Once again the "wisdom" of Washington's generals raises the question about the American leadership's ability in both political and military affairs. This time it is due to the recent statement of the once again notorious, although retired, former leading US General David Petraeus, that suggests actively relying on the Jabhat al-Nusra currently at war in Syria.

Perhaps D. Petraeus, owing to his "excessive preoccupation" did not have time to get acquainted with the fact that Jabhat al-Nusra is officially considered a terrorist organization by the White House. It is well known that it is this very organization that is the most cruel and is famed for terrorists who have left a bloody trail of numerous civilian deaths.

But perhaps D. Petraeus "accidentally" revealed to us that very secret plan (after all, he led the most "secret" organization of the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency, from September 2011 to November 9, 2012), according to which the White House has set its policy of gambling on the support a leading terrorist organization, be it al-Qaeda, established by the CIA in 1988, or others, including, it appears, Jabhat al-Nusra!

Who is D.Petraeus, who considers himself the savior of the American nation and the world, some new Herostratus and, who proposes new, drastic, as yet unheard of methods for fighting terrorists with terrorists? It should be noted that he was until recently a very well-known and influential figure in the contemporary US establishment. After graduating from the prestigious Military Academy at West Point in 1970, he successfully married the daughter of General William Knowlton, who, according to malicious rumors, even provided his son-in-law, a mediocre soldier, with rapid career advancement to the highest posts. Now a retired general, in his time he was the commander of the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I) and served as the head of United States Central Command, then commanded the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. His latest position is Director of the CIA. However, the "courageous" General was then sentenced to pay a significant fine and two years' suspended sentence for his dubious affairs. As the saying goes "Don't be so sure the same won't happen to you." But the general has surfaced and he now advises the US administration on the issue of the fight against the Islamic State with whom the group Jabhat al-Nusra is at war. Clearly, it's impossible to find a better "consultant" in the USA! Of course, D. Petraeus is well aware of the tragic events that have now swept the Middle East in a bloody wave, and which began after the barbaric and unprovoked US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

From Washington to the western media, everyone has been talking about reports of potential Russian 'intervention' in Syria. On the one hand, the proliferation of this meme is a case study in the western propaganda system, as one report is then repeated ad nauseam from thousands of sources, then built upon by subsequent reports, thereby manufacturing the irrefutable truth from the perspective of media pundits and western mouthpieces. On the other hand, the new reports also raise some interesting questions about the motives of both the US and Russia, as well as the other interested parties to the conflict in Syria.

In examining this new chapter of the ongoing war in Syria, two critical and interrelated points seem to rise above all others in importance: Why is the western media hyping this narrative of Russian intervention? And why is direct Russian involvement, limited though it may be, seen as such a threat by the US?

Dissecting the Propaganda

An Israeli publication reported that Russian air power would be increasing in Syria with "Russian jets in Syrian skies," as the headline read. While all the information came from unnamed "western diplomatic sources," and was accompanied by little more than assertions of fact without any tangible evidence, the media outcry began almost immediately, with literally hundreds of news outlets reporting the same information. Within 24 hours however, a Russian military source denied the allegations, saying,"There has been no redeployment of Russian combat aircraft to the Syrian Arab Republic...The Russian Air Force is at its permanent bases and carrying out normal troop training and combat duty."

Press TV has interviewed Michel Chossudovsky, with the Center for Research on Globalization in Montreal, to discuss Russia's decision to provide Damascus with military supplies and humanitarian aid.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Russia's call for the world to join and help the Syrian government in fighting ISIL terrorists, seems to have fallen on deaf ears at least in Washington. Instead, we have the US president saying that Moscow's strategy in Syria is doomed to failure. Two questions here: First of all, what is Russia's strategy that the West is so opposed to? And second: Why is the West so worried about what it calls an alleged Russian build-up in Syria?

Chossudovsky:Well first of all we have to distinguish between axis of aggression against the sovereign state which is what the United States is doing under the humanitarian mandate of going after ISIL when in fact we know and it is amply-documented that the ISIL is supported financed by the United States and its allies and what we might describe as bilateral military cooperation between two sovereign states namely Syria and the Russian Federation and that is something which has been ongoing you know for many, many years between the two countries. Russia has a naval base in the Mediterranean and it is also providing Syria with its air defense system, the S-300, as well as other areas of cooperation particularly focusing on training and weapons systems and so on. I do not think that implies in any way that they would be deploying ground forces. That will not happen.

Several key German politicians have urged for close cooperation with the Russian president in solving the ongoing military conflict in Syria, saying it can't be resolved without Russia's support.

Horst Seehofer, the leader of one of Germany's main conservative parties, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), has called for closer cooperation with Russia in settling the Syrian military conflict, adding that it can't be resolved without the help of President Putin, according to Spiegel magazine.

A similar comment was voiced on Saturday by Chancellor Merkel, who also urged the Western powers to turn to Russia for help.

The UK intelligence agency GCHQ has published a report on internet security advising that fewer and less complex passwords should be used in order to increase security online, instead of adding more and varied characters in a bid to raise security.

"This proliferation of password use, and increasingly complex password requirements, places an unrealistic demand on most users,"

GCHQ writes in the document, published in conjunction with the UK Center for Protection of National Infrastructure [CESG], a government agency which advises the UK's public sector organizations.

"Inevitably, users will devise their own coping mechanisms to cope with 'password overload.' This includes writing down passwords, re-using the same password across different systems, or using simple and predictable password creation strategies."

The U.S. Air Force is giving an ultimatum to owners of a remote Nevada property now surrounded by a vast bombing range including the super-secret Area 51: Take a $5.2 million "last best offer" by Thursday for their property, or the government will seize it.

The answer: No, at least for now.

The owners, who trace their mining and mineral claims to the 1870s, include descendants of a couple who lost their hardscrabble mining enterprise after the Air Force moved in in the 1940s. Nuclear tests then began in 1951, their mine mill mysteriously exploded in 1954 and they ran out of money to seek reparations from the government in 1959.

"What they really want to buy is our property, our access rights and our view," said Joseph Sheahan, 54, who has led the fight with his cousin, Barbara Sheahan Manning, on behalf of about 20 property co-owners. Both live in Henderson, Nevada. "We prefer to keep our property, but it's for sale under the right price at the right conditions," Sheahan said. "Why don't they ask themselves what it cost my family over the years in blood, sweat, tears and money?"

The two sides are far apart. And they know condemnation proceedings would lead to a "fair market value" determination that could end up in court for a long time.

Egypt's cabinet unexpectedly resigned Saturday less than a week after the agriculture minister was arrested over corruption.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi asked Oil Minister Sherif Ismail to form a new government within one week, the presidency's office said Saturday following the resignation of Ibrahim Mehleb's government. The reason behind the resignation was not immediately clear, however, officials told Reuters news agency that for a while el-Sissi has not been happy with the performance of some of the ministers.

The country is battling an insurgency by an Islamic State group affiliate in the country's eastern region of Sinai while trying to fix its economy that has been crippled by years of turmoil and political uncertainty following the ouster of Egypt's long-serving, U.S.-backed dictator .

Ismail is seen likely to be appointed the country's next prime minister and is considered to be one of the best performing ministers. The country will hold its long overdue parliamentary elections next month, the final step in a process the government has said would deliver democracy

The former government faced a backlash over several controversial laws which were ratified by the president. One law said that journalists could face prison terms for reporting death toll figures other than government-sanctioned ones. Such laws triggered peaceful protests despite the ban on demonstrations following the election of el-Sissi as president. He won more than 90 percent of the vote and was the only candidate.

When he served as an army chief, el-Sissi staged a coup against the first democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi, who is now facing a death sentence over charges. Human rights groups accuse el-Sissi of abusing his power, silencing opposition and clamping down on media.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador to Stockholm after Moscow said it would take "retaliatory measures" should the Scandinavian country join the NATO military alliance.

On Friday, Sweden's Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom asked the Russian envoy, Viktor Tatarintsev, to elaborate on the comments recently made by Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

"We are an independent state and we make our own security policy decisions independently ... We do not accept threats and I have summoned the Russian ambassador to ask questions and get an explaation," Wallstrom told journalists.

The remarks came a day after Zakharova said, "Swedish membership in NATO would have politico-military and foreign policy consequences, and would require retaliatory measures from Russia."

A former French minister stirred up controversy Friday after saying Germany "took our Jews and gave us Arabs" as France began taking some of the thousands of refugees arriving in Germany.

Patrick Devedjian, a right-winger who served in the governments of presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, made the remark at a press conference, but quickly tried to backtrack on social media.

"My humorous jest was misplaced," Devedjian wrote on his Twitter account, saying he regretted it all the more because he himself helps refugees in need.

Devedjian, who comes from an Armenian family and now leads the Hauts-de-Seine region of wealthy suburbs west of Paris, said the joke was meant to be about Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

He flirted with the extreme-right in his youth before moving into more mainstream politics.

As thousands continue to flee poverty and conflict in Africa and the Middle East, Germany is expected to take in 800,000 asylum-seekers this year, four times the number in 2014 and far more than any other European country.

France has said it will take 24,000 refugees over the next two years, but President Francois Hollande has warned that without a united EU policy to share the burden of migrants, the borderless Schengen system could collapse.

This week, the Justice Department felt the need to write a memo to staff instructing them to indict individuals when they commit crimes, seemingly something implied by their job titles. It doesn't say as much about the current Justice Department regime under Loretta Lynch as it does about the former one under Eric Holder.

No major Wall Street executive went to jail for the illegal actions that precipitated the financial crisis, despite a mountain of documentary evidence of fraud. Corporations and their employees got away with what amounted to slaps on the wrist. And Holder, after presiding over this, joined the head of his Justice Department criminal division and several top deputies at Covington & Burling, a white-collar defense firm that represents most major banks.

You can draw a direct line from this failure back to the "Holder memo," written when he served as a deputy in the Clinton Justice Department. That memo created the "collateral consequences" policy, arguing that prosecutors who seek criminal cases against large companies should take into account innocent victims who may get hurt. It laid out a host of alternative remedies, such as fines and deferred prosecution agreements.

This eventually gave prosecutors a way to shrink from complex cases, to talk themselves into not wasting the effort. The working theory inside the Holder Justice Department was to only go after cases where victory was absolutely assured, and where collateral damage was minimized. And this philosophy drifted to preventing prosecutions of individuals as well, even though there's no shred of evidence that sending an executive to jail would sink a company (or that juries won't be able to understand complex cases against individuals, for that matter).

This Holder doctrine has soured opinions of the Justice Department, giving the impression that it serves only to protect the rich and powerful from the consequences of their actions. It's a perception that DoJ wants to correct, which is why it made the "Yates memo," named after Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, public.