Puppet MastersS


Briefcase

Best of the Web: Judges judging judges - Judgment at Nuremberg

Michael Asimow
usf.usfca.edu
Sat, 01 Aug 1998 07:46 UTC
Nuremberg trial
Dec. 10, 1945: Defendants and defense attorneys during the Nuremberg trials
Stanley Kramer's masterpiece Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) stands alone as the finest film about judges ever made. In the film, four Nazi judges are placed on trial at Nuremberg before a panel of three American judges. Three of the German judges are Nazi thugs but one of them, Ernst Janning (played by Burt Lancaster), was quite different. Janning had been a famous and aristocratic legal scholar, a drafter of the Weimar constitution, and a man who detested Hitler and the Nazis. Yet he remained on the bench under the Third Reich. All defendants are convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The chief American judge, Dan Haywood (played memorably by Spencer Tracy), brushes aside the various excuses offered by defense counsel Rolfe (a role for which Maximilian Schell won an Oscar).

The Nuremberg war crime trials presented many thorny jurisprudential issues, such as the problem of ex post facto criminal law and the issue of how the court obtained jurisdiction over the defendants. In particular, what justification is there for an international (rather than a German) tribunal to try a case in which the offenses were committed by Germans against other Germans?

Comment: The above article was written in 1998. Just think of all the laws that were created and passed since then, especially after 911 in the U.S.A. (slowly but steadily spreading throughout the Western world and beyond) and how
court decisions aggressively broadened the coverage of the law, both in defining who was a [terrorist] and who was [one of "us"], and in describing the circumstances that would violate the law
We look back to the 1940s and we wonder in horror how the Nazis were able to create such a repressive, inhumane and utterly insane system and cause all the destruction and deaths that they did for so long! But someone looking from the future back to our world today, would wonder with the same exact horror, provided that s/he has any conscience.

Movie: Judgment at Nuremberg - Must See!

Read More...
Vader

Ukraine: The brown (shirt) revolution


Voice of Russia
Sat, 22 Feb 2014 07:40 UTC
Image
© "Golos Stolitsy" (Voice of capital/Kiev)
It is a fact that since 9-11-2001, the US Government has been in the business of destroying countries and using NATO as it principle instrument. That was stated more than a decade ago by then US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and later by General Wesley Clark. The Pentagon drew up a list of 7 states that were to be destroyed: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Syria and they have systematically proceeded to destroy all of the Countries on the list. The strategy in Ukraine is the same, US/NATO/EU are promoting the destabilization and the breakup of Ukraine in order to achieve the NATO goal of moving into Ukrainian territory closer to Russia. Harvard Professor Francis Boyle, a US based Russian expert who was invited to the Soviet Union to lecture spoke on these issues and more in an interview with the Voice of Russia.

While Russia was distracted into believing that the US wanted a reset US foreign policy was being planned and dictated by rabid Russia haters like Zbignew Brzezinski and Richard Pipes. Brzezinski wants to breakup Russia into approximately 68 parts and has placed his protégés in key US foreign policy posts. According to Mr. Boyle Brezezinski has staffed the Obama administration with his acolytes and protégées, including the US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, a specialist in color revolutions. At the end of the day the US plan is to see the breakup of the Russian Federation, that is the goal.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Venezuelan government sends Army to combat "grave" opposition - suspects that "paramilitaries and criminal gangs" are involved

Ewan Robertson
venezuelanalysis.com
Sat, 22 Feb 2014 07:30 UTC
Image
© Jack JohnstonStreet barricades have reduced traffic and impeded rubbish collection in San Cristobal. After this photo was taken last week, the situation reportedly worsened.
The Venezuelan government is to send two army battalions to Táchira state, which borders Colombia, to combat a "grave" case of opposition-promoted disorder in the area.

According to press reports and an eyewitness testimony provided to Venezuelanalysis.com, the capital city of Táchira state, San Cristóbal, has been almost brought to a standstill in recent days by street barricades set up by hard-line opposition activists.

According to such reports, in recent days almost no transport has been able to circulate, while the great majority of shops and businesses have been closed. Authorities warn that the street blockades are impeding the delivery of food and gasoline, and claim that transport workers have been threatened.

The government also suspects that "paramilitaries and criminal gangs" are involved in the actions, with the complicity of the local opposition mayor, Daniel Ceballos.
Read More...
Eye 2

U.S. is helping to destroy Fallujah again

Mike Phipps
Justice For Iraq
Tue, 28 Jan 2014 07:22 UTC
Image
The Iraqi Government's accusation of an external Al-Qaeda takeover was made to justify a ferocious siege and bombardment of the Fallujah and Ramadi.

Conflict and carnage on a scale unseen since the height of the Occupation nearly a decade ago have broken out in Iraq's Anbar Province. Over 140,000 people have been made homeless since fighting started at the end of last year. According to the UN, 65,000 people fled the fighting in the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi in one week alone.

Some commentators see the violence as a spillover from the Syrian conflict. Others analyse it in terms of Sunni tribesmen in dispute. When Iraq's corrupt government earned a rebuke from the usually inert UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who called on Nuri al-Maliki to address the root causes of the conflict, the Iraqi prime minister retorted, "We do not hold dialogue with al-Qaeda."

The pernicious narrative, peddled by the Iraqi Government and picked up in the mainstream media, that Al-Qaeda had taken over Fallujah, was a long way from the truth. But it helped to secure an immediate delivery of arms to the Iraqi regime from its US puppeteers to help quell the protests in Anbar.
Read More...
Light Sabers

Venezuela: It's the opposition that's anti-democratic

Jerome Roos
Venezuelanalysis.com
Sat, 22 Feb 2014 06:44 UTC
Venezuela protests
© Carlos Garcia Rawlins/ReutersSupporters of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro take part in demonstrations carrying signs saying ‘Revolution is Peace,’ as thousands took part in competing rallies in the deeply divided country on Saturday.
I've been away for the past week so I wasn't able to write anything on the unfolding turmoil in Venezuela, but I've been following the situation closely and in recent days have grown increasingly frustrated with (a) the total lack of balanced reporting on Venezuela in the international media, including left-liberal publications like The Guardian; (b) the seeming ease with which comrades on the libertarian left ignore the events in Venezuela as if it were somehow "irrelevant" to our cause, simply because we're not supposed to have any close ideological affinity with chavismo; and (c) the ill-informed basis on which many activists and even several major movement pages have taken the side of the protesters against the government, unquestioningly sharing the propaganda of the right-wing opposition and echoing dangerously superficial and wrongheaded interpretations about the protests. I intend to write more on this later, but here are some initial reflections:

Comment: Just watch the documentary The Revolution will not be Televised, under point 7 above, for it contains all you need to know about what is going on in Venezuela today!

Read More...
Handcuffs

Mexico's "most wanted" drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, captured


RT
Sun, 23 Feb 2014 06:57 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Ronaldo SchemidtMexican drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera aka "el Chapo Guzman", is escorted by big tough Mexican guys in a show of strength to the press to invite people to believe that either the US or Mexican govts can do anything about the frankenstein drugs problem they created.
Mexico's most wanted drug kingpin, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, has been captured, President Enrique Pena Nieto announced on Saturday. The arrest comes as a major victory for the government in its bloody war with drug cartels.

Guzman is the head of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel and is known as one of the world's most powerful organized crime bosses.

The Sinaloa Cartel has smuggled billions of dollars worth of cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine into the United States, and fought brutal wars with other Mexican gangs over turf and drug trafficking routes, Reuters reports.

Comment: It's just a show of strength for the cameras. Guzman is a DEA informer and also very probably on the CIA payroll.
Joaquín 'Chapo' Guzmán: the Mexican drug lord adept at playing the system

[...]

Guzmán's status as a prisoner last time round was special - with access to luxuries, prostitutes and drugs - to such a degree that his extended family would join him to enjoy wild, days-long Christmas parties in prison, authorised, as Anabel Hernández shows, at the highest political level.
Flashback: 'El Chapo', world's most powerful drug lord, nearly caught by Mexican authorities after close brush with Hilary Clinton and 'dozens of other foreign ministers'
Sinaloa Cartel, led by Mexican drugs kingpin (and probable U.S. govt agent) Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, accounts for 80% of massive U.S. meth trade

It should be noted that there are allegations that Guzmán, who was on the Forbes' list of billionaires from 2009 to 2012,works with the U.S. government.

In court documents, a high-ranking member of Sinaloa currently in U.S. custody asserted that Guzmán is a U.S. informant, Sinaloa was "given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago," and Operation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the cartel in exchange for information used to take down its rivals.

The claims were corroborated by a Mexican foreign service officer who doubled as a confidential source for the U.S. security firm Stratfor when he alleged that the U.S. government works with Mexican cartels to traffic drugs into the U.S., and that in 2010 the U.S. sided with Sinaloa in an attempt to limit the violence in Mexico.
Flashback: Largest cocaine smuggler in the U.S. revealed: The DEA

See also:

U.S. government and top Mexican drug cartel exposed as partners

Blowback or Design? U.S. Special Forces trained Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel

Read More...
USA

Flashback Blowback or design? U.S. Special Forces trained Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel


BrasscheckTV
Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:08 UTC
Image
"Deal."
Occasionally shoot-outs between drug criminals and mexican police get captured by video.

Now I know why some look so well-schooled in the art of mayhem. They were trained by the best: US Special Forces.

I stumbled on this video while looking for something else. I bet, like me, you never heard this story.

But we sure heard the Bushbama administration and friends wringing hands about a few US bought rifles ending up in Mexico - even though the ATF did all but roll out a red carpet for the illegal trade under the direction of the Bushbama Justice Department.

Read More...
Info

Most Venezuelans have a blind spot on their own country, according to 'leftist' British journalist James Bloodworth

Joe Emersberger
Zblogs
Thu, 20 Feb 2014 06:59 UTC
Image
© The IndependentJame Bloodworth
James Bloodworth, when he isn't applauding Obama's murderous drone attacks on Pakistan, occasionally takes time out to complain about leftists supporting the Venezuelan government. He claims that Venezuela has become a "nightmare"and that, despite elections that he appears to acknowledge are clean and transparent, Venezuelans are, nevertheless, "living under tyranny" because of the government's "unwillingness to tolerate dissent".

Bloodworth says that he supported the Chavista movement when a US backed coup violently ousted Hugo Chavez in 2002. "I have no trouble remembering which side I was on" he claims - very dubiously as I'll explain.

Bloodworth doesn't remember that Leopoldo Lopez was among the leaders of that coup. This video shows Leopoldo Lopez and Henrique Capriles (a state governor who ran against Maduro in April of 2013) supervising the illegal "arrest" of a Chavez government minister during the 2002 coup. Bloodworth objects to Lopez's arrest for leading protests over the past few weeks that are clearly aimed at repeating what happened in 2002, but Bloodworth never considers an incredibly obvious point. Lopez would have been locked up for decades (if he were lucky) had he participated in the violent overthrow of the UK or US governments. If not for the Venezuelan government's unusually high tolerance for dissent, Lopez and Capriles (his "moderate" ally) would never have been around to lead protests, much less hold public office as Capriles now does. One can only shudder at what their fate would have been in the USA after participating in a briefly successful coup. Chelsea Manning has been locked up for years and openly tortured simply for exposing human rights abuses and embarrassing the US government. Manning will not be leading violent protests or holding public office (even if she wanted to) any time soon.
Read More...
Eye 1

Turkish riot police fire tear gas on protest over Internet curbs


Voice of Russia
Sat, 22 Feb 2014 06:41 UTC
Image
© EPA
Turkish riot police in Istanbul fired tear gas and water cannon Saturday at thousands of people protesting new legislation tightening control of the Internet. Police took action to push protesters away from the city's Taksim Square, a focal rally point, media report.

Protesters responded by hurling fireworks at police, who detained dozens of people, according to media reports.

The controversial law came into effect last Wednesday after it was signed into effect by the Turkish President Abdullah Gul despite repeated calls for veto.

It gives the telecoms authority the power to order a webpage blocked if the content is deemed to infringe privacy or is offensive.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Washington's plot to overthrow Ukraine: US puppets have lost control to armed radicals with links to nazism

Paul Craig Roberts
paulcraigroberts.org
Sat, 22 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
Sleepwalking Again

ukraine fascism
On the 100th Anniversary of World War 1, the Western powers are again sleepwalking into destructive conflict. Hegemonic ambition has Washington interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine, but developments seem to be moving beyond Washington's control.

Regime change in Ukraine for a mere $5 billion dollars would be a bargain compared to the massive sums squandered in Iraq ($3,000 billion), Afghanistan ($3,000 billion), Somalia, and Libya, or the money Washington is wasting murdering people with drones in Pakistan and Yemen, or the money Washington has spent supporting al Qaeda in Syria, or the massive sums Washington has wasted surrounding Iran with 40 military bases and several fleets in the Persian Gulf in an effort to terrorize Iran into submission.

So far, in Washington's attempt at regime change in Ukraine large numbers of Americans are not being killed and maimed. Only Ukrainians are dying, all the better for Washington as the deaths are blamed on the Ukrainian government that the US has targeted for overthrow.

The problem with Washington's plot to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine and install its minions is twofold: The chosen US puppets have lost control of the protests to armed radical elements with historical links to nazism, and Russia regards an EU/NATO takeover of Ukraine as a strategic threat to Russian independence.

Comment: See also:

Is Ukraine drifting toward civil war and great power confrontation?

US and EU are paying Ukrainian rioters and protesters

"F**k The EU" - U.S. State department blasts Europe; revealed as alleged mastermind behind Ukraine unrest

Read More...