"It is remarkable that western leaders only remember the term ceasefire when their rebels on the ground are losing. Why didn't they see the need for peace in Syria before the Russian operation started?"

— Iyad Khuder, Damascus-based political analyst

Imagine if the American people elected a president who was much worse than George W. Bush or Barack Obama. A real tyrant. Would that be sufficient justification for someone like Vladimir Putin to arm and train Mexican and Canadian mercenaries to invade America, kill US civilians, destroy cities and critical infrastructure, seize vital oil refineries and pipeline corridors, behead government officials and prisoners they'd captured, declare their own independent state, and do everything in their power to overthrow the elected-government in Washington?

Of course not. The question is ridiculous. It wouldn't matter if the US president was a tyrant or not, that doesn't justify an invasion by armed proxies from another country. And yet, this is precisely the policy that US Secretary of State John Kerry defended at the United Nations on Friday. Behind all the political blabber about a "roadmap to peace", Kerry was tacitly defending a policy which has led to the deaths of 250,000 Syrians and the destruction of the country.

Erdoğan began his ascent to power as a social reformer in opposition to the power elite; he was a rabble-rouser for popular Islam and social welfare. Once he takes political power he enriches his family and the business elite and purges adversaries and rivals.

With political power and economic connections, he amasses personal wealth through illicit business transactions.

With political power and personal wealth, he seeks prestige and status among the Western elites by serving imperial interests: He shoots down a Russian military jet over Syrian territory and thereby threatens hundreds of Turkish businesses and loses a major source of personal enrichment. When the Russians threaten to cut off energy exports to Turkey, Erdoğan's opponents suggest he heat his own palace and villas with cow dung this winter.

The Two Faces of Erdoğan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a long and ignoble history of betraying political associates, trading partners and military allies; of pledging friendship and then bombing his 'friends' and murdering citizens; of negotiating 'in good faith' and then killing rivals; of playing democrat then behaving like an ordinary demagogic dictator.


Erdoğan appeals to the plebian and austere values of the Anatolian provincial petty bourgeoisie, while building the largest luxurious presidential palace in the world - fit for a 21st century Pasha. He repeatedly pronounces his fealty to the 'Turkish Nation', while he robs the Turkish treasury by repeatedly accepting bribes and pay-offs from building contractors who then double charge for publically-funded projects.

More recently, Erdogan claims to oppose terrorism and fight ISIS, while the major Turkish and regional newspapers, journalists and most domestic observers document the massive flow of illegal arms across the Turkish-Syrian border to ISIS terrorists.

The plutocrats and oligarchs are winning while America's democratic values are fading away, American journalist and political commentator Bill Moyers notes, calling his compatriots to struggle for democracy.

American corporatocrats were not shy about using the crisis of 9/11 in 2001 to pursue own vested interests, US prominent journalist and managing editor of Moyers & Company Bill Moyers underscores.

"Across the land, the faces of Americans of every stripe were stained with tears. Here in New York, we still were attending memorial services for our firemen and police. But in the nation's capital, within sight of a smoldering Pentagon that had been struck by one of the hijacked planes, the predator class was hard at work pursuing private plunder at public expense, gold-diggers in the ashes of tragedy exploiting our fear, sorrow, and loss," Moyers writes in his latest essay for BillMoyers.com.

American plutocrats were struggling for tax cuts and big breaks. They wanted special trade benefits and the ability to exploit the country's resources limitlessly.

Incredible as it may seem, American business and political "mercenaries" rushed to seize all the opportunities provided by the crisis.

Russia trolled the United States with images of zombies from AMC's hit show The Walking Dead in protest of the extension of U.S. sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine.

"It is critical that Russia takes the steps necessary to comply with its obligations under the Minsk Agreements and to ensure a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine," John E. Smith, acting director of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said on Tuesday.

"By more closely matching our designations with those of our international partners and thwarting attempts to evade sanctions, we are once again demonstrating the United States' unwavering resolve to pressure Russia to respect the security and sovereignty of Ukraine," Smith added.

Thirty-four people and entities were added to the sanctions list in action the Treasury Department said was necessary "to counter attempts to circumvent these sanctions, to further align U.S. measures with those of its international allies, and to provide additional information to assist the private sector with sanctions compliance."

Western national governments using their intelligence communities to collectively manufacture, orchestrate and stage violent world events promoting their endless war on terror and then employing their bought and paid for MSM propagandists to subsequently shape public opinion and perception has increasingly been the twenty-first century's go-to menu utilized by the powers-that-shouldn't-be. This presentation will provide a dot connecting overview that examines this unfolding process in detail showing how the US government and its Western vassals have deployed the Hegelian Dialectic to systematically create crises, and then implement a so called solution in order to gain maximum control over the global population to divide and rule the planet. Ultimately the globalists' objective behind all these disturbing events and developments is leading humanity towards their New World Order tyranny of a one world government.

The biggest pivotal game changer since the JFK assassination has been 9/11, when a handful of powerful Zionist neocons in Washington deploying CIA, FBI and Pentagon collaborators worked directly with Israel and its Mossad along with Saudi intelligence to cold-bloodedly murder 3000 Americans in their much needed "new Pearl Harbor" event in order to pull off the manufactured launch of their war on terror. With the deep Bush-bin Laden family connection going way back as both business and terrorist crime partners, globalist George Bush senior then acting as CIA director and Jimmy Carter's foreign security advisor-fellow globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski employed a rag-tag group of Saudi Wahhabis called the mujahedeen to fight as US proxy terrorists against an overextended Soviet Army in the notorious empire graveyard Afghanistan in the late 1970's. Brzezinski went on public record bragging that he had enticed President Carter to "sign the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul" a full half year ahead of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. That's how callous the psychopathic architects of war are to think nothing of starting a proxy war that lasts a decade and kills a million Afghans. Thus the bloody origins of this unholy marriage between US Empire of Chaos and its proxy war ally the Islamic jihadists still going stronger than ever today can be traced as far back as June 1979.

The UN Security Council has adopted a roadmap for peace in Syria. Unfortunately, according to journalist Manlio Dinucci, the roadmap can't lead anywhere so long as some of the body's members continue to systematically violate Syria's sovereignty, while their allies provide support to the terrorists the rest of the world is meant to be fighting.

Last week, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2254, endorsing the road map for the Syrian peace process, and setting a timetable for talks aimed at bringing the brutal, half-decade-long conflict to a close.

Despite being hailed as an important step toward peace, not everyone is optimistic over the resolution's significance. The problem, according to Italian journalist Manlio Dunucci, is that three of the Security Council's permanent members are engaged in the systematic violation of the country's sovereignty, while their allies provide direct support for the terrorists ripping Syria apart.

"Defusing the conflict in Syria would contribute to easing tensions throughout the Middle East, but there is a problem," Dunucci, a columnist for progressive Italian newspaper il Manifesto, explained.

"Among the Security Council's five permanent members, three - the US, France and Britain, have blatantly violated 'the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic' [a line from the draft text], despite voicing their 'strong support' for the resolution. They are the ones responsible for the 'increase in terrorists drawn to the fighting in Syria', despite simultaneously expressing their 'gravest concern' over the issue."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Sunday said he voted against the $1.1 trillion government spending bill that passed Congress last week because nobody had a chance to read the behemoth legislation.

"It was over a trillion dollars, it was all lumped together, 2,242 pages. Nobody read it, so, frankly, my biggest complaint is that I have no idea what kind of things they stuck in the bill," Paul told host John Catsimatidis on "The Cats Roundtable" on New York's AM 970. "I voted against it because I won't vote for these enormous bills that no one has a chance to read," he added. "We were given it yesterday or the day before the bill came forward, and so this is not a way to run government. It's a part of the reason why government is broke."

Paul said his Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are as much to blame as Democrats for the legislation. "Once again this came not at the behest of just the Democrats," he said. "It came at the behest of right-wing Republicans who want military spending and left-wing Democrats who want welfare spending, and that's the dirty little secret. "Both parties are at fault for it," he added.

The GOP presidential candidate said he is worried about the climbing national debt, adding that Congress should only spend the money it has. "I think we should balance our budget and only spend what comes in," he said.

Sanctions against Russia do not have a significant impact on the US economy, which is why the White House is in no hurry to cancel them, thus preferring to escalate the confrontation on the European continent, claims China's official press agency.

The White House is urging its European partners to follow its "recommendations" on sanctions against Russia in order to aggravate the confrontation between Brussels and Moscow, according to a commentary from the Chinese news agency Xinhua.

The US is seeking to make the most of the confrontation on the European continent, while it has few economic ties with Russia and experiences little tangible impact from the sanctions, according to the commentary.

Russia is worried by supplies of weapons to militants in Syria, as well as penetration of terrorists to the country through checkpoints where United Nations observers inspecting humanitarian cargoes are deployed, a deputy Russian permanent representative to the global organization said at a UN Security Council session Tuesday.

Vladimir Safronkov expressed regret that the UN Security Council did not accept Russia's proposal to apply the UN monitoring mechanism to "all cargoes going to Syria and declared as humanitarian."

"We are seriously worried that supplies of weapons to militants do not end, and foreign terrorists-militants from all over the world keep joining the ranks of the Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist groups," Safronkov said.

"Unfortunately, that flow goes via Syrian borders, often even via the same checkpoints where the UN mechanism works," the diplomat said. He said despite the UN presence as well as the resolution of the international community "to put an end to the crisis in Syria and shut off the air supply to terrorists", border crossing points to Syria "are persistently used for purposes having nothing to do with humanitarian, and often under humanitarian cover." "This needs to be stopped," Safronkov underscored.

The Department of Justice has announced a moratorium on splitting gains made from its civil asset forfeiture program with local law enforcement. Budget cuts of $1.2 billion made keeping the practice "impossible," the DOJ said, upsetting police groups.

While federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the US Marshals will continue using the legal tool, the "equitable sharing payments" will not return until "a later date should the budget picture improve," according to the DOJ.

Civil asset forfeiture is the taking of property by authorities who suspect it has been used in a crime, and it is often a profitable routine. When large sums of cash aren't being directly collected as alleged drug money, other items like cars or houses can eventually be liquidated to fund police pet projects.