The darn SPAMbot got me. Here's the link to the second article:

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/26/its-not-just-niger-u-s-military-activity-is-a-recruiting-tool-for-terror-groups-across-west-africa/

IT’S NOT JUST NIGER — U.S. MILITARY ACTIVITY IS A “RECRUITING TOOL” FOR TERROR GROUPS ACROSS WEST AFRICA

Lucasbalo:
PovertyMinted, like I said, keep googling your life away about things that are not useful to your well being. You are stucked on stupid wasting your life away. The Google you are so much in love with is an American invention not Russian. You and your ilks have no original thoughts and no critical thinking on your part. You country is sinking and you are foaming in the mouth about a country thousands of miles away. Keep googling as if that will solve your hardship in life while Google investors and shareholders are smiling to the bank. You can choke on that Povertybrain.

Oh my infantile Lucas!

So I take it that you DO NOT have any intellectual or discernible answers or explanation to these revelations and facts other than the usual "sh*thole country you reside in", "Amerikan visa that you want", " many Nigerians are queued up at the Amerikan embassy", "you live in poverty", "I'm smiling to the bank" and "keep googling" balderdash that comes outta your mouth?

You will be in the country this December right? Pls drop me a note and let's meet up so that you can at least see what I look like and how I live. Ok? It will be the perfect opportunity to show everyone on Nairaland how I'm wallowing in abject poverty and how you are living large. Deal?

I'll also be in Amerika this coming February/March. I got relatives in Chicago as well. I would like to see this "smiling to the bank" in action.

By the way, what can we do but to thank Amerika for Google so that we can share all these things we share, right?

We can heave a sigh of relief and fight another day.
Some of the psychopaths in Washington came to the realization that Russia wasn't f**king around.

In the meantime, expect a severe demonization campaign accusing Russia of war crimes and aggression.

[size=18pt]CONFIRMED: U.S. backs down over Syria after Russian threat to shoot down American aircraft[/size]

Alexander Mercouris
ALEXANDER MERCOURIS

6 hours ago 2 582
Following Russian warning of American aircraft being shot down, White House spokesman confirms plan for U.S. air strikes on Syria has been rejected.


Following yesterday’s Russian warning that Russia stood ready to shoot down US aircraft or missiles attacking Syria, the US has confirmed all plans for military action against Syria have been dropped.



White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed this speaking to reporters on Thursday 6th October 2016.

“The president has discussed in some details why military action against the Assad regime to try to address the situation in Aleppo is unlikely to accomplish the goals that many envisioned now in terms of reducing the violence there. It is much more likely to lead to a bunch of unintended consequences that are clearly not in our national interest.”

The US will never admit that it was the Russian warning that deterred it from carrying out air and missile strikes, and it is still pretending that the option of military strikes is still on the table. In Josh Earnest’s words

“I’m not going to take any options off the table. I am not going to be in a position [we’re] taking options off the table for the commander-in-chief.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIR4UP4rYkY

However these are face-saving words.

Military strikes against Syria would have happened long ago had it not been for the strong opposition of Russia. The fact the Russian military is now physically present in Syria with advanced surface to air missiles and is warning that it stands ready to shoot US aircraft down if the lives of Russian personnel are put in danger has taken the idea of US military strikes off the table.

I would add that these warnings would have been given by the Russians to the US in private before they were made public yesterday.

It is because the military option no longer exists that the US has been obliged to return to diplomacy.

I do not expect this to change whoever is elected President in November.

LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT HOW THE US HAS DIRECTLY (AND INDIRECTLY) FINANCED, AIDED & ABETTED ITS TERROR PROXY ARMIES USING THE MYTHICAL & NONEXISTENT "MODERATE" FREE SYRIA ARMY AS COVER TO SUPPORT JIHADISTS SUCH AS AL-NUSRA, AHRAR AL-SHAM & ISIS WHICH REMAIN THE TRUE & FORMIDABLE ANTI-ASSAD FIGHTING FORCES

Ever wondered how those shiny new Toyota trucks, highly trained men, American made TOW missiles and other fancy weapons are available to these terror groups fighting in Syria? Ever had difficulty keeping up with the ever changing myriad of US supported "moderate" rebels fighting in Syria - from the FSA, Division 30 to the Syrian Revolutionaries Front to Ahrar Al-Sham to Al-Zenki to Harakat Hazm, etc and as to if these groups really do exist and what their capabilities are?

In May 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that One U.S.-Backed Rebel Group, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front Cooperates With Al-Qaeda in Syria

In July 2015 Al Jazeera reported an ISIS leader as saying he purchases weapons from the FSA.

[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/43-un-peacekeepers-abducted-in-golan-heights/2014/08/28/2c968976-7d90-48d6-b5ef-354f349a6e18_story.html?Post%20generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost]In August 2014 The Washington Post said al-Nusra worked with unnamed CIA-backed rebel groups to capture the Quneitra border crossing with Israel and abduct a large number of Fijian peacekeepers.[/url]




Who is Behind the Islamic State? US Media (Times) Admits ISIS Bringing Arms, Fighters in From NATO Territory
"attacks also came after the group [ISIS] suffered a series of setbacks over the past two weeks, including the loss last week of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad — one of the group’s main points for bringing in foreign fighters and supplies."


The terrorists fighting us now? We just finished training them/


September 2014, Harakat Hazm, another US backed so-called "moderate" group reportedly fought alongside al-Qaeda in Aleppo, according to The Los Angeles Times.



In the same month of September, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front declared a peace truce with the Islamic State and the following month SRF members defected to ISIS.



In November 2014, a number of FSA members also defected to the Islamic State and condemned US airstrikes.



In December a German journalist embedded with the Islamic State told France 24 the group receives U.S. arms from the FSA.



Also in December, The New York Times admitted the FSA is under the control of ISIS.



In April 2015, Reuters reported the U.S.-armed FSA is allied with al-Nusra in northern Syria.



Here's a look on how the US relies on Saudi money to finance is terror proxy armies



Here's a look on how the US relies on Saudi money to finance is terror proxy armies


Four Years Later, The Free Syrian Army Has Collapsed



Free Syrian Army decimated by desertions




In July 2016, members of the Nureddin al-Zenki rebel group, one of the myriad of "moderate" terrorists that the US supports and that at one point received US-made anti-tank missiles, callously beheaded a 12 year old boy on the back of a pick-up truck on a public road in Aleppo’s opposition-controlled Al-Mashhad neighbourhood. Read this story here and read the US State Department spokesman trying to explain the actions of their beloved "moderates" as these "moderates" claim it was a mistake here





Americans are on our side’: Al-Nusra commander says US arming jihadists via 3rd countries
As reported in a German newspaper in October 2016, from an interview with Jabhat al-Nusra’s commander that was taken at a stone quarry in Aleppo on September 17 by Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger journalist Jurgen Todenhofer on his seventh trip to war-torn Syria

Al Ezz said that Jabhat Al-Nusra “won battles thanks to TOW rockets. Due to these rockets, we reached a balance with the regime. Our tanks came from Libya via Turkey, joined by the [BM-21] multiple rocket launchers,” he said.
The government forces have an advantage because of aircraft and missile launchers, but “we have the American-made TOW missiles, and the situation in some areas is under control,” Al Ezz added.

When asked if the TOW missiles were initially intended for Jabhat Al-Nusra or if the group obtained them from the moderate Free Syrian Army, the jihadist clarified: “No, the missiles were given to us directly.”



See further evidence of the mess the US has caused in Syria: US troops 'forced to flee Syrian town' after FSA rebel threats:

U.S. forces enter Syrian town, then withdraw: rebel source and monitor
American commandos 'forced to run away' from US-backed Syrian rebels


MORE:



UN Report: Israel in Regular Contact with Syrian Rebels including ISIS



UN details Israel helping Syrian rebels at Golan Heights



Israeli Intel Chief: We Don’t Want ISIS Defeated in Syria

Lucasbalo:
You Russian heads, keep googling and we will be laughing all the way to the banks.

I am praying that that inferiority complex and feeling of inadequacy that is bedeviling you, compelling you to inform everyone at every turn how you are "laughing all the way to the banks" or "living large", etc is exorcised from you one day.

Amen!

LET'S SEE WHAT BRAVE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, LEADERS, POLITICAL ANALYSTS & EVEN PUBLIC PERSONALITIES ARE SAYING ABOUT THE DESTABILIZING ACTIONS OF THE US & IT'S ALLIES



Oct 20, 2015: Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (US Congresswoman & Marine Corps vet, Hawaii). Gabbard pointed out the unconstitutionality of the war against al-Assad and accused the CIA of arming Islamists in a “counterproductive” and “illegal” effort that will cause even more human misery in the region and help ISIS and other Islamist extremists take over all of Syria. Instead of once again being distracted by trying to get rid of a secular dictator, Tulsi explains, the US must stay out of counter productive wars and focus on defeating the Islamist extremists who have declared war on America.

Here is the YouTube video of that interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Q8X60KQ9Q



Nov. 21, 2015, in Paris soon after the terrorist attacks, the US Congresswoman continued to criticize the illegal effort to overthrow the Syrian government. She was interviewed twice by CNN; in the afternoon and at night on the same day



2 Dec 2015 Capitol Hill, Washington: Interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard clearly explained how the U.S. fixation on overthrowing Syrian President Bashir al-Assad is putting us in direct conflict with Russia which has been an ally of Assad’s for 40 years.

Tulsi asks: What is so important about overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad that justifies risking a nuclear war with Russia? Tulsi argues the U.S. must end its illegal war to overthrow the government of Assad and instead focus on defeating ISIS and other Islamic extremists who are waging war against the West. She cites recent history of Libya when the United States overthrew Gaddafi and now we have ISIS with headquarters in Libya, continuing to expand. The very same thing will happen in Syria if the United States is successful in its objective of overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad. ISIS will walk in the front door, take over all of Syria and pose that very direct and greater threat to the region and increase the humanitarian crisis there ten-fold.



Dec 18, 2015 Rep.Gabbard Explains Why “No Fly Zone” Over Syria Would be Disastrous
Interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN today, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard explained that creation of a “No Fly Zone” over Syria—which Hillary Clinton, Chris Christie, and other presidential candidates support--would risk war with Russia that could “easily escalate” into a world war with nuclear potential. Tulsi said the candidates’ support of such a “No Fly Zone”—which President Obama opposes—is another reason to end the war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad now before Obama leaves office.



24 Jun 2016. 10 min. Extract from Rep Tulsi Gabbard's (US Congresswoman & Marine Corps vet, Hawaii) speech at People’s Summit)

Rep Gabbard says: 'Let leaders in Washington know that we must stop wasting our valuable, limited resources on regime change wars such as the war to overthrow the Syrian government, and instead focus our resources on investing in and rebuilding our nation and communities here at home. We simply cannot afford to do both.'



US effectively siding with Al-Qaeda in desire to get rid of Assad – former UK ambassador to Syria

Published: 7 Jun 2016 | 03:37 GMT
US effectively siding with Al-Qaeda in desire to get rid of Assad – former UK ambassador to Syria

The US is “ready to de facto ally” with its archenemies from Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria as part of its “obsession” by using “so-called moderate” moderate groups to overthrow the Syrian government, former UK ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, told RT in an exclusive interview.

The US “is effectively siding with a branch of Al-Qaeda” in Syria, Peter Ford told RT, speaking of Washington’s recent request to Moscow not to target Al-Nusra positions with air strikes for the sake of moderate opposition groups located in the same area.



So far in this war we have funneled weapons to terrorists, armed multiple sides and generally acted as if we don’t have a clue what to do in the region -- and we’ve done it all unconstitutionally - Senator Rand Paul



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc-RmAVK8Pg
Must see video: US Peace Council returns from Syria, a country fighting “invasion by the most powerful country in the world”




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LutrvgnHErE

Marine Le Pen blasts EU leaders, “You’ve done everything to bring down the government of Syria!”



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeyRwFHR8WY
Apart from bombing the crap out of #Libya via #NATO the British planned the war with Syria in 2009 2 yrs before the "Arab Spring" using “moderate” terrorists. Think Al Qaeda aka “The Database.”
In a live TV interview the Ex French Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, reveals all:


Philippine president blames U.S. for Middle East violence




Former CIA counterterrorism officer and Senate Foreign Relations Committee senior investigator John Kiriakou said that US congress armed the Islamic State (ISIL) extremists by providing weapons to the "moderate" opposition.

vedaxcool:


this underscores the tragedy of being a Russian troll. Once again where is the source of your news? where does interfax come into the fray? why are you pushing a lie with so much vigor? Where is the link? or did you pick this up from the fartsworts?

the only absurdity here is your inability to support Russian grade lies with tangible links not one silly Russian garbage after another.

no more sermonizing just give us the links of where your new Russian lies is sourced from.

Is it that you are some sort of auto reply bot and hence unwilling or unable to understand my posts or is it that you have now resorted to demanding the source of everything I post as your new strategy? You asked for the source of my "Russian news", I did you one better and even gave you the very source of the news that the Russians reacted to... What kinda of reality are you living in? I knew I had to ask if you needed my post to be explained to you.. I just knew it!

Google is your friend. I owe you no further links.

The United States of Anarchy & Selective Democracy in partnership with Al-Qaeda (the alleged perpetrators of 911 ) to unseat yet another democratically elected government so they can install their own special kind of democratic government in its place - like they have been doing since 1947 at least.

[size=18pt]US Media Hid Al Qaeda’s Syria Role[/size]
March 23, 2016
When Russian airstrikes began in Syria, the U.S. media falsely claimed President Putin had promised to hit only ISIS and instead attacked “moderate” rebels, but the dirty secret was that those rebels were working with Al Qaeda, writes Gareth Porter.

By Gareth Porter

A crucial problem in news media coverage of the Syrian civil war has been how to characterize the relationship between the so-called “moderate” opposition forces armed by the CIA, on one hand, and the Al Qaeda franchise Al Nusra Front (and its close ally Ahrar al Sham), on the other.

But it is a politically sensitive issue for U.S. policy, which seeks to overthrow Syria’s government without seeming to make common cause with the movement responsible for 9/11, and the system of news production has worked effectively to prevent the news media from reporting it fully and accurately.


President Barack Obama meets with his National Security Staff to discuss the situation in Syria, in the Situation Room of the White House, Aug. 30, 2013. From left at the table: National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice; Attorney General Eric Holder; Secretary of State John Kerry; and Vice President Joe Biden. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
The Obama administration has long portrayed the opposition groups it has been arming with anti-tank weapons as independent of Nusra Front. In reality, the administration has been relying on the close cooperation of these “moderate” groups with Nusra Front to put pressure on the Syrian government.

The United States and its allies – especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey – want the civil war to end with the dissolution of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by U.S. rivals like Russia and Iran.

Reflecting the fact that Nusra Front was created by Al Qaeda and has confirmed its loyalty to it, the administration designated Nusra as a terrorist organization in 2013. But the U.S. has carried out very few airstrikes against it since then, in contrast to the other offspring of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State or ISIS (Daesh), which has been the subject of intense air attacks from the U.S. and its European allies.

The U.S. has remained silent about Nusra Front’s leading role in the military effort against Assad, concealing the fact that Nusra’s success in northwest Syria has been a key element in Secretary of State John Kerry’s diplomatic strategy for Syria.

When Russian intervention in support of the Syrian government began last September, targeting not only ISIS but also the Nusra Front and U.S.-supported groups allied with them against the Assad regime, the Obama administration immediately argued that Russian airstrikes were targeting “moderate” groups rather than ISIS, and insisted that those strikes had to stop.

The willingness of the news media to go beyond the official line and report the truth on the ground in Syria was thus put to the test. It had been well-documented that those “moderate” groups had been thoroughly integrated into the military campaigns directed by Nusra Front and Ahrar al Sham in the main battlefront of the war in northwestern Syria’s Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

For example, a dispatch from Aleppo last May in Al Araby Al-Jadeed (The New Arab), a daily newspaper financed by the Qatari royal family, revealed that every one of at least ten “moderate” factions in the province supported by the CIA had joined the Nusra-run province command Fateh Halab (Conquest of Aleppo). Formally the command was run by Ahrar al Sham, and Nusra Front was excluded from it.

But as Al Araby’s reporter explained, that exclusion “means that the operation has a better chance of receiving regional and international support.” That was an indirect way of saying that Nusra’s supposed exclusion was a device aimed at facilitating the Obama administration’s approval of sending more TOW missiles to the “moderates” in the province, because the White House could not support groups working directly with a terrorist organization.

A further implication was that Nusra Front was allowing “moderate” groups to obtain those weapons from the United States and its Saudi and Turkish allies, because those groups were viewed as too weak to operate independently of the Salafist-jihadist forces — and because some of those arms would be shared with Nusra Front and Ahrar.

After Nusra Front was formally identified as a terrorist organization for the purposes of a Syrian ceasefire and negotiations, it virtually went underground in areas close to the Turkish border.

A journalist who lives in northern Aleppo province told Al Monitor that Nusra Front had stopped flying its own flag and was concealing its troops under those of Ahrar al Sham, which had been accepted by the United States as a participant in the talks. That maneuver was aimed at supporting the argument that “moderate” groups and not Al Qaeda were being targeted by Russian airstrikes.

But a review of the coverage of the targeting of Russian airstrikes and the role of U.S.-supported armed groups in the war during the first few weeks in the three most influential U.S. newspapers with the most resources for reporting accurately on the issue—the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal – reveals a pattern of stories that tilted strongly in the direction desired by the Obama administration, either ignoring the subordination of the “moderate” groups to Nusra Front entirely or giving it only the slightest mention.

In an Oct. 1, 2015 article, Washington Post Beirut correspondent Liz Sly wrote that the Russian airstrikes were being “conducted against one of the few areas in the country where moderate rebels still have a foothold and from which the Islamic State was ejected more than a year and a half ago.”

To her credit, Sly did report, “Some of the towns struck are strongholds of recently formed coalition Jaish al Fateh,” which she said included Nusra Front and “an assortment of Islamist and moderate factions.” What was missing, however, was the fact that Jaish al Fateh was not merely a “coalition” but a military command structure, meaning that a much tighter relationship existed between the U.S.-supported “moderates” and the Al Qaeda franchise.

Sly referred specifically to one strike that hit a training camp in the outskirts of a town in Idlib province belonging to Suquor al-Jabal, which had been armed by the CIA.

But readers could not evaluate that statement without the crucial fact, reported in the regional press that Suquor al-Jabal was one of the many CIA-supported organizations that had joined the Fateh Halab (“Conquest of Aleppo”), the military command center in Aleppo ostensibly run by Ahrar al Sham, Nusra Front’s closest ally, but in fact under firm Nusra control. The report thus conveyed the false impression that the CIA-supported rebel group was still independent of Nusra Front.

An article by New York Times Beirut correspondent Anne Barnard (co-authored by the Times stringer in Syria Karam Shoumali — Oct. 13, 2015) appeared to veer off in the direction of treating the U.S.-supported opposition groups as part of a new U.S./Russian proxy war, thus drawing attention away from the issue of whether the Obama administration support for “moderate” groups was actually contributing to the political-military power of Al Qaeda in Syria.

Under the headline “US Weaponry Is Turning Syria Into Proxy War With Russia,” it reported that armed opposition groups had just received large shipments of TOW anti-tank missiles that had to be approved by the United States. Quoting the confident statements of rebel commanders about the effectiveness of the missiles and the high morale of rebel troops, the story suggested that arming the “moderates” was a way for the United States to make them the primary force on one side of a war pitting the United States against Russia in Syria.

Near the end of the story, however, Barnard effectively undermined that “proxy war” theme by citing the admission by commanders of U.S.-supported brigades of their “uncomfortable marriage of necessity” with the Al Qaeda franchise, “because they cannot operate without the consent of the larger and stronger Nusra Front.”

Referring to the capture of Idlib the previous spring by the opposition coalition, Barnard recalled that the TOW missiles had “played a major role in the insurgent advances that eventually endangered Mr. Assad’s rule.” But, she added:

“While that would seem like a welcome development for United States policy makers, in practice it presented another quandary, given that the Nusra Front was among the groups benefiting from the enhanced firepower.”

Unfortunately, Barnard’s point that U.S.-supported groups were deeply embedded in an Al Qaeda-controlled military structure was buried at the end of a long piece, and thus easily missed. The headline and lead ensured that, for the vast majority of readers, that point would be lost in the larger thrust of the article.

The Wall Street Journal’s Adam Entous approached the problem from a different angle but with the same result. He wrote a story on Oct. 5 reflecting what he said was anger on the part of U.S. officials that the Russians were deliberately targeting opposition groups that the CIA had supported.

Entous reported that U.S. officials believed the Syrian government wanted those groups targeted because of their possession of TOW missiles, which had been the key factor in the opposition’s capture of Idlib earlier in the year. But nowhere in the article was the role of CIA-supported groups within military command structures dominated by Nusra Front even acknowledged.

Still another angle on the problem was adopted in an Oct. 12 article by Journal Beirut correspondent Raja Abdulrahim, who described the Russian air offensive as having spurred U.S.-backed rebels and the Nusra Front to form a “more united front against the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian allies.” Adbulrahim thus acknowledged the close military collaboration with Nusra Front, but blamed it all on the Russian offensive.

And the story ignored the fact that those same opposition groups had already joined military command arrangements in Idlib and Aleppo earlier in 2015, in anticipation of victories across northeast Syria.

The image in the media of the U.S.-supported armed opposition as operating independently from Nusra Front, and as victims of Russian attacks, persisted into early 2016. But in February, the first cracks in that image appeared in the Washington Post and New York Times.

Reporting on the negotiations between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on a partial ceasefire that began on Feb. 12, Washington Post associate editor and senior national security correspondent Karen DeYoung wrote on Feb. 19 that an unresolved problem was how to decide which organizations were to be considered “terrorist groups” in the ceasefire agreement.

In that context, DeYoung wrote, “Jabhat al-Nusra, whose forces are intermingled with moderate rebel groups in the northwest near the Turkish border, is particularly problematic.”

It was the first time any major news outlet had reported that U.S.-supported armed opposition and Nusra Front front troops were “intermingled” on the ground. And in the very next sentence DeYoung dropped what should have been a political bombshell: She reported that Kerry had proposed in the Munich negotiations to “leave Jabhat al Nusra off limits to bombing, as part of a ceasefire, at least temporarily, until the groups can be sorted out.”

At the same time, Kerry was publicly demanding in a speech at the Munich conference that Russia halt its attacks on “legitimate opposition groups” as a condition for a ceasefire. Kerry’s negotiating position reflected the fact that CIA groups were certain to be hit in strikes on areas controlled by Nusra Front, as well as the reality that Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and Ahrar al Sham were central to the success of the U.S.-backed military effort against Assad.

In the end, however, Lavrov rejected the proposal to protect Nusra Front targets from Russian airstrikes, and Kerry dropped that demand, allowing the joint U.S./Russian announcement of the partial ceasefire on Feb. 22.

Up to that point, maps of the Syrian war in the Post and Times had identified zones of control only for “rebels” without showing where Nusra Front forces were in control. But on the same day as the announcement, the New York Times published an “updated” map, accompanied by text stating that Nusra Front “is embedded in the area of Aleppo and northwest toward the Turkish border.”

At the State Department briefing the next day, reporters grilled spokesman Mark Toner on whether U.S.-supported rebel forces were “commingled” with Nusra Front forces in Aleppo and northward. After a very long exchange on the subject, Toner said, “Yes, I believe there is some commingling of these groups.”

And he went on to say, speaking on behalf of the International Syria Support Group, which comprises all the countries involved in the Syrian peace negotiations, including the U.S. and Russia:

“We, the ISSG, have been very clear in saying that Al Nusra and Daesh [ISIS] are not part of any kind of cease-fire or any kind of negotiated cessation of hostilities. So if you hang out with the wrong folks, then you make that decision. … You choose who hang out with, and that sends a signal.”

Although I pointed out the significance of the statement (Truthout, Feb. 24, 2016), no major news outlet saw fit to report that remarkable acknowledgement by the State Department spokesperson. Nevertheless, the State Department had clearly alerted the Washington Post and the New York Times to the fact that the relationships between the CIA-supported groups and Nusra Front were much closer than it had ever admitted in the past.

Kerry evidently calculated that the pretense that the “moderate” armed groups were independent of Al Nusra front would open him to a political attack from Republicans and the media if they were hit by Russian airstrikes. So it was no longer useful politically to try to obscure that reality from the media.

In fact, the State Department now seemed interested in inducing as many of those armed groups as possible to separate themselves more clearly from the Nusra Front.

The twists and turns in the three major newspapers’ coverage of the issue of relations between U.S.-supported opposition groups and Al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria thus show how major news sources slighted or steered clear of the fact that U.S.-client armed groups were closely intertwined with a branch of Al Qaeda — until they were prompted by signals from U.S. officials to revise their line and provide a more honest portrayal of Syria’s armed opposition.

Gareth Porter, an independent investigative journalist and historian on US national security policy, is the winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. His latest book is Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, published in 2014. [This story originally appeared at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.]

Consortiumnews.com

A top site with incisive, excellent articles; background insight and analyses all penned by Amerikans, several with backgrounds in intelligence, investigative journalism and within the diplomatic community.

These are the truth tellers. The folks that tell it as it really is. Amerikans that have refused to be trapped in The Matrix and kept there by the propaganda that masquerades in the US as “news".

At least no one can dismiss them as "paid Kremlin propagandists" or "State controlled media" abi?

Ray McGovern, Robert Parry, Paul Craig Roberts, Stephen Cohen, Oliver Stone, Stephen E. Jones, Robert Gage, etc, all Amerikan truth tellers, all Amerikan heroes

A brilliant reminder why y'all harbour the views that y'all harbour.

Appleyard, Underground, cyprus000, zoharariel, scully95, fineguy11, Tkester, bonechamberlain, capip120

[size=18pt]Start of a New World War[/size]
March 22, 2016

Propaganda about Russian and Chinese “aggression” has cloaked the reality of the U.S. and the West moving aggressively to encircle both countries, the start of a new world war, says John Pilger.

By John Pilger

I have been filming in the Marshall Islands, which lie north of Australia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I tell people where I have been, they ask, “Where is that?” If I offer a clue by referring to “Bikini,” they say, “You mean the swimsuit.”

Few seem aware that the bikini swimsuit was named to celebrate the nuclear explosions that destroyed Bikini island. Sixty-six nuclear devices were exploded by the United States in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 — the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for 12 years.


President Barack Obama uncomfortably accepting the Nobel Peace Prize from Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2009. (White House photo)

Bikini is silent today, mutated and contaminated. Palm trees grow in a strange grid formation. Nothing moves. There are no birds. The headstones in the old cemetery are alive with radiation. My shoes registered “unsafe” on a Geiger counter.

Standing on the beach, I watched the emerald green of the Pacific fall away into a vast black hole. This was the crater left by the hydrogen bomb they called “Bravo.” The explosion poisoned people and their environment for hundreds of miles, perhaps forever.

On my return journey, I stopped at Honolulu airport and noticed an American magazine called Women’s Health. On the cover was a smiling woman in a bikini swimsuit, and the headline: “You, too, can have a bikini body.” A few days earlier, in the Marshall Islands, I had interviewed women who had very different “bikini bodies”; each had suffered thyroid cancer and other life-threatening cancers.

Unlike the smiling woman in the magazine, all of them were impoverished: the victims and guinea pigs of a rapacious superpower that is today more dangerous than ever.

I relate this experience as a warning and to interrupt a distraction that has consumed so many of us. The founder of modern propaganda, Edward Bernays, described this phenomenon as “the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the habits and opinions” of democratic societies. He called it an “invisible government”.

How many people are aware that a world war has begun? At present, it is a war of propaganda, of lies and distraction, but this can change instantaneously with the first mistaken order, the first missile.

In 2009, President Obama stood before an adoring crowd in the centre of Prague, in the heart of Europe. He pledged himself to make “the world free from nuclear weapons.” People cheered and some cried. A torrent of platitudes flowed from the media. Obama was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was all fake. He was lying.

The Obama administration has built more nuclear weapons, more nuclear warheads, more nuclear delivery systems, more nuclear factories. Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any American president. The cost over 30 years is more than $1 trillion.


A nuclear test detonation carried out in Nevada on April 18, 1953.

A mini nuclear bomb is planned. It is known as the B61 Model 12. There has never been anything like it. General James Cartwright, a former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said, “Going smaller [makes using this nuclear] weapon more thinkable.”

In the last 18 months, the greatest build-up of military forces since World War Two — led by the United States — is taking place along Russia’s western frontier. Not since Hitler invaded the Soviet Union have foreign troops presented such a demonstrable threat to Russia.

Ukraine – once part of the Soviet Union – has become a CIA theme park. Having orchestrated a coup in Kiev, Washington effectively controls a regime that is next door and hostile to Russia: a regime rotten with Nazis, literally. Prominent parliamentary figures in Ukraine are the political descendants of the notorious OUN and UPA fascists. They openly praise Hitler and call for the persecution and expulsion of the Russian-speaking minority.

This is seldom news in the West, or it is inverted to suppress the truth.

In Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — next door to Russia — the U.S. military is deploying combat troops, tanks, heavy weapons. This extreme provocation of the world’s second nuclear power is met with silence in the West.

What makes the prospect of nuclear war even more dangerous is a parallel campaign against China. Seldom a day passes when China is not elevated to the status of a “threat.” According to Admiral Harry Harris, the U.S. Pacific commander, China is “building a great wall of sand in the South China Sea.”

What he is referring to is China building airstrips in the Spratly Islands, which are the subject of a dispute with the Philippines – a dispute without priority until Washington pressured and bribed the government in Manila and the Pentagon launched a propaganda campaign called “freedom of navigation.”

What does this really mean? It means freedom for American warships to patrol and dominate the coastal waters of China. Try to imagine the American reaction if Chinese warships did the same off the coast of California.

I made a film called The War You Don’t See, in which I interviewed distinguished journalists in America and Britain: reporters such as Dan Rather of CBS, Rageh Omar of the BBC, David Rose of the Observer.

All of them said that had journalists and broadcasters done their job and questioned the propaganda that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction; had the lies of George W. Bush and Tony Blair not been amplified and echoed by journalists, the 2003 invasion of Iraq might not have happened, and hundreds of thousands of men, women and children would be alive today.

The propaganda laying the ground for a war against Russia and/or China is no different in principle. To my knowledge, no journalist in the Western “mainstream” — a Dan Rather equivalent, say — asks why China is building airstrips in the South China Sea.

The answer ought to be glaringly obvious. The United States is encircling China with a network of bases, with ballistic missiles, battle groups, nuclear-armed bombers.

This lethal arc extends from Australia to the islands of the Pacific, the Marianas and the Marshalls and Guam, to the Philippines, Thailand, Okinawa, Korea and across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India. America has hung a noose around the neck of China. This is not news. Silence by media; war by media.

In 2015, in high secrecy, the U.S. and Australia staged the biggest single air-sea military exercise in recent history, known as Talisman Sabre. Its aim was to rehearse an Air-Sea Battle Plan, blocking sea lanes, such as the Straits of Malacca and the Lombok Straits, that cut off China’s access to oil, gas and other vital raw materials from the Middle East and Africa.


Billionaire and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In the circus known as the American presidential campaign, Donald Trump is being presented as a lunatic, a fascist. He is certainly odious; but he is also a media-hate figure. That alone should arouse our skepticism. Trump’s views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than those of British Prime Minister David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama.

According to one prodigious liberal commentator, Trump is “unleashing the dark forces of violence” in the United States. Unleashing them?

This is the country where toddlers shoot their mothers and the police wage a murderous war against black Americans. This is the country that has attacked and sought to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democracies, and bombed from Asia to the Middle East, causing the deaths and dispossession of millions of people.

No country can equal this systemic record of violence. Most of America’s wars (almost all of them against defenseless countries) have been launched not by Republican presidents but by liberal Democrats: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama.

In 1947, a series of National Security Council directives described the paramount aim of American foreign policy as “a world substantially made over in [America’s] own image.” The ideology was messianic Americanism. We were all Americans. Or else. Heretics would be converted, subverted, bribed, smeared or crushed.

Donald Trump is a symptom of this, but he is also a maverick. He says the invasion of Iraq was a crime; he doesn’t want to go to war with Russia and China. The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted “exceptionalism” is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face.

As presidential Election Day draws near, Clinton will be hailed as the first female president, regardless of her crimes and lies – just as Barack Obama was lauded as the first black president and liberals swallowed his nonsense about “hope.” And the drool goes on.


Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a Democratic presidential debate sponsored by CNN.

Described by the Guardian columnist Owen Jones as “funny, charming, with a coolness that eludes practically every other politician,” Obama the other day sent drones to slaughter 150 people in Somalia. He kills people usually on Tuesdays, according to the New York Times, when he is handed a list of candidates for death by drone. So cool.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran with nuclear weapons. As Secretary of State under Obama, she participated in the overthrow of the democratic government of Honduras. Her contribution to the destruction of Libya in 2011 was almost gleeful. When the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was publicly sodomized with a knife – a murder made possible by American logistics – Clinton gloated over his death: “We came, we saw, he died.”

One of Clinton’s closest allies is Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State, who has attacked young women for not supporting “Hillary.” This is the same Madeleine Albright who infamously celebrated on TV the death of half a million Iraqi children as “worth it”.

Among Clinton’s biggest backers are the Israel lobby and the arms companies that fuel the violence in the Middle East. She and her husband have received a fortune from Wall Street. And yet, she is about to be ordained the women’s candidate, to see off the evil Trump, the official demon. Her supporters include distinguished feminists: the likes of Gloria Steinem in the U.S. and Anne Summers in Australia.

A generation ago, a post-modern cult now known as “identity politics” stopped many intelligent, liberal-minded people examining the causes and individuals they supported — such as the fakery of Obama and Clinton; such as bogus progressive movements like Syriza in Greece, which betrayed the people of that country and allied with their enemies.

Self-absorption, a kind of “me-ism,” became the new Zeitgeist in privileged Western societies and signaled the demise of great collective movements against war, social injustice, inequality, racism and sexism.

Today, the long sleep may be over. The young are stirring again. Gradually. The thousands in Britain who supported Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader are part of this awakening – as are those who rallied to support Sen. Bernie Sanders.

In Britain last week, Jeremy Corbyn’s closest ally, his shadow treasurer John McDonnell, committed a Labour government to pay off the debts of piratical banks and, in effect, to continue so-called austerity.

In the U.S., Bernie Sanders has promised to support Clinton if or when she’s nominated. He, too, has voted for America’s use of violence against countries when he thinks it’s “right.” He says Obama has done “a great job.”

In Australia, there is a kind of mortuary politics, in which tedious parliamentary games are played out in the media while refugees and Indigenous people are persecuted and inequality grows, along with the danger of war. The government of Malcolm Turnbull has just announced a so-called defense budget of $195 billion that is a drive to war. There was no debate. Silence.

What has happened to the great tradition of popular direct action, unfettered to parties? Where is the courage, the imagination and the commitment required to begin the long journey to a better, just and peaceful world? Where are the dissidents in art, film, the theatre, literature?

Where are those who will shatter the silence? Or do we wait until the first nuclear missile is fired?

This is an edited version of an address by John Pilger at the University of Sydney, entitled “A World War Has Begun.” JohnPilger.com – the films and journalism of John Pilger.

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/03/22/start-of-a-new-world-war/

vedaxcool:


The joke is on you. Please where if not Russian media of lies would you see an article who accusations start and stop at its title? Why didn't your media of lies state what exactly the security chief said in the context he made the statement? Why should the claim of the article stop at thr the title and its content some dumb fools remark on the statement?

Despite your poorly contrived article it in no way explain why Ukrainians would reward turks for shooting down a Russian jet if not that putin has successfully created enmity amongst countries that should be friends.

So I got banned and the only reason I can think of is because of these Slavic names so I'm posting this again.

1. http://interfax.com.ua/news/general/332322.html


"You have probably already heard about two explosions that rocked Brussels today. 12 people were killed there, according to preliminary data. And I would not be surprised if it turns out to be an element of the Russian hybrid war," V. H. said on Tuesday as he was delivering lecture at the national University of Kyiv-M... Academy.

It was posted in the Ukrainian media itself, genius .....and you are welcome... Although I wonder since when did I need to provide links to every article that I post? Do you have any idea how much propaganda I have posted on here with no referencing link?

2. Second, don't tell me that I also have to explain why I posted the statement from the SBU chief as well do you? Does "theatre of the absurd", "lack of credibility", "circus where anything goes" mean anything to you in the context in which this example was used?

^ Do you want me to explain ^^^ this again? Break it down further perhaps?

Analysis of the Russian military pullout from Syria


March 14, 2016

Vladimir Putin has just ordered the withdrawal of the Russian forces in Syria:

“I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished. That is why I order to start withdrawal of the main part of our military group from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic starting from tomorrow,” Putin said on Monday during a meeting with Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“In a short period of time Russia has created a small but very effective military group in Syria. The effective work of our military forces allowed the peace process to begin,” Putin said, adding that “Russian government troops and [Syria’s] patriotic forces have changed the situation in the fight with international terrorism and have ceased the initiative.”
The first question which needs to be asked is whether this is correct: have the Russians achieved their objective or not? To answer this question, we need to look at what the initial Russian objectives were. I did that in my article “Week Thirteen of the Russian Intervention in Syria: debunking the lies” where I wrote: (emphasis added)

The key issue here is what criteria to use to measure “success”. And that, in turns, begs the question of what the Russians had hoped to achieve with their intervention in the first place. It turns out that Putin clearly and officially spelled out what the purpose of the Russian intervention was. On October 11th, he declared the following in an interview with Vladimir Soloviev on the TV channel Russia 1:
Our objective is to stabilize the legitimate authority and create conditions for a political compromise
That’s it. He did not say that Russia would single-handedly change the course of the war, much less so win the war. And while some saw the Russian intervention as a total “game changer” which would mark the end of Daesh, I never believed that. Here is what I wrote exactly one day before Putin make the statement above:
Make no mistake here, the Russian force in Syria is a small one, at least for the time being, and it does not even remotely resemble what the rumors had predicted (…) There is no way that the very limited Russian intervention can really change the tide of the war, at least not by itself. Yes, I do insist that the Russian intervention is a very limited one. 12 SU-24M, 12 SU-25SM, 6 SU-34 and 4 SU-30SM are not a big force, not even backed by helicopters and cruise missiles. Yes, the Russian force has been very effective to relieve the pressure on the northwestern front and to allow for a Syrian Army counter-offensive, but that will not, by itself, end the war.
I was harshly criticized at that time for “minimizing” the scope and potential of the Russian operation, but I chose to ignore these criticisms since I knew that time would prove me right.
Today’s declaration finally puts to rest the “most anticipated showdown” and other “game changer” theories. At least I hope so :-)


The Russian intervention is a stunning success, that is indisputable. Vladimir Putin and the Russian military ought to be particularly praised for having set goals fully commensurate with their real capabilities.
The Russians went in with a small force and they achieved limited goals: the legitimate authority of the Syrian government has been stabilized and the conditions for a political compromise have been created. That is not an opinion, but the facts on the ground. Not even the worst Putin-haters can dispute that. Today’s declaration shows that the Russians are also sticking to their initial exit strategy and are now confident enough to withdraw their forces. That is nothing short of superb (when is the last time the USA did that?).

Still, this leaves many unanswered questions.

A partition of Syria?

By withdrawing their forces the Russians could be giving the signal to the USA that they are free to have their “little victorious war” against Daesh. But this could also be a trap. If you consider the complete failure of the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq, you could wonder why they would suddenly do so much better in Syria, especially considering that besides Daesh they might also come face to face with Iranians and Hezbollah fighters. Furthermore, unlike the Russian Aerospace forces, the Americans will be committing ground forces and these have a much bigger tendency to get bogged down in long counter-insurgency operations. If I was a US military advisor I would caution my commanders against a ground operation in Syria even if the Russians are gone.

Still, what if the Americans are successful? After all, Daesh has taken a bad beating any maybe they can be at least pushed out of Raqqa? Maybe. But if that happens then the question will become whether the Americans will try to achieve a de facto partition of Syria (de jure they cannot, since a UNSC Resolution specifically called for a unitary state).

Partitioning Syria has been, and still is, the longterm Israeli goal. Considering the immense power of the Neocons today (nevermind a Hillary Presidency!) the chances that the US will be trying to partition Syria are immense.

And what if the Americans either fail or don’t even take the bait and stay out of Syria? Does the Russian withdrawal not risk leaving eastern Syria in Daesh hands? Would that not be just another de facto partition of the country? Maybe. Again, this is a real risk.

Finally, if the Turks and their Saudi allies do invade, that would almost certainly result in a partition of Syria as it is doubtful that the Syrian government could take on Daesh and Turkey and the Saudis at the same time. Iran, of course, might, but this would result in a major escalation threatening the entire region.

I think that the risk of a partition of Syria is, alas, very real. However, that being said, I would like to remind everybody that Russia does not have any moral or legal obligation to single-handedly preserve the territorial integrity of Syria. In purely legal terms, this is an obligation of every single country on earth (because of the UN Charter and the recent UNSC Resolution) and in moral terms, this is first and foremost the obligation of the Syrian people themselves. I think that it would be praiseworthy for Russia to do everything she can to prevent a partition of Syria,and I am confident that Russia will do her utmost, but that does not mean that this is a Russian obligation.

Future Russian options and operations?

I want to draw your attention to the following words by Putin: “I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished“. For those unfamiliar with the context (evaluation of a military operation) this might sound like a total approval. It is not. In Russian military terminology “generally accomplished” is better than “satisfactory” and roughly equivalent to “good” but not “excellent”. Putin is not saying that the performance of the Russian forces was less than perfect, but what he is saying is that the goals set out initially have not been fully/perfectly reached. In other words, this leaves the door open for a “objectives completion” operation.

The second interesting moment in today’s statement is that Putin added that “to control the observation of ceasefire agreements in the region, Moscow will keep its Khmeimim airbase in Latakia province and a base at the port of Tartus“.

To me the combination of these two statements points to the high probability that the Russians are keeping their options open. First, they will continue to supply the Syrians with hardware, training, intelligence and special operations and, second, they will retain the option of using military power if/when needed. Not only will Russia retain the capability to strike from the Caspian, the Mediterranean or with her long-range bombers, but she is likely to leave enough pre-positioned supplies and personnel in Tartus, Khmeimim and elsewhere in Syria to be ready to intervene at very short notice (say in case of a Turkish attack towards Latakia, for example).

Finally, I am confident that when speaking to the (newly created) “moderate opposition” the Russians will carefully but regularly drop hints about the need to achieve a negotiated agreement with the Syrian government “lest the war resume again with a new intensity” (or something along these lines). Keep in mind that, unlike their US counterparts, the Russian diplomats and intelligence officers truly understand their counterparts, not only because they are fluent in the local languages and understand the culture, but because the single important quality expected from a Russian diplomat or intelligence officer is the ability to understand the real, profound, motives of the person you are speaking to, to put yourself into his/her shoes. I have had enough personal experience with Russian diplomats and intelligence officers to be sure that they are already patiently talking to all the key figures in positions of power inside the so-called “moderate resistance” to maximize the stake each one of them might have in a negotiated solution. Oh sure, there will be beautiful speeches in the plenary meetings and conferences, but they key effort will be made in informal conversations happening in restaurants, back-rooms and various hotels where the Russians will make darn sure they convey to their interlocutors that he/she have a very personal interest in a successful negotiation. There will be a lot of bargaining involving promises and hinted threats and while some will, of course, resist such “gentle pressures”, the cumulative effect of such informal meetings will be crucial. And if that means preparing 500 different approaches and negotiation techniques for 500 different contacts, the Russians will put the manpower, time and effort to make it happen.

Evaluation

It is way too early right now to give a categorical evaluation of the timing and consequences of the Russian withdrawal from Syria. Let us also keep in mind that there is a lot we don’t know. What we do know is that Sergei Lavrov has had an absolutely crazy schedule over the past month or so and that Russian diplomats have been holding intense negotiations with all the regional powers. I am confident that the Russians planned their withdrawal at least as carefully as the planned their intervention and that they have left as many open options as possible. By the way, the big advantage of a unilateral decision is that, unlike one taken as part of an agreement with other parties, it can be unilaterally rescinded too. It took the Russian just days to launch their initial operation even though they had to execute it all in difficult conditions and under the cloak of secrecy. How long would it take them to move back into Syria if needed?

When all is said and done, I simply trust Vladimir Putin. No, no just because I am a Putin fanboy (which, of course, I am!), but because of his record of being right and taking difficult, even risky, decisions which eventually yielded Russia yet another unforeseen success.]

Like any good chess player, Putin knows that one of the key factors in any war is time and so far Putin has timed his every move superbly. Yes, there were times in the past when I got really worried about what looked to me as either too much waiting or as dangerous risk-taking, but every single time my fears ended up being unfounded. And yes, I can easily muster up a long list of potentially catastrophic scenarios for Syria, but I think that this would only make sense if Putin had, like Obama, a long and impressive list of failures, disasters, miscalculations and embarrassing defeats on his record. But he does not. In fact, what I see is an amazing list of successes achieved against very difficult odds. And they key to Putin’s success might well be that he is a hardcore realist.

Russia is still weak. Yes, she is stronger than in the past and she is rising up very fast, but she still is weak, especially in comparison to the still immense AngloZionist Empire whose resources simply dwarf Russia’s in most categories. However, this comparative weakness also forces the Kremlin to be very careful. When an empire is rich and powerful being arrogant and over-estimating your own capabilities is not nearly as bad as when a much weaker country does it. Just look at the USA under Obama: they went from one humiliating and costly defeat to another – yet they are still here and still powerful, almost as powerful as they used to be 10 years ago. While in the long run the kind of hubris and gross incompetence we nowadays observe in US decision-makers will result in the inevitable collapse of the Empire, in the medium to short term there is no truly painful price to pay for failure. Just one example: just think of the US military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are absolute and total failures, abject disasters of incalculable magnitude. They will go down in history as amongst the worst foreign policy failures ever. And yet, walking around in downtown New York or San Fransisco you would never think that you are visiting a country which just lost two major and long wars.

Russia does not have such a “luxury of power”, she has to make every bit count and she has to plan each move with utmost precision. Just like a tightrope walker with no safety harness, Putin knows that a single misstep can have catastrophic consequences.

To withdraw the bulk of the Russian military task force in Syria right now is a gutsy and potentially risky move for sure, but I am confident that it is also the right one. But only time will tell if my confidence is warranted or not.

The Saker

fineguy11:
DO NOT GO PAST THE MARK YOU AIMED FOR;IN VICTORY;LEARN WHEN TO STOP-Robert Greene(48 laws of power).
The moment of victory is often the moment of greatest peril. In the heat of victory,arrogance and over confidence can push u past the goal you had aimed for,and by going too far,u make more enemies than u defeat.Do not allow success to go to your head.There is no substitute for strategy and careful planning.SET A GOAL,AND WHEN U REACH IT,STOP!!!-(Robert Greene).

Adolf Hitler
Napoleon Bonaparte
The great Cesare Borgia.etc.these guys all had one thing in common,they refused to stop@victory,they'all went past their mark which led to their DESTRUCTION.if this doesnt explan PUTIN"S withdrawal,nothing else will.Russia has done its part,let other parties to the conflict do their's and come to a peaceful resolution.

Exactly! Knowing when to pull out is key lest you get bogged down for a long time like the Hegemon did in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam.
Putin went into Syria with the clear objective to ...to stabilize the legitimate authority (Assad govebrment) and create the conditions for a political compromise" Oh, how the Putin-haters must be sh*tting in their pants that Putin has scored yet antithetical strategic victory over the clueless Hegemon.

Of course we "Putin bots" wanted more (Raqqa push, etc) but I guess we have to accept the initial objectives of the Russian intervention which has been more or less achieved.

There is a post from The Saker that I would like to share but this darn spam bot banned my original account! Will try again with this one

Lenghtly but absolutely worth the read

[size=18pt]Putin and Israel – a complex and multi-layered relationship[/size]

http://thesaker.is/putin-and-israel-a-complex-and-multi-layered-relationship/

I don't get whats with the SPAMbot and this thread!

Whilst Russia was busy with Sochi, the Maidan Coup was staged.

Now that Russia is engaged in Syria, the putsch regime in Kiev is moving in for another assault on the DPR and LPR in violation of Minsk 1 and Minsk 2

Victoria "F*ck the EU" Nuland will come visiting this week I hear. It means orders are to be dished out for the next step.

It is important that you watch this space cos I am afraid, the rabidly anti-Putin bots will rubb.ish these pictures as yet another round of Russian propaganda from Putin bots and trolls who are incapable of engaging any bit of brain power and will point their fingers at Nazi Russia when things escalate again.....

Lest we forget, the members of the Ukranian government and those of para-military units such as the Azov Battalion and Right Sector are neo-nazis who participate fully in neo-nazi marches and events and carry the nazi wolfangel insignia on their person.....

But hey, the Russians are the nazis dishing out nazi style propaganda that even Joseph Goebbels would be impressed by.......


Basurin: Kiev has amassed 238 tanks, 101 ceasefire violations over the past week (Video)
Fort Russ - 7th December, 2015




With Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland visiting Ukraine this week, it would seem they have brought some gifts with them - death and destruction. Towns such as Gorlovka are a 24/7 hot spot of action, with Pisky, Spartak and the New airport Terminal also receiving a daily barrage. The concern is that the UAF has regrouped since the Minsk II ceasefire agreement and has many new recruits and new toys from Washington. The map below shows how the UAF are approaching the contact line:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5_-c1uT9OM

In addition to Tulsi Gobbard, we also have this brave woman....

Let me also add that her party recently took the majority in French national elections. Please share in my joy by congratulating her and her party!

Where all my brave women at?

[size=14pt]"By fighting against Bashar al-Assad, in the space of three years, we have just strengthened ... Daesh" --Le Pen[/size]


SAHAR

December 6, 2015




"It's the stability of Syria that comes into the first priority, whoever the leader," declared Marine Le Pen, president of the Front National, during an interview with Le Temps.


"The question is whether you want to have at least a government in Syria, or if you want to see Daesh established there. It is up to the Syrian people to decide the fate of Bashar al-Assad, by means of democratic elections to be held in the future. In the current environment, the only person who is able to control the situation in Syria is Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian militias will not be able to prevent the collapse of Syria. We must see things as they really are and not as you would like them to be. By fighting against Bashar al-Assad, in the space of three years, we have just strengthened the positions of Daesh. France will ultimately have to backpedal and, start to cooperate with Bashar al-Assad. "

I don't know whats up with the spambot and this thread!

Turkish planes violate Greek and Syrian airspace with abandon.

Turkish troops are presently in Iraqi territory uninvited.

Not a word from the pro-Turkish bandwagon!


Fact is, Russia has provided satellite imagery of the massive oil smuggling exercise from stolen Syrian and Iraqi crude oil overseen and enabled by member of the Turkish government, yet these images have been waved aside as "fabrications"


Members of the Turkish press, parliament and military are being jailed or silenced for outing the complicity of the Turkish government and/or refusing to follow orders and yet these are waved aside also as irrelevant events. These arrested individuals we must accept are paid Russian trolls or bots just like the rest of the hope.less bots we find aplenty here on Nairaland. They are just "making mouth" with no shred of evidence that Turkish goverment is complict in this conspiracy.

Several Western (British, American, German, etc) news media have carried these reports of the massive oil trade being carried out across the Turkish border and how the Turkish border guards look away or allow their posts to be thinly manned but these are disregard as unfounded rumours and Russian propaganda. As a matter of fact, Turkish soldiers have been videod at the border fratenizing with ISIS foot soldiers but we gotta assume that these must be some sorta Russian voodoo trick.

A reporter, Serena Shim has mysteriously died while reporting on the illict trade between ISIS and the Turkish government. What's more, the investigation (or lack thereof) of her death has been beset by secrecy and intimidation but hey, who gives a hoot! This is the Turkish government we are talking about here; vetted and protected by NATO enagaged in a noble war against the "Russian aggressor"

The US VIce president himself has accused the Turkish government has far back as 2014 of aiding and abetting Islamic fundamentalists but hey, we should pay
no attention to that raging lun.a.tic who undoubtedly suffers bouts of dementia.

At the end of the day:

TURKEY = GOOD

RUSSIA = BAD

No matter what!

Ok na!

Turkish planes violate Greek and Syrian airspace with abandon.

Turkish troops are presently in Iraqi territory uninvited.

Not a word from the pro-Turkish bandwagon!


Fact is, Russia has provided satellite imagery of the massive oil smuggling exercise from stolen Syrian and Iraqi crude oil overseen and enabled by member of the Turkish government, yet these images have been waved aside as "fabrications"


Members of the Turkish press, parliament and military are being jailed or silenced for outing the complicity of the Turkish government and/or refusing to follow orders and yet these are waved aside also as irrelevant events. These arrested individuals we must accept are paid Russian trolls or bots just like the rest of the hope.less bots we find aplenty here on Nairaland. They are just "making mouth" with no shred of evidence that Turkish goverment is complict in this conspiracy.

Several Western (British, American, German, etc) news media have carried these reports of the massive oil trade being carried out across the Turkish border and how the Turkish border guards look away or allow their posts to be thinly manned but these are disregard as unfounded rumours and Russian propaganda. As a matter of fact, Turkish soldiers have been videod at the border fratenizing with ISIS foot soldiers but we gotta assume that these must be some sorta Russian voodoo trick.

A reporter, Serena Shim has mysteriously died while reporting on the illict trade between ISIS and the Turkish government. What's more, the investigation (or lack thereof) of her death has been beset by secrecy and intimidation but hey, who gives a hoot! This is the Turkish government we are talking about here; vetted and protected by NATO enagaged in a noble war against the "Russian aggressor"

The US VIce president himself has accused the Turkish government has far back as 2014 of aiding and abetting Islamic fundamentalists but hey, we should pay
no attention to that raging lun.a.tic who undoubtedly suffers bouts of dementia.

At the end of the day:

TURKEY = GOOD

RUSSIA = BAD

No matter what!

Ok na!

Missy89:


More like wishful thinking

1. There has been no "great" relationship between Turkey and Russia since the beginning of time and they have always been frenemies. Russia is the one sanctioning Turkey hereby weakening itself, Doesnt need the US to do that! Or was it America that told Putin and his government to start deporting Turkish businessmen and placing restrictions on Turkish goods?

2. Another baloney!. Turkey has repeatedly warned Russia for violating her airspace, I am pretty sure the Turks dont need America to tell them what do after repeated warnings. Syria shot down a Turkish plane when it violated her airspace. Was it Russia that advise Assad to shoot it down? Or what is good for the goose is no longer good for the gander?

Everything is not about Isreal

Unfortunately I was banned by this bloo.d.y SPAM bot so I couldn't reply immediately.

Note: Turkey and Russia may not be the chummiest of countries but they had economic ties. TRUE or FALSE? So you point exactly would be?

Besides where did I use the word "great relationship"? Please don't be lying against me biko!

Are you telling me that Turkey after acting the way it did, did not expect a reaction of some sort from Russia (or from any other country for that matter that could suffered such a fate?) Russia has acted to hurt Turkey although there would be some blowback on the Russian economy but how else would you have them react? By shooting down a Turkish plane within Turkish territory, huh - cos mind you, the Russian plane, despite your stubborn unwillingness to admit it, was shot down within Syrian airspace?! It was a pre-planned and blatant act of aggression... Simple!

Speaking of what is good for the goose being good for the gander, I take it that you agree that Russia is within its right to shoot down any erring Turkish plane right?