Syrian air defenses have thwarted multiple hostile targets in the Syrian capital of Damascus early Wednesday morning, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.

Several powerful explosions were heard in Damascus as air defenses engaged several hostile targets in the city's southern region around 1:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday. Approximately 20 blasts occurred in seconds-long intervals that shortened as time passed.

Social media footage from the region shows fires that resulted from the the strikes. Unconfirmed reports say the missiles originated from the Israeli Air Force (IAF).

So much for drawing down in the Middle East. President Trump notified Congress on Tuesday that more American troops are en route to Saudi Arabia, which will bring their overall numbers to about 3,000 in the kingdom.

"These personnel will remain deployed as long as their presence is required to fulfill the missions described above," the president said in a letter.

The official White House notification of Congressional members described the American military presence there as essential in countering Iran's influence in the region.

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE
Over the years of the war in Syria, an overwhelming amount of evidence has amassed documenting that the so-called 'Islamic State' caliphate was established after tens of thousands of ISIS and other foreign fighters were allowed to pour across Turkey's southern border into Syria.

That NATO's second largest military with the help of its allies such as the US, Britain, France, and Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar facilitated what the State Department in 2014 described as the largest mass movement of jihadist terrorists in modern history should be a scandal of monumental importance, yet the mainstream media predictably ignored it and "moved on".

And now more bombshell proof of state sponsorship behind the prior rapid rise of ISIS: below are details exposed during unprecedented on-camera interviews of imprisoned ISIS members in Syria spilling all. They confess openly that Turkish military and intelligence simply let them "just walk into Syria".

“I was not even read into the interrogation program until it had been up and running for a year,” Haspell told the Committee. But Haspel’s claims raised more than a few eyebrows. For one, the CIA began its torture program in the summer of 2002. By late 2002, Haspel was overseeing waterboarding at a black site detention center in Thailand, one of a number of countries exposed in a 2005 Washington Post report as territories being used for torture by the US to dodge judicial oversight.

Later reporting would reveal that Haspel also played a role in the CIA’s destruction of 92 tapes related to the CIA’s torture program. As such, the idea that the 34-year CIA vet wasn’t fully versed in—if not directly involved in—the program has long strained credulity.

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE
In a major, if entirely expected, complete reversal of Obama-era policy on the Middle East, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday the Trump administration is reversing the official US stance on the illegality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

“After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan,” Pompeo said in reference to Reagan’s view that settlements were not inherently illegal. “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law,” Pompeo said.

“The Trump administration is reversing the Obama administration’s approach towards Israeli settlements. U.S. public statements on settlement activities in the West Bank have been inconsistent over decades.”

The Veterans Affairs Department knowingly disclosed sensitive information on millions of veterans’ doctors, spouses and dependents despite warnings that the practice “could cause those individuals significant harm,” an internal watchdog found.

For more than three years, the Veterans Benefits Administration intentionally stopped redacting names, Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable information on third-party individuals in claims records provided to veterans, according to the VA Inspector General. The practice not only left countless people vulnerable to identity theft but it also potentially broke the law, auditors found.

The United States has called on Libyan renegade General Khalifa Haftar to stop a months-long offensive on Tripoli and said it would back the country’s internationally recognised government against "Russia’s attempts to exploit the conflict".

The statement was the most explicit call by Washington against the self-styled Libyan National Army of Haftar, who was earlier praised by President Donald Trump.

"The United States calls on the 'Libyan National Army’ to end its offensive on Tripoli," the US State Department said in a joint statement released on Thursday after talks with a delegation from Libya’s Tripoli-based Government of National Accord in Washington.

Libya has been split between rival camps based in Tripoli and the east since 2014, a result of the divisions that surfaced following the NATO-backed overthrow of long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi three years earlier.

They sure didn’t look the part. These weren’t a bunch of stereotypical hippie peaceniks. As I surveyed the room in the beautiful DC brownstone which hosted the BringOurTroopsHome.us opening night reception, I saw well-built, well-dressed men and women, many still sporting military-style haircuts (though often with a well-groomed beard). Instead of tie-dye shirts, I spied some flag-lapel pins, a few Trump 2020 ball caps, and even a big old cowboy hat. Yet all these relatively young combat veterans were gathered in the nation’s capital last week with a common cause: ending America’s endless wars! The very wars, of course, that they had fought, the wars they could still smell, the wars that killed their friends.

Israel, however, has no easy access to real S-400, that’s why its role during the drills was played by the US-made Patriot missile batteries, “modified” to mimic the Russian-made systems.

Whether they were up to the task is another question though, as the Patriot’s characteristics do not exactly match up those of S-400. The Russian system can hit a target flying at twice the speed of a target that can be shot down by the US rival, and it can do that at a longer distance and higher altitude, depending on the interceptor missile.

Questions remain about the circumstances that led to Morales’ ouster, and whether foreign governments played a role in it. But recent history provides reason to suspect that Bolivia’s rich natural resources are part of the answer.
In a near empty room, a Bolivian military official placed the presidential sash over Jeanine Anez Chavez, a senator from the Beni region who didn’t run the country’s recent election. The ardently Christian politician carried a Bible with her into the ceremony, which consolidated the coup d’etat in the Andean country.

A Chinese aircraft carrier fleet has sailed through the highly contested waters in the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, just days after a US warship transited the region, reported Reuters.

China's first domestically built aircraft carrier, known as the Type 002, was accompanied by a strike group as it sailed through the waterway from the East China Sea into the strait on Sunday, the Defense Ministry in Taipei said in a statement.

Last Tuesday, the US Navy sent the USS Chancellorsville, a guided-missile cruiser, on a "routine Taiwan Strait transit," the navy said.

As a result of Type 002 and its strike group transiting the strait, Taiwanese military authorities scrambled fighter jets to monitor the continuing situation.

update: The battle over student protester-occupied Polytechnic University grew more violent over the weekend and grabbed headlines Sunday after a police officer was wounded by an arrow and a riot control vehicle attempting to disperse what HK authorities have labelled 'rioters' was set aflame by dozens of Molotov cocktails.

Chinese state media has now labeled the student protesters "terrorists" and has urged police to deploy live fire given the students themselves are in possession of deadly weapons. After a night of mayhem into the early hours of Monday (local time), it appears a violent showdown is imminent, as Reuters reports police now consider 'live fire' an option:

Hong Kong police threatened on Monday (Nov 18) to use live bullets if “rioters” used lethal weapons and committed other acts of violence, after the latest flare up during five months of anti-government protests in the Chinese ruled city.

Former Massachusetts Governor (and managing director of private equity firm Bain Capital) Deval Patrick has announced that he’s officially entering the race for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

Patrick’s connections to the financial industry will presumably anger left-leaning voters, but his foreign policy record should also rankle progressives. Patrick has a long history of support for Israel and no record to show in terms of supporting Palestinian self-determination. The former governor has led delegations to Israel on numerous occasions. During a 2011 trip, Patrick met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and informed the press that his visit was one of “collaboration, friendship and steadfast support.”

In 2012, at the height of Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense, Patrick spoke at a pro-Israel rally in the Boston area. He told the crowd:

Israeli military’s spokesperson in Arabic said that the target was an Islamic Jihad commander, but defense establishment sources say it was an ‘infrastructure’? Palestinians say casualties are a family of herders
>> UPDATE: Outdated intelligence, social media rumors: Behind Israel's killing of Gaza family

The Israeli military admitted on Thursday that it made a mistake in targeting a Gaza building Wednesday night which housed a family of eight,

In what marks a major shift in US policy in Libya, the US State Department issued a statement late Thursday demanding that Gen. Khalifa Hafter and his self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA) stop trying to conquer the capital city of Tripoli.

The US had initially opposed the LNA invasion of Tripoli in April, but following a talking-to from Saudi Arabia and other nations seen as pro-Hafter, President Trump endorsed Hafter and suggested he’s going to play a big role in Libya in the future. This remained the US position up until now.

The change seems to be a function of recent news about Russia backing Hafter, with the State Department accusing Russia of “exploiting the conflict against the will of the Libyan people.”

A former general in the Gadhafi-era military, Hafter later was a CIA asset and participated in several failed coups d’etat. His force has substantial territory in eastern Libya, but has struggled to move deep into Tripoli.

Gen. David Petraeus, the retired four-star Army general and former head of the CIA, told CNBC on Thursday that Saudi Arabia is “gradually running out of money.”

Petraeus said the Saudi’s need their initial public offering (IPO) of the state-run oil company Aramco, to be successful. In December, the Saudis plan on releasing some shares of Aramco to the public in an effort to attract outside investors.

The IPO is part of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s “Vision 2030,” his effort to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy and reduce its dependence on oil exports. Petraeus said Saudi Arabia’s budget deficits can be “anywhere from $40 to $60 billion” each year, depending on the price of oil.

When asked about other people’s criticisms of the crown prince, Petraeus said it was in the entire world’s interest to see “Saudi Arabia succeed” and to also see it “moderate” some of its practices.

Even with all the wars the US is presently involved in and all the shady activity that goes with that, it’s fairly unusual for the military to get around to charging personnel with war crimes. When they do, however, military commanders try to emphasize the importance, both to show the military doesn’t let everyone get away with everything, and to deter personnel from ignoring the chain of command.

On Friday, however, President Trump knocked out three of those war crimes cases with full pardons. The White House statement said they wanted to give US soldiers the “confidence to fight.”

Which brings us to the really critical point of the whole issue. Who defines what is in the "national interest" with regards to foreign policy? Here is a point where for once agree with the right-wingers at the National Review where Andrew McCarthy writes:

[O]n the critical matter of America’s interests in the Russia/Ukraine dynamic, I think the policy community is right, and President Trump is wrong. If I were president, while I would resist gratuitous provocations, I would not publicly associate myself with the delusion that stable friendship is possible (or, frankly, desirable) with Putin’s anti-American dictatorship, which runs its country like a Mafia family and is acting on its revanchist ambitions.
But you see, much like the policy community, I am not president. Donald Trump is.

A new report in Axios suggests that Russia has significantly increased its presence in war-torn Libya, perhaps seeking to clean up the mess left in the wake of the US-NATO led regime change war which toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

This after a recent NY Times investigation found that at least 200 Russian mercenaries from Wagner Group have been in Libya supporting renegade General Khalifa Haftar's offensive against the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

Eight years after Gaddafi's overthrow and brutal field execution at the hands of NATO-backed rebel Islamists, the oil and gas abundant country is still in the throes of grinding factional civil war.

Interior Minister for Tripoli's GNA Fathi Bashagha told Axios the unfolding “proxy war” will doom the country to become “a haven for terrorists and extremists” unless the US steps in again.

A ceasefire has been reached between Israel and groups in Gaza, after two days of violence that left 34 Palestinians dead. Many of the Democratic candidates have tweeted about the events, defending Israel’s actions while condemning rocket fire from Palestine. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders expressed concern for Israelis and Palestinians, while Warren was the only candidate to acknowledge that multiple Palestinians have been killed.

2020 presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday condemned recent violence between Israelis and Palestinians following the announcement of a cease-fire earlier in the day.

The two candidates took to Twitter to condemn acts of violence from Palestinian militant groups accused of firing rockets at Israel, while also calling for an end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

"Israelis should not have to live in fear of rocket fire. Palestinians should not have to live under occupation and blockade," Sanders tweeted.

On hearing the State Department’s George Kent and William Taylor describe President Donald Trump’s withholding of military aid to Ukraine, The New York Times summarized and solemnly endorsed their testimony:

"What clearly concerned both witnesses wasn’t simply the abuse of power by the President, but the harm it inflicted on Ukraine, a critical ally, under constant assault by Russian forces."

"’Even as we sit here today, the Russians are attacking Ukrainian soldiers in their own country, and have been for four years,’ Taylor said. ‘I saw this on the front line last week; the day I was there a Ukrainian soldier was killed and four more wounded.’"

Kent compared Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s intervention on the side of the Donbass secessionists to "our own Minutemen in 1776."

South Korea has historically paid an unusually large percentage of the cost of keeping US forces there, and under pressure from President Trump, agreed earlier this year to a substantial increase, with South Korea agreeing to pay $924 million annually.

Since then, Trump had suggested a few times that he wanted more, and that South Korea could easily afford it. His new demand, however, shocked everyone on both sides as he is demanding over five times what South Korea is paying, $4.7 billion annually.

This is raising a lot of questions in South Korea about the viability of keeping the US around, but the bigger task is for US officials, who are trying to somehow justify a $4.7 billion price tag that seemingly came out of nowhere.

Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad and Israel declared a halt to hostilities across the Gaza Strip border on Thursday but a lasting ceasefire appeared tenuous as they differed on terms.

Islamic Jihad said an Egyptian-mediated truce went into effect at 0330 GMT, about 48 hours after Israel triggered the exchange of fire by killing the Iranian-backed faction’s top Gaza commander in an air strike, deeming him an imminent threat.

Occasional rocket fire from Gaza and a retaliatory Israeli air strike broke the calm, but the ceasefire largely held.

President Trump’s position on the Syrian War aims to further simplify matters. Turkey’s President Erdogan says he is worried about Turkey’s border with Syria, and President Trump sees an opportunity to contrast his own war, saying “we left troops behind only for the oil.”

In the context of US-Turkey relations, this seems very straightforward and avoids conflicts of interest. Admitting that the whole US war is for oil isn’t the panacea Trump thinks it is, however, and he’s running up against other US officials on this issue.

Lawmakers are couching the Syrian War as being about protecting the Kurds, while the Pentagon’s leadership sees it heavily built around fighting ISIS and continuing to work toward regime change in Syria. Some even suggest it’s about countering Russia.

Trump’s all-oil agenda directly contradicts everyone else, and gives the impression that the US is being deliberately evasive about its military agenda and where US foreign policy is going.

Authored by Craig Murray,

Perhaps the only fact on James Le Mesurier about which I would agree with the MSM war cheerleaders is that he was a very busy man. It is remarkable therefore that he found the time and inclination to follow “Philip Cross” on twitter. Given that “Philip Cross” has virtually never posted an original tweet, and his timeline consists almost entirely of retweets of Nick Cohen, David Aaronovitch and openly pro-Israel propaganda accounts, why would Le Mesurier bother to follow him?

“Philip Cross” has never posted any news other than to retweet columnists. He has never given an insight into a story. In addition to James Le Mesurier, why then were all these MSM journailsts following “Philip Cross” from before “he” gained notoriety for his Wikipedia exploits?

Oliver Kamm, Leader Writer The Times

Nick Cohen, Columnist The Guardian/Observer

Joan Smith, Columnist The Independent

Leslie Felperin, Film Columnist The Guardian

Veterans and state legislators from 26 States Press Congress to Assert Congressional Responsibility for War Powers and Bring US Troops Home

War sustains our way of life while killing us at the same time. As Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent and author Chris Hedges observes:

War is like a poison. And just as a cancer patient must at times ingest a poison to fight off a disease, so there are times in a society when we must ingest the poison of war to survive. But what we must understand is that just as the disease can kill us, so can the poison. If we don't understand what war is, how it perverts us, how it corrupts us, how it dehumanizes us, how it ultimately invites us to our own self-annihilation, then we can become the victim of war itself.

War also entertains us with its carnage, its killing fields, its thrills and chills and bloodied battles set to music and memorialized in books, on television, in video games, and in superhero films and blockbuster Hollywood movies financed in part by the military.

It was clear in yesterday's press briefing during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to the White House, where he didn't actually receive much push back from either President Trump or the press (at one point Trump requested that only a "friendly" reporter from Turkey ask questions of Erdogan), that the touchy subject of Turkey's acquirement of Russia's S-400 anti-air system was front and center in closed door conversations.

But Erdogan appeared unmoved by whatever pressure he may have faced in the Oval, given he later told reporters while standing next to the US president that Turkey cannot possibly discard the S-400 due to its strategic ties wit Russia, but he also added, “I’ve told Mr. Trump that we’re ready to buy Patriots.”

SOURCE: RT
The Indian Army will soon reinforce its strength in Kashmir with hundreds of combat robots capable of lobbing grenades, overcoming obstacles, and carrying out search-and-rescue raids, local media report.
The Defense Ministry is looking for around 550 “robotic surveillance units,” each with a 25-year lifespan, according to Indian media, citing military sources. “These robots should be capable enough for water fording with minimum 20 cm depth,” an unnamed officer told Livemint.

Once acquired, the robots will be sent to the Rashtriya Rifles, the Indian Army’s counter-insurgency force. The unit will use them in built-up areas to gather intelligence on terrorists’ movements.

Aside from collecting imagery intelligence, the unmanned vehicles will be armed and capable of firing “suitable munitions at the intended target, for example, throwing grenade at places where the terrorists are holed up,” the source explained.

The so-called War on Terror launched by the United States government in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks has cost at least 801,000 lives and $6.4 trillion according to a pair of reports published Wednesday by the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

"The numbers continue to accelerate, not only because many wars continue to be waged, but also because wars don't end when soldiers come home," said Costs of War co-director and Brown professor Catherine Lutz, who co-authored the project's report on deaths.

"These reports provide a reminder that even if fewer soldiers are dying and the U.S. is spending a little less on the immediate costs of war today, the financial impact is still as bad as, or worse than, it was 10 years ago," Lutz added. "We will still be paying the bill for these wars on terror into the 22nd century."

A US military program dubbed ‘Insect Allies’ could be used as a biological weapon, a group of European scientists warns. The Pentagon’s research arm claims they are intended to defend crops, but doesn’t deny ‘dual-use’ potential.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and the University of Freiburg in Germany, as well as the University of Montpellier, France, have published a critique of the program, dubbed “Insect Allies,” in the October 5 edition of Science.

They argue that “the knowledge to be gained from this program appears very limited in its capacity to enhance US agriculture or respond to national emergencies” and therefore the program “may be widely perceived as an effort to develop biological agents for hostile purposes and their means of delivery,” which would mean a breach of the Biological Weapons Convention.

Entirely to be expected, a new report in The Wall Street Journal has found that Turkish-backed Syrian forces currently fighting US-backed Kurdish groups as part of 'Operation Peace Spring' are guilty of war crimes, including summary executions of Kurdish civilians.

"U.S. military officials watched live drone feeds last month that appeared to show Turkish-backed Arab gunmen targeting civilians during their assault on Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, attacks the Americans reported to their commanders as possible war crimes, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the incidents," reports the WSJ.

What the report fails to mention, however, is the blatantly obvious and relevant recent history that the Islamist militants carrying out such atrocities are the very same militants which were a few short years ago funded, armed and trained by the CIA and Pentagon.

srael launched two attacks simultaneously on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad yesterday, one targeting Bahaa Abu Al-Ata — a senior commander of its military wing, Al-Quds Brigades — in Gaza, and the other targeting the movement’s Damascus-based political bureau member Akram Al-Ajouri. Abu Al-Ata and his wife were killed in the former, while Al-Ajouri’s son was killed in the latter.

“Hubris” is defined as rash and foolish pride, a dangerous overconfidence, manifested with arrogance. The Deep State vaunts our “exceptionalism”, and since Reagan’s “City on a Hill” trope Americans have been assured by all succeeding Presidents that ours is the “indispensible nation”. The word describes the way America sells itself to the world, and has for generations.

The yawning cognitive gap between our nomenklatura’s relentless self-promotion and its pathetic history of botched, humiliating failures in every single act of Imperial overreach, demands examination. Are we at Peak Hubris? When exactly should the hubris of a vicious, lying, sloganeering criminal state be identified as what it is, a cover for unhinged stupidity?

A pair of Israeli airstrikes targeted senior Islamic Jihad commanders in Gaza and Syria early Tuesday, escalating Israel’s confrontation with Iran across the region and threatening to unleash another devastating round of cross-border violence with Palestinian militants.

In eastern Gaza, the Israeli strike killed Bahaa Abu el-Atta and his wife, setting off a furious barrage of Gaza-fired rockets that reached as far as the Tel Aviv heartland as Islamic Jihad vowed further revenge. The military said Abu el-Atta was the mastermind of recent attacks against Israel and the militant group’s top commander in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Syrian officials said an Israeli airstrike in the capital, Damascus, targeted another Islamic Jihad commander, Akram al-Ajouri, who was not harmed.

Throughout weeks of recent anti-government protests in Iraq the US wasn’t immediately clear on their position. It was only following weekend reports of Iran trying to save the current government and forestall early elections that the US declared itself firmly on the side of early elections.

The White House demanded that the Iraqi government immediately fulfill talk of reforms and early elections by President Salih, further demanding an immediate halt on violence against Iraqi protesters.

These are somewhat uncharacteristic positions for the US to take on Iraq, as generally they, like Iran, prefer to prolong the survival of governments at any cost, and they’ve rarely presented anything like opposition to crackdowns on public protests before.

Maj. Gen. Eric Hill, addressing the arrival of more armored vehicles at the US positions in eastern Syria, says it is part of the “resetting” of the US position further east, and required the US to have more “combat power here to sustain ourselves.”

Maj. Gen. Hill says that the goal is not simply to have power to match ISIS but “the militaries of the Syrian regime, the Russians, or even militias backed by fellow NATO partner Turkey.” The focus is on how everyone is carving up territory in eastern Syria, which was once controlled by the US and its Kurdish allies.

Though the Pentagon likes to brag about its ability to project power across the world, in Syria its ability to accomplish anything has historically hinged on getting the Kurds to do it for them. Though the deployment at the oilfields is no doubt capable of inflicting some casualties if control of the fields is challenged, it’s hard to imagine that the US believes it would truly hold this ground with a few hundred troops.

I suppose that by now everyone has heard of Trump’s offer to send the American military to “wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth,” which he asserts can be done “quickly and effectively.”

If AMLO were to invite the Americans into Mexico, he would be lynched. Few Americans are aware of how much the United States is hated in Latin America, and for that matter in most of the world. They don’t know of the long series of military interventions, brutal dictators imposed and supported, and economic rapine. Somoza, Pinochet, the Mexican-American War, detachment of Panama from Colombia, bombardment of Veracruz, Patton’s incursion – the list could go on for pages. The Mexican public would look upon American troops not as saviors but as invaders. Which they would be.

Instead of reducing the number of troops as promised, Trump approved an expanded “military mission,” supposedly to “secure” Syrian oil.

Trump Expands Military Mission in Syria Aiming to Control Oil Fields https://t.co/LcPtAiBmmc

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) November 8, 2019

The Donald is completely irrelevant.

“At a US government-funded think tank at the forefront of shaping Washington’s interventionist designs, an American official succinctly laid out the continued-regime change strategy,” writes Ben Norton for The Grayzone.

The “think tank”—the neocon infested Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is funded by clueless American taxpayers.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
The British founder of the organisation that trained the Syrian rescue group known as the White Helmets has died in Istanbul.

A spokesman for the White Helmets confirmed on Monday afternoon the death of James Le Mesurier, but said further details were yet to be established.

Le Mesurier, 48, was found dead near his apartment in central Istanbul’s Beyo?lu neighbourhood at around 4.30am. Turkish media reports said he was found with fractures to his head and legs near the building on Monday morning and appeared to have fallen from the balcony of one of the apartments.

The office of Istanbul’s governor said it had commenced a “comprehensive” investigation into the death.

Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the symbols of the Cold War, Europe remains divided because it chose confrontation over a common future, Willy Wimmer, Germany’s former State Secretary for Defense believes.
Germany is marking 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall – a symbol of division, perhaps, not just for Germans but for all Europeans, who saw the continent split between the Western and the Soviet bloc. The wall’s destruction has since turned into a symbol of German reunification. Yet, Europe itself has failed to achieve the genuine unity that was a dream of the people who tore it down back on November 9, 1989.

In a largely unreported but hugely important story that played out this week in the Balkans, Washington is putting immense pressure on Serbia to shelve future plans for acquiring Russia's advanced S-400 air defense missile systems.

The controversy began Wednesday when Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told a public television broadcaster in an interview that he had a desire to purchase the S-400 but lacked the funding to do so, and at one point said "Serbia was ready to accept S-400s from Russia as a gift," according to TASS.

"You know, when you have such a weapon, no one would attack you. Neither US nor any other pilots fly where S-400s are operational: Israeli pilots do not fly either over Turkey or Syria, except for the Golan Heights. We have aviation, which the strongest than ever before. We will be strengthening the air defense with Pantsyr systems and other things, which are not on the sanctions list," Vucic said in the interview.

Authored by US Army Major Danny Sjursen (ret.) via TheNation.com,

Patches, pins, medals, and badges are the visible signs of an exclusive military culture, a silent language by which soldiers and officers judge each other’s experiences, accomplishments, and general worth. In July 2001, when I first walked through the gate of the US Military Academy at West Point at the ripe young age of 17, the “combat patch” on one’s right shoulder - evidence of a deployment with a specific unit - had more resonance than colorful medals like Ranger badges reflecting specific skills. Back then, before the 9/11 attacks ushered in a series of revenge wars “on terror,” the vast majority of officers stationed at West Point didn’t boast a right shoulder patch. Those who did were mostly veterans of modest combat in the first Gulf War of 1990–91. Nonetheless, even those officers were regarded by the likes of me as gods. After all, they’d seen “the elephant.”

John Shipton, the father of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, told reporters on Friday that he needs to “face the bitter truth” that his son “may die in jail.” Shipton spoke with reporters in Geneva two days after he visited Assange in Belmarsh prison in London.

“This is not the bitter disappointment of a father, this is simply fact,” Shipton said. “Julian may die in jail over a nine-year persecution for revealing the truth of war crimes. It is beyond obscene.”

Shipton’s comments come a week after UN special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer said, “Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr. Assange’s continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life.” Melzer has previously warned that Assange had been subject to psychological torture.

Iraqi security forces continued to crack down on protests Friday, with security forces killing at least 10 people in Basra, where the protesters have been keeping the country’s main Gulf port closed for days.

Live gunfire and killing protesters hasn’t worked in the past, nor is there any sign it’s going to work here. The biggest issue is likely to be Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s sermon, which is now saying the government must immediately meet demands of protesters.

The top religious leader in Iraq, Sistani has long warned against using force against the protesters, and now says it is time to just meet the demands of the protesters immediately. His aide Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalaie, added that their position is that the Iraqi government can not “procrastinate on this issue because of the great risks facing the country.”

Whether to control the oil or flat out take the oil, US statements on the new military mission in Syria are heavily oil-themed. Other reports, however, suggest that the operation is a lot more complicated than that.

In reality, a lot of the goal is nation-building, with US forces meant to both keep the Syrian government out of this part of Syria, and try to “bring prosperity” to the region, propping up a potential territory of rebels.

This is again built around the assumption that the US can manufacture an autonomous, prosperous region, using the oilfields as the revenue source, and then steer that region toward hostility with the rest of Syria.

This will likely end up being a plan easier for the Trump Administration to sell than overt theft of oil, as it allows the US to retain its primary focus, military hostility toward Syria with an eye toward eventual regime change.

Moments ago, local Iranian news outlets confirmed the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran have shot down a drone from a "foreign country."

IRANIAN OFFICIAL CONFIRMS DOWNING OF A DRONE BY ARMY, SAYS IT BELONGS TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY - YOUNG JOURNALISTS CLUB

COMMANDER OF IRAN ARMY AIR DEFENSE SABAHIFARD SAYS THE DRONE WAS SHOT DOWN "BEFORE REACHING SENSITIVE SITES" OF THE COUNTRY - IRAN FRONT PAGE
The unidentified drone was downed near the port of Bandar-e-Mahshahr on the Gulf coast, ISNA and Tasnim, reported.

Iran Front Page's Reza Khaasteh said, "Mahshahr is home to Iran's Petrochemical Special Economic Zone (Petzone), where a major part of the country's petchem plants are located."

Reza Khaasteh
@Khaaasteh
Mahshahr is home to Iran's Petrochemical Special Economic Zone (Petzone), where a major part of the country's petchem plants are located.

Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters on Thursday that while the US continues to expand its presence in and around east Syria with an aim of protecting and controlling the oil fields, the US won’t be keeping the money.

“The revenue from this is not going to the US, this is going to the SDF,” Hoffman said, suggesting the US-backed Kurds will get all the money. That’s still entirely speculative, however, because no US company has expressed any willingness to extract the oil in the first place.

It’s also not what has been sold to the US by President Trump. Trump has insisted that the US would be keeping some of the oil for itself, telling crowds recently that it would amount to $45 million a month and that it was always his intention to “keep the oil.”

Iran restarted enrichment at the underground Fordow site overnight on Wednesday, and on Thursday US officials were accusing Iran of preparing a “nuclear breakout” situation the international community must unite against.

The concept of the “nuclear breakout” has always been ill-defined, but rests on the notion that at some point Iran would have such a substantial civilian nuclear program that it would be tantamount to an irreversible military program. Though it’s not clear that’s even theoretically possible, as nations like Canada and Japan have never been accused of approaching a “breakout” despite huge nuclear programs, attaching the label to Iran has been popular with US hawks and Israel.

The breakout idea is meant to push a narrative in which action, presumably a war, needs to be launched quickly. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took the lead in urging other world powers to do something to force Iran back into compliance with the P5+1 deal.

Legal questions. That’s hilarious.

I just want to remember the good old days, when they felt the need to dazzle us with yellow cake uranium fraud before they stole the oil.

Via: Military Times – AP:

President Donald Trump has approved an expanded military mission to secure an expanse of oil fields across eastern Syria, raising a number of difficult legal questions about whether U.S. troops can launch strikes against Syrian, Russian or other forces if they threaten the oil, U.S. officials said.

SOURCE: KRDO
The awkward camera angle is meant to hide the fact that the owner of the phone is filming, but there is no mistaking the outlines of the heavy cargo being deposited on the dock in the Yemeni port of Aden last week.

The distinctive shape of the US-made Oshkosh armored vehicle stands out in the early morning darkness, a piece of military hardware that is currently at the heart of a standoff between some American lawmakers and President Donald Trump’s administration.

Aden is controlled by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, whose main partners are continuing to ship American-made weapons into the country despite bipartisan outrage in Congress over the way the US is backing Riyadh in this bloody and bitter conflict.

The majority of the country's oil fields are currently controlled by the US military, illegally stationed in the Arab Republic, and the Kurdish militia. Washington recently reaffirmed its intentions to "keep" the Syrian oil, despite objections from Moscow.

The Syrian Army started deploying its forces near the city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria, and specifically near the village of Mulla Abbas, claiming the Rumailan oilfield, which was lost to Damascus several years ago, during the civil war, SANA news agency reported. The area is located on the Turkish-Syrian border.

Turkey's state-run media is reporting the United States is planning two new military bases in Syria's oil-rich Deir ez-Zor province, which are currently under construction, after US special forces convoys were seen patrolling the area in the past days.

Anadolu Agency, citing local sources, said the bases were under construction as evidenced by the influx of heavy equipment:

While the footage captured by Anadolu Agency showed that much construction equipment is being put into action, it was learnt the U.S. has sent 250 to 300 additional soldiers, armored vehicles, heavy weapons and ammunition to the region.

The reported added: “The military bases are being built in the 113th Brigade area and near al-Sur region,” according to the sources.

Syria's largest oil fields, which historically account for most of its domestic energy needs, are located in Deir Ezzor, including Al-Omar, Conoco, and Rumeilan.

Navy officials enlisted the help of executives with the Florida-based Carnival Cruise Line, the largest cruise company in the world, to identify solutions for the ongoing maintenance issues that have stranded a majority of the service's aircraft carriers in non-deployable status, Business Insider reports.

Naval Sea Systems Command chief Vice Adm. Tom Moore "a few months back" met with several members of the Carnival Cruise Line team (including retired Vice Adm. William Burke, now the company's chief maritime officer) to discuss "how we have been able to do shipyard maintenance as quickly and effectively as we do," a Carnival spokesman told Business Insider.

he senior ministers of the Israeli government met twice last week to discuss the possibility of open war with Iran. They were mindful of the Iranian plan for a drone attack from Syria in August, aborted at the last minute by an Israeli air strike, as well as Iran’s need to deflect attention from the mass protests against Hezbollah’s rule in Lebanon. The ministers also reviewed the recent attack by Iranian drones and cruise missiles on two Saudi oil installations, reportedly concluding that a similar assault could be mounted against Israel from Iraq.

Directing the President pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Syrian Arab Republic that have not been authorized by Congress.

On October 29th, the Norwegian news-outlet NRK broke the story that between 8 and 10 Russian submarines, including Sierra II class submarines, had begun naval exercises in the North Atlantic. This is one of the largest Russian naval exercises focused on submarine-warfare since the end of the cold war. It is likely that one of the core purposes of this exercise is to test the stealth-capability of the Russian subs, and of NATO forces’ abilities to track them as they push through the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap (abbreviated “GUIK-gap”), a closely monitored strategic bottleneck. The Sierra II class sub has a titanium hull, enabling it to submerge to greater depths than steel-hulled submarines, and it is also much quieter than most other submarines.