Puppet Masters

Iran at the center of the Eurasian riddle

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 20:10 UTC

© AFP / Vyacheslav Oseledko
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani walk as they attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of State in Bishkek on June 14, 2019.

President Rouhani blasts US leader Donald Trump as 'a serious threat to regional and world stability', offers preferential treatment to SCO companies that invest in his country

With the dogs of war on full alert, something extraordinary happened at the 19th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) late last week in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Virtually unknown across the West, the SCO is the foremost Eurasian political, economic and security alliance. It's not a Eurasian NATO. It's not planning any humanitarian imperialist adventures. A single picture in Bishkek tells a quite significant story, as we see China's Xi, Russia's Putin, India's Modi and Pakistan's Imran Khan aligned with the leaders of four Central Asian "stans".

These leaders represent the current eight members of the SCO. Then there are four observer states - Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia and, crucially, Iran - plus six dialogue partners: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and, crucially, Turkey.

Modi-Xi-Putin Meeting at SCO Summit Vital For Re-Shaping the World Order

Matthew Ehret
Sott.net
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 20:57 UTC

An important convergence of nations occured during the June 13-14 annual Shanghai Cooperation Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where Presidents Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met at an event designed to bring together the majority of the Eurasian world under a banner of cooperation. Kyrgyzstan is especially important as it is a gateway uniting the east and west via the Belt and Road Initiative and China-Kyrgyzstan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. This event comes hot off the heels of Putin and Xi Jinping's historic meeting at the Kremlin on June 5 where the two leaders solidified their unbreakable friendship, which is quickly reshaping the entire world order.

Modi's announcement of bilateral meetings at the upcoming summit shows great promise as the previous meeting he held with Xi Jinping in Wuhan in 2018 was a leading factor behind the diffusing of tensions being cooked up between both governments by Anglo-American manipulation, and which many were fearing could lead to war.

Russia pushes back against US "Freedom Gas", floods European market

Haley Zaremba
Oilprice.com
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 14:00 UTC

So far this year, Russia has been flooding the European markets with an oversupply of natural gas despite the fact that the glut is pushing natural gas prices lower. Booming exports from Russia, which had already been the largest supplier of natural gas to the continent, have nearly maxed out European natural gas storage capacity and added to what was already an oversupply of natural gas in the region. This will likely push Europe to cut down on their imports of natural gas from the United States in the short term. According to some experts, this is potentially all part of a Russian plan to put the United States to the test.

This could be all part of a plan, however, to "test the resilience of U.S. exporters", according to multinational investment banking corporation Citigroup Inc. as reported by Bloomberg. In a report released earlier this month, Ed Morse and other bank analysts from Citigroup opined that Russia has kept pumping gas into Europe in lieu of letting gas prices return to a higher price point because Putin's administration is "testing the response of the global gas market in a low price environment, especially U.S. LNG export elasticity."

Comment: In the winter of 2018 winters the UK ran out of natural gas, Russia rescued them, but in the meantime prices rocketed 400%, and so one wonders whether this year, amidst the glut, European gas suppliers will pass on these savings to the citizens, many who struggle to heat their homes as it is. As for how it'll affect the US, well, they better get used to it because with the Nord Stream gas pipelines this scenario will be even easier to implement:

"The bombing will be massive": US planning a 'tactical assault' in Iran - UN officials

Shlomo Shamir
Jerusalem Post
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 20:05 UTC

The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.

Is the US going to attack Iran soon?

Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York revealed to Maariv that they are assessing the United States' plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran in response to the tanker attack in the Persian Gulf on Thursday.

According to the officials, since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to President Donald Trump.

The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.

"The bombing will be massive but will be limited to a specific target," said a Western diplomat.

Comment: See also:

A month in the life of the world's richest man - Putin (at least according to his critics)

Patrick Armstrong
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 20:08 UTC

Between one hundred billion and one hundred and sixty billion dollars. That's a lot of moolah. Taking the lower number, that's a line of thousand dollar bills half way to the Moon. Personal yacht? Buy the latest Princess cruise ship, staff it, have it all to yourself forever and still have 99 billion or so to fool around with. A brand new Italian super car every day for ten years wouldn't make much of a dent. You like to cruise? Reserve the Owner's suite on every Princess cruise ship and have a private plane standing by 24/7 just in case. Hotels? Buy a couple in your favourite part of the world; permanently rent the Emperor's Suite in a couple of dozen others. Put yourself into orbit on your private orbiter. Private planes? how about a double-decker Airbus? Only a billion for two. Private Caribbean island? Lots to choose from. Hire a bunch of healthy organ donors and a mobile hospital to follow you around. Anything. Build a new Great Pyramid, it's chump change out of $100 billion. Endow a university chair to study your life and works. Fill Easter Island with giant statues of yourself. It would be impossible to spend that much in a human lifetime.

This, we are told, is the extent of Putin's wealth.

In the book, "Russia's Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy," Aslund estimates that through the practice of "crony capitalism," Putin has amassed a net worth between $100 billion and $160 billion, which would make him richer than the officially wealthiest man in the world, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos.

(Love that "net" - sounds so precise.) Pfeh! says Browder: a measly one hundred - try two hundred billion! Nah! A trivial seventy billion says somebody else. Why not eleventy-seven squintillion? Net.

Small-scale war scenario in the Gulf - no obvious solution in sight

Elijah J. Magnier
ejmagnier.com
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 19:53 UTC

The attacks taking place in the Gulf and its waters against harbours, energy supply pipelines and oil tankers have assumed the proportions of a small scale war; however a wider war will happen only if Iran or the USA make future mistakes or incite new frictions. A suspicious move or misinterpretation of events could lead to a broader Middle Eastern war, especially since both armies and their allies are on full alert. The military effectiveness of both sides and their allies - spread to all corners of the Middle Eastern - are substantial and should not be underestimated.

It is not the habit of the US to look for just, substantial and robust pretexts for war once the decision to go to war has been taken. Recent events - the sabotage acts at al-Fujairah (the Emirates), the attack on Aramco pipeline, the attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, and the US Central Command video purporting to show Iranian boat personnel removing an unexploded Limpet mine from Kokuka Courageous - have already given the US ample pretexts for war, if the US were looking for war. If this were the case, President Donald Trump would have already ordered his military to conduct precision missile strikes similar to the attack he ordered against Syria or at least a punitive airstrike together with his close European partners. Or perhaps even prepared his army to go to war as George W. Bush did with Iraq in 2003.

The reason Trump has refrained from launching any order for attack is that he is aware that a military operation against Iran will be anything but a walk in the park. The consequences of such an attack are unpredictable and its outcome will certainly not be to his obvious advantage.

Comment: See also:

US won't 'stumble into' war with Iran by mistake. Should it happen, it will be by intent and design

Danielle Ryan
RT
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 10:01 UTC

There are men in Washington intent on going to war with Iran - and very few people doubt this fact. Why then, does the media keep warning us that conflict could break out "accidentally"? The US does not go to war by mistake.

Last week, Donald Trump pinned the blame for the attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman squarely on Iran. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been running around provoking Iran in word and deed for months, called the attacks an "unacceptable escalation of tension." The so-called proof came in the form of a grainy video that presented more questions than answers.

Comment: See also:

McGovern: DOJ's bloodhounds on the scent of John Brennan

Ray McGovern
Consortium News
Thu, 13 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC

With Justice Department investigators' noses to the ground, it should be just a matter of time before they identify Brennan as fabricator-in-chief of the Russiagate story, says Ray McGovern.

The New York Times Thursday morning has bad news for one of its favorite anonymous sources, former CIA Director John Brennan.

The Times reports that the Justice Department plans to interview senior CIA officers to focus on the allegation that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian intelligence to intervene in the 2016 election to help Donald J. Trump. DOJ investigators will be looking for evidence to support that remarkable claim that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report failed to establish.

Despite the collusion conspiracy theory having been put to rest, many Americans, including members of Congress, right and left, continue to accept the evidence-impoverished, media-cum-"former-intelligence-officer" meme that the Kremlin interfered massively in the 2016 presidential election.

One cannot escape the analogy with the fraudulent evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As in 2002 and 2003, when the mania for the invasion of Iraq mounted, Establishment media have simply regurgitated what intelligence sources like Brennan told them about Russia-gate. No one batted an eye when Brennan told a House committee in May 2017, "I don't do evidence."

Comment: More from Ray McGovern:

Obama deleted hundreds of online speeches on the immigration crisis hours prior Trump entering office

Jason Hopkins
The Daily Caller
Wed, 12 Jun 2019 02:23 UTC

The Obama administration deleted hundreds of speeches and statements on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website just hours before President Donald Trump officially entered office, according to research released Tuesday.

A collection of 190 transcripts of speeches on ICE's website was deleted on Jan. 18 and late in the evening on Jan. 19, 2017, according to research conducted by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for government transparency. Statements made by high-ranking ICE officials regarding controversial immigration topics such as sanctuary cities, E-Verify, treatment of detainees, and other issues were included in the reported deletions.

"With a couple of clicks of a mouse, access to a federal government web resource containing 12 years of primary source materials on ICE's history was lost," the Sunlight Foundation wrote, noting that archived speeches dating back from 2004 were among those deleted.

Comment: See also:

Behind Washington's anti-Maduro lobby, corporate forces support a coup in Venezuela

Thomas Hedges
The Gray Zone
Mon, 10 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC

A video report on the forces behind the Venezuelan regime change lobby in Washington, DC and the campaign of disinformation the opposition and its US backers have waged to gin up support for sanctions and even military intervention.

Winternights3 There's probs a good connection! Just think about it.

sbc

Moving the goalposts. and people are too shit stupid to notice or care

sbc

Hang em... All the jab pushers. At this point they are trying very hard to continue blatant bullshit lies in a bid for total societal control

sbc

It was interesting when the brothers (their family owns the dealerships/service center that were vandalized - something of like 130+ cars burned...

Scoot Over

I ain't going to watch any more than I didn't watch the OJ trial, which ended exactly as I predicted. The thing is that the state should have...

Rowan Cocoan

Puppet Masters

Iran at the center of the Eurasian riddle

Modi-Xi-Putin Meeting at SCO Summit Vital For Re-Shaping the World Order

Russia pushes back against US "Freedom Gas", floods European market

"The bombing will be massive": US planning a 'tactical assault' in Iran - UN officials

A month in the life of the world's richest man - Putin (at least according to his critics)

Small-scale war scenario in the Gulf - no obvious solution in sight

US won't 'stumble into' war with Iran by mistake. Should it happen, it will be by intent and design

McGovern: DOJ's bloodhounds on the scent of John Brennan

Obama deleted hundreds of online speeches on the immigration crisis hours prior Trump entering office

Behind Washington's anti-Maduro lobby, corporate forces support a coup in Venezuela

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