Puppet MastersS


Vader

Negative selection: Gitmo judge convicts U.S. General - Because he stood up for detainee rights

General Baker
© Daily Beast
The Guantanamo Bay military tribunals on Wednesday won their first conviction without a plea deal since 2008. Only it wasn't a terrorist who was convicted - it was a one-star Marine general sticking up for the rights of the accused to have a fair trial.

In defending the principle that attorneys ought to be able to defend their clients free from government surveillance, Brigadier General John Baker was ruled in contempt of court and sentenced to 21 days in confinement. He also must pay a $1000 fine.

Baker is a senior officer within in the highly controversial military commissions process: the Chief of Defense Counsel. Maj. Ben Sakrisson, the Pentagon spokesman for detentions, confirmed that Baker is being confined in his quarters - at Guantanamo Bay.

Comment: At least there are some in the US military who have some sense of what is right and fair. Sadly, actions such as this conviction show the military is punishing conscience and therefore negatively selecting for others without a sense of what is right and moral to rise to the positions of influence.


Gear

America's diabolical agenda: NATO Ministers are preparing for war on Russia

NATO Ministerial Meeting in Brussels
© Sputnik InternationalNATO Ministerial Meeting in Brussels

America controls NATO policymaking. The alliance serves as its global imperial arm - warmaking its mission, not fostering world peace and stability.


Nor does it have anything to do with defense at a time the only threats alliance members face are invented ones. Real ones don't exist.

World peace and stability notions are contrary to US objectives, wanting unchallenged dominance over world nations, their resources and populations.

America's diabolical agenda involves endless wars of aggression, wanting all sovereign independent nations replaced by US vassal states, creating ruler/serf societies globally, an open-air prison for ordinary people disposed of if resist - a world unsafe and unfit to live in.

War Whore

US releases gruesome footage of Vietnam War air assaults

US bombs Vietnam
© US National Archives / YouTube
While US President Donald Trump praises Vietnam as a friend at the APEC summit in Da Nang, videos from the time of the Vietnam War show gruesome pictures of the US air assaults more than half a century ago.

On Thursday, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) published a series of videos relating to the one of the longest wars in American military history.

The footage of US air assaults was filmed in March 1965, some 10 years after the start of the war. It shows the moment when napalm and phosphorus bombs were dropped on rural buildings and wooded areas, setting fire to the targeted sites.

Arrow Down

Dan Rather admits media needs to do "a better job", but still blames Trump

dan rather
The father of fake news, former CBS journalist Dan Rather, bemoaned the fact that Americans don't trust the media - ignoring his own seismic scandal at CBS News that forced him to resign.

Speaking on NBC's Today on Tuesday, Rather fielded a question from host Savannah Guthrie about Americans' growing mistrust in the media.

"There's a recent poll that said nearly half of people think the media make up stories. The media itself is under fire," Guthrie said. "What do you think the media needs to do better to enhance its own credibility?"

"We need to do a better job, we need to do our job," Rather responded. "Our job is to bear witness, to be honest brokers of information, to be as accurate and fair as we possibly can."

Rather, who had a strong reputation for his liberal bias while at CBS News, used people's distrust of the media to attack President Donald Trump.

"I think most of the public understands that we're under attack by very powerful people, including the president, for their own partisan, political, and ideological reasons," Rather continued.


Rocket

Ballistic missile targeting main Saudi airport was Iranian - US Air Force

King Khalid International Airport
© US Air Force / WikipediaKing Khalid International Airport
The ballistic missile, intercepted near Saudi Arabia's capital last Saturday, was from Iran and bore "Iranian markings," a top US Air Force commander has said.

The commander for southwest Asia at US Air Forces Central Command, Jeffrey Harrigian, claimed on Friday that the missile, which targeted the country's main airport near the capital last Saturday, was Iranian. The projectile, which was downed near the airport of the Saudi capital bore "Iranian markings," according to Harrigian, who added that an investigation was underway into how it was smuggled to Yemen despite the Saudi naval and air blockade.

The missile incident proves that Iran has made it possible for ballistic missile attacks to be launched from Yemen, the official claimed. Harrigian declined to give any specifics on the exact type of missile the US believed it to be.

Quenelle

South Korea shifts towards China as rejects tripartite alliance with US and Japan

china-south-korea flags
South Korea imposes limits on THAAD, rejects tripartite alliance with US and Japan, begins defence talks with China

The big news in Asia this week is not US President Trump's grand but ultimately empty visit to China. It is the quiet steps China and South Korea have begun to take towards each other.

In a recent article for The Duran I discussed how Russian foreign policy seemed to be edging towards a solution to the Korean crisis involving direct Chinese - Russian brokered talks between North and South Korea which would not involve the US.

I also referred to the longstanding Russian projects to build railway lines and gas pipelines across North Korea to South Korea, providing South Korea via North Korea and Russia with a land bridge to Europe, whilst bringing the two Koreas together and binding them closer both economically and politically to the two Great Eurasian Powers ie. Russia and China.

Megaphone

US war on RT like "McCarthyism on steroids" - Neil Clark

rt newsroom
© Evgeny Biyatov / Sputnik
Washington's ultimatum for RT America to register as a foreign agent is a "significant escalation of the war launched against Russian media" which only demonstrates how desperate the US establishment has become, British media expert Neil Clark believes.

"It's quite outrageous that they are having to go back to a piece of legislation that was designed to deal with Nazi propaganda, that's how desperate they got," journalist and writer Neil Clark told RT. On Thursday, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) issued an ultimatum, giving the company which supplies services to RT America until November 13 to register as a foreign agent. The channel's head faces arrest if the broadcaster does not comply with the cited 1938 legislation, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

"What they can't do in America at the moment is literally just take RT off air. They'd love to do that, but that would cause such a scandal," the expert pointed out, saying the unfolding situation is a test to US democracy. While shutting down the Russian channel would be a violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution - protecting basic human rights and social freedoms - those behind the DOJ order "are looking for backdoor ways of increasing the pressure"on Moscow, he said.

Comment: The Russian Embassy rightfully pointed out that the actions of the US government against Russian media sets a "dangerous precedent" and called on US and international watchdog groups to respond, saying the actions of the US government are "aimed at eliminating the source of alternative information." It starts with RT and Sputnik, where does it end?


Info

Fusion GPS offered work to both Trump and Clinton camps: But who's on first?

trump clinton handshake
© PAT BENIC/UPI/Newscom
The same political research firm that prepared a dossier on Trump campaign ties to Russia had unrelated information on Clinton Foundation donors that a Russian lawyer obtained and offered to President Donald Trump's eldest son last year, three sources familiar with the matter said.

The White House and Republican lawmakers have attacked the firm, Fusion GPS, over the dossier compiled by a former British spy that is central to investigations in Congress and by a special counsel into conclusions by U.S. spy agencies that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election and wanted to help Trump win.

The sources told Reuters that the negative information that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya wanted to give to Republican Trump's campaign at a June 2016 meeting in New York had been dug up by Fusion GPS in an unrelated investigation.

Comment: It's quite coincidental that Fusion GPS would be tied not only to the Trump dossier, but also the Trump Jr. meeting, which seemed to confirm information fabricated for that dossier. Perhaps Fusion is just an opportunistic dirt-digging op, but this looks as if the Clinton info (which everyone involved admitted was not so great) was used as bait. The Trump team wisely didn't take it, but even the meeting caused them a PR headache. So is Simpson being honest when he says he had no knowledge of Veselnitskaya's meeting?

See: Honeypot: Was the Trump Camp's Meeting With Russian Lawyer All a Clinton Set-Up?


Stormtrooper

Saudi Arabia on lockdown

Kingdom Center Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
© Faisal Al Nasser / ReutersThe Kingdom Center Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Events in Saudi Arabia are unfolding at a blinding pace, with a radical shift taking place within the upper echelons of government.

Last weekend, King Salman announced the set-up of a special anti-corruption force that wasted no time in rounding up more than a dozen government officials-both former and current-five members of the royal family, and several businessmen. Since then, the list has been growing, to more than 60 as of today.

Now there are reports about the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton being turned into a luxury prison for the detainees. There are rumors-which Riyadh has denied-that one of the targets of the purge, Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd, was killed while resisting arrest. There are also reports that the purge could fill the state coffers with as much as $800 billion in assets seized from those arrested-all members of the Saudi elite.

Star of David

Israel police question Netanyahu for fifth time in corruption probe

netanyahu residence police
© YONATHAN SINDEL/FLASH90Police investigators arrive at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence.
Police interrogators from the Lahav 433 unit arrived at the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday evening to question him over his involvement in police cases 1000 and 2000.

This is the fifth round of questioning for the prime minister in these police cases.

In Case 1000 (also known as the "Gifts Affair"), it is suspected that Netanyahu received expensive gifts from different businessmen. In Case 2000 (dubbed the "Israel Hayom Affair"), he allegedly negotiated with publisher Arnon "Noni" Mozes for favorable coverage of himself in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot in exchange for Mozes' support of a bill to weaken Israel Hayom, the largest circulation Hebrew-language newspaper and Yediot's bitter competitor.

In August it was revealed that Netanyahu is suspected of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Comment: Lock him up already.