Puppet MastersS


Dollar

U.S. responsible for Ukraine crisis after investing $5bn in destabilization and regime change


RT
Wed, 23 Apr 2014 12:55 UTC
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© AFP Photo / Genya SavilovArmed men wearing military fatigues gather by Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) as they stand guard outside the regional state building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk on April 16, 2014.

The US is to blame for the events in Ukraine as it invested $5 billion in regime change in the country, taking a more radical stance that its EU allies, Vitaly Churkin, Russia's envoy to the UN, said.

"It seems it was the Americans, who tried to push through the most radical scenario," Churkin said in an interview with Rossiya 24 channel. "They didn't want any sort of compromise between [ousted President Viktor] Yanukovich and the opposition. And, I think, they came to the conclusion that it was time to cash in those $5 billion and handle the matter towards abrupt regime change, which, eventually, happened."

This explains why the US, but not the European Union, took center stage when the coup resulted in legal vacuum in Kiev, he added.

US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland told CNN on Monday that Washington has invested around $5 billion into supporting democracy in Ukraine since the fall of Soviet Union.

But Churkin has doubts about Nuland's claims, saying that "any sane person would, at least, say that those investments didn't pay off."

"If those $5 billion were spent on support of democracy, but not overthrow of the existing government and regime change, then no democracy has triumphed there [in Ukraine]," he explained.
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Bad Guys

Flashback World War III, the elite and the 'great game'

Prof. Mujahid Kamran
Global Research
Tue, 07 Jun 2011 08:00 UTC
world map
The control of the US, and of global politics, by the wealthiest families of the planet is exercised in a powerful, profound and clandestine manner. This control began in Europe and has a continuity that can be traced back to the time when the bankers discovered it was more profitable to give loans to governments than to needy individuals.

These banking families and their subservient beneficiaries have come to own most major businesses over the two centuries during which they have secretly and increasingly organised themselves as controllers of governments worldwide and as arbiters of war and peace.

Unless we understand this we will be unable to understand the real reasons for the two world wars and the impending Third World War, a war that is almost certain to begin as a consequence of the US attempt to seize and control Central Asia. The only way out is for the US to back off - something the people of the US and the world want, but the elite does not.

The US is a country controlled through the privately owned Federal Reserve, which in turn is controlled by the handful of banking families that established it by deception in the first place.
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USA

U.S. drone strike kills 18 un-Americans in Yemen


Yahoo! News
Sat, 19 Apr 2014 04:52 UTC
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© AFP/Mohammed Huwais

A Yemeni boy walks past a mural depicting a US drone and reading " Why did you kill my family" on December 13, 2013.
A drone strike Saturday killed 15 Al-Qaeda suspects and three civilians in Yemen's central Baida province, a stronghold of the extremist group, a security official said.

The jihadists were travelling in a vehicle towards the southern Shabwa province, witnesses said. The three civilians were passing by in another car.

The United States is the only country that operates drones in Yemen, but officials rarely discuss the covert programme.

Last month, Yemen's President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi defended the use of drones against Al-Qaeda in his country, which has killed dozens of militants in a sharply intensified campaign over the past year.

Drone strikes "have greatly helped in limiting Al-Qaeda activities, despite some mistakes, which we are sorry about," Hadi told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat.
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Red Flag

Liberty based conservative group's tax-exempt status revoked by IRS over anti-Clinton statements

Jessica Chasmar
The Washington Times
Mon, 21 Apr 2014 20:55 UTC
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© Patrick Henry CenterPatrick Henry arguing a case at the Hanover County
Courthouse that would be a major step in the American revolution.
The Internal Revenue Service has revoked the tax-exempt status of a conservative charity for making statements critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, according to a USA Today report.

The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, based in Manassas, Va., "has shown a pattern of deliberate and consistent intervention in political campaigns" and made "repeated statements supporting or opposing various candidates by expressing its opinion of the respective candidate's character and qualifications," according to a written determination released Friday by the IRS.

The IRS said the center acted as an "action organization" by publishing alerts on its website for columns written by its president, former FBI agent Gary Aldrich, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
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Crusader

Pope breaks rules again: washed feet of disabled people - women and non-Catholics - in pre-Easter ritual


CBS News
Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:55 UTC
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© Tony Gentile/ReutersPope Francis washes a foot of a disabled person at the S. Maria della Provvidenza church in Rome, during the Holy Thursday celebration, April 17, 2014.
Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 disabled and elderly people Thursday - women and non-Catholics among them - in a pre-Easter ritual designed to show his willingness to serve others like a "slave."

Francis' decision in 2013 to perform the Holy Thursday ritual on women and Muslim inmates at a juvenile detention center helped define his rule-breaking papacy just two weeks after his election. It riled traditionalist Catholics, who pointed to the Vatican's own regulations that the ritual be performed only on men since Jesus' 12 apostles were men.

But as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio frequently performed the ritual on women - a practice that he seems intent on keeping up now that he is pope.

Comment: 12 whole people? Wow! How nice that the Catholic church has put forward such a kind, compassionate man as their representative. Where's the list of pedophiles who are running rampant in the Church?

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Cult

Poland trained Kiev fascists two months in advance of U.S. coup d'état

Thierry Meyssan
Voltaire Net
Tue, 22 Apr 2014 16:22 UTC
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In his capacity as EU negotiator, Radosław Sikorski signed a crisis settlement agreement with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, in the evening of February 21, 2014. The following morning, the men he had secretly trained in Poland were about to take power.
Lies have shorter and shorter legs. Two months after the change of regime in Kiev, the Polish press has disclosed the role of Donald Tusk's government in preparing the coup. The new revelations belie Western discourse and demonstrate that the current interim government of Oleksandr Tourtchynov was imposed by NATO in violation of international law.
This article is based on information obtained by the Polish opposition. I erroneously cited as my source the satirical weekly Nie, which published a pastiche mixing truths and non-truths. The data it provides needs to be verified.
In any case, the matter concerning the training of Pravy Sector members has in the meantime been brought before the Attorney General of Poland.
Thierry Meyssan, April 22, 2014.
The Polish left-wing weekly Nie (No) published a startling witness account of the training given to the most violent of the EuroMaidan [1] activists.

According to this source, in September 2013, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski invited 86 members of the Right Sector (Sector Pravy), allegedly in the context of a university exchange program. In reality, the guests were not students, and many were over 40. Contrary to their official schedule, they did not go to the Warsaw University of Technology, but headed instead for the police training center in Legionowo, an hour's drive from the capital. There, they received four weeks of intensive training in crowd management, person recognition, combat tactics, command skills, behavior in crisis situations, protection against gases used by police, erecting barricades, and especially shooting, including the handling of sniper rifles.

Comment: Imperial Hubris: Ukraine as a 'regime change' too far for the American Empire

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Calendar

Syria to hold presidential election on June 3


Syria Committees
Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:44 UTC
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Syria will hold a presidential election on June 3, state media reported on this Monday, setting the date for a vote likely to give President Bashar al-Assad a third term."The 3rd of June is the date for the election," Syrian state television said, quoting the parliament speaker.

Assad has not said whether he will stand again, but his allies in Russia and in Lebanon's Hezbollah Shia movement have predicted he will participate and win.

In Damascus, preparations for Assad's candidacy have already begun. Announcing the election on state television, the parliamentary speaker, Mohamed Jihad al-Laham, said requests for nomination would be accepted until 1 May. Voting for Syrians outside the country would take place at Syrian embassies on 28 May, he said. Syria's parliament set residency rules for presidential candidates in March, a move that would bar many of Assad's foes who live in exile.

Assad said last week the conflict had reached a "turning point" due to his forces' military gains against the rebels.

facebook.com/syria.committees
syria-committees.org
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Target

Putin asserts right to use force in eastern Ukraine if necessary

David M. Herszenhorn
New York Times
Thu, 17 Apr 2014 11:49 UTC
putin nyt
© Pavel Golovkin/Associated PressPresident Vladimir V. Putin talked to reporters on Thursday after a television appearance in which he declared Russia’s claims over Ukrainian territory. He referred to the southeastern Ukraine region’s name from the 1700s, Novorossiya, or New Russia.
Even as the world's top diplomats were gingerly drafting a tentative accord to "de-escalate tensions" in Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin was on national television here, brashly declaring Russia's historical claims over Ukrainian territory, reiterating a threat to use military force and generally sounding a defiant, even mocking, tone toward the United States.

Mr. Putin, appearing cool and confident during a four-hour question-and-answer show, referred repeatedly to southeast Ukraine as "New Russia" - a historical term for the area north of the Black Sea that the Russian Empire conquered in the 1700s. And, he said, only "God knows" why the region became part of Ukraine in the 1920s, signaling that he would gladly correct that error.

Dropping previous pretenses, he calmly acknowledged for the first time that Russian troops had been deployed to occupy and annex Crimea. And in perhaps the day's most astonishing moment, he took evident delight in fielding a prerecorded question from Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American who is wanted on espionage charges for leaking documents on surveillance programs.

Comment: While the NYT seems to by parrotting some of the same talking points as the Guardian (e.g., Putin "mocking" Obama), on the whole their coverage here is more objective. Russia is in a strong position, and is challenging U.S. hegemony in the world. It's has nothing to do with "Putin vs. Obama".

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Chess

Slimy media spin: Putin insists Russia wants to repair US relations - but ill will for Obama is clear

Paul Lewis
Guardian
Thu, 17 Apr 2014 11:30 UTC
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© Alexei Nikolsky/AFP/Getty ImagesRussia's president Vladimir Putin said the pair's relationship broke down after Nato's intervention in Libya in 2011.
Vladimir Putin may have wanted his televised interview with citizens on Thursday to portray a conciliatory side. But the Russian president's current antipathy towards the US was never far beneath the surface during his phone-in with the nation.

"To a certain extent, trust has been lost. But we do not think we are to blame," Putin said, conceding that relations had plummeted to their worst level since the cold war. "The United States can act in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, but Russia is not allowed to defend its interests."

Catching himself, Putin added: "I want to emphasize once again: Russia is interested in growing relations with the United States, and will do everything to ensure that this confidence is restored."

He made similar overtones towards Europe: "We do not intend to spoil the relations between Russia and Europe, and we hope that this is not part of our European partners' plans."

Putin even offered an uncharacteristically charitable assessment of Barack Obama, when asked by a six-year old girl if the US president would come to his rescue if he were drowning. "He's a decent and brave man," Putin said. "He would do it."

Yet Putin's animosity toward Obama, and the western powers he represents, was clear.

Comment: The Guardian continues with their slimy, inaccurate, biased coverage of all things Putin. Notice the language: Putin couldn't contain is "antipathy" and "animosity" to the West, as if Putin's convictions were mere personal gripes and not legitimate reactions to Western criminality. Snowden's question MUST have been a pre-approved PR move. Putin's resistance to another illegal war in Syria was mere cover for a personal attempt to "mock" Obama. And Lewis makes no comment on the fact that Obama is the puffer here: just look at who has demonstrated the most weakness during the crisis in Ukraine these past months! In a ponerized, hystericized society, anyone espousing real values and concerns MUST have a hidden agenda. Thus, the main force of Putin's positions on Libya, Syria, and Ukraine are sidelined, ignored, downplayed, and not given any due consideration.

For more on what Putin is actually doing, see this from blogger The Saker: Putin and Russia: The thing which everybody seems to be missing

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Eye 2

Senate report states 'harsh interrogation' by CIA went beyond legal authority

Ali Watkins, Jonathan S. Landay and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy
Fri, 11 Apr 2014 11:27 UTC
bloody cia
A still-secret Senate Intelligence Committee report calls into question the legal foundation of the CIA's use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists, a finding that challenges the key defense on which the agency and the Bush administration relied in arguing that the methods didn't constitute torture.

The report also found that the spy agency failed to keep an accurate account of the number of individuals it held, and that it issued erroneous claims about how many it detained and subjected to the controversial interrogation methods. The CIA has said that about 30 detainees underwent the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

The CIA's claim "is BS," said a former U.S. official familiar with evidence underpinning the report, who asked not to be identified because the matter is still classified. "They are trying to minimize the damage. They are trying to say it was a very targeted program, but that's not the case."

The findings are among the report's 20 main conclusions. Taken together, they paint a picture of an intelligence agency that seemed intent on evading or misleading nearly all of its oversight mechanisms throughout the program, which was launched under the Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and ran until 2006.

Some of the report's other conclusions, which were obtained by McClatchy, include:
  • The CIA used interrogation methods that weren't approved by the Justice Department or CIA headquarters.
  • The agency impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making regarding the program.
  • The CIA actively evaded or impeded congressional oversight of the program.
  • The agency hindered oversight of the program by its own Inspector General's Office.
The 6,300-page report is the culmination of a four-year, $40 million investigation into the detention and interrogation program by the Democrat-led committee. A final draft was approved in December 2012, but it has undergone revisions. The panel voted 11-3 on April 3 to send the report's 480-page executive summary, the findings and conclusions to the executive branch for declassification prior to public release.
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