Puppet MastersS


Stop

US deployment of drones in Niger will not solve the problem of terrorism

C-130 US Air Force plane
© ReutersA C-130 US Air Force plane lands as Nigerien soldiers stand in formation during the Flintlock military exercise in Diffa, Niger
The Niger government's recent decision to allow American drones over its territory will accomplish little in the fight against terrorism, Africa analyst Lawrence K Freeman told RT, because it lacks a strategy that deals with the issues in the region.

On Thursday, Niger officials announced they would allow the Pentagon to operate armed drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), out of the country's capital, Niamey. The drones will be used to conduct strikes on terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and its affiliates that operate along the country's border with Mali. The move would allow the US military to significantly expand its reach in West Africa.

But Africa affairs analyst Lawrence K Freeman says that drone strikes alone will be unlikely to change the region's jihadist landscape, which is being driven by more than just a handful of key operatives.

Comment: See also: Niger approves deployment of armed US drones to operate in combat missions


Chess

US withdraws UN global compact for migration as 'inconsistent' with sovereignty

Immigrants
© Jorge Duenes / ReutersImmigrants
The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has announced Washington's withdrawal from the process to create a global compact aimed at facilitating international migration, as it goes against the American idea of sovereignty.

In a statement Saturday, Haley said that then-President Obama's decision to commit the US to the process by signing the non-binding New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants in September 2016 had come at the expense of America's interest.

"The New York Declaration contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with US immigration and refugee polices and the Trump Administration's immigration principles," she said in a written statement tweeted by the US mission to the UN.

Comment: Wake up Europe!


Telephone

Kosachev: Talks between Flynn and Kislyak 'adds nothing to the "Russian conspiracy"'

Earlier on Friday former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about conversations with former Russian ambassador last December

Konstantin Kosachev
© Valery Sharifulin/TASSThe chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev
Conversation between former President Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Russian ambassador in Washington Sergey Kislyak show rather an attempt by the American side to influence Moscow's position, and not Russian interference in the US affairs, according to Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs Konstantin Kosachev.

"What has Flynn admitted? Only that fact that he has not fully disclosed the details of his conversations with the then Russian ambassador to the United States Kislyak during the initial "interrogations"," Kosachev wrote on Facebook noting, "This adds nothing to the "Russian conspiracy" theory against the foundation of American democracy."

Bizarro Earth

Trump: Flynn's actions lawful, but had to fire because he lied to VP and FBI

Michael Flynn
© Joshua Roberts / ReutersMichael Flynn
US President Donald Trump has defended the actions of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying they were "lawful." He added, however, that he fired Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI.

"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!" Trump said in a tweet.

Earlier on Saturday, Trump also told reporters that his election campaign was not engaged in any collusion with Russia. He made his comment after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about a phone call he had with the former Russian ambassador. At that time, Trump, however, did not give any definitive answer to the question of whether he would stand by his former adviser.

Comment: And they never will provide any solid evidence, because no such evidence exists: The Russian 'Hacking Scandal': A CNN and U.S. Deep State 'Nothing Burger'


Snakes in Suits

Mueller's top FBI agent probing Clinton emails, Russian-collusion "removed" after anti-Trump texts found

strzok
Peter Strzok
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's top FBI investigator into 'Russian meddling' and Clinton emails has been removed from the probe reportedly due to the discovery of anti-Trump text messages exchanged with a colleague (whom he happened to be having an extra-marital affair with).

FBI veteran, Peter Strzok, considered "one of the most experienced and trusted FBI counterintel investigators" according to the NYT, and who was tapped by Mueller to help lead the probe of Russian meddling in last year's presidential election, after helping lead the investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information on her private email account, has left Mueller's team.As ABC reported in August, when Strzok's departure was first noticed, this was the first known hitch in a secretive probe that, by all public accounts, is charging full steam ahead.

Bad Guys

How Hillary Clinton helped destroy democracy in Honduras

Hillary Clinton
US meddling supported the military junta, undermined civilian rule

Hillary Clinton's legacy at the State Department lives on - and it isn't pretty. Take a gander at the spectacle of slave auctions in Libya - a nation "liberated" by NATO at Hillary's instigation: remember "We came, we saw, he died"? Behold the blood-soaked ruins of Syria, where her regime-change plans caused the US to fund the very jihadists we're supposed to be fighting. Add to this the not-so-bright idea of Washington jumping on board the abortive "Arab Spring" bandwagon, and it all this adds up to the worst record of any Secretary of State in modern history.


Comment: The Libyan slave trade videos are fake news, however that doesn't change the fact that Hillary Clinton was instrumental in the brutal murder of Gaddafi which resulted in the effective destruction of Libya.


Less well-known than the above-mentioned disasters, however, is the key role she played in turning Honduras over to a murderous dictator who is now provoking yet another crisis in that long-suffering country - and sending thousands of refugees, including many unaccompanied minors, into Mexico and over our southern border.

Comment: Everywhere Hillary Clinton goes, death and destruction follow.


Clipboard

A status report of the US-Russian war: The imperial parasite versus the civilizational challenger

Putin's team
I am often asked if the US and Russia will go to war with each other. I always reply that they are already at war. Not a war like WWII, but a war nonetheless. This war is, at least for the time being, roughly 80% informational, 15% economic and 5% kinetic. But in political terms the outcome for the loser of this war will be no less dramatic than the outcome of WWII was for Germany: the losing country will not survive it, at least not in its present shape: either Russia will become a US colony again or the AngloZionist Empire will collapse.

In my very first column for the Unz review entitled "A Tale of Two World Orders" I described the kind of multipolar international system regulated by the rule of law Russia, China and their allies and friends (whether overt or covert) worldwide are trying to build and how dramatically different it was from the single World Hegemony and AngloZionist attempted to establish worldwide (and almost successfully imposed upon our suffering planet!). In a way, the US imperial leaders are right, Russia does represent an existential threat, not for the United States as a country or for its people, but for the AngloZionist Empire, just as the latter represents an existential threat to Russia. Furthermore, Russia represents a fundamental civilizational challenge to what is normally called the "West" as she openly rejects its post-Christian (and, I would add, also viscerally anti-Islamic) values. This is why both sides are making an immense effort at prevailing in this struggle.

Comment: One day, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, we will likely again see the US majorly overstep the bounds of ethics and morality against Russia, or one of her allies. And again, Russia will likely respond with resolve and effectiveness against the empire of chaos. But how many more times can the US aggress and up the ante of destruction before its sleep-walking people are affected by more than just propaganda? Who will tell them - those who don't already know - that it was the psychos in their own government who virtually solidified the eventuality? And will it even matter by then.


Propaganda

FakeNews: "Sources" say Tillerson, Cohn, Kushner will all quit or be fired soon

Tillerson
© Yuri Gripas/Reuters
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's expected exit from the Trump administration is one of many staff changes likely as President Donald Trump nears the end of his first year in office, with sources saying top economic adviser Gary Cohn and son-in-law Jared Kushner could be among those who depart.

Cohn, whose relationship with Trump became tense earlier this year, has considered leaving once the Republican effort to overhaul the U.S. tax system is completed in Congress, according to the sources with ties to the White House who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kushner, who has seen his influence in the White House shrink, may receive a "face-saving" exit as he deals with legal challenges related to a special counsel's investigation of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign's potential ties to Russia, one of the sources said.

"This is pure speculation," said White House spokesman Raj Shah in an emailed statement about potential staff moves.

Comment: What tripe. Big headline, but when you actually read the content, it's a whole lot of nothing. For what it's worth, Tillerson and Trump both deny the rumors:


Heart - Black

Christopher Black: Mladic case is a stain on civilization

mladic
"All that is a lie. This is a NATO-style trial."

The defiant words of General Mladic to the judges of the NATO controlled ad hoc war crimes tribunal for Yugoslavia rang out loud and clear the day they pretended to convict him. He could have added 'but history will absolve me" and a lot more but he was thrown out of the room by the chief judge, Orie, in his condescending style, as if he was dealing to a truant schoolboy, instead of a man falsely accused of crimes he did not commit.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, echoed the general's words on November 23,
"We have again to state that the guilty verdict, delivered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia against Mladic, is the continuation of the politicized and biased line, which has initially dominated the ICTY's work."
Both General Mladic and the Russian government are correct. The document called a "judgement" proves it for it reads like a propaganda tract instead of a court judgement. In just over 2500 pages the trio of "judges" recite the prosecution version of events nonstop, from the first paragraph to the last. The defence is mentioned only in passing.

Comment: Just ten days after Mladic's sentence, this happened: Former Bosnian Croat general commits suicide during Hague tribunal sentencing him for war crimes. "Brabantian" gives some additional context on this joke of a court:
The dramatic public suicide of Bosnian Croat General Slobodan Praljak Wednesday in a 'war crimes trial' courtroom in the Hague (despite his already having served most of his prison term) was actually the 15th death in custody of the small number of Balkan defendants at the Hague over the last few years, three by suicide and twelve by 'disease & natural causes.' It is statistically virtually impossible that so many deaths in a small group of middle-aged men occurred 'naturally.'

Many of the victims, such as Slobodan Milosevic, were the most insistent on exposing the war crimes of NATO. Though it is true various war atrocities were committed in the Balkan wars, these 'war crimes trials' chose only certain ethnic defendants for prosecution. It was forbidden to prosecute war crimes by Nato, and by Muslim militias.

Balkan nation leaders and military commanders were being convicted not for committing atrocity acts themselves, but on grounds of 'conspiring', 'allowing' etc atrocities by others.

By those same grounds, why are no Western NATO leaders on trial for 'war crimes', for 'conspiring', 'allowing' etc war crimes in Libya, Syria, Iraq and many other places? They did much more than conspire.

The 'impeachment' of US President Bill Clinton was to extort him into approving an illegal bombing of Serbia & massacre of civilians, which even the murderous Clinton found difficult to stomach. When Clinton agreed to do the bombing, he was 'acquitted' and allowed to remain alive for 2 more decades.

Another aspect of the Hague 'war crimes trials', is that the judges at times, especially some USA ones, behaved as openly sadistic, psychopathic abusers of their defendants, obsessively seeking to cover up for Nato crimes, such as CIA etc agents weaponizing militias amongst the Balkan populations

Whatever his past crimes, General Slobodan Praljak, 72, acted with heroic courage, giving his life to inform the world that the Hague 'war crimes tribunal' was a fraud meting out 'victor's justice' for Nato propaganda ... He died as a warrior telling truth and perhaps earned some forgiveness for what he had done in the past.



Info

Obama's former SecDef Panetta: To say Trump transition team broke law is a stretch

Leon Panetta
© Reuters
President Obama's Defense Secretary said that they probably violated long-standing norms, but not the law.

Leon Panetta, President Obama's former Secretary of Defense, told NBC's Chuck Todd on Friday that it was a "stretch" to say the Trump transition team broke the law with their contacts with the Russians.

"We have one administration at a time," Panetta said, warning that the Trump transition team undermined long-standing political norms in the United States by engaging in diplomacy while the Obama administration was still in office.

However, the former defense secretary doubted that dealings with the Russians rose to the level of criminal violations.

"[Their contact with Russia] was very unusual. Whether it breaks the law or not, I think that's probably a stretch," Panetta predicted.

Comment: Unfortunately, a stretch is all that many people require: it's enough to convince them that Russiagate is all it's touted to be. The fact that they're wrong doesn't seem to bother them, though: