• How the deep state controls deep thinking and Russiaphobia
• How the Deep State came to America: A history
• The American Deep State would sacrifice the Republic before losing again to Trump
• Deep State vs Trump: We're Watching an Antidemocratic Coup Unfold in The United States
• Stephen F. Cohen: The Brennan Affair Reveals The Deep State
• The US Military, Deep State and American Innocence

• 'Powerful countries strongly motivated to de-dollarize' - US analyst
• Russia-Africa 'Shared Vision 2030': The alternative to neo-colonial pillage
• Arab media's full interview with Putin: Russia 'does not build alliances against anyone'
• Here's where Washington's focus will shift to after Syria

• A look inside Hunter Biden's dealings with a list of shadowy foreign firms
• 'Fun times in Beijing': Biden received $700,000 from company holding stake in Chinese investment firm
• State Dept. official raised concerns about Hunter Biden and Burisma in 2015

[...] The most interesting part of the president's press conference [on al- Baghdadi's death] was his segue into a non sequitur about Iraq. Mid way through the press conference a reporter asked Trump about what "brilliant" people helped in his decision-making process for the operation. Trump's response was one of the most telling statements of his presidency. Indeed, it was an admission that he is perfectly willing to commit a war crime, an impeachable offense, as part of his personal ideology. Here's the exchange.

[...]

What Donald Trump is advocating here, in his very Donald Trump kind of way, is "pillaging." He is advocating taking Iraq's oil by force, ostensibly as payment for our "liberation" of that country. This is clearly and definitively a war crime.

International law has long protected property against pillage during armed conflict. The Lieber Code, a military law from the U.S. civil war, said, "All pillage or sacking, even after taking place by force, are prohibited under penalty of death, or such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense." In The Hague Regulations of 1907, two provisions stipulate clearly that "the pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault, is prohibited," and that "pillage is formally forbidden." The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court have both formally reaffirmed that pillaging a country of its natural resources is illegal and is considered to be a war crime. It's as simple as that.

It matters not one whit if Lindsey Graham has a bill to take Iraq's oil. It doesn't matter if Trump thinks we should take the oil as reimbursement for U.S. aggression against that country. What matters here is the rule of law, and the law is clear. It's bad enough that the U.S. military is in Syria illegally. (There are only three ways to send troops to a foreign country legally: If the troops are invited by the country; if the country attacks the United States; or with the permission of the United Nations Security Council.) Let's not add more international crimes to the ones we've already committed.

[...]

On Monday Defense Secretary Mark Esper spelled out that a deployment of some few hundred US troops will deny Syrian government access to oilfields in the northeast, instead ensuring they stay in Kurdish-led SDF hands.

The immediate justification given by the Pentagon chief was the usual 'defeat ISIS' mantra (despite, ironically, their leader Baghdadi being taken out in Saturday's US raid into Idlib).

"We want to make sure that SDF does have access to the resources in order to guard the [IS] prisons, in order to arm their own troops, in order to assist us with the 'defeat ISIS' mission," Esper said.

One international legal expert, Anthony Cordesman, told The Guardian of the Pentagon plan that, "In international law, you can't take civilian goods or seize them. That would amount to a war crime."

Dorsey admitted in a series of tweets that political advertising can skew the conversation away from organic discussion, though his declaration that "we believe this decision should not be compromised by money" belied years of taking money for exactly that skewing.

Facebook has been getting pummeled for its decision not to fact-check ads from candidates, and Dorsey may want to spare Twitter from being dragged through the same mud.

Dorsey emphasized "this isn't about free expression," and explained that trying to focus on controlling the spread of targeted messaging, disinfo, and deepfakes while also regulating advertising stopped the platform from doing either effectively. Presumably, that means Twitter will focus more on stemming the spread of "disinfo" going forward - an ominous prospect for users with political views outside of the mainstream, who have seen many of their number kicked off the major social media platforms or shadowbanned smeared as "disinfo."

Some speculated the intent was to pressure Facebook into changing its own political policies, which have been panned by several of the 2020 candidates even as they buy ads on the platform.

Others, smelling censorship but approving of the odor, called on Dorsey to ban other groups and individuals...

...or other advertisers.

Some saw the ban as a cynical political move, however, pointing out that ads are not the real driver of fake political conversations.