Source in Saudi Arabia says American private security contractors are carrying out'interrogations' on princes and billionaires arrested in crackdown
Detained members of Saudi elite have been hung by their feet and beaten by interrogates, source says
Among those hung upside down are Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an investor worth at least $7 billion who is being held at Riyadh's Ritz Carlton
Arrests were ordered three weeks ago by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Source claims mercenaries are from 'Blackwater', a claim also made by Lebanese president
But its successor firm denies it has any operations in Saudi Arabia whatsoever and says its staff abide by U.S. law
Americans who commit torture abroad can be jailed for up to 20 years

The US plans to keep it's troops in Syria long after the defeat of ISIS – the goal used to justify their illegal presence in the first place – because the Syrian government and its ally Iran would “win” if they were withdrawn, the Washington Post reported.

The Trump administration is “expanding its goals” in Syria to include a “potentially open-ended commitment” to support the Kurd-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing several anonymous US officials. The change comes as the defeat of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist group in Syria seems imminent.
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While Washington has a history of skipping UN approval for its military interventions, be it in Syria or in other sovereign states, it appears that the semblance of legitimacy for keeping hundreds of troops in Syria is about to be dispelled.>>>

(*WOW! RT takes off the gloves !)

President Donald Trump seems determined to undo just about everything Barack Obama has done. There is one area, however, in which he is following the lead of his predecessor: drone warfare. Not that the public would know anything about it — or the dangerously loose oversight involved. And that’s by design. The Trump administration is not only expanding the use of drones, it is also obscuring the facts about how many drones are being used, how many people are being killed by them, and where

Turkey’s president said, “The administration in the United States has changed but everything remains the same as before.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States of granting financial aid to members of the Islamic State group, a State Department-listed terrorist organization.

When’s the last time our media covered war honestly? When’s the last time you saw combat footage of American troops under fire, or of American troops killing others in the name of keeping us safe from enemies? When was the last time you saw an American soldier panicking, firing wildly, perhaps killing members of his own unit (fratricide) or innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of war? Maybe in the 1960s during coverage of the Vietnam War?

War is not glorious. It may feature noble deeds and remarkable sacrifices, but it also features brutality and many other bloody realities. War breaks men (and women) down. It does so because war is unnatural. Yes, war is many things, but it most certainly is about killing. Occasionally, the killing is even necessary. (Just ask those enslaved by the Nazis or the Japanese whether they greeted Allied troops as liberators.)

Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. Posted on November 16, 2017
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I opposed almost all the major initiatives of the Obama administration. But it was false to say that the Defense Department was "depleted" or "eviscerated" during those years, or that now we must "rebuild the military."

In fact, public relations experts in future years should conduct studies about how the Defense Department has been able to convince the public it has been cut when it is getting more money than ever.

Defense Department appropriations have more than doubled since 2000. In addition, the Department has gotten extra billions in several supplemental or emergency appropriation bills.
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Since now less than one percent of the people serve in the military, it may be that many people who never served feel, perhaps even subconsciously, that they must bend over backwards to show their patriotism.

However, it is not unpatriotic to oppose wasteful defense spending or very unnecessary permanent, forever wars.

>>>

Until recently, few of us woke up worrying about the threat of nuclear war. Such dangers seemed like Cold War relics, associated with outmoded practices like building fallout shelters and “duck and cover” drills.

But give Donald Trump credit. When it comes to nukes, he’s gotten our attention. He’s prompted renewed concern, if not outright alarm, about the possibility that such weaponry could actually be used for the first time since the 6th and 9th of August 1945. That’s what happens when the man in the Oval Office begins threatening to rain “fire and fury like the world has never seen” on another country or, as he did in his presidential campaign, claiming cryptically that, when it comes to nuclear weapons, “the devastation is very important to me.”

Trump’s pronouncements are at least as unnerving as President Ronald Reagan’s infamous “joke” that “we begin bombing [the Soviet Union] in five minutes”>>>

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The bill includes $634 billion for “core operations,” and $66 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). The OCO budget is notoriously used by the Pentagon to shift money around to various programs as officials see fit without having to ask Congress to fund them.

This massive bill is the culmination of months of officials trying to outspend one another, with President Trump proposing what he described as one of the biggest increases ever>>>

The Trials of Benjamin Netanyahu: Corruption in Israel Is Not Just an Israeli Issue
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Though nearly half of Israelis polled last July – well before the scandals took a much dirtier turn – believe that Netanyahu is corrupt, a majority of Israelis said that they would still vote for him.

A recent survey conducted by Israel’s Channel 10 TV concluded that, if general elections are held today, Netanyahu will garner 28% while his closest contenders, Avi Gabbay of the Zionist Camp and Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid will each gather 11% of the vote.

“The next stage, which is drawing near, is for the citizens of Israel to re-elect a criminal as their leader and entrust their fate to him”>>>

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Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., and nine co-sponsors on Tuesday introduced legislation that would require the U.S. State Department to certify every year that American military aid is not being used to fund the systematic abuse of Palestinian children.

If passed, the bill — titled the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act — would explicitly prohibit U.S. aid from being used by Israel to support the administrative detention or physical abuse of Palestinian children. The bill says that detention of Palestinian children is “inconsistent with the values of the United States.”

Bill Harper, McCollum’s chief of staff, told The Intercept that the legislation is an attempt to establish some sort of transparency over how Israel uses U.S. military aid, particularly as it relates to human rights abuses.

>>>

Allegedly the North Korean short-wave radio station “6400kHz” had been hacked and began blasting out The Final Countdown by the Swedish cheese-rock 80’s legends Europe.

The Kingdom of Bahrain has claimed that Friday’s explosion on the only pipeline that supplies oil from Saudi Arabia was somehow linked to Iran, opening a new chapter of hostilities between Tehran and the Sunni Gulf states.

“The incident was an act of sabotage and a dangerous act of terrorism aimed at harming the higher interests of the nation and the safety of the people,” read a statement from Bahrain’s interior ministry. “Terrorist acts witnessed by the country in the recent period are carried out through direct contacts and instructions from Iran,” the statement claimed.

>>>

A residential area of the village on the Iraqi-Syrian border and an ambulance vehicle with people inside were hit by the shelling that took place on Saturday, the Syrian state-run SANA news agency reported.
The US-led international coalition tasked with fighting the terrorist group Daesh carried out airstrikes on a village near the Iraqi border in the Syrian eastern province of Deir ez-Zor, killing 10 civilians, local media reported on Sunday

Media reports of civilians being killed by the US alliance's airstrikes emerge regularly. Among the latest instances, media reported that civilians were killed in attacks on Hasaka and Deir ez-Zor provinces as well as in the embattled city of Raqqa. The Syrian government has also accused the coalition aircraft of dropping phosphorus bombs

The coalition often denies allegations of targeting civilians.>>>

The U.S. is betting on the default of Venezuela affecting its financial credibility and hampering its debt repayments.

While continuing the commercial and financial embargo and the systematic attack on PDVSA, it was revealed at the start of November that imports of Venezuelan oil to the United States this year have declined to 56 percent compared to last year. This multi-pronged attack that this state industry is facing as the main foreign exchange earner of the country, has been run by a network of internal allies, many of whom have been detained by the Public Prosecutor's Office in recent months. This was after the former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz became a key factor in allowing the continuity of these mafias to operate within the company.

In addition to corruption and internal sabotage, PDVSA is facing a series of sanctions for the issuance of debt, which has also complicated transactions with U.S. refineries for the purchase of crude oil.>>>

For 4 1/2 years, a unique saga played out on San Francisco's Parnassus Avenue. On that lofty street at the base of Mount Sutro, overlooking Golden Gate Park, Marin and the Farallon Islands, the last "wild" Indian in North America, Ishi, spent his final years living in a museum where he was looked after, and befriended, by California's most eminent anthropologist.
There is no more extraordinary and poignant episode in the city's history.

The White House wants to blame Iran, but they're wrong. I was there.
By LAWRENCE KORB • November 9, 2017

The crucial turning point occurred in early September, when the U.S. began providing naval gunfire support for the U.S.-backed Lebanese Army—something that was opposed, as journalist Nir Rosen has pointed out, by the State Department, the CIA, and even Marine Commander Col. Timothy Geraghty.

In an article he wrote on the 25th anniversary of the attack on his marines, Geraghty recalled the situation:

The ICC prosecutor’s decision to pursue a probe into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan is “completely political” and won't amount to anything, law professor Francis Boyle believes. He said it will be a “cold day in hell” before any Americans are prosecuted.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, announced last week that her request to launch an investigation had been handed over to a pre-trial court. She said that if her request is granted, the probe will focus “upon those most responsible for the most serious crimes committed in connection with the situation in Afghanistan.”

However,>>>

Newly declassified documents show that a quarter-century ago as worries were emerging over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney told allies the U.S. should not consider military action as it could jeopardize diplomatic efforts.
Cheney would later serve as vice president to George W. Bush. He was a leading advocate of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein over fears he had weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to be the case.
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In 1991, when Cheney served as Pentagon chief for President George H. Bush, his outlook on how to deal with North Korea was very different from his later approach to Iraq.

No difference between Hillary and Trump now. Support America and the Constitution not corrupt politicians.

President Trump’s nominee to lead the military health system said Tuesday he thinks it is “insane” for civilians to be able to purchase semi-automatic rifles like the one a gunman used to kill 26 people at a Texas church.

Dean Winslow, a professor at Stanford University and retired Air Force colonel, made his remarks during his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Service committee, according to the Washington Examiner.

“I may get in trouble with other members of the committee just say how insane it is that in the United States of America a civilian can go out and buy a semi-automatic like an AR-15, which apparently was the weapon that was used,” Winslow said. “I think that's an issue not as much for this committee, but elsewhere.”

Published on Nov 6, 2017SHOW NOTES AND MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=24821

Today we're joined by Eva Bartlett of InGaza.wordpress.com to discuss her reporting from Syria. We talk about the lies, propaganda and outright fabrications that have attempted to paint the terrorist insurgency as a "civil war" led by "moderate rebels," including the use of children like Omran Daqneesh and Bana Alabed as unwitting icons for the fake narrative. We also discuss recommended sources for real information about what's happening in Syria.

Here’s the question I pose to you: has Donald Trump been a blessing or a curse to the architects of the American police state?

One thing is for sure: a year into his presidency, Trump hasn’t done much to improve the lot of the American people.

In other words, the American police state is still alive and well and flourishing.

Nothing has changed.

Rather than draining the corrupt swamps of Washington, as he repeatedly promised, Trump and his brand of reality TV politics have merely redirected our attention.

Trust me, the swamps are still stagnant with corruption.

Kenneth Marcus will head the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights.

Formerly, he was staff director at the US Commission on Civil Rights under GW Bush.

He founded and heads the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Washington-based NGO, seeking “to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and to promote justice for all,” it claims.

It shamefully calls anti-Semitism and “anti-Israelism” on university campuses the “leading civil and human rights challenge facing North American Jewry.”

It’s silent about longstanding Israeli high crimes of war and against humanity, its ruthless persecution of illegally occupied Palestinians, and its own Arab citizens.

Testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson revealed that the US presence in Iraq is so permanent at this point that even if Iraq specifically requests the US withdraw and removes permission for them to be there, the US will remain.

It does bring up the question of US troops’ legal immunity from war crimes in places like Syria, where they’ve been deployed without permission or any assurances that they won’t be held liable for killings.

Joining the U.S. military is not patriotic. It is a bad decision. It is a foolish choice. It is, in fact, downright idiotic.

Haven’t we done enough damage in Syria? Do we really need to go back to 2011 and destroy the country all over again? The neocons never admit a mistake and never change course, but I do not believe that the majority of Americans support their hijacking of President Trump’s Syria policy. It is long past time for the US to leave Syria alone. No bases, no special forces, no CIA assassination teams, no manipulating their electoral system. We need to just come home.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said food is being used as a "weapon of war" in Yemen at a time when millions of people face an impending famine in the conflict-ravaged impoverished Arab country. "Yemen is on the brink of famine. Cholera is compounding a dramatic food crisis. Food is being used as a weapon of war," Elisabeth Rasmussen, the WFP assistant executive director, said at a conference on aid to Yemen on Sunday, presstv reported. The United Nations has already described the ongoing conflict in Yemen as the "largest humanitarian crisis in the world." The war has left seven million people at risk of famine and an estimated 17 million, which amounts to about 60 percent of the overall population of the country, food insecure. Another 2,100 people have died of cholera since April as hospitals struggle to secure basic supplies across the country.

Just another neocon in Israels pocket!

Stephen K. Bannon joined other Republican grandees such as Sen. Tom Cotton at a packed event in Washington on Monday.

Bannon, who has sometimes been cited as “Trump’s dove,” has emerged as one of the harshest critics of Iran in Trumpworld, collaborating extensively with former UN ambassador John Bolton, as I’ve reported. Bolton thinks the current move on the JCPOA is essentially for show: the deal is unsalvageable. His plan, backed by extreme hardliners like Frank Gaffney, calls for discussing military options with Israel against Iran and backing Kurdish national aspirations, which is a nonstarter for Iran, Turkey and the Shia-dominated government in Iraq; Bolton was spotted entering the White House on Monday.

Max Igan Presenting at the Free Your Mind 5 Conference in Philadelphia. April 7th, 2017

So it all started with Brennan, the resentful Intel chief who got his nose bloodied by Putin in Syria and decided to seek his revenge.

And, keep in mind, Washington’s Sunni proxies were not a division of the Pentagon; they were entirely a CIA confection: CIA recruited, CIA-armed, CIA-funded and CIA-trained. The defeat is not a loss for the US Military, but a blot on the record of CIA Director John Brennan, the architect and main proponent of the failed project to remove Assad. Brennan’s whole scheme has gone down in flames.

Five former presidents of the United States came together for a hurricane relief benefit, and their photo-op with musician Lady Gaga led to a surprising reaction—the Internet loved it! Not only did the public put politics aside, it also seems to have forgotten about all of the things these men have done to give them a very different title: War Criminal.

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Christopher Sharpley, who has been deputy inspector general at the CIA since July 2012, Tuesday that he's never read the Senate's so-called torture report, an exhaustive, classified report of the agency's treatment of terror suspects after 9/11.
Christopher Sharpley, who has been deputy inspector general at the CIA since July 2012, told the Senate intelligence committee that the classified disc containing the 7,000-page report was lost for a time and later found, but that he never took time to read the full document.
The Senate intelligence committee spent years investigating the CIA's detention and harsh interrogation techniques>>>

Trump's toadying for Israel has just ended what little credibility DC had left. The slide into oblivion for dc has begun.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned Donald Trump’s refusal to adhere to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, saying that the move poses a threat to international security and nuclear non-proliferation, and exposes the US as an unreliable partner.

Trump's toadying for Israel has just ended what little credibility DC had left. The slide into oblivion for dc has begun.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned Donald Trump’s refusal to adhere to the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, saying that the move poses a threat to international security and nuclear non-proliferation, and exposes the US as an unreliable partner.

...It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but...King Philip, who was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his war with the English, decided to seize upon the rumours ...as a way of freeing himself from his debts. At dawn on Friday, 13 October 1307 ...King Philip IV ordered de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested....Claims were made that... Templar ...recruits were forced to spit on the Cross, deny Christ, and engage in indecent kissing ...the order was said to have encouraged homosexual practices. The Templars were charged with numerous other offences such as financial corruption, fraud, and secrecy.

Some speculations regarding the accusations of homosexuality in addition to heresy: this was no doubt to seal their fate, since EVERY Catholic Priest knows intimately just how wrong these are...

To which this is the appropriate reponse, for the role the Church had in the murder of the Templars:

Many of us have read about the horrendous things William Tecumseh Sherman did as he and his “bummers” marched through Georgia, things a lot of us would rather not have read about.

The CIA has been forced to declassify some 270 memos from its secret torture facilities in Afghanistan. The story these memos tell is horrific and jolting. The people tortured were not terrorists. They were suspects. Some may say this is all ancient history, but consider the current president’s view on torture. He said he’s torture in a heartbeat. Are we still “torturing some folks”?

Disturbing news from Guantánamo, via the human rights organization Reprieve. Yesterday, in a press release, Reprieve explained that the authorities at Guantánamo have stopped force-feeding hunger-striking prisoners, a practice that has existed for ten years, because of a new Trump administration policy.”
Hunger strikers have existed at Guantánamo almost since the prison opened, and in 2013 a prison-wide hunger strike drew worldwide condemnation for President Obama’s inaction in moving towards closing the prison, as he had promised on his second day in office. Inconvenienced by Republican lawmakers, who had raised considerable obstacles to the release of prisoners, Obama had chosen not to challenge the Republicans, and had, instead, done nothing.>>>
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How do intelligence agencies coerce people who do not fit the profile to do their criminal activities? They use drugs like scopolamine and captigon to totally eliminate their free will. This video demonstration is as important for Syrians as it is for Americans, as ISIS was largely founded upon the use of such drugs. Critical to consider during any false-flag and terrorist attack; assailants should be tested for traces of these drugs.

Lawrence Davidson examines the fact that since its founding the United States has been waging war against other countries, and that since 1968 1.53 million Americans have been killed as a result of gun violence.>>

Of course before the US military actions in Iraq and Syria there was far less Iranian influence in the region! So US foreign interventionism is producing new problems that can only be solved by more US interventionism? The military industrial complex could not have dreamed of a better scheme to rob the American people while enriching themselves! What have we achieved in Syria? Nothing good.

When the Constitution called the federal government into existence, the last thing the American people wanted was a powerful military. They were overwhelmingly opposed to what they called “standing armies,” which was a term used describe a big, permanent military establishment. That was why there was Pentagon, no big, permanent military-industrial complex, no CIA, and no NSA for more than 100 years after the country was established. The American people didn’t want those types of governmental apparatuses to be part of our nation’s political system.

The reason Americans were so opposed to standing armies is because they believed that standing armies constituted a grave threat to their freedom and economic well-being. They knew, from both first-hand experience and through history, that dictators and despots used powerful military establishments to destroy the freedom and prosperity of the citizenry, oftentimes in the name of keeping them safe, secure, and prosperous.

Sooner or later it will dawn on the Russian government that Washington is not a rational government with which diplomacy can be practiced, peace pursued, and agreements reached......

The Russian Ministry of Defense has released aerial images which they say show US Army special forces equipment north of the town of Deir er-Zor, where ISIS militants are deployed.

Hate to agree with Karl,but wars are economic,actually criminal. Somebody wants what someone else has and they figure the best way to get it is to steal it,using various nebulous reasons to motivate the cannon fodder. Like religion,nationalism,race or my favorite from Gullivers Travels;"They open their eggs from the wrong end!"

(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday backed having companies from the United States develop Afghanistan’s reserves of rare earth minerals, despite formidable obstacles to industrial mining in the country.

The comments, at a meeting in New York, were the latest in a series in which both U.S. officials and the Afghan government have emphasized the potential strategic value of Afghanistan’s vast and largely untapped mineral reserves.

The UN is a venue for promoting world peace and stability. Trump used his General Assembly address for hostile chest-thumping, threatening North Korea, Iran, Venezuela and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad – a disgraceful jingoistic display.

The only language he understands is belligerence, escalating wars he inherited from Bush/Cheney and Obama, plotting new ones, threatening possible nuclear confrontation on the Korean peninsula.

He’s a national disgrace and a world menace, a rogue leader. Addresses by his counterparts and other officials representing their countries shamed him.

Stupid is as Stupid does!

In this case, Trump told CIA Director Mike Pompeo and other officials that he wants an even more aggressive drone posture from the CIA, and granted them broad autonomy in who to kill and when. This included allowing CIA strikes in Syria, something which heretofore hadn’t been mentioned.

President Trump can start to push back against the Deep State. The is rescind and Declassify PDD-51. The People need to know what is in these documents sign by President Bush that makes him a dictator and congress a ceremonial body with no authority.

The eyesore presidential libraries

The social justice warrior charge to purge the United States of all monuments relating in any way to the Confederacy has been rapidly expanding to include the scourge represented by all white people all through history.

Now, I would suggest that turnabout is fair play so if we are all agreeing that monuments must be destroyed to right historic wrongs, I am interested in making up my own little list based on the things that I disapprove of. As readers of this site are aware, I am a critic of illegal behavior by the United States government, to include torture, targeted assassinations by drone and starting wars without any reason to do so, so that would be a good place to start.

Excellent summary of the damage Israel has done to the United States.

The Tide is Turning against the Deep State NWO.

The Syrian Arab Army have achieved yet another dramatic victory this time lifting the ISIS siege of the heroic city of Deir Ezzor. For years Deir Ezzor has been surrounded by enemies and under siege first by the FSA and Al Nusra and then by ISIS. They have withstood repeated attacks by the US-NATO air force most infamously last fall when the Americans bombed Deir Ezzor right after agreeing to a ceasefire, a treacherous move that paved the way for a nearly successful ISIS offensive to capture the city. The brave defenders of Deir Ezzor withstood these endless attacks becoming a symbol of the heroic resistance of all of Syria. For years Syrians and their friends around the world have dreamed that one day this siege would be lifted. Our dreams have finally come true and faster then anyone could have imagined.

16 years later, the War on Terror™ has yielded hundreds of thousands of dead and injured Americans, Iraqis, and Afghans, ongoing and intractable wars disguised as nation building, the Patriot Act, illegal executive actions, trillions in new federal debt, vastly increased federal surveillance powers, rubber stamped FISA court warrants, TSA at the airports, a useless Department of Homeland Security, overflowing VA hospitals, and increasingly militarized police here at home. More importantly, it has yielded a distressing complacency toward grotesque federal power. -- It has not yielded peace, or liberty, or security. But liberty vs. security was never the choice.

“We have been there for 16 years. It is time for the wars to end. It is time for Congress to vote on whether or not they should end,” Paul said on Monday.

rt video