Imagine that Vladimir Putin were not a murderous autocrat and kleptocrat who has spent his fourteen years in power living up to his KGB past and dragging Russia ever back towards Communist autocracy, illiberalism, and expansionism. Imagine that instead he were the one of the greatest leaders that Russia has had, whose policies have helped produce a massive rise in living standards and life expectancy, recuperation of national pride, and enforcement of the rule of law, who has tackled kleptocrats and gangsters wisely and well, whose foreign policy has on balance been realistic, diplomatic, and conducive to peace, who has presided over a country of which the human rights record is considerably better than that of the United States and in which civil rights are improving, and who richly deserves the steady support of 65% - currently at a Ukraine-related high of 83% - of the population that he possesses. It is my understanding that the reality is closer to the second scenario than the first - and I may note that I say this as someone with no ethnic, financial, professional or political ties to Russia whatsoever. It follows that I am not a Russian expert - but nor am I, on the other hand, parti pris. I am a friendly, distanced observer of the country.

© ReutersQatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani welcomed on Tuesday leaders of the GCC ahead of the 35th session of the GCC Supreme Council.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) just concluded its 35th annual summit in the Qatari capital of Doha. Despite key differences between some of the members, they've taken initiatives to move their military integration further and push forward with a NATO-style Gulf alliance.

The Doha Summit led to all the GCC members agreeing to form a regional Interpol-like organization and their own regional naval force to be based in Bahrain. They hadn't taken any measures to further integrate their militaries since 1986, when the five-year-old alliance created the Peninsula Shield Force to combine some of their land units. Although they spoke of destabilization all across their land-based periphery, they interestingly made the decision to integrate their navies, not their armies, showing that the GCC as a whole sees Iran as a greater threat than ISIL.


Comparing The Coalitions

Let's look at how closely the GCC compares to NATO.

Out-Of-Regional Scope:

GCC: The grouping has close working relationships with Jordan and Egypt (which is trying to form a military alliance with some of the members) and has hinted at possible intervention in Yemen, all of which are non-Gulf states.

NATO: The Atlantic Alliance includes states that were never previously identified as 'North Atlantic' at any point in their histories (Turkey, Eastern Europe) and has played a significant out-of-regional role in Afghanistan, among other places.

Spats and Stumbling Blocks:

GCC: The previous Qatar-Gulf split made some observers think that the alliance was on the ropes, and some members have fears of becoming Saudi pawns if they integrate more closely within the Council.

NATO: Gaullist France's withdraw from NATO's unified command created some serious fears about the alliance's future and effectiveness, and Eastern and Western Europe are currently divided over how to best counter Russia.

Sources on the ground in Iraq exclusively told Sputnik News that the US Air Force carried out strikes against an elite Iranian military unit - a unit that Tehran denies is even in the country. If those reports are true, what effect will this incident have on the future of US-Iranian ties?

The US air strikes just outside of the Iraqi capital Baghdad could have significant repercussions for the US, Iran, and their extremely fragile bilateral relationship.

Iran:

Tehran had previously confirmed midway that its Quds forces are advising the Iraqis, while adamantly insisting last month that no ground troops were deployed in the country. Although some may think that the death of Quds soldiers automatically means that they were ground troops, this would only be an assumption, as they very well could have been fulfilling the supplementary role of transporting munitions to the frontlines and not partaking in any combat. Anyhow, Iran is not predicted to admit any ground role in Iraq so far, with or without the death of Quds soldiers, as that would clash with its previous official statements on the matter.

US:

Washington's strike, if true, could either be mistaken or intentional, although even if it was the latter, it would never be admitted as such. More than likely, it would be explained away as being a tactical error due to the non-coordination between the US and Iran's separate anti-ISIL campaigns in Iraq. If the US did strike the Quds on purpose, it would have done so for a few reasons, perhaps to send a message to Iran and remind it that 'he who rules the skies rules the battlefield' or to create a type of publicity stunt to 'out' what could have been actual Quds ground troops active on the ground. Other explanations are also possible, but it is too early and speculative to conclusively settle on any one in particular.

US-Iranian Relations:

Other than the soldiers on the ground, the other casualty of the US airstrikes would be the frail bilateral relationship between the two states. It's an open secret that Iraq is, among other things, currently a proxy battleground between the US and Iran, with both countries conducting airstrikes there and advising the Iraqi Army, albeit with no coordination whatsoever. The proxy war, combined with the lack of coordination, could lead to disastrous consequences, such as that which may have happened in Jurf al-Nasr.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to India was described as success as over 20 documents were penned after painstaking preparations and as the two counties agreed to steadily expand cooperation on all sectors including trade, defense, and the controversial but highly propagandized nuclear sector.

Speaking to the press in India on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Indian - Russian relations are gradually developing in all sectors of cooperation. Putin's statement came after a meeting with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.

Putin arrived in India on Thursday morning. Besides meeting Modi, Putin has also scheduled meetings with India's President Pranab Kumar Mukherjee and representatives of India's business community.

Before Putin's departure, the Russian presidency at the Kremlin informed the press that some 20 documents which have been prepared over a longer period are expected to be penned during Putin's visit. The Russian president is accompanied by other senior Russian government officials.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted that Russia always has been a close friend of India and a privileged strategic partner.

On the agenda between the top officials of Russia and India are also issues pertaining the BRICS countries, matters pertaining the United Nations, as well as developments within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Both Russian and Indian media spend much of their coverage focusing on Modi's and Putin's attendance at the opening of the World Diamond Conference. Russia is one of the world's largest exporters or raw industrial diamonds and diamonds for the production of jewelry. India, for its part, is one of the world's leading nations in the cutting of precious stones.

How the US Created Its Own Worst Nightmare

The world's geopolitics, major trade patterns and military alliances have changed radically in the past month. Russia has re-oriented its gas and oil trade, and also its trade in military technology, away from Europe toward Eurasia.

The result is the opposite of America's hope for the past half-century of dividing and conquering Eurasia: setting Russia against China, isolating Iran, and preventing India, the Near East and other Asian countries from joining together to create an alternative to the U.S. dollar area. American sanctions and New Cold War policy has driven these Asian countries together in association with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an alternative to NATO, and in the BRICS moves to avoid dealing with the dollar area, the IMF and World Bank austerity programs.

Regarding Europe, America's insistence that it join the New Cold War by imposing sanctions on Russia and blocking Russian gas and oil exports has aggravated the Eurozone's economic austerity, making it even more of a Dead Zone. This week a group of Germany's leading politicians, diplomats and cultural celebrities wrote an open letter to Angela Merkel protesting her pro-U.S. anti-Russian policy. By overplaying its hand, the United States is in danger of driving Europe out of the U.S. economic orbit.

Turkey already is moving out of the U.S.-European orbit, by turning to Russia for its energy needs. Iran also has moved into an alliance with Russia. Instead of the Obama administration's neocons dividing and conquering as they had planned, they are isolating America from Europe and Asia. Yet there has been almost no recognition of this in the U.S. press, despite its front-page discussion throughout Europe and Asia. Instead of breaking up the BRICS, the dollar area is coming undone.

This week, President Putin is going to India to negotiate a gas and arms deal. Last week he was in Turkey diverting what was to be the South Stream pipeline away from southern Europe to Turkey. And Turkey is becoming an associate of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization integrating the BRICS in a defensive alliance against the United States, now that it is obvious that it has no chance of joining the EU.

A few months earlier, Russia announced the largest oil and gas trade and pipeline investment ever, with China - along with a transfer of missile defense technology.

James Elmer Mitchell, a former Air Force psychologist credited with teaching the CIA how to torture war on terror detainees in the 2000s, is the subject of an on-camera interview with VICE correspondent Kaj Larsen.

This isn't the first time Dr. Mitchell has been profiled. We first heard about him in a 2005 New Yorker article, the New York Times, and the Guardian have explored the role he and Dr. Bruce Jessen played in designing the CIA's "Enhanced Interrogation Program."

But VICE got him on camera for a sitdown interview for the first time. When you watch it, remember: the contracting firm this man ran with Jessen is said to have received more than $80 million from the CIA to teach the CIA how to torture people. And some of that torture included anal rape, freezing people to death, and shoving hummus and nuts up men's asses.

Oh, and taxpayers covered $5 million in legal fees to then cover Mitchell and Jessen's own asses.

Mitchell repeatedly refers to the book Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives, by James Rodriguez, who defends the torture tactics Mitchell and his colleagues designed.

Just yesterday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a 500-page summary report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program. Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein says the document represents the most significant oversight effort in the history of the US Senate.

In an Arizona community meeting, Rep. Paul Gosar made a controversial remark that offended Native Americans in attendance and across the country when he called them 'wards of the federal government'.

The Republican representative, as well as one of his Democratic counterparts, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, held a roundtable discussion in the northern Arizona city of Flagstaff. The legislators were defending a contentious land-swap bill that they co-sponsored. The language was absorbed into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the House of Representatives passed last Thursday.

At the meeting, Phil Stago, a member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, called the bill disrespectful to tribal sovereignty.

"I don't like our ancestral lands being raided by the US Congress," he said, according to the Arizona Daily Sun.

Gosar responded that archaeological and historical investigations had found no documented proof that the area was sacred to the Apache Tribe. In response to Stago's sovereignty concerns he said,"You're still wards of the federal government."

Stago told the Associated Press that the phrase is antiquated and ignores advances made in tribes managing their own affairs and seeking equal representation when it comes to projects proposed on land they consider sacred.

The current outburst of religious extremism is a direct consequence of the short-sighted policies of Western nations, the head of Russian Presidential Administration says.

"You all know about the serious processes that are taking place in the Middle East and North Africa, where the ethnic and confessional balance is now being blatantly destroyed," Sergey Ivanov stated on Thursday.

"First of all we must talk about the sharp surge of religious extremism that is largely a consequence of the, diplomatically speaking, shortsighted policy of a number of Western countries," he told the Presidential Council for Interaction with Religious Organizations.

"Everyone sees this very clearly," he noted.

The death Palestinian Minister Ziad Abu Ein was the result of beating, teargas-induced asphyxiation and obstruction by the Israeli army to transfer him to a hospital on time, a Palestinian official said, citing official forensic results.

Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Hassan Al-Sheikh, detailing the forensic results to the official Palestinian radio station today, asserted that the findings show that Abu Ein, who was fatally injured yesterday during an Israeli clampdown on a Palestinian protest against settlements and the Separation Wall near Ramallah, had been "murdered".

"The forensic report is an essential piece of evidence of Israel's responsibility [for Abu Ein's death]," Al-Sheikh said following yesterday evening's autopsy.

He added that the Palestinian authorities carried out the autopsy in an East Jerusalem university hospital after refusing to allow an Israeli medical centre to handle the procedure.

However, an Israeli doctor was present during the autopsy and he confirmed that the process was carried out "professionally", Al-Sheikh explained.

Abu Ein, who was in charge of the Israeli settlements file at the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), died yesterday after Israeli troops dispersed an anti-occupation demonstration in the northern West Bank town of Turmusiya.

A military funeral will be held for him this afternoon.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has described the Israeli attack on Abu Ein as "barbaric" and declared a three-day mourning period.

'Operation Gladio B' - the continuation of the old NATO Gladio program - covers a tangled web of covert operatives, billionaire Imams, drug running, prison breaks and terror strikes. Its goal: the destabilization of Central Asia and the Caucasus. In this presentation to Studium Generale in Groningen on November 19, 2014, James Corbett lifts the lid on this operation, its covert operatives, and the secret battle for the Eurasian heartland.


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