Puppet MastersS


Mr. Potato

Obama praises US-led coalition for crushing ISIS, and fails to mention Russian and Syrian victories


RT
Thu, 14 Apr 2016 14:14 UTC
Barack Obama
© Kevin Lamarque / ReutersU.S. President Barack Obama blows bubbles during the 2016 White House Science Fair in Washington, April 13, 2016.
A speech by the American president at the CIA's HQ has focused on big gains made by the US-led antiterrorist coalition, but failed to mention the contribution made by the Syrian Army, the Kurdish militia and the Russian Air Force.

President Barack Obama was speaking at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on Wednesday.

"Our 66-member coalition, including Arab partners, is on the offensive," the US president acknowledged. "We have momentum and we intend to keep that momentum," he said, mentioning over 11,500 airstrikes carried out by the coalition's air forces since the beginning of the counterterrorist operation more than 18 months ago.

Yet a confidential NATO analysis said in late February that 40 Russian warplanes deployed to Syria had outperformed 180 aircraft of the US-led coalition in bombing Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). After Moscow announced the withdrawal of its main forces from Syria in late February, Russia's defense minister reported to Vladimir Putin that the Russian task force had performed well over 9,000 sorties (and many more airstrikes) against IS in less than five months.

All in all, Russia is mentioned in Obama's speech once, when he acknowledged that Moscow is a member of the UN Security Council.
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Jet1

Anniversary celebration: Pentagon decries Russian jets zooming over USS Donald Cook as 'aggressive simulated attack'


RT
Thu, 14 Apr 2016 08:14 UTC
A Sukhoi Su-24 jet makes a low altitude pass by the USS Donald Cook
© US Navy / ReutersA Sukhoi Su-24 jet makes a low altitude pass by the USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) April 12, 2016.

Comment: Two years ago, 12 April 2014, Russian Su-24s paralysed the USS Cook's Aegis system with their electronic jamming gear. Looks like this was a little reminder.



The aerobatics skills of Russian pilots over the US destroyer Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea left the Pentagon and other US officials running for cover in Washington over "aggressive close interactions" with Russian fighter jets.

Releasing the footage of Russian jet flybys in the vicinity of the destroyer, the US Navy said that its vessel has encountered multiple "aggressive flight maneuvers ...within close proximity of the ship," some as close as 30 feet (10 meters) on Monday and Tuesday.

The set of incidents took place as the US ship, which had sailed from the Polish port of Gdynia, was conducting exercises with its NATO ally Poland in the Baltic Sea. The Navy announced that the SU-24 first flew over Donald Cook on Monday as US sailors were rehearsing "deck landing drills with an allied [Polish] military helicopter". The numerous close-range, low altitude encounters were witnessed at 3:00pm local time, forcing the commander of the ship to suspend helicopter refueling on the deck until the Russian jets departed the area.

Comment: Cody Glacz on Facebook made this helpful map to show how close the USS Donald Cook got to Russia:

Donald Cook
© Cody Glacz - Facebbook
And RT's InTheNow brought the point home:



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Eye 1

Hillary Clinton's role in Haiti's political chaos

Theodore Hamm
Daily Beast
Thu, 14 Apr 2016 03:20 UTC
Mirovne snage UN-a odgovorne za širenje kolere na Haitiju?
© Ramon Espinosa / AP
Much of the blame for Haiti's chaotic political scene can be pinned on Hillary Clinton's State Department, whose handpicked president has only made things worse.

Last week Haiti's Electoral Council postponed the nation's current presidential election indefinitely. The present chaos is a fitting coda to the recent presidency of Michel Martelly, a novice politician who governed accordingly.

Amid the current upheaval, the name Mirlande Manigat is well worth recalling. As Haiti struggled to dig out from the disastrous 2010 earthquake, Manigat stood poised to become its first elected female president—until Hillary Clinton's State Department intervened.

A former First Lady of Haiti and a respected university administrator, Manigat invoked Brazil's Lula as she ran on a moderately left-wing platform championing universal public education. Manigat, who holds a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne, also campaigned in the U.S., detailing at length her vision for Haiti.

Ominously, Dr. Manigat criticized the aid organizations that swarmed into Haiti after the earthquake. Singling out those groups' lack of accountability, Manigat assuredTime that "My government will not operate the NGO way."

Comment: Everywhere she goes Hillary leaves a trail of corruption, misery, and destruction:

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Bad Guys

US diplomat: US still refuses to recognize Assad's legitimacy, demands he be overthrown


RT
Thu, 14 Apr 2016 03:09 UTC
Syria Assad elections
© Omar Sanadiki / ReutersA woman casts her vote during the parliamentary elections in Damascus, Syria April 13, 2016.
We should be welcoming any kind of election and progress towards democracy under these conflict circumstances, so it makes no sense the US government is condemning this vote, former US diplomat Jim Jatras told RT.

The United States dismissed out of hand the Syrian poll to elect a new parliament saying it doesn't reflect "the will of the people." But in 2005 Washington welcomed voting in neighboring Iraq when the country was also gripped by war.

RT: The US dismissed the upcoming parliamentary elections in Syria. Why is it denying legitimacy to a democratic vote?

Jim Jatras: Because the American government has already decided that Bashar Assad is not a legitimate head of a government, this is not a legitimate government, it has to be overthrown. And anything they do will simply be condemned out of hand by the US government whether there is any basis for it or not. This is despite the fact that in 2014 Syria carried out a presidential election, Syrians all over the world voted in it and we saw people abroad in places like Lebanon, Jordan actively and enthusiastically participating in these elections. There is no reason to think that a very substantial part of the Syrian population, I would say a majority, supports this government and supports these elections.

Comment: Also see: Syria Dispatch: Most Syrians Support Assad, Reject Phony Foreign 'Revolution'

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Quenelle - Golden

Russian jets send a warning to the US empire, US media predictably freaks out

Mark Nicholas
Russia Insider
Thu, 14 Apr 2016 02:58 UTC
Russian air force
© Dmitry Rogulin/TASS
Yay. Gotta love fake manufactured horror.

Russians do a dry strafing run on a US destroyer in the Baltic (as in the sea that Russia's second city and the old capital of Saint Petersburg lies on) and American military pretends this is such a horrific thing that it makes CNN.

To demonstrate just how out of order the Russians supposedly were the US Navy did its best impersonation of a 12-year-old girl and took to Youtube and Twitter to cry about it. The media took over from there so that the story is now making the rounds - in a high-pitched tone meant to evoke horror an outrage.

Comment: Further reading: US Empire is at war with the world and Russia is the main force holding the criminal organization at bay

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Bad Guys

US now planning for WWIII

Eric Zeusse
Sott.net
Wed, 13 Apr 2016 00:00 UTC
NATO Russia

Because this article states so many things that might be likely to contradict what most people in Western countries have been led to believe, readers here are especially strongly encouraged to click onto any allegation which seems at all questionable, in order to get to the sources behind any given questionable allegation. And wherever a clicked-onto source turns out to be another article, one is encouraged similarly to do the same there, so that the reader will be able, in this way, to probe down to the ultimate sources, which are the sources upon which this article is finally based.

——

After having expanded NATO right up to Russia's borders and essentially surrounded Russia with U.S. military installations, the United States is now using the pretext of Russia's having allowed the people of Crimea in 2014 to rejoin Russia (after the Soviet dictator Khrushchev had transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954) as being an excuse for arming and soldiering Russia's northwestern borders sufficiently to be able to launch as soon as 2017 a ground invasion of Russia, which would then be backed up by U.S. air power and nuclear arms.

In the United States and Europe, the promotion for this action presents the plan as purely defensive against 'Russian aggression', for Russia's having 'seized' Crimea in 2014. Promptly, U.S. President Barack Obama slapped economic sanctions against Russia for Russia's accepting Crimea back into Russia. It was actually hardly a 'seizure'; it was a protection of the residents there, 75% of whom had voted for the man who had recently been overthrown in a violent coup (which was presented in the West as being a 'democratic revolution').

However, the U.S. had virtually forced Russia to accept the pleas of the residents of Crimea to become again a part of Russia, after the anti-Russian coup in Ukraine — which the head of Stratfor has called "the most blatant coup in history" — after that coup had terrified the residents of Crimea, whom even Western-backed polling of Crimeans had shown wanted to rejoin with Russia, even before the U.S. took control of Ukraine in its very bloody coup. (Ever since that coup, there has been no action condemned by the U.S. White House, on the part of the thus-installed anti-Russian Ukrainian government. Now, instead, the condemnations of the Ukrainian government are coming from Moscow, against Russia's now having such a rabidly anti-Russian-led nation along Russia's longest European or western border. It's as if Canada were being led now by anti-American bigots who had been installed by the world's superpower in a world in which the U.S. were only the #2 power. The U.S. would then be extremely disturbed at that type of situation; and, so, too, are naturally Russians.)
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Stock Down

Trump, on track to 'bust out' America?

Ian Greenhalgh
Veterans Today
Sun, 10 Apr 2016 00:00 UTC
A "bust out" is a common tactic in the organized crime world, wherein a business' assets and lines of credit are exploited and exhausted to the point of bankruptcy.

Mark Galeotti, a New York University professor and one of the leading experts in transnational organized crime, described the familiar tactic:
"It's one of the classic tactics of organized crime. You exploit it as far as you can and when you have essentially squeezed every possible bit of value out of it, you burn it. In organized crime's case, I mean that literally, whereas with private equity, it's planned bankruptcy. But essentially you dispose of it in as convenient a way as possible, and then you walk away."
This squeeze and burn tactic has been dramatized both by "The Sopranos" and the film "Goodfellas," where mobsters take control of companies and run up their credit.


In The Sopranos, the hapless victim, a man with a healthy sporting goods store and a corrosive gambling addiction, asks Soprano how the process will end, the fictional mob boss is ready with a precise answer.

"Planned bankruptcy," Soprano tells him.

Comment: Should Trump become POTUS, he might find he's a bit late to the party, maybe a token photo-op as 'bust out' poster child. From creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 to the bank bailouts in 2008, that's what a 'bust out' of America looks like.

To see this on a grand scale, check out Confessions of an Economic Hit Man [link] [link], and Web of Debt [link].

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Bizarro Earth

CIA's Plan B gives Syrian rebels MANPADs to fight Russia


RT
Wed, 13 Apr 2016 11:16 UTC
rebel manpad
© www.rt.comWar Trek: The next generation
A covert 'Plan B' for Syria reserved for a "violation of ceasefire" is being pushed to the US president, anonymous officials told media. Arming "moderate" Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft weapons to fight the "Russia-backed regime" is again on the table.

Back in February, the Wall Street Journal first reported that President Barack Obama's senior military and intelligence advisers were insisting that a back-up plan is necessary to "counter Russia" in Syria. The fresh details obtained by the WSJ suggest the CIA has given "provisional assurances" to coalition members to expand support to Syrian armed opposition groups fighting troops of President Bashar Assad. Still, the White House reserved the right to define which weapons systems are to be introduced to the battlefield - if the truce fails and full-scale fighting resumes.

On the eve of the ceasefire agreement coming into effect in Syria at midnight on February 27, the heads of Middle East intelligence agencies met to lay out a plan for waging war after the truce. And consultations on the matter never stopped ever since. Today Washington and its allies, such as Ankara and Riyadh, are discussing which weapon systems are to be delivered to "vetted" Syrian rebels under this secret program, the WSJ reports.

Experts agree that what the anti-government forces in Syria need the most are electronic means to ensure effective suppression of President Bashar Assad's artillery batteries and take down fighter jets. For the latter purpose, man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADs) are on the table, with Turkey and Saudi Arabia eager to supply them to the Syrian rebels. The WSJ claims that US officials have conveyed a "private message" to their Russian counterparts that a return to full-scale fighting could "end up putting more Russian pilots in danger."

Comment: CIA, Saudis, Turks, US Intel, US military, Neocons..."Give them bigger, better arms, all bets off, go full throttle, lethal weaponry." Like mad dogs. Denying the US and the coalition support the rebels is but a puff of smoke in a hurricane of evidence. How long will the truce hold, given the rabid nature of Obama's cohorts and advisors? And, will Russia take the bait?

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Vader

Would a Killary win mean more wars?

Robert Parry
Consortium News
Sun, 10 Apr 2016 19:51 UTC
clinton israel
Savvy neocons see Hillary Clinton as their Trojan Horse to be pulled into the White House by Democratic voters, raising the question: would a Clinton-45 presidency mean more wars?

The Democratic Party establishment seems determined to drag Hillary Clinton's listless campaign across the finish line of her race with Bernie Sanders and then count on Republican divisions to give her a path to the White House. But - if she gets there - the world should hold its breath.

If Clinton becomes President, she will be surrounded by a neocon-dominated American foreign policy establishment that will press her to resume its "regime change" strategies in the Middle East and escalate its new and dangerous Cold War against Russia.

If Bashar al-Assad is still president of Syria, there will be demands that she finally go for the knock-out blow; there will be pressure, too, for her to ratchet up sanctions on Iran pushing Tehran toward renouncing the nuclear agreement; there are already calls for deploying more U.S. troops on Russia's border and integrating Ukraine into the NATO military structure.

President Clinton-45 would hear the clever talking points justifying these moves, the swaggering tough-guy/gal rhetoric, and the tear-jerking propaganda about evil enemies throwing babies off incubators, giving Viagra to soldiers to rape more women, and committing horrific crimes (some real but many imagined) against defenseless innocents.

Does anyone think that Hillary Clinton has the wisdom to resist these siren songs of confrontation and war, even if she were inclined to?
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Map

Aleppo is the focal point of the Syrian war


Sputnik
Wed, 13 Apr 2016 19:41 UTC
aleppo
© Sputnik/ Iliya Pitalev

Comment: SyrPer is reporting that whole units of Nusra's military are abandoning positions, and the last fortifications in Tal Al-'Ays are falling under massive artillery strikes, where Ahrar al-Shaam's commander, al-Hasm was killed by the Syrian army, along with 17 of his aides.


Currently, combat actions in Syria are focused on the province and city of Aleppo, and the upcoming military operation will play a decisive role in determining the course of the war, American think tank Stratfor said in an article.

"With major military operations already underway in Aleppo and more to come, the province is emerging as the focal point of the war in Syria. Of the ongoing battles in the region, the largest and most decisive is the fight between rebels and loyalists for the divided city of Aleppo," according to Stratfor, also known as the "shadow CIA."

While the Syrian government tries to strengthen its position with a victory in Aleppo, the rebels are fighting for the "survival of their case."
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