily Mail
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is back in Washington for its annual summit. Or at least it used to be called a summit but now it is referred to as a policy conference, which is perhaps a bit of very welcome transparency as if there is one thing that AIPAC is good at it is using its $100 million budget and 300 employees to harass lawmakers on Capitol Hill and generate policy for the United States to adhere to. Eighteen thousand supporters have gathered at the city's Convention Center to hear speeches by U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Vice President Mike Pence, plus Senators Marco Rubio, Robert Menendez, Tom Cotton and Ben Cardin. My personal favorite is Maryland Congressman and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer who has visited Israel so many times he might as well move there and who can be relied on to deliver a loud sucking noise as he enthuses over the many wonders of the Jewish state. And for a little foreign flair there is the disheveled French "philosopher" Bernard-Henri Levy, who has described the brutal Israeli Army of occupation as the "most moral in the world."

If you want to get some idea of the money and political power represented at AIPAC this year I would recommend going through the speakers' list, a dazzling display of precisely why the United States is in bondage to Israel and its interests. The heavyweight speakers and other attendees will be joined by hundreds more Congressmen, Supreme Court Justices, and senior government officials as well as a heavy dose of "experts" from the usual Jewish-dominated pro-Israel think tanks that have sprouted up like mushrooms along K Street, including luminaries like John Bolton, Victoria Nuland, Bill Kristol, Elliot Abrams and Eric Cantor. Those participants coming from the government will, of course, be ignoring their oaths of office in which they swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States against "all enemies domestic and foreign," but it doesn't matter as everyone performs proskynesis for Israel.


Comment: Proskynesis refers to the traditional Persian act of bowing or prostrating oneself before a person of higher social rank. 'Kissing forward'.


Comment: Politically, the US is owned. It is that simple.

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Cardboard Box

Vanished: €10B from frozen Belgium Gaddafi accounts


RT
Fri, 09 Mar 2018 06:06 UTC
Gaddafi
© ReutersMuammar Gaddafi in the office of the EU Commission President in Brussels, 2004.
Some €10 billion of Libyan government funds, frozen as part of sanctions against the late Muammar Gaddafi's inner circle, has mysteriously disappeared from a Belgian bank somewhere between 2013 and 2017, according to local media.

Back in November 2013, four Euroclear Bank accounts belonging to the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and its subsidiary Libyan Foreign Investment Company (LFICO) in Bahrain and Luxembourg, contained some €16.1bn in frozen assets. However, when authorities tried to seize the funds in 2017, it turned out there was only just over €5bn left in those accounts, an investigation by Le Vif weekly revealed.

"There remains a little less than 5 billion euros on the four accounts opened at Euroclear Bank SA," Denis Goeman, a spokesman from Brussels' prosecutor's office told the Belgian publication. The remaining funds are still subject to seizure, but so far Euroclear reportedly has refused to hand over the accounts, prompting the prosecutor to threaten the institution with "more coercive measures" unless Euroclear releases the remaining Libyan funds "within a certain period."

Comment: €10 billion vanished, banks making interest on Libyan funds, a loophole in sanctions regime...or not. Negligence? Lucrative secret? Mistake? It's enough to freeze one's assets! Hang on...the plot thickens:

Further reporting from RT:
The Belgian foreign minister and Le Vif have engaged in a war of words [...] each has accused the other of spreading misinformation. "Everything has cleared up in less than 24 hours," [Didier] Reynders said. ... His comments came shortly after Finance Minister Johan Van Overtveldt confirmed that the assets were still in place. "€14 billion ($17.2 billion) in Libyan financial assets has been frozen and is still frozen. I deplore the misinformation of some parliamentarians and journalists," he tweeted.

Fiorilli claimed that the FPS (Federal Public Service) Finance, which was interviewed by the magazine on March 2, has not denied the disappearance of the €10 billion ($12.3 billion) from the Libyan funds. The editor also noted that a spokesperson for the prosecutor's office had confirmed to the paper less than €5 billion ($6.1 billion) remained in the accounts.

"Who, therefore, is communicating false information? And to who[m]? Prosecution to Vif / L'Express? Euroclear, to the prosecution (and therefore to Judge Claise)? Finance, to Didier Reynders? Didier Reynders, in Belga?" Fiorilli asked.

Over €16 billion ($19.6 billion) belonging to the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and its subsidiary Libyan Foreign Investment Company (LFICO) in Bahrain and Luxembourg were frozen in four Euroclear Bank accounts following a UNSC resolution in 2011. Belgian judicial authorities reportedly noticed that money went missing in 2017, when the investigating magistrate, Michel Claise, wanted to seize the frozen funds as part of a probe into alleged money laundering by Gaddafi's inner circle.


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Megaphone

Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei: Foreign enemies behind recent protest over compulsory hijab


RFE/RL
Fri, 09 Mar 2018 20:17 UTC
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
© ReutersSupreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has accused foreign "enemies" of funding recent protests over the compulsory hijab.

Khamenei's remarks in a March 8 speech were his most extensive public comments on a series of peaceful acts of protest in which dozens of women have removed their head scarves in public and waved them on sticks.

"As a result, some girls were deceived and removed their veil here and there," Khamenei said.

He dismissed the protests as a "small issue," but added: "What I find worrying is that some of the elite are now questioning the mandatory hijab."
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Chess

Turkey-US discord continues in Syria

M.K. Bhadrakumar
Russia Insider
Fri, 09 Mar 2018 19:34 UTC
Rouhani, Putin and Erdogan
© CreartiveCommons/www.kremlin.ru.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (L), Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shake hands prior to the Syria talks in Sochi
Turkey is throwing in with Russia and Iran, all three of which want to see the US gone

U.S. and Turkish officials are due to meet in Washington today to begin thrashing out the range of issues now threatening to tear the already fragile relationship between the two NATO allies apart.

The Turkish-American discord goes back to the Obama administration when Washington persuaded Ankara to spearhead the regime-change project in Syria circa 2011, only to see the U.S. retract later, leaving Turkey holding a can of worms.

Since then the relationship has become mired in several disputes, with the overarching geopolitical result that Turkey has steadily drifted away from its Western allies towards a détente with Russia. This has taken the form of a quasi-alliance with Moscow over the Syrian conflict-a partnership that appears to be flourishing as a "win-win" economic relationship and has resulted in the Turkish decision to purchase an S-400 air defense system from Russia.


Comment: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed that Turkey will not cancel the contract for purchasing the S-400 air defense systems from Russia, even if it comes at the risk of sanctions from the United States, he said on Tuesday.
"You've said nothing to Greece (in connection with the purchase of S-300 systems), but you said that you will not let Turkey acquire S-400," Haber Turk TV quotes Erdogan as saying.

"You claimed that the contact with Russia was a mistake. You also said that you might introduce sanctions," he continued.

"We are not going to be accountable to you. We will proceed along the right way without any concessions for the sake of achieving our own goals," Erdogan emphasized.



The situation in Syria will top the agenda during the talks in Washington on Thursday. The priority for both sides will be to avert a standoff in northern Syria where the U.S. and Turkey are pursuing sharply divergent interests. At least since 2014, the U.S. has aligned with Kurdish groups that Ankara regards as terrorists belonging to the PKK, the separatist movement waging a bloody struggle to carve out an independent state in the Kurdish homelands in eastern Turkey. On the other hand, Kurds are the Pentagon's foot soldiers in its war against the Islamic State in Syria.

Comment: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in a telephone call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the two countries are obliged to save the lives of Syrian people, particularly those who are under the siege of terrorists in Eastern Ghouta.
"All of us should make efforts to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Eastern Ghouta," Rouhani told Erdogan on the phone on Wednesday afternoon.

"Tehran and Ankara have a heavy duty to save the people of Syria, especially those in Eastern Ghouta," he added.

The Iranian president further called on Turkey to use its influence to prevent terrorists' mortar attacks on Damascus from Eastern Ghouta and help to secure a safe exit route for civilians to leave the besieged district.

Erdogan, for his part, described the situation in Eastern Ghouta as a tragedy and said Iran and Turkey as two Muslim countries in the region should try their hardest to end the tragedy.


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