Russia Begins Operations in Syria: End Game for the US Empire?

Kurdistan - US coalition passenger plane makes crash landing in open field near Erbil (Video)
http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/050320163

Sat. March 5, 2016 - ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—A US passenger plane made a crashing landing near Erbil Saturday morning which according to local officials was due to technical failure.

The plane N6351V registered by the US government under the army landed in an open field near the town of Kawrgosk 37 km west of the capital Erbil and 10 Km from the international airport.

Rudaw correspondent near the site said that US army helicopters evacuated four passengers who were aboard the plane.

Around 30 US soldiers arrived and sealed off the area.

An eye witness who saw the crash landing told Rudaw, “The plane was flying very low and its propellers were not working. When it landed American soldiers came soon afterwards and searched the area. They took away the passengers,”



Owner of US plane crash site requests compensation
http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/060320161

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The owner of the farmland that a US plane crash landed into on Saturday, as a result of a technical failure, has requested compensation.

“Thanks God there were no casualties and everyone is safe ... but unfortunately it destroyed part of my farming land and I would appreciate it if the Americans would compensate me,” the landowner, Talal Abdulqadir, told Rudaw.

“I admire the role of American forces and coalition states in supporting Peshmerga and protecting Kurdistan Region,” he added.

The US military passenger plane made a crashing landing near Erbil Saturday morning as a result of, according to local officials, a technical failure.

The plane is registered as N6351V by the US government landed in an open field near the town of Kawrgosk 37km west of the capital Erbil and 10km from the international airport.

A Rudaw correspondent near the site said that US army helicopters evacuated four passengers who were aboard the plane.

Approximately 30 US soldiers also arrived and sealed off the area.



Biden on five-day visit to Middle East to discuss security issues
http://rudaw.net/english/world/050320161

The United States Vice President Joe Biden is on a five-day trip to the Middle East to meet with regional leaders to discuss economic, energy and security related matters.

Biden will be visiting Israel, the Palestinian West Bank, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. He is to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Jordanian King Abdullah.

According to AP even though he is meeting key Israeli and Palestinian leaders he will not make any proposals about solving the conflict between the two. The White House says that this is because they do not believe either side is willing to make the compromises necessary to restart the failed peace talks.

Instead, according to a senior White House official cited by Reuters, Mr. Biden will discuss policy and strategy with those states for dealing with pressing issues in the region, namely the Syrian conflict and the eternal threat posed by Islamic State.
 
Week 21 of Russia's Syria Campaign: The Calm Before the Storm

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/week-21-russias-syria-campaign-calm-storm/ri13208

A better way of thinking about 'cessation of hostilities' is a focusing of combat against jihadis who do not accept it. Meanwhile the threat of Saudi-Turkish escalation looms

Originally appeared at The Unz Review:

_http://www.unz.com/tsaker/week-twenty-one-of-the-russian-military-intervention-in-syria-the-calm-before-the-storm/

The ceasefire in Syria (which is not really a ceasefire, but rather a “focusing of combat operations”) is holding surprisingly well. This is primarily due to the brilliant tactic of forcing each fighting group in Syria to define itself either as a “good moderate”, and be guaranteed safety, or as as en “evil terrorist” and become an indisputably legitimate target which anybody can engage.

De jure, the only ones who can legally engage anybody in Syria are only the Russians and the Syrians, everybody else, including the US-led coalition, is present there in total illegality, but de facto the latest agreement also acknowledges the right of all parties to engage the “evil terrorists”. By forcing each group to self-define itself the Russians have completely taken away any credibility from the rather ludicrous accusation that they were bombing the “good terrorists”, the latter category having basically disappeared from the conflict.

And to be really honest and blunt about it, the US has been forced to accept the Russian definition of a terrorist as “anybody who fights against the Syrian government”. Oh, I know, they never agreed to such a wording, but since those who until now fought were categorized into “good” and “bad” opposition to the Syrian government and since now the “good opposition” accepts the truce/ceasefire, that means that all those who fight against the government are ipso facto “bad”. Thus anybody taking up arms against the Syrian government is “bad” and a legitimate target for total elimination. QED.

The worst part for the Americans must have been that they waltzed into this conceptual trap with their eyes absolutely open, but that they could do nothing about it. They knew that their only chance to avoid a humiliating military defeat on the ground was to transmogrify it into a “ceasefire” followed by some kind of vague “transition”. So yeah, they hate this outcome, but the other one was even worse.

Besides, some officials no doubt realized that the American policy in Syria was totally insane, bordering on a kind of dissociative identity disorder in which various agencies were not aware of what the others were doing and, in some cases, were even literally fighting each other on the ground. To persist on such an absolutely crazy course was bringing the risk of a major war with Russia, something neither the Europeans nor a big part of the (non-Neocon) US deep state really wanted.

So while we can legitimately pour scorn on the imbecility of the Obama Administration’s policy in Syria, let us always also remember that it could have been worse (just imagine Hillary in the White House!). By stepping back from the brink the USA did the right thing.

But it’s not like we should choke up on gratitude either. First, the USA created his mess to begin with and, second, it’s not like right now they have fully recovered their sanity either. Not only is the US seething at its humiliation by Russia but now some die-hard Neocons want to try Assad, Russia, Iran for ‘war crimes’ in Syria!

That nonsense is the direct result of an uniquely American mix of delusion and impotent rage about Russia and, really, the entire world. Something like a child breaking a toy he was told he could not have. While I would never discount the possibility of the USA doing something really reckless, the main danger today, as before, comes not from the USA but from the toxic and explosive Turkey+Saudi combo.

Ankara and Riyadh are giving all the signs of being up to no good. Not only does their rethoric remain bellicose, they are also playing all sorts of very dangerous military games: in a display of total irresponsibility and recklessness Saudi Arabia has reportedly engaged 150,000 troops in what the Saudis describe as “the 2nd largest military gathering since Desert Storm”. Other sources (here and here) speak of 350,000 troops (20 countries are now officially participating in these exercises).

The Saudis have also moved 4 F-15S to the Incirlik air base in Turkey. This is not much, but this could be just a “tripwire force” which, if attacked, could justify the engagement of a much larger and reasonably modern Saudi Air Force (roughly 300 combat aircraft, 5 AWACS and 5 aerial refueling aircraft).

Add in the Turkish Air Force (roughly 250 combat aircraft, 4 AWACS and 7 aerial refueling aircraft) and you will see that the threat to the tiny Russian Aerospace task force (50 combat aircraft) is very real, even if the Russian pilots and their aircraft are quite superior to anything the Turks or Saudis have. The Iranians also feel threatenedand are warning against an invasion of Syria.

So how big is this Saudi-Turkish threat really?

It really depends on your assumptions.

If you assume that the Turks and the Saudis are rational actors, then the threat is not that big. For one thing, even if this “Wahabi coalition” brings in a lot of airpower, their ground forces, while large, are far away from the conflict zone and do not have what it takes to take on the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah forces on the ground. And since airpower alone cannot win a war, the only ground force the Turks and Saudis could count on would be Daesh. Not a good option at all, not militarily not politically.

However, if you assume that the Turks and the Saudis have “lost it” and are leashing out in frustration over their failure to overthrow Assad and take control over Syria, then they most definitely can bring about a direct conflict which Russia: since the tiny Russian force in Syria cannot protect itself against such a large adversary, Russia would have no other option than to bring her long range strike capabilities (Aerospace Forces, cruise and ballistic missiles) into the fight.

Even more relevantly, Russia would have to strike at the Turks and the Saudis who would be operating from air bases shared with the US (CENTCOM) and NATO in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Also, in case of such a brazen Saudi-Turkish attack on Russian Forces I would fully expect Russian MiG-31s (possibly operating from Iran) to engage enemy aircraft.

At the end of the day, neither Iran nor Russia will allow the Wahabis to overrun Syria and thus the Turks and Saudis need to ask themselves if they really want a war against Russia, Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, especially a war in which both Russia and Iran can, and probably will, strike at their domestically deployed military forces and their support infrastructure?

A more likely scenario is that the US, Turkey and the Saudis are trying to find some way to rescue Daesh and to carve up some “Syrian Wahabistan” which could be used to keep Syria weak and bleeding for the foreseeable future. This is clearly the options the Israelis also favor: to break up Syria into a de facto Syrian Kurdistan in the north, a Wahabistan in the east and a secular Syrian republic along the Mediterranean coast. The fact that all this is in total contradiction with the decisions of the UN Security Council apparently does not bother those who are now contemplating such options.

It appears that we are in the proverbial “calm before the storm” and that the war in Syria will soon re-ignite with a possibility even bigger intensity than so far.
 
Syria: Phantom “Rebels” Return from the Dead

http://journal-neo.org/2016/03/07/syria-phantom-rebels-return-from-the-dead/

The French colonial green, white, and black banner of Syria adapted by the West’s proxy “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) had long been forgotten in the sea of black banners held aloft by Washington and Riyadh’s more extreme ploy to gain leverage upon and more direct access to the battlefield.

However, as Syrian forces backed by its regional allies and Russian airpower overwhelm these forces while building alliances with other factions, including the Kurds, the West’s entire regime change enterprise faces ignominious collapse.

It appears that – having exhausted all other options – the West has decided to change as many of those black banners back to the “rebel” green, white, and black as possible, before the conflict draws to a close, giving the West the most favorable position achievable ahead of “peace talks.”


The West’s Shape-Shifting Proxies

For years, just looking at maps – including those produced by Washington-based think tanks themselves – revealed the true nature of Syria’s ongoing conflict. Forces could be seen flowing into the country as one would expect amid an invasion, not a “civil war.” While the West’s military campaigns over and upon Syrian soil claimed to be taking on the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS), it was clear that nothing was being done about cutting off the obvious supply corridors sustaining ISIS’ fighting capacity.

In other words, the US and its “coalition’s” war on ISIS was feigned. No genuine military campaign would ever be fought on the front lines while neglecting the enemy’s logistical lifelines – especially when those lifelines led from NATO territory.

It wasn’t until Russia’s intervention on behalf of the Syrian government, that these corridors were targeted and disrupted – thus fully exposing the gambit for all the world to see.

Not surprisingly, as soon as this began, it had an immediate effect on the West’s proxy forces across the country. Since then, Russian-backed Syrian forces have incrementally begun sealing off Syria’s borders, isolating stranded terrorist factions within the interior of the country, and retaking territory as these forces atrophy and dissipate.

For years it has been asked why the West has done nothing about cutting these obvious supply corridors leading into Syria and sustaining terrorist factions like ISIS, Al Nusra, and their allies – groups which now clearly constitute the vast majority of militants fighting the Syrian government – even by the US government’s own admission.
As the global public becomes increasingly aware of this glaring point of logic, it appears that the West is now attempting to cynically leverage it, while simultaneously rescuing thousands of trapped terrorist mercenaries facing encirclement and eradication in the closing phases of the Syrian conflict.

Just last week, the “New Syrian Army,” a monkier for the discredited FSA, suddenly appeared on the Iraqi-Syrian border, “cutting off” ISIS supply lines leading back and forth between the two countries.

Reuters in their article, “Syrian rebels seize Iraq border crossing from Islamic State: monitor,” would claim:

Syrian rebel fighters seized a border crossing with Iraq from Islamic State on Friday, Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Islamic State had controlled the al-Tanf border crossing, which is also near the Syrian-Jordanian border, since May last year after seizing it from Syrian government forces. It had been the last border crossing with Iraq that was under the control of the Syrian government.

The only “source” is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is in fact a single man living in England who regularly coordinates with the British Foreign Ministry.

One could ask why such border interdiction operations haven’t been done before, and in fact, why these “rebels” who are admittedly harbored, trained, funded, and armed in Jordan and Turkey to begin with, didn’t first begin by securing Syria’s borders to prevent ISIS from entering the country in precisely the same areas “rebels” are supposedly operating?

The answer is simple. The West had no intention of stopping ISIS. In fact, ISIS is the “rebels” and the “rebels” are ISIS. Their “taking” of the Syrian-Iraqi border is superficial at best. The weapons, cash, and fighters will still flow, just as they do past NATO forces along the Turkish-Syrian border. The only difference is that now these terrorists will be flying the “FSA” flag, lending them protection amid a ceasefire agreed to in good faith by the Syrian government and its allies.

Rebels are Not Prevailing – ISIS is Just Flying a New Flag

The ceasefire has, at least temporarily, bought time for terrorists groups Syria and Russia have – perhaps mistakenly – recognized as militant groups to be negotiated with. Taking full advantage of this, the “FSA” is now suddenly appearing as if rising from the dead, everywhere ISIS and Al Qaeda have dominated for years.

The New York Times published its own desperate bid to convince the global public that once again “pro-democracy protesters” were climbing out of the rubble in Idlib and Aleppo – two cities admittedly overrun by Al Qaeda and ISIS long ago – and flying the “FSA” flag.

The article titled, “Syrian Protesters Take to Streets as Airstrikes Ease,” claims that:

Street protests erupted across insurgent-held areas of Syria on Friday, as demonstrators took advantage of the relative lull in airstrikes during a partial truce, coming out in the largest numbers in years to declare that even after five punishing years of war they still wanted political change.

Under the slogan “The Revolution Continues,” demonstrators waved the green, white and black pre-Baathist flag adopted during the early, largely peaceful stages of the revolt, before the proliferation of armed Islamist factions with black jihadist banners.

Five years on from the so-called “Arab Spring,” the fully engineered nature of the original protests in 2011 have been so thoroughly exposed and understood by the public, that few if anyone believes these protests now are anything but a desperately staged public-relations campaign to prove that there are people elsewhere besides Washington, Langley, London, and Brussels, that still seeks regime change in Syria.

The West’s terrorist proxies are changing from a war-footing – having lost the war – to a last-ditch posture of claiming legitimate opposition in hopes of salvaging what’s left of the political networks and terrorist fronts that collaborated with the West in this highly destructive conspiracy.

“Uprising” in Al Raqqa

Finally, in the very heart of the West’s proxy terrorist forces, Al Raqqa – the defacto capital of ISIS – there are suddenly reports of “uprisings” by the local population. This happens conveniently as the Syrian Arab Army approaches from the west and Kurds descend upon the city from the northeast.

Leading up to this “uprising” was a story in the London Telegraph titled, “Islamic State ‘hit by cash crisis in its capital Raqqa‘,” which claims:

Faced with a cash shortage in its self-declared caliphate, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has slashed salaries, asked Raqqa residents to pay utility bills in black market American dollars, and is now releasing detainees for a price of $500 a person.

While the Telegraph credits “coalition airstrikes” for this turn of fortune, it is quite obvious that Syrian and Russian airstrikes along the Turkish border destroying entire convoys bound for ISIS territory has led to a reduction in ISIS’ fighting capacity as well as its ability to administer seized territory.

With a terrorist force the West has spent 5 years and untold billions creating facing complete encirclement and eradication, what options are left? An “uprising” where suddenly the entire city is flying “FSA” flags, thus negating the need for Syrian or Kurdish forces to move in and retake the city?

That appears to be the narrative the West is already preparing – in Raqqa and elsewhere across Syria – as a component amid the so-called “ceasefire” and “peace talks.”

The BBC had dressed up a terrorist commander in FSA regalia for an interview – but included footage of the commander in the field operating under clearly terrorist banners. It was but an individual example of what it appears the West is doing now on a much larger scale – playing dress-up to save its immense but now stranded terrorist hordes.

During early victories against the West’s proxy forces, Al Qaeda and ISIS militants would dress as women to flee the battlefield. Now, they are dressing up as the otherwise nonexistent “FSA.”

Will the West expect Syria and its allies to negotiate with this phantom army operating under a fictional banner? For Syria and its allies, what the West is doing is a clear violation of the spirit of the ceasefire and of upcoming peace talks. It is also a reaffirmation of the West’s disingenuous commitment to fighting terrorism – clearly using it as a tool to fight its battles for it, to serve as a pretext for intervening when terrorism alone cannot achieve an objective, and then, when all else fails, covering up entire legions of terrorists so that they can live to fight another day.
 
South Korea, U.S. begin exercises as North Korea threatens attack
http://news.yahoo.com/south-korea-u-begin-exercises-north-korea-threatens-025720808.html

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean and U.S. troops began large-scale military exercises on Monday in an annual test of their defenses against North Korea, which called the drills "nuclear war moves" and threatened to respond with an all-out offensive.

South Korea said the exercises would be the largest ever following North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch last month that triggered a U.N. Security Council resolution and tough new sanctions.

Isolated North Korea has rejected criticism of is nuclear and rocket programs, even from old ally China, and last week leader Kim Jong Un ordered his country to be ready to use nuclear weapons in the face of what he sees as growing threats from enemies.

The joint U.S. and South Korean military command said it had notified North Korea of "the non-provocative nature of this training" involving about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans.

South Korea's Defence Ministry said it had seen no sign of any unusual military activity by the North.

North Korea's National Defence Commission said the North Korean army and people would "realize the greatest desire of the Korean nation through a sacred war of justice for reunification", in response to any attack by U.S. and South Korean forces.

"The army and people of the DPRK will launch an all-out offensive to decisively counter the U.S. and its followers' hysterical nuclear war moves," the North Korean commission said in a statement carried by the North's KCNA news agency.

The North, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), as it is officially known, routinely issues threats of military action in response to the annual exercises that it sees as preparation for war against it.

The threat on Monday was in line with the usual rhetoric it uses to denounce the drills.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei noted that North Korea had already said it opposed the drills, adding that Beijing was "deeply concerned" about the exercises.

"China is linked to the Korean Peninsula. In terms of the peninsula's security, China is deeply concerned and firmly opposed to any trouble-making behavior on the peninsula's doorstep. We urge all sides to keep calm, exercise restraint and not escalate tensions," he told a daily news briefing.
 
Syria: ISIL Opens Fire at Own Members Fleeing Battlefield in Deir Ezzur
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941217000287

The ISIL field commanders and loyalists opened fire at a group of comrades fleeing the battlefield in the Eastern province of Deir Ezzur.

A 80-member group of ISIL terrorists, tired of continued failures of the group in battles with the Syrian government forces, tried to flee the battlefield and save their lives, but they were tracked and targeted by the loyal members of the terrorist group. The incident ended in the killing or wounding of several fleeing militants.

On Sunday, the Syrian Army troops' anti-terrorism offensives across the Eastern province of Deir Ezzur inflicted large casualties on the terrorists.

The ISIL positions near the Agriculture College in the village of al-Mura'yeh came under the attack of the Syrian soldiers, which ended in the destruction of their mortar launchers.

In the meantime, the ISIL military hardware sustained major damage in the Syrian army's offensive in al-Tharda mountain in the Eastern part of Deir Ezzur.

A convoy of the ISIL vehicles also was targeted by the Syrian army near Jazeerah University in al-Baqaliyeh in the Western countryside of Deir Ezzur.

Al-Sina'ah neighborhood was also the scene of heavy fighting between the army soldiers and the ISIL terrorists, that ended in the killing on several militants.



Syrian Aircraft Drop Leaflets over Militants in Dara'a to Lay down Arms
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941217000541

The Syrian air force dropped leaflets over the militant centers across the Southern city of Dara'a and its countryside, giving the Takfiri terrorists yet another chance to lay down their arms and surrender to the army.

Last week, Dara'a governor said that those who voluntarily ceased fighting and laid down arms will now be able to return to normal life and be protected by the state.

Over 1,200 opposition members in Syria's Southern Dara'a province signed a ceasefire agreement with the Syrian authorities.

"We think that in the coming days, new agreements will be signed within the scope of national reconciliation," Dara'a Governor Mohammad Khaled Hannous said.

Those who voluntarily ceased fighting and laid down arms will now be able to return to normal life and be protected by the state, he added.



Russia sending aid for residents of Damascus province
http://rbth.com/news/2016/03/06/russia-sending-aid-for-residents-of-damascus-province_573571

In response to a request to provide aid for residents of the districts affected in the Syrian province Damascus the formation of a next humanitarian convoy is in progress, the Russian Center for reconciliation between the warring parties in Syria said in a statement, which was posted on the Russian Defense Ministry's website on March 6.

"The Russian Reconciliation Center has received requests for providing humanitarian aid from the chiefs of the administrations and the elders of six localities mostly damaged in the hostilities in the Damascus province. The formation of a next humanitarian convoy has begun," the statement reads.

"The issues of making provision of humanitarian aid more effective to residents of the localities, where the hostilities were stopped, were discussed at the working meetings between the Center's leadership and representatives of the Syrian national reconciliation, interior and municipal management ministries," it said.



Russian JCCC official General Muratov comes under fire near Yasinovayaya
http://rbth.com/news/2016/03/06/russian-jccc-official-general-muratov-comes-under-fire-near-yasinovayaya_573547

Representatives of the OSCE monitoring mission and Russia in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) of issues relating to ceasefire and stabilization on the division line in Donbas have come under fire.

"An attack using rocket-propelled grenades, surface-to-air missile systems and large-caliber guns took place near Yasinovayaya at 7:15 p.m. yesterday. Representatives of Russia in the JCCC, including Major-General Muratov, came under fire during it. The attack lasted 15-20 minutes," Eduard Basurin, a senior official at the DPR Defense Ministry, told a briefing on March 6.

Basurin said that "Major-General Taran, a representative of Ukraine in the JCCC, knew about the location of the Russian representatives in the JCCC."

He said representatives of the OSCE mission also came under fire.

"An OSCE mission came under fire in the area of the filtering station. A mine exploded at a distance of 100 meters from the observers. After that, they left the place," Basurin said.

The Ukrainian military opened fire on the territory of the self-proclaimed republic a total of over seventy times in the past 24 hours, sometimes using mortars, a DPR Defense Ministry official said.

The JCCC later confirmed the attack near Yasinovayata, in which a representative f Russia in the JCC came under fire.

"We confirm the fact of the attack, in which Major-General Muratov came under fire yesterday, a JCCC official told reporters, without
giving the details of the incident.



Syria: Putin Acts, Obama Goes to Ground
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/syria-putin-acts-obama-disappears/ri13202

A short time ago I drew a contrast between Putin’s energetic diplomatic moves in the Syrian crisis and Obama’s passivity.

We had another example last week.

On Friday 4th March 2016 Putin had a telephone conference with the leaders of the European powers: Merkel of Germany, Hollande of France, Cameron of Britain and Renzi of Italy.

The subject of the telephone conference was Syria and the Syrian truce deal.

This is the same group of leaders Obama spoke to in a video conference on 23rd February 2016.

That means that Putin has now spoken to both the Arab leaders on 24th February 2016 and to the European leaders on 4th March 2016.

Moreover he has spoken to one European leader who was not included in Obama’s video conference.

This is Renzi of Italy, who has been getting increasingly critical of the way in which he feels he is being cut out of the big decisions by Merkel.

The initiative to include Renzi in the telephone conference apparently came from the Europeans. The fact however remains that Putin included him in the discussions whilst Obama did not.

Obama has not completely vanished from the scene. For example he recently met in the White House with the King of Jordan. However it is impossible to avoid the impression that he is becoming increasingly disengaged - limiting his contacts with foreign leaders and failing to meet his top military and security advisers.

This contrasts with Putin who looks fully on top of the situation and confidently in control, speaking to all the key foreign leaders - with the important exception of President Erdogan of Turkey - and meeting regularly with his Security Council.

The fact that the European leaders after talking to Obama still felt they had to speak to Putin in itself shows who holds the initiative in this conflict.
 
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is another news site that tends to distort facts and data, as can be seen in this article.

Western Media Ignoring Reality on the Ground in Syria
http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/03/western-media-ignoring-reality-on-the-ground-in-syria/

March 5th, 2016 - This month, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation interviewed Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, Political and Media Advisor to Syria’s President. The methods used to undermine Shaaban’s message should come as no surprise.

The interview was typical of the infrequent times corporate media has bothered to interview Dr. Shaaban: loaded lexicon, pre-priming the audience with false allegations about the Syrian government, repeatedly cutting-off the high-ranking guest, and a notably rude and condescending demeanor not afforded to guests who tow the NATO narrative on Syria.

Interview: Dr Bouthaina Shaaban, Syrian President Bashar al Assad's top adviser
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4405058.htm

As with other top Syrian representatives, Shaaban is made out to be “non-credible” by corporate media pundits when they deign to interview her. They actively work to discredit Syrian officials while at the same time putting forth claims that Wahhabi terrorists are “rebels” and “Syrian representatives” and those warring on Syria are “concerned” about widespread suffering in the country.

Sanctions: It is the Syrian People Who Are Suffering

Dr. Shaaban emphasized the Syrian realities at a meeting in her office in December.

A crucially-important issue that media pundits ignore is that of the crippling sanctions on Syria. In terms of how to provide actual relief to the Syrian people, Dr. Shaaban stated:

The first thing the West should do in this battle against terrorism is to lift the sanctions from the Syrian people. The sanctions are helping terrorists against the Syrian people, who are suffering doubly from the terrorists and from Western measures against the Syrian people.

Stephen Gowans recently wrote about the US government’s long-time plans to topple the Syrian government, sanctions being one part of the plot.

Documents prepared by US Congress researchers as early as 2005 revealed that the US government was actively weighing regime change in Syria. …As an alternative to direct military intervention to topple the Syrian government, the United States chose to pressure Damascus through sanctions and support for the internal Syrian opposition.

The advocacy website, End the Sanctions on Syria, notes:

Similar sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s were shown to have caused the deaths of more than half a million Iraqi children.

The site went on to report that (as of May 2014):

701 of 1,921 Syrian health centres have been ‘completely gutted’ by the terrorist attacks. Yet rehabilitation of these centres is retarded by the US-EU sanctions, which have already left ‘a deep mark on the healthcare system’… including by blocking access to medicines, medical equipment, transport and communications.

A May 27, 2015 article in The Lancet reports:

The cost of basic food items has risen six-fold since 2010, although it varies regionally. With the exception of drugs for cancer and diabetes, Syria was 95 percent self-sufficient in terms of drug production before the war. This has virtually collapsed as have many hospitals and primary health-care centres.

Economic sanctions have not removed the President: …only civilians are in the line of fire, attested to by the dire state of household and macro-economies. Sanctions are among the biggest causes of suffering for the people of Syria.

Western Contradictions

From 2011 to May 2014, Russia (as well as China) has used its veto four times against unjust UN Security Council draft Resolutions against Syria. In September 2015, upon request of the Syrian government, Russian fighter planes entered Syrian airspace, from the start doing what the US-led coalition had purported it would do: targeting terrorist hotbeds in Syria.

Although continually vilified in Western media, Russia’s requested and welcomed intervention in Syria complements their consistent anti-Western-intervention stance.

In contrast, in the year-and-a-half that the US-led coalition has been illegally violating Syrian skies, they’ve done little to stop terrorists’ movements and have repeatedly “accidentally” dropped supplies to terrorist factions, while terrorists transit through hundreds of miles of open desert, thereby prolonging the otherwise-real fight against terrorism being waged by the Syrian army and allies.

On Western diplomacy, Dr. Shaaban remarked:

The contradictory statements coming from the West are puzzling, to say the least. Even when he (US Secretary of State John Kerry) said we are not seeking regime change, the US ambassador at the UN (Samantha Powers) said President Assad had to go. Then, Kerry gave a statement in the Security Council that he agreed with Russia that it is up to the Syrian people to decide their destiny and their government. Then President Obama comes and says, no, President Assad has to go.

Indeed, aside from being immoral and criminal, the various statements and actions of Western leaders are borderline-schizophrenic.


Obama has flip-flopped on his “Assad must go” position, his latest declaration alleging peace will not come “until Assad is out of power”.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Vice President Joe Biden have both flexed military muscles, saying America is ready to take “direct action on the ground” in Syria and ready for a “military solution” in Syria.

In contrast, on February 9, 2016, State Department Spokesperson, John Kirby, pledged:

There’s not going to be a military solution to this conflict. … It has to be solved politically. And more importantly, it has to be solved by Syrians.

Kerry, in his most absurd Kerry-ism yet, is reiterating the “must go” line and waffling on about a “Plan B” and a “partition” of Syria.

On the inconsistency of American leaders’ positions on Syria, Dr. Shaaban told me:

Here is the difference between them and Russia. If you take the statements of Putin or Lavrov from the beginning of the crisis until now, you find them consistent, in line with each other. You find them coming from a stand against terrorism, that countries have sovereignties, and that it is the people of these countries who should decide the future of the country, with no foreign intervention. All of their stands are in line with international legitimacy and with UN resolutions.

That’s why the stand of the Russians, for us, is a noble stand. As Putin said, they are defending the national security of Russia and Syria, which is true.

Turkey: Warring on Syria

Dr. Saaban went on to add:

There’s no dialogue between us and Turkey, none at all. Turkey continues to support terrorism in Syria. If you imagine a Syria without an 800 km border with Turkey, these terrorists could not have come to Syria. Turkey is an accomplice in this war on Syria.

In Iraq, Turkey withdrew, because President Obama called Erdogan to withdraw from Iraq. This also shows that when the United States wants them to stop, they stop.

A recent article on Consortium News emphasized precisely this point:

The U.S. traditionally has held tremendous power over client states like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. So, an order from Washington is usually enough to get such governments to back down.

Referencing Turkey’s recent shelling of Azaz in Aleppo, it noted:

Turkey’s attacks also are aimed at preventing the Syrian government from sealing the Turkish border where the Islamic State and other jihadist groups have smuggled across fighters, weapons and other supplies into Syria – as well as oil from Syria into Turkey.

According to Dr. Shaaban:

Western countries keep silent about Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, because these are the three countries which are financing, arming and facilitating terrorism into our country.

‘Our people are the victims of this terrorism’

On December 13, the day I arrived in Syria, terrorists rained more mortars than usual on Damascus. I asked Dr. Shaaban the pointedly rhetorical question of whether Western leaders condemned this or other terrorist acts in Syria.

Nobody speaks about mortars hitting our cities, our civilians. These missiles are hitting our schools, our hospitals, and people on the street. They are not targeting the army.

Many countries have the technology which could detect these mortars and save the lives of civilians. But with the sanctions being imposed on Syria, nobody will give us this technology.

She cited the December 17, 2015 passing of UNSC Resolution #2253, on halting the financing and support of terrorism, emphasizing, “There are so many resolutions before that: 2170, 2178, 2199.”

The latest, a 28-page resolution, “covers asset freeze, travel ban, arms embargo and listing criteria for ISIL, Al-Qaida and associated individuals, groups, undertaking and entities,” the UN’s press release noted. However, given that the US itself continues to arm terrorists, it is likely this last resolution will not have the desired effect of truly stopping terrorism in Syria.

Our people are the victims of this terrorism. Syria is a secular country, so many ethnicities and religions have lived peacefully together for thousands of years. Syria is an example of tolerance, of love,” Dr. Shaaban observed, before imploring Western people “to understand that in Syria, mothers, children, fathers, grandchildren… people, like any people in the world, would like to live in peace and security and are suffering from terrorism.

Syria refuses to surrender

Just before leaving Syria last December, I was invited to the Joy Choir’s Christmas concert. The day prior, President al-Assad and First Lady Asma al-Assad visited the practising choir. Photos and videos of the event evidence the choir’s delight at the drop-in. The following evening, the church was so packed that lines of hopeful attendees spilled onto the sidewalk. I mentioned this to Dr. Shaaban.

I saw the photos. This is something that you cannot fabricate. You can see from their faces how happy they were,” Shaaban replied.

I’m very proud of our people. Because President Assad went there the night before, you could expect that some people would be afraid to go, because it might be targeted by the terrorists. Yet the church was crowded. The people were determined to be there, whether it got targeted or not.

The Notre Dame de Damas Church is indeed in close proximity to the terrorist-occupied area of Jobar, which regularly fire mortars, hell-cannons, and rockets on Damascus.

“This is the merit of the Syrian people. They do not fear death. The world wants to destroy us, and the Syrian people are saying ‘no’ in every kind of way. When there is a terrorist missile, for example on Bab Touma, immediately after, people are out on the streets. We refuse to die. We refuse to surrender,” Shaaban emphasized.

Indeed, on my December visit to various parts of Homs, including the Old City, there was evidence of the pulse of life: new shops and stalls opened; homes and restaurants rehabilitated.

A more recent example of this resilience involves the terror-bombed and ravaged neighborhood of al-Zahra’a in Homs, which I also visited in December. Tragically, it has been hit by terrorists’ car and suicide bombings three more times since the December 12th triple-blast bombings. After one of the more recent terror attacks, Dr. Shaaban noted on her Facebook page (translated from Arabic):

My brothers live in this neighborhood and when I called them they told me that the streets have been cleaned and shops opened and people continued their work. This is the secret to victory in Syria.
 
US Supplies ISIS Through Turkey

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/03/07/us-supplies-isis-through-turkey.html

A Turkish newspaper, whose editor has been imprisoned for publishing prohibited truth (that the Turkish government supplies ISIS) has somehow not stopped; his newspaper continues reporting on a court case in which Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdoğan is accused of breaking Turkish law by aiding terrorists.

On 1 March 2016, the newspaper, Cumhuriyet, headlined, «Former Justice Minister of Turkey: Erdoğan Will Stand Trial», and reported that, «Former Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk, said that Erdoğan's actions ‘do not comply with the decision of the Constitutional Court.’ He criticized [Erdoğan] by saying … ‘One day this matter must be settled by the judiciary’».

Russian television had first reported on the case, in English, back on 26 November 2015, headlining, «Turkish newspaper editor in court for ‘espionage’ after revealing weapon convoy to Syrian militants».

The Erdoğan government alleged the weapons were «aid to Syrian ethnic Turkmen tribespeople and labeled their interception by local police an act of ‘treason' and ‘espionage’».

Turkey is a NATO member, and the famous investigative reporter Seymour Hersh had revealed in the 6 April 2014 London Review of Books, that on 20 June 2013 – just a few months prior to the sarin gas attack that Obama blamed on Assad and used as his excuse to invade Syria – the US Defense Intelligence Agency reported that America’s allies in overthrowing Bashar al-Assad were engaged in «the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s pre-9/11 effort», but the US Director of National Intelligence denied that it was true. One US ally there was al-Qaeda in Syria, known in Syria as al-Nusra, (Nusra and Erdoğan wanted this gas-attack to provide the excuse that Obama had set as his «red line» to overthrow Assad – a chemical-weapons attack in Syria.) However, Hersh reported, «Last May, more than ten members of the al-Nusra Front were arrested in southern Turkey with what local police told the press were two kilograms of sarin». All of that had occurred prior to the 21 August 2013 sarin gas attack.

Hersh subsequently reported that, rather than go ahead with an operation that the Joint Chiefs considered fraudulent, they sabotaged Obama’s policy. On 2 January 2016, Hersh headlined in the London Review of Books, «Military to Military», and he explained how and why they had done this.

Obama couldn’t be swayed that the enemy were al-Qaeda and other jihadists instead of Assad – that overthrowing him was his top priority. However, Hersh said in his 6 April 2014 article, that Obama had to backtrack at the last moment anyway, because British intelligence reported to David Cameron that the sarin used in the attack didn’t come from Syria – that it had been imported; this implied that it was a set-up job in order to ‘justify’ invading. Cameron didn’t want to be just another Tony Blair. Obama couldn’t get his necessary-for-appearances’-sake public cover for an invasion, Britain, as his predecessor had done regarding Iraq.

Obama was now trapped. He couldn’t fire all of his Joint Chiefs – at least not right away; it would be embarrassing, how could he explain it? And the Republicans were eager to expose his Administration’s disarray on the matter. So, the story was passed around that Secretary of State John Kerry got Russia to get Assad to eliminate his sarin stocks. Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin was happy to help Obama avoid invading his Syrian ally. That was how the ‘news’ organizations reported the backtrack – as a rare instance of US-Russian cooperation: good news for everybody. But for Obama, it was actually the way out of a desperately embarrassing situation. And he never gave up his goal of switching Syria from the secular Assad to a failed state whose crucial oil-pipeline routes would be in ‘friendly’ (to Saudi Arabia and Qatar) jihadist Sunni-ruled areas of Syria, so that ‘our’ Arab ‘allies’ (the jihadist-finansiing nations, as even Kerry’s predecessor Hillary Clinton had known them to be) can grab the world’s largest energy-market, Europe, away from Russia.

Hersh, in his 2014 article, continued: «The full extent of US co-operation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in assisting the rebel opposition in Syria has yet to come to light… Barring a major change in policy by Obama, Turkey’s meddling in the Syrian civil war is likely to go on».

There is simply too much evidence proving that Erdoğan is supporting ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria. This is the reality of NATO: conquering Russia, first by switching its allies (such as Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, etc.), is the assignment, regardless of the public’s safety. Even if the US weren’t backing jihadists directly (which we are), we’re backing them by having jihadist governments such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Qatar as allies – instead of as enemies. ‘Our’ oil companies and mega-banks are in bed with them, and their top stockholders and executives, and their lobbyists, control the people who control the US Government. The US Constitution’s «We, the People …» has become only those «People». The rest are now just for extras in crowd-scenes, at political campaign events – and their mass-mind-control is done by their media, ‘our’ ‘free press’ (who don’t report this reality), in ‘our’ ‘democracy’.

Erdoğan is profoundly angry at the unsteady support he has been receiving from the US government in their joint efforts to eliminate Bashar al-Assad. However, apparently, Obama doesn’t feel that the US is yet ready for a nuclear war to be sparked between NATO and Russia – Obama thinks that doing it now would be premature. ‘Color revolutions’ and ‘Arab Spring’ and ‘Maidan demonstrations’, and other populist covers for coups (taking advantage of the local political opposition, which exists in any country), are a far safer way to gradually strip Russia of its allies and turn them into yet-more enemies of Russia – and, only then, can the rip-cord finally be pulled, and Russia be forced to either submit or else die (even if the rest of the world might die also). The US has been doing this boil-the-frog-slowly routine ever since US President George Herbert Walker Bush laid the foundation for it in 1990.

As John Kerry recently said, when responding to aid workers at a donor conference for anti-Assad forces, «What do you want me to do? Go to war with Russia? Is that what you want?» Clearly, Erdoğan is lots more eager for that than Obama is. Perhaps Erdoğan thinks that Putin would just back down. American Presidents, however, aren’t so desperate that they feel they need to do it during their own Administration; they can afford to wait until the time is right, even if the plaudits will then go to some future President. Their paymasters will be duly appreciative of the contributions that each one of them has made toward the final ‘US’ victory. (Victory for the paymasters, of course.)

So, the American government’s charade goes on. But already an MIT analysis – the Lloyd-Postal report – on the sarin attack that occurred 21 August 2013, stated unequivocally that the Obama Administration was lying through its teeth about the matter. They provided excruciating detail showing why «the US Government’s interpretation of the technical intelligence it gathered prior to and after the August 21 attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT». (That’s a tactful, yet passionate, way of saying: «Obama and his Administration were trying to lie this country into invading Syria».) Yet, Western news-media still simply ignore the evidence (they can do that in this dictatorship), and report that Assad’s forces were behind the sarin attack. It’s still the official reason why we’re at war against Assad. Was even George W Bush worse than this?

Anyone who wishes to know more about what motivates the US government regarding Syria should read the astoundingly brilliant article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., published on an obscure environmental website, February 25th, «Syria: Another Pipeline War». He tells so much suppressed history there, it’s flabbergasting to see it all brought together into one flowing historical narrative. But even a masterpiece can have a flaw: his article plays down the role that leading Democrats after Reagan have been playing in GHW Bush’s long war to conquer Russia. We’re still in the post-Reagan era, just as, between FDR and Reagan, we had been in the post-FDR era. Obama is as rabid a Russia-hater as practically anyone except John McCain would be. If a piece of historical writing is going to be partisan (as almost all are), at least this one is partisan on the less-unacceptable side.

I might write RFK Jr.’s name onto the Presidential line of my ballot in November. There’s someone with favorable name-recognition, who clearly has the integrity and depth, and knowledge, to deal with the rot that has overtaken America, if anyone does. Maybe he could win by acclamation, if he wouldn’t be knocked-off first. But if the idea of writing in his name goes around like wildfire in the weeks before the November 8th general election, then who knows what would happen? Certainly, if Hillary is on the ballot as the ‘Democratic’ nominee, I won’t vote for her, though I’m a lifelong Democrat. And I don’t want to be forced to vote for Trump (since he’s almost totally unpredictable – which still isn’t as bad as Hillary). (Besides: Hillary should be in prison for her destruction of crucial public records – State Department emails – to hide her crimes; and The Donald should be in prison for his fake Trump ‘University’ commercial fraud. But the corrupt Obama won’t allow any such prosecutions.) And there’s such beautiful irony here: «Trump: If Elected, I’ll Prosecute Hillary». It’s so much like Ukraine!

But no intelligent American can be justified in simply not voting for President. That would be outrageously irresponsible. I won’t ever do that. Every intelligent and caring person must vote for President – not leave that responsibility to others (which would be unpatriotic – plus wrong and callous – for any well-informed voter). The «anyone but ___» non-voters are mere fools and frauds. They simply don’t care enough about the country to do their most-basic civic duty, which is to become informed and then to vote for someone on that basis (though never as a ‘protest vote’ – the nation is too important for any mere ‘protest’ – but only as a real vote, for someone who has an authentic chance of winning the election). Any mere throw-away ‘vote’ is like a non-vote.

That article by Kennedy should be linked to by all of his supporters: it tells more about the man than any number of campaign speeches possibly could. It proves that he’s fit for the job, if anyone is. He’s an outsider whose knowledge and understanding of the subject is probably among the best there is, and whose heart is unquestionably in the right place – which would be a refreshing and radical change, a change that’s of a kind needed now more than ever in the US.

But anyway: RFK Jr.’s article is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the horrendous war in Syria. My article here is just a warm-up to it – and, I hope, a totally non-partisan one.
 
Washington’s Objective is to “Split up Syria”: U.S. Establishes Air Force Base in Northern Syria In Violation of International Law
http://www.globalresearch.ca/washingtons-objective-is-to-split-up-syria-u-s-establishes-air-force-base-in-northern-syria-in-violation-of-international-law/5512652

“The truth about creating this pirate base on Syrian territory (1 base is nearly finished and another military-civilian base is under construction) is that the U.S. is in practice already splitting the political and territorial integrity of Syria.”

Judging from what the Kurdish Agency BasNews and Reuters are reporting (below are the reports), de facto the United States, in violation of international law governing relations among nations, under the excuse of fighting Daesh (their creation) have occupied part of the territory of a sovereign state , Syria, without any mandate by Damascus, offering coverage even for some survivor factions of the so called ‘Free Syrian Army’, a jihadi gang undercover and allied under the table with al-Nusra Front.

The truth about creating creating this pirate base on Syrian territory is that the US is in practice already splitting the political and territorial integrity of Syria, making a completely illegal action, outside of any international mandate, within a project we can define a prerequisite for the Saudi-Qatari pipelines to Turkey and Europe.

In this context, with the sanctions laid down by the U.S. against the neighboring (to Europe) Russia, Europe will become increasingly dependent and enslaved to the dictatorial regimes of the Gulf and to the Turkish blackmails.

In this way, Europe not only participates as an accomplice of the horrendous crimes committed against the Syrian people, but also commits masochistic action, against its own interests. Not only because of the acquisition of oil more expensive and of poor quality, but also because increasing the migratory flow towards the European boundaries, because of population fleeing where the control by terrorist gangs strengthens and expands.

Will be Europe able to understand that if Syria falls, the one we know today, multi-ethnic and multi-religious under the presidency of Bashar al-Assad, even the very existence of the old continent, as we know it today, with its history, traditions and culture, will be soon put into question?



US Airstrike Massacre 150 at Al-Shabaab Training Camp in Somalia
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-airstrike-massacres-150-at-al-shabaab-training-camp-in-somalia/5512828

US military airstrikes launched in Somalia over the weekend killed more than 150 people. The attack took place at what the US Pentagon yesterday said was an al-Shabaab training camp about 120 miles north of the country’s capital, Mogadishu.

The strikes mark a significant escalation of US operations in the Horn of Africa, a region that borders the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a critical oil passageway that links the Mediterranean and the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

The airstrikes, carried out on Saturday against the Al Qaeda-affiliated group that controls parts of northern Somalia, are the deadliest in Africa in years. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook asserted without providing evidence that the targets were graduating from the Raso training camp and posed an “imminent threat” to the US and US-backed African military forces in Somalia.

The Pentagon also claimed that there were no civilian casualties, though it would categorize anyone at the location as by definition a terrorist or military target. Those killed, according to an official cited by the New York Times, were “standing outside in formation” when a combination of drones and manned airplanes destroyed the camp and killed almost everyone present.

The strikes against the training camp indicate that the Obama administration is expanding its undeclared war in the Horn of Africa, aimed at bolstering the position of the corrupt regime of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, based in Mogadishu. In recent months, al-Shabaab has carried out a series of attacks on Somali forces and those of a coalition of African countries that is backing the government with the support of the US.

Just to the northwest of Somalia lies Djibouti, where the US has its only permanent military base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, the center of its drone operations throughout the continent. The water pathway between Djibouti and Yemen, known as the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, is listed by the US Energy Information Association as one of the major global oil transit choke points. Some 3.8 billion barrels of oil and petroleum products were transported through the strait in 2013, including much of the oil exported from the Persian Gulf to Europe and the US.

More broadly, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a key access point to the Indian Ocean, which now includes the most significant global trade routes, connecting Europe and the Middle East to Asia, including China.

In addition to the US, Britain has also taken a recent interest in the region, announcing last October that it was sending hundreds of troops to Somalia and South Sudan.

In their determination to retain control of the Horn of Africa, the major imperialist powers have stoked a series of civil wars and internal conflicts between different tribal and national factions. The population has been left to destitute poverty.

[...] The operations in Somalia are part of a broader escalation throughout northern Africa, overseen by the US military’s Africa Command and aimed largely at countering the growing influence of China on the continent.


Syria would be fully under ISIS control if not for Russia – Serbian president
https://www.rt.com/news/334865-serbia-nicolic-isis-russia/

Serbia’s president has praised Russian efforts in fighting terrorists in Syria, saying that if Moscow hadn’t intervened, the Middle Eastern country would have ceased to exist as a sovereign state. The statement comes in stark contrast to NATO’s assessment of the situation.

Tomislav Nikolic emphasized the need for Russian military involvement in Syria, stating that “If it [Russia] didn’t intervene, Syria would be a country of the so-called Islamic State [IS, ISIS/ISIL],” in an interview with TASS on Tuesday.

The Serbian leader was quoted as saying that the Russian military is essential to protecting peace in Syria and countering the jihadist threat, which might spread globally and affect other countries, including Russia, if not contained at this stage.

“Russia should be in the military aspect involved in the protection of Syria at the request from Syria, as it would mean protection from terrorism, and it is much better to be protected from it in Syria than in Russia,” he added, pointing out that the strategy employed by the Russian government is in fact akin to that of the US, which on numerous occasions has used its forces to fight terror overseas.


Netanyahu irked by Obama's push to revive peace talks: Analyst
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/03/08/454502/Netanyahu-irked-by-Obama/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cancellation of a meeting with US President Barack Obama underlines the growing differences between the two leaders, says a political commentator in Los Angeles.

Netanyahu has declined an offer to meet Obama at the White House later this month and canceled his trip to Washington, the White House said on Monday.

The Israeli premier’s decision to nix his US visit was likely prompted by last year’s international nuclear accord with Iran and the Obama administration’s renewed push for a “Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement,” James Morris, editor of America-hijacked.com, told Press TV on Tuesday.

President Obama is planning to go directly to the Middle East Quartet – the US, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia – in an attempt to “impose a settlement on the Israelis and the Palestinians,” he added.

Obama is also considering a UN Security Council resolution for the Israeli-Palestinian talks, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.


Biden arrives in Israel to discuss new military aid package
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/03/08/454590/Biden-Israel-military-aid-package/

US Vice President Joe Biden has arrived in Tel Aviv to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a new military aid package.

Biden’s office last week announced the two-day trip, saying that he is also slated to meet Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Biden’s visit comes as the relationship between US President Barack Obama and Netanyahu took a new setback over the Israeli premier's decision not to accept an invitation for talks in Washington later this month.

Obama had reportedly agreed in principle with Netanyahu in one meeting to increase the aid package to between $4.2 billion and $4.5 billion.

The money is separate from the nearly $500 million in annual US funding for Israel’s missile system programs in recent years. It is also on top of the US warfighting material held in Israel, which is valued at $1.2 billion.


The Danger Of Media Blackout
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-07/danger-media-blackout

Recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a press conference with about 150 journalists from around the world, including representatives of the western media.

Mister Lavrov was brief and concise; however, the question period lasted for some two hours. A breadth of topics was discussed, including the re-convening of the Syrian peace talks in Geneva, diplomatic relations in Georgia and, tellingly, the increasingly fragile relations with the US. This has not been reported on in Western media.

This followed close on the heels of reports (again, not to be found in Western media) that the US has quadrupled its budget for the re-armament of NATO in Europe (from $750 million to $3 billion), most of which is to be applied along the Russian border. The decision was explained as being necessary “to combat and prevent Russian aggression.”

It should be mentioned that this decision, no matter how rash it may be, is not a random incident. It’s a component of the US’ decidedly imperialist Wolfowitz Doctrine of 1992. This doctrine, never intended for public release, outlined a policy of military aggression to assure that the US would reign as the world’s sole superpower and, in so-doing, establish the US as the leader within a new world order. In part, its stated goal is,

“[That] the U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.”

Of particular importance here is the term, “legitimate interests.” With this term, the doctrine reveals that its goal is the suppression of other nations, regardless of whether their ambitions are reasonable or not. All that matters is US hegemony over the world.

Clearly, relations are reaching a dangerous level. The Russian message has repeatedly been, “Stop, before it’s too late,” yet Washington has reacted by stepping up its threat of hegemony. If the major powers do not call “time out”, world war could easily be on the horizon. Yet, incredibly, it appears that the Russian press conference has received zero coverage in the West. No British, French, German, or US television network has made a single comment. As eager as the Russians have been to get the word out as to their concerns, there has been a complete blackout of reporting it in the West.

Russia Insider has published an article on the internet, but little else appears to be available.
 
Putin's Address on International Women's Day (VIDEO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUBuNeTlDfI

Published on Mar 8, 2016

The 8th of March, as International Women's Day, is widely celebrated in Russia - perhaps like nowhere else in the world. Women receive gifts and flowers from their husbands, boyfriends, fathers and colleagues - as well as an annual address from the President.
 
DynCorp mercenaries to replace Blackwater in Yemen
http://presstv.ir/Detail/2016/03/07/454304/Yemen-mercenaries-Blackwater-DynCorp

The first batch of mercenaries from the private US military firm DynCorp has arrived in the Yemeni city of Aden to replace paid militants from another American company.

Under a USD-3-billion contract between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and DynCorp, mercenaries from the company are to be deployed to Yemen, where UAE forces are fighting against the Yemeni army and Popular Committees on Saudi orders, Khabar News Agency quoted an official with Yemeni Defense Ministry as saying.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the first group of the mercenaries recently arrived in the port city of Aden to replace those of Blackwater, a notorious American group now renamed Academi.

He added that the new militants included special naval forces, who entered the port of Ras Omran southwest of Aden.

DynCorp is a rival of Blackwater, which hires mercenaries and sends them to fight in foreign countries on paid missions.

Blackwater had decided to withdraw from Bab-el-Mandeb region after the Yemeni forces inflicted heavy losses on them. The UAE was forced to bring in the new mercenaries from DynCorp for the same reason.


Moscow Calls on N Korea, S Korea, US to Restraint Amid Joint Drills
http://sputniknews.com/asia/20160307/1035911858/usa-russia-korea-conflict.html

The Russian Foreign Ministry called on Washington, Pyongyang and Seoul to express more tolerance to each other while solving a conflict over Seoul-Washington joint drills.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called Monday on Washington, Pyongyang and Seoul to exercise restraint and now allow the situation to reach the point of uncontrollable spreading of conflict amid Seoul-Washington joint drills.

On Sunday, South Korea and the United States began their largest-ever joint exercises amid increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula. On Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the military to prepare to use its nuclear weapons at any moment in light of the exercise, according to the country’s state media reports.

The Russian ministry called on all sides "to exercise prudence and restraint, and not allow the situation to slip to the point after which uncontrollable spreading of the conflict on the peninsula begins."


Russian truce center delivers humanitarian aid to civilians in Syria
http://tass.ru/en/world/861066

Russia’s center for reconciliation of warring sides in Syria has delivered 4.2 tons of humanitarian aid to residents of the town of Et Tell in the Damascus province.

MOSCOW, March 8. /TASS/. Russia’s center for reconciliation of warring sides in Syria has delivered 4.2 tons of humanitarian aid to residents of the town of Et Tell in the Damascus province, mainly foodstuffs, the center said on Tuesday in a report posted on the Russian Defense Ministry’s website.

"Infrastructure is being restored in the localities that concluded agreements to end fighting," the report said. "In the village of Sneasel (Homs province) water supplies have been resumed and work to resume energy supplies is drawing to a close."

In the Daraye district (Damascus province) the area is cleared from mines and hazardous objects are destroyed for humanitarian purposes and for local civilians’ security.


Syrian government delegation expected in Geneva on March 14 - diplomatic source
http://tass.ru/en/world/861023

The source said that it was probable that Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations will head the Syrian government delegation.

The Syrian government delegation has received an invitation to arrive in Geneva on March 14, a source at Syria’s Permanent Mission at the United Nations Office in Geneva told TASS on Monday.

"Yes. It is true. The delegation has been invited to arrive in Geneva on March 14", the mission’s representative said. Asked if Bashar Ja’afari, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, will head the Syrian government delegation, the source said that it was probable but they were waiting for a reply from Damascus.
 
New Cold Warriors Bare Fangs Ahead of Next Syria Peace Talks

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/new-cold-warriors-bare-their-fangs-ahead-next-round-syria-peace-talks/ri13235

They fear nothing more than the peace on horizon in Syria taking root

Originally appeared at The Nation

_http://www.thenation.com/article/the-new-cold-warriors-bare-their-fangs-ahead-of-the-next-round-of-syria-peace-talks/

The new cold warriors who are the dominant voices within America’s military-media-think tank nexus seem to fear nothing more than the prospect of peace breaking out in Syria. Part of the reason for this is, of course, ideological, but it is hard not to draw the conclusion that they surmise, perhaps correctly, that if the next round of peace talks in Geneva, set for March 9, are met with success, then the prospects for the new cold war that they are so desperate to wage will be dealt a serious setback.

Hence their efforts to undermine the peace process that was cobbled together by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, US Secretary of State John Kerry, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In renewing their bids to demonize Russia, our new cold warriors hope to work a twofer: derail the next round of Syria peace talks while further undermining US-Russian relations. The sabotage takes several forms: through congressional hearings, through think tank events, and through a steady stream of anti-Russian stories in major mainstream publications.

Let’s examine some recent examples of each.

On March 1, Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee and testified: “The US and NATO face two primary threats to our security interests: Russian aggression and growing instability on our southern flank.” “Russia,” according to Breedlove, “continues to foment security concerns in multiple locations” around Europe. After launching into a brief and largely inaccurate history of US-Russian relations in the post-Cold War era, Breedlove flatly stated that “Russia does not share common security objectives with the West.” This, perhaps, would come as news to Kerry and Lavrov, who have successfully worked together to solve several “common security objectives,” like getting rid of President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons stockpiles and reaching a nuclear accord with Iran. As ever, the point of Breedlove’s show-testimony before the committee was to convince Congress and the administration that Russia—despite its oft-stated willingness to work with the United States on equal terms—remains the primary threat to European and American security.

At the US-Ukrainian Security Dialogue held in Washington in late February, the charge that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a revanchist power was repeated again and again. One participant, the American Foreign Policy Council’s Stephen Blank, told the gathering that “Putin cannot and will not stop,” therefore “we have to stop Putin, because nothing else will.” Indeed, “there is no basis” for dialogue with Russia.

While sentiments like Blank’s are by now de rigueur in Washington, what made this particular conclave of worthies of note was that it featured the deputy speaker of Ukraine’s Parliament, Andriy Parubiy. According to the program bio, Parubiy served as the “commandant” of the Euromaidan (why did an ostensibly peaceful protest require a “commandant” anyway?) and, later, as secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. The bio provided to attendees might fairly be described as selective. Left unmentioned was Parubiy’s role in cofounding the neo-fascist Svoboda party, and his ties to extremist right-wing groups.

After Parubiy’s presentation, which amounted to little more than a recitation of neocon talking points, former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst gushed: “That was wonderful.” The Atlantic Council’s Ariel Cohen praised Parubiy’s presentation as “inspiring and impressive.”

The tendency of the new cold warriors to praise anyone thought to be standing up to Russia, no matter how noxious, can be seen in their fulsome expressions of solidarity with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Although Erdogan jails journalists and opposition leaders at a rate that would make Putin blanch, he is held in high esteem within the military-media-think tank nexus. Indeed, Turkey’s by now well-known collusion with ISIS is studiously ignored in favor a narrative that paints Turkey as the latest target of Putin’s Russia.

Writing in Forbes recently, Adam Ereli, State Department official-turned-lobbyist for the Turkish Institute for Progress, warned that Russia is in the process of turning Armenia into a “new satellite state.” Russia’s “military presence in Armenia is but the latest indicator of a worrisome trend.” Ereli asks: “Why are we staying silent in the face of this thinly veiled aggression against Turkey?” After all, according to Ereli, Turkey has been “a critical ally in the global fight against ISIS.”

Ereli is hardly alone is identifying what may be the next front in the new cold war. In a letter to The Washington Post, Andrew Bowen, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, decried the growing military ties between Russia and Armenia, which he claims threaten Turkey, “an indispensable US ally and partner in the fight against the Islamic State.”

Leave aside the wholly unsubstantiated—indeed, laughable—claims that Turkey is an “indispensable ally” in the fight against ISIS. The authors simply dismiss the fact that Russian troops are in Armenia at the invitation of the Armenian government, which has well-founded security concerns as they relate to Turkey. But no matter, what counts is that Turkey is “our ally,” and therefore Russia (and Armenia) must be deterred from acting in their own interests.

Does Russia have any legitimate interests? One might wonder after reading Evelyn Farkas’s “How to Defeat Putin” in Newsweek. Farkas, once one of the most hawkish officials in the Obama administration, is now one of the most sought after of the new cold warriors. According to Farkas, the United States needs to do more, more, more to stop Russia: Congress should “support beefing up security assistance to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova”; the administration “should provide all three with anti-tank weapons”; “the Defense Department should no longer do any business with Russia”; and “we should establish a new foreign military assistance fund to help allies and partners throughout Europe and Afghanistan transition from Russian to U.S. military equipment.”

And so on.

It’s hard not to conclude that the new cold warriors are determined to stop at nothing to undermine any US-Russia initiative that might lead to a lessening of tensions between the two countries.
 
Senior Russian Researcher Slams Israel, Saudi Arabia for PGCC Designation of Hezbollah as Terrorist Group
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941219000804

A senior Russian research official underlined that Israel is behind the recent decision by the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) to brand the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement a terrorist organization.

The PGCC foreign ministers' decision to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization has taken place under the pressures of Saudi Arabia and Israel with the aim of blowing a serious strike at Syria's peace process," Director General of Russia's Center for Research and Futurism Sergei Griniayev told FNA on Wednesday.

He reiterated that the PGCC decision was totally a political one, and said, "This decision at the same time will foment sectarianism and fuel religious differences."

Griniayev further warned that Saudi Arabia and Israel have hatched a plot to force the Lebanese government to take a stance against Hezbollah and exert pressure on the resistance movement.

In relevant remarks on Tuesday, a senior Lebanese military strategist blasted the PGCC for issuing its anti-Hezbollah statement.

"The PGCC's statement (against Hezbollah) is as dangerous as the visit of the former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Israel for the solidarity of Arab countries," Retired Lebanese Army General Hashem Jaber told FNA.

Last Wednesday, the six-member PGCC, which includes Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, labeled Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

On Thursday, the Syrian government strongly condemned the PGCC's decision to include the Lebanon-based Shiite Hezbollah militant group in its terrorist organization list.


ISIL Launches Fresh Chemical Attacks against Iraqi People
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941219000904

"The ISIL fired 42 Katyusha rockets containing chemical poisonous substances such as chlorine gas," local sources in Diyala said.

They said that the residents of Diyala have been poisoned as a result of inhaling chlorine gas.

No further detail is yet available on the death toll in the ISIL chemical attack.

In a relevant development in mid-February, an Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) source disclosed that the ISIL militants had attacked Kurdish forces with mustard gas in 2015.

The source, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the laboratory tests confirmed that chemical weapons had been used by ISIL fighters. The OPCW, however, has not officially identified who used the mustard gas, RT reported.

The samples were taken after 35 Kurdish troops became ill on the battlefield last August while fighting ISIL militants southwest of Erbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.

It represents the first known instance of chemical weapons use in Iraq since the fall of the country's former dictator Saddam Hussein, the source said.

Kurdish representatives announced in October that ISIL militants had used mortar rounds containing mustard gas against the troops, citing blood samples taken from the ill soldiers.

The OPCW also concluded in October that mustard gas had been used in neighboring Syria last year.


European Union approves prolongation of restrictions for Russia by 6 months
http://rbth.com/news/2016/03/09/european-union-approves-prolongation-of-restrictions-for-russia-by-6-months_574107

Committee of Permanent Representatives in the European Union (COREPER) on March 9 agreed to prolong by six months the restrictive measures on the lists of Russian and Ukrainian citizens and organizations whom the EU considers to be involved in the sabotage or a threat to the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, a European diplomatic source told Interfax.

The decision was made on 146 private individuals and 37 legal entities from Russia and Ukraine and it is now expected to be approved by the Council of European Union on March 8, the source in Brussels told Interfax.

The source earlier said three people had been removed from the list of private individuals due to their death.

The targeted sanctions mean the freezing of the funds of the persons and organizations included in the "blacklists," in the banks of the EU countries and a ban on visas to enter the EU.


Russia Tells North Korea to Cut out the Nuclear Threats
http://russia-insider.com/en/russia-tells-north-korea-tone-down-nuclear-threats/ri13234

Moscow is trying to explain to Pjongjang that its nuclear mad talk is counter-productive to its security.

Russian Foreign Ministry has provided the best analysis and critique of the recent North Korean nuclear threats along with its proper context.

Firstly the Russians note that the current US-South Korean war games are indeed an annual event, but also points out that crucially the games which involve involving 300,000 South Korean and 17,000 American troops are massive and the largest such event yet:

"On March 7, the United States and South Korea started military exercises, which are formally considered to be planned but in reality are unprecedented in their scale and the number and types of weapons used as well as the type of maneuvers drilled,"
the Russian Foreign Ministry went on to say.

As such the Russians can't help but sympathise with the North Koreans and take their concerns about their historic superpower tormentor playing wargames on their borders as legitimate:

"Naturally, as a state, which is directly named as an object of this kind of military activities, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) cannot but feel reasonably concerned for its security. Russia has many times stated its openly negative attitude to such manifestations of military and political pressure on Pyongyang," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

However, the Russians have no sympathy for the North Korean reaction of threatening to deliver a "preventive and offensive nuclear strike" against the exercise and are speaking out against it harshly:

"We consider it to be absolutely impermissible to make public statements containing threats to deliver some ‘preventive nuclear strikes’ against opponents," the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.

Crucially the Russians want Pjongjang to understand that such threats only serve to isolate it and make the invasion it fears more, rather than less, likely:


Pyongyang should be aware of the fact that in this way the DPRK will become fully opposed to the international community and will create international legal grounds for using military force against itself in accordance with the right of a state to self-defense enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

In other words. If Pyongyang persists with mad talk it makes it impossible for Russia to offer diplomatic support when its enemies take aim against it.


A Who's Who of the Syrian Civil War and Ceasefire
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/whos-who-syrian-civil-war-and-ceasefire/ri13226

Originally appeared at The Vineyard of the Saker.

Since last week the Syrian ceasefire deal been in full effect. Despite repeated violations during this week, world leaders commit to putting their faith in this temporary truce.

The Syrian ceasefire does however not cover the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Jabhat Al-Nusra, the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch, and other designated terrorist groups. Despite the global powers making this statement, it remains unclear who these “other designated terrorist groups” actually are, it is therefore safe to say that no one really has an idea, since it has been rather clear that the main actors of this conflict differ radically in that designation.

It is estimated that over 100 rebel groups participated at the implementation of this truce deal, with more joining as Russia has been ramping up its efforts of reconciliation in Syria.[1] [2] [3] Different actors consider different fighting parties to be terrorists and conflicting interests makes the matter even worse.

While it is difficult to keep track of the estimated 1500 rebel groups fighting on the ground, it has never been a secret that the main rebel factions, Jabhat Al-Nusra, Jaysh Al-Islam, Harakat Ahrar-Al Sham and the Free Syrian Army have cooperated, carried out joint missions, and have occupied towns and villages together against the Syrian Armed Forces.[4] [5] [6] [7] These groups intermingle deeply and make it rather difficult for outside observers to distinguish between.[8]

The main areas of the truce deal are implemented in the southern and central parts of the country, with several pockets of rebel held areas, besieged for some years now, being able to catch a breath. Below is a map showing the rather small areas considered to be “green zones” for the truce.

Groups and areas part of the ceasefire deal or with unclear status - The ceasefire deal covers a few specific areas, namely the southern Daraa province where several rebel groups part of the “Southern Front Brigades” have agreed to several reconciliation and truce deals. [9] The ceasefire is also supposed to cover the northern Homs/southern Hama pocket of rebel resistance where Russia and government forces have come under scrutiny for bombing. Despite all of this, there’s no denial of the heavy Nusra and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham presence in the towns of Talbiseh and Al-Rastan. [10] [11] [12]

Also, the ceasefire was violated several times amid a new Islamist offensive launched six days ago. [13]

Other participants of the truce are the Kurdish YPG forces and their allies from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who have pledged to abide by the truce despite Turkish insistence on their exclusion. [14][15]

Southern Front Brigades - Leadership: Gen. Bashar al-Zoubi (Alleged) A coalition of 58 militant group factions associated with the Free Syrian Army was formed in February of 2014. The groups has recieved US and western backing in the form of training and arms. [16] Despite its name, there remains heavy dispute over their association with the Free Syrian Army at all.

The Carter Center, a private organization in the U.S. in February 2015 also described ‘The Southern Front’ as a loose coalition of self-described moderate armed groups without leadership or organizational structure, that has agreed on the name ‘Southern Front’ to receive support from the ‘Friends of Syria’ “an international diplomatic collective, which focuses on supporting the Syrian opposition”[17]

The Southern Front Brigades have made it no secret that they cooperate with Jabhat Al-Nusra in this area as well, with the groups launching multiple offensives together against the Syrian Armed Forces.[18]

YPG & Syrian Democratic Forces - Leadership: Sipan Hemo The People’s Protection Units (YPG) were introduced to the Syrian conflict rather late, with their first clashes occurring during the summer of 2012 where Kurdish forces assumed control over Kobani and Afrin among other areas. [19] [20] The Kurdish campaign has mostly focused on fighting Islamists from Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant since then, with the most heated battles taking place around Kobani and Tal Abyad. The Kurdish effort has since long been supported by the US led anti-ISIL coalition with regular airstrikes backing up YPG forces. The Turkish government however views this group as a Syrian branch of the Kurdish separatist PKK group in Turkey. Thus Turkey views this group as a threat and has been shelling them several times. [21]

The Syrian Democratic Forces is a relatively new alliance of Kurdish, Arab and Assyrians militias formed in October 2015. The YPG forms the biggest group participating. [22]

The alliance has shown tendencies to tolerate Syrian government forces and vice versa with President Bashar al-Assad stating that he is willing to make concessions and engage in talks with them. Since the start of the Russian intervention in Syria, the SDF have also engaged in cooperation and talks with Russia. [23] [24]

Operations rooms/Alliances not included in the ceasefire deal Ansar Al-Shariah A conglomerate of over a dozen Islamist militant groups who formed the Ansar Al Shariah coalition in 2015 to combat government forces in Aleppo. The forefront groups participating in this coalition are Jabhat Al-Nusra, Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, Jabhat Ansar Al Din and the Syrian Turkmen Brigade. Because of Al-Nusra being heavily funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey among others, it is likely that the other members of the coalition have access to and enjoy the same kind of backing. [25]

Fatah Halab Another coalition of Islamist militants in Aleppo, totalling up to 50 groups and formed in 2015, with a similar goal “to “liberate” Aleppo City from the Syrian regime”. Predominantly composed of fighters from the large hardline Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham group and Jaysh Al-Islam. Also composed of more than a dozen FSA units as well, It is noticeable that Jabhat Al-Nusra is not part of this operations room.

Jaysh Al- Fateh (Army of Conquest) Formed in March of 2015, this alliance was a special joint Saudi/Turkish project which was aimed at expelling the Syrian Arab Army from the Idlib Governorate. [26] The Army of Conquest quickly captured the remainder of the Idlib Governorate that was under government control, including Idlib City, while also besieging the two predominantly Shia towns of Kafraya and Al-Fuaa. The alliance was originally formed by seven founding groups, of which three were direct Al-Qaeda affiliates (Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, Jabhat Al-Nusra and Jund Al-Aqsa) and who provided more than 90 % of the troops. [27] Several other groups such as Sham Legion (Faylaq Al-Sham) are Muslim Brotherhood affiliates. Interestingly enough, this coalition also had the Turkestan Islamic Party, a Islamist separatist organization founded by Uyghurmilitants in western China and is now proudly displaying its fighters in Syria. [28] It is widely believed that Turkey and specifically Turkish intelligence has provided aid to this terrorist organization. [29]

Jaysh al-Mujahedeen Leadership: Mohammed Shakerdi [30] Formed in January of 2014, the Army of Mujahedeen was formed out of several smaller FSA and Islamist brigades, notably the Harakat Nour Al-Din Al-Zenki Islamic Brigades and the Al-Noor Islamic Movement.[31] In 2015, with the formations of several other alliances, the prominent Harakat Nour Al-Din Al- Zenki group left the alliance. Foreign support has been given through the United States and Qatar among others. [32] The group mainly operates in the Aleppo Governorate, but claims to also operate in Idlib.

Main terrorist groups not included in the ceasefire deal These four main groups fighting the Syrian Armed Forces are considered by the Syrian, Russian & Iranian governments to be terrorist organizations that are not included in any truce or ceasefire deal.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Leadership: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Local type of leadership: Wilayah & Emirs

A Salafi Takfiri militant group with origins from Iraq. ISIL has today grown into arguably the most powerful militant group fighting in the Syrian war with estimates ranging between 52,000–250 000 in terms of manpower. ISIL controls large parts of eastern Syria and sizeable portions of central and northern Syria. ISIL entered the Syrian war in April 2013 after having wreaked havoc in neighbouring Iraq for years before, and quickly began to gain strength in Syria, capturing several areas in northern Syria. ISIL began as an ally to the various rebel groups operating in northern Syria, including Jabhat Al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army. This alliance culminated in the capture of the Menagh Military Airbase in the Aleppo Governorate, in August 2013. [33]

Internal divisions within the different Al-Qaeda branches of Jabhat Al-Nusra and ISIL on one hand and ISIL and the other rebel groups on the other, sparked a rivalry that culminated in a inter-Islamist conflict on New Years eve of 2013. Since 2014, ISIL has not only been fighting the government of Syria and the Kurdish YPG, but also other terrorist organizations in a power struggle for domination of Syria. ISIL currently controls 35-40 % ( 1.5 -2 million people) of the country and one provincial capital in Syria: Raqqa city.

Jabhat Al-Nusra Leadership: Abu Muhammad Al Golani Ideology: Wahhabism/Salafism Strength: ~10 000-15 000

Main external backers: Turkey & Saudi Arabia

Area of operations: Mainly in the Idlib Governorate, which is also a stronghold of Al-Nusra and their allies. Nusra also enjoys strong support from the local population in some of these areas.

The Al Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s official branch in Syria. Established in 2012, Jabhat Al-Nusra quickly took a leading role in the battle against government forces. By the second half of 2012, Jabhat al-Nusra stood out among the array of armed groups emerging in Syria as a disciplined and effective fighting force.[34] Jabhat Al-Nusra, unlike many of the other rebel groups, operates through almost the entire country, with branches spread out across Idlib, Aleppo, Latakia, Homs, Hama, Daraa and Damascus. Several sources put their manpower strength at somewhere between 10 000- 15 000 active militants, with more recruits joining from Turkey, who together with Saudi Arabia form the main external backers of this Islamist group. [35][36]

Jaysh Al-Islam (Army of Islam) Leadership: Zahran Alloush (former)

Jaysh Al-Islam, formerly known as Liwa al-Islam is a Islamist/Salafist group formed in 2013 by the late Zahran Alloush, son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush. Jaysh Al-Islam primarily operates in the Damascus Governorate, mainly in the East Ghouta area. The group shares many ideological similarities to Al-Qaeda and other Salafist Takfiri organizations, with its now deceased leader Zahran Alloush being famous for his sectarian remarks against Shiites on several occasions. [37][38]

Jaysh Al-Islam have themselves claimed on May 2015 to have between 17 000-25 000 members, but this number is likely lower due to heavy casualties in recent battles. Jaysh Al- Islam controlled East Ghouta is not part of the ceasefire deal since they are considered to be Al-Qaeda affiliates, in close cooperation with Jabhat Al-Nusra

Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham Leadership: Abu Yahia al-Hamawi[39]

Arguably the largest Islamist rebel group in Syria and together with Jabhat Al-Nusra form the bulk of the Islamist rebels fighting the government in mainly Idlib, Latakia, Hama and Aleppo. Already in 2013, the group was said to have up to 20 000 fighters[40] The group shares the same radical Wahhabi/Salafi ideology and have on occasions been thought to be a political front for Jabhat Al-Nusra, as this group is not a designated terrorist organization by the Security Council.[41] The group enjoys heavy backing from Turkey and Saudi Arabia. [42] Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham is however not part of the ceasefire deal since they intermingle with Jabhat Al- Nusra on the same fronts that are not part of the agreement. This makes them legitimate targets according to the ceasefire deal.

1. _http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/nearly-100-rebel-groups-sign...↑
2. _http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/nearly-100-rebel-groups-sign-up-to-syria-truce ↑
3. _https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/30-villages-join-reconciliation-pro...↑
4. _http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/a-risky-bet-on-syrian-r...↑
5. _https://pjmedia.com/blog/us-backed-free-syrian-army-operating-openly-wit...↑
6. _http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-airport-idUSBRE97411J20130805 ↑
7. _http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/free-syrian-army-and-jabhat-al-nusra...↑
8. _http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/syria-war-ceasefire-16022806375287...↑
9. _http://en.abna24.com/service/middle-east-west-asia/archive/2016/03/01/738210/story.html ↑
10. _http://syriadirect.org/news/jabhat-a-nusra-in-rastan-“like-the-islamic-state”/ ↑
11. _http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russian-air-force-strikes-al-nusra-in-northern-homs-saa-moves-in-attacking-position/ ↑
12. _http://www.vox.com/2015/9/30/9423229/russia-bombing-isis-syria ↑
13. _https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/nusra-launches-offensive-in-southern-hama/ ↑
14. _http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/02/24/452095/Turkey-Kurds-YPG-PYD-Syria-Erdogan-Russia ↑
15. _http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3463863/Syria-Kurdish-militia-says-respect-ceasefire.html ↑
16. _http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30374581 ↑
17. _http://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/peace/conflict_resolution/syria-conflict/NationwideUpdate-Feb-28-2015.pdf ↑
18. _http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/JN%20Final.pdf ↑
19. _http://ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/7/syriakurd554.htm ↑
20. _http://ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/7/syriakurd541.htm ↑
21. _http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/13/turkey-shells-kurdish-forces-in-syria-in-retaliation-for-attack-on-border-posts ↑
22. _http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2015/11/01/Syria-Joint-Kurd-Arab-Assyrian-force-announces-US-backed-offensive-in-al-Hasakah/7601446424051/ ↑
23. _http://www.kurdwatch.org/?e3631 ↑
24. _http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/160920151 ↑
25. _http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Syrian%20Opposition%20Guide_0.pdf ↑
26. _http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Syrian%20Opposition%20Guide_0.pdf, p 18 ↑
27. _http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/12392/21/Gulf-allies-and-%E2%80%98Army-o...↑
28. _http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f25_1449440442 ↑
29. _http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military ↑
30. _http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syria-army-mujahideen-challenges-is...↑
31. _http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/01/04/New-Syria-re...↑
32. _http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-insight-idUSKCN0J...↑
33. _http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732342060457865225087294...↑
34. _http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/al-qaeda-iraq-syria-10821...↑
35. _http://southfront.org/500-militants-cross-turkish-border-towards-azaz-sy...↑
36. _http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-crisis-turkey-...↑
37. _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auKL9-rz0ek ↑
38. _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA6Af9o4Zmk ↑
39. _http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/abu-yahia-al-hamawi-ahrar-al-shams-new-...↑
40. _http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21582037-one-islami...↑
41. _https://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/523 ↑
42. _http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/12/the-road-to-a-syria-peace-deal-runs-...↑
 
Pentagon Wants to Give ‘Train and Equip’ Program in Syria Another Try
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160309/1035986417/pentagon-train-program-syria-rebels.html

US Army General Lloyd Austin, commander of US Central Command (Centcom) asked the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday
for permission to relaunch the $500-million program to train and equip "moderate rebels" to fight Daesh in Syria and Iraq, The Hill has reported.

Washington's previous plan to train and arm so-called moderate Syrian rebels to fight Daesh was an utter failure and an ongoing source of embarrassment for the Obama administration, as last October the program was suspended due to the Pentagon's inability to field enough qualified candidates.

According to Austin, the new program will be based on hiring less people so that they can be encouraged to perform with better quality in a shorter period of time.

"And as we reintroduce those people back into the fight, they will be able to enable the larger groups that they're a part of," he said. "The training would be shorter. But again, I think they would be able to greatly enable the forces once they're reintroduced."

After the program canceled, the US army cooperated with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a group 80 percent comprised of Kurdish militants.

US cooperation with Kurdish YPG in Syria makes its NATO ally Turkey furious and concerns Congress. YPG is also known to attack US-trained rebels and cooperate with Russian forces.

Austin said the new program would take into consideration the previous failed effort as a lesson.

"We were being effective, but we were slow in getting started, in generating the numbers that we needed to generate," he said.

"Part of that was because we were taking — trying to take large numbers of people out of the fight and keep them out for training for long periods of time. We've adjusted our approach," he said.



Sanctions Against Putin Would 'Block Peace Process in Syria, Ukraine'
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160309/1036023383/putin-european-parliament-sanctions.html

Imposing sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin is an "absurd" idea, Czech lawmaker Jiri Mastalka said. According to him, the initiative will bury the fragile peaceful process in Ukraine and Syria.


"Imposing sanctions against a head of state would mean a deadlock in dialogue with Russia. If sanctions are introduced only the Russian Foreign Minister will be able to take part in international talks. Amid the current tensions, preventing the Russian leader from participating in the Syrian negotiations or in the Ukrainian settlement equals paralyzing the peace process," he explained.

According to the lawmaker, such an "absurd" move is nothing but an attempt to emphasize the anti-Russian approach of the European Parliament.

In turn, the Kremlin reacted to the initiative, calling it an attempt to interfere in the court processes which are "underway in strict accordance with the Russian legislature."

According to Mastalka, the European Parliament has realized that the sanctions Brussels has imposed against Russia over Ukraine are not effective and its lawmakers are using the case of Savchenko to voice their anti-Russian stance.

A group of European lawmakers has called for EU chief diplomat Federica Mogherini to impose personal sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and another 28 individuals over the case of Ukrainian national Nadezhda Savchenko.

Savchenko is currently on trial for the murder of two Russian journalists during the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Russian prosecutors demand that the Ukrainian national be sentenced to 23 years in jail, while her defense team argues she is innocent. Savchenko has pleaded not guilty. The court ruling is due on March 21-22.

"This move is a real scandal," Jiri Mastalka, a Czech lawmaker of the European Parliament, told Sputnik.



Putin's Achievement: Syria 'Rising Like a Phoenix From the Ashes'
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160303/1035723218/russia-syria-peace-process.html

Six months ago many thought that Bashar al-Assad would soon be overthrown and the West would establish a "puppet regime" in Syria, but Russia's involvement has helped the war-torn country to "rise like a phoenix from the ashes," Czech Free Press asserted.

"Russia has scored a major victory and gained respect of the whole world," the publication noted, referring to Moscow's anti-Daesh campaign, as well as its diplomatic efforts to resolve the Syria crisis.

The media outlet called the nascent peace process in Syria "Putin's victory," adding that Damascus "was and would continue to be an obstacle" in the West's campaign aimed at countering Russia. Moscow and Washington have recently brokered a ceasefire. The UN-sponsored intra-Syrian peace talks and elections are expected to follow if all major stakeholders observe the truce.

Despite grim predictions, Syria "has not become a second Afghanistan for Russia," the publication observed. In fact, Moscow's aerial campaign has been hailed as a success since its early days.

The operation has helped to change the facts on the ground. In the last few months, the Syrian Arab Army, assisted by Russian warplanes and local allies, has managed to turn the tide of war by making gains against Daesh, al-Nusra Front and other terrorist groups in key provinces. Despite foreign support, the militants appear to be losing.

This is not the only positive development for Moscow. The Qatari gas pipeline project was not launched, "sales of Russian-made weapons have soared and the capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces have been rated highly," the media outlet observed.

Many have linked the Qatari project aimed at building a gas pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey to the foreign-sponsored insurgency in Syria.

In February, radio host, attorney and nephew of US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asserted that Washington decided to overthrow al-Assad using seasoned jihadist fighters when the Syrian president refused to back the Doha initiative. These events took place two years prior to the Arab Spring uprising in Syria.

"Not coincidentally, the regions of Syria occupied by [Daesh] exactly encompass the proposed route of the Qatari pipeline," he observed.
 
The Price of Failure: German Town Charges Israel for Rescuing Mossad Agents
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160309/1035988064/The-Price-Failure-German-Town-Charges-Israel-Rescuing-Mossad-Agents.html

Authorities in the German city of Quarnbek have charged the Israeli embassy 1,263.01 euros ($1,391.55) to cover the cost of rescuing two Israeli intelligence agents, whose vehicle got stuck in mud, reports The Algemeiner.

Two armed Mossad agents were reportedly rescued by German authorities in the city of Quarnbek in December 2015. According to the report, the agents were dispatched to Germany to monitor the transfer of a German submarine to Israel. After their German-built Ford Focus automobile got stuck in mud on the bank of the Kiel river, local authorities, the fire department and a farmer on a tractor came to their aid.

The agents were accused of entering a forbidden area while carrying weapons. When police asked for their identities, the two men initially lied that they were in the area for a sailing competition, but eventually had to provide their diplomatic passports and gun permissions.

The Israeli diplomatic mission has not yet officially reacted to the charge.
 
sToRmR1dR said:
New Cold Warriors Bare Fangs Ahead of Next Syria Peace Talks

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/new-cold-warriors-bare-their-fangs-ahead-next-round-syria-peace-talks/ri13235

They fear nothing more than the peace on horizon in Syria taking root

Originally appeared at The Nation

_http://www.thenation.com/article/the-new-cold-warriors-bare-their-fangs-ahead-of-the-next-round-of-syria-peace-talks/

The new cold warriors who are the dominant voices within America’s military-media-think tank nexus seem to fear nothing more than the prospect of peace breaking out in Syria. Part of the reason for this is, of course, ideological, but it is hard not to draw the conclusion that they surmise, perhaps correctly, that if the next round of peace talks in Geneva, set for March 9, are met with success, then the prospects for the new cold war that they are so desperate to wage will be dealt a serious setback.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse offers additional insight in the above article:

U.S. Gov’t. Backs Fascists Who Want to Destroy Russia
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/u-s-govt-backs-fascists-who-want-to-destroy-russia/

The Nation published an outstanding article on March 9th, by James Carden, which described the remarkable extent to which the Obama government (and virtually all of the Washington Establishment) are supporting (financially and otherwise) fascists who want to destroy Russia.

One such example was a recent event in Washington:

It featured the deputy speaker of Ukraine’s Parliament, Andriy Parubiy. According to the program bio, Parubiy served as the “commandant” of the Euromaidan (why did an ostensibly peaceful protest require a “commandant” anyway?) and, later, as secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. The bio provided to attendees might fairly be described as selective. Unmentioned was Parubiy’s role in cofounding the neo-fascist Svoboda party, and his ties to extremist right-wing groups.

After Parubiy’s presentation, which amounted to little more than a recitation of neocon talking points, former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst gushed: “That was wonderful.” The Atlantic Council’s Ariel Cohen praised Parubiy’s presentation as “inspiring and impressive.”

Carden unfortunately failed to mention that the Atlantic Council is a PR agency that was established in order to promote NATO, the anti-Russia military alliance, which today’s Ukrainian government wants to join, and which America’s President wants to be in NATO.

Here is how I described Parubiy on 17 February 2015::

Andrey Parubiy, a co-founder of the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine, which the CIA renamed the “Freedom” Party (“Svoboda”) in order to hide its origin as Ukraine’s nazi party, announced on Sunday February 15th, that he’ll be seeking weapons from the U.S. He had started (but the CIA named) Ukraine’s ‘Anti Terrorist Operation,’ which has been trying to exterminate the residents in Ukraine’s Donbass region, Ukraine’s separatist region. Parubiy’s announcement said, “Next week I’m off to the United States to speak about this very subject,” of getting Washington to supply the weapons necessary to finish that job.

The reason for his visit is: Ukraine is running out of bullets, guns, and other necessary equipment to achieve his goal. It’s a goal he had only begun as the organizer of Ukraine’s ‘Anti Terrorist Operation.’ The ‘ATO’ had commenced soon after the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, and has not been proceeding nearly as quickly as had been planned; it’s way behind schedule.

According to German intelligence sources, no more than 50,000 people have been killed so far in the operation, though more than a million have fled, which also counts as success because the goal is to clear the land there. As a retired Ukrainian general who supports the operation said, “The shelling there is done as intimidation, … not just object destruction, but [also as] intimidation [to get the population to flee to nearby Russia]. The civilian population is intimidated by a chaotic bombardment.” That constant bombardment requires lots of bombs and bullets, which is why Parubiy now needs a big resupply.

Crimea’s Chief Prosecutor, Natalya Poklonskaya, who lived in Kiev and was a criminal prosecutor in Ukraine’s national government until the coup, but who quit because she didn’t want to serve in what she called a “nazi” government which was being established from the coup, says that Parubiy “was the leader of the armed part of Maidan” — he was the key organizer of the masked snipers who dressed as government forces and shot both the police and the Maidan demonstrators during the coup and so brought down the sitting President of Ukraine. If what she says about his role is correct, then Paribuy was crucial in the success of the 22 February 2014 overthrow of democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and was also crucial to the fulfillment of the appointment that occurred four days later of Yanukovych’s replacement as Ukraine’s leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whom Victorial Nuland of the U.S. State Department had already selected, on 4 February 2014, to become Ukraine’s new leader.

So, Parubiy was crucial in America’s successful take-over of Ukraine, and he will now be coming to Washington to request from Congress and the U.S. President the military support needed to finish the job that he and they had started, by completing the extermination of the residents in the Donbass region, which is the region whose residents had voted 90% for Yanukovych (it’s dark purple on that map) and have refused to accept the legitimacy of the Obama-coup Government.

Then, on 26 February 2015, I reported that,

The Deputy Speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Andriy Parubiy, who had been the co-founder of the Nazi-inspired Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine, met in Washington on Wednesday, February 25th, with members of the U.S. House and Senate who support his request that the U.S. Government donate weapons to his virtually bankrupt Government. Parubiy also visited with the Pentagon. Weapons are needed by his Government because his Government is engaged in a civil war against the residents in the area of Ukraine that had voted 90% for the former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Parubiy himself (when he was called “the Mayor of Maidan”) led to overthrow in a violent February 2014 coup.

According to a recent report by Gabriel Gatehouse of the BBC, witness testimony and photographic evidence both conflict with Parubiy’s account of how the overthrow a year ago occurred. The United States Government strongly supported Yanukovych’s overthrow, and denies that it was a coup. The Obama Administration calls it an expression of Ukrainian democracy, and says that the replacement Government was “duly elected” (though by whom was left unsaid by Mr. Obama), and that when elections for a new Ukrainian President were held in northwest Ukraine on 25 May 2014, in which no one in the rebelling region participated, the residents in the rebelling region were terrorists if they refused to accept the election’s winner as being their President. The residents still refused to accept the winner of that election as being their leader. The Government, on 2 May 2014, massacred an estimated 100+ peaceful demonstrators against the Government, in Odessa, and sent troops into the southeast to take over their local governments, and so the civil war started. Mr. Parubiy was a member of the small team that planned the Odessa massacre.

The residents in the area of Ukraine that is being bombed and even firebombed by Parubiy’s Government had opposed the overthrow, because they had voted 90% for the person who was being overthrown; they did not feel that an imposed new leader would be acceptable to them. The continued bombing of them by the replacement Government has thus-far failed to persuade the residents there to support Parubiy’s Government; and, so, those residents have declared their region to be no longer a part of Ukraine. Ukraine’s President, Petro Poroshenko, disagrees; he says that they have no right to do that and that they are therefore ‘terrorists’ for seceding from Ukraine. The United States Government supports that position, and Congress voted more than 98% for it. However, U.S. President Barack Obama, whose Administration ran that coup and actually selected the leader of the interim government to replace Yanukovych, Ukraine’s current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, hasn’t yet decided whether to send Ukraine more weapons than he has already sent.

Parubiy was also the founder of Patriot of Ukraine, and this article presents their ideology, which is rabidly anti-Russian, but also anti-Semitic and boldly for ‘White Power,’ while it assumes that pureblood ‘Ukrainians’ are the whitest of the whites. People such as this are now feted in Washington, as if the nazis had won WW II and we were them. Being rabidly anti-Russian gives nazis a pass here. This is the entire Washington Establishment as an extension of Allen Dulles’s CIA, which brought even self-proclaimed Nazis into the U.S. and gave them considerable power both here and abroad, because Dulles had secretly been supporting Hitler’s movement all along. Nazis hated Russia, and this has given them carte-blanche by the Washington Establishment.

James Carden’s article in The Nation continues:

Writing in Forbes recently, Adam Ereli, State Department official-turned-lobbyist for the Turkish Institute for Progress, warned that Russia is in the process of turning Armenia into a “new satellite state.” … Ereli is hardly alone is identifying what may be the next front in the new cold war. In a letter to The Washington Post, Andrew Bowen, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, decried the growing military ties between Russia and Armenia, which he claims threaten Turkey, “an indispensable US ally and partner in the fight against the Islamic State.”

Leave aside the wholly unsubstantiated — indeed, laughable — claims that Turkey is an “indispensable ally” in the fight against ISIS. The authors simply dismiss the fact that Russian troops are in Armenia at the invitation of the Armenian government. … Does Russia have any legitimate interests?

Carden’s point is shockingly true: Washington denies the legitimate national-security interest that the Russian people have, to not be surrounded by NATO nations whose militaries have been united, ever since U.S. President George H.W. Bush double-crossed Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, in a plan to expand NATO right up to Russia’s borders, and then do — in spades — to the Russian people the type of thing that the communist dictator of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, had tried to do to the American people in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. John Fitzgerald Kennedy didn’t accept it in 1962, and Vladimir Putin isn’t accepting it in 2016. For that, Obama calls Russia the world’s most aggressive nation, which is actually what his own government has been and is.

Here is a terrific 1992 BBC documentary that provides the nazi-fascist Allen Dulles CIA organized origin of G.H.W. Bush’s plan, and its
continuation right up to the time when Russia abandoned communism and eliminated its NATO-mirror alliance, the Warsaw Pact, which was the time when Bush’s plan continued that of Dulles, but after the anti-communist rationalization for it was dead and gone. That documentary enables one to understand not only Parubiy, but also the CIA operation that made him and that prepared him to be a leader in the new, U.S.-fascist-run Ukrainian nation.

On 24 November 2014, I headlined, “U.S. Among Only 3 Countries at U.N. Officially Backing Nazism & Holocaust-Denial; Israel Parts Company from Them; Germany Abstains.” The Obama-appointed U.N. Representative, Samantha Power, formerly a journalist famous for condemning genocide, was now one of only three supporters at the U.N., of ethnic cleansing: “In a U.N. vote, on November 21st, only three countries — the United States, Ukraine, and Canada — voted against a resolution to condemn racist facsism, or “nazism,” and to condemn denial of Germany’s World War II Holocaust against primarily Jews. This measure passed the General Assembly, on a vote of 115 in favor, 3 against, and 55 abstentions (the abstentions were in order not to offend U.S. President Obama, who was opposed to the resolution).”

Now that the aristocrats, who run America, no longer have communism to kick around, they’ve gone whole-hog fascist, themselves; and, yet, they’re still considered by the American people to be not shunned and condemned, but instead elected and (by some) even praised. What’s perhaps yet more ominous is that Europeans don’t condemn them. Though none of the EU nations joined the fascist Obama in that U.N. vote, they all stay in NATO and in the American-run EU. No matter how evil the U.S. Government becomes, it retains a thick coat of Teflon. Seemingly more-appropriate allies for today’s Establishment Washington than Europans are, are the Saud family, the biggest financial backers and arms-suppliers to jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS — and, like the American aristocracy, they’re rabidly anti-Russian. That type of aristocrat could be their model. After all, the born Polish nobleman and longtime American, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a co-founder of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission, is proud, even today, of having helped create Al Qaeda to defeat the Soviet-supported government of Afghanistan, and he still continues to blame Russia for just about everything — just like Obama does. The U.S. Congress is urging him to do it even more. He’s not enough of a fascist to suit today’s Congress. He’s not doing enough harm to Russia, fast enough to satisfy them. He’s not making the (nazi) ’progress’ that they demand.
 
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