At face value - the notion that the US occupation of Syria is key to preventing the return of the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) to Syrian territory is unconvincing.

Regions west of the Euphrates River where ISIS had previously thrived have since been permanently taken back by the Syrian Arab Army and its Russian and Iranian allies - quite obviously without any support from the United States - and in fact - despite Washington's best efforts to hamper Damascus' security operations.

Damascus and its Russian and Iranian allies have demonstrated that ISIS can be permanently defeated. With ISIS supply lines running out of NATO-territory in Turkey and from across the Jordanian and Iraqi border cut off - Syrian forces have managed to sustainably suppress the terrorist organization's efforts to reestablish itself west of the Euphrates.

Those who have not had a chance to experience all the "beauty" of the arms race of the 1960s and the 1970s are incredibly "lucky" today, as they can now understand what it feels like to live within a 4-10 minute flight of a cruise missile to Moscow.

Donald Trump has expressed full support for the Venezuelan opposition to oust President Nicolas Maduro from power, just as the country’s authorities announced they’d seized a cache of weapons, allegedly delivered from the US.
The US-made weapons were discovered at the storage yard of Arturo Michelena International Airport in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday. The stash included at least 19 rifles and 118 magazines, high-caliber ammunition, as well as 90 radios and six mobile phones – and was likely sent from Miami, Florida on Sunday, authorities believe. An investigation to determine the intended recipient of the shipment has been launched.

After more than five years' worth of testing, the US Navy parted ways with the Anti-Torpedo Torpedo Defense System (ATTDS) in September 2018 over its poor performance, a Tuesday report released by the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) revealed.

The ATTDS systems is composed of two parts: the Torpedo Warning System (TWS) and Countermeasure Anti-Torpedo system (CAT).

The TWS includes a towed sensor that trails the ship in order to detect any incoming threats. In the event that it detects a projectile, it will classify it and provide targeting information for CAT, which will in turn use its "hard-kill" interceptor to neutralize the threat.

Is Congress attempting to keep a check on the executive's foreign policy adventurism especially as we inch closer toward yet another unnecessary military intervention, this time in Venezuela? Or perhaps the better question is, when has it ever?

Journalist Max Blumenthal recently went to Capitol Hill to find out with camera in tow. And like with Libya, Syria, or Ukraine before, it appears the greater the hawkishness, the greater the ignorance. Blumenthal confronted Congressional members who admitted to US "meddling" in the Latin American country, but who can't figure out if it's "good meddling or not" — as one befuddled and confused lawmaker responded.

Dozens of Black Hawk helicopters descended on downtown Los Angeles Monday night while residents reported explosions and scrambled to find out if they were looking at a military invasion or a film shoot.

The sinister flock of military birds hovered and zoomed through the high-rise canyons of downtown, accompanied by strange explosions and military maneuvers – and zero explanation from the authorities as to what was going on for what must have seemed like hours.

Folks in downtown Los Angeles, California, had their Monday evening rattled by some US Army urban warfare training exercises being carried out downtown. Residents posted recordings of close-in military maneuvers above the streets and reported loud booms.

Angelenos are having a rough week: first one of their professional football teams, the Rams, lost the Super Bowl, and now the US military has decided to use the center of their city as an urban playground for weapons of war.

The hand-over ceremony on Wednesday in Merignac, in southwestern France, where the planes are built, was attended by Qatar Defence Minister Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah and Dassault Aviation chief Eric Trappier.

Qatar ordered 24 of the fighters in 2015, adding 12 more last year. It also has an option to buy 36 more.

The twin-engine fighter has been in service with the French Air Force since 2004. France has also sold Mirage F1, Alpha Jets and Mirage 2000 fighters to Qatar.

After failing to sell the Rafale abroad for several years, France finally won a contract from Egypt in 2015 for 24 jets, followed by the sale to Qatar.

In September 2016, India also agreed to buy 36 of the fighters.

Qatar has upped its defence spending after being diplomatically isolated by its Gulf neighbours.

As the US strives to overthrow the democratic and independent Venezuelan government, the historical record regarding the short, middle and long-term consequences are mixed.

We will proceed to examine the consequences and impact of US intervention in Venezuela over the past half century.

We will then turn to examine the success and failure of US ‘regime changes’ throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Last year, Washington and Athens agreed to deploy US drones to the Larissa Air Force base in Greece. The allies are currently considering deploying US F-35 fighter jets to a base in the Greek city of Volos.

Washington and Athens conducting a joint live-fire exercise at the foot of Mount Olympus in January is "the latest sign" of the US military expanding its presence in Greece, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports.

The newspaper cited Greek Brigadier General Georgios Fasoulos, who observed the exercises, as saying that the Athens-Washington alliance equally meets the interests of both sides.

The Right Wing thinks America got “soft” as the result of the Vietnam war. They called it the “Vietnam Syndrome.” Americans just didn’t support the Pentagon any more.

Reagan and Bush set out to correct it with invasions of Grenada, Panama and Iraq.

Clinton kept it going with non-stops attacks on Iraqi infrastructure and “humanitarian intervention” in the Balkans (and the Left cheered.)

And now we’re back at it around the world – with no end it sight.

The warmongers in the US Senate will never have enough of Afghanistan and Syria and other wars in the Middle East. After President Donald Trump called for an end to "endless wars," the US Senate voted to keep troops in Syria and Afghanistan.

The US Senate voted 70-26 in favor of keeping US forces in both countries.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that he still believes ISIS and al Qaeda are still significant threats and that “a precipitous withdrawal” may only bolster their efforts.

The Army reported an uptick in active-duty suicides in 2018, according to service statistics, though deaths by suicide were slightly down in the total force.

Out of 300 total reports, 138 came from the active-duty side ? 22 more than in 2017, Defense Department statistics show.

“Like the rest of America, the Army continues to grapple with the loss of too many of our people to suicide," Army spokeswoman Col. Kathleen Turner told Army Times in a statement Friday. “The loss of any soldier or Army family member to suicide is a tragedy.”

The most recent DoD quarterly suicide report goes back to 2012, showing a six-year high of 325 total suicides in the Army. That number dropped to 300 in 2013 and then to a low of 245 in 2014, before ramping back up to 279 in both 2015 and 2016, then jumping again to 303 in 2017.

The Corps took delivery of its first CH-53 King Stallion in May 2018, but since then the heavy-lift helicopter has faced a series of mechanical issues that are impacting its expected operational date.

A Defense Department report said the CH-53K’s initial operational capability milestone, originally set for December 2019, would likely be pushed back, and that the aircraft’s initial operational test and evaluation will not kickoff until 2021 to correct multiple “design deficiencies” found during testing.

However, the Corps still expects that its most powerful heavy-lift helicopter will make its first planned operational deployment, which slated sometime in 2023–2024, according to Marine spokesman Capt. Christopher Harrison.

Russia is set to build a new range of land-based cruise and hypersonic missiles after Washington tore up a 1987 nuclear treaty.

Vladimir Putin has ordered a ground-launched version of the Kalibr cruise missile to be built by 2020, adapting a weapon currently launched from warships and submarines.

Moscow will also ask its rocket scientists to develop a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile, amid growing fears of a new arms race with the United States.

The secretary of Iran's National Security Council warned Israel on Tuesday of a firm and "deterrent" response if it continued attacking targets in Syria.

"If these actions continue, we will activate some calculated measures as a deterrent and as a firm and appropriate response to teach a lesson to the criminal and lying rulers of Israel," Ali Shamkhani was quoted as saying by Fars news agency. (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Moscow is urging NATO to avoid turning Europe into an arena of confrontation, which would certainly happen if US launchers were stationed in Poland.

NATO shoulders direct responsibility for the undoing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty given its plans to deploy US missile defense systems to member states, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

"Unfortunately, Alliance member states have demonstrated that they are not ready for a substantive dialogue on the Mk-41 missile launchers, which are deployed to Romania and are planned to be deployed to Poland next year in breach of the INF Treaty," the statement reads. "These systems are part of NATO’s missile defenses so the Alliance is directly responsible for the destruction of the Treaty," the Russian Foreign Ministry added.

Friday is Loud & Clear's weekly hour-long segment The Week in Review, about the week in politics, policy, and international affairs. Today they focus on the polar vortex's effect on the homeless and all people (while some fearmonger about Russia instead); the candidates for the 2020 presidential race including recently declared Cory Booker and Tulsi Gabbard, who will declare tomorrow; and a new court decision about Julian Assange.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced this morning that the United States would withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a major arms control treaty with Russia, ending a cornerstone Cold War agreement by claiming that Russia has already violated it. The withdrawal takes effect in six months, and threatens to set off a global arms race. Greg Mello, the Executive Director of the Los Alamos Study Group, joins the show.

The fight against the Islamic State terror group (IS, outlawed in Russia) is not over yet, there is a need to prevent terrorist units from coming together, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University on Monday.

"All who are dealing with the issue admit that it is former officers of Saddam Hussein’s army, dismissed from their positions, that are behind all IS operations that prove to be successful. It does not mean that the fight against the IS is over. As they say, the backbone is broken but some units still remain active and there is a need to prevent them from coming together and eliminate them," Lavrov noted.

Russia has repeatedly opposed U.S. suggestions of foreign intervention to install opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president, and supported Mr. Maduro’s calls for mediation on the crisis.

The arrival of 400 Russian military contractors after Mr. Trump’s Jan. 23 recognition of Mr. Guaido, the head of the National Assembly, triggered speculation that Moscow was reinforcing Mr. Maduro’s personal security or even preparing his evacuation.

But with Mr. Maduro defying calls to step down, the Russian mission may be more extensive than reported, said John Marulanda, a U.S.-trained intelligence officer and adviser to conservative Colombian President Ivan Duque, an opponent of Mr. Maduro. Mr. Marulanda said the recent Russian arrivals are special forces — Spetsnaz — who are being embedded among Venezuela’s elite military units to better resist any U.S. intervention or internal coup against Mr. Maduro.

From the Kalashnikov and FN to RBG, thermal rockets and Kornet missiles that caused the death of dozens of Egyptian security men in Sinai over the years .All of this comes from one point: Al Jaghbub oasis.

The Quiet city

Al Jaghbub oasis is located in south eastern Libya and is characterised by lakes which add an aesthetic dimension to it with the water in the middle of the desert. It is also a religious and tourist hub. It was established in 1851 as a religious centre with a long history of spreading Islam. Many Libyan Mujaheden came from it, including Ahmed Al Sharif and Omar Al Mukhtar.

Since its establishment, it has been a centre for the reform movement by Sheikh Mohamed bun Ali Al Senousi.

Russia will not necessarily respond in a reciprocal way in case of deploying weapons to space in other countries, because it can destroy these facilities in case of threats from the Earth, said a member of the Committee on Defense and Security of the Council of the Federation, Franc Klincevic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier stated that Moscow's response to the US decision to leave the Mediation and Short Range Agreement would be reciprocal - Russia will suspend participation in the Agreement and begin research and development work on new rocket systems. He also asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense to inform him about how the potential threat could be neutralized in connection with the plans of some countries to place weapons in the cosmos.

For more than 30 years, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has been one of the cornerstones of the international security system. This ended on February 2, 2019 when the US officially suspended its participation in the Treaty. Washington said that it will fully terminate the treaty in 6 months if Russia does not comply with its ultimatum – the “verifiable” destruction of what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as “INF-violating missiles, their launchers and associated equipment”. US President Donald Trump said in an official statement that the US “will move forward with developing” its “own military response options” and will work with NATO members and other allies “to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct.” By this statement, Trump in fact announced that the US is restoring production and deployment of INF-banned weapons.

The U.S. was the first major power to recognize Juan Guaido as the “legitimate” president of Venezuela, and now the UKand most other European nations have also backed Guaido.

But Russia and China continue to back Maduro, and so that sets up a very interesting situation.

Will the western powers go ahead with their plans for regime change even though the international community is divided?

In particular, Russia has a very strong incentive to keep Maduro in power. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

“Russia is now so deeply invested in the Maduro regime that the only realistic option is to double down,” writes senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center Alexander Gabuev.

ASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump indicated this weekend that some US troops in Syria would remain there “to protect Israel,” in an apparent shift from his earlier insistence on an absolute withdrawal.

In an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS News, Trump was pressed to identify precisely how much of America’s force presence there would be coming home – and how quickly.

WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump indicated this weekend that some US troops in Syria would remain there “to protect Israel,” in an apparent shift from his earlier insistence on an absolute withdrawal.

In an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS News, Trump was pressed to identify precisely how much of America’s force presence there would be coming home – and how quickly.

“We’re going to be there and we’re going to be staying. We have to protect Israel,” he replied. “We have to protect other things that we have. But we’re – yeah, they’ll be coming back in a matter of time.”

The placement of US missile shield launchers in Japan violates the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

"As for the INF Treaty and the Kuril Islands, there is a certain link here, since the placement of the US global missile shield launchers on Japan’s soil is among the problems that exist in our relationship with our Japanese neighbors in the sphere of security," Lavrov said in his speech at the Russian-Tajik Slavic University.

The Saudi-led coalition provided US-made weapons to al-Qaeda-linked fighters, Salafi militias and other factions taking part in the intervention in Yemen, in violation with their agreements with the US, according to a CNN investigation.

The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels battling the coalition for control of the country, exposing some of America’s sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other conflict zones,” CNN reported.

According to the investigation, Saudi Arabia and the UAE used the US-made weapons to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape.

However, by handing off the military equipment to third parties, the Saudi-led coalition is in breach of its agreements with the US, according to the US Department of Defense.

The Taliban has killed at least 47 people in separate attacks in Afghanistan, despite the beginning of peace talks with Afghan officials in Moscow.

The armed group launched a pre-dawn attack on an army base in northern Kunduz on Tuesday, killing 26 members of the security forces, Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, head of the provincial council said.

There were at least 23 soldiers and three members of the local police force among those slain.

According to Ayubi, 12 troops were wounded in the Taliban onslaught, which lasted for over two hours until reinforcements arrived at the besieged base and the attackers were repelled.

"Day by day, the security situation is getting worse in and around Kunduz city," said Ayubi, adding there are fears the city could again fall into the hands of the Taliban as it did briefly on two occasions in recent years - in September 2015 and in October 2016.

in 2017 Caracas awarded licenses to Russian oil giant Rosneft for the development of two offshore gas fields, via Reuters.

In total Caracas owes Rosneft $3 billion, according to Gabuev, which could lead to "a new sort of proxy conflict in America’s backyard," which is at once economic, political, and could increasingly turn to proxy military intervention. Indeed the Kremlin has already accused the US of "meddling" in the affairs of a sovereign country in order to foster a "slow motion coup".

"Any solution to the internal political crisis in Venezuela is possible only by Venezuelans themselves," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday. "Imposing any solutions or efforts aimed at legitimizing the attempt of usurping power is, in our view, just direct and indirect meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs," Peskov said.

Poseidon, Russia’s brand new underwater drone, will be able to travel at a whopping speed of up to 200km/h (125mph) and dive as deep as 1km to pierce any defenses, reports say.

The unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) “could penetrate any submarine warfare countermeasures and other enemy defense systems due to a fully autonomous control system,” a source within the military revealed to the TASS news agency.

It also shed some more light on the secretive weapon, many features of which are classified.

As we previewed below, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that the US will withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty immediately, prompting threats of a Russian "response" from Moscow.

According to RT, Pompeo said the US could return to compliance with the treaty if Moscow meets Washington's demands within the next 180 days. To convince the US to back down, Washington has insisted that Russia cease development of a new cruise missile. Moscow has repeatedly denied claims that it's in violation of the treaty.

The withdrawal, which has been expected for months, will formally take place on Saturday.

The US’ seeming unwillingness to turn a sympathetic ear to Russia's reasoning with regard to the 1987 INF Treaty could be not connected with Moscow's alleged violations of the pact, scholars told Sputnik, commenting on the Russian Ministry of Defence's presentation of the 9M729 missile, which was snubbed by NATO officials.

The primary motivation behind Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is that China is not a participant of the pact, says Rajeswari Pillai, senior fellow? and head of the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative? Observer Research Foundation.

Speaking to Sputnik, Pillai pointed out that both Russia and the US have repeatedly accused each other of violating the treaty. However, "the real problem with the INF is not so much about the violations by Russia and the US, but that China is outside the treaty", he suggested.

Israel’s Prime Minister said on Sunday that the General Election campaign would not stop his government from bombing the Gaza Strip or Iran, Anadolu has reported. The election is due to be held in April.

“If calm is not maintained in Gaza, Israel will not hesitate to move against it even during the election period,” Benjamin Netanyahu told his weekly Cabinet meeting. “I [also] have a message to the tyrants in Tehran: Israel will continue moving overtly to protect its future.”

The Israeli occupation authorities continue to fear any Palestinian retaliation for the Israel Defence Forces’ ongoing aggression and killing of unarmed demonstrators taking part in the Great March of Return protests along the nominal border between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

The meetings in Beijing during January 30-31 between Washington, Russia, China, France and the UK apparently failed to preserve the commitment to prohibit intermediate range nuclear weapons. Washington stuck to its determination to withdraw from the historic agreement of Reagan and Gorbachev to destroy all land-based intermediate range nuclear missiles. This US withdrawal from a nuclear weapons reduction agreement follows the George W. Bush/Cheney regime’s withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Indeed, since the Clinton regime, every US president has produced worsening trust between the two major nuclear powers.

No good can come of this as Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at the Beijing meeting.

Following the US' move to suspend its obligations under INF treaty, the Russian Defence Ministry on Saturday said that Washington started preparations for the production of medium- and short-range missiles prohibited under the INF deal two years before accusing Moscow of violating the accord.

The Russian Defence Ministry has released satellite images of Raytheon Corporation’s plant, saying the facility has been prepared for the production of missiles prohibited under the INF deal.

The picture, dated back to 3 December 2018, shows the factory measuring 4150×2300 metres. According to the ministry of defence, the complex contains three acting production units and one that is still under construction, as well as a test area, electric station, and semi-underground storage facilities.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has effectively collapsed following the US announcing Friday that it's suspending all obligations under the treaty. Predictably Moscow's response has been swift, with President Vladimir Putin saying in a meeting with his foreign and defense ministers that Russia will now pursue missile development previously banned under its terms.

Putin said "ours will be a mirror response" in a tit-for-tat move that the Russian president ultimately blames on Washington's years-long "systematic" undermining of the agreement.

“Our US partners say that they are ceasing their participation in the treaty, and we are doing the same,” the Russian president said. “They say that they are doing research and testing [on new weapons] and we will do the same thing.”

The collapse of the INF Treaty, conceded by the Kremlin on Saturday, is the result of decades-long “strategic destabilization of the nuclear balance” by the US, which wants a new international order, and perhaps a fresh arms race.
On Friday, Washington said it was suspending its participation in the 1987 agreement for 180 days, for alleged non-compliance by the other signatory, Moscow. The next morning, Vladimir Putin, flanked by two senior ministers, bemoaned that Russia “could not save” the milestone Cold War arms restriction agreement, despite generous offers to up its transparency.

According to Pierre-Emmanuel Thomann, a geopolitics analyst from Paris 8 University, this is the exact outcome Washington wanted, which already decided “beforehand to get out of the treaty” regardless of concessions.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been absolutely apoplectic this past week watching the United States orchestrate a coup in Venezuela. It has been truly horrifying to watch these things play out in real time. How bold and brazen these thugs have become! They are doing this right out in the open, they hardly even try to hide it.

Sure, they try to whitewash it with their typical propaganda. They obfuscate key facts. They paint Maduro as a criminal. They pass around cheap slogans. Where once we heard, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists”, now it’s, “either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem”. It’s disgusting.

The article highlights that the US Missile Defense Agency has been practicing shooting down a land-based medium-range ballistic missile, just as Washington prepares for its withdrawal from the cornerstone INF nuclear non-proliferation agreement.

Less than a week after President Donald Trump announced his plans to withdraw the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), the US Navy has conducted a successful test of its Aegis Combat System by firing and intercepting a “medium-range ballistic missile,” which is technically banned by the INF treaty.

A Hong Kong-Based training company launched by Blackwater founder Erik Prince is reportedly building a training center in the controversial Western Chinese region of Xinjiang according to Reuters, citing a company statement from Prince's Frontier Services Group (FSG).

While the exact details of the $600,000 (4 million yuan) project weren't disclosed, a state media report said that the facility will be able to train 8,000 people a year.

Despite being the founder, Executive Director and Deputy Chairman of FSG, Prince says he had "no knowledge or involvement" in the preliminary memorandum for the base, according to Reuters.

In a desperate attempt to cover its tracks, the propaganda network linked to Britain’s security services, the Integrity Initiative (II), has wiped its website and locked its Twitter account “pending an investigation into the theft of data.”

The decision was taken shortly after the Anonymous hacking group released new II documents targeting Russia as supposedly the greatest threat to world peace, based on claims that it is the country most likely to use nuclear weapons.

The documents reveal yet more of the disinformation campaign used to justify NATO preparations for war with Russia, including the use of nuclear weapons.

Minutes from a joint workshop of the Institute for Statecraft (IfS), which runs the II, and the US government-funded Center for Naval Analyses discuss what would happen if the “West” intervened to “push back” a Russian advance in the case of a localized conflict.

The Kodiak Launch Complex was marketed to Alaskans as one of the nation’s first commercial space ports. Many promises were made to lure public support: High-paying, year-round jobs. Better roads. A fancy cultural center. New schools with real astronauts helping out in the classrooms. Peace and prosperity.

The whole multibillion-dollar project, located on Narrow Cape, a remote tip of Kodiak Island 250 miles west of Anchorage, was supposed to be run by a state-chartered outfit called the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation. In 1996, the state and the feds turned over 3,500 acres of public land for the project, which would house two launching pads, a space vehicle assembly plant, a radar station, a command center and other support facilities. Its backers claimed that a new age of commercial space traffic was dawning, and that Kodiak Island was one of the world’s best locations for “launching telecommunications, remote sensing, and space science payloads” into orbit.

A total of about $107 billion has been recovered as a result of the detention of scores of Saudi royals and businessmen in Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel in 2017, according to the kingdom’s anti-corruption commission.

It said the assets collected from the 87 detainees came in a mix of cash, real estate, companies, and securities. The commission, which was headed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), referred more than 60 people to prosecution, saying that 56 of them had “other criminal cases against them.” Eight other people “refused to settle despite the existence of evidence against them, and they were referred to the public prosecutor.”

MBS, who called the anti-corruption campaign a “shock therapy,” has declared it a lucrative success. He told Bloomberg earlier that $35 billion had been collected from the prisoners.

The corporate media’s reporting on the testimonies of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and the directors of CIA, NSA and FBI on their annual assessment of “worldwide threats” emphasized the fact that they contradicted President Donald Trump’s views on Iran, North Korea and Russia.

Trump foolishly criticized the intelligence chiefs as “naïve” for refusing to support his unfounded accusation that Iran is systematically cheating on the nuclear deal. His remarks buttressed the media narrative of a struggle between an objective intelligence apparatus and a patently dishonest president who may even have colluded with Russia.

But the media’s emphasis on this narrative has obscured a more important story: The intelligence chiefs used the annual presentation of their “global threat assessment” to protect key policies and programs that provide their massive organizations with enormous power and budgetary resources.

Having drifted back and forth a few times on the US withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, President Trump seemed solid on leaving last week, but facing growing opposition from the Senate now shows signs of backtracking once again.

Previously talking up how the wars in Afghanistan and Syria can’t last forever, Trump is now saying he wants a “smaller number” of troops to stay in Afghanistan, despite the Taliban already making it clear that was a non-starter for the peace deal.

In Syria, Trump is now focused on the idea that the pullout can only happen after assuring that “Israel is protected,” which is as close to a recipe for permanent warfare as one can get. Israeli officials have made clear they want the war to be about Iran, not ISIS.

And that seems to be he case in Iraq, as well, where President Trump is now saying US troops will remain, seemingly forever, to “watch Iran,” and make sure they don’t “do nuclear weapons or other things.”

During a Sunday interview with CBS, President Trump insisted that the US has an “incredible base” in Iraq after years of wars, and “might as well keep it.” He suggested there troops would be staying more or less forever.

His justification for this, beyond “might as well,” was that it’s right next to Iran. Trump claimed Iran is the cause of “every single” major difficulty in the Middle East, and keeping US troops in Iraq would allow them to “watch” Iran.

“We’re going to keep watching and if there’s trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we’re going to know it before they do,” Trump insisted. It’s not clear how that would work, particularly with respect to knowing “before they do.”

Trump went on to say he has no intention to use US troops in Iraq to strike Iran, and that “all I want to do is be able to watch.” The US has, of course, threatened to attack Iran several times, but Iraq has ruled out letting the US use their territory to do so.

US Senate Armed Services Committee chief Jim Inhore says Washington is losing its military superiority over rivals and now needs significant investments to catch up.

In his article published in the Tulsa World newspaper, the senator notes that the US has lost an advantage in both conventional and advanced weapons, including artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons and even the use of “directed energy” technology.

Inhore points out that the US “won two world wars” because of its military superiority, adding that the Pentagon had as many aircraft at the end of the Cold War as Russia and China combined. However, in the last ten years military supremacy has degraded.

To manifest his opposition to President Donald Trump’s decision to pull all 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan, Gen. James Mattis went public and resigned as secretary of defense.

Now Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, in public testimony to Congress, has contradicted Trump about the threats that face the nation.

The United States signals the likelihood of a military conflict in the Balkans starting this year and accuses Russia of being ready to use ethnic dissent to prevent the absorption of Serbia and the Bosnian Serb Republic by NATO.

In the report by the US National Intelligence on potential threats to global security in 2019, in addition to Venezuela, Ukraine, Mexico, the Middle East and other sensitive global issues, the Western Balkans are also mentioned as a source of potential threat.

“The Western Balkans almost certainly will remain at some risk of low-level violence and possibly open military conflict throughout 2019. Russia will seek to exploit ethnic tensions and high levels of corruption to hinder the ability of countries in this region to move toward the EU and NATO,” the document says.

This is not the first time President Trump has torn up an international agreement.

But his decision to withdraw from the long-standing Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia is a milestone – and a disturbing one. After all, this is the treaty that helped bring the Cold War to a close.

It was signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to ban a dangerous new generation of intermediate and short-range weapons with a range of between 300 and 3,400 miles.

Launched from trucks on either side of the Iron Curtain, these weapons were hard for the enemy to find and destroy. More to the point, they introduced the terrifying idea of 'small' and more frequent nuclear conflicts.

The real reason for the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is China deploying 1,000 medium and short-range missiles preventing a US presence in neighbouring seas, former Russian Security Council Secretary Andrey Kokoshin told Sputnik in an interview Friday.

"Evidently, the main target of the United States in connection with their withdrawal from this treaty is China. China, according to US estimates, set up a system of medium and short-range missiles of more than a thousand units aimed at the waters of the South China Sea and the East China Sea. It does not allow the United States to enter these waters with impunity using aircraft-carrier strike groups… Accordingly, the Chinese army set up a significant group of high-precision weapons, primarily ballistic missiles, which are capable of hitting US aircraft carriers and US military bases in the region", Kokoshin said.

The statement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said Washington was suspending its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and would withdraw from it in six months was no sensation. He only conveyed a decision that had been made a long time ago, Head of the Russian Federation Council (upper house of parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev said on Friday.

US suspends INF Treaty obligations — Pompeo
"Unfortunately, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement didn't stir up any sensation. The US confirmed its intention to put the final nail into the coffin of another important arms control pillar," Kosachev told reporters. "We can only say that Pompeo voiced that decision, which had been made a long time ago, before putting forward an ultimatum to Russia, so no action whatsoever by Moscow could have influenced that."

Moscow reserves the right to take measures to respond to Washington’s suspension of its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) from February 2, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

The US Senate Democrats and Republicans' vote against withdrawing troops from Syria and drawing down the American hold on Afghanistan is evidence that there's really only one political party, and that's the war party, anti-war activist and journalist Cindy Sheehan told Sputnik.

President Donald Trump will reaffirm his intention to end US involvement in foreign military conflicts when he delivers his State of the Union (SOTU) address next week, a senior administration told reporters.

"In terms of protecting America’s national security, the president will update Congress on his diplomatic and military efforts around the world and reaffirm his determination to protect American interest and bring to an end our endless foreign wars," the official said on Friday.

Trump in a statement earlier in the day said the United States will soon have destroyed "100 percent" of the Islamic State terrorist group's (IS, banned in Russia) so-called caliphate and it was time to start bringing US troops home from Syria. Meanwhile, a State Department envoy has been engaged in talks with the Taliban over the possibility of a US withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan.

Yemen's warring factions began preparations for a fresh escalation of fighting raging over the control of the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, ignoring efforts aimed at cessation of hostilities.

The calls for an escalation in fighting between the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and Yemeni government forces added angers to the agreement reached under the auspices of the United Nations in Sweden in December last year.

Senior leaders of the Houthi group based in Sanaa vowed to intensify military battles against the Saudi-led coalition and its local allies just in case the implementation of Sweden agreement failed.

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of the Houthi highest revolutionary committee, said in a statement posted in Twitter that capturing the strategic port city of Hodeidah will not be easy for the Saudi-backed government forces.

Last Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Elliott Abrams would once again be returning to government, this time as President Donald Trump’s special envoy to help “fully restore democracy and prosperity” to Venezuela. Abrams, 71, is best known for abetting dictators and genocide in Latin America and for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal during the Ronald Reagan administration, as well as for his ardent support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and for green-lighting a failed coup in Venezuela while serving in the George W. Bush administration. He is as reviled by countless Latin Americans as he is revered among neocons who pine for a more muscular US role in the hemisphere and beyond. What follows is an overview of the human rights horror show that has been Abrams’ government career, which now spans three presidential administrations over four decades.

The meetings in Beijing during January 30-31 between Washington, Russia, China, France and the UK apparently failed to preserve the commitment to prohibit intermediate range nuclear weapons. Washington stuck to its determination to withdraw from the historic agreement of Reagan and Gorbachev to destroy all land-based intermediate range nuclear missiles. This US withdrawal from a nuclear weapons reduction agreement follows the George W. Bush/Cheney regime’s withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Indeed, since the Clinton regime, every US president has produced worsening trust between the two major nuclear powers.

No good can come of this as Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at the Beijing meeting.

Update: As we previewed below, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that the US will withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty immediately, prompting threats of a Russian "response" from Moscow.

According to RT, Pompeo said the US could return to compliance with the treaty if Moscow meets Washington's demands within the next 180 days. To convince the US to back down, Washington has insisted that Russia cease development of a new cruise missile. Moscow has repeatedly denied claims that it's in violation of the treaty.

There is at present an undeclared and non-violent civil war being waged in this country. The underlying factor of any civil war is an elite ruling class desperate to maintain power at odds with a majority of a population seeking change. Also prevalent in most civil upheavals is the unleashing, by those determined to retain power, of the radicalized and ultimately uncontrollable dogs of war who more often than not devour their sponsors. Both elements are currently in play.

While the ruling class publicly obsesses over Donald Trump and denigrates the vast majority of the population, they have planted the seeds, by their actions, for a takeover of the country by a radical element that will turn on them as they are presently doing within the Democratic Party.

On Monday Russia’s Defense Ministry published video showing a dangerous aerial encounter between US and Russian aircraft that took place in the skies above the Baltic Sea. The incident involved a Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet intercepting a US P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft after — as Russian statements claimed — the US Air Force spy plane was picked up on radar rapidly approaching approaching the Russian maritime border in the Baltic Sea.

But more video has surfaced late this week showing spectacular footage in what a appears to be a separate and previously unknown incident, also over the Baltic Sea. It was put online by a purported retired Russian pilot and appears to be a separate video taken from a Russian fighter jet on an unknown date. The new video shows a Russian Air Force Su-27 Flanker aggressively banking into a U.S. Air Force F-15.

Adding to the pile of flaws and setbacks plaguing the F-35 joint strike fighter, a new report by the Pentagon reveals that jet's life span is nearly four times shorter than expected and the accuracy of its guns is "unacceptable."

The number of F-35s ready to fly remained "flat" for past three years and there was "no improving trend" in 2018, Robert Behler, the director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) at the Pentagon, wrote in this week's report.

In fact, the average availability rate of F-35 jets didn't hit the "target value of 60 percent," which is also "well below [the] planned 80 percent" needed for efficient testing and pilot training, according to the military's assessment.

The Trump administration’s attempt to force out the president of Venezuela marked the opening of a new strategy to exert greater U.S. influence over Latin America, according to administration officials.

In sight isn’t just Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, but also Cuba, an antagonist that has dominated American attention in the region for more than 50 years, as well as recent inroads made by Russia, China and Iran.

Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday greeted Carlos Alfredo Vecchio, right, who was named a diplomatic representative to the U.S. by Juan Guaidó, who has claimed Venezuela’s presidency.Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg News

While Mr. Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, have long drawn Washington’s condemnation, the Trump administration is stocked with officials who have long believed Cuba to be the more serious national-security threat. They cite Cuba’s intelligence operations in the U.S., and its efforts to spread anti-American views in other Latin American countries.

In a surprising vote Thursday, the Senate voted 68-23 to pass a resolution from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) expressing opposition to President Trump’s plan to withdraw US troops from Syria, and expressing opposition to any theoretical pullout from Afghanistan that might result from a negotiated deal to end that war.

The non-binding resolution was passed with overwhelming support from the Republican majority, setting them squarely against parts of President Trump’s foreign policy. A number of Democrats who voted against it expressed concern that it was tantamount to a vote advocating a state of permanent war.

Which it realistically is. The 2001 authorization for the Afghan War was built around 9/11 and the defeat of al-Qaeda. Neither are hugely relevant issues in 2019 Afghanistan, and a peace treaty being negotiated centers heavily around the Taliban promising to keep al-Qaeda and ISIS out of the country in the future.

On 4 December, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave Russia two months to "return to compliance" with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty or Washington would leave the accord on February 2.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stated Friday that Russia's military capabilities guarantee the country's security irrespective of the US moves on the INF Treaty.

"I think this [US withdrawing from the INF] is an inevitable prospect, and there will be no deviations from the path stated by President Trump and his national security assistant John Bolton when he was in Moscow. This game is played, the Americans will eventually reject the contract", he added.

Lest anyone be tempted to believe that President Trump and other U.S. interventionists are intervening in Venezuela because of some purported concern for the Venezuelan people, let’s examine just a few examples that will bring a dose of reality to the situation. This latest intervention is nothing more than another interventionist power play, one intended to replace one dictatorial regime with another.

Egypt comes to mind. It is ruled by one of the most brutal and tyrannical military dictatorships in the world. The U.S. government loves it, supports it, and partners with it. There is no concern for the Egyptian citizenry, who have to suffer under this brutal tyranny and oppression.

Saudi Arabia also comes to mind. It too is a brutal and tyrannical dictatorship, also a murderous one. The U.S. government loves it too, supports it, and partners with it. There is no concern for Saudi citizens who have to suffer under this brutal tyranny and oppression.

On Friday, The New York Times continued its long, predictable tradition of backing U.S. coups in Latin America by publishing an editorial praising Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. This will be the 10th such coup the paper has backed since the creation of the CIA over 70 years ago.

A survey of The New York Times archives shows the Times editorial board has supported 10 out of 12 American-backed coups in Latin America, with two editorials—those involving the 1983 Grenada invasion and the 2009 Honduras coup—ranging from ambiguous to reluctant opposition. The survey can be viewed here.

DONALD Trump could move nuclear missiles to Europe for the first time in 30 years this weekend after Washington accused Russia of breaking a Cold War pact.

The US has threatened to pull out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which bans long-range nukes and their deployment in Europe, after accusing Vladimir Putin of breaking the 1987 agreement.

US President Donald Trump has confirmed Washington’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty with Russia, a centerpiece of nuclear arms control since the Cold War. He also said that NATO allies fully support his decision.

“Tomorrow, the United States will suspend its obligations under the INF Treaty and begin the process of withdrawing from the INF Treaty, which will be completed in six months,” Trump said in a written statement.

He accused Russia of non-compliance, and said the US would return to the agreement only if Moscow destroys what Washington considers to be “violating missiles, launchers, and associated equipment.”

US interrogators are present in UAE prisons in Yemen, the Daily Beast has revealed today, providing shocking evidence that the American military is a witness to the torture of Yemenis.

In a series of interviews, two former detainees have testified to being interrogated by men with American accents, who looked on as they were beaten and electrocuted.

“They would strip me naked, they would beat me very harshly and slowly you start to understand the dynamics in the room. These are the two people, one of them is overseeing the whole interrogation and the other is doing the questioning and ordering the torture,” a Yemeni man identified only as Salvatore said, suggesting that the US was more that an unwilling observer.

“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad,” are words delivered to us from history. When contemplating them today John Bolton springs to mind.
All joking aside, Trump’s national security adviser is to international diplomacy what the Hunchback of Notre Dame was to Pilates. Though reports that he is regularly driven to his office in Washington on the back of a cruise missile are yet to be confirmed, his near orgasmic exaltation of US hard power and military might suggest he would relish nothing more.

In other words, in John Bolton the world has itself an unrepentant and unreconstructed neocon. A fanatical warmonger who is now, to all intents, Donald Trump’s brain.

Afraid? You should be.

The United States armed forces said it has killed 24 members of the al-Shabab armed group in an air strike carried out on Wednesday.

In a statement released on Thursday, the United States Africa Command said the strike took place on a camp near Shebeeley, Hiran region in central Somalia.

"Precision strikes are part of our strategy. Strikes continue to help our partners make progress in their fight against the transnational terrorists who oppose peace in Somalia and the region," Director of US Africa Command Major General Gregg Olson said in the statement.

According to the press release, "no civilians were injured or killed in this airstrike".

A FEDERAL JUDGE in Washington, D.C. has ordered the Syrian government to pay $302 million in damages for the murders of journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik in a 2012 artillery strike. The decision, issued on Wednesday, marks the first time in the seven-year conflict that a court has declared Syrian forces loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad responsible for deliberately attacking civilians.

“A targeted murder of an American citizen, whose courageous work was not only important, but vital to our understanding of warzones and of wars generally, is outrageous, and therefore a punitive damages award that [multiplies] the impact on the responsible state is warranted,” wrote Judge Amy Berman Jackson.

An internal Pentagon report questioned the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford’s ability to quickly generate aircraft sorties, as data has surfaced suggesting there are reliability questions about some of the ship’s key naval aviation systems.

The USS Ford has already exceeded its budget by approximately 20 percent, to approximately $13 billion. The ship was intended to be ready to go in 2015, but delays have marred what seems like every step of development.

The USS Ford "will probably not achieve" the required sortie generation rate (SGR) of 160 sorties per day (12-hour fly day) with a surge capacity of 270 sorties per day (24-hour fly day), said Robert Behler, Defense Department director of operational testing, in a review of the aircraft carrier obtained by Bloomberg News.

The sortie generation rate is one of the main metrics used to measure any aircraft carrier. Nimitz-class ships have an SGR of 120, with a surge capacity of 240.

The US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is under fire yet again, with leaks of an upcoming report revealing some shocking shortcomings.

A day after the acting US defense secretary called into question the performance of the fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, Bloomberg released details of a Pentagon report scheduled to be released this week.

Among the troubling findings is the estimated service life of the aircraft, which data suggests “may be as low as 2,100” fleet hours, versus the expected service life of 8,000.

“Interim reliability and field maintenance metrics to meeting planned 80% goal not being met,” according to the report, which translates into decreased availability for training. “Current fleet performance ‘well below’ that benchmark.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that the United States' decision to produce a low-yield nuclear warhead will only make a nuclear war more likely.

The US National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) confirmed Monday that it had started to produce a new low-yield nuclear warhead following President Donald Trump’s order last year to equip the Pentagon with tactical weapons that could be used in more realistic combat scenarios.

The new warhead was one of the three key changes introduced in the Trump administration's so-called Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). The other changes included development of a new sea-launched cruise missile and increased plutonium pit production over the next decade.

During a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Mohamed Ali al-Hakim in Moscow, Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia had already warned about the potential risks of weapons upon the unveiling of the NPR.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called on the people in the US to deter the Trump administration from putting boots on the ground in Venezuela, warning that any intervention would backfire leading to new Vietnam-like disaster.

In his first direct message to the American people, the Venezuelan leader urged them to stop the US government from entangling the nation in a pointless and inherently doomed military adventure.

“If the government of the United States intends to intervene us, they will have a much worse Vietnam than you could imagine.”

Representatives of five major nuclear powers – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States or "nuclear five" met in Beijing on Wednesday.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at the meeting that the level of potential conflict in the world has reached a dangerous point.

"The situation in the sphere of international security has not stabilized and even continued to deteriorate. The level of conflict potential has reached a very dangerous point", Ryabkov said.

Given that China's President Xi Jinping started the year by obliquely warning the US to stay out of Taiwan's business, perhaps it's not surprising that Senators are starting to join US military commanders in warning Americans not to underestimate the threat posed by China's unprecedented military buildup in the Pacific.

In the latest - and perhaps the most stark - warning to date, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma - who recently took over as the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee - warned during a hearing about the challenges posed by China and Russia on Tuesday that people need to better understand the threats both countries pose to the international world order that America helped create, according to the Military Times.

Navy Chief Petty Officer Shannon Mary Kent wasn't supposed to be in Syria.

Last year, the 35-year-old mother of two was slated to attend a clinical psychology doctoral program near Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

But an obscure Navy rule and a previous bout of cancer derailed those plans and led to her fifth combat deployment instead. She was killed less than two months later.

Now, her family wants to finish the fight started by Kent to undo the regulation.

"The regulation still hasn't been fixed and that's something we're working on now," said Joe Kent, 38, her husband and father to their two children. "We'd like to change it in her honor."

Neocon hawk John Bolton is a warmonger left over from the George W Bush administration who has returned to the centre of power in Washington DC. There, he continues to agitate for war against Iran, or essentially anyone else who gets in America’s way. Furthermore, Bolton is so rabidly anti-Palestinian and in favour of Israeli war crimes and apartheid that he is considered to be hard-line by many people, even in Washington’s pro-Israel establishment.

The imperialist arrogance of President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor is by no means limited to the Middle East. Most recently, he was photographed with a notepad which “accidentally” revealed a plan to send “5,000 [US] troops to Columbia” to aid the coup attempt in Venezuela.

The way personnel spin through Washington’s infamous revolving door between the Pentagon and the arms industry is nothing new. That door, however, is moving ever faster with the appointment of Patrick Shanahan, who spent 30 years at Boeing, the Pentagon’s second largest contractor, as the Trump administration’s acting secretary of defense.

Shanahan had previously been deputy secretary of defense, a typical position in recent years for someone with a significant arms industry background. William Lynn, President Obama’s first deputy secretary of defense, had been a Raytheon lobbyist. Ashton Carter, his successor, was a consultant for the same company. One of President George W. Bush’s deputies, Gordon England, had been president of the General Dynamics Fort Worth Aircraft Company (later sold to Lockheed Martin).

Russia, China and several other nations are developing powerful high-altitude nuclear bombs that can produce super-electromagnetic pulse (EMP) waves capable of knocking out critical electronic infrastructure, according to several declassified 2017 reports from the now-defunct Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack (see below).

"Foreign adversaries may aptly consider nuclear EMP attack a weapon that can gravely damage the U.S. by striking at its technological Achilles Heel, without having to confront the U.S. military," reads the report, which notes how foreign actors could use EMP attacks virtually anywhere in the world.

Beijing has test-fired its Dong-Feng 26 (DF-26) so-called "Guam killer" missile which can reportedly reach targets up to 3,500 miles away. While no specific threat has been made against Guam, experts cited by Chinese state media say the missiles can reach the Micronesian US island territory which houses several US military bases.