2000 dead and counting...As the world watches Israel continues...
Puppet Masters
© RT
"These air force and air defense exercises are taking place in accordance with military preparedness plans for 2014 approved last year," the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement. "For the first time ever they will involve three military districts."
More than 100 aircraft - including SU-27, SU-24, SU-34 and MiG-31 planes, and Russia's array of military helicopters - are rebasing themselves from airfields in the north and west of the country, to create a massed force at the Ashuluk test site near Astrakhan.
From there they will carry out "multiple sorties that will take tactical and practical actions against ground and air targets, using electronic and live weapons in unfamiliar conditions." The war games will "also work to improve cooperation between anti-aircraft units and airborne equipment."
"Everyone is asking, what happens after the operation ends? Suppose Israel defeats Hamas. There are a few options. International control of Gaza, by the U.N., should certainly be considered," he said to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Lieberman highlighted previous instances in which either the region was overseen by another government, such as the early-to-mid 20th century British Mandate over Palestine, or the U.N. mandates in Kosovo or Timor.
"We saw it works quite well there," he said. "It requires an agreement between us and the Palestinian Authority. It doesn't require consent from the U.N., just from the parties involved - Israel and the P.A."
© Wikimedia
During the Cold War years and far more strikingly in the twenty-first century, the U.S. government has evolved. It sprouted a fourth branch: the national security state, whose main characteristic may be an unquenchable urge to expand its power and reach. Admittedly, it still lacks certain formal prerogatives of governmental power. Nonetheless, at a time when Congress and the presidency are in a check-and-balance ballet of inactivity that would have been unimaginable to Americans of earlier eras, the Fourth Branch is an ever more unchecked and unbalanced power center in Washington. Curtained off from accountability by a penumbra of secrecy, its leaders increasingly are making nitty-gritty policy decisions and largely doing what they want, a situation illuminated by a recent controversy over the possible release of a Senate report on CIA rendition and torture practices.
All of this is or should be obvious, but remains surprisingly unacknowledged in our American world. The rise of the Fourth Branch began at a moment of mobilization for a global conflict, World War II. It gained heft and staying power in the Cold War of the second half of the twentieth century, when that other superpower, the Soviet Union, provided the excuse for expansion of every sort.
Over the last decade, the NSA has significantly increased the surveillance assistance it provides to its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU; also known as Unit 8200), including data used to monitor and target Palestinians. In many cases, the NSA and ISNU work cooperatively with the British and Canadian spy agencies, the GCHQ and CSEC.
The relationship has, on at least one occasion, entailed the covert payment of a large amount of cash to Israeli operatives. Beyond their own surveillance programs, the American and British surveillance agencies rely on U.S.-supported Arab regimes, including the Jordanian monarchy and even the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, to provide vital spying services regarding Palestinian targets.
The new documents underscore the indispensable, direct involvement of the U.S. government and its key allies in Israeli aggression against its neighbors. That covert support is squarely at odds with the posture of helpless detachment typically adopted by Obama officials and their supporters.
Comment: And may we add to this latter statement that it is with their own precious money that the American government sustains Israel's massacres.
© AFP Photo / Genya Savilov
Ukrainian National Guard troops
Ukrainian National Guard troops
"In a situation, when the National Guard of Ukraine is leading punitive operations in the Donbass, the US promises to allocate $19 million for training and equipping this military structure - which also includes militants of the ultra-nationalist organization Right Sector - can be considered a direct financial and organizational complicity of the US in the genocide of civilians in south-east of Ukraine, as well as war crimes," the head of Russia's Lower House committee for security and countering corruption, Irina Yarovaya, told the press.
The Obama administration officially informed Congress on Friday of its plans to train and equip the Ukrainian National Guard.
Comment: The US government never has enough money to fix the crumbling infrastructure at home, to provide for homeless people, to give proper education for your children, etc. but they always have enough money for genocidal wars in far-away lands. It is a situation that if not corrected by humans "down here", will be corrected by the Universe from "up there" in the not too distant future.
Former CIA Director Woolsey tells Congress of a doomsday scenario in which a nuclear-blast-triggered electromagnetic pulse takes down the US power grid, leading to starvation and death. Some experts decry 'hysteria' over EMPs.
It is an unsettling doomsday scenario: A ballistic missile is launched from a freighter near America's shores, setting off a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere. The blast generates electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) that could take out the nation's electrical grid and bring civilization as we know it "to a cold, dark halt."
This warning comes from the former director of the CIA, James Woolsey, in little-noticed testimony recently before the House Armed Services Committee.
A nuclear weapon would be detonated in orbit "in order to destroy much of the electric grid from above the US with a single explosion," he told lawmakers last week. "Two thirds of the US population would likely perish from starvation, disease, and societal breakdown. Other experts estimate the likely loss to be closer to 90 percent."
It is an unsettling doomsday scenario: A ballistic missile is launched from a freighter near America's shores, setting off a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere. The blast generates electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) that could take out the nation's electrical grid and bring civilization as we know it "to a cold, dark halt."
This warning comes from the former director of the CIA, James Woolsey, in little-noticed testimony recently before the House Armed Services Committee.
A nuclear weapon would be detonated in orbit "in order to destroy much of the electric grid from above the US with a single explosion," he told lawmakers last week. "Two thirds of the US population would likely perish from starvation, disease, and societal breakdown. Other experts estimate the likely loss to be closer to 90 percent."
© RIA Novosti / Andrey Stenin
Local 'terrorists' near a 'terrorist' building hit by a shell during the combat operations in the 'terrorists stronghold' of Shakhtyorsk near Donetsk.
Local 'terrorists' near a 'terrorist' building hit by a shell during the combat operations in the 'terrorists stronghold' of Shakhtyorsk near Donetsk.
"I don't know how to work with the parliament where half of the Verkhovna Rada [parliament] does not vote to recognize the Lugansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic as terrorist organizations," said Poroshenko, Ukraine's local media reported.
"I don't know how to work with the parliament where the majority of people represent a 'fifth column' which is controlled from abroad, whole factions. And the danger of this is only rising," he added.
Poroshenko's reference to a "fifth column" is a strong term in the current situation, as it originates from the Spanish Civil War, where Franco's fascists literally sent a "fifth column" of spies and provocateurs to try to capture Madrid from inside the city. Nowadays, the term has come to be used more widely, to refer to any group of people who undermine a larger group - such as a nation or a besieged city - from within.
Comment: This man is a total joke... which means he fits right in with 'people' like Obama, Kerry, Psaki, Harf, Netanyahu, etc.
© Zvezda
OSCE observers at the Russian Gukovo checkpoint.
OSCE observers at the Russian Gukovo checkpoint.
The first shell exploded at Gukovo at around 13:55 Moscow time (0955 GMT), Russian border guard spokesman Vasily Malaev told Itar-Tass news agency.
"During this time, there were not only customs officers and border guards, but also representatives of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) mission present at the crossing," Malaev stressed, adding that no one was hurt as a result of the incident.
Gukovo was hit by a mortar shell, which left a "the crater with the diameter of 40 centimeters and depth of 20 centimeters," said local customs spokesman Rayan Farukshin.
This spot is most likely "sighted" by those, who are executing fire, as Russian border guards went under gun fire there on Friday as they tried to document the damage done by an earlier shelling, he stressed.
The OSCE has confirmed that Gukovo checkpoint in Russia's southern Rostov Region was shelled on Saturday.
Comment: If there were Darwin awards for governments, Kiev would clean house. You can only shoot yourself in the foot so many times before your friends and allies run out of ways to cover it up and make you look good for the camera. The OSCE is there because of Russia's alleged 'wrongdoings' on the border, and it's Kiev that ends up looking bad. Not only is the OSCE finding the Russia is behaving like a perfect gentleman on the border, they are also finding the Kiev is, in fact, shelling the checkpoints. What is going on here? Kiev shelling OSCE observers, Israel bombing UN schools in Gaza... It's as if the politicians are getting even more profoundly stupid and psychopathic.
© Reuters / Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A Palestinian carries the dead body of a girl following what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike at a United Nations-run school, where displaced Palestinians take refuge, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip August 3, 2014.
A Palestinian carries the dead body of a girl following what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike at a United Nations-run school, where displaced Palestinians take refuge, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip August 3, 2014.
"This attack, along with other breaches of international law, must be swiftly investigated and those responsible held accountable. It is a moral outrage and a criminal act," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman said in a statement.
The missile fired by an Israeli aircraft hit the entrance to the school in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza Strip, according to Israeli health officials.
The school served as a shelter for some 3,000 Palestinians amid the ongoing violence in the region, as Israel continues its operation against Hamas.
The UN has stressed that this was the third deadly attack on a UN school that shelters Palestinians since fighting broke between Israel and Hamas.
"The Israel Defence Forces have been repeatedly informed of the location of these sites," Ban's spokesman said in a statement.
"For this particular installation we notified the Israeli Army on 33 separate occasions that this school in Rafah was being used to accommodate the displaced, the last time only an hour before the incident," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said in a statement.
Comment: Israel is a rogue nation, flouting international law and all human values. Either they are so confident that they can get away with murder - thanks to their stranglehold on Western media and politicians and the deterrent power of Mossad's 'fun and games' - that they continue to deliberately target UN facilities, or they are so arrogant and shortsighted that they do not see that such behavior will finally put the whole world against them. Either way, Israel is showing the world in its actions that it will do whatever the hell it wants, law and morals be damned.
Comment: So, the two-state solution is just a slogan parroted for the press. What they seem to truly want, or one of their wishes at least, is for Gaza to remain stateless and never become a sovereign state.