"We have two choices. We can adopt the logic that the participants ought to be armed. Since Russia is arming the separatists, we will do the same for Ukrainians so that they can defend themselves. But can you draw the line between defensive and offensive weaponry?" - asked Hollande. "The other option is to try and find a compromise and convince both sides to cease fire. Diplomacy, negotiations, but they ought not continue endlessly...Because we are dealing with a war - war which can become total."

These are the words of Hollande, very straightforward and direct which is very uncharacteristic for contemporary European politicians, and they are a reflection of the high level of fear in continental Europe. And, what's important, it's fear that appeared suddenly, unexpectedly, forcing the leaders of the two biggest European countries to hurry to Kiev and Moscow. What did just happen?

Judging by the State Department announcements and the arrival of Kerry to Kiev, the catalyst of such a pained European reaction are the US intentions to start openly arming the Ukrainian army, which would guarantee a Russian response that would transform the conflict on the Donbass into something entirely different, which Hollande referred to as "total war". Keeping in mind that both the junta and the Donbass announced a mobilization of up to 100 [thousand] recruits, and that Poroshenko said he is ready to introduce martial law and use new NATO-provided weapons, all of this can lead to the biggest regional conflict since WW2.

The United States is pressing Cuba to allow the opening of its embassy in Havana by April, U.S. officials told Reuters, despite the Communist island's demand that it first be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

A refusal by Cuba to allow the United States to quickly establish an official embassy for the first time in half a century could complicate talks between the Cold War foes, reflecting enduring mistrust as they move to end decades of confrontation.

Striking Cuba from the terrorism list could take until June or longer, although the White House is pushing officials to move quickly, said two U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the State Department's review to take Cuba off the list.

Ukraine's parliament has passed a law which authorizes commanding officers to use physical force against army defectors. It comes as the latest military draft has seen a lack of enthusiasm on the part of potential soldiers.

Ukraine's parliament voted on Thursday with 260 MPs in favor - only 226 votes were needed to pass the law. The new article 22(1) added to the charter regulating service in the armed forces of Ukraine states that commanders "have the right to personally use physical force, special means, and weapons when in combat" against soldiers who commit "criminal acts."

Under criminal acts the law lists "disobedience, resistance or threat to use force against the commander, voluntary abandonment of military positions and certain locations of military units in areas of combat missions."

As Americans stood horrified at the news of a Jordanian pilot burned alive by the terrorist group known as the Islamic State, one of the top law enforcement officers in the country talked about how Mississippians can fight those kind of extremist ideals within our own borders.

FBI Director James Comey, who was in the state for the second visit of his 10-year term, said there are open cases looking into individuals who may be related to ISIS/ISIL in every state in the Union except Alaska.

"Mississippi is a great state, but like all 50 states it has troubled souls that might look to find meaning in this sick, misguided way. The challenge that we face in law enforcement is that they may be getting exposed to that poison and that training in their basement," Comey said. "They're sitting there consuming and may emerge from the basement to kill people of any sort, which is the call of ISIL, just kill somebody."

Liberals won't acknowledge that they've "been had" by Barack Obama when they believed his liberal rhetoric; they won't acknowledge it, even after Obama has proven by his actions that he is actually extremely conservative (a total agent of Wall Street; and, thus, inequality has been rising under his rule); Obama is conservative despite his liberal rhetoric, which is designed to deceive them; and he has - which is the worst thing of all - intentionally caused an extremely bloody ethnic cleansing in Ukraine, a war there against those of Ukraine's citizens who think that Russia is a better country than the United States: an ethnic cleansing to cement-in, as permanent, a rabidly anti-Russian Government in Ukraine, by getting rid of the people there who had voted for the man Obama overthrew. This is, historically, the first time in history that any American President has sponsored an ethnic cleansing: it's an attempt to exterminate a civilian population. That's how bad Obama actually is.

Liberals won't acknowledge either the violent coup in Ukraine, or the brutal ethnic-cleansing campaign to cement its result: an anti-Russian Government on Russia's doorstep - a very real threat to Russia's national security, and a very aggressive American policy against Russians.

The latest ISIS atrocity - releasing a video of a captured Jordanian fighter pilot being burned alive - prompted substantial discussion yesterday about this particular form of savagery. It is thus worth noting that deliberately burning people to death is achievable - and deliberately achieved - in all sorts of other ways:

Here's the cartoon, by Cameron Cardow of the Ottawa Citizen, that USA Today selected as its daily editorial cartoon for February 2:
It's not a terribly hard cartoon to parse: Islam is the modern equivalent of Nazism, and threatens a new Holocaust. The cartoon lists entities that have nothing in common with each other aside from their connection to Islam - political movements like Hezbollah and Hamas, who have been the targets of far more violence than they are responsible for, along with groups like ISIS and Boko Haram, terrorist groups whose victims are primarily Muslim. Hezbollah and ISIS are actually engaged in intense warfare with each other.


In case you missed the point, the cartoon puts one of the holiest phrases in Islam - "Allah Akbar," or "God is great" - in the mouth of a Nazi skeleton.

(Along with its roll call of Muslim villains, the cartoon includes the phrase "politically correct" - which I can only take to mean that people who criticize the politics of cartoons - for example - are a kind of Nazi too.)

No doubt defenders of the cartoon will say that it's only talking about the bad kind of Islam, which is just as persuasive as making a list of all the horrible people you can think of from a particular ethnic group and then saying that you're only talking about the bad people from that ethnic group. One would hope USA Today would decline to make such a smear its daily editorial cartoon.

UPDATE: You can send feedback to USA Today's editorial page editor Brian Gallagher at bgallagher@usatoday.com.

Don't be one of those people who drink the Kool-Aid and celebrates every time the unemployment figures come out. At least that's what the head of a renowned polling and research company is saying.

The official unemployment rate of 5.6% is extremely misleading, says Jim Clifton, President and CEO of Gallup, which is well-known for taking the pulse of the country on a number of issues, including the president's job performance and what people think about how the economy is doing.

Clifton says that lately the US Labor Department has been rolling out some reportedly good news about the economy and jobs, and everyone's jumping on the bandwagon, hooting and hollering about how great things are getting.

"The cheerleading for this number is deafening. Right now we're hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is 'down' to 5.6 %," says Clifton. "The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market."

And another thing, the Labor Department says if you work a minimum of one hour a week and are paid at least $20, then that's a "job" and you're not counted as unemployed, even though you'd be hard-pressed to try to get by with just $20 a week. But the positive vibes are all smoke and mirrors because the numbers don't take into account some key factors. For instance, the unemployment figures don't count people who have been unemployed for a while and out of frustration have stopped looking for work. It also doesn't take into account that people who are underemployed, which Gallup calculates is about 30 million Americans.

It's downright tomfoolery, says Clifton, especially when you take into consideration that not all jobs are created equal. In other words, what about all the people who are underemployed? Say you have a college degree and you got laid off from your job and you're driving a cab to make ends meet. Guess what? You're not counted among the 5.6%. That number doesn't look at the people who have stopped looking, those who are working part time, and anyone who's underemployed.
Clifton has three words for it: A BIG LIE.

Warfare is a constantly changing landscape, from the weapons that are used to the battlefields they're fought on. Amidst mountains of Snowden leaks from the NSA and GCHQ, it's no longer a mystery that the digital warfare is advancing quickly, and the British Army just upped its digital artillery.

A new group of soldiers, referred to as "Facebook Warriors" will " wage complex and covert information and subversion campaigns," according to the Financial Times. This unit will be named the 77th battalion, whose number also has a historical significance. FT says:

The original Chindits [77th battalion] were a guerrilla unit led by the swashbuckling British commander Major General Orde Wingate, one of the pioneers of modern unconventional warfare. They operated deep behind Japanese lines in Burma between 1942 and 1945 and their missions were often of questionable success.

These Facebook warriors will be using similar atypical tactics, through non-violent means, to fight their adversary. This will mainly be achieved through "reflexive control," an old Soviet tactic of spreading specifically curated information in order to get your opponent to react in the exact way you want them to. It's a pretty tricky trick, and the British army will be doing just that with 1,500-person (or more) troop using Twitter and Facebook as a means to spread disinformation, real war truths, and "false flag" incidents as well as just general intelligence gathering. The 77th battalion will reportedly begin operations in April.


Britain is far from the only country making a social media-focused investment. The Guardian notes that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) used 30 different social media sites in several different languages during Operation Cast Lead in an effort to "engage with an audience we otherwise wouldn't reach," says an IDF spokesperson. ISIS is also annoyingly adept at recruiting through social media and its sympathizers have hacked the U.S. military's social media accounts, including U.S. Central Command.

As Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson once said, "Everything is a weapon," and social media is not an exception to the rule.

Last week Thomas Friedman writing in the New York Times called Putin a "thug" and "Hitler" (HERE ). This week Timothy Garton Ash writing in the Guardian comment section says Putin is Slobodan Milosevic (HERE ).

Both Friedman and Ash say that Putin is threatening Europe and he must be stopped. Both say the only way to stop Putin is to tighten the screws of economic sanctions on Russia, send more lethal military equipment to Ukraine and put NATO boots on the ground. They both call on Obama to do so.

Putin is neither Hitler nor Milosevic. Whenever people write such hyperbole they should immediately be suspected of being propagandists, especially when they heap praise on John "Bomb-Bomb" McCain as Ash does.

Neither Friedman nor Ash can point to any evidence that Putin has been the aggressor in Ukraine, committed genocide as did Hitler and Milosevic, or tried to cause ethnic cleansing. Kiev backed by Obama has been committing genocide and ethnic cleansing in South-East Ukraine.

Russian tanks are not on the move and threatening Europe. Friedman and Ash are making it up. The Baltic States and Poland are safe no matter how much Obama and the main stream media wring their hands and say they are frightened of Russian aggression in Europe. It is almost laughable if they were not so deadly serious and determined about their ulterior motives for making these stories up.

Only those with exaggerated imaginations or people who want to make things up say that Russia has shown evil intentions on its neighbors. People like Friedman and Ashton keep sticking their finger in Putin's eye hoping that he will lash out irrationally. So far they have been very disappointed.

Throughout the crisis that Washington manufactured in Ukraine, Russia has reacted in a measured and moderate response. When Russia's national security was threatened with the loss of its naval base in Crimea, Russia waited for a democratic referendum to approve annexation. When Novorossiya voted to break away from Ukraine, Russia called for diplomacy and greater autonomy for Novorossiya rather than annexation.