Puppet MastersS


Cupcake Pink

Liberalism doesn't respect a nation's sovereignty

Syria
When the United States and some of its allies in 2003 invaded and destroyed Iraq on false pretenses - and without Iraq having ever invaded (much less destroyed) any of the invading countries - this was actually within the scope of the invaders being liberal countries, because a nation's sovereignty isn't at all respected in traditional liberal thought. This also is the reason why some of the same nations invaded and destroyed Libya in 2011, and Syria since 2012. Neither of those two invaded countries had ever invaded - much less destroyed - any of their invaders; but, in all of these cases, such invasions were accepted by the populace within each of the invading countries, all of which invading countries considered themselves to be liberal nations. Why do liberals (and not only conservatives) so routinely accept barbaric aggressions by their own country? Here is the reason (and it needs to be read slowly and carefully, in order to become understood, because what follows is densely packed with meaning; the subject here is sufficiently deep to reach the core of things, like drilling through hard rock - it's necessarily slow going):

Pistol

Pentagon reportedly spending up to $2.2 B on Soviet-style arms for Syrian rebels

US military-Syrian Rebel
© balkaninsight.comAK-47
The Pentagon has relied on an army of contractors and sub-contractors - from blue-chip military giants to firms linked to organized crime - to supply up to US$ 2.2 billion worth of Soviet-style arms and ammunition to Syrian rebels fighting a sprawling war against the Islamic State (ISIS).

Arms factories across the Balkans and Eastern Europe - already working at capacity to supply the Syrian war - are unable to meet the demand. In response, the US Department of Defense (DoD) has turned to new suppliers like Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Ukraine for additional munitions while relaxing standards on the material it's willing to accept, according to an investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

Reporters have pieced together the Pentagon's complex supply line to Syria using procurement records, ship-tracking data, official reports, leaked emails, and interviews with insiders. This program is separate from a now-defunct CIA effort to arm rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The Pentagon is buying the arms through two channels: the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which oversees special operations across all services of the US military, and the Picatinny Arsenal, a little-known US Army weapons facility in New Jersey.

The munitions are being transported by both sea and air from Europe to Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait. They are then distributed to US allies in northern and southern Syria by plane and truck. (See: Black Sea Route)

Reporters discovered that the US is using vaguely worded legal documents which obscure Syria as the weapons' final destination - a practice experts say threatens global efforts to combat arms trafficking and puts the Eastern European governments who sell the weapons and ammunition at risk of breaching international law. Others raise the issue of who, exactly, is using the arms and what will happen to them once ISIS has been defeated.

The Pentagon started the major buy-up in September 2015 under President Obama. By May this year, it had already spent more than $700 million on AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, mortars, and other weapons and ammunition. More than $900 million has been contracted to be spent by 2022, and nearly $600 million more has been budgeted or requested by the Trump administration. This brings the grand total of the Pentagon's intended spending on its Syrian allies to $2.2 billion.

Comment: The US is not perceived as a 'straight shooter' in any international arena. It has set a pattern of cutting corners, breaking or making its own rules while ignoring protocols and agreements. Not surprising that it aims to keep its arms and ammo records obscure and cover its tracks regarding recipients. It's really, really big business. Isn't that the way it works?


Bullseye

Pepe Escobar: Iran's deals with China and Europe turn the Art of the Deal upside-down

southeast asia map
© iStockphoto/GettyIran is the key connectivity link in routes through both Central Asia and the Caucasus
As President Hasan Rouhani prepares to address the UN General Assembly in New York and the Trump administration and allies relentlessly lobby for the Iran nuclear deal to be decertified, Tehran is busy clinching deal after deal with Asians and Europeans.

For the Chinese government, Iran - and Pakistan - are so geopolitically important that they are treated as Home Affairs nations in East Asia (and not the Middle East, in the case of Iran), alongside Japan and Indonesia.

And just like Pakistan via the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Iran is an essential node of the New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

For Tehran, Beijing is a major player in international trade/finance. At the Belt and Road forum in Beijing in May, Iran's Economic Affairs and Finance Minister Ali Tayyebnia extensively discussed deals with Chinese Finance Minister Xiao Jie. Chinese companies in construction and energy infrastructure equipment - as well as in steel and chemicals - are present all over Iran.

Enter the deal just signed between China's CITIC and a consortium of Iranian banks worth $10 billion in loans.

Dollars

Petrodollar end imminent as China & allies dump it in oil trading

dollar,yuan
© Jason Lee / Reuters
Beijing has announced plans to start a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold. The step might lead to the emergence of a new Asia-based crude oil benchmark to compete with Brent or West Texas Intermediate futures.

RT talked to investing guru and financial commentator Jim Rogers to understand how much of a game changer this could be for an industry dominated by the dollar.

"This is just another step in that direction. Many people do not like using US dollars because if the US gets angry at you, they just set enormous pressure on you that can even get you out of business. China, Russia, and other countries understand this, and they are trying to move world trade and world finance away from that," said the Jim Rogers.

Stop

WH presses Kurdistan to cancel its independence referendum

Barzani referendum
© ReutersPresident Masoud Barzani at independence rally
With the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq defiantly going ahead with a scheduled independence referendum on September 25, the White House has released a statement announcing that it "does not support" the move.

The White House claims that the upcoming referendum "is distracting from efforts to defeat ISIS and stabilize the liberated areas" and that "holding the referendum in disputed areas is particularly provocative and destabilizing."

The referendum has received condemnation globally with major world actors calling for the cancellation of the vote.

It however remains unlikely that the referendum will be cancelled and it is expected that the majority of people will vote for independence.

Comment: Previously, President Barzani stated he would be willing to scrap the upcoming vote on the condition that the international community promise, in exchange, to accept unconditionally the results of a future vote. His timeline indicated a one-year deadline. If Barzani hasn't rescinded the offer, will conditions on the delay be accepted and upheld by those countries opposed to the rapidly upcoming September 25th deadline? Or will it result in a 'bait and switch' to avoid a snowball effect in other countries with Kurdish populations.

See also:


Bullseye

Iranian commander claims Revolutionary Guards infiltrated US military, obtaining proof of ISIS collusion

military silhouettes
© Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) operatives managed to infiltrate US military command centers and obtain documents allegedly proving collusion between Washington and ISIS terrorists in the region, a top Iranian commander claims.

The claim was made by IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh on Friday during a TV interview. "We have documents showing the behavior of the Americans in Iraq and Syria. We know what the Americans did there; what they neglected and how they supported Daesh [Islamic State - IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL]," Press TV cited the commander as saying. If the IRGC receives the green light to release the documents, it would bring more "scandals" for the US, he said.

It is not the first time a top Iranian official has accused the US of aiding terrorists in the region, claiming to have a solid proof of collusion. Back in June, in the aftermath of attacks in Tehran killing 17 people, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mostafa Izadi accused the US of waging "proxy warfare in the region" through IS terrorists, which was a "new trick by the arrogant powers against the Islamic Republic."

"We possess documents and information showing the direct supports by the US imperialism for this highly disgusting [IS] stream in the region, which has destroyed the Islamic countries and created a wave of massacres and clashes," Izadi said.

Izadi's accusations were backed by Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani, who claimed that "the United States has aligned itself with the ISIL in the region." No evidence to support the accusations has been released so far.

Comment: When evidence of what many suspect is revealed, what will be the argument, reactions, refutations of the US and its Western cohorts? A government/military version of What Happened? Iran, as the bringer of proof, will serve to escalate the Israel/US' exigency to involve it in a bogus war of increasing magnitude and fury to save face and sway opinion.


Heart - Black

Hillary lost due to a crumbling globalized world order, not 'Putin's vendetta'

Killlllary
© slate.com"Putin did it!"
Hillary Clinton recently claimed that one of the reasons she lost the 2016 race was because Vladimir Putin had a "personal vendetta" against her. Speaking to Radio Sputnik, US politics observer Alexei Zudin suggested that Clinton's problem is that she just can't accept the real reasons behind her defeat, which go far beyond personal politics.

"There's no doubt in my mind that Putin wanted me to lose and wanted Trump to win," Clinton said, speaking to USA Today about her book What Happened last week. The former candidate suggested that Putin had a "personal vendetta" against her and Bill Clinton going back to NATO's eastward expansion beginning in the late 90s, and over her support for protests against the Russian president in 2011 when she was secretary of state.

Speaking to Sputnik, Alexei Zudin, US watcher and expert at the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies, suggested that Mrs. Clinton's problem is that even almost a year after the election, she still refuses to grasp the reasons behind her loss, or come to terms with it.

"Hillary Clinton was unlucky," the observer said. "She became the victim of a long-term political trend, which culminated in the collapse of the political orders, the political systems created by globalization. This collapse is occurring in the two main epicenters of globalization, with Brexit in the UK and Donald Trump in the US serving as the proof."

Comment: Killary lost, not only from a crumbling global world order, but from a crumbling self structure that allowed her to create a campaign built on her personal fantasies that included a privileged pass on lies, corruption, misappropriation, vendettas and likely a slew of crimes against other countries, the American people and those particular individuals she found necessary to eliminate. The evil she sees lies within her. She is not so much a victim of the times as she is a victim of herself.


Attention

Jim Rogers cautions: 'A US trade war with China will end US monopoly on global financial system'

US/Chinese money
© Reuters
If the Trump administration puts sanctions on China, this would hurt America more because it just forces China and Russia and other countries to cooperate, says investor and financial commentator Jim Rogers.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned on Tuesday that the US could impose economic sanctions on China if it does not implement the new sanctions regime against North Korea, saying that the restrictions could involve cutting off Beijing's access to the US financial system. "If China doesn't follow these sanctions, we will put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the US and international dollar system, and that's quite meaningful," Mnuchin said at the Delivering Alpha Conference in New York City.

The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution banning North Korea's textile exports and capping its oil imports following Pyongyang's sixth nuclear test conducted last week.

RT spoke to famous investor, author, and financial commentator Jim Rogers to discuss global perspectives in the case of the US imposing sanctions on China.

Comment: The US is due for a reckoning. Instead of cutting losses and creating a legitimate turnaround, it supports the false and ballooning financial structure that self-serves the banksters and the MIC. Efforts to pass on judgements of financial consequence to other major countries has proven to be either inconsequential or close to the reverse of what was intended. The Russian economy under sanctions has not made it a weaker one. The leverage for North Korea is in the hands of China. The US should leave well enough alone.


Control Panel

Former high ranking CIA agent gives a break down on what the US deep state and shadow government is comprised of

shadow gov
A CIA whistleblower, Kevin Shipp, has emerged from the wolves den to expose the deep state and the shadow government which he calls two entirely separate entities.

"The shadow government controls the deep state and manipulates our elected government behind the scenes," Shipp warned in a recent talk at a Geoengineeringwatch.org conference.

Shipp had a series of slides explaining how the deep state and shadow government functions as well as the horrific crimes they are committing against U.S. citizens.

Some of the revelations the former CIA anti-terrorism counter intelligence officer revealed included that "Google Earth was set up through the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and InQtel." Indeed he is correct, the CIA and NGA owned the company Google acquired, Keyhole Inc., paying an undisclosed sum for the company to turn its tech into what we now know as Google Earth. Another curious investor in Keyhole Inc. was none other than the venture capital firm In-Q-Tel run by the CIA according to a press release at the time.

Comment: For all of the interesting 'leaking' that Shipp has done, one may find the following comment on his Amazon book page interesting too:
This book reiterates the official lies of 9-11.

By Jim on September 6, 2017
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

This book reiterates the official lies of 9-11. If that is not what you want to read don't waste your money and time.
Any high ranking intelligence officer of the CIA that's worth his salt would probably not spread the lies about 911, unless he had a very strategic reason for getting some other information out there.

Further background: Google: Created and nurtured by the CIA


Chalkboard

Germany to conduct investigation into Pentagon's smuggling of arms to Syrian opposition after initial bombshell report went viral

Pentagon arms
The German government has opened a probe into an illegal Pentagon arms trafficking operation after a bombshell investigative report on the secret program went viral this week.

On Wednesday we reported on the continuing Pentagon arms pipeline to Syria which runs through Europe, the Balkans, and Caucuses, and which is based on a shady network of private contractors and altered US government paperwork. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) produced conclusive evidence and internal memos proving that not only is the Pentagon currently involved in shipping up to $2.2 billion worth of (mostly old Soviet) weapons from private dealers to US-backed Syrian militants, but is actually manipulating paperwork such as end-user certificates in order to conceal the ultimate destinations of the weaponry (in this case Syria).

The new investigation also confirms Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva's prior findings, which exposed the role of Azerbaijan-operated Silk Way Airlines in the weapons airlifts. Though independent journalists and regional monitoring groups have been digging into the Pentagon arms shipments throughout the summer, mainstream European and American press were reluctant to cover the story, even as a steady flow of incontrovertible proof emerged online in the form of documents, photos, and videos of mysterious cargo planes being loaded with weapons. Over the past two weeks WikiLeaks has also highlighted the emerging details of a developing story which saw at least one journalist come under scrutiny by European security officials.

Comment: "...disgusting US government criminality" is right - but what else is new?

For more on this story (that is likely to get quashed like all other inconvenient truths about US "foreign policy,") see the recent SOTT Focus:

Leaked Documents Expose How US and Gulf Allies Send Weapons to Terrorists Under Diplomatic Cover and

German prosecutor Udo Gehring reviewing claim of illegal arms shipment to Syria through Ramstein