Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Prelude to World War?‏

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© Unknown
On 24 February 2014 US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel held a press conference to announce some of the details of Pentagon's 2015 budget. Beyond the news of cuts in war fighting machinery and personnel - and the pox of "irresponsible" sequestration on the federal government - Hagel made a point of indicating that the world is becoming an increasingly volatile place. He also seemed to express a bit of disgust for nation building of the type attempted by the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those sentiments are directly at odds with the core element of US national and global security strategy in operation since the late 19th Century. Those strategies employ the USA's considerable instruments of national power to: 1) actively destabilize "elected" governments (Ukraine, Venezuela) through the use of NGO's, intelligence agencies and proxy groups; 2) prop up brutal regimes (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt) through a US congressionally approved program, executed by the US military, called Foreign Internal Defense; 3) information operations conducted via the printed press, social media, radio, television and film that seek to shape the cognitive local to global environment in favor of US national interests.; and 4) existentially destroy foreign governments through direct military action in conjunction with the weaponry of finance capitalism to create new markets.

Quenelle

Best of the Web: Obama's dumbest plan yet: The coup in Ukraine

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© Telegraph
"Washington and Brussels ... used a Nazi coup, carried out by insurgents, terrorists and politicians of Euromaidan to serve the geopolitical interests of the West." - Natalia Vitrenko, The Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine

The United States helped defeat Nazism in World War 2. Obama helped bring it back.

As you probably know by now, Obama and Co. have ousted Ukraine's democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, with the help of ultra-right, paramilitary, neo-Nazi gangs who seized and burned government offices, killed riot police, and spread mayhem and terror across the country.

Chess

Ukraine's protests: The context

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© libcom.orgLeader of the extreme far-right Svoboda party Oleh Tyahnybok.
Western corporate media outlets have been noticeably reluctant to delve too deeply into the neofascist wing of the Ukrainian protest movement.

The protests against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych have been presented as essentially a resurgence of democratic pro-European values against a corrupt Kremlin-backed regime.

The truth is more complex, combining geopolitical rivalry between Russia and the EU with mass impoverishment following the Soviet Union's collapse.

Comment: For more background on the rise of the extreme far-right in the Ukraine and it's support by Western powers read:
Geopolitical dimensions of the coup in Ukraine, and why fascist militias are necessary for Western powers
The extreme right emerging as the dominant voice in Ukraine
Is the US backing neo-Nazis in Ukraine?


Colosseum

Symbolism at its finest: Rome just days away from bankruptcy

marino mayor rome
© AFP Photo/Gabriel BouysIgnazio Marino, Rome's mayor
The Italian capital may go bankrupt within a few days, says the Mayor, as the government cannot agree on how to fill the city's $1.17 billion budget gap.

The city is in danger of repeating a Detroit-style bankruptcy, and in so doing becoming the first major political problem for new prime minister Matteo Renzi. On the first day of his premiership, Renzi had to withdraw a decree, promulgated by his predecessor Enrico Letta that would have helped the city of Rome fill the €816 million ($1.17 billion) budget gap. Rome's Mayor Ignazio Marino was asking for €485 million from central government to compensate Rome for the extra costs it incurs in its role as a major tourist destination, the nation's capital, and the seat of the Vatican. However, the plan was opposed by opposition lawmakers in parliament on Wednesday, showing it had little chances of being passed.

USA

From Guantanamo to limitless war, Obama's failure to live up to his own five commandments

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© Unknown
In January 2009, Barack Obama entered the Oval Office projecting idealism and proud to be the constitutional law professor devoted to turning democratic principles into action. In his first weeks in office, in a series of executive orders and public statements, the new president broadcast for all to hear the five commandments by which life in his new world of national security would be lived.

Thou shalt not torture.

Thou shalt not keep Guantanamo open.

Thou shalt not keep secrets unnecessarily.

Thou shalt not wage war without limits.

Thou shalt not live above the law.

Five years later, the question is: How have he and his administration lived up to these self-proclaimed commandments? Let's consider them one by one:

Cardboard Box

Ukraine security forces "regain" Crimea airports without firing a shot

Simferopol airport
© UnknownFile photo shows Crimea international airport in Simferopol.

Ukrainian authorities say they have regained control of two airports in the country's semi-autonomous region Crimea after armed gunmen seized the buildings.


The country's National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy said Friday that there had been an attempt to occupy the airports in Crimea, security forces, however, has taken full control of them.

The developments come as Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov earlier in the day accused Russian troops of staging an "invasion" of Crimea's international airport in Simferopol and the Belbek airfield near the city of Sevastopol, which is home to Russia's Black Sea fleet.

A spokesman for Russia's Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet denied that Russian troops had any involvement in the airport occupations.

Earlier on Friday, a group of armed men in military uniforms briefly seized an airport in the regional capital of Crimea. Eyewitness said about 50 gunmen in military uniforms arrived at Simferopol International Airport in military trucks to search for Ukrainian airborne troops.

The group, however, left after finding out that Ukrainian military forces were not present on the tarmac.

Comment: So this staged take-over of the airports were most likely another false-flag event with the aim of accusing Russia of invasion and stir up anti-Russian feelings across the Western world. The Cold war headlines and editorials have already been made in the Western media.

It doesn't matter that Russia has denied it or that locals from around the airports have said that they were not Russian soldiers. The Ukrainian forces also retook them without firing a shot. Something does not add up.

A commenter (Deo Cassar) on Press TV wrote:
So the truth has finally emerged. It was all simply an excercise in mass deception. There was never any take over by Russian troops, nor self defence troops who took over vthe airports. They were simply NATO Russian speaking specail forces calling themselves Crimean Defence Force?! The great deceiver has exceeded its level of decit. The hype behind the story that Russian trops had taken over the airport was only a sham to deceive the Crimean people and deny them the right to react. It also served as an excuse to justify the cancellation of the 2010 deal to extend the lease of Sevastapol harbour to the Russian fleet and throw them out. Now it is time for the Crimean people, the true Russian speaking Crimean people to rise up and throw the Neo-Nazi trash out to their Northern dustbins.



Dollar

Flashback The fraud of Obamacare: Only 51,000 uninsured Americans enrolled

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© Livetradingnews
"Paltry total amounts to less than 1 percent of uninsured; Cost of website now over $7,000 per enrollee"

A new report today in the Daily Mail finally answered a question the Obama Administration would not for the past 10 days - namely, how many people have successfully enrolled in Obamacare's federal "exchange" website healthcare.gov.

The answer is a paltry 51,000. To put that in context, it's a small fraction of one percent of the uninsured population. It falls far short of the 7 million enrollment figure that is widely believed to be the administration's goal.

The cost to taxpayers is staggering. According to reports, taxpayers have footed the bill for $363 million to get this "glitchy" exchange enrollment website off the ground. That comes out to $7118 per enrollee thus far. This gives a whole new meaning to "waste, fraud, and abuse."

Quenelle - Golden

French football star Nicolas Anelka banned for five matches and fined £80,000 for making public gesture that signals you are fed up with the Western elites' lies

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QUENELLE!
West Bromwich Albion have suspended Nicolas Anelka after the Frenchman was banned for five matches by the Football Association and fined £80,000 for the quenelle gesture that he performed after scoring against West Ham United in December.

The club announced their decision following confirmation from the FA that an independent regulatory commission had found Anelka guilty of making a gesture that was "abusive and/or indecent and/or insulting and/or improper, and that included a reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or religion or belief".

The punishment was the most lenient that the FA could have imposed under their new anti-discrimination rules. However, the governing body reported that the three-man panel "did not find that Nicolas Anelka is an antisemite or that he intended to express or promote antisemitism by his use of the quenelle".

It remains to be seen whether Anelka will appeal against the punishment, which includes attending a compulsory education programme. The 34-year-old said from the outset that the quenelle was a "special dedication to my comedian friend Dieudonné [M'Bala M'Bala]" and maintained that the gesture he made at Upton Park on 28 December was anti-establishment rather than antisemitic.

Comment: The gesture IS a gesture against racism, you numbskulls! Along with everything else the Powers That Be lie about all day every day!

Altogether now...




Coffee

Best of the Web: Pepe Escobar: NATO's wet dream in Crimea

Crimea
© Unknown

Time waits for no one, but apparently will wait for Crimea. The speaker of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, has confirmed there will be a referendum on greater autonomy from Ukraine on May 25.

Until then, Crimea will be as hot and steamy as carnival in Rio - because Crimea is all about Sevastopol, the port of call for the Russian Black Sea fleet.

If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a bull, this is the red flag to end all red flags. Even if you're deep in alcohol nirvana dancin' your troubles away at carnival in Rio - or New Orleans, or Venice, or Trinidad and Tobago - your brain will have registered that NATO's ultimate wet dream is to command a Western puppet Ukrainian government to kick the Russian navy out of its base in Sevastopol. The negotiated lease applies until 2042. Threats and rumors of reneging it have already emerged.

The absolute majority of the Crimean peninsula is populated by Russian speakers. Very few Ukrainians live there. In 1954, it took only 15 minutes for Ukrainian Nikita Krushchev - he of the banging shoe at the UN floor - to give Crimea as a free gift to Ukraine (then part of the USSR). In Russia, Crimea is perceived as Russian. Nothing will change that fact.

War Whore

Sanctimonious scumbags: West demonizes Russia doing everything to avoid conflict in Ukraine

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© AFP/Vasily BatanovThis picture taken on February 27, 2014 shows a placard reading "Crimea is Russia" on a barricade at the entrance of the Crimean parliament in Simferopol.
It is pure hypocrisy for the same Western powers fomenting the chaos in Ukraine to brandish the idea that Russia should be chided for some kind of military intervention that has not happened, political analyst Eric Draitser told RT.

RT: Russia has held snap military drills in the region bordering Ukraine. This does give the EU grounds to be reasonably concerned, doesn't it?

Eric Draitser: Well it should not necessarily give them concern considering that it was the EU, the United States and NATO powers were first at instigating the unrest in Kiev and in Ukraine more generally. We have seen that the unrest has been sponsored by the US. We know of course that Victoria Nuland and some of the figures in Germany who have been backing Klitschko and Yatsenyuk, they were exacerbating the situation, fomenting from the very beginning. So now in response to the unrest through the country, particularly in response from these probing attacks that we have seen since the takeover of Kiev, extending into the Eastern portion of the country.

You have seen regions in Ukraine, such as Crimea and elsewhere, calling on Russia to come and to protect the citizens. Now what Russia is doing in response is certainly not an intervention, not by any stretch of the imagination. What we have seen rather is putting military on high alert just like they did in 2008 in response to provocative attacks from Georgia.