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Red Flag

Trump Daesh strategy: More of the same, but try harder


Sputnik
Sat, 18 Mar 2017 18:16 UTC
US special ops
© AFP/Delil SoulemanUS Special Ops in village of Fatisah in northern Syrian province of Raqqa.
US President Donald Trump's plan to defeat Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) looks much like that of Barack Obama, according to officials familiar with the matter. It also seems that Trump is unlikely to deliver on his election promise to consider joining forces with Russia in Syria.

US President Donald Trump's much anticipated plan to defeat Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) resembles nothing so much as his predecessor's strategy, NBC News reported citing two senior officials with knowledge of the matter. "The current plan to defeat the Islamic State [Daesh] is just like that old saying: Plan B is just, 'Try harder at Plan A'. We have not come up with new ways of approaching this. I would say the president might want to send that report back to his team to take another hard look," retired Admiral James Stavridis told the media outlet.

The media outlet specified that the new plan envisages continued bombing, increasing support and assistance to local forces in Iraq and Syria to seize Daesh's strongholds in Mosul and Raqqa. It also calls for cutting off Daesh's sources of income and stabilizing the areas captured from terrorists.

However, the question on everyone's lips since Trump's inauguration has been whether or not the US President will team up with Russia to defeat Daesh.

Although Trump had repeatedly dropped hints during his election campaign that he would consider joining forces with Moscow in Syria, the information came earlier this week that the US President is not planning to increase cooperation with Russia. Furthermore, it was also reported that Washington is mulling beefing up the US' military presence on the ground in the region.

Comment: "The question is not who the President is at the moment, but what the political 'order' is. This order does not come from the president, it comes from elite political groups which are lobbying it and controlling its execution."

If the article's reporting is correct (given the various sources and reliability), this entrenchment into old US military habits does not play well nor will it be of any benefit to the US or the parties involved in the region. Trump offered hope of a different kind of presidency with better instincts and a way forward out of the quagmire of the Obama dictate. The American people ought to hold him to those ideals and promises; otherwise the hole Obama dug will just get bigger and deeper. Trump knows you never double down on a bad bet. To hell with the political 'order' and the elites. Think again and mull harder!

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Star of David

A look at Israel and the A-word

John Reynolds
Counterpunch
Fri, 17 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC
roadmap to apartheid
© azcommunitypress.org
The word resonated loud and clear from South Africa. Hendrik Verwoerd, widely described as a key architect of apartheid, was the far-right National Party's propagandist, political strategist and, ultimately, party leader. In 1961, as South African Prime Minister, he noted that Israel was built on land taken 'from the Arabs after the Arabs lived there for a thousand years.' The point was to express his approval and to highlight Zionism's common cause with the Afrikaner pioneers: 'In that, I agree with them. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.'

Verwoerd was able to make this diagnosis without needing to live to see the brutality of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza after 1967. Israel's apartheid foundations were laid in its dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948. They were reinforced by the immediate erection of colonial constitutional structures that cemented the exclusion of the colonised.

Since then, Israeli law and policy has only deepened the state apparatus of separation and segregation, discrimination and domination. Over the years, countless activists, authors and artists, as well as leading anti-apartheid figures from South Africa, have referred to Israel's particular brand of structural discrimination as akin to apartheid. In the last decade, international lawyers have also begun to do likewise, but with reference to the definition of apartheid under international law rather than by analogy to southern Africa.

This week, a report commissioned and published by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) has concluded that 'Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole'. According to the report, the Israeli regime governing Palestinians is a racial regime of institutionalised domination - the essence of the international legal definition of apartheid. The maintenance of Israel's exclusionary constitutional character as the state of the Jewish people has entailed a "strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people". It has involved expulsion of Palestinian refugees into exile, discrimination against Palestinians inside Israel as second-class citizens, oppression of Palestinians under occupation; all through a concerted array of law, policy and practice that forges 'a comprehensive policy of apartheid'. This finding breaks new ground in the context of UN analysis on Israel/Palestine.

Comment: And, then the backlash and frontal assaults that got the ESCWA report removed:
Nikki Haley, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, slammed the report...

Israel's U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, also criticized the report...

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations called on Guterres to directly reject the report.

"This latest outrage perpetrated against Israel by a UN body must not be allowed to stand," said a statement quoting the Presidents Conference chairman, Stephen Greenberg, and executive vice president, Malcolm Hoenlein. "Secretary General Guterres should unambiguously reject the ESCWA report and undertake to prevent similar unwarranted attacks in the future."


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TV

Trump: 'I don't know Putin, but certainly he is a tough cookie'


RT
Sun, 19 Mar 2017 13:29 UTC
Trumpputin
© Reuters/Sputnik
US President Donald Trump described his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, as a "tough cookie," after reiterating that he does not know him personally during a rapid-fire quiz on Fox News.

Trump took the lightning round quiz as he appeared on the Fox News show Watters World, which aired Saturday night. Host Jesse Watters put a number of famous names to the president, asking him to give his personal opinion on the well known figures ranging from politicians to news channel chiefs. Trump, whose alleged relationship with the Russian president has come under major public scrutiny, said he didn't know Putin, "but certainly he is a tough cookie. I don't know how he's doing for Russia, we're going to find out one day I guess," the US leader added.

Trump, as usual, didn't mince words when it came to describing those who don't quite see eye-to-eye with him. The first word that came to his mind when asked about his former rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, was simply"disappointed."

However, he had a lot more to say when asked about a possible future rival, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has been very vocal in her criticism of Trump. "I think she'd lose so badly," he said, adding that it would be a dream come true if she ran against him.He also blamed her "anger" for damaging Clinton's presidential chances, and made reference to the Native American figure Pocahontas. "Pocahontas would not be proud of [Warren] as her representative, believe me." Trump repeatedly used the name as a dismissive moniker for Warren in reference to her claim of Native American ancestry.

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Binoculars

Turkey further away from EU accession according to German FM


RT
Sat, 18 Mar 2017 17:28 UTC
Turk/EU flags
© Faith Saribus/ReutersFlags fly on the roof of the Covered Bazaar, Istanbul.
Turkey's membership in the EU seems almost unrealistic given the degree of political bickering between Ankara and certain European capitals, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a blunt statement."Turkey is now further away from EU membership than ever before," Gabriel told Der Spiegel in an interview, adding that he has always been apprehensive about Turkey's accession bid, but "was rather a minority in Social Democratic Party [SPD]."

However, other options are still on the table and being considered, he said, adding there is now "a completely different situation" in light of Brexit. Britain, which is preparing to leave the EU, would enjoy a "special relationship" with the 27-member bloc - a scheme that can work "as a blueprint for other countries," including Turkey, he said.

Still, Gabriel warned that Turkish officials will be refused entry to the EU if they come to campaign for their country's upcoming referendum on expanding President Recep Tayip Erdogan's powers. "We have made it very clear from the very outset that we can and will take necessary measures should Turkey fail to comply with German legal system," the foreign minister said. "Whoever crosses the line should not believe that he is allowed to propagate his political views [here in Germany]," the foreign minister stressed.

Gabriel's interview came as a political crisis is unfolding between Turkey and several European countries that have banned pro-Erdogan rallies and events at which top-tier Turkish officials had been invited to speak. Ankara has slammed the cancelations as an overreaction, branding German and Dutch leaders "Nazi remnants" who were proponents of "fascist practices."

Merkel as Hitler
© Gunes
On Friday, a Turkish daily newspaper, Gunes ('Sun'), added fuel to the fire with a front page on which German Chancellor Angela Merkel is depicted in full Nazi garb wearing Adolf Hitler's moustache. "She-Hitler" (written in Turkish) read the headline, as Merkel stands in a Nazi uniform holding a gun next to the words "#Frau Hitler" (written in German). Berlin reacted by saying it will not take part "in a game of provocation."

If Germany comes down hard on Turkey, it will surely strengthen Erdogan and bring dire consequences, Gabriel stressed, while not referring to the publication directly.
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Attention

Russia summons Israeli envoy in Moscow over airstrikes in Syria


PressTV
Sat, 18 Mar 2017 16:34 UTC
Israeli Ambassador to Moscow Gary Koren (L) presents his credentials to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on March 16, 2017.
© TwitterIsraeli Ambassador to Moscow Gary Koren (L) presents his credentials to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on March 16, 2017.
Russia has summoned the Israeli ambassador to Moscow for clarification after Israeli warplanes violated the Syrian airspace and conducted a number of airstrikes on the Arab country's territory.

Israeli media said Gary Koren was summoned by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday, a day after the Israeli envoy presented his credentials to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier on Friday, the Syrian army announced in a statement that Israeli fighter jets "penetrated" Syrian airspace via Lebanese territory and "hit a military target on the way to Palmyra" overnight. The statement added that the army's air defense shot down one of the aircraft and hit another.

Israel has carried out air raids against Syrian-based targets on many occasions, but it rarely acknowledges the attacks. On Friday, however, the Israeli military acknowledged that its jets bombed several targets in Syria.

Comment: And Israel had more threats: Israeli minister threatens to destroy Syrian air defenses

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Snakes in Suits

More proof of Janet Yellen's idiocy

David Stockman
Daily Reckoning
Sat, 18 Mar 2017 16:04 UTC
Janet Yellen
During the last 129 months, the Fed has held 86 meetings. On 83 of those occasions it either cut rates or left them unchanged.

So you can perhaps understand why Wednesday's completely expected (for the last three weeks!) 25 bips left the day traders nonplussed. The Dow rallied over 100 points that day.

Traders understandably believe that this monetary farce can continue indefinitely, and that our Keynesian school marm's post-meeting presser was evidence that the Fed is still their friend.

No it isn't!

Janet Yellen's sing-song gibberish was the equivalent of a monetary DEFCON 1, alerting all except the most addicted Kool-Aid drinkers to get out of the casino.

Comment: For more analysis on the recent FED decision:

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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Wilders second in Dutch elections - Turkey goads Europe's New Right


Sott.net
Sun, 19 Mar 2017 16:00 UTC
erdogan rutte
© ANPIn the past few days, the relationship between the Netherlands and Turkey has turned sour due to a decision made by the Dutch government to deny the campaigning visit of two Turkish ministers.
One of the three major general elections taking place in western European countries this year occurred last week: in an apparent respite for liberal elites still reeling from Trump's success, Geert Wilders' party did not win a majority of seats, and so is unlikely to go into government. This week on Behind the Headlines, we're discussing these results, as well as the ongoing all-out war of words between the Dutch and Turkish leaderships.

With the next major European election taking place in France next month, things are heating up there too, with a school shooting and an apparent foiled terror attack occurring on the anniversary of the 2012 Toulouse shootings (which preceded the last French general election). From crisis in Europe to crisis in Trumpland, we're also checking in on developments stateside.

Running Time: 01:55:03

Download: MP3

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Eye 1

CIA hacking tools and the birth of an unaccountable intelligence agency dictatorship

Michael Kreiger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Tue, 07 Mar 2017 15:37 UTC
CIA Logo
© AP Photo/ Carolyn Kaster
By now, most of you have heard about the largest ever release of confidential CIA documents published by Wikileaks, known as Vault7. Many of you have also read various summaries of what was released, but reading the take of others is not the same as analyzing it yourself. As such, I strongly suggest you check out the original Wikileaks summary. It's mostly written for the layperson without much technical expertise (like myself), and I think you'll get a lot out of it.

In this post, I'm going to republish the entire press release, as well as provide key excerpts from the larger summary along with some personal observations. Let's get started...

From Wikileaks:
Press Release

Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named "Vault 7" by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.

The first full part of the series, "Year Zero", comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.

Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
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Attention

French MPs speak sacrilege: Russia effectively fights terrorists in Syria, Europe should work with Moscow


RT
Sun, 19 Mar 2017 15:26 UTC
Russian Sukhoi Su-24 planes
© Maksim Blinov / Sputnik
European states, along with the US, should change their attitude and policy towards the Syrian conflict by joining Moscow and Damascus in their fight against Islamist terrorism, which has proven "successful", French MPs told RT during their visit in Moscow.

Europe "should be realistic and give priority to destroying Islamist terrorism," Jacques Lamblin, a lawmaker from the center-right Republican Party told RT, adding that European countries should join in efforts with Russia and the Syrian President Bashar Assad, who in fact "rules the country."

Lamblin went on to criticize Europe's approach to the moderate rebels operating in Syria, whom he denounced as "moderate terrorists." He said that helping them in order to "get rid of Assad turned out to be a bad idea because they turned against the French and the Western forces."

Comment: It's great to see some politicians seeing the 'light' but can they overcome the war hawks?

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Chess

Will Trump have the courage to retreat from the catastrophe of Afghanistan?

Martin Berger
New Eastern Outlook
Sun, 19 Mar 2017 15:09 UTC
U.S. soldiers board a U.S. military aircraft in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan.
© AP/Musadeq SadeqU.S. soldiers board a U.S. military aircraft in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan.
The war in Afghanistan is not just the longest and most expensive American war to date, it seems that it can be carried on indefinitely, largely due to the fact that it resembles the catastrophe the US troops faced in Vietnam. However, there's no way for Washington to back away from it without a loss of reputation, and there's a lot at stake from the point of view of national pride.

American invasion of Afghanistan has put the country on the brink of total anarchy, in spite of the fact that massive resources that were pumped in it. It doesn't make much sense to keep throwing money into the bin, so it makes perfect sense that President Trump has already announced that he wants to put an end to this malicious practice. At the end of the day it was him who demanded the Democrats to rethink their actions, since, according to his opinion, Washington could rebuild the country twice on the 6 trillion dollars that were wasted on the Middle Eastern wars.

The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, has recently announced Trump's administration is developing a new strategy for Afghanistan. According to Spicer, Washington reviews its policies in Afghanistan, and it's working with key military Afghan figures in a bid to develop a comprehensive approach to defeating ISIS. However, although Donald Trump has not specified his intentions yet, it is difficult to imagine him approving negotiations with the Taliban; It is equally difficult to imagine the America commander-in-chief sounding a massive retreat from this country.
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