Welcome to Sott.net
Tue, 26 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

War Whore

US praises sanctions for killing Iran's economy, then blames Tehran for people's suffering


RT
Wed, 21 Aug 2019 16:22 UTC
money
© Reuters / Essam al-Sudani
The US State Department can't seem to make up its mind about the cause of Iran's economic woes, claiming Tehran's "Marxist economy" is to blame even as it celebrates the devastation US sanctions have wrought on the country.

Speaking to reporters in New York on Tuesday, US special envoy for Iran Brian Hook assailed the Islamic Republic, demanding an end to its "lethal assistance...to terrorist organizations," and running down a list of economy-ruining American sanctions currently imposed on the country.

"We have effectively zeroed-out Iran's export of oil," Hook said. "We have sanctioned Iran's export of petro-chemicals, industrial metals, precious metals."
We have collapsed foreign direct investment. We have seen significant asset flight leaving the country. Iran is in a recession. Inflation is creeping up near 50 percent.
However, Hook went on, it would be wrong to suggest that Washington is behind Iranian people's struggles - despite having just argued precisely that. Instead, the fault was with Iran's "Marxist economy" and ideological fervor, the envoy said. Sanctions? What sanctions?
      Read More...
Bomb

Iraqi paramilitary blames US for recent attacks on military bases


Sputnik
Wed, 21 Aug 2019 16:12 UTC
iraq explosion
© AP Photo / Loay Hameed
An ammunition depot at Iraq's al-Saqr military base was hit by an explosion on 12 August, killing one person and leaving 13 injured. Weeks earlier, a similar blast took place at Amerli base.

Iraqi paramilitary force Hashd al-Shaabi has stated that Washington is responsible for the attacks on the country's military bases, according to AFP.

"We announce that the first and last entity responsible for what happened are American forces, and we will hold them responsible for whatever happens from today onwards," the paramilitary group said in a statement.

Earlier, a member of the Security and Defence Committee in the Iraqi Parliament, Karim Alaiwi, told Lebanese broadcaster al-Mayadeen that the explosions that rocked two Iraqi military bases held by the country's Shi'ite paramilitaries were the result of unmanned Israeli airstrikes.

"We have proof that Israeli air forces hit several targets in Iraq, including the al-Saqr and Amerli bases. Israel claims that the Popular Mobilisation Forces have connections to Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah," the lawmaker claimed.

According to Alaiwi, the Jewish state is vying to weaken the militias through such airstrikes and even kill their members. He noted that Iraqi airspace is controlled by the US Air Force, indicating that Israel could not have struck the bases without Washington knowing it.
      Read More...
Sherlock

Galloway: How I exposed Ghislaine Maxwell's arch-Zionist daddy

George Galloway
RT
Wed, 21 Aug 2019 16:09 UTC
Ghislaine and Robert Maxwell
© AFP / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Laura Cavanaugh; AFP / MICHEL CLEMENT
Ghislaine and Robert Maxwell
As Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell appears to have fallen off the face of the Earth, it's little remembered in the media how I fought a long war against her father Robert and the part I played in his downfall.

It would be scarcely worth recalling at this distance if I did not shed light, or rather a cloud of suspicion, over Maxwell's favourite child Ghislaine, now at the centre of a dark and fascinating story as bizarre as any which enveloped her late father.

I first met Robert Maxwell when he was an enormously powerful and fiercely intimidating media mogul in the early 1980s. It was in the green room of the BBC's then flagship program Question Time, hosted by Sir Robin Day - then the doyen of BBC grandees.

"Ah, Mr Galway (sic)," boomed Mr Maxwell, "the PLO man." At which point he punched me so hard in the solar plexus I doubled over, tears in my eyes. As was the wont of the British establishment at the time, my fellow participants and Sir Robin himself averted their eyes and pretended not to see.

Comment: Small correction: Galloway says the daughter's whereabouts are unknown. But she is apparently living openly in Los Angeles!

Epstein's alleged co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell spotted eating lunch at burger joint in Los Angeles

      Read More...
Star of David

Clinton email: 'We must overthrow Syrian govt in order to contain Iran for Israel'


The New Observer
Sun, 22 May 2016 00:00 UTC
Killary Syria
A newly-released Hilary Clinton email confirmed that the Obama administration has deliberately provoked the civil war in Syria as the "best way to help Israel."

In an indication of her murderous and psychopathic nature, Clinton also wrote that it was the "right thing" to personally threaten Bashar Assad's family with death.

In the email, released by Wikileaks, then Secretary of State Clinton says that the "best way to help Israel" is to "use force" in Syria to overthrow the government.

The document was one of many unclassified by the US Department of State under case number F-2014-20439, Doc No. C05794498, following the uproar over Clinton's private email server kept at her house while she served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.

Although the Wikileaks transcript dates the email as December 31, 2000, this is an error on their part, as the contents of the email (in particular the reference to May 2012 talks between Iran and the west over its nuclear program in Istanbul) show that the email was in fact sent on December 31, 2012.
      Read More...
Light Sabers

Another tanker with Iranian oil now headed for Syria, Gibraltar says their views on Iran differ to US

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 12:00 UTC
tanker
© Baltic Shipping
Bonita Queen tanker
A new report suggests we could be headed toward yet another Grace 1-type incident and showdown involving an Iranian tanker intercept by US or UK forces.

A tanker full of Iranian oil is said to be currently on its way to Dubai, with an ultimate offload destination of its 600,000 barrels of oil in Syria. According to the breaking Fox report, citing unnamed Western intelligence sources:
The Bonita Queen loaded 600,000 barrels of crude oil on August 2 near the Iranian coast at Kharg Island. Shortly after, the tanker was de-flagged by the country of St. Kitts and Nevis, fearing retaliatory U.S. sanctions.

The vessel is now headed to Dubai, where it will refuel before beginning a months-long journey around the horn of Africa, through the Mediterranean and to the shores of Syria.

Comment: Sputnik reports that the US plans to prevent the Iranian Grace 1 tanker delivering its shipment, meanwhile Gibraltar rejects the US order telling them that they, the EU, take a different stance towards Iranian sanctions - and then, as usual, the US threatens anyone defying their diktats with sanctions:
US Will Act to Prevent Iranian Tanker From Delivering Oil to Syria - Pompeo

The United States will take every action to prevent the Iranian tanker Grace 1 from delivering oil to Syria, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters.

"If that ship again heads to Syria, we will take every action we can consistent with those sanctions to prevent that," Pompeo said on Tuesday.

On Friday, the United States issued a warrant to seize Grace 1 while the tanker was still in Gibraltar's waters in order to confiscate all its cargo and $995,000 for alleged sanctions violations. However, Gibraltar rejected Washington's request, citing a difference between the United States' and European Union's stance regarding sanctions on Iran.

Iran said on Sunday that Grace 1 had set out into international waters after its release from Gibraltar by the UK authorities. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Tehran had warned Washington against seizing the supertanker in the open sea.

However, Pompeo reiterated the United States' position for punitive measures against anyone who will assist the Iranian supertanker.

"We have made clear that anyone who touches it, anyone who supports it, anyone who allows a ship to dock is at risk of receiving sanctions from the United States of America," Pompeo said.

Iran's judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday that releasing Grace 1 was not enough and called for legal proceedings to recompense and set an example for all those who violate international law by seizing ships.
See also:

      Read More...
Attention

Jill Biden to voters: You may have to 'swallow a little bit' with my husband so we can beat Trump

Joseph A. Wulfsohn
Fox News
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 10:43 UTC
joe and jill biden
Speaking at a bookstore in Manchester, N.H., Dr. Jill Biden urged voters on Monday to consider the "electability" of her husband, former Vice President Joe Biden, ahead of the 2020 Democratic primaries, and how they may have to "swallow a little bit" with the Democratic front-runner in order to defeat President Trump.

"I know that not all of you are committed to my husband, and I respect that, but I want you to think about your candidate, his or her electability, and who's going to win this race," Dr. Biden said.

"And so if you're looking at that you've got to look at the polls," Biden said. "If they're consistent and they're consistently saying the same thing, I think you can't dismiss that."

Comment: 'Don't vote for me because I'm good, vote for me because I'm not Trump!' It's a risky strategy, to say the least, especially considering the number of gaffes and slips Biden continues to make. One would think people would need to actually be behind a candidates positions in order for them to give the candidate their vote. The 'lesser of two evils' strategy has rarely proven successful.

See also:

      Read More...
Bad Guys

When, if ever, can we lay the needless US burden of war down?

Patrick J. Buchanan
buchanan.org
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:00 UTC
US troops in Afghanistan
Is it too soon to ask: What have we gained from our longest war? Was all the blood and treasure invested worth it? And what does the future hold?

Friday, President Donald Trump met in New Jersey with his national security advisers and envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is negotiating with the Taliban to bring about peace, and a U.S. withdrawal from America's longest war.

U.S. troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, in a war that has cost 2,400 American lives.

Following the meeting, Trump tweeted, "Many on the opposite sides of this 19 year war, and us, are looking to make a deal — if possible!"

Some, however, want no deal; they are fighting for absolute power.

Saturday, a wedding in Kabul with a thousand guests was hit by a suicide bomber who, igniting his vest, massacred 63 people and wounded 200 in one of the greatest atrocities of the war. ISIS claimed responsibility.

Monday, 10 bombs exploded in restaurants and public squares in the eastern city of Jalalabad, wounding 66.

Trump is pressing Khalilzad to negotiate drawdowns of U.S. troop levels from the present 14,000, and to bring about a near-term end to U.S. involvement in a war that began after we overthrew the old Taliban regime for giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden.
      Read More...
Document

10 declassified Russia collusion revelations that could rock Washington this fall

John Solomon
The Hill
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 19:00 UTC
washington dc
Behind the scenes, some major events were set in motion last autumn that could soon change the tenor in Washington, at least as it relates to the debunked Russia collusion narrative that distracted America for nearly three years.

It was in September 2018 that President Trump told my Hill.TV colleague Buck Sexton and me that he would order the release of all classified documents showing what the FBI, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other U.S. intelligence agencies may have done wrong in the Russia probe.

About the same time, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, under then-Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), voted unanimously to send 53 nonpublic transcripts of witnesses in its Russia review to the director of national intelligence (DNI) for declassification. The transcripts were officially delivered in November.

Now, nearly a year later, neither release has happened.

To put that into perspective, it took just a couple of months in 2004 to declassify the final report on the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks after a presidential commission finished its work, which contained some of the nation's most secretive intelligence revelations.

But the long wait for transparency may soon end.
      Read More...
Magnify

The complex reality of China's social credit system: Hi-tech dystopian plot or low-key incentive scheme?

Nectar Gan
South China Morning Post
Wed, 07 Aug 2019 10:03 UTC
china credit system
© Kaliz Lee
Yang Qiuyun's home in eastern China heaves under a mountain of paper files. They are scattered on top of cabinets, piled on the water dispenser and stacked up on her bed.

The files are filled with forms completed in her neat handwriting, records of the laborious work she carries out as one of 10 "information gatherers" in a village at the forefront of an experiment in social management: China's social credit system.

Every day, Yang, 52, roams Jiakuang Majia village with a pen and paper in hand, writing down every instance of free labour or other donations her fellow villagers make to the community - two points for Ma Shaojun for taking eight hours to install a new basketball hoop in the village playground; 30 points for Ma Hongyun for donating a 3,000-yuan (US$445) TV screen for the village meeting room; and 10 points each for Ma Shuting and Ma Qiuling who have a son serving in the army in Tibet.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Attention

Gaffes? Biden has bigger problems

Post Editorial Board
New York Post
Sun, 18 Aug 2019 10:16 UTC
Joe Biden
© COA/The Federalist
2020 presidential candidate, former VP Joe Biden
Joe Biden, 76, has been getting heaps of attention for his verbal gaffes. Alas, voters should worry about a far bigger problem: It's impossible to know what he stands for.

Yes, some of his slip-ups can be head-scratching. Democrats choose "truth over facts," he said. Huh? The kids from the Parkland high school shooting — which happened after he left office — "came to see me when I was vice president."

He lamented "the tragic events in Houston" and "Michigan" rather than El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. He warned against giving President Trump "eight more years" and told backers to "go to Joe 30330," instead of texting him. And that's just recently.

Sometimes his flubs raise serious questions about what he thinks, as when he asserted that "poor kids" were as bright as "white kids," though he quickly corrected himself (as, to his credit, he usually does).

His advisers insist it's not his age but just "Joe being Joe." That's hardly consolation. Still, misspeaking isn't the worst of sins.

The bigger trouble is that, even when he's not mangling words, it can be hard to tell his true position — not just because he's inarticulate but because some of what he says is just plain bizarre. And because he's flip-flopped so furiously under pressure from his Democratic foes.

Comment: Biden, as president, would be a deep state handler's dream: seemingly oblivious to control, too daft to care, untrustworthy to a fault, a mind fog for information. For the country? He shouldn't even be an option. It would not be in the peoples' best interest to have a complete idiot at the helm. They already had Bush the Lesser.

      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts