Puppet MastersS


Radar

Show of force: South Korea conducts bombing drill in response to Pyongyang's missile test


RT
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:47 UTC
South Korean fighter jets
© FILE PHOTO Kim Hong-Ji / ReutersSouth Korean fighter jets take part in a US-South Korea joint live-fire military exercise at a training field near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Pocheon, South Korea April 21, 2017.
Demonstrating its "overwhelming" military force to North Korea, South Korea conducted bombing drills just hours after Pyongyang launched what appeared to be an intermediate range ballistic missile that reportedly fell in Japanese waters.

The show of force, ordered by South Korean president Moon Jae-in, involved four F15K fighter jets dropping MK84 multipurpose bombs on a shooting range near the inter-Korean border in Taebaek, the presidential press secretary told reporters, according to Yonhap.

Moon's chief press secretary, Yoon Young-chan, said the bombing drill was ordered immediately after the National Security Council meeting convened to discuss possible counter measures Seoul could take against Pyongyang's ballistic missile provocation.

"We assessed North Korea's provocations as extremely severe and decided to maintain a vigilant posture in preparation for the possibility of additional provocations by North Korea," the chief of the National Security Council added.
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Bad Guys

Afghanistan and the CIA heroin ratline

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik
Fri, 25 Aug 2017 18:41 UTC
Afghanistan and the CIA Heroin Ratline
© AFP 2017/ Bay ISMOYO
The Persian Gulf harbors an array of extremely compromising secrets. Near the top is the Afghan heroin ratline - with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) positioned as the golden node of a transnational, trillion dollar heroin money laundering operation.

In this 21st century Opium War, crops harvested in Afghanistan are essentially feeding the heroin market not only in Russia and Iran but especially in the US. Up to 93% of the world's opium comes from Afghanistan.

Contrary to predominant Western perception, this is not an Afghan Taliban operation. The key questions - never asked by Atlanticist circles - are who buys the opium harvests; refines them into heroin; controls the export routes; and then sell them for humongous profit compared to what the Taliban have locally imposed in taxes.

The hegemonic narrative rules that Washington bombed Afghanistanin 2001 in "self-defense" after 9/11; installed a "democratic" government; and after 16 years never de facto left because this is a key node in the Global War on Terror (GWOT), against al-Qaeda and the Taliban alike.

Washington spent over $100 billion in Afghan reconstruction. And, allegedly, $8.4 billion in "counternarcotics programs". Operation Enduring Freedom - along with the "liberation" of Iraq - have cost an astonishing several trillion dollars. And still the heroin ratline, out of occupied Afghanistan, thrives. Cui bono?
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Che Guevara

Fake News media finally discovers Antifa... only to defend its violence

Katie Pavlich
Townhall
Tue, 29 Aug 2017 01:46 UTC
antifa
© Robin Rayne Nelson / ZUMA Press / Global Look Press
After declaring the "alt-left" is a made up concept that doesn't exist, it seems the liberal media has finally caught on to the violent, alt-left group Antifa.

Over the weekend at UC Berekely Antifa rioters showed up and engaged in violent beat downs against who they perceived as "neo-Nazi" opponents, which included assaulting members of the media.

The Washington Post took notice, reporting "Black-clad antifa attack peaceful right wing demonstrators in Berkeley."

Comment: Further reading: Masked Antifa thugs violently attack Trump supporters at Berkley free speech rally

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MIB

The real threat to our republic: The Orwellian and fascistic Antifa

Ned Ryun
The Hill
Sun, 27 Aug 2017 07:00 UTC
two minutes of hate
'Two minutes of Hate' scene in the film adaptatation of George Orwell's 1984
Over the past few months, we have finally entered the fully realized historical revisionism promised in George Orwell's "1984," in which the motto, "Who controls the present controls the past. Who controls the past controls the future," was central to shaping the book's dystopian world. In the book, history was continually being rewritten and re-promulgated to meet the political necessities of the moment. There was no history to be remembered, let alone lessons to be learned.

For all the talk of Trumpian bluster or exaggeration, there is only one group that seeks to systematically and violently achieve its goals here in the United States on a broad scale: the so-called "anti-fascist" movement, now commonly called "Antifa." And the goal? It's not "anti-fascist" or "anti-racist" as they attempt to portray themselves. It's the systematic elimination of free speech, free assembly, and free thought via any means necessary, including violent protest, the media and Orwellian revisionism.

It is the imposition of a perverse type of intolerance based on Marxist and Chinese communist values that, it turns out, is far more welcome and pervasive within the Democrat Party of Sens. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) than neo-Nazis, the KKK and white supremacists are in the Republican Party. The gunman, James Hodgkinson, who shot Rep. Steve Scalise and four others in Alexandria was a habitual Antifa website visitor and advocate and Sanders volunteer. Even Democrat vice presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine's (D-Va.) son has been identified as an Antifa activist.
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Star of David

Israel goes to Washington and Sochi, Russia to try and cut its losses in Syria - but cannot now even do that

Yossi Melman
Middle East Eye
Thu, 24 Aug 2017 13:49 UTC
Israel in Syria
They hoped Assad would fall. Then they wished Syria would fall apart, taking Hezbollah with it. Despite recent efforts, the Israelis may now find themselves staring down the group on two fronts

As Iran consolidates its presence and influence in Syria, Israel fears that its "Syrian policy" is collapsing. To cut its losses, the Jewish state has embarked on a new and urgent diplomatic-intelligence initiative spearheaded by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disrupted Russian President Vladimir Putin's summer holiday and flew to Sochi. He was accompanied by Cohen.

Last week, Cohen led a senior intelligence delegation, which included the chief of Israeli military intelligence Major-General Hertzi Halevi, to Washington for meetings with their counterparts.

In both meetings, the Israelis urged the Americans and Russians to put an immediate stop the deployment of Iranian, Lebanese Hezbollah and their Shia militias from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq near the Israeli border on the Golan and ask them leave Syria later on.

But according to well-informed Israeli sources, the missions failed. The Trump administration has decided to abandon its involvement in Syria once the Islamic State (IS) group is defeated, which will most probably happen in a matter of a few months.

Comment: Do not be surprised if Israel - out of desperation - tries some despicable new aggression or provocation towards Syria, or even Iran. It may be overt, or it may be 'by deception'; they will not allow their pathological plan for a 'Greater Israel' to be thwarted.

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Vader

US, allies used "diplomatic flights" as cover to smuggle weapons to terrorist groups

Jason Ditz
AntiWar.com
Sun, 27 Aug 2017 17:53 UTC
U.S. arms shipments terrorists
Azerbaijan's Silk Way Airlines transports weapons with diplomatic clearance for Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo

A Bulgarian reporter has uncovered evidence that the United States and its allies, notably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have been using Azerbaijan's Silk Way Airlines to ferry entire planeloads of weapons to Syrian militants, some of which ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda's Nusra Front.

Some 350 different flights, all labeled "diplomatic" flights to avoid being searched for weapons, were sent into the area, generally carrying arms purchased in Eastern Europe, so as to disguise the country that was actually sending them.

This was the mechanism through which the since ended CIA program to arm Syrian rebels was conducted, and they apparently encouraged both Saudis and the Emirates to use the same trick. Exact figures on weapons sent aren't total clear, but the US sent around $1 billion worth of arms by themselves.

Comment: Tweet from the reporter who broke this story.



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Attention

North Korea fires missile through Japan's airspace setting off warning system


RT
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 22:28 UTC
N. Korea missile launch
© Kim Hong-Ji / Reuters
Pyongyang has launched a missile which, according to the Japanese and South Korean governments, passed through northern Japan's airspace.

The Japanese government activated its J-Alert warning system after North Korea fired an unidentified missile early Tuesday morning.

The North Korean missile passed over Japanese territory around 6:06am local time, Reuters reports. The Japanese military did not attempt to shoot down the missile but warned people to take precautions.

Meanwhile, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Pyongyang fired a "projectile... in the direction of the East Sea (Sea of Japan) at 5:57am," according to Yonhap.
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Radar

Russian MOD reports ISIS moving heavy weapons to Deir ez-Zor to protect its 'last stronghold' in Syria


RT
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 20:14 UTC
Islamic State video showing militants with a tank
© ZUMA Press / Global Look PressIslamic State video showing militants with a tank in an area described as Wilayah al-Khayr near Deir ez-Zor, Syria, January 13, 2016.
Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL) terrorists have started moving tanks and other heavy weaponry to the Deir ez-Zor area in a desperate attempt to hold their positions in the region following the successful offensive of the Syrian Army, the Russian defense ministry has said.

"Following the successful offensive action of the Syrian Armed Forces group supported by the Russian Air Forces in the Ghanem Ali area, Islamic State terrorists try to regroup and establish fortified defensive positions in the Deir ez-Zor area," the ministry said in statement.

It added the extremists are deploying heavy weapons, "including tanks, all-terrain vehicles with high-caliber weapons and mortars mounted on them."
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Star of David

Is anyone listening? Netanyahu complains to UN chief Israel is being treated unfairly


RT
Mon, 28 Aug 2017 20:05 UTC
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Jerusalem
© Heidi Levine / ReutersIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Jerusalem August 28, 2017.
The UN is treating Israel unfairly by diminishing its ties to Jerusalem and not doing enough to curb arms deliveries to Hezbollah, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, complained to visiting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Monday.

Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the UN in the presence of Guterres, who is in the Middle East to try and facilitate the resumption of peace talks between Israel and Palestine.

Netanyahu said the United Nations treats Israel unfairly and "absurdly denies" Jewish connections to Jerusalem which Israel claims as its capital, while the UN views East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory which Israel occupied illegally under international law.
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X

Best of the Web: How does the deep state tie down Trump?

Alastair Crooke
Consortium News
Sat, 26 Aug 2017 00:00 UTC
Trump capitol
© InfoWars
America's Deep State players have tied down President Trump on Russian sanctions and other foreign and economic policies but that doesn't mean the struggle is over, writes ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.

President Trump has had his foreign policy hands and feet tied by the Russia (and Iran) Sanctions Act. He now has been rendered "helpless": in respect to détente with Russia - gulliverized, spitefully, by his own party, working with the Democrats, to empty Trump's constitutional prerogatives in foreign policy - and to seize them for Congress.

And in a further humiliation, Trump has been "rolled" by his military minders (Generals James Mattis, H.R. McMaster and John Kelly) on his Afghan policy: he has relinquished civilian oversight of this military expedition in Afghanistan to McMaster and Mattis - the former being the presumed author of the "new" Afghan policy. The President was "rolled" on his foreign military prerogatives too - as Commander in Chief - by his triumvirate of military minders in the White House. The "civilian" leadership has given place to the "military."

The question is whether these humiliating concessions will appease his opponents sufficiently to allow the President to "live on," albeit as an incapacitated President, or is this just the hors d'oeuvre? It seems that the entrée may be being planned as the complete discrediting of Trump's base - ordinary Republicans being lashed to the Trump "Titanic" - to be sunk along with its captain - as "white-supremacists, white bigots and Nazis."

Comment: In some respects, Trump has had to give away whole chunks of his power in order to keep the wolves at bay. His team has dissipated and those left to advise him seem to be those in place with varying and different agendas. Will his personality, quick-to-judgement tendencies, and brashness give way to his forte of keeping them guessing while working behind the scenes, or is he deluding himself that what he can do matters?

His best and only choice may be the support of the people, if he manages to wake them up. Even then, he will not be able to control the deep state, the heavy-handed influence of Israel, nor likely prevent a civil war. We can speculate the last thing the deep state wants is a rejuvenated American public that pays attention to its circumstances and will go all out to keep that from happening.

Pay attention to the upcoming 'debt ceiling deal'; this may very well be the moment the phony leveraging of 'the markets' is suspended and economic hell breaks loose.

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