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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.”

Editor’s note: The author is a former CIA agent who was the first to confirm the agency’s secret waterboarding program and publicly describe it as “torture.” The government responded by charging him with leaking classified information to a reporter after which he was convicted and spent 30 months in a high-security federal prison from 2013 to 2015.

That brings us back to Gina Haspel. I have no doubt that she considers herself to be a patriot, as her supporters do. But that’s not the issue here. The issue is respect for the rule of law. Since the end of World War II, we have had laws in this country that specifically ban exactly those torture techniques implemented and overseen by Gina Haspel at a secret prison overseas. And the United States is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Indeed, we were the primary drafters of that measure, which, having been ratified by the Senate, has the force of law in the United States. If Gina Haspel had any doubts about her “orders” from the CIA hierarchy, she had only to look at recent history. Just after the end of World War II, the United States executed Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded American prisoners of war. Similarly, in January 1968, the Washington Post published a front-page photo of an American soldier waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered an investigation. The soldier was arrested, charged with torture, convicted, and sentenced to 20 years at Leavenworth. Torture was illegal in 1946. It was illegal in 1968. And it was illegal in 2002, no matter what Bush Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay Bybee said. The law was clear.

The United States deployed U.S. Marines to northeastern Syria to provide artillery support for local forces in the upcoming assault against Islamic State in Raqqa. Turkey criticized the U.S. for supporting Syrian YPG/YPJ forces which Turkey designates as PKK-linked terrorists. So far, the Syrian government has not officially criticized the deployment but complained that Turkish forces targeted Syrian troops in Manbij. Turkey, for its part, has launched major operations against the PKK.

The deployment of U.S. Marines to the region prompted disputes between Turkey and the United States. One of the central issues is the question whether U.S. troops should back the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which are dominated by the PYD and its military wings, the YPG and the all female YPJ, or whether the U.S. troops should back Turkish-led fighters under the umbrella of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA). The dispute happens as Turkish, Syrian, Russian, and U.S. troops and the various factions are preparing the assault on an estimated 4,000 fighters of the Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL, IS, Daesh) who are controlling the city of Raqqa. Any of these troops, the newly deployed U.S. Marines included, are entering a highly contested and highly congested theater. The contingent of U.S. Marines arrives Thursday. Their role is to provide artillery support, most probably for the SDF which already have U.S. Special Forces and “advisers” deployed among their ranks. After the arrival of the U.S. troops on Thursday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned that Turkish forces would strike the PYD’s YPG/YPJ forces in Manbij. This would imply that Turkey would carry out strikes against forces which already have Special Forces from Turkey’s NATO ally USA amidst their ranks. However, Cavusoglu argued that the Kurdish occupation of the town of Manbij and or Raqqa are a hindrance to what he describes as Turkish efforts to carve out a safe zone in northern Syria. Cavusoglu gave no deadline though for an attac but accused Washington of being confused in its planning for an attack on the IS stronghold of Raqqa.

The deployment marks an escalation of U.S. military involvement in Syria. Several hundred Special Operations troops have been advising the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Last weekend, some of those Special Forces, a hundred U.S. Rangers, deployed in Manbij in a bid to deter clashes between YPG fighters and Turkish-led fighters. The deployment comes as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump debates a Raqqa plan drafted by Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the U.S. commander overseeing the campaign against the Islamic State. However, on Thursday the top U.S. commander in the Middle East signalled that there will be a larger and longer American military presence in Syria, allegedly to accelerate the fight against the Islamic State group and quell friction within the complicated mix of warring factions there. Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, told Senators that he will need more conventional U.S. forces to insure stability once the fight to defeat Islamic State militants in their self-declared capital of Raqqa is over. The U.S. military, he said, can’t just leave once the fight is over because the Syrians will need help keeping IS out and ensuring the peaceful transition to local control.

Donald Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan is not an infrastructure plan and it won’t put $1 trillion of fiscal stimulus into the economy. It’s basically a scheme for handing over public assets to private corporations that will extract maximum profits via user fees and tolls. Because the plan is essentially a boondoggle, it will not lift the economy out of the doldrums, increase activity or boost growth.  Quite the contrary. When the details of how the program is going to be implemented are announced,  public confidence in the Trump administration is going to wither and stock prices are going to plunge.   This scenario cannot be avoided because the penny-pinching conservatives in the House and Senate have already said that they won’t support any plan that is not “revenue neutral” which means that any real $1 trillion spending package is a dead letter.  Thus, it’s only a matter of time before the Trump’s plan is exposed as a fraud and the sh** hits the fan.

Here are more of the details from an article at Slate: “Under Trump’s plan…the federal government would offer tax credits to private investors interested in funding large infrastructure projects, who would put down some of their own money up front, then borrow the rest on the private bond markets. They would eventually earn their profits on the back end from usage fees, such as highway and bridge tolls (if they built a highway or bridge) or higher water rates (if they fixed up some water mains). So instead of paying for their new roads at tax time, Americans would pay for them during their daily commute. And of course, all these private developers would earn a nice return at the end of the day.” (“Donald Trump’s Plan to Privatize America’s Roads and Bridges”, Slate) Normally, fiscal stimulus is financed by increasing the budget deficits, but Maestro Trump has something else up his sleeve.  He wants the big construction companies and private equity firms to stump up the seed money and start the work with the understanding that they’ll be able to impose user fees and tolls on roads and bridges when the work is completed.  For every dollar that corporations spend on rebuilding US infrastructure, they’ll get a dollar back via tax credits, which means that they’ll end up controlling valuable, revenue-generating assets for nothing. The whole thing is a flagrant ripoff that stinks to high heaven.   The corporations rake in hefty profits on sweetheart deals, while the American people get bupkis. Welcome to Trumpworld.  Here’s more background from Trump’s campaign website:

“American Energy and  Infrastructure Act Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over ten years. It is revenue neutral.” (Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter”) In practical terms, ‘revenue neutral’ means that every dollar of new spending has to be matched by cuts to other government programs.  So, if there are hidden costs to Trump’s plan, then they’ll have to be paid for by slashing funds for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps etc. But, keep in mind, these other programs are much more effective sources of stimulus since the money goes directly to the people who spend it immediately and help grow the economy. Trump’s infrastructure plan doesn’t work like that. A lot of the money will go towards management fees and operational costs leaving fewer dollars to trickle down to low-paid construction workers whose personal consumption drives the economy. Less money for workers means less spending, less activity and weaker growth.

According to a new poll, Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America. The Harvard-Harris survey, published first in The Hill, found almost 60 percent of Americans view the Vermont senator favorably. Among certain demographics, the progressive politician's ratings are even higher: 80 percent of Democratic voters, 73 percent of registered black voters, and 68 percent of registered Hispanic voters view Sanders favorably. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren also scored positively, with 38 percent approving of the liberal icon and only 32 percent disapproving. This isn't a marked change from prior polling. In late 2016, Sanders was also viewed as the lawmaker with the highest favorability ratings, earning  approval from more than 50 percent of the electorate.  The least popular political figure in America? Look to the White House, but not the Oval Office—though Donald Trump is 7 points underwater, 44/51. His beleaguered chief strategist, Steve Bannon, came in dead last in the survey. Only 16 percent give the former Breitbart publisher a thumbs-up, while a full 45 percent offer the opposite. "In losing to Hillary [Clinton], Bernie Sanders has floated above today's partisan politics while Bannon has, rightly or wrongly, taken the blame for the administration’s failures,” poll co-director Mark Penn from Harvard-Harris told The Hill. "Sanders is an asset to the Democrats while Bannon is a liability to the administration." Read the full findings of the poll here.

Trump is dirty, he’s fully compromised, but not in the way most of his critics assume. Both Trump and Bill Clinton were frequent fliers aboard the Lolita Express with Jeffery Epstein. Epstein is the billionaire pedophile who got busted running an elite child prostitution ring. Victims testified that Epstein had them sleep with rich and powerful men from around the world. They also said that he directed them to collect information on these men. He referred to this as “investing in people”.

f this deal: Prosecutors agreed not to bring far more serious federal charges against Epstein, and not to charge “potential co-conspirators”, including four named individuals. From the Guardian Trump’s name came up several times in this case, and in a separate criminal complaint which accused both Epstein and Trump of raping a minor.

The judge that let Epstein off with a slap on the wrist and protected the other predators was a man named Alexander Acosta. That would be the same Alexander Acosta that Trump nominated as Labor Secretary. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. Trump has tried to pretend that he hardly knew Epstein, but he made the following quote in an interview in 2002: “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Trump in 2002

It is early on in Abu Zubaydah’s time at a CIA black site. He insists to his interrogators that he has no additional information on jihadist operations planned against the US, but his captor won’t stop slapping him. Eventually a hood is placed over Zubaydah's head and he is placed into a confinement box by unseen security officers. He is told this is his new home until he’s prepared to provide information on operations against the US.Several physically stressful hours in the confinement box fail to elicit any intelligence, so Zubaydah’s captors place him in an even smaller box. He makes painful groans and is forced to scoot out of the box on his hindquarters when he’s finally allowed out. He is immediately made to stand and backed up against a wall. Two interrogators begin to double-team him with rapid-fire questions. Zubaydah is told that if he does not cooperate, he will only bring more misery on himself. Again he denies having any additional knowledge, but this time, he isn’t slapped. Instead, Zubaydah is hooded and a water board is brought into the cell.Zubaydah is the first post-9/11 detainee to be waterboarded, and this is his first session. He coughs and vomits. The waterboarding lasts for over two hours, but he still insists he does not have any additional information beyond that which he already provided to the FBI. He is then put into the larger confinement box, where he spends the rest of the evening. The interrogation process resumes in the morning: more slapping, zero new information, and more time in the smaller box.This was a summary of CIA documents obtained by AlterNet’s Grayzone Project. The records were originally obtained by Zubaydah’s defense team through the discovery process and were provided to me by a source familiar with the case who considered their publication critical to the public’s understanding of Zubaydah’s treatment. The vast majority of the documents have not been available to the public prior to this story.

As clinically detailed as they are gut-wrenching, the documents comprise hundreds of pages on the interrogation of Zubaydah, perhaps Guantanamo Bay’s most famous detainee. The files revealed here have renewed significance as Zubaydah has decided to testify about conditions at Guantanamo Bay despite the likelihood that it will imperil his legal situation. The records also highlight the methods of psychologist James Mitchell, a top architect of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program.” Though Mitchell had previously worked as an Air Force psychologist, the Senate “Torture Report” noted that he had no prior experience as an interrogator. Mitchell’s private contracting company had received over $80 million from the CIA by the time their contract was terminated in 2009. The contract was terminated because, as the CIA Inspector General put it, there was no reason to believe Mitchell’s interrogation techniques were effective or even safe.Mitchell and the US government originally believed Zubaydah to be a top leader of Al Qaeda who had knowledge of imminent plots against the US; however, the government would later concede that Zubaydah was never an Al Qaeda leader but still contend that he poses a threat. According to the US government, Zubaydah "possibly" knew in advance about the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.After his capture in Pakistan in 2002, Zubaydah was held in CIA black sites for four years where he was subjected to extended torture so intense he lost his left eye. Following his first waterboarding, he was subjected to the same form of torture 82 times. It is unclear the brutal methods applied to Zubaydah’s body elicited any valuable intelligence.

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.

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.

While the mainstream media has largely ignored it, the scandal surrounding Russian efforts to acquire 20% of America's uranium reserves, a deal which was ultimately approved by the Obama administration, and more specifically the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which included Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, is becoming more problematic for Democrats by the hour.  As The Hill pointed out earlier this morning, the latest development in this sordid tale revolves around a man that the FBI used as an informant back in 2009 and beyond to build a case against a Russian perpetrator who ultimately admitted to bribery, extortion and money laundering.  The informant, who is so far only known as "Confidential Source 1," says that when he attempted to come forward last year with information that linked the Clinton Foundation directly to the scandal he was promptly silenced by the FBI and the Obama administration.

Working as a confidential witness, the businessman made kickback payments to the Russians with the approval of his FBI handlers and gathered other evidence, the records show.   Sources told The Hill the informant's work was crucial to the government's ability to crack a multimillion dollar racketeering scheme by Russian nuclear officials on U.S. soil that involved bribery, kickbacks, money laundering and extortion. In the end, the main Russian executive sent to the U.S. to expand Russian President Vladimir Putin's nuclear business, an executive of an American trucking firm and a Russian financier from New Jersey pled guilty to various crimes in a case that started in 2009 and ended in late 2015.   Toensing added her client has had contact from multiple congressional committees seeking information about what he witnessed inside the Russian nuclear industry and has been unable to provide that information because of the NDA.   “He can’t disclose anything that he came upon in the course of his work,” she said.   The information the client possesses includes specific allegations that Russian executives made to him about how they facilitated the Obama administration's 2010 approval of the Uranium One deal and sent millions of dollars in Russian nuclear funds to the U.S. to an entity assisting Bill Clinton's foundation. At the time, Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of State on the government panel that approved the deal, the lawyer said.

In the midst of the new discoveries revealed yesterday about the Uranium One case (see: FBI Uncovered Russian Bribery Plot Before Obama Approved Uranium One Deal, Netting Clintons Millions), "Confidential Source 1" has once again hired an attorney, Victoria Toensing, a former Reagan Justice Department official and former chief counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to get his story out. Sitting down with The Hill earlier, Toensing said that the last time her client tried to speak out "both his reputation and liberty" were "threatened" by the Obama administration in a effort to force his silence.  “All of the information about this corruption has not come out,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “And so my client, the same part of my client that made him go into the FBI in the first place, says, 'This is wrong. What should I do about it?'”   Toensing said she also possesses memos that recount how the Justice Department last year threatened her client when he attempted to file a lawsuit that could have drawn attention to the Russian corruption during the 2016 presidential race as well as helped him recover some of the money Russians stole from him through kickbacks during the FBI probe.   The undercover client witnessed “a lot of bribery going on around the U.S.” but was asked by the FBI to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that prevents him from revealing what he knows to Congress, Toensing explained.   When he tried to bring some of the allegations to light in the lawsuit last year, “the Obama Justice Department threatened him with loss of freedom. They said they would bring a criminal case against him for violating an NDA,” she added.