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US intention to announce withdrawal of 4K troops from Afghanistan next week


Sputnik
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 01:59 UTC
Trump Troops
© AFP/Olivier Douliery
Trump speaks to troops at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan,
The Trump administration plans to announce next week a withdrawal of a total of 4,000 US servicemen from Afghanistan in the wake of the resumption of the talks between Washington and Taliban, media reported, citing US officials.

After the possible withdrawal, about 8,000-9,000 US soldiers would remain in Afghanistan, while the pullout would be phased and occur over a few months, the NBC News broadcaster stated.

Earlier, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley and Defence Secretary Mark Esper said that the US military was considering scaling down its presence in Afghanistan with increased emphasis on counterterrorism operations.

Last Sunday, the Taliban announced that the talks with the US had resumed in Doha after a three-month hiatus. A source close to the Islamist movement said that both sides had discussed in Doha the reduction of violence and conditions that could spur intra-Afghan talks to begin.

However, on Thursday, US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad announced a "brief pause" in Taliban peace talks following an attack on Bagram airbase that killed two and wounded dozens of civilians. He said the Taliban must show willingness to respond to Afghan desire for peace.

Comment: We have heard this before and it is likely we will hear it again.

See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Schiff: 'I had no idea FBI was committing serious abuses when I said all that stuff'

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 20:19 UTC
Adam Schiff
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) can't admit when he's wrong.

After last week's DOJ Inspector General report revealed that the FBI committed serious abuses while obtaining a warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page - including fabricating evidence, Schiff was asked on Sunday by Fox News host Christ Wallace:

"Given what you know now ... are you willing to admit that you were wrong in your defense of the FBI's FISA process?"

To which Schiff replied: "I'm certainly willing to admit that the inspector general found serious abuses of FISA that I was unaware of."

That's an odd way of admitting your entire thesis has been dead wrong for three years.
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Folder

Newly leaked evidence OPCW suppressed, altered findings on Douma 'chem attack'


RT
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 07:39 UTC
OPCWlogo
© OPCW/KJN
A new cache of internal documents reveal that members of the OPCW team tasked with probing the Douma "chemical attack" protested the organization's final report on the incident, which they said misrepresented their conclusions.

In a memo addressed to OPCW Director General Fernando Arias, one scientist who participated in the OPCW's fact finding mission (FFM) wrote that there are "about 20 inspectors who have expressed concern" over how the OPCW presented its findings on the alleged Syrian chemical attack. According to the memorandum, the organization's final report does not reflect the FFM's findings, presented in their interim report, which is also part of the new document dump.

The new documents, released by WikiLeaks, are the latest evidence undermining the OPCW's final report on the Syrian attack.

Comment: See also:

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Better Earth

'We've always been on receiving end of US hegemony': Pakistan seeks closer ties with Russia, and has a real chance of success


RT
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 19:20 UTC
russian pakistani troops
© RIA Novosti / Vitaly Timkiv
Islamabad, which just settled a Soviet-era debt dispute with Moscow, now wishes for "a new phase" in relations with Russia. Geopolitics, coupled with promising new trade opportunities, could help them thrive, analysts explain.

Russia-Pakistan relations returned to a brighter place this week, when Prime Minister Imran Khan voiced his desire to give them a powerful boost. While hosting a sizable Russian delegation led by Trade Minister Denis Manturov, Khan signaled that his country is ready to open its doors to Russian businesses and investors.

And it doesn't look like wishful thinking at all. Under a massive deal signed in Islamabad, Russia will pour $1 billion into the revival and upgrade of the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), built with Soviet assistance. The two also had in their sights reconstructing a gas pipeline, building a railway network and procurement of the Sukhoi-built SSJ-100 narrow-body jets.

Pakistan has also agreed to pay off $93.5 million it had borrowed from the Soviet Union, thus dismantling the last hurdle affecting its commercial ties with Russia. Obviously, both Moscow and Islamabad want the ball to roll faster - at least when it comes to doing business - but could they engage each other, given Russia's time-tested ties with India, and Pakistan's alignment with the US?

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Safe

US isn't weaponizing the dollar; sanctions are the alternative to war, Mnuchin says

Natasha Turak
CNBC
Sat, 14 Dec 2019 18:36 UTC
mnuchin
© Reuters / Ben Nelms
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Saturday rejected the suggestion that the Trump administration is weaponizing the dollar through its trade-restricting policies with other countries.

"Let me be clear: we are not weaponizing the U.S. dollar," Mnuchin told CNBC's Hadley Gamble at the Doha Forum in Qatar. "If anything I would say the opposite; I take great responsibility that people use the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, and the dollar is quite strong — sometimes the president says the dollar is too strong.

"The dollar is strong because of the U.S. economy and because people want to hold dollars and the safety of the U.S. dollar. So because of that, we take sanctions responsibility very seriously — as a matter of fact, I personally sign off on every single piece of sanction that we do."

Officials in China and Europe have been actively promoting their currencies as substitutes for the dollar when it comes to both reserves and transactions, particularly in the face of expanding U.S. sanctions and protectionist trade policies like tariffs.

The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions including on dollar trade with Iran, North Korea and others in an effort to pressure state actors to rein in behavior that Washington deems destabilizing and against its interests. According to the Treasury Department, there are 6,300 Specially Designated Nationals and more than 20 countries against which some type of U.S. sanctions are in place.
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Light Sabers

US & Russia won't go to war over Syria

Mikhail Khodarenok
RT
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 09:04 UTC
armoured personnel carrier
© AFP / Delil Souleiman
A US soldier stands in an armoured personnel carrier as the US forces pull out of their base in the Northern Syrian town of Tal Tamr, on October 20, 2019
To avoid any potential incidents, Americans should simply withdraw and end the unlawful presence of their forces in Syria. And abstain from alarmist headlines foreshadowing a shooting war.

American commanders in Syria are scrambling to protect their forces from an expected surge in activity by military units from Turkey, Russia, Iran and the Syrian government. They believe these countries pose a greater danger than Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) forces, the New York Times reports.

Anonymous sources, questionable statements

According to anonymous Department of Defense officials, "commanders have requested guidance outlining how American forces might deal with an attack from the assortment of armed groups, including Russian-backed Syrian government forces that have, in the past, tried to seize territory held by the United States."

This statement seems fairly questionable, since any commander of a unit deployed to a war zone has clear-cut instructions from their superiors on what to do in a particular situation. Claiming otherwise, especially about an army as organized and efficient as the one the US has, would probably be unjustified from any possible point of view. Naturally, the directives coming from the HQ are top secret. If we assume their content was revealed to the NYT by a military source, the US should first focus on finding who in the DoD is leaking top secret information.

Comment: See also:

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Magic Hat

The Skripals under the US spell at a USAF nuclear bomber base in Fairford, Gloucestershire (before relocating to the USA?)


John Helmer
Sun, 08 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
Sergie Strangelove
English plane spotters and bird watchers have discovered the location of the Skripals in Gloucestershire. An hour and a half's drive north of their well-known home in Salisbury, Sergei and Yulia Skripal have been hidden inside an airbase operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) for long-range B-52 and B-2 bombers armed with nuclear weapons targeted on Russia.

Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned in the Salisbury city centre at about 4:15 on Sunday afternoon, March 4, 2018. They were then taken by separate ambulances to the Salisbury District Hospital. What happened to them next remains a state secret. Follow the latest report here.

Comment: For some background:

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Bad Guys

Clashes between protesters, police heat up in Beirut


Sputnik
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 18:31 UTC
Lebanon protests 2019
© AP Photo / Hussein Malla
Anti-government protesters in downtown Beirut, Lebanon
Lebanese security forces and the military are again using tear gas and rubber sticks against violent Shiite youths in the area of Martyr's Square in central Beirut, where order had been briefly restored earlier in the day, an activist said.

The clashes started earlier on Saturday, and law enforcement managed to restore calm by making a truce with rioters who had spent hours trying to break through barricades surrounding protest camps at Martyr's Square and Ring Bridge. Meanwhile, at the nearby street of Riad Al Solh, peaceful marchers tried to get past security forces guarding the national parliament building.

Comment: Even though the protests were initially over legitimate grievances with the current government, the CIA is right in there attempting to turn it to advantage. It eventually failed in Syria, and now people are wise to the game

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Sheriff

Kremlin: Many accomplices to terrorist attacks are in hiding in Europe

Drago Bosnic
Fort Russ News
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 18:22 UTC
Dmitry Peskov

Russian Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov
Many accomplices in terrorist attacks committed in Russia are in hiding in European countries and Russia keeps pressing for their extradition, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Thursday.

"It is a hard fact that many accomplices in terrorist attacks and killings during the bloody events in the Caucasus are still in hiding. Many of them are in European countries. They obtain residence permits or citizenship and are free to walk the streets in broad daylight among ordinary people," Peskov said, according to TASS.

"Many of them are being investigated with the aim of demanding their extradition to Russia. As a rule, such lists are not made public," he added.

Comment:

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Gift

China suspends some retaliatory tariffs after reaching agreement on 'phase one' trade deal with US

Brenda Goh
KFGO
Sun, 15 Dec 2019 18:21 UTC
Chinese and U.S. flags
China has suspended additional tariffs on some U.S. goods that were meant to be implemented on Dec. 15, the State Council's customs tariff commission said on Sunday, after the world's two largest economies agreed a "phase one" trade deal on Friday.

The deal, rumors and leaks over which have gyrated world markets for months, reduces some U.S. tariffs in exchange for what U.S. officials said would be a big jump in Chinese purchases of American farm products and other goods.

China's retaliatory tariffs, which were due to take effect on Dec. 15, were meant to target goods ranging from corn and wheat to U.S. made vehicles and auto parts.

Comment: Analysis: What's good-bad-ugly about US-China trade breakthrough
What's in the deal?

The US will lower from 15 to 7.5 percent levies on approximately $120 billion of Chinese imports. However, 25-percent tariffs on roughly $250 billion worth of Chinese goods will remain in force. While China did not announce the elimination or reduction of existing tariffs targeting US imports, it agreed to boost purchases of American goods to $200 billion over the next two years, including agricultural imports critical for the US.

The deal also requires structural reforms from the Chinese side regarding intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, currency and foreign exchange, among other things.
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