Puppet MastersS


USA

Best of the Web: Bush 3 vs Bush 4

Bush
© Azizonomics

The point of my writing has never been to tell others how to vote, especially not in elections in countries like the USA where I cannot myself vote.

But even if I was a voter in this election, there is no candidate with a chance in hell of winning who I could support. Obama and Romney are standing on the shoulders of George W. Bush.

Obama renewed Bush's PATRIOT Act, which gutted the Fourth Amendment, Obama signed into place (and went to court to defend) the NDAA Act that creates a legal framework for the indefinite detention of American citizens, Obama has engaged in six middle eastern wars (two more than Bush), and Obama maintains a kill-list of suspected terrorists including American citizens who - without trial, and alongside their families - are targeted for assassination by drone strike.

Romney signs on to all of those initiatives, and boasts the endorsements of both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Both candidates promise to strike first against Iran. Neither candidate talks of downsizing the American Empire, that - at huge cost to the taxpayer - maintains bases in over 150 countries, creates huge blowback, and leaves the American military thinly stretched. And this misallocation of capital means that in areas where central government plays a useful role - infrastructure, space exploration, disaster relief and scientific research - too little is left to invest.

Gear

Ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan silenced by cancer

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© CBS NewsEven though most Iranian nuclear facilities are heavily fortified, ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan says there are ways Israel could target and damage them.
This article, written by Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, was originally published on IsraelSpy.com.

One of the most important debates on the world scene has gone silent. For more than a year, commentators and politicians worldwide had been discussing: How can Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program be stopped, and should Israel be stopped from bombing Iran?

With Americans voting November 6, and Israelis having their national election on January 22, the debate is mute.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in recent years has been an enthusiastic saber-rattler, does not see any advantage in thundering about Iran's nuclear program right now. His most recent big statement came at the United Nations in New York in late September, when he held a cartoonish diagram of Iran's bomb-making progress, but truly illustrated a timeline that seems to delay any military action until mid-2013.

The defense minister in his lame duck cabinet, Ehud Barak, is leading his own small political party and has changed his tone on Iran. Barak is more obvious now in his reluctance to see Israeli warplanes and missiles strike Iran, but Barak has a reputation for saying almost anything for political advantage - so one does not know what he would do, in the remotely possible scenario that he might return to the post of defense minister.

Eye 1

'Dark' motive: FBI seeks signs of carrier roadblocks to surveillance and Comcast, Cricket, and T-Mobile are standing in the way

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The FBI has tried to bolster its case for expanded Internet surveillance powers by gathering finger-pointing examples of how communications companies have stymied government agencies, CNET has learned. An internal Homeland Security report shows that a working group convened by an FBI office in Chantilly, Va. requested details about "investigations have been negatively impacted" by companies' delays, partial compliance, or inability to comply with police surveillance requests.

One of the claims in that report: A police arm of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which conducts investigations into immigration, drug, computer, and copyright crimes, reported that no-contract wireless provider Cricket Communications had "hindered" an investigation because "system technical issues" interfered with a wiretap and location tracking. Cricket, a subsidiary of Leap Wireless, has approximately 6 million subscribers.

Pistol

Exclusive: Arab states arm rebels as UN talks of Syrian civil war

Saudi Arabia and Qatar 'supplying weapons' to anti-Assad forces, while fears mount for civilians

Syrian rebels are being armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, The Independent has learnt, in a development that threatens to inflame a regional power struggle provoked by the 15-month-old uprising against the Assad regime.

Rebel fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have received weapons from the two Gulf countries, which were transported into Syria via Turkey with the implicit support of the country's intelligence agency, MIT, according to a Western diplomat in Ankara. Opposition fighters in Syria have hitherto been handicapped by a reliance on an old and inadequate arsenal, while the regime in Damascus has been able to rely on a supply of arms from Russia and Iran. Moscow is arming Syria with attack helicopters, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, claimed yesterday. "We are concerned by the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria, which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically," she told a conference in Washington.

Since the start of the uprising, anti-regime activists have only smuggled small quantities of weapons, purchased on the black market, from Hatay in southern Turkey into Syria's Idlib province.


Arrow Up

Japanese protest U.S. occupation after military related rapes and assaults

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The United States government currently maintains a world-wide network of some 1000 military bases and installations, with 23 of them being in Japan.

The US has been an occupying force in Japan since world war 2 and like many places where western military bases have been established, their goals there are not humanitarian, regardless of what the propaganda says.

The most populated US military base in Japan is Okinawa, and recently that has become the site of various protests over dangerous weapons testing and attacks on a local women and children.

Folder

911 Phony proofs: A gallery of faked dead Bin Ladens

Pakistan actually shot the man claimed to be bin Laden.
At about 1:20 a.m. local time a Pakistani helicopter was shot down by unknown people in the Sikandarabad area of Abbotabad. The Pakistani forces launched a search operation in the nearby area and encountered with a group of unknown armed people. A fire exchange followed between the two sides. When the fire exchange ended, the Pakistani forces arrested some Arab women and kids as well some other armed people who later confessed to the Pakistani forces they were with Osama Bin laden when the fire was exchanged and Bin Laden was killed in the firing.
The first fake photo, used by Reuters' and the British Press.
dead osama May be
© Unknown

Eye 2

Forget Savile, pedophiles are everywhere in the British entertainment industry

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Ben Fellows (pictured) spoke about how he was preyed upon by actors, directors and producers
A former child actor revealed how he "ran a gauntlet of paedophiles" at the BBC, claiming the entertainment industry was rife with sex abuse.
Ben Fellows, who appeared in Eastenders, The Bill and Starlight Express before becoming an award-winning filmmaker, spoke last night about how he was preyed upon by actors, directors and producers.

Mr Fellows's testimony will pile more pressure on the BBC in the wake of the Jimmy Savile sex scandal.

He said: "Once I'd entered the entertainment industry proper I ran a gauntlet of paedophiles - both at the BBC and other television production companies and also in theatres, as well as commercial photo shoots.

"In fact, almost every production I was involved with I was targeted in some way or another."

Mr Fellows, 38, who trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company, claims that as a teenager he was asked to take his top off and pose for photographs before being propositioned by men and women "all the time".

Comment: Actor Corey Feldman says pedophilia is Hollywood's biggest problem


Cult

Cess pit: British government sets up five inquiries to investigate high-level pedophile network... in British government

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© Malcolm Croft/PAThe former Bryn Estyn boys home in Wrexham, which closed down following claims of child abuse in the 1970s and 1980s.
David Cameron battled to stay ahead of the swirl of allegations about child sex abuse in the UK, including the potential involvement of a close ally of Lady Thatcher, by announcing two further urgent inquiries into an alleged paedophile ring in north Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.

Faced by claims that senior Conservative politicians and other establishment figures may have been involved in the scandal - and a subsequent cover-up - Cameron announced he would establish an urgent investigation by a senior independent figure into the conduct of the official Waterhouse inquiry into the child sex abuse ring, which was held between 1996 and 2000.

The prime minister is on an official visit to the Middle East. His spokesman in London said a separate inquiry was also expected to be held into the way the North Wales police had handled complaints at the time. That inquiry is likely to be conducted by the National Crime Agency.

Comment: So the British government is going to investigate itself?

Great, we can't wait for the impartial results.


War Whore

Dirty Business: UK PM David Cameron flees Tory pedophile network scandal at home, arrives in Gulf to sell arms to client regimes

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"Hi, I'm Dave, Chief Death Merchant for Britain, Inc. We sell weapons, weapons training and can supply SAS and MI6 agents for special ops against your own people. Call us today to learn about discounts on our three-in-one package deal."
David Cameron has arrived in the Gulf at the beginning of a low-key arms trip aimed at persuading regional powers upset by Britain's response to the Arab spring to buy more than 100 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. The deals could be worth more than £6bn to Britain.

The prime minister landed in Dubai on a mission to patch up relations with leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where major British businesses such as BP and BAE have important interests.

Cameron, who is irritated by claims that he uses his overseas trips to sell defence equipment to countries with questionable human rights records, has made arrangements to minimise the media coverage of the trip.

Comment: Threat to humanity: British have invaded 9 out of 10 countries

Of course, nowadays they prefer to just sell the natives arms then slug it out among themselves.


Blue Planet

Civilizing mission? British have invaded 9 out of 10 countries

Every schoolboy used to know that at the height of the empire, almost a quarter of the atlas was coloured pink, showing the extent of British rule.

But that oft recited fact dramatically understates the remarkable global reach achieved by this country.

A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost 90 per cent of the countries around the globe.

The analysis of the histories of the almost 200 countries in the world found only 22 which have never experienced an invasion by the British.

Among this select group of nations are far-off destinations such as Guatemala, Tajikistan and the Marshall Islands, as well some slightly closer to home, such as Luxembourg.