WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a hero. Like Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and other whistleblowers facing government persecution, Assange has sacrificed his personal comfort and safety to bring us the truth.

George Orwell said, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." Thanks to WikiLeaks, we know that powerful institutions have been abusing their power and lying to the public. For example, redacted State Department communications published by WikiLeaks revealed that Secretary Clinton identified Saudi Arabia as a leading funding source for terrorist groups around the time she approved a whopping $29 billion arms deal with the Saudi dictatorship.

WikiLeaks courageously published the infamous "Collateral Murder" video showing an American helicopter gunning down Iraqi civilians, Viewed over 15 million times on Youtube alone, it revealed just one of the many shocking war crimes whitewashed as "collateral damage" by the US government.

WikiLeaks' stunning revelations of how top Democratic National Committee officials conspired to sabotage Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, in collusion with the media, shattered the illusion of a fair electoral process and confirmed what millions Americans already knew in their gut: we live under a rigged political system.

The US is launching a new information attack against Russia. Simply "killer" arguments have already been hurled. They are trying to build for Moscow the reputation of being a global center for ultra-right movements in the mass consciousness of Western audiences. In doing so, those circles standing behind the Washington Democrats are trying to kill two birds with one stone - one in foreign policy, and the other in domestic politics.

Hillary Clinton has called the Russian government the "grand godfathers of global far-right nationalism." The Democrats' candidate made such a statement during a campaign speech in Nevada, where the ex-Secretary of State stunned her supporters by saying that far-right ideas are becoming the most popular in the world, mentioning, in particular, the founder of the British United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), Nigel Farage. She drew parallels between Farage and her main competitor in the presidential race, Donald Trump. Clinton proclaimed Russian President Vladimir Putin to be the "mentor" of both prominent conservatives.

Of course, that the Democratic Party candidate considers the leader of Russia to be so almighty that he can "assign" the leaders of leading parties in the Western world is very flattering for our country. But Clinton's words hide at least two falsities: (1) that Moscow has a decisive influence on the international political processes of Western countries, and (2) that modern conservatives and traditionalists can be called far right.

According to Forbes' reference to an anonymous source in the Pentagon, the United States (US) may soon find itself dragged into a military conflict which Uncle Sam cannot afford. US military officials see Iran, North Korea and Russia as potential enemies and the main problem, in their opinion, is the fact that the army is not ready for conflict in any of those scenarios.

New technologies for upgrading the land military forces seriously lack financing. For example, the weekly revenue of General Motors is much higher than the annual budget which the US army can spend on military transport technical support. The US has to constantly upgrade old-fashioned military helicopters instead of buying new aircraft, since the US Air Force (USAF) simply cannot afford it.

Forbes claims that the Pentagon does not intend to modernise its military forces in the next 10 years. Mac Thornberry, Chairperson of the US Committee on Armed Services, listed five main modernisation problems in his article published in The Heritage Foundation.

First of all, the USAF lacks 4 000 technical staff and 700 pilots. Besides this, the number of aircraft which need immediate maintenance is constantly growing. Thornberry also noted that US Marine Corps pilots have only four hours of flying time instead of the required 10 hours. Finally, the personnel strength of the US army has reached a historic low. In addition, the soldiers who currently serve in the army do not meet the Strategic Defence Guidance Requirements. In other words - they are not ready for a fight.

The Turkey-led forces have recaptured most of the territory previously held by the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) north of Sajur river in the Syrian province of Aleppo. In some areas the Turkish-led forces have already crossed the river.

In a separate development the ISIS terrorist group has regained the villages of al-Kadro and Tell Hawthan from the SDF south of Manbij. Now, the group is developing the advance.

A titanic struggle between nationalism and globalism is playing out in the American elections.

For many perhaps, Hillary's speech was a grand revelation. The curtain was lifted on a vast right-wing conspiracy that has "taken over the GOP."

Turkish-backed forces pushed deeper into northern Syria on Monday and drew a rebuke from NATO ally the United States, which said it was concerned the battle for territory had shifted away from targeting Islamic State.

At the start of Turkey's now almost week-long cross-border offensive, Turkish tanks, artillery and warplanes provided Syrian rebel allies the firepower to capture swiftly the Syrian frontier town of Jarablus from Islamic State militants.

Since then, Turkish forces have mainly pushed into areas controlled by forces aligned to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition that encompasses the Kurdish YPG militia and which has been backed by Washington to fight the jihadists.

The US-backed Turkish invasion of Syria with its proxies in tow now moves further into Syria to seize Al-Bab in a landgrab to create Erdogan's (and the U.S. neocon Brookings Institute's) long desired jihadi "safe haven"/"no fly zone" for al-Qaeda & friends to operate and stage from with impunity from Russian and Syrian airstrikes.

Al-Bab is a "backdoor" on key routes south to Aleppo from the Turkish border.

Turkish supplies for the Islamic Army of Conquest offensives in South Aleppo and Latakia: arms, ammo, supplies, even artillery, tanks have been reported as flowing like water over the Turkish border

Turkey is obviously not coordinating its incursion with the Syrian government which condemns it as a violation of its sovereignty. The Kremlin's impotent calls for Turkey to coordinate with Damascus while waving the old Geneva communique have been completely ignored. Unfortunately there is little they can do at this point without engaging in a full scale war with Turkey and the U.S. in Syria. Something the Kremlin lacks the will to do. Turkey/U.S. intend that their proxies take Aleppo as leverage in settlement negotiations to force Assad to step down, or partition if that fails.

The federal government has spent more than $4 billion on public relations services since 2007, according to a watchdog group, with more than half of the money going to the world's largest firms. A review conducted by Open the Books found that there are now 3,092 public affairs professionals working in the government, an increase of 15 percent — or about 400 people — over the past seven years.

During that time, 139 federal agencies inked $2.02 billion in outside contracts with firms that perform public relations, polling, research and marketing consulting. "We always applaud agencies who make information available," Open the Books said in its report. "But ... agencies are not charged with making that information interesting or newsworthy. Agencies certainly aren't charged with using taxpayer funds to engage in thinly-veiled propaganda campaigns that are primarily designed to protect their budgets and hype outcomes."

The $2 billion tally calculated by the watchdog group includes millions of dollars on international polling for the State Department and $57.7 million in marketing and advertising contracts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to promote the National Flood Insurance Program.

For at least two years, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been pushing to set up "safe zones" in northern Syria. This week, as Turkish tanks, warplanes and special forces commandeered Syrian territory, the Ankara government seems at last to be fulfilling this objective.

Not only that, but the Turkish president managed to get Washington onboard, while appearing to circumnavigate any obstacles that Russia or its Syrian ally might have been expected to mount in opposition to such an unprecedented intervention.

US warplanes provided air cover as Ankara-backed Syrian militants took over the border town of Jarablus from Daesh. US Vice President Joe Biden in Ankara on the first day of the assault vowed Washington's full support to Operation Euphrates Shield.

Erdogan said that the operation had a two-prong aim of "cleansing" the border area of Daesh terrorists as well as pushing anti-Daesh Kurdish fighters back east across the Euphrates to their stronghold in northeastern Syria.

The Kurdish militia mainly comprising the People's Protection Units (YPG), also referred to as Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), have up to now been supported by Washington. American patronage seemed to be in doubt this week, as Biden issued a stern warning that US support would be terminated if the Kurds did not retreat eastwards.

Russia and the Syrian government in Damascus were not passively watching the unfolding events. The Russian foreign ministry stated that it was "very concerned" by Turkey's military escalation. The Syrian authorities went further and condemned the cross-border deployment was a "flagrant violation of sovereignty".

Russia and Syria have every right to be alarmed. Despite Erdogan's rhetoric claiming that the retaking of Jarablus was "to defeat terrorists" and "to protect the territorial integrity of Syria", the inescapable fact is that Turkish forces with US support have installed their proxy militants in control of a Syrian town and surrounding territory.

Turkey says that it wants to establish a "safe zone" along the Syrian side of the border stretching 100 kilometers and 30 kilometers deep. It is not clear if the Turkish military will stay on Syrian territory to enforce this zone. They might withdraw and designate the task to Ankara-backed Syrian militants comprising the so-called Free Syrian Army and Turkmen fighters. These militants are supposedly in opposition to Daesh jihadists, but their primary objective is to wage war against the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad and his foreign allies - Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

While Americans are justly concerned about the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Syria, they must be careful whose narrative they accept before deciding what we should do about it. Both sides have been responsible for civilian deaths and torture, but we are only being told one side of the story, and a distorted one at that. Though readily apparent to anyone who wants to look at the facts, the American role in the violence is never clearly spelled out. For instance, famous "humanitarian" Nicholas Kristof has been on the bandwagon arguing for US military intervention. It's only right that the plight of Syrians he is highlighting should be put in proper perspective.

In his latest article, Kristof makes an emotionally powerful appeal for Obama to take in Syrian refugees. However, in doing so he compares the violence in Syria with the Nazi attempt to conquer the Western world. The truth is that the Syrian conflict, though often called a "civil war," is actually a case of a sovereign nation defending itself against an invasion of foreign terrorists sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia and their allies.

The US government claims the right to topple the government of Syria for its own purposes, regardless of the effect on the civilian population. The claim of "humanitarian intervention" is unjustified either by the facts or international law. The effort is being led by a known al Qaeda affiliate, a fact not well concealed by claims about a mythical "moderate rebel" faction. It makes no sense to blame the resulting carnage on a government that is defending its sovereignty against a ruthless and brutal enemy.

Kristof's implied comparison of Assad to Hitler might be written off as a bad analogy, except that, almost as an afterthought, he chides Obama for not doing "more to end the slaughter." Since taking in more refugees would do nothing to ease the conflict, he must be referring to his previous arguments for a no-fly zone (here and here).