Puppet MastersS

Phoenix

Reichstag Fire in Kiev

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The Kiev regime announces general mobilization; only 1% to 1.5% of conscripts bother to turn up

A dozen major cities - pretty much everything southeast of the line that runs from Kharkov to Odessa - are flying the Russian tricolorUkraine's naval flagship is flying Russia's naval flag

The newly appointed head of Ukrainian navy has defected to the Russian side in Crimea within a few hours of being appointed

Most of the Ukrainian military units in Crimea have gone over to the Russian side voluntarily, without a single shot fired

Ukrainian troops from Kirov have been ordered to march on Crimea, but have refused to obey (illegal) orders from Kiev

During the last two weeks of February 143,000 Ukrainian citizens have requested asylum in Russia

Once upon a time I had an excellent history teacher, who has made a lasting impact on how I view the world. "It's about the dates," he taught us; "Be sure to remember the dates, and you'll have the key to history." You see, dates are important because most of the important historical events are, in fact, anniversaries. There is a hackneyed phrase that history does not repeat - it rhymes; but it would be a lot closer to truth to say that history has a rhythm - a rhythm based largely on multiples of the annual cycle.

Star of David

AIPAC in trouble as Americans lose interest in war and Israelโ€ becomes increasingly unpopular

AIPAC
© Beth Singer Design
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference begins on March 2 and will conclude with an address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 4. The organizers boast that the meeting of "America's Pro-Israel Lobby" will attract "more than 14,000 pro-Israel Americans, more than two-thirds of Congress, [and] more than 2,200 students from 491 campuses."

There will be speeches by Senator John McCain and by Secretary of State John Kerry.

Coffee

A little late! Karzai wakes up to the fact that the US started Afghan war for own interests

Hamid Karzai
© AFP/Getty

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says the US and its Western allies launched the war in Afghanistan for their own interests.


"Afghans died in a war that's not ours," Karzai said in an interview with the Washington Post published on Sunday.

He said that the 12-year-old war was "for the US security and for the Western interest."

The Afghan president also urged the US to end air raids in Afghanistan, saying that, instead of Taliban militants, civilians are being killed in these airstrikes.

Karzai also said he will not sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with Washington and that it is up to his successor to make the decision. Afghanistan will hold a presidential election in April.

"My stand remains the same - that I cannot sign this BSA agreement with the United States without the launch of the peace process... [US] President [Barack] Obama said, 'Well, the US can wait for the next president,'" the Afghan president said.

Comment: So at the end of his presidency and before the scheduled elections in April, that he is bound to loose, Karzai finally says the truth of why the US went to war in Afghanistan. Anyone who has read sott over the last 11 years would have known it too.


Light Sabers

Ukraine: The price of internal division

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© Business Week
With all of the reports coming out of Ukraine, Moscow, Washington, and European capitals, the mutual accusations, the knee-jerk speculation, and - not least - the hysterical language of some observers, bordering on the apocalyptic, it is difficult to keep in mind the long-term implications of what is happening. Nevertheless, I believe that nobody can understand the likely outcomes of what is happening unless they bear in mind the historical, geographic, political and psychological factors at play in these dramatic events. The view of most of the media, whether Russian or Western, seems to be that one side or the other is going to "win" or "lose" Ukraine.

I believe that is fundamentally mistaken. If I were Ukrainian I would echo the immortal words of the late Walt Kelly's Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us." The fact is, Ukraine is a state but not yet a nation. In the 22-plus years of its independence, it has not yet found a leader who can unite its citizens in a shared concept of Ukrainian identity. Yes, Russia has interfered, but it is not Russian interference that has created Ukrainian disunity but rather the haphazard way the country was assembled from parts that were not always mutually compatible. To the flaw at the inception of an independent Ukraine, one must add the baleful effects of the Soviet Communist heritage both Russia and Ukraine have inherited.

Cult

Confirmed: British Labour and Conservative governments in 1970s gave elite pedophile network nearly half a million quid

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A whistleblower has claimed Margaret Thatcher's Conservative administration, which took over in 1979, may have provided funding for PIE.

A vile paedophile group with links to senior Labour politicians was funded with huge amounts of taxpayers' money, it has emerged.

The Paedophile Information Exchange was allegedly given ยฃ70,000 by the Home Office between 1977 and 1980 - the equivalent today of about ยฃ400,000.

The astonishing claims made by a whistleblower are now being investigated by the police and the government.

They come after the Mail exposed shocking links between the paedophile group and the National Council for Civil Liberties, a pressure group run at the time by former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman.

Comment: So, the British government is singularly responsible for spreading and normalizing pedophilia in the UK. Disgusting.

See also: Leading British opposition party politicians under investigation for channeling public funds to elite pedophile network


V

Mess with Glenn Greenwald at your own risk

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Clearly, there's an officially sanctioned, if not supported, backlash underway to cast doubt on those who are disseminating the information that Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers are exposing to the global public.

What better way to respond to the evidence of government overreach and criminality in spying by the NSA and other agencies than to try to change the subject by smearing the people who are funding the reporting on it to us.

This latest round of the media battle should not be surprising. In fact, it's all too predictable.

In the latest round, lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald, the point person/interpreter for the majority of the Snowden disclosures, came under attack by indirection with a high profile smear on Pierre Omidyar, the E-bay billionaire funding his new venture, First Look Media.

Leading the charge publicly is one Patrick Ames, who writes for Pando News, a rival news agency funded by another Silicon Valley tech moneyman. He has gone after Greenwald before charging that he is profiting by selling state secrets.

Comment: When it comes to "full-spectrum information warfare", to quote the Project for a New American Century-inspired Bush-era Pentagon policy document, you cannot be 'paranoid' or 'delusional' enough - without actually feeling or becoming either paranoid or delusional, of course!

What we mean is that critical thinking requires just that: thinking critically about all the factors involved. If Greenwald is getting Big Bucks from a large corporation whose fundamental concern is Profit, then it IS interesting data that must be taken into consideration.


Chess

Rule by oligarchs: Kiev appoints billionaires to govern east

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© RIA Novosti/Nikolai LysenkoBusinessman Igor Kolomoisky (left) and Serhiy Taruta, Ukrainian businessman
The self-proclaimed government in Kiev has appointed two of Ukraine's richest men to govern large industrial regions in the defiant east. One of the reasons for the Maidan protest was the influence the rich have on politics in the country.

The appointments of new governors of Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk Regions are among 18 made on Sunday by Kiev, which is struggling to consolidate power after the coup which ousted President Yanukovich last month.

The newly-appointed Dnepropetrovsk governor is Igor Kolomoysky, Ukraine's third-wealthiest man, with an estimated fortune of $2.4 billion. He co-owns the informal commercial group Privat, which includes Ukraine's largest bank Privatbank, which Kolomoysky heads, as well as assets in the oil, ferroalloys and food industries, agriculture and transport.

A former ally of Yulia Tymoshenko, Kolomoysky reportedly had a falling out with her and refused to finance her election campaign in 2010, which the ex-prime minister subsequently lost to Yanukovich. Kolomoysky was reported to be a principal sponsor of the UDAR party, which is one of the three fueling the street campaign to oust Yanukovich. Kolomoysky has a dual Ukrainian-Israeli citizenship and controls his business empire from Switzerland.

Candle

US funded regime change: 9 things you need to know about Venezuela and the recent violence

Pro-government student march in Venezuela
© Miguel MoyaPart of the Pro-Government student march on February 12th, 2014 - See more at:

1. The students marches are from the right-wing of the student movement


Unlike in places like Chile, there is no single or united student movement in Venezuela. Not only are students groups highly decentralized, but they are also divided along political lines.

Another unique feature of the student groups identifying with the opposition is that they do not organize around accessible or free education (since education has been made accessible to the sector of society that was previously excluded, resulting in an increase of 1,809,432 post-secondary students from 1999 to 2014).

The most recent opposition student demonstrations began in the western city of Tachira near the Colombian border. On the third day of student demonstrations about insecurity on the campus, the State Governor's house was attacked and four people were subsequently arrested (two of whom weren't students). These arrests led to student demonstrations in other cities - all of these demonstrations were not shut down by police - which led to the February 12th demonstration, where three people died.

On February 12, however, its important to know that there were thousands of Bolivarian students and youth marching for 'El Dia de la Juventud' (Youth Day), on the other side of Caracas. When speaking about the 'student movement' the logical question that has to follow is 'which one'?

Pirates

Best of the Web: Staggering new depths of hypocrisy: Kerry tells Russia 'You don't invade a country on completely phony pretexts'

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U.S. Sec. of State John Kerry pitifully latched onto bogus anti-Jewish leaflet to shore up his inherently weak position on Ukraine.
The US Secretary of State spoke today of the unacceptability of invading a sovereign country on phony pretexts in order to assert one's own interests in the 21st century. But no, he was not speaking about the United States, as one might have thought.

"You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests," John Kerry said during an interview with NBC's Meet the Press. "This is an act of aggression that is completely trumped up in terms of its pretext. It's really 19th century behaviour in the 21st century."

Kerry has also threatened to isolate Russia economically and politically and warned of potential asset freezes and visa bans, adding to media and political hype that followed Russia authorization of sending a stabilization force in Crimea on official request from the authorities.

"There could be certainly disruption of any of the normal trade routine, there could be business drawback on investment in the country," he said. "There could even be ultimately asset freezes, visa bans."

Although Kerry was never challenged by the interviewer to comment in terms of that statement on Washington's own constant threats to use force and military invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, those who watched the interview immediately smelled the hypocrisy.

Green Light

Despite negligible authority,Yanukovych is still legitimate head of Ukrainian state: Russia

Medvedev and Yanukovych
© UnknownMedvedev says that if Yanukovych was guilty of crimes, an impeachment process should have been launched against him in Ukraine and "everything else is just arbitrary. A seizure of power."

Russia says Viktor Yanukovych is still the legitimate head of the Ukrainian state and that Moscow does not recognize the new leaders in Ukraine.


The comments were made by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev who posted them on his Facebook page on Monday. He added that while the authority of President Yanukovych is practically negligible, he is still the legitimate leader of Ukraine according to the country's constitution.

The Russian prime minister also said that Moscow does not recognize Ukraine's interim leaders, as they violated the country's constitution when they took power. He said those new leaders won't last long.

"Ukraine is not for us the group of people who shed blood... and took power in violation of the constitution and other laws of their state," said Medvedev.

The prime minister continued by saying thatif Yanukovych was guilty of crimes, an impeachment process should have been launched against him in Ukraine and "everything else is just arbitrary. A seizure of power."