Puppet MastersS


Attention

UK, Germany aligning militarily, for war?


RT
Fri, 07 Oct 2016 15:07 UTC
Helicopters
© Darrin Zammit Lupi / ReutersAgustaWestland Wildcat HMA.2 helicopters of the Black Cats Helicopter Display Team
Former military adversaries Britain and Germany are weighing up a serious defense alliance which would see UK helicopters stationed on German naval ships. The plans, announced by UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, will see the two countries increase joint training exercises with Britain stationing a new Wildcat helicopter aboard a German warship during a Mediterranean Sea training mission in 2017.

"Britain stands together with Germany to face the same challenges, including the threat from Daesh [Islamic State], and shares the same values of liberty, tolerance and justice," Fallon said at a meeting with his counterpart Ursula von der Leyen at the German Embassy Friday. "While the UK is leaving the European Union, our commitment to European security remains steadfast, and [will] continue as a leading member of NATO, the cornerstone of our defense." The move comes 70 years after the two countries fought a world war and Fallon was attending an event to mark 26 years since Germany was reunified. The two countries have paired up in a multinational force before: to defeat Napoleon's French army at Waterloo in 1815.

The current reorientation also seems set to see military relations between Germany and France thaw to the extent that German aircrews will be stationed in France for the first time since the end of WWII. The move would also see pilots from the two nations share an airbase at Orleans.

For his part, Fallon remains an opponent of an integrated EU Army, the concept of which became one of the most high profile arguments used by Euroskeptics in the build-up to the Brexit vote. German defense figures, however, have warned that the UK must drop opposition to an integrated EU force if it expects the best treatment once it leaves the union.

The UK occupied Germany after the First World War and reoccupied it after the Second World War. The UK - and US - retain a number of key military bases within the otherwise sovereign state.

Comment: Fortressing, consolidation, partnering, threats...are they going somewhere with this? Stay tuned.

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Cow Skull

Of the Age of Decline, apple pie, and America's chosen suicide bomber

Tom Engelhardt
Tom Dispatch
Thu, 06 Oct 2016 19:29 UTC
Trump
© REUTERS/ Carlo Allegri
This is not about Donald Trump. And I mean it.

From the moment the first scribe etched a paean of praise to Nebuchadnezzar into a stone tablet, it's reasonable to conclude that never in history has the media covered a single human being as it has Donald Trump. For more than a year now, unless a terror attack roiled American life, he's been the news cycle, essentially the only one, morning, noon, and night, day after day, week after week, month after month. His every word, phrase, move, insult, passing comment, off-the-cuff remark, claim, boast, brazen lie, shout, or shout-out has been ours as well. In this period, he's praised his secret plan to destroy ISIS and take Iraqi oil. He's thumped that "big, fat, beautiful wall" again and again. He's birthered a campaign that could indeed transport him, improbably enough, into the Oval Office. He's fought it out with 17 political rivals, among others, including "lyin' Ted," "low-energy Jeb," Carly ("Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?") Fiorini, "crooked Hillary," a Miss Universe ("Miss Piggy"), the "highly overrated" Megyn Kelly's menstrual cycle ("You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever"), always Rosie O'Donnell ("a slob [with] a fat, ugly face"), and so many others. He's made veiled assassination threats; lauded the desire to punch someone in the face; talked about shooting "somebody" in "the middle of Fifth Avenue"; defended the size of his hands and his you-know-what; retweeted neo-Nazis and a quote from Mussolini; denounced the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs and products while outsourcing his own jobs and products; excoriated immigrants and foreign labor while hiring the same; advertised the Trump brand in every way imaginable; had a bromance with Vladimir Putin; threatened to let nuclear weapons proliferate; complained bitterly about a rigged election, rigged debates, a rigged moderator, and a rigged microphone; swore that he and he alone was capable of again making America, and so the world, a place of the sort of greatness only he himself could match, and that's just to begin a list on the subject of The Donald.
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Vader

The Pentagon begins stealth war in Syria - apparently without authorization

Mike Whitney
CounterPunch
Sun, 09 Oct 2016 18:39 UTC
Ash Carter
© Gary Cameron / ReutersU.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter gets his war
"Last Wednesday, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the (Assad) regime ... One proposed way to get around the White House's long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment." - Washington Post
Call it stealth warfare, call it poking the bear, call it whatever you'd like. The fact is, the Syrian war has entered a new and more dangerous phase increasing the chances of a catastrophic confrontation between the US and Russia.

This new chapter of the conflict is the brainchild of Pentagon warlord, Ash Carter, whose attack on a Syrian outpost at Deir Ezzor killed 62 Syrian regulars putting a swift end to the fragile ceasefire agreement. Carter and his generals opposed the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire deal because it would have required "military and intelligence cooperation with the Russians". In other words, the US would have had to get the greenlight from Moscow for its bombing targets which would have undermined its ability to assist its jihadist fighters on the ground. That was a real deal-breaker for the Pentagon. But bombing Deir Ezzor fixed all that. It got the Pentagon out of the jam it was in, it torpedoed the ceasefire, and it allowed Carter to launch his own private shooting match without presidential authorization. Mission accomplished.

So what sort of escalation does Carter have in mind, after all, most analysts assume that a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia will lead to a nuclear war. Is he really willing to take that risk?
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Radar

New Russian radars give the Pentagon headaches even before being fully deployed


Sputnik
Sun, 09 Oct 2016 18:58 UTC
Russian Radar
© Sputnik/ Igor Zarembo
Last week, Russian media reported that a newly built Voronezh-DM early warning radar system in Siberia successfully detected its first missile launch from the United States. Commenting on the news, military journalist Vladimir Tuchkov remarked that the detection was proof that the new EWS network is already paying off, even before being completed.

On Wednesday, a Voronezh-class radar system in trial operation mode in Yeniseisk, Krasnoyarsk Region detected its first genuine US ballistic target, RIA Novosti reported. The type of target remained classified.

Voronezh-class radars, the latest generation of Russian stationary early-warning radar, take only about one and a half to two years to build, thanks to high levels of prefabrication and standardization. This gives the system a major advantage in terms of time and cost compared to its predecessors, which needed 5-10 years to get up and running. The stations also cost significantly less - about 1.5 billion rubles apiece ($19.6 million US), compared to the 10-20 billion rubles ($130-$261 million) their predecessors required.
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Eye 1

All EU migrants will have residency permits, the rest will get amnesty in UK after Brexit - reports


RT
Sun, 09 Oct 2016 13:23 UTC
Brexit
© Stefan Rousseau / ReutersTheresa May holds a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's country retreat Chequers in Buckinghamshire to discuss department-by-department Brexit action plans, Britain August 31, 2016.
EU nationals currently living in the UK will be able to stay after Brexit is finalized in 2019, a report citing government sources says. Over two-thirds of those currently in the UK will have residency permits by then, and the rest will get amnesty.

As Britain negotiates its cumbersome exit from the EU, many questions continue to pop up, and the Home Office has discovered that some five out of six EU nationals will not be eligible for deportation by the time the UK finally leaves, the Telegraph reported, citing sources in the Cabinet. Of the 3.6 million EU nationals currently residing in the UK, some 80 percent will have gained permanent residency rights by the time Britain is formerly out of the EU.

Comment: Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn will tell conference delegates on Wednesday he will not limit immigration into Britain if he takes power. However, his former shadow secretary, Rachel Reeves, has warned uncurbed migrant numbers could lead to riots.

See also: Corbyn vows not to limit immigration in UK if elected PM amid warnings of post-Brexit riots if immigration isn't cut

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Bullseye

Lavrov calls US claims that Russia employs Snowden "just nonsense"


Sputnik
Sun, 09 Oct 2016 14:23 UTC
snowden
© Reuters

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called US accusations of Russia employing former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden "just nonsense."

The US accusations of Russia employing former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden are groundless, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"We did everything to contain our conflicts [with the US]...Then there was an incomprehensible offense... at the situation with Snowden. We were accused of recruiting him... This is just nonsense. Everybody knows it," Lavrov told Russia's Channel One in an interview.

Comment: Anti-Russia witch hunt to cover-up (real) DNC scandal-US media lies

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Jet2

Joint drills to be held by Russian and Egyptian paratroopers


Middle East Monitor
Tue, 04 Oct 2016 16:46 UTC
egyptian army
Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula, October 27, 2014
For the first time in history, Russian paratroopers are to take part in joint drills with their Egyptian counterparts in Africa, Sputnik news agency reported the Russian defence ministry saying yesterday.

According to Sputnik, the Russian paratroopers, who are expected to leave for Egypt this month, will be using their own equipment.

"For the first time in history a Russian paratrooper unit with its own weaponry and equipment is planning to leave for Africa to participate in a joint international exercise," a statement of the Russian defence ministry said.
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Laptop

During the darkest period in America's recent history 22 million emails were "lost" by the George Bush White House

Nina Burleigh
newsweek.com
Sat, 08 Oct 2016 19:50 UTC
George Bush
© Kevin Lamaroque/REUTERSU.S. President George W. Bush holds a news conference in the briefing room of the White House in Washington July 15, 2008.
For 18 months, Republican strategists, political pundits, reporters and Americans who follow them have been pursuing Hillary Clinton's personal email habits, and no evidence of a crime has been found. But now they at least have the skills and interest to focus on a much larger and deeper email conspiracy, one involving war, lies, a private server run by the Republican Party and contempt of Congress citations—all of it still unsolved and unpunished.

Clinton's email habits look positively transparent when compared with the subpoena-dodging, email-hiding, private-server-using George W. Bush administration. Between 2003 and 2009, the Bush White House "lost" 22 million emails. This correspondence included millions of emails written during the darkest period in America's recent history, when the Bush administration was ginning up support for what turned out to be a disastrous war in Iraq with false claims that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and, later, when it was firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons.

Comment: Clinton's email habits look positively transparent?!
At this point, we can only guess why Clinton and her staff chose not to use official systems. And the most obvious guess at this point is a fear of transparency. Congressional oversight committees, FOIA-demanding journalists, diligent historians, and even everyday citizens have more ways than ever to monitor the work of public officials and to acquire records of their correspondence, budgets, and all manner of comings and goings.


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Magnify

15 years on: What is the US legacy in Afghanistan?

Catherine Shakdam
RT
Sat, 08 Oct 2016 15:54 UTC
Taliban militants are seen with their weapons in an undisclosed location in Afghanistan
© Stringer / Reuters
Afghanistan, it has been said, is the place where empires come to die. And while we might still fail to grasp all the geopolitical entanglements of this Afghan War, it is clear America overestimated its ability to project power in Central Asia.

Fifteen years on and Washington is no closer to a resolution in Afghanistan. Actually, the situation is much worse than that: 15 years on and America has lost all of its bearings; drowned in the middle of a furious geopolitical realignment it could not foresee, and yet managed to bring about.

But what did exactly happen, and more importantly still, why Afghanistan?
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Stock Down

Leaks and counter-leaks: Clinton and Trump more unpopular than Putin among American voters

Bernhard
Moon of Alabama
Sun, 09 Oct 2016 16:07 UTC
The tape of Trump talking dirty was released just in time to sidetrack from the release of more of Clinton's dirty secrets by Wikileaks. Trump's talk was juvenile and sexist bragging in front of other "boys". Surprising it was not. There will be more releases like that, all timed to run cover for Clinton.

The just released emails of her campaign chairman John Podesta about Clinton's talk to Wall Street and other Clinton related issues are indeed revealing. She is the sell-out you would expect her to be:
*CLINTON SAYS YOU NEED TO HAVE A PRIVATE AND PUBLIC POSITION ON POLICY*

Clinton: "But if everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position."
It is funny how the U.S. electorate has a deeper "very negative" view of Trump (-44%) and Clinton (-41%) than of the much vilified Russian President Putin (-38%).
poll

Comment: Further reading:

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