US Troops Aren’t Coming Home…Soon
President Trump, Syria Articles
Brother Nathanael Kapner December 23, 2018 ©
___________________________________
IT’S A BOILING POT ready to erupt and no one knows what the spoon will pull out.
And when it comes to ‘sworn’ testimonies in midnight tweets, Trump’s policies digitized on Twitter are hard hunks to swallow.
Rand Paul might be the first to have the spoon stuck down his throat.
“Americans are tired of war,” Paul told
CNN today regarding Trump’s tweeted Syrian pullout, “money spent on combat abroad is better spent on roads, bridges, and schools at home.”Last April the senator specified that Trump confided that “We’re getting the hell out of Afghanistan” assuring him he’d be returning to the non-interventionist policies that he championed as a candidate.
Enjoying Paul’s support, a deal was likely struck that in a swap for ‘getting the hell out of foreign entanglements’ Paul would bring in exchange a slew of non-interventionists to back Trump’s 2020 bid.
Will the troops come home? Rand’s gonna hold Trump’s feet to the fire.
NEXT UP IS Recep Erdogan, President of Turkey, caricatured as ‘The Sultan’ whose Neo-Ottoman cosmology is his characteristic mark.
What Erdogan wants is mastery of the Middle East starting with northern Syria by disposing of Syrian Kurds whose US-constructed Syrian Defense Forces will either make nice with Assad or choke on Turkish bombs and tanks.
The real losers?
Certainly the Syrian Kurds, who’ve been cut loose by their erstwhile American ally.
Any dream they had of greater autonomy inside Syria, or an independent state, is not going to be realized. But then, that was never really in the cards.
Forced to choose between Turkey, with eighty million people and the second-largest army in NATO, and the stateless Kurds with their Syrian Democratic Forces, Trump chose Erdogan.
NOW THAT TRUMP has left the Syrian Kurds in a lurch they better run for cover.
They’re at a blinking red light where they need to stop, look both ways, and if they’re smart, turn to Damascus.
But a green light has been signaled to Turkey with Trump giving Erdogan a lit up highway in a tweet twittered yesterday:
“When I became President, ISIS was going wild. Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We’re coming home!”
There are only two significant pockets of ISIS left in Syria on the complete opposite side of Syria near Iraq, some 250 miles away from the Turkish border.
On the pretext of ‘taking care’ of ISIS in eastern Syria, Trump may have given NATO ally Erdogan the greenlight to ramp up the Turkish Army for hand-over control of the 13 US military bases located there. That means WW3 with Russia and NATO. Everyone loses!
AND JUST TODAY TRUMP tweeted that he and Erdogan agreed to “a slow & highly coordinated pullout of US troops from the area.”
Slow? How slow can you go……………………………………….?
The troops are NOT coming home…soon.
MORE!
Is ISIS Good For The Jews? Here
Syria – It’s A Jungle Out There Here
Trump Touts War With Syria Here
ISIS In Greater Israel’s Scheme Here
* Moral Rot Of Zionist Christians Here
How Jews Celebrate Murder Here
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Me thinks you are correct, Brother Nate.
I smell another Israel sponsored false flag coming.
I don’t understand this post at all.
It sounds like you would prefer that Trump keep all US troops in Syria, in order to prevent Erdogan from taking control of the 13 US military bases there.
But if he’s just “faking” a troop pullout, why would he announce that one is forthcoming?
There would be nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing that.
False Flags are one the evil Jews’ SOP’s!
We will also be seeing many diseases popping up too – who controls the CDC..?:/
@Stephen Smith
It’s quite clear that it’s all a ruse so Trump can keep his Towers in Istanbul and land a $3.5 billion contract with Turkey for US Patriot missiles.
Please read what I wrote in the Article:
“On the pretext of ‘taking care’ of ISIS in eastern Syria, Trump may have given NATO ally Erdogan the greenlight to ramp up the Turkish Army for hand-over control of the 13 US military bases located there. That means WW3 with Russia and NATO. Everyone loses!” +bn
Soo…
You seem to be saying that not only is Trump willing to commit political suicide, but he is willing to take the entire rest of the world down with him?
Am I understanding you correctly?
@Stephen Smith
I’m not saying that at all.
What I am saying is that Trump is willing to sacrifice a peaceful settlement of the Syria crisis for short-term economic gain at home, save his Towers in Istanbul, and risk a major conflagration for it all in the long run.
But no one thinks ahead anymore of consequences. It’s all about Israel, Military-Industial-Wall Street consortium, and MONEY. +bn
First things first. Trump is a militarist, not precisely an anti-interventionist. He has never been anti-war, but anti-losing war. Intervening in a “winning war” would be just fine with him.
But in order to do that, one must dramatically boost the size and strength of America’s military, and Trump cut an executive order back in January 2017 within a week of his inauguration calling on Mattis to do just that. Part of the executive order required that a simultaneous review would also be ordred, in which the Pentagon would need to work hand-in-hand with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to produce a “military readiness emergency budget amendment” that would immediately boost America’s defense spending.
Back to Syria. The US special forces deployment in Syria came to a dead end with President Assad and the SAA getting the upper hand (with Russia, Iran, China & Hezbollah’s major support as allies) over not just ISIS, but the US-Turkey-France & UK backed Al Qaeda/Nusra and FSA moderate rebel headchoppers.
Any of Trump’s criticisms about the US war on Iraq, the first time expressed sometime in 2004, essentially boiled down to “that’s not how I would run the war” — criticism that Bush was doing it the wrong way.
In fact, Trump had a point. The jackasses Bush, Cheney and then SecDef Rumsford tried to do Operation Iraqi Freedom on the cheap and cut corners every way possible, fully delusional about how the Iraqis would welcome the US with open arms. Nor could this menage a bozos drum up anything near to the coalition which Pappy Bush mustered in Operation Desert Storm.)
Trump also complained about how the US didn’t steal Iraq’s oil to pay the US back for the war of aggression beyond what the US Coalition had already appropriated after allocating a portion of the oil reserves to the Iraqi Kurds. Mossad, doubtless including Israeli Kurdish Jews, worked closely with the CIA and the Kurds running intelligence and arming them during the run-up to the war.
Iraqi Kurds were promised autonomy and their own shares of Iraq’s national oil fields if they fought on the side of the US against Saddam, a situation still in dispute with Baghdad to this day. Kurdish Jews and the powerful Barzani clan were very close to each other decades prior to the establishment of Israhell.
On the 19th, Reuters reported that the US State Department personnel would be evacuated from Syria within 24 hours, per the usual anonymous US official “after the White House said it had started withdrawing US forces,” and that the time-frame for the troop pullout was expected to be between 60 and 100 days.
On the 20th, Al Arabiya (Dubai, UAE — Saudi Arabia’s Mini-Me sidekick) reported that Trump’s order to withdraw US troops from Syria also signifies an end to the US air campaign against ISIS there, per anonymous US officials. The Pentagon declined to comment.
On the 23rd, Amid reports he was extremely irked with the abrupt resignation by Mattis last week, President Donald Trump announced Sunday via Twitter that he would be forcing Mattis out two months early on January 1, elevating Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan as acting secretary of defense.
Shanahan was a Boeing executive for decades before joining DoD in July 2017. We can be assured that Shanahan will be great for boosting profits for the military industrial complex from the ever-increasing bloated defense budget, especially as a former Boeing executive, but I’m not all that certain that he’s anything in the way of a military strategic thinker.
Also on the 23, CNN reported, citing the usual anonymous defense official sources, Mattis had, in fact, signed an executive order to withdraw US forces from Syria. The officials declined to provide CNN with further details other than to say that the order determines how and when the withdrawal of US forces from Syria will take place, in other words, its classified.
CNN speculated, however, that the withdrawal will begin in the next several weeks and could take several weeks to finish.
“I just had a long and productive call with President Erdogan of Turkey. We discussed ISIS, our mutual involvement in Syria, and the slow and highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area. After many years they are coming home,” Trump said on Twitter earlier, as +BN documented.
We don’t know if the 2000 (and more) “American troops in Syria are coming home, and since they are special forces rather than regular battle formations, then probably not unless they are getting close the end of their military service. They may simply be redeployed to Iraq or Jordan in the Pentagon shell game.
And if the favored official count now 2000 (after this count was publicly leaked by Maj. General Votel by accident some time back) who will officially leave, how many more US personnel (CIA, and military classified as on TDY – temporary duty not counted on the rolls of regular deployments of usually 10 months or more) and/or uncounted mercenaries will unofficially remain to liason with the French and the Israelis?
“Troops” means military personnel. It does not include civilian US personnel (like CIA special forces) or unaccountable mercenary contractors, such as Eric Prince’s Blackwater corporation that terrorized the Iraqis with murder sprees for years.
The US special forces in Syria wound up in a dead end mission after Damascus liberated its eastern suburbs of East Ghouta and vicinity, which was ultimately supporting ISIS, Al Qaeda, the southern Syrian militants of the FSA, etc, after Dr. Assad and the SAA and allies won back nearly all of western Syria.
The vast majority of Eastern Syria is still under the control of the SDF. Losing their American advisers, then France and Britain may decide to marshal more of their own special forces, but that would take time logistically. Even though the US troops are eventually pulling out, that doesn’t mean that the US won’t continue to support them in other ways, such as with air strikes. Currently, no Kurds or Arabs in the SDF are qualified to call in air strikes, the responsibility of some of the special forces.
I also believe that Trump’s impulsive announcement caught Erdogan by surprise and set him on the back foot. Not because he didn’t know about it — he did, but because Trump didn’t tell anyone except Pompeo and Israel what was agreed to in the conversation. Which just goes to show who runs our foreign policy.
Trump and Erdogan’s conversation actually occurred on December 14, starting out in the context of Erdogan’s preparation to expand a 10 mile corridor along the Turkish border as a buffer zone between Turkey and the Kurds.
Trump has had to back peddle a little after throwing open the gates of Eastern Syria to the Turks and slow down the timetable, because Erdogan simply doesn’t have military forces amassed at the Turkish border for a larger invasion and occupation in the east.
This provides an opportunity for UK & France to perhaps work out new strategies with Turkey, NATO buddies all who hate Assad, if Erdogan goes completely mad, and decides to roll completely across Eastern Syria to fight ISIS near the Iraqi border with a troop strength of 100,000 which would be a very costly and bloody war for Turkey.
On the other hand, since the fleet-footed SAA is ready to move and can be anywhere in hours, and Russia is already in Syria, then France and the UK will be “studying the situation” for now, and they may also just decide to depart.
As +BN correctly pointed out, Turkey is an important NATO country and US arms purchaser. The country also controls the Dardanelles and both sides of the Bosporus Strait into the Black Sea. And the US needs to make sure of unimpeded access to the Black Sea for ramping up their mischief in the Ukraine.
In the meantime, all is not lost for the Syrian Kurds. According to Kurdish BasNews, They have sent a delegation to France headed by Riyadh Dararr, co-leader of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the SDF:
France Promises “Nothing for Now” to Syrian Kurds: Official
Daraar revealed that they were promised nothing in Paris as the French themselves have made it clear the strategic moves in the Middle East must be made in coordination with the US.
The official noted that they urged the French government, and the entire international community to continue their support and do not abandon the fight against the Islamic State (IS) before the group is defeated and the situation is secured for the post-IS era.
The main concern for the Syrian Kurdish forces after the withdrawal decision of the US was an imminent Turkish military operation in the east Euphrates area to oust the People’s Protection Units (YPG). However, the operation, according to the Turkish president, was delayed under the effect of the US withdrawal.
Daraar welcomed the delay and said it could give them more time to find a political solution to the issues in the region.
“We have more than one option available now to handle the situation and save the region. But we do not rush as it needs to be done timely,” he added.
http://www.basnews.com/index.php/en/news/kurdistan/489219
The Syrians and Russians are now planning for themselves how to take further advantage of the vacuum that will be left behind after the US forces leave, just as the Kurds must eat some crow and turn to Damascus and Russia to get them to block Erdogan.
If US troops pull out too fast, then Russia would quickly move in to northeastern Syria and the Kurdish “Rohava” zone to forestall any aggression by Turkey, because Russia and the Kurds do have decent, longstanding relations. The Kurds opened a mission office in Moscow I believe.
If the US troops in At Tanf are pulled out too quickly, then the SAA can immediately move into eastern Deir Ezzor which is still under the control of ISIS, a situation the US encouraged and protected in order to keep an ISIS buffer between the SAA & SDF’s control of the oil-rich Oman oil fields. Word is that the Tiger Forces are being deployed to Deir Ezzor.
South Front today reported that Russia and the SDF are discussing deployment of Syrian Border Guards east of the Euphrates:
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) gave their initial approval to a Russian plan that would prevent Turkey from attacking northeastern Syria by deploying units of Syrian Arab Army (SAA) border guards on the Syrian-Turkish border east of the Euphrates River, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a report on December 23.
“The debate and discussion remain about who will manage the areas that are under the control of the Syria Democratic Forces east of Euphrates,” the SOHR added.
According to the UK-based monitoring group, a delegation of the SDF will met with Russian officials in Moscow in the upcoming hours to discuss the plan.
The surprise U.S. decision to withdraw all American troops from Syria, which was announced on December 19, has forced the SDF to initiate a new round of talks with Damascus on the future of the northeastern part of the country.
Turkey is currently planning to invade the strategic region under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
If agreed upon, the Russian plan would fully-secure northeastern Syria and encourage the SDF and the Damascus government to hold serious talks on the future of the country without any foreign interference.
https://southfront.org/russia-sdf-discuss-deployment-of-syrian-border-guards-east-of-euphrates/
So will the US troops in Syria “come home”? Eventually.
Chances are they’ll be redeployed to the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, stationed in Erbil privince, according to Iraqi Kurdistan’s BasNews:
“The United States is reportedly trying to strengthen its presence in the Kurdistan Region, a report said, pointing out that those US forces who are expected to be pulled out of Syria, will be stationed in Erbil province.
“Earlier on Wednesday President Donald Trump said that he would withdraw the US troops from Syria, stating that the war against the Islamic State (IS) is over in the region and that the militant group was defeated.
“Iraqi Media al-Hurra TV channel cited an official from the US Department of Defense as saying that his country would soon evacuate 2,130 soldiers from Syria and that will deploy them to Kurdistan Region’s Erbil province.
“Earlier the year on April 23, US Ambassador to Iraq Douglas Silliman announced the establishment of a new Consulate building in Erbil in cooperation with Kurdistan Region (KRG).
“The building will be a tangible sign to the continuous commitment of the US to engage with and assist the KRG and its people to build a strong region, within a unified, democratic, and prosperous Iraq,” the US envoy was quoted by Kurdistan 24 during a press conference in Erbil where the former Consul General Ken Gross was attending, as well.
http://www.basnews.com/index.php/en/news/kurdistan/489163
Last but not least, Iraqi Hezbollah announced that they are ready to protect Syrian Kurds after US withdrawal, per South Front:
Kata’ib Hezbollah is ready to protect Syrian Kurds in cooperation with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) after the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the country, a spokesman of the Iraqi group said during an interview with the al-Mayadeen TV on December 22.
The spokesman added that the U.S. withdrawal was expected and revealed that Kata’ib’ Hezbollah has “continuous and intensive communications” with Kurdish commanders in northeastern Syria.
“We have a full conception of what is going on in northern Syria, including U.S. movements,” Jafar al-Husseini said during the interview.
According to al-Husseini, the U.S. is planning to hand over its role in Syria to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Both countries are already funding the US-led coalition operations against ISIS.
“We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.” U.S. President Donald Trump said last March.
The surprise withdrawal decision has left the U.S. main proxy in the country, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), defenseless in front of Turkey, which is threatening to invade northeastern Syria. Facing such a threat, the Kurdish-dominated group is considering to make a deal with Damascus and its allies.
[https://southfront.org/iraqi-hezbollah-is-ready-to-protect-syrian-kurds-after-u-s-withdraw/]
So what does it actually add up to?
To my eye, all the indications point towards Donald Trump re-organizing forces to go after the major US target in the Middle East: Iran.
With the urging of Bibsy and Adleson, Trump ruined the Iran deal, the product of years of painful and painstaking negotiations between all of the parties. The final JCPOA was fully endorsed by the Arms Control Association which followed it from the very beginning.
The ACA is a US-based nonpartisan membership organization founded in 1971, solely dedicated to promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control and nuclear nonproliferation policies, and to bolster the quality of US debates about nuclear policies including the nuclear crisis with North Korea, US-Russian relations, and the JCPOA.
ACA conducts in depth policy-focused research, analysis, and engagement on a variety of nuclear policy topics. In the ACA’s studied opinion, the JCPOA was the best possible framework that could be accomplished and which made it impossible for Iran to cheat if they were so inclined.
Trump appointed the most hawkish, warmongering, pro-Israel neocons in key positions. He continuously pushes for more sanctions against Iran.
If you are the President, and consistently promote yourself to be something of a non-interventionist wishing to improve relations with Russia (and presumably all that’s in Russia’s geopolitical orbit including Iran), one would think that your cabinet and advisors will more closely reflect what your foreign and domestic philosophy is.
Instead, Trump surrounds himself with the ultra-militarist, ultra-hawkish hegemonic people the likes of Mattis and Trump’s other Generals, Pompeo, and Bannon, all of which have a deep-seated hatred of Iran, as well as Russia and China, who believe that it is just and proper that Jewmerica, the Exceptional Nation, expand across the globe breaking things and killing people just because they can.
By withdrawing and redeploying the troops from Syria, where the game was lost over a year ago, it gives Trump significant advantages. He buys some time until the 2020 presidential election and re-boosts his popularity among his base, especially in Middle America, who elected him on the promise of pulling troops out of Syria and Afghanistan. (Iraq is not mentioned).
Trump saves US military strength and buys time to repair and rebuild the Navy and get the aircraft carriers out of dry dock — half of the carrier fleet, at least, and beef up the military and tailor it for the next mother of all hybrid wars to organize for — the war against Iran. There’s already been an increase in terrorist attacks in various places in Iran.
And Bibsy is quite ready to pinch-hit for the US after US troop withdrawal. Sputnik reported:
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks follow US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw all 2,000 American troops from Syria after declaring victory over Daesh.
Speaking at the fifth Israel-Greece-Cyprus summit held in the southern city of Beersheba, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to intensify efforts in Syria.
“We will continue to act in Syria to prevent Iran’s efforts to militarily entrench itself against us. We are not reducing our efforts, we will increase our efforts. I know that we do so with the full support and backing of the US”, Netanyahu said.
The prime minister said that he had been warned of the US troop withdrawal from Syria in advance during phone conversations with President Donald Trump on Monday and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday.
READ MORE: Israel to Continue Combating Iran in Syria if US Forces Leave — Ambassador to UN
Shortly after his speech, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Dannon said that Tel Aviv had its “concerns” about Syria.
“We have our concerns about Syria, about the presence of Iranian troops in Syria and we will do whatever is necessary to protect our people regardless if you have American troops, Russian troops or any other nations. We will continue to follow our policy of not allowing the Iranians to build their bases next to our borders”, Dannon said.
Iran has yet to respond to the Israeli officials’ remarks, but it has repeatedly emphasised that its forces maintain an exclusively advisory presence in Syria, and denied any plans to establish a permanent military presence in the country.
[https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201812221070919592-netanyahu-syria-iran-efforts/]
Israel and Turkey aren’t getting along so well, Bibsy and his defense officials get a chilly reception in Moscow, and Netanyahu is looking to undercut Putin and Erdogan’s Turkish Stream gas pipeline.
Bibsy will be inking a deal next year with Cyprus and Greece, who have their own disputes with Turkey, to build a pipeline to carry natural gas (a portion of it stolen from Gaza and Lebanon reserves) from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe, while the United States pledged its support for the ambitious project.
I can see Israel, who supports an independent Syrian Kurdistan as a buffer state between Iran and Syria, pulling off a false flag against Turkey just to drag the US back into it.
You’re right dear +BN, what a boiling pot of Middle East stew, and who knows what will be ladled up next.
Turkey has really cozied up with Russia lately.
If Turkey is just going after ISIS and maybe a few Kurds (LOL) on the side, I doubt Russia will have any problems with it.
I know I won’t.
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
27:11-25 Having no malice against Jesus, Pilate urged him to clear himself, and laboured to get him discharged. The message from his wife was a warning. God has many ways of giving checks to sinners, in their sinful pursuits, and it is a great mercy to have such checks from Providence, from faithful friends, and from our own consciences. O do not this abominable thing which the Lord hates! is what we may hear said to us, when we are entering into temptation, if we will but regard it. Being overruled by the priests, the people made choice of Barabbas. Multitudes who choose the world, rather than God, for their ruler and portion, thus choose their own delusions.
“The Jews were so bent upon the death of Christ, that Pilate thought it would be dangerous to refuse.”
And this struggle shows the power of conscience even on the worst men. Yet all was so ordered to make it evident that Christ suffered for no fault of his own, but for the sins of his people. How vain for Pilate to expect to free himself from the guilt of the innocent blood of a righteous person, whom he was by his office bound to protect!
The Jews’ curse upon themselves has been awfully answered in the sufferings of their nation. None could bear the sin of others, except Him that had no sin of his own to answer for. And are we not all concerned? Is not Barabbas preferred to Jesus, when sinners reject salvation that they may retain their darling sins, which rob God of his glory, and murder their souls? The blood of Christ is now upon us for good, through mercy, by the Jews’ rejection of it. O let us flee to it for refuge!
Why Judaism Hates Christ- Leon de Poncins
Vicomte Leon de Poncins (1897-1976) a traditional Catholic French intellectual, was the author of 30 books that exposed the Masonic Jewish (Illuminati) conspiracy which today holds mankind in its thrall.
Most Jews (and Christians) are not aware that Judaism is defined by the Talmud & Cabala, not the Old Testament. They are unaware that Judaism is a satanic cult which uses them to politically and spiritually enslave mankind.
Below, in “Judaism and the Vatican” (1967) citing Jewish sources, de Poncins shows that Judaism seeks to supplant God. Christ’s teaching that God loves all his children equally contradicts Jewish belief in their own Choseness and racial supremacy.
https://www.henrymakow.com/2018/12/Leon-de-Poncins-Why%20Judaism-Hates-Christianity.html
…
Trump is not a militarist. All he wants is for America to be strong militarily to deter any who might think otherwise. Other countries will need to fend for themselves.
If he’s still there by end of 2024 he’ll have made a substantial drawdown of US forces stationed overseas; a lot of work, as 135 countries are under US occupation.
He’d know that Israeli globalising interests need the US presence globally for both their protection and expansion. Trump isn’t thinking of his business interests in Turkey, as he ran for president only because the country was being driven to disaster, as would have been the case with that psycho Hillary at the helm.
A pointer to him being truly presidential is that he both used $275M of his own money on the campaign, so as not to be beholden as much to the usual suspects, and takes just $1 salary, the $399,999 balance going to bona fide charities.
That he is indifferent to the condition of his personal fortune while the fate of the country is in his hands, is underscored by his net worth having dropped by about $2Bn over the last near two years.
Trump’s not a militarist? That’s rich. Of course Trump is a militarist.
At the bare minimum, the Cambridge Dictionary defines militarism in the category of politics & government the belief that it is necessary to have strong armed forces and that they should be used in order to win political or economic advantage.
Has Trump said or behaved contrary to what the Cambridge definition states, much less contrary to his own current aggressive National Security Strategy published by the Pentagon under his ultimate authority? Has Trump actually issued orders to start cutting back on the more than 800 permanent bases the US has around the world, besides these little Special Ops outposts in Syria?
Trump has definitely buried the hatchet with Erdogan.
Since the US-led SDF eradicated 99% of the Daesh caliphate, and the only pockets left of any concentration besides sleeper cells are in the complete opposite side of Eastern Syria near the Iraq border, just what is Erdogan saying?
Back in June 2017, then White House chief strategist Steve Bannon revealed details about President Trump’s military strategy during an interview on Saturday.
According to Bannon Trump will “let the warfighters fight the war”
At least that is what Bannon told CNN, also saying the president hasn’t “given up any of the strategic decisions” and is still personally focused on defeating ISIS.
So far in his presidency, Trump has given more decision-making power to leaders in the military – a significant shift from past administrations on both sides of the aisle.
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/06/24/bannon-trump-wants-to-let-the-warfighters-fight-the-war/22978009/
Bannon is gone, Mattis soon to be gone, after Iran-hawk Bolton started his whisper campaign against Mattis back in October, but the Adelson/Netanyahu/Likudnik anti-Iranists still occupy the White House. Trump and Adelson have been friends for over 30 years.
Trump hasn’t pulled back more than a small shred any of the decision making power he delegated to the Pentagon, or began changing the overarching United States Government’s 50 year old “Peace Through Strength” National Security Strategy (meaning “Peace Through War Strategy”) which binds our bipartisan War Party together, or wrestled back the Pentagon’s resulting foreign policy decisions restoring it actual civilian control.
It just simply boggles the mind that if a president is actually opposed to all of this as an anti-war, anti-interventionist, that this same president would surround himself with hawkish and jingoistic advisors and cabinet members who 100% promote it, such as Pompeo and Bolton.
Moreover, all of this time since assuming the presidential office, Trump appears to was entirely oblivious to the changed conditions of the so-called US War on the Daesh “caliphate” inside of of the Iraq-Syria battlezone, and that “99%” of the “caliphate” had been annihilated.
Our National Security Strategy’s entire foundations is rooted in what was originally outlined by warmonger F. D. Roosevelt’s Jewish advisor, Bernard Baruch in 1952 arguing for American hegemony in the post-WWII.
This in turn was the expansion of the neocon, war-mongering publishing mogul Henry Luce’s idealistic editorial titled The American Century published some 11 months before December 7, 1941 when Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was the pretext fulfilling Roosevelt’s pretext to get America into the war, nor was it a surprise attack by the Japanese, the White House knew it was coming for months after the US blockaded Japan’s oil resources in the Southeast Asian islands.
Henry Luce, The American Century (1941)
Credit to Joshua Boucher, Baylor University
In February 1941, Henry Luce, the editor, publisher, and creator of Time and Life magazines, proclaimed to the readers of Life that America was in the war. To many of his readers, such a bold assertion probably came off as perplexing. After all, World War II, at this point ravaging Europe for about a year and half, did not involve American blood.
For at least some Americans, it was unclear that the war would ever involve American blood—arguments in favor of isolation were still strong, and many Americans were unwilling to believe that the problems of Europeans could ever become their own.
So how, then, could Luce make such a claim? “The American Century,” the title of this editorial, sought to back up this claim and to transform it into an even greater one in the process—the Twentieth Century was America’s Century. Only through a recognition of that fact could Americans escape the “sickness” Luce diagnosed them with and make the whole world their own.
https://www.classicsofstrategy.com/2015/09/the-american-century-luce.html
Moreover, all of this time since assuming the presidential office, apparently Trump was entirely oblivious to the changed conditions of the so-called US War on the Daesh “caliphate” inside of of the Iraq-Syria battlezone, and that “99%” of the “caliphate” had been annihilated.
On December 14th, Trump, ‘stable genius’ who plays ‘4-D chess’, the ‘second King Cyrus’ with his finger on the pulse of the world, woke up with a startled snort and said “huh?”
In his mind he heard the cash register ring, and instantly decided too much money was going out of the till to support the now static US Special Operations Forces mission in Syria involving some declared 2000 troops with the ‘caliphate’ 99% dead, US backed SDF control of most of Eastern Syria, and no money or other gains coming in for what he instantly decided was a dead-end mission.
According to AP, by lined by Matthew Lee a veteran WH correspondent with decades of experience and insider contacts in DC, what happened that prompted Trump to make the decision to pull troops out of Syria was the sudden realization that it was in his mind a dead operation:
AP (Excerpt): The Dec. 14 call came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu agreed to have the two presidents discuss Erdogan’s threats to launch a military operation against U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels in northeast Syria, where American forces are based. The NSC then set up the call.
Pompeo, Mattis and other members of the national security team prepared a list of talking points for Trump to tell Erdogan to back off, the officials said.
But the officials said Trump, who had previously accepted such advice and convinced the Turkish leader not to attack the Kurds and put U.S. troops at risk, ignored the script. Instead, the president sided with Erdogan.
In the following days, Trump remained unmoved by those scrambling to convince him to reverse or at least delay the decision to give the military and Kurdish forces time to prepare for an orderly withdrawal.
“The talking points were very firm,” said one of the officials, explaining that Trump was advised to clearly oppose a Turkish incursion into northern Syria and suggest the U.S. and Turkey work together to address security concerns.
“Everybody said push back and try to offer (Turkey) something that’s a small win, possibly holding territory on the border, something like that.”
Erdogan, though, quickly put Trump on the defensive, reminding him that he had repeatedly said the only reason for U.S. troops to be in Syria was to defeat the Islamic State and that the group had been 99 percent defeated.
“Why are you still there?” the second official said Erdogan asked Trump, telling him that the Turks could deal with the remaining IS militants.
With Erdogan on the line, Trump asked national security adviser John Bolton, who was listening in, why American troops remained in Syria if what the Turkish president was saying was true, according to the officials.
Erdogan’s point, Bolton was forced to admit, had been backed up by Mattis, Pompeo, U.S. special envoy for Syria Jim Jeffrey and special envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk, who have said that IS retains only 1 percent of its territory, the officials said.
https://apnews.com/ec2ed217357048ff998225a31534df12
Call it ‘lugenpress’ all you want, the White House already has, but Matthew Lee has impeccable journalistic ethics and credentials, has been part of the WH press pool through several administrations.
What Matt Lee and a co-writer dispatched to AP is entirely consistent with everything that has happened since the 14th, including Trump’s twitter announcement on the 19th which even surprised Erdogan, France and the UK not to mention Trump’s own National Security Council and his handpicked Pentagon chief that +BN published.
Trump did inform Netanyahu of his decision prior to his suprise announcement tweet, however.
As things are beginning to pan out, even though “2000 troops are coming home” there will still be close military and diplomatic coordination with Turkey, per Trump. The SDF is concerned about the withdrawal of the main forces, that the limited number of US special forces remaining, needed to call in US air strikes, will not stop Turkey from launching its operation east of the Euphrates.
So it is not inconceivable, and a real possibility in the current fluid situation, that the 13 US bases in eastern Syria could be handed over to Erdogan, about half of which are located just outside the 10 mile line that Erdogan had designated for his buffer zone.
If Erdogan decides to mobilize for a war of expansion on “ISIS” into eastern Syria, beyond his original plans for a border buffer zone which he keeps threatening, (‘ISIS” is a euphemism for his intended war on the US-backed Syrian Kurds who now hold virtually all of eastern Syria, and about 28% of the total Syrian land) then there would be no problem with the Special Ops Forces being attached to the Turkish Army for temporary duty.
France has made the decision to remain in Syria. According to a report by Reuters, officials say that France will keep troops in northern Syria, claiming that Islamic State militants have not been wiped out and has started talks with the US on the conditions and calendar of its withdrawal.
Reuters reports that France is a leading member of the US-led coalition fighting militants in Syria and Iraq and has around 1,000 troops based in the north of the country, deployed alongside local Kurdish and Arab forces.
Europe Minister Nathalie Loiseau told C-News television, “It shows that we can have different priorities and that we must count on ourselves first.
For now, of course we are staying in Syria because the fight against Islamic State is essential.”
France does not have enough to keep the entire contact line between the SDF-held area and the Ankara-controlled territories, and so France, without further buildup and a commitment to Damascus to act in a deterring peace keeping role , would simply let any Turkish forces, it’s anti-Assad FSA-led Syrian National Army, an umbrella group of about 36 different Syrian ‘opposition’ groups roll right into eastern Syria.
NATO fellows, all.
Erdogan, who has never given up the idea of getting rid of Assad, is now making speeches beating the war drums inside Turkey for a liberation war into Syria to free the Arabs, Christians, and Kurds from the domination of the Syrian YPG led Syrian Democratic Forces, who really are fighting ISIS remnants, and which controls virtually all of Eastern Syria.
~~~*~~~
Haaretz: Trump on Syria Pullout: Erdogan Assured Me He’d ‘Eradicate Whatever’s Left of ISIS’
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who assured him that Turkey would “eradicate whatever is left of ISIS.”
“He is a man who can do it plus, Turkey is right ‘next door,'” Trump said of the Turkish president.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
President @RT_Erdogan of Turkey has very strongly informed me that he will eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria….and he is a man who can do it plus, Turkey is right “next door.” Our troops are coming home!
10:54 PM – Dec 23, 2018
[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1077064829825966081]
According to the Anadolu news agency, both leaders agreed to maintain military and diplomatic coordination in order to avoid an authority gap as a result of U.S. withdrawal from Syria.
“We discussed ISIS, our mutual involvement in Syria, and the slow and highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area,” Trump said in a tweet. “Our troops are coming home!”
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
I just had a long and productive call with President @RT_Erdogan of Turkey. We discussed ISIS, our mutual involvement in Syria, & the slow & highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area. After many years they are coming home. We also discussed heavily expanded Trade.
[twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1076884984873607169]
Trump said he and Erdogan also discussed “heavily expanded” trade between the United States and Turkey, after the two NATO allies’ relationship went into a tailspin over the summer.
On Sunday, Demiroren News Agency (DHA) reported that Turkey is sending reinforcements to its border with Syria, adding that some 100 vehicles, including mounted pickup trucks and weaponry, had made their way to the area.
More: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-says-erdogan-assured-him-he-d-eradicate-whatever-is-left-of-isis-1.6770206
It’s a Geo-Political minefield.
I am no longer certain of the moves Trump is making.
Are we to assume he is cleverer than some suggest, or a Zionist Shabbas Goy?
It would take considerable time to fully mobilize Turkey’s army for any conventional if incremental expansion ground war into eastern Syria involving at least 100,000 Turkish troops and auxiliaries, but it is not an improbable scenario, especially if Erdogan wants to push things to the brink with Syria, Russia and Iran.
At this moment, Erdogan’s paramilitary FSA-led National Syrian Army (Syrian Arab and Turkmen jihadist opposition) occupying Turkish-controlled areas having personnel strength of at least 30,000 Turkish Army-trained personnel, is preparing for the withdrawal of U.S. forces by fortifying the outskirts of Manbij.
In addition to the 30,000 of the National Syrian Army are the 5000 Syrian recruits of Erdogan’s Syrian National Police. All have worked towards the Turkification of the Turkish occupied zones of Syria.
A principle deterrence would be the SDF turning to Damascus, who has made it clear that the SDF would have to become fully integrated with the SAA and the Syrian Kurds give up their idea of an autonomous Kurdish nation-state similar to the Iraqi Kurdistan Republc, and to Russia.
Russia, who is committed to the sovereignty of the Syrian republic over all of its territory would assist with the reconciliation and integration process and peacekeeping duties, if and when the SDF submits to Damascus for the purpose of national reconciliation and committing to a political solution for Syrian peace.
Russia and Turkey are not that cozy, and Erdogan has fully indicated his tilt back towards the US and Trump. And while Turkey is nominally an authority involved in the Astana triad of Russia, Iran and Turkey, there have been consistent complaints that Turkey has not lived up to its responsibilities as agreed to in the Astana format.
Erdogan is like a two-headed snake. He is both a Turkish nationalist (pan-Turkic as well) and a pious Sunni Islamist who has long supported Muslim Brotherhood, and of course fully backed, funded the ‘Syrian Opposition’s” FSA’s jihadist war on Assad, and hosted not only the CIA’s covert operations on Turkish soil, but also hosted the ginned up US-backed opposition Syrian National Council composed of many long-standing Syrian expats as the nominal ‘government in exile’ over Syria.
~~~*~~~
Al Jazeera: Turkey sends reinforcements to Syrian border
Despite plans to delay crossborder military operation on YPG forces, Ankara sends more armoured vehicles to its border.
Turkey is sending reinforcements to its border with Syria, Turkish media reported on Sunday, adding that some 100 vehicles, including mounted pick-up trucks and weaponry, had made their way to the area.
The heightened military activity comes days after President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would postpone a planned military operation on the armed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) group in northern Syria, after the United States’s surprise announcement to withdraw its troops from Syria.
Washington has for years supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group in Syria, as part of an international coalition dominated by the YPG.
But, on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said he was ordering a withdrawal of the estimated 2,000 US troops in Syria because ISIL had been defeated, an assessment criticised by many.
US officials have said the details were yet finalised, but they expect the country’s forces to be out of Syria by mid-January.
Anger over YPG
In June, the NATO allies reached an agreement that would see the YPG removed from the area, but Turkey has complained the plan hadn’t been implemented.
Turkish media said the Turkish convoy, headed towards the border district of Kilis, located in the southern province of Hatay, included tanks, howitzers, machine guns and buses carrying commandos.
Turkey’s state media, including TRT and Anadolu Agency, ran live footage from the outskirts of Manbij, a Syrian town in the Elbeyli district, which has been a source of tension between Ankara and Washington.
Part of the military equipment and personnel are to be positioned in posts along the border while some had crossed into Syria via Elbeyli, private Demiroren News Agency said.
“Around 35 tanks and other heavy weapons, carried on board tank carriers, crossed the Jarablos border crossing in the early evening,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP on Saturday.
“They headed for an area near the Sajour River, between Jarablos and Manbij, not far from the front lines where Kurdish fighters of the Manbij Military Council are stationed,” he added.
Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey would take over the fight against the ISIL group in Syria as the US withdraws its troops, adding that the planned operation would target the YPG as well as ISIL in Syria.
Ankara considers the US-backed YPG a “terrorist” group and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged attacks on Turkish soil since the 1980s in demand for autonomy.
In the past two years, Turkey has conducted two offensives into northern Syria, dubbed “Euphrates Shield” and “Olive Branch”.
In 2016, it launched an operation against ISIL, which also aimed to block the YPG from joining up the territory it held in northern Syria. In January 2018, Turkey staged an offensive against Kurdish fighters in its northwestern enclave of Afrin.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/turkey-increases-military-deployment-syrian-border-181223093326924.html
Curiously, Erdogan is no longer yammering for international support for the Turkish investigation into Saudi responsibility for the Khashoggi murder, which was indeed an embarrassing blot on the Trump White House close relations with Saudi Arabia, Turkey’s current regional competitor for Middle East hegemony.
Sputnik (12/21) Syrian Democratic Council Asks France to Help Set up No-Fly Zone Over N Syria
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is asking France to help introduce a no-fly zone over northern Syria, co-chairs of the SDC, Ilham Ahmed and Riad Darar, said Friday in Paris.
Earlier in December, US Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey reportedly floated a possibility of UN introducing a no-fly zone in some areas of Syria.
“We are asking France to help introduce a no-fly zone in the north of Syria,” the co-chairs told reporters.
The request comes several days after US President Donald Trump announced a withdrawal of American troops from Syria, claiming that Washington had defeated the Daesh terrorist group, adding it had been the only reason for the US presence in the country.
At the same time, French Economic Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau claimed Friday that Paris would maintain its military presence in Syria.
French Defence Minister Florence Parly, however, refused to confirm the statement, noting that around 1,000 French troops had been operating in Western Asia, including Syria, since 2014 as part of the US-led international coalition.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201812211070897956-sdc-syria-no-fly-zone/
From KathJuliane:
“Back to Syria. The US special forces deployment in Syria came to a dead end with President Assad and the SAA getting the upper hand (with Russia, Iran, China & Hezbollah’s major support as allies) over not just ISIS, but the US-Turkey-France & UK backed Al Qaeda/Nusra and FSA moderate rebel headchoppers.”
Everything is pointing to Armageddon ll.
Dear +BN,
In reading Stephen Smith’s comment from yesterday and your reply, I just want to commend you for your geopolitical wisdom, and thank you for the brilliant insight that no one else has thought to bring up while everyone is congratulating Trump for “bringing home” a mere 2000 troops from Syria (who may not actually be coming home, just redeployed elsewhere):
“On the pretext of ‘taking care’ of ISIS in eastern Syria, Trump may have given NATO ally Erdogan the greenlight to ramp up the Turkish Army for hand-over control of the 13 US military bases located there.”
That is absolutely not farfetched, nor is it some kind of apocalyptic thinking. Those bases or outposts are positions that for one thing are used by US special forces to call in airstrikes, as well as assured US control over the PYD/YPG Syrian Democratic Councils and the SDF paramilitaries, and from where US diplomatic efforts were covertly being operated from.
Where else would the “24 hour recall of US diplomats in Syria” come from but occupied Eastern Syria? The US hasn’t maintained diplomatic relations, had an open embassy, consulate and diplomatic personnel in Damascus since 2012.
The only diplomats engaged at all with the Syria question were Pompeo’s Special Representative for Syria Engagement Ambassador James Jeffrey and Special Envoy for Syria and Deputy Assistant Secretary Joel Rayburn, but that in no way represents a restoration of normal Syria-US diplomatic relations.
Given Erdogan’s somewhat schizophrenic neo-Ottoman foreign policy decisions going back and forth between his (pan) Turkish nationalism and his Sunni Islamic piety, depending on which snake-head is dominant, particularly when it serves to keep Erdogan in political power will be the direction Erdogan takes.
Trump has effectively and abruptly switched teams in midstream from the Kurds to the Turks, some of which you touched on, particularly the strategic consequences for the US should Turkey ever ditch its NATO membership.
What remains to be seen is whether the wagon will be washed downstream from the crossing while the teams are switched.
None other than Erdogan’s own Defense Minister Hulusi Akar lends support to your insight for a much larger expanded Turkish operation.
As Cengiz Candar, a regular author for Al-Monitor, wrote concerning Erdogan’s repeated assertion of “military entry into Eastern Syria” either in the form of his proxy Syrian forces or the Turkish Army, or both:
“The logical question that follows the dramatic US shift in strategy is, what form will Turkey’s expected onslaught in Syria take?
Will it be a small operation to create a new buffer zone in Syria? Or a campaign to entirely eliminate the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers a terrorist organization?
For Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, the second option is more plausible.
On Thursday, speaking from the Qatari capital, Doha, he said Turkey was preparing “intensely” for a military offensive east of the Euphrates River in Syria, where Kurdish-led forces had fought against the Islamic State.
The Kurdish fighters have dug trenches and tunnels in the area in anticipation of the operation, Akar said, according to Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency. “But whatever they dig … when the time comes they will be buried in the trenches,” he said. “Of this there should be no doubt.”
Akar is a recently retired four-star general and former chief of staff known for his hawkish stance on the Kurdish issue.
His former comrades-in-arms and the main opposition party in parliament criticized Akar for betraying his colleagues by aligning himself with Erdogan and his party.
His increasingly tarnished image in the domestic political scene pushed him to take further belligerent moves in Syria against the Kurds to set his record straight. Only taking an anti-Kurdish, robustly Turkish nationalist position might silence his critics.
Erdogan is facing a seemingly uphill struggle in the local elections scheduled for March 2019.
A nationalist mobilization would be the most effective and proven way to guarantee an electoral victory.
So Erdogan is also ready to initiate a military offensive to the east of the Euphrates and to the west in Manbij. Trump’s decision is a golden opportunity to realize that goal.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/12/turkey-usa-syria-trump-decision-is-win-win-for-erdogan.html
This news was also carried by Australian News quoting the state-owned Andalou news agency on the 20th and they had no doubts about what Erdogan and Akar mean.
“Turkey says Kurdish militants east of the Euphrates in Syria “will be buried in their ditches when the time comes”, after President Donald Trump began what will be a total withdrawal of US troops from Syria.
…
“Now we have Manbij and the east of the Euphrates in front of us. We are working intensively on this subject,” state-owned Anadolu news agency on Thursday reported Defence Minister Hulusi Akar as saying during a visit to a Qatari-Turkish joint military base in Doha.
“Right now it is being said that some ditches, tunnels were dug in Manbij and to the east of the Euphrates. They can dig tunnels or ditches if they want, they can go underground if they want, when the time and place comes they will buried in the ditches they dug. No one should doubt this.”
…
Turkey has already intervened to sweep YPG and Islamic State fighters from territory west of the Euphrates over the past two years. It has not gone east of the river, partly to avoid direct confrontation with US forces.
https://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/turkey-kurds-to-be-buried-in-ditches/news-story/4b499e0175e0ff1d625ed933b5556df0
Andalou Agency: Turkey ‘intensely’ prepping for new counter-terror op
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/turkey-intensely-prepping-for-new-counter-terror-op/1343823
~~~*~~~
US outpost bases in Eastern Syria, 11 or 13 depending on the maps, or maybe even 15 or more not revealed yet, span the the width and breadth of most of the region. NATO compatible (and Turkey is NATO standards compliant and can compatibly use any communications and military intelligence equipment there), these bases expanded during the illegal US occupation as a US-coalition network.
They were logistically supplied out of Iraq as the SDF forces advanced battle operations rolling back Daesh’s ‘caliphate’ from the northeast border with Iraq (Syrian ‘Rohava’).
The bases bloomed outwards west and south along the frontier with Turkey to the east bank of the Euphrates, crossed it into Manbij, and then progressed across most of Eastern Syria.
So yes, even though Erdogan’s military plans have been temporarily placed on hold, perhaps because Trump spilled the beans on what he and Erdogan agreed to in their telephone discussion of the 14th, if given the least opportunity to expand into Eastern Syria chasing down the YPG throughout the SDF controlled areas, Erdogan will, and he’d use the abandoned US bases to hurry his cause.
Eastern Syria is a mess of major geopolitical trip wires and landmines with all of the players involved, which could go off like a powder keg and spark WW3. The US pulling out is one thing, and lessens the complications for Russia and Syria, but with the Turks moving across Eastern Syria, it would complicate things even more in terms of Middle East rivalries, particularly that between Turkey (which has a good sized military base in Qatar) and Saudi Arabia.
Thank God Presidents Assad and Putin have much cooler heads, and no doubt long ago prepared contigency plans in the event of some move like Erdogan is threatening to make. Mobilization of the Syrian armed forces commenced as soon as Trump tweeted his announcement of the pullout, and Russian military reconciliation negotiation teams are no doubt already arriving in key towns and cities to try to work out temporary arrangements with the Kurds.
And, even in the YPG/SDF controlled areas, civilians in a number of towns are protesting against the Turkish threats, and carrying the national flag of Syria as well, just as they have when protesting against the US-led SDF provisional governments.
Food for thought:
Vesti: Kiev Plans New Year’s Gift for Russia: Verkhovna Rada Asks Poroshenko to Declare War
At this year’s final meeting of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian officials seem to have decided to ultimately put an end to Ukrainian-Russian relations.
The officials prepared an address to President Poroshenko, asking him to sever all diplomatic ties and transportation links with Russia, as well as declare an actual war on Moscow.
It’s possible that their decision might have been influenced by the wild office party held the day before by the Poroshenko Bloc together with its founder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHlza72fHP4
=====
Fort Russ News: Head Of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church Thanks CIA’s Covert Ops Chief
Awarded Order of Saint Andrew the First-Called
Rather a first: CIA beneficiaries thank their benefactor. Neither the Shah of Iran, nor Augusto Pinochet, nor Sese Mobutu ever publicly thanked the CIA, but the chief of the schismatic Ukrainian Orthodox Church gives thanks to the covert ops operator. This leads to another question: What is the guy who gave Stinger missiles to the mujahedin doing in Ukraine? There will obviously be more that the priest could thank him for. We read in Novorosinform:
Filaret, the leader of the Ukrainian schismatics, met with former CIA Deputy Director Jack Devine and awarded him the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called.
Filaret thanked Devine for US help “in support of the independence of Ukraine and the creation of a single local Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
In a presentation by Bogdan Gubsky, [founder and] Chairman of the Board of the Ukraine-XXI Century Foundation and Philaret Yaroshenko, a member of the Council of the Yaroshenko Foundation, Jack Devine was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First Called.
Note that Jack Devine is a participant and head of covert operations, in particular the coup in Chile, “Operation Cyclone” (which led to the USSR’s military defeat in the 1980s Afghan war), and the hunt for drug dealer Pablo Escobar. [Editorial note: you can read a review of Devine’s autobiography.]
The remainder of the Novorosinform story deals with church issues…
More: https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/12/filaret-thanked-devine-for-us-help-in-support-of-the-independence-of-ukraine-and-the-creation-of-a-single-local-ukrainian-orthodox-church/
=====
RT:‘Thanks for independence’: Ukraine’s schismatic Patriarch bestows highest award on ex-CIA ops chief
The head of the schismatic Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kiev Patriarchate expressed his gratitude to the ex-CIA associate director, acknowledging his support for the church’s break with Moscow.
Patriarch Filaret presented former CIA Associate Director Jack Devine with the Order of St. Andrew, the church’s highest decoration, local media reported on Thursday.
The cleric thanked Devine for the US’ support for Ukraine’s independence and “the creation of the unified autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church.”
https://www.rt.com/news/446437-filaret-awards-jack-devine/
I don’t see any sort of nudity in the right hand column on this particular page.
However, there are separate pictures of Mohammed bin Schlomo bin Bonesaw and Frau Merkel which make my eyes bleed.
The flourishing state of Jerusalem will be when Saudi Arabia is in ruins, the ruined state of Saudi Arabia will be when the great war the battle of Armageddon comes, the outbreak of the great war will be at the conquest of Constantinople, and the conquest of Constantinople when the Antichrist comes forth.
I just watched the great movie “King of Kings” — not the usually broadcast 1961 version with Jeffrey Hunter playing Jesus, but the original 1927 silent one specifically watching to see how they portray events leading up to the crucifixion.
WOW! what an eye opener!
I strongly urge everyone to watch it.
Cecil shows this hideously ugly Caiphas, chief priest of the elite Sanhedrin Jews, almost constantly at Pilate’s side gently but determinedly pressuring Pilate to crucify Jesus.
Pilate himself literally tries to help rescue Jesus but the constant torment of the Jew Caiphas, so historically well documented throughout time in all aspects of life wherever, resulted in Pilate washing his hands of any responsibility of the death of Jesus, walked away in disgust, and left the outcome of the eventual crucifixion fully and wholly the responsibilty of the Jews!
https://youtu.be/SmCBnPR2iMI – KING OF KINGS
@KathJuliane
Thank you for affirming the uniqueness of my insight regarding Trump giving Erdogan the greenlight to “fight ISIS.”
Here is the insight you quoted in its wider context:
A green light has been signaled to Turkey with Trump giving Erdogan a lit up highway in a tweet twittered yesterday:
“When I became President, ISIS was going wild. Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including *Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains.* We’re coming home!”
There are only two significant pockets of ISIS left in Syria on the complete opposite side of Syria near Iraq, some 250 miles away from the Turkish border.
On the pretext of ‘taking care’ of ISIS in eastern Syria, Trump may have given NATO ally Erdogan the greenlight to ramp up the Turkish Army for hand-over control of the 13 US military bases located there. That means WW3 with Russia and NATO. Everyone loses.
Now I’ve learned through one of my contacts that every single phone call that comes into the Oval Office from abroad has an “eavesdropping” connection to John Bolton’s satellite phone with a hard-wired, fire-walled satellite texting interface to a special screen before Trump’s eyes prompting him with questions, statements, and responses to say to the foreign leader.
Trump has definitively turned over his foreign policy venue to Bolton (who, by the way, had bad chemistry with Mattis.)
Actually, I once came across Bolton in NYC three years ago on the sidewalk of the Upper East Side and he had the nasty “aura” of a man radiating bad chemistry with everyone on that sidewalk, greater Manhattan, the planet, and the entire universe.
+BN
I’m 10 times more confused now than when I first read this article.
Bolton is as close a thing to an Israel/fake American dual citizen spy as could ever have been dreamed up by Bibi Satanyahu, Zvi Jabotinsky, or Menachem (the founder of world terrorism) to be implanted like a disease microbe into Christian America.
Israel, and all its Jew and traitorous non-Jew agents, has for all intents and purposes been at war with the Christians and the whole “GOY” non-Jew world since 1948.
Beware the Coming of Bolton
By DANIEL LARISON • March 14, 2018, 4:55 PM
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/beware-the-coming-of-bolton/
Analysis Israel’s Early Elections: How Trump Accidentally Exposed Netanyahu’s Bluff
Netanyahu said only a few weeks ago the security situation in the north was too dangerous for Israel to head to an election.
Now, suddenly it isn’t.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-how-trump-accidentally-exposed-netanyahu-s-bluff-on-the-timing-of-israel-s-election-1.6781489
@Stephen Smith
I think you’re suffering from a lack of the basic facts concerning the Syria crisis which goes back to the spring of 2011.
I’ve been following it all along since its inception and posting Feature Articles, Videos, and Comments as the crisis unfolded and as it continues to this very day.
That said, I just got an email from Jeff Rense right before your latest comment came in regarding your confusion.
Jeff wrote to me that he read the Article, found it to be concisely well-written, easy to understand, reader friendly, and most of all that “you see it more clearly than anyone.”
We then followed up the email exchange with a phone call in which he invited me to be on his show this Thursday, 9pm Pacific.
— Everyone can listen free @ https://www.renseradio.com/listenlive.htm —
Jeff then said, “I need to have you on twice a month doing geopolitical analysis which is top notch.”
I’m not putting you down, dear Stephen, but only suggesting you get some background information on Syria under your belt.
Rense too, like yours truly, has been following this issue and in its broader aspects from the start in 2011.
I suggest you go to my SEARCH function and simply type in “SYRIA.”
You will get all the info you need for a good grasp of what’s going on. +BN
FBI Probed Israeli White House
Espionage During Clinton Term
By J. Michael Waller and Paul M. Rodriguez
InsightMagazine.com Archive (5-29-00)
12-15-1
https://rense.com/general18/esp.htm
Dear Stephen Smith,
The situation in Syria, not to mention the rest of the Middle East and “balance of power politics” is extremely confusing.
Most Americans simply don’t know very much about the recent history of the Middle East since the Jews founded their terrorist state of Israhell, haven’t been following events in Syria for the past 7 years, or chose to believe the Israel-first Jew Media’s lies and distortions about what is going on — including Trump.
It’s fairly common knowledge now that Trump doesn’t read, research or study anything for himself, and his advisers and cabinet learned long ago to brief him in 5 minute increments using visual graphics.
+BN has been following the US-instigated Syrian “civil war” since the beginning. Back in 2011, some months after the troubles started blowing up into violence due to outside agitation from what were originally peaceful civic protests, he reported that Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow had made a personal trip to Damascus and met with President Assad even before Putin finally decided to support him.
As I found out years later when things started turning really ugly and the mass murders and headchopping rampaged long before ISIS reared its ugly head in Syria, that Patriarch Kyrill returned to Moscow and personally asked Putin to help save the Syrian Christians who were the first to be preyed upon by the US backed Syrian “rebels”.
Putin said he would, and Russia began active support behind the scenes until Putin decided in September of 2015 to militarily intervene against Daesh (ISIS).
Daesh is a split off daughter of Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria, by the way.
+BN was one of the first, if not the first, to cut through our government’s propaganda, to reveal the US/Israel’s dirty hands in the international war on Syria along with other Western and the Gulf states, and pointed out that President Assad and the SAA were doing everything in their power to protect the Syrian Christians from the Western-Israel backed Syrian rebel “headchoppers”.
Jesus the Christ was born in Bethlehem.
Jerusalem saw the nativity of Christianity and the Apostolic Ekklesia of Christ on the day of Pentecost.
The first Jewish persecution of Christians by the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem was stopped on the road to Damascus.
Syria was Christianity’s cradle to the rest of the then known civilized world, which spread as far as ancient China.
In Antioch, Syria, the capital of the Roman Orient, we were first called “Christianou” — Christians.
One last thing. Back in 2014, Eastern Christians attempted to reach out to Senator Ted Cruz, self-professed Christian Republican (Zio-christian), about the genocidal plight of the Eastern Churches in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere at the hands of ISIS and other Wahbist inspired jihadists.
Here’s what happened when tone-deaf Cruz ignorant of his audience and the ties to the Middle East that the government of Syria was no better than ISIS or al-Qaida, and that “we shouldn’t try to parse different manifestations of evil that are on a murderous rampage through the region.”
He then insisted that “Christians have no greater ally than Israel”
https://myocn.net/sen-ted-cruz-booed-off-stage-middle-eastern-christians/
~~~*~~~
Dear +BN,
If I were to ever draw what an animated walking, talking, breathing, malignant cancer tumor would turn out to be, it would be Bolton.
In Gaza: Independent journalist Eve Bartlett audio interview: DR HUSAM AL-SAMMAN ON SYRIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM, CRIMINAL WESTERN SANCTIONS, WAR ON SYRIA
In early December, I spoke with Dr. Husam al-Samman, a Syrian doctor living in the United States, about issues pertaining to the health care system in Syria; about the early days in Syria–when corporate media claimed the protests were peaceful–and about the criminal western sanctions on Syria, which prevent even the delivery of critically-needed medicines, including Dr. al-Samman’s attempt to deliver medicines for cancer remission patients to Syria and being literally blocked from doing so, in spite of his tireless and heroic efforts, by the United States.
Dr. al-Samman finished his medical studies in Damascus, and during the early years of the war on Syria, was returning to Damascus (from Saudi Arabia where he lived at the time) every two weeks.
What he saw and experienced was starkly opposite what corporate and Gulf media were reporting.
He gave a personal example of his family nearly coming under fire from “peaceful” revolutionary types when they were passing through Madaya in mid-2011–his family was saved by a Syrian soldier who ran into the open waving his arms and telling them to turn their cars around.
His fate is unknown, but it is likely he was killed in the terrorist firing he was saving the family from.
We also talked about an article that came out recently–written by none other than the wife of Ken Roth (the 2 decades dictator of Human Rights Watch (with a terrible sense of geography–Gaza is not Syria…), attacking Syria’s health care system–a system which provides free health care to all citizens and which is still functioning after nearly 8 years of war on Syria, after terrorist attacks on hospitals and health care workers, after criminal western sanctions on Syria.
*We did speak for over an hour, however the sound quality was unfortunately not great always, so I’ve had to cut out murky bits. However, the remaining content is still fascinating, well worth listening to.
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2018/12/25/dr-husam-al-samman-on-syrian-health-care-system-criminal-western-sanctions-war-on-syria/
=====
In Gaza: ANONYMOUS SYRIAN AMERICAN DOCTOR ON THE PROPAGANDA, CRIMINAL SANCTIONS, AND WAR CRIMES, IN THE WAR ON SYRIA
I spoke with a US-based Syrian doctor, educated and trained in Syria but living in the United States about a variety of issues related to war propaganda on Syria since the start in 2011, as well as the draconian effects of the criminal western sanctions on Syria.
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2018/12/25/syrian-american-doctor-on-the-propaganda-criminal-sanctions-and-war-crimes-in-the-war-on-syria/
A Very Merry CHRISTmas To All!
And much gratitude to everyone of our Real Jew News family for your support, both financially, Spiritually, and emotionally. (Many of you have bolstered my spirits during some really tough times this past year.)
Now I’m seeing more clearly, the rain has gone, gonna be bright new Day ahead for 2019.
MORE Feature Articles, MORE state-of-the art Videos, MORE Special Commentaries, AND……..the coming RealJewNewsLetter delivered direct to your Inbox! Coming soon! (Not a Donald Trump “soon” which could end up being forever wars for the Jews.)
MUCH Love to All!
+Brother Nathanael
PS- Special CHRISTmas Thanks to MC from CA. Got your goodies today, dates (mmm), nuts and sweets, AND your special Christmas gift. God BLESS You Muchly!
And Special Christmas prayers for “Keep Up The Good Work” – Wishing you MANY HAPPY CHRISTMAS times ahead!
KathJuliane, extremely confusing?
Yes, proverbial shifting dunes until one factors in that ISIS is not Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, but is Israel Secret Intelligence Service, being fanatical Islamics imbued with jihad from 30 countries, but led by Israeli and Jordanian officers, as thousands of men who don’t know one another can’t produce a leadership cadre in no time at all as exigencies compel.
Further lifting of the fog happens when we learn that thousands of ISIS wounded were taken into Israel and Turkey for treatment, and those that could be, were then returned to resume the fight in Syria.
We can deduce from that, that in the taking of Syria as the spoils of war, by the proxy of others, Israel would grant a morsel of former Syria bordering Turkey to Turkey for services rendered, as Israel could not have handled all the ISIS wounded coming in.
An Antichrist message from JEWtoob just came in
My Christmas Eve Present from The Christ-Killers at JEWtoob
—————————————————————————————
(I get at least 6 to 11 a week but this one’s special…my Christmas eve gift from the beast of the bottomless pit of mankind-hating JEWS)
December 24 2018 4:54 pm
Hi Brother Nathanael,
Your video A Religious Solution To A Jewish Problem was flagged to us by the YouTube community. Upon review, we have placed restrictions on how the video will be shown.
Video content restrictions
We believe in the principles of free speech, even when that speech is unpopular or potentially offensive to some viewers. However, YouTube doesn’t allow hate speech….
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Merry ‘anti-Christ’ from JEW toob.
Their time is coming, wait for it, be patient, they’re gonna be toast.
Aren’t you glad you’re not an accursed Jew, don’t you wish everyone wasn’t? +BN
But to the chagrin of Netanyahu the greater Israel project will have to be put on hold until Trump is removed unceremoniously, the urgency of which is indicated by the relentless investigations of Trump, whether it be ‘Russia’ or ‘paying off high class prostitutes with campaign funds’.
But were Netanyahu to do a JFK on Trump, we’d all know it was him.
Maybe that’s why Trump is still there.
@Michael Mazur
And maybe, just maybe, that’s why Trump consults with Bizby Satanyahu before making a move. +bn
Dear +BN and KathJuliane,
Thanks for putting my mind at ease about the confusing situation in Syria. It’s true I’ve been very much out-of-the-loop regarding Syria, thinking it’s just another damned Zionist-inspired war… what else is new?
After a while, it gets painful just to read about these constantly-recurring conflicts, so I chose to abstain. But I will endeavor to get more up-to-speed by reading your Syria articles, +BN.
Also I will make a note to listen to you on Rense Radio! It’s been quite a while since I’ve heard you speak on talk radio, but it’s always been a real treat when I did!
Wishing you and everyone here a Merry Christmas, and Best Wishes for the New Year.
Stephen
You saw the headline:
Did you read the small print?
“No timeline or specific details of the forthcoming withdrawal of some 2,000 troops have been revealed.”
+bn
Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good night!
Somewhat off-topic here, but a bit of an eye-opener.
[http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index2744.htm]
Looks like there was another reason for getting rid of Mattis.
+BN
Before the Latinos out breed the White middle America people in the USA, the White conservative crowd needs to get some venture capital and organization and build their own social media alternatives to all the popular sites the Khazarian Mafia/NWO Int’l Joo Money Men currently control.
White conservative Christian versions of Twitter, facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Google, etc etc etc.
People who think like RJN readers may not like this, but the smug confidence you see from top pinko Jews like Chuckie Schumer, Barbara Boxer, etc and their top shabbus goy Cucks (Nanci Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, etc.) is because they know that once we’re crawling up to our eyeballs in Mexicans, and other immigrants they import into America that the chez Whitey conservative ‘deplorables’ they all hate will never be able to vote in anything ‘right wing’ again.
All the Latinos they import will vote blue because EBT, Obamacare, & public housing is muy bien for them & they aren’t letting go of any freebies man.
They could have white America outvoted as early as 2030 (if ‘they’/working on behalf of their Rothschild Mafia master’s don’t decide to kill us all). In their staged Armagedon of WW3- the duped 501c3 Christian cuckservative Zionist brainwashed dispensationalist/Scofield following masses will see that war as ‘prophecy’ and a ‘sign’ the ‘rapture’ is imminent.
They will welcome it because they think it’s ‘God’s will’ because their evangelical Zioshill leaders and the televangelists they watch at night all say this is how it’s supposed to be.
The pinko elite are smug because they know the outcome of their demographic shift.
Hardworking regular basic White folks can’t typically afford 4 kids but La Raza can thanks to guys like Obama, and Schumer.
Surely, I’m not the only one who picks up on the undercurrent to the vibe of the liberal elite that radiates a smug confidence masked in arrogant contempt and pseudo-intellectual disdain for the common White man in ‘flyover country’?
“An Antichrist message from JEWtoob just came in. My Christmas Eve Present from The Christ-Killers at JEWtoob”
This is all part of what I call JID, the Jewish Invisible Dictatorship, that controls the world-anything they don’t like they censor.
By the way, Brother Nate, I posted a great article from Rense.com about how Israel penetrated into the White House phone system during the Clinton administration:
FBI Probed Israeli White House Espionage During Clinton Term
By J. Michael Waller and Paul M. Rodriguez
InsightMagazine.com Archive (5-29-00)
12-15-1
https://rense.com/general18/esp.htm
It was specifically in response to your post about the secret telecommunication setup between Bolton and the White House.
Nutty-YaHOO Toast!
Israel’s Government Collapses Amid Corruption Charges and Trump’s Mideast Chaos
The specific issue that brought down Bibi’s government was subsidies for ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.
Still, he thinks he’ll win at the polls again in April.
[https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/12/24/nutty-yahoo-toast-israels-government-collapses-amid-corruption-charges-and-trumps-mideast-chaos/]
David Duke wishes you a white Christmas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkrH_FdCWPo
“The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences”
Meaning this content should be not watched by the stupid Zio-brainwashed goy.
Trump has a lot of things on his mind… doesn’t have time to mess with Syria.
https://www.infowars.com/watch/?video=5c204c2be65cd90305c3c199
Can’t say as I blame him.
American-Israeli man convicted for JCC bomb threats — Zio-Watch, July 2, 2018
JULY 2, 2018
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
American-Israeli man convicted for JCC bomb threats
JUNE 28, 2018 5:26AM
https://davidduke.com/american-israeli-man-convicted-for-jcc-bomb-threats-zio-watch-july-2-2018/
The First Iraq War Was Also Sold to the Public Based on a Pack of Lies
https://billmoyers.com/2014/06/27/the-first-iraq-war-was-also-sold-to-the-public-based-on-a-pack-of-lies/
Brother:
You and Bishop Williamson keep me alive. You two have to unite, a la Chesterton and Belloc long ago.
Many thanks.
The war in Syria is plotted and planned a long time ago.
Sykes-Picot Agreement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
Balfour Declaration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
The Antichrist message from JEWtoob is remindful of the thought police state and the surveillance state. If they control our speech they control our mind, it is said.
Lots of Walmart stores recently replaced old self-checkout equipment with new equipment which has cameras and monitors that display faces of shoppers while they scan their purchases at checkout.
So I asked some Walmart employees why I was being displayed on the monitor while I checked out. The story they told me was that the video could be used to prosecute people using stolen credit cards.
That sounds like a legitimate reason for the cameras at the checkout counters to make videos of us. But the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOJ, and various deep state spies are certain to use their authority to gather such video for Zionist purposes.
Video of a person buying groceries could easily become the face in a poster titled “Wanted by the FBI.” Pictures and video of a Palestinian or non-conformer to Zionism could be obtained from his credit card use at checkout.
The surveillance state is getting to where everything we do and say is recorded. The Zionists seem intent on evolving facial recognition software to where it can recognize body language, facial expressions, and such signals that reveal what we are thinking.
If so, mind control and thought police will gain even greater power.
27 Zionist Strikes (Zionism is Not Judaism)
https://phibetaiota.net/2018/12/zion-strikes-zionism-is-not-judaism-directory/
Is Israel spying on your smartphone?
http://www.jewworldorder.org/is-israel-spying-on-your-smartphone/
Merry Christmas to you all.
Excellent News.
Criminals John Mc Cain and Senior George Bush Dead.
It’s time to Mc Cain all the Criminal Mafia mass murderers including Rothschild and Netanyahu.
Every Country now has a decision to make, either you are with “WE THE PEOPLE” or you are with the JEWS MOSSAD TERRORISTS, JEW World Order Criminal Mafia.
Never let us tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September 11th, malicious LIES that attempt to shift the blame away from that LYING JEW puppet George Walker Bush and the JEW World Order JEW Criminal Mafia, away from the guilty JEW MOSSAD TERRORISTS Criminal Mafia.
The very BEST False Flag Video
Ken O’Keefe
Please watch VIDEO:
911 False Flag – American Traitors & Mossad – Where are the Oath Keepers – Ken O’Keefe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2zJU1nwXYI
If you pay any attention to the economy you have noticed that the stock market has been going straight down in recent days.
The Dow Jones crashed below the 23,533 support level which was set on March 23, 2018 and is at 21,792 now. On Dec 24, the Dow lost another 653 points.
The typical indicators of a market crash are present. The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates. There is extreme market volatility from day to day. The longest running bull market is history is finally ending.
Market volume increased dramatically in November 2016 just after Trump was elected. The market indices went almost straight up after Trump was elected, which is another indicator of a pending crash. Extreme gains typically precede a big crash.
It looks like the banksters ran up the market so Trump would take credit for the big rise and Trump took the bait. Now Trump owns it. Obama has been out of office for almost 2 years now and Trump has crowed about how the market rise was due to him.
It seems likely that the bankster Jews are planning on a bad economy to help drag down Trump in the 2020 election, assuming they have not impeached him by then.
Lately, mass media is accusing Trump of plunging the world into chaos – blaming their victim of what the Jews themselves are doing.
Peace on earth and goodwill towards men. Oh, never mind.
The bellowing Neo-Ottoman Sultanate presumes to speak for President Assad and its plans for further illegal invasion and occupation of sovereign Syrian territory this Christmas Day…
~~~*~~~
Press TV: Syrian govt. forces march into Arima village near Kurdish-held Manbij
Syrian army soldiers, supported by Russian troops, have marched into a village in the country’s northern province of Aleppo, after US-sponsored and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) decided to hand it over to government forces.
A local source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Syria’s pro-government and Arabic-language al-Masdar news agency that Syrian soldiers entered Arima village, located 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of the city of al-Bab and 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Aleppo, on Tuesday after Kurdish militants withdrew from the area.
The source added that 40 pickup trucks carrying Syrian army soldiers, two tanks, trucks carrying military equipment and armored vehicles were seen crossing into the village, which lies northeast of Manbij.
The development came on the heels of Turkey’s preparations for an anticipated military campaign against People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is the backbone of the SDF, in northern Syria.
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Tuesday that preparations for an offensive in the eastern bank of the Euphrates River against Kurdish YPG militants are proceeding as planned.
“Everything has been planned and programmed. Everything is going according to it [the plan] and in line with the schedule,” Akar told reporters ahead of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) parliamentary group meeting in the capital Ankara.
He noted that talks will be held with US officials within the next few days on a roadmap for Manbij.
“Work on the Manbij roadmap is continuing intensively,” Akar pointed out.
He said Turkish military officials are in contact with their US counterparts, adding that further information on the roadmap’s timetable will be released once it is finalized.
The northern Syrian town of Manbij, which lies in mainly Arab territory west of the Euphrates, has been a major bone of contention between Ankara and Washington.
Turkey has complained over the slow implementation of a deal reached with the United States in June, which would see the YPG ousted from the town and moved back to the eastern bank of the river.
Over the past few days, the Turkish military has been sending reinforcements to frontline areas with YPG militants in northern Syria.
The Turkish military, with support from allied militants of the so-called Free Syrian Army, has launched two cross-border operations in northern Syria, dubbed “Euphrates Shield” and “Olive Branch”, against the YPG and Daesh Takfiri terrorists.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/12/25/583946/Syrian-govt-forces-march-into-Arima-village-near-Kurdishheld-Manbij
======
Press TV (12/22): France vows support for Syria militants amid US pullout
A French official says his country has pledged backing for the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed anti-Damascus alliance of mainly Kurdish militants, amid the planned withdrawal of American troops from the Arab country.
The Elysee Palace official said that advisers to French President Emmanuel Macron had assured SDF of their support in a meeting with the group’s figures, including co-chairs Ilham Ahmed and Riad Darrar, in Paris on Friday.
“The advisers passed on a message of support and solidarity and explained to them the talks France had with US authorities to continue the fight against Daesh,” the official added.
The remarks came two days after President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced that the US would be pulling all its 2,000 forces out of Syria. He also claimed victory over the Daesh Takfiri terror outfit in the war-torn state.
However, France, a leading member of the US-led coalition, purportedly fighting Daesh in Syria, said that it would keep troops in Syria.
“For now of course we remain in Syria,” France’s European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said on CNews television, noting “the fight against terrorism is not over.”
Separately, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Paris had started talks with Washington on the time frame and conditions for the US’s Syria withdrawal.
Continued: https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/12/22/583634/France-Syria-SDF
======
Press TV (12/25): Turkey warns France against supporting Kurdish YPG militants
Turkey has warned France against supporting US-backed People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s decision last week to withdraw American troops from the war-ravaged Arab country.
“If France is staying to contribute to Syria’s future, great, but if they are doing this to protect the (militants), this will bring no benefit to anyone,” Turkish-language Hurriyet daily newspaper quoted Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying on Tuesday.
Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984.
Cavusoglu further noted that Ankara has “the power to neutralize Daesh alone” amid speculations that the US exit from Syria would influence the military campaign against the Takfiri terrorist group.
The top Turkish diplomat then criticized French “support” of the YPG, which he said was “no secret.”
He also slammed French officials’ meetings with senior officials from the political wing of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has YPG as its backbone, in Paris last week.
Cavusoglu said the US withdrawal “should not serve the YPG’s separatist agenda.”
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/12/25/583932/Turkey-warns-France-against-supporting-Kurdish-YPG-militants
In Russian & Serbian Orthodoxy and most Orthodox and Eastern Christian Churches, Nativity occurs on the 7th of January Gregorian, which is the canonical Julian calendar day of December 25.
In Russia, New Years comes before the Nativity of our Lord and Savior.
~~~*~~~
Russia Insight: Christmas Edition! Putin’s Full Interview With A Blind Teen Journalist: What Is Your New Year Wish?
Following his annual news conference that lasted for four hours, Russian president Vladimir Putin gave an interview to visually impaired Regina Parpiyeva, 17, whose dream is to become a journalist.
The President answered several questions: how he became President, whether his job is hard, and what wish would he make on the New Year’s Eve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C-gl_TxXvk&t=28s
Anyone interested in Putin’s most recent marathon 4-hour Annual News Conference where he answers questions on a variety of topics including relations with the US, sanctions, geopolitical events, the economy, conflicts, the Ukraine, social ethics and morals, etc from Russian and international news correspondents, here is the English transcript and video (dubbed in English) from the Kremlin website.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/59455
Of course you have to have a contingency force of experienced personnel stay behind to help with the over lap indigenous government personnel, or you get a vacuum which the like Nobama created!
I have to say I disagree with you on your slamming of Trump though, he has to really fly under the Jew radar, but I believe is genuinely trying to do the best job he can, considering all the worms in his way!
Israel Wishes Syrians a Merry Christmas!
Syriana Analysis: Syrian air defences responding to hostile targets in Damascus
Syriana Analysis
Published on Dec 25, 2018
— The Syrian Army air defences firing in western Damascus. SANA: Syrian air defences responding to enemy targets in the western Damascus countryside.
— Lebanese National News Agency: Israeli warplane flew at low altitude over the Sidon area south Lebanon.
— The Syrian Army air defences responded and destroyed several hostile objects over Damascus.
— Israel is on high alert in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights after the fall of parts of the Syrian defensive missiles in the occupied territories.
More videos: The #SyrianArmy is humiliating the “strongest army in the region” over the skies of #Damascus, #Syria.
https://twitter.com/KevorkAlmassian/status/1077676130591756289
Kevork Almassian, founder of Syriana Analysis and a Syrian Armenian Christian expat in Germany:
“What can I say: The #SyrianArmy is humiliating the “strongest army in the region” over the skies of #Damascus, #Syria.”
Kevork Almassian
@KevorkAlmassian
2 minutes ago
Syrian military source: our air defenses responded to hostile missiles fired by #Israeli warplanes from #Lebanese territories & were able to destroy most missiles before reaching their targets. The damage was limited to an ammunition store and three soldiers were wounded.
Haaretz and Jerusalem Post websites naturally report that Syria started the trouble, shot missiles at Israel. Other sources say that Israel fired first.
It looks like Israel made this attack to give Jews in high places a vivid impression that military forces of Europe and America should not be allowed to pull out of the Mideast; that Israel still needs their help to maintain Zionist dominance in the Mideast.
The Jewish state whole-heartedly supports the project for building a separate “Second Israel” Syrian Kurdistani state as a buffer country between Syria, Iraq, and especially Syria’s defense ally Iran.
Once close allies, Turkey and Israel are currently on the outs with each other despite restoration of rocky diplomatic relations in 2016 following the breakdown of relations after Israeli commandos of the Jewish pirate navy boarded and seized the Mavi Mamara in international waters, a ship that was part of the Peace Flotilla attempting to breach the blockade of Gaza on 31 May 2010.
10 unarmed Turkish activists on board a ship were murdered by the pirate commandos, including a 19-year old Turkish-American US citizen.
Netanyahu is also pushing along the joint undersea Israel-Cyprus-Greece Eastern Med pipeline project to Europe in competition with the Russian-Turkish Turk Stream pipeline project to the Balkans.
Israel is stealing from the Palestinian gas reserves off Gaza, a portion of the Lebanese gas reserves, with Greek Cyprus also claiming ownership of reserves disputed by Turkey and Turkish Cyprus.
In the meantime, it almost seems like under the Sultanate’s bellowing is also meant as warning to Israel to get Mossad and military intelligence out of Eastern Syria.
=====
Press TV (12/25): Turkey resolute in fighting terror, needs no permission from Israel: Ankara
Turkey says it is determined to continue its “fight” against terrorism, stressing that Ankara does not need any “permission” from the Israeli regime to fight terror.
“It is out of the question for Turkey to get permission or consent from Israel” to fight against terrorism, Turkey’s English-language Hurriyet Daily News newspaper on Tuesday quoted Turkish Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin as telling reporters the day before.
He said Ankara would equally need no permission from any “country” in the world to carry out its anti-terror operations.
Kalin’s comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a Twitter post on Sunday, attacked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over Ankara’s counterterror operations in northern Syria, calling him “the occupier of northern Cyprus.”
The Turkish leader hit back at Netanyahu in a tweet, saying the Israeli premier is heading “state terror.”
Netanyahu “may have confused his language. Rather, he wanted to say that they are invading Palestine and murdering women and children,” Erdogan added, calling the Israeli prime minister as “the voice of the tyrants.”
Furthermore, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday likened Netanyahu to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, which Ankara views as terrorists.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Kalin described as “historic” the December 14 “telephone call” between Erdogan and President Donald Trump of the United States that “led” to Washington’s decision to pull out its 2,000 ground troops from Syria.
The spokesman added that Trump’s decision was made as a “result” of Erdogan’s convincing argument over the phone with the US leader.
He said that Erdogan told the US president “loud and clear” that Ankara and Washington did not need the Syrian Kurdish militants of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) to fight against the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, two groups in war-ravaged Syria that Turkey lists as terrorist organizations.
Late last year, Washington infuriated Ankara by announcing a plan for the formation of a Kurdish militant force in Syria near the Turkish border. The plan prompted Turkey to launch a cross-border military operation code-named Operation Olive Branch on January 20 inside the Arab country with the declared aim of eliminating YPG from northern Syria, particularly the Afrin region.
The US-backed YPG, which controls swathes of Syria’s northern border region, forms the backbone of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus alliance of predominantly Kurdish militants supported by Washington.
Ankara views the YPG as the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984.
Turkey, which has long been exasperated by the US support of the YPG Kurdish militants in Syria, warmly welcomed Trump’s abrupt decision and stressed that both Ankara and Washington were coordinating to ensure there is no “authority vacuum” once the American troops withdraw.
Damascus has given a degree of authority to the Kurdish regions to run their own affairs. Washington, however, used the power vacuum [in the early chaotic days of the US-led international jihadist terrorist proxy war on Syria] to establish a foothold in those regions with the help of militants.
However, Ankara is strongly against recognizing the territory on its border, fearing it will stoke the separatist ambitions of Kurds in Turkey.
A US-led military coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus or a United Nations mandate.
The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying Daesh.
Over the past few years, Israel has frequently attacked military targets in Syria in what is considered an attempt to prop up terrorist groups that have been suffering heavy defeats against Syrian government forces.
The Tel Aviv regime has also been providing weapons to anti-Damascus militants as well as medical treatment to Takfiri elements wounded in Syria.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/12/25/583940/Israel-Erdogan
~~~*~~~
Next up, are those “2000 Troops Being Pulled Out Of Syria and Coming Home” as Trump boasts really coming home or are they going to make a quick hop to the new bases in Anbar Province in Iraq which shares a border with Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia?
Actually, it doesn’t matter if those 2000 troops (by official count) currently in Syria are redeployed to Anbar, or really “coming home” because they are at the end of their rotation or term of service.
~~~*~~~
Press TV: US establishes two new military bases in Anbar province: Iraqi official
The US Army has set up two new military bases in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, an Iraqi official says, days after Washington announced the pullout of American forces from Syria.
“The US Army has established two new military facilities in uninhabited parts of the province,” Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency quoted Farhan al-Duleimi, a member of Anbar’s provisional council, as saying on Tuesday.
The move comes less than a week after US President Donald Trump announced his unexpected decision to pull all the 2,000 American ground troops out of the war-ravaged Syria. He said on Wednesday that the withdrawal would be slow and gradual, without providing a timetable.
According to al-Duleimi, the first base had been established in the northern Rumana sub-district in al-Qaim district, in the vicinity of the Syrian border, some 360 kilometers west of the provincial capital Ramadi.
The second base, he added, had been set up east of the city of al-Rutbah, about 310 kilometers west of Ramadi and less than 100 kilometers from the Syrian border.
The official added that the American bases were purportedly intended to assist Iraqi forces “secure the country’s borders and prevent infiltrations by the Daesh terrorist group.”
“Scores of US soldiers are currently stationed at the two bases, along with drones and other equipment,” added al-Duleimi, without providing further details.
The central government in Baghdad and Washington have yet to comment on al-Duleimi’s statement, but if confirmed, the total number of US bases in Anbar will reach four.
Continued: https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/12/25/583957/Iraq-Anbar-US-base
US troops will somehow be deployed or redeployed to those two new bases anyway.
Merry CHRISTmas, Stephen Smith.
God bless you and yours.
For your consideration, keep a critical eye about “What Does It Mean?”
I recommend that you thoroughly ignore “What Does It Mean” as anything other than dis/misinformation and conspiracy fantasy for profit from the gullible.
Take a look at these links here on RJN for past comments over the years from myself and others concerning “What Does It Mean” and it’s Sorcha Fall, the Internet Hoax Queen, the sockpuppet persona of a person named David Booth.
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=527#comment-114031
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=887#comment-1507095
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=318#comment-19964
[http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=461#comment-46416]
[http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=622#comment-322113]
There’s an internal website search function on the upper right hand of every RJN page, and put in key words like “Sorcha Faal” or “David Booth”. And do the online research to your satisfaction as well.
Even other conspiracy theorists, ranging from the interesting and thought-provoking ones to being on the very far fringe (and their debunkers) denounce Booth and won’t have anything to do with whatever he happens to pull out of Sorcha Faal’s hat.
These Syrian denominations shown on SANA website are Syriac, Chaldean and other ethnic Catholic, Melkite, Arab Protestant & Evangelical churches in Damascus that celebrate the Lord’s Nativity during night services according to the Western (Gregorian calendar).
Orthodox and other Eastern Christians will celebrate the Nativity according to the canonical Old Style Julian calendar on January 7/December 25 (the church liturgical day starts at 6 pm the evening before, and goes to 6 pm the next day.)
During the 13-day spread between New Style Western Christmas on Dec 25 and Old Style Christmas on January 7 (January 6 in the Armenian Church) the spirit of Christ’s Incarnation into this world and the peace and goodwill among men, as well as the more secular popular Christmas celebrations, remains very vivid in many places throughout Syria, even in many Muslim hearts.
This year, the Syrians have much to be thankful to God for. The photos from the various churches are stunning, and express what the Syrians see as the rebirth of their beloved country.
As Virginia State Senator Richard Black, now a committed advocate for the Syrian people, President Assad and the government, said not long ago concerning Syria’s victory over the Jewmerican coalition’s international war waged on the country:
“In my lifetime, there has never been a greater force of evil than the terror rained down on Syria by foreign nations. Its cruelty and savagery have had no bounds. Nonetheless, Syria has defended itself against the economic might of 2/3 of the world’s great powers and has beaten them all. As a career military officer and student of military affairs, I cannot explain how Syria could accomplish this if it were not the will of God.”
He spoke these words during a recent visit to Syria. Here is a link to more of what he said.
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=179570
~~~*~~~
Damascus, SANA- Christian denominations in Syria celebrated Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, the messenger of love and peace, by holding masses and prayers in the churches and worship places.
At St. George Patriarchal Syriac Orthodox Church, mass was presided upon by Patriarch Mar Ignatius Aphrem II, who talked about the meaning of Christmas, saying that when peace and love manifest in relations and actions among people and they avoid injustice, peace will reign in the world.
The Patriarch said that Christmas this year comes as Syria is recovering gradually from years of war and destruction, praying for all abductees and captives, including Bishops Paul Yazigi and John Ibrahim who had been abducted by terrorists in Aleppo countryside.
Mass was also held at the Evangelical National Church in Damascus, presided upon by Rev. Boutros Zaour, who said in his sermon that Christmas is a blessed message from Heaven saying the our lands where Christ was born cannot be desecrated, and that we will triumph over evil.
Zaour prayed for the souls of Syria’s martyrs and for the wounded, and for Syria to remain safe and stable and have a bright future.
In Hasaka, prayers and mass were held at St. George Syriac Orthodox Cathedral presided upon by Father Gabriel Khajo, while in Qamishli mass was held at the Virgin Mary Syriac Orthodox Church, presided upon by Father Saliba Abdullah.
In Daraa mass was held at the Lady of Annunciation Church, presided upon by Father George Rizq, and in Hama mass and prayers were held at the Hama Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, Syriac Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, and Greek Catholic Church in Kafr Bahm, and the Evangelical Church in Mhardeh.
Christmas celebrations in Aleppo were held at the Arab Evangelical Church, Chaldean Church, Church of the Cross, Latin Church, St. George Church, Mar Aphrem Church, Syriac Catholic Church, and the Maronite Church.
Meanwhile in Homs, prayers and mass were held at the Lady of the Belt Church in the Old City, the Greek Catholic Archdiocese, Forty Martyrs Church, the Evangelical Church in Bustan al-Diwan, Mar Maron Church, and Cathedral of the Holy Spirit.
A divine mass was held at the Greek-Melkite Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition of Our Lady in Damascus headed by Melkite-Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All East Joseph Absi.
Patriarch Absi affirmed the supreme meanings embodied by the Christmas, saying “Today our beloved homeland is born again in the hearts of its people…Syria today is a renewable and wonderful country thanks to the sacrifices of the Syrian Arab Army and the wise leadership of President Bashar al-Assad.”
“We stand by and pray for those who have supported Syria, and it is doubtless that due to those sacrifices and prayers all foreigners will get out of our country soon and we will be happy and celebrate,” the Patriarch added.
Participants in the mass talked about the supreme meanings of the Christmas, indicating that it represents the coexistence and the openness to the others for building a dignified homeland and a promising future.
Aleppo celebrates Christmas in coincidence with celebrating anniversary of its triumph over terrorism
Meanwhile, Christian denominations in Aleppo celebrated Christmas by holding prayers and masses at a number of churches
Sermons referred to the lofty meanings of the feast of the birth of Jesus Christ, the messenger of love, of peace, love and tolerance.
The masses and prayers called for amity, coexistence and solidarity to be able to overcome the ordeals and to realized peace and security.
They hailed the victories achieved over terrorism thanks to the unity of the Syrian people and their solidarity with their army.
They also hailed the wise leadership of President al-Assad, hoping that terrorism will be eliminated from every inch of the Syrian territories and Syria will be stronger than ever.
A Christmas tree lit up and a choral held in Tartous
With a massive popular attendance and on occasion of Christmas, a tree was lit up in Tartous city.
Head of Tartous City Council, Judge Mohammad Zain stressed that all the spectrums of the locals are living in an atmosphere of joy and amity.
A ceremony was also held as Arjwan Choral performed about 11 Christmas songs from different parts of the world in eight languages .
Prayers and masses were also held in a number of provinces, including Lattakia and Sweida highlighting the values of amity, tolerance and peace that Jesus Christ brought to humanity and praying for God for security and stability to prevail over all Syrian territory.
A divine mass was held at the Greek-Melkite Patriarchal Cathedral of the Dormition of Our Lady in Damascus headed by Melkite-Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All East Joseph Absi.
Patriarch Absi affirmed the supreme meanings embodied by the Christmas, saying “Today our beloved homeland is born again in the hearts of its people…Syria today is a renewable and wonderful country thanks to the sacrifices of the Syrian Arab Army and the wise leadership of President Bashar al-Assad.”
“We stand by and pray for those who have supported Syria, and it is doubtless that due to those sacrifices and prayers all foreigners will get out of our country soon and we will be happy and celebrate,” the Patriarch added.
Participants in the mass talked about the supreme meanings of the Christmas, indicating that it represents the coexistence and the openness to the others for building a dignified homeland and a promising future.
Aleppo celebrates Christmas in coincidence with celebrating anniversary of its triumph over terrorism
Meanwhile, Christian denominations in Aleppo celebrated Christmas by holding prayers and masses at a number of churches
Sermons referred to the lofty meanings of the feast of the birth of Jesus Christ, the messenger of love, of peace, love and tolerance.
The masses and prayers called for amity, coexistence and solidarity to be able to overcome the ordeals and to realized peace and security.
They hailed the victories achieved over terrorism thanks to the unity of the Syrian people and their solidarity with their army.
They also hailed the wise leadership of President al-Assad, hoping that terrorism will be eliminated from every inch of the Syrian territories and Syria will be stronger than ever.
A Christmas tree lit up and a choral held in Tartous
With a massive popular attendance and on occasion of Christmas, a tree was lit up in Tartous city.
Head of Tartous City Council, Judge Mohammad Zain stressed that all the spectrums of the locals are living in an atmosphere of joy and amity.
A ceremony was also held as Arjwan Choral performed about 11 Christmas songs from different parts of the world in eight languages .
Prayers and masses were also held in a number of provinces, including Lattakia and Sweida highlighting the values of amity, tolerance and peace that Jesus Christ brought to humanity and praying for God for security and stability to prevail over all Syrian territory.
https://sana.sy/en/?p=154304
~~~*~~~
Popular Christmas songs will be familiar.
~~~*~~~
Syriana Analysis: Christmas celebrations in Damascus
Syrians in the capital of Damascus celebrated their first peaceful Christmas after defeating the Islamist terrorists in the suburbs of the capital, who consider celebrating the birth of Jesus as a sin.
However, peace didn’t last long as Israel attacked Damascus once again on December 25 and the Syrian Army responded to the hostile objects destroying 14 out of 16 Israeli missiles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UqtCS_mK1k
Christ is Born!
IC XC
NI KA
Merry CHRISTmas back, KathJuliane.
Thank you for the heads up regarding ‘Sorcha Faal’ and David Booth.
It’s ironic that I had previously known (from years ago) that this website was not to be trusted. But, fool that I am, I ignored my own advice and went back to following it shortly after Trump’s election… mainly because most of what it was saying was stuff I wanted to hear.
It IS correct about a lot of things, which is what makes it so deceptive. But in looking back at articles published there about a decade ago, it’s VERY clear that the site is unreliable, particularly when it comes to making predictions. Just look at the links above the main article at [http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1296.htm] to see what I mean.
Lately it’s been saying Trump is about to declare martial law, probably right on January 1. Ostensibly this is so that the military can round up “Deep State” traitors and ship them to Guantanamo for trial before military tribunals. Or, perhaps it will be to round up the patriots instead. Or, maybe nothing at all will happen.
At any rate, we should soon find out. But for now, I am sufficiently chastened about whatdoesitmean.com.
The last time the Jewish terror state attacked Syria, they hid behind a Russian IL-20 intel aircraft on landing approach to into Russia’s Hmeimim Air Base at Latakia in order to trick the launched Syrian air defense anti-aircraft missiles aimed at the Israeli warplanes into striking it.
This time, the IDF attacked Damascus using civilian passenger planes coming into Beirut and Damascus international airports as shields during the Israeli air force’s standoff missile attack on an arms depot west of Damascus. They were purposefully trying to instigate an accident like they did with the IL-20 incident.
It’s obvious the Jews want get a SAM to lock on and down an civilian airplane, they will continuing to try till they get this atrocity accomplished.Then Trump will order a retaliation.
Seems like Israel and the US are trying to engineer an incident which will justify the US keeping troops in Syria.
~~~*~~~
Haaretz: Russia: Israel’s ‘Provocative’ Syria Strike Directly Endangered Two Civilian Flights
–‘Six Israeli F-16s fired 16 missiles at Damascus, Syrians intercepted 14 of them,’ Russian Defense Ministry says
–One flight was landing in Beirut, the other in Damascus
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday the airstrike in Syria attributed to Israel “directly endangered” two civilian flights.
The ministry did not specify which flights had been threatened but said one of the flights was landing in Beirut and the other in Damascus. It added that Syrian air defences had destroyed 14 of 16 Israeli missiles launched against unspecified targets near Damascus by six Israeli F-16s on Tuesday.
A Defense Ministry spokesman said the Syrian military didn’t fully engage its air defense assets to avoid accidentally hitting the passenger jets. He added that Syrian air traffic controllers redirected the Damascus-bound plane to the Russian air base in Hemeimeem.
Israeli aircrafts struck an arms depot west of Syria’s capital city of Damascus from Lebanese airspace, Syrian state media reported Tuesday. According to reports, three Syrian soldiers were wounded in the attack which targeted Hezbollah depots.
A report in the American weekly Newsweek said several senior Hezbollah officials were wounded in the alleged attack.
Citing a Department of Defense source familiar with the details of the attack via senior Israeli representatives, the report said Israeli aircrafts struck a few minutes after the officials had gotten on board a plane to Iran.
However, former director of Israeli Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin said on Wednesday it is unlikely Israeli had directly struck Hezbollah officials.
Speaking on Israeli army radio, Yadlin said “the probability (of the report) is very low,” adding that “we’re trying to piece the picture together, with the official Israel remaining silent.
“We’re trying to understand what’s been attacked and what were the results of the attack. We’re relying on statements from the Syrians and leaks for the Department of Defense.”
Although Russia and Israel established a system to avoid friction between Israeli aircraft operating in Syria and Russian military planes in the area, a Russian aircraft was downed by Syrian anti-aircraft missiles during an Israeli airstrike in September.
The Russians blamed Israel for the mishaps, a claim that Israel vigorously denied. Russia announced it had delivered the S-300 air defense system to Syria in October following the incident.
https://www.haaretz.com/breaking/russia-israel-s-syria-strike-directly-endangered-two-civilian-flights-1.6784562
=====
Haaretz: Israel’s extensive Syria strike signals: Business as usual despite Trump and Putin | Analysis
— The strike in the Damascus area was likely aimed at a specific target such as Iranian weapons depots, but it has a wider geopolitical context
— Netanyahu is reverse-engineering facts on Hezbollah tunnels ahead of elections
The aerial attack on Syria Tuesday attributed to Israel came less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the pullout of American forces from the country.
The alleged Israeli strike may have been in pursuit of some specific military goal – to bomb Iranian weapons depots, for instance – but it has a broader political context.
Israel is signaling that from its perspective, it’s business as usual again: Despite Trump’s announcement and despite Russia’s fury about its Ilyushin plane getting shot down last September, Israel sees itself as free to continue attacking targets in Syria, when necessary.
Israeli attacks on Syria have very much reduced since the downing of the Ilyushin (which the Syria aerial defense system shot by mistake during an Israeli air raid), according to foreign media reports.
Continued (subscription wall): [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-s-extensive-syria-strike-proves-business-as-usual-despite-trump-pullout-1.6784094]
Having done a little further investigation of whatdoesitmean.com, I now recall what attracted me to this site in the first place.
It is very pro-Putin, pro-Russia, and above all, pro-CHRISTIAN, something that is unheard-of in the West (+BN’s website here being a notable exception).
There is only ONE video posted on the main page of whatdoesitmean.com, and it is an interview of a female Danish Christian journalist who recently visited Moscow and who paints an absolutely glowing picture of how Christianity has revived in Russia, under Putin.
I would urge both KathJuliane and Brother Nathanael to listen to it, and give me your impression.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1xOFdxglFw
I figure a website that would post this video on its main page can’t be all bad.
Also, ‘Sorcha Faal’ is not a name, it’s a TITLE, kind of like ‘Mother Superior’. It’s also not Russian, but Irish, more specifically Gaelic.
[http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/whoissorcha.htm]
TASS: Syrian opposition militants ready to lay down arms once US troops leave Al-Tanf base
At the same time, field commanders from the Mahavir as-Saura brigade, trained by US and UK instructors, have demanded a safe passage to take their forces to northern Syria
MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. Members of several Syrian opposition armed units are ready to lay down their arms and surrender to the Syrian army once US troops and their allies leave the Al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria, the Surya Al-An news portal reporters on Tuesday.
According to the news portal, a large number of militants stationed in a 55-wide area around Al-Tanf have expressed readiness to surrender and make reconciliation agreements with the Syrian authorities.
At the same time, field commanders from the Mahavir as-Saura brigade, trained by US and British instructors, have demanded a safe passage to take their forces to northern Syria. The brigade comprises about 6,000 militants. [Either redeployed to Turkish occupied controlled Idlib or to join the remnants of the Turkish-controlled FSA in other areas – Kj]
The US-led coalition created the Al-Tanf base at the junction of the borders of Syria, Iraq and Jordan in order to fight against the Islamic State terror group (outlawed in Russia).
Troops deployed to the base control a strategically important highway connecting Damascus and Baghdad. Besides, the United States claims to have used the facility to contain Iran’s influence in the region.
On December 19, US President Donald Trump ordered a full withdrawal of US troops from Syria. “After historic victories against ISIS, it’s time to bring our great young people home!” he said.
Washington launched a military operation against the Islamic State group in Iraq in June 2014 and in Syria in September 2014. More than 2,000 US troops are currently deployed to Syria. According to US officials, the troop pullout will take 60 to 100 days.
More:
http://tass.com/world/1037850
~~~*~~~
Asem Saleh: Syrian Army Troops on the Road to Manbij in Northern Aleppo
“Following the U.S. unexpected withdrawal and the Turkish threats, the Kurdish traitors had no choice but to beg the Syrian government to save them…”
“They allied themselves with the U.S. against Syria. They have good relationships with Israel. They fought ISIS to establish a separate state, they don’t see themselves as a part of Syria… All respect to the Kurds who don’t seek separation…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SKXBnMVtCg
Fox News: Trump makes surprise visit to US troops in Iraq
The president is joined by First Lady Melania Trump on his first visit to a combat zone.
President Trump says he has ‘no plans at all’ to remove U.S. troops from the country; Lucas Tomlinson reports from the Pentagon.
Trump landed at Ayn al-Asad Airbase, a joint Iraqi Armed Forces and American armed forces base located in the Al Anbar Governorate of western Iraq.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU2PHxTWFd4
Hooray! Trump loves the troops! But, visiting the troops without bringing on an Iraqi official for the camera indicate that the new Iraqi government is not on his favorites list.
The visit may indicate the Jewmerican interest in staying long term in Iraq.
Wait. What else is going on here? Why the Trumps’ abrupt trip to Anbar province in Iraq?
Back in October, the Military Times reported that support for Trump was fading among active-duty personnel according to a poll it conducted, “leaving today’s troops evenly split over whether they’re happy with the commander in chief’s job performance, according to the results of a new Military Times poll of active-duty service members.
“About 44 percent of troops had a favorable view of Trump’s presidency, the poll showed, compared to 43 percent who disapproved.
“The results from the survey, conducted over the course of September and October, suggest a gradual decline in troops’ support of Trump since he was elected in fall 2016, when a similar Military Times poll showed that 46 percent of troops approved of Trump compared to 37 percent who disapproved. That nine-point margin of support now appears gone.”
This same Military Times piece reported in relation to Mattis:
“The current president also receives continued high marks for his choice of defense secretary, former Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis.
“Similar to past polls, Mattis has a favorable rating among troops of nearly 84 percent. Support among officers increased in the last year, with more than 89 percent voicing a favorable opinion.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/10/15/support-for-trump-is-fading-among-active-duty-troops-new-poll-shows/
Ruh-roh! Trump sacked Mattis.
Many of us who are in some way anti-war/anti-interventionist don’t like Mad Dog Mattis out here in the non-combatant world. I absolutely despise the man, “the Butcher of Fallujah” for his war crimes against the people of Fallujah in two vengeful and botched operations he was responsible for and commanded during 2004.
But, we also don’t have the same perspective of Mattis that the members of the US armed forces have, who are tasked with conducting America’s wars for good or ill.
Most military personnel want Pentagon and top military brass leaders who will look out after them, represent their interests and well-being to Congress, and will responsibly, not recklessly, send them into harm’s way on carefully planned operations to defend their country, not Big Corporation businessmen willing to spend American blood for stockholder profits in war rackets.
It was a Big Oil corporate businessman and arch-liar and deceiver by the name of Rumsfeld who was the Pentagon chief who got America into trouble in Iraq to begin with, tried to run the badly planned regime-change war on Iraq on the cheap. Rumsfeld only made matters worse pushing his “state building” fantasy agenda when he formed the Coalition Provisional Government in Baghdad, and his pal, Bush appointee Paul Bremer, became the second American Viceroy of the occupation, working out of a royal palace.
After George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Bremer is often considered the man most responsible for the dissolution of civil society in Iraq and the rise of sectarian strife, midwife to the birthing pangs of Islamic State. The Islamic State, of course, was comprised at its command levels by former members of Saddam Hussein’s military. The one that Paul Bremer disbanded shortly after he banned much of the Baath Party from civil service jobs under the new regime.
Bremer’s big mistake was in rushing through Bush White House policy of de-Baathification that went far too deep.
It ensnared many Iraqis who had joined the Baath Party not because they were true believers but simply to see their pay boosted, or avoid running afoul of Saddam’s thugs. As a consequence, 85,000 to 100,000 Iraqis, including thousands of teachers and mid-level technocrats, were summarily shut out of Iraq’s public sector future.
Also dictated by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al, Bremer then de-Baathified and disbanded the military, and created half a million angry, armed, unemployed Iraqis in 48 hours, most of them Sunnis.
At the same time on the military side first Provisional Governor Gardner’s deputy for national security, Army Colonel Paul Hughes, had been working with a group of former Iraqi officers who were signing up members of their units to be put to work by the Americans so they could provide for their families. Some 137,000 members of the military registered and the information passed along. It was ignored.
Rumsfeld’s Pentagon opened the Iraqi gates to private military contractors. It contracted with Eric Prince’s Blackwater for private military security whose “security contractors” ran amok killing Iraqis randomly and at will in a reign of terror all their own, particularly in Fallujah.
There were as many of the contract private military force in Iraq, some 160,000 provided by various contractors, as there were US military troops in the occupation.
Even the Brookings think tank concluded in 2007 in an article that “When we evaluate the facts, the use of private military contractors appears to have harmed, rather than helped, the counterinsurgency efforts of the U.S. mission in Iraq, going against our best doctrine and undermining critical efforts of our troops.”
I recall that one time, Blackwater mercenaries even fired on US Marines posted on a roof next to them. Blackwater mercenaries used to routinely post videos of their random driveby shootings of innocent people traveling in cars or walking on the side of the road on YouTube.
So, I’m not surprised by the beginning of the Brookings article:
In Sept. 16, 2007, a convoy of Blackwater contractors guarding State Department employees entered a crowded square near the Mansour district in Baghdad, Iraq. But versions of what caused the ensuing bloodshed diverge. Employees from the firm claim they were attacked by gunmen and responded within the rules of engagement, fighting their way out of the square after one of their vehicles was disabled.
Iraqi police and witnesses instead report that the contractors opened fire first, shooting at a small car driven by a couple with their child that did not get out of the convoy’s way as traffic slowed. At some point in the 20-minute gunfight, Iraqi police and army forces stationed in watchtowers above the square also began firing.
Other Iraqi security forces and Blackwater quick-reaction forces soon reportedly joined the battle. There are also reports that one Blackwater employee may even have pointed his weapon at his fellow contractors, in an effort to get them to cease firing.
Since then, the Iraqi and U.S. governments have launched separate investigations, likely ensuring that the differing versions of the story will never meet. The only thing agreed upon is the consequences: After a reported 20 Iraqi civilians were killed, including the couple and their child, who was subsequently burned to the mother’s body after the car caught fire, the Iraqi government and populace exploded with anger.”
“…[Co]ntractors are one of the most visible and hated aspects of the American presence in Iraq. “They seal off the roads and drive on the wrong side. They simply kill,” Um Omar, a Baghdad housewife, told Agence France Press about Blackwater in a report in mid-September. A traffic policeman at Al-Wathba square in central Baghdad concurred:
“‘They are impolite and do not respect people, they bump other people’s cars to frighten them and shout at anyone who approaches them … Two weeks ago, guards of a convoy opened fire randomly that led to the killing of two policemen … I swear they are Mossad,’ he said, referring to the Israeli spy service, which is a catch-all for anything perceived as evil in the Arab world.
“It is also important to note that Iraqi civilians do not differentiate the acts of the private military contractors from the overall U.S. military effort, just because they are outside the chain of command.”
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-dark-truth-about-blackwater/
Trump just fired a very, very popular retired general and civilian Pentagon chief among both the officer and enlisted ranks who was opposed to Trump’s pullout of troops from Syria.
So now Trump made a surprise Christmas trip to al-Asad military base, one of the largest in Iraq and was crucial to the US war on Iraq. Here he defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria during an unannounced visit to Iraq, saying that many people will start seeing things on Syria the same way he does.
In terms of votes, firing Mattis could cost Trump his base among the active and retired US military members — and their families. It was the conservative states in Christian America who provide the majority of US military personnel, especially enlisted ranks.
The battleground states with a strong military tradition and a disproportionately high level of enlistment and disabled vets tipped the voting in Trump’s favor largely because of the military and military family vote turnout based on the Trump’s campaign promises that he would begin pulling troops out of the Middle East.
These battleground states were Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were crucial to Trump’s 2016 win.
I sense that Trump suddenly realized he somehow needed to try to improve his optics, thus the sudden jaunt to Ayn al-Asad Airbase to defend his decision about pulling out Also on Air Force One, I suspect Bolton, Pompeo, perhaps even Prince were covertly on board, accompanied by Pentagon types in order to work out the burp in military operations in the Iraq-Syria battlespace that Trump’s announcement created.
Here’s what military units are based at al-Asad.
7th Division of the Iraqi Army – 9,000
United States – 600+
US Army and Marine Corps
Marine Air-Ground Task Force
–Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command (SPMAGTF-CR-CC), a forward-deployed, rapid-response force.
It is a self-mobile, self-sustaining force of Marines and sailors, capable of responding to a range of crises.
The unit is specifically trained to support US and partner interests throughout the United States Central Command area of responsibility, to include embassy reinforcement, support to noncombatant evacuation operations, tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief.
The rotations are made up of four crucial elements, Command Element (CE), Ground Combat Element (GCE), Logistics Combat Element (LCE) and the Aviation Combat Element (ACE)
Denmark – 120+
Al Asad is the logistical homebase and springboard for the illegal US bases in Eastern Syria.
Who knows what “2000 troops out of Syria” really means? The US will simply continue to conduct operations in Syria from Iraq, and two new military bases built in Anbar province.
Before I forget, Mattis was vehemently opposed to Prince’s privatization schemes for an American Raj in Afghanistan.
After Iraq, and the trouble mercenary companies outside of the military chain of command caused for the US military occupation forces nor accountable to the US government, I doubt Mattis harbored any great affection for private military contractors in general.
As a punctilious professional career military man (who sees to have had the respect of and a good working relationship with the Russian Ministry of Defense) Mattis would have held Eric Prince in some distaste.
Mattis and his Marines had to clean up the huge bloody messes that Blackwater sparked in Iraq, contributing their share of responsibility for the sectarian warfare and the fury of the insurgents opposing the occupation (and planted the seeds of Al Qaeda in Iraq and ISIL), and causing a wide portion of the Iraqi people to finally standing up in protest and resistance to the occupation.
After all, a notorious Blackwater incident in Fallujah in 2004 created by Blackwater’s own stupidity (hence Eric Prince’s) was the reason Mattis had to hammer Fallujah into the ground to begin with.
As the Virginia Pilot published in 2007:
A congressional investigation has found Blackwater USA at fault on multiple levels in the infamous 2004 Fallujah convoy ambush in which four of its operatives were killed by Iraqi insurgents.The report, issued Thursday [2007], also accuses Blackwater of repeated efforts to stonewall the investigation, even defying a congressional subpoena at one point.
The release comes at a time when the Moyock, N.C.-based private military company is already facing unprecedented scrutiny because of a Sept. 16 shooting incident involving Blackwater contractors in Baghdad in which at least 11 Iraqis died.
The March 31, 2004, ambush in the restive Sunni Arab stronghold of Fallujah, in which two of the victims’ mutilated bodies were hung from a bridge, drew worldwide attention and prompted a devastating retaliatory assault on the city by U.S. military forces that fueled the Iraqi insurgency to new heights.
The report by investigators on the staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says Blackwater “ignored multiple warnings about the dangers of traveling through Fallujah, cut essential personnel from the mission, and failed to supply its team with armored vehicles, machine guns, sufficient threat intelligence, or even maps of the area.”
Based on reports from Blackwater, the company that held the contract previously, the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the investigation found details of the incident “disturbing, revealing an unprepared and disorderly organization operating in a hostile environment. Mistake apparently compounded mistake.”
https://pilotonline.com/news/military/nation/iraq/article_d6c18782-f391-523c-b026-693a989d3d27.html
Nope, Mattis wouldn’t like Bolton-backed Prince’s ideas for Afghanistan at all.
KTVU.com (Montana): Iraq officially makes Christmas Day a national holiday
The Iraqi Cabinet approved a law to mark Christmas Day, December 25, as an official holiday across the country “on the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ,” according to a statement released by the Iraqi government.
The Cabinet voted on an amendment to the national holidays law in the country that Christmas Day is a holiday for all Iraqis, and not only for the Christian community, as it had been for decades.
“Happy Christmas to our Christian citizens, all Iraqis and to all who are celebrating around the world,” the Iraqi government said on Twitter.
Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were about 1.4 million Christians in the country. However, their numbers have dwindled to roughly 300,000 after hundreds of thousands fled the country following violence and attacks by various armed groups over the years.
Most recently, the rise of ISIS in Iraq forced many of the remaining Christians to flee the country or be killed, as CNN has documented.
In 2016, the ancient Iraqi Christian town of Bartella celebrated Christmas for the first time in two years after being liberated from ISIS.
https://ktvq.com/cnn-world/2018/12/24/iraq-officially-makes-christmas-day-a-national-holiday/
Iraqi Christians fought against ISIL alongside Shiites and Sunnis in the Popular Mobilization Units, which is essentially Iraqi nationalist in political orientation.
PMU is an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization composed of some 40 militias that are mostly Shia Muslim groups, but also including Sunni Muslim, Christian, and Yazidi individuals as well.
They fought in nearly every major battle against ISIL, sometimes even on joint border operations with the Syrian forces.
It has been called the new Iraqi Republican Guard after it was fully reorganized in early 2018 by its Commander in Chief, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. He issued “regulations to adapt the situation of the Popular Mobilization fighters,” giving them ranks and salaries equivalent to other branches of the Iraqi military.
This is a great recognition and honor of the contribution and sacrifices made by the Christian militias in the PMU who fought on behalf of the Iraqi people.
Bro
I just read this off Mondoweiss from a commentator Misterioso
I’d like you to comment on this and on Mondoweiss overall
–dave
======
Misterioso
December 26, 2018, 8:56 am
This recent article seems timely:
“Remember: Christ was a Palestinian refugee” Al Jazeera, Dec. 25/18, by Hamid Dabashi
(Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.)
“And when the angels said, ‘O Mary, indeed Allah gives you good tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary – distinguished in this world and the hereafter and among those brought near [to Allah]’” (The Quran 3:45).
“There is something beautifully sacred about the moment in the Quran when the angels inform Mary she is about to give birth to Jesus. Angels bring her the good news. They tell her of how ‘He will speak to the people in the cradle and in maturity and will be of the righteous.’
“The sublime innocence of Mary at hearing this news can hardly be better captured in any scripture: ‘She said, ‘My Lord, how will I have a child when no man has touched me?’ [The angel] said, ‘Such is Allah; He creates what He wills. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is’” (The Quran 3:47).
“God Himself, according to the Quran, teaches Christ: ‘And He will teach him writing and wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel.’ (The Quran 3:48).
“Based on these and other Quranic passages, Muslims should have no theological problem marking, celebrating, rejoicing at the birth of Christ as a prophet sent by God.
“For every age, a ‘different’ Christ.”
“All of these may appear as strange and outlandish in a world plagued by religious bigotry and historical illiteracy. Generations of European depiction of Christ as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white man have made it difficult for European and North American Christians today to imagine him for what he was: a Jewish Palestinian refugee child who grew up to become a towering revolutionary figure.
“In his exquisite study, Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture (1985), the eminent historian and theologian Jaroslav Pelikan has demonstrated that, throughout history the image of Christ has gone through successive reformations, from a Jewish Rabbi to ‘Light of Gentiles,’ ‘the King of Kings,’ ‘the Son of Man,’ ‘the Monk who rules the World,’ ‘the Universal Man,’ ‘the Prince of Peace,’ to a liberator who inspired Lev Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr to ‘the Man who belongs to the World.’
“In the Latin American context, in particular, and through the emancipatory work of liberation theologians, the figure of Christ emerges as the revolutionary leader of the wretched of the earth.
“The Peruvian philosopher, theologian and Dominican priest Gustavo Gutierrez has revolutionised our contemporary understanding of Christ. In my own work on Islamic liberation theology, I have been deeply influenced by the work of Father Gutierrez, who next to the eminent Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas have brought the prophetic voices of Biblical exegesis to bear on our contemporary lives.
“For years at Columbia, I have been teaching a book called Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from The Heart: The Story of Elvia Alvarado (1989) in which there is a splendid a chapter called: Jesus was an Organizer.
“The Nazareth-born Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman has a short film called, Cyber Palestine (1999), in which he presents the story of a modern-day Mary and Joseph as they attempt to cross from Gaza into Bethlehem. As a parable of the Palestinian predicament in their own homeland, ‘Cyber Palestine’ captures the quintessence of the story of the birth of Christ under military occupation of the Romans then and the Zionists now.
“Imagine Christ as a Jewish Palestinian labour organiser refugee from Honduras! Donald Trump and his Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen would probably not have allowed him into the US.
“Against the grain of history”
“The dark days of Zionism laying a false claim on Judaism and Palestine alike are happily over. The lies of a gang of European settler colonialists trying to rob Jews of their ancestral faith and Palestinians of their historical homeland have finally come to a crushing defeat when Jews and Palestinians, and Jews as Palestinians, have come together to lay a post-Zionist claim on their ancestral faith and homeland alike.
“The massive propaganda to cast the resistance of Palestinians to the colonial occupation and theft of their homeland as a battle between ‘Jews and Arabs’ was so dominant in the la la land of the US and even Europe that the very idea that Palestinians are Christians, too, and that Jesus was, in fact, a Palestinian Jewish Rabbi scares and confuses the living daylight out of their slumbering ignorance.
“The very simple fact that Palestinians have historically been Jews, Christians, and Muslims was hard to digest in that la la land. By extension, also the very simple fact that Christ and Mary are two seminal figures in the Quran has also been seen as a strange proposition in this banality.
“Jesus was a Palestinian Jew who spoke Aramaic, a language in the same family as Hebrew and Arabic. He came from the same prophetic tradition as Prophets Moses and Mohammad.
“There are, of course, doctrinal differences between the figure of Jesus as he appears in the Quran and his divinity as understood in Christianity. Here it is crucial to remember the manner in which in both Persian poetry and Islamic mysticism, the figure of Christ expands into the far more pervasive icon of divine mercy.
The seminal Sufi master Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) has in his works, particularly in the chapter, The Wisdom of Prophecy in the Word of Jesus, in his masterpiece, Fusus al-Hikam/Bezels of Wisdom, sought to bring conceptual harmony between the Muslim and Christian perceptions of Jesus.
“Through his doctrine of ‘Oneness of Being,’ Ibn Arabi accommodated the question of sonship in Christian doctrine: Jesus emerges as a ‘Perfect Man’ and ‘the Seal of Saints.’ Ibn Arabi cites the Quranic references to Jesus’ ability to bring a clay bird to life as an indication of the Divine Will.
“In the Muslim Sufis’ Christology, we have a solid body of evidence in which we see the current animus presumed between various religions of Palestine as political hogwash. We need literary knowledge, historical consciousness, and intellectual responsibility with all of which to dismantle the thick apartheid walls that ignorant hateful people are erecting among us all.
“Merry Christmas everyone! Remember Christ was a Palestinian refugee – a Jewish Palestinian refugee, who is the founding figure of Christianity, and a beloved prophet for Muslims. The rest is commentary.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/remember-christ-palestinian-refugee-181224101728798.html
Jews would never allow it, but if an honest course on Zionism was taught in school or college, there would be at least one chapter in the textbook about how Zionism strictly prohibits gentile nations from having their own leader, their own government.
Jews detest dictators, monarchs, kings, autocrats, despots, and all such nasty names that Jews call gentile rulers who aren’t Zionist controlled puppets. The lone exception to prohibition of kings would be the “King of the Jews,” the Jewish despot described in the Protocols of Zion (POZ).
Zionists prefer goy governments based on communism, socialism, democracy, with money used as puppet strings by Jewish banksters to control presidents, congressmen, prime ministers, and leaders of the nations. Such governments are controlled by bankster money and Zionist methodology. The POZ makes this clear.
Some recent examples of Jews replacing gentile rulers with Zionist governments are the overthrows of Libya’s Ghadaffi, Egypt’s Mubarak, Iraq’s Hussein, attempted overthrows of Syria’s Assad and the Jong dynasty of North Korea.
Jews have been undermining and overthrowing gentile kings since at least as far back as when they had Louis XVI beheaded and very likely long before that.
The constant Jews Media denigration of Russia’s long standing ruler Putin shows that the Jews view Putin as a strong ruler, not completely under their power, a threat to Zionism.
Czar Nicholas II Romanov, the last gentile monarch of Russia, was murdered, assassinated by the Zionist Jews, because Jews wanted to replace the Russian monarchy system of government with Zionist controlled puppet government. That sort of stuff is what regime change is really all about.
The term “regime change” is a jewphemism which has often been in the news. Regime change is the semi-nice sounding jew-speak term the Jews use instead of a more accurate term like “overthrow of gentile rulers who aren’t under Zionist control.”
Dr. Duke and Dr. Slattery: Prez Trump, if you go down, go down like a roaring lion, not like a dog licking the hand that beat you.
Stand up to the Zionists!
https://davidduke.com/wednesday181219/
Is Bolton-backed messianic Dutch Reform Calvinistic Capitalist billionaire heir Eric Prince’s grand plans to privatize the war in Afghanistan the reason why Mattis cryptically wrote in his resignation letter to Trump:
“Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”?
Prince’s schemes for the privitization of Afghanistan have been “on the table as one of Trump’s options” since day one of his presidency.
Is it because Prince’s Blackwater plans were finally drawn up and Trump took up the privatization option which Mattis opposed the reason Trump fired him?
Prince’s Blackwater project for ruling Afghanistan envisions a corporate entity modeled after the British East India Company’s rule of most of India for a century until the Indian uprising for independence about 1856.
The Indian Rebellion was to be the end of the East India Company. In 1858, British Crown rule was established in India, ending a century of private monopoly control by the East India Company, but the corporate framework of the East Indian Company endured.
The life and death struggle that preceded this formalisation of British control lasted nearly two years, cost £36 million, and is variously referred to as the ‘Great Rebellion’, the ‘Indian Mutiny’ or the ‘First War of Indian Independence’.
Inevitably, the consequences of this bloody rupture marked the nature of political, social and economic rule that the British established in its wake.
In the wake of this bloody uprising, the British government effectively abolished the Company as a colonial government in 1858. All of its administrative and taxing powers, along with its possessions and armed forces, were taken over by the Crown in direct rule.
This marked the start of the era of the British Raj, the vast economic engine of the British Empire, a period of direct British colonial rule over India which continued until independence in 1947.
Forbes had this to say in April 2018:
Following a decade in the wilderness, Prince has the White House access that will allow him to spread those ideas.
He spent $250,000 to help get Trump elected; his sister Betsy DeVos now serves as Trump’s secretary of education; and when Prince pitched a plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan last year, the White House took him seriously.
“He actually had the most cogent argument, much more than the guys who were ‘stay the course,’ ” Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon tells Forbes.
One major impediment to his privatization concept was national security advisor H.R. McMaster, a lieutenant general and war scholar adamantly opposed to the idea of replacing American soldiers with mercenaries.
Nor did the Prince plan seem to fit the worldview of then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson.
But now that McMaster will be replaced by neocon favorite John Bolton, and Tillerson with CIA director Mike Pompeo, who once ran an aerospace supplier, the dynamics have changed.
Bolton’s selection, particularly, is “going to take us in a really positive direction,” a source close to Prince tells Forbes. “Do the math.” The assumption, of course: Prince would reap a big cut of the action.
https://www.forbes.com/return-of-erik-prince/#452871a350aa
Bolton started a whisper campaign against Mattis sometime back around October. Mattis is now out.
Who is left is the one Merchant of Death to rule them all.
Eric Prince and his MACARTHUR MODEL FOR AFGHANISTAN: CONSOLIDATE AUTHORITY INTO ONE PERSON:
AN AMERICAN VICEROY WHO’D LEAD ALL COALITION EFFORTS
[www.wsj.com/articles/the-macarthur-model-for-afghanistan-1496269058]
~~~*~~~
Trump has replaced Mattis with former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan as Acting Secretary of Defense — currently the Pentagon’s Deputy Defense Secretary — who will take over its top job on Jan. 1, Trump tweeted last Sunday.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019.
Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing. He will be great!
10:46 AM – Dec 23, 2018
[twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1076881816462737408]
New York Daily News: Shanahan — who has two master’s degrees from MIT — began his career at Boeing in 1986 in the computer service area.
He later headed the firm’s military rotorcraft division in Philadelphia for 2 ½ years. In that role, he oversaw the Apache and Chinook helicopter programs and the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor airplane.
In 2004, he led the company’s ballistic-missile defense program from Washington, D.C.
In all, Shanahan worked for Boeing for 30 years. Before he signed on as Trump’s Deputy Defense Secretary, he had no military or political experience.
At the Pentagon, Shanahan worked to reform and modernize its internal workings and procedures. He has a solid relationship with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, according to reports.
“He’s not a policy or geopolitics guy. He’s a business guy,” a source told defensenews.com. “But he’s spent the last year learning from the best.”
[www.nydailynews.com/news/ny-metro-patrick-shanahan-20181223-story.html
Boeing just took over the Pentagon.
Trump hears money jingling in Afghanistan, and Eric Prince is dangling the key to the cash register.
Did Trump oust Mattis as Pentagon chief to replace him with a big business corporate stock profits-oriented kind of guy — Shanahan — so that the Pentagon will actualize the Merchant of Death’s grand plans for Afghanistan off the ground?
Read what the Military Times just published after I made comments some days ago about Prince.
This is not just me sort of making speculative trash talk about Trump. Military rank and file are concerned.
~~~*~~~
Military Times: Mattis is out, and Blackwater is back: ‘We are coming’
Blackwater USA took out a full page ad in the January/February 2019 issue of “Recoil” magazine with the company’s logo and a message: “We are coming.”
This article has been edited to clarify that Constellis no longer trains forces at Camp Integrity and that Blackwater, if it returns, would not have a connection to Constellis.
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis is out.
Mattis’ resignation comes amid news that President Donald Trump has directed the drawdown of 2,000 U.S. forces in Syria, and 7,000 U.S. forces from Afghanistan, a U.S. official confirmed to Military Times, a story first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
This month, in the January/February print issue of the gun and hunting magazine “Recoil,” the former contractor security firm Blackwater USA published a full-page ad, in all black with a simple message: “We are coming.”
Is the war in Afghanistan — and possibly elsewhere ― about to be privatized?
If Blackwater returns, it would be the return of a private security contractor that was banned from Iraq, but re-branded and never really went away.
By 2016 Blackwater had been re-named and restructured several times, and was known at the time as Constellis Group, when it was purchased by the Apollo Holdings Group. Reuters reported earlier this year that Apollo had put Constellis up for sale, but in June the sale was put on hold.
A representative for Constellis told Military Times late Friday that while it had acquired the former Blackwater training center in the 2016 purchase, it has no affiliation with the former security firm.
It did not retain Blackwater’s founder and former CEO Erik Prince and has no current connection to him, or the firm’s former management structure.
The Recoil ad suggests Blackwater is making a resurgence on its own, but it was not clear in what form. The public affairs firm that handles Prince’s media engagements told Military Times Friday that he would not be able to speak beyond what was in the media “at this stage.”
Prince has courted President Donald Trump’s administration since he took office with the idea that the now 17-year Afghan War will never be won by a traditional military campaign.
Prince has also argued that the logistical footprint required to support that now multi-trillion dollar endeavor has become too burdensome.
Over the summer and into this fall Prince has engaged heavily with the media to promote the privatization; particularly as the Trump administration’s new South Asia Strategy, which was crafted with Mattis, passed the one-year mark.
Constellis, which had maintained a footprint at Camp Integrity by the Kabul Airport through its previous iteration as “Academi.” The firm no longer trains there, the Constellis spokesman said.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/21/mattis-is-out-and-blackwater-is-back-we-are-coming/
Prince in his May 31 2017 WSJ op-ed wrote:
Afghanistan is an expensive disaster for America. The Pentagon has already consumed $828 billion on the war, and taxpayers will be liable for trillions more in veterans’ health-care costs for decades to come.
More than 2,000 American soldiers have died there, with more than 20,000 wounded in action.
For all that effort, Afghanistan is failing. The terrorist [Taliban – any resistance to US hegemony is “terrorist”] cohort consistently gains control of more territory, including key economic arteries.
It’s time for President Trump to fix our approach to Afghanistan in five ways. First, he should consolidate authority in Afghanistan with one person: an American viceroy who would lead all U.S. government and coalition efforts—including command, budget, policy, promotion and contracting—and report directly to the president.
As it is, there are too many cooks in the kitchen—and the cooks change shift annually. The coalition has had 17 different military commanders in the past 15 years, which means none of them had time to develop or be held responsible for a coherent strategy.
A better approach would resemble Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s leadership of postwar Japan.
Given clear multiyear authority, MacArthur made bold moves like repealing restrictive speech laws and granting property rights.
Those directives moved Japan ahead by centuries.
In Afghanistan, the viceroy approach would reduce rampant fraud by focusing spending on initiatives that further the central strategy, rather than handing cash to every outstretched hand from a U.S. system bereft of institutional memory.”
For the full impact of Prince’s WSJ piece, it is copied at https://www.care2.com/news/member/864072146/4055910
Prince conveniently doesn’t mention the fact that MacArthur was a US General who governed post-war Japan under military occupation, and as such served at the pleasure of POTUS, and could be removed at any time.
What Prince proposes is a private corporate viceroy ruling over a privatized American Raj in Afghanistan, having no accountability to the USG, in a grand act of corporate rape of that poor beleagured country releaving it of its trillions of dollars in untapped mineral resources.
If his comparisons with the East India Company’s rule over India for 250 years counts for anything, Eric Prince anticipates his privatized MacArthur Model contracted to the Pentagon to be quite impressive, enduring and self-perpetuating without the constraints of military timetables, with auto-renewing contracts with whatever corrupt Afghani government the Company works to install in Kabul.
No doubt, the Merchant of Death would happily accept Trump’s offer to be the first civilian Viceroy of Afghanistan.
Big question is, who is going to foot the bill to kick Eric Prince’s project off? The American taxpayer?
In the meantime, just this last November, Russia hosted Afghan envoys and their Taliban foes in Moscow for the start of peace talks which was attended by representatives of 11 countries, including China, Iran and Pakistan.
After a dig at Russia crowing about it’s defeat in the Soviet-Afghan war in 1989, snarky Washington Post quoted Lavrov:
“Russia stands for preserving the one and undivided Afghanistan, in which all of the ethnic groups that inhabit this country would live side by side peacefully and happily,” Lavrov said, seated between a five-man Taliban delegation and four members of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, a government-appointed body charged with overseeing the peace process.
“Russia, as the organizer of this session, sees its role in working together with Afghanistan’s regional partners and friends who have gathered at this table today to extend all possible assistance to facilitate the start of a constructive intra-Afghan dialogue,” he said.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-a-first-moscow-prepares-to-host-afghan-talks-between-taliban-and-kabul-envoys/2018/11/08/1adffc42-e2a4-11e8-b759-3d88a5ce9e19_story.html]
Wow – The Evil Yid WORMS “pre-emptively” strike – – AGAIN!
F’n paranoid vermin! Zionist Worms Be Damned!!!
Fiasco In Islington
by Richard Hugus
December 21, 2018
Jazz saxophonist and writer Gilad Atzmon was recently banned from playing at an assembly hall in Islington, a borough of London, by order of the Islington Town Council. This came about as a result of an e-mail from one person—Martin Rankoff saying nothing more than that if Atzmon was going to be at the venue on December 21 he would give a ticket that was given to him to someone else.
Rankoff wrote, “Mr Atzmon’s news and beliefs I personally find repulsive and do not wish to be in the same place as him, let alone listen to his music.” Rankoff included links to ADL and Israeli news outlets accusing Atzmon of antisemitism. Incredibly, on the basis of this letter alone, the Islington Council went way out of its way and contacted the show’s promoter to get Atzmon banned—something Rankoff didn’t even ask for.
Imagine the situation in reverse: Gilad Atzmon writes a letter to the Council saying he is uncomfortable with Martin Rankoff appearing in the audience at Islington assembly hall. He refers to Mr. Rankoff’s pro-Israel Twitter page where Rankoff calls Jeremy Corbyn “A F***ing Antisemite and Racist” and where Corbyn is pictured on a bike with a comment suggesting Corbyn should be rammed by a car.
Atzmon says that he doesn’t feel safe with Rankoff in the audience. He finds Mr. Rankoff’s support for Israel repulsive because Israel was founded on genocide against the people of Palestine. As proof he provides links to news reports on the slaughter of unarmed protestors in Gaza since March 30, 2018, and a story on the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948.
This imaginary second complaint would have been scorned as an abridgement of Rankoff’s rights. Indeed, since the Islington Council has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, in which criticism of Israel is deemed antisemitic, the Council would probably feel obliged to forward the letter to the authorities as evidence of hate speech.
The Council provided a statement on the banning in which it says:
“under the Equality Act 2010, the Council must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to foster good relations between different races and religions within the borough. The Council took account of the fact that Mr Atzmon’s presence at the Hall, and knowledge of his presence among residents of the borough, might harm such relationships, as well as the Council’s duty to tackle prejudice and promote understanding within the borough.”
This begs the question—in what way would either the “presence” of Gilad Atzmon or “knowledge of his presence among residents” harm the relationship between different races and religions in the borough? Atzmon was to appear at the venue as a saxophone player in a rock group. It’s hard to imagine a more severe inversion of the concept of discrimination. On the basis of the feelings of one complainant, the right of a musician to work or even be present in Islington is taken away.
What lies behind this is a familiar tactic. Zionists have no argument to counter critics of Israel, so they try to shut them up by attacking their character and robbing them of their livelihood.
Now AIPAC and other lobbies are working to make it illegal to criticize Israel, as we see in the recent case of a Texas speech therapist whose yearly contract was denied because she refused to sign a pledge not to support a boycott of Israel.
One might ask, what does a teaching position in Pflugerville, Texas have to do with one’s opinions about a country seven thousand miles away? And why does that country have the right to compel anyone in the US to sign a loyalty oath?
If the BDS movement doesn’t do it, zealotry and fanatacism will be the undoing of the Zionist project. People don’t like being told what they are allowed to think and say. When our words and thoughts are policed, it makes us question all the more.
What were once decent leftist positions against racism and discrimination have been twisted into a new kind of totalitarianism, one in which it is racist to question the racist, and discriminatory to question discrimination; one in which we are told to think something doesn’t exist when we can see with our own eyes that it does. The self-righteous members of the Islington Town Council have set a very dangerous precedent, and have been used as fools on top of it.
Source: https://richardhugus.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/fiasco-in-islington/
Are the California Fires Cyber Terrorism?
November 12, 2018
Wildfire Fallout: California Utility PG&E Stock Plummets
Did Foreign Hackers Sabotage California Power Lines?
Smoke from the wildfire near Malibu
Photo by Grant Denham
If you look for the origin and the cause of the Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, California, and the ongoing fires near Los Angeles you will find that in both cases the fires began in places where there had been unexplained malfunctions along transmission lines just before the fire was reported.
The question has to be asked: Were these fires caused by hackers attacking the utility grids in an act of cyber warfare?
The following is an extract from today’s article, “PG&E trading halted as stock plummets most in 16 years on wildfire fallout”
The wildfires in northern and southern California have sent shares of the state’s two largest utility owners falling the most since the power crisis more than a decade ago.
Trading in PG&E Corp. was briefly halted Monday after shares plummeted more than 37 percent. The stock has fallen as much as 48 percent in two days of trading since the Camp Fire broke out north of San Francisco last week…
Investors are concerned about utility liabilities associated with the fires. Authorities are investigating electrical equipment as one of several possible causes of the so-called Camp Fire, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco. A PG&E transmission line in the area went offline 15 minutes before the blaze was first reported, and the company reported finding a damaged transmission tower near where investigators say the fire began.
Edison’s Southern California Edison utility said late Friday a power outage occurred near the suspected starting point of one of the fires near Los Angeles and that a sensor detected a disturbance in its equipment two minutes before the blaze was reported. The company said there had been no determination of origin or cause and that it will cooperate with the investigation.
The wildfires have destroyed more than 6,700 structures and could cost the state, insurers and homeowners at least $19 billion in damages, according to an estimate by Enki Research.
Source: “PG&E trading halted as stock plummets most in 16 years on wildfire fallout,” by Joe Ryan, Bloomberg, Nov. 12, 2018
WHO MIGHT BE ENGAGED IN SUCH CYBER TERRORISM?
Unit 8200 of the Israeli military would have to be at the top of the list of suspects behind any false-flag hacking operation. Unit 8200 is the largest unit of the Israeli army and its specialty is hacking into computer networks.
Israelis like Amit Yoran have made a career out of hacking into energy and utility networks, as I explained in Chapter VII of Solving 9/11, “The Architecture of Terror.” The following extracts explain who Amit Yoran is and how his company Riptech hacked into energy company networks around the world…
Amit Yoran is an Israeli hacker who made a career out of hacking public utilities. Before 9/11, he served as a Network Security Manager at the Department of Defense and was responsible for maintaining operations of the Pentagon’s network. Yoran also served as an officer in the United States Air Force [as the Director of Vulnerability Programs for Dept. of Defense’s Computer Emergency Response Team].
AMIT YORAN’S “ETHICAL HACKERS”
“Mr. [Amit] Yoran is chief executive of Riptech, a U.S. company that employs ‘ethical hackers’ to test vulnerability of networks, including those of utility companies,” the Irish Times reported on October 5, 2001. “He [Yoran] says his teams have had success in disrupting utilities’ power networks, in Europe particularly,” according to the article, which was aptly titled, “Welcome to the Art of Electronic Warfare.” The Yorans’ company hacked into the computer networks of dozens of energy companies, the Los Angeles Times reported on August 20, 2001:
Riptech Inc., a security company in Alexandria, Va., has tested security for dozens of energy-industry clients. In every case, the firm penetrated Internet-connected corporate networks and often hopped from those networks into supposedly sealed grid-control systems, according to Riptech’s president, Amit Yoran.
A hacker in the “grid-control systems” of a energy company could easily cause a malfunction that could cause a fire. This is a possibility that needs to be taken into consideration in the investigation of these wildfires that are reported to have been ignited by malfunctions in the power grid.
See more at:
“Hacking U.S. Energy Grid: Is Israel setting Russia up?” Bollyn.com, March 16, 2018
http://www.bollyn.com/is-israel-setting-russia-up/
“The Architecture of Terror: Mapping the Network Behind 9/11,” Chapter VII, Solving 9-11: The Deception that Changed the World, 2012
http://www.bollyn.com/the-architecture-of-terror-mapping-the-network-behind-9-11
Israel Legalizes Export Of Medical Marijuana
Read more:
https://forward.com/fast-forward/416662/israel-legalizes-export-of-medical-marijuana/?
Russian MoD: Israeli Air Force Used Landing Of Two Civilian Planes As Cover For Airstrikes
https://southfront.org/russian-mod-israeli-air-force-used-landing-of-two-civilian-planes-as-cover-for-airstrikes/
Netanyahu praises Israeli air force after reckless Christmas raid on Syria
https://www.rt.com/news/447481-netanyahu-air-force-syria-iran/
Russian President Vladimir Putin oversees new hypersonic glide missile test.
Russia tests new hypersonic glide missile that travels ‘at 20 times speed of sound’
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-27/russia-tests-new-hypersonic-glide-missile/10669680
Israel bombing Damascus on Christmas
https://www.disclose.tv/israel-currently-bombing-damascus-on-christmas-356420
Dear Dave,
Like you and lots of other people, I suspect Zionist goons started the California fires, as with so much other destruction led by Satan the destroyer and his children.
During Zionist led riots, arson, setting buildings on fire, is one the most common tactics used to maximize destruction.
There have been several credible reports that the California fires were started by arson, not by accident. But the Jews Media hides such news rather than report it.
The Jews Media seems all too eager to report the sources of the fires as “power lines.” The power line theory sounds like another mass media cover story.
Plus, the power line theory provides the jewdicial system with a pretext to milk PG& E for everything they own.
With the sudden and secret flight to al-Asad Military Base in Anbar Province, which just happens to be sovereign Iraqi territory, and should have been coordinated with Baghdad for technical and diplomatic reasons and disgracefully wasn’t, Trump managed to set the Iraqis teeth on edge for treating it like his (and Israel and Jewmerica’s) own backyard.
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Washington Post: U.S. forces will stay in Iraq and could reenter Syria from there, Trump says
President Trump said he has no plans to withdraw American forces from Iraq, a week after announcing a surprise pullout of troops from Syria and ordering the Pentagon to bring home roughly half of the American forces deployed to Afghanistan.
The decision allows the United States to maintain a presence in the heart of the Middle East and a bulwark against Iranian influence, while also keeping a nearby staging ground should American troops be forced to reenter Syria and engage a resurgent Islamic State.
A longer-term presence in Iraq provides Trump with a hedge against his withdrawal from Syria, a decision that was widely opposed by his advisers and which led to the resignation of his defense secretary, retired Marine Corps general Jim Mattis.
The development also suggests that Trump’s proclamation of victory over the Islamic State in a video message from the White House lawn last week had been overstated.
Trump said during a visit to Iraq on Wednesday that a presence in the country would enable the United States to reenter Syria if need be, suggesting that concerns persist about the possibility of the Islamic State regrouping there.
“In fact, we could use this as the base if we wanted to do something in Syria,” Trump said during the visit to al-Asad Air Base, situated in western Iraq between Baghdad and the Syrian border.
The decision to remain in Iraq also highlighted a contradiction in Trump’s messaging about the broader U.S. military presence in the Middle East.
He said last week that U.S. troops would be coming out of Syria because victory had been achieved over the Islamic State.
But the mission of the roughly 5,200 U.S. troops deployed to Iraq is to support government forces in their fight against the Sunni extremist group, which wouldn’t need to continue if a lasting victory had been achieved.
U.S. forces remain in Iraq with the permission of the government, unlike in Syria, where the presence of American troops has been complicated by an alliance with a local militia.
Trump’s announcement about Iraq comes at a moment of deep uncertainty at the Pentagon, which was thrown into turmoil last week by the president’s surprise decisions on the future of American involvement in the Middle East and South Asia, as well as Mattis’s resignation.
The Defense Department has declined to offer details about the timing of the Syria withdrawal or whether the air campaign against the Islamic State in that country will continue apace.
Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has made an announcement about Trump’s order to withdraw roughly half of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. On a trip to the region over the holidays, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., dismissed reports of the order as “rumors.”
After pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq in 2011, President Barack Obama ordered them back to the country at the Iraqi government’s request in 2014, when the Islamic State was seizing cities across the nation and sweeping toward Baghdad.
Since then, U.S.-backed coalition forces have successfully rolled back nearly all of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq, including the key cities of Raqqa and Mosul, which served as the group’s main power centers.
Still, worries about an Islamic State comeback are pervasive. Official assessments from the U.S. government and the United Nations have indicated that some 30,000 Islamic State fighters may still remain at large in Syria and Iraq. The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, hasn’t been caught and is presumed to be alive.
Iraqi security forces have been conducting frequent raids and arresting alleged members and leaders of the Islamic State in recent months, underscoring how the fight against the militants has shifted from combat to intelligence operations.
The group has still been able to mount low-level bombings and attacks, largely outside major cities. Iraqi military officials say the threat is contained but express concern that any reduction in coalition support could give the militants an opening to reemerge.
Iraq’s previous prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, was a strong supporter of the American presence in Iraq — a view shared by the top leadership of Iraq’s security forces. His successor, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, has not said explicitly that he wants U.S. forces to stay but also hasn’t indicated that he would support a reduction in troop levels.
Trump’s decision not to meet any Iraqis during Wednesday’s visit risks jeopardizing support for the U.S. troop presence, which faces opposition in particular from pro-Iran elements within the country.
In a statement issued following Trump’s appearance, Abdul-Mahdi said his office had been informed of the president’s desire to arrange a visit, which was supposed to include a formal meeting between the two leaders. He said “a divergence of views” on organizing the meeting led to its replacement by a telephone conversation.
A person familiar with the planning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s schedule, said the White House gave the Iraqis no advance notice and asked Iraqi officials to meet Trump at the air base — a request the Iraqis balked at.
Tension over the U.S. troop presence in Iraq has been exacerbated by the increasing influence of Iran in the country, particularly after Iranian-backed militias played a role in the rollback of the Islamic State and won a significant number of seats in parliament this year.
Sabah al-Saedi, head of a parliamentary bloc backed by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, called for an emergency session of the legislature to condemn Trump’s “blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.”
In a statement, he said Trump was “acting as if Iraq is a state under his authority” and must be informed “of his limits. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is over.”
Saedi added that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria is not a justification to keep American troops in Iraq.
Sadr, whose militia was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops at the height of the Iraq War, won the most seats in Iraq’s election for his movement earlier this year and is a frequent critic of both American and Iranian involvement in Iraq.
Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-forces-will-stay-in-iraq-and-could-reenter-syria-from-there-trump-says/2018/12/26/39c32b82-0948-11e9-892d-3373d7422f60_story.html
Russians are up at arms over Israel’s latest evil and dangerous air attack stunt, including their parliament
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Vesti News: Shameless Christmas Attack: Israel Illegally Bombs Damascus Suburbs Out of Spite
“Prolonging the conflict and supporting the terrorists.”
This is a statement by the Syrian Foreign Ministry regarding the probable, as the local diplomats and politicians see it, goals of the Israeli missile attack against Syria.
Last night, for 1.5 hours, the outskirts of Damascus were under fire from the direction of Lebanese airspace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8ld0IzhMWw
NATO also bombed Serbia on Orthodox Christmas, 1999.
Ten years ago today, Israel began its Operation Cast Lead, intense three-week bombardment and invasion that would claim the lives of more than 1,400 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza, a major portion of which were children.
National Interest: The One Reason America Can’t Police the World Anymore: Washington Is Broke
By Doug Bandow
Even if America once felt wealthy enough to squander its financial resources in such pursuits, those days have ended.
Washington is effectively bankrupt, with massive unfunded liabilities. Its fiscal future will only worsen as Baby Boomers continue to retire.
The annual budget battle is at its peak and Washington continues to flaunt its remarkable dysfunction. This fiscal irresponsibility affects more than domestic programs. In the coming years, it is likely to drive U.S. foreign and military policy.
The U.S. government has no more important duty than defending the nation. However, providing for the “common defense,” as the Constitution puts it, is remarkably easy. America has vast oceans east and west and peaceful neighbors to the north and south.
Today only Russia, with an arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles, could launch a serious attack on America. However, Moscow has no incentive to do so, since the result would be devastating retaliation. China’s military is expanding but directed at preventing Washington from dominating the People’s Republic of China at home and in its neighborhood.
Terrorists abound but mostly result from maladroit U.S. policies that create enemies and make other people’s conflicts America’s own.
Moreover, while such attacks are atrocious, they do not pose an existential threat.
Nor do America’s conventional forces and nuclear arsenals offer the best response; promiscuous war-making around the world is more likely to accelerate than diminish terrorism. The better option would be to do less militarily, especially in the Middle East.
Why, then, is Washington spending $717 billion in fiscal year 2019 to maintain vast armies, fleets, and air armadas around the world?
Not for defense, of America, anyway. It is to protect allies, assert influence, remake failed societies, dictate behavior, promote values, and more. All of these may have some value, though rarely as much as asserted.
And none have much to do with protecting America’s territory, people, constitutional system, and prosperity.
Unfortunately, attacking is far more expensive than deterring. Most of America’s Pentagon outlays go to project power, which is why the United States has an outsize military budget, equal to that of the next dozen or so nations combined.
None of them, or any combination of them, could defeat America.
Rather, Washington wants the ability to target them. The so-called “defense” budget is the price of America’s aggressive foreign policy. Playing global gendarme—is not cheap.
Although Americans should be prepared to pay any price necessary for their defense, not so with remaking the globe. Sending Americans to fight and die for tasks of peripheral importance always was foolish.
Even if America once felt wealthy enough to squander its financial resources in such pursuits, those days have ended. Washington is effectively bankrupt, with massive unfunded liabilities. Its fiscal future will only worsen as Baby Boomers continue to retire.
Last year the Republican Party, once the self-proclaimed guardian of the treasury, used control of both ends of Capitol Hill to simultaneously hike federal spending and cut taxes.
The result was a deficit approaching $779 billion, up $114 billion from the previous year. The last time Uncle Sam generated as much red ink was 2012 when recovering from the financial crisis.
Unfortunately, the numbers will only go up. The Congressional Budget Office figured the president’s 2019 budget proposal will push the deficit to nearly $1 trillion—without another financial crisis. And the numbers will continue to rise, to $1.527 trillion in 2028, or nearly twice last year’s level. There will be an extra $12.4 trillion in red ink over the coming decade.
This debt increase would be accompanied by rising interest rates, which already have begun their inexorable rise as the Federal Reserve begins unwinding its radical expansionary policy dating back to the financial crisis.
CBO figured “net interest,” which disguises federal costs by subtracting interest paid to Uncle Sam, will rise from $315 billion last year to $819 billion in 2028.
That would roughly double the share of GDP devoted to interest from 1.6 percent to 3.1 percent of GDP. At that level, interest would be Washington’s third-largest program, smaller only than Social Security and Medicare.
In another two decades, interest payments would match Social Security, currently the most expensive federal program. Interest payments would then consume 6.3 percent of GDP, the highest ever.
Alas, the numbers probably will be worse. The president’s budget targets domestic discretionary spending, as have most presidents, with little result, since Congress is not prepared to shut down the Washington Monument, furlough congressional staffers, and kill politically popular grants.
More important, that area is not where the money is, accounting for just 15 percent of outlays. Zeroing out such expenditures would still leave a deficit.
Washington could stumble along and hope for better than expected economic news: higher productivity, lower interest rates, and faster economic growth, all of which would ease fiscal pressures on Washington.
However, the reverse also is possible. In fact, the president’s trade war increases the chances of negative changes, while escaping a recession during the next decade will require more than a little luck.
To combat the latter policymakers likely would hike outlays to “stimulate” the economy, adding to a deficit already expected to exceed a trillion dollars annually.
Of course, Congress could cut domestic expenditures. To achieve anything approaching a responsible budget requires addressing the four big domestic boulders, which along with military outlays make up 85 percent of the budget: interest, which cannot be reduced without repudiating debt; Social Security, the traditional “third rail” of U.S. politics; Medicare, the equally popular elder health care program; and Medicaid, the perennially under-funded promise of medical services for the poor.
Spending pressures are inexorable. Entitlement outlays automatically rise as the population ages—both a larger percentage of the population is older and people on average live longer—so Social Security and Medicare will drive the budget.
More likely, Congress will act like, well, Congress, and both spend more and collect less than under current law.
If so, the “Extended Alternative Fiscal Scenario” predicts that the deficit as a percentage of GDP will rise from 78 percent last year to 105 percent in 2028, 148 percent in 2038, and an astonishing 210 percent in 2048.
Even the CBO’s best case, under “Extended Baseline,” which simply runs out existing law, including expiration of tax cuts, forecasts 152 percent of GDP in 2048.
That is higher than in Greece at the onset of its fiscal crisis, which generated economic hardship, social dislocation, and political disruption.
Continued: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/one-reason-america-cant-police-world-anymore-washington-broke-39852
So, Trump declares “victory over ISIS” in Syria, at least Eastern Syria.
And what is left in Syria, Turkey will eradicate, says Trump.
It will be an easy victory because Turkey will occupy and gloriously eradicate the non-present ISIS in Manbij, Tel Abiad, Ain Arab, Raqqah and all the way to Qamishli in northeast Syria, while killing Syrian Kurds, Christians, and Arabs of the SDF and Turkifying their illegal occupation zones simply because ISIS is not present in the entire area but 250 miles down along the Euphrates opposite the Syrian Army forces where the US pushed it.
Where else did ISIS go?
There are persistent rumors and reports over the past few years in military connected Syrian media and social media stating that the US was transporting members of ISIS, mostly selected leadership, out of Eastern Syria, most often in a northerly direction, like towards northern Iraq.
Well, some of the anti-Russian Wahabi Chechen ISIS terrorists and their leadership responsible for several underground terrorist attacks inside Russia which killed hundreds of people, are now in Ukraine being interviewed by UK media, allies of the Ukraine Army and ultra-nationalist militias. The relationship isn’t new, either. Ukrainian ultra-nationalists fought alongside their Wahabi Chechen pals against Russia in the Chechen wars.
Gangs of ex-pat Islamist Chechen rebel terrorists, for many years CIA tools for destabilization in the Caucasus region and elsewhere, were pushed out of Chechnya by Putin after the civil wars, are connected to the Kiev-loyalist Ukrainian-Crimean Tatars, and participated in the Euromaidan civil war in Kiev and the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych.
Chechen rebels were a major leadership, training, fighting and headchopping component in both ISIS and Al Qaeda/Nusra in Syria-Iraq battlespace, aka the “moderate Syrian opposition” — buried somewhere within the so-called FSA.
These Chechen thugs are now in Eastern Ukraine committing atrocities against the Donestk and Lugansk republics in the Donbass.
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RT reporting on a Times – UK article: Ukraine army’s Chechen allies openly admit having Islamic State links – report
Islamic State-trained militants are fighting alongside a state army in a European country, the Times reports – but that detail is buried in an article talking about how Putin is a common enemy of Ukrainians and Chechens.
Framed as an inside look at what’s driving Chechens to join Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation” against the breakaway republics in the east of Ukraine, the Times article has a few juicy quotes from one Mansur, a member of a voluntary battalion made up of Chechens.
“Putin is our common enemy… He brings only evil.”
Author and veteran anti-Putin writer Marc Bennetts echoes the official message of Kiev and its Western allies, calling the eastern Ukrainian rebels “Kremlin-backed” and claiming Moscow is “preparing a full-scale invasion.”
He also mentions, once, midway through the text, that some of the Chechen fighters in Ukraine admit having trained with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria. Kiev, he writes, has no official links to them, but has been criticized for turning a blind eye to their actions.
Formalities out of the way, the article gets on with more important things such as how the “Kremlin-installed” leader Ramzan Kadyrov is not representative of the Chechen people.
“We want the world to know that it wasn’t Chechens who attacked Ukraine but the Kremlin,” it quotes Mansur as saying. “Kadyrov and the Chechen people are very different things.”
Kadyrov, a vocal, over-the-top supporter of Putin and Russia’s fight against global terrorism, is not a popular figure in the West – he has been accused of human rights violations, blacklisted by the US, and generally described as Putin’s “attack dog.”
The Chechen battalion in Ukraine – known as the Sheikh Mansur battalion – operates effectively outside the law. Its leader, Muslim Cheberloevsky, says it’s not subordinate to the army or the police – which is a legal requirement for any paramilitary organization in the country.
Still, in a 2017 interview he spoke about having a great relationship with Kiev’s forces: “If there are difficulties in one area or another, they call us, and we help.”
This isn’t the first time that the Sheikh Mansur battalion’s links to IS have surfaced.
In September, Ukraine extradited one of the group’s fighters to Russia, where he was wanted by the FSB for fighting on side of IS in Syria.
Ukrainian nationalists, including some lawmakers, were outraged by Kiev’s decision to surrender an ally to the “aggressor country.”
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army is set to receive $250mn worth of military aid from the US in 2019 – and with a history of the Pentagon losing track of weapon supplies and American arms turning up in terrorist hands, it will take close oversight – and, more importantly, willingness – on Washington’s part to prevent some of that aid from ending up with Kiev’s unofficial, IS-linked allies.
https://www.rt.com/news/447447-ukraine-chechen-battalion-isis/
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Vesti: Despicable! British Media Cheers On Jihadi Chechen Thugs Committing Atrocities in Eastern Ukraine
The article published by the British newspaper The Times was about radical Islamists who allegedly came from the North Caucasus and underwent training in the camps of ISIS (banned in Russia) in the Middle East and then went guess where?
You’re right, to Ukraine, where they joined so-called volunteer battalions. Moreover, they created two more battalions. They cooperate with the banned Right Sector and dream of hostilities in the territory of Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu2oXbVw8sQ
Newsweek: Donald Trump Twitter Account Video Reveals Covert US Navy SEAL Team 5 Deployment During Iraq Visit
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-navy-seal-iraq-video-1272102
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1078026520021544960
=======
Oops.
CNBC: Saudi Arabia clarifies Trump tweet: No new Saudi pledges to rebuild Syria
— President Donald Trump tweeted on Monday that Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend the “necessary money” to help rebuild Syria.
— The tweet briefly raised questions about whether the White House has secured new commitments from the kingdom.
— An official at the Saudi embassy in Washington confirmed the kingdom has not made any major new financial pledges since August.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/26/saudi-arabia-clarifies-trump-tweet-no-new-pledges-to-rebuild-syria.html
@CaliforniaBurning^
I agree. Hey – they got their “$50Million” for State Emergency Relief, the $50M that Trump originally refused to give them for lack of ILL-egal immigration control!
Evil and slippery are the snakes of satan!
And Gov Moonbeam refused to prosecute SoCal Edison…
Yeah, the troops ain’t going no-where.
Another nice piece Bro N.
Reuters: Iraqi lawmakers criticize Trump visit as blow to Iraqi sovereignty
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi political and militia leaders condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise visit to U.S. troops in Iraq on Wednesday as a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty, and lawmakers said a meeting between Trump and Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi was canceled due to a disagreement over venue.
Sabah al Saadi, the leader of the Islah parliamentary bloc, called for an emergency session of parliament “to discuss this blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and to stop these aggressive actions by Trump who should know his limits: The U.S. occupation of Iraq is over.”
The Bina bloc, Islah’s rival in parliament and led by Iran-backed militia leader Hadi al-Amiri, also objected to Trump’s trip to Iraq.
“Trump’s visit is a flagrant and clear violation of diplomatic norms and shows his disdain and hostility in his dealings with the Iraqi government,” said a statement from Bina.
Abdul Mahdi’s office said in a statement that U.S. authorities had informed Iraq’s leadership of the president’s visit ahead of time. The statement said the Iraqi prime minister and U.S. president talked by telephone due to a “disagreement over how to conduct the meeting.”
Iraqi lawmakers told Reuters that the pair had disagreed over where their planned meeting should take place: Trump had asked to meet at the Ain al-Asad military base, an offer which Abdul Mahdi declined.
Trump’s visit comes amid a backdrop of escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran, as Washington seeks to counter Iran’s sway in the Middle East. The formation of Iraq’s government has stalled as well amid intensifying discord between the Islah and Bina blocs.
Falih Khazali, a former militia leader turned politician allied with Bina, accused the United States of wanting to increase its presence in Iraq. “The American leadership was defeated in Iraq and wants to return again under any pretext, and this is what we will never allow,” he said.
Bina said Trump’s visit “places many question marks on the nature of the U.S. military presence and its real objectives, and what these objectives could pose to the security of Iraq.”
While there has been no full-scale violence in Iraq since Islamic State suffered a series of defeats last year, some 5,200 U.S. troops train and advise Iraqi forces still waging a campaign against the militant group.
Islah is headed by populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr has long opposed the U.S. presence in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. He led two uprisings against U.S. forces in Iraq and is one of the few Shi’ite leaders to also distance himself from Iran.
Iraq’s Shi’ite militias, also known as the PMF, many of which are supported by Iran, oppose the presence of U.S. troops in the region. The PMF was made formally part of the security forces this year after helping the military defeat Islamic State in Iraq in 2017.
Qais al-Khazali, the leader of the powerful Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia said on Twitter, “Iraqis will respond with a parliamentary decision to oust your (U.S.) military forces. And if they do not leave, we have the experience and the ability to remove them by other means that your forces are familiar with.”
Some Iraqis, however, were less concerned with the U.S. president’s visit.
“We won’t get anything from America,” said Baghdad resident Mohammad Abdullah. “They’ve been in Iraq 16 years, and they haven’t given anything to the country except destruction and devastation.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-syria/trump-defends-syria-pullout-during-surprise-visit-to-iraq-idUSKCN1OP175
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Military Times: Iraqi lawmakers demand US withdraw its troops after Trump’s surprise visit
BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers Thursday demanded U.S. forces leave the country in the wake of a surprise visit by President Donald Trump that politicians denounced as arrogant and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
Politicians from both blocs of Iraq’s divided Parliament called for a vote to expel U.S. troops and promised to schedule an extraordinary session to debate the matter.
“Parliament must clearly and urgently express its view about the ongoing American violations of Iraqi sovereignty,” said Salam al-Shimiri, a lawmaker loyal to the populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
…
Qais Khazali, the head of the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia that fought key battles against IS in north Iraq, promised on Twitter that Parliament would vote to expel U.S. forces from Iraq, or the militia and others would force them out by “other means.”
Khazali was jailed by British and U.S. forces from 2007 to 2010 for managing sections of the Shia insurgency against the occupation during those years.
His militia is represented in Parliament by the Binaa bloc, a rival coalition to al-Sadr’s Islah. Binaa favors close ties with Iran and is aligned with Tehran on regional political issues.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/27/iraqi-lawmakers-demand-us-withdraw-its-troops-after-trumps-surprise-visit-2/
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Trump definitely has the Boeing CEO guy in place, an expert in business administration and organization management with 30 years experience, as Acting Secretary of Defense.
Trump is in no hurry to nominate a new Secretary of Defense which would require Senate approval.
Shanahan, used to administering a sprawling corporation and its resources, is just the kind of Pentagon chief (CEO) that Bolton, Eric Prince and Trump would want positioned in order to create Eric Prince’s cherished and ambitious project for the privatization of Afghanistan.
Such an ambitious public/private corporate American Raj in Afghanistan imbued with Prince’s militant evangelical undertones, messianic American Exceptionalism and his keen sense of divine destiny (not to mention his insatiable hunger for money and power), would surely see Prince himself nominated at Viceroy, er, rather the Pentagon’s Chief Operations Officer (COO).
Prince got filthy rich off of Blackwater’s private contractor reign of rape, pillage, plunder and murder in war-torn Iraq, and was accountable to no one, not even the Pentagon that contracted the mercenary corporation.
The only punishment that the US could actually mete out was not renewing the contract.
An Acting Secretary of Defense is virtually immune from any Senate oversight and does not go through the nomination approval process unless the acting secretary is also nominated.
Deputy Secretary of Defense is not vetted through the Senate.
Along with Trump lying to the troops in Iraq that he had secured them a double digit pay raise after 10 years of no raises when nothing could be further from the truth…
This tidbit from Reuters.
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While in Iraq, Trump indicated he would not rush to nominate a new secretary to replace Mattis, the first defense chief in decades to resign over policy differences with the president.
Trump said Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, whom he named on Sunday to replace Mattis in an acting capacity starting on Jan. 1, “could be there for a long time.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-syria/trump-defends-syria-pullout-during-surprise-visit-to-iraq-idUSKCN1OP175
Well, well, well. A new wrinkle on last year’s Democrat war of dirty tricks played on Judge Roy Moore in the Alabama special senate race last year.
This is rich.
RT Video: LinkedIn co-founder ‘sorry’ for funding fake Russian tweets for Democrats
The co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, has apologized to Republican Roy Moore for funding an organisation that faked a ‘Russian bot’ involvement to mar his election campaign in Alabama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54IcPmfqHlo