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US Asian allies 'worried' by muted response to drone seizure as fears grow China 'stole secrets'

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 18 Dec 2016 21:48 UTC
South China Sea map
© New York Times
While Friday's seizure by China of a US underwater drone may end up as just a tempest in a teapot after China grudgingly agreed to return the US equipment this week after a formal protest by the Pentagon, and Trump's tweet slamming the "unprecedented act", two new concerns have emerged. According to John McCain, China may be poring over a seized underwater drone to unearth secret information about Navy technology, hours after Trump suggested Beijing should "keep it."

Quoted by Bloomberg, McCain, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN's State of the Union that "The Chinese are able to do a thing called reverse-engineering, where they are able to - while they hold this drone, able to find out all of the technical information. And some of it is pretty valuable."


Comment: Like maybe finding out it was more than an "oceanographic" expedition.

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SOTT Focus: After the Liberation of Aleppo Comes the Psyops War

Paul Mansfield
Sott.net
Sun, 18 Dec 2016 18:56 UTC
Aleppo Liberation
As the Syrian Army completes the liberation of Aleppo from Al-Qaeda-led terrorist groups, you would think that there would be universal celebration of a landmark defeat of international terrorism. Not so, as we are assailed with reports of Syrian-led forces committing cold-blooded executions, women committing suicide, fearing they will be raped by Syrian soldiers, people burned alive, and reports of rape against the civilian population.

The above are all unverified allegations at this stage. They are coming from the opposition militant groups themselves, groups firmly aligned with the opposition and a whole array of "activists" posting on Twitter and Facebook, some of whom are finding themselves becoming instant mainstream media hits.

The most disturbing aspect is that the mainstream media are reporting unverified allegations as fact. This is the definition of fake news.

Reports emerged of at least 82 civilians being executed as the Syrian Army and allied militias clean up the last areas under rebel control. "The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes," said Rupert Colville, a U.N. spokesman. "There could be many more."
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Bad Guys

ISIS claimed suicide attack kills over 40 in Yemen's Aden


Sputnik
Sun, 18 Dec 2016 21:31 UTC
suicide bombing in the Yemeni port city of Aden
© AFP 2016/ SALEH AL-OBEIDI
Sunday's suicide bombing in the Yemeni port city of Aden has left 42 people dead, a local security source told Sputnik on Sunday.

Dozens more were wounded, according to the source.

Some reports said at least 30 people, mostly soldiers, had been killed when a suicide bomber immersed himself in a gathering of service personnel at the Solban military base.
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Propaganda

Hey there...Why are the media taking the CIA's hacking claims at face value?

James Carden
The Nation
Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
Sign CIA owns
© hangthebankers.com
In 1977, Carl Bernstein published an exposé of a CIA program known as Operation Mockingbird, a covert program involving, according to Bernstein, "more than 400 American journalists who in the past 25 years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency." Bernstein found that in "many instances" CIA documents revealed that "journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America's leading news organizations."

Fast-forward to December 2016, and one can see that there isn't much need for a covert government program these days. The recent raft of unverified, anonymously sourced and circumstantial stories alleging that the Russian government interfered in the US presidential election with the aim of electing Republican Donald J. Trump shows that today too much of the media is all too happy to do overtly what the CIA had once paid it to do covertly: regurgitate the claims of the spy agency and attack the credibility of those who question it.

Comment: How important is getting to the truth? Our lives depend upon it. How important is it to report the truth? Apparently much less than we think.

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USA

Heads up: Lessons of Aleppo for Trump

Patrick J. Buchanan
Patrick J. Buchanan
Thu, 15 Dec 2016 09:33 UTC
ObamaSyria red
© I AM is at the doors - WordPress.comWould you want this legacy?
In this world, it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, said Henry Kissinger in 1968, but to be a friend is fatal. The South Vietnamese would come to appreciate the insight. So it is today with Aleppo, where savage reprisals against U.S.-backed rebels are taking place in that hellhole of human rights.

Yet, again, the wrong lessons are being drawn from the disaster.

According to The Washington Post, the bloodbath is a result of a U.S. failure to intervene more decisively in Syria's civil war: "Aleppo represents a meltdown of the West's moral and political will — and ... a collapse of U.S. leadership. By refusing to intervene against the Assad regime's atrocities, or even to enforce the 'red line' he declared on the use of chemical weapons, President Obama created a vacuum that was filled by Vladimir Putin and Iran's Revolutionary Guard." But the blunder was not in staying out of Syria's civil war, but in going in. Aleppo is a bloodbath born of interventionism.

On Aug. 18, 2011, President Obama said, "For the sake of the Syrian people the time has come for President Assad to step aside." Western leaders echoed the Obama — "Assad must go!" Assad, however, declined to go, and crushed an Arab Spring uprising of the kind that had ousted Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.

Comment: Mr. Trump...are you listening?

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Eye 1

Not to worry, Trump will not trust John Bolton

Philip Mollaret
Russia Insider
Fri, 16 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC
BoltonPaul
© Fox NewsFormer Ambassador UN John Bolton • Republican Sen. Rand Paul
Among all Trump's possible cabinet nominees, perhaps the one which has raised the most concern from many quarters (including Trump's own transition team) is former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton

In the run up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Bolton played a leading role in lying and falsifying evidence of "weapons of mass destruction." Bolton has been and still is a prominent chickenhawk advocating for war with Iran. And he has not been known for supporting better relations with Russia either - until now. Remarkably, the US Senate appears to agree. Some senators are threatening to block Bolton's potential nomination as Deputy Secretary of State even more strongly than they have Russia-friendly Rex Tillerson to be Bolton's boss. That would replicate George Bush's inability to get Bolton confirmed the last time around.

From Politico:
John Bolton, the mustache-sporting, Iraq War-cheering former United Nations ambassador, is possibly one of the least diplomatic diplomats ever to serve in the U.S. government. He has argued the U.S. should bomb Iran to stop its nuclear program, dismissed the idea of a Palestinian state and called the United Nations a "twilight zone." [...]

Already, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentuckian with a libertarian bent, has threatened to block Bolton, a man he considers a warmonger. On Tuesday, Chuck Schumer, the incoming leader of the Senate Democrats, explicitly compared Tillerson and Bolton in a statement that clearly laid bare his preference, saying: "Mr. Tillerson's worldview may not seem to be as dangerously interventionist as Mr. Bolton's."

Back in 2005, Bolton, who was serving as undersecretary of state for arms control, failed to get confirmed by the Senate when then-President George W. Bush nominated him as U.N. ambassador. Bush circumvented the process by appointing Bolton during a recess, but not before significant doubts were aired about him by Democrats and State Department colleagues.
If Trump does manage to get Bolton confirmed, his influence on Trump's foreign policy is likely to be limited. Not only did he pass over Bolton for the top post at state, but Trump has shown no inclination to bend his views to be politically correct thus far.

Another clue is Trump's philosophy for selecting subordinates. After recovering from near bankruptcy and the collapse of his finances in the 90s, in the early 2000s Trump wrote "Think Big" in which he offered this advice:

"DO NOT TRUST ANYONE," reads one chapter subheading." I used to say, 'Go out and get the best people, and trust them.' Over the years I have seen too many shenanigans, and now I say, 'Get the best people and don't trust them.'"

Comment: Trump may not trust Bolton, but Bolton will still have influence.

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Chess

Trump is building a 'team of bosses' to shake up Washington - in his own image

James Oliphant, Emily Stephenson
Reuters
Sat, 17 Dec 2016 01:36 UTC
RExTillerson
© OilPrice.comRex Tillerson, Secretary of State nominee
With more than 20 nominees now selected, Donald Trump's cabinet appears much like the president-elect himself: mostly older, white males, many of them wealthy, who see themselves as risk-takers and deal-makers and prize action over deliberation. Trump, who says Washington is "broken" and controlled by special interests, has largely eschewed technocrats with long government experience. Instead, he has built a team of bosses.

Trump's roster of agency heads and advisers conspicuously lacks intellectuals, lawyers, and academics of the sort sought by some past presidents. In their place are titans of business and finance from the likes of Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs and no fewer than three retired generals in key positions.

Many of them are people used to getting their way but will now have a boss to answer to - Trump - while navigating the sometimes frustrating and sprawling bureaucracy of the U.S. government. The incoming Trump administration is poised to undo as much of President Barack Obama's accomplishments as possible, while also attempting to advance a conservative policy agenda in areas such as taxes and healthcare.

Comment: "Taking care of business..." On a freefall downward spiral, it is obvious that Washington can't remain the same. Trump's picks for cabinet positions reflect this observation.

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Snakes in Suits

As Obama plans retaliation against 'Russian hacking', a problem emerges

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 18 Dec 2016 19:42 UTC
Barack Obama
© AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
In a fiery press conference on Friday, shortly before departing for his last Hawaiian vacation, president Obama accused the press of being responsible for Hillary Clinton's loss, slammed "domestic propagandists" who he said were responsible for the risk of "fake news" and assisting foreign counter-US propaganda, but more importantly Obama vowed to "send a clear message to Russia" in retaliation for its election hacking - of which the CIA still has to demonstrate evidence - as both a punishment and a deterrent. However, a problem has emerged as the outgoing president plans how to "punish or deter" Russia - according to the NYT, some of the options were rejected as ineffective, others as too risky.

If the choices had been better, one of the aides involved in the debate noted recently, the president would have acted by now, although the fact that he hasn't demonstrates just how ineffective US counter-cyberwar planning has been despite spending billions of dollars in preparation for just this eventuality.
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Attention

The real agenda: Facebook's 'anti-fake news' plan looks like effort to bury alternative media

Brian MacDonald
RT
Sun, 18 Dec 2016 15:17 UTC
facebook fake news
© Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
There are serious concerns over a social media giant's plans to debunk spurious news stories. And many are puzzled about the real agenda at play.

You don't need to worship at the altar of George Orwell to see where this is going. Under tremendous assault from the American establishment media over the proliferation of what they define as 'fake news' on the platform, internet behemoth Facebook has finally caved in and agreed to regulate content. While, in principle, the concept sounds relatively noble, the manner in which it's proposed to implement it merits many questions.

Among them are the continuing dangers of American domination of the world wide web and the liberal bias of that country's popular press. But most worrying is the uncharted territory we are entering. Because there has never been a media portal as dominant as Facebook. In the past, big broadcasters or newsagent chains might have enjoyed outsized influence, but Mark Zuckerbeg's firm is an effective monopoly.

Comment: The new arbiter of acceptable thought: Facebook's chilling plan to censor 'fake news'

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Attention

Sabotage of East-Aleppo evacuation is part of a plan


Moon of Alabama
Sun, 18 Dec 2016 19:46 UTC
Aleppo evacuation bus attacked
© Aleppo24
The removal of defeated al-Qaeda fighters and their families from east-Aleppo has been on and off for several days now.

The agreement between Turkey and Russia on which the evacuation is based stipulates the parallel evacuation of wounded people from the al-Qaeda besieged Shiite village Fu'a and Kafraya in Idleb province. Note that neither the U.S. nor the (partisan) UN were involved in these negotiations.

The process was interrupted on Friday after al-Qaeda fighters in east-Aleppo opened fire on evacuating civilians. In parallel buses moving into Fu'a and Kafraya to evacuate the wounded were held up by al-Qaeda aligned groups in the area. Opposition claims that Hizbullah fighters was killing people that were evacuating from east-Aleppo were, according to a BBC producer, lies.


Comment: Syrian state media reports buses attacked on way to militant-held Shiite villages after evacuation deal


The agreement and evacuations were put on again and proceeded this morning after some new negotiations with unknown additional terms. The movements were to take place in strict parallel. Any move out of east-Aleppo on the government provided public buses would only happen at the very same moment that the wounded would move out of Fu'a and Kafraya on similar buses.
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