Puppet MastersS


Eagle

The Empire strikes again: Destructive and dishonest neocolonialism makes a play for Venezuela

Neil Clark
RT
Tue, 08 Aug 2017 17:36 UTC
roadblock Venezuela
© Marco Bello / ReutersDemonstrators prepare a roadblock at a rally during a strike called to protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela July 27, 2017
This month sees some significant anniversaries in the struggle against old-style colonialism. The trouble is that colonialism didn't go away after countries in the developing world formally achieved their independence from Europe's 'Great Powers.'

It was replaced by a new form which proved to be more destructive and immeasurably more dishonest than what went before.

At least the British Empire - which at its peak covered almost a quarter of the world's land surface, acknowledged it was an Empire.

Today's more shadowy Empire of Globalized Monopoly Finance-Capital does no such thing. Entire countries, such as Yugoslavia, Libya, and Iraq, are destroyed for not toeing the line, while those which continue to defy the neocon/neoliberal elites, such as Venezuela, are under a state of permanent siege.
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USA

Trump's North Korea Saber Rattling Designed to Drum Up Business For U.S. Weapons Manufacturers


RT.com
Wed, 09 Aug 2017 12:27 UTC
Lockheed Martin

Comment: Trump's bluster over N. Korea is just that, designed to drum up some business for defense contractors at the expense of the American taxpayer. Trump's recent statements about N. Korea were therefore made while he was wearing his 'marketing manager for Lockheed Martin' hat.


The Pentagon's top weapons supplier, Lockheed Martin, says that customers' requests for missile defense systems are rising, and North Korea's continued threats as well as the US reaction may be responsible.

Acquiring missile defense systems is at the top of some countries' to-do list, as interest has risen over the last 12 to 18 months, the vice president of Lockheed's Air and Missile Defense business, Tim Cahill, told Reuters.
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Star of David

Anti-Semitism factory? Israeli teen charged with making over 100 bomb threats against American Jewish sites was hired to do so on 'dark web'


RT
Wed, 09 Aug 2017 12:02 UTC
Michael Kadar
© AFP/GettyMichael Kadar, 18, has been charged in Israel with making hoax bomb threats against mainly Jewish institutions in the US. His mother said in his defense that he "is both autistic and has a brain tumor."
Federal authorities believe the American-Israeli teen charged with making more than 100 bomb threats to Jewish community centers (JCCs) in the US was selling his services on the dark web for as little as $30 a job.

Michael Ron David Kadar, 19, was arrested in Mar ch and later charged in Israel with 28 counts of threatening calls and false information. Israeli prosecutors said he was behind more than 100 bomb threats to JCCs and more than 2,000 threatening calls to schools, airports, police stations, malls and other targets over a span of two years.

According to a newly unsealed search warrant, Israeli National Police found a 128GB thumb drive attached to Kadar's computer in his room that allegedly contained "files indicating Kadar's knowledge of and involvement in the threatening email and telephone call scheme."

Along with recordings of threatening phone calls and screenshots of threatening emails, police found a text file copied from a vendor listing page, where Kadar allegedly made a business of making bomb threats on the dark web.

Comment: Who might have had an interest in hiring him to do this? Did he come up with this idea by himself? Or was he encouraged to do it?

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Bad Guys

Debbie Wasserman Schultz pressured Congressional bank to give illicit loan to Imran Awan and wife

Investigative Bureau
True Pundint
Tue, 08 Aug 2017 18:37 UTC
debbie_wasserman_schultz
Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz pressured officials at the Congressional Federal Credit Union to write a loan to a husband and wife from Pakistan now charged and accused of bank fraud, according to federal law enforcement sources.

Wasserman Schultz, who was the leader of the Democratic National Committee at the time, intervened in the loan process to help guarantee Imran Awan and wife Hina Alvi a $165,000 loan which the couple quickly wired to Pakistan far from the reach of US regulators, FBI sources confirm. Imran was arrested on bank fraud charges in July while attempting to flee to Pakistan. His wife fled the country to Pakistan in March after the FBI caught her at Dulles International Airport with undocumented cash. She was suspected of bank fraud by the FBI who allowed her to leave the country anyway.

Awan, until his arrest, was employed as the IT specialist for Wasserman Schultz and dozens of other congressional Democrats since 2004. His wife was also on the congressional payroll. The Congressional Federal Credit Union is not open to the public but is normally reserved for Congress and members of their staffs.
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Snakes in Suits

Study in contrast: The West's indifference to Mikheil Saakashvili and concern for Alexey Navalny

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Tue, 08 Aug 2017 21:34 UTC
Poroshenko and Saakashvili
The West's contrasting response: indifference when Saakashvili is stripped by Ukraine of his citizenship to prevent him standing in elections; sympathy for Navalny in Russia despite his fraud convictions.

The former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili - on the run from the Georgian authorities on charges relating to his forcible dispersal of anti-government protest in Tbilisi in 2007 and his seizure of the Imedi television station and the other assets of the deceased Georgian oligarch Badri Patarkatsishvili - and stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship by a decree of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko dated 26th July 2017 - continues to thumb his nose at the Ukrainian authorities by traveling around eastern Europe on his now illegally retained Ukrainian passport.

Following a short trip to Poland latest reports place Saakashvili in Lithuania.

It seems that the authorities in Poland and Lithuania - two of the Ukrainian Maidan government's staunchest allies in its conflict with Russia - are happy to side with Saakashvili against Ukraine, though they are almost alone amongst NATO/EU governments in doing so.
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Magnify

Not another Yugoslavia: Why ex-Hague prosecutor Carla del Ponte quit Syria probe


Sputnik
Tue, 08 Aug 2017 21:01 UTC
Carla del Ponte
© AFP 2017/ FABRICE COFFRINI
Swiss investigator Carla del Ponte decided to quit the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria because the Western countries who appointed her couldn't face up to her conclusions that the Syrian opposition were not the "good guys" they were being made out to be, Serbian analyst Goran Petronijevic told Sputnik.

On Monday, special investigator Carla del Ponte, a member of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria, announced her decision to quit the body.

"We have had absolutely no success. We've been faced with brick walls for five years," del Ponte told Blick, blaming the commission's ineffectiveness on a lack of support from the UN Security Council.

"I cannot be a member of this commission, which does not do anything." She described her role as an "alibi investigator without political support."

"I give up, the States of the Security Council do not want justice," del Ponte complained.
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Fire

Trump threatens North Korea with 'fire and fury like the World has never seen'

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 08 Aug 2017 20:43 UTC
Game of Thrones dragon Dracarys
© HBO
Speaking at a press event at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., President Trump offered a stern warning to the rogue dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, saying that he "best not make any more threats to the United States" or they "will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."
"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."

"He has been very threatening beyond a normal statement. And, as I said, they will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before."
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Info

Thriller in Manila: How China diplomatically outflanked the US at ASEAN Summit


Sputnik
Tue, 08 Aug 2017 20:25 UTC
ASEAN summit members
© Sputnik/ Vitaliy Belousov
It appears that, contrary to the US' expectation, Beijing has outperformed Washington during the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) conference in Manila, the Philippines, Russian political observer Dmitry Kosyrev writes for RIA Novosti.

According to Kosyrev, China continues to score political victories in the region.

The observer drew attention to the fact that ,American diplomats had tried to convince Asian leaders to oust the North Korean minister from the list of the participants of the conference. However, Washington only received a polite refusal.
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Map

Specter of Syrian Kurdistan: How the US covert plan is taking shape


Sputnik
Tue, 08 Aug 2017 20:15 UTC
YPG flag
© AFP 2017/ DELIL SOULEIMAN
The US is making efforts to create an independent Kurdish entity in northern Syria, Turkish political observer Mehmet Ali Guller told Sputnik, explaining how the US plan can be prevented, and how it is definitely not in the interest of the Kurds to become America's ground forces in the region.

Washington is implementing its step-by-step plan to create a Kurdish independent state in northern Syria, Turkish journalist and political observer Mehmet Ali Guller believes.

The US-led coalition has recently reported that 850 local volunteers are being trained to ensure the safety of the Syrian city of Raqqa. The announcement immediately prompted speculation that the designated security forces include the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militants.

This information added to Ankara's growing concerns about the US' supposed intentions to establish an autonomous Kurdish entity in the north of Syria. According to Guller, the recent developments fit into Washington's general strategy of creating the "Syrian Kurdistan." He drew historic parallels between the war in Syria and the US occupation of Iraq, emphasizing the fact that the Pentagon has always relied on the Kurds.

"The basis of the fight against Daesh [ISIS/ISIL], which was dubbed as the 'Obama strategy' in the US, was to place the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the People's Protection Units (YPG) in the territories liberated from terrorists," Guller explained in his interview with Sputnik Turkey.
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Stop

Emmanuel Macron plan to stop migrants before they leave Africa pooh-poohed by establishment figures

Zoie O'Brien
Daily Express, UK
Mon, 07 Aug 2017 18:28 UTC
Macron Libya peace
© AP/Michel EulerLibya's Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj of the U.N.-backed government, left, and General Khalifa Hifter of the Egyptian-backed commander of Libya's National Army shake hands following a ceasefire negotiated by as France's President Emmanuel Macron
European Union leaders were left reeling when the French president unveiled designs to have France solve the mass migration issue between Libya and Italy.

Without consultation with Italy - the main destination for African migrants - Mr Macron announced he would open refugee camps in migrant hotspots in Africa to try and allocate genuine refugees before they make the deadly journey across the Mediterranean.


Comment: Given the circumstances, a sensible option.


He wanted to set up clean and safe camps abroad to end the burden on the EU as thousands arrive every week.

However, undermining Italy infuriated Rome after leaders spent months trying to arrange help and migrant sharing with other EU nations.

Now, the pioneering promise has been slapped down in Paris.


Comment: It was also slapped down by Brussels, but supported by Hungary and Austria.


Comment: This divergence in viewpoint on the migrant/refugee crisis between Macron and his like-minded liberal brethren is an interesting development.

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