Puppet MastersS


Heart - Black

'We didn't see any Western humanitarian organizations' in eastern Aleppo - Russian lawmakers


Sputnik
Mon, 13 Feb 2017 14:21 UTC
Syrian children Aleppo
© Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
A member of the Russian delegation to Aleppo said Western media made provocative statements and circulated fake images about the situation in the city.

A delegation of lawmakers from the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, did not see any Western humanitarian organizations in the eastern part of the Syrian city of Aleppo during their visit last week, Aleksander Yushchenko, a member of the delegation, said Monday.

"We did not see any Western humanitarian organizations, but we have seen immense, almost nonstop work of the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation, as well as other humanitarian organizations that constantly deliver water and hot meals, providing the necessities for children," Yushchenko said at a press conference in Moscow.

He said Western media made provocative statements and circulated fake images of children in the eastern Aleppo dying.

"We saw with our own eyes that children are now going back to schools that they have not attended for five years," the lawmaker added.

The Russian delegation comprising State Duma lawmakers Yushchenko, Dmitry Sablin, Sergei Gavrilov as well as Russian medics paid a working visit to Syria last week.

The members of the Belgian parliamentary delegation, which also visited Syria last week, said that Western media presented situation in Aleppo as hopeless, ignoring the fact of provision of humanitarian aid by Russia.
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Chess

Professor Tim Anderson: The roles of Iran, Russia & Turkey in Syria's peace process


Khameini
Mon, 13 Feb 2017 13:38 UTC
irán

Professor Tim Anderson is a distinguished author and senior lecturer of political economy at the University of Sydney, Australia. In an interview with Khamenei.ir, he answers questions about the Syrian crisis, the Astana peace talks as well as the role of Iran, Russia and Turkey in the peace process. The following is the full text of the interview:
How would "Astana Talks" help solving the crisis in Syria?
I believe the Astana talks provide another opportunity for the terrorist groups and their backers to give up their useless and destructive path. What has been most significant is that those armed groups which have chosen to attend must confront Syria, Russia, Iran and Turkey, with the USA, al Saud, Qatar, Britain and France excluded. That is a step closer to reality, as the latter group has only played a destructive role, up until now, while the former group is dominated by those in alliance with the Syrian alliance. Turkey alone at Astana represents the sponsors of the al Qaeda groups. Further, the NATO-GCC terrorists come as armed groups and not with the pretence of being a political 'opposition'. If the armed groups (e.g. 'Jaysh al Islam') agree to put down their arms, that will leave the banned terrorist groups more isolated. If they do not agree, no-one can say they were not given an opportunity. What I call the Syrian Alliance (principally Syria, Hezbollah, Iran and Russia) will be seen to have made every effort to avoid bloodshed.

Comment: For more on the West's destructive role in Syria's crisis see: Interview with Flemish priest in Syria: "Putin and Assad saved my life"
"The idea that a popular uprising took place against President Assad is completely false. I've been in Qara since 2010 and I have seen with my own eyes how agitators from outside Syria organized protests against the government and recruited young people. That was filmed and aired by Al Jazeera to give the impression that a rebellion was taking place. Murders were committed by foreign terrorists, against the Sunni and Christian communities, in an effort to sow religious and ethnic discord among the Syrian people. While in my experience, the Syrian people were actually very united.


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Newspaper

NYT revealed Trump administration aborted operation that would have provoked war with Iran

Richard Brand
Russia Insider
Mon, 13 Feb 2017 14:06 UTC
Iranian military ship
The New York Times details an aborted operation that would have very likely started a shooting war with Iran.

Buried in the middle of the New York Times' story on the inner workings of Trump's National Security Council is a revelation almost too terrifying to believe: Last week, the U.S. Navy came close to intercepting and boarding an Iranian ship — allegedly in an attempt to stop the flow of weapons to the Houthis in Yemen.

We don't want to believe it, but frankly Trump's team is so hawkish on Iran, it's hard to completely dismiss:
Last week, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was exploring whether the Navy could intercept and board an Iranian ship to look for contraband weapons possibly headed to Houthi fighters in Yemen. The potential interdiction seemed in keeping with recent instructions from Mr. Trump, reinforced in meetings with Mr. Mattis and Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, to crack down on Iran's support of terrorism.

But the ship was in international waters in the Arabian Sea, according to two officials. Mr. Mattis ultimately decided to set the operation aside, at least for now. White House officials said that was because news of the impending operation leaked, a threat to security that has helped fuel the move for the insider threat program. But others doubt whether there was enough basis in international law, and wondered what would happen if, in the early days of an administration that has already seen one botched military action in Yemen, American forces were suddenly in a firefight with the Iranian Navy.
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Stock Down

Corporate media 'hemorrhaging money' as it loses viewers to alternative news sources


RT
Mon, 13 Feb 2017 13:38 UTC
BBC western media london UK
© David Moir / Reuters
The current trend is that the corporate media is losing viewers, it is losing readership, says Mike Raddie, co-editor of BSNews. People are turning to other forms of journalism, and in some cases even becoming journalists themselves, he added.

WikiLeaks is accusing the BBC of spreading 'fake news' after a senior journalist suggested the whistle-blowing site's revelations lend support to particular candidates in the run-up to France's presidential election.
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Eye 2

Russian investigators find 'irrefutable evidence' Kiev using WMDs against civilians


RT
Mon, 13 Feb 2017 13:38 UTC
Ukraine Kiev OTR-21 Tochka-U mobile missile launch systems tanks army military
© Gleb Garanich / ReutersUkrainian OTR-21 Tochka-U mobile missile launch systems.
The Russian Investigative Committee says it has received rock-solid proof that Kiev's armed forces have been using weapons of mass destruction against civilians in eastern Ukraine.

"The office of the Russian State Investigative Committee, dealing with crimes involving the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare, has discovered and procedurally documented irrefutable evidence that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been using weapons of mass destruction, namely the Tochka-U tactical missile complexes [SS-21 Scarab in NATO classification] against civilians in the armed conflict in the south-east of Ukraine," the investigative committee said in a statement published on its official website on Monday.

The committee also stated that the Tochka-U can fire a wide range of missiles, both conventional and non-conventional, nuclear or chemical.

Comment: Further reading: Furious Putin accuses Merkel of complicity in Kiev's 'destructive acts,' demands she take action
More than any other single individual Merkel is the key player in the diplomatic process known as the Normandy format. By saying that the Ukrainian regime is using the Normandy format to conceal its 'destructive acts' in eastern Ukraine, Putin is accusing Merkel of colluding in the Ukrainian regime's actions.

The Kremlin's summary does not say how Merkel responded. Almost certainly there was a furious row. It is fair to say that Merkel is not accustomed to being spoken to in this forthright fashion, and that she is more in the habit of reading out lectures to others than being on the receiving end of them. Undoubtedly she would have been shocked and furious, but also - given the extent of Putin's anger and the doubts we know she has about the support she is getting from Donald Trump - deeply alarmed.

The last paragraph of the Kremlin summary suggests that Putin warned Merkel to take steps to bring the fighting in eastern Ukraine to a stop - with the implication that action would be taken if she failed to do so - and that she agreed.


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Chess

Kremlin: Putin & Trump will meet at G20 summit in July, no deal yet on earlier meeting


RT
Mon, 13 Feb 2017 13:38 UTC
putin_trump
© Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump are so far scheduled to meet in person at the G20 summit in July, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, noting that there has been no specific arrangement for the meeting to take place earlier.

"We have no specific information regarding the possible meeting between Putin and Trump so far, we have not even considered the dates yet. Assuming that there is a G20 summit in July this year, one way or the other the presidents will meet there, but, as you know, there has been talk about the possibility of an earlier meeting. So far there is nothing specific in this regard," Peskov told the press on Monday.

Last week, Putin said that a possible venue for the first encounter with Trump could be Ljubljana, Slovenia, but stated that the choice of venue did not depend on Moscow alone. Putin noted that he also met with former US President Barack Obama in the Slovenian capital.
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Eagle

Best of the Web: Iran hawks have taken the White House: Flynn's anti-Iran, anti-Islam worldview is pure NeoCon

Philip Giraldi
The American Conservative
Thu, 09 Feb 2017 00:00 UTC
Michael Flynn
© Department of DefenseMichael Flynn.
The United States is adding new sanctions on Iran over that country's alleged misdeeds, and nearly all of those allegations are either out-and-out lies or half-truths. It has a familiar ring to it, as demonizing Tehran has been rather more the norm than not since 1979, a phenomenon that has included fabricated claims that the Iranians killed American soldiers after the U.S.'s armed interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. This time around, the administration focused on the perfectly legal Iranian test of a non-nuclear-capable, medium-range ballistic missile and the reported attack on what was initially claimed to be a U.S. warship by allegedly Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi fighters. The ship was later revealed to be a Saudi frigate.

Donald Trump's national-security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, "officially" put Iran "on notice" while declaring that "The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate Iran's provocations that threaten our interests. The days of turning a blind eye to Iran's hostile and belligerent actions toward the United States and the world community are over."

Ignoring the fact that Iran cannot actually threaten the United States or any genuine vital national interests, the warning and follow-up action from the White House also contradict Donald Trump's campaign pledge to avoid yet another war in the Middle East, which appears to have escaped Flynn's notice. The increase in tension and the lack of any diplomatic dialogue mean that an actual shooting war might now be a "false flag," false intelligence report, or accidental naval encounter away.

Comment: "Hopefully some adults in the White House..."

It's a thought millions if not billions of people around the world - including most Americans - have had for some time now.

The American people hoped that that adult might be Trump. But the 'business restructuring' he'd need to do is likely beyond the scope of even his considerable ego. We shall see...

‌Iran's proven oil reserves of 157 billion barrels are the world's third largest, while its gas reserves are the largest. Taken together, the country owns the biggest hydrocarbon reserves in the world. Now you see why the US wants it (or at least controlling influence over how those resources are used). Same goes for Israel, which has no problems at all with having an actual Islamic neighbor that is "the source and lynchpin of the massive disorder prevailing in the Middle East, with tentacles reaching throughout the region and beyond" via its promotion of radical Wahhabi Islam and head-chopper terrorists... Saudi Arabia.

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Info

Ukraine Revisited: "Washington and Brussels bear considerable responsibility for the 10,000 who have died"

Stephen F. Cohen
The Nation
Mon, 13 Feb 2017 00:00 UTC
Kiev's fascist army
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Now in their fourth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com). With fighting having escalated between the US-backed Kiev government and Russian-backed rebels in Donbass, this week's discussion focuses again on Ukraine's role in the new Cold War since 2013 - 2014.
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Info

Obama's Lost Army: He built a grassroots machine of two million supporters eager to fight for change - then he let it die

Micah L. Sifry
New Republic
Thu, 09 Feb 2017 17:14 UTC
Obama

He built a grassroots machine of two million supporters eager to fight for change. Then he let it die. This is the untold story of Obama's biggest mistake—and how it paved the way for Trump.

On July 20, 2008, Mitch Kapor, the creator of Lotus 1-2-3 and a longtime denizen of Silicon Valley's intellectual elite, dialed in to a conference call hosted by Christopher Edley Jr., a senior policy adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Joining them on the line were some of the world's top experts in crowdsourcing and online engagement, including Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, and Mitchell Baker, the chairman of Mozilla. Drawing on Kapor's influence, Edley had invited them to join a "Movement 2.0 Brainstorming Group." Together, they would ponder a crucial question: how to "sustain the movement" should Obama, who was still a month away from accepting the Democratic nomination, go on to win the White House.

Edley had been a personal friend of Obama's since his days teaching him at Harvard Law School. Their kinship had been underscored the previous summer, when Obama had invited Edley to the Chicago apartment of Valerie Jarrett, the candidate's closest confidant, to deliver a stern lecture to the seasoned political operatives who were running his underdog bid for the presidency. The campaign team had Obama on a relentless pace of town halls and donor calls, and Hillary Clinton had been besting him in the early primary debates. Both Barack and Michelle Obama were unhappy. According to John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's account in Game Change, Edley urged Obama's campaign managers to schedule fewer rallies and fund-raisers, and allow the candidate more time to think and develop innovative policy ideas.
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Target

Why Trump is targeting Iran: He's surrounded by MEK opposition movement

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 12 Feb 2017 22:11 UTC
Donald Trump
The connection of an anti-Iran exile group to senior members in the Trump administration may explain why the US president has taken such a hostile line towards the Islamic Republic, declaring it a "number one state sponsor of terrorism" and slapping new sanctions on Tehran.

Trump's National Security advisor Michael Flynn issued an unusual public statement last week, provocatively claiming that "Iran was being put on notice" for future unspecified actions, including military actions, over its recent ballistic missile tests. Trump himself has weighed in, scorning Iran for destabilizing the Middle East.

It turns out that an Iranian dissident group with suspected links to Israeli and Saudi state intelligence may have the ear of the president in setting his policy.

Comment: Yes, it's interesting that paid MEK lobbyists are hovering around Trump. So much for draining the swamp of pay-to-play foreign interests.

MEK is a bizarre, cult-like 'alternative Iranian government' the US shadow govt has been keeping on ice since the 1980s. Niall Bradley wrote about it here:

Target Iran: America and Israel to Officially Unleash MEK Terrorist Cult

Here's our take on the likely reasons for the US govt's recent urgent cries to 'contain Iran':

Iran war rhetoric and the 'Trump-ordered' dawn raid in Yemen: WWIII isn't 'coming' - It's happening NOW

Further analysis:

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