Resume inflation at the NSC: Lt. General McMaster’s Silver Star Was Essentially Earned for Target Practice
By Dave Lindorff
In the annals of human conflict, the Gulf War of 1991, when the US dispatched half a million troops and a huge armada of ships, planes and tanks into the desert south of Iraq and Kuwait and then crushed Iraqi forces in both those countries in a six-week blitz from Jan. 17-Feb. 28, surely has to rank as one of the most one-sided wars since Hitler’s Wehrmacht marched through Holland in four days in 1940.
Focus: The House GOP Border Tax Plan (Part 4) - Feb 13, 2017
White House statement denying Axios report on Cohn's comments on border adjuststment tax - Axios
VIDEO: Original Axios report: Cohn says no go on House GOP border tax version - CNBC
Sean Spicer & taxes: Press secretary doesn’t understand border adjustment tax - National Review
How a U.S. "border tax" could hit your wallet (Page 1-5) - CBS News
How a border tax could hit car buyers - Car and Driver
American-made companies worried about proposed border tax - Chicago Tribune
VIDEO: Pernod Ricard CFO says he’s not in favor of border tax - Bloomberg
Border tax adjustments: an unnecessary gamble - Mercatus Center
The border adjustment tax creates more problems than it solves - Tax Justice Blog
Alchemy is difficult and dangerous: The border adjusted tax distorts terms of trade with unknown consequences in pursuit of something that looks nice only in spreadsheets - jpmorganinstitutional.com
Don't ruin a chance for tax reform with “border adjustments" - Foundation for Economic Education
How ‘border adjustment’ poisons tax reform - WSJ
Why a border tax is a tax on Middle America - Morning Consult
VIDEO: Gluskin Sheff economist gives thumbs down to border tax - Bloomberg
Paul Ryan and Donald Trump support 2 different policies they both call a “border tax” - Vox
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Uh-Oh! Violets in late February?: Signs of an Unusually Early Spring in Southeastern Pennsylvania are No Cause for Celebration
By Dave Lindorff
This whole winter has been anomalously warm in southeastern Pennsylvania where I live. My oil guy, Hans, is complaining that the demand for home heating oil is so low this winter that it's killing his business, causing him to lay off workers that he had already trained.
“If We Could Change Ourselves”: The DNC and Transformational Change
The Democratic sweep of 2008 built on an overwhelming public hunger for a shift in the direction the country was moving. In a skillfully crafted campaign, Barack Obama presented himself as the personification of hope and change. He and the party turned pent-up demand for a more equal society and a less belligerent foreign policy into a smashing victory. Obama swept into office along with Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.
100 Years of Using War to Try to End All War
By David Swanson
This April 4th will be 100 years since the U.S. Senate voted to declare war on Germany and 50 since Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the war on Vietnam (49 since he was killed on that speech’s first anniversary). Events are being planned to help us try to finally learn some lessons, to move beyond, not just Vietnam, but war.
That declaration of war on Germany was not for the war that makes up the single most common theme of U.S. entertainment and history. It was for the war that came before that one. This was the Great War, the war to end all wars, the war without which the conditions for the next war would not have existed.
As well recounted in Michael Kazin’s War Against War: The American Fight for Peace 1914-1918, a major peace movement had the support of a great deal of the United States. When the war finally ended (after the U.S. had actually been in it for about 5% the length of the war on Afghanistan thus far) just about everybody regretted it. The losses in life, limb, sanity, property, civil liberties, democracy, and health were incredible. Death, devastation, a flu epidemic, prohibition, a permanent military and the taxes to go with it, plus predictions of World War II: these were the results, and a lot of people remembered that they had been warned, as well as that the ending of all war had been promised.
The peace activists had warned the U.S. government to stay out of the war (not out of foreign relations, just out of mass-murdering foreign relations). And they had been right. The regret was intense and lasting. It lasted right up until the worst result of World War I came along in the form of World War II. At that point, regret was replaced with forgetting. World War I was erased from popular history, and its child on steroids was celebrated rather than mourned, and has been celebrated with growing reverence ever since.
The massive peace movement that outlawed war in 1928, had been widespread, mainstream, and aggressive before 1917 as well. Antiwar Congress members had entered into the Congressional Record a sample of the flood of letters and petitions they had received urging that the U.S. stay out of war. Peace groups had held marches and rallies, sent delegations to Europe, met with the president, and pushed to require a popular vote before the launching of any war, believing that the public would vote war down. We’ll never know, because the vote was never taken. Instead, the United States jumped into the war, thereby preventing a negotiated settlement and creating a total victory followed by vicious punishment of the losing side — the very fuel for Nazism, as well as for Italian fascism, Japanese imperialism, and the Sykes-Picot carving up of the Middle East so beloved by that region’s residents to this day.
An antiwar exhibit that toured the U.S. in 1916 included a life-sized model stegosaurus that represented the fatal consequences of having heavy armor but no brains. The idea of preparing for war in order to achieve peace, which today is simple commonsense, was widely found to be a great source of humor, as Washington cynically pursued “preparedness.” Morris Hillquit, an eloquent socialist — something of a Bernie Sanders without the 21st-century militarism — asked why European nations, having fully armed themselves to avoid war, hadn’t avoided it. “Their antiwar insurance turned out to be a bad case of over-insurance,” he said. You prepare for war, and you get war — remarkably enough.
Woodrow Wilson won reelection on an antiwar platform, and could not have won it otherwise. After he opted for war, he was unable to raise an army to fight his war without a draft. And he was unable to sustain a draft without imprisoning people who spoke against it. He saw to it that conscientious objectors were brutally tortured (or, as we would say today, interrogated). Yet people refused, deserted, evaded, and violently fought recruiters by the thousands. The wisdom to reject war was not lacking. It just wasn’t followed by those in power.
The understanding that war should be ended, which reached its peak perhaps in the 1920s and 1930s, saw something of a comeback during what the Vietnamese call the American War. Martin Luther King did not propose a different war or a better war, but leaving behind the entire war system. That awareness has grown even as the Vietnam Syndrome has faded and war been normalized. Now, the U.S. popular mind is a mass of contradictions.
In a recent poll, 66% of people in the United States are worried that the U.S. will become engaged in a major war in the next four years. However, the U.S. is engaged in a number of wars right now that must seem pretty major to the people living through them, wars that have created the greatest refugee crisis so far on the planet and threatened to break similar records for starvation. In addition, 80% of the U.S. public in the very same poll say they support NATO. There’s a 50/50 split on whether to build yet more nukes. A slim majority favors banning refugees who are fleeing the wars. And over three-quarters of Democrats believe, for partisan rather than empirical reasons, that Russia is unfriendly or an enemy. Despite the warnings of the wise for over a century, people are still imagining they can use war preparations to avoid war.
One thing that could help keep us out of more wars is the Trump face now placed on the wars. People who will hate Russia because they hate Trump may at some point oppose Trump’s wars because they hate Trump. And those getting active to support refugees may also want to help end the crimes that create the refugees.
Meanwhile, German tanks are again rolling toward the Russian border, and instead of soliciting denunciations from groups like the Anne Frank Center, as recently done to combat Donald Trump’s anti-Semitism, U.S. liberals are generally applauding or avoiding any awareness.
One thing is certain: we will not survive another 100 years of this. Long before then, we will have to try something else. We will have to move beyond war to nonviolent conflict resolution, aid, diplomacy, disarmament, cooperation, and the rule of law.
World Beyond War is planning events everywhere, including these:
Remembering Past Wars . . . and Preventing the Next
April 3rd at NYU, New York, NY. (details TBA)
Speakers: Joanne Sheehan, Glen Ford, Alice Slater, Maria Santelli, David Swanson.
April 4, 6-8 p.m. Busboys and Poets, 5th and K Streets NW, Washington, D.C.
Speakers: Michael Kazin, Eugene Puryear, Medea Benjamin, David Swanson, Maria Santelli.
May 25, 6-8 p.m., Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA.
Speakers: Jackie Cabasso, Daniel Ellsberg, David Hartsough, Adam Hochschild.
Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, At the Altar of American Greatness
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
From WIPP with love: Three Years Since the Kitty Litter Disaster at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
By Paul DeRienzo
Focus: Syria and Turkey - Feb 22, 2017
De Mistura: Intra-Syria talks in Geneva impossible without ceasefire holding - Tasnim News Agency
Russia asks Syria to halt bombing during UN peace talks - AFP
More U.S. troops may be needed against ISIS in Syria, a top general says - The New York Times
Exclusive: CIA-backed aid for Syrian rebels frozen after Islamist attack: sources - Reuters
Kurdish-Arab alliance pushes into Deir ez-Zor, expels ISIS from several villages - ARA News
Manbij Military Council: We will fight Turkish army if they attack Manbij - freerepublic.com
US coalition continues to assist SDF-led Manbij Military Council north Syria - ARA News
Trump critic McCain meets Saudi king - DAWN.COM
Saudi Arabia 'ready to send ground troops' to Syria - alaraby.co.uk
Dem senator asks for 'top to bottom' review of Syria policy - TheHill
--------------------------------------------------
Multiple sites seized from ISIS as the Turkish Army reaches Al-Bab city centre - almasdarnews.com
VIDEO: Al Bab street war: Turkish Forces and Syrian rebels attack ISIS - YouTube
'Turkey will not seek permission to address threats’ whether in Al-Bab, Aleppo, Raqqa in Syria or Tal Afar, Sinjar in Iraq: Presidency spokesman - aa.com
Seizing control of Syria's Al-Bab important to push for Raqqa: Turkish official - US News
Turkey wants to see FSA replace SDF in Raqqa battle - Rudaw
Claim that PYD only effective force against Daesh collapsed, says Ankara - Daily Sabah
VIDEO: Turkey's Erdogan says aims safe zone in Syria after Raqqa operation - YouTube
Turkey failed to deliver a Syrian force to take Raqqa: analysis - ARA News
Regional rivals Iran, Turkey trade barbs over Syria - AFP
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Democratic Ex-Dove Proposes War On Iran
Rep. Alcee Hastings has sponsored a bill to authorize President Trump to attack Iran. Hastings reintroduced H J Res 10, the “Authorization of Use of Force Against Iran Resolution” on Jan. 3, the first day of the new Congress after President Trump’s election.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/19/democratic-ex-dove-proposes-war-on-iran/
Bigot boy business: Trump Exposes His Ignorance and Intolerance -- Again
By Linn Washington Jr.
Twice in recent weeks President Donald Trump reinforced his image of ignorance on African-Americans with astounding statements. Those statements amplified concerns about this president who rose to the Oval Office through a campaign tarred by brazen bigotry from his surrogates, his supporters and himself.
Focus: The House GOP Border Tax Plan (Part 3) - Feb 21, 2017
CEOs of 16 U.S. companies urge Congress to pass border tax - Reuters
Text of U.S. companies’ letter to Congress on the border tax - American Made Coalition
Graham: Ryan tax plan won’t get 10 votes in the Senate - TheHill
Koch-backed group American for Prosperity squares off against Paul Ryan on import tax - Bloomberg
Walmart warns against House GOP's proposed border tax - Business Insider
Retail has good reason to hate a border tax - Bloomberg
Border tax could wipe out retail earnings by 50% or more, analyst says - CNBC
IHA urges Congress to stop border adjustment tax - Giftware News
Bespoke Bikes threatened as border-tax plan hangs over factory - Bloomberg
Rep. Ro Khanna op-ed: Border tax is reverse redistribution - TheHill
Robert Reich op-ed: The Republican tax sham - The Huffington Post
Paul Ryan’s border adjustment tax mistake - National Review
A bad way to pay for Trump's corporate-tax cuts - Bloomberg View
Border adjustment tax just complicates tax code even more - MacIver Institute
Border tax debate pits theory against the real world - stltoday.com
EU denies plan to challenge GOP border tax - The Times
China to respond if U.S. introduces border adjustment tax: minister - Xinhua
The planned US border tax would most likely violate WTO rules - Inter Press Service
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Talk Nation Radio: L.A. Kauffman on Direct Action
https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-la-kauffman-on-direct-action
L.A. Kauffman is the author of Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism. She has spent more than 30 years immersed in radical movements, as a journalist, historian, organizer, and strategist. Her writings on grassroots activism and social movement history have been published in The Nation, The Progressive, Mother Jones, the Village Voice, and many other outlets. She served as executive editor for the radical theory journal Socialist Review and as an award-winning national political columnist for SF Weekly, focusing on dissent and activism. Kauffman was the mobilizing coordinator for the massive February 15, 2003 antiwar protest in New York City. She continued in this role through the years of major antiwar protests, including those that greeted the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
Tomgram: Danny Sjursen, Mission Unaccomplished, 15 Years Later
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
In search of a Trumpian reality: On Killers and Bullshitters
By John Grant
* NOTE: The term bullshit is used here in the sense established by Harvard philosophy professor Harry Frankfurt in his little gem of a book titled On Bullshit, which opens with: "One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit."
“I’m Going to Have to Wear That Phrase Like Sackcloth”
“Kellyanne, good gracious! What’s wrong with you, honey, you look terrible!”
Ukraine on Fire
I read this article: "A Documentary You’ll Likely Never See," and watched this preview.
So, of course, I wanted to see it.
I got a hold of a copy but am not allowed to share it and have been unable to get any information on where you can learn more, how you can rent it, where it will be screened, etc.
Bit *if* you are ever able to see Ukraine on Fire you should. This is a story about recent events in Ukraine that puts them into the context of Ukraine's history, rejects propaganda, and presents the evidence clearly and concisely. It includes interviews of key figures conducted by Oliver Stone.
To summarize the key points will just sound like lunacy to U.S. media consumers, though a bit of reading or watching this film might help persuade many.
The United States promoted two color revolutions in Ukraine several years apart, taking the side of neo-Nazis, installing handpicked leaders in Kiev and even a former coup leader from Georgia in Odessa. Russia did not invade Ukraine. Just as Russia did not hack the German or U.S. elections. The evidence also suggests that Russia was probably not involved in shooting down that Malaysian airplane, that Ukrainian nationalists did that.
As Russia is being demonized in a new way every week in Washington, knowing truth from lies on Ukraine may be critically important and could just save us. I hope somebody makes a way for you to see this movie.
Focus: Syria and Turkey - Feb 18, 2017
US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces inch closer to IS ‘capital’ Raqqa - AP
Syrian Democratic Forces liberate villages in the Raqqa campaign - ANHA
Syrian Democratic Forces liberate two more Raqqa villages from IS - milletpress.com
Syrian Democratic Forces liberate prison on the outskirts of Raqqa city - almasdarnews.com
Islamic State 'bureaucrats' fleeing Raqqa stronghold in Syria - Reuters
Kurds pledge to fight Turkey to retain Syria's Manbij - Al Jazeera
SDF Commander: We promise our people to liberate Raqqa very soon - anfenglish.com
Coalition general says SDF forces most likely to take Raqqa from ISIS, not Turkey - ARA News
Next phase of SDF Raqqa operation sees alliance with Deir Ezzor Military Council - Rudaw
Wrath of Euphrates campaign statement on the Raqqa - Deir Ezzor connection - ypgrojava.org
Kurdish forces overrun two more ISIS-held villages north of Deir Ezzor - almasdarnews.com
Kurds call on Russia to defend Syria's federalization on international level - Sputnik
Russia pushes hard to include Syria’s Kurds in Geneva talks - Rudaw
REPORT: "Caliphate in Decline: An Estimate of Islamic State’s Financial Fortunes" - ICSR
------------------------------------------------------------
Turkey sets out Raqqa operation plans to U.S.: report - Reuters
Turkey threatens to move on Kurdish-held stronghold Manbij in Syria - Middle East Monitor
Erdogan interview: We will eradicate terrorism with GCC support - Saudi Gazette
Turkish forces lose ground as ISIL's mounts counter-offensive in Al-Bab - almasdarnews.com
Syria government and monitoring group blast Turkey over civilian deaths - The Washington Post
Casualties by the Turkish forces in al-Bab city - Syrian Observatory For Human Rights
Syria calls on Turkey to withdraw troops from Syria, close border - CCTV News
No breakthroughs at second round of Syrian peace talks in Astana - rferl.org
Trump: Gulf states will pay for safe zones in Syria - The Daily Caller
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Understanding Robert E. Lee Supporters
Those of us who consider it disgraceful to have a giant statue of Robert E. Lee on his horse in a park in the middle of Charlottesville, and another of Stonewall Jackson for that matter, should try to understand those who think removing one of these statues is an outrage.
I don't claim to understand them, and certainly don't suggest they all think alike. But there are certain recurring themes if you listen to or read the words of those who think Lee should stay. They're worth listening to. They're human. They mean well. They're not crazy.
First, let's set aside the arguments we're not trying to understand.
Some of the arguments being passed around are not central to this attempt at understanding the other side. For example, the argument that moving the statue costs money, is not what I'm interested in here. I don't think cost concerns are driving most of the support for the statue. If we all agreed that removing the statue was important, we would find the money. Simply donating the statue to a museum or to some city where Lee actually lived would quite possibly produce a new owner willing to pay for the transport. Heck, donate it to the Trump Winery and they'd probably pick it up by next Thursday.[1]
True, if the statue is simply moved to a different Charlottesville park, Charlottesville will have to pay, and that money could have gone to creating a new park with monuments to peace and civil rights, etc. Perhaps there are people for whom this really is the central argument. Perhaps they are also consistent in their frugality and put up the same struggle against billion dollar highways and trillion dollar militaries. Perhaps the announcements of how much good could be done for the poor with the money that could be spent to move a statue are being made by some people with a history of caring about the poor. We'll save trying to understand them for another time.
Also tangential here is the argument that removing a statue erases history. Surely few of these history fanatics protested when the U.S. military tore down the statue of Saddam Hussein. Wasn't he part of Iraqi history? Hadn't the CIA meant well and gone to great efforts in helping to put him in power? Hadn't a company in Virginia provided him with important materials for making chemical weapons? Good or bad, history shouldn't be torn down and erased!
Actually, nobody's saying that. Nobody's valuing any and all history. Few are admitting that ugly parts of history are history at all. People are valuing a particular bit of history. The question is: why? Surely history supporters don't believe that the 99.9% of Charlottesville history not represented in monumental statuary has been erased. Why must this bit of history be monumental?
There may be those whose historical concern is simply for the past 90 years or so of the statue being there in the park. Its existence there is the history they are concerned about, perhaps. Perhaps they don't want it changed simply because that's the way it's been. I have some sympathy for that perspective, but it has to be applied selectively. Should we keep a half-built frame of a hotel on the downtown mall because my kids have never known anything else? Was history destroyed by creating the downtown mall in the first place? What I'm interested in trying to understand is not why people want nothing to change. Nobody wants nothing to change. Rather, I want to understand why they don't want this particular thing to change.
Focus: Russia and NATO - Feb 16, 2016
Putin accuses NATO of trying to embroil Russia in confrontation - TASS
Putin pledges to strengthen Russia’s Federal Security Service - TASS
Putin urges 'restoring dialogue' between Russia, US intel - AFP
VIDEO: Putin urges 'restoring dialogue' between Russia, US intel - YouTube
VIDEO: Vladimir Putin’s full statement at the annual meeting of the FSB - YouTube
TRANSCRIPT: Vladimir Putin’s full statement at the annual meeting of the FSB - President of Russia
Moscow vows to take measures in response to NATO buildup in Black Sea - Sputnik
Russia may lose interest in dialogue with NATO if it yields no results: NATO envoy - APA
Russia demands Pentagon explanation of Mattis’s ‘position of strength' comments - newsweek.com
Out of question: 'Crimea cannot be subject of bargaining between Russia and US': Official - Sputnik
POLL: Over 80% of Russians have positive attitude toward President Putin - Sputnik
Kremlin aide says no agreement yet on Putin-Trump meeting: Ifax - Reuters
Russian fighter jets 'buzz' US warship in Black Sea, photos show - CNN.com
Russia shows off menacing amphibious vehicle after NATO deploys troops - Express.co.uk
Russia deploys cruise missile in violation of arms treaty: report - TheHill
Russian spy ship now off Virginia coast - ABC News
---------------------------------------------------
NATO European allies to jointly buy planes, set up new elite HQ - US News
NATO to boost naval presence in Black Sea - Yahoo News
VIDEO: NATO Secretary General, Press Conference at Meetings of Defence Ministers - YouTube
TRANSCRIPT: NATO Secretary General, Press Conference at Meetings of Defence Ministers - NATO
NATO Secretary General: alliance remains committed to Georgia - Agenda.ge
NATO to stay "strongly committed" to Ukraine: Stoltenberg - Unian
Stoltenberg unfazed by poll showing waning Ukrainian support for NATO - KyivPost
Ukraine turns a blind eye to ultrarightist militia - The Washington Post
Ukraine publishers speak out against ban on Russian books - The Guardian
500 US troops arrive in Romanian Black Sea port to bolster defense - AP
Ships from 4 NATO countries conduct naval drills in Black Sea - RT News
Get Ready, Russia: Britain is sending warships to the Black Sea - The National Interest Blog
NATO ships merge into group to exercise anti-submarine tasks amid drills in the Black Sea - Sputnik
---------------------------------------------------
VIDEO: Trump raises spectre of 'nuclear holocaust' amid questioning over Russia - YouTube
Mattis tells NATO: 'We are not in a position right now to collaborate on a military level (with Russia.) But our political leaders will engage and try to find common ground' - UPI.com
Mattis rejects Putin’s proposal to share intelligence - New York Post
Trump’s retreat from realism accelerates: The case of Crimea - Cato @ Liberty
An open letter to Trump and Putin: The world needs Nuclear Zero - TheHill
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Tomgram: Frida Berrigan, Donald Trump, a One-Man 9/11?
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Can the Climate Survive Adherence to War and Partisanship?
For the past decade, the standard procedure for big coalition rallies and marches in Washington D.C. has been to gather together organizations representing labor, the environment, women's rights, anti-racism, anti-bigotry of all sorts, and a wide array of liberal causes, including demands to fund this, that, and the other, and to halt the concentration of wealth.
At that point, some of us in the peace movement will generally begin lobbying the PEP (progressive except for peace) organizers to notice that the military is swallowing up enough money every month to fund all their wishes 100 times over for a year, that the biggest destroyer of the natural environment is the military, that war fuels and is fueled by racism while stripping our rights and militarizing our police and creating refugees.
When we give up on trying to explain the relevance of our society's biggest project to the work of reforming our society, we generally point out that peace is popular, that it adds a mere 5 characters to a thousand-word laundry list of causes, and that we can mobilize peace groups to take part if peace is included.
Focus: Syria - Feb 15, 2017
Pentagon might propose sending ground troops to Syria - CNNPolitics.com
VIDEO: Pentagon considering proposing troops in Syria - CNN Video
Tillerson, Dunford to meet with Russian counterpart - KBZK.com
Russian top diplomat says broad anti-terrorist front forming in Syria - TASS
Anti-Assad states to meet amid concerns over US policy on Syria - The Guardian
Stoltenberg rules out NATO's involvement in combat operations against IS in Syria - TASS
Qatar's ties with Turkey at new heights - The Peninsula Qatar
Syria talks in Kazakh capital Astana delayed, delegations downgraded - Reuters
ISIS fights back in al-Bab against Syria regime troops and Turkish-led forces - ARA News
Jordan commander: IS expands hold in border camp for Syrians - AP
Hizbollah boosted by battleground successes in Syria conflict - FT.com
Libyan National Army troops may be trained in Syria by Russia - Stratfor
U.N. warns of catastrophic dam failure in Syria battle - Reuters
--------------------------------------------------------
Syrian Kurdish groups expect U.S. support, will fight any Turkish advance - Reuters
Syrian Kurds want Turkish 'occupants' to stay away from liberating Raqqa - ekurd
Turkey warns US defense secretary over PKK/PYD in Syria - aa.com
YPG entrance into Raqqa a threat against Turkey’s security: deputy PM - Kurdpress News Aganecy
Turkish soldiers, Syrian Kurds exchange fire as Islamic State battle rages on - Breitbart
Syrian PYD Kurds reportedly not invited to Geneva IV peace talks: PYD chief Muslim - ekurd
Asya Abdullah: We will not recognise a Syrian constitution drafted without Kurds - Kom News
Interview with co-chair of Syria Democratic Council Ilham Ahmad - ekurd
Any Syria settlement meetings excluding Kurds doomed to fail: Turkish HDP Party - Sputnik
Pan-Kurdish conference takes place in Russia - ekurd
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Which Washington Crimes Matter Most?
Michael Flynn participated in mass murder and destruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, advocated for torture, and manufactured false cases for war against Iran. He and anyone who appointed him to office and kept him there should be removed from and disqualified for public service. (Though I still appreciate his blurting out the obvious regarding the counterproductive results of drone murders.)
Many would say that prosecuting Al Capone for tax fraud was a good move if he couldn't be prosecuted for murder. But what if Al Capone had been funding an orphanage on the side, and the state had prosecuted him for that? Or what if the state hadn't prosecuted him, but a rival gang had taken him out? Are all take-downs of major criminals good ones? Do they all deter the right activities by up-and-coming criminals?
Michael Flynn was not removed by public demand, by representative action in Congress, by public impeachment proceedings, or by criminal prosecution (though that may follow). He was removed by an unaccountable gang of spies and killers, and for the offense of seeking friendlier relations with the world's other major nuclear-armed government.
Hoist on his own petard: NSC Head Flynn Was Brought Down By the Very Spying Machine He Helped to Build
By Davd Lindorff
A retired three-star Lt. General, Flynn had previously been director of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration. In that role since 2012, he was a key player in the leadership of the sprawling $50-billion US intelligence apparatus that has increasingly been spying not just on Americans but on US allies and, to the extent possible, on the entire world. Flynn, as DIA director, was the top guy in charge of the so-called “Five Eyes” group of intelligence agencies-- all English-speaking nations including the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada -- which has coordinated spying on citizens of those nations as well as on the citizens and leaders of such supposed NATO allies as Germany, France, Italy, Spain etc.
Knowing all this, it’s simply astounding to learn that Flynn himself was using apparently unencrypted email, phones and texting to communicate with, of all people, the Russian Ambassador to the US, discussing such issues as potentially lifting sanctions imposed on Russia by the sitting president of the United States, Barack Obama.
His political implosion is doubly ironic because Flynn was one of those who was loudly condemning Trump’s presidential opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for her use of a private server for her official State Department business, and for her general lax security standards (he actually led a “Lock her up!” chant at one Trump rally!). Because clearly Flynn was not using secure communications in his own conversations with the Russian ambassador -- communications that are now widely circulating in complete transcript form courtesy of US spy agencies like the National Security Agency.
Talk about someone being hoist upon his own petard!
You’d think that seeing the kind of trouble the NSA’s “collect it all” motto can wreak even for the powerful and seemingly invincible, Washington’s elite might rethink what the NSA is doing?
But nah, I wouldn’t count on that happening. There’s more likely to be a lot of shadenfreude among those, both Democrats and traditional Cold War Republicans, who want to see Trump and his band of bozos go down, but hubristic to a fault, they’re not going to go so far as to think, “Hey, this could as easily happen to me!”
And yet, what we’re seeing here, besides the exposé of a thoroughly inept and out-of-his-depth President Trump, is the workings of the so-called “deep state” -- the permanent power structure the really runs things in the US -- which is taking advantage of its vast powers to rein in the efforts of a loose cannon trying to steer things off on an unorthodox course...
For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the uncompromised, collectively run, five-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative news site, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/
Talk Nation Radio: Is Amnesty International Promoting War in Syria?
Rick Sterling is an independent investigative journalist who just wrote the article "Amnesty International Stokes Syrian War" for ConsortiumNews.com.
Find Sterling's article here:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/11/amnesty-international-stokes-syrian-war
Find the Amnesty International report here: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/human_slaughterhouse.pdf
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
Tomgram: Michael Klare, A "China First" and "Russia Second" Foreign Policy?
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Focus: The House GOP Border Tax Plan (Part 2) - Feb 13, 2017
A border tax could turn the Trump dream into a nightmare - Financial Times
Border tax could upend global markets, but investors shy away from any bets - WSJ
House tax chief Brady : Lawmakers coming around on border adjustability - Washington Examiner
US border tax plan could harm developing nations, destabilise world economy - The Straits Times
‘Trump’s border tax devastating for India’ - Business Line
Border tax didn't come up in Trudeau's meeting with Trump, Canada's finance minister says - CNBC
U.S. border adjusted tax could raise vehicle prices by hundreds, thousands - autonews.com
Proposed border tax would hurt low-income car buyers most, study finds - NESN.com
Automakers enlist dealers in border tax fight - autonews.com
Financial Industry worried about effects of border adjustment tax plan - Morning Consult
VIDEO: Border adjustment tax clearly bad for retail: Leonhardt - Yahoo Finance
Solomon retail chief: How a border tax will threaten retail M&A - CNBC
These 21 companies support GOP proposed border adjustment tax, over 100 companies have come out against - Fortune.com
Italian fashion industry hopes to avert additional US border tax - AP
GOP senator Perdue: Reject border tax proposal - TheHill
Letter of Senator David Perdue (R–Georgia) concerning tax reform - Forbes
VIDEO: Steve Forbes: 'Crazy' border tax punishes American consumers - CNBC
The border-adjusted tax plan is bad for America - The National Interest
Paul Ryan’s border adjustment tax vs. Donald Trump’s targeted tariffs - americanthinker.com
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Tomgram: Rajan Menon, The China Missile Crisis of 2018?
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
