Whose Interests Are Served by the US Occupation of East Syria: America’s or Israel’s?

What is Israel’s stake in east Syria? Has Israel influenced Washington’s decision to maintain a long-term military presence in Syria? How does Israel benefit from the splintering of Syria into smaller statelets and from undermining the power of the central government in Damascus? Did Israel’s regional ambitions factor into Trump’s decision to shrug off Turkey’s national security concerns and create an independent Kurdish state on Syrian sovereign territory? What is the connection between the Kurdish independence movement and the state of Israel?

The Pentagon does everything in its power to conceal the number and location of US military bases in a war zone. That rule applies to east Syria as well, which means we cannot confirm with absolute certainty how many bases really exist. Even so, in 2017, a Turkish news agency, “Anadolu Agency published an infographic on Tuesday showing 10 locations in which US troops were stationed. Two airbases, eight military points in PKK/PYD-controlled areas.”

According to a report in Orient.Net:

“The 8 military sites, according to the agency, host military personnel involved in coordinating the aerial and artillery bombardments of US forces, training Kurdish military personnel, planning special operations and participating in intensive combat operations.” (“AA’s map of US bases in Syria infuriates Pentagon”, orient.net)

The location of these bases is unimportant, what is important is that there has been no indication that Washington has any plan to close these bases down or to withdraw American troops. In fact, as the New York Times reported just weeks ago, the number of US troops has actually increased by roughly 1,000 since Trump made his withdrawal announcement in mid-December.

We think that is especially significant in view of Trump’s surprising comments last week, that he now agrees “100%” with maintaining a military presence in Syria. His sudden reversal shows that the opponents of the “withdrawal plan” have prevailed and the US is not going to leave Syria after all. It’s also worth noting that Trump administration has made no effort to implement the “Manbij Roadmap” which requires the US to coordinate its withdrawal with the Turkish military in order to maintain security and avoid a vacuum that could be filled by hostile elements. Ankara and Washington agreed to this arrangement long ago in order to expel Kurdish militants (who Turkey identifies as “terrorists”) from the area along the border. It appears now that Trump will not honor that deal, mainly because Trump intends to be in Syria for the long-haul.

But, why? Why would Trump risk a confrontation with a critical NATO ally (Turkey) merely to hold a 20 mile-deep stretch of land that has no strategic value to the United States? It doesn’t make sense, does it?

Now in earlier articles we have argued that influential think tanks, like the Brookings Institute, have played a critical role in shaping Washington’s Syria policy, and that indeed is true. Just take a look at this short excerpt from a piece by Brookings Michael E. O’Hanlon titled “Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”. Here’s an excerpt:

“…the only realistic path forward may be a plan that in effect deconstructs Syria….the international community should work to create pockets with more viable security and governance within Syria over time… The idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able….Creation of these sanctuaries would produce autonomous zones that would never again have to face the prospect of rule by either Assad or ISIL….

The interim goal might be a confederal Syria, with several highly autonomous zones… The confederation would likely require support from an international peacekeeping force… to help provide relief for populations within them, and to train and equip more recruits so that the zones could be stabilized and then gradually expanded.” (“Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings Institute)

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-occupation-east-syria/5671115

Pelosi Invites NATO Chief to Address US Congress on 3 April – Letter

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has been invited to address a joint meeting of US Congress in the beginning of April, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a press release.

"It is my honor as Speaker, on behalf of the bipartisan leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate, to extend to you an invitation to address a Joint Meeting of the two houses of Congress… at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 3, 2019", Pelosi wrote in her letter to Stoltenberg on Monday.

Stoltenberg will be visiting Washington, DC to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the NATO alliance.

"During this critical time for the United States, NATO and the European Union, the U.S. Congress and the American people look forward to your message of friendship and partnership, as we work together to strengthen our critical alliance and advance a future of peace around the world", Pelosi wrote in her letter.

Bloomberg reported last week, citing US officials and people briefed on the matter, that the Trump administration was drawing up plans for Germany, Japan and eventually other countries hosting US troops to pay the full price for the deployment of American soldiers in their respective countries, plus 50 percent or more for the privilege of hosting them.

According to the report, nations currently hosting US forces could be asked to pay five to six times as much as they do now under the so-called "Cost Plus 50" formula.

US President Donald Trump, who frequently criticizes US allies for their lack of defense spending, has championed the idea for months, the report said. Officials caution that "Cost Plus 50" is one of many ideas under consideration, and it may be toned down.

https://sputniknews.com/us/201903121073144065-usa-pelosi-nato-chief-congress-invitation/

Arms dealers complicit in Saudi war crimes in Yemen: Iran

Iran has censured the latest Saudi airstrikes in Yemen's northwestern province of Hajjah, saying the so-called advocates of human rights are complicit in Riyadh's crimes as they sell arms to the regime.

"The so-called advocates of human rights not only remain silent in the face of daily killings of women and children in Yemen, but they are also complicit in these crimes by selling weapons to the aggressors," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Monday.

He criticized human rights organizations and circles for remaining tight-lipped in the face of inhumane war crimes committed by the aggressors against Yemen.

The Iranian spokesperson added that innocent defenseless Yemeni women and children, who have suffered from years of famine and the consequences of the human tragedy in the country, are falling victim in the most brutal manner to the arms donated and sold to the invaders by some Western countries, but their voice is not heard as long as they are alive.

However, their deaths will go down in history as proof of disgrace for those who falsely claim to be advocates of human rights, Qassemi said.

Saudi warplanes bombarded residential buildings in Talan village of Kushar district in Yemen's Hajjah on Sunday afternoon, leaving 9 women and 14 children dead, according to Arabic-language al-Masirah television network.

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/03/11/590759/Qassemi-Hajjah-Yemen-Saudi-Arms-human-rights

Mississippi House Passes Fetal Heartbeat Abortion Bill

Mississippi lawmakers continue to push ahead with a proposal that could become one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation.

The House amended and passed Senate Bill 2116 on March 11. The bill would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually at about six weeks into pregnancy. The House and Senate must work out differences in their respective bills before it moves forward to Gov. Phil Bryant.

Similar bills are being considered in other states. Conservatives want to push an abortion case to the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge the court’s 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

Mississippi enacted a 15-week abortion ban last year, and a federal judge declared the law unconstitutional. The state has appealed that ruling.

Bryant has said he would sign the new bill into law.

Georgia and Tennessee Houses Pass Fetal Heartbeat Abortion Bill

The full Georgia House of Representatives passed a bill on March 7 to ban abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detected, a day after a state House panel approved the legislation.

The bill was passed with a vote of 93-73. The legislation will now move to the Georgia Senate.

House Bill 481 is also known as Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act.

The bill says: “Modern medical science … demonstrates that early infants in the womb are a class of living, distinct human beings that, among other individual human traits, have their own distinct blood types, organ systems, and unique fingerprints,” among other traits.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mississippi-house-passes-fetal-heartbeat-abortion-bill_2834123.html

Another one to the list

>>5636203

>>5636240

Glowing Mossad shill

Arms dealers should be held accountable for the death they cause as should Israel.

Russia Internet Protests - These Crowd Estimates Are Propaganda

The Russian parliament is currently discussing a new law that will establish an autonomous internet in Russia. The network will no longer depend on servers and services hosted in other countries.

The U.S. dislikes that as shutting down Russia's internet by manipulating servers in the U.S. will no longer be an option. Spying on Russian internet traffic will also become more difficult.

The usual 'liberals' in Russia were told to raise some protest against the planned move. The BBC reports:

Thousands of people in Russia have protested against plans to introduce tighter restrictions on the internet.

A mass rally in Moscow and similar demonstrations in two other cities were called after parliament backed the controversial bill last month.

The government says the bill, which allows it to isolate Russia's internet service from the rest of the world, will improve cyber-security.

But campaigners say it is an attempt to increase censorship and stifle dissent.

Activists say more than 15,000 people gathered in Moscow on Sunday, which is double the estimate given by the police.

Reuters gives slightly different numbers:

The rally gathered around 15,300 people, according to White Counter, an NGO that counts participants at rallies. Moscow police put the numbers at 6,500.

Reports of crowd numbers are used for propaganda purposes and often false. On February 22 the British oligarch Richard Brenson organized a concert in Cucuta, Colombia. While "authorities" in Colombia claimed that there were "over 400,000 people in attendance", Vice News reported more than 300,000 and the Washington Post wrote that 200,000 were there. By using aerial pictures and scientific crowd density measurements we proved that less than 20,000 people attended the concert. Following that the Washington Post silently deleted its 200,000 claim.

The BBC provides two pictures with its piece.

Note that both are relatively tight front shots of the demonstration. It is impossible to check a crowd size from frontal pictures. Professor of Crowd Science at Manchester Metropolitan University G. Keith Still notes about density estimates that:

Density can appear higher with lower CCTV angles

That such frontal pictures are very misleading was demonstrated in 2015 when photos revealed how a small number of hypocrites abused a large memorial march they did not take part in for a photo-op.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/03/russia-internet-protests-these-crowd-estimates-are-propaganda.html

More fake news from MSM

>>5636274

Google Manager: 'We Need to Stop' Fake News Because 'That's How Trump Won'

On Monday, Google software engineer Mike Wacker published an email he received from a fellow Google employee. That employee recounted a discussion with his manager in which the manager said Donald Trump won the 2016 election thanks to fake news and hate speech.

"I posted a comment on a meme regarding fake news on Search and someone reported it to HR. I didn’t say I was in favor or against, just cautioned that we need to be carful [sic]," the anonymous employee wrote. "My manager brought it up in our 1:1 last week. Made me feel very uncomfortable for having an opposing view. He said we need to stop hate speatch [sic] and fake news because that’s how Trump won the election…"

The terrified employee kept quiet, censoring himself. "I obviously didn’t say anything and just wanted it to end. I … would like to see all managers required to take political bias training," he wrote.

Worse, the "Bias Busting" course at Google demonized conservatives and Trump supporters, the employee wrote.

"Also, have you taken the bias busting course lately? The entire thing is bashing conservatives and Trump supporters. So many false accusations and sob stories," he wrote. "My friend took the course and said he was told he didn’t know how it felt to be a minority because he was a male. This came from the speaker themselves!"

Mike Wacker, the Google software engineer who published the email, said he decided to share it because it shows "political bias at Google."

https://pjmedia.com/trending/google-manager-fake-news-and-hate-speech-are-how-trump-won-the-election/

>>5636309

Mossad shills will now call you a muzzie Anon.

>>5636328

wada we gunna do wada we………….

Front page now KEK

Muh 6 gorillion

>>5636344

to busy your welcome to it

>>5636357

>>5636307

>>5636363

easy check post history zero digs or content = Mossad faggots

Alastair Crooke: “Will Trump’s Hawks Dare to Risk Israel?”

It was the eleventh, and perhaps the most important meeting between President Putin and PM Netanyahu on 27 February, writes the well-informed journalist, Elijah Magnier: “The Israeli visitor heard clearly from his host that Moscow has no leverage to ask Iran to leave – or, to stop the flow of weapons to Damascus … Moscow [also] informed Tel Aviv about Damascus’s determination to respond to any future bombing; and that Russia doesn’t see itself concerned [i.e. a party to such conflict] ”.

This last sentence requires some further unpacking. What is going on here is the mounting of the next phase of the Chinese-Russian strategy for containing the US policy of seeding hybrid disorder – and of pouring acid in to the region’s ‘open wounds’. Neither China nor Russia wish to enter into a war with the US. President Putin has warned on several occasions that were Russia to be pushed to the brink, it would have no choice but to react – and that the possible consequences go beyond contemplation.

In short, America’s recent wars have clearly demonstrated their political limitations. Yes, they are militarily highly destructive, but they have not yielded their anticipated political dividends; or rather, the political dividends have manifested more as an erosion of US credibility, and of its appeal as a ‘model’ for the world to mimic. There is now no ‘New’ Middle East that is emerging anywhere that casts itself in the American mold.

Trump’s foreign policy-makers are not old-style ‘liberal’ interventionists, seeking to slay the region’s tyrannical monsters’, and promising to implant American values: that wing of US neo-conservatism – perhaps unsurprisingly – has assimilated itself to the Democratic Party and to those European leaders desirous of striking (a supposedly morally ‘virtuous’) pose in contra-distinction to Trump’s (supposedly amoral) transactional approach.

Bolton et al however, are of the neoconservative school that believes that if you have power, you use it, or lose it. They simply do not trouble themselves with all those frills of promising democracy or freedom (and like Carl Schmitt, they see ethics as a matter for theologians, and not a concern for them). And if the US cannot, any longer, directly impose certain political outcomes (on their terms) on the world as it used to, then the priority must be to use all means to ensure that no political rival can emerge to challenge the US. In other words, instability and bleeding open-wounds become the potent tools to disrupt rival power-blocks from accumulating wider political weight and standing. (In other words, if you cannot ‘make’ politics, at least disrupts others’ attempts so to do.)

So, how does this play out in President Putin’s messaging to Netanyahu? Well, firstly this meeting occurred almost immediately following President Assad’s visit to Tehran. This latter summit took place in the context of increasing pressures on Syria (from the US and the EU) to try to undo the Syrian success in liberating its land (obviously with much help from its friends). The explicit aim being to hold future Syrian reconstruction hostage to the political reconfiguring of Syria – in the manner of America and Europe’s choosing.

The earlier Tehran summit took place, too, against the back drop of a crystallisingmindset for confrontation with Iran in Washington.

https://southfront.org/alastair-crooke-will-trumps-hawks-dare-to-risk-israel/