Puppet MastersS


Handcuffs

Tzipi Livni cancels Brussels trip, war crimes summons scare her off?

Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
Former Israeli FM Tzipi Livni
© Jews sans frontieresFormer Israeli FM Tzipi Livni
Israel's former foreign minister Tzipi Livni has canceled a visit to Brussels scheduled for next week. The news comes as Belgian prosecutors confirm that Livni was due to be questioned in an ongoing investigation for war crimes.

Livni was expected in Brussels on 23 January for a conference at the European Parliament, but she has pulled out citing illness, according to the Belgian newspaper Le Soir. Livni was apparently not too ill to speak to the New York branch of the Israel lobby group the Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday.

Israeli officials, including Livni, have a history of cancelling foreign visits if they fear arrest.

Thierry Wertz, a Belgian prosecutor, told Le Soir that federal judicial authorities "planned to take advantage of Tzipi Livni's visit to try to move the investigation forward." According to Le Soir, Wertz's comments indicate that prosecutors planned to formally summon Livni for questioning.

Evading justice

Livni is the subject of a complaint by victims filed in Brussels in 2010 for war crimes during "Operation Cast Lead" - Israel's assault on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.

Comment: See also:

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Jet2

Is the Trump-Putin anti-ISIS coalition on the way?

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 20:55 UTC
Putin Trump McCain
US President Trump's emphasis on defeating ISIS and Jihadi terrorism finds an echo in the words of Russian President Putin, creating the possibility of an alliance between the two to combat ISIS and Al-Qaeda together.

In all the discussions of possible areas of cooperation between the US and Russia, one stands out because the prospects for it look so straightforward: the joint struggle against Jihadi terrorism.

Comment: From the revamped White House website on Trump's foreign policy:
Defeating ISIS and other radical Islamic terror groups will be our highest priority. To defeat and destroy these groups, we will pursue aggressive joint and coalition military operations when necessary. In addition, the Trump Administration will work with international partners to cut off funding for terrorist groups, to expand intelligence sharing, and to engage in cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable propaganda and recruiting.
...
Finally, in pursuing a foreign policy based on American interests, we will embrace diplomacy. The world must know that we do not go abroad in search of enemies, that we are always happy when old enemies become friends, and when old friends become allies.

The world will be more peaceful and more prosperous with a stronger and more respected America.


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Question

Cuban expert says Havana - Washington ties uncertain under Trump

Raimundo Urrechaga
New China
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 20:23 UTC
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in New York, the United States, on Jan. 11, 2017
© Xinhua/Gary HershornU.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in New York, the United States, on Jan. 11, 2017
Under Donald Trump, the future of the ties between Havana and Washington remains uncertain, despite a recent thaw, according to a Cuban expert.

Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Friday.

Luis Suarez, a Cuban expert on international relations, believes Trump's administration will maintain some of Barack Obama's policies towards Cuba, but revert others.

"They are going to make a case-by-case analysis of which policies are suitable, not only for the bilateral relationship, but for their own interests," Suarez told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Comment: See also:

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Question

Does a rogue Deep State secretly have Trump's back?

Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
Wed, 18 Jan 2017 19:18 UTC
deep state
Rather than being the bad guys, as per the usual Liberal world-view, the Armed Forces may well play a key role in reducing the utterly toxic influence of neocon-neoliberals within the Deep State.

Suddenly everybody is referring to the Deep State, typically without offering much of a definition.

The general definition is the unelected government that continues making and implementing policy regardless of who is in elected office.

I have been writing about this structure for 10 years and studying it from the outside for 40 years. Back in 2007, I called it the Elite Maintaining and Extending Global Dominance, which is a more concise description of the structure than Deep State. Going to War with the Political Elite You Have (May 14, 2007).

I've used this simplified chart to explain the basic structure of the Deep State, which is the complex network of state-funded and/or controlled institutions, agencies, foundations, university research projects, media ties, etc.

The key point here is you can't separate these network nodes: you cannot separate DARPA, the national labs (nukes, energy, etc.), the National Science Foundation, DoD (Department of Defense), the National Security State (alphabet soup of intelligence/black budget agencies: CIA, NSA, DIA, etc.), Silicon Valley and the research universities: they are all tied together by funding, information flows, personnel and a thousand other connections.
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Bad Guys

New Ukraine war crimes: Civilians in Ukrainian cross-hairs while Poroshenko begs the whole world to fight Russia

Christelle Neant translated by Tom Winter
DØNiPRESS / Fort Russ News
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 18:57 UTC
Donbass house bombarded
Rita's house, bombarded again.
Just a few hours before Trump's inauguration as President of the United States, the Ukrainian army is keeping up its criminal momentum, deliberately shooting civilian areas. Thus, on 18 January, the Ukrainian army again heavily bombed the outskirts of Gorlovka, including the village of Zaitsevo, which is cut in half by the front line, where the fire damaged three houses, including the family of little Rita.

Four projectiles damaged the roof, six touched the walls of the house, and two others fell right next door. There is, as you can see on the video below (in Italian at the moment, the French version is in progress), no soldier lives there, only a family with a little girl. A family that French donors have helped several times, with structure and with several new windows.
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Arrow Down

Killary as candidate - The most stupid thing the Democratic party ever did

Bernhard
Moon of Alabama
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 19:37 UTC
Hillary Clinton
It is impossible to know what the Not-Hillary inauguration will bring. Not-Hillary because putting up Hillary as candidate was the most stupid thing the Democratic party and it paymasters could do. She had extremely high negative ratings and stood for everything that one could dislike with the party's policies. Many who ended up not voting or voted for Trump could have been easily won by a different Democratic candidate even with much of the same general policies (see: Obama, Barack).

Hillary would surely have lost against any middle-of-the-road Republican candidate. History will note that she was an arrogant but incompetent Democratic candidate who lost against a rather bad Republican candidate, one who lacked support even from his own party. Trump won barely, but she lost completely.

Seen from the perspective of power centers Clinton once had all the support she needed. But she then lost a decisive group due to her uncompromising neo-conned foreign policy. Here is an interesting take based on a theory from the 1950s:
[T]he power elite can be best described as a "triangle of power," linking the corporate, executive government, and military factions: "There is a political economy numerously linked with military order and decision. This triangle of power is now a structural fact, and it is the key to any understanding of the higher circles in America today."

The 2016 US election, like all other US elections, featured a gallery of pre-selected candidates that represented the three factions and their interests within the power elite. The 2016 US election, however, was vastly different from previous elections. As the election dragged on the power elite became bitterly divided, with the majority supporting Hilary Clinton, the candidate pre-selected by the political and corporate factions, while the military faction rallied around their choice of Donald Trump.
That is only a rough take. The corporate factions are divided within. The oil industry does not like it when wars disturb its long term businesses (see Russia and Libya). Boeing wants to sell planes to Iran. Other corporate parts don't mind such wars as long as they create new markets or easy access to cheap labor. The media love war as it creates ever thrilling content around which they can sell advertisements.

The decisive political point in this election round was the fight between neo-conservatives/liberal-interventionists and foreign policy realists. One side is represented exemplary by the CIA with the U.S. military on the other:
A schism developed between the Defense Department and the highly politicized CIA. This schism, which can be attributed to the corporate-deep-state's covert foreign policy, traces back to the CIA orchestrated "color revolutions" that had swept the Middle East and North Africa.
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Light Saber

Russia's Chechen soldiers in Aleppo are not seen as occupiers - documentary

Mark Nicholas
Russia Insider
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 19:10 UTC
Russia's Chechen Soldiers in Syria
We reported last month a mainly Chechen unit of Russia's military police was dispatched to Syria.

Now ANNA News, a very active Russian-language news service based in Abkhazia, has visited the men in Aleppo and produced a 25 minute reportage.


Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Violence: The only language of a Jewish state

Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook Blog
Wed, 18 Jan 2017 18:05 UTC
violence Israeli state
© Keren Manor/Activist Stills
Here is another image that conveys the situation of Palestinians - these ones Palestinian citizens of Israel - more completely than any words. The man on the ground is Ayman Odeh, a member of the Israeli parliament, the head of the Joint List, the third largest party in the parliament, and the highest-ranking Palestinian politician in Israel.

Israeli police have just shot him with rubber-tipped bullets, not once but twice - including to the face. Odeh is one of the least confrontational politicians among Israel's large Palestinian minority, a fifth of the population. His message is consistently one of peace and amity between all Israeli citizens, whether Jews or Palestinians. That does not seem to have protected him from the shoot-first, ask-questions-later approach of Israel's security forces towards Palestinians.

This image should be as shocking as seeing a bloodied Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn crawling in the dirt, watched impassively by US or UK police.
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USA

Obama's final press conference: 'Big countries don't go bully smaller countries'

Simon North
Russia Insider
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 18:47 UTC
Barack Obama
A tear for all the lives and nations he's ruined?
The great moralizing president who proved to the world that "yes, we can" lie, bomb, drone, and overthrow the rest of the world has preached his final hypocritical sermon.

Giving his final press conference on Jan. 18th, Obama - like Joe Biden and Samantha Power - elected to use a substantial part of his final statement to assail Russia and Vladimir Putin. The establishment neocon puppets must really be terrified of peace.

The best moment came when Barack propounded for the final time, what he sees as America's role in the world: to ensure "the basic principle that big countries don't go around and invade and bully smaller countries."


We're not quite sure how peace prize winner Obama thinks he represented that "basic principle" during his two terms. Maybe by setting an example for the world and saying, "See everything the United States is doing? Yeah...don't do that."

Comment: Also see: Obama's last White House news conference: US is 'strongest country... we're going to be OK'

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Propaganda

#FakeNews New York Times: Trump Ally Roger Stone Under Investigation For Possible Ties with Russia


Media Matters
Thu, 19 Jan 2017 15:28 UTC
Roger Stone
Roger Stone
The New York Times is reporting that American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are investigating "intercepted communications" that potentially show ties between longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone and Russian officials.

The report confirming the ongoing investigation comes after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government meddled in the 2016 election by hacking the Democratic National Committee, as well as reports that the FBI and five other intelligence agencies have been investigating whether money from the Kremlin covertly aided Trump's presidential run.

In July, reports surfaced that Trump's foreign policy advisor on Russia and Europe, Carter Page, made almost his entire fortune off of investments in Russia. Soon after, NBC News reported on alleged payments to Donald Trump's then-campaign manager Paul Manafort from former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from 2007-2012. Roger Stone, a racist, sexist conspiracy theorist -- who has previously claimed that there's "greater freedom of the press" and expression in Russia than in the U.S. -- has now also been implicated as another one of Trump's associates currently under investigation. Media Matters first exposed Stone in August 2016, after he claimed to be in contact with Julian Assange regarding an "October Surprise." In early October, Stone reassured anxious Alex Jones listeners that the "motherload" was coming.

Comment:

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