Gareth Porter – The Syria ‘dissent’ memo and US bureaucratic support for Kerry war strategy

The memorandum by 51 State Department officials calling for US military intervention in Syria last week has been treated in news media coverage as a case of dissent from existing Syria policy by individual officials involved in Syria policy. But the memo has all the earmarks of an initiative that had the blessing of the most senior officials in the department – …

Andrew Cockburn – The Pentagon’s Real $trategy

These days, lamenting the apparently aimless character of Washington’s military operations in the Greater Middle East has become conventional wisdom among administration critics of every sort. Senator John McCain thunders that “this president has no strategy to successfully reverse the tide of slaughter and mayhem” in that region. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studiesbemoans the “lack of a viable …

ISIS ‘ARMY OF ORPHANS’ VOWS REVENGE IN DISTURBING PROPAGANDA VIDEO

Numerous orphans who lost their parents due to foreign anti-terror intervention in Syria are becoming thirsty for revenge, a new ISIS propaganda video claims, showing a squad of well-equipped child soldiers preparing for battle. The footage created by the jihadist group’s media arm, Alhayat Center, starts off with a child walking across the ruins of a city destroyed during the …

Juan Cole – Syrian Ceasefire: A Signal that Russia is winning the War?

Whether or not the cessation of hostilities in Syria holds, it is a major turning point in the revolution and civil war that began in 2011. As of Saturday morning in Syria, the major fronts between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood factions were quiet. There continued to be some fighting between the Syrian Arab Army of dictator Bashar al-Assad …

Eric Zuesse – America’s Vampire Aristocracy

On January 2nd, America’s NBC News bannered “Arab Spring Cleric Nimr al-Nimr Among 47 Executed by Saudi Arabia,” and, one-third of the way into their report, showed this tweet: “Saudi execution of Nimr al-Nimr along w/ al Qaeda members is straight from Assad’s playbook – lumping nonviolent activists with terrorists. — DavidKenner (@DavidKenner) January 2, 2016” Even when Sunni-Islamic extremists, …

Gilbert Doctorow – Hearing the Russian Perspective

Without mincing words, the new Russian documentary World Order is a devastating critique of U.S. global hegemony justified in the name of “democracy promotion” and “human rights” ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. It is directly in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first repudiation of the American unipolar world issued in his speech to the Munich Security …

DANIEL DENVIR – Bernie Sanders vs. the world: How the political & media elite are trying to set him up to fail

David Muir, setting up the first in an endless stream of questions about terrorism in Saturday evening’s Democratic primary debate, of which he was moderator, reminded Americans that it was “just six days before Christmas, as we all know in this country. It’s typically a joyful time, as it is this year, as well. But it’s also an anxious time.”  The …

Eric Zuesse – Saudi Royal Family Announces Its New Global Sunni Military Empire

An official announcement from the world’s leading, and most fundamentalistic, Sunni Islamic nation, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday December 15th, has introduced a Sunni-Islamic counterpart to NATO, and it includes one NATO member, Turkey, which is already at war against NATO’s enemy Russia, and against Russia’s ally the non-sectarian, secular Shiite, Bashar al-Assad, who runs Syria. The Sauds’ “Joint Statement on Formation …

Eric Zuesse – The Saud Family to Select West’s ‘Moderate’ Jihadists Who Will Take Over Syria

The Saud family, Saudi Arabia’s royals, have called together a meeting on December 15th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, of their fellow fundamentalist Sunnis who are fighting against the secular Assad government to take over Syria, and the Sauds will announce after the conference which groups will have the West’s blessings. The only armed group that has thus far been announced to have …

Eric Zuesse – Imprisoned Al Qaeda Fighters Freed by U.S. Allies to Rejoin Fight Against Assad

Some of the world’s top Al Qaeda operatives were freed from a Lebanese prison on Tuesday December 1st, to rejoin the U.S.-led war against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. America’s anti-Assad ally, Qatar, the chief financiers of the Muslim Brotherhood, negotiated with the neutralist Lebanese government, to swap the 26 imprisoned Al Qaeda jihadists for 16 Lebanese soldiers who had been captured by Al …