Looks like Syrian Regime Change is back on the menu

The diplomatic stand-off between the U.S. and Turkey ended today when visa services were resumed.

“The Department of State is confident that the security posture has improved sufficiently to allow for the full resumption of visa services in Turkey,” the U.S. statement said. Turkey reciprocated, while expressing its disagreement with the U.S. version of the story.

What is interesting about this article is what is missing from the article.
Just hours earlier a much more important event happened.

“Assad, I am saying this loud and clear, is a terrorist who spreads state terrorism,” Mr. Erdogan said at a joint news conference with the Tunisian president, Beji Caid Essebsi, in Tunis. “Would the Syrian people like to see someone like this stay in charge?”
In remarks quoted by Turkish news agencies, Mr. Erdogan also said: “It is absolutely impossible to move ahead with Assad in Syria. For what? How could we embrace the future with the president of a Syria who killed close to one million of its citizens?”
Furious over the insult, Syria’s Foreign Ministry called Mr. Erdogan a terrorist supporter who bore “prime responsibility for the bloodshed in Syria.”

Erdogan calls Assad a terrorist and demands regime change and suddenly we resume visa services with Turkey. What a coincidence.
You know what's also a coincidence? That Assad, after fighting four bloody years against ISIS is suddenly a BFF of ISIS, according to Voice Of America.

Islamic State fighters are trying to make their way to parts of Syria controlled by President Bashar al-Assad, where they are apparently able to operate freely.
“We are seeing the movement of limited numbers of ISIS militants westwards,” said British Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney, deputy commander of Strategy and Support for the U.S.-backed coalition to defeat the Islamic State terror group.
“They seem to be moving with impunity through regime-held territory,” Gedney said of the Islamic State fighters, during a briefing from Baghdad Wednesday.
“The regime is either unwilling or unable to defeat Daesh within their borders,” he added, using the Arabic acronym for the terror group.

Hmmm. A middle east dictator that we hate is best friends with international terrorists, that he has only "pretended" to be against.
Where have I heard that one before?

CNN’s Michael Weiss pushed the line that Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin would not fight Islamic State and that Syria and Russia were the group’s “unacknowledged air force.” His co-author, Hassan Hassan, contended that the Syrian regime must go because “Assad has never fought [Islamic State] before.”
For a while, everywhere one looked, the media was peddling the same narrative. The Daily Beast described Islamic State fighters as “Assad’s henchmen.” The New York Times promoted the idea that “Assad’s forces” have been “aiding” Islamic State by “not only avoiding” the group “but actively seeking to bolster their position.” Time parroted the pro-regime-change line that “Bashar Assad won't fight” Islamic State.

But these popular arguments were, to put it mildly, empirically challenged.

The case for regime change in Damascus was reminiscent of the one cooked up for Baghdad in 2003: Interventionists played on American fears by pretending that the strongmen were in direct cahoots with Salafi jihadists (the ultra-conservative movement within Sunni Islam). The evidence of Assad sponsoring Islamic State, however, was about as strong as for Saddam Hussein sponsoring Al Qaeda.

Oh right. Assad = Saddam = Hitler.
Does anyone still fall for that line?

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Caitlin article

Real News host and producer Aaron Maté has recently emerged as one of the most articulate critics of the establishment Russia narrative and the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, and has published in The Nation some of the clearest arguments against both that I’ve yet seen. Luke Harding is a journalist for The Guardian where he has been writing prolifically in promotion of the Russiagate narrative, and is the author of New York Times bestseller Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.

In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill accurately described as “brutal”.

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@gjohnsit
Aaron Mate takes Luke Harding apart, piece by piece, calmly and methodically. When he is done it is clear that he does not have one piece of hard evidence that Russia colluded with Trump. Harding gets angrier and angrier all the while revealing that the book is entirely based on his Russophobia, and therefore the Russian must have done it, because, well because, they are scoundrels. At the end Harding pulls his connection. Well done, Aaron. I'm going to give The Real News some love.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

@The Wizard

That's because he didn't really have absolute, undeniable proof of collusion such as the definitive example, (upon uttering which, he left,) that of Trump and Putin ever entering a sauna at the same time.

Clearly, 'sauna' is merely another term indicating 'collusion', which apparently can mean 'whatever RussiaGaters (these being nothing like our Al[igator], unfortunately,) think anyone might make out of it', perhaps even such as that of colluding toward a mutual purifying sweat in a hot wet environment at the same time - undoubtedly heatedly exchanging molecules! Even more telling of collusion than two people being in the same room, or even sitting at the same table, with anyone of Russian extraction, now that that's apparently a thing.

But this certainly shows the strength of the RUSSIA!!! DID EVERYTHING!!! EVERYWHERE!!! arguments and the fact that this sort of thing is definitely worth eliminating planetary life over.

Perhaps we should have the RussiaGaters tested, to see if they bear any potentially 'Russian Ubiquitous Superman genetic material', by some of these internet DNA collectors, so that they won't feel left out of the pre-MAD investigations? And incidentally assessed at the same point by mental health professionals to see if they can be helped?

I believe that they may have caught this cartoon supervillain obsessive belief from the Wile E. Bibi wing of the US government. You know, the large portion controlled by his supportive billionaires.

(Play it again, Sam, what you said is as true as it ever was, and can almost certainly have been applied to virtually any Likud/US PTB long-targeted country, at least until the threats became too much to not try to defend against.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n8Elfq_18k

Netanyahu Uses Looney Tunes Cartoon Bomb in UN Speech?!
The Majority Report with Sam Seder

The lot of them apparently headed in the direction illustrated below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f55MsEanybw

Looney Tunes wile E Coyote atomic bomb

What more can I say... we have nowhere but here - and no reality-evading escape for the Wile E. PTB, either...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Azazello's picture

@gjohnsit
This time it's Maté with Stephen Cohen.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69pk01jMdac width:500 height:300]

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

@gjohnsit My Lord, Harding is very intent on selling his book and perhaps gaining big fame, sorry but that's how I see him. Scary that is a best seller, but then again, I learned long ago most of those are crap. Not all, but many.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

is the only word I can use to describe the audacity of the lies being told by whoever is spouting this crap. It illustrates the Grand Canyon-like chasm between the military leadership in this country that is willing to change sides from moment to moment in this war and the military leadership consistently telling the truth, people like Michael Flynn:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287...

… THE GENERAL SITUATION:

... B. THE SALAFIST, THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, AND AQI ARE THE MAJOR FORCES DRIVING THE INSURGENCY IN SYRIA.

C. THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY SUPPORT THE OPPOSITION; WHILE RUSSIA, CHINA, AND IRAN SUPPORT THE REGIME.

… C. IF THE SITUATION UNRAVELS THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME, WHICH IS CONSIDERED THE STRATEGIC DEPTH OF THE SHIA EXPANSION (IRAQ AND IRAN).

D. THE DETERIORATION OF THE SITUATION HAS DIRE CONSEQUENCES ON THE IRAQI SITUATION AND ARE AS FOLLOWS:

--1. THIS CREATES THE IDEAL ATMOSPHERE FOR AQI TO RETURN TO ITS OLD POCKETS IN MOSUL AND RAMADI, AND WILL PROVIDE A RENEWED MOMENTUM UNDER THE PRESUMPTION OF UNIFYING THE JIHAD AMONG SUNNI IRAQ AND SYRIA… ISI COULD ALSO DECLARE AN ISLAMIC STATE THROUGH ITS UNION WITH OTHER TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS IN IRAQ AND SYRIA, WHICH WILL CREATE GRAVE DANGER IN REGARDS TO UNIFYING IRAQ AND THE PROTECTION OF ITS TERRITORY...

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hecate's picture

@Linda Wood
Flynn is quite the truthteller:

There exists an international alliance of evil countries and movements that is working to destroy us. The war is on. We face a working coalition that extends from North Korea and China to Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Radical Islam is a tribal cult and must be crushed. Critics get buried in the details of sunna, hadiths, the umma and the musings of countless Muslim clerics and imams. These so-called Islamic scholars keep their message so complicated so as to create chaos, to confuse in order to control. Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and Mussolini were more transparent. Sharia is a violent law that is buried in barbaric convictions.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@hecate

...present with the severe brain-damage characteristic of US Neocons who are sick with lust to rule the world by threatening any resisters with US military slaughter and annihilation. Their reality is relative to the spreading conquest of Greater Israel and the liberty and freedom that lets America's dick swing freely above all other sovereign nations.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the American people don't have a single neuron left in their heads they can devote to thinking critically about Michael Flynn, or any other Neocon asshole who has broken loose on the world stage. So you can save yourself the effort of digging through the monumental waste pile of US ignorance to make a point that was already dead on arrival. If neurons could clap, you point would be met with the silence of brains turned to propaganda jelly.

On a more personal note, don't tell me you have bought into the Russian hoax.

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hecate's picture

@Pluto's Republic
is a nut and a neocon uber alles, which is why he coauthored a nutbar "let's have some wars against everybody" book with the raving maniac Michael Ledeen, he of "every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business." So I thought it kind of weird to see Flynn described here as someone "consistently telling the truth." Which I guess also must explain why he went into federal court and told the judge he is a liar. Because people "consistently telling the truth," that's just the sort of thing they do.

I am totally waiting for Mueller to give The Hairball the special Paper that says he is not a Rooski.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@hecate

...and suffers dramatic flare-up among his staff. He's getting dick-pics and fan mail from both sides of the aisle, and basking in the glow. But in his spare moments, he's praying to the Holy Blue Dress for divine intervention. If it doesn't come soon, he's going to be stuck with only this:

....waiting for Mueller to give The Hairball the special Paper that says he is not a Rooski.

I think Mueller is hoping that he will be thrown off the case — or maybe he can recuse himself — because the shenanigans of his philandering staff aborted his promising investigation. Damn them! It's bad enough that he will be forever tainted by the fraudulent FISA wiretapping of a US President, based on fake news purchased by the DNC.

Although — Trump has committed one very solid, well-documented war crime. They could go with that, if all else fails. Yeah, right.

In the spirit of helpfulness, I dug up a tidbit the other day. Trump's father was arrested in Brooklyn while marching with the KKK and slugging people. But that's more preventative than impeachable. Who am I kidding? Nothing could have prevented Hillary's loss, which was baked in the cake before the Primaries even ended.

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hecate's picture

@Pluto's Republic @Pluto's Republic
daddy was a Klansman. It's in the genes. As The Hairball himself endlessly asserts.

I agree with you about the baked-in Doom of the Clinton II woman. As I observed here, she was trying for a second time to land atop the great wheel, and the universe generally doesn't like that. It's greedy. In my view, all things Russia are irrelevant as to why she lost the election. She lost because the Americans didn't want her. Because she was a tired old has-been, whose show had been running longer than even did Gunsmoke, and they wanted it shut off. She could articulate no real reason why she should be the president, other than that she and The Clenis sat around one day and decided there should be "eight years of Bill, eight years of Hill." The Americans determined they had made a mistake with all those Bushes, and they really did not want to go back to the 14th Century and be governed by revolving clown cars of family dynasties. In this the Americans were wise. Unfortunately, the Americans were not wise in selecting instead The Hairball, who is a Piltdown Man. Which is why I consistently advocated here that the Americans should elect Annabella Piugattuk to be the president. Not many listened. Which is fine.

In the histories, it will be Sad to be the Clinton II woman. In trying to be the president, she first lost to a Kenyan, and then to a Morlock.

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@hecate

you may be right about Flynn being contradictory in writing a book with Michael Ledeen, who I would agree is a psychopathic Neocon. I'm guessing the quotation you posted was written by Ledeen. It is consistent with his Neocon madness, whereas Flynn consistently pointed out the insanity of our alliance with the Gulf countries and Turkey in their support of AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) and with what was becoming the Islamic State. I believe it is generally understood that Flynn's outspoken criticism of this policy is what got him fired from his position as Director of the DIA. His hour-long interview with Al Jazeera likewise emphasized the counter-productive nature of this policy in no uncertain terms.

Seymour Hersh also quoted Flynn thus:

https://geopolitics.co/2015/12/22/dempseys-pentagon-aided-assad-with-mil...

… … Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad… ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood Isis’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.’ The DIA’s reporting, he said, ‘got enormous pushback’ from the Obama administration. ‘I felt that they did not want to hear the truth.’

… General Dempsey and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff kept their dissent out of bureaucratic channels, and survived in office. General Michael Flynn did not. ‘Flynn incurred the wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria,’ said Patrick Lang, a retired army colonel who served for nearly a decade as the chief Middle East civilian intelligence officer for the DIA. ‘He thought truth was the best thing and they shoved him out. He wouldn’t shut up.’ Flynn told me his problems went beyond Syria. ‘I was shaking things up at the DIA – and not just moving deckchairs on the Titanic. It was radical reform. I felt that the civilian leadership did not want to hear the truth. I suffered for it, but I’m OK with that.’ In a recent interview in Der Spiegel, Flynn was blunt about Russia’s entry into the Syrian war: ‘We have to work constructively with Russia. Whether we like it or not, Russia made a decision to be there and to act militarily. They are there, and this has dramatically changed the dynamic. So you can’t say Russia is bad; they have to go home. It’s not going to happen. Get real.’

Please realize, hecate, that even Vice President Biden criticized the policy:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29528482

… "Our biggest problem was our allies," Mr Biden told students at the Harvard Kennedy School.

"The Turks… the Saudis, the Emirates, etc, what were they doing? They were so determined to take down (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tonnes of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad."

These policies ended up helping militants linked to al-Qaeda and ultimately IS, he said...

He was forced to apologize! The point I am trying to make is that pressure of various kinds is applied in order to discredit critics of this treasonous policy. Flynn has also been made out to be anti-Islam, whereas he is anti-Salafist, anti-Wahhabist, anti-terrorist. I respect your scrutiny of Gen. Flynn, but I hope you will read more of his public statements and the DIA report in order to understand his consistent opposition to treason by our political leadership.

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hecate's picture

@Linda Wood
was fired for his addiction to what those who suffered in serving under him came to call “Flynn facts”—shit he just pulls out his ass and declares Real. This of course endeared him to The Hairball, another creature who rolls dingleberries out his sphincter and then decrees them Reality. Flynn’s appointment to the DIA was actually a signal his career had hit the wall, as that agency is a yeehaw backwater staffed with special-needs people; the DIA is commonly known as “Do It Again,” because whatever comes out of it, must again be attempted, this time by people with detectable brain activity. Flynn’s career stalled when his mentor and protector, the psychopathic murderer Stanley McChrystal, was cashiered. Flynn himself made his bones running kill squads in Iraq. It is not possible to claim sections of Field Of Fight with which one is uncomfortable are the work of Ledeen, rather than Flynn, since that book is written in the first person, in Flynn’s voice. And it everywhere restates what Flynn has elsewhere upchucked. For instance, his obsession with reducing Iran to a plane of molten glass. Flynn once memorably went on the television and Flynn-facted that Iranian “terrorists” have killed more Americans than Al Qaeda. Challenged to come up with the numbers, he increasingly flailed about, until ultimately suggesting they just call Ledeen—he would confirm that Flynn was Right. It is also not accurate to assert that Flynn is not a pig with an unreasoning hatred for all that is Muslim: in his twitlers, in between odes to his fellow fact-free ass, the rapist Mike Cernovich, Flynn will chunder such wonderments as “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.” When jihading against Iran, Flynn will confuse Khomeini with Khamenei: Khomeini, Khamenei—what does it matter, they’re all mud people, who need to be dead. Flynn is at root a profoundly stupid person, unable, unwilling, to acquaint himself with, much less accept, even the most basic contours of verifiable reality.

I asked him whether it was appropriate for Bannon to have a permanent seat on the NSC. He paused. “Well, I mean, that decision’s been made,” he said. Besides, didn’t other political advisers enjoy similar access? He brought up Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama. Jarrett did not have a seat on the National Security Council, I said. “She didn’t? How about, like, Axelrod? He was Clinton, right?” (David Axelrod was Obama’s chief strategist.)

I understand the impulse to cite to authority figures to buttress what one has already decided to be true. However, Flynn is a serial killer, a devotee of Thanatos, who has murdered people all over the globe, willingly enlisted in organized criminal gangs dedicated to killing people and breaking things. I am unable to credit such a person, on anything. Unless he first, like Leo Tolstoy, James Jones, Tim O’Brien, etc., repents for all he has done. That is not Flynn. Flynn to this day avidly advocates the creation of more corpses. So he can go to Hell.

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@hecate

I sense Flynn knows where he is going, Hell-wise, when he says, "history will not be kind," in judging his behavior and that of the administrations he worked for in Iraq. That his acknowledgment has specifically to do with producing the ISIS leadership is extremely important and even, let's face it, potentially life-threatening in his case. Let's not kid ourselves. I'm not saying he's Goody Two Shoes. I am saying he is part of the military pushback against administration duplicity in its treasonous support of ISIS.

I was a student in high school when Eisenhower gave his Farewell Address, and I turned him into a hero of pacifism in my mind for defining the "disastrous rise of misplaced power" represented by the military industrial complex. Later I realized he was no such thing. And later still I wondered why he took so long to go public. Why did he have Hitler's New York lawyers, the Dulles brothers, as Secretary of State and head of the CIA? Why did he allow, no, authorize, Allen Dulles to remove the government of Iran and replace it with an oil drunk dictatorship of murderers and torturers? Was he stupid? Was he afraid of being assassinated? Was he an oil drunk murderer himself?

Why did FDR license certain U.S. corporations to be exempt from the Trading With the Enemy Act for the duration of WWII? Was he stupid? Was he afraid of being assassinated? Was he an oil drunk murderer? I don't know the answer to those questions, but I don't think either Eisenhower or FDR was stupid.

Your impassioned hatred of the perpetrators of war is something I respect and something I hope you will have for your whole life. But I hope you will also take heart when members of our sick military stand up and say why they are sick.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/headtohead/2016/01/transcript-michae...

Transcript: Michael Flynn on ISIL
13 Jan 2016

... Mehdi Hasan: ... Many would argue that the Iraq invasion was a recruiting sergeant for extremists and terrorists. You seem to have conceded partly that, earlier on in this interview. You said that we added fuel to the fire, I think was your phrase.

Michael Flynn: [TALKING OVER] I think, I think it was a strategic mistake. I think history will not be kind. It was a strategic mistake.

Mehdi Hasan: [INTERRUPTING] But let me just get very specific on Iraq. US prisons in Iraq are believed to have helped radicalise thousands of young Iraqis who passed through them.

Michael Flynn: Absolutely.

Mehdi Hasan: Not just through torture but through providing a recruiting ground, a meeting place, a training facility for the very same militants that the US is now bombing. I think 17 of the top 25 ISIL commanders -

Michael Flynn: [INTERRUPTING] Yeah, there's no, there's no doubt – there's no doubt that the prison system that was, that was the Iraqi prison system, became, you know, places, training ground, the training ground for what we’re facing today.

… Michael Flynn: [TALKING OVER] Yeah. I think that we have invested in, in more conflict instead of actually investing in solutions. So, and when I say that, what I mean is that we invest in more drones, we invest in more bombs, we invest in more weapons, we invest in more ammunition, we invest in more guys to go out and kill more guys. That's investing in conflict, instead of really taking a serious look and say, "What … what are the big excuses that these guys are using?" And if it's lack of, you know, if it's poor economic conditions, if it's poor social conditions, then let's fix those. But those kinds of things aren't gonna get fixed overnight. And the leaders of the Middle East have to decide that that's what they want to do.

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QMS's picture

@hecate for the US population, so as to make us believe non-aligned states must be eliminated. Blocking our road to freedom. Therefore the 800 trillion petrodollars are protecting us from national security?

I don't get it. What has Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua done to become our enemies exactly. Just because they won't be bullied by our almighty interests? Time to change perspective. This schoolyard mentality of "it's my world and I won't share it" just because US has more bombs is sick. We are smarter than that.

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question everything

hecate's picture

@QMS
is an insane person who sees Dangers everywhere, including in the basements of pizza parlors that have no basements. In his Field of Fight he describes how all the Badnesses are connected in one big string of salami:

This administration has forbidden us to describe our enemies properly and clearly: they are Radical Islamists. They are not alone, and are allied with countries and groups who, though not religious fanatics, share their hatred of the West, particularly the United States and Israel. Those allies include North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, and Venezuela.

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QMS's picture

@hecate given the US penchant for regime change, violent intervention, preemptive hostilities, ambassadorial threats and the like. It is not a bug in another country's foreign policy to reject western influence. It is more a sign there is an internal awareness of the cost to join that club.

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question everything

Lookout's picture

...and here's a link to text/transcript as well
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20761:Where%27s-the-%27Collusion%27%3F

Today Aaron posted this interview with Stephen F. Cohen is Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History and Politics at New York University and Princeton University.
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20806:As-Russian-Election-Begins%2C-Will...
(Video or text)

I suspect the anti-Assad noise is Israel related as T-rump has his nose up Nitwityahoo's but. It seems like they want a war with Iran and I think the embassy move is a stick in the eye to get it going (along with Yemen, Hamas, and so on). The weirdest part to me Saudis pro Israel position in order to get at Iran.

As we know it's a long history...

It is believed that the area was where human civilization first started with the Sumerians in the Fertile Crescent, or Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, namely modern day Iraq. Ten thousand years have passed since, and the area has seen much conflict, but the many invasions by great civilizations, such as the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires, have made the Middle East into the ethnically, racially, linguistically, culturally, and politically diverse culture that it is today.
The last of these huge empires was the Ottoman, only broken up around 1920, during World War I, which was a critical time in the history of the modern Arab world. This was when Great Britain really started to delve into Arabic affairs, which is actually where the name Middle East comes from

Since the 50's it's been our role to sow havoc and reap their oil.

Thanks for the Syrian update.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
"Syrian forces move toward Israeli border".

Well, yeh. Syria borders Israel. Do you not expect Syrian forces to be in...Syria?

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WaterLily's picture

@Lookout Christ on a cracker.

I follow Caitlyn but hadn't yet found the time to watch this interview. Right now, reading the transcript is easier. And I'm cringing with embarrassment for Luke Harding. This interview is, indeed, a thrashing. And I think it's even starker in the written word: I need to go back and count how many times he says "kind of" and "sort of" and any number of variations on both when asked to present actual evidence.

Earlier, I read MarkFromQueens's posts on acts of individual rebellion/subversion. I would love -- LOVE -- to print copies of this transcript and tape them to the title page of Harding's book.

In fact, this may be exactly where I start.

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Meteor Man's picture

Mr. Erdogan said at a joint news conference with the Tunisian president, Beji Caid Essebsi, in Tunis. “Would the Syrian people like to see someone like this stay in charge?”

If given a choice between American military terrorists, ISIS or Erdogon, I would bet my Skid Row bottom dollar that the answer is yes!

Query: Were the Syrian people better off before 911 than they are now?

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

There appears to be a growing and significant number of US troops in Syria. I have read numbers up to 4,000. There have been reports of US jets contesting Russian fighter jets.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/12/06/there-are-f...

Netenyaho is constantly on the case of Iran troops in Syria and support for Hezbollah. There is the worry in neocon circles about the Shia Crescent. Which by the way, was why a position paper out of Soc Clinton's office which advocated for directly attacking the Assad regime.

And Trump's support for basically the Israeli right wing is loyal and unquestionable. And they want Iran and Assad attacked.

Did Putin know something when he declared victory over ISIS and then basically left Dodge? The Russians, Syrians, Iranians, and Hezbollah did crush ISIS and the "moderates" are on the run--effectively leaving no military threat against Assad. Who or what will cause the regime change if not ISIS or Al Queda? The Turks and US?

Are we looking at a build up of an invasion of Syria by the Turks and US troops? Will this be an excuse to also start military attacks against Iran for firing at American troops in Syria?

The cliched deep shit seems to be flying straight into the stereotyped fan.

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@MrWebster
red alert

The U.S. and Israel have reached a joint strategic work plan to counter Iranian activity in the Middle East. U.S. and Israeli officials said the joint understandings were reached in a secret meeting between senior Israeli and U.S. delegations at the White House on December 12th.
...
Countering Iranian activity in the region, especially the Iranian entrenchment efforts in Syria and the Iranian support for Hezbollah and other terror groups. This working group will also deal with drafting U.S.-Israeli policy regarding the "day after" in the Syrian civil war.
Countering Iranian ballistic missiles development and the Iranian "precision project" aimed at manufacturing precision guided missiles in Syria and Lebanon for Hezbollah to be used against Israel in a future war.
Joint U.S.-Israeli preparation for different escalation scenarios in the region concerning Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
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@gjohnsit Can only shake my head and resort to sports metaphors.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@gjohnsit

...are always talking about?

Could we have an example. Some evidence of something that means anything out of the ordinary over the past 2,000 years?

Or, does CrowdStrike control all of those forensics, too?

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dervish's picture

@Pluto's Republic Why isn't that enough for you?

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

there were rumors that ISIS and their families were allowed to leave Syria after the fall of Raqqa. Over 1,500 ISIS members and all of their equipment left without any worries of being attacked. US and Russian jets got into a pissing match a few times when Russian jets were trying to bomb ISIS positions. The US jets were protecting them from Russia. How many of the weapons that we sold the Saudis made their way into ISIS troops hands?

Fighters from US-backed SDF describe unimpeded ISIS exodus from Raqqa on their watch

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have provided RT’s Ruptly video service with footage confirming reports of a hundreds-strong Islamic State convoy leaving its former stronghold, Raqqa, completely unimpeded.

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

They always accuse others of doing what they do themselves...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

dervish's picture

@Ellen North so when someone tells the truth about them later, people get confused. This is out of Rove's playbook.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

@dervish

Ah, yes, no doubt something Rove gained from extensive experience of early childhood, where a good - and malicious - liar can create havoc for siblings with unwitting parents.

"Who killed Cock Robin?" "He did!"

And he just never developed from there?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Big Al's picture

not with the Obama admin or the Trump admin. Israel is the primary driver for that. Haley has been out front all along saying Assad must go, making it clear early on in the Trump admin.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/08/politics/nikki-haley-syria-interview-sotu-...

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