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Italy to allow U.S. to fly drones out of Sicilian base for operations in Libya


Sputnik
Tue, 23 Feb 2016 02:17 UTC
US Predator drone
© Massoud Hossaini/AFP/Getty Images
A US Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport.
Italy agrees to drone flights out of Sicily to combat Daesh in North Africa.

The Italian government agreed on Monday to allow armed US drones to be flown out of an American base in Sicily, in an attempt to bolster the fight against Daesh in Libya. The agreement comes as the violent extremist group expands its territorial presence throughout the Middle East and North Africa in spite of efforts by a US-led coalition to limit and eventually eliminate terrorism in the region.

The agreement will be strictly enforced, with Italians authorizing drone flights from Sicily's Sigonella air base on a case by case basis. Under the agreement, armed drone flights cannot be used for offensive purposes, only to protect personnel on the ground.

Comment: The US is relentlessly pushing for more sadistic madness in Libya. Also see:

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Question

The essentials of the US-Russia ceasefire deal for Syria


RT
Tue, 23 Feb 2016 02:31 UTC
Syrian army soldier
© Ilya Pitalev / Sputnik
Following Moscow and Washington's announcement of a joint ceasefire deal for Syria, the war-torn country may be on the verge of the biggest peacemaking breakthrough since fighting broke out there five years ago. Here is how the proposed truce should work:

When does it start?

The ceasefire will become official at midnight Damascus time on Saturday, February 27 (or on Friday at 22:00 GMT). Those who subscribe to the agreement have to publicly declare that they will desist from hostilities by a deadline 12 hours before the ceasefire comes into effect, and inform the White House or the Kremlin.

Comment: Further reading: The big question: Under Syria ceasefire, can Jaish al-Fatah be attacked?

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Rocket

Former advisor to Chief of Naval Operations: US ballistic missile shield has "no chance" of working


Sputnik
Sun, 21 Feb 2016 23:17 UTC
ballistic missile interceptors
© AFP 2016/ Janek skarzynski
A report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) accurately describes the very serious problems with the US Ground-Based Missile Defense System, former Chief of Naval Operations science and policy advisor Theodore Postol told Sputnik.

The GAO report, published on Wednesday, found that the Missile Defense Agency has not demonstrated through flight testing that it can defend the US homeland against the current missile defense threat. It also noted that a full assessment of the system's effectiveness is currently not possible.

"It is the cruelest form of betrayal to tell people that you have created something to protect them when you know for a fact there is no chance," Postol stated on Thursday.

Moreover, the GAO report found that flight testing was insufficient to demonstrate that an operationally useful defense capability exists, and concluded that the Missile Defense Agency cannot even prove that the defense can intercept a target representative of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

"My own view is that the GAO report is overly optimistic, as it doesn't deal with the fundamental underlying physics issues that support the conclusion," Postol, who is also an MIT Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security Policy, said.

Comment: Sounds a lot like Israel's propaganda device known as the 'Iron Dome'. In any case, the real threat to the United States isn't coming from out there, but rather from within its own borders and from its own so-called leaders.

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Magnify

Paul Craig Roberts: The evil empire has the world in a death grip


Paul Craig Roberts
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 23:44 UTC
US empire
In my archives there is a column or two that introduces the reader to John Perkins' important book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. An EHM is an operative who sells the leadership of a developing country on an economic plan or massive development project. The Hit Man convinces a country's government that borrowing large sums of money from US financial institutions in order to finance the project will raise the country's living standards. The borrower is assured that the project will increase Gross Domestic Product and tax revenues and that these increases will allow the loan to be repaid.

However, the plan is designed to over-estimate the benefits so that the indebted country cannot pay the principal and interest. As Perkins' puts it, the plans are based on "distorted financial analyses, inflated projections, and rigged accounting," and if the deception doesn't work, "threats and bribes" are used to close the deal.

The next step in the deception is the appearance of the International Monetary Fund. The IMF tells the indebted country that the IMF will save its credit rating by lending the money with which to repay the country's creditors. The IMF loan is not a form of aid. It merely replaces the country's indebtedness to banks with indebtedness to the IMF.

Comment: The rise of the United States and the institutions it has used to control, exploit and rape countries and the people of the world mirrors the infestation of psychopaths within the US government and associated organizations. If you follow the news closely, it seems that this has spread to every corner of US society, including private prisons that exploit prisoners in every way possible and police that steal from innocent people via asset forfeiture as examples.

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Red Flag

Korean War redux: S. Korea, US will rehearse invasion of N. Korea in record-breaking joint military drills


RT
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 21:47 UTC
US and South Korean Marines
© Jung Yeon-Je / AFP
South Korean Marines march on a beach during a joint landing operation by US and South Korean Marines in the southeastern port of Pohang on March 30, 2015.
More than 90,000 South Koreans and 15,000 US troops will stage a "pre-emptive strike" on simulated North Korean weapons silos, following Pyongyang's rocket launch and a nuclear test earlier this year.

"This year's operations will involve recovering key facilities that are located deep within North Korea, all the way near its northern borders," a senior defense official in Seoul told the Korea Herald late last week.

"The scenario will include the special operations forces being deployed to border areas adjacent to China and Russia," continued the official, emphasizing that the troops would be needed to seal the conflict, and avoid escalation into a war with North Korea's powerful backers in Moscow and Beijing.
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Magic Wand

No torture here! Britain manipulated UN narrative to whitewash Bahrain police abuses

Jamie Doward
The Guardian
Sun, 21 Feb 2016 21:34 UTC
Bahrain protest
© Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty Images
A Bahraini protester during clashes with riot police following a demo to mark the fifth anniversary of the Arab spring-inspired uprising.
Documents indicate UK and Saudi Arabia worked to water down human rights statement

Britain has been accused of waging a behind-the-scenes PR offensive aimed at neutering United Nations criticism of Bahrain for its human rights record, including the alleged use of torture by its security forces.

Documents shared with the Observer reveal that the UN's criticism of the Gulf state was substantially watered down after lobbying by the UK and Saudi Arabia, a major purchaser of British-made weapons and military hardware.

The result was a victory for Bahrain and for Saudi Arabia, which sent its troops to quell dissent in the tiny kingdom during the Arab spring.

But the UK's role has prompted concern among human rights groups. According to the international human rights organisation, Reprieve, two political prisoners in Bahrain are facing imminent execution and several more are on trial, largely due to confessions obtained through torture.

Comment: For more on why the UK is so keen to whitewash the abuse and torture in Bahrain, see:

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Wall Street

Intelligence report? CIA expert and Wall Street veteran warns US will collapse

David Simpson
DONi News
Sat, 20 Feb 2016 18:44 UTC
us collapse cia analyst
Many former US Intelligence officials have had issues with how America conducts it's foreign policy, but James Rickards, a former CIA Agent and financial expert believes the US is locked in a financial death spiral that is not reversible.

Rickards graduated from John Hopkins University in 1973 with a B.A.degree with honors and in 1974 and from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. with an M.A. in international economics. He received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an LLM in taxation from New York University School of Law.

Rickards worked on Wall Street for 35 years. Rickards was the senior managing director for market intelligence at Omnis, Inc., a consulting firm. On March 24, 2009, Rickards presented his view at a symposium at Johns Hopkins, that the U.S. dollar was facing imminent hyperinflation and was vulnerable to attack from foreign governments through the accumulation of gold and the establishment of a new global currency.

Comment: Note that Mr. Rickards (is he really CIA?) speaks frequently on the mainstream news circuit. He has been spreading this economic collapse prediction for a year now and makes money on people's fear. Even though he knows the financial system, he doesn't propose any way to help fix the system in any of his books or prognostications. This economic collapse is probably planned in order to usher in a 'new world order' for the elites to maintain their top positions in humanity.

We have the power in ourselves not to participate in this fear mongering and think about how we would survive and cooperate in communities helping each other and to be less dependent on the current economic system.

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Pistol

The Pentagon's guns for hire: Blackwater, Al-Qaeda... what's in the name?

Finian Cunningham
RT
Sun, 21 Feb 2016 16:16 UTC
Blackwater CASA 212 over Afghanistan
© soldiersmediacenter / Wikipedia
Blackwater CASA 212 over Afghanistan dropping supplies to U.S. Army soldiers.
CIA-linked private "security" companies are fighting in Yemen for the US-backed Saudi military campaign. Al-Qaeda-affiliated mercenaries are also being deployed. Melding private firms with terror outfits should not surprise. It's all part of illegal war making.

Western news media scarcely report on the conflict in Yemen, let alone the heavy deployment of Western mercenaries in the fighting there. In the occasional Western report on Al-Qaeda and related terror groups in Yemen, it is usually in the context of intermittent drone strikes carried out by the US, or with the narrative that these militants are "taking advantage" of the chaos "to expand" their presence in the Arabian Peninsula, as reported here by the Washington Post.

This bifurcated Western media view of Yemen belies a more accurate and meaningful perspective, which is that the US-backed Saudi bombing campaign is actually coordinated with an on-the-ground military force that comprises regular troops, private security firms and Al-Qaeda type mercenaries redeployed from Syria.

There can be little doubt in Syria - despite Western denials - that the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)) jihadists and related Al-Qaeda brigades in Jabhat al-Nusra, Jaish al-Fateh, Ahrar ash-Sham and so on, have been infiltrated, weaponized and deployed for the objective of regime-change by the US and its allies. If that is true for Syria, then it is also true for Yemen. Indeed, the covert connection becomes even more apparent in Yemen.

Comment: How many stories have we read now about private mercenaries being on the payroll of Washington, London, Riyadh, etc.?? But let's face it, these guns for hire (just like the mafia's 'button men') fulfill the Western geopolitical drive for head-chopping innocents, terrorizing innocents, destroying the homes schools and hospitals of innocents, and the list goes on. Where else can an an Empire or its vassal state get such premium quality barbarity and psychopathic service?? They need the creme de la creme!

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Play

South Front: Syrian Army continues to smash ISIS, closes Aleppo pocket - Saudi Arabia will further arm terrorists in Syria


South Front
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 21:19 UTC
south front
International Military Review - Syria (Feb. 22)

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Blackbox

The big question: Under Syria ceasefire, can Jaish al-Fatah be attacked?


Moon of Alabama
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 21:12 UTC
jaish al fatah nusra fsa

Jaish al-Fatah, FSA, al-Nusra. Can you tell the difference?
This was just published: Joint Statement of the United States and the Russian Federation, as Co-Chairs of the ISSG, on Cessation of Hostilities in Syria
... Consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and the statements of the ISSG, the cessation of hostilities does not apply to "Daesh", "Jabhat al-Nusra", or other terrorist organizations designated by the UN Security Council.
There is a word missing in the above when compared to the relevant part of UNSC Res 2254:
... specifically by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Da'esh), Al-Nusra Front (ANF), and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al Qaeda or ISIL, and other terrorist groups, ...
The "associated" with Al Qaeda are not mentioned in the cessation document. In Idleb and other parts on north Syria Jaish al Fatah is the major terrorist alliance:
The Army of Conquest ("Arabic: جيش الفتح‎) or Jaish al-Fatah, abbreviated JaF, is a joint operations room of Islamist Syrian rebel factions participating in the Syrian Civil War.
...
At its founding, Jaish al-Fatah contained seven members, three of them — al-Nusra, Ahrar ash-Sham, and Jund al-Aqsa are directly connected to Al-Qaeda or have a similar ideology. With Ahrar ash-Sham being the largest group, al-Nusra and Ahrar ash-Sham together were reported to represent 90 percent of the troops. Another prominent Islamist faction in the operations room included the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria linked Sham Legion (Faylaq Al-Sham). Jaish al-Fatah collaborated with more moderate Free Syrian Army factions such as Knights of Justice Brigade.
Leaving out the "associated" in the cessation of hostilities declaration gives room for Ahrar al-Sham and a few others, which are clearly "associated" with al-Nusra/al-Qaeda in their Jaish al-Fatah alliance, to take part in it.

Comment: Exactly. But while the ceasefire may not hold (just look at Ukraine!), at the very least more so-called moderates will be further exposed as having close ties with al-Qaeda. And the U.S. will have even more egg on its face. Further reading:

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