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Anglo-American russophobia: The good, the bad and the oh-so-stupid

Paul Mansfield
Sott.net
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 22:14 UTC
jackie chan

Jackie Chan reads the latest Washington Post nonsense.
Last Sunday, I, like millions of people around the world, was intrigued by the collapse of Hillary Clinton at the 15th 9/11 memorial in New York City.

I quickly visualized ear-to-ear grins on those who were convinced Clinton has serious health problems. 'Vindicated!' I could hear them say.

Next, I turned my attention to the mainstream media, which had just spent the last year arrogantly scoffing at all those 'conspiracy theorists' claiming that Clinton is very (and possibly terminally) ill. I could see them squirming behind their rickety old typewriters, wondering how they'd wriggle out of this one. Belatedly, some in the MSM have now conceded that Clinton's health is a campaign issue.

I predicted that Putin would be blamed. So I waited for the shoe to drop. And I waited. And then waited some more. Hang on, let me scour Twitter again, surely it will be there...

Come on MSM, lift your game! Are you all worn out, bereft of inspiration, or just cringing at the thought of having to trundle out more hyper-russophobic fantasy? We all know the headline you want to write:
"Putin 'did a Litvinenko' on Clinton"
Isn't that the next logical step in your trumpeting of Clinton by demonizing Putin?
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Snakes in Suits

Poking the bear: Kiev to impose sanctions on Russian defense firms and banks


Sputnik
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 21:30 UTC
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko
© REUTERS/ Gleb Garanich
Ukraine will impose sanctions on Russian defense firms and financial institutions, as well as transportation companies operating on the Crimea Peninsula, President Petro Poroshenko said Friday.

According to Poroshenko's statement posted on his official website, the restrictive measures will be applied to Russian defense companies and financial institutions allegedly providing military equipment and financing for self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions will also affect shipping and air transport operators that violate Ukraine-imposed ban on entry to Crimean ports and airports, Poroshenko added.


Comment: Ukraine's economy is already in tatters so this move will certainly not help in that situation. He must be joining the Russian sanctions party to impress the West before renewed Normandy talks at the UN but this also shows Kiev is not interested in a peaceful settlement of the crises according to the Minsk agreements by antagonizing Russia.

Here's why the latest Ukrainian 'ceasefire' will not lead to peace

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SOTT News Snapshot: September 16 edition - Colin Powell brushes off Iraq Chilcot report, admits Israel has 200 nukes


Sott.net
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:49 UTC
paris
© Thomas Samson / AFP
A French riot police officer is surrounded by flames, during a demonstration against the controversial labour reforms of the French government in Paris on September 15, 2016
If you were ever wondering how war criminal politicians feel about their crimes, look no further than recent leaked emails between former British Foreign Minister Jack Straw and his former US counterpart, Colin Powell.

In early 2003, both Straw and Powell were major front-men for their governments in the push to launch the illegal invasion of Iraq. Straw wanted the British government's 'dodgy dossier' in Iraq's non-existent WMDs to be "hardened up" with something he appropriately called a "killer paragraph". For his part, Powell went to the UN and touted the evidence of an Iraqi source that was known to the Defense Intelligence Agency as "a liar and a fabricator". Powell wiggled a vial of white powder at the UN, claiming it was anthrax (although it probably came from Dubya's coke stash) and said Saddam might have boatloads of the stuff. It was a provocative display, and Powell reminded people that the anthrax attacks of 2001 freaked everyone out, so they should also be freaked out about Saddam now too.
Powell UN anthrax

"There's enough anthrax in this vial to kill everyone in this room. Just kidding! Or am I?..."
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Yoda

Tired of vassalage: Duterte's power plays are rocking the US-Philippines alliance

Binoy Kampmark
Dissident Voice
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 19:51 UTC
duterte philippines

Rodrigo Duterte, age 71, the Philippines' new president
"I do not like the Americans. It's simply a matter of principle for me."

— Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, September 12, 2016
The frictions excited by the antics of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte have caused even greater heat over the last few days, with calls for the departure of US special forces operating in Mindanao. Having already made it clear to Washington that he intends pursuing "an independent foreign policy," he has now insisted that the general root of ills in instability lie in the troublesome, headache-causing alliance with the United States.

A continuing problem of that alliance remained US forces in Zamboanga on the island of Mindanao, ostensibly engaged in advising local troops on counter-terrorism operations. "For as long as we stay with America, we will never have peace in that land [Mindanao]. We might as well give it up." It was therefore imperative that "those [American] special forces, they have to go." He did not want "a rift with the US, but they have to go."

Nothing could stand in greater contrast to such sentiment than the pact of 2014 signed between Manila and Washington, a confirmation of all the ills Duterte despises. While that agreement did not countenance the reopening of US bases in the Philippines, something that would have had a constitutional hurdle to climb, it permitted roving and near unlimited US access to military bases across the country.

Despite the pretense of being severed from the US umbilical cord in 1946, the neo-colonial aftertaste has remained. From 2002 to 2013, $441 million in security funding was provided to Manila. The Obama administration had set aside a hefty $120 million in military aid for 2016.

As Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, chairman of the Philippines Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, explained with the signatures on the agreement barely dry, the agreement was of limited value to the country, while being splendid for US interests.

Comment: Duterte: Philippines will pursue policies independent of US, looks to acquire arms from China and Russia

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Map

The Balkans arms race: NATO expansion, proxy re-armament aimed at Russia

Filip Kovacevic
Newsbud
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 19:24 UTC
S-300
It is hardly a secret that the most vocal advocates of NATO expansion into East-Central Europe were the U.S. weapons manufacturers and their lobbyists. For instance, one of the founders of the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO, a non-profit advocacy organization, was Bruce Jackson, a vice president at Lockheed Martin and a former U.S. Army intelligence officer.1 As even the New York Times pointed out at the time, such a work biography was fairly common among those who pressured the Congress into expanding the Alliance, though the threat from its main enemy (as well as the main enemy itself) turned into dust. In just two years in the mid-1990s, the six biggest U.S. arms makers - MacDonnell Douglas, Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Textron Inc. - reported spending $51 million on lobbying, most of which went into the push for NATO expansion.2 As the result, NATO almost doubled, expanding from 16 to 28 member states. Prodded by the big money, the Clinton Administration did not mind opening the Pandora's box of future European conflicts and the six giants of the U.S. military-industrial-intelligence complex could rub their hands with a great deal of satisfaction. The vast new weapons markets, closed to them until the East-Central European militaries were forced to become "interoperable" with NATO "standards," were theirs for taking. The East-Central European political elites, brought to power and/or infiltrated by these same corrupt corporate and lobbying networks, slashed their states' health, education, and social programs, but embraced high military spending with open arms. Even while there was less and less money for bread, the money for guns was always found.
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Treasure Chest

War profiteering: Western nations are accessories to murder in Yemen

Catherine Shakdam
RT
Thu, 15 Sep 2016 10:45 UTC
destruction yemen
© Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters
Is it shame and guilt I smell in mainstream media as Yemen's engineered mass oppression has become a burden no sane journalist can rationalize any longer? Could it be that Western capitals are about ready to flip alliances?

Don't hold your breath just yet but change is most definitely in the air. Yemen has once again grabbing some media attention. Whatever unspoken ban Riyadh managed to impose on the press is just about melting away. Whatever political perspective journalists were taught to follow, has just about disappeared by the reality of a war of aggression which has been as vicious as it has been bloody.

And while the United Nations has still to play catch up on its official figures (Yemen's death toll has been vastly underestimated), this war the kingdom has insisted on waging is finally being labeled a grand atrocity.

Comment: With the continuing carnage that is being inflicted on Yemen and the ongoing weapons sales to the Saudi's, it doesn't appear that anything is changing:
The US double game in Yemen reaches its peak

[It] is quite evident that the U.S.' cardinal objective has been and continues to be to support Saudi Arabia in its nefarious wars. Not only does it allow the U.S. to earn revenue out of such gigantic deals, but also puts it in a position to keep regional countries engaged in warfare, divide them against each other and maintain a situation that can at its best be described as "controlled instability.


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Evil Rays

Behind the Israeli report claiming Abbas was a KGB spy

Adnan Abu Amer
Al-Monitor
Thu, 15 Sep 2016 19:13 UTC
Gideon Remez
© REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Gideon Remez, one of the Israeli researchers who claimed that Soviet-era documents showed that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas worked for the KGB in the 1980s, holds up a page he received after documents were smuggled out of Russia by a former KGB archivist, Jerusalem, Israel, Sept. 8, 2016.
It's no secret that Israeli-Palestinian relations have been marred by tension since mid-2014. At that time, the path toward a political solution reached an impasse and negotiations were suspended, leading to nonstop Israeli accusations that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is not a partner for peace and that he has been inciting violence against Israelis.

The latest Israeli allegation against Abbas came in a report broadcast by Israel's Channel 1 on Sept. 7, claiming that Abbas was an agent for the Soviet KGB when he was a member of Fatah's Central Committee in 1983. According to the report, Abbas' code name was "Krotov," and he was recruited during his Ph.D. studies in Moscow and served as a KGB agent in Syria.

The Israeli allegation immediately sparked angry reactions from Palestinians, and many Palestinian officials protested. In a Sept. 8 statement to Agence France-Presse, presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said he considered the Israeli accusation part of an Israeli smear campaign against Abbas aimed at weakening the Palestinian position.

Comment: This comes as Russia has been pushing to hold talks between Palestine and Israel. Preparing the chessboard in advance? See also:

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Clipboard

The 'pizza and vodka deal': Are the Syria ceasefire deal secrets leaking?

Israel Shamir
The Unz Review
Thu, 15 Sep 2016 18:52 UTC
syria map
The recent Syria agreement signed in Geneva by Kerry and Lavrov (probably it will be remembered as "Pizza and Vodka deal", as the journalists have been served these delicacies by the negotiating teams during the time they had to wait for the results) beside the points disclosed by the foreign ministers included five documents. The US insisted on keeping the content secret, despite Russian insistence to make them known. Here is what we learned about the contents of the secret documents and the negotiation process from our usually reliable Arab and Israeli sources.

The secret documents describe what should happen in Syria after the cease-fire will come into effect. The first day of cease-fire is called Day D. The Russians wanted it to begin at noon, while the Americans preferred sunset on Monday September 12, 2016. The American view prevailed. After first two days, at D+2, if cease-fire holds, the Russians and the Americans will extend it for a longer time. This actually happened on September 14, in a telephone conversation between Lavrov and Kerry. They extended it for another 48 hours. If it will hold for a week, hopefully the sides will extend it indefinitely and proceed to the next stage.

Comment: See our ceasefire coverage in our daily reports here:

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USA

US 'donates' $1.3 million to family of Italian hostage killed by drone strike in Pakistan


RT
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 18:38 UTC
US President Barack Obama
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
US President Barack Obama apologized on April 23, 2015 for a drone strike in January that year that killed Giovanni Lo Porto and Warren Weinstein, aid workers held hostage by al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
The US has given a "donation" of $1.32 million to the family of Giovanni Lo Porto, the Italian aid worker killed in January 2015 by a US drone strike. Documents detailing the condolence payment also confirmed the attack took place in Pakistan.

In April 2015, US President Barack Obama admitted that Lo Porto and another aid worker, Warren Weinstein, were killed in a drone strike against a suspected Al-Qaeda base in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Lo Porto and Weinstein had been held hostage by the terrorist group since 2011.

Documents quoted by the Italian daily La Repubblica this week show that the US government signed an agreement with the Lo Porto family on July 8, to pay a total of 1,185,000 euros ($1.32 million) as a "donation in the memory of Giovanni Lo Porto."

The agreement also confirmed that Lo Porto was killed in Pakistan.

The admission was made shortly after Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's visit to Washington.
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Stormtrooper

Abusive behavior: Judge rules 'bullying' UK troops caused drowning death of Iraqi teen


RT
Fri, 16 Sep 2016 18:15 UTC
British soldiers
© Atef Hassan / Reuters
Bullying UK troops' conduct was the "plain and certain" cause of the 2003 drowning death of a 15-year-old Iraqi boy, an official inquiry has found.

The Iraq Fatality Investigations (IFI) inquiry into the death was led by former senior judge George Newman and reported Thursday.

The investigations' results were the polar opposite of a manslaughter court case into the death carried out in 2006 which saw all soldiers involved exonerated.
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