From who?
What does winning look like, anyway?
Trump promises a more aggressive strategy in Afghanistan by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Mark Landler New York Times
Trump commits US to fight on in Afghanistan; no speedy exit
Different article at boston.com than my printed AP article, which apparently has also been rewritten, on the front page of my printed pos and my impression of the print was they soft-sold what I literally saw as a frightening display (won't that push Pakistan into the arms of Russia and China? And what about iran? They share a border, too. WWIII battle lines being formed as I type. Everyone is being maneuvered into position by the great globe-kickers of our times). I wouldn't normally agree with the Globe, but he did have the appearance of laziness to me (I also noticed that he wore a blue tie, not his traditional red, for what it's worth) as the downward spiral continues.
I even stuck around for Hannity and Larry O'Donnell. The guests? John Bolton (pushing action against Pakistan if you can believe it), Oliver North (no comment), and Evan McMullin, respectively, the CIA agent who was on the Utah ballot to dent Trump. He was on Larry's show praising Trump while some Jewish guy I never heard of was questioning it all.
Good thing we won Iraq:
"Iraqi forces start offensive to retake Tal Afar from ISIS" by Tim Arango New York Times August 20, 2017
BAGHDAD — Tal Afar, whose population is mostly ethnic Turkmen and is divided along religious lines between Shi’ites and Sunnis, has long been known as a place where extremist views have thrived, and the city is the hometown of many Islamic State leaders.
An estimated 1,000 Islamic State fighters are believed to be dug in to defend Tal Afar, which has been surrounded by security forces and militias for months.
US military officials visiting Baghdad this week warned that the fight, which may last weeks or months, could be particularly brutal and bloody, because the militants have no way to flee the city.
Then just continue the siege and starve them out.
Oh, right, "10,000 to 50,000 civilians remain in the city."
I'm sure dropping bombs in support will helm them a lot.
It's going to be like Mosul, more history erasing rubble.
See a pattern, American?
The start of the push on Tal Afar, which is being supported by US air power, began with the familiar stagecraft of a prime minister determined to capitalize on the military operations to present himself as an effective leader.
Iraqi airplanes dropped leaflets, and the entire is basically a staged and orchestrated exercise in mind manipulation and opinion making.
As an ethnic Turkmen city whose Shi’ite residents had been killed or expelled, Tal Afar became caught up in the regional rivalry between Turkey, which has historical and ethnic connections to the city, and Iran, the region’s pre-eminent Shi’ite Muslim power.
Who would want to break them apart after they cooperated in Syria?
Only one group that I can think of!
As the operation for Mosul began, Iraqi Shi’ite militias loyal to Iran moved toward Tal Afar, raising concerns of a sectarian blood bath and the possibility of intervention by Turkey. The militias captured a nearby airfield, but did not assault the city itself.
That's the official Zionist and government narrative and the cover under which the agenda of EUSraeli empire is being advanced, with the added benefit of those same forces fighting the "enemies" their own intelligence services have created.
The militias are now taking part in the offensive on Tal Afar alongside Iraqi security forces, but they are not in the lead, which has lowered tensions with Turkey.
Someone trying to stir things up but they are not biting!
In a separate development Sunday, Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, refused any security cooperation with Western nations or the reopening of their embassies, until they cut ties with opposition and insurgent groups.
Why would he want the people who destroyed his country and who are still committed to regime change back in his country?
Shortly after Assad gave his speech, a shell hit the first international fair in the country since the war began six years ago, killing at least four people, the Associated Press reported.
The state-run news agency blamed the rebels in the suburbs of the capital, saying they fired the shell in violation of a truce reached earlier this month in the eastern suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta.
Assad’s defiant comments come at a time when his troops and pro-Iranian militiamen are gaining ground across the country under the cover of Russian airstrikes. Many countries have ceased calling for him to step down.
It's over! Trump surrendered Syria, and that was the last we will see of the non-interventionist presidency for which we were hoping.
Speaking before dozens of Syrian diplomats in Damascus, Assad praised Russia, Iran, China, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah for supporting his government during the conflict.
His friends and WWIII allies. Russia has won this round.
He said Syria will look east when it comes to political, economic, and cultural relations.
‘‘The direct support of our friends, politically, economically, and militarily, made our advance on the ground greater and the losses of war less. Therefore, they are our partners in these achievements on the road to crush terrorism,’’ Assad said.
‘‘Let’s be clear. There will be no security cooperation nor opening of embassies or even a role for some countries that say that they want to play a role in ending the crisis in Syria before they clearly and frankly cut their relations with terrorism,’’ Assad said. ‘‘At that point maybe we can speak about opening embassies.’’
Nothing vague there. Couldn't be any clearer.
After months of steady military advances, Syria’s government has sought to portray itself as the victor in a war that is winding down, and is looking ahead to reconstruction.
Trump failed abysmally at that last night.
The Syrian president said his country’s economy is turning to growth again ‘‘at a very slow pace, although we are under an almost complete embargo.’’
The Syrian crisis began in March 2011 with a peaceful uprising against Assad’s government, later escalating into a full-fledged civil war after a brutal government crackdown and the rise of an armed insurgency. The war has since killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced half the country’s population.
That's a nice rewrite except the armed terrorist mercenaries the CIA trained and sent there were anything but peaceful, as they used those staged assets and rallies to insert them in the country. It's classic destabilization right out of the CIA playbook. It's no secret. That is how they do things when fomenting regime change.
It wasn't a civil war, either. It was an outside force engaged in a regime change operation that failed. Pre$$ is pushing civil wars all over the planet.
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Yeah, the article ended with a loss.
"Iraqi forces close in on ISIS-held town west of Mosul" Associated Press August 22, 2017
HALABIYAH, Iraq — Iraqi forces made progress as they closed in on the Islamic State-held town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, the US-led coalition and an Iraqi military spokesman said Monday.
It's been 14 years of that narrative.
US Army Colonel Ryan Dillon said Iraqi forces had retaken much territory from the extremist group since the operation began early Sunday, though they have not yet pushed into the town itself.
‘‘As we get into the urban areas — as we saw in Mosul and Raqqa — that’s where we’ll see the pace slow down, that’s where [ISIS] have placed their defenses,’’ he said.
Rubble.
In a separate development Monday, Russia said it has intensified its air campaign in Syria to help President Bashar Assad’s forces drive Islamic State militants from Deir el-Zour, a major stronghold for the group, killing an estimated 800 militants across the country this month alone.
Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi said Russian jets are making 60 to 70 flights a day to target militants heading from other areas to join the fight in the eastern city. He said Syrian troops were advancing from three directions to encircle Deir el-Zour.
The spokesman for the Joint Military Command in Iraq, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, said Iraqi troops recaptured six villages a few miles from the urban areas of Tal Afar. He said militants deployed suicide car bombers, roadside bombs, and mortars to slow the advancing troops.
Citing intelligence, Rasool estimated the number of ISIS militants inside the town at around 2,000 fighters.
US-backed Iraqi forces drove ISIS from Mosul last month after a nine-month campaign.
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"Putin appoints new Russian ambassador to US" Associated Press August 22, 2017
MOSCOW — A Russian diplomat who gained a reputation as a hawk during his tenure at the Defense Ministry was named the new ambassador to the United States.
Anatoly Antonov, 62, was appointed by President Vladimir Putin. He takes the job amid badly strained US-Russia relations after the approval of a new wave of US sanctions against Moscow and the Kremlin’s decision to oust many US diplomatic personnel from Russia.
He succeeds Sergei Kislyak, who found himself at the center of controversy amid claims Russia interfered in the US presidential election.
Kislyak’s contacts with members of President Trump’s team have been part of congressional and FBI investigations into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Russia has denied that it interfered in any way.
Separately on Monday, the US diplomatic mission to Russia said it planned to sharply reduce visa services because of Moscow’s order to cut its staff, the latest in a series of tit-for-tat moves by the countries.
As long as it stays tit-for-tat, I can live with that.
The embassy said that, beginning Wednesday, it would suspend issuing all nonimmigrant visas — such as for business, work, and tourism — and that starting Sept. 1 it would issue such visas only in Moscow “for as long as our staffing levels are reduced.”
I was told they were slashing them, but that was probably a bad choice of words.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said the announcement was “another attempt to make the Russian citizen angry about the actions of the Russian government.”
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Related:
"Raw numbers no longer cut it for Russia’s central bank in its effort to keep up with the economy. The man in charge of research and forecasting seeks to know how Russians really feel by mining “big data,” gathered from social media and online stores. The Bank of Russia has already developed a gauge of economic activity by scouring a news site, according to Alexander Morozov, who’s headed the department for almost two years after a decade as HSBC Holdings’ economist in Moscow. “I’d like to build a whole line of indexes using big data — for economic activity, a forward indicator of the labor market, and also an index of price pressure,” he said. Russia’s central bank is the latest to turn to big-data analysis as policy makers from China and Indonesia to Norway and the United Kingdom sift through information to get a better grasp of their economies by using real-time indicators. In Russia, the quality of official statistics has been under scrutiny, with Morozov’s department questioning figures on retail sales earlier this year."
Do they have a Labor Department that is a perpetually pathological liar, too? Always revising things?
Also see:
"Russia has emerged as one of the winners from the trade dispute between Canada and the United States over lumber. The United States is importing more softwood lumber from overseas after it slapped tariffs on Canadian supplies, making them more expensive. Russian shipments are 42 percent higher so far in 2017, according to US government data. To be sure, Russia accounts for a relatively small proportion of the total, while European countries such as Germany and Sweden are among the biggest suppliers to the United States. But the shift in volumes illustrates how a political spat has quickly altered the flow of international trade. ‘‘It seems to be that there’s something illogical that we’re not buying the lumber from our neighbors to the north, that we’re buying it from the Russians,’’ said Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders. The dispute has increased material costs for house builders in the United States by 20 percent, according to Howard. Lumber futures traded in Chicago have gained 13 percent this year. The trade in softwood lumber between the United States and Canada has been an intermittent source of friction for years, but tensions escalated in April when the Trump administration set countervailing duties of up to 24 percent on Canadian imports. Additional duties of as much as 7.7 percent followed in June."
Now that means..... war?
"US, Canadian, and Mexican negotiators are pledging to work quickly to update the North American Free Trade Agreement, a 23-year-old pact that President Trump has called the worst trade deal in history. The first round of renegotiations wrapped up Sunday. The three countries plan to meet again in Mexico Sept. 1-5, in Canada late next month, and back in the United States in October. They did not offer details on the five-day talks. The negotiations are likely to be contentious. US trade representative Robert Lighthizer said Wednesday that the United States ‘‘is not interested in a mere tweaking’’ of NAFTA and will seek an ambitious rewrite. NAFTA did away with most barriers, including tariffs, on trade between the three countries. Trump and other critics say the agreement encouraged manufacturers to move south of the border to use lower-wage Mexican labor. Lighthizer said the United States wants to do more to ensure products are made in the NAFTA trade bloc and specifically in the United States. The Canadians and Mexicans agree an update is needed but have defended NAFTA as an economic success story."
There is no sense talking trade anymore with Bannon gone, nor is there any reason to read lies and slander when they previously reported the opposite.
Wheeling still further south:
"Colombia offers asylum to ousted Venezuela prosecutor" by Associated Press August 21, 2017
CARACAS — Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Monday offered asylum to Venezuela’s ousted chief prosecutor, who had fled to the country last week.
Luisa Ortega arrived in Colombia on Friday with her husband, German Ferrer, after Venezuelan authorities ordered his arrest for allegedly running an extortion ring out of the prosecutor’s office.
Santos said Ortega is being protected by Colombian authorities and if she chooses to request asylum, he will grant it.
Ortega has not spoken since her arrival to Colombia’s capital.
But before leaving Venezuela, she said the accusations against her husband were payback for her decision to break with President Nicolas Maduro’s increasingly authoritarian government and denounce corruption by members of his inner circle.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza responded via Twitter, calling Santos’s decision ‘‘cynical’’ and saying Bogota has become the center of ‘‘conspiracy against demo-cracy and peace in Venezuela.’’
Ortega’s removal by the progovernment constitutional assembly has been denounced by dozens of foreign governments.
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Didn't Russia just say hands off Venezuela, too?
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Shark!
"In the 72 years since the Indianapolis, a US Navy cruiser, sank about 12 minutes after being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, the disaster has inspired controversy, dozens of books, a play, and a famous scene in “Jaws,” but the resting place of the Indianapolis had remained a mystery. That was until Saturday, when a team led by Paul G. Allen, the billionaire cofounder of Microsoft, announced that it had found unmistakable wreckage of the Indianapolis 18,000 feet deep in the Philippine Sea, rekindling memories of the Navy’s worst disaster at sea. “Even in a great tragedy like this one, there is valor, there is bravery,” Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox, who has retired from active duty and is director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, said in a video posted on Allen’s website. Allen, whose father fought in World War II, has made a passion of finding and preserving artifacts from the war. His expedition said that the precise location of the Indianapolis would be kept secret from the public, and that the site would be respected as a grave, as US law requires. “Jaws” helped revive interest in the disaster. A character played by Robert Shaw is depicted as survivor of the Indianapolis sinking and describes how many sailors died from shark attacks. By most historical accounts, the sharks picked off dead or near-dead men, though some survivors remembered sharks bumping up against them. Before the ship sank, it had delivered parts of the atomic bomb that was later dropped on Hiroshima. It took them from San Francisco to Tinian Island in the Western Pacific....."
That movie was 42 years ago. It's the pre$$ reviving the interest.
I sure hope Allen doesn't have any Nazi stuff!
At least neither one of those things could happen again, right?
"During the 1980s Roger Fisher, a pre-eminent expert on conflict resolution, offered a provocative answer. “Put that needed code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer,” Fisher suggested. “The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. . . He has to look at someone and realize what death is — what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It’s reality brought home.”
I generally respect the as close to a peace advocate that the Globe has, but on this one he is so out there it's sad. What he is saying is the president will have to commit a murder before committing war-criminal mass-murder on an industrial scale in the hopes it will prevent him, while leaving aside the mass-murder of millions with conventional weaponry (some would even argue that depleted uranium shells and armor are a form of nuclear warfare. That's one of those issues -- organ harvesting and ruling cla$$ pedophilia being the others -- that doesn't get much exploration or investigation from the pre$$).
10 sailors missing, 5 injured after USS John S. McCain collides with merchant ship
WTF?!!!
A little bit of Karma there for the blood-soaked senator?
Navy orders inquiry into Pacific fleet after collisions by Eric Schmitt New York Times
Like I would believe whatever cover story or lies the habitual liars have come up with.
Btw, they found the remains -- unlike off Hawaii last week.
What it tells you is that the U.S.A. is in NO WAY ready for a BIG WAR in ASIA!!
Of course, the article next to the claim of suspension of operations?
"South Korea, US begin drills as North warns against escalating the tension" by Choe Sang-Hun New York Times August 21, 2017
SEOUL — President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, on Monday during a meeting with his staff, stressed his opposition to military action against North Korea to a visiting US congressional delegation.
“Even a very limited military option would eventually lead to an armed clash between South and North Korea,” Moon’s office quoted him as telling the delegation, led by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts. “This would endanger the lives of many foreigners in South Korea, including American servicemen, as well as South Koreans.”
On Sunday, the North’s main state-run newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, likened the drills to an act of “throwing fuel onto fire” that would “worsen the situation.”
“No one can guarantee that this will not escalate into a real war,” it said, calling the annual drills a “rehearsal for nuclear war” and the “most naked expression of hostility” toward the North.
The war games, which last 11 days, involve some 17,500 US service members, including about 3,000 from outside the peninsula, and 50,000 South Korean troops. The exercises include computer simulations carried out in a large bunker south of Seoul intended to check the allies’ readiness to repel aggressions by the North.
The drills this year are the second Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises since the United States and South Korea reportedly revised their war plans in 2015 to reflect the North’s advances in its nuclear capabilities.
Admiral Harry B. Harris, commander of the US Pacific Command, and General John E. Hyten, chief of the US Strategic Command, arrived in South Korea over the weekend to observe the exercises. Their unusual presence was meant to reaffirm the US commitment to defend its ally, officials in South Korea said.
It remained unclear whether the drills would involve nuclear-capable long-range bombers and other strategic weapons from the United States. They were not deployed in the exercises last year.
The number of US troops participating decreased by 7,500 this year, but the overall scale of the drills remained the same, South Korean defense officials said.....
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Did you know China drew a red line regarding U.S. military action?
Let the church bells ring!
"Philippine churches to ring bells to protest drug killings" Associated Press August 20, 2017
MANILA — A Philippine Catholic leader said Sunday that church bells would be rung every night for three months across his northern district to raise alarm over a sharp spike in police killings of drug suspects, adding to a growing outcry over President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody crackdown.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas said church bells would toll for 15 minutes nightly across his religious district from Tuesday to Nov. 27 to rouse a citizenry ‘‘which has become a coward in expressing anger against evil.’’ The start and end of the protest mark days of Catholic veneration.
The move comes after more than 80 drug and crime suspects were gunned down by police in metropolitan Manila and nearby Bulacan province in just three days last week, the bloodiest few days since Duterte’s crackdown started in July last year.
Well, it is a DRUG WAR, you know. Duterte is under fire because he's crimping the CIA transit routes and threatening the money.
Paper couldn't hear them, but the web version was loud and clear!
‘‘The sounding of the bells is a call to stop approval of the killings,’’ Villegas, who also heads an influential bloc of Filipino Catholic bishops, said in a statement read Sunday in churches in his district in Pangasinan province.
‘‘The country is in chaos,’’ he said. “The officer who kills is rewarded and the slain get the blame. The corpses could no longer defend themselves from accusations that they ‘fought back.’ ’’
‘‘Why are we no longer horrified by the sound of the gun and blood flowing on the sidewalks? Why is nobody raging against drugs that were brought in from China?’’ Villegas asked, referring to a huge drugs shipment that managed to pass through Manila’s ports under the watch of Customs officials appointed by Duterte.
Without naming the president, Villegas criticized Duterte’s praises for police killings of 32 drug suspects in just a night of raids across Bulacan province last week and how his supporters applauded in response.
In a separate statement read in Manila churches, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle offered to host a dialogue on the drug problem among government and police officials, along with families of victims, nongovernment groups, and medical experts.
Anger and protests have focused on last week’s shooting death of a teenager, Kian Lloyd delos Santos, who police say was a drug dealer who opened fire with a pistol during a raid, prompting law enforcers to shoot him. The family of the slain 17-year-old student, however, says he was mercilessly shot by police as he was pleading for his life.
That happens in AmeriKa all the time!
Police said the student attempted to escape during a raid that sparked a chase Wednesday night in suburban Caloocan city in Manila metropolis. The student’s grieving parents and some neighbors denied the police claim.
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