Puppet MastersS


Chess

US in turmoil as Trump confronts the Washington Establishment

Salman Rafi Sheikh
New Eastern Outlook
Wed, 01 Mar 2017 12:48 UTC
Donald Trump
© REUTERS/ Carlos Barria
With the departure of the Trump's national security adviser, political crisis in the US has only deepened and is likely to exacerbate into a full-fledged struggle for power and control between Trump and what some call 'deep-state.'

While Donald Trump is an elected president of the United States of America, he doesn't seem to be able to exercise power in actual terms. This is evident from the way a so-called 'pro-Russian' adviser has been forced to resign. Following this resignation an intense debate has emerged in the US, leading a considerable number of people, 48 per cent according to a recent poll, reject the way Trump has performed in the first month of his presidency. Already Trump has retracted on Crimea. Accordingly, he is in no hurry to engage Russia in Syria nor does he consider NATO to be "obsolete." In the same vain, his U-turn towards China is something that nobody could foresee during his election campaign. As of now, a great deal of Trump's election rhetoric is dead and lies buried deep inside the rubric of deep structures of power, marking the very first instance of its sort when an American president has found himself deeply at odds with the system. And, there is no certainty that he can or may overcome this tussle and emerge as the American 'knight in a shining armour.'

While this may or may not happen, a lot of questions about Trump's ability to steer the course of American foreign and domestic policies have emerged following Flynn's resignation and with it the so-called crisis of legitimacy has deepened, leaving minimum to no space for Trump to freely determine the course of American policy making.
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Chess

Top US military commander: Syrian safe zones 'a viable concept'


RT
Wed, 01 Mar 2017 12:48 UTC
U.S. Army General Joseph Vote
© Yuri Gripas / ReutersU.S. Army General Joseph Vote
During a trip to Beirut, US Central Command leader, General Joseph Votel, told top Lebanese officials that declaring safe zones in Syria would work once ground troops and other resources are in place. President Donald Trump has long promised such a policy.

On Monday, four-star General Votel met with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Defense Minister Yaacoub Sarraf to discuss military strategy against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and other jihadist forces in Syria.

"Syrian safe zones would be "a viable concept" in "areas that have already been secured where we already have humanitarian and stabilization activities ongoing," Votel said, according to Foreign Policy.

Comment: Further reading: Russia hopes Trump can revive Syrian proposals discussed with Obama's office
As for Washington's proposal to create the so-called "safe zones" in Syria, Moscow remains "very cautious" about it, Borodavkin said.

"First of all, we do not understand what [a safe zone] is. And secondly, if we are talking about this, [we] should address the Syrian government and ask it if it agrees to have some safe zones created on its territory," he explained.


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Newspaper

Speculation swirls over sources of Trump leaks, yet no mention of WaPo-CIA ties

Whitney Webb
Mint News
Tue, 28 Feb 2017 12:10 UTC
The clear conflict of interest between the Bezos empire and elements of the U.S. political establishment has been absent from mainstream media coverage of the leaks.

Jeff Bezos
© AP/Evan VucciAmazon founder and Washington Post CEO Jeff Bezos gets on an elevator for a meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and technology industry leaders at Trump Tower in New York, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016.
Barely two months have passed since Donald Trump's inauguration, and the new administration has been plagued by a series of scandals and controversies directly related to a flood of unauthorized leaks to the press.

The most damaging among these involved a leaked phone call between Trump's first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, and a Russian diplomat, which ultimately led to Flynn's resignation.
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Gingerbread

Good puppet Merkel's message to Trump: NATO is not 'obsolete' - and neither is the Russian boogeyman

Christoph Germann
Newsbud
Fri, 24 Feb 2017 00:00 UTC
Merkel

CDU Promises Vast Expansion of Military Spending, Putting Election at Risk

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen used the 53rd Munich Security Conference to send a message to the new U.S. administration: NATO is not "obsolete" - and neither is the Russian boogeyman!

"There can be no policy of equidistance between allies on one side and those who on the other question our borders, our values and the principles of international law," Defense Minister von der Leyen said to applause at the Munich Security Conference.

Without mentioning U.S. President Donald Trump by name, von der Leyen voiced harsh criticism of Trump's attitudes toward Russia. "We must pursue finding a reliable coexistence with Russia together instead of going over our partners' heads in a bilateral relationship," von der Leyen emphasized.[1]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel took the same line, calling for more multilateral cooperation and touting the importance of NATO in dealing with Russia. Merkel cited Russia's support of separatists in Ukraine and the "annexation" of Crimea as reasons for reinvigorating NATO and portrayed the military build-up in Eastern Europe as a necessary defensive move.[2]
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Star of David

Israeli state report criticizes both Netanyahu and military leadership over 2014 Gaza war

Oren Liebermann and Amir Tal
CNN
Wed, 01 Feb 2017 01:34 UTC
Israeli operation Protective edge in Gaza
© Unknown
Israel's politicians took aim at one another Tuesday following the release of a state report which criticizes the country's preparation and handling of the 2014 Gaza war.

The report, prepared by the State Comptroller, offered a strong indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, claiming it had no strategic goals when the 50-day war started in early July 2014.

The strategic goals should have come first "as required in a proper decision making process," said the report. But it found that that those goals were only set after the Israeli military had put forward its operational plans.

According to the findings, decisions during the war were made by Netanyahu, then-Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, and then-IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, while critical information was withheld from the Security Cabinet.

"Ministers were not presented with significant and necessary information for decision making," the report said.

The report also found that the country was not adequately prepared for the threat from Hamas-built tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel.
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Wine

Beijing just made its geopolitical position crystal clear: China stands with Russia

Rudy Panko
Russia Insider
Tue, 28 Feb 2017 00:09 UTC
Jinping and Putin
China sides with Russia
The first and obvious takeaway from the failed attempt by the U.N. Security Council to impose further sanctions on Assad is that Washington is frantically trying to find a way to sabotage any hopes of a peace settlement in Syria.

"Evidence" of chemical attacks — compliments of Twitter — were used in an attempt to strong-arm the Security Council into passing the fresh sanctions. It was a desperate last-ditch "diplomatic" effort to prolong the suffering in Syria. It was also a poorly-executed attempt to make Russia look like the bad guy for vetoing it.


Comment: The US tried: Worst ever US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley: We must sanction Assad over chemical weapons!

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Propaganda

Trump, Putin and New Cold War: What The New Yorker gets wrong

Bryan MacDonald
RT
Tue, 28 Feb 2017 23:11 UTC
New Yorker cover pages
© Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesNew Yorker cover pages
The New Yorker made quite a splash with its uber long read on 'Trump, Putin and the New Cold War.' What a shame then the actual product is sloppy, misinformed tosh masquerading as something of highbrow distinction.

When I was a 'cub' reporter in Ireland, juggling study with coverage of anything from Barn Dances to Basketball, payment came from lineage. A hideous measure which promoted loquaciousness at the expense of brevity. The compensation was dreadful, set at the measly sum of twenty pence a line. Thus, making a carefully crafted Rugby report worth about the price of a few beers, a pack of Marlboro and a small pizza. That said, if you padded it out, it might extend to a large one, with extra anchovies.

One day my impressionable young self met an American journalist in Dublin, who told me of a magazine called The New Yorker where the generous publishers paid one dollar a WORD. Meaning its sports writers, if it had any, probably eschewed lager, chips and bus journeys for oysters, champagne, and travel by Concorde.
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Attention

While mainstream media obsesses over Russia, Trump's FBI out catching pedophiles


Sputnik
Tue, 28 Feb 2017 22:03 UTC
child abuse
© Flickr/Ren Rebadomia
Last week, veteran journalist and sex crime victims' advocate Liz Crokin published a sensational report, calculating that US authorities had arrested over 1,500 pedophiles in the month since Donald Trump took office as President. The mainstream media's reaction? Silence, and the same old questions about the Trump team's supposed ties with Russia.

Last Thursday, President Trump met with senior advisers and representatives of organizations dealing with human trafficking, vowing to bring the "full force and weight" of the US government to combatting the phenomenon, which he called an "epidemic" and a "dire problem."

Comment: Solving 'epidemic' of human trafficking a priority, says Donald Trump

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Info

EU lawmakers vote to strip Le Pen of immunity for tweeting pictures of Daesh violence


RT
Tue, 28 Feb 2017 22:04 UTC
Marine Le Pen
© AFP 2016/ FREDERICK FLORIN
An EU parliamentary committee has voted to lift the immunity of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, officials have said. The decision is over the graphic photos of Islamic State victims posted by the politician on Twitter.

Le Pen, the leader of the Eurosceptic and anti-immigration National Front and contender for the French presidency in the upcoming elections, is under investigation in France for posting images of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) atrocities, including the beheading of American journalist James Foley, back in 2015.

The MEPs in the legal affairs committee, after deliberating whether Le Pen's posts were becoming of a European deputy, "overwhelmingly voted to lift Le Pen's immunity," Italian lawmaker Laura Ferrara told Reuters.

The European Parliament as a whole is to vote on the issue on Thursday, AFP reported.
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Propaganda

The CIA is one of the main peddlers of fake news: Newly-declassified docs


Global Research
Tue, 28 Feb 2017 21:30 UTC
cia logo
© The Wichita Eagle

Newly-declassified documents show that a senior CIA agent and Deputy Director of the Directorate of Intelligence worked closely with the owners and journalists of many of the largest media outlets:
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