@maracato,
but you don’t understand! everything has to be viewed as a threat to the exceptional nation, or else all the snooping, nsa, cia bullshite that is oozing out of the nation into every corner of the planet wouldn’t be sustainable! everything has to be seen as a threat.. the fact they are responsible for everything including al qaeda, isis and you name it, IS BESIDE THE POINT!

Posted by: james | Mar 10 2015 20:23 utc | 3

Venezuela committed two unforgivable sins. First, it refused to allow itself to be ruthlessly plundered by the psychopaths who control most of the world. Second, it had the unmitigated gall to thwart the psychopaths attempt to “help” Venezuela correct sin #1. I’m afraid Venezuela can look forward to more coup attempts, sanctions, financial warfare and false flags designed to stir up trouble with her neighbors (Columbia?). How long will it be before Maduro is labeled the “Hitler of South America”?

Posted by: Scott | Mar 10 2015 20:59 utc | 5

ISIS in Venezuela? That should do it. Don’t they always seem to pop up in countries that disobey?There’s the excuse for boots on the ground. It will also prevent Russian expansion. After all…Crimea today…Caracas tomorrow. That darn Putin…he’s clever.

Posted by: Scott | Mar 10 2015 21:57 utc | 7

@17
Perhaps Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland are more likely to form the wedge that cleaves America from its European Unit than the putative European Army?
The European Union’s military: yet another sign of impotence

This latest initiative, far from showing any kind of European awakening, is yet another proof of the utter lack of statesmanship on the part of the Eurocretins in power in Brussels and the EU capitals. A far more convincing display of power and dignity would be to dare to simply say “no” to something demanded by Uncle Sam.
But that, alas, ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.

It seems that Mike Whitney’s observation of the first shoe, second shoe drop of the Der Spiegel article on Breedlove and then the announcement of the European Army idea is right on. It’s politics via the press.
Will German hegemony continue to extend over Europe? Or will Southern Europe elect to/be forced by German bankers to join with the BRICS? Will the German bankers’ intransigence deal the death knell to the Euro and the Eurozone, to projected German hegemony … and then to the ‘real’ hegemony of the US dollar?

Posted by: jfl | Mar 10 2015 23:00 utc | 9

@Maracatu@1
You made a good point and a very evident contrast between Venezuela and the Mexican-Colombian combo. The best candidates for “US National Security Threat” from those three countries would be Mexico and Colombia. The US-Mexican border, about 1,954 mi (3,145 km), is a lawless, drug cartel-dominated land on the Mexican side. All main Mexican drug cartels have cut themselves a chunk of the border, and dug countless high-tech tunnels with light, A/C and train tracks, to smuggle drugs by the tons into the US market. The Mexican “war on drugs” is a charade mainly for US consumption, one the Mexican people or other nations with a modicum of intelligence don’t swallow anymore. The arrest of drug capos, e.g. the heads of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Michoacán Family cartel, and more recently the Zetas cartel, do not in any way, shape or form, alter the functioning of their respective criminal enterprises. Same happened in Colombia, where the elimination of powerful drug capos, e.g. Pablo Escobar et al, only contributed to the birth of more sophisticated, more dangerous criminals, without stopping the flow of drugs heading into the four directions. Mexican drug traffickers have attacked and killed law enforcement officers in US territory, as well as US officers and citizens on both sides of the border. Besides the drug trafficking, Mexican cartels control all kind of human trafficking, illegal immigrants, prostitution, and enslavement of thousands of people who simply “disappear” to be used as slave labor in the poppy and marijuana fields, or the synthetic drug factories (methamphetamines, ecstasy, etc.), almost in plain view of the US authorities, right across the border. A porous, highly trafficked border on inhospitable deserts and mountains, this is the ideal ground for terrorists of any denomination to create a base in order to plan/execute an attack against the US. There are weapons a-plenty coming from the US, even heavy weapons, in exchange for drugs or bought by the billionaire Mexican cartels, plenty of wild territory where to train an army, as the cartels have done with theirs, and endless amount of Mexican officers that can be bought for a pittance. But of course, business is business, and drug dollars have been helping the limping US economy, the money laundering country of choice by all drug cartels in Latin America, and that makes Mexico and Colombia friends of the US, as long as they are governed by despots playing at the tune of the “democracy” electoral delusion promoted by the US.
The Mexican-Colombian combo (that’s not a tropical music group), is a National Security Threat not only for the US, but to the world at large, as both countries function mainly on drug money-dominated economies, and their tentacles extend to the rest of LA, Africa, Europe, ME , the Pacific and the Far East. It is not only ironic, but also indicative of the direction the Obama administration is taking re: Venezuela, that the US will declare it a public enemy. IMHO, it is the preparation stage for a further, decisive push –and yet another putsch, against a sovereign nation. All the attempts for a coup d’état or a color/themed revolution have failed, time for another option. As per boring, childish, war criminal Obama and his neo-con partners in crime, “all options ARE ALWAYS on the table,” and Venezuela has been resisting the empire for too long, time to cut its wings. It is only fitting the new attack on Venezuela comes at a moment of weakness for its economy, prime time for a potential exploitation of genuine and NED/AID/CIA created discontent among Venezuelans. We can only expect more bad news re: Venezuela in the coming months, a new dastardly attempt by the US to plunder Venezuelan resources. Thanks for a well thought-out analogy.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Mar 10 2015 23:02 utc | 11

Thanks @Lone Wolf10 for a much more comprehensive description than my “snapshot” link about Mexico. While mine highlighted the human rights situation, we must keep in mind that widespread corruption is an important factor (probably the most important) behind that as well as many other issues in the USA’s junior NAFTA “partner”. As Mexican blogger Animal Político states:
If we compare Mexico with the rest of the world on a series of regulatory measures, rule of law, years of democracy, and governmental efficacy, among others, our level of corruption is higher than expected given the laws we have, but expected given our dysfunctional democracy.
…And you (and others above) are spot on about Venezuela, as John Pilger has acknowledged:
It’s important to understand that Washington is ruled by true extremists, once known inside the Beltway as ‘the crazies’. This has been true since before 9/11. A few are outright fascists. Asserting US dominance is their undisguised game and, as the events in Ukraine demonstrate, they are prepared to risk a nuclear war with Russia. These people should be the common enemy of all sane human beings. In Venezuela, they want a coup so that they can roll-back some of the world’s most important social reforms – such as in Bolivia and Ecuador. They’ve already crushed the hopes of ordinary people in Honduras. The current conspiracy between the US and Saudi Arabia to lower the price of oil is meant to achieve something more spectacular and tragic in Venezuela, and Russia.

Posted by: Maracatu | Mar 11 2015 0:02 utc | 13

M@12
I agree with most of what you write here but if the Saudis have an agenda following the oil price correction it is to destroy the US Tight Oil production better known as fracking. This US overproduction is what produced the two million barrels of excess oil on the world market.
Both Russia and Venezuela need to diversify their economies away from the almost total dependence on oil rents which this correction may force them to do, I hope they can accomplish this transition without catastrophe.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Mar 11 2015 1:05 utc | 15

Anybody got the lowdown on the Lugovoy Affair, ie Putin awarding the supposed poisoner of Litvinenko? I’m only finding the self-righteous blather of the Libtards in the digital ether.

Posted by: ruralito | Mar 11 2015 2:51 utc | 17

Bush White House’s Repeated Torture Denials Led CIA Torturers to Seek Repeated Reassurances
Obomber, et, al, should be on the dock too…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 11 2015 4:27 utc | 19

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/10/us-mideast-crisis-israeli-idUSKBN0M627I20150310
Islamic State video shows killing of teen accused as Israeli spy
(Reuters) – A video posted online by Islamic State militants on Tuesday showed a boy fatally shooting Muhammad Musallam, an Israeli Arab accused by the group of having signed up as a jihadi to spy for Israel’s intelligence service.
The video, published by the group’s Furqan media outlet, showed Musallam, 19, sitting in a room wearing an orange jumpsuit, talking about how he had been recruited and trained by Mossad. He said his father and elder brother had encouraged him.

Posted by: okie farmer | Mar 11 2015 4:39 utc | 21

On 6 March, 2015 …
EU chief speaks out against arms supplies for Kiev

RIGA, Latvia — The European Union’s foreign policy chief on Friday came out against a bipartisan call in the United States to provide lethal, defensive weapons to Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists.
House Speaker John Boehner and a group of top Democrats and Republicans wrote to President Obama calling for deliveries but so far have found few backers in the 28-nation EU.
Federica Mogherini said Friday that “the European Union is doing enough” and insisted that the implementation of the peace deal brokered in Minsk last month “is the way to go forward.”

Four days later …
US Unloads Arms Enhancing Defense of Baltic States

The US military has begun unloading around 400 armored vehicles in Latvia to support the next rotation of troops in the Baltic region.
The delivery comes amid the heightened tension between NATO and Russia over the situation in Ukraine.
The vehicles being delivered in Riga include M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
The vehicles are going to be sent to NATO forward positions in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

US creating false intelligence on Russia: Analyst

“One thing we clearly see from this is that the US is doing everything possible to break the Minsk truce agreement,” said Flores, who is the director and an analyst at Center for Syncretic Studies.
On February 12, leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France agreed in the Belarusian capital of Minsk to stop the fighting in east Ukraine and to start the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the frontlines.
“The US is quite upset that European leaders broke ranks with NATO and the US over this,” Flores stated, adding “it is not forecasted that the US will be able to undo this agreement immediately at least not very easily.”
He said the US is trying to achieve two goals by sending arms to the region. “We can see that these armament shipments are really conforming to two plans.”
“One is to inspire arms sales and arms shipment” in the area to benefit US armaments industries, he said, adding “the second piece of this is to scare Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish leaders into thinking that there is something happening that is not. They’re creating false intelligence reports which indicate that a Russian increase in military actions are imminent and they’re not.”

Fuck the EU … and NATO, too! The USA prepares WWIII in Europe, unilaterally.
… the janissary system …

I’m going to make a statement that I think has not been made sufficiently before, I’m going to say in the post-coldwar period that the US has basically sent people to govern Eastern European nations including former Soviet republics in a manner not dissimilar to what the Ottoman empire did under the Janissary system [22], where they basically took people from the conquered country – or descendants thereof – brought them back to the metropolis, indoctrinated them – in the religion, in the past – in political ideology currently, sent them back to govern on behalf of the metropolis.
Currently, the president of Estonia, who is arguably the most belligerent, calling for everything short of war against Russia, is a man named Toomas Gulmas [sic] [23], was raised in the United States, worked for Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, was safe at the State Department at the very least.
Five years ago his colleague in Lithuania was Valdas Adamkus [24], who left with his family, left Lithuania at the end of World War II with the Nazi Wehrmacht, lived in Nazi Germany until the end of the war. Came to United States, also worked for the federal government, he was Nixon’s environmental protection agency chief, he lived in Chicago for decades, when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 he went back and became president of Lithunia as Gulmas [sic] became president of Estonia.
Five years ago the president of the third Baltic state, Latvia, was a woman who was born in Morocco, if I am not mistaken [25] and raised in Canada where she worked for the federal government.
So, we see that the wife – and I would argue the control agent – for Viktor Yushchenko is an American from Chicago; the president, until recently, the president of Lithuania was from Chicago; the president of Estonia to this day is an American.
And this goes all the way down the line. So when we hear Victoria Nuland state of the three major – of the triumvirate of opposition figures – who will occupy which posiion, this should not surprise us. This is exactly what the US has done for the last 23 years in Eastern Europe.

WWI, WWII … WWIII? You’d think the Europeans might have noticed by now just who it is that always loses and who it is that always wins when ‘they’ have a war in Europe.
If they have realized what’s going on … they need to blow the whistle a LOT more forcefully than they’ve done so far.
Every day in every way the USA is just that much closer to critical mass.

Posted by: jfl | Mar 11 2015 6:06 utc | 23

@ jfl #21
Thanks for the post and links.

Posted by: Outraged | Mar 11 2015 6:29 utc | 25

2
I’ve noticed as Peak Life passes me by that the Buddhist mantra of ‘No Duality’ is just, well, wrong. More factually, there is ALWAYS Duality, and what one side marches you up the hill and back down again for, is just as equivalent/worth-considering/mirror-reflection as what the other side marches you up and down the hill again over.
Then it becomes kind of a holy terror to take ANY position, realizing that the counter-position is JUST as valid, and that ONLY by both sides agreeing that both positions are valid, can there be an outcome, …and then you have to be able to HOLD DUAL POSITIONS.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. It’s the other white meat!
The Israelis in US State installed a dual-citizen Israeli Junta Leader in Kiev, who brought on a dual-citizen Israeli Cabinet and immediately looted all the gold and cash in the Ukraine Treasury, then flew it off to the dual-citizen Israeli New York banking cartels, in an eerily and deeply foreboding parallel to how proto-Israelis looted Tsar Nikolas’ vaults of gold and jewels, then murdered him and his entire family in 1917, before the pogroms began in the Soviet Union that made (WWII) Holocaust™ look like a cheap marketing stunt.
And tragically, those pogroms included Holodomor, the Ukraine Holocaust by the Soviets! So you could counter that the dual-citizen Israeli Junta Cartel is really just *SAFE KEEPING* the gold and cash for the People of Ukraine, and protecting them against another Holodomor! That’s a valid argument or position. Russia today remains an Emperor Caligula of oligarchs and deep government National Security State, not any different than the US, except perhaps more ruthlessly efficient, compared to the puerile feckless ineptness of the US CIA:State and NeoLiberal Mother America. Of course, you say, there would never be another Holodomor. There are Holodomor’s around the world every day now. You can’t possibly be that naive.
So ‘bringing it back home’, Venezuela is within the sphere of USA influence, and Monroe Doctrine. The USA has a strong oil import trade from Venezuela, or did, until the Fracking Revolution, and therefore a strong interest in maintaining an orderly ‘democracy’. But have you seen what the post-Chavez Venezuela looks like? Do you read their papers in G-Spanish? They have virtually free gasoline. Cab drivers and truck drivers fill up and then drive to Colombia to sell it on the black market. There’s no transportation in Caracas, they’re all running moonshine. The government is openly engaged in money laundering the US oil$s, and that’s totally destabilizing their retail economy. They have horrific inflation, hordeing is rampant, and their bolivar has collapsed.
Caracas is right on the same bleeding threshold of Chaos as Kiev is.
That has significant impact on the USA, and South America, and Central America if Venezuela reaches Chaos Point. Is the CIA;State pulling the strings and arming and funding some South American version of Al Nusra and ISIS? Of course they are! But mercenary guerrilla fighters and agents provocateur doesn’t explain the looming collapse of Venezuela’s economy.
We are just about filled up on the US oil reserves. Then they’ll pull out of mothballs every super-large jumbo tanker and fill them up too, and park them offshore of Houston. Yet STILL Venezuela will keep pumping and selling oil, even if it gets to $10 a barrel, pushing the front end on the oil storage contango ever down. That will collapse the US Frackers, who are uniformly speculative wild-catting to juniors and hedgers maybe 5x or 50x who knows the value of their widely-dispersed and near-zero resale value capital investment.
There is a pyramid of fracking finance interest that has to be paid every month, or that fracking ponzi will collapse. Your 401K might be invested in that! The US Congress just gave Banksters permission to invest your PASSBOOK SAVINGS in junk bonds and equity junior plays. You might lose your 401k AND your passbook savings in this Oil Race to the Bottom.
Venezuela may implode long before then, then MILLIONS of Venezuelans will go on the move, just like MILLIONS of Ukrainians and MILLIONS of Greeks are about to go on the move, as the clock ticks down on the last tank farm and the last super-jumbo being filled to the top, and Draghi putting a $T in hot EU’s fleeing into US$’s. That Chaos will CRUSH your 401k.
We’re seeing a total uncoupling of the US$-v-WTI so-called ‘petrodollar’, and remember, the equity markets are BUILT on these fool indexes, and your State and Local pension funds are invested in this fool index futures and ETFs. If Venezuela implodes as Ukraine implodes as Greece implodes, as the ‘petrodollar’ derivative hedges implode, within a few weeks, we could all be staring at black PC screens, because They can’t let us see the massive human holocaust, unprecedented in human history, in the fallout on Main Street and Wall Street.
There will be a holiday, then your bank will be quietly liquidated, and under the new US banking laws, as a depositor you are now an ‘investor’, not a creditor, so you go to the very end of the line, 1c on the $1 if you’re lucky, after a long, protracted class action lawsuit. I went through that with the S&L Bonds scam, one of many times I lost everything.
So yes, Venezuela (and Ukraine and Greece and Draghi and Lagarde and Yellen) are most definitely THREATS to USA hegemony and stability.
Proving .: that there IS Duality, and that BOTH POSITIONS are equally valid, if we’re going to find the ‘Middle Way’, as much as I choke to use that butchered NeoLiberal phrase, which they looted from Buddhism, which is my intent in using it.
Consider ALL sides. Be the ALL-seeing eye. Then keep your head down, and your savings cash.

Posted by: NoReply | Mar 11 2015 9:13 utc | 27

The English language version of Al-Akhbar has closed.

Posted by: Pat Bateman | Mar 11 2015 12:17 utc | 29

jfl no. 21

WWI, WWII … WWIII? You’d think the Europeans might have noticed by now just who it is that always loses and who it is that always wins when ‘they’ have a war in Europe.

If by “they” you are referring to the US, I think it was Europe that destroyed itself in both WWI and WWII. Europe had a war in Europe.

Posted by: sleepy | Mar 11 2015 13:51 utc | 31

@Maracatu@12
Thanks for your kind words. And thanks to Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge for this piece.
Oil Producers Could See “Regime Change”: Bloomberg
Bloomberg suggests that the destabilization of already fragile political and economic situations could lead, in short order, to “regime change” across oil producers:

The large petrostates are varying degrees away from the Weberian ideal of the rule of law. That could spell trouble. Low oil prices threaten the ability of these inefficient, sometimes corrupt states to service their debts and may curtail the government spending that keeps the masses content. This may in turn ignite demands for a fairer distribution of these dwindling oil proceeds and, possibly, regime change.

Well, Bloomberg used the “RC” words. Usually, if the “economic hit men” fail and the CIA fail, the last option is military intervention, a-la Pinochet if the US can corrupt the native military, or a-la Noriega, if the native military is part and parcel of the opposition to the US. Jfl@28 just posted a link to a very informative Counterpunch article, though I disagree with the article’s conclusion, socialism all the way, which at this very point in time seems to me suicidal. The analysis, however, is sound and to the point, highly recommended reading. Thanks, jfl.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Mar 11 2015 14:32 utc | 33

Interesting Pravda piece. Israleis and Zionists played key role in 911 attacks …
http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/10-03-2015/130004-israelis_zionists_september_eleven_attacks-0/

Posted by: Alberto | Mar 11 2015 15:30 utc | 35

MH370. A year on, no debris found. Some months ago, my thought was this plane is missing. Missing can equal stolen, but who would steal a plane full of passengers? So, imho, it is missing because someone arranged for it to be missing. Only two scenarios seem plausible:
1) The pilot(s) spoofed it away, methods and reasons unknown. (Not for monetary gain.) Unlikely that hijackers did the same. -> Hijacks are usually accompanied by other actions, not merely a mystery void.
2) The plane (or debris, whatever) has been found, but that is being covered up. This would seem to imply some sort of rogue or tragic accident / event such as shot down / sabotaged by a power stronger than Malaysia, or a US ally, with the cover-up being either spontaneous or coerced, or both at once.
This article from WINGS, which I had not read at the time (nov. 2014) makes a credible (?) case for 1.
https://www.wingsmagazine.com/news/pondering-the-preposterous-11202

Posted by: Noirette | Mar 11 2015 15:35 utc | 37

Video from TRNN on Venezuela:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13403

Posted by: ben | Mar 11 2015 15:48 utc | 39

@B
Mr.B, is the German military as weak as this article makes it out to be?
http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/09/4237
I know it is a small military but I thought it was well trained and equipped. Am I wrong on that?
Best regards

Posted by: Luca K | Mar 11 2015 16:35 utc | 41

Posted by: Noirette | Mar 11, 2015 11:35:07 AM | 33
The article is shamelessly anti-Malaysia(Muslim?) and unconvincing – even to the author.
It’s impossible for me to believe that the operators of the M-IC’s global RF, radar and satellite snooping/ surveillance/ “Early Warning” systems don’t know where MH370 is and are withholding vital information. The fact that eerily inept liar, Tony Abbott’s Australia (US lapdog) is coordinating the search is almost a guarantee that it’s a US-planned wild goose chase.
Both US and Israel HATE certain people in Malaysia.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 11 2015 17:40 utc | 43

Noirette @ 38: Thanks for the link. Pretty clear, who “owns” NATO, unless, money doesn’t really matter in the decision making process.

Posted by: ben | Mar 11 2015 17:58 utc | 45

@46
There is a bit of a gap between, playing a key role and possibly having some foreknowledge of a coming attack. The FBI and other US security agencies also had some evidence of a possible attack but failed to act.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Mar 11 2015 18:39 utc | 47

U.S. security agencies had more than “some evidence of a possible attack”. I would say that Kevin Fenton proves in his book
Disconnecting the Dots: How 9/11 Was Allowed to Happen that at least some highly placed people in the U.S. security agencies (as well as elsewhere in the government) knew an attack was on the way and quite deliberately failed to prevent it.

Posted by: lysias | Mar 11 2015 20:09 utc | 49

demian still around?
@27 no reply.. nice post. thanks. @ 28 interesting conjecture too..
@

Posted by: james | Mar 11 2015 20:49 utc | 51

@lysias, 49:
When 9/11 happened, my first thought was, “Wow, did somebody finally got a blow in against the Empire?” but within about a half-hour I realized, “No, this is too easy.” For starters, NORAD scrambles fighters within minutes when anything so small as a Piper Cub or even a flock of birds enters US airspace; there is no way four airliners could be hijacked and left to roam the continent for *hours*.
Then there is Al-Qaida, which got its start with CIA funding, tutelage and coordination in Afghanistan in the ’80’s–the CIA would not build up an organization like that only to abandon it; if the agency didn’t actively run its operations through the ’90’s at the very least Arlington was kept very current on AQ’s activities from assets still within it. At the very least US intelligence knew in advance and allowed it to unfold.
After this a simple “Cui bono?” gets us very much on the right track; the PNAC’s website at this point almost reads like a comic book supervillain calling his shot before he does the dirty deed.

Posted by: Vintage Red | Mar 11 2015 20:59 utc | 53

.
Our Civil Liberties, After Sept. 11
Published: June 3, 2002
To the Editor:
Re ”Liberal Reality Check,” by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, May 31):
Regarding the Sept. 11 tragedy, this was not a case of the F.B.I.’s not going after information because of concern for anyone’s civil liberties. The F.B.I. had the information. Why it didn’t act on what it had is what we need to know.
Okie Farmer
Paoli, Okla., May 31, 2002

Posted by: okie farmer | Mar 11 2015 22:58 utc | 55

The circus yesterday at the Boston Bombing trial illuminated this lack of competence in the FBI.
Posted by: Wayoutwest | Mar 11, 2015 4:35:43 PM | 50
I’d be interested in what you’re looking at. Links?

Posted by: Benu | Mar 12 2015 0:52 utc | 57

Wayoutwest’s definition of “proof” includes “believing without question everything I’ve ever read and heard and can make up about the strength of ISIS and the badness of Russia”

Posted by: guest77 | Mar 12 2015 1:13 utc | 59

@Jeremiah@52
The Janissaries were mercenary armies, unsusally loyal to the Ottoman (Osmani) Sultan beyond mere remuneration. Often Christians or other non-Muslim peoples, Jannisaries were NOT provincial governors!
You’re right on the first count, wrong on the second one. A quick look at Wikipedia would have clarified the issue. There is a difference between the Janissaries, and the Janissary system, the key to your confusion.
Janissaries

The Janissary system was introduced in the 14th century. It was a similar system to the Iranian Safavid, Afsharid, and Qajar era ghulams, who were drawn from converted Circassians, Georgians, and Armenians, and in the same way as with the Ottoman’s Janissaries who had to replace the unreliable ghazis, they were initially created as a counterbalance to the tribal, ethnic and favoured interests the Qizilbash gave, which make a system imbalanced.[13] The Janissary Corps was a trained and loyal group of slaves to the sultan. In the late 16th century, a sultan gave in to the pressures of the Corps and permitted Janissary children to become members of the Corps, a practice strictly forbidden for the previous 300 years. They also became rent-seeking and sought protection of their special rights and advantages. According to paintings of the era, they were also permitted to grow beards. Consequently, the formerly strict rules of succession became open to interpretation. While they advanced their own power, the Janissaries also helped to keep the system from changing in other progressive ways and according to some scholars the corps was most responsible for the political stagnation of Istanbul.[14]
Greek Historian Dimitri Kitsikis in his book Türk Yunan İmparatorluğu (“Turco-Greek Empire”)[10] states that many Christian families were willing to comply with the devşirme because it offered a possibility of social advancement. Conscripts could one day become Janissary colonels, statesmen who might one day return to their home region as governors, or even Grand Viziers or Beylerbeys (governor generals).
A Janissary Ağa in the year 1768.
Some of the most famous Janissaries include George Kastrioti Skanderbeg, an Albanian who defected and led a 20‑year Albanian revolt against the Ottomans. Another was Sokollu Mehmed Paşa, a Bosnian who became a grand vizier, served three sultans, and was the de facto ruler of the Ottoman Empire for more than 14 years.[15][page needed]

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Mar 12 2015 1:43 utc | 61

B@56
The Guardian had a report yesterday on the BB trial and the FBI’s inability to understand things written by DT on twitter and their meaning.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Mar 12 2015 2:38 utc | 63

@Luka K #41
West Germany’s army was very well respected – however, since unification Germany made a conscious decision to de-emphasize its military in favor of social spending (like building up East Germany). This has manifested itself embarrassingly in such incidents as not being able to provide helicopters to transport promised supplies.
@Vintage Red #53
Sorry, but the assertion that the Air Force scrambled for Cessnas pre-9/11 is not correct. The US has literally tens of thousands of private planes – and a huge number are active around New York. The US has something like 223000 general aviation aircraft – and most of these are privately owned planes. Put another way, there is likely 1 private plane per 2 private cars.
Specific places like the White House or Pentagon likely have reaction forces, but then again, these were likely vectored elsewhere on that fateful day. Even in the early AM there are hundreds if not thousands of flights coming in and out of the many major airports scattered from Boston to Washington DC.

Posted by: ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 12 2015 3:10 utc | 65

Posted by: Really | Mar 11, 2015 10:05:33 PM | 61
I must make a few things clear. The reason I posted the link Tehran24.com is to make those who may be ill informed on the Iranian lifestyle and country informed. It is my view that far too many westerners have the impression most Iranians are running around with AK-47’s and looking to start war with Israel. If that was the case the war between Iran and Israel would have been waged already and if that was the case, unless cool heads prevailed with the United States and the Russian Federation, I would probably not be typing this.
It is well known that Israel has been receiving billions of dollads worth of weapons from the United States and although they may or may not have ICBM’s, I would bet thwy have tactical nukes such as those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WWII. One has to wonder why Israel receives so much weaponry from the United States. Could it be trade for global intelligence hardware and logistics? Or could it be that Israel is just ths west’s forward operating base to grasp Iran’s oil reserves?
Now if a conventional war broke out, without interference from the US and Russia between Israel and Iran, I would think Iran would be more than able to deafeat Israel. But my fear is the Likud government would become desparate and drop a bomb on Iran that may be less than conventional, which in turn would force Iran to do something similar if they have tactical nukes in their arsenal (and I would not be suprised if they have acquired a few on the open market).
So what would happen if the above scenario reached that radioactive point? It is my opinion that two things would be in play. The first being total global destruction, if Russia, China and the west engage in a shooting war. The second option would be a radioactive area in Israel and Iran, birth defects, cancer, worthless soil and building sites. Think Chernobyl.

Posted by: Really | Mar 12 2015 4:12 utc | 67

@ǝn⇂ɔ, 64:
This will teach me about posting on the fly. I read a news story of two fighter jets intercepting a small aircraft that came over the border from Canada–post 9/11–and another of an alert over birds–pre 9/11. I should have more carefully phrased it as “can scramble”… four known hijacked airliners, however, are another matter. Thank you for your correction.

Posted by: Vintage Red | Mar 12 2015 4:25 utc | 69

@31
Yes it was Europe that destroyed itself on both occasions … but it was the US that ‘won’, in the sense of ‘to the victors belong the spoils’.

Posted by: jfl | Mar 12 2015 5:02 utc | 71

@19
Thanks for the link, sarz …
American and Israeli military advisors were arrested while aiding Islamic State terrorists in Iraq

Iraqi counter-terrorism forces arrested four foreign military advisors from the United States and Israel who were aiding the Islamic State, Iranian Tasnim News Agency reports.
Three of the arrested military advisors are dual citizens of the United States and Israel, while the fourth advisor is from a Persian Gulf country, Iraq’s Sarma News Agency said.

… I’ll be looking for confirmation elsewhere. (Sorcha Faal doesn’t count 🙂

Posted by: jfl | Mar 12 2015 5:02 utc | 73

@53
It slowly dawned on me … hindered by my reflexive horror and unwillingness to believe my own ‘lying eyes’ when I watched the orderly, expert demolition of the first Trade Center building live on my TV at lunchtime in Texas … that something – everything – smelled very, very bad about the events of 9/11.
Subsequently I’ve come to the conclusion that it was ‘look the other way but let ‘er roll’ on the USG side … and that it was Israel running the operation, impersonating shadowy ‘Arabs’ ‘over the phone’. Clearly that was beyond the competence … beyond the wildest dreams of the possible for the Criminals In Action.
And that’s still the trail I’d follow if I were investigating the mass murder/casus belli. The fact that the Port Authority had just sold the WTC to a private operator … Larry Silverstein … just adds insult to injury. And, coupled with the CIA/FBI/NSA tenancies on site, accounts for the ‘surreptitious’ thermite installation.

Posted by: jfl | Mar 12 2015 5:04 utc | 75

Sorry for the rash of little postings … I’d had ’em all together but – although they were ‘posted’ – they weren’t.
So I tried ’em one at a time.
It was the last one that prevented the original post … sarz’ link to sputnik did it … apparently.
I went to tiny url and, with one level of indirection, no problem. I’ll remember that for next time.

Posted by: jfl | Mar 12 2015 5:11 utc | 77

The Social Crisis in Greece, Part 1, Part 2

… if a person owes more than €5,000 in tax then an immediate arrest warrant is issued and he or she is taken into custody until that debt is paid off…
— from Part Two

I hadn’t realized that the German bankers had instituted debtors’ prisons in Greece.
The pound of flesh is actually ‘due’ the German bankers … the Greek government has been acting as their collection agent only.
Yet why do I imagine that if one owes the government more than €5,000,000 in tax … it’s no problem?

Posted by: jfl | Mar 12 2015 7:16 utc | 79

the new leaders of sri lanka learn fast from their fukus mentors,
speaking in forked tongue….
how to draw someone *closer* by… *keeping them at arms length*
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150312000073&cid=1502

Posted by: denk | Mar 12 2015 9:26 utc | 81

@jfl #73
The problems with 9/11 conspiracy theory are manyfold:
The assumption is always made that the WTC towers were somehow these very solid buildings. They were not – skyscrapers of that order are huge but are almost entirely air. They’re held up only by carefully calculated grids of steel – and steel degrades in strength far sooner than it melts. A jet airliner full of fuel has more than enough energy to raise temperatures to over 500 or even 800 degrees C, at which point steel loses 50% or more of its strength even though it doesn’t melt.
Once actual collapse occurs, the weight of what isn’t air, in motion, is immense and more than enough to snap off each floor as it collapses. Weight of that magnitude and density (at this point, the collection is a highly compact array of concrete and steel) experiences effectively zero drag, hence the apparent “free fall”.
If you examine pictures of the wreckage of WTO right after the collapse, you might note just how little 100+ stories compacted into relative to the volume of the building before collapse. However small the post-collapse debris field was relative to the pre-collapse building, we’re still talking about literally millions of tons of steel and concrete – some of which can and did get thrown clear of the immediate footprint of the building – not to mention the effects of millions of tons of debris striking effectively landfill.
There are specific aspects to the 9/11 conspiracy which are believable – but the physics of the collapse nor the means aren’t among them.

Posted by: ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 12 2015 11:31 utc | 83

Posted by: ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 12, 2015 7:31:07 AM | 81
That’s all true. None of the “explosives dunnit” wankers have ANY knowledge of building construction, engineering or design principles. Nor are they familiar with the (well-documented) physical limits and properties of common building materials.
However, I must take you to task on an omission from your NORAD claims, above.
You forgot to mention that Rumsfeld made a highly significant change to a long-standing pre-9/11 NORAD procedure. Before 9/11 Air Traffic Controllers at major airports had a direct hotline to NORAD. Rumsfeld diverted that facility to the Pentagon. My favourite version of that story is that the Pentagon phone to which such calls were re-routed was kept in an empty room with the door locked 24/7 right up until 9/11.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 12 2015 14:25 utc | 85

@81,83
You’re kidding yourselves. 9 11 Truth On C SPAN.

Posted by: jfl | Mar 12 2015 15:10 utc | 87

about MH planes.
Hoarsewhisperer at 43, Oh I noticed that, article about MH370 (anti-Malaysian), the point was only (in my mind), a scenario for the pilot(s) having deliberately not vaporized 🙂 (see 9/11) but *sunk* the plane. I think the motive outlined is slim, though pilot suicides, with passengers along, are not unknown. I see you prefer some kind of interpretation along 2) lines. I do too and am well aware of Malaysia-hate.
jfl at 56, MH17 is quite clear in my mind, it was carried out by Ukrainian rogues (commanded by others?), this was evident, from the internet pictures of the debris from the get-go, imho, as I posted at the time.
As for confusion with Putin’s plane, I’m not sure he was actually where he was said to be, this is a critical point, very difficult to substantiate. But I did look up the size, thinking that Putin’s plane must be much smaller than a Boeing 777.
Putin’s plane, wiki – the main presidential aircraft is the four-engined, long-range, widebody Ilyushin Il-96-300PU.
vid of ‘it’ landing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxUmqwKyAzc
Wiki: different models and variants exist, plane has a length of between 55 and 64 meters, and a span of about 60 m.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-96
MH17 was a Boeing 777-200ER (news), Boeing site (link below) > a length of 63 m. and a span of 60 m, not differences that can be judged by the human eye in the air. They have a different shape, though the coloring is very similar (from pix.)
http://tinyurl.com/pzdzqo6

Posted by: Noirette | Mar 12 2015 17:19 utc | 89

re MH-370, I read something day before yesterday that caught my attention: Boeing says lithium batteries pose cargo risk, backs ban
It reminded me of this story at ZeroHedge from last March. The Latest Flight MH-370 Shocker: A Two-Ton Cargo Mystery

Note that on page 5 of the manifest, in a waybill from NNR Global Logistics in Penang to JHJ International Transporation in Beijing, are disclosed two shipments of some 200 units of Lithium Ion batteries, weighing a gross weight of 2453 kilos.

I am not saying this is The Explanation, but it’s definitely worth noting.

Posted by: Benu | Mar 12 2015 17:47 utc | 91

B@90
Where are you going with this, B? You do know that Clinton/Gore and Bush/Cheney all belong to the same Deep State clubs and people do not rise to these public positions without that connection.
The Mossad connection to 9/11 is the most tenuous, they are good at killing people but are very bad at covering their tracks, the last assassination with the wigs and stolen passports was a great example of their stealth and competence.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Mar 12 2015 18:33 utc | 93

Benu says:
I think it was Mossad directed but permitted, even midwifed by a fifth column within our govt aligned with the PNACers/neocons.
of course to have an opinion it’s enough to have vocal chords, but when that opinion is informed by a particularly knowledgeable mind things can get pretty interesting. of course opinions of this quality are rare and, in fact, on this subject this is the only one i’ve ever read. as such, it’s my favorite.

Posted by: john | Mar 12 2015 19:55 utc | 95

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31849794
Iraqi government forces are advancing into Tikrit on several fronts, forcing Islamic State (IS) militants to fall back to the city centre, officials say.
Soldiers and militiamen have reportedly retaken areas and key sites in the north, south and west, including a police headquarters and a hospital.
~~~
Meanwhile, the BBC has seen video evidence that chlorine gas is being used as a weapon in Tikrit by IS militants.
~~~
They are still held back from the centre by roadside bombs and booby-trapped cars, our correspondent says.
Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obedi told the BBC the battle for Tikrit would lead the Iraqi army directly to Mosul – the country’s second largest city.
~~~
On Wednesday, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, said he was certain the operation was going to succeed, despite the fact that US-led coalition air power was not being used.
But with Iranian-backed Shia militia leading the fight for Tikrit and the Iranian military helping to co-ordinate it, he voiced concerns about what would happen to the city’s Sunni population when the fighting was over.

Posted by: okie farmer | Mar 12 2015 21:44 utc | 97

@Copeland #96
Jet fuel fires can reach up to 1120 degrees C in enclosed spaces – which WTC1 & 2 definitely were.
A 757 carries 11400 gallons of jet fuel, fully loaded.
To say that there is no way 11400 gallons of jet fuel could raise temperatures to 400 or 800 degrees C is simply ludicrous.
11,400 gallons is more than is contained in the typical 12 foot by 24 foot swimming pool.
Molten metal – I’ve already fully addressed this. The gravitational energy released in the collapse is over 65000 tons of TNT – that’s plenty of energy to melt, to grind, to do whatever.

Posted by: ǝn⇂ɔ | Mar 13 2015 0:03 utc | 99