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The West's next proxy war is being stopped before it starts in Egypt

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer Report
Tue, 25 Mar 2014 07:07 UTC
Trial in Cairo
© Tarek Wajeh/Almasry Alyoum/EPA
The unprecedented sentencing of over 500 Muslim Brotherhood members to death in Egypt for their role in the attack, torture, and murder of an Egyptian policeman, is the culmination of a lighting fast, all encompassing security crackdown across the pivotal North African Arab nation. The move has created a chilling effect that has left the otherwise violent mobs of the Muslim Brotherhood silent and the streets they generally sow their chaos in, peaceful and empty.

The New York Times reported in its article, "Hundreds of Egyptians Sentenced to Death in Killing of a Police Officer," that:
A crowd gathered outside a courthouse in the town of Matay erupted in wailing and rage on Monday when a judge sentenced 529 defendants to death in just the second session of their trial, convicting them of murdering a police officer in anger at the ouster of the Islamist president. Here in the provincial capital just a few miles away, schools shut down early, and many stayed indoors fearing a riot, residents said.

But the crowds went home, and soon the streets were quiet.
The move by the Egyptian courts has attracted the predictable condemnation of the US State Department. The Washington Post's article, "Egyptian court sentences 529 people to death," stated:
The United States was "deeply concerned, and I would say actually pretty shocked," about the mass death sentences, said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. "It defies logic" and "certainly does not seem possible that a fair review of evidence and testimony, consistent with international standards," could have been conducted over a two-day period, she said.
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Cult

Best of the Web: Chossudovsky: NATO trains terrorists who destabilize situation in Ukraine


Voice of Russia
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 06:17 UTC
NATO soldiers
© RIA Novosti
Contractors from private security companies are supposed to do what NATO cannot do openly, they train terrorists who destabilize situation in Ukraine, Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization told RIA Novosti Tuesday.

"Those organizations (private security companies) will do what NATO cannot do openly. They can train people to be terrorists," Chossudovsky said, adding that in Syria private contractors were training al-Qaeda.

"We are talking about the continuation of US policy of military intervention in Ukraine and a preparatory stage for a massacre in southeastern Ukraine," Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense monthly Russian-language magazine said, adding that the deployment of mercenaries from a private company Greystone Ltd. may be financed by Ukrainian oligarchs and organized in coordination with the US State Department.

Michel Chossudovsky told RIA Novosti that mercenaries are normally hired by governments, but options are numerous as they operate covertly and do not identify themselves.
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Light Sabers

China warns: no one, not even the United States, can contain its military ambitions

Ariel Zirulnick
The Christian Science Monitor
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:42 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The timing was part of the message: The day after China brought US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on board its first aircraft carrier as the first foreign visitor, its defense minister warned that no one, not even the United States, could contain its military ambitions.

"With the latest developments in China, it can never be contained," Gen. Chang Wanquan said, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. The US is "a country of worldwide influence, and the Pacific Ocean is huge enough to hold both China and the US for common development and also huge enough to hold the other Asia-Pacific countries."

Mr. Hagel hopes to create a framework to "manage competition" between the US and China, and to reassure other countries in the region who fear being trampled by China - and might take action to send a message to Beijing.
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Network

Snowden to Council of Europe: NSA deliberately snooped on Human Rights groups‏

Luke Harding
The Guardian
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 10:49 UTC
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© Vincent Kessler/ReutersEdward Snowden speaks via video link with members of the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg.
The US has spied on the staff of prominent human rights organisations, Edward Snowden has told the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Europe's top human rights body.

Giving evidence via a videolink from Moscow, Snowden said the National Security Agency - for which he worked as a contractor - had deliberately snooped on bodies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

He told council members: "The NSA has specifically targeted either leaders or staff members in a number of civil and non-governmental organisations ... including domestically within the borders of the United States." Snowden did not reveal which groups the NSA had bugged.
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Bad Guys

Psychopath Netanyahu ignores appeals to refrain from "unhelpful" tit-for-tat moves against Palestine

John Davidson
Yahoo! News
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 14:34 UTC
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© AFP/Musa-al-ShaerA Palestinian Muslim cleric reacts after Israeli security forces threw a tear gas canister towards protesters at the "300 check point" along Israel's controversial separation barrier in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on April 4, 2014
Washington said Friday it was reviewing its push for a Middle East peace agreement as a spiral of tit-for-tat moves by Israel and the Palestinians took hard-won talks close to collapse.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has invested more than a year of intensive shuttle diplomacy, said there were "limits" to the time Washington could devote to the process.

"This is not open-ended," Kerry said in Morocco, adding that it was "reality check" time and he would evaluate with President Barack Obama Washington's next move.

"There are limits to the amount of time and effort that the United States can spend if the parties themselves are unwilling to take constructive steps."
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Rocket

Japan to intercept any North Korea missile deemed a threat

Nobuhiro Kubo
Yahoo! News
Sat, 05 Apr 2014 09:56 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Issei KatoJapan's Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera (C) reviews troops from the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force 1st Airborne Brigade during an annual new year military exercise at Narashino exercise field in Funabashi, east of Tokyo January 12, 2014.
Japan will strike any North Korean ballistic missile that threatens to hit Japan in the coming weeks after Pyongyang recently fired medium-range missiles, a government source said on Saturday.

Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera issued the order, which took effect on Thursday and runs through April 25, the day that marks the founding of North Korea's army, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Following the order, meant "to prepare for any additional missile launches," a destroyer was dispatched to the Sea of Japan and will fire if North Korea launches a missile that Tokyo deems in danger of striking or falling on Japanese territory, the source said.
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Alarm Clock

Apparent suicide of CIA official in Virginia

Bill Gertz
The Washington Free Beacon
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 23:46 UTC
Image
© Wikimedia
A senior CIA official has died in an apparent suicide this week from injuries sustained after jumping off a building in northern Virginia, according to sources close to the CIA.

CIA spokesman Christopher White confirmed the death and said the incident did not take place at CIA headquarters in McLean, Va.

"We can confirm that there was an individual fatally injured at a facility where agency work is done," White told the Washington Free Beacon. "He was rushed to a local area hospital where he subsequently died. Due to privacy reasons and out of respect for the family, we are not releasing additional information at this time."

A source close to the agency said the man who died was a middle manager and the incident occurred after the man jumped from the fifth floor of a building in Fairfax County.
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Sheriff

LAPD officers tampered with in-car recording equipment

Joel Rubin
LA Times
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 19:25 UTC
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© Mark Boster, Los Angeles TimesLAPD Chief Charlie Beck and other top officials learned about officers tampering with recording equipment last summer but chose not to investigate which officers were responsible.
An inspection by LAPD investigators found about half of the estimated 80 cars in one South L.A. patrol division were missing antennas.

Los Angeles police officers tampered with voice recording equipment in dozens of patrol cars in an effort to avoid being monitored while on duty, according to records and interviews.

An inspection by Los Angeles Police Department investigators found about half of the estimated 80 cars in one South L.A. patrol division were missing antennas, which help capture what officers say in the field. The antennas in at least 10 more cars in nearby divisions had also been removed.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and other top officials learned of the problem last summer but chose not to investigate which officers were responsible. Rather, the officials issued warnings against continued meddling and put checks in place to account for antennas at the start and end of each patrol shift.

Members of the Police Commission, which oversees the department, were not briefed about the problem until months later. In interviews with The Times, some commissioners said they were alarmed by the officers' attempts to conceal what occurred in the field, as well as the failure of department officials to come forward when the problem first came to light.

"On an issue like this, we need to be brought in right away," commission President Steve Soboroff said. "This equipment is for the protection of the public and of the officers. To have people who don't like the rules to take it upon themselves to do something like this is very troubling."
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Handcuffs

House Republicans want criminal charges for Lois Lerner

Lauren French
Politico
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 19:21 UTC
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© M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICOThe controversy erupted when Lerner admitted the IRS gave extra scrutiny to tea party groups.
The House Ways and Means Committee will vote this week to formally ask the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against former IRS employee Lois Lerner, an official at the center of Republican probes of the matter.

The committee will mark up a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday accusing Lerner of committing three crimes relating to the IRS's targeting of conservative groups seeking tax exempt status, a Republican staffer said.

The controversy erupted in May when Lerner admitted the agency had given extra scrutiny to tea party groups - an acknowledgement that has cost a handful of agency employees their jobs, including its commissioner, and prompted a series of congressional investigations.
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Life Preserver

Uncertainty looms as war-weary Afghanistan chooses new president


RT
Sat, 05 Apr 2014 06:13 UTC
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© Reuters/Tim WimborneA policeman checks a motorist at a road block on election day in central Kabul April 5, 2014.
Afghans head to the polls on Saturday to replace outgoing President Hamid Karzai. Looming over the vote, though, are threats of Taliban violence, a poor economy dependent on outside aid, and the impending exit of many foreign security forces.

After 13 years of rule by Karzai, eight candidates are vying for the presidency. Three of them - former foreign ministers Abdullah Abdullah and Zalmay Rassoul, and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani - are considered the favorites.

Voters on Saturday will consider just where their country stands after well over a decade of widespread bloodshed and foreign occupation. Since the US-led invasion to oust the Taliban in 2001, at least 16,000 civilians, almost 3,500 foreign troops, and thousands of Afghan soldiers have been killed.

According to a UN report, at least 45 civilians were killed and 14 injured from US drone strikes in 2013 - triple the amount that occurred in 2012. US figures show the US launched over 500 drone strikes in Afghanistan last year.
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