On our weekly radio show last Sunday, I commented that the response from the U.S. and its Western allies to Russia's launch of an actual war on terrorism in Syria has been largely silence, deafening silence, a bit like Netanyahu's 'silence spectacle' at the UN recently, only even more deafening. So deafening in fact, that it came full circle and I began to hear something.

At first it was just a mealy-mouthed American-accented, 'Russia is making things worse'. But it quickly grew in strength to announce in a Queen's English accent, "we're bombing ISIS too you know!" And before long it had become a cacophonous coprocopia about Russia "killing innocent civilians in Syria" and, most recently, "dangerously invading the airspace" of our NATO ally Turkey.

Still, it was, and is, all 'sound and fury', because the bottom line is that U.S. has had its 'war on terror' bluff called in spectacular fashion by Russia and there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that the terror masterminds in Washington and Langley can do about it, short of declaring war on Russia.

The only more or less honest statements about Russia's move into Syria from the West have come from the same person, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, head of U.S. European Command. Speaking on Sept. 28th at a meeting in Berlin of the 'German Marshall Fund' - a US think tank that commemorates the Marshall Plan, an initiative through which the USA gained economic control over most of Western Europe after WW2 - Breedlove said that Russia had installed "very sophisticated air defense capabilities/anti-access area denial" that were not aimed at the Islamic State but "about something else". Of course, "something else" here means "NATO bombs".

There's an increasing number of reports stating that after just a week of Russian airstrikes against ISIL (Islamic State) positions, there's panic and desertion everywhere. About a thousand extremists have already abandoned their positions in Syria and are now heading in the direction of Iraq, Turkey and a number of European states. Successful operations carried out in cooperation with the regular Syrian army has not only managed to interrupt a series of relatively easy victories that ISIL had been scoring on the field of battle, but also stopped the flow of militants from abroad.


According to the Arabic television channel Al-Mayadeen, ISIL members are urgently evacuating their families, fearing new air raids. In a situation where command centers are getting obliterated, there's desertion to be found everywhere. According to numerous experts, just the first few days of Russia's campaign have caused the Islamic State more damage than a year of the so-called "war on terrorism" in Syria, launched by the United States, and then supported by the UK, France, Germany Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

The successful counterattack of the Syrian army, with Russian warplanes flying close air support, aggravated the already complicated relations between militants of this Islamist organization, causing morale to sink lower. It went as far as forcing ISIL to create a special "military police", that is now entrusted with the duty of checking special papers that testify that a militant is carrying out his duties in a designated location.

Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said she was disinvited from the first Democratic presidential primary debate in Nevada after she appeared on television and called for more face-offs.

Ms. Gabbard confirmed on Sunday that her chief of staff received a message last Tuesday from the chief of staff to Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the national committee, about her attendance at the debate. A day earlier, Ms. Gabbard had appeared on MSNBC and said there should be an increase beyond the current six sanctioned debates.

A person close to the committee who asked for anonymity to discuss internal discussions insisted, however, that Ms. Gabbard had not been disinvited. Instead, the person said, an aide to Ms. Wasserman Schultz expressed a desire to keep the focus on the candidates as the debate approached, rather than on a "distraction" that could divide the party, and suggested that if Ms. Gabbard could not do that, she should reconsider going.

Ms. Gabbard insisted otherwise.

"When I first came to Washington, one of the things that I was disappointed about was there's a lot of immaturity and petty gamesmanship that goes on, and it kind of reminds me of how high school teenagers act," Ms. Gabbard said in a telephone interview on Sunday night. She said she would watch the debate in her district in Hawaii, which elected her to her second term last year.

The world is beginning to realize that a seachange in world affairs occurred on September 28 when President Putin of Russia stated in his UN speech that Russia can no longer tolerate Washington's vicious, stupid, and failed policies that have unleashed chaos, which is engulfing the Middle East and now Europe. Two days later, Russia took over the military situation in Syria and began the destruction of the Islamic State forces.

Perhaps among Obama's advisers there are a few who are not drowning in hubris and can understand this seachange. Sputnik news reports that some high-level security advisers to Obama have advised him to withdraw US military forces from Syria and give up his plan to overthrow Assad. They advised Obama to cooperate with Russia in order to stop the refugee flow that is overwhelming Washington's vassals in Europe. The influx of unwanted peoples is making Europeans aware of the high cost of enabling US foreign policy. Advisers have told Obama that the idiocy of the neoconservatives' policies threaten Washington's empire in Europe.

Several commentators, such as Mike Whitney and Stephen Lendman, have concluded, correctly, that there is nothing that Washington can do about Russian actions against the Islamic State. The neoconservatives' plan for a UN no-fly zone over Syria in order to push out the Russians is a pipe-dream. No such resolution will come out of the UN. Indeed, the Russians have already established a de facto no-fly zone.

Putin, without issuing any verbal threats or engaging in any name-calling, has decisively shifted the power balance, and the world knows it.

"Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf." ― Alfred Hitchcock

In an age dominated with news of school shootings, school lockdowns, police shootings of unarmed citizens (including children), SWAT team raids gone awry (leaving children devastated and damaged), reports of school resource officers tasering and shackling unruly students, and public schools undergoing lockdowns and active drills, I find myself wrestling with the question: how do you prepare a child for life in the American police state?

Every parent lives with a fear of the dangers that prey on young children: the predators who lurk at bus stops and playgrounds, the traffickers who make a living by selling young bodies, the peddlers who push drugs that ensnare and addict, the gangs that deal in violence and bullets, the drunk drivers, the school bullies, the madmen with guns, the diseases that can end a life before it's truly begun, the cynicism of a modern age that can tarnish innocence, and the greed of a corporate age that makes its living by trading on young consumers.

It's difficult enough raising a child in a world ravaged by war, disease, poverty and hate, but when you add the police state into the mix—with its battlefield mindset, weaponry, rigidity, surveillance, fascism, indoctrination, violence, etc.—it becomes near impossible to guard against the toxic stress of police shootings, SWAT team raids, students being tasered and shackled, lockdown drills, and a growing unease that some of the monsters of our age come dressed in government uniforms.

Children are taught from an early age that there are consequences for their actions. Hurt somebody, lie, steal, cheat, etc., and you will get punished. But how do you explain to a child that a police officer can shoot someone who was doing nothing wrong and get away with it? That a cop can lie, steal, cheat, or kill and still not be punished?

Kids understand accidents: sometimes drinks get spilled, dishes get broken, people slip and fall and hurt themselves, or you bump into someone without meaning to, and they get hurt. As long as it wasn't intentional and done with malice, you forgive them and you move on. Police shootings of unarmed people—of children and old people and disabled people—can't just be shrugged off as accidents, however.

Tamir Rice was no accident. Cleveland police shot and killed the 12-year-old, who was seen playing on a playground with a pellet gun. Surveillance footage shows police shooting the boy two seconds after getting out of a moving patrol car. Incredibly, the shooting was deemed "reasonable" and "justified" by two law enforcement experts who concluded that the police use of force "did not violate Tamir's constitutional rights."

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond says Bashar Assad cannot remain in power, but the UK is flexible about how and when the Syrian president stands down.

Ahead of a meeting of European foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, Hammond said, "We cannot work with Assad as a long-term solution for the future of Syria," but that it was possible to "be flexible" on the manner and timing of his departure.

Against a backdrop of Russian intervention in Syria, a move the UK government opposes, the Conservative government is pushing hard for a new vote on launching airstrikes of their own.

Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) is threatening international writers in distant nations

American Avijit Roy was among those murdered in 2015.

Radical groups seek a religious monoculture based on the annihilation of other religions and crushing Muslim diversity.

"The Ansarullah Bangla Team, which is suspected of acting on threats and slaying at least four secular bloggers this year, has released a "hit list" of new targets..."

The independent nation state of Bangladesh in 1971 emerged victorious in the War of Independence against the dictatorial nation of Pakistan that refused to acknowledge ethnic, linguistic, cultural and obvious geopolitical realities. However, the price was extremely high because of the mass brutality committed by the armed forces of Pakistan. On top of this, seditious Islamist traitors slaughtered vast numbers in this period of history. Therefore, true to the nature of these two evil forces then intellectuals of all faiths were targeted and mass bloodletting took place against various groups, including butchering Hindus based on untold cruelty.

Turning the clock forward to 2015, then internationally, the brutal reality of Sunni Takfiri Islamist fascism knows no boundaries. After all, ISIS is slaughtering Shia Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Yemen - and beheading Christians in Libya. Similarly, ISIS is intent on committing religious genocide against Alawite Muslims, Christians, Shabaks, Yazidis and other religious minorities. Also, just like Islamist forces that killed their own nationals in Bangladesh during the War of Independence, ISIS also butchers fellow Sunni Muslims if they are deemed to be too openminded.

Fed up of the West's indecisiveness on dealing with the ongoing situation in Syria, Russia is now providing direct military air support to Syria, and it is using electronic warfare to jam Islamic State's (IS) communications, as well as to prevent Nato from detecting what it is up to, according to an electronic warfare expert.

Electronic warfare is the ability to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum in order to sense where enemy targets are so that you can attack the enemy first, or to prevent the enemy from attacking you. Examples of things you can do with electronic warfare include communications jamming, radar jamming, reconnaissance and countermeasures using infrared, radio and electro-optical frequencies.

On 5 October, Russian military Krasukha-4, its mobile, ground-based electronic warfare systems, were spotted in Syria. The Krasukha-4 is a broadband multifunctional jamming station that is based on a BAZ-6910-022 four-axle-chassis and is able to neutralise low-Earth orbit (LEO) spy satellites such as the US Lacrosse/Onyx series, airborne surveillance radars and radar-guided ordinance at ranges between 150km-300km.

We will not name the author of this material, as he is an active officer of the armed forces of Russia, but he perfectly described the situation - What would happen if the Ukrainian military faced the Russian army?

The titles of some complexes we have SPECIFICALLY designated with the letters of the Latin alphabet not to write their name, as mentioning some of them is undesirable for the author. However, I think that military people will understand what are the systems in question:

"According to our Ukrainian partners, commenting on the latest ATO news, and referring to the "intercepted data from reports of the Russian army", today another division of the Russian army was destroyed near Lugansk...

On Friday, we reported the latest provocation in what has truly become a very dangerous, if largely pointless, staring contest between Beijing and Washington over China's reclamation of land in The South China Sea.

Responding to suggestions that the US was set to sail warships around the islands Beijing has constructed atop reefs in the Spratlys, China served noticed that it would "never allow any country to violate China's territorial waters and airspace in the Spratly Islands, in the name of protecting freedom of navigation and overflight." This was simply a formalized version of the more concise phrasing the PLA navy used when they instructed the pilots flying a US spy plane to "Go now!" when it ventured too close to Fiery Cross earlier this year.