Can someone explain to me why President Obama decided to announce that he's going to deploy U.S. Special Forces to Syria on the same day that Secretary of State John Kerry was scheduled to meet with Russian and Iranian diplomats to discuss how to end the four and a half year-long war?

What was that all about?

Did he think he was going to scare the Russians and Iranians by rattling a few sabers?

Did he think that they'd call off their military offensive and withdraw their support for Assad?

What was he thinking?

Even Kerry was embarrassed by the announcement, which accomplished nothing except to convince the attendees that US foreign policy is concocted by amateurs who have no idea what they're doing. That's all it achieved.

According to the New York Times, "Mr. Kerry told reporters the timing of the announcement was 'a coincidence' and that he was not aware a decision had been made until earlier Friday." (Obama Sends Special Operations Forces to Help Fight ISIS in Syria, New York Times)

"A coincidence"? Kerry thinks it was a coincidence?

The proposed EU-US Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal contains legislation that is fundamentally right, because it is based on high EU standards, and Europe should play a proactive role in the talks, the German chancellor claimed on Tuesday.

It is not simply a trade pact, but an agreement based on high EU norms, Merkel added.

"I am deeply convinced that this agreement is correct, but...we do not have to run after the United States and beg, we should be more active in these negotiations, and we are doing this," Angela Merkel said, as broadcast by Germany's NTV channel.

I would argue that, at least so far, Russia has achieved many important goals in her intervention in Syria. Most importantly, the Russian intervention in Syria forced the USA to agree to a conference in which all the regional actors, including Iran, would be invited. At the end of its proceedings the conference adopted a joint statement which I have fully reposted here:

JOINT STATEMENT: Final declaration on the results of the Syria Talks in Vienna as agreed by participants

(bold added)

Meeting in Vienna, on October 30, 2015, China, Egypt, the EU, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the United States ["the participants"] came together to discuss the grave situation in Syria and how to bring about an end to the violence as soon as possible.

The participants had a frank and constructive discussion, covering major issues. While substantial differences remain among the participants, they reached a mutual understanding on the following:

1. Syria's unity, independence, territorial integrity, and secular character are fundamental.
2. State institutions will remain intact.
3. The rights of all Syrians, regardless of ethnicity or religious denomination, must be protected.
4. It is imperative to accelerate all diplomatic efforts to end the war.
5. Humanitarian access will be ensured throughout the territory of Syria, and the participants will increase support for internally displaced persons, refugees, and their host countries.
6. Da'esh, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the U.N. Security Council, and further, as agreed by the participants, must be defeated.
7. Pursuant to the 2012 Geneva Communique and U.N. Security Council Resolution 2118, the participants invited the U.N. to convene representatives of the Government of Syria and the Syrian opposition for a political process leading to credible, inclusive, non-sectarian governance, followed by a new constitution and elections. These elections must be administered under U.N. supervision to the satisfaction of the governance and to the highest international standards of transparency and accountability, free and fair, with all Syrians, including the diaspora, eligible to participate.
8. This political process will be Syrian led and Syrian owned, and the Syrian people will decide the future of Syria.
9. The participants together with the United Nations will explore modalities for, and implementation of, a nationwide ceasefire to be initiated on a date certain and in parallel with this renewed political process.

The participants will spend the coming days working to narrow remaining areas of disagreement, and build on areas of agreement. Ministers will reconvene within two weeks to continue these discussions.

Information published recently by The Independent has revealed that the ISIS terrorist group operating in Iraq and Syria receive substantial funds through a "sophisticated money laundering scheme". These funds are partly generated by shady transactions carried out in the south of the UK with banking services provided on the phone and the import of cars from England to Africa.

On October 16 this year, The Financial Times told the world about their investigations into ISIS' financial sources, noting that after more than one year and 10.5 thousand airstrikes since the beginning of the West's anti-terrorist campaign, the result has been the complete failure of US efforts to undermine the financial income of the terrorist group.

There are many different testimonies regarding the sources of ISIS financing. According to experts, despite the fact that ISIS positions itself as a political and religious organization, in fact, it functions as a criminal organization, and its main sources of income comprise tribute, smuggling, illegal oil sales and other types of crime. It is also mentioned that in Iraq and Syria the organization resorts to bank robberies, kidnapping and extortion after taking hostages as sources of income.

The Russian Aerospace Forces have carried out 1,631 sorties and destroyed 2,084 ISIL and Nusra Front targets in Syria since the start of the anti-terrorist air campaign in the country on September 30, the Russian General Staff said Tuesday.

"Since the beginning of the operation, our jets have conducted 1,631 sorties in Syria hitting a total of 2,084 terrorist targets," Col. Gen. Andrei Kartapolov said.

Russian military jets have destroyed 287 terrorist command centers, 155 ammunition and fuel depots, 52 terrorist training camps and 40 plants manufacturing rockets and landmines since September 30, Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Andrei Kartapolov said.

Fresh back from Kiev, Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley called Russia "aggressive" and "adversarial to the interests of the United States," claiming that having nuclear weapons and the ability to use them makes Russia the foremost threat to the US.


Russia is the only country in the world with the nuclear capability to destroy the United States, which makes it an existential threat, Milley told the audience at the Defense One summit in Washington, DC on Monday. Moscow's recent behavior suggested that Russia would be willing to use such weapons, the general added, saying that Russia has been violating "the Westphalian order" since about 2008 by "invading sovereign nations."

A Russian Sukhoi Su-24 bomber has dropped two BETAB-500 concrete piercing bombs at facilities of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in Syria, Aerospace Forces spokesman Igor Klimov told journalists on Tuesday.

"Russian aircraft used two bombs weighing 500 kilograms each - BETAB-500 - against IS positions," Klimov said.

"BETAB-500 bombs are used to destroy well-protected fortified underground bunkers. They are not dropped at towns," the spokesman assured.

Much has been reported and analysed about recent developments pertaining first to Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 28^th 2015 and shortly following that, the direct military action carried out by the Russian armed forces in relation to the conflict within Syria.

Both events, it has been claimed, formally and decisively bring to an end the de facto post-Cold War state of affairs of unipolarity; that is, one which posits the United States of America as the sole geo-political superpower that has been able to exercise exclusive and unrestrained force in various parts of the world.

It is also clear that the denunciation by Putin of longstanding American foreign policy as well as the projection of Russian power within the cauldron of Middle Eastern affairs has brought into sharp focus an aggregate of issues which taken together give the Russian leader the upper-hand, not only in regard to that geared toward the pursuit of his nation's strategic interests, but also in the realms of moral authority and legal justification.

The Ministry of Defence announced the interim results of the NPT punitive operation in the Donbas Ukrainian security forces and organized data on the results of the bloodshed and corruption, according to FAN.

The ministry noted with regret that the report contains only a small part of the facts, what it calls "evidence on crimes of the Ukrainian leadership against its own people."

Thus, according to the Defense Ministry, during the conflict in the Donbass, the APU lost the following in battle: killed - about 24 thousand people, wounded - almost 54 thousand. More than nine thousand military reported missing.

According to the report, non-combat losses amounted to 1,309 people dead. It is noted that 873 people have died as a result of suicide.

The Office emphasizes that the Ukrainian authorities glossed over the real losses, "because for many of them the operation in the Donbas became a major source of corruption." To confirm his words, the Ministry of Defense reported that, for example, on the fortifications in March 2015 Kiev had spent about 850 million Hryvnia from the reserve fund of the country. According to the report, about 500 million hryvnia went into the pockets of the supreme command of the APU.

Serbian EU integration process seems to inevitably go towards a total fiasco. This has of course been rather foreseeable for years, yet 'EU integration' was an ideological mantra, stubbornly repeated by all Serbian governments since 2000. This might have, however, changed rapidly last month.

Demands that Serbia received in almost two decades reached unbearable heights with a British 'paper'. This document was written in a form of an ultimatum. It conditions Serbia to practically recognise its breakaway province of Kossovo-Metochia as an independent country, to get the process of EU accession chapters opened. In effect, the British have crashed Serbia's EU integration aspirations in a single move. This may prove to be just too much, even for Serbian Euro-enthusiastic liberals.