David Swanson

How did they imagine they'd get away with it, claiming that Iraq had vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and even nuclear weapons?

Defectors had made clear the chemical and biological weapons (some of them provided by the United States) had been destroyed. Inspectors had searched almost every inch of Iraq and said they'd get to the last few inches if given a few more days. Iraq was screaming that it had no such weapons. Numerous nations around the world were agreeing with Iraq. Colin Powell's own staff warned him that his claims would not be deemed plausible. And yet...

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The Saker

Nicknamed "Flanby", "Little Gouda",
and even “couilles molles”...

It appears that François Hollande, aka "soft testicle" (nickname given to him by Martine Aubry, First Secretary of the Socialist Party of France), has outdone even Tony Blair as the US's most docile poodle in Europe. After resisting US pressure for a long time and being fined billions of dollars for doing so, he has suddenly decided to cave in and suspend the delivery of the French Mistrals to Russia. However, the US will not return to 9 billion dollars extorted out of Paribas, now the Russian can impose astronomical penalties on France for breach of contract. Double whammy for Hollande!

Now I suspect that this is a measure which will last exactly as long as the upcoming NATO summit and that as soon it is over the "circumstances for delivery" will magically become "right again". As for Russia - no worries. She will either get the ships or get a huge load of money. A win-win situation for sure. - But that is hardly the point.

First, whether Russia really needs these French ships is an extremely controversial issue in Russia, especially in the military. I did not take a poll, but my guess is that most of the military don't want them and rather spend the money elsewhere. This was a Medvedev purchase which was far from having a unanimity behind it. Personally, I think that the Mistrals are very good ships, very versatile, and that Russia could use on in the Black Sea and one in the Far East. They also come at at time with the Russian shipbuilding industry is over-worked and does not have the capacity to fulfill all the orders of the Russian Navy.

Finally, the Mistrals come with an advanced communication and command infrastructure which the Russian would like to get their hands one. But I have always had a weak spot for French weapon systems and nobody asked me my opinion anyway. Besides, there are cheaper way for Russian to get that kind of capabilities or systems.

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Stephen Lendman

Russian photojournalist Andrey Stenin was found dead in Southeastern Ukraine. He was murdered in cold blood.

Obama's new friends are cold-blooded killers. They're waging war on freedom. They're killing civilians. They want all opposition elements crushed. They want fascist rule institutionalized. They want democracy in name only. They want it prevented at all costs. They want all independent news sources suppressed. They want their message alone getting out. They harass, beat, terrorize, abduct and murder independent journalists. Russian ones are most vulnerable.

On August 5, Russian photojournalist Andrey Stenin went missing. He was working in Southeastern Ukraine for Russia's International Information Agency Rossiya Segdnya. For weeks, his whereabouts was unknown.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Herbert E. Meyer, a nutcase who was a special assistant to the CIA director for a period during the Reagan administration, has penned an article calling for Russian President Putin’s assassination. If we have “ to get him out of the Kremlin feet-first with a bullet hole in the back of his head, that would be okay with us.”

As the crazed Meyer illiustrates, the insanity that Washington has released upon the world knows no restraint. José Manuel Barroso, installed as Washington’s puppet as European Commission President, misrepresented his recent confidential telephone conversation with Russia’s President Putin by telling the media that Putin issued a threat: “If I want to, I can take Kiev in two weeks.”

Clearly, Putin did not issue a threat. A threat would be inconsistent with Putin’s entire unprovocative approach to the strategic threat that Washington and its NATO puppets have brought to Russia in Ukraine. Russia’s permanent representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said that if Barroso’s lie stands, Russia will make public the full recording of the conversation

Anyone familiar with the disparity between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries knows full well that it would take the Russian military 14 hours, not 14 days, to take all of Ukraine. Just remember what happened to the American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian Army when Washington set its stupid Georgian puppets on South Ossetia. The American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army collapsed under Russian counterattack in 5 hours.

The lie that Washington’s puppet Barroso told was not worthy of a serious person. But where in Europe is there a serious person in power? Nowhere. The few serious people are all out of power.

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Robert Parry

Official Washington draws the Ukraine crisis in black-and-white colors with Russian President Putin the bad guy and the U.S.-backed leaders in Kiev the good guys. But the reality is much more nuanced, with the American people consistently misled on key facts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a crowd on May 9,
2014, celebrating the 69th anniversary of victory over Nazi Ger-
many and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Crimean
port city of Sevastopol from the Nazis. (Russian gov't photo)

If you wonder how the world could stumble into World War III – much as it did into World War I a century ago – all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire U.S. political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats vs. black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason.

The original lie behind Official Washington’s latest “group think” was that Russian President Vladimir Putin instigated the crisis in Ukraine as part of some diabolical scheme to reclaim the territory of the defunct Soviet Union, including Estonia and other Baltic states. Though not a shred of U.S. intelligence supported this scenario, all the “smart people” of Washington just “knew” it to be true.

Yet, the once-acknowledged – though soon forgotten – reality was that the crisis was provoked last year by the European Union proposing an association agreement with Ukraine while U.S. neocons and other hawkish politicos and pundits envisioned using the Ukraine gambit as a way to undermine Putin inside Russia.

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Kevin Barrett

Throughout the Occupied West Bank and Occupied al-Quds (Jerusalem), Zionist settlers are digging in.

They are excavating foundations for new settlements, uprooting Palestinian olive trees and smashing Palestinian homes with their bulldozers.

Today there are well over half a million Zionist invaders squatting in al-Quds and the West Bank, stocking up on weapons and – all too often – using Palestinian children for target practice.

The Zionist settler-colonialists are digging in for the long haul. Clearly they are not planning on leaving.

Ironically, by burrowing into the land of Palestine like aggressively parasitical vermin, the genocidal Zionist settlers are digging their own grave...and the grave of the so-called state of Israel.

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Thomas Gaist

US Military Plans to Crush Dissident Political Groups, Target Leaders with Sniper Fire

Links tweeted by WikiLeaks this week called attention to the development of crowd control doctrines by the US military, the most recent of which are codified in a US Army Techniques document dated April 2014, titled “Civil Disturbances.” Main concepts elaborated in the document include crowd dynamics, behavior theories, crowd types, and a “Graduated Response Matrix.”

The document points to various dissident political groups as main targets of the Army’s crowd control planning. “Examples of well-organized groups are anarchists, antiglobalization groups, and anti free enterprise groups,” the US Army document states.

The paper further cites demonstrations coordinated by labor groups, specifically citing the 2011 protests at the Wisconsin capitol. “Labor unions played a large role in the 2011 Wisconsin protests that included passing on information and transporting participants,” the document states.

Special attention is given to “organized protests,” which are said to have more growth potential than spontaneous protests as result of their “centralized planning” and use of “modern technologies that allow for rapid information dissemination.”

Techniques outlined in the document include the use non-lethal weapons, “pain compliance” measures, lethal overwatch teams (snipers), and deployment of aircraft overhead (said to have a “psychological effect”).

The use of military working dog (MWD) teams is highlighted as an especially effective “intimidation measure.” “The presence of the MWD may produce a profound psychological effect on the crowd,” the document states.

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Peter Saramo

Webbtidskriften Simeon ja Hanna publicerar nu också på svenska artikeln ”Mitä uskoa kun kaikki valehtelevat” (”Vad ska man tro då alla ljuger”). Artikeln har uppdaterats av författaren. [H/T: Steigan Blogger: Peter Saramo, som er sekretær for den fiske riksdagens stora utskott har sett seg lei på des-informasjon og løgn om situasjonen i Ukraina, så han har publisert en nøktern oversiktsartikkel der han gjennomgår utviklinga.]

Den som vill förstå den nuvarande krisen i Ukraina och hur den påverkar oss har det inte lätt. Under det sista året liv har jag fått uppleva att också de ”vanligen tillförlitliga” finländska och västliga medierna inte alls är tillförlitliga. Mina husorgan (HS, Hbl, SvD, BBC, Reuters) har jag gång på gång ertappat med att sprida uppgifter, som inte visat sig hålla streck, eller ibland med att själva ge motstridiga rapporter om samma händelser. Redaktörer som vanligen vet bättre faller i fällan att kombinera rapporter om det som hänt med antaganden om varför det hände – utan att göra åtskillnad mellan rapportering och antaganden. Genom sina ordval kan pressen också kompromettera sin objektivitet: det är inte klart om Kiev upplevde en ”revolution” eller en ”kupp” i februari, men ordvalet påverkar perspektivet på allt annat. Att ryska och ukrainska media ljuger hejdlöst är så självklart att det inte behöver kommenteras. Problemet är att vi som bor i en demokrati och vill påverka egentligen inte har någon tillförlitlig information att bygga på.

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Dmitry Orlov (Introduction by Paul Craig Roberts)

“If you think that Russia is sending its regular units here, then let me tell you something. If Russia was sending its regular troops, we wouldn’t be talking about the battle of Elenovka here. We’d be talking about a battle of Kiev or a possible capture of Lvov.” ~ Alexander Zakharchenko, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Donetsk National Republic.

Lvov is in western Ukraine near the border with Poland. In other words, if Russia invades Ukraine, the fighting will move from the east side to the west side of the country.

As I observed in a recent column, the fantasy spread by Western governments and their media whores that 1,000 Russian troops have invaded Ukraine is the height of absurdity.

Despite the absurdity of the claim, some of the Western tabloids, which is what all Western newspapers now are, have declared these 1,000 troops to be a “full-scale invasion.” All of this nonsense is a buildup to the upcoming NATO conference in Wales. Disinformation is being used to create hysteria and justification for a NATO military buildup on Russia’s borders that could easily result in the final war.

Ask yourselves this question: Is the entirely of the Western media so ignorant and incompetent not to realize that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would not consist of 1,000 troops (the evidence of which no one can find), or is the entirety of the Western media simply willingly serving as a propaganda ministry for Washington’s warmongers, as the Western media did for George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq based on fabricated evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

There are only two conclusions that can be reached about the Western media: Either it is completely stupid or completely corrupt. Dmitry Orlov tells you what a Russian invasion of Ukraine would look like:

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Stephen Lendman

On Sunday, Israel's Civil Administration announced confiscation of around 1,000 acres of privately owned Palestinian land. It lawlessly declared it State Land. It's to establish a Gva'ot settlement. It's located south of Bethlehem. It's in the Southern West Bank. Peace Now calls itself "the leading voice of Israeli public pressure for peace." It called Israel's action "unprecedented."

In 1984, Gva'ot was established as a military base. Earlier, Israel's Housing Ministry planned to build 15,000 units. The idea was to establish a city in Gva'ot. Smaller plans substituted. The new announcement expands Gva'ot. It'll become a new settlement. It may connect to the Green Line.

Peace Now called Sunday's announcement "proof (that) Netanyahu does not (want) a new 'Diplomatic Horizon' but" intends blocking Palestinian self-determination. He and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon bear full responsibility for Sunday's declaration. It "cannot pass without their approval," said Peace Now. By confiscating another 1,000 acres of privately owned Palestinian land, they "prove(d) again that violence delivers Israeli concessions while nonviolence results in settlement expansion(s)." Peace Now official Hagit Ofran believes "Netanyahu will carry out a lot of expansion(s) because of the pressure he feels from his right wing and the feeling that the (Gaza) war did not end up with many successes."

Confiscated land belongs to five Palestinian villages. They include Jaba, Surif, Wadi Fukin, Husan and Nahalin. They lie between the Etzion settlement bloc and Jerusalem. At issue is connecting Etzion to Jerusalem and its surrounding area. Last year, Israel sought bids for 1,000 housing units on the site. Over 500 are being built. Ten families reside on the site. Many more will follow.

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zuddhi

Demanding the property of others does not transfer it. - Though the Gentile world has been taught that the famous 10 Commandments apply to all, Jews believe it only applies to other Jews, not to their behaviour towards Gentiles, whom they regard as “innately evil,” without a soul, with no redeeming qualities, and whose property is “opened” for Jews to take at will.

So Jews who have moved themselves into Palestine have an entitlement mentality, that is they are entitled to any land, resources, homes or belongings they want. But Palestine is not their land, and the land itself rejects them in their hubris and criminal, un-neighbourly behaviours. This is about an act that began with this insolent attitude and inspired an act, which did not go to plan, even with the military (whose duty, according to international law in occupied territory is to protect the occupied population). - It was a good day.

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Paul Craig Roberts

“Every time you come to Russia with a sword, from a sword you will perish.”

The Donetsk National Republic States The Facts

The former Russian provinces, which Soviet party leaders carelessly attached to Ukraine at a time when it seemed to make no difference as all were part of the Soviet Union, are now independent republics with their own governments. The West pretends that this isn’t so, because Washington and its puppet capitals don’t recognize the independence of formerly captive peoples. But the West’s opinion no longer counts.

In the last couple of days the newly formed military units of the Donetsk National Republic have defeated and surrounded large portions of the remaining Ukrainian military. Russian President Putin asked the Donetsk Republic to allow the defeated Ukrainians to return home to their wives and mothers. The Donetsk Republic agreed to Putin’s mercy request as long as the Ukrainians left their weapons behind. The Donetsk Republic is short on weapons as, contrary to Western lies, the Donetsk Republic is not supplied with weapons by Russia.

Washington’s puppet government in Kiev declined the mercy extended to its troops and said they had to fight to the death. Shades of Hitler at Stalingrad. Western Ukraine has remained the repository of Nazism since 1945, and it is Western Ukraine with which Washington is allied against freedom and democracy.

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