The attacker in Nice, who last night killed some 80-plus people by driving a truck into a crowd, was likely incited by al-Qaeda. Inspire, al-Qaeda's magazine distributed over the Internet, called for such truck attacks in its Issue Number 2 (pdf). Page 54 read:

Pick your location and timing carefully. Go for the most crowed locations. Narrower spots are also better because it gives less chance for the people to run away. Avoid locations where other vehicles may intercept you.

To achieve maximum carnage, you need to pick up as much speed as you can while still retaining good control of your vehicle in order to maximize your inertia and be able to strike as many people as possible in your first run. ...

The ideal location is a place where there are a maximum number of pedestrians and the least number of vehicles. In fact if you can get through to "pedestrian only" locations that exist in some downtown (city center) areas, that would be fabulous. There are some places that are closed down for vehicles at certain times due to the swarms of people.

The Promenade des Anglais, the seaside boulevard in Nice where the attack took place last night, was blocked off from ordinary traffic to allow a large crowd of pedestrians to watch the Bastille Day fireworks. The place and occasion perfectly fit the al-Qaeda terror recommendations.

The White House is pushing to cooperate with Putin's forces in the fight against ISIS. But many in the U.S. military are saying: No way. The Obama administration has increasingly warmed to a Russian proposal that allows U.S. forces to coordinate with the Kremlin in the ongoing war against ISIS in Syria. But the White House is facing major resistance to the idea from the U.S. military and those in the intelligence community who are working with local Syrian opposition forces—the very government officials who would carry out such a plan.

The pushback comes as the U.S. has reportedly sent a proposal to Russia to share information about specific targets to strike in Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday in part to discuss the plan.

Some Pentagon officials already are saying it won't work. They have suggested that should the U.S. and Russia agree to increased coordination, they will lobby to share as little with the Russians as possible. There are discussions in the Pentagon about narrowing the extent of the coordination and the amount of intelligence shared, a U.S. defense official explained to The Daily Beast.

The Russians, two defense officials said, could not be trusted to honor any agreement, saying they believe Moscow would eventually exploit any agreement to bolster the regime—and weaken Syria's beleaguered rebel fighters. As one U.S.official asked: "What do we gain?" The internal debate about how much to expand U.S. coordination with the Russians has exposed perhaps the greatest schism within the administration this year over the way ahead in Syria.

Will it help end the war—and if so—for which side? Will it lead to a weaker ISIS and al Qaeda in Syria or an emboldened Russia and Syrian President Bashar al Assad?

The Dallas police ended a standoff with the gunman who killed five officers with a tactic that is unprecedented: it blew him up using a robot. This represents the first time in American history that a drone (wheels for now, maybe wings later) was used to kill an American citizen on American soil.

I get it, I get it. The Dallas sniper had killed five cops. He was prepared to kill as many more as he could. He was in a standoff with police, and negotiations had broken down. The Supreme Court has made it clear that in cases such as this, the due process clause (i.e., a trial before execution in this instance) does not apply. If not for the robot bomb, the Dallas police would have eventually shot the sniper anyway. They were fully in their legal rights to kill him. None of those issues are in contention. I am not suggesting in any way the cops should have invited the sniper out for tea.

I am suggesting we stop and realize that in 2016 the police used a robot to send in an explosive to blow a person up. I am unaware that such a thing has happened in Russia, North Korea, China, Iran or other places where the rule of law is held by the few in power.

Weapons of War

The robot represents a significant escalation in the tools law enforcement use on the streets of America. Another weapon of war has come home from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. In the isolated case of the sniper, dead may be dead, whether by explosive or rifle shot. But in the precedent set on the streets of Dallas, a very important line has been crossed.

As the Chilcot report, which unveiled the flaws and blemishes of the UK's decision to support the US invasion of Iraq, left Great Britain baffled, former Norwegian Prime Minister and current NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg may find himself in the same hot water for bombing Libya as Tony Blair did for his Iraqi escapade. Parallels were recently drawn between the US-Led invasion of Iraq and NATO's intervention in Libya. What's more surprising is who suggested them: none other than Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe. Jagland's excitement over the amount of reproach expressed by the investigating committee headed by John Chilcot towards former British Prime Minister Tony Blair cannot be concealed.

"If the Iraqi war was illegal, which is what Kofi Annan says, what about the bombing of Libya, which went far beyond the UN Security Council mandate?" Jagland asked on Facebook.

The US and Britain went to war in Iraq with the single intention of toppling President Saddam Hussein, which was done without any approval from the UN Security Council. France voted against it, and Russian President Putin called the proposed US-led invasion a "big political mistake." In 2003, the war was justified with "credible" intelligence information, according to which Iraqi had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. However, none of the promised weapons were found in the subsequent free-for-all, and Iraq has plunged further into terrorist chaos and sectarian violence.

In the spring of 2011, NATO unleashed an assault against Libya under the pretext that the country's leader Muammar Gaddafi was about to launch a genocide against his civilians to crush West-backed rebels in the city of Benghazi. This time, European leaders acted as pace-setters, with France's then President Nicolas Sarkozy in the forefront.

Norway, which is usually reserved and judicious, rushed into the skirmish headfirst, as the then-Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg gave his government no time to reconsider. Over the course of four months in 2011, Norway dropped 567 bombs on Libya. During the operation's initial phase, 17 percent of NATO's bombs were dropped by Norway. Afterwards, every tenth bomb in Libya was dropped by Norwegian pilots. Later, Norway received much praise for its perhaps disproportionate contribution from US President Barack Obama himself.

The Church of England published a damning report on the horrific abuse of youngsters at a former children's home on the same day Theresa May became Prime Minister, prompting critics to accuse the church of trying to "bury bad news."

Published on Wednesday, the review presented "harrowing" evidence of physical and sexual abuse at Kendall House in Gravesend, Kent, over a 20-year period. It found vulnerable girls were regularly over-medicated on antipsychotic drugs, locked in isolation rooms, physically abused and even raped, during the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

The Church of England issued a "wholehearted apology" following the investigation, which found the response of the dioceses of Rochester and Canterbury "woeful and inadequate."

Israel has frozen mail services with the Gaza Strip, claiming the move was aimed at preventing banned items that are used by terrorists in attacks on the Jewish state from being smuggled into the Palestinian territory.

The decision to halt postal services was made "in light of multiple attempts to smuggle banned items... used for terrorism against Israel," Yoav Mordechai, coordinator of Israeli government's activities in the Palestinian territories, said Thursday as quoted by Haaretz.

Earlier, Israeli security officials confiscated drones, scuba diving equipment and weapons components said to be sent into the Gaza strip via the Erez crossing.

Director of the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing, Abdul Rahim Abu Hatab, confirmed to Middle East Monitor the he had been informed by the Israeli side of the decision to freeze mail service.

In a shocking article published Tuesday by the Verge, it was revealed the FBI has been quietly collecting hundreds of thousands of iris scans as part an experimental program referred to as the "FBI Iris Pilot." Working together with local police departments, U.S. Border Patrol, and the Pentagon, the FBI has discreetly amassed 434,000 iris scans.

The surveillance technology, used primarily by airports and private security companies, was pitched in 2013 as a way to help police departments catch criminals in a safer and more efficient manner. At that point, the FBI already had 30,000 scans and was looking to coordinate with local and national agencies to develop a searchable database of scans taken by police departments across the nation. The iris scan, which can be taken from a distance and requires no physical contact, was to be taken upon arrest and submitted whether charges were pressed or not.

John Kerry's visit to Moscow has aroused great interest in mass media and on social networks. Once again the "everything-has-failed-ers" have activated and echoed Ukrainian propaganda in positing that Putin is being brought a "black mark" from Washington and that John Kerry himself will personally hand it to the Russian president. Once again. This is not even funny anymore. When the head of the State Department comes to Russia (and he has been flying in quite often recently), conspiracy theories about this "black mark" and some kind of horrifying ultimatum to be given to the Russian president appear online. If this were true, then Putin would probably already have a whole wall in his office hung with these ultimatums and his collection of "black marks" could be made into a museum of the Kremlin. These conspiracy theories, of course, help collect a bunch of likes and comments, but in reality they don't hold any water.

The reality before us is that even the State Department itself is in the midst of a fierce conflict between Kerry and the majority of the department's employees whom he inherited from Hillary Clinton. They are supported by the hawks in the American intelligence services and also the US Democratic Party. As a result of this conflict, funny situations take place. For example, 50 high-ranking diplomats from the State Department wrote a letter to Obama demanding that he start bombing Assad, and John Kerry said that this letter was a private opinion which, considering everything, is his own, but at the same time he has made clear that no one is going to be bombed. Just recently, Kerry public admitted that two groups of Syrian rebels considered by the Americans to be the "moderate democratic opposition" are in fact Islamic terrorists, as was repeatedly claimed by Russian diplomats. Then the State Department apparatus tried to take back Kerry's words while the American publication Business Insider called Kerry's speech "pro-Russian."

A news agency linked to Islamic State, Amaq, has claimed that Abu Omar al-Shishani, reported to be the group's chief military strategist, has been killed south of Mosul. Previous media reports of his death later proved to be unfounded.

Al-Shishani, better known as Omar the Chechen, reportedly "died in combat" near the Iraqi city of Shirqat, 100km from the ISIS stronghold of Mosul.

Iraqi government forces say they have almost encircled Shirqat, as they drive their offensive northward into the heart of ISIS territory.

The Pentagon is verifying whether al-Shishani died in a US drone strike carried out earlier this month, officials told CNN. Washington previously boasted that it took out al-Shishani, who has a $5 million bounty on his head, in Syria in March, only to backtrack when Islamic State said he survived his injuries.

The 30-year-old al-Shishani, famous for his distinctive red-tinted beard, was born into a mixed Georgian-Chechen family, and served in a spec ops unit in the Georgian army, before volunteering to join Islamic State three years ago.

Does the US really want to cooperate with Russia to defeat terrorists in Syria, or is this another ploy to re-arm Al Qaeda/Al Nusra?

How many times have we been down this road?

The US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia provide weapons, cash and training to ISIS/Al Qaeda, "moderate, friendly rebels" in Syria.

Russia, Iran, and the legal, internationally recognized Syrian army pound ISIS/Al Qaeda the "moderate, friendly rebels" into the ground.

Barack Obama sends John Kerry to Moscow to offer some sort of cooperation/ceasefire.

Moscow accepts, as its ultimate goal is to keep Syria whole, and rid the country of ISIS/Al Nusra/Al Qaeda terrorists.

The US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia use the lull in fighting, from the agreed upon ceasefire, to re-arm, re-fund and re-train to ISIS/Al Qaeda, "moderate, friendly rebels" in Syria.

Russia, Iran, and the legal, internationally recognized Syrian army pound ISIS/Al Qaeda the "moderate, friendly rebels" into the ground.

Rinse and repeat...