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Western plutocracy goes bear hunting

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 13:36 UTC
Putin and Bear
© dragonflycap.com

The post-Cold War status quo in Eastern Europe, not to mention in Western Europe, is now dead.

For Western plutocracy, that 0.00001% at the top, the real Masters of the Universe, Russia is the ultimate prize; an immense treasure of natural resources, forests, pristine water, minerals, oil and gas. Enough to drive any NSA-to-CIA Orwellian/Panopticon war game to ecstasy. How to pounce and profit from such a formidable loot?

Enter Globocop NATO. Barely out of having its collective behind unceremoniously kicked by a bunch of mountain warriors with Kalashnikovs, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is now fast "pivoting" - that same old Mackinder to Brzezinski game - to Russia. The road map will be put in place at the group's summit in early September in Wales.

Meanwhile, the MH17 tragedy is undergoing a fast metamorphosis. When the on-site observations by this Canadian OSCE monitor (watch the video carefully) are compounded with this analysis by a German pilot, a strong probability points to a Ukrainian Su-25's 30 mm auto-cannon firing at the cockpit of MH17, leading to massive decompression and the crash.

No missile - not even an air-to-air R-60M, not to mention a BUK (the star of the initial, frenetic American spin). The new possible narrative fits with on-site testimony by eyewitness in this now famously "disappeared" BBC report. Bottom line: MH17 configured as a false flag, planned by the US and botched by Kiev. One can barely imagine the tectonic geopolitical repercussions were the false flag to be fully exposed.

Malaysia has handed out the flight recorders to the UK; this means NATO, and this spells out manipulation by the CIA. Air Algerie AH5017 went down after MH17. The analysis has already been released. That begs the question of why it is taking so long for MH17's black boxes to be analyzed/tampered with.
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Yoda

Putin reminds the world of dangers of excessive ambitions - WWI tragedy


RT
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 12:34 UTC
Putin WW1
© RIA Novosti/Aleksey Nikolskyi
President Vladimir Putin speaks at a ceremony to unveil a monument to WWI heroes on Poklonnaya Hill.
The tragedy of WWI reminds us what excessive ambitions, an unwillingness to listen to each other and violations of liberties lead to, Russia's president said. He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the memorial to the Heroes of WWI in Moscow.

According to Putin, the memorial is not only "a tribute to the great deeds," but also a warning that "this peace is fragile."

"And we have to guard peace. And remember that the most valuable thing on Earth is a peaceful and quiet life," he added.

Numerous examples in world history show "what a terrible price" is paid if human rights and liberties are violated for the sake of serving vested interests.
"Humankind should grasp one truth: violence generates violence. And the way to peace and prosperity is made up of good will and dialogue, and the memory of the lessons of the last wars."
He added that Russia stepped for strong and trusting relationships between the countries throughout the centuries.
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Megaphone

Is Israel a U.S. ally? Most definitely not! says Philip Giraldi, former CIA specialist


Youtube
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:32 UTC
National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club.

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Post-It Note

Update! US Senate votes unanimously for Israeli Iron Dome aid. To hell with Americans!


RT.com
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 10:13 UTC

Comment: Less than 12 hours later, the bill was passed unanimously. That AIPAC is fast! See previous article below.


obama israel
The Senate overwhelmingly approved an emergency measure early Friday that could give $225 million in additional revenue to Israel for the country's Iron Dome missile defense system.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) received unanimous consent from his colleagues Friday morning when he asked them to consider approving the measure, The Hill reported. An attempt one day earlier by the Senate to approve funding the system had failed.

Next, the House of Representatives will be tasked with weighing the request, which if passed will put nearly a quarter of a billion dollars towards Israel's missile defense system as that country continues its campaign against Hamas in Gaza City.

Comment: No wonder, since the Zionists in congress show no moral qualm when spelling it out that they'd faster aid Israel in its unlawful murders rather than offer the aid to those they represent who desperately need it AND have already paid for it.

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Eye 1

Governments probe Twitter for user account information


RT
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 01:04 UTC
Image
© Unknown

The number of requests for account information Twitter received from countries around the world has increased by 46 percent in the first half of 2014, the social networking site revealed in its fifth transparency report.

Between January and June this year Twitter received 2,058 requests overall from a total of 58 different countries including from eight countries who had previously never lodged requests before.

The US was in first position with 1,257 requests, 72 percent of which resulted in information being handed over. In number two position was Japan with 192 requests, of which just 36 percent were complied with.

Comment: It appears as though the Governments need for totalitarian control is insatiable and is continually getting worse each year.

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Star of David

Israel, you rascals

Mark Steel
Marksteelinfo.com
Fri, 01 Aug 2014 09:47 UTC
Image
In recent years most of humanity has become proudly more tolerant of groups who once seemed to be on the margins of society. But until now it's still been seen as acceptable to be offensive about one minority, which is the child murdering community.

At last it seems the mood is changing, and finally we're beginning to hear the child murderers' point of view.

For example one brave soul, prepared to speak out, is spokesman Uri Drome, who explained on Radio 4 yesterday that although the Israeli government bombed a school in which several children died, the deaths are clearly the fault of the people who live in the areas being bombed.

What a refreshing change from that tired old thinking that always blames murder on the murderer.

Mister Drome, once a spokesman for the Israeli government said the Israelis were "lured into a trap, now Hamas sheds crocodile tears about the dead."

If only more of us understood bombed schools in this way. We always rush to judge some poor kid in an American town who mows down his classmates, without even pausing to consider the dead kids probably tricked him into it, and now to make it worse their parents are all pretending to cry.

Even more imaginative was Michael Oren, ex-Israeli ambassador In Washington, on Channel 4 News. He explained that Hamas was to blame for all this death, because "They are booby-trapping toasters and fridges in their houses."

It goes to show you should never make up your mind too quickly. Many of us see pictures of buildings reduced to rubble with a bomb sticking out, and hastily conclude the bomb had something to do with the explosion. But look carefully and it becomes obvious the cause was the silly sods blowing themselves up with an exploding toaster.

I bet if we went back to Hiroshima and checked what happened more thoroughly, we'd discover the blast was nothing to do with an atom bomb, and was caused by a booby-trapped kettle.
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Bizarro Earth

What is at stake in Ukraine: A horrible civil war with global ramifications

Andranik Migranyan
The National Interest
Wed, 30 Jul 2014 08:28 UTC
putin power
Since the outset of the Ukraine crisis, the estimates on who is winning and losing this battle have changed a number of times both in the West and in Russia. After Yanukovich fled the country in February, it seemed that the West and pro-Western powers were winning, and that, in fact, the formation of an anti-Russian Ukrainian state, integrated in the European economic and Western politico-military structures, was possible. When the sovereignty and then the independence of Crimea were announced, followed by its unification with Russia without shedding a drop of blood or using force, analysts argued that the scale was tipping in favor of Russia, that Ukraine was an existential problem for Russia and that Russia would fight for it till the end.

Since March the West has been making predictions about Putin's next steps--on how far his ambitions and claims will go, on whether there will be an incursion into the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine with their majority of Russian and Russian-speaking population, especially after the anti-Kiev demonstrations in Kharkov, Odessa, Donetsk, Lugansk, Mariupol, and a number of other cities in the region. Or would Moscow lay a claim to the entire Ukrainian territory? Many Western analysts even argued that Putin would not stop there, but would launch an occupation of the Baltic states and NATO would not risk attempting to thwart him.

In fact, Moscow's aims and problems were clearly stated long ago.

Comment: Indeed,Vladimir Putin saw already what was coming based on the world events back in 2007, and addressing the global leaders at the 43rd Munich Security Conference, he spelled it out:
[W]hat is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.

....
I consider that the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today's world. And this is not only because if there was individual leadership in today's - and precisely in today's - world, then the military, political and economic resources would not suffice. What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilisation.

Along with this, what is happening in today's world - and we just started to discuss this - is a tentative to introduce precisely this concept into international affairs, the concept of a unipolar world.

And with which results?

Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. Mr Teltschik mentioned this very gently. And no less people perish in these conflicts - even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force - in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible.

We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

In international relations we increasingly see the desire to resolve a given question according to so-called issues of political expediency, based on the current political climate.

And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this - no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race.


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Bad Guys

The children fleeing Central America will not stop coming because of the violence that the U.S. created

Óscar Martínez
The Nation
Tue, 30 Sep 2014 06:18 UTC
children at us border
© Edel Rodriguez
On Friday, June 11, David de la O disappeared. He was walking home from school in rural Santa Cruz Michapa, a small city in El Salvador about an hour's drive from San Salvador, the nation's capital. David's family searched for him all night, without success. The next morning, his remains were found buried in an abandoned field outside town. He had been stabbed four times in the torso; his head, arms and legs had been severed. David was only 11 years old. In fourth grade, he had been learning long division and multiplication and practicing verb tenses. With no leads to go on, the police speculated that David was killed and dismembered by gang members because he refused to join their ranks. (He went to school in an area controlled by one gang and lived in a neighborhood dominated by another.)

David's murder wasn't widely reported in the country. It was yet another incident of violence - a terrible one, but one of many. The day before David was killed, two other teenagers, 15 and 16, had their throats slit and were dumped in another abandoned field on the outskirts of the capital.

To avoid becoming the victims of gang violence, tens of thousands of children like David have fled El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras for the United States. As their numbers skyrocket, lawmakers in Washington have sought to "repatriate" these refugees as quickly as possible. The Obama administration initially sought to change the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act to allow the 52,000 or so child migrants who have arrived on US soil in the last nine months to be deported without going before an immigration judge. (Under the TVPRA, unaccompanied minors from countries that do not share a border with the United States are handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services, then go before an immigration court that will determine their fate; those hailing from Mexico, on the other hand, can accept "voluntary deportation" and return immediately.) The White House has since backed off this proposal and has instead asked Congress for $3.7 billion to ramp up enforcement and hire more judges to expedite the removal process. Republicans in the House of Representatives - including the GOP's standard-bearer on immigration issues, Ted Cruz - continue to press for the TVPRA to be changed.

Comment: For a glimpse into the destruction America brought to El Salvador read: Romney's Death Squad Ties: Bain Launched With Millions From Oligarchs Behind Salvadoran Atrocities

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Penis Pump

The emperor's rage: Let chaos envelop the world!

Dr James Petras
Boiling Frosts Post
Wed, 30 Jul 2014 05:53 UTC
Finis Gloriae Mundi
© Juan Valdez Leal
Chaos reigns and spreads as enraged leaders in the US, Europe and their clients and allies pursue genocidal wars. Mercenary wars in Syria; Israel's terror bombing on Gaza; proxy wars in the Ukraine, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Somalia.

Tens of millions of refugees flee scenes of total destruction. Nothing is sacred. There are no sanctuaries. Homes, schools, hospitals and entire families are targeted for destruction.

Chaos by Design

At the center of chaos, the wild-eyed President Obama strikes blindly, oblivious of the consequences, willing to risk a financial debacle or a nuclear war. He enforces sanctions against Iran; imposes sanctions on Russia; sets up missile bases five launch minutes from Moscow; sends killer drones against Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan; arms mercenaries in Syria; trains and equips Kurds in Iraq and pays for Israel's savagery against Gaza.

Nothing works.

The Chaos President is blind to the fact that starving one's adversaries does not secure submission: it unites them to resist. Regime change, imposing proxies by force and subterfuge, can destroy the social fabric of complex societies: million of peasants and workers become uprooted refugees. Popular social movements are replaced by organized criminal gangs and bandit armies.
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Chess

Nick Turse: China, America, and a new Cold War in Africa?

Nick Turse
TomDispatch.com
Thu, 31 Jul 2014 16:33 UTC
vultures over africa
For the last two years, TomDispatch Managing Editor Nick Turse has been following the Pentagon and the latest U.S. global command, AFRICOM, as they oversaw the expanding operations of the American military across that continent: drones, a special ops surge, interventions, training missions, bases (even if not called bases), proxy wars. Short of a major conflict, you name it and it's probably happening. Washington's move into Africa seems connected as well to the destabilization of parts of that continent and the rise of various terror groups across it, another subject Nick has been following. With rare exceptions, only recently have aspects of the Obama administration's largely below-the-radar-screen "pivot" to Africa made it into the mainstream media. Even more recently, global chaos from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria to Ukraine has driven it out again. As a result, most Americans have no sense of how their future and Africa's are being entwined in possibly explosive ways.

With this in mind, and with the support of the Nation Institute's Investigative Fund (as well as the generosity of Adelaide Gomer), Nick has gone to Tanzania and South Sudan to explore the situation further himself. Today, as the first fruits of that trip, TomDispatch has a major story on a development that has, until now, remained distinctly below the radar screen: the Africa-wide contest between the globe's "sole superpower," the U.S., and its preeminent rising economic power, China, over which will benefit most from the exploitation of that continent.

Over the next several months, there will be more pieces from Nick on America's growing stake in and effect on Africa. The next will address a looming crisis in the world's youngest nation. He offers a preview: "My aid agency contacts say that, in September, the United Nations will officially declare a famine in large swaths of South Sudan. As one humanitarian worker here put it to me, add famine to war and you have a powder keg. 'It's going to get worse,' says another, 'before it gets better.'" Tom
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