Puppet MastersS


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Ankara rejects Kurdish offer of peace talks, opposition reports


RT
Wed, 20 Apr 2016 15:42 UTC
Erdogan kurd peace talk
© www.thenews.com.pk"The terrorists can choose two paths: surrender to justice or be neutralised, one by one. There is no third way left in Turkey."
The leader of a pro-Kurdish party in Turkey says that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) wanted to agree to a return to talks with the Turkish government a few months ago, only for Ankara to reject the proposal. The claims were made by Selahattin Demirtas, the Kurdish leader of the HDP (People's Democratic Party) on Wednesday. "A few months ago, we were in contact with Qandil (PKK) in an effort to return to the negotiating table. The government knew that we were working for this but the government rejected it," Demirtas said, as cited by Reuters.

A 2 1/2-year ceasefire between the PKK and Ankara was shattered in July. Kurdish militants are fighting for the right to self-determination and greater autonomy for Kurds - demands which Ankara rejects.
Since July, almost 400 soldiers and police and several thousand militants have been killed in the conflict which has largely take part in the southeast of Turkey, according to government figures. Opposition parties say between 500 and 1,000 civilians have also been killed in the fighting.
Ankara's anti-terrorist operations have not only been based in the southeast of Turkey, but have also spilled over into Iraq and Syria. On Wednesday, Turkish warplanes struck PKK targets in northern Iraq, according to CNN Turk. Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said members of the PKK should either surrender or be "neutralized," stressing that the time for peace talks is over.

In a speech broadcast live by the state television channel TRT, Erdogan said that counter-terror operations against PKK fighters will continue until the last militant is neutralized, expressing confidence that the mission would be accomplished. The president went on to state that Ankara had tried to disarm PKK fighters, but those efforts had not been successful.

Comment: Erdogan gets away with annihilating the Kurds under the broad definition of "fighting terrorism." By labeling all Kurds everywhere as terrorists, therefore targets, he hostilely conducts airstrikes and ground incursions with no discrimination as to fighters or civilians. In reality, the PKK and other Kurdish groups have been successfully fighting ISIS. In reality, Turkey has been aiding and abetting ISIS for the West and the Kurds are inconveniently interfering in this subterfuge. Erdogan sees complete extermination as his solution and will therefore grasp any excuse to avoid peace talks.

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Dollars

Pathocratic Saudi Arabia bribes U.S. media for positive image


Moon of Alabama
Thu, 21 Apr 2016 23:46 UTC
Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia's King Salman
© Reuters / Jonathan ErnstUS President Barack Obama concludes a meeting with Saudi Arabia's King Salman at the G20 summit in Turkey, November 15, 2015.
A timely Washington Post piece looks at how the Saudis bribe left, right and center:
Saudi government has vast network of PR, lobby firms in U.S.

The Saudi government and its affiliates have spent millions of dollars on U.S. law, lobby and public relations firms to raise the country's visibility in the United States and before the United Nations at a crucial time.
...
Five lobby and PR firms were hired in 2015 alone, signaling a stepped-up focus on ties with Washington. The firms have been coordinating meetings between Saudi officials and business leaders and U.S. media, ...

Comment: This is what they call a match made in heaven. There's no place on earth Western media would rather get their blood money from than the twisted, racist, murderous regime in Riyadh.

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Snakes in Suits

Breaking a key campaign promise Obama bows to Turkish genocide denial as Erdogan calls for war on Armenia


Sputnik
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 21:37 UTC
US President Barack Obama and Recep Tayyip Erdogan
© AFP 2016/ BERK OZKAN / POOL
President Obama broke a campaign promise in refusing to honor the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians so as not to anger Erdogan, his dictatorial, terror sponsoring counterpart.

On Friday, US President Barack Obama declined to call the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 a genocide, breaking a key campaign promise in the final year of his presidency.

Sunday April 24 marks Armenian Remembrance Day, commemorating the suffering created by the first genocide of the 20th century. The ethnic cleansing and brutality culminated in the death march of over one million Armenians, accompanied by Turkish soldiers who denied the Armenians food and water, mercilessly beating to death those who could not keep up with the march, and systematically raping women.
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Chess

Self-determination of Pacific nations another victim of Panama Papers psyop

Wayne Madsen
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 18 Apr 2016 20:00 UTC
mossack fonseca
© Rodrigo Arangua / AFP
In yet a further example that the release of the so-called "Panama Papers" furthered the agenda of the United States and its FIVE EYES intelligence allies Australia and New Zealand, there was an immediate condemnation of the role that certain offshore tax haven islands in the Pacific played in the tax avoidance schemes of Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm accused of helping shelter billions of dollars from tax authorities.

The first salvos were fired against the self-governing New Zealand territory of Niue and the independent State of Samoa for being referenced in some of the selectively-leaked Panamanian law firm documents.

Because of the paternalistic and neo-colonialist policies of Australia and New Zealand, many South Pacific independent states and self-governing territories had no choice but to set up tax evasion and avoidance havens in order to attract much-needed revenue from corporate filing fees. However, these tax havens often find themselves fending off criticism from their former colonial masters.

In fact, the Pacific states were pressured into establishing havens for foreign shell companies and anonymous numbered bank account operations by the very powers that now seek to limit their independence and autonomy. New Zealand's two alleged "self-governing" territories, the Cook Islands and Niue, have come in for particularly heavy criticism from the Americans and their intelligence lackeys in Canberra and Wellington. Niue, which cannot engage in any meaningful economic development without the approval of New Zealand, became a center for international corporate registry for a bargain annual fee of $150. The island state, under the Kiwi jackboot, is subject to terrible air service and a lack of Internet connectivity for its citizens. New Zealand's absurd insistence that Niue is "self-governing" was shown to be fraudulent when Niue's one-time Prime Minister, Sani Lakatani, was living in Auckland while pretending to be governing Niue, all the time collecting his pension as a retired corporal in the Royal New Zealand Army.

Comment: Further reading:

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Cell Phone

FBI paid 3rd party more than $1.3 million to hack into San Bernardino iPhone

Julia Edwards
Reuters
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 09:56 UTC
Apple iphone
© Reuters/Robert GalbraithThe Apple logo is pictured at its flagship retail store in San Francisco, California January 27, 2014.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said on Thursday the agency paid more to get into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters than he will make in the remaining seven years and four months he has in his job.

According to figures from the FBI and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Comey's annual salary as of January 2015 was $183,300. Without a raise or bonus, Comey will make $1.34 million over the remainder of his job.

That suggests the FBI paid the largest ever publicized fee for a hacking job, easily surpassing the $1 million paid by U.S. information security company Zerodium to break into phones.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London, Comey was asked by a moderator how much the FBI paid for the software that eventually broke into the iPhone.

Comment: See also: San Bernardino mass shooting: 3 white gunmen, 2 unlikely culprits, and 1 saving grace

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Stormtrooper

CIA torture psychologists sued by detainees over war crimes and human experimentation


RT
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 20:48 UTC
cia black site
© Marc Serota / Reuters
Former detainees tortured by the CIA at the agency's notorious black sites are suing the psychologists hired to help design the controversial enhanced interrogation program, accusing them of enabling "war crimes" and "human experimentation."

The psychologists, James Elmer Mitchell and John "Bruce" Jessen, will appear in federal court in Spokane, Washington on Friday. They will try to convince US District Court Senior Judge Justin L. Quackenbush that the case against them should be dismissed.

Although the two claim that they qualify for immunity because they were working for the government, the Justice Department has notably allowed the case to move forward up to this point. In the past, the government had blocked any and all efforts to hold the CIA accountable for the torture program, citing its concern that state secrets would be revealed.

"For the first time people who were involved in implementing and designing the CIA's torture program will be compelled to answer for their conduct in federal court," said Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs, to the Los Angeles Times. "That is literally unprecedented."

Comment: They should be sued and then later they should be found guilty for war crimes and spend the rest of their life in prison. There's no immunity for evil.

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Black Cat

Is Hillary Clinton the Democrats' Richard Nixon?

Eric Zuesse
Sott.net
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 19:25 UTC
Hillary Clinton
© Reuters / David Becker
Richard Nixon's similarities to Hillary Clinton are remarkable:

1: Both were highly successful politicians who had exceptionally negative net-approval ratings from the U.S. public, but were viewed highly favorably by the voters within their own Party.

2: Both were unsuccessful in their first run for the Presidency, but managed to come back and ran considerably more successful campaigns the second time around.

3: Both were highly distrusted, except by the voters within their own Party.

4: Both went into their Presidential campaign years (especially the second time around) as being "the candidate with experience."

5: Both were war-hawks and proponents of a big military, but were also liberals on social policies and regulatory policies (for example, Nixon signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act, several environmental initiatives including the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, the Mammal Marine Protection Act, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency; and, he started the Earned-Income Tax Credit, which "now lifts more children out of poverty than any other government program").

Comment: It gets worse. Arch war criminal Henry Kissinger had the ear of Nixon, and now is one of Hillary's 'trusted advisors". It can only be hoped that Killary will have her own Watergate moment before the election. But don't hold your breath.

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Bomb

Broke and paranoid - The US is risking nuclear war

Finian Cunningham
RT
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 19:08 UTC
White House
© Flickr/Glenn Pope
Many observers fear that not only are we seeing a new Cold War, but that we are also in the throes a new global arms race. This stems from the United States being both wildly over-stretched militarily and wildly irrational.

In short: broke and paranoid.

Twenty-five years after the official end of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, political and military leaders in Washington continue to portray Russia and China as "existential threats". This level of threat-designation is not reciprocated by Moscow or Beijing.

While the Russian and Chinese leadership are no doubt wary about maverick American power, still there is nowhere a comparable rhetorical riposte of aggression. Even though it could be reasonably argued for, given the routine, shrill claims made by Washington against Russia and China.

This is the first point. Washington's assessment of security risks in the world is so far off reality. It is often prejudiced, subjective, heavily propagandized, and inaccurate.

Take the recent close encounter in the Baltic between the USS Donald Cook guided-missile destroyer and Russian fighter jets. The incident was some 70 nautical miles off Russia's territory, yet US officials decried it as "evidence of Russian aggression".

The same illogical inversion of reality is asserted against China which is routinely accused of impinging on territories in the South China Sea - by American forces patrolling thousands of miles from their home bases.

At least in the heyday of the old Cold War, US planners had a semblance of ideological basis for their hostility towards Moscow and Beijing. Anti-Communism may have been overblown, but that perceived threat had an ideological premise invoking the need for military power.

Today, what is the basis for American hostility towards Russia or China? There is negligible justification for American belligerence other than specious claims about Russian and Chinese aggression. The reality is that the aggression is one-sided American conduct.
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Alarm Clock

How the Syrian talks broke down: Al-Qaeda was facing defeat

Eric Zuesse
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 18:19 UTC
alloush
During the negotiations that had led to the Syrian peace talks, a key question was whether Russia and the Syrian army would be allowed to continue uninterrupted, their military actions against ISIS and al-Qaeda (al-Qaeda in Syria is called «al-Nusra».)

Throughout the negotiations between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, there was agreement that ISIS (the US Government calls it 'ISIL') has no place there, and must continue to be bombed and attacked without interruption until exterminated; but Kerry opposed Lavrov's demand to include al-Nusra's (al-Qaeda's) forces as also having no rightful place in Syria. Kerry finally accepted that al-Nusra should have no part in ruling Syria, and thus he reluctantly acceded to Russia's demand. This agreement by Kerry enabled the peace talks to begin.

These talks broke down on April 18th because Al-Nusra was facing imminent defeat in the key city of Aleppo, and because such a defeat was unacceptable to Mohammed Alloush, the Saudi agent, and head of the Saudi-Wahhabist group, the Army of Islam. He was selected by King Saud to lead the rebel side at Syria's peace negotiations. «There was 'no way' the opposition could resume formal talks amid a military escalation and a worsening humanitarian situation», senior opposition negotiator Mohammed Alloush told Reuters on April 18th.

Comment: Further reading: Digging in their heels: The Obama admin's illusory 'credibility' maintained by a series of big lies

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Gold Seal

Best of the Web: Pepe Escobar: US nixed OPEC oil deal by threatening to reveal Saudi role in 9/11

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 17:58 UTC
fahrenheit 911
Michael Moore exposed the Saudi connections to 9/11 in his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, released back in 2004. US State Department staffers apparently finally got around to watching it just recently.
US President Barack Obama landed in Saudi Arabia for a GCC petrodollar summit and to proverbially "reassure Gulf allies" amidst the oiliest of storms.

The Doha summit this past weekend that was supposed to enshrine a cut in oil production by OPEC, in tandem with Russia - it was practically a done deal - ended up literally in the dust.

The City of London - via the FT - wants to convey the impression to global public opinion that it all boiled down to a dispute between Prince Mohammed bin Salman - the conductor of the illegal war on Yemen — and Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi. The son of — ailing — King Salman has been dubbed "the unpredictable new voice of the kingdom's energy policy."

A famous 3 am call did take place in Doha on Sunday. The young Salman called the Saudi delegation and told them the deal was off. Every other energy market player was stunned by the reversion.

Yet the true story, according to a financial source with very close links to the House of Saud, is that "the United States threatened the Prince that night with the most dire consequences if he did not back down on the oil price freeze."

So - predictably — this goes way beyond an internal Saudi matter, or the Prince's "erratic" behavior, even as the House of Saud is indeed racked by multiple instances of fear and paranoia, as I analysed here.

As the source explains, an oil production cut would have "hindered the US goal of bankrupting Russia via an oil price war, which is what this is all about. Even the Prince is not that erratic."

Comment: Indeed, explicit threats are hollow.

Still, it's a hoot watching the psychos turn on each other!

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