Saudi Arabia has reportedly deployed nearly two dozen combat troops to a US-run military base in Syria’s oil-rich northeastern province of Hasakah as the Riyadh regime and some of its regional allies are vying with the United States to loot the natural resources of the war-ravaged country.

Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network, citing an informed source, reported that 20 Saudi soldiers, led by an officer called Saud al-Joghaifi, arrived at the US base in the city of Shaddadi on Wednesday.

The source added that the Saudi troops were accompanied by a convoy of US-led forces from the coalition purportedly formed to fight the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, which withdrew from Camp Taji, situated 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, earlier this week.

A group of activists burned a copy of the Islamic holy book and uploaded the video, depicting it online after police arrested a leader of "Hard Line" political party was arrested by authorities.

Mass riots hit Malmo, Sweden after a public Koran burning. At least three hundred enraged people rallied in the Muslim-majority neighbourhoods, with a crowd torching cars and throwing stones at the police officers, who tried to ease the tensions.

"We have ongoing and violent riots right now that we have no control over", police spokesman Rickard Lundqvist told journalists.

Sure, officially, the military says we are there for stability operations, keeping the peace between the competing factions in the contested areas of Northeastern Syria near the Turkish border. They will say we are still patrolling with Kurdish fighters against the remnants of ISIS. More importantly, however, is Trump’s reason for leaving some 500 troops there—for protecting the oil fields from the Syria government on behalf of the Kurds. More on that in a minute.

While RNC surrogates were congratulating Trump for “rebuilding the military” and his America First virtues in countering China and Iran last night, four American soldiers were recuperating from injuries sustained when a Russian armored vehicle sideswiped their own Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV) as they were both racing down a highway in Dayrick near the Turkish border on Aug. 24.

The guided-missile destroyer the USS Mustin has entered the South China Sea and is sailing near the Paracel Islands. The islands are claimed by China, though the US does not recognize that claim. China objected that they didn’t authorize the US to sail there.

National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien called China’s claims in the South China Sea ‘ridiculous,’ saying they’ve been rejected by all the major countries. Most countries in the region have conflicting claims in the South China Sea, and to the extent they overlap with Chinese claims, the US backs everyone else’s claims.

In rejecting their claims, the US has repeatedly carried out “freedom of navigation” exercises near Chinese claims just to prove that they can’t enforce those claims. China is objecting to those incursions, and earlier this week fired anti-ship missiles into contested waters to prove they could challenge those ships if they have to.

In some ways, the U.S.-brokered plan for mutual recognition between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is big news. For more than a quarter of a century, only two Middle Eastern countries – Egypt and Jordan – had officially recognized Israel. None of the Gulf monarchies did.

So, it was a pretty big deal when the announcement was made. Except, actually, not so much.

Despite the UAE’s claimed adherence to a decades-long position that no Arab country should normalize relations with Israel until it ended its occupation of Palestinian land, ties between the UAE and Israel had been quietly underway for years. The same is true of many other Arab states.

Early this week the US State Department said there were no signs that Russia's military plans to intervene in ongoing chaotic events in Belarus where swelling protests in the tens of thousands have brought Minsk to a standstill as opposition activists and strikers demand 26-year ruling President Alexander Lukashenko step down, or at least hold "fair" and not "rigged" elections.

As of last Monday Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun said there were no indications to suggest Moscow planned to intervene in the political crisis, which many see as resembling the 2014 crisis in Ukraine where the country was split between pro-EU and pro-Russian factions and interests.

That assessment might have changed by end of the week, as regional headlines have confirmed Russia's military is assisting Belarus in conducting war games on Thursday, Friday, and into next week.

Republican leadership at the RNC Convention this week talked a big game when it comes to "bringing the troops home" - something Trump has been promising since 2016 - but which has not yet ultimately been realized. But can he deliver now as part of a pre-election promise? It looks like the wheels are finally in motion.

Multiple reports citing Pentagon officials on Friday say up to one-third of all American soldiers will permanently return from Iraq over the next two to three months.

This would bring numbers down from 5,200 to about 3,500 according to Pentagon officials. Trump is in the meantime expected to tout an Iraq withdrawal as a success in ending the wasteful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Authored by Iain Davis via In This Together blog,

Among many similar globalist states, The UK State is a public-private partnership between government, financial institutions, multinational corporations, global think tanks, and well funded third sector organisations, such as so called non governmental organisations (NGO’s) and large international charities.

Through a labyrinthine structure of direct funding, grant making and philanthropy, the UK State is a cohesive globalist organisation that works with selected academics, scientific institutions and mainstream media (MSM) outlets to advance a tightly controlled, predetermined narrative.

This designed consensus serves the the interests and global ambitions of a tiny group of disproportionately wealthy people.

Beijing has cautioned against further US naval operations in the South China Sea, claiming that recent activities by the American side create conditions for an unintentional military confrontation.
A spokesman for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) said on Friday that a US warship entered Chinese territorial waters without permission.

“We urge the US to stop such provocative behavior and restrict its maritime actions to avoid possible military accidents,” Senior Colonel Li Huamin said, adding that PLA naval and aerial forces monitored the vessel as it traveled through the South China Sea.

The US Navy said that the USS Martin carried out a “routine” operation in the region. Washington has cited the so-called “freedom of navigation” principle to defend its regular activity in the sea.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris reiterated that Joe Biden will not impose any conditions on US aid to Israel, saying that assistance would not be linked to "any political decision" made by the Israeli government.

Her remarks, about eight weeks before the election, come at a time when the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still considering annexing large parts of the occupied West Bank.

"Joe has made it clear he will not tie security assistance to any political decisions that Israel makes, and I couldn't agree more," Harris told a virtual fundraiser with Jewish-American voters on Wednesday.

That California senator went on to promote Biden's "unwavering support" for Israel and his role in securing military assistance for the Israeli government when he served as Barack Obama's vice president.

Wednesday’s incident on the roads on northeast Syria, in which Russian and US MRAPs reportedly collided, injuring four US troops, continues to be a major issue. The US and Russia are both trading blame for the incident, and for the generally tense situation in Syria.

The White House presented the incident as an escalation of tensions, and presented it as a “clash” with Russia. Their version involved Russia “boxing in” the US vehicles, and that Russian helicopters were flying dangerously low above the US MRAPs.

Video of the incident didn’t tell anything nearly so clear-cut, with it not at all obvious what the vehicles were trying to do, and showing only a very minor collision, which the US says led to four soldiers having concussion-like symptoms.

SOURCE: TONY CARTALUCCI

While US regime change in Syria appears to be a terminal failure, various propaganda ploys used to sell the war continue in the hopes that - at the very least - such ploys can be polished and improved upon when and where the US turns its attention next.

The accused - Anwar Raslan, a former colonel in the Syrian military, and co-defendant Eyad al-Gharib, who allegedly worked under Raslan, had been living in Germany as refugees and were arrested in February last year.

The article also notes that:

Germany is using a legal principle called universal jurisdiction to trial Raslan and al-Gharib.

This allows German prosecutors to work on war crimes cases, whether they have a close connection to Germany or not.

Universal jurisdiction could result in an alternative means for the international community to bring war criminals to account.

Authored by Danny Sjursen via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

Last month, a Turkish warship came one step away from firing missiles at a French naval vessel off the coast of Libya. In response, Paris suspended its involvement in Operation Sea Guardian — a multinational maritime effort to provide security in the Mediterranean Sea and halt the arms trafficking fueling Libya’s ongoing civil war. Initially, only eight member states — notably excluding both the U.S. and U.K. — supported France’s official complaint. This was only the latest incident in the increasingly frequent — and exceedingly awkward — tensions between several of Washington’s core North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies.

Indeed, from South America to East Asia, NATO members stand divided over many critical foreign policy issues of the moment.

The Pentagon revealed Thursday that China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) "warning" to the US on Wednesday involved the firing of “four medium-range missiles into [an] area between Hainan and the Paracel Islands,” a defense official was quoted in FT.

Among them included nuclear-capable DF-26 missile and the anti-ship DF-21D ballistic missile. Beijing said they demonstrated the PLA's ability to deny outside military access to the South China Sea.

The missiles were fired in response to the major incident from Tuesday, wherein China's PLA military angrily charged that a US U-2 spy plane entered a 'no-fly zone' off China's coast while the PLA conducted live-fire military drills.

The PLA has since ratcheted up its drills, with FT reporting Thursday the military "announced it was conducting another live fire exercise in waters off the eastern city of Taizhou, bringing the number of drills off its coast this week to five."

With Covid-19 incapacitating startling numbers of U.S. service members and modern weapons proving increasingly lethal, the American military is relying ever more frequently on intelligent robots to conduct hazardous combat operations. Such devices, known in the military as “autonomous weapons systems,” include robotic sentries, battlefield-surveillance drones, and autonomous submarines. So far, in other words, robotic devices are merely replacing standard weaponry on conventional battlefields. Now, however, in a giant leap of faith, the Pentagon is seeking to take this process to an entirely new level — by replacing not just ordinary soldiers and their weapons, but potentially admirals and generals with robotic systems.

Late last year, the United States Space Force was created, separating the Space Command division from the United States Air Force into a new separate branch of the US military. In the last few months there has been some debate over whether Space Force should maintain the rank structure of the Air Force (with lowest ranked officers as lieutenants and highest rank as generals), or use the US Navy system (with ensigns and admirals). Now Star Trek’s first captain is weighing in on the debate.

However, despite US President Donald Trump reiterating the same beliefs of the fighter jets being “truly invisible and simply impossible to be seen with the naked eye”, a German defense contractor, Hensoldt has debunked such myths by stating that its newly invented radar system, named TwInvis, which reportedly it tracked the jets for nearly 100 miles.

“I fear Biden will choose war again,” Paul asserted. “He supported war in Serbia, Syria, Libya. Joe Biden will continue to spill our blood and treasure. President Trump will bring our heroes home.”

“If you hate war like I hate war, if you want us to quit sending $50 billion every year to Afghanistan to build their roads and bridges instead of building them here at home, you need to support President Trump for another term,” said Paul, who has long been a fierce critic of former President Obama's foreign policy, including overt intervention in Libya, and covert action toward destabilizing Syria.

Dramatic video which emerged Tuesday shows the latest "close call" between US, Russia, and Syrian national forces who are jostling for control of northeast Syria, after a prior incident resulted in a rare exchange of fire at a Syrian Army checkpoint, killing two Syrian soldiers.

The Pentagon is reporting multiple US troops injured with what are being described as "concussion-like injuries" as a result of collisions with Russian armored vehicles.

The footage is being widely reported as showing Russian Army vehicles and even a chopper giving chase to an American armored convoy in northeastern Syria.

And here's the account of Beirut-based al-Masdar News, which is known for having reporters on the ground and sources within the Syrian Army:

The International military-technical forum "Army-2020" outside Moscow, Russia, began this week with a 'bang', as high-tech tanks, new lightweight assault rifles, stealth drones, and other advanced weaponry were displayed to foreign clients and visitors, reported RT News.

On Sunday, as the week-long annual defense expo began, Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said this year's event would merge military forum and an international military sports competition.

A record number of defense companies are attending the expo this week, showcasing more than 28,000 products. The Russian Defense Ministry has already said 39 contracts worth $15.6 billion have already been signed.

Here is some of the military tech featured at the expo this week:

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the U.S. military, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare informs us today, has had a brilliant idea – robot generals (!) – into which to sink yet more billions of our tax dollars as divestment in our infrastructure, schools, health care, and the like only continues in the age of Trump and the midst of a grim pandemic. Of course, given American generalship in the “forever wars” of the twenty-first century, who doesn’t feel that almost anyone or anything could have done better? Still, to turn the potential destruction of the planet itself (via nuclear arms) over to computers? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

The sites in question are a pair of sites that the IAEA has claimed might have been nuclear sites, based on Israeli allegations and US backing of Israeli allegations. The US has pushed the IAEA to investigate the sites.

Iran did grant the IAEA access before, and it didn’t find anything definitive one way or another. They’ve kept asking for extra visits, even though Iran insisted neither was relevant to their nuclear program, and that letting them just keep visiting keeps it unresolved forever.

This puts things in an endless loop, where the US will ensure the IAEA keeps saying the issue is open, and Iran can’t resolve the matter outright, and has to just keep responding or be accused of a coverup.

Russian-made radar Rezonans-NE, which Iran purchased to identify and track stealth aircraft and hypersonic targets, successfully spotted and tracked US F-35 fighters near the country’s borders during an aggravation of tensions at the beginning of 2020 following the death of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the deputy CEO of the research center Rezonans Alexander Stuchilin told TASS on Monday.

A radical plan currently being debated by the government would see the British Army boost its air and cyber warfare capabilities while mothballing its armored fleet, according to a newspaper report.

British defense chiefs have outlined plans to deactivate the Army’s Challenger 2 main battle tanks and Warrior armored fighting vehicles (AFV), as the costs of maintaining them have skyrocketed, the Times newspaper has reported.

Costs aside, the armored fleet – which currently consists of 227 Challengers and 388 Warriors – has reportedly been deemed “obsolete.” Some in the military have argued that 21st-century warfare will rely on cyber capabilities, along with space-related and other cutting-edge warfighting technologies.

When the Trump administration withheld billions of dollars in security aid to Pakistan in 2018, the logic then was that the Pakistani military would be forced to form greater ties with the US and surrounding allies to reclaim lost aid.

Fast forward today, the new reality, Pakistan abandoned the West and its allies for China.

Pakistan quickly bolstered ties with China via billions of dollars in Belt and Road projects over the last two years. China has also provided the Pakistani military with aircraft, weaponry, and other advanced hardware. The cooperation between both countries has taken another giant leap as China just delivered the first of four "most advanced" warships to the Pakistani Navy, a move that will clearly upset India and the US.

The nominee for the Navy’s top uniformed post promised to “quickly and firmly” deal with any leadership failures among his service’s special operations forces in the wake of a series of embarrassing scandals for the elite sailors.

Iraq Debacle, a hugely popular metal band some 15 years ago, has reunited for a reunion tour in support of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Band members include former Secretary of State Colin Powell, neocon cheerleader Bill Kristol, former Defense Secretary and Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Ghost of John McCain, neocon columnists Max Boot and George Will, former Govs. John Kasich and Christine Todd Whitman, former Reps. Susan Molinari and Joe Walsh, former intellectual Jonah Goldberg, failed GOP consultants Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson, some guy named David French, and a number of bit players from the W. Bush Administration…

What do these aging losers all have in common…?

They are/were all Republicans and they all own a big pair of pom poms.

In an implicit message to China, the Japanese and U.S. militaries teamed up this week for a number of joint exercises involving warships, heavy bombers, advanced fighter jets and an aircraft carrier in the waters and airspace near Japan.

The scale and tempo of the multiple joint exercises was noticeably large and came as Sino-U.S. tensions continued to spiral over security, economic and human rights concerns.

The United States and Japan are to jointly build a network of small satellites capable of detecting new missiles, as Tokyo warns of increasing threats from North Korea.

The purpose of the satellites would be to complement the currently existing system of missile defense, which includes Japan's PAC-3 missile interceptors, the Nikkei reported Wednesday.

Military contractor Northrop Grumman is sponsoring an award for best “aerospace, defense and security” journalism at PressGazette’s British Journalism Awards, a crude act of public relations that doesn’t seem to faze the media.

UK journalism organization Press Gazette has announced a pair of new categories for 2020’s British Journalism Awards: “anti-corruption journalism,” sponsored by human rights NGO Global Witness, and “aerospace, defense and security,” sponsored by Northrop – a company one might charitably call the polar opposite of a human rights NGO.

By Tony Cox, a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers.

The neoconservatives have a new party. It’s called Democratic, and it’s every bit as warmongering and interventionist as the Republicans were during the Reagan era or that of the Bushes.

We keep hearing how radical leftists have taken over the Democratic Party, but guess who stole the limelight at Tuesday’s Democratic National Convention: the disgraced former Secretary of State Colin Powell who endorsed their presidential candidate, Joe Biden.

In fact, Powell, who helped George W. Bush’s administration lie America into the ruinous Iraq War, was given a full extra minute to speak when compared to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the face of the woke left.

ANKARA (Reuters) - No threats can deter Turkey from seeking natural resources in the eastern Mediterranean, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, adding that Ankara expects actors in the region to take steps to de-escalate tensions.

Greece and Cyprus are locked in a dispute with Turkey over overlapping claims to areas potentially rich in resources. Two Turkish survey vessels are in areas claimed by the three countries. On Tuesday, Cyprus said it was willing to engage with all its neighbours on defining maritime boundaries.

The two leaders have not spoken in over a week, and Israel appears to be headed straight to its fourth election in less than two years.

With no compromise in sight between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud and Defense Minister Benny Gantz's Kahol Lavan parties over the state budget, parliament could dissolve on Monday and Israel will head to its fourth election in less than two years.

Negotiations are deadlocked over a proposed bill to extend the deadline for passing a new budget, which expires on Monday. With talks stalled, Netanyahu and Gantz have not spoken in over a week.

Likud wants the bill, which would give the government until November to pass a budget, to include “exit points” every 10 days that allow revoking the extension, which would effectively force a new election. Kahol Lavan opposes the proposal.

Constant tensions along the ill-defined Afghan-Pakistan border look to be coming to a head again, with the Afghan Army issuing a statement in which they instruct personnel to prepare for retaliatory fire against the Pakistani military in case they cross the border.

This comes after an overnight incident in Kandahar, in which Pakistani artillery fired across the border, killing nine civilians and wounding scores of others in a residential area. Details on this attack are still not entirely clear.

The incidents are not clear, but not unusual, as the Durand Line border tends to be contested by both sides, and cross-border fire happens, often without a solid explanation.

President Trump has demanded the reimposition of ‘snapback’ sanctions on Iran as part of the P5+1 nuclear deal, and revealed the US will go to the UN Security Council on Thursday to demand full imposition of all those sanctions without objection.

Within the nuclear deal, there is a clause that allows the US to snapback all sanctions if they believe Iran is failing in the deal. The clause also says no members of the deal can veto the measure. This is the plan the US is resting on.

And yet President Trump withdrew from the deal in May 2018, and had failed to live up to requirements before then. This raises serious doubts that the US can impose ‘snapback’ under the terms of a deal that they are no longer party to, or whether nations like China and Russia would be compelled not to veto it.

SOURCE: MINT PRESS
Last Monday night Israeli fighter jets executed airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip for the ninth night in a row in an act that may be another on Israel’s long list of possible war crimes.

Israeli leaders characterized the actions as retaliatory, naming Gazan “incendiary balloons” and “riots” as justification.

This is just the latest in what mainstream media generally depicts as a “protracted conflict” between “the militant group Hamas and Israel,” after “months of calm” (5 Gazans have been killed in 2020; Israel has shot at farmers and fishermen hundreds of times; no Israelis have been killed).

The plight of Palestinians in Gaza, a population of almost two million crammed into a region the size of Detroit, has been hidden from the view of most, even as the US funds its occupier with over $10 million a day in military aid.

As it was expected, the ‘historic’ UAE-Israeli peace deal did not contribute to the stability in the Middle East. Instead, the situation has been slowly, but steadily moving towards a larger confrontation in the region.

Immediately after the announcement of the US-sponsored peace deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country is not going to fulfill one of its key provisions – the suspension of the annexation of West Bank territories. The prime minister emphasized that the annexation plan was just delayed, but not suspended.

“There is no change to my plan to extend sovereignty, our sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, in full coordination with the United States,” Netanyahu said adding that “Israel will have comprehensive peace agreements with other Arab countries without returning to the 1967 borders.”

By Edward Curtin

The French writer Guy Debord called this The Society of the Spectacle.

For many months now, all eyes have been directed to the Covid-19 propaganda show with Fauci and Gates, and their mainstream corporate media mouthpieces, striking thunderbolts in the storm to scare the unknowing audience into submission so the transformation of the Great Global Reset, led by the World Economic Forum, Wall Street, the International Monetary Fund, et al can proceed smoothly.

Meanwhile, as the circus rolls along, far away and out of mind, shit happens:

With more than 400 military bases equipped with nuclear weapons surrounding China, the United States military continues its encirclement of China and China enters a “state of siege.”

King Joe and the Round Table: Biden’s America in a Multipolar World

Israeli warplanes bombed the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip overnight after Palestinians fired a rocket into southern Israel, the army said.

The latest exchange came as Israel warned Hamas it was risking "war" by failing to stop fire balloons being launched across the border.

The U.S. Space Force will begin sharing valuable space situational awareness data with the United Kingdom as part of Operation Olympic Defender, the service announced Aug. 14.

Under a recently signed agreement, the Space Force will share it’s Standardized Astrodynamics Algorithm Library with the U.K.‘s Ministry of Defense. SAAL is a collection of the Space Force’s understanding of orbital physics and algorithms that helps the service predict the trajectories of objects on orbit.

The most recent report on street gang activity in the US Army reported a 66% increase from the previous year.

The Gang and Domestic Extremist Activity Threat Assessment, compiled annually by Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) at the behest of the US Congress, reported a 66% increase in law enforcement reports (LERs) across the military that involved known or suspected gang or domestic extremist group members.

Belarusian state television has publicized what it says is the platform of the united opposition, with the document, the authenticity of which has yet to be independently verified, said to include elements which would dramatically weaken Belarus's relationship with Russia and move Minsk toward closer relations with the West and NATO.

The program, dubbed the ‘Emergency Package of Reforms for Belarus’, is said to have been approved by the main opposition candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, during the election campaign. According to Belarus 1 TV, the document was recently pulled offline, but remains accessible in Google’s cache.

The program purportedly proposes abolishing the Union State with Russia and erecting a proper border with the country, leaving the Eurasian Union and Customs Union, and withdrawing Belarus from the Collective Security Treaty Organization military alliance, which in addition to Russia and Belarus includes Armenia, Kazakhstan,

Donald Trump has poured cold water on the idea of drastically reducing spending on military healthcare, after a report emerged claiming that the Pentagon was hoping to make sweeping budget cuts.

The president’s message was in response to a report published by Politico, which stated that the Department of Defense wanted to trim healthcare spending over the next five years as part of Secretary Mark Esper’s call for Pentagon belt-tightening.

“A proposal by Pentagon officials to slash Military Healthcare by $2.2 billion dollars has been firmly and totally rejected by me,” Trump tweeted. “We will do nothing to hurt our great Military professionals & heroes as long as I am your President. Thank you!”

Update: Adding fuel to the fire that Coughlin describes below, Global Times Editor Hu Xijin tweeted the following earlier today:

The more US aircraft carriers come to the South China Sea and exert pressure on China, the more it will prompt the PLA to develop complete and reliable methods against them. Once a war begins, these aircraft carriers are more likely to become vulnerable targets.

Authored by Con Coughlin via The Gatestone Institute,

China's decision to launch a fresh round of military exercises close to the disputed territory of Taiwan demonstrates that Beijing's communist rulers have little intention of backing down in their increasingly provocative confrontation with America and its allies.

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times

Facing oh so timely color revolution-style “protests”, the current Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Diab has already resigned. Even before the port tragedy, Beirut had requested a $10 billion line of credit from the IMF – denied as long as trademark, neoliberal Washington consensus “reforms” were not implemented: radical slashing of public expenses, mass layoffs, across the board privatization.

Post-tragedy, President Emmanuel Macron – who’s not even capable of establishing a dialogue with the Gilets Jaunes/Yellow Vests in France – has opportunistically jumped in full neocolonial mode to pose as “savior” of Lebanon, as long as the same “reforms”, of course, are implemented.

Two Fort Hood soldiers and one soldier from Fort Sam Houston were recently arrested as part of a two-day child sex trafficking sting in the latest bad news coming out of the Texas Army post. The men were arrested and charged with prostitution when they arrived at a location where they believed they would be meeting up with underage girls who they were paying for sex.

The two soldiers from Fort Hood, 25-year-old Spc. Anthony Xavier Antwon and 30-year-old Pfc. Timmy Jones Jr., were hit with felony charges of prostitution under the age of 18. The two men are being held at Bell County Jail on $50,000 bond. Meanwhile, 32-year-old Staff Sergeant Pierre Jean, a combat medic assigned to Fort Sam Houston, was charged with a Class A misdemeanor for prostitution.

A group of three B-2 Spirit bombers have arrived at Diego Garcia this week. Pentagon officials emphasized that this is a national-defense strategy, and the bombers are “sharpening our lethality.”

Bombers from Diego Garcia tend to be used against Iraq and Iran, along with some sorties into Afghanistan and the South China Sea. In general, the deployments are seen to target Iran, though the tensions in the South China Sea may also play a factor.

Long-range sorties are often carried out as part of multi-national training operations, and in support of US carrier strike groups. Diego Garcia is a popular place for the US to station bombers because of its proximity to several areas.

Diego Garcia is subject to a territorial dispute from its native population, which was expelled by Britain before the island was leased to the US. Despite ongoing lawsuits, neither the US nor Britain has any intention of allowing the natives to return.

US military officials are discussing an intention to shift military forces out of Central Europe, and into the Black Sea, which they believe is a growing hotspot in NATO tensions with Russia. European Command says this will increase operational capabilities in the area.

NATO’s military deployments tend to be Russia-centric, previously shifting into the Baltic states to get troops close to Russia, and now having done that, the Black Sea is the new target. Defense Secretary Mark Esper tied this to US troop cuts from Germany.

NATO has talked about trying to get their handful of Black Sea states to invest more in their navies, but the most recent incidents have seen the US repeatedly deploying spy planes around the Russian border, only to get intercepted and driven away.

A new report published in South African newspaper The Mail and Guardian has shed light on the opaque world of the American military presence in Africa. Last year, elite U.S. Special Operations forces were active in 22 African countries. This accounts for 14 percent of all American commandos deployed overseas, the largest number for any region besides the Middle East. American troops had also seen combat in 13 African nations.

The U.S. is not formally at war with an African nation, and the continent is barely discussed in reference to American exploits around the globe. Therefore, when U.S. operatives die in Africa, as happened in Niger, Mali, and Somalia in 2018, the response from the public, and even from the media is often “why are American soldiers there in the first place?”

Belgrade’s announcement that it may purchase the Chinese FK-3 anti-aircraft missile system was enough for the U.S. to express concern about Serbia’s future, not only with Europe, but with the entire world.

The U.S. Embassy in Belgrade said that

“procuring military and defense equipment is a sovereign decision. However, governments should understand the short- and long-term risks and costs involved in doing business with Chinese companies. Procurement choices should reflect Serbia’s stated policy goal of greater European integration. Alternative vendors which are not beholden to authoritarian regimes offer equipment that is both capable of meeting Serbia’s defense need and comparable in quality and cost.”

US defense leaders have firmly pointed the finger at Russia and China as the raison d’etre for the US Space Force (USSF), claiming the nations have “militarized space,” requiring the US to respond. However, what is really threatened is US space superiority, as the Pentagon has tested space weapons for decades.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE

SOURCE: F. WILLIAM ENGDAHL VIA GLOBALRESEARCH.CA
If we step back from the details of daily headlines around the world and try to make sense of larger patterns, the dominant dynamic defining world geopolitics in the past three years or more is the appearance of a genuine irregular conflict between the two most formidable powers on the planet - The Peoples’ Republic of China and the United States of America. Increasingly it’s beginning to look as if some very dark global networks are orchestrating what looks to be an updated rerun of their 1939-1945 World War. Only this time the stakes are total, and aim at creation a universal global totalitarian system, what David Rockefeller once called a “one world government.” The powers that be periodically use war to gain major policy shifts.

At a moment of increasingly dangerous military flexing both over Taiwan and in the South China Sea, the People's Liberation Army has reportedly been ordered “not to fire the first shot” in any potential confrontation with the United States. It suggests this emerging 'new Cold War' scenario could turn hot at any moment.

The South China Morning Post broke news of the standing military orders on Tuesday based on unnamed sources: China has told its service personnel “not to fire the first shot” as Beijing looks to de-escalate tensions with the United States in the South China Sea, it reports.

Further SCMP cites that "The sources said Beijing had ordered pilots and naval officers to exercise restraint in the increasingly frequent stand-offs with US planes and warships."

Autonomous killing machines are becoming a growing reality worldwide, one which has sparked intense debate and resulted in an increasing number of governments and civil society organisations calling for a ban over the use of the technology.

There is growing support worldwide for an outright ban over the use of fully autonomous weapons, also known as Killer Robots, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW). In its latest report, HRW details the publicly known positions of 49 countries on the development and use of Killer Robots following a global campaign to ban the technology, which was first initiated by an international coalition of civil society and other groups, in 2012.

I recently discovered the extent to which Democrats routinely vote for Republican policies and expenditures at the committee level. Such enabling committee-level "yes" votes often fly under the radar, since members of Congress who cast these damaging votes often vote "no" on the House or Senate floor. They then point to their "no" floor votes as evidence of their ostensible opposition to the policy that they just encouraged and enabled by their much more powerful committee "yes" vote.

China is stepping up military drills around East Asia as a war of words with the United States heats up over Washington's military activities and the visit of a US cabinet secretary to Taiwan.

One Chinese think tank even says the People's Liberation Army (PLA) may consider live-fire exercises near the US island of Guam.

Beijing has stepped up the pace of its war games in recent weeks, after the US sent two aircraft carrier strike groups on rare dual-carrier exercises in the South China Sea twice in the month of July.

But the visit of US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to the self-governed island of Taiwan this week has added fuel to the smoldering tensions. Azar is the highest-ranking US official to visit the island -- which Beijing regards as Chinese territory -- in decades.

Azar's presence in Taipei is "a serious breach" of US commitments on Taiwan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Monday afternoon.

US Army Chief of Staff James McConville said at a recent online event hosted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, he was making “long-range precision fire” his top priority and was looking at options for basing such weapons systems in the Indo-Pacific as part of America’s deterrence strategy.

The changes “will allow us to overmatch” potential adversaries like China and Russia, he said, adding the move would also include “establishing joint all-domain task forces”.

McConville’s comments came after US Marine Corps commander General David Berger said in March in his “Force Design 2030” plan he wanted to reduce the role of marines in ground warfare and leave the bulk of that responsibility to regular troops.

President Trump’s plan to withdraw about 12,000 troops from Germany has received enormous backlash from Congress and the media. The common criticism is that the move is a “gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. But that argument ignores the fact that about half of the troops that are leaving Germany are moving closer to Russia’s border.

In an interview with Fox News, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said the troop movement will “deter” Russia. “We are moving many troops further east, closer to Russia’s border, to deter them,” Esper said. The Pentagon chief took the line of argument President Trump is making and said Germany is not paying its “fair share.”

Esper also pointed out that despite the drawdown from 36,000 to 24,000 troops, Germany will still host more US military personnel than any other NATO ally. “It is collective security, it is about our collective responsibility to stand up to the Russians.”

President Trump’s plan to withdraw about 12,000 troops from Germany has received enormous backlash from Congress and the media. The common criticism is that the move is a “gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. But that argument ignores the fact that about half of the troops that are leaving Germany are moving closer to Russia’s border.

In an interview with Fox News, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said the troop movement will “deter” Russia. “We are moving many troops further east, closer to Russia’s border, to deter them,” Esper said. The Pentagon chief took the line of argument President Trump is making and said Germany is not paying its “fair share.”

Esper also pointed out that despite the drawdown from 36,000 to 24,000 troops, Germany will still host more US military personnel than any other NATO ally. “It is collective security, it is about our collective responsibility to stand up to the Russians.”

In retaliation for Washington slapping sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, along with several mainland officials, China on Monday has slapped sanctions on ten American lawmakers - all Republicans - over their support for the Trump Administration's decision to strip Hong Kong of its "special status" and America's hectoring of Chinese (and HK) officials over their support for the new Beijing-imposed national security law.

Critics, including the US, UK and most western Democracies, have accused Beijing of willfully violating international law by imposing these "illegal" changes to the HK Basic Law, a UN-registered international treaty. Now, Beijing is accusing the US of foreign meddling in Hong Kong.

NATO members Turkey and Greece have long been at loggerheads over overlapping claims for hydrocarbon resources.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that Turkey has resumed energy exploration work in the eastern Mediterranean, saying Greece had not kept its promises regarding such activities in the region.

NATO members Turkey and Greece have long been at loggerheads over overlapping claims for hydrocarbon resources and tensions flared up last month, prompting German Chancellor Angela Merkel to hold talks with the country's leaders to ease tensions.

"We have started drilling work again," Erdogan told reporters after participating in Friday prayers at the Hagia Sophia mosque. "We don't feel obliged to talk with those who do not have rights in maritime jurisdiction zones."

Chinese and Indian forces have pulled back from their confrontation in the Himalayas, but the tensions that set off the deadly encounter this past June – the first on the China/India border since 1975 – are not going away. Indeed, a poisonous combination of local disputes, regional antagonisms, and colonial history could pose a serious danger to peace in South Asia.

In part, the problem is Britain’s colonial legacy. The “border” in dispute is an arbitrary line drawn across terrain that doesn’t lend itself to clear boundaries. The architect, Henry McMahon, drew it to maximize British control of a region that was in play during the nineteenth-century “Great Game” between England and Russia for control of Central Asia. Local concerns were irrelevant.

The treaty was signed between Tibet and Britain in 1914. Although India accepts the 550-mile McMahon Line as the border between Indian and China, the Chinese have never recognized the boundary.

Before presumptive presidential candidate stepped in, progressives had secured agreement to include word for the first time in party manifesto.
By RON KAMPEAS

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Joe Biden personally intervened to keep the word “occupation” out of the official Democratic platform, according to a new report.

Foreign Policy reported Thursday that Biden intervened after pro-Israel groups appealed to him, citing three sources, including Jason Isaacson, the chief policy and political affairs officer at the American Jewish Committee.

“The question of whether to allow the text to refer to ‘occupation’ or use the phrase ‘end the occupation’ was taken to the vice president and he said ‘no,’” Isaacson told Foreign Policy.

by: The Associated Press

Posted: Aug 7, 2020 / 08:28 AM EDT / Updated: Aug 7, 2020 / 08:28 AM EDT

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will perceive any ballistic missile launched at its territory as a nuclear attack that warrants a nuclear retaliation, the military warned in an article published Friday.

The harsh warning in the official military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) is directed at the United States, which has worked to develop long-range non-nuclear weapons.

The article follows the publication in June of Russia’s nuclear deterrent policy that envisages the use of atomic weapons in response to what could be a conventional strike targeting the nation’s critical government and military infrastructure.

During a day where there have been "a lot of crosscurrents" unfolding as the world awaits word from a 5 pm negotiating session between the White House and Congressional Dems, Brian Hook, the Trump Administration's special envoy to Iran, has quietly bowed out.

Here's more on that from Reuters, which explains that the timing of Hook's decision is notable, given next week's UN SC vote on an Iranian arms embargo.

U.S. Iran envoy Brian Hook is leaving his post and U.S. Venezuela envoy Elliott Abrams will add Iran to his role “following a transition period” with Hook, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday.

Hook’s departure comes as the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote next week on a U.S. bid to extend an international arms embargo on Iran. Some diplomats have said the measure lacks support.

Initial reports suggested that the explosion may have been caused by an incident in the firework storage area. However, later, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab said that 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, which is typically used as an agricultural fertilizer, had been stored for six years at a port warehouse without proper safety measures, “endangering the safety of citizens.”

This statement was backed by General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim, who said a “highly explosive material” had been confiscated years earlier and stored in the warehouse, just minutes’ walk from Beirut’s shopping and nightlife districts.

OURCE: ERIC ZUESSE
The great investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald gave an hour-long lecture on how America’s billionaires control the U.S. Government, and here is an edited summary of its opening twenty minutes, with key quotations and assertions from its opening — and then its broader context will be discussed briefly:

“How Congress Maintains Endless War – System Update with Glenn Greenwald” - The Intercept, 9 July 2020

2:45: There is “this huge cleavage between how members of Congress present themselves, their imagery and rhetoric and branding, what they present to the voters, on the one hand, and the reality of what they do in the bowels of Congress and the underbelly of Congressional proceedings, on the other. Most of the constituents back in their home districts have no idea what it is that the people they’ve voted for have been doing, and this gap between belief and reality is enormous.”

When Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, his main political opponent, signed a power-sharing deal in May, it ended eight months of bitter post-election dispute. It also came with a disturbing price tag, one hashed out among rounds of backroom deals, tense negotiations, and desperate U.S. attempts to keep the government from imploding. Abdul Rashid Dostum, Ghani’s vice president until last year and one of the country’s most notorious warlords, demanded a promotion to the rank of marshal, only awarded twice before in Afghan history. Ghani, who’d long vowed to clean out the warlords, complied.

Today, an unprecedented campaign of propaganda is shooing us all off like rabbits. We are not meant to question the daily torrent of anti-Chinese rhetoric, which is rapidly overtaking the torrent of anti-Russia rhetoric. Anything Chinese is bad, anathema, a threat: Wuhan …. Huawei. How confusing it is when “our” most reviled leader says so.

The current phase of this campaign began not with Trump but with Barack Obama, who in 2011 flew to Australia to declare the greatest build-up of US naval forces in the Asia-Pacific region since World War Two. Suddenly, China was a “threat”. This was nonsense, of course. What was threatened was America’s unchallenged psychopathic view of itself as the richest, the most successful, the most “indispensable” nation.

The US announcement of 12,000 troops leaving Germany now sees another scramble to secure US presences. Poland is reportedly keen to have a “permanent” US presence, complete with a command. They say at least 1,000 US troops will be involved.

Polish officials say the troops will be on the eastern border, and the command will manage all NATO troops on the Russian frontier. Poland has been courting a US presence for years, suggesting at times they’d joined NATO specifically for the opportunity to host US troops.

The opportunity to bring thousands of US troops back home, disappointingly, seems to have been short-lived hope. Worse still, the shaky suggestions from pullout critics that leaving Germany was a favor to Russia may well have played a role in a hasty scheme to dump some of the troops even closer to Russia, worsening the tensions in Eastern Europe.

Yesterday, Senate Republicans unveiled a proposed bill that would authorize a $1 trillion spending package ostensibly to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and the impacts it has had, especially economically, across the country this year. The draft law immediately drew criticism for including a raft of line items that seem at best tangentially related to those efforts, while many are not at all, including around $30 billion in defense spending, which would be on top of the more than $705 billion in the proposed defense budget for the 2021 Fiscal Year.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, formally introduced the proposed bill on July 27, 2020. It would need the full Senate to pass it and for the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives to pass their own version before it could even head to President Donald Trump’s desk, where he could then sign it into law.

FT is out with this alarming and intriguing headline: "Russia satellite weapon test reignites space arms race fears," and meanwhile FOX writes that the latest 'mysterious' Russian test of an anti-satellite weapon in orbit has put the newly established US Space Force on "high alert".

It was the US Space Command that first made the public charge last week of a new experimental Russian weapon in orbit: "On July 15, Russia injected a new object into orbit from Cosmos 2543," the U.S. Space Force said in a statement. "Russia released this object in proximity to another Russian satellite, (which was) inconsistent with the system's stated mission as an inspector satellite."

US lawmakers are calling on Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite to explain how the service is responding to allegations that US sailors were involved in the commercial sex trade in Bahrain.

"We request immediate information on the steps you have taken to remedy the deplorable circumstances in Bahrain, combat the broader culture that allowed these crimes to flourish, and ensure that justice is delivered to trafficking survivors and their family members," Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) wrote in a letter sent to Braithwaite on Tuesday, Military.com reported.

Via AlMasdarNews.com

A Hebrew-language channel stated on Wednesday night that the Israeli army expects an attack by Hezbollah during the Islamic Eid Al-Adha holiday.

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation, Kann, reported that Israel fears a “second attack” by Hezbollah in the next 48 hours, that is, during the celebration of Eid al-Adha.

The news channel reported that, based on this expectation, the Israeli army has strengthened its forces in the north near the Lebanese and Syrian borders, deploying advanced missile systems, special rockets and intelligence-gathering capabilities, for fear of a reaction from Hezbollah, after one of its members was killed in an airstrike on July 20th in Damascus.

The Israel-based news channel quoted a “Lebanese diplomat in Beirut” – whom they did not name – as saying that Hezbollah does not want a comprehensive escalation with Israel, but that it is looking for a real retaliation.

A new mandatory Pentagon training course aimed at preventing leaks refers to protesters and journalists as "adversaries" in a fictional scenario designed to teach Defense Department personnel how to better protect sensitive information.

The new course was recently launched as part of Defense Secretary Mark Esper's effort to improve "operational security," or OPSEC, and clamp down on leaks. The training materials are public and include a video message from Esper, as well as a July 20 memo outlining his concerns about operational security and directing all DoD personnel — military, civilian and on-site contractors — to take the course within the next 60 days.

The Turkish bar association has filed a criminal complaint against pro-Islam magazine Gercek Hayat for instigated hatred and called for an armed rebellion against the Turkish government, reported RT News.

Ankara Bar Association requested government prosecutors to investigate the magazine's editor-in-chief, Kemal Ozer, and columnist Abdurrahman Dilipak, claiming their radical newspaper called for an Islamic caliphate.

RT News notes a caliphate is a state "dedicated to the cause of Islam, seeking to be a unifying and defending force for all Muslims. The word had received plenty of negative attention in recent times since the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) claimed the title for itself."

"Historically, four major caliphates existed, the latest being the Ottoman Empire. Modern Turkey was founded by Kemal Ataturk on the ruins of this fourth caliphate as a modern secular republic that had cast away the outdated institutions of its predecessor," RT said.

The Pentagon would get nearly $30 billion under the Senate Republicans’ coronavirus relief plan, including $8 billion for weapons systems.

The $29.4 billion for the Pentagon is included in the $1 trillion coronavirus aid package Senate Republicans released Monday night.

Democrats have already declared the bill a non-starter, but it lays out Republicans and the White House’s priorities heading into negotiations.

Republicans are defending the funding for acquisition programs as supporting the defense industrial base at a time of economic hardship and job losses, but Democrats are blasting it as a giveaway to defense contractors.

“Conducting operations in the Black Sea ensures stability throughout the region,” Gen. Jeff Harrigian, USAFE commander, said in a statement. “Our combined presence strengthens relationships with our allies and partners while sending a message to any adversary that we are committed to collective defense and ready to respond in a complex security environment.”

In addition, more than 2,000 troops from eight countries are taking part in training exercise Sea Breeze, scheduled through July 26. The exercise is in its 20th iteration and includes personnel from Ukraine, Norway, Spain, Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia, and the U.S.

BY Mitchell Feierstein

The Democratic Party and its willing cabal of party activists will do anything in its power to get rid of Donald Trump. This cabal works hand in hand with their friends over at the fake news media who report that the widespread rioting, race wars, looting and arson are nothing more than “peaceful protests.” The stark choice on offer for the 2020 US Presidential election is a modified Trump or Biden’s unknown handlers.

Along with Iranian military advisors and Russian air support, Hezbollah fighters are involved in aiding Syria combat US aggression, including its ISIS, al-Nusra and other jihadist proxies.

Israeli airstrikes in Syria killed Hezbollah fighters before. Its leadership vowed to retaliate against Israeli aggression when any of its personnel are harmed.

For days, tensions along the Lebanese/Israeli border remain heightened.

On Monday, Lebanese Al-Manar television reported the following:

Israel’s IDF “claim(ed) that “Hezbollah attempted to carry out an infiltration operation and that the Israeli army frustrated the attack and killed a number of its fighters,” adding:

“Hezbollah then issued a statement to refute the Israeli claims and stress that the Israeli army unilaterally opened fire for fear of Hezbollah response to the killing of the martyr Ali Mohsen in the latest raid on Syria.”

“Americans should not blame others in vain,” Iranian general Esmail Gha’ani has declared, “this is a fire they have lit and today has engulfed them.” Gha’ani, a veteran military commander who heads the Quds Force, the branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responsible for extraterritorial operations, was speaking about the massive fire that has overtaken a U.S. navy vessel in San Diego.

The provocative remarks come amid signs of a new level of covert warfare being waged against Iran. The country has been beset by its own mysterious infernos and explosions, including at parks, medical clinics, power plants, ports, factories, a missile production compound, and a nuclear facility. The latter has been attributed to Israel by a source speaking to the New York Times. The incidents also come as the Trump administration has greenlighted the CIA to target Iranian infrastructure with cyberweapons.

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Most people realize that 2020 has thrust two game-changing trends upon us that will change the world for years to come.

The first is Covid.

In less than six months, this virus has created extreme global hysteria and economic devastation.

Then there’s the social justice movement… which tore onto the world stage two months ago with a desire to make important cultural changes.

At its core, the movement is virtuous. After all, it’s supposed to be about freedom.

But it has quickly become divisive, menacing, and pointlessly violent.

Everything is offensive. Intellectual dissent must be immediately squashed. People lose their jobs, receive death threats, or are censored, merely for expressing completely valid (and even supportive) opinions.

This third major trend is rational. And that’s why it’s largely been ignored. But its impact could be far bigger and longer lasting.

I’m talking about conflict with China.

As the ongoing increased sanctions regimen on Syria demonstrates, Washington's pursuit of regime change against Assad is not over, despite Damascus clearly having won the war, and with the US having wisely ditched talk of some kind of overt major Iraq-style military intervention (as was the case under Obama in August 2013).

While mainstream media has largely "moved on" from coverage of Syria (so much for feigned humanitarian "concern" for millions of Syrians suffering under severe American-led sanctions!), some analysts like independent journalist Aaron Maté have been detailing damning leaks from the chemical weapons watchdog Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

"A series of leaked documents from the OPCW raise the possibility that the Trump administration bombed Syria on false grounds and pressured officials at the world’s top chemical weapons watchdog to cover it up," Maté's latest report in The Nation begins.

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

As part of Washington’s increased military presence in Indo-Pacific, the month of July has seen a record number of aerial surveillance flights by US military aircraft in the South China Sea and near China’s coast. A Beijing-based think tank counted over 50 sorties by US military aircraft in the region in the first three weeks of July.

“At the moment the US military is sending three to five reconnaissance aircraft each day to the South China Sea,” the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI) said. While July saw record numbers, the increased flights started earlier this year with “much higher frequency, closer distance and more variety of missions,” SCSPI said.

Authored by Angelo Codevilla via AmericanMind.org

Establishing any infectious disease’s true lethality is characteristically straightforward: test a large sample of the population proportionately representative of location, age, sex, race, socioeconomic categories. Follow up with the subjects a month later to add up the rate of infections and learn the results thereof. Period. Today, we still lack this definitive, direct knowledge of COVID’s true lethality because bureaucrats have prevented widespread testing for the purpose of firmly establishing the one figure that matters most. That is because that figure’s absence allows them to continue fearmongering.

Submitted by South Front,

The Middle East is rapidly moving towards a new round of confrontation between the US-Israeli bloc and Iranian-led Shiite forces...

On July 26, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) deployed M109 Doher howitzers near the separation line with Lebanon. The deployment of howitzers became the latest in a series of broad measures employed by the IDF near Lebanon recently. Earlier, the 13th “Gideon” Infantry Battalion of the IDF’s elite 1st “Golani” Brigade reinforced troops near the border. The number Israeli Hermes 450 drone reconnaissance flights also significantly increased over southern Lebanon. Additional IDF units were also deployed in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. On top of this, the IDF announced that it will hold the Lebanese government responsible “for all actions emanating from Lebanon”.

Authored by Uzay Bulut via The Gatestone Institute,

Turkey is currently involved in quite a few international military conflicts -- both against its own neighbors such as Greece, Armenia, Iraq, Syria and Cyprus, and against other nations such as Libya and Yemen. These actions by Turkey suggest that Turkey's foreign policy is increasingly destabilizing not only several nations, but the region as well.

In addition, the Erdogan regime has been militarily targeting Syria and Iraq, sending its Syrian mercenaries to Libya to seize Libyan oil and continuing, as usual, to bully Greece. Turkey's regime is also now provoking ongoing violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Russian defense ministry said it had sent a Su-27 fighter plane on Monday to intercept a US surveillance plane over the Black Sea that it said was approaching the Russian border.

The US plane, identified as a P-8 Poseidon, has changed course to move away from the Russian border, the ministry added.

The UPA was, without any shadow of a doubt, responsible for the slaughter of at least 200,000 Polish civilians; they liquidated whole Polish communities in Volhynia and Galicia, including the women and children. The current Polish government, which is as anti-Russian and pro-NATO as they come, nevertheless has declared this a genocide.

It certainly was an extremely brutal ethnic cleansing. There is no doubt either that at times between 1942 and 1944 the UPA collaborated with the Nazis and collaborated in the destruction of Jews and Gypsies. It is simplistic to describe the UPA as fascist or an extension of the Nazi regime; at times they fought the Nazis, though they collaborated more often.

Progressives reacted with disgust at the misplaced priorities made evident by the Senate’s approval of the Pentagon budget and the GOP’s proposal on Covid-19 relief.

China has slammed what it says is a violation of international law after on Friday a group of US federal agents were seen forcing open doors at the Chinese consulate in Houston using power tools and crowbars on Friday as consular staff inside prepared to leave after its ordered closure.

The Trump administration had given China until 4pm Friday to vacate the Houston consulate. Mike Pompeo had charged that the consulate was “a hub of spying and intellectual property theft”.

China has shuttered the US consulate in Chengdu in response on Saturday:

Security was tight outside the U.S. consulate in the Chinese city of Chengdu as staff prepared to leave, while U.S. officials took over the closed Chinese consulate in Houston https://reut.rs/2OUcOIj

According to Norwegian Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen, the US presence in the country will be made more dynamic. Instead of maintaining a force of 700 in the country, the US presence will soar during drills and diminish in peacetime.

Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway at the US Marine Corps Forces European Command has assured Norway that despite the restructuring of the US Marine Corps, which may have consequences for the allies' defensive capabilities, the US still promises to fully support Norway and meet it obligations.

“We will continue to develop our strong security cooperation with Norway,” Rankine-Galloway told the newspaper Klassekampen.

He added that American participation in Norwegian exercises will increase, while the continuous presence will be made more dynamic.

The U.S. warship Porter entered the Black Sea on Sunday to take part in an annual NATO exercise, days after Russia placed its Black Sea forces on alert.

Sea Breeze 2020 is cohosted by the United States and Ukraine and involves more than 2,000 personnel from Bulgaria, Georgia, Norway, Romania, Spain and Turkey.

It will run through July 26 and focus on warfare areas such as air defense, anti-sub warfare, damage control and search and rescue, according to a Navy release.

A Navy P-8A Poseidon sub hunter aircraft is also participating.

The exercise will take place exclusively at sea to help mitigate COVID-19, according to the release.

US bombers in Guam have tended to be used to threaten North Korea, and a new deployment this week sees a pair of B-1B Lancer bombers arriving in Guam, after a brief stop-off in Japan to participate in a joint exercise.

Though such bombers tend to be used for operations near North Korean airspace, officials are also emphasizing the US tensions with China in the South China Sea. It’s hard to imagine that, with China’s substantial air defenses, these deployments would be likely to see use against them.

The South China Sea, however, seems like it’s going to be an ongoing issue, as the US insists that they will never accept Chinese claims on islands in the area. The Chinese, however, show no interest in giving up on any of those claims either.

The deployment of these bombers comes as the US has sent more forces into the area, with two carrier strike groups currently in the South China Sea.

The deal was never intended as a grand bargain. But by stopping the nuclear capability clock for a decade and a half, with intrusive inspections, it offered an off ramp, an ecosystem conducive to diplomacy and a stepping stone to a mutually brighter future.

President Trump’s impatience has proven costly. Iran has reduced its compliance with the nuclear deal and floats consideration of abandoning it altogether and the NPT as well.

If change is to take place, as much effort, persistence, financial resources, and patience should be devoted to diplomatic solutions as has been devoted to sanctions and pressure.

In the last week, the military conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia has reignited, with the two nations having already been engaged in a military confrontation for decades. Nagorno Karabach, an Armenian enclave inside of Azerbaijan, is one of the main underlying factors for the conflict, but the growing rivalry between Russia and Turkey is also playing a part. More than 16 soldiers have been killed in the most recent round of fighting. Both sides are accusing each other of aggression and military action. The use of full scale armed forces and drones have been involved, killing several soldiers on both sides and reportedly an Azerbaijani general. The current outbreak of fighting has been the deadliest since the “April War” of 2016. While most clashes normally occur in and around the Armenian controlled Nagorno-Karabakh region, the current clashes are on the international border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The international community is urging both sides to end the clashes.