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In the spring of 2014, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) put out the call to whistleblowers within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide an inside perspective on the issues the Department was facing. In our 34-year history, POGO has never received as many submissions on a single issue. Nearly 800 current and former VA employees and veterans from 35 states and the District of Columbia contacted us. POGO reviewed each of the submissions, and found that concerns about the VA go far beyond long or falsified wait times for medical appointments; they extend to the quality of health care services veterans receive. A recurring and fundamental theme became clear: VA employees across the country fear they will face repercussions if they dare to raise a dissenting voice. POGO wrote a letter to Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson in July last year, highlighting three specific cases of current or former employees who agreed to share details about their personal experiences of retaliation.[1] In California, a VA inpatient pharmacy supervisor was placed on administrative leave and ordered not to speak out after protesting “inordinate delays” in delivering medication to patients and “refusal to comply with VHA regulations.” In one case, he said, a veteran’s epidural drip of pain control medication ran dry, and another veteran developed a high fever after he was administered a chemotherapy drug after its expiration point.

In Pennsylvania, a former VA doctor told POGO that he had been removed from clinical work and forced to spend his days in an office with nothing to do. This action occurred after he complained that, in medical emergencies, physicians who were supposed to be on call were failing or refusing to report to the hospital. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) shared his concerns, writing “[w]e have concluded that there is a substantial likelihood that the information that you provided to OSC discloses a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety.”[2] In Appalachia, a former VA nurse told POGO she was intimidated by management and forced out of her job after she raised concerns that patients with serious injuries were being neglected. In one case she was reprimanded for referring a patient to the VA’s patient advocate after weeks of being unable to arrange transportation for a medical test to determine if he was in danger of sudden death. “Such an upsetting thing for a nurse just to see this blatant neglect occur almost on a daily basis. It was not only overlooked but appeared to be embraced,” she said. She also pointed out that there is “a culture of bullying employees….It’s just a culture of harassment that goes on if you report wrongdoing,” she said.

That culture doesn’t appear to be limited to just one or two VA clinics. Some people, including former employees who are now beyond the reach of VA management, were willing to be interviewed by POGO and to be quoted by name, but others said they contacted us anonymously because they are still employed at the VA and are worried about retaliation. One put it this way: “Management is extremely good at keeping things quiet and employees are very afraid to come forward.” This kind of fear and suppression of whistleblowers who report wrongdoing often culminates in the larger problems, as the VA is currently experiencing. By now it is well known that employees who recently raised concerns about veteran wait times faced reprisal. But whistleblower retaliation in the VA is nothing new. In 1992 a congressional report detailed the experiences of VA employees who were harassed or fired after reporting problems.[3] Throughout the 1990s there were several congressional hearings conducted on the quality of care at VA hospitals and on reprisal against VA employees who exposed inadequate care.[4] Despite then-Secretary Togo D. West’s declaration that such reprisals would not be tolerated, a House hearing in 1999 found that the reprisal problems still existed.[5] A Government Accountability Report from 2000 found that many VA employees were unaware of their rights to protections against retaliation for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing.[6] The report also found that the majority of employees feared retaliation and were therefore unwilling to report misconduct.

In a move designed to retaliate against efforts in Congress to start an investigation into Russian media outlet RT, the Russian State Duma has called for the information and telecommunication committee to launch its own investigation into US media outlets to see if they are violating Russian law in any way. The order singled out three outlets, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, both run by the federal government, and CNN, which is owned by major US media outlet Time Warner. The order came at the behest of Konstantin Zatulin, from the ruling United Russia party, and he was quite clear this was a response to the moves against RT. While CNN is sort of a wild card in all of this, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe are roughly the American equivalent of RT, and were launched by the US government back during the Cold War specifically with an eye toward shifting international public opinion in a way favorable to the US, and unfavorable to the Soviet Union.

It’s unclear whether the Russian inquiry will go anywhere, though since it is overtly an attempt to retaliate, it will likely depend heavily on whether the US ends up doing anything against RT, and likely will just remain in motion as a threatened tit-for-tat move.

President Obama has directed the Pentagon to develop an expanded list of potential targets in Syria in response to intelligence suggesting that the government of President Bashar al-Assad has been moving troops and equipment used to employ chemical weapons while Congress debates whether to authorize military action.

For the first time, the administration is talking about using American and French aircraft to conduct strikes on specific targets, in addition to ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles. There is a renewed push to get other NATO forces involved.

The strikes would be aimed not at the chemical stockpiles themselves — risking a potential catastrophe — but rather the military units that have stored and prepared the chemical weapons and carried the attacks against Syrian rebels, as well as the headquarters overseeing the effort, and the rockets and artillery that have launched the attacks, military officials said Thursday. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that other targets would include equipment that Syria uses to protect the chemicals — air defenses, long-range missiles and rockets, which can also deliver the weapons.

The tensions between Russia and the USA have reached an unprecedented level. I fully agree with the participants of this CrossTalk show – the situation is even worse and more dangerous than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both sides are now going to the so-called “Plan B” which, simply put, stand for, at best, no negotiations and, at worst, a war between Russia and the USA.

In theory, these are, very roughly, the possible levels of confrontation: A military standoff à la Berlin in 1961. One could argue that this is what is already taking place right now, albeit in a more long-distance and less visible way. A single military incident, such as what happened recently when Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 and Russia chose not to retaliate. A series of localized clashes similar to what is currently happening between India and Pakistan. A conflict limited to the Syrian theater of war (say like the war between the UK and Argentina over the Malvinas Islands). A regional or global military confrontation between the USA and Russia. A full scale thermonuclear war between the USA and Russia During my years as a student of military strategy I have participated in many exercises on escalation and de-escalation and I can attest that while it is very easy to come up with escalatory scenarios, I have yet to see a credible scenario for de-escalation. What is possible, however, is the so-called “horizontal escalation” or “asymmetrical escalation” in which one side choses not to up the ante or directly escalate, but instead choses a different target for retaliation, not necessarily a more valuable one, just a different one on the same level of conceptual importance (in the USA Joshua M. Epstein and Spencer D. Bakich did most of the groundbreaking work on this topic).

The main reason why we can expect the Kremlin to try to find asymmetrical options to respond to a US attack is that in the Syrian context Russia is hopelessly outgunned by the US/NATO, at least in quantitative terms. The logical solutions for the Russians is to use their qualitative advantage or to seek “horizontal targets” as possible retaliatory options. This week, something very interesting and highly uncharacteristic happened: Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, openly mentioned one such option. Here is what he said: “As for Kirby’s threats about possible Russian aircraft losses and the sending of Russian servicemen back to Russia in body bags, I would say that we know exactly where and how many “unofficial specialists” operate in Syria and in the Aleppo province and we know that they are involved in the operational planning and that they supervise the operations of the militants. Of course, one can continue to insist that they are unsuccessfully involved in trying to separate the al-Nusra terrorists from the “opposition” forces. But if somebody tries to implement these threats, it is by no means certain that these militants will have to time to get the hell out of there.” Nice, no? Konashenkov appears to be threatening the “militants” but he is sure to mention that there are plenty of “unofficial specialists” amongst these militants and that Russia knows exactly where they are and how many of them there are. Of course, officially, Obama has declared that there are a few hundred such US special advisors in Syria. A well-informed Russian source suggests that there are up to 5’000 foreign ‘advisors’ to the Takfiris including about 4’000 Americans. I suppose that the truth is somewhere between these two figures.

Just two days after news broke of an alleged poison-gas attack in northern Syria, President Trump brushed aside advice from some U.S. intelligence analysts doubting the Syrian regime’s guilt and launched a lethal retaliatory missile strike against a Syrian airfield.

Trump immediately won plaudits from Official Washington, especially from neoconservatives who have been trying to wrestle control of his foreign policy away from his nationalist and personal advisers since the days after his surprise victory on Nov. 8. There is also an internal dispute over the intelligence. On Thursday night, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. intelligence community assessed with a “high degree of confidence” that the Syrian government had dropped a poison gas bomb on civilians in Idlib province. But a number of intelligence sources have made contradictory assessments, saying the preponderance of evidence suggests that Al Qaeda-affiliated rebels were at fault, either by orchestrating an intentional release of a chemical agent as a provocation or by possessing containers of poison gas that ruptured during a conventional bombing raid. One intelligence source told me that the most likely scenario was a staged event by the rebels intended to force Trump to reverse a policy, announced only days earlier, that the U.S. government would no longer seek “regime change” in Syria and would focus on attacking the common enemy, Islamic terror groups that represent the core of the rebel forces.

The source said the Trump national security team split between the President’s close personal advisers, such as nationalist firebrand Steve Bannon and son-in-law Jared Kushner, on one side and old-line neocons who have regrouped under National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, an Army general who was a protégé of neocon favorite Gen. David Petraeus. White House Infighting In this telling, the earlier ouster of retired Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser and this week’s removal of Bannon from the National Security Council were key steps in the reassertion of neocon influence inside the Trump presidency. The strange personalities and ideological extremism of Flynn and Bannon made their ousters easier, but they were obstacles that the neocons wanted removed. Though Bannon and Kushner are often presented as rivals, the source said, they shared the belief that Trump should tell the truth about Syria, revealing the Obama administration’s CIA analysis that a fatal sarin gas attack in 2013 was a “false-flag” operation intended to sucker President Obama into fully joining the Syrian war on the side of the rebels — and the intelligence analysts’ similar beliefs about Tuesday’s incident. Instead, Trump went along with the idea of embracing the initial rush to judgment blaming Assad for the Idlib poison-gas event. The source added that Trump saw Thursday night’s missile assault as a way to change the conversation in Washington, where his administration has been under fierce attack from Democrats claiming that his election resulted from a Russian covert operation. If changing the narrative was Trump’s goal, it achieved some initial success with several of Trump’s fiercest neocon critics, such as neocon Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, praising the missile strike, as did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The neocons and Israel have long sought “regime change” in Damascus even if the ouster of Assad might lead to a victory by Islamic extremists associated with Al Qaeda and/or the Islamic State.

a few hours ago that joke of a rating agency, Standard & Poor's, which also earlier announced it was "affirming" France at an AA rating making it very clear it will no longer accept being sued for telling the truth and downgrading sovereigns or otherwise have its offices abroad raided, not only upgraded Cyprus from B- to B (please deposits your funds in Cyprus banks now: they are safe, S&P promises), but - far more importantly - delivered a political message to the Kremlin, and downgraded Russia from BBB to BBB-, one short notch away from junk status. This was the first downgrade of Russia by S&P since December 2008.

Russia's response was prompt. First, in retaliation to the downgrade, Russian economy minister Alexei Ulyukaev said S&P’s downgrade of Russia’s rating was expected by investors, won’t significantly change their behavior, adding the obvious that the decision to cut Russia’s rating was partly political, partly based on economic situation. In other words, entirely symbolic - it is not as if Russia has access to bond markets anyway, plus as we wrote earlier this week in "Why Putin Is Smiling At The Bond Market's Blockade Of Russia", it is not as if it needs them. But far more importantly, and ahead of yet another round of western sanctions which appears imminent unless Obama is to look even more powerless than he currently is (granted, a difficult achievement), Russian presidential adviser Sergei Glazyev proposed plan of 15 measures to protect country’s economy if sanctions applied, Vedomosti newspaper reports, citing Glazyev’s letter to Finance Ministry. According to Vedomosti as Bloomberg reported, Glazyev proposed:

Russia should withdraw all assets, accounts in dollars, euros from NATO countries to neutral ones Russia should start selling NATO member sovereign bonds before Russia’s foreign-currency accounts are frozen Central bank should reduce dollar assets, sell sovereign bonds of countries that support sanctions Russia should limit commercial banks’ FX assets to prevent speculation on ruble, capital outflows Central bank should increase money supply so that state cos., banks may refinance foreign loans Russia should use national currencies in trade with customs Union members, other non-dollar, non-euro partners In other words, a full-blown scorched earth campaign by Russia.

In a $100 million lawsuit that has garnered virtually no public attention, five National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblowers are accusing the federal government of illegally retaliating against them for alerting the NSA and Congress to a waste of taxpayer funds that benefitted a well-connected contractor.The lawsuit tells the story of the infancy of the NSA’s efforts to surveil the Internet. Back then, there were two programs for the spying agency to choose from — and the first was called ThinThread. It had been developed internally, was comparatively inexpensive, had been tested and proven to be effective, and included safeguards preventing the spying on Americans without a court warrant. The other was called Trailblazer. It did not include such safeguards, had not yet been shown to be effective, and cost 1,000 times more than ThinThread. Instead of being developed internally, it was to be outsourced to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a politically connected contractor.The NSA chose Trailblazer.

In response, four NSA employees who had worked on ThinThread, as well as a congressional staffer, alerted Congress and the Office of the Inspector General of the NSA that the agency was wasting taxpayer funds. That is when their troubles began, according to the lawsuit.It alleges that the defendants, which include the NSA, FBI, and the Department of Justice, as well as individuals associated with them, “knowingly and intentionally fabricated” a claim that the plaintiffs leaked classified information to New York Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen.“[The defendants] used this fabricated claim for retaliation, illegal searches and seizures, physical invasion of their residences and places of business, temporary false imprisonment, the confiscation of their property, cancellation of security clearances leading to the loss of their jobs and employment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment and intimidation,” the lawsuit alleges.It also states that the defendants should have known that the plaintiffs were not the leaks because the NSA “was tracking all domestic telephone calls for the supposed purpose of protecting national security.”

The plaintiffs are former NSA employees Thomas Drake, Ed Loomis, J. Kirk Wiebe, William Binney, and former congressional staffer Diane Roark. They seek “punitive damages in excess of $100 million because of Defendants [sic] callous and reckless indifference and malicious acts …” as well as well as an additional $15 million for lost wages and to cover costs.Larry Klayman, the prominent conservative public interest attorney and founder of Judicial Watch, filed the suit on August 20th. However, it is expected to be amended this week, and it is possible that additional publicity for the case will be sought then.

It appears that the Russians got tired of waiting.  I suggest that you all carefully parse the Statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs I posted earlier today.  This is an interesting document because besides an explanation of the Russian decision to move it, it is also, potentially, a legal defense or an unprecedented Russian decision: to overtly violate the Ukrainian sovereignty.  Let me explain. First, the case of Crimea was also a "special case".  The Russian were legally present there and, in the Russian rationale, all the "Polite Armed Men in Green" did was to protect the local population to make it possible for the latter to freely express its will.  Only after that will was expressed did Russia agree to formally re-incorporate Crimea into Russia.  So from the legal Russian point of view, none of the Russian actions in Crimea included any form of  violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.  I know, most western analyst will not agree, but that is the official Russian stance.  And official stances are important because they form the basis for a legal argument.

Second, the aid which Russia has been sending to Novorussia has been exclusively covert.  Covert operations, no matter their magnitude, do not form the basis for a legal position.  The official position of Moscow has been that not only was there absolutely no military aid to Novorussia, but even when Ukie artillery shells landed inside Russia did the Kremlin authorize any retaliation, again in (official) deference to the Ukrainian national sovereignty. This time, however, there is no doubt at all that the Russians did deliberately and officially chose to ignore Kiev and move in.  Now, in fact, in reality, this is clearly the logically, politically and morally right thing to do.  But in legal terms, this clearly a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.  From a legal point of view, the Ukies had the right to keep the Russian convoy at the border for another 10'000 years if they wanted and Russia had no legal right to simply move in.  What apparently happened this morning is that the Ukie officials did not even bother showing up, so the Kremlin just said "forget it!" and ordered the trucks in.

The US and their main agent in Kiev, Nalivaichenko, immediately and correctly understood the threat: not only did this convoy bring much needed humanitarian aid to Lugansk, it also provided a fantastic political and legal "cover" for future Russian actions inside Novorussia.  And by "actions" I don't necessarily mean military actions, although that is now clearly and officially possible.  I also mean legal actions such as recognizing Novorussia.  From their point of view, Obama, Poroshenko, Nalivaichenko are absolutely correct to be enraged, because I bet you that the timing, context and manner in which Russia moved into Novorussia will not result in further sanctions or political consequences.   Russia has now officially declared the Ukie national sovereignty as "over" and the EU will probably not do anything meaningful about it. That, by itself, is a nightmare for Uncle Sam. Furthermore, I expect the Russian to act with a great deal of restraint.  It would be stupid for them to say "okay, now that we violated the territorial integrity of the Ukraine and ignored its sovereignty we might as well bomb the junta forces and move our troops in".  I am quite confident that they will not do that.  Yet.  For the Russian side, the best thing to do now is to wait.  First, the convoy will really help.  Second, it will become a headache for the Ukies (bombing this convey would not look very good).  Third, this convoy will buy enough time for the situation to become far clearer.  What am I referring to here?

Tomosaitis v. URS Inc.

Plaintiff filed suit against his employer (URS) and the DOE, alleging violations of the Energy Reorganization Act (ERA), 42 U.S.C. 5851(b)(4), whistleblower protection provision, and requested a jury trial. The district court partially dismissed the complaint, denied a jury trial, and granted summary judgment against plaintiff. The court held that before an employee may opt out of the agency process and bring a retaliation suit against a respondent in federal court, that respondent must have had notice of, and an opportunity to participate in, the agency action for one year. In this case, plaintiff's claim against DOE failed for lack of administrative exhaustion. The court concluded that the administrative exhaustion was sufficient as to URS E&C. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of URS Corp. for lack of administrative exhaustion. The court also concluded that, since plaintiff has shown that his protected activity was a "contributing factor" in the adverse employment action he suffered, he has met his burden for establishing a prima facie case of retaliation under the ERA. Further, the evidence created a genuine issue of fact as to whether plaintiff's compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment were affected by his transfer. The court reversed the grant of summary judgment to URS E&C for ERA whistleblower retaliation. Finally, the court held that plaintiff has a constitutional right to a jury trial for his claims seeking money damages against URS E&C and the court reversed the district court's ruling.

With cameras rolling, Turkey has claimed it has shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 attack aircraft. The New York Times in its article, “Turkey Shoots Down Russian Warplane Near Syria Border,” reports that: Turkish fighter jets on patrol near the Syrian border shot down a Russian warplane on Tuesday after it violated Turkey’s airspace, a long-feared escalation that could further strain relations between Russia and the West. The escalation is “long feared” not because the Turkish government actually fears that Russian warplanes crossing their border pose a threat to it or its people, but because Russia has ended NATO’s proxy war, a proxy war spearheaded in part by Turkey itself, amid Russia’s joint military operations with Syria against the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS) and supporting terrorist factions. In addition to having a camera rolling as the plane went down in flames, terrorists operating in region had allegedly surrounded the dead pilot shortly after the incident according to Reuters. While Turkey maintains that it was only reacting in self-defense – it was against a nation’s planes that it knew had no intention of attacking its territory – and what looks like instead was Turkey targeting planes operating along reoccurring routes and shooting one down once the pieces were in place to maximize the event politically.

For Russia’s part, it claims its plane had not even entered Turkish territory which would reveal Turkey’s actions as an outright act of war.

In recent weeks with Russian air support, Syrian troops have retaken large swaths of territory from ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist fighters. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has even begun approaching the Euphrates River east of Aleppo, which would effectively cut off ISIS from its supply lines leading out of Turkish territory. From there, Syrian troops would move north, into the very “safe zone” the US and its Turkish partners have long-sought but have so far failed to establish within Syria’s borders. This “safe zone” includes a region of northern Syrian stretching from Jarabulus near the west bank of the Euphrates to Afrin and Ad Dana approximately 90-100 kilometers west. Once Syrian troops retake this territory, the prospect of the West ever making an incursion into Syria, holding territory, or compromising Syria’s territorial integrity would be lost forever. Western ambitions toward regime change in Damascus would be indefinitely suspended. The endgame is at hand, and only the most desperate measures can hope to prevent Russia and Syria from finally securing Syria’s borders. Turkey’s provocation is just such a measure.

Reports on Saturday night that the USS Mason came under attack for the third time in less than a week off the coast of Yemen were quietly rolled back by the Pentagon, who have since noted they aren’t really sure about that, and reiterated today that they are still “assessing” the claim. Reports following the “attack” and the warship’s “retaliation” indicated that the Pentagon believed there was a strong possibility that no missiles were fired at the ship at all, and the detection of the missiles was the result of a radar malfunction. Despite it then following that there is a very real possibility that the Pentagon “retaliated” against a totally imagined attack, spokesman Peter Cook indicated that the retaliation amounted to an appropriate response to the situation. The US has repeatedly attacked Houthi targets along the Yemeni coast over this incident. It is unclear what the Pentagon is actually doing to “assess” whether the missiles fired at the USS Mason were real or not, but it appears the ship is being left parked off the Yemeni coast, despite initially being presented as just passing through into the Red Sea.

The dangerous brinkmanship pitting Israel against the alliance of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah has brought the region closer to war than at any time since the end of the July-August 2006 conflict. A combination of bellicose rhetoric, aggressive acts, warnings and threats set against the backdrop of Syria’s grueling civil war and its critical implications for the Middle East has revived the era of miscalculation after nearly seven years of calm and restraint, with potentially disastrous consequences, diplomats and observers say. In the past two weeks, Israel has confirmed its unprecedented policy of airstrikes against suspected Hezbollah arms caches in Syria with two more attacks in swift succession after the inaugural bombing in January. Syria has warned of an “automatic response” should Israel stage a fourth strike.

Israel upped the stakes by using Thursday’s edition of the New York Times to deliver a clear warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad that he would “risk forfeiting his regime” if he fulfilled the vow of retaliation to any further airstrikes. That same warning was delivered by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to CIA Director John Brennan Thursday.

Israel has sensed a window of opportunity opened by the war in Syria to attack Hezbollah arms supplies stockpiled in Syria, calculating that there will be no reaction while the Assad regime is fighting for its existence. This is an unprecedented act. Since the late 1990s, Israel has watched Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal grow in size and quality but never risked targeting the caches in Syria in case it sparked an escalation. So far, Israel’s calculation has paid off. But the tolerance threshold grows a little closer with each fresh airstrike. The Syrian authorities have warned that orders have been given to the army to launch an “automatic” – if unspecified – retaliation should the Israelis launch another airstrike into Syria.

Shortly before the US announcement of its decision to suspend talks with Russia on the ‘cessation of hostilities’ agreement reached by US Secretary State Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on 9th September 2016, a clearly well-sourced article setting out US options was published by Reuters. This article was clearly written on the basis of information provided by senior officials of the US government.  It confirms that “staff level” discussions are underway in the US in light of the collapse of the Kerry-Lavrov agreement and the Syrian army’s advances in Aleppo, though as of the date of publication of the Reuters article (29th September 2016) no suggestions of what to do had been made to Obama. Here is a list of the options apparently being considered (1) “supporting rebel counter attacks elsewhere with additional weaponry or even air strikes, which “might not reverse the tide of battle, but might cause the Russians to stop and think””; (2) “a U.S. air strike on a Syrian air base far from the fighting between Assad’s troops and rebel forces in the north” (the Syrian air base in question is probably the one at Deir Ezzor); (3) “sending more U.S. special operations forces to train and advise Kurdish and Syrian rebel groups”; (4) “deploying additional American and allied naval and airpower to the eastern Mediterranean, where a French aircraft carrier is already en route”.

Apparently the idea of supplying more shoulder held surface to air missiles to the Jihadis has been ruled out because “the Obama administration fears (they) could fall into the hands of Islamic State militants or al Qaeda-linked groups”. As for the idea of a no-fly zone (“a humanitarian airlift to rebel-held areas (NB: this almost certain refers to Aleppo – AM), which would require escorts by U.S. warplanes”) this has apparently been deemed “too risky” and has been “moved down the list”. This list of options exposes how completely out of options the US really is. 

Options (1) and (2) cannot influence the course of the fighting in Aleppo and US officials apparently admit as much.  On past experience option (1) is less likely to make the Russians “stop and think” than to make them more determined and more angry.  Option (3) is a case of more of the same.  The US has been doing this for years without achieving any results.  Option (4) is essentially symbolic unless it is intended to prepare the way for the declaration of a no-fly zone, which however US officials seem to be ruling out. If reports are to be believed the Russians may be taking more steps to guard against the possibility of the US declaring a no-fly zone.  Fox News is reporting US officials as saying that the Russians have reinforced the S400 anti aircraft missile system they have already deployed to Syria with a number of advanced S-300VM “Antey-2500″ anti aircraft systems.  Whilst the Russians have not confirmed this report, if it is true then it makes any US attempt to impose a no-fly zone even more risky.  A sign that the report probably is true is that the Kremlin is pointedly failing to deny it. The Russians have also pointedly reminded the US that they know the whereabouts of all US military personnel in Syria, including presumably those supposedly present in the various Jihadi headquarters (or “operations rooms”) existing in the country. 

Trump sensing Obama’s resort to violent retaliation against Russia, and the likelihood he would turn the gun to ‘Putin’s accomplice’, the President-elect decided to take precautionary measures, he replaced Obama’s secret service by his private security guards.

Conclusion We live in extraordinarily dangerous times. A deranged violent President is in command of a willing media and an intelligence apparatus ready and willing to obey. There is little doubt that the murder of the Russian Ambassador will be the beginning of a cycle of violent assassinations. It is certain that Putin and Trump will take the appropriate defensive measures. With a psychotic, frustrated and failed President refusing to concede defeat, we enter the beginning and most sinister period prior to his exit.

For as long as Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented human rights violations by Israel in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, it has also referred complaints to the Israeli military’s internal investigative unit. But this week, the nearly three-decade old human rights organization announced it will end its cooperation with Israel’s military law enforcement system. “As of today,” executive director Hagai El-Ad wrote in an emailed statement on 25 May, “we will no longer refer complaints to this system, and we will call on the Palestinian public not to do so either.” “We will no longer aid a system that whitewashes investigations and serves as a fig leaf for the occupation.” B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military’s investigations was not confined to filing complaints with the office of the Military Advocate General. The organization also assisted investigators to speak to Palestinians and Palestinian victims and obtain documents and medical records.

The decision to cease such work was announced alongside the publication of “The Occupation’s Fig Leaf: Israel’s Military Law Enforcement System as a Whitewash Mechanism.” The report examines the paucity of the army’s investigative efforts, that by design only probe the conduct of low-ranking soldiers. Orders are never placed under investigation, B’Tselem explains, only alleged breaches of orders. “B’Tselem’s cooperation with the military investigation and enforcement systems has not achieved justice, instead lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it,” the report states. The decision has been percolating for some time. B’Tselem first broke with its usual practice in 2014, when it refused to provide information to the military unit investigating “irregular” incidents during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that summer. Since the second intifada, B’Tselem has demanded investigations into 739 cases in which Palestinians were killed, injured, used as human shields or subjected to other abuses.

Only 25 led to charges against soldiers. Of the rest, in nearly 75 percent of cases, investigations were either never opened or closed without further action. The outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000 marked a change in how Israel viewed the legality of soldiers killing Palestinians. Whereas before Israel would investigate every case in which a soldier killed a Palestinian, until 2011 Israel “permitted the use of force – even lethal force – against those identified as being involved in the fighting or in terror activity in certain circumstances,” as former Military Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit wrote in 2010.

With Rex Tillerson on his way to Russia, moments ago Russian president Vladimir Putin shocked reporters when he said that Russia has received intelligence from “trusted sources” that more attacks using chemical weapons are being prepared on the Damascus region, meant to pin the blame on the Assad government. “We have information from various sources that such provocations — and I cannot call them anything else — are being prepared in other regions of Syria, including in the southern suburbs of Damascus, where they intend to plant some substance and blame the official Syrian authorities for its use,” Putin told a briefing. Russian President Putin announced that Russia will officially turn to the UN in the Hague for an investigation of the chemical weapons’ use in Idlib.  Moscow has dismissed suggestions that the Syrian government that it backs could be behind the attack in Idlib province.

“All incidents reminiscent of the ‘chemical attacks’ that took place in Idlib must be thoroughly investigated,” Putin said. Putin also pointed out that the latest US missile strikes in Syria bring to mind the United States’ UN Security Council address in 2003 that led to the invasion of Iraq, an address which has now been thoroughly debunked as using flawed information to garner global support for an invasion. “We discussed the situation with President [ of Italy Sergio Mattarella] and I told him that these events strongly resemble the events of 2003,” Putin said at a briefing, outlining the prelude to the US intervention in Iraq. The Russian president also slammed the Idlib attack, officially denouncing it as a “false flag” attack. Putin also said that there is no meeting with Tillerson currently on his schedule. Following Putin’s presser, Russian General Staff released a statement announcing that it has information of militants bringing poisonous substances to areas of Khan Shaykhun, West of Aleppo and Eastern Guta in Syria. Chief of the Russian General Staff Main Operational Directorate Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy said that the militants are trying to provoke new accusations targeted at Syrian government for alleged use of chemical weapons. The militants aim to incite the US to conduct new strikes, Rudskoy warned, adding that such measures are impermissible. He said that according to the Russian general staff new US airstrikes in Syria are unacceptable and that the Syrian forces posses no chemical weapons.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap? Precedence: IMMEDIATE We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.” We have been down this road before – with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandumimmediately after Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent “intelligence” to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled – or, at the least, very poorly advised.

The fraudulent nature of Powell’s speech was a no-brainer. And so, that very afternoon we strongly urged your predecessor to “widen the discussion beyond …  the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” We offer you the same advice today. Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public – and perhaps even you. We have observed John Brennan closely over recent years and, sadly, we find what our former colleagues are now telling us easy to believe. Sadder still, this goes in spades for those of us who have worked with him personally; we give him zero credence. And that goes, as well, for his titular boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has admitted he gave “clearly erroneous” sworn testimony to Congress denying NSA eavesdropping on Americans.

That Secretary of State John Kerry would invoke Clapper’s name this week in Congressional testimony, in an apparent attempt to enhance the credibility of the four-page “Government Assessment” strikes us as odd. The more so, since it was, for some unexplained reason, not Clapper but the White House that released the “assessment.” This is not a fine point. We know how these things are done. Although the “Government Assessment” is being sold to the media as an “intelligence summary,” it is a political, not an intelligence document. The drafters, massagers, and fixers avoided presenting essential detail. Moreover, they conceded upfront that, though they pinned “high confidence” on the assessment, it still fell “short of confirmation.”