The lengthy statement, drawn up to refute Russian accusations, was issued by the US mission to NATO on Friday. The US argued that the controversial ‘target’ missiles were in compliance with the treaty, while Aegis Ashore was capable of launching solely ‘defensive’ missiles. While the US military admitted that its missile defense system was largely based on naval MK.41 vertical launchers –capable of firing cruise missiles– it claimed the land-based versions were totally different.

“The Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System does not have an offensive ground-launched ballistic or cruise missile capability. Specifically, the system lacks the software, fire control hardware, support equipment, and other infrastructure needed to launch offensive ballistic or cruise missiles such as the Tomahawk,” the statement reads.

It remains unclear, however, whether –and how fast– the supposedly lacking components can be added to modify Aegis-Ashore to be offensive.

The massive US fleet of attack drones currently in service also does not violate the treaty, the Pentagon claimed, arguing that unmanned aerial vehicles do not fit the definition of a cruise missile – because the latter is a “one-way”vehicle, while a drone is supposed to return back to base.

But what does the INF treaty itself say? “The term ‘cruise missile’ means an unmanned, self-propelled vehicle that sustains flight through the use of aerodynamic lift over most of its flight path. The term ‘ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM)’ means a ground-launched cruise missile that is a weapon-delivery vehicle,” the treaty reads.

The description appears to fit the modern strike drones quite well, and it does note state anything about the missile being a “one-way system.”

Early in February, Washington unilaterally withdrew from the 1987 INF deal, accusing Russia of building prohibited missiles, but said it might consider returning to the accord if Moscow eliminates the ‘violation’ within the next 180 days. Moscow, for its part, argued that it sticks to the deal, with the Russian military urging the Pentagon to destroy its attack drones, Aegis-Ashore systems and target-missiles, stating that the systems violate the agreement.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/451032-drones-inf-treaty-violations-us/

The president tweeted a clip of Ken Dilanian reporting that both Democratic and Republican senators agreed no direct evidence of the dread "Russian collusion" had turned up during the two-year investigation.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, Democrats and Republicans disagreed on what the absence of direct evidence of collusion meant. Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), chairman of the committee, was ready to put the theory to bed, telling CBS on Thursday that "based on the facts that we have, then we don't have anything that would suggest there was collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia."

On Tuesday, Burr confirmed his statement to NBC: "There is no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia."

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/451329-trump-msnbc-no-collusion-senate/

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Most of the Western media and Pravda are pointing to the tanking popularity of Putin in Russia. The Western media because they are "liberal"/fascist outlets — and Pravda because it's a communist voice (Putin isn't a communist). At this stage the figures are not quoted because let's face it, they would heap tons of shame on any Trump, Macron or Merkel into hiding, like in a game of hot-cockles...

Some outlets like Bloomberg even suggests that the success of the Soccer World Cup which was a real success, showed the Russians that the grass was green out there... with Skripal caveats...

"The World Cup wasn’t a high point of the year for Putin alone; many Russians suddenly discovered that their country could open up to the world and throw off the constant fug of petty oppression. Smiling, lenient cops, multicolored, festive crowds, round-the-clock parties and a national team that played better than expected, gave people reason to feel happy for a while.

But the comedown was inevitable — during the final game, Pyotr Verzilov, the producer of the politicised punk band Pussy Riot, and several young women rushed onto the field wearing police uniforms to draw attention to the other Russian reality: in September, Verzilov was poisoned after a court hearing. Doctors in Berlin, where he was flown for treatment, managed to save him.

The perpetrators were never caught, but the use of poison by Putin’s Russia was the subject of much discussion in 2018 after the unsuccessful attack on former spy Sergey Skripal in the UK That set off a series of uncomfortable revelations about the aggressive but awkward activities of Russian military intelligence, formerly known as the GRU."

As we know, there is a lot of AWKWARD disinformation AND ACTIVITIES coming from MI5, MI6 and the CIA regarding Russia (and the Skripals who apparently did not die from the most formidable poison on the planet), without mentioning ii (that awful lack-of "integrity" voice of Poms Dipped in Royal Crap) trying to unsettle the little Russian guy, whose popularity has tanked from 70 per cent to about 61 per cent.

It's also well-known in politics that as the poor (in any country) leave poverty and become bourgeois, they resent the successful system that lifted them out of poverty. They become "liberal" and selfish. It's a given...

It's also well-known of course that Putin's Russia has interfered in the US election of Trump, in the Brexit debacle, in the French "gilets jaunes" revolution, the bad weather and in the cat pooing in your garden. 

This is why Putin wants to aim weapons at your naughty decision centres.

Vladimir Putin has said that Russia will develop new weapons and aim them at western “centres of decision-making” if the west deploys new short and medium-range missiles in Europe.

The threat, which appears to describe Washington and other western capitals, came after the United States and then Russia suspended compliance with the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty.

In a speech to senior Russian officials in Moscow, Putin said the possible deployment of missiles that could reach Moscow in 10 minutes was “dangerous for Russia,” and that Moscow would be forced to review “symmetrical and asymmetrical actions”.

“Russia will be forced to create and deploy types of weapons, which can be used not just against those territories, from which the direct threat will come, but also against those, where the centres of decision-making for using these missile systems will come,” the Russian president said.

The treaty, concluded by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, banned the development and deployment of land-based missiles with a range of 500-5,500km and was widely credited with banishing nuclear missiles from Europe. The US, led by the national security adviser, John Bolton, suspended the treaty this month amid claims that Moscow had secretly developed a cruise missile that violated the agreement. Russia denies this.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/20/russia-may-be-forced-to-ai...

Of course, at this level we know who lies the most: the USA. The USA — professional deceivers since the 1770s... (having learned the craft of deceit from the Poms themselves). Still going strong on the porkies about Russia despite "Putin having created Trump" (or because of it)... Carry on laughing at this one. Mueller is about to release his "final report" on this creation, as soon as next week. Hold your breath. It's most likely to be filled with shit with perfumed inuendoes.

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In a cheeky Bobards d'Or ('Golden Hoax') ceremony in Paris, organized by the Polemia Foundation think tank, some of the most ridiculous fake news stories of the past years were awarded fitting trophies: golden statuettes modeled after the Oscars but made in the image of the character synonymous with being caught in a lie: Pinocchio.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/451857-france2-putin-tiger-fake-news/

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oskar...

From Binoy Kampmark

Only a sadomasochist would consider it a genuine prospect.  A failed presidential candidate, the louse in the locks of the Democratic Party, keen to make yet another vain tilt at the White House.

But in the rogues’ gallery of the defective and disturbed, Hillary Clinton can count herself as pre-eminent, a historical creature who should be preserved as a warning for the party faithful.  

But she refuses to lie (and lie) quietly, and has given ventriloquised clues via her husband that she might be readying for a return to competition.

The way Clinton disturbs the news bubble is through complaint heavy with spite.  She gazes at the mirror in self-loathing, and claims to spot the faults of others.  (The loathing is understandable to some degree: it was Clinton and her circle who decided, disastrously, to elevate Donald Trump as electable material ahead of rival Bernie Sanders.)  

The story she bores her audience with lacks variation: The 2016 loss to Trump could never be put down to her, veteran political figure, establishment doyen.  No, that would be inaccurate for a person with the credentials for office.

A person in such a state is bound to see any contender as dangerous.  Heap upon them; dismiss them as lacking that scoundrel factor of patriotism.  Hide behind some rich, over-egged notion of fact-checked veracity, while casting grave accusations of foreign control and veiled treason.

One of the Democratic fold has proven particularly troubling to Clinton (kudos to the candidate).  Tulsi Gabbard’s views on US foreign policy and the imperium’s insatiable appetite for interference and meddling is particularly worrying for the former Secretary of State.

Gabbard, in her electoral platform, insists on bringing “about a bold change in our foreign policy that bends the arc of history away from war and towards peace.  That stops wasting our resources, and our lives on regime change wars, and redirects our focus and energy towards peace and prosperity for all people.” 

The United States best be done with notions of “gunboat diplomacy” focusing, instead on “differences with communication, negotiations, and goodwill.”

Light-on-hill romanticism was bound to figure in the rhetoric, and Gabbard insists that the United States lead in ensuring “the survival of the human race”.

Power should only be used for “good”; the sleepwalking towards nuclear war stopped in what she hopes to be “the turning point of human history, that era in which the world’s greatest powers chose to abandon the path to confrontation and war and agreed to pursue the path of cooperation, diplomacy, and peace.”

There is much in Gabbard’s words to question, and these should linger with persistent tenacity. But the scorn from Clinton towards such views was evident, coming out in the Campaign HQ podcast last month that made the rippling rounds.

I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be a third-party candidate.  She’s a favourite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of support for her so far.”

While there was some doubt as to whether Clinton had intended Gabbard to be the subject of the barb, spokesman Nick Merrill’s remark on NBC news “if the nesting doll fits” suggested as much.  

(Merrill insisted, however, that the “grooming” reference was to Republicans, rather than Russians, but who, in this hyperventilating world of addled speculation can tell?)

To this resentment of slander, Gabbard was quick and sharp.  On Twitter, she thanked Clinton with acid gratitude.  

You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.”

A challenge was duly issued. 

“It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me.  Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.”

Another to receive the Clinton splash was Jill Stein, the Greens candidate for the White House in 2016.  The Clinton set have had issues with Stein since she attended a media conference in Russia in 2015. 

To merely be in Russia was to be a Putin supporter; to have “Red Square as her backdrop” in a video that was attacked was sufficient to disqualify her from office.

Penning her defence in The Guardian, Stein saw dark clouds over US politics. 

The efforts by Clinton and her campaigners “to shift responsibility for their electoral failure to ‘Russian assets’ has fuelled a new era of McCarthyism – a toxic brew of warmongering, political repression and censorship now poisoning our public discourse.”  

In response to the Clinton wounded vanity machine, Stein issued a challenge similar to Gabbard’s.  “It’s past time to give the American people the real debate they deserved in 2016, but were denied by the phony DNC/RNC-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates.”

As before, the Clinton ability to stir and invigorate Trump has no parallel. 

They provide the president with a bounty of low lying fruit. In a cabinet meeting in October, Trump openly asserted that Gabbard was “not a Russian agent.”

He considered the entire Clinton show to be “sick. There’s something wrong with them.” The common denominator remains, as ever, Russia.

Such adamant stirring leads to the question that refuses to leave the Democrats: will Hillary accept the challenge and run? 

Husband Bill is making sure his wife’s name blots the electoral news though, as ever, he can never avoid making an observation without referencing himself. “She may or may not run for anything, but I can’t legally run for president again.” 

The remark came during the course of an event at Georgetown University School of Law, one shared with Hillary and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Philippe Reines, an advisor who has earned his bread from advising Clinton over the years, has also added kindling to the prospects. 

In a discussion with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Reines speculated that:

there might be a reason that she’d be the best person, not only to beat Donald Trump, but to govern after Donald Trump, which is a part we don’t talk about much. And, look, you can make fun of her all you want, but 65 million people voted for her and that’s second more to anyone except Barack Obama.”

This is not an issue of making fun, let alone making light of matters. If there is one candidate who can issue an iron-clad guarantee for a Trump victory, it is the same person who did so in 2016.  

Should the Democrats entertain the notion seriously, their inability to win the White House will be assured and long-lasting.

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/11/06/the-hillary-clinton-resentment-machine/

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