Puppet MastersS


War Whore

US struggles to explain soaring civilian death toll in Iraq, Syria

Jason Ditz
Antiwar.com
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 15:17 UTC
civilian death toll iraq
© Getty Images
While the Pentagon's "official" civilian death toll for its air war in Iraq and Syria is preposterously low, less than 10% the estimate of credible NGOs in the area, there is no denying that the deaths are soaring in recent weeks, with incidents like the March 17 Mosul attack killing hundreds of civilian bystanders at a time.

The Pentagon's narrative has jumped all over the place, from denial to defiance, but the big problem is that they're struggling to explain why the civilian death toll is rising so precipitously despite claiming that there has been no policy change related to the air war.

President Trump's promises of a more aggressive air war, and campaign talk of killing terrorists' families, are behind the spike, and talk of increased freedom of operation for commanders in both countries, which started coming just ahead of the rising toll, means the denial of a policy change isn't credible.
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Gear

Google's new 'fact-checker' seeks to force-feed mainstream media lies


Sputnik
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 12:56 UTC
google
The initial goal of Google's fact-checking feature was not to protect readers from fake news, but rather to give momentum to the mainstream media amid the Western public's unwillingness to accept their monopoly on objectivity, the Vice-President of the Movement for Changes (MfC) and Montenegrin parliamentarian Koca Pavlovic told Sputnik on Tuesday.

On Friday, Google said in an official blog post that the company had launched the feature, to be available worldwide, in which news and results of searches would be evaluated by such mainstream media outlets as The Associated Press, the BBC, the CNN and The Washington Post.

"The problem is not that the Western public has suddenly succumbed, en masse, to the spell of 'alternative facts' promoted by 'fake news' outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Mail. The problem is, rather, that Western public is less and less ready to accept the mainstream media's posture of objectivity and its claimed monopoly on journalistic opinion-making," Pavlovic said.

Comment: Google's new fact checker looks to be destined for the same fate as Google Wave, Google Audio Ads, and Jaiku. People are fed up with the distortions and outright lies of mainstream media. Trying to force-feed garbage will not help Google's credibility.

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Light Saber

Senator Richard Black: 'Major problem of US govt - President surrounded by warmongers'


RT
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:53 UTC
trump mattis
© ReutersU.S. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis.
President Trump is under the influence of warmongers whose bread is buttered by violence, and are connected with the war industry blocking the President from getting really good people placed in office, says Virginia State Senator Richard Black.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis claims last week's US missile strike on a Syrian airbase damaged or destroyed 20 percent of the country's air force.

He also warned Syria against using chemical weapons, an allegation Damascus denies.

The sudden pivot by President Trump on the Syrian conflict appears to break a campaign promise many of his supporters once praised him for: namely, abstaining from routine military intervention abroad.
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Red Flag

Washington raising red flag over possible Russian control of US energy supplier


RT
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:57 UTC
Citgo refinery
© John Gress / Reuters
Several US members of Congress have warned the White House of an imminent risk should Russia's largest oil company Rosneft take control of Venezuela's Texas-based oil company Citgo.

Citgo, founded in 1910 by an Oklahoma businessman, was sold to Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA in 1990.

Last year 49.9 percent of the Houston-based corporation's shares were offered as collateral when PDVSA obtained a loan of $1.5 billion from Russia's Rosneft. Members of Congress are expressing serious concerns that Venezuela may default and hand Citgo over to Rosneft.

"We are extremely concerned that Rosneft's control of a major US energy supplier could pose a grave threat to American energy security, impact the flow and price of gasoline for American consumers, and expose critical US infrastructure to national security threats," a bipartisan group in Congress wrote in a letter to US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Monday.
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Snakes in Suits

Turning reality on its head: US and UK accuse Russia of 'war crimes' in Syria

Finian Cunningham
RT
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 14:42 UTC
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L) and Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson
© Max Rossi / Reuters
Only days after US President Donald Trump blasted Syria with cruise missiles killing nine civilians, Washington and London are accusing Russia of war crimes. It's transparent, sordid and absurd.

If anyone can be accused of war crimes, it is President Trump who ordered 59 Tomahawk missiles to murderously hit Syria last Friday. That barrage on the airbase at Shayrat and surrounding villages, in Homs Province, killed nine civilians, including four children, according to the local governor Talal Barazi.

It was a massacre at the hands of the US Commander-in-Chief and clearly an act of aggression on a sovereign country. Regardless of the stated rationale - revenge for an alleged chemical weapons attack three days before - the American president was acting above the law. Not only international law but even the laws of his country, in that he did not first seek approval from Congress for carrying out the air strike.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made the correct legal call in denouncing Trump's actions as a violation of international law.
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Chess

Domestic sideshow: Trump fires warning shot in battle between advisors Bannon and Kushner

Jeremy W. Peters and Maggie Haberman
New York Times
Fri, 07 Apr 2017 14:20 UTC
Bannon McMaster
© Doug Mills/The New York Times Bannon, the chief White House strategist, with Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, second from left, during a meeting with President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China in Palm Beach, Fla., on Friday.
As he grappled on Thursday with his first major decision involving military action, a fed-up and frustrated President Trump turned to his two top aides and told them he had had enough of their incessant knife-fights in the media.

"Work this out," Mr. Trump said, according to two people briefed on the exchange. The admonition was aimed at Stephen K. Bannon, the tempestuous chief strategist, and Reince Priebus, the mild-mannered chief of staff, over a series of dust-ups with Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, and the top economic adviser, Gary D. Cohn.

But they may not be able to.

The president is said to be aware that a meaningful reconciliation will take work to achieve between Mr. Bannon, who sees himself as the keeper of Mr. Trump's campaign promises, and the competing ideologies of Mr. Kushner and Mr. Cohn, a longtime Wall Street executive and a Democrat. And he is considering a shake-up of his senior staff, according to four people with direct knowledge of the process.

Comment: More from Axios:
Steve Bannon, the engine and soul of President Trump's hard-edged approach to his first months in office, is increasingly isolated and will be forced out unless he can adopt a more cooperative approach, a top source told me.

On both style and substance, Bannon got crosswise with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who are pushing for a more competence- and results-driven focus for the West Wing.

In their view, Bannon is too inclined to want to burn things down and blow things up. They want a more open process driven by the interests of the president, not ideology.

A senior official said Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is "with the program" of a more inclusive style, and will stay. Insiders have been feverishly discussing possible replacements and Trump considered a change, but the official said: "Reince is staying."

The latest from the "Game of Thrones," on location in Mar-a-Lago this weekend:
  • The changing culture: Here are the two crucial words to understand the outgoing style and incoming style: We're told that rather than "nationalist" vs. "globalist," think of "combat" vs. "collaboration."
  • How the Bannon bubble burst: The last straw for his internal critics: news stories portraying Bannon as the keeper of the Trump flame, in opposition to Jared, Ivanka and economic adviser Gary Cohn — all New Yorkers.
  • Playing defense: Bannon's allies both inside and outside the White House are scrambling to try to save his job, Axios' Jonathan Swan reports. They argue that getting rid of Bannon will cost Trump among his "America First" constituency, and that Trump's key to victory is to keep his base motivated.
  • What's next: This weekend, Bannon, Kushner and Priebus are having discussions about whether the marriage can be saved: "Either Steve becomes a team player and gets along with people, or he'll be gone."
The first point is telling. It seems the neocons are sneaking in their agenda under softer words. 'Hegemony" is so harsh compared to 'collaboration'. But every thinking person knows how the neocons define 'collaboration'.

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Info

Potential smart bomb sales to Saudi Arabia questioned by US lawmakers


RT
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:23 UTC
Saudi-led warplanes struck a funeral in Sanaa
© Khaled Abdullah / ReutersSmoke rises from the community hall where Saudi-led warplanes struck a funeral in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, October 9, 2016.
A group of US lawmakers wrote to the presidential administration asking for more information about a potential sale of smart bombs, aka precision-guided munitions (PGM), to Saudi Arabia. They expressed concern over widespread civilian casualties in Yemen.

The letter, dated April 6, is addressed to Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

"We write to request information related to the operational conduct of the Royal Saudi Air Force in Yemen," the letter states.
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No Entry

Danish government proposes law change to block Russian gas to Europe


RT
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:21 UTC
oil pipes
© Christian Charisius / Reuters
The European Commission has refused to comment on a proposal by the Danish government to modify the country's laws allowing it to block the construction of a Russian natural gas pipeline to Europe.

Earlier this week, a bill was put to the Danish parliament to make sure foreign, and security policy is considered when assessing the approval of projects such as Nord Stream-2.

According to the Danish energy ministry, the present regulations do not allow Denmark to decide on permits for transit pipelines to pass through Danish waters due to foreign policy considerations.

"We want to have the possibility to say yes or no from a perspective of security and foreign policy," said Energy and Climate Minister Lars Christian Lilleholt, adding that it was the only possible way to veto such projects due to environmental concerns.
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Magnify

Trump's son hints Ivanka may have pushed for Syria missile strike


RT
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:06 UTC
ivanka donald trump
© Carlo Allegri / Reuters
Ivanka Trump may have encouraged her father to launch missile strikes against Syria, which Washington says came in response to a chemical weapons attack at a rebel-held town in the province of Idlib, Donald Trump's son, Eric, hinted.

"Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence. I'm sure she said: 'Listen, this is horrible stuff,'" Eric Trump told the Telegraph.

He said that his father "will act in times like that."

"And by the way, he was anti doing anything with Syria two years ago," he added. "Then a leader gasses their own people, women and children. At some point America is the global leader and the world's superpower has to come forward and act and they did with a lot of support of our allies and I think that's a great thing."

Comment: It has to concern every American that there are people in power in the US who will let their emotions control their thinking to the point that they will recklessly and illegally bomb another country over unproven accusations. Ivanka and Donald need to step back, take a breath, and look at the evidence behind what's being said before any action is taken.

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Bomb

Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev denies extremist views in FBI interview


RT
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:03 UTC
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnarn
© ReutersDzhokhar (L) and Tamerlan Tsarnaev
The FBI has released an interview with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers, conducted before the 2013 attack. In it, he denied any Islamic extremist views and claimed four mysterious men tried to contact him two years before the bombings.

The recently released interview summary, called a 302, was carried out in April 2011 by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in Boston (Boston JTTF). The JTTF approached Tsarnaev after Russian intelligence officials alerted US authorities that Tsarnaev posed a threat to national security.

In 2013, Tsarnaev was killed during a shootout with police a few days after the Boston Marathon bombing, in which three people were killed, including an eight-year-old boy, and more than 260 others injured.
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