Puppet MastersS


Info

Russia positioning for role as arbiter in Libyan political settlement

Yury Barmin
Al-Monitor
Tue, 22 Aug 2017 18:01 UTC
haftar lavrov
© REUTERS/Sergei KarpukhinRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) welcomes General Khalifa Haftar (L), commander in the Libyan National Army (LNA), during a meeting in Moscow, Russia, Aug. 14, 2017.
After being absent from the divided Libyan political landscape for months, Moscow again made headlines by hosting Gen. Khalifa Hifter for a three-day visit earlier this month, meeting with the foreign and defense ministers, his usual Russian interlocutors. Once again, the general's visit had experts debating exactly what role Russia plays in mentoring Hifter and whether Russia really sees him as its "point-man" in Libya.

The focus of Hifter's visit resembled that of his previous trips to the Russian capital, touching on the security situation in Libya. The general reiterated his request for Russian military aid to his Libyan National Army, despite countless previous rejections. His request remains unfulfilled. Speaking to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Hifter expressed the hope that Russia would become involved in the process of national reconciliation in Libya. All in all, it would have been a routine visit, absent any remarkable developments, had it not been for the context in which the trip took place.

Hifter, who leads one of the sides vying for control of the Libyan government in Tobruk, was greeted at the airport by the Libyan ambassador to Russia, who represents the interests of the other side, the UN-backed so-called unity government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. It was not an effort by Sarraj to reach out, but Russia's attempt to generate a dialogue between the two sides. The Tripoli government formally took over the Libyan Embassy in Moscow in early August, with Russia's consent, and representatives of the Tobruk-based authorities followed soon thereafter to claim space of its own.

Comment: More on Haftar and current events in Libya:

Read More...
Network

WikiLeaks release reveals CIA's secret spy tool that helps it steal data from NSA & FBI


RT
Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:41 UTC
WikiLeaks
© Pascal Lauener / Reuters
Details of an alleged CIA project that allows the agency to secretly extract biometric data from liaison services such as the NSA, the DHS and the FBI have been published by WikiLeaks.

Documents from the CIA's 'ExpressLane' project were released by the whistleblowing organization as part of its ongoing 'Vault 7' series on the intelligence agency's alleged hacking capabilities.

A branch within the CIA - known as Office of Technical Services (OTS) - provides a biometric collection system to liaison services around the world "with the expectation for sharing of the biometric takes collected on the systems," according to a file released by WikiLeaks.

ExpressLane, however, suggests the system has inadequacies as it was developed as a covert information collection tool to secretly exfiltrate data collections from such systems provided to liaison services.
Read More...
2 + 2 = 4

Taliban once tried to surrender, but U.S. rebuffed them - now look where we are

Ryan Grim
The Intercept
Tue, 22 Aug 2017 17:39 UTC
herat taliban afghanistan
Surrendering Taliban militants stand with their weapons as they are presented to reporters on Nov. 4, 2010 in Herat, Afghanistan.
Did you know that shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban tried to surrender?

For centuries in Afghanistan, when a rival force had come to power, the defeated one would put down their weapons and be integrated into the new power structure - obviously with much less power, or none at all. That's how you do with neighbors you have to continue to live with. This isn't a football game, where the teams go to different cities when it's over. That may be hard for us to remember, because the U.S. hasn't fought a protracted war on its own soil since the Civil War.

So when the Taliban came to surrender, the U.S. turned them down repeatedly, in a series of arrogant blunders spelled out in Anand Gopal's investigative treatment of the Afghanistan war, "No Good Men Among the Living."

Only full annihilation was enough for the Bush administration. They wanted more terrorists in body bags. The problem was that the Taliban had stopped fighting, having either fled to Pakistan or melted back into civilian life. Al Qaeda, for its part, was down to a handful of members.

So how do you kill terrorists if there aren't any?

Comment: And why on Earth would that be in US interest to do so?

Because parking itself in the middle of Central Asia gave it the means to suppress Russian/Chinese/Iranian influence in the region.

They were never interested in 'democratizing' or 'rebuilding' Afghanistan; it's meant to remain a third world country, forever.

Read More...
Propaganda

Grenfell Tower provides glimpse into media's disconnected and elitist position

Jon Snow
The Guardian
Wed, 23 Aug 2017 16:42 UTC
Politician people
© Eva Bee
For us in the media, the last two years have taught us that we all know nothing. The explosion of digital media has filled neither the void left by the decimation of the local newspaper industry, nor connected us any more effectively with the "left behind", the disadvantaged, the excluded. Over this past year, we - me included - mostly London-based media pundits, pollsters and so-called experts, have got it wrong. The Brexit referendum: we got that wrong. Trump defied so-called experts, pundits and journalists alike. Theresa May's strange general election - predicted to get a majority of 60-70: we got that wrong too. The Grenfell Tower disaster taught me a harrowing lesson - that in increasingly fractured Britain, we in the media are comfortably with the elite, with little awareness, contact, or connection with those not of the elite.

Comment: Seems Jon Snow is getting a glimpse of the decaying empire that is mainstream media and what it represents. That said, many of his sentiments fall flat and as such do not go far enough to reach those in the media who have been driven by hysteria. The question isn't if Brexit can be a unifier. The question is if those in the media have the capacity to reflect on the damaging propaganda it has used to beckon chaos on behalf of the elite. Given their track record, there's not much hope of that happening.

Read More...
Arrow Down

Baltic leaders trade sovereignty for self-destructive servitude to the US

Shane Quinn
The Duran
Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:27 UTC
NATO summit
22th November 2002 NATO Summit Meeting in Prague, Czech Republic North Atlantic Council Meeting at the level of Heads of State and Government. Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Summit Meeting. - General View
This century alone has borne witness to former Warsaw Pact members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania not only joining the European Union, but also NATO - an imperial branch of the United States with aggressive, expansionist ideals. The Baltic States are situated on or nearby Russia's border, and are currently home to hundreds of US and NATO troops stationed there as a "deterrence" against what is perceived as "increased Russian aggression".

It is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the recklessness of such policies, as these nations' leaders willingly endanger the safety of their own citizens. Not to mention throwing away any chance of sovereignty or independence by opening their borders to Western imperial power - welcoming American, British, German soldiers, and so on, and exposing their populations to neoliberal globalisation in the shape of the IMF.

What the Baltic leaders, and others, should be doing is engaging in constructive dialogue with Russia that would be of far greater benefit to the security and wellbeing of their people.
Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Unrepentant Trump fires back at media over Charlottesville and hints at Arpaio pardon in Phoenix


RT
Wed, 23 Aug 2017 16:12 UTC
US President Donald Trump
© Joshua Roberts / ReutersUS President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump hammered the "very dishonest media" as he repeated his statements on deadly political violence in Charlottesville. The crowd in Phoenix were also thrilled to hear Trump say ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio "is going to be just fine."

Trump also attacked Republicans and Democrats in Congress during the campaign-style rally Tuesday evening in Phoenix, Arizona.

'Sheriff Joe can feel good'

"I'm just curious, do the people in this room like Sheriff Joe?" Trump teased approximately 19,000 supporters at the downtown Phoenix Convention Center.

The former Maricopa County sheriff, who was convicted late last month of contempt of court after targeting illegal immigrants, is set to be sentenced in October. Arpaio is a Trump supporter and was expected to be pardoned by many until early Tuesday, when the White House said it would not happen during the rally. Republicans say he was politically targeted by the Obama administration. Democrats, meanwhile, liken a pardon for Arpaio to corruption.

"So was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?" Trump asked his audience. "He should've had a jury, but you know what, I'll make a prediction. I think he's going to be just fine, OK?"

"But I'm not going to do it tonight," Trump teased again, alluding to a pardon. "Because I don't want to cause any controversies, all right? But Sheriff Joe can feel good."
Read More...
Newspaper

Trump agreed to continue support for war in Afghanistan allegedly after seeing photo of Afghan ladies in skirts — WaPo reports

RI Staff
Russia Insider
Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:00 UTC
1970s women in Kabul
Although WaPo's latest bombshell report about Trump's Afghanistan flip-flopping is probably not true, it still warms our heart to know that it could, actually, be true:
"One of the ways McMaster tried to persuade Trump to recommit to the effort was by convincing him that Afghanistan was not a hopeless place. He presented Trump with a black-and-white snapshot from 1972 of Afghan women in miniskirts walking through Kabul, to show him that Western norms had existed there before and could return."
Justin Raimondo points out why, even though Trump might savor miniskirts, this is very silly:
The irony is that, in 1972, when this photo was taken on the grounds of Kabul University, Afghanistan was firmly in the orbit of the Soviet Union, as it had been since 1953, when Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan rose to power and instituted a series of progressive reforms, including equal rights for women. The next year, Khan deposed King Mohammed Zahir Shah, and Soviet aid poured in, alongside the Red Army.

More irony: it was the United States, alongside Washington's then-ally Osama bin Laden, that overthrew the communist regime, and conducted a guerrilla war against the Afghan government and their Soviet sponsors. The last Soviet troops left in 1989 - and there were no more miniskirts to be seen anywhere in Afghanistan.

Gen. McMaster knows all this: our President does not. Does McMaster think he can bring communism back to Afghanistan? I jest, but with serious intent. Because the commies attempted what our President has vowed not to do in Afghanistan: they sought to create a nation out of a collection of mountain-guarded valleys, isolated bastions untouched by time or the vaunted ambitions of their many would-be conquerors.
Read More...
Wall Street

Three steps to 'Making America Great Again' that are not on Trump's agenda

Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street On Parade
Thu, 24 Aug 2017 14:25 UTC
US IPOs
In 1996 the U.S. had 845 Initial Public Offerings. Last year, after twenty passing years of research and budding new technologies should have fueled growth in the IPO market, the U.S. had a paltry 98 IPOs. According to a study by the law firm, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, gross proceeds from IPOs in 2016 were $18.54 billion while the "average annual gross proceeds for the 12-year period preceding 2016 were $35.73 billion - 93 percent higher than the corresponding figure for 2016."

Not only has the U.S. seriously lost ground in IPOs but the total number of publicly traded companies in the U.S. is down by almost half in the same 20 year span. Last September, Jim Clifton, the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, the polling company, explained why he thinks this is happening. Clifton wrote:

"The number of publicly listed companies trading on U.S. exchanges has been cut almost in half in the past 20 years - from about 7,300 to 3,700. Because firms can't grow organically - that is, build more business from new and existing customers - they give up and pay high prices to acquire their competitors, thus drastically shrinking the number of U.S. public companies. This seriously contributes to the massive loss of U.S. middle-class jobs."

Let's also not forget that quite a number of those 7,300 companies that were listed in 1996 failed in the great dot.com crash of 2000 because Wall Street's minions pumped out bogus buy recommendations on new companies that didn't have a prayer of making it as an ongoing business. The real motive behind the listing was to fuel fat bonuses for themselves. The largest investment banks were calling the startups they were peddling to the public "dogs" and "crap" behind closed doors while lauding their virtues in "research" released to entice the public to buy.

Comment: Social Justice, Clinton and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis

Read More...
Smoking

Aping the West, Turkey to strengthen smoking ban

Ali Mustafayev
Azer News
Thu, 24 Aug 2017 14:30 UTC
No smoking sign in Turkey
© Azer News
The campaign against smoking will be toughened in Turkey. The country seeks to strengthen the smoking ban in a bid to reduce the risk that threatens lives of millions.

Back in 2008, Turkey introduced legislation banning smoking in workplaces and enclosed public spaces. The smoking ban also covers public transport. Penalty for smoking in public and enclosed places is 88 TRY (about $25).

The Turkish Health Ministry announced that the ban may also be introduced on smoking in private cars.

The Ministry also said single standards will be applied to imported tobacco products, as well as those manufactured in Turkey.

Comment: From the book, "Smoke Screens: The Truth About Tobacco" by Richard White:
The 1600s were a time of smoking regulation. In Russia, first-time offenders were whipped, had their noses slit, and were sent to Siberia. Second-time offenders were executed. In Turkey, under the rule of Sultan Murad IV, smokers were castrated for their habit and up to 18 smokers a day were being executed. China also killed smokers, by decapitation.
Will history repeat itself?

See also: The Health & Wellness Show: The Truth About Tobacco with Richard White

Read More...
Info

Lavrov: New US strategy for Afghanistan is 'dead-end'


RT
Thu, 24 Aug 2017 13:40 UTC
US Troops
© Omar Sobhani / ReutersU.S. troops keep watch on the back of a truck outside their base in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan July 7, 2017.
The new US strategy in Afghanistan has no chance for success, as it mainly relies on the use of force, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"The main emphasis in the new strategy, which was announced by Washington, is made on settlement through use of force," Lavrov said at a press conference on Thursday. "We believe that it's a dead-end approach."

Apart from that, the new strategy allows negotiations with the Taliban without any preconditions, which is also a significant flaw, Lavrov added, saying that it jeopardizes the joint international stance formed in the UN Security Council.

"If I've got the new US strategy right, it allows contacts with the Taliban without them fulfilling any conditions at all," Lavrov said.

"I don't think that it goes in line with our joint interest to follow the negotiated, coordinated line which is approved by the UN Security Council. But I hope that within the framework of the expert-level contacts we have with our American colleagues, we will be able to clarify this apparent contradiction."
Read More...