Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Best option for the US/Trump administration in Afghanistan: Work with Russia and China

US soldiers Afghanistan
A report of Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), especially prepared for the US Congress and the Trump administration, finds what should be called a magnanimous failure of the US in achieving any of its major objectives in Afghanistan even after spending almost 16 years in the country. Ironic though it may sound, this report, along with its list of grave threats that the US needs to tackle, endorses the war as, what Trump himself has called, totally "disastrous" for the US. While the actual intention behind the preparation of this report seems to be to impress upon the president and the Congress to sanction more funds, commit more US troops and continue the rehabilitation programme (read: Trump has vowed to end the programme), it ends up enlisting the US' multiple failures in Afghanistan, ranging from eliminating the Taliban completely to restoring even a semblance of peace and establishing a strong security force in the war torn country. Hence, the question: will commitment of more resources (funds and troops) to Afghanistan make any difference, especially when the proposed increase is nothing compared to what the US had committed and continued to utilize for years after it invaded Afghanistan in 2001?

It is worth recalling that since 2001, around 2250 US military personnel have died and over 20,000 wounded in Afghanistan and the war is not over—yet. Apart from it, as the report notes, the US has spent more money in Afghanistan than it collectively spent to reconstruct the whole Europe after the Second World War, marking this the "largest expenditure to rebuild a single country in our (US) nation's history." Given the scale of the loss, it cannot be gainsaid that it is also the greatest failure the US has suffered ever since. And as the report highlights, "after 15 years the task is incomplete."

Heart - Black

David Brock, Soros funded Media Matters founder, ex-boyfriend of James Alefantis, and Clinton ally, suffers heart attack

David Brock
© Fox News

David Brock, founder of Media Matters for America, suffered a heart attack on Tuesday.
David Brock, founder of the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America and longtime ally of the Clintons, suffered a heart attack while working in his Washington, DC office on Tuesday.

"David Brock suffered a heart attack while working in the Washington DC office early Tuesday afternoon. He was quickly transported to a local hospital, received prompt medical treatment, and we are looking forward to a swift recovery," said Brock's chief of staff, Bradley Beychok.

We thank everyone for their well wishes, and especially want to thank the wonderful doctors and staff who treated David. We kindly ask for privacy as he recovers," Beychok said in the statement.

The 54-year-old former conservative now heads a group that aims to combat conservatives in the media.

Cut

New documents expose Bush Sr.'s illegal destruction of evidence in US crimes - while head of CIA

Bush sr.
Documents recently dredged from the CIA's massive database expose an effort by the former director to destroy documents evincing the agency's illegal activities and operations.

That director — George H.W. Bush, who served in the role from January 1976 until January 1977 — went on to become the 41st President of the United States.

As MuckRock reports,
"In 1976, Congresswoman Bella Abzug wrote to CIA Director George H.W. Bush about the existing moratorium on the destruction of CIA files. As the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights, which had jurisdiction over government information policy including FOIA and the Privacy Act, she wanted the moratorium extended — specifically, she wanted to ensure that Congress had time to enact legislation in response to the Church, Pike, and Rockefeller hearings and the resulting reports."
Preservation of records — the subject of acrimonious debate during the presidential election, thanks to Hillary Clinton's use of a private server and disappearing documents — is pivotal to government transparency and accountability. And for preventing alterations and staving off lies.

Comment: This is a standard MO among those in the Deep State; accidentally destroy the evidence, heavily redact it, refuse to provide it, or just say that it cannot be released because of reasons concerning "national security". When no one is ever held accountable these psychos feel empowered to do anything - and usually do.


Pirates

DNC cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike may have fabricated Russian hacking in Ukraine

Crowd Strike
© New York Times
The cyber security firm outsourced by the Democratic National Committee, CrowdStrike, reportedly misread data, falsely attributing a hacking in Ukraine to the Russians in December 2016. Voice of America, a US Government funded media outlet, reported, "the CrowdStrike report, released in December, asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with Russian-backed separatists. But the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told VOA that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed any connection to the CrowdStrike report.

Ukraine's Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses and hacking never happened." The maker of the military app allegedly hacked called CrowdStrike's report "delusional," and told VOA that CrowdStrike never contacted him either before or after they completed their report. VOA News noted Ukraine's rebuttal to CrowdStrike received little media attention as CrowdStrike's report was widely cited in media outlets throughout the United States as further evidence of Russia hacking the United States. Alperovitch, who gave several interviews on CrowdStrike's initial report to the Washington Post and other media outlets, refused to comment on VOA News' report.

Propaganda

Newly obtained documents disprove "missing eleven days" claim of Snowden's accusers

Edward Snowden
© The Intercept
For almost four years, a cottage industry of media conspiracists has devoted itself to accusing Edward Snowden of being a spy for either Russia and/or China at the time he took and then leaked documents from the National Security Agency. There has never been any evidence presented to substantiate this accusation.

In lieu of evidence, the propagators of this accusation have relied upon the defining tactic of tawdry conspiracists everywhere: relentless repetition of rumor and innuendo based on alleged inconsistencies until it spreads far enough through the media ecosystem to take on the appearance of being credible. In this case, there was one particular fiction — about where Snowden spent his first 11 days after arriving in Hong Kong — which took on particular significance for this group.

They insist that Snowden, contrary to what he has always maintained, did not check into the Mira Hotel on May 21, 2013, the day after he arrived in Hong Kong. Instead, they assert, he checked-in only on June 1, which means Snowden has 11 "unaccounted-for" days from the time he arrived in Hong Kong until he met with journalists at the Mira in the beginning of June. They have repeatedly leveraged this Missing Eleven Days into the insinuation that Snowden used this time to work with his Russian and/or Chinese handlers in preparation for meeting the U.S. journalists in Hong Kong.

Jet5

China tells US to respect air defense ID zone after report of B-1 flyover

B-1B Lancer supersonic bomber
© Handout / ReutersA U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer supersonic bomber
China says the US should respect its self-declared air defense identification zone (ADIZ), after a report alleged that a US bomber illegally flew inside the area in the East China Sea.

"The United States has its own ADIZs. I think if this matter is true, they should respect China's relevant ADIZ rights," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing on Thursday.

It comes after CNN reported that Chinese officials warned a US military aircraft flying near South Korea on Sunday, telling its pilots they were illegally operating in Chinese airspace and ordering the plane to leave.

Bad Guys

Norway grants asylum to Turkish military officers who fear persecution after failed coup attempt

Turkish protestors
© Huseyin Aldemir / Reuters
Four Turkish NATO officers and a military attaché were given asylum in Norway after ignoring orders to return home following last year's attempted coup. Turkey has summoned the Norwegian ambassador to Ankara for an explanation.

According to Norwegian media, citing Kjell M. Brygfjeld, the lawyer of the officers and the attaché, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration accepted the asylum applications earlier this week.

Bad Guys

Israel seeking to prevent resolution of Syrian war

Israel tank
© AFP 2017/ STR
Israel is likely to try to retain the existing status quo in Syria since it has benefited from the ongoing conflict in the war-torn neighboring nation, political analyst Sergei Balmasov asserted, saying that Tel Aviv's combat missions are not aimed at President Bashar al-Assad, but are rather meant to prevent the crisis from being resolved.

"Israel is deeply interested in the ongoing standoff between the Sunnis and the Shia. Tel Aviv wants them to continue killing each other. Nothing presents a threat to Israel as long as this war is ongoing. The Israeli Air Force launches airstrikes against Shia militias in Syria, tipping the balance. This evens out the chances and the war drags on," he told RT.

Comment: In other words, Israel is invested in maintaining terrorism.


Bullseye

'Aleppo boy' versus 'Mosul girl': How the Western MSM manipulates news coverage to fit NATO's agenda

Zašto mediji ne spominju izbjeglice i civilne žrtve u Mosulu, iz Aleppa se izvještavalo svakodnevno
© Ari Jalal / Reuters
The world recently got a crude lesson as to how the Western media machine manipulates its news coverage to fit NATO's regime- change agenda.

During two parallel global events - the Russian-backed liberation of Aleppo and the US-backed liberation of Mosul - viewers witnessed the tragic circumstances of two children, with two radically different media spins.

By now, many people are familiar with the story of Omran Daqneesh. He is the Syrian boy from Aleppo who - seated alone in the back of an ambulance, covered in dust, blood and the flood of flashbulbs - became the Western media's stock image whenever it wished to portray the "Russian-backed Syrian regime" and its effort to free the city of Aleppo from the yoke of terrorism.

Omran's "haunting" photograph, splashed across every front page of every Western newspaper on August 18, 2016, accompanied a self-righteous Western jeremiad against "Russia and the Syrian regime," as opposed to the bloodthirsty terrorists who held the residents of this northern Syrian city hostage to their insane ideology for years.

Would the Western media really stoop so low as to use the image of an injured child as a propaganda device to damage Russia's efforts in defeating such deranged characters?

Unfortunately, that appears to have been the case.


Comment:


Health

UN program for reconstructing Gaza is not only ineffective, it's escalating crisis

Palestinian boy water
© ReutersA Palestinian boy drinks water next to a cart loaded with containers filled with water from public taps in the northern Gaza Strip, June 20, 2013.
Under the plan, Israel continues to tightly control the materials that are being used to build vital infrastructure in Gaza.

The United Nations-backed strategy for the reconstruction of Gaza following the 2014 offensive by Israel has been dubbed a failure by the international charity Oxfam. An investigation released Wednesday revealed that the strategy "is failing to meet the needs of 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza" and instead is worsening Gaza's already dire water and sanitation crisis.

The Oxfam report, titled "Treading Water" and released on World Water Day, analyzed the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism or GRM, which was designed to help with urgent reconstruction of areas devastated by the 2014 war by allowing the entry of building materials into the strip.

Under the GRM, almost 3,000 items needed to build infrastructure for water and sanitation in Gaza are still awaiting approval. Only 16 percent of items that have been submitted for GRM approval for water and sanitation projects have made it past the Israeli-imposed blockade.