The debt ceiling issue is returning to the forefront in American politics, again threatening a government shutdown.

Last time, the shutdown resulted in sequester for many agencies that suspended work for many government employees; a great deal of political theater dominated the news cycle; but ultimately, things returned to a basic normalcy.

This time may be different, as a number of critical factors face Americans in 2015. Last week, Congress passed "procedural martial law" to address stop-gap spending as it faces the debt ceiling crisis again.

Meanwhile, this quietly announced martial law forced a vote on bills the same day, preventing members from even reading the legislation they were voting on, to avert an October 1 government shutdown. The move, which was done just a few weeks prior, shows how desperate things have become.

Pundits and politicians are already looking for a convenient explanation for the twin Middle East disasters of the rise of Islamic State and the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria. The genuine answer is politically unpalatable, because the primary cause of both calamities is U.S. war and covert operations in the Middle East, followed by the abdication of U.S. power and responsibility for Syria policy to Saudi Arabia and other Sunni allies.

The emergence of a new state always involves a complex of factors. But over the past three decades, U.S. covert operations and war have entered repeatedly and powerfully into the chain of causality leading to Islamic State's present position.

The causal chain begins with the role of the U.S. in creating a mujahedeen force to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Osama bin Laden was a key facilitator in training that force in Afghanistan. Without that reckless U.S. policy, the blowback of the later creation of al-Qaida would very likely not have occurred. But it was the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq that made al-Qaida a significant political-military force for the first time. The war drew Islamists to Iraq from all over the Middle East, and their war of terrorism against Iraqi Shiites was a precursor to the sectarian wars to follow.

10 DAYS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD. They did, don't you think? Gilbert Doctorow describes the interlocking parts of Moscow's actions: coalition assembled, the UNGA, the military moves, the demonstration that Russia has full-capacity armed forces, Ukraine.

SYRIA. Clearly the big story. Others have commented: I recommend Dyer, Escobar and Buchanan. But there are plenty more. All I have to add are a few observations. Re the "Russian invasion" of Ukraine and grainy photos of combine harvesters or whatever somewhere or other, this is what real satellite photos look like: colour, detail, precision. Russia's intervention has exploded the US fantasy of "moderate opposition" (but weren't there only four or five of them?) and its incoherent two-horse scheme (watch McCain lump "barrel bombs" and beheaders together as if Assad and ISIS were the same at 6:51). As to Russia being "doomed to fail", its strikes are coordinated with the forces on the ground that are actually fighting ISIS; Syrian forces have begun an offensive. And with Iraq too. Egypt as well. Israel even? Is Iran coming? There are suggestions that both Iraq and Afghanistan would welcome Russian assistance because ISIS has only grown stronger in the year of the US-led operation, despite its claims. Moscow prepared the ground, did everything legally, assembled a coalition and moved quickly and decisively. Not Putin vs Obama, or "standing up to Putin", but a direct challenge to the New American Century crowd; "the most powerful, good and honorable nation... the exceptional nation": "Do you at least realise now what you have done?" (Вы хоть понимаете теперь, что вы натворили?).

A massive blast has killed at least 30 and injured over 100 more in NATO-member Turkey's capital of Ankara. The blast appears to have targeted the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who was holding a peace rally at the moment of the explosion.

CNN would report in their article, "30 killed in bombing near main train station in Turkey's capital," that:

At least one powerful bomb hit near the main train station in the Turkish capital Saturday morning, killing 30 people, authorities said, making it the deadliest attack in Ankara in recent memory.

It would also claim that:

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, though suspicion immediately fell on the ISIS terrorist group or on Kurdish separatists in Turkey.

Turkey avoided, for quite some time, any conflict with ISIS, perhaps in exchange for the release earlier this year of dozens of Turkish hostages seized in the Iraqi city of Mosul. No details of those negotiations have been released.

However, Turkey recently changed its stance and allowed the U.S. to launch strikes on ISIS from the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.

The overwhelmingly successful Russian offensive against Western terror proxies in Syria has blown the lid off the United States' fabricated 'War on Terror'™. The US has essentially been deposed from power in Syria and now sits in the geopolitical backseat. If the US were led by rational, but humanly flawed individuals, one might expect some reflection about the error of their ways. But we know by now that the sycophants and parasites in Washington have no capacity for reflection. The remaining strategic recourse for these emotionally-barren trolls is to distract people in whatever way they can; bomb hospitals, set up 'lone shooters', and - of course - squawk an endless stream of baseless lies.

The latest absurdity comes from the spineless bobbing-heads at CNN. Instead of acknowledging how the United States has been outmaneuvered in Syria, CNN presstitutes make fools of themselves by projecting the dying Empire's impotence onto Russia:

A number of cruise missiles launched from a Russian ship and aimed at targets in Syria have crashed in Iran, two U.S. officials told CNN Thursday.

Monitoring by U.S. military and intelligence assets has concluded that at least four missiles crashed as they flew over Iran.

The U.S. believes, based on intelligence reports of damage assessments, that some buildings were damaged and civilians may have been hurt.

It's unclear where in Iran the missiles landed. The Russian ships have been positioned in the south Caspian Sea, meaning the likely flight path for missiles into Syria would cross over both Iran and Iraq.

The Syrian Front Just Got Much More Dangerous

On September 30th, 2015 Russia began airstrikes against ISIS and its affiliates in Syria. These strikes were conducted at the request of the Syrian government. Iran followed announcing that they were preparing to send in ground troops

These developments completely change the geopolitical equation, and not just in Syria.

Western politicians and their corporate media lapdogs are obviously not happy about where this is headed, and they have taken to the airwaves in force to voice their condemnation. First they claimed that Russia was hitting "moderate", U.S. backed rebels rather than exclusively focusing on ISIS.

Wait, on September 16th General Lloyd Austin of the US Central Command testified that there were only 4 or 5 U.S. trained fighters in all of Syria, and now these fighters are supposedly in control of an entire region?

At least 30 people were killed in a double explosion at a road junction in the Turkish capital of Ankara.

Two explosions took place near the railway station in the center of the Turkish capital of Ankara on Saturday, Doğan News Agency reported.

More than 100 people were injured, according to the Turkish media.

It should be no surprise that, with egg on its face, the U.S. was not going to stand by as Putin commenced bombing ISIS out of existence.

With U.S. leaders up in arms over the targeting of their "CIA-backed moderate rebels," everyone is stunned at Putin's reported 40% destruction of ISIS' entire infrastructure in Syria in one simple week.

No, there had to be a reason to blame Putin, and reclaim the narrative.

Now, just in time, figures from the Pentagon, including Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, and former U.S. Army vice chief of staff General Jack Keane, have raised the level of rhetoric about the activities of Russia in bombing Syria.

A rationale for opposing Russia's bombing of ISIS has been manufactured, and is now escalating - with a chorus of criticism citing the reported errors of Putin's "unprofessional" campaign, as Secretary Carter termed it.

At least six Palestinians were killed and 60 injured when soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) opened fire on a crowd of protesters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad as they approached a border fence with Israel on Friday, according to Gaza medics.

The incident took place when around 200 Palestinians approached the fence in northern Gaza and began "throwing stones and rolling burning tires at Israeli forces," an Israeli army spokesperson said, as quoted by The Times of Israel.

IDF troops then opened fire on the protesters from about 150 feet (50 meters) away, the spokesman said, adding that the soldiers remained on the Israeli side of the border.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive." (Walter Scott, 1771-1832, "Marmion.")

How speedily the lies of the "international community" in general and those of the US and UK in particular about the Syrian situation are unraveling since the participation of Russia.

Take UK Prime Minister David Cameron. On 24^th September last year he addressed the United Nations, committing British aircraft to targeting IS/ISIL/ISIS in Iraq adding unequivocally that there would be no similar action in Syria and absolutely no "boots on the ground."(1)

Referring to Iraq he added that the West should not be frozen by "past mistakes." If Iraq is a "mistake" Heaven alone knows what a catastrophe would look like.

Cameron of course was being economical with the truth. In 2013 Parliament voted not to be involved in Syria, making Cameron the first Prime Minister in 200 years to lose a Parliamentary war vote. It would anyway have been another illegal action, since they had not been invited by the Syrian President or government and had no UN mandate. However, in July this year it transpired that pilots of Britain's Air Force have been "embedded" with US and Canadian Air Squadrons and been involved in flying: "intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strike missions ..." according to the Ministry of Defence. (2)

On 7^th September Cameron also announced that a British drone strike in Syria had killed two UK citizens fighting with ISIS. What an irony, the UK has enjoined wiping out entire nations having accused their leaders of "killing their own people", terrorists or not, now Cameron kills his "own people" in what Michael Clarke, Director General of London's hawkish Royal United Services Institute has called a "targeted assassination."

Those killed were : "... targeted in an area that the UK does not currently regard, legally, as an operational theatre of war for UK forces", Clarke commented, adding: "The government insisted that, unlike CIA drones, they were never used for targeted assassinations in territories where we were not militarily engaged." (3) Another government lie pinned.

As for "no boots on the ground", another seemingly whopping untruth. As Stephen Lendman has written (4): "On 2^nd August The Sunday Express revealed: 'SAS dress as ISIS fighters in undercover war on jihadis' expanding that:

" 'More than 120 members belonging to the elite regiment are currently in the war-torn country' covertly 'dressed in black and flying ISIS flags' engaged in what is called Operation Shader - attacking Syrian targets on the pretext of combatting ISIS."

A mirror image of Basra, Iraq, exactly ten years ago, September 2005, when British Special Forces, dressed in Arab clothing, were arrested by Iraqi police in an explosive laden car. Had the car detonated, "Iraqi insurgents" would, of course, have been blamed. The British military demolished the police station in order to free the would-be bombers. (5) How many were not caught and "insurgency" for which Iraqis were blamed, killed, tortured, was actually "made in Britain" and the US, as Syria now?