Puppet MastersS


Binoculars

Why did Intercept withhold document that could have altered course of Syrian war?

Whitney Webb
MintPress News
Mon, 30 Oct 2017 21:03 UTC
intercept greenwald scahill poitras
On Tuesday, the Intercept published a hitherto unknown document from the trove of National Security Administration (NSA) documents leaked by Edward Snowden over three years ago. The document was notable as it shed light on the early days of the Syrian conflict and the fact that, for the past six years, so-called "revolutionary" groups aimed at toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have largely acted as proxies for foreign governments pushing regime change.

The document explicitly reveals that an attack led by the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which was intended to mark the anniversary of the 2011 "uprising" that sparked the Syrian conflict, was directed by a Saudi prince. The document proves, in essence, that the armed opposition in Syria - from the earlier years of the conflict - was under the direct command of foreign governments pushing for regime change.

According to the document, Saudi Prince Salman bin Sultan had ordered the FSA to "light up Damascus" and "flatten" the city's civilian airport. The Saudis had also "sent 120 tons of explosives/weapons to opposition forces" for the operation. The Saudis, as the document notes, were "very pleased" with the outcome, which claimed at least 60 lives.

Comment: The Intercept is a joke. It has consistently provided biased coverage of the war in Syria in favor of the terrorists. In that regard, it is little different than RFE/RL or any other mainstream hack rag. Good job selling out, Greenwald.

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Attention

Nigerien soldier contradicts Pentagon narrative: Special forces were on search-and-destroy mission


Sputnik
Mon, 06 Nov 2017 20:58 UTC
us soldier coffin
© AP Photo/ Staff Sgt. Aaron J. Jenne/U.S. Air Force
A Nigerien soldier who survived the Daesh ambush that claimed eight lives in early October has told the Washington Post that the US special forces were assisting Niamey in a search and destroy operation - which runs counter to the Pentagon's claim that the troops were on a simple and low-risk reconnaissance mission when they were killed.

Speaking over the phone from the town of Agadez in central Niger, Sgt. Abdou Kané, 28, told the Post that the ambush was well-planned and well-executed on the part of the militants. Kané, who was shot in the leg during the battle, said that the insurgents used a herd of cows as a distraction, then attacked with rocket launchers and truck-mounted heavy machine guns.

Kané claims that the dozen Americans of the group, who had better and more sophisticated weapons, did the bulk of the fighting. "The Americans were telling us not to flee but to go back and fight the enemy. But the enemy was following us and shooting at us," said Kané, adding that some Nigerien troops fled the site of the battle.

Comment: "Outside the scope of U.S. rules of engagement." What a surprise!

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Cowboy Hat

Bush Jr. worried he'll be "last Republican president" - White House responds

Alicia Cohn
The Hill
Sat, 04 Nov 2017 20:51 UTC
george w bush
Former President George W. Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, both criticize President Trump in a new book to be released this month, with George W. Bush admitting that, despite Trump's political affiliation, he's worried "that I will be the last Republican president."

George H.W. Bush also calls Trump a "blowhard" in the book, "The Last Republicans," by Mark K. Updegrove, which was previewed by The New York Times and CNN on Friday.

"I don't like him. I don't know much about him, but I know he's a blowhard. And I'm not too excited about him being a leader," the senior Bush said, according to the author. He also commented on Trump's "ego."

"Wow, this guy doesn't know what it means to be president," the younger Bush said. He indicated that a president should not "exploit the anger, incite it" but rather "come up with ideas to deal with it."

Comment: This is rich coming from Bush the Younger, also known as the dry drunk who couldn't string together a coherent sentence during his two terms as nominal president. The White House had its own response:
"The American people voted to elect an outsider who is capable of implementing real, positive, and needed change - instead of a lifelong politician beholden to special interests," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement to The Hill. "If they were interested in continuing decades of costly mistakes, another establishment politician more concerned with putting politics over people would have won."

In another statement reported by CNN, a White House source slammed the Bush legacy.

"If one presidential candidate can disassemble a political party, it speaks volumes about how strong a legacy its past two presidents really had," the White House said, according to CNN.
Touche.
The preview of the new book also follows a speech by George W. Bush in which he said "bigotry seems emboldened" in the United States, and warned that Americans need to reject "white supremacy."

The younger Bush didn't mention Trump by name during the speech, and a spokesman said Bush's remarks were "a long-planned speech on liberty and democracy."

But in the new book, George W. Bush said his concerns about Trump's candidacy included the country's growing "nativism" and "isolationism."

Both Bushes offer their thoughts on the Iraq War in the book. George W. Bush says the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, "changed the equation" in Iraq and demanded a change in policy.

"I'm very comfortable that when people fully analyze my decisions in the proper context, they will understand why my foreign policy-not in the principles of U.S. leadership but in the application-was different," George W. Bush said.

But the White House said the Bush legacy "begins with the Iraq war, one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in American history."

George H.W. Bush said in the book that Bush's decision on the Iraq War "will be seen as the right thing to do."

"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy," George H.W. Bush said. "I think history will be okay with it."
Looks like Bush has gone full Hillary.

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Bandaid

Donna Brazile, you owe an apology to Julian Assange

H. A. Goodman
Huffington Post
Sat, 04 Nov 2017 20:43 UTC
Donna Brazile talks with CNN correspondent Dana Bash at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 25, 2016.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington PostDonna Brazile talks with CNN correspondent Dana Bash at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 25, 2016. Brazile writes that she reluctantly took over as DNC chairwoman that month.
I thought Russia interfered in the election?

I thought Russian interference revolved around hackers breaching the Democratic National Committee.

The alleged hack informed voters of Bernie Sanders being cheated, which is said to have been the goal of Vladimir Putin, in a nefarious attempt at both educating Americans of their dysfunctional political system and simultaneously helping his preferred candidate, Trump.

The Russians, in their attempt to influence voters towards Trump, allegedly spread emails through WikiLeaks which detailed overt collusion between the DNC, media and the Clinton campaign to cheat Bernie Sanders during the primary.

Now Donna Brazile has bolstered the same claims initially publicized through "hacked" emails?

What?

In her new book, POLITICO reported that Brazile believes exactly what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks warned Americans about in 2016.

How could this be?

Could the Russians have now influenced Donna Brazile? After all, there's a mountain of evidence regarding Russia interfering in the election.

Comment: Hillary Clinton has been officially outed as having rigged the Democratic primary so that she would win. She was therefore ineligible as a Presidential candidate, yet the deep state media continues to cover this up and insists on focusing on the "Russia collusion" non-story. The situation is so farcical that it's fair to say that today American politics bears more similarity to that of a banana republic than the 'world's greatest democracy'.

The US political system looks like one of THE most corrupt and undemocratic political systems in the world. It's worse even than dictatorships. At least with a dictator no one is being fooled. In the USA, the totalitarian 'elite' have been fooling every single American for decades.

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Biohazard

Tony Podesta lobbied for Russia's 'Uranium One' and failed to file as a foreign agent

Richard Pollock
The Daily Caller
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 07:57 UTC
Podesta and Mueller
Tony Podesta's lobbying firm, the Podesta Group, represented the Russian-owned company Uranium One during former President Barack Obama's administration and did not register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, The Daily Caller News Foundation has determined.

Podesta collected lobbying fees of $180,000 from Uranium One, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, that discloses lobbying documents filed with Congress. The uranium company states on its web site it is a "wholly owned subsidiary" of RUSANO, the Russian State Corporation for Nuclear Energy.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller already is scrutinizing Podesta and his firm for allegedly failing to register as a lobbyist for the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, a Ukrainian government entity. His role there is tied up with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort who was indicted on 12 counts on Oct. 30, including the failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

A cabinet-led federal committee that included former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, approved the sale of Uranium One to RUSANO in 2010, that permitted Russia to acquire twenty percent of America's uranium reserves.

Comment: See also: 7 Uranium One facts every American should know

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Pistol

Israel's badly kept secret: Making money off of war, all over the planet

Yossi Melman
Middle East Eye
Wed, 01 Nov 2017 20:30 UTC
Sudan People Liberation Army
© AFPSudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers carry heavy weapons near Alole, northern South Sudan, on 16 October 2016.
Israel prides itself as being a free, democratic society, part of the Western world. Well not exactly. At least when it comes to two significant areas.

One, towering above all, is the occupation of the West Bank under the iron fist of the Israeli military and depriving its Palestinian residents of basic civil and democratic rights.

The second area in which the lack of transparency is evident and the government has tried to quash information is military-security exports. Here, too, the censor is omnipresent and suppresses any information that can potentially embarrass the government and security establishment for its weapon sales to dictators, rogue regimes, violators of human rights and other dubious governments.
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Seismograph

Political upheaval in progress: Saudi Royalty arrests threaten to rock Clinton-Obama cabal

Zach Haller
Medium
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
In a shocking development Saturday, the Saudi Arabian government arrested prominent billionaire Waleed bin Talal, a member of the royal Saudi family with deep ties to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Arrests were carried out by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's recently-formed anti-corruption committee and included bin Talal, ten senior princes, and dozens of ministers for corruption and money laundering charges.


Comment: Whether you think these arrests come from a well placed intention to clean up Saudi Arabia's dealings and improve its world standing - or you think bin Salman is on a Mafia-like mass rampage and consolidation of power, one thing's for certain - some very important people to the Clintons and Obama are now being squeezed in a major way. If the Trump team did want to go after Clinton/Obama, their best opportunity would seem to be now.

See:

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Map

Syrian Army reaches Iraqi border near ISIS-held Al-Bukamal - close to linking up with Iraqi Army

Paul Antonopoulos
Fort Russ
Mon, 06 Nov 2017 19:14 UTC
al-bukamal syria map
The Syrian Army (SAA) and their allies Hezbollah and the Iranian-organized Fatemiyoun, have reached the Iraqi border just to the southwest of the ISIS-held town of al-Bukamal in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor province.

Following the withdrawal of the predominately Shi'ite Popular Mobilization Units militia from al-Qaim with the Iraqi Army taking over security of the town, [al-Qaim is an Iraqi town directly opposite al-Bukamal] pro-Syrian government forces have set their eyes on liberating the last major town that ISIS controls.

Pro-government forces must liberate Akash fields before they can set their eyes on al-Bukamal.

Al-Bukamal will prove to be difficult to take as most ISIS fighters withdrew from al-Qaim before Iraqi forces arrived.

Some reports suggest that ISIS are withdrawing from al-Bukamal, but that remains to be seen if it true or not.

Comment: Another strategic victory: the Syrians managed to reach this border area before the U.S.-backed SDF could claim it as their own. Once they take the town, this will establish the first Iraqi-Syrian land connection since ISIS occupied the whole of eastern Syria.

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Cheeseburger

Another leak: Mueller reportedly has enough evidence to bring charges against Flynn

Julia Ainsley, Carol E. Lee, Ken Dilanian
NBC News
Sun, 05 Nov 2017 18:37 UTC
flynn
© Sam Hodgson for The New York TimesAn inquiry is examining whether Michael T. Flynn was secretly paid by the Turkish government.
Federal investigators have gathered enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation of President Donald Trump's former national security adviser and his son as part of the probe into Russia's intervention in the 2016 election, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.

Michael T. Flynn, who was fired after just 24 days on the job, was one of the first Trump associates to come under scrutiny in the federal probe now led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Mueller is applying renewed pressure on Flynn following his indictment of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, three sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

The investigators are speaking to multiple witnesses in coming days to gain more information surrounding Flynn's lobbying work, including whether he laundered money or lied to federal agents about his overseas contacts, according to three sources familiar with the investigation.

Mueller's team is also examining whether Flynn attempted to orchestrate the removal of a chief rival of Turkish President Recep Erdogan from the U.S. to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars, two officials said.

Comment: Another "Russian collusion" nothingburger, brought to you by Mopey Mueller.

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Binoculars

Ex-Lebanese PM denies being under house arrest

Samer Hussein (translator)
Breakingnews.sy / Fort Russ
Mon, 06 Nov 2017 18:31 UTC
hariri salman
Hariri, left, meets with his over-seer, Crown Prince MBS, stock photo from May 2017
The now former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri denied the reports of his arrest.

According to the Saudi news agency, Hariri met with the ruling king of the Saudi regime, Salman bin Abdul Aziz, on Monday.

During the meeting, the two reportedly reviewed the latest developments in Lebanon.

On Saturday, Hariri while visiting the Saudi capital city of Riyadh, publicly announced his resignation, citing possible attempts on his life, as well as the growing influence of Hezbollah and Iran in the region as the main reasons behind his decision.

Merely hours after his sudden resignation, the Saudi regime began with series of arrests of several Suadi princes (Al Waleed bin Talal including) and high-ranking officials, made within the scope of an anti-corruption campaign, launched by the newly formed anti-corruption committee, headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

It is possible that Hariri was indeed forced to resign and could be under house arrest at the moment.

Some unverified sources claim he is currently in the royal palace.

Comment: Hariri's forced resignation looks less like an attack on Lebanese politics and more like the first part of MBS's latest purge. One of Hariri's business partners was also targeted for arrest (and died in the ensuing gunfight). See:

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