Puppet MastersS


Nuke

Israel officially admits striking alleged 'Syrian nuclear reactor' in 2007


RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
IDF strike on alleged Syrian Nuclear facility in 2007
© IDF
Israel Defense Forces have shared details of an airstrike that destroyed an alleged nuclear reactor under construction in Syria's Deir ez-Zor back in 2007, for the first time officially acknowledging carrying out the secret raid.

For over a decade Israel refused to officially acknowledge taking out the suspected nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria on the night of September 6, 2007. Although, in October 2007, the IDF indirectly admitted the attack by lifting some censorship on media coverage of the incident, Tel Aviv still continued to censor details of the intended target of the strike.

Comment: Will Israel attack Saudi Arabia if they know that it has a nuclear bomb? Probably not. What right US or Israel has, to destroy another country's nuclear facility - whether it is Iran or Syria? Why has Israel decided to confirm this attack after a decade? Do they need a moral boost to counter the failure of ISIS in Syria?

See also:

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Brick Wall

Chris Hedges: Building the iron wall of censorship

Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 12:42 UTC
Truth censorship cartoon Mr Fish
© Mr Fish
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, along with 18 members of the House of Representatives-15 Republicans and three Democrats-has sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding that the Qatari-run Al-Jazeera television network register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The letter was issued after Al-Jazeera said it planned to air a documentary by a reporter who went undercover to look into the Israel lobby in the United States. The action by the senator and the House members follows the decision by the Justice Department to force RT America to register as a foreign agent and the imposition of algorithms by Facebook, Google and Twitter that steer traffic away from left-wing, anti-war and progressive websites, including Truthdig. It also follows December's abolition of net neutrality.


Comment: See:

The letter asks the Justice Department to investigate "reports that Al Jazeera infiltrated American non-profit organizations." It says that the "content produced by this network often directly undermines American interests with favorable coverage of U.S. State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's branch in Syria."

"American citizens deserve to know whether the information and news media they consume is impartial, or if it is deceptive propaganda pushed by foreign nations," the letter reads.
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Black Magic

How convenient: Torture report modified to save CIA Nominee Gina Haspel

Heather Digby Parton
Alternet
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:11 UTC
CIA logo
© CIA
On Thursday evening ProPublica issued an important correction concerning Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel, the woman Donald Trump has nominated to head the agency if and when current Director Mike Pompeo is confirmed as the new secretary of state. It was apparently ProPublica that first reported last year that Haspel ran the secret CIA "black site" prison in Thailand in 2002 when supposed al-Qaida detainee Abu Zubaydah was brutally tortured, and that Haspel had personally mocked the prisoner. In an extended correction signed by editor in chief Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica has now retracted those claims.

Haspel did indeed run that secret prison in Thailand, but according to this new report did not take over as director until after the Zubaydah interrogation had ended. If this new information is accurate, this was a monumental error that will likely mean that Haspel is ultimately confirmed as CIA director. We can expect the Republicans in the Senate to use this to turn her into a "fake news" victim and set her up as a patriotic martyr.

Comment: Further reading:

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Mr. Potato

Western stooge Navalny accuses Sobchak of being 'Putin's agent'


RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:11 UTC
Aleksey Navalny Ksenia Sobchak
© Aleksey Navalny's Youtube channel / YouTubeAleksey Navalny (left) in talks with Ksenia Sobchak (right)
As two Russian politicians discussed the future after the presidential election, their discussion quickly turned into a confrontation, with both sides accusing each other of lies, hypocrisy and betrayal of the liberal cause.

The scandal developed when Ksenia Sobchak, the former socialite and now glossy magazine editor, proposed that Aleksey Navalny, the anti-corruption blogger turned opposition activist, should cooperate with the new political party that she wanted to launch. Sobchak tried to win Navalny's sympathies by reminding him that she also built her political platform around numerous allegations of corruption in the higher echelons of Russian power.

Comment: Maybe Navalny's right, or maybe he's just resentful at how big of a failure he is. Either way there is clearly no place in Russian politics for stooges like these two, as was made abundantly clear in the recent election.

Further reading:

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Magic Wand

A political obituary for Jared Kushner: R.I.P to the President's son-in-law

Nomi Prins
Truthdig
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 00:01 UTC
Jared Kushner
© Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff / CC BY 2.0Jared Kushner

Here we are a little more than a year into the Trump presidency and his administration's body count is already, as The Donald might put it, "unbelievable, perhaps record-setting."

Among the casualties are Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; my former boss at Goldman Sachs, economic policy chief Gary Cohn; national security adviser Michael Flynn; FBI Director James Comey; White House press secretary and communications director Sean Spicer; four other communications directors including Hope Hicks who, having been Ivanka Trump's confidante, was elevated to the status of the president's "real daughter" before her own White House exit; chief strategist Steve Bannon; chief of staff Reince Priebus; a bunch of other instant relics of Trumpian political history, and a partridge in a pear tree. (Actually, a 200-year-old magnolia uprooted from the White House grounds thanks to the first lady.)

Responding to Hope Hicks' departure and, perhaps subliminally, the rumored future exile of son-in-law Jared Kushner, the president typically half-lamented and half-quipped, "So many people have been leaving the White House. It's invigorating, since you want turnover. I like chaos. It really is good. Who's going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller or Melania?"

Comment: See also:

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Arrow Down

Turkish forces seize US weapons left by YPG 'terrorists' in Afrin

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:11 UTC
Erdogan
© Citifmonline.com
There are many reasons why US interventions abroad tend to backfire spectacularly and usually without fail, but the most embarrassing of all is when US weapons meant for one side end up in the hands of their enemies, and eventually used against the US itself. Most recently, this happened in the 2014-2016 period when ISIS steamrolled countless Iraqi towns, collecting Humvees, SAM missiles, guns and ammo in the process.

Today, it happened again in the Syrian-Kurdish town of Afrin, where the "victorious" Turkish army seized an unknown number of weapons provided by the Pentagon to the (formerly) US-allied Kurdish YPG "terrorists" as they are called by Turkey.
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Chess

Erdogan threatens to wipe out 'terror corridor' in Syria & Iraq


RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:11 UTC
Turkish Army Free Syrian Army
© Khalil Ashawi / ReutersTurkish forces and Free Syrian Army are deployed in Afrin, Syria March 18, 2018.
Turkey's military operation in Syria will target other Kurdish-held towns - and may even spill over into Iraq - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced just a day after pro-Turkish forces seized Afrin.

The controversial cross-border offensive "will go on until the terror corridor through Manbij, Ayn al-Arab, Tell Abyad, Ras al-Ayn, Qamishli has been wiped out," Erdogan said, speaking in the presidential complex in Ankara on Monday.

Erdogan hinted that the Turkish military operation may even expand into neighboring Iraq, if needed, in an effort to "eliminate" forces loyal to the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara has designated as a terrorist organization.

Comment: One of Erdogan's top advisors claimed that the success of this military operation proves the West 'cannot push Turkey around.' He went on to compare the battle for Afrin with the failed attempt by the British and French to take the Dardenelles in World War I:
"We bashed you at the Dardanelles 103 years ago," wrote Çevik, "but you failed to take a lesson from this. Now you have ganged up against us in Afrin supporting the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) and its affiliates despite the fact that the PKK is on your list of terrorist organizations."

He continued, "So now on that very day of the Dardanelles victory we are giving you another message by liberating Afrin. You cannot push the Turks around. You cannot jeopardize our national security. If you do then we just march on and undertake any sacrifice to protect our vital interests. We did that before, we did that in Afrin today and we will do it in Manbij and the east of the Euphrates in Syria tomorrow."
Further reading: Erdogan: US presence in Manbij to thwart Turkey, Russia, Iran

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Magnify

Best of the Web: Russian Embassy tweet: 'If Poirot went to Salisbury'

Neil Clark
Sputnik
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:30 UTC
Police officers at Sergei Skirpal
© REUTERS/ Henry Nicholls
The tweet from the Russian Embassy in the UK suggesting that in the absence of evidence, Hercule Poirot should be sent to solve the Salisbury poisoning mystery, wasn't well received by sanctimonious, virtue-signaling neo-cons.

Let's just imagine though what might happen if Agatha Christie's famous fictional detective did - in defiance of the Thought Police - head down to Wiltshire, along with his faithful sidekick, Captain Hastings.

What sort of questions would he be asking - and what conclusions would he come to?
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Snakes in Suits

BoJo and NATO head on fact-free PR tour: Still no proof of Moscow's involvement but their "reckless behaviour" is to blame


RT
Tue, 20 Mar 2018 21:16 UTC
NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg with British Foreign Secretary Johnson in Brussels.
© ReutersNATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg with British Foreign Secretary Johnson in Brussels.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg wasted no time backing the UK's accusations against Moscow in the Skripal case, but the absence of facts did not seem to matter in this case or other "examples" of Moscow's "reckless behavior."

The NATO Secretary General delivered the comments at a joint press conference with the UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in Brussels on Monday, where Johnson came to secure European support in the Skripal case.

Stoltenberg branded the Salisbury chemical incident an "attack," despite the fact that the exact causes of the alleged poisoning of former double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were still undetermined and not even a shade of evidence has surfaced yet. The UK blamed Moscow for the incident, naming the mysterious Novichok nerve agent, presumably of Soviet origin, as the toxin involved.

Comment: Also See:

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Star of David

Robert Fisk: Why is Al Jazeera not airing a hard-hitting investigation into US and Israeli lobbying?

Robert Fisk
Independent
Thu, 15 Mar 2018 11:41 UTC
Al Jazeera
© AFP/GettyThe team who work on The Lobby with Al Jazeera are well-respected investigative journalists, but for some reason their latest venture hasn't appeared in the public eye
According to Swisher, if his documentary on the American lobby doesn't air soon, 'it might prove to be ammunition sought by a group of zealous US politicians who wish to declare Al Jazeera a foreign entity, and label us journalists as 'spies''

So when am I going to be able to watch Al Jazeera's hard-hitting investigation into Israel's powerful lobby in the United States? Remember Al Jazeera? The tough, no-holds-barred Middle East satellite channel that transformed Qatar into a media empire whose reports frightened dictators and infuriated potentates and presidents alike? Why, George W Bush once wanted to bomb its headquarters in Doha - so it must have been doing something right. It even has an office in Jerusalem.

But something seems to be amiss. Not Al Jazeera's disastrous American venture, which was supposed to break free of the dross on CNN and Fox News and ended up looking just like CNN or Fox. Nor the tragicomedy of its journalists' imprisonment in Sissi's Egypt, banged up by Cairo's farcical laws and the stupidity of Al Jazeera's own management in Qatar.

No, I'm talking about a documentary called The Lobby, directed by one of Al Jazeera's top journalists, Clayton Swisher, the man whose exclusive (and book) on the "Palestine Papers" blew open the secret and scandalous American-led negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinian authority between 2000 and 2010. But after months of postponement, The Lobby, which secretly filmed pro-Israeli US activists and Israeli government officials and was completed last autumn, is still no nearer to being shown - and Swisher himself has taken a paid leave of absence. He even chose to explain his frustration in an article for the progressive American Jewish magazine Forward, which has always maintained a liberal and often very critical view of Israel.

Comment: To answer the question in the headline: Because Israel.

For some details of what we can expect to see in the documentary - if we ever do watch it - see:

Al Jazeera's undercover film on Israel lobby: Israel 'owns' Foundation for Defense of Democracies, smears BDS

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