Puppet Masters

French MoD: France increases military strikes inside Syria and Iraq

Leith Aboufadel
Al Masdar News
Tue, 12 Jun 2018 09:15 UTC

The French Air Force increased its military operations inside Syria and Iraq during the month of May, the French Ministry of Defense reported on Monday.

According to a document released by the Ministry of Defense on Monday, the Anti-ISIS Coalition conducted 123 percent more strikes in the month of May than April.

"In this framework, the number strikes carried out by the Coalition in may rose by 123 percent compared with the level in April," the French MoD claimed.

Comment: See also: Chickenhawk Macron: 'France ready to strike chemical weapons sites in Syria'

It started with an historic handshake: Kim, Trump face-to-face at Singapore summit

RT
Tue, 12 Jun 2018 01:05 UTC

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump have arrived at the summit venue Singapore. The historic first meeting of the two leaders will discuss a peace treaty and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Kim arrived first at the Capella Resort, on Singapore's Sentosa Island, shortly before 9 am local time. He ignored the cameras, walking into the hotel with eyeglasses in hand. Trump followed a few minutes later, turning to face the cameras with a carefully neutral expression before he entered the venue.

The historic handshake of the two leaders before a row of US and North Korean flags took place at 9:04. Trump smiled and patted Kim on the back, ushering him towards the conference room. Trump said earlier he would know whether the summit would succeed within the first few minutes of meeting with Kim.

Singapore: Kim Jong-un and Trump arrive to discuss permanent peace-keeping plan

Benjamin Haas
The Guardian
Sun, 10 Jun 2018 22:02 UTC

Donald Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, have arrived in Singapore two days before a historic summit over the fate of North Korea's nuclear weapons programme. North Korea's state media said on Monday the pair would discuss a "permanent and durable peace-keeping mechanism" on the Korean peninsula, denuclearisation of the peninsula and other issues of mutual concern.

The report by Korean Central News Agency said Kim was accompanied by his foreign minister Ri Yong-ho, defence minister No Kwang-chol and sister Kim Yo-jong.

The US president traveled on Air Force One, which landed at Paya Lebar airbase where he was greeted by the Singapore foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan. The trip follows a tumultuous G7 meeting in Canada, where Trump personally attacked the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau and refused to sign a previously agreed joint communique.

Kim arrived at Changi airport several hours earlier onboard a commercial Air China plane, after intense speculation with the public tracking three separate aircraft leaving Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

Watching Putin's entire 4-hour Q&A with the Russian people - he even answered my question

Dmitry Orlov
Russia Insider
Sat, 09 Jun 2018 18:44 UTC

" ... a blogger wanted to know why there are virtually no electric cars in Russia. Putin explained that electric cars actually mostly run on coal, which is what's used to generate the electricity they run on, and coal is not an environmentally friendly fuel ... The blogger ... was positively shocked by this bit of non-news. Teslas burn coal, very inefficiently; I hope you already knew this."

The videos in this article are short excerpts from the 4 hour marathon, to give readers a sense of what the show is like.

Yesterday I spent four hours watching television. This is not something I normally do because I find the entire television medium tedious, boring and a waste of time. All television programs are, in my case, a bad idea, because I dislike being programmed. In fact, I don't even own a TV. When I need to watch something, I do so in a window on the screen of my laptop. But this was a special occasion.

Comment: Russia has been blessed with a truly remarkable leader. With all the suffering she has endured, she has earned it.

Havana whodunnit: US military strategists wonder who financed new spy radar base in Cuba

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sat, 09 Jun 2018 15:30 UTC

According to a new surveillance report from The Diplomat, exclusive satellite imagery from March 2017 to May 2018 reveals a newly expanded "signals intelligence" military facility near Bejucal, Cuba.

The report focuses on a massive radome sitting on top of an elevated concrete mounting structure. From satellite imagery, the structure looks like a giant golf ball, but it is actually a protective dome housing a super sophisticated radar antenna inside. As mentioned by The Diplomat, this radome is the first of its kind among the various spy antennas at Bejucal, which have been used to intercept electronic communications, ballistic missile monitoring, and tracking of satellites from the United States.

The most perplexing question American military strategists are now asking: who the hell provided the financing to build a new spy base in this third world country?

The Diplomat provides more satellite imagery that shows the construction of the radome near the town of Bejucal between March 2017 and February 2018. While the function of the new radome is unknown from current satellite images, there is an understanding that similar antennas have been used for signals interception, missile tracking, satellite uplinks and downlinks, radio communications, tracking of objects in space, and in some cases to disrupt satellite communications, The Diplomat explained.

Ten Years On, Putin Told Them So

Finian Cunningham
Sputnik
Mon, 11 Jun 2018 13:21 UTC

Putin first articulates the term 'multipolar world' at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. US Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham look on in disgust

You can hardly blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for enjoying a "told you so moment". He lately reminded European leaders that their all-out spat with the United States is what happens when you are too deferential to American hegemonic ambitions.

This predicament is just what the Russian leader had warned against almost 10 years ago in a famous speech he delivered in Munich on growing global disorder.

Last week, during his nationally televised marathon Q and A with Russian citizens, Putin referred to the unprecedented trade tariffs that President Trump is slapping on European states.

Rightly, Putin said those penalties were effectively a form of economic sanctions imposed by Washington on its supposed allies.

Putin hinted that the Europeans were now getting a taste of the noxious medicine that has been doled out to Russia by Western powers which have inflicted sanctions on Moscow over dubious allegations concerning the nearly four-year-old Ukraine conflict.

Does James Wolfe being a national security risk override reporter/source privilege?

Ruby Henley
Investment Watch Blog
Fri, 08 Jun 2018 19:09 UTC

© Associated Press
James Wolfe, left, the former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, and New York Times reporter Ali Watkins, right. Federal investigators had seized years' worth of Watkins' email and phone records as part of a leak probe into Wolfe.

There is no question in my mind that the Department of Justice was absolutely justified in looking into reporter, Ali Watkins's electronic records. Why do I say this?

Due to her intimate relationship with government official James Wolfe, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Director of Security from May 1987 to December 2017, her records became a matter of National Security. The fact that Wolfe lied to the FBI proves this.

James Wolfe's first allegiance was to the United States. He took an oath to safeguard classified and top secret material. On a daily basis he had access to the most critical intelligence provided to the Committee by the Executive Branch of the United States Government.

Comment: It is a thorny question the author raises, and goes to motivation. What was Wolfe's goal in leaking information to Watkins and others? Did he really feel the information was vital to the American public? It didn't speak to corruption and misdeeds by those in power. To impress his contacts with his depth of access perhaps? To stymie and prolong the Russiagate investigation by creating distractions? And further, yes, why isn't Killary being indicted for the same actions?

A 2006 State Dept. cable: Use terror, intrigue, Kurds to destabilize Syria and weaken Assad

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
Thu, 07 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC

Despite the bulk of the attempted destruction of Syria having taken place during the Obama administration, the fact is that the agenda began marching years before Obama took office and it is continuing to do so today. Ample evidence has been provided demonstrating that a plan to destroy the Syrian government goes back at least to the Bush Jr. administration and the desire to do so goes even further back than that.

One such piece of evidence is a secret State Department cable obtained by WikiLeaks entitled "Influencing the SARG In The End Of 2006" which was distributed from the US embassy in Damascus to requisite officials in the Department of Treasury, National Security Council, White House, Secretary of State, League of Arab States, US Mission To European Union in Brussels, United Nations (NY), US Central Command, and Tel Aviv.

Comment: SARG: Syrian Arab Republic Government

The entire cable was a discussion of a number of available strategies to bring about regime change in Syria and was written during 2006 under the Bush administration.

The cable takes a number of potentially exploitable conditions and expounds upon the realities of the situation, the vulnerabilities of the Syrian government and the "possible action" that can be taken to capitalize on the perceived weaknesses.

Comment: The document excerpts provide an education in the nasty, underhanded mechanics of regime change, playing off insecurities, weak points, exploitable offerings and outright fabrications to bring down a leader for solely empirical purposes.

Free speech under assault in the West, up to us to fight back

Paul Craig Roberts
Russia Insider
Sat, 09 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC

For the last 3 or 4 years I have been invited to speak at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia. I have never accepted, not from lack of interest or lack of something to say, but because the demonization of Russia has curtailed my freedom to travel and to speak. Unless I pay my own travel expenses, I would be accused of being compromised by an expense-paid trip.

This never happens to US senators and representatives who accept all expenses paid trips to Israel, but Russia is different. Moreover, even if I were to pay my own expenses, as Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein did when she attended the 10th anniversary celebration of RT in Moscow, I would still be accused. Jill Stein was summoned before the Russiagate "investigation" to account for her attendance.

In other words, my participation in an important Russian event would be used by those who don't like what I write to undermine my credibility as a commentator on Washington/Russian relations. I would henceforth be described as a "Putin mouth."

Indeed, it is not necessary to go to Russia to be accused. There are all sorts of sites, such as PropOrNot, the shadowy website that published a list of "Putin agents," a list on which I was included. There are apparently an endless number of websites funded by Israel, George Soros, the CIA, the US State Department, and so on and on, the purpose of which is to slander and demonize Internet writers who challenge the elite's control over the explanations.

Comment: Manipulators always have the early advantage; victims - if they even recognize themselves as such - are the last to know. As a prime tool of self-interests, the news-journalism arena is no exception and, like other societal rights undergoing planned erosion to obsolescence, this one has to be fought for.

No war heroes, only war victims

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Sat, 09 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC

Yesterday President Donald Trump tweeted, "My thoughts and prayers are with the families of our serviceman who was killed and his fellow servicemen who were wounded in Somolia. They are truly all HEROES." Three hours later he tweeted it again, this time with the correct spelling of Somalia.

A few days earlier, at the climax of his phony, insipid feud with the Philadelphia Eagles, Donald Trump lectured Americans that they must always stand for the national anthem.

"We stand to honor our military and to honor our country, and to remember the fallen heroes who never made it back home," the reality TV president bloviated. "We stand to show our love for our fellow citizens and our magnificent Constitution. We stand to pay tribute to the incredible Americans who came before us and the heroic sacrifices they made."

In both of these statements, President Trump was lying.

The US special operations soldier who was killed in Somalia (one of the "seven countries in five years" famously named in General Wesley Clark's revelation of the US war machine's plans for world domination) and the four others who were injured are not heroes. The US servicemen and women who have fought and died in America's nonstop acts of military expansionism and wars of aggression are not heroes. They are victims. They are victims of a sociopathic power establishment which does not care about them, and never has.

If what I just wrote bothered you, it is because you have been conditioned to oppose such ideas by generations of war propaganda. If you believe that US soldiers are heroes, it means that you believe that they are fighting and dying for a noble cause; for your freedom, for democracy, for the good and the just. It turns the deaths of the fallen into a tragic but noble sacrifice in your eyes, which keeps you from realizing that they have actually been dying for the profit margins of war plutocrats, land and resource assets, and the neoconservative agenda to secure control of the planet.

Comment: A prime example of how we are programmed to think, versus looking squarely at the facts and drawing accurate conclusions.

' A powerful watch and an SOS from Australia ' [Link]

parzival

It isn't just Fauci. These practices, along with other horrors not mentioned here, go on all over the country at multiple universities and...

Chester Goode

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” -O’Brien in Orwell’s 1984

parzival

Like McAuliffe, 'Let's Go Brandon' is part of Team Blue: WHaT MaKeS JoE RuN...BY WILLIAMBANZAI7 [Link]

parzival

"If people who torture animals are psychopaths, then what are government officials who use taxpayer dollars to fund animal torture? Many are...

parzival

Puppet Masters

French MoD: France increases military strikes inside Syria and Iraq

It started with an historic handshake: Kim, Trump face-to-face at Singapore summit

Singapore: Kim Jong-un and Trump arrive to discuss permanent peace-keeping plan

Watching Putin's entire 4-hour Q&A with the Russian people - he even answered my question

Havana whodunnit: US military strategists wonder who financed new spy radar base in Cuba

Ten Years On, Putin Told Them So

Does James Wolfe being a national security risk override reporter/source privilege?

A 2006 State Dept. cable: Use terror, intrigue, Kurds to destabilize Syria and weaken Assad

Free speech under assault in the West, up to us to fight back

No war heroes, only war victims

Latest News

Picture of the Day

Quote of the Day

Recent Comments

Quantum Quirk

Contact Us