Bringing in more international troops would be a "good step" in tackling militant insurgents, an Afghan Defense Ministry official said a day after a US military commander suggested that the NATO-led force in Afghanistan was "a few thousand" soldiers short.

"The Afghan Defense Ministry supports any decision taken between the Afghan and American governments" regarding the expansion of the international military presence in Afghanistan, its Defense Ministry spokesman, Dawlat Waziri, said, as cited by Reuters.

"We support any possible way to tackle terrorism in the country," he added, saying that the Afghan military had already asked Washington for more equipment and training for its forces.

The speech by the new US permanent representative to the UN Security Council, Nikki Haley, at a Security Council meeting on 3 February backed up the idea that the foreign policies of two American administrations - the previous one and the current one - will be continued. Haley said exactly the same as Samantha Power before her: «Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine».

The White House supported Haley's statement on the need for Crimea to be returned to Ukraine, and the White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, stated during a briefing that: «With respect to the sanctions, I think Ambassador Haley made it very clear of our concern with Russia's occupation of Crimea. I think she spoke very forcefully and clearly on that».

It is interesting that Mrs Haley was speaking about the territory of Crimea rather than the people. I wonder how this American imagines the «return» of the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine - with the people or without them? It's a pity that this question has remained unanswered.

Syrian refugee crisis was caused by the West policy and regional powers, country's President Bashar Assad said in an interview with the Yahoo News media outlet.

The humanitarian disaster affecting millions of Syrian refugees was caused by the policy of Western countries as well as regional powers, which supported terrorists in Syria, country's President Bashar Assad said in an interview with the Yahoo News media outlet.

"It is a humanitarian disaster created by the western support of those terrorists, of course, and the regional support by Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia," Assad said.

The West has finally started to understand the real nature of the Ukrainian government following the latest escalation in Donbass, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.

According to the Russian minister, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko "decided to turn a blind eye to what volunteer battalions are doing, or maybe suggested them that it is time to start shooting."

"The only plus that I see in this situation, is that the West begins to understand the true nature of the Ukrainian authorities, but it is being achieved with blood and many months-long, if not years-long, experiments," Lavrov told the NTV channel.

It appears that CNN has launched a war on those who attempt to call out the mainstream media's lies by comparing those who use the term 'fake news' with those who use derogatory and racial slurs like the 'n-word'.

Late last year, as the presidential election was coming to an end, the Washington Post launched a full on attack against anyone who dared question the establishment narrative — the term 'fake news' was born.

For weeks, the Post and other outlets waged war on supposed 'Fake News' outlets even going so far as to put out an arbitrary list of dozens of sites they deemed 'fake' — including the Free Thought Project.

After their attempt to weaponize news blew up in their face in the form of a myriad of cease and desists, and the resultant shit show spawning from mainstream media referring to each other as 'fake news', the Washington Post then attempted to take the high ground and "retire the tainted term 'fake news.'"

In the United States, war is business and business is war. As the U.S. dominates global weapons exports, accounting for 33% of the entire market, the profits of war for both the private and public sector have guided U.S. foreign policy and military action for much of the past century. Though modern history is rife with examples of the United States using its military to further business interests and vice versa, nowhere has this been more clear than in Iran.

Iran was among the first nations to be subjected to covert CIA coups when its democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown for his attempts to nationalize Iranian oil in the 1950s.

In a story that's repeated itself in numerous other countries, Iran's democracy was replaced with a brutal dictatorial regime that was pro-United States and pro-United Kingdom. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's brutality, largely made possible by the CIA and Israeli Mossad-trained SAVAK military police, targeted the nation's Muslim population, leading to the rise of religiopolitical movements. Not surprisingly, it was the growth of this movement that led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which established an Islamic Republic, and the modern age of antagonistic U.S.-Iran relations.

It should be evident to all objective observers by now that "America First" doesn't equate to international isolationism or peace. Rather, just as the author predicted in his Sputnik analysis on Trump's foreign policy right after his election, the 45^th President is taking a firm stand against Iran and China, and even making overtures to Turkey in seeking to tempt it away from the Tripartite of Great Powers that it's presently a part of together with Moscow and Tehran. It's this second element of geopolitical grand strategy which occupies the focus of the present article, and it'll be revealed that Trump not only has a few cards up his sleeve, but that he's already playing his opening hand quite well in advancing his country's interests.

Without getting too deep into the background behind it (which is explained in the above hyperlinked article about the Tripartite), Turkey decisively pivoted away from the West midway through 2016 and started to embrace its Eurasian neighbors. This dramatically culminated not only in the Moscow Declaration of late-December and subsequent Astana gathering the month afterwards, but even in thefirst-ever joint anti-terrorist mission between Russia and a NATO country. The US clearly realized that it's on the verge of "losing Turkey", to use "deep state" parlance, and that something urgently had to be done to rein in its rogue "ally". The Obama Administration's policies towards Turkey - the failed Gezi Park Color Revolution, supporting the PYD-YPG Kurds despite Ankara's objections that they're PKK-linked terrorists, and the failed pro-American coup attempt - were so disastrous that they seriously risked making the country an American adversary in the near future.

With the Trump Administration sponsoring what has been described as one of the most controversial cabinets in contemporary U.S. history, it is critical for those who are interested in such political concerns to not only look at those at the highest level of policy making, but also those who are called upon to support them, particularly the individual being considered for the position of Deputy Secretary of State.

On February 6, it was revealed by Politico that Elliott Abrams is under serious consideration for the position, an appointment that would place him directly below Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.[i] Elliott Abrams is a U.S. diplomat who served during both the Reagan and H.W. Bush Administrations. Under President Reagan, he served as the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs and Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. Under George H.W. Bush, he served as Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy, Special Assistant to the President, and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs.[ii]

Given his experience, Abrams would appear to be a uniquely qualified choice below Tillerson, who, as the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, has little to no experience working within the U.S. foreign policy positions and its operational base.

The ascension of Donald Trump to the US Presidency has introduced an additional element of uncertainty to the conduct of world affairs. Judging from Mr Trump's rhetoric, and some of his initial executive orders, such as withdrawing the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the proverbial cat has been set among the geopolitical pigeons.

The Australian government appears to have been completely unprepared for the Trump Presidency, and even less so by his decision to scrap American participation in the TPP. The political response has been one of denial, insisting that the TPP could proceed, and even more extraordinarily, suggesting that China and Indonesia could take the place of the departed Americans.

This displays a degree of naivety that is a matter of concern. Even more concerning is that according to Opposition Trade spokesman Jason Clare following two FOI requests, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had not been asked to model alternative scenarios in the event the TPP fell over for whatever reason.

During the last 18 months or so I've heard a lot of talk about chess. This guy or that guy is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers or some mastermind is playing 3 dimensional chess, etc. I find it odd that these statements are made given that only a tiny percentage of Americans know how to play chess with that number sitting around 5% or slightly over 14 million people. This is too bad because if the population, as a whole, had a better understanding of chess then the actions of President Trump would make perfect sense.

History: The school district where I was employed drastically cut its music programs and decided that chess would be an appropriate alternative to music instruction. I was not entirely opposed to this as there were published research papers extolling the virtues of chess and there appeared to be a direct relationship between playing chess and higher academic achievement. Besides, anyone can play chess while not everyone has the dexterity to be a musician. Wishing to be part of the solution, I agreed to become a coach and took on after school chess programs on three different campuses.

Our school district was kind enough to foot the bill for some necessary chess coaching and needed chess supplies. Not only that but I had the great fortune of having World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov's former full time coach as my new teacher as the former Russian coach had relocated to the very city where I lived and had been contracted by the School District to get us up to speed. Private lessons with Kasparov's coach! Can you imagine it?

It took my new coach all of about 30 seconds to figure out my level of chess competence which was not very high and I will paraphrase what he said next: "You are not very good and there is not enough time to teach you the correct way. But, I can teach you simple rules that will enable you to defeat anyone that doesn't study chess full time." He called his method "active chess" whereas a weak player like myself could use a simple formula to play the most aggressive game possible and win against stronger players. He believed that strategy flowed from tactics and his method allowed for a very fluid game of strategy. So, what did he teach me and how does it relate to our president? Is Trump playing chess?