Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

Are we 'growing' ourselves into the next economic collapse?

For all those analysts (including this one) who thought the debt binge of the previous decade marked end of the Age of Leverage, well, not so fast. It turns out that memories are short and government printing presses are powerful, and this combination has turned the "Great Deleveraging" into a minor speed bump on the road to something even more extreme. As the following chart illustrates, the growth in total US debt flattened in 2009 and 2010, with government borrowing more-or-less offsetting a decrease in consumer and business loans. But now the trend is once again onward and upward across the board.
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Comment: Also posted at John Rubino's website is a recent talk given by Chris Martenson in which he highlights some significant trends likely to bring us to a serious crossroads in the near future. Taken together, these observations suggest that planning/preparation for economic disaster should be high on everyone's priority list.




Attention

Why should anyone trust a government that kills, maims, tortures, lies, spies, cheats, and treats its citizens like criminals?

"Why should anyone trust a government that has condoned torture, spied on at least 35 world leaders, supports indefinite detention, places bugs in thousands of computers all over the world, kills innocent people with drone attacks, promotes the post office to log mail for law enforcement agencies and arbitrarily authorizes targeted assassinations? Or, for that matter, a president that instituted the Insider Threat Program, which was designed to get government employees to spy on each other and 'turn themselves and others in for failing to report breaches,' which includes 'any unauthorized disclosure of anything, not just classified materials.'" - Professor Henry Giroux
US Capitol
© Wikimedia Commons

Why should anyone trust a government that kills, maims, tortures, lies, spies, cheats, and treats its own citizens like criminals? For that matter, why should anyone trust a government utterly lacking in transparency, whose actions give rise to more troubling questions than satisfactory answers, and whose domestic policies are dictated more by paranoia than need?

Unfortunately, "we the people" have become so trusting, so gullible, so easily distracted, so out-of-touch, so compliant and so indoctrinated on the idea that our government will always do the right thing by us that we have ignored the warning signs all around us, or at least failed to recognize them as potential red flags.

As I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the consequences of this failure on both our parts - the citizenry's and the government's - to do our due diligence in asking the right questions, demanding satisfactory answers, and holding our government officials accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law has pushed us to the brink of a nearly intolerable state of affairs. Intolerable, at least, to those who remember what it was like to live in a place where freedom, due process and representative government actually meant something. (Remember that the people of Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany also failed to ask questions, demand answers, and hold their government officials accountable until it was too late, and we know how that turned out.)

There's certainly no shortage of issues about which we should be asking questions of our government representatives, demanding truthful answers, and subsequently insisting on changes within our government. Keep in mind, however, that the government has mastered the art of evasion. Thus, it's not enough to ask the questions. We need to demand answers, and when those answers aren't forthcoming - either because a government official claims to not "know" or because it's outside his or her jurisdiction - we need to demand that they find out.

To get the ball rolling, here are just a few dozen of the questions that require honest answers by those individuals and agencies that are supposed to be answering to us. For my part, I'm going to send this exact list of questions to my government representatives and see how responsive they are. I'd suggest you do the same.

USA

Benghazi, the CIA, and the War in Libya

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Benghazi 'consulate' attack: Self-inflicted wound? Or blowback? Either way, civil war is raging in Libya.
The unfolding violence and chaos in Libya's second city of Benghazi should be understood as a power struggle between competing factions, each struggling to assert its own authority over the critical commercial center. However, what is purposely omitted from the Western media narrative is the fact that both groups - one a military command led by Libyan General Hifter, the other an Islamist terror group called Ansar al-Sharia - are proxies of the United States, each having received US support through a variety of channels in recent years. Seen in this way, the unrest in Libya must be understood as a continuation of the war waged against that country by the US-NATO forces.

As firefights, explosions, and air strikes become the norm in Benghazi and the surrounding areas, the nature of the conflict remains somewhat murky. On the one hand is Army General Khalifa Belqasim Haftar (also spelled Hifter), a longtime military commander under Gaddafi who fled Libya for the United States where he became a principal asset for the CIA until his return to Libya at the height of the US-NATO assault on that country. On the other hand is the Islamist Ansar al-Sharia organization, led by Ahmed Abu Khattala, which has been implicated in the September 11, 2012 attack on the US-CIA compound in Benghazi which killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens. In examining both the conflict and connections between these two individuals and the factions they lead, the fingerprints of US intelligence could not be more apparent.

However, the situation in Benghazi, and the Cyrenaica region more generally, is far more complex than simply these two factions. There are other important militias which have played a significant role in bringing the region to the brink of total war. From blockading Benghazi and Cyrenaica's oil ports to internecine conflicts within the militia movements/coalitions, these militias have made the possibility of reconciliation almost unthinkable. And so, despite the fact that the combat phase of the US-NATO war in Libya ended nearly three years ago, the country is still undeniably a war zone.

Attention

The militarization of US police continues...Machine guns, grenade launchers, silencers and more

Militarization of Police
© Liberty Blitzkrieg
The militarization of police forces across the U.S. has been a key theme here at Liberty Blitzkrieg for a long time.

Despite the fact that crime rates have declined sharply across the nation since the early 1990′s, domestic police departments are arming as if they are about to confront battalions of Taliban at any given moment. It's absurd, dangerous and ultimately very divisive as police act more like soldiers than protectors of the community.

The most egregious recent example of "warrior cops" causing serious damage occurred in Georgia late last month and was covered in my post: 19-Month-Old Toddler in Critical Condition After Cops Throw Flash Bang Grenade into Playpen.

Quenelle

Best of the Web: The Normandy landing and World War II: The lies grow more audacious

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D-Day was arguably the first 'TV war', with hundreds of reporters and cameramen sent in with US and British troops landing on France's northern beaches.
If there were any doubts that Western "leaders" live in a fantasy make-believe world constructed out of their own lies, the G-7 meeting and 70th anniversary celebration of the Normandy landing dispelled the doubts.

The howlers issuing from these occasions are enough to split your sides. Obama and his lap dog Cameron described the Normandy landing on June 6, 1944, as "the greatest liberation force that the world has ever known" and took all the credit for the US and Britain for the defeat of Hitler. No mention was made of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, which for three years prior to the Normandy landing had been fighting and defeating the Wehrmacht.

The Germans lost World War II at the Battle of Stalingrad, which was fought from August 23, 1942 until February 2, 1943, when most of the remnants of the powerful German Sixth Army surrendered, including 22 generals.

Airplane

Flashback Get Osama! Now! Or else...

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American commandos likely to descend on Pakistan's tribal areas may not be too keen on acquiring the supreme fashion accessory of 2001 in the region, the Osama bin Laden T-shirt, boasting such inscriptions as "World Hero" and "The Great Mujahid of Jihad". They're selling briskly in Peshawar's Saddar bazaar for less than US$2 a pop.

The US special forces guys could also take back home a few examples of Osama rappin', available on cassette tapes. They could collect Osama mug shots with lovely psychedelic overtones, and even an Osama video - where the No 1 on the FBI's most wanted list on charges of international terrorism preaches from a mosque and talks to his faithful jihadis in the field. Osama says, "You gotta leave all these places run by 'allies of Jews and Christians' and come to me to do the jihad." He calls for "blood, blood and destruction, destruction" - referring to an array of Muslim victims from Palestine to Chechnya, from Lebanon to Kashmir.

Osama bin Laden - also the No 1 target of the CIA's counter-terrorism center - is now a superstar playing the bad guy in some sort of planetary Hollywood fiction. Yet inside Afghanistan today, where the Saudi Arabian lives in exile, Osama is a minor character. He is ill and always in hiding - usually "somewhere near Kabul". Once in a while he travels incognito to Peshawar. His organization, the Al Qa'Ida, is split, and in tatters. The Taliban owe him a lot for his past deeds towards the movement and in putting them in power in Afghanistan - contributing with a stack of his own personal fortune of millions of dollars. But no longer an asset, he has become a liability.

Comment: Well, well, well. It was common knowledge in Pakistan two weeks before 9/11 that the US government was about to intervene in the region, and under the pretext of 'getting OBL'. We bet that once Musharraf saw those towers go down, he realized he'd in all probability lose power (and maybe his life) if he didn't cooperate with the NeoCons in turning the region in to a complete train-wreck.

Listen to the knowledgeable Pepe Escobar talk on pre- 9/11 US motivations of resource grab in pipelineistan, among many other topics, on SOTT talk radio:

Dissecting Globalistan: Interview with Pepe Escobar


People

Schizophenic Ukraine: New president Poroshenko talks peace, but was he the biggest domestic financier of the Right Sector rioters?

Petr Poroshenko
© RT
Ukraine has chosen a new president. How is he going to deal with his country's dire problems? Is it possible to achieve the promised peace when he immediately refuses to compromise? How much latitude does President Petro Poroshenko have in his government at all? Peter Lavelle hosts CrossTalking, with Vladimir Suchan, Daniel Welch and Mark Sleboda.


People 2

Interview with Marine Le Pen: EU political world indifferent to people dying in eastern Ukraine

Marine Le Pen on RT
© RT
Elections to the European Parliament have brought groundbreaking changes in the structure of EU's most powerful body: right wing parties along with Eurosceptics, an outsiders just a few years ago, have now taken the political scene. Front Nacional party in France gets the majority - signifying that people want change; the same with other nations. But what now? Is the European change of course inevitable? What will happen to the Union itself? Today, we meet again with our special guest, the leader of the Front Nacional party. Marine Le Pen is on Sophie&Co today.

Follow @SophieCo_RT


Sophie Shevardnadze: Last time we talked you predicted in the EU elections you'd become the number one party in France - and here we are. What's the very first thing you want to do?

Marine Le Pen: The first thing that I will do is constitute a group in the European parliament to be able to prevent any new advances towards European federalism, which I consider to be profoundly anti-democratic. I believe that it goes against the sovereignty of the people and the economic, social, and international interests of France. So, along with our allies, we will now be able to provide a new voice, different from the one which dominates in the European union.

SS: When you look at the bigger picture, the eurosceptics are in the minority in the chamber and they aren't even forming a bloc yet, there was no "global victory". So why all this talk of a political earthquake?

MP: Believe me, we saw the faces of the people here in Brussels who saw us come pouring in, I think they believe that our presence will decidedly change the appearance of the European parliament and, evidently, of the debates that will take place in the parliament.

Megaphone

Saker rant: A clarification

 Poroshenko
© RIA Novosti Pavel Palamerchuk
Okay, predictably some has misunderstood my rant as a change in heart. Others wonder what has changed over the past 24 hours. So let me clarify:

1) No change of heart? No - Putin did the right thing by waiting as long as was possible. I just don't believe that waiting is possible any more. Why not?

2) What has changed? Not just words, but actions by Poroshenko. I, along with many other observers in Russia, had hopes that Poroshenko would use his "clean hands status" to come up with at least a temporary cease-fire followed by negotiations. Heck - even a 48 hour break to "celebrate" his "election" would have been helpful. All that happened was a dramatic increase in violence. Also, Merkel did specifically ask for a meeting with Putin and I had some hopes that the bitch has something useful to say to him. But the EU leaders did, again, show that as soon as Uncle Shmuel shows up they turn into the "great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies".

Finally, Poroshenko did more than just spew some garden variety Ukie nonsense. He specifically committed himself to one language, no federation, no negotiations (at least not with those folks who matter) and he topped it all with a completely surreal statement about the Crimea being forever Ukie. Ok, these are not just words, the man cornered himself into a crazy, maximalist position. Some ask what I was expecting and say add that Poroshenko had no other options. Nonsense! He could have said something along these lines:

Light Saber

Saker rant: Please tell me my worst fears will not come true - that Putin is not another Milosevic!

putin milosevic
Will Putin prove himself true to his ideals? Or will he go the path of Milosevic?
Several Serbian commentators have expressed their concern, if not outright worry, about what is happening right now in Novorossia. I have to admit that I now share that concern. While I am not Serbian myself, some of the longtime readers of that blog know that I have had the opportunity to follow the entire war in Bosnia and Croatia literally minute by minute while working for the UN far away from Yugoslavia, but with daily access to UNPROFOR reports and with the possibility to debrief any UNPROFOR officers including two Force Commanders. For me this war will forever feel 'raw' because that was the event which really opened by eyes to the nature of the so-called "free and democratic West" and which, combined with the war in Chechnia, eventually cost me my career. I will thus readily admit that I might be over-reacting. In fact, my brain tells me one thing, but my gut tells me another and as a result I am feeling a very unpleasant but persistent feeling of alarm.

It all began when I finally listened to the full inauguration speech of Poroshenko. Up to that moment, I had some hopes that while even though this would be difficult, some kind of reasonable beginning of some kind of peace process could be negotiated with the man. I knew that the guy was an unprincipled prostitute, but it was precisely that "quality" which made me cautiously hopeful: better a rational prostitute that a crazed lunatic, right?