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Putin: Russia is against militarization of space but US sees it as theater of war

US space
© Global Look Press/White House
FILE PHOTO: The flag of the U.S. Space Command
Russia has consistently opposed the idea of space militarization, but the actions of the US and its allies force Moscow to counterbalance this growing threat, President Vladimir Putin has said.

"Russia has always opposed and continues to oppose the militarization of space," the president told a government meeting on military policies. Putin expressed concern over world powers increasing the capabilities of their space systems which have both military and dual-use applications.

"The US political and military leadership openly consider space a war theater," he said."Developments demand that we pay increased attention to strengthening our orbital group as well as our rocket and space industries."

Comment: Let's not forget that the US still depends on Russian rockets to make it into space, and that its current track record with arms and military products has been far from stellar. Russia and China, on the other hand, are way ahead in terms of technological innovation and efficiency (at least officially).

But, the US deep state and its allies are clearly a threat, primarily because of the depths they're willing to plunge to achieve their desired, demented, goal, not due to their skill or genius, but because they would be willing to sacrifice the planet to achieve their delusions of world domination.

See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Interview with Dilyana Gaytandzhieva: Pentagon Biological Warfare And Arms Trafficking to Terrorists


X

Ukraine President Zelensky's interview on Trump, Putin, and a divided Europe: 'I don't trust anyone at all'

Zelensky
© Paolo Pellegrin-Magnum Photos TIME
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
Hardly six months into his tenure as the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky has already learned to temper his expectations. He does not expect his first round of peace talks with Russia, which are scheduled to take place in Paris on Dec. 9, to end the war that has been raging along their border for the past five years. Nor does he expect too much from his Western allies going into these negotiations, Zelensky said in a wide-ranging interview on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters from TIME and three of Europe's leading publications, the President explained that, despite getting caught up in the impeachment inquiry now unfolding in Washington, D.C., Ukraine still needs the support of the United States.

Otherwise his country does not stand much of a chance, Zelensky said, in its effort to get back the territory Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, starting with the Crimean Peninsula. Nor can Ukraine rely on steady financial support from abroad if President Donald Trump and his allies continue to signal to the world that Ukraine is corrupt, Zelensky said. "When America says, for instance, that Ukraine is a corrupt country, that is the hardest of signals."

During the interview in his office in Kyiv, the comedian-turned-president denied, as he has done in the past, that he and Trump ever discussed a decision to withhold American aid to Ukraine for nearly two months in the context of a quid pro quo involving political favors, which are now at the center of the impeachment inquiry in Congress.


Arrow Down

Never a victim: Lisa Page's actions damaged the FBI and our nation

Page
© AP
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page surfaced on Sunday in a rare interview with the Daily Beast stating emphatically that she committed 'no crime' during her participation of bureau's investigation into President Donald Trump and instead, she portrays herself as a victim of the president.

Ironically, what comes across in the interview is her desire to shift the narrative from the mountain of evidence that exposed her anti-Trump hate during the bureau's Russia investigation. Page, along with other former senior Obama officials, are doing everything in their power to shift the narrative before DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report goes public on Dec. 9.

Page is hoping the American public has a short term memory. After all, so much has happened since her text messages with her former lover, now fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok were released to the public by Congress and the IG.

Comment: Page has done herself no favors. She has reaffirmed the depth of her bias towards the president and the culpability of the FBI to influence and direct the 2016 election outcome. Her sympathy ploy is a page out of Hillary's manual on public manipulation.

See also:


Nuke

Though Trump talks nuclear deals with Russia and China at NATO, his track record speaks louder

Titan Missile
© Reuters/Nicole Neri
A Titan Missile shown from above at the Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) site in Arizona, decommissioned in 1982.
US President Donald Trump once again brought up the possibility of a nuclear proliferation agreement between Washington, Moscow and Beijing, claiming that Russia and China are eager for it. Yet his own country doesn't seem to be. Trump said on Tuesday, in a press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg:
"As recently as, like, two weeks ago, Russia wants to make a deal very much on arms control and nuclear. And that's smart. And so do we. We think it would be a good thing. Russia wants to do something badly and so do we. It would be a great thing to do."
The deal would either involve China right from the start, or Beijing would be brought in later, Trump added. He also told reporters that Chinese diplomats expressed eagerness for such a deal during their trade negotiations with the US.

Comment: See also:


Snakes in Suits

ICC: Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow argues against war crimes investigation

International Criminal Court
© ICC-CPI.
International Criminal Court, The Hague
A lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump argued at the International Criminal Court on Wednesday that prosecutors were wrong to seek an investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan that could potentially implicate U.S. soldiers.

ICC judges in April rejected the request of prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to examine atrocities allegedly committed between 2003 and 2014, including alleged mass killings of civilians by the Taliban, as well as prisoner torture by Afghan authorities and to a lesser extent by U.S. forces and the CIA.

Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow, speaking as a "friend of the court" in the case, said that the prosecutor was wrong to "press ahead" with seeking to open an investigation when the United States is not a member of the court. In addition, under the "complementarity principle", the ICC has jurisdiction only when countries themselves are unwilling or unable to prosecute war crimes.

"The U.S. is demonstrably both willing and able to investigate its own cases, so on the basis of complementarity (this investigation) should be thrown out," he said.

Comment: The ICC received more than 1 million statements from Afghans who say they were victims of war crimes at the hands of the Taliban, Afghan forces, terrorists, warlords, and international forces including US personnel, several media outlets reported last February.

See also:


Nuke

Kremlin, Macron agree to include W. Europe in INF Treaty replacement talks: 'We can't exist in a vacuum'

Iskander-M
© Sputnik/Pavel Lisitsin
Iskander-M tactical missile system
Russia has backed French President Emmanuel Macron's push for European states to join talks on a 'new' strategic arms control agreement after the demise of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty).

Talks on the replacement of the defunct INF Treaty cannot be focused only on the prospects of China joining in, the Kremlin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Wednesday:
"First, we need to talk about the Western European countries, on whose territories the mid-range and short-range missiles are also located. We need a new treaty because the old one, unfortunately, is already gone - it was done so not by our initiative. We cannot exist in a state of vacuum, where nothing is being regulated by international law" [anymore].
US President Donald Trump has been saying for months that China should join a new arms control pact in the future, without any concrete suggestions for negotiations. So far Beijing said it is not interested.

Star of David

UNGA: A 'stumbling block for peace', Israel is called to withdraw from Syria's Golan Heights

Golan Heights
© Reuters/Ammar Awad
A general view shows the town of Majdal Shams near the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution demanding that Israel vacate the Golan Heights - Syrian territory it captured in 1967 and has occupied since - arguing its presence in the disputed region is an obstacle to peace.

Passed in a 91-65 vote with 9 abstentions on Tuesday, the resolution called on Israel to abandon the Golan after over 50 years of occupation, insisting that nations may not acquire territory by conquest, a core principle of international law:
"The continued occupation of the Syrian Golan and its de facto annexation constitute a stumbling block in the way of achieving a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region," the resolution said, demanding that "Israel withdraw from all the occupied Syrian Golan."
In addition to the Golan resolution, the General Assembly passed four other measures related to Israel on Tuesday, one urging "respect for, and the preservation of" occupied Palestinian lands - including the West Bank and East Jerusalem - and reaffirming the "illegality of Israeli settlement activities." The other resolutions recognized the work of UN departments devoted to Palestine issues, and requested the continuation of a "special program" to disseminate information on Palestine and related UN decisions. The United States voted against all five measures in tandem with Tel Aviv.

Comment: Mondoweiss, 3/12/2019: UN says Israeli occupation cost Palestinian economy $48B
This week, the United Nations attempted to put a figure on exactly how much the occupation was costing Palestinian officials. The number it arrived at — an estimated $48bn between 2000 and 2017 — was larger than many folks expected.

According to Mahmoud Elkhafif, from the UN's Geneva-based trade body, UNCTAD, the losses were roughly three times the size of the entire Palestinian economy in 2017, and easily enough to pay off Ramallah's budget deficit.

UNCTAD counted money that should have been made available to Palestinian officials under the terms of the so-called Paris Protocol, part of the Oslo Accords that were inked by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1990s.

[A] 60-page report, The Economic Costs of the Israeli Occupation for the Palestinian People: Cumulative Fiscal Costs, will be discussed by the 193-nation UN General Assembly on Tuesday.
Palestine Post 24 30/11/2019: International law is clear: Israel's settlements are illegal
The clarity of international law on the issue of Israeli settlements arises in part from the unusual fact that they have been formally declared illegal by the most authoritative sources of international guidance.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an occupying power "shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies".

International Court of Justice in 2004 strongly reaffirmed the unlawfulness of Israel's settlement construction in occupied territory - and with a 14-1 ruling, the court showed a highly unusual degree of unity.

December 2016, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2334, deeming by a vote of 14-0 that the settlements had no legal validity. The US abstained from the vote.

No country [The USA] can, by its decree, influence the legal status of Israeli settlement activity.



Calendar

North Korea's tidings, as talks deadline nears: 'It's up to the US what Christmas gift it gets'

KimTrump
© AFP/STR/KCNA/KNS; Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
Korean Leader Kim Jong-un • US President Donald Trump
Pyongyang accused the US of only being interested in exploiting the stalled negotiations for political campaigning but also hinted that it's up to Washington to get into the Christmas mood this year.

Washington's negotiating tactic is "nothing but a foolish trick hatched to keep the DPRK bound to dialogue," designed purely to use the issue of talks in domestic election campaigns, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ri Thae Song said in a statement on Tuesday.

"So, no one will lend an ear to the US any longer," the diplomat warned, speaking about the looming year-end deadline set by Pyongyang for America to change its attitude toward the negotiation process.

What is left to be done now is the US option and it is entirely up to the US what Christmas gift it will select to get.

Comment: Fickle diplomacy exemplifies the all-too-pathetic caliber of US foreign relations expertise. Whatever happened to Trump's 'art of the deal'? One would think progress towards an agreement would be a significant stroke in his pre-election 'win' column.

RT, 3/12/2019: Trump will use US might if he has to
Trump believes he has saved the world from a major war by reaching out and befriending North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but added he may yet unleash all the military power of the Pentagon against him.

The statements, blending together a call for peace and threats of war, came from the US leader on Tuesday after officials in Pyongyang complained that the nuclear negotiations between the two nations were going nowhere. Trump praised his handling of North Korea, claiming that "if you would have listened to President Obama, we would have been in a World War III right now."

The US president took credit for defusing the conflict with North Korea by fostering a good personal relationship with Kim. He said he is probably "the only one he has such a good relationship with in the world."

Trump said he was in no rush to declare the negotiations process dead, but warned he had the world's most powerful military at his disposal. "We are by far the most powerful country in the world, and hopefully we won't have to use it. But if we do, we'll use it. If we have to, we'll do it," he said.



Russian Flag

The Lessons of Russia's Syrian Intervention for Washington and Brussels

rouhani, erdogan, putin
© Sputnik / Valery Melnikov / Kremlj preko Reutersa
If Western leaders are able to put aside the now worn out cliches such as Russian Vladimir Putin 'punching above his weight,' 'Trump handing Putin a victory on a silver plate', not to mention 'Trump as Putin agent', there are serious lessons that they might still be able to draw from Putin's looming victory in Syria. First, the era in which the United States and/or the West (NATO) can dictate outcomes anywhere across the globe unilaterally has ended. Events in Syria are but the latest confirmation of this fact, but many in Washington and Brussels still do not see it. NATO expansion drove Russia into China's arms, and the rest is history and the future. Second, Washington and Brussels (NATO and less so EU) must abandon some aspects of its idealism for realism in foreign policy. Third, hubris, cynicism, and their handmaiden of ethical if not financial corruption have become an obstacle, not 'facilitating grease' for the implementation of Western foreign policies pursued by Washington and Brussels. Fourth, the West must create mechanisms for protecting the conduct of foreign policy from the influence of domestic political competition, as was clearly over the top in Syria and more so in Ukraine. Fifth, while a tough negotiator and dangerous enemy, Putin is an effective tactician and diplomat and improving strategist, who has outplayed the West in Syria and elsewhere precisely because of the Western deficiencies outlined above.

Unipolarism's Grave: 'We Came, We Saw, He Died'

Putin's successful intervention in Syria and utilization of not just Iranian interests but also those of NATO member Turkey has demonstrated that even a country with 'an economy the size of that of the Netherlands' can foil American plans for color revolution and inflict great damage to America's interests and reputation in foreign affairs through effective diplomacy and measured military means. By exposing the new Washington style of hubris, cynicism, and corruption in Syria, Putin's Syria intervention put the last nail in the coffin of the United States' ability to dictate outcomes anywhere across the globe and define the future. Events in Syria are but the latest confirmation of this fact, but many in Washington and Brussels still do not see it. NATO expansion without Russia continues to push the West on the same dangerous road of radicalizing Russian anti-Westernism, strengthening the Sino-Russian strategic partnership, and creating a phalanx of authoritarian regimes strongly opposed to American and even Western interests. Thus, the world is not only no longer unipolar. It is becoming bipolar or multipolar in ways exceedingly detrimental to Western interests and international stability and security. This is a disaster not just for Washington and Brussels but for the world, and mantras about Russian imperialism and totalitarianism will prove of no help.


Comment: All 'good' things come to an end. Thank the heavens for that.


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Why Iraqi PM Mahdi has to go: The many mistakes by US, Iran and the Marjaiya

abdel mahdi

Adel Abdel Mahdi
The democratically elected Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi has fallen. 241 members of parliament voted for his resignation, in accordance with the request of the Marjaiya in Najaf, the Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Sistani: Abdel Mahdi must end his term much earlier than planned in response to his mismanagement of the civilian uprising.

Abdel Mahdi is not responsible for the longstanding corruption in Iraq where, as in Lebanon, the political system is controlled by "whales," political parties that control the ruling system and share the wealth among themselves. However, as commander in chief of the security forces, he is responsible for the killing of a large number of protestors. Most of these protestors are not beholden to Iran, the US, or any other country in the region. They are the new Middle Eastern generation, unwilling to accept the submissiveness of their parents and ancestors to a long-dominant, unfair and corrupt ruling system.

The US liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein but committed serious mistakes, starting from the beginning of their rule in Mesopotamia. Iran imposed its influence when a vacuum arose, but Iran also made mistakes. The Marjaiya in Najaf became involved in the political process after the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein; it became directly involved in parliamentary politics. The Marjaiya pulled out of politics when it realised the impossibility of navigating within Iraq's corrupt political system and took its distance until the recent protests. Iraq's culture differs from other Middle Eastern countries; it is more susceptible to rumours and manipulated mobs. Today, Iraqis are taking over the streets with one agenda: changing everything and everybody. Moqtada al-Sadr and other regional and international players (the US and the United Arab Emirates mainly) seek to manipulate this protest movement. Where is the country headed? What roles will the US and Iran play in Iraq's future?