Puppet MastersS


Bizarro Earth

Sheer hatred: Israel's long-standing and deliberate policy of terrorizing Palestinian children

Kamel Hawwash
Middle East Eye
Thu, 04 Jan 2018 08:51 UTC
Palestinian girl holds a placard
© AFPA Palestinian girl holds a placard showing a picture of a child crying during a demonstration in support of the children of the Gaza Strip in July 2014 in the West Bank northern city of Nablus
Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion once said about the Palestinians: 'The old will die and the young will forget.' How wrong was he about the Palestinian people

At the start of the second intifada in 2000, an iconic image emerged of Muhammad al-Durra, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, as he was being shielded from Israeli fire by his father who begged the soldiers to stop shooting. The bullets, however, continued and al-Durra died from the wounds he sustained.

Almost a month later, another image of a Palestinian child, caught in the conflict, went viral.

Fares Odeh, 14, was caught on camera fearlessly throwing stones at an Israeli tank in the Gaza Strip. Odeh was killed by Israeli forces on 8 November that same year.

Comment: See: Watch 2016 Abby Martin Interview With Palestinian Resistance Teenager Ahed Tamimi (VIDEO)

Read More...
Light Sabers

Analysts says drones that attacked Russian bases in Syria resemble US military UAVs


Sputnik
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 20:10 UTC
drone attack Syria Russia
© Russian Defense MinistryA drone used to attack Russian military facilities in Syria
In an interview with Sputnik, Turkish military analysts commented on the drones recently launched by terrorists at the Russian military facilities in Hmeymim and Tartus in Syria. Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the technology used in those drones could only be obtained from a technologically advanced country.

The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used in the attacks on Russia's facilities in Syria bear a resemblance to certain types of equipment used by the US military, according to Erdoğan Karakuş, a military analyst and retired Lt. Gen. of the Turkish Air Force.

Saying that regular drones are usually capable of carrying and dropping only low-yield explosives, the analyst told Sputnik Turkey, "UAVs which are capable of dropping bombs and projectiles used in airplane strikes are in service with the US military. A regular drone can carry an explosive device that can utterly destroy a vehicle of terrorists. However, for these attacks, much more powerful drones were used."
Read More...
TV

Democrat report 'yet another tool to sell Russian collusion delusion'


RT
Thu, 11 Jan 2018 14:52 UTC
Senator Ben Cardin and Senator Bob Corker.
© Jonathan Ernst / ReutersSenator Ben Cardin and Senator Bob Corker.
The US Foreign Relations Committee report on alleged Russian meddling doesn't reflect the will of the American people or Congress, and merely tries to peddle an anti-Russian narrative, political analyst Charles Ortel told RT.

Democrats in the US are calling for radical action against alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Senators on Wednesday published a 206-page report for the Foreign Relations Committee, with proposals including the creation of a new inter-agency cell, modeled on the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC).

The senators propose spending more than $250 million on building institutions in Europe and Eurasia to counter alleged Russian meddling. The report also suggests preemptive sanctions against so-called "State Hybrid Threat Actors". In addition, it recommends that social media companies be required to track down propaganda and make public all income from political ads.
Read More...
Eagle

US military intelligence and its use of "creative destruction" worldwide

Andrew Korybko
Oriental Review
Wed, 10 Jan 2018 00:00 UTC
Military Intelligence
It doesn't matter whether it's the US' brand of "democracy" for export or the national-specific model of government that strengthens non-Western states, the theoretical concept behind this system has been weaponized by military intelligence agencies worldwide in a back-and-forth competition to change or retain the "deep state" status quo.

Most people are familiar with US' clandestine and militant export of "democracy" across the globe in order to remove uncompliant leaders and promote its enduring geostrategic interest to retain its own unipolar hegemony, but comparatively fewer have ever thought about how this very same system is actually a method of control no matter what iteration it ultimately takes. This isn't a judgement but a fact - democracy is really a tool that's expertly wielded by its "deep state" practitioners in order to retain the status quo in their states.

Whether this is "good" or "bad" depends on one's perspective - most people in the Alternative-Media Community would argue that it's the former so long as the country in question is protecting their independent policies from outside (US/Western/Gulf) interference and striving to construct the Multipolar World Order, while the Mainstream Media would of course see this as the latter by derogatorily framing it as a "managed democracy" or at worst a "dictatorship'. Along the same token, the Alternative-Media Community believes that the US is a fake democracy and practices an insincere iteration of this ideology, while the Mainstream Media extols it as the best model in the world.

Comment: Arguably, the type of "Democratization" that the author is mostly discussing here is bad - from the point of view of anyone who is subject to its real intentions; to serve US Deep State interests. Case in point:

'Ukraine on Fire': How US, Not Russia, Destroyed Ukraine - Oliver Stone Documentary Finally Available (VIDEO)

Read More...
Airplane

Chunk of metal falls off Japanese PM's plane during flight (VIDEO)


RT
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 19:24 UTC
Plane
© Brendan Smialowski / AFPOne of the Boeing 747s used by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
An investigation has been launched after an access panel on the wing of a Boeing 747 used by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe fell off during flight.

Japan's Air Self Defense Force (ASDF) confirmed the incident happened during a flight from Tokyo to Hokkaido, Thursday. The part, which is about the size of a laptop computer and provides access to an area connecting the engines to the right wing of the plane, has not yet been found.

"There was no sign of it on the runways so it's going to be very difficult to locate," a spokesman for the ASDF said in a statement, cited by Reuters. ANN News in Japan broadcast images of the plane and its missing part on Thursday.

Two jumbo jets carrying Abe and other government officials set off from Tokyo on Friday ahead of a six-day trip to Eastern Europe. The Japanese PM was reportedly not aboard the plane that lost its panel.
Read More...
USA

The American Dream has become the American Scheme: The rich get richer and the poor go to jail

John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Wed, 03 Jan 2018 19:09 UTC
"It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones." ― Nelson Mandela
rich vs poor
This is the tale of two Americas, where the rich get richer and the poor go to jail.

Aided and abetted by the likes of Attorney General Jeff Sessions-a man who wouldn't recognize the Constitution if it smacked him in the face-the American dream has become the American scheme: the rich are getting richer and more powerful, while anyone who doesn't belong to the power elite gets poorer and more powerless to do anything about the nation's steady slide towards fascism, authoritarianism and a profit-driven police state.

Not content to merely pander to law enforcement and add to its military largesse with weaponry and equipment designed for war, Sessions has made a concerted effort to expand the police state's power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant.
Read More...
Camcorder

RT releases documentary The Panama Chronicles: How America's enemies were targeted


RT
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 17:05 UTC
Panama papers documentary
© RT
The Panama Papers exploded in the media last April, revealing the extent of offshore wealth hidden by celebrities and politicians. RT's latest documentary explores who was behind the leak and how it was framed in the media.

More than 11.5 billion documents from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca were stolen by an anonymous person known as John Doe. The tranche featured information on 130,000 people and was given to two journalists from the German Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) newspaper.

SZ started to work with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which put 370 journalists across the world on the case for a year.
Read More...
Safe

Trump copies Obama, waives punishment for convicted banks, one of which Trump owes $130 million

David Sirota and Josh Keefe
International Business Times
Tue, 09 Jan 2018 18:24 UTC
kushner trump
© ReutersPresident Donald Trump passes his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner during a Hanukkah Reception at the White House in Washington, D.C., December 7, 2017.
The Trump administration has waived part of the punishment for five megabanks whose affiliates were convicted and fined for manipulating global interest rates. One of the Trump administration waivers was granted to Deutsche Bank - which is owed at least $130 million by President Donald Trump and his business empire, and has also been fined for its role in a Russian money laundering scheme.

The waivers were issued in a little-noticed announcement published in the Federal Register during the Christmas holiday week. They come less than two years after then-candidate Trump promised "I'm not going to let Wall Street get away with murder."

Under laws designed to protect retirement savings, financial firms whose affiliates have been convicted of violating securities statutes are effectively barred from the lucrative business of managing those savings. However, that punishment can be avoided if the firms manage to secure a special exemption from the U.S. Department of Labor, allowing them to keep their status as "qualified professional asset managers."

In late 2016, the Obama administration extended temporary one-year waivers to five banks - Citigroup, JPMorgan, Barclays, UBS and Deutsche Bank. Late last month, the Trump administration issued new, longer waivers for those same banks, granting Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Barclays five-year exemptions. UBS and Deutsche Bank received three-year exemptions.
Read More...
Gold Seal

SOTT Focus: It's Neocon Think Tanks, Not Russian Media, That Is The Enemy Within

John Wight
Sputnik
Fri, 12 Jan 2018 18:54 UTC
neocons
The latest salvo in the ongoing attempt to de-legitimize and demonize Russia-based media has arrived with a directive from the US Justice Department that Sputnik News in the US must register as a foreign agent.

In this regard Sputnik now joins RT America (previously directed to register as a foreign agent) in being stigmatized as peddling propaganda instead of news and news analysis, its journalists and contributors smeared by association, in the context of a wider neo-McCarthyite offensive unleashed with the aim of pushing back against opposition to neoconservative nostrums and influence on Western foreign policy, along with its neoliberal economic counterpart.

What needs to be stressed is that this offensive is being waged not so much against Russian media as against Western dissident voices who dare appear on Russian media. It is an attack on the free speech of US citizens - and also on UK and European citizens given that the same offensive is underway in those parts of the world - on their right to ply their trade as journalists, writers, broadcasters and political analysts.
Read More...
Chess

Unintended consequences: After suspending aid to Pakistan, US looks for new supply route to support Afghanistan war


Swarajya
Wed, 10 Jan 2018 11:38 UTC
Afghan border crossing Pakistan
© Koichi Kamoshida/Getty ImagesAfghan refugees walk near the Chaman border crossing with Pakistan.
After suspending aid to Pakistan, the United States is looking for an alternative supply route to Afghanistan to support its war efforts, Times of India has reported.

According to the daily's report, State Department official Steven Goldstein "replied in the affirmative" when asked if the country was talking to Central Asian countries or Russia for an alternative supply route to Afghanistan.

"We always look at that," he reportedly said responding to the question.

Pakistan Army, under pressure to act against terror groups that it has supported for years, may respond to US action by cutting off supply routes to Afghanistan. Although Pakistan has blocked the routes in the past, US officials say they have no evidence to suggest that Islamabad was planning such a move.

Comment: That Pakistan is no longer US ally is a much bigger deal than you think

Read More...