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Unlikely scenario: Trump wants Arab nations to take over illegal occupation of Syria and pay to do it


RT
Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:12 UTC
saudi air force graduates
© Fahad Shadeed / Reuters
Royal Saudi Air Force jets fly in formation during a graduation ceremony for air force officers at King Faisal Air Academy in Riyadh January 1, 2013.
Washington reportedly wants Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar to replace the US in terms of troop deployments and funding in "stabilizing northeastern Syria," according to the Wall Street Journal.

The US currently has two major points of military presence on the ground in Syria: one on the border with Jordan in the south and one in northeastern Syria in an area controlled by the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Force (SDF). President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw American troops from Syria, apparently dismayed by the cost of the operation. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration wants to shift the burden of occupying northeastern Syria - which is touted as an effort to stabilize the area by the newspaper - to Arab countries.

Comment: The US currently has control of eastern Syria's richest oil fields through its proxies the Kurds and an IS group, but it doesn't want to pay the price of retaining it. Given the various domestic issues each country is facing, the idea of shifting the burden onto the neighboring Arab groups is delusional.

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Evil Rays

Russia's telecommunications watchdog throws down the gauntlet on Telegram ban


RT
Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:19 UTC
telegram
© Kirill Kallinikov / Sputnik
Russia's telecommunications watchdog is banning millions of IP addresses in an attempt to enforce a court-ordered block of messenger app Telegram. Its own website has been brought down by a DDoS attack in apparent retaliation.

Telegram was blocked in Russia last Friday over its failure to provide the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) with access keys to its encrypted communications. Telegram says that since it offers end-to-end encryption to users, submitting to the FSB demand would have required an overhaul of the entire service.

The task of enforcing the court order in Russia fell to Roskomnadzor (RKN), the telecommunication watchdog authorized to order internet providers in Russia to blacklist online addresses. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov remained defiant and said his company will take measures to avoid the blocks.

Comment: France is following suit:
French politicians are reportedly trialing a secretive chat app in an effort to avoid encrypted messenger services which they believe could be compromised by international spies.

With data privacy concerns hitting corporate giants such as Facebook and Google in recent years, the French government appears to have had enough and is pulling its ministers off apps such as Whatsapp and Telegram.

According to Reuters, an unknown app developer has been brought in by the French government to design a messenger service to its specifications. It's an effort to move away from the reliance on Facebook-owned Whatsapp and the Russian entrepreneur-made app, Telegram.

"We need to find a way to have an encrypted messaging service that is not encrypted by the United States or Russia," a government spokesperson told Reuters. "You start thinking about the potential breaches that could happen, as we saw with Facebook, so we should take the lead."


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Take 2

During live interview, BBC reporter warns retired British admiral to NOT publicly voice his doubts about Syrian 'chemical attack'

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:10 UTC
Admiral Alan West BBC interview
© BBC
A BBC interview is making the rounds today among opponents of western interventionism in Syria. The subject of the interview, Admiral Alan West, voiced some much needed skepticism about the establishment narrative around the alleged gas attack in Douma. Everybody's talking about it because West is an empire loyalist that nobody in their right mind would accuse of being an "Assad apologist" or "useful idiot of the Kremlin", as anyone else who doesn't swallow the official story hook, line and sinker is uniformly labeled.

West made some sensible comments about the White Helmets and the fact that Jaysh al-Islam had far more incentive to stage such an attack than Assad had to perpetrate it. Even more helpful was his personal account of having been aggressively pressured to make false reports about the success of the British bombing campaign in Bosnia, suggesting that those pressures can lead to bad intelligence and erroneous military responses.

"I just wonder, you know we've had some bad experiences on intelligence," West said. "When I was chief of defense intelligence, I had huge pressure put on me politically to try and say that our bombing campaign in Bosnia was achieving all sorts of things which it wasn't. I was put under huge pressure, so I know the things that can happen with intelligence."

So that's a very significant addition to the dialogue. For me, though, the most interesting comments made in that interview came not from West, but from the BBC reporter who was interviewing him.

Comment: Sky News pulled an even better one with yet ANOTHER top British general voicing doubts about the Douma narrative:



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Star of David

As the US starts a new war in Syria with absolutely no evidence, Israel is murdering civilians on video

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:01 UTC
Israeli soldier detaining Palestinian boy
© thefreethoughtproject.com
A now infamous image of an Israeli soldier detaining a 12-year-old Palestinian boy at a protest near the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh in 2015.
Over the weekend, the United States led a coordinated attack - along with French and British forces - on the sovereign country of Syria. Western nations have ganged up on and attacked this sovereign state, launching countless missiles, hitting civilian targets, and, all of it was based on alleged crimes for which they had no evidence.

After the strikes Friday night, the French and British governments released the supposed evidence they had to justify the act of war carried out by allied nations in Syria. The reports admitted to not having any actual intelligence and the "evidence" was based on "open source" information widely available on the internet.

These open source accounts were little more than videos and testimonies from groups such as the White Helmets - who have been known to create fake videos, support terrorists, and much more.

Comment: See also:

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Rocket

Israel worried Russia may now sell Syria its S-300 missile defense systems

Frank Sellers
The Duran
Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:04 UTC
S-300 i S-400 u Siriji
In the wake of a recent air strike conducted by Israeli forces over Syria, and the "precision strike" conducted by a US-led coalition, the possibility of Russian air defense hardware falling into the hands of Assad's government is a growing concern for the Jewish state.

Throughout the instability that has engulfed Syria over the past 7 years, Israel has been freely roaming Syrian airspace, conducting strikes at will on any target deemed a threat by Tel Aviv, with Israel owning up to having conducted over 100 different strikes on Hezbollah forces in Syria, as well as other various targets. Israel holds the position that they can and will continue to strike any target they see fit whenever it suits Israeli interests.
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Chess

China responds to US trade war by imposing huge 179% tariff on sorghum imports


RT
Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:11 UTC
farmers
© Craig Lovell / Global Look Press
China has retaliated in response to US tariffs with a huge levy on American sorghum crops. Beijing has accused Washington of price dumping, which is hurting Chinese farmers.

Sorghum is a crop used to feed livestock and can be made into a liquor known as maotai, which is very popular with Chinese drinkers. China is the largest buyer of American sorghum products, buying almost $1 billion worth last year.

Some analysts say such a steep tariff will practically stop US sorghum exports to China. "It's very high. Basically, US sorghum won't be able to come in," said Fan Jingya, grains analyst at Cofco Futures, as quoted by Reuters.

"We were expecting like 35 percent," the news agency quoted its source at international trading house as saying. "Sorghum imports now are dead. No one can afford that high amount of tariffs."

"I don't know what [the importers] will do, but it will be rough," another trader said.
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Bullseye

The Syrian Arab Army brought the second strongest rebel enclave to its knees in just five weeks

Marko Marjanović
Checkpoint Asia
Sun, 15 Apr 2018 15:53 UTC
Syrian army enters ghouta

Trump's missiles or not, Assad now has Eastern Ghouta and the second largest concentration of rebels is no more
The Syrian army has eliminated the once mighty Eastern Ghouta rebel pocket

The rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta, under Salafist control since April 2013, is no more. The area just to the east of the Damascus capital and incorporating some of its suburbs was the second strongest concentration of rebels in Syria. They numbered some 15,000. Only in the main rebel-held area in Idlib were there more. All of them have now accepted to disarm, switch sides or be evacuated to Idlib, and the government side has taken control of the last area - the town of Douma - that they held. This, not Trump's strikes, is what was the most significant outcome of the Eastern Ghouta offensive.

And it only took five weeks of serious fighting to accomplish.

Comment:

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War Whore

Italian mayor outraged after finding out US nuclear-powered submarine visited 'city of peace'


RT
Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:00 UTC
uss north dakota
© US Navy / Reuters
The Virginia-class USS North Dakota (SSN 784) submarine is seen during bravo sea trials, October 25, 2014
A visit by a US Virginia-class submarine - the one that fired cruise missiles into Syria last Saturday - raised the ire in Naples, Italy whose mayor spewed vitriol over the sub's presence in the nuclear-free "city of peace."

The mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, has been particularly outraged after learning that the USS John Warner, an American Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine, moored at the port on March 20, about three weeks before the US-led missile strikes on Syria, local media reported.

"I would like to reiterate that Resolution 609 that was approved on September 23, 2015, on my behalf, has declared the port of Naples a nuclear-free area," de Magistris wrote to Rear Admiral Arturo Faraone, commander of Naples port authority, as cited by La Repubblica newspaper.

The mayor said his decree prohibited docking of any nuclear-powered vessels or warships carrying nuclear weapons in "the city of peace." He said Naples authorities are "respectful of everyone's fundamental rights" and are "dedicated to disarmament and international cooperation." Nevertheless, Rear Admiral Faraone replied that "the arrival and/or transit of foreign naval units in national territorial waters" does not fall within his office's responsibility.

Comment: Perhaps the Italian mayor didn't realize that Italy, like the rest of the EU, is just an imperial vassal state for the US. They can bring their nukes and subs anywhere they like.

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Arrow Up

David Hogg FAIL! Ingraham viewership gets whopping 20% boost after boycott

Hank Berrien
The Dailywire
Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:37 UTC
Laura Ingraham
Revenge is sweet.

The advertiser boycott campaign launched on March 29 against Fox News host Laura Ingraham by leftists following her tweet about Parkland high school anti-gun activist David Hogg has had a paradoxical result: since April 9, her show has averaged roughly 2.7 million, 20% higher than the week, March 26-29, prior to the boycott, which averaged 2.23 million, according to Newsbusters.

By April 13, 27 companies had announced they would boycott the show, but then Ace Hardware reversed its position, saying, "Advertising on any network or show is in no way an endorsement from Ace of the content contained or spoken within that program. We appreciate the different points of view from our customers, and believe people should be treated with respect and civility."

Ingraham, was, needless to say, delighted with the explosive growth:

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2 + 2 = 4

Michigan State University alumni director resigns amid investigation by Title IX office

David Jesse
Detroit Free Press
Tue, 17 Apr 2018 15:53 UTC
Michigan State University
Michigan State University's alumni executive director is under investigation by the school's Title IX office and has resigned, the school confirmed to the Free Press.

Scott Westerman, associate vice president for alumni relations and executive director of the MSU Alumni Association, told the school his resignation will take effect July 31. His resignation letter said he was moving to Florida to be closer to family and return to the private sector.

Comment:

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