Buthaina Mansour was the sole survivor of a bombing in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, that killed her entire family. An image of her trying to open her eyes despite her injuries has gone viral on social media as a symbol of solidarity with the people in the war-torn country.

The Trump administration has just announced that it is moving ahead with an Obama-era plan to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal, sprucing up the nuclear Triad with a new fleet of land-based missiles, missile-carrying submarines, and air-delivered nuclear weapons that will cost the American taxpayer well over $1 trillion in the coming years. The ostensible purpose behind this modernization effort is to maintain America’s nuclear deterrence capability for decades to come. The harsh reality, however, is that through this nuclear upgrade, America is simply repeating the mistakes of the past, building weapons whose precision and speed will trigger a new arms race with Russia and China as they seek to match this new American capability with weapons designed to sustain their version of nuclear deterrence.

As tensions with North Korea have risen, the US has been eager to impose new sanctions on them. Since the US doesn’t trade with North Korea in the first place, that has mostly boiled down to sanctions against Chinese companies that do.

The ease with which the Trump Administration has made sanctioning North Korea mean sanctioning China is coupled with a lot of angry blaming of China from US officials, who still expect them to solve North Korea unilaterally. China is unsurprisingly viewing itself as a target.

President Trump campaigned on trade with China being unfair, and many see that driving their actions against China as part of North Korea policy. Trump has presented North Korea’s continued tests as an “embarrassment” to China, and suggests the US could cut all trade with every nation that trades with North Korea, which covers a lot of nations, but especially China.

The U.S.-led aggressions against Iraq and Libya are two war crimes that keep on costing, with their grim examples of what happens to leaders who get rid of WMDs driving the scary showdown with North Korea, writes Robert Parry.

It is a popular meme in the U.S. media to say that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is “crazy” as he undertakes to develop a nuclear bomb and a missile capacity to deliver it, but he is actually working from a cold logic dictated by the U.S. government’s aggressive wars and lack of integrity.

Indeed, the current North Korea crisis, which could end up killing millions of people, can be viewed as a follow-on disaster to President George W. Bush’s Iraq War and President Barack Obama’s Libyan intervention. Those wars came after the leaders of Iraq and Libya had dismantled their dangerous weapons programs, leaving their countries virtually powerless when the U.S. government chose to invade.

South Korea’s defense minister on Monday said it was worth reviewing the redeployment of American tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula to guard against the North, a step that analysts warn would sharply increase the risk of an accidental conflict.

As concern over Korea deepened following North Korea’s huge nuclear test Sunday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was “begging for war.”

Here in Seoul, the Defense Ministry warned that Pyongyang might be preparing to launch another missile into the Pacific Ocean, perhaps an intercontinental ballistic missile theoretically capable of reaching the mainland United States.

President Trump and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, spoke on the phone for 40 minutes Monday night, Korean time — some 34 hours after the nuclear test and more than 24 hours after Trump took to Twitter to criticize Moon’s “talk of appeasement.”

China confirmed on Monday its Foreign Ministry has lodged solemn representations to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) embassy in Beijing over its sixth nuclear test.

"The representations were lodged to the person in charge of the embassy," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a regular news briefing.
The DPRK Sunday detonated a hydrogen bomb that can be carried by an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), DPRK's Central Television announced. This was the sixth nuclear test the DPRK has undertaken.

"China's adherence to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and opposition to nuclear tests and missile development by the DPRK is well-known," Geng said.
China has proposed realizing denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula while establishing a peace mechanism. China has also expected the DPRK to suspend its nuclear and missile activities in exchange for the suspension of large-scale U.S.-ROK military exercises.

The U.S. and South Korea have agreed to lift limits on South Korea's missile payload capabilities following North Korea's hydrogen bomb test over the weekend, the White House announced Monday.

During a call between President Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-In, Trump "gave his in-principle approval to South Korea’s initiative to lift restrictions on their missile payload capabilities,” the White House said in a readout of the call.

“President Trump also provided his conceptual approval for the purchase of many billions of dollars’ worth of military weapons and equipment from the United States by South Korea," the statement added.

A spokesman for South Korea’s presidential office confirmed the call Monday, describing the move to lift the limit on the payload of South Korean missiles under U.S.-South Korean guidelines as an "effective" countermeasure, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Daesh may be dying – but the world is still encumbered with its walking corpse.

Plan B of Daesh’s masters may have been to indoctrinate repeated waves of misguided youth across the EU and “seduce” them into D.I. Y. jihadi terror, creating fear and insecurity in Europe. I’ve just been to Barcelona — and that’s not happening. No Fear.

Daesh can also manipulate its brand name to stake a claim into what we may call the New War Belt in Southwest Asia. That’s also not happening, because the “4+1” – Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, plus Hezbollah – with the addition of Turkey, and with China in a “leading from behind” role, are all working together.

The unfinished war across “Syraq” coupled with spasms of jihadism in Europe could certainly still metastasize into a massive Eurasian cancer, spreading like a plague from Afghanistan to Germany and vice-versa, and from the South China Sea to Brussels via Pakistan and vice-versa.

Bilderberg has gained a reputation as the world’s most secretive group of billionaires and political leaders who conspire to impact global events—but reports indicate that they don’t hold a candle to another group that includes a host of war criminals responsible for the “War on Terror.”

Former U.S. Defense Secretary and President of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz, former Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority Leader Paul Bremer, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Chairman of the Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board Richard Perle—some of the most notable neoconservative architects of the Iraq War—are all reportedly members.

Other reported American members of Le Cercle include former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Directors of Central Intelligence Bill Casey and William Colby, and former President Richard Nixon after he left the White House.

After half a century of peace, a “dark shadow looms” over the world, following an announcement of the successful detonation of a hydrogen bomb by North Korea, according to a statement from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
While addressing the annual meeting of the BRICS economic alliance, Chinese President Xi Jinping — while not directly referring to the Sunday morning nuclear explosion — made note of an increasing unease in the region and around the globe.

In a tacit acknowledgement that Pyongyang's continued weapon and missile development was destabilizing hopes for nuclear non-proliferation, Xi spoke of using negotiation and dialog to put out "the flame of war," cited by The Guardian.

Noting that the recent nuclear detonations had "cast a dark shadow over the world," the Chinese president acknowledged that, "People around the world want peace and cooperation, not conflict or confrontation."

Commenting on the missile test, and Japan's response, RIA Novosti military observer Alexander Khrolenko wrote that Pyongyang's latest test has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that all the sophisticated US missile defense systems in and around the Asian country are next to useless.

Russia’s Kalashnikov Concern has come up with the REX-1. This is a nonlethal electronic weapon capable of shooting down drones and jam mobile phone and Wi-Fi signals, deputy director of Kalashnikov subsidiary, Zala Aero Group, Konstantin Abashkin told Sputnik.

As the Navy and the rest of the military was busy fighting the Global War on Terror, the LCS was envisioned as a ship that could embark and deliver special operation forces close to shore on one mission, change a mission module, then begin hunting for mines or submarines next time out of port. Sort of a “jack of all trades, master of none” naval combatant.

Problem is, the mission modules have never worked as expected, and the LCS has had a multiple issues with its engines, including one incident where USS Milwaukee broke down at sea less than a month after being commissioned and had to be towed into port for repairs. The LCS was designed to operate with a smaller than normal crew, relying on automation to perform duties previously done by sailors. However, the plan has not worked out as envisioned. Now crews are overworked and the Navy has even raised one design’s assigned number of sailors.

Using data on US military interventions published by the Evergreen State College, in Olympia Washington, indy100 has created this map (below). The data was compiled by Dr Zoltan Grossman, a professor of Geography and Native Studies.

The map documents a partial list of occasions, since 1890, that US forces were used in a territory outside the US.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have agreed to “appropriately deal” with the recent nuclear test conducted by North Korea, Chinese Xinhua news reports.

"The two leaders agreed to stick to the goal of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and keep close communication and coordination to deal with the new situation," the report says.

The presidents met in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen for the ninth BRICS summit, which is scheduled for September 3-5.

Korea tested hydrogen bomb that can be mounted on ICBM – state TV
Earlier in the day, the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the North Korean test, adding that in a situation like this, it is essential “to keep composure and to restrain from any acts, which may lead to further escalation of tensions.”

The test is “another example of Pyongyang’s outright disregard” of UN Security Council resolutions and international law, the ministry said in a statement.

The US Treasury Department will submit to President Donald Trump a new package of sanctions against North Korea after the latest nuclear test by Pyongyang, the authority's secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said Sunday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The news about sanctions emerges after US President Donald Trump commented on the reports about the nuclear test, saying Pyongyang's "words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States."

"We have already started with sanctions against North Korea but I am going to draft a sanctions package to send to the president for his strong consideration," Mnuchin told the US Fox News broadcaster.

Mnuchin added that if other countries wanted to do business with North Korea, the United States would not engage in cooperation with them.

The top military officers of the United States and South Korea have discussed “effective military responses” that could show the military might of the allies in the wake of North Korea’s latest nuclear test on Sunday.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and South Korea’s Gen. Jeong Kyeong-doo discussed on phone the enhancemnet of military cooperation between Seoul and Washington and joint response to North Korea, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The news came after Pyongyang announced it had conducted a test of a hydrogen bomb, which was successful, as no radiation leakage took place in the process. The Japanese NHK broadcaster confirmed the test was successful, adding that no breaches of nuclear materials to the outside occurred.

Government forces in Myanmar have beheaded and burned alive Rohingya Muslim civilians, including children, witnesses say, as calls grow to stop the “genocide” against the minority Muslims living in the Buddhist-majority country.

Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where the minority Rohingya are concentrated, has been the scene of violence by the army. Before a military siege was imposed on Rakhine late last year, extremist Buddhists would attack the Muslims.

The Independent cited eyewitnesses in a report on Saturday as giving “horrific accounts of violence and destruction” by Myanmarese soldiers and other unidentified armed groups.

The report cited a man named Abdul Rahman as saying that he had survived a five-hour attack on Chut Pyin Village.

He said a group of Rohingya men had been arrested and detained in a bamboo hut, which was then set on fire.

So then, what are the prospects Washington could jump off the hamster wheel and come up with something besides threats and sanctions? The omens are not auspicious. Just before he left the White House, Steve Bannon violated the taboo surrounding Delusion 1: «Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us.» Then he was gone.

Following remarks from the leaders of South Korea and Japan, President Donald Trump has responded to North Korea's latest "perfect" nuclear test, emphasizing that South Korea's "talk of appeasement will not work," and that Kim Jong Un and his government "only understand one thing!" He added that the nuclear test is an embarrassment...to China.

Amid mounting military and diplomatic tensions between the US and Russia, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported Friday that the American Congress has taken the first steps toward Washington’s annulling of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

The INF, or Washington Treaty on Mid-range Nuclear Systems, is a bilateral agreement reached between the United States and the Soviet Union on the decommissioning of short- and mid-range missiles (with a range of between 500 and 5,500 miles), and the banning of their production.

The treaty, signed on 8 December 1987 by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, led to a significant reduction of US nuclear weapons in Europe. The nuclear-armed mid-range Pershing II missiles, whose stationing in Western Europe five years earlier had triggered the largest peace demonstrations to that point in history, were withdrawn.

The latest Senate Intelligence Authorization Act (SB 1761), which was released by the committee on August 18 when few senators were in town, is in the nature of a routine document. It notably calls for “more” in terms of both probing and revealing Russian spying and alleged aggression, but that was to be expected due to the current panic over Moscow and its intentions. It will nevertheless almost certainly become law even though few members of congress will actually bother to read any part of it. The bill has already been approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee and will likely go immediately to a vote in the full Senate when that body reconvenes after the August recess. It will almost certainly be approved unanimously.

The US Pacific Command has for the first time developed a schedule for naval patrols in the South China Sea, with freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) two or three times over the next few months, a report said on Friday (Sept 1), quoting unnamed US officials.

This would mark a considered approach to FONOPS in the disputed South China Sea, the Wall Street Journal reported. China claims the maritime zone virtually in its entirety, but Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan also have claims there.

China has called previous FONOPS by the US provocative. There have been three so far under President Donald Trump, and four under the previous Barack Obama administration.

China reacted sharply to a US patrol on July 2, when the American destroyer USS Stethem passed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels chain.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has urged Washington not to use force against North Korea, as tensions surged after the latest missile test by Pyongyang.

In a phone call late Wednesday with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Lavrov "underscored... the need to refrain from any military steps that could have unpredictable consequences," the foreign ministry in Moscow said.

Russia´s lead diplomat said any attempts to toughen sanctions against North Korea would be "counterproductive and dangerous" while condemning Pyongyang´s firing of a missile over Japan as a "gross violation" of United Nations resolutions.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova at a briefing on Thursday warned that "the contest of force that is now being demonstrated, will only lead the region to the brink of a military conflict."

She pushed for holding peace talks to cool down the situation, saying that "at the moment only Russia and China have put forward a realistic initiative."

A coalition of Saudi Arabia, the United States, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, with minor support from several other Middle Eastern nations, has relentlessly bombed Yemen since March 2015. This August, the coalition ramped up the ferocity of its airstrikes, killing dozens of civilians.

On August 23, the US/Saudi coalition bombed a hotel near Yemen’s capital Sanaa, killing 41 people, 33 of whom—80 percent—were civilians, according to the United Nations.

Then on August 25, the coalition bombed homes in Sanaa, massacring a dozen civilians, including eight members of the same family.

Major Western media outlets have, however, obscured the responsibility Saudi Arabia, and its US and European supporters, bear for launching these airstrikes.

n their latest monthly statement on the P5+1 nuclear deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has once again confirmed that Iran is in total compliance with the deal, and that its low-enriched uranium stockpile is well within limits.

This is the statement they’ve issued every time since the deal was implemented, but comes at an increasingly important time, as President Trump has repeatedly claimed he considers Iran to be in violation is some non-specific way.

It also comes amid calls from US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley for the IAEA to inspect all of Iran’s conventional military facilities, to try to look for some violations. The IAEA, however, has insisted that there is no need for this.

The US recently spurned a call by the UN to temporarily halt airstrikes on the Syrian city of Raqqa to allow civilians to flee. That call had come after multiple instances of US strikes killing civilians in and around the city.

Today, UN officials are warning that the city’s population is paying an “unacceptable price” from the US airstrikes, and that continued US bombardment may be in violation of international law as a result. The US has been trying to back an invasion of Raqqa against ISIS.

US officials have insisted they are taking utmost care to avoid civilian deaths. In reality, however, the Pentagon’s main effort in keeping the official death toll down has been to deliver preposterously low undercounts of how many they’ve killed in reports.

Less than a day after Pentagon officials quoted Defense Secretary James Mattis as insisting the US military would do a better job with transparency on troop levels, they’ve thrown that plan entirely out the window. Mattis has now signed orders on a planned escalation of the Afghan War.

The US had falsely claimed 8,400 troops were in Afghanistan, and corrected that yesterday to “about 11,000.” These new orders make that corrected figure obsolete, as the US is offering no details on the size of this new force being deployed.

The lack of figures should be unsurprising, as just last week President Trump insisted that the troop levels would not be made public, claiming the “enemy must never know.” Still, it makes Mattis’ comments just yesterday all the more bizarre, as he surely would’ve known the escalation was coming.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday the recent missile launch marked the beginning of a military operation in the Pacific, according to state media.

In a message carried by the KCNA news agency, the Foreign Ministry hit back at the United Nations for saying Tuesday’s launch of a ballistic missile over northern Japan undermined regional security.
Pyongyang said it rejected UN criticism as a violation of its right as a sovereign nation to defend itself against the United States and South Korea and promised to launch more projectiles into the Pacific.

The two allies have been engaged in a string of military exercises, called Ulchi — Freedom Guardian, allegedly to improve the South’s defenses. The annual drills on land, air and sea have been routinely slammed by the North as a preparation for invasion.

The situation on the Korean peninsula has escalated and is now on the edge of the full-scale military conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, adding that the problem must be solved through dialogue.

"I have to say a few words about the situation on the Korean Peninsula, where tensions have grown recently and the situation is balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict. Russia believes that the policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear missile programme is misguided and futile," Putin said in an article published by leading media of BRICS states on the threshold of the BRICS summit that will be held in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen on September 3-5.
The president pointed out that the problem must be solved through a dialogue without provocations and pressure.

I think it was the late U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen, from Illinois, who once quipped that "a billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking some serious money." Of course, Senator Dirksen was talking in the 1960s, and adjusting for inflation, reckless federal spending, fiat debt-as-money, central banks, hidden systems of finance, and a budgetary process that isn't anywhere close to constitutionality, coupled with a corrupt federal judiciary that says that it is, and one would have to elevate the late Senator's remarks by several orders of magnitude, three, in fact, if the following story from Reuters which appeared during the election cycle last year, shared by Ms. K.M., is true. And frankly, I have no difficulty whatsoever believing it's true.

Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte told reporters Wednesday that, following the liberation of the Grand Mosque of Marawi, the nation’s military could now bomb mosques, madrassas, and other hiding centers to finally eliminate the Islamic State presence in the city.

Israel has been pushing hard on Washington, recently having sent a high-level combined intelligence and military delegation to confer with National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and Special Mideast Envoy Jason Greenblatt to explain the alleged Iranian threat. And the neocon chorus is also signaling that it expects the Trump Administration to do something. Frederick Hof of the hardline Atlantic Council recently wrote that the fundamental mistake made by Washington consisted of not invading Syria and installing an acceptable government years ago, which would have kept Iran out.

Just when it seemed that a full day may pass without some diplomatic fiasco between North Korea and the US sending stocks surging on rising risks of World War III, moments ago North Korea's state-run news agency KCNA issued a statement quoting Kim Jong Un, who said that "the current ballistic rocket launching drill like a real war is the first step of the military operation of the KPA in the Pacific and a meaningful prelude to containing Guam" and added the necessity to "positively push forward the work for putting the strategic force on a modern basis by conducting more ballistic rocket launching drills with the Pacific as a target in the future."

WITH THE RUSSIAN MEDDLING NARRATIVE SERVING AS A PRETEXT, THE U.S. SENATE, EMBRACING THE “POMPEO DOCTRINE,” IS MOVING TO STIFLE AND CRIMINALIZE WIKILEAKS AND, BY EXTENSION, ANY SUCH “DANGEROUS,” TRANSPARENCY-PROVIDING ENTITIES THAT THREATEN TO CAST DOUBT UPON WASHINGTON’S “OFFICIAL STORIES.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee is pushing Congress to label WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service,” having adopted that very position in the Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) it approved last month. The terminology used in the bill originates from a speech given in April by CIA director Mike Pompeo, who called the pro-transparency media organization a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted” by “hostile” nations.

WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, has slammed the Senate bill as an attempt to legislate what he termed the “Pompeo doctrine.”

US troops in SyriaAmerican troops deployed in Syria have exchanged fire with rebels that were until recently supported by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. In 2013, soon after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, the then-US President Barack Obama instructed the Central Intelligence Agency to provide covert support to fighters in Syria. Acting on the president’s directive, the CIA promptly joined forces with spy agencies from Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to assist fighters affiliated with the Free Syrian Army. At that time, Washington saw the Free Syrian Army and forces affiliated with it as ideologically moderate. It also agreed with the group’s main aim, which was to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has announced he is preserving some pro-transgender policies imposed by former President Barack Obama until Pentagon deputies decide by March how to deal with serving soldiers who say they want to live as members of the other sex.

The vast majority of deaths from Yemen’s cholera epidemic occur in rebel-held areas on account of the attacks by the Saudi-led coalition on health centers and infrastructure and because of the coalition blockade:

Dr Homer Venters, director of programmes for the research group Physicians for Human Rights, told Al Jazeera that coalition hits on clinics and sewage works were a Saudi “tactic of war” that amounted to the “weaponisation of disease”. [bold mine-DL]

Coalition attacks and a blockade on fuel and other supplies have left civilians in Houthi areas more vulnerable to cholera, and less able to get antibiotics and other life-saving help than those in other parts of the Arab world’s poorest nation, he said.

“Aside from the devastation from air strikes on hospitals and clinics, the health emergency in Yemen has been made significantly worse by Saudi restrictions on petrol imports, leaving the remaining health centres without power,” Venters said.

Russian civil defence officials were reportedly ordered to shift residents in the country's far east to "safe areas" in a extraordinary move amid fears of a worldwide conflict.

North Korea angered the international community by launching a missile that flew directly over Japan.

In response, US President Donald Trump threatened the communist state with military action, warning "all options are on the table".

As Trump reeled from the provocative test, thousands of people from the city of Vladivostok were moved as part of an emergency operation.

Russia President Vladimir Putin fears the US may wage war against the secretive state after Trump threatened to unleash "fire and fury" should it fire more missiles.

President Trump has had his foreign policy hands and feet tied by the Russia (and Iran) Sanctions Act.

He now has been rendered “helpless”: in respect to détente with Russia — gulliverized, spitefully, by his own party, working with the Democrats, to empty Trump’s constitutional prerogatives in foreign policy – and to seize them for Congress.

Reports out of the US intelligence community suggest that President Trump’s cabinet push to declare Iran in violation of the P5+1 nuclear deal has expanded into pressure against intelligence analysts themselves to try to invent some sort of justification for the claim Trump desperately wants to make.

At the same time, officials say that the beating the intelligence community took for its role in lying the US into war in 2003 is informing its decision on the matter,and that many are very resistant to letting their assessments become politicized.

Former CIA analyst Ned Price was very frank about the matter, saying “they told me there was a sense of revulsion. There was a sense of deja vu. There was a sense of ‘we’ve seen this movie before’.” Other officials suggested Trump made his conclusion first and is now trying to get the intelligence community to find evidence to back it up.

When politicians are feeling the heat, they start a war and their popularity goes up even if the war is unnecessary or completely ridiculous. Donald Trump, the presidential candidate who promised that he would not take the nation into another Middle Eastern war, did so when he launched a fifty-nine cruise missile barrage against a Syrian Air Base even before he knew for sure what had happened on the ground. It was totally stupid but proved to be popular, even among talking heads and Congressmen, some of whom described his action as “presidential” in the best sense of the word.

NATO's four multinational battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are fully operational and represent a "defensive and proportionate deterrent force," the alliance said in a statement on Monday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — It was stated that establishment of these multinational troops was a part of the alliance's policy to boost its military presence in Eastern Europe, adopted at the 2016 Warsaw Summit.

"NATO’s four multinational battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are now fully operational. This milestone comes after the Canadian-led battlegroup based at Camp Adazi in Latvia became the fourth battlegroup to complete its Certification Exercise," the press release read.

According to the statement, the battlegroups in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland are led by Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States respectively.

The South Korean Air Force carried out the shelling drills with the use of the US Mark 84 general-purpose bombs after North Korea's ballistic missile launch, local media reported Tuesday.

Yonhap news agency reported that during the exercise, four F-15 K Slam Eagle fighter jets had dropped eight Mark 84 bombs, each weighing about a ton.
The drills took place at the eastern province of Gangwon, the agency added.

The South Korean Air Force carried out the shelling drills with the use of the US Mark 84 general-purpose bombs after North Korea's ballistic missile launch, local media reported Tuesday.

Yonhap news agency reported that during the exercise, four F-15 K Slam Eagle fighter jets had dropped eight Mark 84 bombs, each weighing about a ton.
The drills took place at the eastern province of Gangwon, the agency added.

Saudi Arabia has, in recent years, shown a willingness to form more in-depth relationships with its main Asian customers, China, India and Japan. The Chinese energy demand, which is still the main driver of the global oil and gas market growth, is considered to be vital for Saudi Arabia’s future. The Kingdom is currently in a heavy battle with Russia and arguably Iran for the title of China’s biggest oil supplier, a title that Russia took from Saudi Arabia at the start of this year. Several analysts have been very worried about this development as it could weaken the IPO of Saudi Aramco. However, Aramco’s prominent position in the Chinese market, and the ongoing investments that the Saudi oil giant is making in downstream production and capabilities in China, will contain any negative repercussions from loss of market share. In the long-run, Aramco’s position in China will only strengthen, which will allow the Kingdom to lock in a hefty portion of its export volumes.

16 years since the Bush administration launched its military intervention in Afghanistan, President Trump has announced his intention to increase the U.S. military presence in the country. As Statista's Niall McCarthy notes, there are approximately 8,400 U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan and reinforcements could start arriving within days. Trump's new strategy is set to extend the longest war in U.S. history and add even further to its already staggering cost.

Website "The Balance" has been keeping track of Afghanistan's economic impact and the conflict has now cost the U.S. at least $1.07 trillion since 2001.

President Trump has had his foreign policy hands and feet tied by the Russia (and Iran) Sanctions Act.

He now has been rendered “helpless”: in respect to détente with Russia — gulliverized, spitefully, by his own party, working with the Democrats, to empty Trump’s constitutional prerogatives in foreign policy – and to seize them for Congress.

MAIN Scientific Research Center of the RF Ministry of Defense for robotics has made an electromagnetic "gun", which he named "Stupor", and is designed to disable unmanned aircraft.

One "Stupor" was seen these days at a military exhibition in Kubinka Condom Moscow "Army-2017".

"Stupor" will be able to use dredges on both land and sea - within the limits of "direct visibility". In other words, it will disable unmanageable devices that can be spotted and followed by a naked eye.

The "bullets" fired from this "rifle" will disable the cannon control channels because they will lose contact with their operators, go into the phase of uncontrolled flight and fall.

"Stupor" will be the most efficient in a two-kilometer radius.

With their "bullets" -impulsants, the drones will also be disabled.

"Stupor" is charged as mobile phones: it can also be from an electric network, and it can also be via car batteries.

A months-long investigation which tracked and exposed a massive covert weapons shipment network to terror groups in Syria via diplomatic flights originating in the Caucuses and Eastern Europe under the watch of the CIA and other intelligence agencies has resulted in the interrogation and firing of the Bulgarian journalist who first broke the story. This comes as the original report is finally breaking into mainstream international coverage.

Investigative reporter Dilyana Gaytandzhieva authored a bombshell report for Trud Newspaper, based in Sofia, Bulgaria, which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company was regularly transporting tons of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program to supply anti-Assad fighters in Syria. Those weapons, Gaytandzhieva found, ended up in the hands of ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

The looming threat of World War III, a potential extermination event for the human species, is made more likely because the world’s public can’t count on supposedly objective experts to ascertain and evaluate facts. Instead, careerism is the order of the day among journalists, intelligence analysts and international monitors – meaning that almost no one who might normally be relied on to tell the truth can be trusted.

On election day I noted that only the military had supported The Not-Hillary President. The corporate and executive corners of the triangle had pushed for Hillary Clinton and continued to do so even after Trump had won. (Only recently did the “collusion with Russia” nonsense suddenly die down.) I wrote:

The military will demand its due beyond the three generals now in Trump’s cabinet.

That turned out to be right. A military junta is now ruling the United States:

The White House statement calls Maduro a “dictator” and his Presidency “illegitimate”. Both descriptions are laughable. Maduro was elected in free and fair elections. The former U.S. president Jimmy Carter called the election system in Venezuela the best in the world. The new sanctions will likely increase the support for the current government.

The White House hinted at further economic measures:

In a call to brief reporters on the measures, the [senior Trump] official said the United States has significant influence over Venezuela’s economy but does not want to wield it in an irresponsible manner that could further burden the already-struggling Venezuelan people.

Venezuela will now have some troubling times. But unless the U.S. launches an outright military attack on the country -by proxy of its neighbors, through mercenaries or by itself- the country will easily survive the unjust onslaught.

A quagmire is defined as a complex or unpleasant position that is difficult to escape. President Trump’s recently announced war plans in Afghanistan maintain that quagmire. They come at a time when US Empire is failing and its leadership in the world is weakening. The US will learn what other empires have learned, “Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.”

During the presidential campaign, some became convinced that Trump would not be an interventionist president. His tweets about Afghanistan were one of the reasons. In January of 2013, he tweeted,

“Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA.”

Now, we see a president who carries on the interventionist tradition of US Empire.

The fact that for London any armed conflict is perfect opportunity to sell its weapons is vividly confirmed by the recently declassified documents of the National Archives of the United Kingdom showing, in particular, that the British government considered Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 to be an “unprecedented opportunity” to obtain super profits from the sale of weapons to the countries of the Persian Gulf . Back in the day UK’s Minister for Defence Procurement, Alan Clarke would use exact same words in his letter to British PM of the time Margaret Thatcher, noting that this was an unprecedented opportunity for DESO (the Department of Defense Export Administration).”

The only voice in the administration making a different case was Steve Bannon, and his departure the previous week confirmed not only that there would be no change in policy, but that the takeover of the administration by the generals was now complete. Trumps three closest advisers on national security matters, Kelly, McMaster and Mattis have never shown the least interest in a reduced American military footprint anywhere in the world, much less in Afghanistan.

A Friday morning raid by US and Somali troops in Barire village left at least 10 civilians dead, including three children. This incident was initially reported by the deputy governor of the region, and confirmed over the weekend by Somalia’s Army Chief.

Army Chief Ahmed Jimale Gedi told reporters he was “shocked” by the incident, and attributed it to distrust on both sides. The Somali government had formally dismissed the report Friday, claiming everyone slain was al-Shabaab militants.

The government’s refusal to admit what happened is an ongoing problem, with the provincial deputy governor confirming that the families have placed the bodies of the slain in storage, and are refusing to bury them until the national government admits what happened and agrees to pay compensation.

Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Syria need to team up in order to clear terrorists from Syria, Turkish political analyst Bora Bayraktar told Sputnik, adding that the US military buildup in the region, as well as the threat of the creation of independent Kurdish entities, allow for new regional alliances to blossom.
The US military buildup in the Middle East has pushed regional players and their allies to form new alliances in order to restore stability in the region, Turkish journalist and political analyst Bora Bayraktar says.

"The US presence [the Middle East] and strengthening of its positions [there] is triggering security concerns among the region's players, and do pushing them to create new alliances and consolidate efforts in the face of common danger," Bayraktar told Sputnik Turkey.

An upcoming series of regularly-scheduled large-scale Russian military drills in the Baltic and elsewhere in the country has NATO scrambling to respond to what it says could be threatening gestures.

A regularly-scheduled series of large-scale military exercises, called Zapad-2017, has gotten the focused attention of NATO brass, who have suggested that similar drills by the west set to coincide with Moscow's established September exercises could create a dangerous situation involving possible military miscalculations, according to military.com.

"It will be getting crowded, especially in the Baltic Sea area," according to the Polish European Leadership Network security analyst Lukasz Kulesa.

"We will be watching each others' exercises," Kulesa said, adding, "so there's always a risk of an incident or accident."

“I don’t think I can remember not being completely exhausted on watch, be it the middle of the day or the seven-to-forever,” says August Sorvillo, a former Navy quartermaster who helped his ships navigate all manners of challenging channels and anchorages. “It’s safe to say I’ve bought enough Red Bull, Monster, and Rip-Its that I could [have made] a sizable down payment on a house.”

Lori Schulze Buresh, a former surface warfare officer, still cringes thinking about the deployment where she stood the Navy’s notorious “five and dime” watches: five hours on, 10 off, then repeat — no matter what time of day or night.

US policymakers have recently announced plans to hand over control of the Syrian city of Raqqa to former Islamic State (ISIS)-affiliated officials, Newsweek would report.

In its article, “Syria: Arab Tribes Who Once Supported ISIS Turn to U.S. As Endgame Being In Raqqa,” Newsweek reports:

A top U.S. diplomat in the fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has praised recent talks with Syrian tribal leaders slated to play a large role in governing Raqqa once the jihadis are expelled.

But the plan to create a careful balance of local power on the ground in Raqqa that will likely see former ISIS-affiliated officials ultimately in charge could cause a split between the U.S. and its Kurdish allies.

What appears to be ill-conceived policy is in fact the United States providing direct military protection to the remnants of terrorist organizations operating in Syria it has supported, including fighters of the so-called “Islamic State.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday the alliance would closely watch Russian military exercises in western Russia and Belarus next month, urging Moscow to be transparent about the drills.

The maneuvers, the largest in years, with tanks, naval and air units operating in and around the Baltic and North Sea, have raised NATO’s concern that the official number of troops participating might be understated.

“We are going to be watching very closely the course of these exercises,” Stoltenberg told reporters after meeting Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo on a visit to check on the deployment of the U.S.-led alliance’s forces in the country’s east.

“All countries have the right to exercises of their armed forces, but the countries should also respect the obligation to be transparent.”

No amount of interference or shadowing of its aircraft will stop the Chinese air force from carrying out long-range drills, the defense ministry said, announcing another round of exercises of the type that have unnerved neighbouring Taiwan and Japan.

The air force carried out further long-range exercises on Thursday, the ministry said, without giving details of where they happened. Japan said it was concerned about bombers flying close to its territory.

Such “normal” drills accord with international law and practices and are part of an “ordinary need” to raise combat abilities and strengthen the military, it added.

“No matter what obstructions are encountered, the Chinese air force will carry on as before; no matter who flies with us, the Chinese air force will fly a lot and as normal!” the ministry added, citing an air force spokesman.

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Friday that U.S. sanctions against Venezuela were a strong message to President Nicolas Maduro that the United States would not tolerate a “dictatorship” in that country.

Haley, speaking at United Nations headquarters in New York, said she had not been asked to meet at the UN with visiting Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Arreaza.

But rather than making a wider war less likely, the upshot is to make it even more. Having bet on the wrong horse, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now finds himself facing a nightmare scenario in which Iran takes advantage of Assad’s winning streak to extend its reach from Iraq and Syria into Lebanon beyond. It’s not just a question of political influence, but of the emergence of a powerful Iranian-led military bloc.

Eleven years after fighting a vicious 34-day war in southern Lebanon, Israel thus finds itself facing not only Hezbollah but the Syrian Arab Army, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and Iraqi Shi‘ite militias – all backed by Russian military might – in a front extending across its entire northern border. All are battle-hardened after years of combat, better armed, better led, and more self-confident to boot. Israel finds itself confronting a new threat that is many times more powerful than Hezbollah (or Syria) alone.

Meanwhile, Trump has backed himself into a corner over North Korea. His threats and bombast have not made the North’s leader Kim Jong-un stop threatening to launch nuclear-armed missiles at the US island of Guam, Hawaii, Japan and South Korea. That is, if the US and South Korea keep up their highly provocative annual military war games on North Korea’s borders that each year invoke North Korea’s fury.

Unless, of course, Trump, who managed to avoid Vietnam era military service because of a bump on his foot, decides to go nuclear. This would mean hitting North Korea with a score or more nuclear weapons, large and small, before the North could riposte. North Korea would be totally destroyed, and its 25 million people left dying, maimed or starving. Japan, the world’s third largest economy, would also be shattered.

The soaring civilian death toll form US airstrikes against the ISIS capital city of Raqqa has gotten so bad that yesterday, it actually fueled a statement from the UN requesting the US pause their airstrikes to allow more civilians to flee the city.

US officials are rejecting this call, however, with Special Envoy Brett McGurk insisting that the war against ISIS is going very well, and that the “number one thing that we have to do to” to help civilians in Raqqa is continue the war and defeat ISIS outright.

McGurk went on to say that President Trump is “focused like a laser destroying ISIS,” and that the war is going well, but that they will take the UN call to pause the strikes “under advisement.” It’s clear, however, they aren’t taking the call seriously.

US and Somali troops attacked the farming village of Barire early Friday morning, capturing a group of ten civilians and summarily executing them one at a time. Locals brought the bodies, including three children, to the capital of Mogadishu to protest the incident.

Deputy Governor of Lower Shabelle Ali Nur Mohammed blamed the US forces, saying that they rounded up the farmers working in the fields, then “one by one” shot them, saying that all the slain were unarmed civilians.

US African Command confirmed that US troops were “supporting” the Somali operation, but offered no details. They confirmed being aware of reports of civilians being killed and promised an “assessment” of the matter.

On a visit to Ukraine today, Defense Secretary James Mattis played up the narrative that the ongoing fighting in Eastern Ukraine was wholly Russia’s fault, vowing that the US “stands with Ukraine” against the Russians, and confirming active considerations are ongoing to providing lethal military aid to them.

Ukraine’s President Poroshenko claimed 3,000 Russian troops are in Ukrainian territory, a claim which appears to be built around the assumption that Crimea, which seceded from Ukraine and joined the Russian Federation, is still technically Ukrainian.

Still Mattis appeared to accept the number unquestioningly, accusing Russia of trying to “redraw” the map of Europe by military force, and vowing that the US would stand against them. Though he stopped short of promising arms to Ukraine, he gave the impression they were probably coming.

At least five children were among 14 people killed in an air raid in a residential neighbourhood of Yemen's capital Sanaa, the second day of mass civilian deaths in the war-torn country.

The attack destroyed two buildings on Friday in the southern district of Faj Attan, leaving people buried under debris.

Mohammed Ahmad, who lived in one of the buildings, said he was among residents who had taken nine bodies to a hospital.

"We extracted them one by one from under the rubble," he said. "Some of them were children from a single family."

READ MORE: Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen 'a strategic failure'

"When the rocket hit, one of the buildings was immediately destroyed which caused the building next door to collapse too. Some residents got out, but others were trapped."

The death toll was feared to rise further as rescuers pull more victims from the rubble.

Iranian Foreign Minister claimed that his country is willing to support Saudi Arabia's move to improve bilateral relations.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Iran is ready to improve bilateral relation with Saudi Arabia whenever the latter expresses a similar interest, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Thursday.

“If the Saudi authorities take steps to improve their relations with us, Iran will certainly respond in a positive manner,” Zarif was quoted as saying by the Anadolu news agency.

Iranian security protect Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran, Iran, while a group of demonstrators gathered to protest execution of a Shiite cleric in Saudi
Can’t We Get Along? Saudis Ask Iraq to Help Resolve Rivalry with Iran
The two states are expected to begin a series of diplomatic contacts next month, the news outlet reported. T

As a few of the missed weather balloons drifted back towards the Willie Dee, Captain Walter decided to get in on the action. While firing their guns at the drifting balloons, he also simultaneously ordered a drill to practice a torpedo run. And since the USS Iowa was directly in front him, that made for a suitable target for this dry torpedo run.

Two mock firings went off without a hitch or torpedo in the water. However, with the third torpedo, the crew member below had failed to take out the priming pin that launched the torpedo into the water.

And to the horror of officers on the bridge, they heard the unmistakable sound of a torpedo in the water now heading straight for the President of the United States who was still on deck.

From leaded petrol that causes brain damage, to weapons used in the war on Yemen and weed killer linked to Parkinson’s disease, Britain is openly exporting unethical goods and services to some of the world’s poorest and most abusive nations.

RT UK takes a look at some of Britain’s most questionable wares.

Obviously every US senator (besides California’s Barbara Lee) voted to give president George W. Bush the power to invade Afghanistan following the events of September 11th. However, McCain wasn’t happy with just moving to invade Afghanistan. No, he had other targets on his mind as early as the day after the towers fell.

75 years ago, Stalingrad, the Soviet industrial city on the Volga River, was subjected to its first aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe, an event remembered in Russian historiography as one of the largest massed bombings in the history of the Great Patriotic War. RIA Novosti military observer Andrei Kotz pays tribute to the city and its defenders.

Officially revealing the fifth generation of Sukhoi-57 supersonic stealth fighter aircraft, Russia has made a statement that it is in the game of stealth warfare. The Sukhoi-57 is designed to compete with the American F-22 Raptor and the Chinese Shenyang J-31 Falcon Hawk, claimed the official statement from the Russian Ministry of Defence.

“T-50 was created for qualitative superiority over predecessors, opponents and competitors,” says MIA’s Alexander Khrolenko. “This is the answer to the US aircraft of the fifth generation F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II.”

When President Trump attributed his flip-flop on Afghanistan to his team of military generals , who informed him that a withdrawal from America’s 16-year war would leave a “haven” for terrorists, I couldn’t help but think of former presidential candidate George Romney during the Vietnam War. After opposing the war, Romney traveled to Vietnam and returned with the same flip-flop mindset that Trump has experienced. Like Trump, Romney blamed it on the generals, who, he said, had “brainwashed” him into supporting the war. Romney’s brainwashing, however, wasn’t permanent, as Romney later returned to an antiwar position. So maybe there’s hope that the same thing will happen to Trump.

There is one important point, however, that we must continue to emphasize, even though it is continuously ignored by the Washington establishment: the illegality of Trump’s War (and Bush’s and Obama’s Wars before him), given that there is no congressional declaration of war.

For Netanyahu and other Israeli officials the chief concern was never the black clad death cult which filmed itself beheading Americans and burning people alive. "Let the Sunni evil prevail," they say.

Israel is threatening to escalate military action in Syria against perceived Iranian interests. This week Netanyahu declared, "we will act when necessary according to our red lines" while hinting he prefers ISIS presence in Syria as opposed to Iran aligned fighters at his border. This comes as ISIS is now crumbling, and at a time when most world leaders of nations driving the external proxy war in Syria have toned down their rhetoric regarding the future fate of the Assad government.

The subsequent investigation was conducted by those responsible for the dangerous conditions in the first place. Captain Joseph Miceli, the officer assigned to the inquest, had a conflict of interest, since he had apparently supervised preparation of some of the bad powder on board. The admiral in charge was one of those officers who (in the words of an associate rear admiral) "thought there was no use in having rank unless you could tell your subordinates what to do."

The crew members were immediately muzzled, and those who objected soon found their careers ruined. Miceli accordingly encountered little resistance when he announced that the accident could not have resulted from mechanical failure and was caused by sabotage. His staff leaked to the press the theory that Clayton Hartwig, a sailor, had been disappointed in a gay affair and had committed suicide, taking 46 shipmates with him.

GERMANY should abandon its military reluctance and lead Europe, Angela Merkel has been told by a leading historian.

The Honda Point disaster was the largest peacetime loss of U.S. Navy ships. On the evening of September 8, 1923, seven destroyers, while traveling at 20 knots (37 km/h), ran aground at Honda Point, a few miles from the northern side of the Santa Barbara Channel off Point Arguello on the coast in Santa Barbara County, California. Two other ships grounded, but were able to maneuver free of the rocks. Twenty-three sailors died in the disaster.

The CIA is also overjoyed because its black-ops budget - which is tied to the exponential growth of opium production in Afghanistan - is now secured possibly for another 20-50 years, claims Mike Raddie, co-editor of online site BSNews.

The currently stateless Kurds sit astride the Iraq-Syria border on land blessed/cursed with oil, other resources, and geopolitical significance. Is it any wonder that mega-corporations and their client states are looking to use the Kurds, stoke conflict, and exploit the situation?

Years before the U.S. illegally invaded and then occupied Iraq, plans were circulating within the Pentagon to partition the country along “sectarian” lines, with the express purpose of allowing the U.S. and its regional allies to better control oil resource production and movement within the Middle East.

In Syria, the same narrative of partition has more recently been circulated as the “only” solution to the nation’s sectarian divisions, divisions which did not emerge until they were artificially created in 2011 when the current conflict began and later fomented by hostile foreign actors.

Heroin from Afghanistan has killed more people than the 55,000 Americans killed in the Vietnam War. An American now gets killed every 32 minutes by Afghan heroin. With US heroin deaths tripling every four years, an American will get killed by heroin every 16 minutes by 2020.

Interestingly, while the mainstream and pseudo-alternative media outlets keep playing up drugs from Mexico, we hardly hear a peep on the massive amount of Afghan-sourced heroin. To put it in perspective: In 2014, according to the DEA drug threat assessment, Mexico produced an estimated 42 metric tons of heroin. Afghanistan produced 6,400 metric tons of opium that same year. The largest share of US heroin is Afghanistan-sourced. It is coming from US-occupied Afghanistan. There is no other mathematical possibility:

After the meeting with Mohamed Bin Salman and other Saudi officials, Al-Sadr’s office stated that there would be a Saudi consulate in Najaf. Although looking at the suggestion superficially the intention seems to be to strengthen the Saudi relations with Iraqi government, there is more to that. It’s not a coincidence that Najaf was chosen. This would give Saudi Arabia the opportunity to crackdown on Shia opposition in the gulf countries while using religious authorities like Al-Sadr on their side. Al-Sadr left to Iraq, and Saudi bulldozers flattened Awamiya, terrorizing people and forcing hundreds to flee.

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, has ordered his scientists to step up production of warheads and solid fuel rocket engines for long-range ballistic missiles.

Requests in recent days from both South Korea and the United States for Pyongyang to halt its provocations and return to the discussion table appear to have fallen on deaf ears after Mr Kim was shown making his demand during a visit to the Chemical Material Institute of the Academy of Defence Sciences.

"He instructed the institute to produce more solid-fuel rocket engines and rocket warhead tips" through the use of carbon compounds, the Korean Central News Agency reported on Wednesday. Pictures show Mr Kim touring the research facility, trailed by uniformed officials assiduously scribbling in notebooks.

The United States seems to be working toward courting an unexpected ally in its operations in Africa. On Aug. 9, 2017, Alexander Laskaris — an American diplomat that works for the U.S. military’s Germany-based Africa Command — visited Sudan for a series of meetings with military and diplomatic officials.

The visit comes amid a gradual move toward warmer relations. In March 2016, the Sudanese government reopened the military attache’s office in its U.S. embassy after a 28-year gap. Around the same time, Washington named a military attache for its own embassy Khartoum. And in April 2017, a delegation of Sudanese military officials met with AFRICOM in Stuttgart.

Life with Deterrence

In the meantime, the White House needs to calm down and learn to live with mutual deterrence. That conclusion is surprisingly being reached even by some traditional hawks.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Eliot Cohen, a co-founder of the Project for a New American Century, states flatly, “The United States is simply not ready for a war in Korea, even if one were the lesser of two evils. . . . The American military may have the aircraft to hammer North Korean nuclear sites, but it is also fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and returning to Europe to bolster deterrence there. . . . This could, in other words, all turn out much worse than even the president’s wary advisers, who know war (though far less ferocious war than this would likely be) may think.”

n the meantime, the White House needs to calm down and learn to live with mutual deterrence. That conclusion is surprisingly being reached even by some traditional hawks.

Eliot Cohen, a co-founder of the Project for a New American Century, states flatly, “The United States is simply not ready for a war in Korea, even if one were the lesser of two evils. . . . The American military may have the aircraft to hammer North Korean nuclear sites, but it is also fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and returning to Europe to bolster deterrence there. . . . This could, in other words, all turn out much worse than even the president’s wary advisers, who know war (though far less ferocious war than this would likely be) may think.”

According to reports, Gen. H. R. McMaster convinced President Trump to give up his longstanding opposition to the Afghan war by showing him this photograph, below, of Afghan women in what the media are describing as “miniskirts.” As the Washington Post put it:

“One of the ways McMaster tried to persuade Trump to recommit to the effort was by convincing him that Afghanistan was not a hopeless place. He presented Trump with a black-and-white snapshot from 1972 of Afghan women in miniskirts walking through Kabul, to show him that Western norms had existed there before and could return.”

ensions between the US and North Korea are rising again today, at a UN Conference on Disarmament, as both sides played up the threat posed by the other, and the necessity of preparing a response to the other’s “aggression.”

US Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood was eager to emphasize the “growing threat” of North Korea, vowing that the US would use “the full range of capabilities” at its disposal to deal with North Korea, which he declared a top priority for the US.

North Korea’s own envoy insisted that their efforts to develop a nuclear deterrence was fully justifiable in the face of “apparent and real threats” from the US, noting that the US had made “constant nuclear threats” against North Korea.

Starting with the 2001 invasion, the US war in Afghanistan is now 16 years in: as President Trump pointed out in last night’s speech, the longest war in American history. Even President Trump thought this was excessively long, admitting that “my original instinct was to pull out.”

But the US isn’t pulling out. Instead, President Trump recommitted the US to a new round of escalation with no concrete end conditions, and formally disavowed a “time-based” approach. He added that he doesn’t think the US should publicly announce the dates for ending their “military options.”

The reality behind this rhetoric, though, is that once again any pretense of the Afghan War ending is out the window, and the seemingly endless war again has no end in sight. Trump has laid the ground for reckless new escalations, and in presenting 9/11 and the Iraq withdrawal as justification, is committed to staying.

For the first time ever, the US and South Korea will be conducting war games meant to prepare their militaries for the possibility of a nuclear war, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry official. North Korea has previously called the planned military exercises a provocation that could lead to nuclear war.

Moscow has fired back at the latest round of US sanctions targeting Russian interests, as Washington blacklisted one Russian company and four individuals for their alleged dealings with North Korea.

On Tuesday, the US Treasury revealed it had imposed sanctions on 16 Russian and Chinese nationals and companies for their alleged dealings with North Korea. The Treasury claims the sanctions are in line with the internationally agreed measures against North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programs. The companies are accused of working with blacklisted individuals, helping develop the North Korean energy sector, help it place workers abroad or move money from abroad. As a result, their US assets are frozen and Americans are forbidden from doing business with them.

With President Donald Trump’s new strategy, America’s longest-ever war promises to stretch on indefinitely, despite pledges by previous administrations and by Trump himself to withdraw from Afghanistan.

The US Navy may be causing more harm than good in the Indo-Asian-Pacific theater.

The US military’s maritime presence near Asian shipping routes adds risk rather than helps uphold international freedom of navigation rights, Chinese news agencies said Tuesday.

This summer has already seen two crashes involving US Navy guided-missile destroyers and merchant vessels. In June, the USS Fitzgerald collided with the ACX Crystal container ship in an incident that killed seven sleeping US sailors when the bow of the transport ship struck the ship’s starboard side. On August 21, the USS John S. McCain was damaged on its port side following contact with the Alnic MC tanker east of Singapore near the Strait of Malacca.

The Malaccan straits are the highest-trafficked trading lanes in the world and hit a new record last year with 83,740 transits occurring, according to Seatrade Maritime News.

Information revealed about a severe illness known as the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ which spread amongst US Army veterans who were exposed to DU while using theseweaponry, helped Iraqi researchers and Medical Doctors to understand the nature of the effect of these weapons, and the means required to investigate further into this issue.

DU is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal produced as waste by the nuclear power industry. It is used in weapons because it is an extremely hard material capable of piercing armor.

The synergistic impact on health due to the 1991post-Gulf War1 economic sanctions, and DU related radioactive and toxic contamination, raised the number of casualties in contaminated areas such as in Southern Iraq.

As many as 100 more F-35 joint strike fighters could be summoned to the Korean Peninsula to support allies in South Korea and Japan against the nuclear and ballistic missile threat posed by North Korea, according to recent media reports.
F-35A jets forming the US Air Force’s 34th Fighter Squadron are slated to deploy to Iwakuni, Japan, and Osan Air Force Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, by the end of the year, UPI reports, citing South Korea’s Yonhap News.

The F-35 force operating proximate to South Korean and Japanese airspace is poised to be strengthened by Seoul’s agreement to buy 40 of the multi-role joint strike fighters. The jets are slated for delivery by 2021, the UPI report added.

Japan has already agreed to purchase 42 F-35s from Lockheed Martin.

The charge d’affaires of the North Korean embassy in Russia told Sputnik that Pyongyang has finished preparationg for a strike on the US territory of Guam and is ready to carry it out in case of a "provocation."
The US must stop pressuring North Korea, the North Korean embassy's charge d’affaires Jin Jong Hyop said, emphasizing that whether there is a war on the Korean Peninsula depends on Washington.

"As you know, we have completed the preparation of the Guam strike. Everything will depend on whether the United States acts sensibly or not. If they do not do so, they will be shamed yet again on the Korean Peninsula in front of the whole world," Jin Jong Hyop said.

"They must stop blatant provocations and unilateral pressure," Jin Jong Hyop said. "This will determine whether there will be a war on the Korean peninsula or not."

It seems that the whole world expresses its condolences in the aftermath of these brutal attacks, while demonstrating sincere support toward efforts in fighting international terrorism aimed at stopping the continuous bloodshed at the hands of extremists groups like ISIS. People gather in large numbers in mosques, synagogues and cathedrals across the world to pray for the victims and express their resilient opposition to those taking innocent souls in a bid to spread terror across the world, while demanding the harshest punishment laws can provide for the perpetrators of these attacks. International organizations, law enforcement agencies and the special services of a handful of states have recently intensified their activities and mutual cooperation, introducing additional measures to prevent new attacks from ever occurring again.

China on Tuesday said there will be “chaos” in the region if it follows India’s “ridiculous” logic and enters Indian territory to disrupt construction projects along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that Beijing perceives as a security threat.

Beijing has blamed New Delhi for the military standoff at Doklam or Donglang near the Sikkim border – now into its second month - and accused Indian soldiers of trespass and preventing Chinese soldiers from building a road in the region, which is claimed by Bhutan.

“If we tolerate India’s ridiculous logic, then anyone who dislikes the activity at his neighbour’s home can break into his neighbour’s house,” foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a news briefing.
She added: “Does that mean when China thinks that large-scale construction of infrastructure in the border area is posing a threat, it can enter India’s territory? Wouldn’t that be utter chaos?”

In an extended tweetstorm conccurrent with Trump's Monday night Afghanistan address, Ron Paul lashed out at the president, saying that at long last, Trump's neo-con nature had emerged. "Steve Bannon brakes removed. Neocons feeling their oats" and urging the public to "Beware! @LindseyGrahamSC loves Trump's speech! Why are arch-neocons celebrating so much? Very telling!." It appears that Paul's assessment of Trump's new strategy was not far off, because as the Hill reports today, the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party applauded President Trump’s troop surge in Afghanistan, even as members of the president’s base accused him of capitulating to the national security establishment.

If one moment stands out as the clearest signal yet of US President Trump turning his back on supporters, it was his announcement this week to re-escalate American military intervention in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon has hired Boeing and Northrop Grumman to develop a replacement for the US Air Force’s arsenal of ageing Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and cruise missiles, amid nuclear tensions with North Korea.

"The Minuteman III is 45 years old. It is time to upgrade," Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein said in a statement on Monday, three days after the deal for the new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) was inked.

Boeing and Northrop Grumman were awarded $349 million and $328 million respectively to continue the project over the course of the three-year contract.

The Air Force has estimated that the project would cost US taxpayers at least $62 billion. However, the Pentagon's office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) says the costs would surpass $85 billion.