Puppet MastersS


Star of David

'Ruthlessly ambitious' new Saudi crown prince is Israel and Washington's tool for pressuring Iran

Martin Jay
RT
Fri, 23 Jun 2017 13:40 UTC
Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud
© Rainer Jensen / DPA /Global Look PressMohammad Bin Salman Al Saud
Israel and Washington seem to have been instrumental in the rise of Riyadh's new leader, a hot-headed young royal who leaves a trail of havoc behind him. But can they control him?

In the hilarious novel by Christopher Buckley, 'Thank you for smoking,' the central character, Nick Naylor, works for Big Tobacco as a chief spokesman. The reason why Naylor, who lobbies on behalf of cigarettes using ingenious ploys, was given the job in the first place was due to a blunder he made as a journalist before, where he incorrectly announced live on air the death of the US president.

His new boss believed Naylor would be brilliant in his new job as he would have so much to prove. Indeed, in one scene Naylor even explains to schoolchildren how smoking isn't bad for your health.
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Attention

Cheong Wa Dae: S. Korea does not need US permission to engage with N. Korea


Yonhap News Agency
Wed, 21 Jun 2017 14:07 UTC
Moon Jae-in, Kim Young-in and Donald Trump
South Korea or its head of state Moon Jae-in does not need permission from the U.S. president or anyone else to engage North Korea in dialogue, Seoul's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday.

"Resumption of dialogue with North Korea may need to be pursued in close cooperation and consultation with the United States, but South Korea does not need to be allowed by the U.S. to do so," Kwun Hyuk-ki, a Cheong Wa Dae spokesman, told Yonhap News Agency.

The remarks came in reaction to a question by a U.S. journalist in a recent interview with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in which the interviewer from U.S. broadcaster CBS stated it was not clear whether U.S. President Donald Trump would "agree to allow" his South Korean counterpart to negotiate with the North Koreans.
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Biohazard

ISIS build-up in Afghanistan? US-generated chaos threatens OBOR Eurasian project

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Fri, 23 Jun 2017 11:14 UTC
afghanistan suicide bomb
© Reuters / Omar SobhaniAn Afghan policeman looks at the bloodstains of victims outside a mosque where a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in Kabul, June 16, 2017.
Will the New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ever manage to cross the Hindu Kush?

Temerity is the name of the game. Even though strategically located astride the Ancient Silk Road, and virtually contiguous to the US$50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) - a key BRI node - Afghanistan is still mired in war.

It's easy to forget that way back in 2011 - even before President Xi Jinping announced BRI, in Kazakhstan and Indonesia, in 2013 - the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touted her own Silk Road, in Chennai. No wonder the State Dept's vision bit Hindu Kush dust - because it assumed war-torn Afghanistan as the plan's lynchpin.

The state of play in Afghanistan in 2017 is even more depressing. Dysfunctional does not even begin to describe the administration that emerged out of the fractious 2014 presidential election and which passes for a government.

Since 2002 Washington has spent a mind-boggling US$780 billion on its (unfinished) Operation Enduring Freedom. It has absolutely nothing to show for it - apart from over 100,000 dead Afghans.

President Obama's much-touted 2009 nation-building-cum-counterinsurgency surge was, predictably, a disaster. Aside from reframing the global war on terror (GWOT) as Overseas Contingent Operations (OCO) it achieved nothing. There was no "clear, hold, and build"; the Taliban are back virtually everywhere.

Comment: Another location we could yet see the 100,000 or so Syraq theater ISIS vets pour into is the Philippines. For now the US is using locally-sourced merc products, but they might soon be injecting amphetamine-fuelled head-choppers into that mix.

Escobar also has good news on the Eurasian integration front: India and Pakistan have joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization:

Meet the alt-G8: Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) welcomes India and Pakistan to become largest political organization

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Info

Turkey has no intention of closing Qatar base despite Saudi Arabia ultimatum


RT
Fri, 23 Jun 2017 13:18 UTC
Turkish APC drives at their military base in Doha
© Reuters Turkish APC drives at their military base in Doha, Qatar June 18, 2017.
Turkey has no intention of shutting down its brand new military base in Qatar, it said in a rejection of a demand about the small Gulf kingdom voiced by other Arab nations. Ankara says the base benefits the entire Gulf region.

Closing the Turkish base is reportedly one of 13 moves expected from Doha by a group of countries led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which last month declared a transport blockade of Qatar and downgraded diplomatic relations with it.

"If there is such a demand, it will mean interference in bilateral ties," Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik told the local broadcaster NTV.


Comment: Report: Saudi Arabia and allies demand Qatar close Turkish base, shut Al Jazeera and more within 10 days

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Attention

'Enemies, foreign and domestic': Ron Paul on non-interventionism and liberty

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 23 Jun 2017 13:02 UTC
Ron Paul
© Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
Former Texas Congressman Ron Paul likes to joke that when he gets invited to speaking engagements in Washington, DC, audiences typically don't applaud. But at the Future of Freedom Foundation, Paul was right at home, delivering a speech entitled "Enemies: Foreign And Domestic" about how to apply the principles of non-interventionism in domestic and foreign policy.

He spoke about how his stint in Congress made him more skeptical of government and wary of the deep state's capacity for maliciousness, beginning with his early days in Washington.
"When I went to Washington, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the Constitution and we went back and forth and it turned out my understanding was completely wrong and they had to convince me. But I had a little trouble listening to their arguments. They told me that the Constitution should be more flexible, it should be a living document, that it shouldn't be overly rigid, that's how you get into trouble. I sort of struggled with that tremendously."
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Piggy Bank

Czech Republic's central bank sends mixed signals on euro adoption


RT
Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:55 UTC
Czech Government headquarters in Prague
© Petr Josek Snr / Reuters
The governor of the Czech Republic's central bank Jiri Rusnok said the country is generally ready to adopt the common European currency, but it would be better to wait until local wages and prices approached those of core euro members.

According to Rusnok, one of the reasons the country is committed to joining the euro is that the Czech crown is now floating and not pegged. The Czech central bank scrapped its cap on the crown in April, allowing it to float freely to stronger levels against the euro for the first time since 2013.
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Stop

'Double-edged weapon': Senior lawmaker blasts fresh round of anti-Russian sanctions


RT
Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:39 UTC
EU building
© Francois Lenoir / Reuters
The latest anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the EU are hurting their sponsors more than the actual targets, a senior Russian politician has said, also warning that the new round of restrictions was leading the EU into a dead end.

In a statement circulated on Friday by the press service of Leonid Slutsky, head of the Lower House Committee for International Affairs, the lawmaker stated that when the European Union had extended the anti-Russian sanctions it was following the guidelines issued in the "far West" - a thinly-veiled hint at the US - and was putting itself in a situation with no clear way out.

"In three years of the sanctions standoff the European losses have exceeded those of the Russian Federation," Slutsky said in the address. The lawmaker also quoted President Vladimir Putin's appraisal of sanctions as a "double-edged weapon," as well as UN estimates claiming that Russia's losses from sanctions had amounted to between US$50 billion and $52 billion, while the countries that had imposed the restrictions had lost up to $100 billion.
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Eagle

Best of the Web: Beneath the radar and above suspicion: The invisible US empire

Jason Hirthler
Counterpunch
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:00 UTC
Liberty in darkness
When the United States went to war with Spain in 1898, it did so in a media environment of "yellow journalism," that played no small part in the advent of the Spanish-American War. Yellow journalism was basically the use of sensationalism and poorly researched reportage to stir up excitement and pad the bottom line. In February on that year, the mysterious sinking of the American cruiser Maine on a quiet night in Havana harbor was seized upon by western media outlets like William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's New York World to create an atmosphere rife with tension, accusation, and defamation. War fever was loosed upon the population. The McKinley administration was soon ensnared in combat, which it won in ten weeks across the Caribbean and Pacific theaters, effectively erasing the Spanish imperial footprint from the Philippines and Caribbean, and delivering American control over Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. American author Mark Twain wasn't fooled by the jingoistic broadsheets, nor by the administration's claims of support for Cubans, nor by its claims to want to bring democracy to the Philippines, a former Spanish colony. Twain said, "...we have gone there to conquer, not to redeem."

Comment: "...we have gone there to conquer, not to redeem."

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Bizarro Earth

Senator Grassley attacks Comey on Russiagate while Trump admits there are "no tapes"

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Thu, 22 Jun 2017 12:35 UTC
Charles Grassley
Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee
Senator Grassley chair of Senate Judiciary Committee accuses former FBI Director Comey of fanning Russiagate scandal.

Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee which has oversight over the FBI, and before which former FBI Director James Comey gave evidence a short while ago, has today torn into Comey.

Specifically Grassley has criticised Comey for fanning 'conspiracy theories' pertaining to the Russiagate probe, for colluding with the Obama administration in 'soft-pedalling' the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, and for refusing President Trump's reasonable request for a public statement that he was not himself under investigation.

Grassley is right on all these points, even if unfortunately he confuses the issue by continuing to accuse Russia of meddling in the US election. Indeed, rather bizarrely, he has today actually criticised Comey for 'helping' Russia by spreading false stories about the President.
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Attention

US State Department warns Hungary: Anti-Soros law 'another step away' from NATO

Joel Gehrke
The Washington Examiner
Mon, 19 Jun 2017 12:14 UTC
hungary protests closure soros-funded university
© Laszlo Balogh / Reuters Demonstrators hold up banners during a rally in Budapest, Hungary, April 4, 2017 protesting the closure of a Soros-funded university.
George Soros university under threat in Hungary Reuters

An international controversy over nonprofits funded by progressive Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros has created a vulnerability in the NATO alliance, the State Department warned.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's spokesperson urged Hungarian leaders to scrap legislation mandating that Hungarian nonprofits supported by foreign contributors identify their donors. The bill is the latest development in nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ongoing campaign against Soros, but his domestic and international critics regard it also as a step toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"If signed into law, this would be another step away from Hungary's commitments to uphold the principles and values that are central to the [European Union] and NATO," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Monday.

Comment: Looks like Prime Minister Orban actually has a clue. No wonder the wrath of the West is being directed at him.

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