Puppet MastersS


USA

Thierry Meyssan: Trump is still fighting the U.S. establishment

trump bannon
Donald Trump dreamt of entering politics in reaction to the events of 9/11, the official version of which he challenged. It is only after his meeting with Steve Bannon that he decided to stand for US President. He made Steve his campaign director and once elected, his special adviser. Forced by members of Congress to sack him, he supports him on the sly to take control of the Republic Party. The two men intend to make the United States a Republic again.
Since the end of July, the US President has created the impression that he's a blusterer, endangering world peace with his ill-considered declarations. In this article, Thierry Meyssan demonstrates that behind these sweeping interventions, Donald Trump has stuck to his foreign policy without making a song and dance of it. This is quite an achievement as almost every member of Congress opposes him. According to Meyssan, what you have here is what is known today as a "communication strategy" (previously known as "double-dealing"). It boils down the President trying to let his friends take control of the Republican Party. This would allow him to rationalize his communication and roll-out his anti-imperialist policy more swiftly.

Trump against the Establishment

During the last three months, the crisis that pits Donald Trump against the US ruling class has not stopped getting tougher. The Republican Party has no qualms about betraying the President, who was one of their own. Thus it has allied itself with Trump's adversary, the Democratic Party, against the White House. On 27 and 28 July, the two parties had Congress adopt Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. What this Act does, is to divest the President of his foreign policy prerogatives [1]: no more, no less.

Our aim here is not to take positions in this conflict. Rather we seek to analyze it to understand the permanent contradictions between words and actions as well as the incoherencies in US foreign policy.

Magnify

Russian Prosecutor General asks for US AG Sessions to investigate British investor William Browder

William Browder
© Drew Angerer / AFPWilliam Browder
The Russian Prosecutor General has requested that US Attorney General Jeff Session launch a probe into alleged tax evasion by British investor and lobbyist William Browder, who was already sentenced to 10 years in prison in Russia for a similar crime.

"Probably there is a chance for Browder's handover by the United Kingdom to the United States so that he could face criminal charges. His switch to British citizenship has not been accidental, he was not paying taxes when he was a US citizen," TASS news agency quoted Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika as saying on Tuesday.

Chaika also said that in his letter to the US Attorney General, he asked him to investigate the "foundation" underlying the Magnitsky Act - the 2012 US regulation that imposes sanctions on Russian individuals and companies over alleged violations of human rights. Sergey Magnitsky was a legal adviser to Browder who died in police custody in 2009 after being arrested by the Russian authorities in connection with a fraud investigation. The adoption of the Magnitsky Act led to reciprocal sanctions on Russia's side and to a cooling in Russia-US relations.

Comment: It's unlikely the US will do anything to help Russia. But it will certainly look bad if they ignore Chaika's suggestion and allow a known criminal to walk free over politics.


Arrow Up

Saudi Prince announces Saudi Arabia will "return to moderate, open Islam"

mecca
© Ahmed Jadallah / ReutersAerial view of Kaaba at the Grand mosque in Mecca
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman has vowed to restore "moderate" Islam that is open to all religions in the world. Saudi Arabia is known for its ultraconservative rule.

"We are returning to what we were before - a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world," he said at an economic forum in Riyadh, as quoted by AFP. "We will not spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. We will destroy them today," he added. "We will end extremism very soon."

Riyadh is known for its adherence to ultra-conservative norms of Islam and strict segregation of men and women. It has long been the only state where women are officially forbidden to drive.

Earlier this year, the crown prince accused Tehran of promoting an "extremist ideology" and having ambitions to "control the Islamic world." Asked if there is any room for dialogue with Iran, the 31-year-old prince replied: "How can I come to an understanding with someone, or a regime, that has an anchoring belief built on an extremist ideology?"

Comment: Saudi Arabia seems to be putting a PR makeover into effect these last weeks: What prompted the move? Decades tied to the hip with the "free and democratic" USA did nothing to blunt their radical Islamic sword. What gives? Something to do with their move toward Russia? Whatever the cause, the Saudis are still delusional when it comes to Iran.


Attention

Trump shoots the US in the foot, limps closer to war with Iran?

eaglegun
© Everytown Research
President Donald Trump has put the United States on the course for war with Iran. That was clearly his objective last Friday when he refused to certify the international nuclear accord with Iran and proclaimed heavy sanctions against Tehran's powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guards Corps. Trump's move was also a clever ploy to deflect blame for abrogating the key 2015 Iran nuclear treaty that the US signed with Iran, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union.

Accusing Iran of 'terrorism' and 'violating the spirit of the accord,' Trump threw the Iran issue into the hands of the Republican-dominated US Congress. He had to. All of Trump's senior national security officials and those from the treaty partners and UN reported that Iran had kept its end of the deal. So Trump trotted out the old song and dance about terrorism - which means anything Uncle Sam does not like. The same United States that supports the murderous Islamic State and its allies in Syria and Iraq.

There won't be much doubt about how Congress handles this hot potato. The leading senators and congressmen who will deal with the issue, like Bob Corker, Tom Cotton, and Marco Rubio, are all firmly in the pocket of pro-Israel lobbies.

The US vociferous ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is almost a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Las Vegas gambling mogul and uber Zionist billionaire, Sheldon Adelson - who is also a key financial backer of Trump and Netanyahu. In fact, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have more influence on Capitol Hill than President Trump. He used to show it off by humiliating former president Barack Obama.

Israel has just scored a major triumph by using Trump to sabotage the Iran nuclear pact. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long been adamant in insisting that the pact be scrapped. Having pushed the US to destroy its old foes, Iraq and Syria, Israel now has its big guns trained on Iran, the last regional power that can challenge Israel's domination of the Mideast. Iran, we should remember, is also the only important Mideast power backing the Palestinians and calling for a Palestinian state.

Comment: This assessment paints a very sad and disturbing picture with several big losers in the offing. Israel is investing negative energy into a US war with Iran. It's one-goal focus has apparently obliterated all external ramifications of this fanaticism, as if the rest of the participants on planet Earth will just stand by as passive observers and let the deed be done without consequence. Not likely. It is a setup and the US, by now, should know that.


Bomb

While Trump threatens N. Korea, the USA still struggles with its lethal legacy

KimJI
© Channel 45 NewsKim Jong-un
"Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is likely to be displaced, tortured, killed or 'disappeared' ... More often than not, the United States shares the blame." -Amnesty International, 1996.

As the US threatens to decimate North Korea again - if not the entire planet, given Donald Trump's chillingly casual approach to the use of nuclear weapons - an article has revealed the criminal legacy remaining from America's last attack, ending sixty four years ago, on a country smaller than [the US state of] Mississippi. (North Korea is a landmass of 120,540 square kilometers, Mississippi is 125,443 square kilometers.)

Major Jong has lost five colleagues in the still ongoing ordnance disposal work and "carries a lighter one [colleague] gave him before he died. He also bears a scar on his left cheek from a bomb disposal mission gone wrong."

In Hamhung, the country's second largest city three hundred and seventy mortar rounds were found in an elementary school playground in October last year, with a rusted, lethal round discovered nearby in February this year.

"Bombs, mortars and pieces of live ammunition" are still found in "thousands." "Virtually all of it is American", but "over a dozen" countries "fought on the US side and every now and then their bombs will turn up as well."

Heart - Black

3-day Russiaphobia seminar at UVA's Miller Center

Russiagate
© twitter
Even as some Democrats are at long last growing frustrated with the lack of actual evidence for the past several months of stories about Russia stealing a U.S. election, Russiagate has penetrated so deeply that Trump's ambassador to the United Nations has declared Russia's alleged crimes to be acts of war. That Russia's fictional actions being warfare would make Donald Trump guilty of treason is really a minor glitch not to be fretted over if we step back and view the situation calmly and wisely from the point of view of the weapons dealers.

The University of Virginia's Miller Center has hardly met a war criminal it didn't love. It's now planning three days of nonstop Russophobia:
"Since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the United States and Russia have been geopolitical and ideological rivals."
That's one way of noting that the U.S. and its allies immediately sent their militaries into Russia to fight against the revolution - an action which had absolutely nothing to do with defending the United States or upholding the rule of law or preventing genocide or expanding women's rights or spreading democracy or respecting national sovereignty, or any of the other pieces of nonsense put forward as excuses for wars these days. In fact, this warmaking was a blatant violation of the sixth of Wilson's 14 Points, and of each of the first five general Points as well.
"In aftermath of the First World War, the Bolshevik challenge to American ideals of democratic capitalism set the tone for the rest of the century."
So, the U.S. sending troops into Russia didn't set any tones, but the Bolsheviks' disagreements with the "democratic capitalism" that is working out so well for us did that.

Comment: 'How to twist history to your advantage,' and other great misconceptions, in just three seminar-packed days.


Clipboard

Polls show a match: Trump's immigration policies with public opinion

Road to Immigration reform
© TapWires
President Donald Trump's two-track immigration policy is a close match for Americans' dual-track American-jobs-first view of immigration, according to polls and immigration experts.

"He exemplifies us because he wants two different things," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "He feels sorry for the DACA [young illegals], and he wants tougher border control, so he is the everyman in this respect," he added.

For example, an August poll by America First Policies showed that 71 percent of Americans want to ensure "that companies offer open jobs to Americans before foreign workers," and 59 percent backed a proposal to trim chain migration. But a large chunk of Americans also support pro-migrant policies - 38 percent of respondents opposed capping the inflow of refugees at 50,000 per year, 37 percent opposed the current rule that immigrants must know English, 44 percent strongly opposed the border wall, and 68 percent said they supported the vague proposal of "providing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants."

Trump's two-sided policy is a much better mirror of the public's two-track opinion than the Democrats' increasingly open favoritism towards legal immigrants and illegal migrants - whom they call 'dreamers' - regardless of the cost to Americans. "Our Dreamers, they make America dream again," House minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi proclaimed during a CNN town hall in October. "They're so lovely and we, frankly, owe a debt to your parents for bringing you here to be such a brilliant part of our future."

Comment: Poll questions and results are dependent upon the make-up of the participating public cross-section, the phrasing or implied meaning of the questions, the underlying psychological intent, and the subsequent interpretation of the pollsters (with or without bias). Polls are never fool-proof. Should Trump's plans match the overall public, perhaps a welcome alignment can occur. If so, it will also reinforce and invigorate the opposition to oppose anything 'Trump'.


Laptop

Judicial Watch: 72K pages of Clinton records recovered by the FBI

clintonemail gaps
© Speaker.gov
State Department Tells Court It Processed only 32,000-And Has Yet to Review 40,000 Clinton Records
Courts Orders Explanation on Processing

Judicial Watch announced that the State Department revealed in a federal court hearing that it has yet to process 40,000 of 72,000 pages of Hillary Clinton records that the FBI recovered last year. The revelation came during a federal court hearing in Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails that were sent or received during her tenure from February 2009 to January 31, 2013 (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00687)). The case is before Judge James E. Boasberg.

The hearing focused on the State Department's progress on processing the tens of thousands of emails Clinton failed to disclose when she served as Secretary of State, some of which were emails sent by Clinton aide Huma Abedin that were found on the laptop of her estranged husband Anthony Weiner. The State Department has processed 32,000 pages of emails so far, a small number of which have been released, but 40,000 pages remain to be processed.


Footprints

128 civilians executed by Daesh for cooperating with Syrian government

Syrian Army
© Sputnik InternationalSyrian Army reportedly kicked out Daesh from suburbs of Qaryatayn Town.
A human rights group has claimed that Daesh executed at least 128 Syrian civilians in the town of Al-Qaryatayn, which has been traded between the militant group and the Syrian Arab Army multiple times. The civilians were massacred in reprisal for collaborating with the government of Bashar al-Assad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the killings occurred over a 20 day period. The Syrian army retook the city in April 2016 after eight months of Daesh occupation. However, Daesh chased the government forces out on October 1 - but the Syrian army regrouped and returned three weeks later, recapturing the city once more with support from Russian airstrikes.

But in that three-week period, Daesh executed 128 residents of the town, which had a population of about 18,000 before the civil war started. The Palmyra Coordination Committee, a local group that supports protest and resistance against the Syrian government, reported that at least 35 of the slain were found with their bodies dumped in a mine shaft.

"After the regime retook it [on Saturday], the town's residents found the bodies on the streets. They had been shot dead or executed with knives," said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of SOHR.

"Most of the [Daesh] fighters who attacked the town a month ago were sleeper cells. They are from the town, know the town's residents and who is for or against the regime," he added.

Binoculars

Best of the Web: Targeting Flynn, shielding Gulen: Why Mueller must step down

Robert Mueller
© AP
General Michael Flynn, Former National Security Advisor to President Trump, is being investigated by Special Counsel for accepting legitimate payments from Turkish companies for researching and exposing Wanted Terrorist and Radical Islamist Fethullah Gulen and his $25+ Billion criminal network in the United States.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is Special Counsel in charge of the case. He is the same Robert Mueller who used his position as Director of the FBI to shield and cover up Gulen's criminal-terrorist network and operations, and take drastic measures to quash a whistleblower's Gulen-related reports. These previous connections and actions by Mr. Mueller create a direct conflict of interest with his current position as Special Counsel in Flynn's case, and require that he must immediately step down from the case.

...............................................

In May 2017 the Justice Department appointed Robert S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I. director, as special counsel to oversee the investigation into ties between President Trump's campaign and Russian officials.

Not long after being appointed Mr. Mueller began targeting former national security adviser Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, expanded the investigation beyond the Russia-Gate probe, and began a furious pursuit of Mr. Flynn's Turkish connections and his vocal stand on the wanted radical Islamic Cleric Fethullah Gulen.