In the mind of State Department spokesman John Kirby, Russia should not back Syria against the terrorists, president Assad is to blame for ISIS, Iraq is much better off because of the US invasion, and it's 'absolutely astounding' anyone would dare to disagree.

That is what the press briefing at the State Department on Tuesday amounted to in a nutshell. The retired US Navy admiral, now speaking on behalf of the US foreign ministry, repeatedly blamed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for the very existence of Islamic State terrorists.

"He is the reason ISIL, and other terrorist groups, have been allowed to fester and grow and sustain themselves inside Syria," Kirby said. "Assad regime has allowed groups like ISIL to fester and grow inside the country."

Yes, you read that headline correctly; motivated to impress his engineering teacher, 14 year old Ahmed Mohamed from Irving, Texas, made a clock by wiring a circuit board and power supply to a digital display and carried it to school inside a case with a tiger hologram on the front. His teacher thought Ahmed's clock was "really nice", but advised him not to show it to anyone else.

Ahmed kept the clock in his bag during English class but when the alarm kept going off his teacher demanded to see it. "It looks like a bomb" said the teacher. "It doesn't look like a bomb to me" replied Ahmed. The teacher kept the clock and soon the school principal and a police officer pulled Ahmed out of class and taken to a room where he was interrogated by 5 officers and arrested for a 'bomb hoax'.

During his interrogation in the school room Ahmed said an officer he'd never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: "Yup. That's who I thought it was."

"They were like, 'So you tried to make a bomb?'" Ahmed said.

"I told them no, I was trying to make a clock."

"He said, 'It looks like a movie bomb to me.'"

Over the past couple of years we in the media have, by and large, risen to the challenge and the need for publishing a good variety of Russian scare stories. That is all well and good, but it is my belief that unless we continue to publish pieces which adhere to the same journalistic standards, the narrative we have been working so hard to maintain might be lost and the general public might begin to suspect that we've been taking them for a ride. That won't do, of course, and so in the interests of keeping the narrative flowing, here is a basic primer on the art of writing Russian scare stories for public consumption:

1. It may be that many of you feel that the old rules of journalism — such as including verifiable sources and adhering to credible standards of evidence Russians and the Russian President as much as to other subjects. Let me assure you from the outset that this is not the case. Thanks to the hard work of those who have gone before you to convince many in the public that "the Russians are coming", piffling matters such as verifiable sources and credible evidence are really non issues and, providing you are careful, you can pretty much make up whatever you like and get away with it.

2. Further to point number one, the recent story concerning the military intervention of the Russian army in Syria, which first appeared in the Israeli online news site, Ynetnews.com, provides a textbook example of how these pieces should be written and I strongly advise anyone interested in becoming a real expert in Russian scare stories to go and study that piece. It started by claiming that "Russia had begun its military intervention in Syria", went on to cite "Western diplomats" as its source, and then accompanied the article with some nice pictures of Russian MiGs. However, regardless of the credibility gap, the piece was then picked up by the Council on Foreign Relations, before going all the way up to the White House itself, where the claims were taken as credible. This is a brilliant example of just how much you can get away with and I would advise you to let Churchill's great line give you comfort as you set about penning your scare piece: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on".

3. For those who still find themselves a little queasy, fearing that writing unsourced and frankly outrageous claims might land you in hot water, let me encourage you to dabble in that little scribe's device, the quotation mark. Take this from the BBC earlier this year: 'Russian submarine' suspected of damaging UK trawler in Irish Sea.What those quotation marks do is give you the best of both worlds. On the one hand, they give you the opportunity to write all sorts of unsourced and incredible claims to scare your readers that the Russians are up to evil tricks (including damaging fishing boats). Yet at the same time, they absolve you from any responsibility should the 'Russian submarine' turn out to be a 'Swedish civilian boat' or a 'British Navy submarine', since you can just claim that you were quoting rather than asserting. Provided you begin your article with something like "Experts believe that the Irish/Swedish fishing boat which capsized 'may have been hit by a Russian submarine,'" you have all you need to scare the willies out of your readers whilst at the same time ensuring immunity.

Saudi Arabia has responded to criticism that it isn't taking in any Syrian refugees with some incredible counter-claims. A Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman has said the Saudi government has in fact taken in "around 2.5 million Syrians since the start of the conflict."

I have two questions: where are they, and why have no third party international aid agencies and NGOs ever mentioned this in their accounting of Syrian refugees? The House of Saud has an answer: "We adopted a policy not to treat these Syrians as refugees, or place them in refugee camps, in order to ensure their dignity and safety." So we're being asked to believe that 2.5 million people were discretely absorbed into the Saudi population, and no one noticed this before now.

The spokesman goes on to explain that we're only hearing about this now because "Saudi Arabia initially did not intend to speak about its efforts to support Syrian brothers and sisters, during their distress, as it has, since the beginning of the problem, because we dealt with the situation from a religious and humane perspective, and did not wish to boast about our efforts or attempt to gain media coverage."

The Saudi Arabia that is claiming it has absorbed 2.5 million Syrian refugees on the QT because "we did not wish to boast" is the same Saudi Arabia which has been instrumental in creating 'Islamic terrorism' over the course of several decades, which is wantonly targeting civilians in Yemen at this very moment, and which is drenched in the blood of hundreds of thousands of Syrians because it doesn't like their government.

General Sir Nicholas Houghton, who is currently head of the British military, has bemoaned the limiting effects of democracy, law and public opposition to Britain's involvement in foreign wars.

He warned if the UK's enemies think the army will only fight as a matter of national survival it would give succor to Britain's international opponents, which would encourage "rather than deter revisionist states and their own ambitions."

"The more worrying constraints on the use of force lay in the areas of societal support, parliamentary consent and ever greater legal challenge," the general told an audience at the Chatham House think-tank on Tuesday.

On Saturday, September 12th, United Kingdom's Labour Party elected as its leader and their candidate to lead the UK, Jeremy Corbyn, who has been the most vocal British critic of the UK's serving as the lap-dog of an aggressive imperialistic United States of America.

Simultaneously, the leader of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's own Christian Social Union Party, Horst Seehofer, a man who, prior to his being appointed to be the Party-chief had been Chancellor Merkel's Agriculture Minister, has now turned against Chancellor Merkel (who until now was the most powerful leader in all of Europe) and denounced her policy on the refugee crisis, and has now stated publicly that Germany should instead ally with Russia and against NATO on the entire Syrian war.

This public statement, which is really a sea-change in history, was reported Friday night, 11 September, in Germany's leading magazine, The Mirror, Der Spiegel, and it represents the breaking-point in Germany's foreign policy, finally yielding now to the rapidly rising anti-Americanism within Germany that results from America's prioritizing America's war against Russia as being a more important goal than the global war against Islamic jihad, which is clearly the most pressing threat to national security not only within Germany, and not only within all Western countries, but even within Pakistan and many other countries that have majority-Islamic populations, as well as in India, China, and other nations around the world.

"An iron curtain has descended across the continent..."

So said Winston Churchill during his speech at Harry Truman's Missouri hometown in 1945, more or less officially declaring the Cold War to 'contain' Soviet Russia and establish the West's de facto control of the planet. That 'iron curtain' was mostly metaphorical, but the steel wire chain-link fences that are being erected today along Hungary's border with Serbia are very real. As Hungary, Austria, Slovakia and the Netherlands all follow Germany's lead to impose border controls, effectively suspending the EU's open borders policy, you have to wonder what other moves are afoot in Europe's unfolding migration/refugee crisis.

The stream of refugees from Syria is just one branch of many coming to Europe from as far away as Afghanistan and central Africa. All these places have been - or are still being - destroyed by NATO and/or proxy forces in the post-9/11 war frenzy. Regarding the broader refugee crisis, Western leaders knew full well, prior to obliterating Libya, that a significant increase in the numbers of people coming north from Africa into Europe would be the logical result:

Italy and Silvio Berlusconi face Libya dilemma

BBC News, 1 March 2011

"Italy's interior and foreign ministers seemed equally cautious at first, painting Libya not as a military priority but a humanitarian one.

They conjured up disturbing predictions of mass unchecked migration from Libya into the EU - suggesting it would be of biblical proportions with as many as 300,000 fleeing to Europe.

Other EU capitals said Italy was over-reacting to a crisis that had yet to materialise, but the Italian worries had been registered.‌

By most accounts, the refugees from Syria alone constitute the largest mass movement of people since the last major US-Russia proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. How fitting that right-wing Islamist nut-jobs - funded, armed and trained by the US and allies - are responsible for both sets of refugees. Among the waves of people coming from all across Washington strategists' "arc of crisis", there have been many children who have washed up dead on European shores in recent years - all of them fleeing the direct or indirect consequences of the West's 'humanitarian' wars.

There is no need for creating the new coalition against the ISIL militant group, as the US-led alliance is operating successfully both in Syria and Iraq, US State Department spokesperson said Tuesday.

The US-led coalition against the Islamic State is successfully operating in Syria and Iraq, and there is no need for another alliance against the terrorist group, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing.

"There is no need for another international coalition against ISIL [Islamic State], when 60 plus nations are already aligned and having an effect against ISIL [Islamic State], not just in Syria, but also in Iraq," Kirby said.

In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem that Moscow would support the establishment of an anti-terrorism coalition if Syria considered it appropriate and possible.

I think that a week after Ynet broke the story about a Russian military intervention in Syria we can confidently say that that this was a typical AngloZionist PSYOP aimed at inhibiting the Russian involvement in the Empire's war against Syria and that it had no basis in reality.

Or did it?

It turns out that there was a small kernel of truth to these stories. No, Russia was not sending "MiG-31s to bomb Daesh", nor is Russian going to send an SSNB (submarine armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles) to the Syrian coast. All these rumors are utter nonsense. But there are increasing signs that Russia is doing two thing:

1) increasing her diplomatic involvement in the Syrian conflict

2) delivering some unspecified but important military gear to Syria

The second item is the one which is most interesting. Needless to say, as is typical in these cases, the actual contents of the cargo Russia is sending by air and sea is not made public, but we can speculate. First, we know that Syria needs a lot of spare parts and equipment repairs. This war has been going on for 4 years now and the Syrians have made intensive use of their equipment. Second, the Syrians lack some battlefield systems which could greatly help them. Examples of that include counter-battery radars (radars which spot where the enemy's artillery is shooting from) and electronic warfare systems. Furthermore, Russian sources are saying that Syria needs more armored personnnel carriers.

Crime and corruption pay in America; you just have to be a corporate CEO, Wall Street executive, senior member of the military-industrial-intelligence complex or a politician. These so-called "elites" have perverted American justice to such a degree that not only are they now entirely above the law, they're actually rewarded for unethical and crony behavior even after they get caught.

Nothing sums up how completely fraudulent and corrupt the U.S. economy has become than the following story, which describes how the United Airlines CEO who stepped down in the midst of a corruption probe is rewarded with a $21 million exit package, "free flights for life," and free parking in downtown Chicago forever. No, I'm not making this up.

From the Omaha World-Herald:

When Jeff Smisek stepped down as United Airlines' chief executive last week amid a federal corruption probe, he didn't walk away empty-handed. He will receive at least $21 million in cash and stock, fly free for the rest of his life and keep his company car.

Then there is the parking.

He can park free in downtown Chicago and at airports in Houston and Chicago for the rest of his life.

The full value of Smisek's exit package could be even higher — he's still eligible for the incentive pay that accumulated before his resignation. In all, Bloomberg estimates he will walk away with $28.6 million. That's more than double his pay last year, which reached $12.8 million.

Smisek's resignation was tied to a federal investigation into whether the air carrier launched a money-losing flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Columbia, South Carolina, to benefit the influential then-chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who owned a vacation home near Columbia.

Smisek's tenure was also pockmarked by technical glitches that briefly grounded United's fleet this year, and a difficult merger with Continental.

You see, he wasn't just rewarded for corruption, he was incompetent too.