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Russia plans to transform its auxiliary naval base in Tartus, Syria, into a permanent Russian military base. Situated at the eastern Mediterranean coast, the permanent base would not only increase Russia’s presence in the Mediterranean but help circumvent the Bosporus bottleneck in NATO member State Turkey. The decision comes against the backdrop of a widening Middle East war and tensions over Crimea.

Pankov’s announcement about Russia’s plans for Tartus came only days after the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it was considering to re-establish a presence at military bases it used before the discontinuation of the Soviet Union. Talks between Russia and Vietnam are reportedly ongoing, as part of the Russian Federation’s new posture. The Deputy Chairman of  the international affairs committee of Russia’s State Duma (parliament), Alexey Chapa also called for restoring Russian military bases in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. The naval base in Tartus at the northwestern coast of Syria is currently used as auxiliary bas. That is, as a logistics supply base for Russian vessels and as a base to support Russian operations in Syria via the Hmeymim Air Base in Latakia province. Russia recently deployed S-400 surface to air missile batteries in Tartus. The State Duma on October 7 ratified a Russian-Syrian agreement on the open-ended deployment of the Russian air group in Syria. The agreement was signed in Damascus on August 26, 2015. Nearly a year later President Vladimir Putin submitted it to the State Duma for consideration. The Federation Council will consider the agreement on October 12.

The  establishment of a permanent naval presence in Tartus involves political posturing, An unequivocal sign that Russia, as already forecast by this author in 2012, draws a red line in the Syrian sand. The transformation of Tartus into a permanent Russian base has, however, geopolitical and strategic implications within a wider context than Syria. The Russian Black Sea fleet in Crimea would have to pass through the Bosporus and the narrow Dardanelles to reach the Mediterranean. This “choke point” is controlled by NATO member Turkey. Moreover, NATO member States have increased their naval presence in the Black Sea since the eruption of the crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, or Crimea’s accession into the Russian Federation. Which of the two constructs one considers as valid largely depends on whether one interprets international law to the effect that self-determination has primacy over territorial integrity or whether territorial integrity has primacy over self-determination. The outcome is the same; The Russian Black Sea fleet and its access to the Mediterranean has been threatened by the escalation of the situation in Ukraine.

The Obama administration is now accusing Russia of cyber-crime and trying to disrupt the US presidential election. The claim is so far-fetched, it is hardly credible. More credible is that the US is reeling from Putin’s stunning humiliation earlier this week. Since June, US media and supporters of Democrat presidential contender Hillary Clinton have been blaming Russian state-sponsored hackers for breaking into the Democratic party’s database. It is further alleged that Moscow is stealthily trying to influence the outcome of the election, by releasing damaging information on Clinton, which might favor Republican candidate Donald Trump. Russia has vehemently denied any connection to the cyber-crime charges, or trying to disrupt the November poll. Now the Obama administration has stepped into the fray by openly accusing Russia. «US government officially accuses Russia of hacking campaign to interfere with elections», reported the Washington Post. This takes the row to a whole new level. No longer are the insinuations a matter of private, partisan opinion. The US government is officially labelling the Russian state for cyber-crime and political subversion.

Predictably, following the latest allegations, there are calls among American lawmakers for ramping up more economic sanctions against Russia. While US intelligence figures are urging for retaliatory cyber-attacks on Russian government facilities. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov derided the US claims as «rubbish». He noted that the Kremlin’s computer system incurs hundreds of hacking attempts every day, many of which can be traced to American origin, but Moscow doesn’t turn around and blame the US government for such cyber-attacks. There are several signs that the latest brouhaha out of Washington is a bogus diversion. As with previous Russian-hacker claims by the Democrats and US media, there is no evidence presented by the Obama administration to support its grave allegations against the Russian government. Assertion without facts does not meet a minimal standard of proof. When reports emerged in June – again through the Washington Post – that the Democrat National Committee (DNC) was hacked by Russian agents, the allegation relied on investigations by a private cyber security firm by the name of CrowdStrike. The firm is linked by personnel to the NATO-affiliated, anti-Russian think tank Atlantic Council. Again no verifiable evidence was presented then, just the word of a dubious partisan source.

Back then the Russian scare story, for that’s what it was, served as a useful diversion from far more important issues. Such as the 19,000 emails released from the DNC database showing that the party chiefs had preordained Clinton’s presidential nomination over her Democrat rival Bernie Sanders. Much-vaunted «US democracy» was exposed as a fraud, and so the Washington establishment quickly went into damage-limitation mode by smearing Russia. It was the whistleblower site Wikileaks, run by Australian journalist Julian Assange, that released the embarrassing emails. It had nothing to do with Russia. Assange has since hinted that his source was within the Democrat party itself. This is where it gets really explosive. Assange has vowed to release more emails that will prove that Clinton as Secretary of State back in 2011-2012 masterminded the supply of weapons and money to Islamist terror networks in Libya and Syria for the objective of regime change. Furthermore, Assange says that the emails prove that Clinton lied under oath to Congress when she denied in 2013 that she was had any involvement in facilitating arms to the jihadists. Assange has said that Wikileaks is going to publish the incriminating emails on Clinton’s alleged gun-running to terrorists this month. If the evidence stands up, Clinton could be prosecuted for perjury as well as treason in aiding and abetting official terrorist enemies of the US.

The enforcement of a “no-fly” zone in Syria would mean a US war with both Syria and Russia, the top US uniformed commander told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spelled out the grave implications of the policy advocated by both predominant sections within the Republican Party as well as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton amid rising violence in Syria and increasing pressure by Washington on the Russian government to unilaterally agree to grounding its own aircraft as well as those of the Syrian government. Secretary of State John Kerry has repeatedly demanded that Russia adhere to what would essentially be a one-sided “no-fly” zone under conditions in which US warplanes would continue carrying out airstrikes. Kerry presented his proposal as a means of reviving and restoring “credibility” to a ceasefire agreement that he and the Russian Foreign Minister negotiated on September 9. This cessation of hostilities collapsed less than a week after its implementation in the face of hundreds of violations by US-backed Islamist “rebels” who have refuse to accept its terms, as well as two major back-to-back attacks.

The first was carried out by US and allied warplanes one week ago against a Syrian army position, killing as many as 90 Syrian soldiers and wounding another 100. Washington claimed that the bombing was a mistake, but Syrian officials have pointed to what appeared to be a coordination of the airstrike with a ground offensive by Islamic State (also known as ISIS) fighters who briefly overran the bombed position.

The United States government has already declared that in regards to what it alleges to be a Russian cyberattack against the U.S. Democratic Party, the U.S. reserves the right to go to war against Russia. NATO has accordingly changed its policy so as to assert that a cyberattack (in this case actually cyber-espionage, such as the U.S. government itself perpetrates against even its own allies such as Angela Merkel by tapping her phone) constitutes an act of war by the alleged cyberattacker, and so requires all NATO member nations to join any cyberattacked NATO nation in war against its alleged (cyber)attacker, if the cyberattacked member declares war against its alleged cyberattacker. Excuses are being sought for a war against Russia; and expanding the definition of “invasion,” to include mere espionage, is one such excuse. But it’s not the only one that the Obama Administration has cooked up. U.S. Senator Mike Lee has asserted that President Barack Obama must obtain a declaration of war against Syria — which is allied with and defended by Russia — before invading Syria. Syria has, for the past few years, already been invaded by tens of thousands of foreign jihadists (financed mainly by the royal Sauds and Qataris, and armed mainly with U.S. weaponry) who are trying to overthrow and replace the Syrian government so that pipelines can be built through Syria into Europe to transport Saudi oil and Qatari gas into the EU, the world’s biggest energy-market, which now is dominated by Russia’s oil and gas. Since Syria is already being defended by Russia (those royals’ major competitor in the oil and gas markets), America’s invasion of Syria would necessarily place U.S. and Russia into an air-war against each other (for the benefit of those royal Arabs — who finance jihadist groups, as even Hillary Clinton acknowledges): Syria would thus become a battleground in a broader war against Russia. So: declaring war against Syria would be a second excuse for World War III, and one which would especially serve the desires not only of U.S. ‘defense’ firms but of the U.S. aristocracy’s royal Arabic allies, who buy much of those ‘defense’ firms’ exports (weaponry), and also U.S. oilfield services firms such as pipelines by Halliburton. (It’s good business for them, no one else. Taxpayers and war-victims pay, but those corporations — and royal families — would profit.)

The U.S. government also declares that Russia ‘conquered’ Crimea in 2014 and that Russia must restore it to Ukraine. The U.S. government wants Ukraine to be accepted into NATO, so that all NATO nations will be at war against Russia if Russia doesn’t return Crimea to Ukraine, of which Crimea had only briefly (1954-2014) been a part, until Crimeans voted on 16 March 2014 to rejoin Russia. This Crimean issue is already the basis for America’s economic sanctions against Russia, and thus Russia’s continuing refusal to coerce Crimeans to accept again being part of Ukraine would be yet a third excuse for WW III.

Hillary Clinton says “As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack.” She alleges that when information was unauthorizedly made public from Democratic National Committee computers, the cyberattacker was Russia. She can be counted as a strong proponent of that excuse for WW3. She’s with Barack Obama and the other neocons on that. She has furthermore said that the U.S. should shoot down any Russian and Syrian bombers in Syria — the phrase for that proposed U.S. policy is to “establish a no-fly zone” there. She makes clear: “I am advocating the no-fly zone.” It would be war against not only Syria, but Russia. (After all: a no-fly zone in which the U.S. is shooting down the government’s planes and Russia’s planes, would be war by the U.S. against both Syria and Russia, but that’s what she wants to do.) She can thus be counted as a strong proponent of those two excuses for WW3.

Two psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who were contracted by the CIA to develop torture techniques, agreed to a confidential settlement with torture survivors. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued Mitchell and Jessen on behalf of Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and the family of Gul Rahman. The lawsuit alleged the CIA contractors committed crimes that included water torture, forcing prisoners into boxes, and chaining prisoners in painful stress positions to walls.

Mitchell, Jessen, and plaintiffs agreed to release the following joint statement: Drs. Mitchell and Jessen acknowledge that they worked with the CIA to develop a program for the CIA that contemplated the use of specific coercive methods to interrogate certain detainees.” Plaintiff Gul Rahman was subjected to abuses in the CIA program that resulted in his death and in pain and suffering for his family. Plaintiffs Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud were also subjected to coercive methods in the CIA program, which resulted in pain and suffering for them and their families. Plaintiffs assert that they were subjected to some of the methods proposed by Drs. Mitchell and Jessen to the CIA and stand by their allegations regarding the responsibility of Drs. Mitchell and Jessen. Drs. Mitchell and Jessen assert that the abuses of Mr. Salim and Mr. Ben Soud occurred without their knowledge or consent and that they were not responsible for those actions. Drs. Mitchell and Jessen also assert that they were unaware of the specific abuses that ultimately caused Mr. Rahman’s death and are also not responsible for those actions.” Drs. Mitchell and Jessen state that it is regrettable that Mr. Rahman, Mr. Salim, and Mr. Ben Soud suffered these abuses.

The settlement comes after Judge Justin Quackenbush denied a last-ditch effort by Mitchell and Jessen to get the lawsuit dismissed. They invoked the cases of accused Nazi war criminals to argue they should not be held responsible for the torture techniques they developed. Quackenbush was not persuaded by the contractors’ arguments and suggested a “finder of fact” might conclude that since they were at secret detention sites they “exercised significant control during individual interrogations.”

On Tuesday, March 7th, Russia’s top parliamentarian dealing with the Ukrainian refugee influx into Russia — dealing, that is, with the people who have fled Ukraine as a result of U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2014 coup overthrowing Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych — presented the first-ever comprehensive number of asylum-applicants from Ukraine who have received asylum there after that February 2014 coup. The Russian government had never before publicly provided a number, but does have an established system of processing refugees, including assignment of official refugee status, which «allows the recipient various social benefits, including unemployment compensation» and so each Ukrainian refugee has a file with the government. As reported by Tass:  Russia has received more than 2,500,000 refugees since the outbreak of the conflict in eastern Ukriane, Yuri Vorobyov, Deputy Speaker of Russia’s Federation Council (upper house of parliament) and Chairman of the Committee for Public Support to Residents of Southeastern Ukraine, said on Tuesday.

One of the most bizarre aspects of the all-consuming Russia frenzy is the Democrats’ fixation on changes to the RNC platform concerning U.S. arming of Ukraine. The controversy began in July when the Washington Post reported that “the Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform won’t call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces.” Ever since then, Democrats have used this language change as evidence that Trump and his key advisers have sinister connections to Russians and corruptly do their bidding at the expense of American interests. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke for many in his party when he lambasted the RNC change in a July letter to the New York Times, castigating it as “dangerous thinking” that shows Trump is controlled, or at least manipulated, by the Kremlin. Democrats resurrected this line of attack this weekend when Trump advisers acknowledged that campaign officials were behind the platform change. This attempt to equate Trump’s opposition to arming Ukraine with some sort of treasonous allegiance to Putin masks a rather critical fact: namely, that the refusal to arm Ukraine with lethal weapons was one of Barack Obama’s most steadfastly held policies. The original Post article that reported the RNC platform change noted this explicitly:

A new Afghanistan war strategy approved last month by President Donald Trump's top military and national security advisers would require at least 50,000 U.S. forces to stop the advance of the Taliban and save the government in Kabul, according to a classified U.S. intelligence community assessment.U.S. intelligence and national security officials familiar with the assessment tell me that it was drafted in April, and that it provided estimates of necessary troop strengths for various strategic options. But it found that if an ambitious war plan approved by the National Security Council's principals committee got a green light from the president -- a big if -- more than 50,000 U.S. troops would be needed.That proposed strategy, which I wrote about earlier this month, would place the U.S. on a new war footing and in a deeper partnership with the Afghan government in its current campaign against the Taliban. It would also remove arbitrary timelines for withdrawal set by President Barack Obama. The new estimate from the intelligence community envisions significantly more U.S. forces in Afghanistan than the current levels of around 8,400 U.S. troops currently fighting there. It is also more than the modest troop increase for Afghanistan of around 5,000 that was reported last week.  

link By Malia Zimmerman Published May 16, 2017 Fox News Facebook Twitter Comments Email Print Now Playing Rod Wheeler on his investigation into DNC staffer's murder The family of the Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned down on July 10 on a Washington, D.C., blasted reports that he was a source of emails leaked to WikiLeaks. Rod Wheeler, a retired Washington homicide detective and Fox News contributor investigating the case on behalf of the Rich family, made the WikiLeaks claim, which was corroborated by a federal investigator who spoke to Fox News.

Wheeler made his comments on the possible Rich-Wikileaks connection in a story first reported Monday night by Fox 5 DC.  In an appearance on Fox News' "Hannity" Tuesday night, Wheeler said a "federal investigator that was involved on the inside of the case" saw Rich's computer and the case file. Wheeler told host Sean Hannity the investigator "came across [as] very credible. When you look at that, with the totality of everything else that I found in this case, it’s very consistent for a person with my experience to begin to think, 'Well, perhaps there were some email communication between Seth and Wikileaks.'"

But a spokesman for Rich's family on Tuesday said Wheeler was not authorized to speak for the family and called assertions Seth Rich sent emails to WikiLeaks "unsubstantiated." Brad Bauman said even if purported emails were to surface, it would not necessarily mean Rich had helped WikiLeaks.

Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates decided to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar over Doha’s sponsorship of terrorism and implement a number of sanctions including the closing of land, sea and air routes, and the expulsion of Qatari citizens. The development is consistent with the new U.S. administration’s declared goal to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE accuse Qatar of undermining the stability of the region by supporting terrorism, including a number of terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and affiliated group, the Taliban, and others. Authorities in these four countries have also given Qataris living in and visiting their countries two weeks to leave.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, has removed Qatar from the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in neighboring Yemen. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also closed all of its borders “and urged all brotherly countries and companies to do the same.” That said, Saudi Arabia will still allow citizens from Qatar to enter the kingdom to perform the Hajj pilgrimage.

On Tuesday, the U.S.-allied militias that have been encircling Raqqa – the de facto stronghold of Daesh – announced that they had formed a “civilian council” to govern Raqqa after its capture from Daesh militants. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed militia that comprises a large number of Syrian Kurds, claim to have spent six months setting up the council, with a preparatory committee having met “with the people and important tribal figures of Raqqa city to find out their opinions on how to govern it,” Middle East Eye reported. SDF spokesman Talal Selo stated that some towns near Raqqa had already been turned over to the council following a successful operation to drive out Daesh forces. The U.S. military had previously hinted that power would be given to rebel groups following Raqqa’s “liberation” when the head of U.S. Central Command General Joseph Votel told the Senate in early March that military officials anticipated “that America’s allies will need assistance preventing their [Daesh’s] return and establishing Syrian-led peacekeeping efforts” after a successful operation. Considering that the Syrian government is far from being one of “America’s allies,” Votel’s statement implied that the U.S.-backed militias would be given control of Raqqa and the surrounding area, despite the implications this would have for Syrian sovereignty and further destabilization in the war-torn country. As MintPress previously reported, Votel also told senators that “conventional U.S. forces would be required to stabilize the region once ISIS fighters are flushed from Raqqa,” meaning that the current U.S. troop build-up around Raqqa is by no means a temporary deployment, but rather the foundation for creating a standing army.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Friday that the Senate Intelligence Committee needs to review the evidence linking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to a chemical-weapons attack that prompted Thursday night’s missile strike by the U.S. On the surface, Paul said, it makes no sense for Assad to use chemical weapons. He was winning the six-year-old civil war, had the support of Russian troops on the ground, and, just days earlier, received a public statement from U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that regime change was not America’s goal.

“He’s either the dumbest dictator in the world, or it may be more confusing,” Paul said on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”

The post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere have been fought with borrowed money, enough to require up to $8 trillion in interest payments in coming decades, a new report says. Unlike America’s previous wars, its 21st-century conflicts have been paired not with a tax hike or massive sale of U.S. bonds, but a tax cut. The federal government has been operating at a deficit since 2002, accruing a national debt that now totals $20 trillion and counting. “We have to recognize that we have been borrowing for 16 years to pay for military operations,” said Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It’s the “first time really in history with any major conflict that we have borrowed rather than ask people to contribute to the national defense directly, and the result is we’ve got this huge fiscal drag…that we’re not really accounting for or factoring into deliberations about fiscal policy as well as military policy.” The 2017 report from Brown University’s Costs of War Project arrives as U.S. lawmakers and President Donald Trump strive to enact tax changes that will add at least $1.5 trillion to the national debt.

Senate Republicans are reportedly banking on the testimony of a "secret informant" to deepen their investigation into Hillary Clinton's role in the 2010 sale of uranium assets to Russia, Reuters reported Thursday. The GOP's source — a former FBI informant and lobbyist for the U.S.-based unit of Rosatom, a Russian-owned nuclear power company — will appear before the upper chamber as part of the probe into the so-called Uranium One deal. Although the Senate committee did not reveal the witness' name, former lobbyist William D. Campbell identified himself to Reuters. "I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist and I have it," Campbell said. Campbell was once a "star witness" in an FBI case against a Rosatom, until his credibility and motivations as an informant were called into question by defense attorneys. President Trump has repeatedly claimed that Uranium One's sale was approved by Clinton's State Department in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation, and deal skeptics point to the fact that the Clinton Foundation received $145 million in donations from owners of Uranium One. In a statement to Reuters, Rosatom noted that the State Department is only one of nine government agencies that had to approve the sale.

S-400 and Pantsir-S anti-aircraft weapon systems will remain in Syria despite the recently announced withdarawal of Russian forces, Viktor Bondarev, former Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces and Chairman of the Defense, and Security Committee of Russia’s Federation Council revealed on December 13. According to the Russian state-run news agency TASS, Russia is not going to reduce its anti-aircraft capabilities in the country. Some number of helicopters, warplanes and military personnel still involved in the ongoing anti-terrorist efforts will also remain.

Yemen’s cholera epidemic has reached one million suspected cases, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday, with war leaving more than 80 percent of the population short of food, fuel, clean water and access to healthcare.

Yemen, one of the Arab world’s poorest countries, is embroiled in a proxy war between the Houthi armed movement, allied with Iran, and a U.S.-backed military coalition headed by Saudi Arabia. SponsoredThe United Nations says Yemen is suffering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and eight million people are on the brink of famine.

A new wave of cholera is expected in March or April. “It’s probably unavoidable. We need to be ready to face another big epidemic,” said Poncin, adding that cholera may become a long-term burden as it has in Haiti. “The places where the war is active are the ones most at risk for increase of disease.” The latest emergency is diphtheria, a disease not seen in Yemen for 25 years, which has affected 312 people and killed 35. It has not spread explosively, as cholera did, but diphtheria outbreaks can affect many thousands, and there is a global shortage of diphtheria anti-toxin. Yemen has enough for 200-500 patients, Poncin said.