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The war is over, the Syrian government has won - it's time to bring US forces home

Doug Bandow
Orange County Register
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 18:00 UTC
damascus syria
© AP Photo/Hassan Ammar
The Damascus sky lights up missile fire as the U.S. launches an attack on Syria targeting different parts of the capital early Saturday, April 14, 2018. Syria’s capital has been rocked by loud explosions that lit up the sky with heavy smoke as U.S. President Donald Trump announced airstrikes in retaliation for the country’s alleged use of chemical weapons.
Syria's capital looks a bit like Washington, D.C.: Imposing government buildings, heavy traffic, busy streets, and imperious officials. Different, however, are ubiquitous checkpoints to thwart car bombs.

Although the threat of terrorism scares most Americans, it actually offers a form of relief to Damascus residents. Until recently insurgents controlled some suburbs, from which they fired artillery and mortars into the city. Today those neighborhoods, just a few minutes away, are wrecked and empty. But the fighting is over.

On a recent trip to Syria I found similar situations in Homs and Aleppo. Entire neighborhoods in the latter are just rubble. But other areas of the cities are recovering.

Moreover, the war there is over. The government has won.

The last area under insurgent control, surrounding Idlib, faces an imminent offensive by the Syrian military. Damascus is widely expected to prevail.

If so, only lands in the north, where U.S. forces are cooperating with Kurdish militias, and in the southeast, near the Iraqi border, the site of another American base, remain outside of Syrian government control. President Donald Trump said he wanted U.S. forces stay out of the Syrian conflict and remain only long enough to defeat the Islamic State. But the administration recently announced what sounds like a plan for an essentially permanent, though lawless-without any congressional authorization-presence in Syria.

Comment: The author has ignored the most obvious reason for bringing the troops home - Washington has no authorization under international law to invade and occupy Syria.

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Star of David

Palestinian nighttime rallies 'a nightmare' for Israelis


The Daily Star
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 16:26 UTC
rafah
© AFP / SAID KHATIB
A Palestinian protester from a group calling themselves the "night confusion units" waves a sparkler near the Gaza-Israel border east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on September 26, 2018
It's nearly 10 p.m. when a group of young Palestinian men begins banging drums and chanting songs, while others attach incendiary devices to balloons all closely watched by Israeli snipers on the border.

For six months, Palestinians have gathered regularly along the fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel for often violent daylight demonstrations against Israeli policies.

But in recent weeks they have deployed a new tactic: "night confusion units." Protests tend to go on until the early hours.

Organizers say they aim to force the Jewish state to ease its crippling decadelong blockade of Gaza, but residents in nearby Israeli communities say their lives are being destroyed.
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Light Saber

French analyst calls sanctions by their right name: A form of war

Alain de Benoist - translated by Tome Winter
Fort Russ News
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 16:23 UTC
Putin Russia sanctions cartoon
© The Economist
Sanctions are based on a theory that puts "the enemy" on the level of a criminal or delinquent. As soon as a country poses a problem, there is now talk of "international sanctions", which are more and more like American sanctions. But what exactly is the meaning and legitimacy of this policy of sanctions?

A policy of sanctions is not a policy. It is a form of warfare that uses only "peaceful" means to blur the line between war and peace. Just like a blockade, of which sanctions constitute the modern form, this war is akin to maritime warfare, still favored by the powers that rule the seas - England once, the United States today - and it is also a trade war or an economic one: the "war on trade", formerly known as the "guerre de course," Commerce raiding. It is a "total" war, not only because it rejects the classic distinction between combatants and non-combatants, but also because it is most often based on a "just" theory of war, which puts the enemy on the level of a criminal or a delinquent.

Comment: Sanctions have become the main weapon of US "diplomacy". But as the author points out, it backfires far more often than it works.

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Biohazard

Pentagon: Parcels received test positive for ricin


RT
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 16:35 UTC
Pentagon
© Frontpage/Shutterstock
The Pentagon
At least two packages sent to the Department of Defense headquarters in Washington, DC have tested positive for ricin, a dangerous poison, US officials said. The FBI is investigating.

The packages were sent to someone inside the Pentagon but triggered the alarms at the mail processing facility, DOD spokesman Chris Sherwood told reporters on Tuesday. The suspicious shipments never made it into the Pentagon building.

The Pentagon's Force Protection Agency responded to the incident and the FBI will conduct further tests on the packages, officials told reporters. The FBI is the lead agency on the case.

All mail delivered to the Pentagon on Monday has been quarantined for inspection. Ricin is a highly toxic substance extracted from castor beans, and has figured prominently as a bioweapon in a number of foiled terrorist plots.

Comment: Update Oct. 3, 2018 from RT:
A former Navy sailor has reportedly sent the two suspicious packages found in a Pentagon mailroom on Tuesday, a Fox News report claims.

Investigators told Fox that one of two envelopes, addressed to Defense Secretary James Mattis and top Navy officer Admiral John Richardson, initially tested positive for ricin contamination.

A return address on one of the envelopes pointed investigators towards the sailor, whose name has not yet been released.

Similar packages were discovered on Tuesday at the Texas office of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and at the White House, addressed to President Donald Trump. The Texas package was found to be safe, while law enforcement officials have not yet confirmed whether the package addressed to Trump contained ricin or any other poison.


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Bullseye

Kavanaugh allegations: Vilification as a form of psychological terrorism

James Simpson
The Federalist
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:00 UTC
Vilification is a form of psychological terrorism. Because the fury displayed by those leveling the charges is so relentless and uncompromising, it carries its own threat.
Brett Kavanaugh
The left's smear tactics have come on full display during the surfeit of attacks on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Whether you support or oppose this SCOTUS nomination, the tactics being used are more extreme even than during the Clarence Thomas hearings.

But as we know, they are nothing new, and Democrats will continue to use them until the American people scream "Enough!" - because they are effective. The real goal is psychological terrorism-that is, engaging in a scorched-earth effort to destroy the target, and in so doing intimidating anyone willing to enter public service, or even just support a public figure that does not parrot the politically correct line.

The charges do not need to be true, or even credible. People do not recoil because of the charges themselves (although, as we see, the left spares no effort to dream up the worst accusations they can think of). People recoil out of fear.

This tactic relies on the human herding instinct. People naturally shy away from anyone so vilified, whether the charges are credible or not, simply out of fear of being smeared with the same brush. They don't want to be ostracized by the group.

Such excommunication has real consequences on reputations, jobs, relationships, even survival. The real goal is to threaten the rest of us into silence. How many people, for example, never used Donald Trump yard signs or bumper stickers out of fear of ostracism, or even property destruction?

Comment: America's shame on display: US has nothing to teach the world about justice or politics after Kavanaugh farce

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Chess

Mattis: Number of US diplomats in Syria has doubled as defeat of Daesh nears


The Daily Star
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 16:22 UTC
daraa
© AFP / Mohamad ABAZEED
Syrians ride a bicycle past destroyed buildings in an opposition-held neighbourhood of the southern city of Daraa on October 2, 2018
The number of U.S. diplomats in Syria has doubled as Daesh (ISIS) near a military defeat, U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis said Tuesday.

The U.S.-led coalition, along with local partners, has largely cleared the militant group from Iraq and Syria but remains concerned about its resurgence.

"Our diplomats there on the ground have been doubled in number. As we see the military operations becoming less, we will see the diplomatic effort now able to take [root]," Mattis said. He did not give a specific number.

A U.S. official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mattis was referring to State Department employees, including diplomats and personnel involved in humanitarian assistance, and that the increase was recent.
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Fire

Putin lambasts Skripal, calls him 'traitor' and 'scum'


RT
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 15:41 UTC
putin
© Kremlin Pool. Global Look Press
In a rare personal comment on the Sergei Skripal scandal, Russian President Vladimir Putin lambasted the former double agent as a "traitor" and "scum." The sooner the media noise around Skripal ends, the better, Putin said.

Some media outlets are "pushing through a theory that Mr Skripal is some sort of a rights activist. He's plainly a spy. A traitor to his homeland. There's such a thing - being a traitor to the homeland. He is one," Putin said on Wednesday, speaking at the Russian Energy Week International Forum in Moscow.

"Imagine, if there's a person in your country who betrayed it. How would you treat him?" Putin added."He's plainly scum."

Putin also said the whole Skripal affair had been blown out of proportion, adding that "the faster [the media campaign] ends, the better."
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Pirates

Russian military accuses 'illegal armed groups' of ongoing ceasefire breaches in Idlib de-escalation zone


Sputnik
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 15:17 UTC
Idlib city
© Agence France-Presse/Mohamed al-Bakour
Idlib, northwestern Syria.
Armed groups in Syria continue ceasefire violations in Syria's Idlib de-escalation zone, the Russian Defense Ministry's center for Syrian reconciliation said on Tuesday.

"Despite the ceasefire regime being established throughout the country, there are still cases of ceasefire regime violation by illegal armed formations in the Idlib de-escalation zone. Over the past day they attacked Ruseyt Iskander (three times), Nahshabba, Jubb al-Zazur in Latakia province, and settlement al-Salyumiya in Hama province. Besides, there were shelling attacks against Tadef, Aleppo province, from Turkish-backed formations seizing positions near the town of al-Bab," the center said in a statement.

Comment:

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Mr. Potato

James Corbett's #PropagandaWatch: Moronic Lockheed Martin

James Corbett
The Corbett Report
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 13:53 UTC
Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft
© Axel Schmidt / Reuters
A Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft
The good folks at Lockheed Martin kindly invited you to submit your photos of their wonderful products . . . until they realized that wasn't such a good idea. Because they're blithering idiots. Don't be afraid to laugh at them.

Comment: More on LM's publicity debacles:

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Ice Cube

A colder war? UK to send commandos to Norway, curb Russia's activity in Arctic


Sputnik
Sun, 30 Sep 2018 14:15 UTC
Brits in Arctic
© AP
"Chipping away" British Arctic Convoy, 1943, H.M.S. Vansittart.
With the Russian-British relations going downhill after the Skripal poisoning, Gavin Williamson has revealed details of Britain's plan that he branded a "defence Arctic strategy," which could reportedly be the largest operation of its kind since the Cold War.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has announced in the interview to the Sunday Telegragh that the UK is planning to open a new military base in the northern part of Norway and deploy 800 Royal Marine and Army troopers to the country every winter for 10 years from 2019. They are to operate with the US and Dutch troopers there. Together with 3,000 commandos, sent to take part in the NATO drills, the total number of the deployed troops will top 40,000.

As Williamson told the Telegraph, the Cabinet was drawing a "defence Arctic strategy" to boost the country's military presence while concerns about Russian increasing activity "in our back yard" are growing.
"If we want to be protecting our interests in what is effectively our own back yard, this is something we need to be doing. Britain will make it clear that the Royal Navy not only has the skills and the capabilities to operate under the ice shelf but a willingness to do it," he claimed, adding it's about "demonstrating we're there to uphold the international rules based order."
He pointed out that Russia had re-opened its bases, which were shut down after the collapse of the USSR, and stepped up submarine activity in the Arctic, which is "very close to the level that it was at the Cold War."

Comment: Perhaps the Brits should just 'chill out' at home.

Update 10/2/2018 from RFE/RL:
The Russian Embassy in London is objecting to Britain's reported plans to boost its military presence in the Arctic next year to counter what London has called increasing Russian aggression.

The objections were raised on October 1 after British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson told The Sunday Telegraph that the government is preparing a "defense Arctic strategy" that would deploy 800 army and marine commandos to Norway in 2019 and establish a new military base there.

The newspaper said Britain's actions come amid signs that Russia is expanding its military and industrial presence in the Arctic, in particular to exploit the region's large untapped reserves of oil as climate change melts polar ice and makes navigation and habitation in the region more feasible.

"We see Russian submarine activity very close to the level that it was at the Cold War, and it's right that we start responding to that," Williamson told the newspaper.

Williamson separately at a ruling party conference on September 30 called Russia "one of the greatest threats we face today," and said: "We will not let the Kremlin rewrite the outcome of the Cold War."

Williamson's remarks prompted a warning from the Russian Embassy against posting troops in the Arctic.

"We call on British authorities, who have recently been actively promoting the concept of Global Britain, to pursue their ambitions in other fields," the embassy's press secretary said in a statement quoted by the Russian state-run news agency TASS.

"The unjustified British plans to build up its military presence in close proximity to Russia's borders will only result in creating unnecessary tensions," he said. "Russia and other Arctic countries consider this region to be a space for constructive cooperation... There is no potential for conflict, nor should there be."


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