Iranian-Backed Militia Kataib Hezbollah STORM US EMBASSY in Baghdad! — US Soldiers Trapped Inside — Iraqi Security Absent

Pro-#Iran Militia Kataib Hezbollah are now inside US Embassy in Baghdad #Iraq. Iraqi security and fortifications failed to stop them.

They’re in reception area. Smoke seen in other videos. Hezbollah refusing calls to leave vicinity:

Source

Washington's Unmasked Imperialism Towards Europe And Russia

Washington must think the rest of the world is as stupid as many of its own politicians are. Its passing into law – signed by President Trump this week – of sanctions to halt the Nord Stream-2 and Turk Stream gas supply projects is a naked imperialist move to bludgeon the European energy market for its own economic advantage.

Source

Erdogan: Turkey Will Send Troops to Libya Next Month

Source

China Using Huawei to Gain an Upper Hand Against the US in the Middle East: Experts

Source

Ditching INF, Pressuring Allies, and Talking With Foes: Top 10 Events in US Foreign Policy in 2019

https://sputniknews.com/us/201912261077768207-ditching-inf-pressuring-allies-and-talking-with-foes-top-10-events-in-us-foreign-policy-in-2019/

The Christmas Truce of 1914: Proof that Peace Is Possible

https://original.antiwar.com/thomas-knapp/2019/12/24/the-christmas-truce-of-1914-proof-that-peace-is-possible/

John Bolton hits Trump for bluffing on North Korea nukes

https://www.axios.com/bolton-john-trump-north-korea-missiles-94088bf9-4d2d-4d10-bfd9-80db7bc36a50.html

Americans Are Ready for a Different Approach to Nuclear Weapons

https://original.antiwar.com/lawrence-wittner/2019/12/22/americans-are-ready-for-a-different-approach-to-nuclear-weapons/

Federal appeals court strikes down ObamaCare rule, setting up Supreme Court showdown

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-appeals-court-strikes-down-obamacare-law-setting-up-supreme-court-showdown

Hanoi Jane Fonda calls for Nuremberg-style trials for fossil fuel executives, politicians who don’t buy into climate change malarkey

An Inspector General’s Report Reveals the Steele Dossier Was Always a Joke

The Guardian headline reads: “DOJ Internal watchdog report clears FBI of illegal surveillance of Trump adviser.”

If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz constitutes a “clearing” of the FBI, never clear me of anything. Holy God, what a clown show the Trump-Russia investigation was.

Like the much-ballyhooed report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Horowitz report is a Rorschach test, in which partisans will find what they want to find.

Much of the press is concentrating on Horowitz’s conclusion that there was no evidence of “political bias or improper motivation” in the FBI’s probe of Donald Trump’s Russia contacts, an investigation Horowitz says the bureau had “authorized purpose” to conduct.

Horowitz uses phrases like “serious performance failures,” describing his 416-page catalogue of errors and manipulations as incompetence rather than corruption. This throws water on the notion that the Trump investigation was a vast frame-up.

However, Horowitz describes at great length an FBI whose “serious” procedural problems and omissions of “significant information” in pursuit of surveillance authority all fell in the direction of expanding the unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate (later, a president).

Officials on the “Crossfire Hurricane” Trump-Russia investigators went to extraordinary, almost comical lengths to seek surveillance authority of figures like Trump aide Carter Page. In one episode, an FBI attorney inserted the words “not a source” in an email he’d received from another government agency. This disguised the fact that Page had been an informant for that agency, and had dutifully told the government in real time about being approached by Russian intelligence. The attorney then passed on the email to an FBI supervisory special agent, who signed a FISA warrant application on Page that held those Russian contacts against Page, without disclosing his informant

Read the entire article

President Trump's Thanos Ad Foreshadows Mitch Mcconnell's Senate Acquittal from Impeachment

The American Empire Will Fall, Not America Itself

What is much more common is a transition from existing, prevailing socioeconomic, political and military orders to new ones driven by new, emerging special interests. It can happen quickly and violently, or take place as a long-term process with ups and downs and both constructive and destructive processes intertwining.

For the United States, a massive nation with the third largest population on the planet, the largest military and still currently the largest economy, for it to suffer such full-spectrum defeat is impossible.

What is not impossible is for the small handful of special interests currently directing US policy foreign and domestic, to find itself displaced by a new order consisting of entirely different kinds of special interests and, hopefully, special interests that better reflect the best interests of the United States as a whole and function more sustainably among the nations of the world rather than hovering above them.

It is a process that is already ongoing.

America's Prevailing Order is Fading 

The current special interests driving US foreign and domestic policy are centered around Wall Street and Washington and represent an increasingly unrealistic, unsustainable, archaic network based on traditional banking, energy and manufacturing monopolies.

Many of the tools used by these special interests to maintain and expand their power and influence including mass media, extensive lobbying, networks dedicated to political subversion abroad and political distractions at home find themselves increasingly ineffective as both the American people and nations around the globe become increasingly familiar with them and as they begin developing effective countermeasures.

While US special interests dedicate a seemingly immense amount of time countering "Russian" or "Chinese" "propaganda," it is primarily alternative media from the United States and its partner nations that have done the most to expose and diminish the unwarranted influence wielded from Wall Street and Washington. Wikileaks is a prime example of this.

As America's elite and their networks weaken, alternatives continue to grow stronger.

An unsustainable socioeconomic and political model, coupled with equally unsustainable military campaigns abroad along with a political and media strategy that is no longer even remotely convincing even to casual observers demarks what is an irreversible decline of America's current, prevailing order.

America's Elite Face Challenges from Within as Well as From Abroad

The topic of Chinese corporations out-competing long-established US monopolies has become an increasingly common topic across global media. It is indeed this process that has precipitated the seemingly pointless and futile US-led trade war against China, a futile exercise that seems to only highlight the decline of America's established elite rather than address it.

Corporations like Huawei, despite facing serious setbacks owed to US sanctions and efforts to undermine them, still move forward, while their US competitors continue to struggle. This is because despite setbacks, Huawei is built upon a solid foundation of business and economic fundamentals, while its American counterparts, despite their initial advantages owed to a lack of competition, have neglected and continue to neglect such fundamentals.

Read the entire article

Here's the proof, Chris Cuomo; Biden admits bribing Ukrainian official

Journalist: Newsweek Suppressed OPCW Scandal And Threatened Me With Legal Action

A Newsweek journalist has resigned after the publication reportedly suppressed his story about the ever-growing OPCW scandal, the revelation of immensely significant plot holes in the establishment Syria narrative that you can update yourself on by watching this short seven-minute video or this more detailed video here.

“Yesterday I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations about the leaked OPCW letter were refused for no valid reason,” journalist Tareq Haddad reported today via Twitter.

“I have collected evidence of how they suppressed the story in addition to evidence from another case where info inconvenient to US government was removed, though it was factually correct,” Haddad said. “I plan on publishing these details in full shortly. However, after asking my editors for comment, as is journalistic practice, I received an email reminding me of confidentiality clauses in my contract. I.e. I was threatened with legal action.”

Haddad added that he is now seeking legal advice and looking into the possibility of whistleblower protections for himself, and said at the very least he will publish the information he has while omitting anything that could subject him to legal retaliation from his former employer.

“I could have kept silent and kept my job, but I would not have been able to continue with a clean conscience,” Haddad said. “I will have some instability now but the truth is more important.”

This is the first direct insider report we’re getting on the mass media’s conspiracy of silence on the OPCW scandal that I wrote about just the other day. In how many other newsrooms is this exact same sort of suppression happening, including threats of legal action, to journalists who don’t have the courage or ability to leave and speak out? There is no logical reason to assume that Haddad is the only one encountering such roadblocks from mass media editors; he’s just the only one going public about it.

Newsweek has long been a reliable guard dog and attack dog for the US-centralized empire, with examples of stories that its editors did permit to go to print including an article by an actual, current military intelligence officer explaining why US prosecution of Julian Assange is a good thing, fawning puff pieces on the White Helmets, and despicable smear jobs on Tulsi Gabbard. The outlet will occasionally print oppositional-looking articles like this one by Ian Wilkie questioning the establishment Syria narrative, but not without immediately turning around and publishing an attack on Wilkie’s piece by Eliot Higgins, a former Atlantic Council Senior Fellow who is the cofounder of the NED-funded imperial narrative management firm Bellingcat. Newsweek also recently published an article attacking Tucker Carlson for publicizing the OPCW scandal, basing its criticisms on a bogus Bellingcat article I debunked shortly after its publication.


Read the entire article

Trump Threatens to go to Supreme Court to Stop Dem Impeachment Proceedings! ..AND HE’D WIN!

The Pentagon’s Destruction of the Bill of Rights

It is supremely ironic that Pentagon officials take an oath to support and defend the Constitution because they intentionally destroyed the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution when they set up their “judicial” system at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In fact, the very reason the Pentagon established its system in Cuba, rather than the United States, was to circumvent and avoid the provisions of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Prior to the 9/11 attacks, whenever someone was charged with terrorism or any other criminal offense, U.S. officials would secure a grand-jury indictment and then prosecute him in a U.S. District Court. The accused in the federal court system is guaranteed certain procedural protections, many of which were carved out during centuries of resistance by British citizens to the tyranny of their own government. Our American ancestors demanded that many of those procedural protections be expressly enshrined in the Bill of Rights so that everyone would know that federal officials would have to abide by them whenever they charged people with federal crimes.

Examples of procedural guarantees include no cruel and unusual punishments, the right to confront adverse witnesses, the right to counsel, the right to due process of law, the right of trial by jury, the right to be presumed innocent, the right to remain silent, the right of speedy trial, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to be free of coerced confessions, and the right to counsel.

After 9/11, the Pentagon established its own “judicial” system at Gitmo to try terrorism cases, as an alternative to the federal judicial system in the United States. Yet, one searches in vain for any authority in the Constitution for the Pentagon to do that. When one reads the Constitution, the intent of the Framers is clear: one judicial system — the federal system — for trying all cases involving the commission of federal offenses.

Contrary to what some people maintain, terrorism is not an act of war. It is a federal criminal offense. That’s why it’s listed in the U.S. Code, which enumerates federal criminal offenses. It’s also why terrorism cases have long been tried in federal district court. It’s also why the Pentagon is prosecuting terrorism defendants in its “judicial” system in Cuba.

The establishment of the Pentagon’s system now enables federal officials the option of sending people who are accused of terrorism into two different systems — one run by the federal courts and the other run by the Pentagon. Thus, if two different people are charged with participating in the same terrorism offense, one can be sent into the federal court system and the other can be sent into the Pentagon’s system.

Read the entire article

Could America Survive a Truth Commission?

A nation that's no longer capable of naming names and reporting what actually happened richly deserves an economic and political collapse to match its moral collapse.

You've probably heard of the Truth Commissions held in disastrously corrupt and oppressive regimes after the sociopath/kleptocrat Oligarchs are deposed. The goal is not revenge, as well-deserved as that might be; the goal is national reconciliation via the only possible path to healing: name names and tell the plain, unadorned truth, stripped of self-serving artifice, spin, propaganda and PR.

Is such a stripped-of-spin truthful account of names and events even possible in the U.S.? Sadly, there is precious little evidence that a Truth Commission in the U.S. would be anything more than a travesty of a mockery of a sham, a parade of half-truths, misdirections, falsehoods and fabrications, all aimed at one goal: protecting the powerful from the consequences of their decisions and actions.

Sadly, we've lost the capacity to simply tell the truth: everything, and I mean everything, is crafted to protect the guilty, polish the putrid decay of legalized looting, defraud the unwary, ease the most venal, power-mad sociopaths into positions of unparalleled power, sell low-quality goods and services nobody needs or would even want if the marketing weren't so Orwellian, persuade debt-serfs to borrow more and bamboozle voters into further enriching the few at the expense of the many.

The truth is no match for greed is good and don't be evil, unless it's incredibly profitable, in which case, go for it but cover your tracks (here's looking at you, Big Tech). Outrage is reserved for whistleblowers who name names and reveal the sordid truths that the status quo has expended the nation's treasure to protect from the light of day.

This is the pathetic state of America: our outrage is reserved for those telling the truth, not for the legions who lie, cheat, steal and prevaricate to conceal the truth at all costs.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

The so-called gatekeepers are all corrupt and self-serving, minions of the Intelligence Community, corporate overlords, billionaires or the interest groups that fund their studies, departments, think tanks and "research" (the conclusions are established first and the "research" follows accordingly).

Who has earned our trust by refusing to toe the line of an approved narrative? Who's left who isn't blinded by hatred, bought off by billionaires or fearful of retribution from America's disastrously corrupt and oppressive regime, rightfully fearing being fired, demoted, marginalized, demonetized, disappeared from public view via being de-platformed or permanently disappeared via "accident" or "suicide"?

We've been so jaded by all the lies, all the legal looting, all the rigged statistics, and yes, all the convenient "accidents" that we no longer trust anyone to simply report the names and events. We now assume that everyone has an ax to grind and is likely being handsomely rewarded to sharpen the ax without appearing to do so too blatantly.

Read the entire article

The end of the petro dollar - China’s Next Terrifying Weapon - Trade War

Bloomberg’s Awful Foreign Policy

Now that Mike Bloomberg has made his vanity presidential campaign official, it is worth reviewing his foreign policy record to understand why he is such a terrible candidate. Mehdi Hasan reminds us that Bloomberg was a conventional hawkish Republican until not that long ago, and his foreign policy views haven’t noticeably improved since he left the GOP:

Bloomberg, though, has been an abject failure on each of these issues. Take the war in Iraq. The then-Republican mayor of New York not only backed the illegal invasion and occupation in March 2003, but he also supported perhaps the most egregiously dishonest and bizarre justification for the war: that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. This, of course, was a brazen lie told by the likes of Dick Cheney and Fox News. But it was also publicly endorsed by Bloomberg.

I mentioned Bloomberg’s disgraceful propagandizing on behalf of Bush and the Iraq war in an earlier post, and this was just the most memorable part of his poor record. It isn’t surprising that someone who presents himself as a “centrist” should hold such hawkish views, since that hawkishness is usually an integral part of “centrist” posturing. Just as Bloomberg has no interest in challenging concentrated wealth and power in domestic affairs, he has no desire to challenge the status quo in foreign affairs, either. His foreign policy is to Washington’s militarism what his domestic views are to plutocracy. Bloomberg manages to have a lot of the same foreign policy baggage that Hillary Clinton had while still having no foreign policy experience. There are many reasons why Bloomberg is an awful fit with the Democratic Party, but on foreign policy he is particularly out of step and out of touch with where Democratic voters want to go. As we can see from recent surveys of public opinion, he is also out of step with a majority of all Americans.

Democratic voters are increasingly sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians and there is much more pressure for candidates to be willing to criticize and penalize Israel when it commits crimes against them. Bloomberg has nothing to offer such voters. Hasan comments:

You might argue that Bloomberg was only parroting the standard liberal defense of Israel but, no, he went much further than that. During the 2014 bombardment of Gaza, in which more more than 500 Palestinian kids were killed, Bloomberg told CBS News that Israel “cannot have a proportional response” when fighting Hamas.

The absurdly anti-Iranian line from Bloomberg’s editorial page also reflects the former mayor’s own views. Back in 2015 when the JCPOA was still being debated, Bloomberg wrote an opinion piece in his own name decrying the Obama administration’s alleged “demonization” of critics of the deal. His complaints about the deal might have come from any other Iran hawk:

Read the entire article

Is Ghislaine Maxwell Really Coming Out of Hiding to Tell All?

ADL & SACHA BARON COHEN BECOME CHINESE CENSORS

Just why a roomful of serious-minded people decided to be lectured to about freedom of expression by a comic is hard to fathom. It was sort of like watching a football player on “Dancing with the Stars” – Cohen had no real talent as a rhetor, but he’s famous, and even when he scribbles outside the lines — folks get to say they saw him live and in person.

Cohen doesn’t like Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg. That’s fine. There are plenty of reasons not to like Zuckerberg. The fact that he won’t censor political advertising to suit the ADL is not one on those reasons.

Facebook gets immunity from suit for whatever it publishes, a privilege the press doesn’t enjoy. Facebook harvests data from users to sell to advertisers in a manner that is unaccountable. It pours its profits into the creation of proprietary algorithms that manipulate users, dividing people into silos it can target market at will. To add insult to injury, Facebook then decides on its own what content it will banish.

Because it is not a governmental entity, Facebook is not prohibited from engaging in content-based viewpoint discrimination. Thus, my client, Alex Jones is banned. The censors don’t like what he says. Want to listen to Mr. Jones or his show, Infowars? Then listen to Banned.Video. Facebook has shut Jones down.

Facebook’s power to shape desire, predict behavior and keep tabs of us is chilling.

This week, the BBC reported that China houses Uighur Moslems in indoctrination camps. You earn your way out of the camp by persuading your re-educators that you are reformed, that is, that you have learned Mandarin Chinese, lost your faith, and satisfied censors that you know how to behave. This is but an extreme version of what the Chinese are doing to their own people by means of social media – creating citizenship scores for its population. If you don’t satisfy the state-sponsored algorithm that your attitude is what the Chinese government want, you get less in terms of social services and access to goods.

Facebook is habituating us to accept the level of social control China takes for granted. That is what is terrifying about Facebook.

What is terrifying about Cohen and the ADL is that they are happy with this form of social control so long as they get to set the agenda.

Here, in condensed form, is Cohen’s argument:

1. People are free (sort of) to say hateful things on Facebook.

2. People like us – Cohen and the ADL – don’t like those hateful things said.

3. Therefore, we ought to be given the means to place limits on what can be said on Facebook.

Put bluntly – Cohen wants to be a censor. So does the ADL.

A better argument is to require that Facebook and other social media companies enjoying immunity from suit for what they publish be held to first amendment standards in deciding what they can and cannot publish. There is a body of first amendment law, principles that can be decided by jurists and that provide litigants with fair notice of what is and is not permitted. The first amendment is transparent in a way a stand-up comic and his cronies are not.

These are dangerous times from freedom of speech. The danger isn’t hate speech, whatever that is. We’ve always had vituperative speech in the United States. Hell, if someone were tarred and feathered or burned in effigy today, we’d probably declare a national emergency.

The danger is that social media creates an enormous capacity for social control. Zuckerberg misuses that ability now. Giving Cohen and the ADL the same power won’t make the world safe for freedom of expression, it will merely exchange one set of blinders for another.

I’m guessing the overlords in China watched the Cohen speech with approval. “He gets it,” they muttered. I wonder if his next gig will be in Beijing.

Read the entire article

Giuliani says his life is in danger for investigations into Biden & Clinton corruption in Ukraine

State Department Releases Detailed Accounts Of Biden-Ukraine Corruption

A liberal watchdog group's attempt to nail Rudy Giuliani has backfired in spectacular fashion after their FOIA request resulted in the US State Department releasing detailed accusations of corruption against the Bidens - based on interviews with former Ukrainian officials who were in charge of the investigations.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the group American Oversight, the State Department on Friday night released almost 100 pages of records detailing efforts by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to investigate corruption, which include contacts with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) earlier this year.

While American Oversight's 'gotcha' is that Giuliani had "multiple contacts" with Mike Pompeo and others while investigating Ukraine corruption, they completely ignore interview notes containing detailed allegations by former Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin - who Joe Biden had fired, as well as his successor, prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko - who "believes Mr. Viktor Shokin the former Prosecutor General is honest." 

Viktor Shokin:

On a January 23, 2019 phone call between Shokin and Giuliani, Igor Fruman, Lev Parnas and George Boyle, Shokin said:

"He was appointed to the position of General Prosecutor of Ukraine from 2015 until April of 2016, when he was removed at the request of Mr. Joseph Biden the Vice President of the United States."

"He [Shokin] became involved in a case against Mr. Mykola Zlochevsky the former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine. The case was opened as a result of Mr. Zlochevsky giving himself/company permits to drill for gas and oil in Ukraine. Mr. Zlochevsky is also the owner of Burisma Holdings."

"Mr. Shokin stated that there are documents that list five (5) criminal cases in which Mr. Zlochevesky is listed, with the main case being for issuing illegal gas exploration permits. The following complaints are in the criminal case.

Read the entire article

Netanyahu on Fraud indictments attempted coup investigate investigators Current Events

With Assange Safely Locked up, Sweden Drops ‘Investigation’

Now that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is safely locked up in Belmarsh prison awaiting a U.S. extradition hearing, Sweden has, for a third time, dropped its rape investigation.

“After conducting a comprehensive assessment of what has emerged during the course of the preliminary investigation I then make the assessment that the evidence is not strong enough to form the basis for filing an indictment,” said Deputy Chief Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson at a press conference in Stockholm on Tuesday.

This decision comes days after the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer began making noise about the Swedish government’s refusal to answer his questions on the many enormous, glaring plot holes in the investigation, which began in 2010. These plot holes include “proactive manipulation of evidence” with the testimony of the alleged victim, a condom provided as evidence that had neither the DNA of Assange nor of the alleged victim on it, complete disregard for confidentiality rules and normal investigative protocol from the earliest moments of the investigation onward, disregard for conflicts of interest, Sweden’s refusal to provide assurance that Assange would not be extradited to the U.S. if he went there to answer questions, statements made by the alleged victims which contradict the allegations, unexplained correspondence between Swedish prosecutors and the FBI, and many others.

None of which matters anymore. He is caged, and public support for him has been deliberately demolished. The Swedish parody of an “investigation” did its job. Assange took political asylum with the government of Ecuador out of fear of U.S. extradition and was slowly squeezed off from the outside world, his own reputation, and his own physical health while the empire prepared its case against him, keeping him increasingly immobilized, silenced and smeared until he could be forcibly pried from the embassy in April of this year.

Once this was accomplished, all the feigned concern for alleged victims of sexual assault suddenly vanished, lining up perfectly with a 2010 article authored in the early days of the investigation by feminist writer Naomi Wolf who said, “How do I know that Interpol, Britain and Sweden’s treatment of Julian Assange is a form of theater? Because I know what happens in rape accusations against men that don’t involve the embarrassing of powerful governments.”


Read the entire article

Epoch Times Attacked in Hong Kong

Syrian President Assad: Epstein Killed Because He Knew “Vital Secrets”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad waded into the Jeffrey Epstein case, telling an interviewer that the deceased financier, sex offender, and alleged sex trafficker did not commit suicide, but was murdered as part of a coverup of the misdeeds of high-profile figures in the western world.

In a conversation with Russia’s state-run Rossiya-24 station Thursday, Assad related Epstein’s case to the recent passing of Syria Civil Defense co-founder James Le Mesurier, who died last Monday after an apparent fall from his apartment in Istanbul, Turkey.

Le Mesurier was a British Army officer in the 1990s who also worked with the United Nations peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia and was director of the non-profit Mayday Rescue Foundation, which trains and equips volunteer emergency first responders.

It was the Mayday Rescue Foundation that provided the primary support and training to Syria Civil Defense, commonly known as the White Helmets, when it was founded in 2014 during the Syrian Civil War. 

According to Assad and his supporters, the White Helmets are not the rescue group they claim to be, but a group of militant operatives working on behalf of his enemies in the United States and United Kingdom. The Syrian leader speculated that the White Helmets were behind Epstein’s death in a U.S. federal prison in August.

“American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was killed several weeks ago, they said he had committed suicide in jail,” Assad said. “However, he was killed because he knew a lot of vital secrets connected with very important people in the British and American regimes, and possibly in other countries as well.”

He continued:

And now the main founder of the White Helmets has been killed, he was an officer and he had worked his whole life with NATO in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq and Lebanon. Both of us know that they [representatives of the White Helmets] are naturally part of Al-Qaeda. I believe that these people, as well as the previously liquidated [Osama] bin Laden and [ISIS leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi had been killed chiefly because they knew major secrets. They turned into a burden once they had played out their roles. A dire need to do away with them surfaced after they had fulfilled their roles.

Three days before he was found dead, the Russian Foreign Ministry cited spokesperson Maria Zakharova as calling Le Mesurier “a former agent of Britain’s MI6, who has been spotted all around the world, including in the #Balkans and the #MiddleEast” and alleged he had “connections to terrorist groups were reported back during his mission in #Kosovo.”

As TNA has previously noted, Epstein was a member of exclusive globalist groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission and had ties to members of the international intelligence establishment. He was friends with a number of notable political leaders and celebrities, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and the U.K.’s Prince Andrew. Epstein also had a habit of wiring his homes with video equipment and bragged about having dirt on the rich and powerful, suggesting a high-level blackmail operation.


Read the entire article

AG BARR & FORMER AG WHITAKER DROP HUGE INFO AS SHIFTY'S LAST WITNESS IS REVEALED TO BE CENTRAL INTEL

George Kent and the State Department’s Global Citizens

A product of Harvard, a university that has been especially effective in building global citizens, George Kent, a career official at the State Department, demonstrated during the presidential impeachment inquiry that he understands better than the rest of us what it means to be a citizen of the world. According to UkraNews.com, “Since joining Foreign Service in 1992, he has served on behalf of the U.S. government in Poland, Thailand and Uzbekistan. He … speaks fluently 7 languages. … and is an honorary member of the Red Sox Nation fan club.”

Kent has been married since 1996 to Velida Kitaina, who was born in Uzbekistan but has strong Crimean–Tatar roots. Kitaina’s grandparents were among those who were suddenly deported after Soviet leaders suspected the Crimean Tatars of working with the Nazis. An estimated 200,000 people were forced out. None of them — including, presumably, Kitaina — is especially fond of Russia today.

Today, according to several social media sites, Kitaina’s “passion” is creating gingerbread houses that are replicas of famous Ukrainian architectural sites, including a replica of Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Cathedral, which she presented as a gift to the U.S. embassy in Ukraine. In December 2017, she made a gingerbread replica of the main square in Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine.


In December 2017, former Ukrainian politician and controversial journalist Serhiy Leshchenko, known by most as the “Ukrainian who sunk Paul Manafort,” posted a photo of himself and George Kent with the Lviv gingerbread village. For the photo, a smiling George Kent traded his bow tie for a red Santa hat.

A Unfortunately, the Twitter post revealed that Leshchenko has significantly fewer fans than Kitaina, because several of the comments were less than flattering — one of them called Leshchenko “a goat, a ram and a bitch.” Another suggested that Kitaina build a gingerbread house of Leshchenko’s apartment — alluding to the rumors of alleged bribes that the former People’s Deputy of Ukraine supposedly helped him purchase the place.

In Leshchenko’s Twitter post, George Kent is described as a “good friend of Ukraine.” George Kent is indeed a citizen of the world — one who truly loves Ukraine. According to UkraNews.com, Kent’s Facebook page “has plenty of photos featuring Ukrainian customs, traditions and Ukrainian cuisine. His apartment in Kiev is decorated with traditional Ukrainian embroidered cloths and he shares photos of them with friends. He also posts pictures of his clothes with Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar symbols.”

Indeed, there lies the source of Kent’s problem with President Trump. While Kent seemed to believe that “we’re all Ukrainians now,” after the invasion of Crimea by the Russians, Trump viewed Ukraine as an adversary — not an ally. According to an October 2019 Associated Press article, George Kent told lawmakers in October that Putin had “soured Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine.”

But at the impeachment inquiry on November 13, Kent began blaming Rudy Giuliani for turning Trump away from Ukraine. Kent claimed that “over the course of 2018 and 2019” he became increasingly aware of a “smear campaign” directed by Giuliani against Marie Yovanovitch, then the ambassador to Ukraine. Kent also claimed that “corrupt former prosecutors” in Ukraine peddled “false information” to Giuliani and others to “exact revenge against those who had exposed their misconduct.”

It is clear that George Kent loves everything about Ukraine — including his beautiful wife. And as the global citizen that he is, he wants President Trump to appreciate its rich cultural heritage. Trump may appreciate the culture, but he also knows that our tax dollars have been wasted in the past by corrupt Ukrainian politicians and corporations — including Hunter Biden’s dubious job with Burisma Holdings. Trump suspects that Ukraine had something to do with election tampering in the 2016 elections. But, most importantly, unlike George Kent, President Trump is not a global citizen. Trump got elected because he promised to put America first. His only crime is doing what he promised to do on behalf of the American people.

Read the entire article

Where is the Impeachable Offence - John Ratcliffe

Supreme Court Allows Remington to be Held Liable for Sandy Hook Shooting

The US Supreme Court is allowing a lawsuit against Remington Firearms to go forward, a move which may hold the gun manufacturer legally liable for the Sandy Hook school shooting.

On Tuesday, the highest court in the US refused to halt the lawsuit filed by parents of slain students against Remington Arms Co., which alleges the company promoted their Bushmaster AR-15 rifle “for use in assaults against human beings.”

Remington lawyers argued a 2005 law protected the company and “firearms manufacturers from being held liable for crimes committed by gun purchasers,” according to USA Today.

This “is exactly the kind of case arising from a criminal’s misuse of a firearm that ‘may not be brought in any federal or state court,’” Remington lawyer Scott Keller argued.

“Congress enacted the (law) to ensure that firearms—so central to American society that the founders safeguarded their ownership and use in the Bill of Rights — would be regulated only through the democratic process rather than the vagaries of litigation,” Remington lawyers wrote in a statement to the Supreme Court.

But lawyers for the families claim the Sandy Hook case qualifies for a marketing exception in the law because of a Remington ad which “continued to exploit the fantasy of an all-conquering lone gunman, proclaiming: ‘Forces of opposition, bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered.’”

Remington lawyers asked for the Supreme Court to step in after a 4-3 ruling in March by the Connecticut Supreme Court allowed the plaintiffs’ case to go forward.

In that case, Connecticut Justice Richard Palmer’s majority decision stated Remington’s ad “violated CUTPA (Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act) by marketing the XM15- E2S to civilians for criminal purposes, and that those wrongful marketing tactics caused or contributed to the Sandy Hook massacre.”

The law firm representing the Sandy Hook families is also going after Infowars and Alex Jones, putting the First Amendment in as much danger as the Second.

Read the entire article

This Wicked Agenda is Global

Politicians suffer identity crisis, should let veterans lead instead

President Donald Trump withdraws U.S. troops from Syria and is broadly attacked.

Hillary Clinton accuses fellow Democrat Tulsi Gabbard of being a “Russian asset,” and Congresswoman Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, calls Clinton the “queen of warmongers.”

Back when the Soviets really were the “evil empire” Reagan said they were, Democrats attacked Reagan for his aggressive stance. Today, Democrats demand hostility toward Russia, now that they’re no longer Communists.

Republicans in recent history championed a strong military, not hesitating to use it against enemies real and imagined. But Reagan’s “peace through strength” doctrine — successful in collapsing the Soviets — no longer delivers the “peace” dividend it once did. With the strongest military ever, we haven’t had peace for two decades.

Idaho’s U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, who despite his rhetoric won’t actually support bringing our troops home, favors relocating Kurdish troops to America instead, even though the FBI says we can’t vet refugees from those lawless regions sufficiently to ensure we aren’t bringing Islamic terrorists to live in Boise or Twin Falls.

Some believe Trump got elected by pledging to end U.S. involvement in endless wars, and recent polls find strong support for that pledge. An Economist poll found 57 percent of Republicans support withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria.

Astoundingly, 76 percent of Democrats oppose withdrawal.

In explaining why he opposes withdrawing U.S. troops from Yemen, a Democratic state legislator told me the question is “whether we hang on two more years in hopes that we get a competent president who can chart a decent course in Yemen.” In other words, American troops should remain in harm’s way because this guy doesn’t like Donald Trump.

Similarly, Democrats who opposed endless wars under President George W. Bush went silent when President Barack Obama took over, notching 540 drone strikes in his presidential belt, which along with intended targets are documented to have killed 324 innocent civilians.

“Turns out I’m really good at killing people,” Obama said, according to Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their book, “Double Down: Game Change 2012.”

Read the entire article

A Tight Grip On Our Nuclear Toys

“Everyone wants to play with the big boys, and the only way to become one of the big boys is to have nuclear toys.”

Attention Planet Earth! Attention Planet Earth! It is time to grow up.

The words are those of Mohamed ElBaradei, then director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, from a 2005 interview, several months before he and the agency were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. They remain eerily relevant in 2019, summing up as they do the puerile recklessness that is in the process of regaining its grip on geopolitics. Nuclear weapons treaties are withering on the vine and proliferation threatens a triumphant return.

Hello, omnicide. We may not be as lucky as we were in the Cold War era, when the consequences of nuclear accidents and political brinkmanship were relatively contained and the victims of nuclear development were limited to the people who lived near test areas like the Marshall Islands, Kazakhstan or the Nevada Test Site in the western United States. Nuclear stockpiles have shrunk, not grown, and nuclear-armed nations number nine.

This is still insane, of course. That number should – must – find its way to zero, as declared by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was passed by a United Nations vote of 122-1 in 2017 but still awaits actual ratification by 50 countries (32 have ratified it so far). Hope-inspiring as that treaty is, the big boys – who boycotted the U.N. vote two years ago – still control the game, and led by the USA, they are pulling out of the treaties that constrain them.

Read the entire article

Gabor Maté on the misuse of anti-Semitism and why fewer Jews identify with Israel

Farage Announces He Won’t Run for Parliament, but Brexit Party Will Contest 600 Seats

On Sunday, the leader of the United Kingdom’s new Brexit Party announced that he will not stand for Member of Parliament (MP) in the coming general snap election on December 12. Nigel Farage, to many the face of the Brexit movement in the U.K., announced his decision in an interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

Farage later confirmed his decision in a tweet: “From tomorrow, I will be going out to campaign across the length and breadth of this country. We will explain to people why Boris’ Brexit is a betrayal of 17.4 million. That means I have no time to fight a seat myself, but I will support 600 people who are.”

Last week, after three failed attempts, Parliament finally voted in favor of holding the snap general election in an attempt to break the political impasse over Brexit. Johnson hopes to regain the governing majority he lost earlier this year when 21 Conservative MPs chose to stand against him on a key vote regarding negotiations with the EU. Johnson ousted those 21 MPs from the party, leaving no party or coalition with a firm majority.

Farage may not be running, but his Brexit Party will contest at least 600 seats nationwide. The party will contest districts held by every major party in the U.K., including Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative (Tory) Party.



Farage told Marr that he decided he should focus on campaigning nationwide rather than committing himself to one district. “I have thought very hard about this. How do I serve the cause of Brexit best?” Farage said.

“Do I fight a seat and try to get myself into parliament or do I serve the cause better traversing the length and breadth of the United Kingdom supporting 600 candidates, and I’ve decided the latter course is the right one.”

The announcement represents a change in course for Farage, who announced in late September that he wouldstand for MP. At that time, however, he also offered current PM Boris Johnson a deal in which the Brexit Party would not fight for Tory seats in exchange for a promise that Johnson would seek a clean or “no-deal” Brexit. Johnson flatly refused the offer, saying that the Tories do not do deals and that the only way to secure Brexit was to back the Conservative (Tory) Party.

Farage, who currently sits as a member of the European Parliament (MEP), has been extremely critical of Johnson’s new deal with the EU, calling it a “Remainer’s Brexit,” a “massive con,” and that it was “95 percent the same” as former PM Theresa May’s deal, which failed no less than three times in Parliament.

Farage has been very vocal in the past few months about aligning the various Brexit factions, believing that it might be the only way to secure a clean Brexit.

“I’ve wanted for months for there to be a Leave alliance, it seems obvious to me that no one party can own Brexit voters, there are Tory Brexit voters, there are Brexit Party Brexit voters and a lot of Labour Brexit voters,” Farage said.

“I always thought that to win an election, get a big majority so we can get a proper Brexit, a coming-together would be the objective.”

“I still hope and pray that it happens, but it doesn’t look like it will,” Farage concluded.

Some in the Conservative Party believe that Farage’s own party is now lining up against him, citing the example of longtime Farage colleague Arron Banks urging Brexit Party members to back Johnson’s new deal.

Read the entire article

How the Judiciary Is Chipping Away at the War on Terror

In times of war, the law often does fall silent.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in all its independence and courage, has endorsed concentration camps, censorship, sham military tribunals, and guilt by association at various points in its history. Textbooks and television sell us the caricature of heroic judges and inspiring courtroom debates, but in truth, a simple cry of “national security” frequently overpowers even the most eloquent defenses of constitutional rights.

Of course, the prevailing mythology is far from baseless. In New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), for instance, the Supreme Court condemned President Nixon’s attempts to block publication of the Pentagon Papers, with Justice Hugo Black emphatically declaring, “The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.”

Over a century earlier, in Ex Parte Milligan (1866), Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase found a similar mix of passion and erudition while invalidating the application of martial law to civilians. “The Constitution of the United States,” he wrote, “is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times.”

Even in the half-decade after 9/11, as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney rode a violent and unprecedented wave of executive power, the judiciary provided spirited support for Americans and foreigners ensnared in the Guantanamo Gulag.

In general, though, judges are wary of confronting politicians armed with a major crisis. Deference and capitulation are the safe options. There are many reasons for this tendency, but the simplest is that no judicial opinion can enforce itself. Especially when the president and Congress take a unified position, judges are smart enough to avoid picking unwinnable fights.

In other words, a wartime president needs to do something incredibly egregious and unilateral before fearing the law and the Constitution – and then he still might win, as Trump has on his absurd border wall “emergency” and transparently racist travel ban.

Signs of Impatience

Nevertheless, there are growing indications of judicial displeasure with the endless “War on Terror.”

Read the entire article

GOP Rep. Tries to Walk Into Impeachment Chamber of Secrets Then Capitol Police Show Up

Anti-Trump Whistleblower’s Identity Revealed – Worked for Susan Rice, Obama, Also Helped Initiate the Russia Collusion Hoax Investigation!

According to investigative reporter Paul Sperry, one person’s name keeps coming up in the impeachment hearings that fits the description of the whistleblower — Eric Ciaramella.

33-year-old Ciaramella is a registered Democrat, worked for Obama, worked for Biden, worked for CIA Director John Brennan, he’s a vocal critic of Trump and he helped initiate the ‘Russia collusion’ hoax investigation!

Ciaramella’s identity was an open secret in the DC swamp, says Paul Sperry.

Mr. Ciaramella is a CIA officer who specializes in Russia and Ukraine who was detailed to work in the National Security Council under Susan Rice in 2015.

He was then moved into the West Wing in 2017 to ‘fill a vacancy’ where he was able to ‘see and read everything.’


Via Paul Sperry of Real Clear Investigations:

For a town that leaks like a sieve, Washington has done an astonishingly effective job keeping from the American public the name of the anonymous “whistleblower” who triggered impeachment proceedings against President Trump — even though his identity is an open secret inside the Beltway.

But the name of a government official fitting that description — Eric Ciaramella — has been raised privately in impeachment depositions, according to officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings, as well as in at least one open hearing held by a House committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry. Fearing their anonymous  witness could be exposed, Democrats this week blocked Republicans from asking more questions about him and intend to redact his name from all deposition transcripts.

RealClearInvestigations is disclosing the name because of the public’s interest in learning details of an effort to remove a sitting president from office. Further, the official’s status as a “whistleblower” is complicated by his being a hearsay reporter of accusations against the president, one who has “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate” — as the Intelligence Community Inspector General phrased it circumspectly in originally fielding his complaint.

Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

“Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows. Congress knows. The White House knows. Even the president knows who he is,” said Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst.

According to Sperry, Ciaramella worked with DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa, who dug up dirt on Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort.


Read the entire article

OBAMA ORDERED us to do it - Clapper squeals!

Trump and NY Times Admit US Imperialist War in Syria

 From extraordinary candid admissions made separately by US President Donald Trump and the New York Times, there can be no illusion about what American forces are really deployed in Syria for. It’s an illegal occupation against the Syrian government and in particular to deprive the Arab country of its oil resources.

Subsequently this week it is being reported that the Pentagon is to deploy Abrams tanks and other heavy equipment to the oil fields near Deir Ez-Zor. The troops involved for such a new deployment would far outnumber the 1,000 or so soldiers that President Trump had said were “coming home”.

The oil fields of Syria are located mainly in the eastern provinces bordering with Iraq. Those areas (about a third of the country) are the last-remaining territory still outside of the control of the government in Damascus. The Syrian state will need to recover its oil fields in order to fund the reconstruction of the nation after nearly eight years of war.

In a tweet last weekend, Trump stated: “USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil [sic]. Bringing soldiers home!”

The president was referring to the dubious deal he hatched with Turkey last week which resulted in the US abandoning its Kurdish allies and unleashing a deadly offensive by Turk forces against northeast Syria. After incurring much criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, as well as military experts and media pundits for his withdrawal of US troops, Trump is understandably trying to put a positive spin on his move.

Hence he is bragging about having defeated the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) jihadi terror network “100 per cent” and “bringing soldiers home”. The latter is an apparent fulfillment of Trump’s 2016 election promise to “end endless wars” and return American troops home from foreign interventions.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

Read the entire article

THE MUGGING OF AMERICA

Make America Safe Again

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has a storied history of conducting public opinion surveys on U.S. foreign policy. For decades, it has helped establish how Americans’ sensibilities and policy views have changed. Unfortunately, the recently released 2019 version of its report, titled “Rejecting Retreat,” reads too much like an argument with the strawman of isolationism and not enough like an objective assessment of where Americans are on foreign policy today. The council’s effort to convince elites that the public is demanding a return to the status quo ante Trump obscures several important lessons.

The first lesson is that the American public would prefer a more restrained foreign policy than elites have delivered in past decades. The council report suggests otherwise. Speaking of the survey findings, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and report coauthor Ivo Daalder announced that the public believes “the way you make America safe is the traditional way in which the United States has made America safe, which is U.S. military superiority, strong alliances, basing forces overseas, and being willing to defend your allies when they’re attacked.”

Similarly, the report’s introduction argues that: 

The American public wants to reinvigorate the time-tested alliances and strategies of US foreign policy that have been in place for the last seven decades . . . [It] broadly supports the kind of measured, active engagement pursued by administrations from both political parties for decades . . . There are no signs of Americans wanting to withdraw from the world; to the contrary, they want America to be engaged, and they reject any idea of retreat.

The American public does not reject any idea of retreat. Although they favor international engagement, in the abstract, the public has exhibited a decided lack of enthusiasm for many areas of recent foreign policy. Moreover, much of that displeasure concerns the most important elements of recent foreign policy: namely the endless and costly post–9/11 wars dotting the globe.

Read the entire article

Hong Kong Protest is First Confrontation in “New Cold War”—Marion Smith | American Thought Leaders

Stephen Miller pushback: ‘Permanent bureaucracy a mortal threat to America’

Anonymous efforts by anti-Trump federal bureaucrats to thwart the White House agenda through leaks and complaints to friendly reporters and congressional allies are a “mortal threat” to democracy and the 2016 election results, according to a top administration official.

“This is a mortal threat to the American system of government,” said Stephen Miller, the senior adviser for policy.

In 2016, President Trump ran against Washington’s “deep state” and “permanent bureaucracy,” said Miller, and they remain so angry that they are lying, leaking, and attacking the administration’s agenda.

The latest example is the planned book written by an anonymous inside critic and that follows efforts by bureaucrats to thwart Trump policies with leaks to liberal media and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

In an interview, Miller called inside attacks a “very grave threat,” and he explained it this way:

“It is best understood as career federal employees that believe they are under no obligation to honor, respect, or abide by the results of a democratic election. Their view is, ‘If I agree with what voters choose, then I’ll do what they choose. If I disagree with what voters choose, then I won’t, and I’ll continue doing my own thing. So basically it’s heads I win, tails you lose.

Read the entire article

What's Behind the Unrest Across the Planet?

CIA Analysts Lawyer Up As Brennan, Clapper Ensnared In Expanding Russiagate Probe

CIA analysts involved in the intelligence assessment of Russia's activities during the 2016 US election have begun to hire attorneys, as Attorney General William Barr expands his investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, led by US Attorney John Durham.

The prosecutor conducting the review, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, has expressed his intent to interview a number of current and former intelligence officials involved in examining Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, Brennan told NBC News. -NBC

NBC learned of the 'lawyering up' from three former CIA officials "familiar with the matter," while two more anonymous leakers claim there's tension between the Justice Department and the CIA over what classified documents Durham has access to. 

With Barr’s approval, Durham has expanded his staff and the timeframe under scrutiny, according to a law enforcement official directly familiar with the matter. And he is now looking into conduct past Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, a Trump administration official said.

One Western intelligence official familiar with Durham's investigation leaked that Durham has been asking foreign officials questions related to former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who was fed the rumor that Russia had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton by a Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud. While US media has sought to portray Mifsud as a Russian asset, the self-described member of the Clinton foundation has far stronger ties to the West.  

Read the entire article

Special Episode: Communist China’s Hidden War on the Free World | Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Council

Democrats hate Tulsi Gabbard because she reminds them what they used to stand for

“I think it is important for us to send a signal that we are not hellbent on regime change,” presidential candidate Barack Obama said in 2007. He was talking about Iran but citing former President George W. Bush’s disastrous precedent of ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Obama defined his candidacy in opposition to that 2003 regime change war and eventually became president.

Times have changed. Most Democrats in Tuesday night’s CNN/New York Times presidential debate blasted President Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria and said they believe his decision endangers the Kurds. But only one candidate said the United States should also stop pursuing an overall “regime change war” in that country.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said, “We've got to understand the reality of the situation there, which is that the slaughter of the Kurds being done by Turkey is yet another negative consequence of the regime change war that we've been waging in Syria.”

“Donald Trump has the blood of the Kurds on his hands,” the Hawaii Democrat continued, “but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime change war in Syria that started in 2011, along with many in the mainstream media, who have been championing and cheerleading this regime change war."

Gabbard cited U.S. sanctions on Syria, American military intervention, and our aid to rebel groups that have included al Qaeda, all in the name of undermining Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s regime.

Gabbard noted that this “started in 2011,” offering a reminder that this “regime change war” began and was overseen mostly by Obama. Her fellow Democrats weren’t having it.

Read the entire article

What A Trump Rally Reveals

Kurds face stark options after US pullback

No independent Kurdistan

From Washington’s perspective, everything happening in the volatile Iran-Iraq-Syria-Turkey spectrum is subject to two imperatives: 1) geopolitically, breaking what is regionally regarded as the axis of resistance: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah; and 2) geostrategically, breaking the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative from being incorporated in both Iraq and Syria, not to mention Turkey.

When Erdogan remarked that the trilateral Ankara summit last month was productive, the was essentially saying that the Kurdish question was settled by an agreement among Russia, Turkey and Iran.

Diplomats confirmed that the Syrian Constitutional Committee will work hard towards implementing a federation – implying that the Kurds will have to go back to the Damascus fold. Tehran may even play a role to smooth things over, as Iranian Kurds have also become very active in the YPG command.

The bottom line: there will be no independent Kurdistan – as detailed in a map previously published by the Anadolu news agency.

From Ankara’s point of view, the objective of Operation Peace Spring follows what Erdogan had already announced to the Turkish Parliament – that is, organizing the repatriation of no fewer than two million Syrian refugees to a collection of villages and towns spread over a 30km-wide security zone supervised by the Turkish army.

Read the entire article