Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld came to promote his solitaire app, but when Stephen Colbert craftily brought up the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Rumsfeld's remarks left 'The Late Show' host and many others saying "Wow."

Launching his 'Churchill Solitaire' game, the 83-year-old Rumsfeld has been on a media tour where tough questions are not a prerequisite. Talking about the Iraq War, even as it looms like a cloud, can be a challenge when 2016 is saturated with politics and a fun application built to benefit charity is closer at hand. But Colbert made transitioning to the taboo topic look easy.

Colbert asked if Islamic State, or terrorist groups like it, holding western Iraq and eastern Syria was considered "a worst-case scenario, or a beyond-worse-case scenario" in 2002 and 2003 during the run-up to declaring war.

The "disorder in the entire region ... generally, people had not anticipated," Rumsfeld answered.

Several witnesses have told investigators that former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky played a crucial role in the 1998 assassination of a Siberian city's mayor, a defense attorney has said. "All the witnesses who testified against him are currently in custody. They say that they heard from someone that without my client's participation this crime would never take place," RIA Novosti quoted Khodorkovsky's state-appointed defense lawyer as saying Wednesday.

The lawyer spoke in the Moscow City Court, which was looking into her request to cancel the previous ruling that ordered Khodorkovsky's arrest. In late December, Russian investigators officially charged the ex-tycoon in the criminal case that was opened after the murder of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of Neftyugansk, who came into conflict with Yukos stakeholders and managers and was killed on June 26, 1998 - Khodorkovsky's birthday. The charges of conspiracy to murder two or more people potentially carry a life sentence in Russia.

The digital maintenance and logistics system of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter could be vulnerable to cyberattacks, the Pentagon's operational test chief warned last month.

Michael Gilmore, Pentagon director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E), issued a warning in a December 11 memo that was recently leaked to the media.

The F-35's Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) "continues to struggle in development with... a complex architecture with likely (but largely untested) cyber deficiencies," Gilmore wrote.

Soros is a man intimately familiar with currency crises

Not long after billionaire George Soros forecast a so-called hard landing for the Chinese economy, Beijing fired back by calling out the high-profile investor, warning him of betting against its currency, according to media reports Tuesday.

"Soros' challenge against the renminbi and Hong Kong dollar is unlikely to succeed, there is no doubt about that," said a government official in an opinion piece widely cited by several media outlets.

The article headlined, "Declaring war on China's currency? Ha ha," was published by the People' Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party which is widely viewed as Beijing's propaganda tool.

A translation of the Mandarin version of the editorial linked by ZeroHedge includes references to the U.S. suffering from a "Dutch disease" and "financial predators." Reports of the People's Daily's article follow Soros' recent prediction that a precipitous slowdown in the Chinese economy is inevitable.

"A hard landing is practically unavoidable," Soros told Bloomberg Television last week on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "I'm not expecting it, I'm observing it," he said, referencing his China outlook.

International Military Review - Syria (Jan. 26)

As a Senate subcommittee met on Wednesday to look into waste from the Pentagon's USAID task force, some are calling for them to review why the Kajaki Dam, a $300 million project, is sitting in Afghanistan unfinished for the last eight years.

Since 2008, the Kajaki Dam, an expensive plan to provide electricity to southern Afghanistan, has become a "monument for all that has gone wrong," Megan McCloskey wrote for ProPublica.

The project began three years after the invasion, in 2004. USAID went in and restored two turbines that were neglected and nearly inoperable, which lead to the dam beginning to produce some power. The success of the operation, however, depending on the installation of a third turbine — one that was scheduled to be completed a decade ago.

Hillary Clinton has a stronger, more detailed plan to regulate Wall Street than does Bernie Sanders, says the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. But, adds journalist Ezra Klein, many are skeptical that she will do what she says. "She has spoken out of both sides of her mouth on a number of issues," agrees public banking campaigner Ellen Brown. "So it doesn't seem like we can trust her."

Between savants and skeptics, policy wonks and the politically wary, how can ordinary voters decide for themselves? It isn't easy. "Mr. Sanders has been focused on restoring Glass-Steagall, the rule that separated deposit-taking banks from riskier wheeling and dealing. And repealing Glass-Steagall was indeed a mistake," Krugman wrote. "But it's not what caused the financial crisis, which arose instead from 'shadow banks' like Lehman Brothers, which don't take deposits but can nonetheless wreak havoc when they fail. Mrs. Clinton has laid out a plan to rein in shadow banks; so far, Mr. Sanders hasn't."

Krugman also finds that Wall Street prefers any Republican over either of the Democrats. Yet Wall Streeters are giving Hillary significant contributions, and their financial media does not view her as a major threat to their interests. "As long as Hillary Clinton is in charge, they know that the Clintons historically have been enormously helpful to the banking industry," explains former federal regulator William K. Black. "And in return the banking industry -- not simply the banking industry, others as well -- have made the Clintons very wealthy."

No surprise, Hillary has little to say about her husband's dealings with Wall Street, which will arguably define his place in history. I in no way hold Hillary accountable for the Big Dog's transgressions, and certainly not for his carnal sins, which right-wingers delight in accusing her of enabling. But what does she think of his enabling Wall Street to bring the global economy to a thudding crash? How does she respond to Bill's role in helping Wall Street gain such power and promote such glaring inequality?

Ask her. We need to know, and so far, her silence speaks volumes.

Under the wing of Russian military aviation, the Syrian Army has gained a newfound confidence in victory, a report by ORF, Austria's national public broadcaster, suggests.

Together with other Western media, ORF journalists were given the opportunity to visit the Russian air base at Hmeymim, in Latakia province, the Russian destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov, operating off the Syrian coast, and Salma, a city in Latakia province recently liberated from al-Nusra militants.

Setting the tone for the report, which was aired Monday by the Austrian broadcasting giant, the presenter recalled that Syria is not only the country at the heart of Friday's Geneva peace talks, but also "the country from which a significant number of refugees arrive in Europe."

Moving on, the presenter explained that in recent months, following the Russian intervention, the Syrian government has enjoyed a string of victories. "Russia air units are based at their own air base in the coastal province of Latakia. Now, some Western journalists were allowed to visit the Russian base, including our own Christian Lininger."

This latest smear fits consistently with the long-running running Western-led propaganda vendetta against Vladimir Putin.

So now Russian President is a cold-blooded assassin, as well as Europe's "new Hitler", the saboteur of civilian airliners, sponsor of drug abuse in sports and the friend of Middle East butcher-dictators.

Can the list of demonic epithets for the Russian leader get any longer? Just when you think it couldn't, the good old British master of dirty tricks pulls out the "evil assassin" card.

Putin is fingered for ordering the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former member of Russia's security service FSB.

With over 2,800 hundred civilians killed, Saudi Arabia's military campaign has caused widespread devastation. In an op-ed for teleSUR, Marjorie Cohn points out that Riyadh is guilty of war crimes and the US, which has provided assistance and artillery, should be held equally responsible.

Both the United States and Saudi Arabia are signatories of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the willful causing of great suffering during war time, and explicitly forbids the targeting of civilians. But despite this understanding, both nations are responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in only ten months of Riyadh's military intervention in Yemen.

"Saudi Arabia has engaged in war crimes, and the United States is aiding and abetting them by providing the Saudis with military assistance," Marjorie Cohn writes for teleSUR.