Puppet MastersS


War Whore

The US Empire's disastrous role in Syria has to end

Jeffrey D. Sachs
Project Syndicate
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 22:27 UTC
syria destruction
America's official narrative has sought to conceal the scale and calamitous consequences of US efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That is understandable, because US efforts are in blatant violation of international law, which bars UN member states from supporting military action to overthrow other members' governments.

Much of the carnage that has ravaged Syria during the past seven years is due to the actions of the United States and its allies in the Middle East. Now, faced with an alarming risk of a renewed escalation of fighting, it's time for the United Nations Security Council to step in to end the bloodshed, based on a new framework agreed by the Council's permanent members.

Here are the basics. In 2011, in the context of the Arab Spring, the US government, in conjunction with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Israel, decided to bring down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, even though overthrowing another country's government amounts to a blatant violation of international law. We know that in 2012, if not earlier, President Barack Obama authorized the CIA to work with America's allies in providing support to rebel forces composed of disaffected Syrians as well as non-Syrian fighters. US policymakers evidently expected Assad to fall quickly, as had occurred with the governments of Tunisia and Egypt in the early months of the Arab Spring.
Read More...
Magic Wand

Journalist who first profiled Russian "troll farm" in 2015 shreds Mueller indictment

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 20 Feb 2018 17:09 UTC
Adrian Chen
© Miquel TavernaAdrian Chen
Following Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three entities behind a Russian "troll farm" said to have meddled in the 2016 U.S. election (admittedly, with zero impact), two people familiar with both the ads purchased by Russians on Facebook, and the "troll farm" in question have refuted Mueller's narrative over the course of four days. Indeed, things don't seem to be going well for the Russia investigation, which started out with serious claims of Collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, and has been reduced to CNN diving through the garbage of a Russian troll farm.

About that troll farm...

Comment: Hysteria: Is that Russia troll farm an act of war?

Read More...
Sherlock

Sessions announces investigation of FBI for possible FISA surveillance misconduct

Mark Megahan
Conservative Daily Post
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 16:40 UTC
JeffSessions
© Time MagazineAG Jeff Sessions
In the final run-up to the 2016 election, Obama was all ears. Evidence shows he was personally interested in what the taps on Trump campaign phones were collecting. The last minuted plan relied on careful babysitting by the bureau's director, James Comey. And now it looks like the DOJ is finally going to get its chance at an investigation into the past administration and how it allowed the FBI and executive branch to operate.

Attorney General Sessions told Fox News on Sunday there already is an investigation based on the news Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) broke in his recent memo.

When asked, "are you, sir, investigating the fact that the FBI used the dossier to get a wiretap against Trump associates and they did not tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court that the Democrats and Hillary Clinton paid for the dossier?"

"That will be investigated and looked at," he answered. The inspector general is on the job. Sessions related that the Justice Department's IG "is working hard on his probe and the department will continue to be open and transparent with Congress."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions promised the "Nixonesque" abuses of power committed by the Obama administration will be properly investigated.
Read More...
People

Russia ready to help negotiate Afrin conflict settlement — Foreign Ministry


TASS
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 14:42 UTC
Mikhail Bogdanov
© Kurdistan 24Mikhail Bogdanov, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister during an interview with Kurdistan 24 in Moscow, Feb. 19, 2018.
Russia will be ready to assist in the settlement of a conflict in Syrian Afrin (65 kilometers from Aleppo) if the parties deem this necessary, Russian president's special envoy for the Middle East and Africa said on Monday.

"Russia is not imposing its role on anyone," said Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister. "If somebody sees it is needed, we are ready to do a good turn so that to stop bloodshed and find common denominators," he went on to say.

"The most important for us is the approaches stemming from the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and respect for territorial integrity, sovereignty and unity of Syria," the Russian diplomat said.
Read More...
Propaganda

"Russian bots" - How the anti-Russian lobby creates fake news

Bernhard
Moon of Alabama
Wed, 21 Feb 2018 14:47 UTC
Russian bot
© Russian bot with ancient regalia
The U.S. mainstream media are going nuts. They now make up and report stories based on the uncritical acceptance of an algorithm they do not want to understand and which is known to produce fake results.

See for example these three stories:

Comment: At what point do we call this 'Russian bot' nonsense what it is, an attempt at sowing divisiveness in order to subvert democracy in America.

Read More...
Attention

Flashback How the CIA and its Qatari partners helped create Syria's Jabhat al Nusra

Phil Greaves
Global Research
Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00 UTC
Jabhat al-Nusra
Jabhat al-Nusra

A recent interview given by: an 'anonymous' Qatari security official, has shed further light on CIA-led covert arms shipments to militants fighting in Syria. In this Reuters article, the security official and several 'anonymous' rebel Commanders confirm that Qatar has "tightened coordination of arms flows [plural] to Syria," under alleged concern of weapons ending up in the hands of Al Qaeda linked Islamic extremist militants; the very militants as noted previously, that have continually formed the spearhead of the insurgency against the Syrian Government:
"Rebel fighters in Syria say that in recent months the system for distributing arms has become more centralized, with arms being delivered through opposition National Coalition's General Command, led by Selim Idriss, a general who defected to the opposition and is a favorite of Washington."(my emphasis)
What has been long confirmed by 'official sources' in the mainstream press, is that these arms shipments commenced in at least "early 2012″. We can be sure, as with the majority of the official timeline, that leeway has been given in these statements: its highly likely smaller arms shipments/smuggling into Syria started much earlier. Statements from eyewitnesses in Libya confirm that arms shipments from the port of Libyan Islamic Fighting Group stronghold Misrata, commenced rapidly after the fall of Gaddafi. Sibel Edmonds also reported in November 2011, long before any corporate media revealed, that the CIA, along with its Turkish and NATO counterparts had been working from the "nerve centre" at the joint US-Turkish air-base in Incerlik, Turkey, since April/May of 2011, coordinating 'rebel' elements and 'activist's'. Edmonds posits the likely theory that this was one of the initial staging grounds used by the CIA and its regional partners, to smuggle weapons, fighters and materiel into Syria as the insurgency took hold.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Attention

Iranian official warns Israel: Tehran's retaliation will 'level Tel Aviv to the ground'


RT
Wed, 21 Feb 2018 15:36 UTC
beach in Israel
© Jack Guez / AFP
Israel's capital will be leveled "to the ground" by an immediate retaliatory strike if Benjamin Netanyahu follows through on his threat to attack the Islamic Republic, an Iranian politician has threatened.

Waving a piece of an Iranian drone, allegedly downed over northern Israel last week, the Israeli Prime Minister last Sunday warned Tehran against testing Israel's resolve. "We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves. And we will act if necessary not just against Iran's proxies that are attacking us, but against Iran itself," Benjamin Netanyahu said at the Munich Security Conference, after Israeli forces conducted a massive cross-border intrusion into Syria to strike Iranian targets.

Comment: What's so afraid of? They have plenty of illegal nukes.

Read More...
Magnify

Russiagate suddenly becomes bigger with Mueller indictments

Philip Giraldi
The Unz Review
Tue, 20 Feb 2018 13:57 UTC
Robert Mueller


Will every critic of our government policies soon be indictable?

It's hard to know where to begin. Last Friday's indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was detailed in a 37 page document that provided a great deal of specific evidence claiming that a company based in St. Petersburg, starting in 2014, was using social media to assess American attitudes. Using that assessment, the company inter alia allegedly later ran a clandestine operation seeking to influence opinion in the United States regarding the candidates in the 2016 election in which it favored Donald Trump and denigrated Hillary Clinton. The Russians identified by name are all back in Russia and cannot be extradited to the U.S., so the indictment is, to a certain extent, political theater as the accused's defense will never be heard.

In presenting the document, Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General, stressed that there was no evidence to suggest that the alleged Russian activity actually changed the result of the 2016 presidential election or that any actual votes were altered or tampered with. Nor was there any direct link to either the Russian government or its officials or to the Donald Trump campaign developed as a result of the nine-month long investigation. There was also lacking any mention in the indictment of the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton and Podesta e-mails, so it is to be presumed that the activity described in the document was unrelated to the WikiLeaks disclosures.

Those of the "okay, there's smoke but where's the fire" school of thought immediately noted the significant elephant in the room, namely that the document did not include any suggestion that there had been collusion between Team Trump and Moscow. As that narrative has become the very raison d'etre driving the Mueller investigation, its omission is noteworthy. Meanwhile, those who see more substance in what was revealed by the evidence provided in the indictment and who, for political reasons, would like to see Trump damaged, will surely be encouraged by their belief that the noose is tightening around the president.

Comment: Too little evidence for too small of a crime that has no connection to either the Russian government nor the Trump administration. Yet America is in the grip of hysteria:

Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Fmr US ambassador to Russia says American meddling is bad, but Russia's is worse


RT
Wed, 21 Feb 2018 13:19 UTC
Michael McFaul
© Maxim Shemetov / ReutersUS ambassador Michael McFaul leaving the Russian Foreign Ministry
In a fierce Twitter skirmish, former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has tried to explain the evil of Russia's "election meddling." Turns out, it's all about definitions.

McFaul has been an active tweeter since his return from Moscow - an active Putin critic, mostly. He frequently engages with his 280,000-strong audience, defending his posts in both Russian and English.

This time, the point of contention was, of course, the meddling of certain world powers in the domestic affairs of others. McFaul's followers gave him a hard time, demanding an explanation as to why the alleged "Russian interference" in the 2016 US presidential election is so different - and so much more damnable - compared to what America has been doing for at least the past half-century.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Veteran CIA officer Kevin Shipp exposes the 'Shadow Government' (VIDEO)


Information Clearing House
Wed, 21 Feb 2018 13:19 UTC
Kevin Shipp
Kevin Shipp, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, intelligence and counter terrorism expert, held several high-level positions in the CIA. His assignments included protective agent for the Director of the CIA, counterintelligence investigator searching for moles inside the CIA, overseas counter terrorism operations officer, internal security investigator, assistant team leader for the antiterrorism tactical assault team, chief of training for the CIA federal police force and polygraph examiner.

Mr. Shipp was the senior program manager for the Department of State, Diplomatic Security, Anti-Terrorism Assistance global police training program. He is the recipient of two CIA Meritorious Unit Citations, three Exceptional Performance Awards and a Medallion for high risk overseas operations.
Read More...