For more than a year, the United States has been playing patty-cake with an army of homicidal maniacs who call themselves ISIS. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he'd had enough of Washington's song-and-dance and was planning to bring a little Russian justice to the terrorist militias that had killed 225,000 Syrians and ripped the country to shreds. In language that could not be more explicit, Putin said to the General Assembly: "We can no longer tolerate the currents state of affairs in the world". Less than 48 hours later, Russian bombers were raining down precision-guided munitions on terrorist strongholds across western Syria sending the jihadi vermin scrambling for cover.

That's how you fight terrorism if you're serious about it. Bravo, Putin.

Putin's blitz caught the entire western political establishment flat-footed. Even now, three days into the air campaign, neither the administration nor the policy wonks at the many far-right think tanks in Washington have even settled on an approach, much less a strategy, to developments on the ground. What's clear, is that Putin's action has surprised everyone including the media which to-this-day hasn't even settled on it's talking points.

This is extraordinary. Ask yourself this, dear reader: How can our political and military leaders watch Moscow deploy its troops, warplanes and military hardware to a theater where the US is carrying out major operations and have absolutely no plan of how deal with those forces if they are sent into battle?

If you are convinced, as I am, that we are governed by numbskulls, you will certainly find confirmation of that fact in recent events.

But while the Obama administration is frantically searching for a strategy, Putin's air-squadrons are unleashing holy hell on the sociopaths, the head-choppers and the other assorted vipers that comprise the Islamic State. And Mr. Putin is getting plenty of help too, particularly from the crack-troops in the Iranian Quds forces and from the ferocious militia that defeated the IDF in two separate conflicts, Hezbollah, the Army of God. Check this out from Reuters:

"Hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria in the last 10 days and will soon join government forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies in a major ground offensive backed by Russian air strikes, two Lebanese sources told Reuters....

"The (Russian) air strikes will in the near future be accompanied by ground advances by the Syrian army and its allies," said one of the sources familiar with political and military developments in the conflict....

"The vanguard of Iranian ground forces began arriving in Syria: soldiers and officers specifically to participate in this battle. They are not advisors ... we mean hundreds with equipment and weapons. They will be followed by more," the second source said. Iraqis would also take part in the operation, the source said."

("Assad allies, including Iranians, prepare ground attack in Syria: sources", Reuters)

A military alliance between Moscow, Tehran and Hezbollah?

You're darn tootin', and you can thank Barack Obama and his lunatic regime change plan for that development.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the first time publicly accepted the fact that Crimea doesn't belong to Ukraine and that the peninsula will stay as part of Russia, Alexei Pushkov, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma, said on his Twitter account, according to Gazeta.ru.

"Important: After a meeting in Paris, Merkel for the first time admitted that Crimea won't return to Ukraine. That means the crisis is only about the east of the country," Pushkov wrote.

The Normandy Four talks on Ukraine reconciliation concluded in Paris on Friday.

State Department talking points on Syria for cable news anchors:

• Keep mentioning the barrel bombs. Do not mention how their use was pioneered by the Israeli Air Force in 1948, and how they were used by the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam in Operation Inferno in 1968. Keep repeating, "barrel bombs, barrel bombs" and stating with a straight face that the Syrian regime is using them "against its own people." Against its own people. Against its own people. Against its own people.
• Keep mentioning "200,000." (The UN estimates that 220,000 have been killed in the conflict since 2011.) Declare like you really believe it that this is the number of civilians the Syrian government of Bashar Assad has killed during the war. (Do not be concerned about any need to back the figure up. No one is ever going to call you on it publicly.)

Do NOT mention that around half of the war dead (estimates range from 84,000 to 133,000) are Syrian government forces waging war against an overwhelmingly Islamist opposition, and an additional 73,000 to 114,000 are anti-government combatants.

Do not discuss these figures because they would call into question the claim that the Syrian government is targeting and killing tens of thousands of civilians willy-nilly. (If feeling any qualms of conscience, recall Karl Rove's immortal dictum that "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.")

The New York Times today has a vicious editorial with a vicious headline: "Mahmoud Abbas Gives Up on Peace." It blames the Palestinians for the impasse in the endless peace process; because the Palestinian president said yesterday at the United Nations that he wants to dump his responsibilities under Oslo to cooperate with Israel in providing security for the occupation.

The Times lists the causes of the breakdown of the peace process:

suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism, intifadas, rocket barrages, unceasing expansion of settlements, military clashes

So Israel's unceasing colonization of the land is a mere footnote to Palestinian violence. And what are military clashes? Donald Johnson explains:

When they list crimes, the emotional words are reserved for the Palestinian crimes - "terrorism" "rocket barrages" and they even include "intifadas" as though the act of rebellion itself is a crime. On the Israeli side there is "unceasing expansion of settlements", which doesn't convey the violence or the extreme racism involved and then they talk about "military clashes"' which is apparently the category one uses for Israeli massacres.

The usual 50-90 rule is in effect - that is, if Israel should get 90 percent of the blame or more, the NYT will split it 50/50 but if the Palestinians ever deserve 50 percent of the blame on a given incident, the NYT will award them 90 percent.

This is why I think the pro-Palestinian side has to stress how much racism (probably unconscious) there is on the pro-Israeli side, rather than allowing the liberal PEP (Progressive Except Palestine) types to focus only on antisemitism.

Matt Duss at Slate is ahead of the Times here:

Abbas is largely correct when he claimed that the Palestinians had met their commitments while Israel has ignored its own.

What happens when those allies you held closest to you turn out to be working towards your demise? Worse still, what if those truths you held as certainties were no more than a web of lies weaved by politicians to sell you on their wars?

We are living in strange times indeed when politicians and governments can argue supporting radicals in the name of national security and democracy. And while many of you might choose to shake your head in disbelief, arguing still that the Western world is sitting on the right side of history - the civilized side of history - let me remind you of the company your heads of states continue to keep, defend and support.

For if the US media war machine has been intent on painting Moscow's intervention against ISIS Wahhabi-inspired radicals in Syria as an attack against Syrians' right to political self-determination, let me be clear about something: the only infringements there have ever been against Syrians' rights have come from the corridors of the White House. If not for Washington and its so-called alliance against terror, the Levant would not have fallen prey to the murderous hordes of ISIS.

As public health initiatives cut into sales of cigars and cigarettes, Connecticut tobacco farmers are looking for new markets in Cuba.

Several months after President Barack Obama renewed diplomatic relations between the United States and the island nation's communist government, ending a 54-year freeze, proposed legislation in Congress would lift trade restrictions. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., appeared Friday with South Windsor farmers and agriculture officials urging passage of the trade measure.

Ed Kasheta Jr., whose Kasheta Farms was founded by his great-great-grandfather in 1906, welcomes the prospect of selling tobacco to Cuba, which is known for its own cigar-making industry. "I think it's one more place to reach out to," he said.

Tobacco is Connecticut's fifth largest agriculture product by market value, at $35.7 million, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The crop is grown on 49 farms and accounts for 6.5 percent of total agricultural product sales in the state.

Murphy is a co-sponsor of the Freedom to Export to Cuba Act, which would remove the president's authority to continue the embargo and eliminate enforcement of the embargo and prohibition on Cuban imports. Following the re-opening of the U.S. embassy in Cuba this summer, a "tectonic shift" in policy toward the Caribbean country has occurred, drawing bipartisanship support for the export legislation, Murphy said. "A year ago, this bill wouldn't have had a chance," he said.

The global drone arms race shows no signs of slowing down. As nation after nation invests in drone technology in order to keep up with the latest developments from their rivals, we are only seeing an expansion of new technologies that all but ensure conflict across the globe will continue. In fact, the U.S. has openly admitted that they fully expect ALL nations to have armed drones within 10 years.

The latest technology includes laser equipped autonomous drones, which are expected to arrive within two years. This, naturally has sparked the development of anti-drone technology that introduces electronic warfare as a countermeasure. But, staying a step ahead, drone invisibility cloaks are rapidly approaching reality. See how this goes?

Is the U.S. still using propaganda claims that the Syrian government is willingly bombing hospitals? Or that it uses "dumb bombs" or "barrel bombs" that cause "collateral damage"? Will its proxies prepare more fake videos that allegedly show such bombings?

Well, it is time to end that nonsense because the hypocrisy is now too obvious:

Kabul, October 3, 2015: At 2:10 AM local time on Saturday October 3, the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières' (MSF) Trauma center in Kunduz was hit several times during sustained bombing and was very badly damaged.

Three MSF staff are confirmed dead and more than 30 are unaccounted for.
...
Since fighting broke out on Monday, MSF has treated 394 wounded. When the aerial attack occurred this morning we had 105 patients and their caretakers in the hospital and over 80 MSF international and national staff present.
...
MSF's hospital is the only facility of its kind in the whole northeastern region of Afghanistan, providing free life- and limb-saving trauma care. MSF doctors treat all people according to their medical needs and do not make distinctions based on a patient's ethnicity, religious beliefs or political affiliation.

MSF was hiding "terrorists" is the claim the officials make. People at the hospital were "individuals threatening the force" says the U.S. military.

Members of the ISIL terrorist group have reportedly started to evacuate their families from the city of Raqqah after the start of Russia's military operation in Syria, the Arabic television channel Al-Mayadin revealed.

According to media reports, terrorists evacuate their families to Iraq, fearing the renewed start of Russia's airstrikes.

During the first two days of the military operation, Russian aircraft reportedly hit over 10 targets, among them an explosives factory, an arms depot and an ISIL coordination center.

Broadcasting from deep in the heart of the American Empire, join your host Elan Martin, and fellow Sott.net editors, as they discuss everything from current events and the latest machinations and manipulations of the global elite to history, science, and religion, and how it all fits together.

After nearly four years of Syria being attacked by proxy ISIS terror forces and creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades, Russia and its allies have stepped in and announced to the world that it will be addressing the problem head-on. Russia's proactive stance has left much of the Western powers reeling, and the people of Syria cheering. Join us as we look at the developments that are bound to profoundly change the geopolitical landscape, and set the world on a new course of awareness of the real problems we are seeing.

The Truth Perspective is brought to you by the SOTT Radio Network and SOTT.net, your one-stop source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events.

Live every Saturday from 2-4pm EST / 11am-1pm PST / 8-10pm CET.

Running Time: 02:04:00

Download: MP3