(Sorry for the lack of maps but as I am time constricted.)

The fight against Islamic fundamentalist in Iraq and Syria rapidly progressed today. U.S. air support in Iraq and Russian air support in Syria enabled the various ground forces to take significant amounts of ground.

Russia continues to build out its arsenal in Syria and may soon introduce more ground and air components.

After several days preparations by U.S bombing 7,000 Kurdish and Yezidi forces today attacked the Islamic State from the Sinjar mountain range southwards towards Sinjar city. Sinjar is about 50 kilometers east of the border between Syria and Iraq. Just south of the city lies the important Highway 47 which is the main transport artery between Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

The attackers were supported on the ground by U.S. Forward Air Controllers who called in pinpoint airstrikes whenever the attack was held up. The operation succeeded faster than expected. The city is surrounded by YPG and Peshmerga forces and a wide stretch of the highway is now under Kurdish control. First units are breaking onto the city. The main problem are now snipers, mines and booby traps and the bloody phase in the city will take a while. Counterattacks on the highway are to be expected but are unlikely to succeed over the open land as long as the U.S. air force provides cover for the Kurds.

As of October 2015, American consumers owe $8.17 trillion in mortgages, $900 billion in credit cards, and $1.19 trillion in student loans. Home mortgages, credit cards, and student loans occupy the most of the consumer credit market.

The consumer credit market is the dream paradise of money merchants, known as moneylenders. Just as pharma companies sell drugs to make money by way of profit, money merchants sell money to make money by way of interest. Note again, money merchants sell money to make money. They sell money to millions of American consumers needing to buy houses, cars, or home appliances. They sell money to millions of American students becoming physicians, lawyers, managers, as well as to college students. Big operators set up banks, brokerage houses, and credit unions. Small operators run payday loans and pawnshops. The rich and the wretched, the lord and the tenant, teachers and students, men and women, all this and all that, except the privileged few, are obligated, in one form or the other, to money merchants.

Carrying debt has become a quintessential attribute of American life. And creditworthiness, the ability to borrow money, is the most valued personal asset an individual may garner. Credit monitoring companies gather information about an individual's "bill payment history, loans, current debt, and other financial information." Credit reports also inform money merchants where the individual works and lives and whether the individual has been "sued, arrested, or filed for bankruptcy." Losing creditworthiness can have more severe consequences for an individual than losing liberty, even body limbs.

Interest rates ranging from 3% to 30% lie at the core of the credit market. After nullifying laws against usury, federal and state legislatures have rewarded money merchants with handsome legal names, such as creditors, mortgagees, card issuers, and secured parties. In turn, money merchants use various "credit products" to compose the ensemble of interest rates. They sell money for fixed periods with structured payments, such as a 30-years mortgage. They sell money as endlessly spinning Ixion wheels, known as credit cards. These credit spinning wheels could carry an interest rate over 30% for individuals with questionable credit. Occupying all nooks and crannies of American life, the money merchants have unbolted an ever-expanding credit juggernaut, much larger than equity markets. The Federal Reserve Board controls the interest-rate push button to modify the behavior of Pavlovian money merchants.

UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammonds said on Monday that the crash of the Russian A321 plane en route from Egypt's resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg could have been caused by a terrorist attack.

The London authorities provided Moscow with a dossier of intelligence data about the A321 plane crash, but stated that the UK will not be able to reveal all the national intelligence information related to the tragedy.

The UK intelligence said that there was a bomb brought on the plane that caused the crash of the aircraft. The version was announced before the Russian and the Egyptian investigation into the catastrophe was completed.

In October, German magazine Das Deutsche Waffenjournal (DWJ), which positions itself as a magazine for gun owners, published an article about the fourteenth international firearm training for law enforcement officials.

The training took place in one of the Austrian districts (Kennelbach near Bregenz) and was attended by 241 police and bodyguards from 5 countries: Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Monaco.

DWJ also published a photo depicting figures of President Putin and his bodyguard as targets on a shooting stand. The figures revealed numerous traces of bullets.

The Western demonization of all things Russian didn't just start a year or two ago, as the Litvinenko affair makes clear. This documentary focuses on 3 aspects of the case that haven't been covered by Western media. That's convenient, given that they totally contradict the official story: that Andrey Lugovoy poisoned him with polonium at the Millennium Hotel in London on November 1, 2006. Here's what the documentary shows:

1. A professional, internationally recognized English polygraph expert, Blake C. Burgess, administered a lie detector test to Andrey Lugovoy - he told the truth when denying he had anything to do with the death of Litvinenko.
2. Princeton physicist William Happer, one-time nuclear forensics advisor for the U.S. government, demolishes anti-Russian writer Masha Gessen's claim that Russia was the only possible source for polonium, and Putin must have been the one who ordered its use to poison Litvinenko. Polonium is relatively easy to acquire and from countless sources.
3. The owner of the Abracadabra Restaurant and Bar, where Litvinenko was a frequent patron, says Litvinenko was there in the week before the day he was supposedly poisoned. But polonium traces were found in the restaurant on Litvinenko's regular seat, the stair rail, and at reception. According to the official story, Litvinenko left the Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1, went home, got sick, stayed in bed for three days, then went to the hospital. If that was true, there shouldn't have been any polonium traces in the restaurant. The owner also said he never saw Lugovoy (or exiled Russian arch-criminal and oligarch Boris Berezovsky, an associate of Litvinenko with whom he had been in contact in the days before November 1) in his restaurant.

Here's the video, courtesy of Russian Insider and The Russian Hour:

Throughout last week Russian airpower in Syria has been busy obliterating the positions of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra and a number of other terrorist groups, while carrying out up to 65 sorties a day. The number of targets destroyed exceeds the 800 mark, including command centers, training camps, underground facilities, ammunition and explosives factories, pickups mounted with heavy machine guns, armored vehicles, and warehouses. According to Western military sources, at least 7,000 Islamist militants have been killed, including high-ranking officers. Officials confirmed the neutralization of at least three Islamist warlords that fell victims to airstrikes carried out by the Syrian Air Force. Among them was the leader of a Jabhan al-Nusra branch Saraya al-Tawhid wal-Jihad Abu Muaz al-Sham. Seven more deaths of prominent commanders of various terrorist groups closely affiliated with al-Qaeda were reported earlier this month. Those are Abu Ali al-Naimi and Ashraf Jamia al-Muhar (Harakat Ahrar al-Sham), Abu Muaz al-Shami (Jabhat al-Nusra), Saleh Sindh (Jaysh al-Islam), and Uqba Abu Ahmad (Livaa Umar al-Farooq).

In the last week it has been officially reported for the first time that Russia's warplanes dropped highly accurate KAB-1500L bombs. These were specifically designed to destroy underground infrastructure. Another novelty that has been employed by the Russian Defense Ministry are BETAB-500s, concrete piercing bombs. Moreover, in a number of provinces in order to support the offensive of the Syrian pro-government forces, Russian is using gunships operating at low altitudes and high speeds to provide close air support to the Syrian army.

In recent days, intense fighting has been reported in the majority of Syrian provinces, with jihadists trying to launch a counter-offensive in order to preserve their holdings. Nevertheless, on November 10, Syrian troops managed to break the three-year blockade of the Kwaires airbase near Aleppo. It's is now possible that Russia would redeploy a part of its air group there, namely ground attack helicopters.

Imagine that you despised your brother-in-law and wanted to kill him. But you didn't have the guts to do it yourself so you hired a hit-man to do the job for you.

Would you still be guilty of murder?

You're darn right, you would be. So let's apply this same rule to US foreign policy: Would it be just as wrong to invade a country, kill its people and topple its government with militants that you funded, armed and trained as it would be with your own US troops?

Yep, it sure would be. So while some people might think that it was smarter for Obama to use a proxy-army in Syria instead of US soldiers, morally or legally speaking, there's really no difference between what he did and what Bush did in Iraq. A US invasion is a US invasion. Period. It doesn't matter if you use for-hire killers or your own guys. It's all the same. Obama is just as guilty as Bush.

Why does it matter?

It matters because Obama's Syrian policy has resulted in the deaths of 250,000 people and created 11 million refugees. That's more refugees than Iraq. And the funny thing is, the media doesn't even talk about it, in fact, there's not one major media outlet in the entire country that has stated what everyone knows to be the obvious truth; that the United States is 100 percent responsible for the refugee crisis. 100 percent! Assad had nothing to do with it. US policy and our buck-passing president are entirely to blame.

The point is, the Democrats pursue the same policies as the GOP with some minor-tweaking at the edges. So if the hard-charging, but dimwitted Republicans decide to drag the country to war on a pack of lies, then the shifty Dems will try to be smarter about it; they'll try to micromanage the public relations, preempt antiwar marches in US cities and avoid US casualties at all cost. Obama has succeeded in all of these things. There's nobody in the streets protesting, the media has convinced most people that Syria is in the throes of a civil war, and there have been no flag-draped coffins returning to Andover Airbase because their are no US boots on the ground. For all practical purposes, the Democrats have created our first completely invisible war. That's quite an accomplishment, don't you think?

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter sacked three-star general Ron Lewis after "learning about allegations of misconduct," the Pentagon announced. Carter hinted that his Senior Military Assistant failed to meet "the highest possible standards of conduct."

"I directed that this matter be referred to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense for investigation. I have confidence in the Inspector General's ability to determine the facts. The Department of the Army will then take action as appropriate," the Pentagon chief said in a statement on Thursday.

According to an unnamed senior Defense Department official cited by Reuters, Carter was did not see the misconduct allegations coming, which were announced on Tuesday evening.

"The secretary was very surprised to learn of these allegations," the official said.

This meeting was planned by the EU after more than 800 migrants died on a boat off Libya back in April 2015. One has to repeat this.... "Back in April 2015" so it took the EU 7 months just to set up a meeting, so we can assume it will take a hundred years for the EU to completely solve this problem and by that time Africa would be completely deserted.

Two things came out of this summit in Malta, first it made the life of all those on this small island of Malta where 400,000 people live crammed up on a rock measuring 24kms by 13kms, a nightmare as roads were closed and parking near the capital city Valletta, where thousands work, was nearly impossible. Most arterial roads were closed so EU and African leaders could go around in 47 different cars plus extra vehicles for security, when 2 or 3 buses perhaps could have transported them more efficiently and given them some face time to discuss matters informally whilst enjoying the great weather we are experiencing this week, instead of having them chauffeured around at high speeds with helicopters above their heads as if we were in Iraq or Yemen.

Documents released by the CIA show details of over a dozen investigations into serious allegations of misconduct by agency employees, including child pornography, torture and war crimes. In many cases, the Justice Department decided not to prosecute.

Redacted records of the investigations, part of the 111 probes conducted by the CIA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) between January 2013 and May 2014, were obtained by Vice News under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Among the OIG investigations were allegations that a "highly placed US official" leaked classified information to a foreign army, retaliation against whistleblowers, the sale of night-vision goggles on eBay, the use of government computers to order steroids, and torture of a detainee by CIA officers. The torture probe resulted in the accuser recanting all of the allegations he or she made about the physical abuse of prisoners in CIA custody.

In one notable case, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) notified the CIA about allegations that an operative of the agency's National Clandestine Service committed a war crime, resulting in the death of one person.