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It’s clear that Russia’s bombardment of jihadi groups operating near the Turkish-Syrian border has Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan worried. Erdogan has long hoped that the area would be turned into a Safe Zone where Sunni militants– committed to removing Assad from power– could receive weapons and other support from their sponsors while coming and going as they pleased. The Russian-led coalition’s attempt to retake the area and seal the border to stop the flow of terrorists from Turkey, is probably what precipitated the attack on the Russian warplane. It was a desperate attempt to wave-off the Russian offensive and reverse the course of the war which has turned decisively in Assad’s favor. As for the militant groups that are operating in this area, analyst Pepe Escobar sums it up like this in a recent post at Sputnik News: “The Su-24s were actually after Chechens and Uzbeks — plus a few Uyghurs — smuggled in with fake Turkish passports (Chinese intel is also on it), all of these operating in tandem with a nasty bunch of Turkish Islamo-fascists. Most of these goons transit back and forth between the CIA-weaponized Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Jabhat al-Nusra. These were the goons who machine-gunned the Russian pilots as they parachuted down after the hit on the Su-24…. Turkey, for all practical purposes, has been a handy, sprawling Salafi-jihadi Infrastructure and Logistics Center; it offers everything from porous borders enabling countless jihadi return tickets from Syria to Europe, facilitated by corrupt police, to a convenient crossroads for all kinds of smuggling and a hefty money laundering ops.” (Sultan Erdogan’s War on…Russia, Pepe Escobar, Sputnik)

Escobar sums up Ankara’s role in Syria as succinctly as anyone. Erdogan has been ISIS best friend, of that, there is little doubt. The problem that Turkey faces now is that the Russian-led coalition is rapidly destroying the infrastructure that provides funding for ISIS, (oil refineries, fields and transport) while gradually retaking territory that was formally-controlled by the many anti-regime or al Qaida-linked groups in the north, west and central parts of the country. In the last few days alone, Russia and Co. have concluded the encirclement of Syria’s biggest city, Aleppo, vaporized a convoy of over 500 oil trucks in the vicinity of Raqqa, and intensified their bombing in the Turkmen Mountains, the Kurdish Mountains, and the Prophet Jonah Mountains. The coalition has moved as far north as Azaz along the Turkish border and recaptured the strategic Aleppo-Raqqa highway which completely cuts off ISIS supply-route from the east in Raqqa. All of the recent progress comes in the wake of the retaking of the strategic Kuweris Airbase which was the tipping point in the 4 and a half year-long conflict. Now the Russian coalition has focused on closing the border, a move that will sever vital supply-lines to pro-Turkish militias operating in Syria and force the terrorists to either flee or surrender. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized this point last week saying, “We are convinced that by blocking the border we will in many respects solve the tasks to eradicate terrorism on Syrian soil.”

Keep in mind, that Erdogan is not the only one with designs on the so-called “Afrin-Jarabulus corridor” east of the Euphrates. Powerful politicians in the US, including John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton and others, have all alluded to this area as the most suitable location for a no-fly zone. And, despite the fact that Obama refuses to send US ground forces to fight in Syria, he has continued to fuel the conflict in other less conspicuous ways. Just last Wednesday, under the cover of the Thanksgiving holiday when the media was preoccupied with other matters, Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2016 which provides another $800 million in aid to armed extremists in Syria and Ukraine. The NDAA, which effectively prevents the closing down of US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), reflects Obama’s determination to continue Washington’s vicious policy in Syria which has resulted in the deaths of more than 250,000 and the displacement of 11 million more. This helps to explain why the Russian offensive has set alarms off in Washington; it’s because the US plan to establish a permanent staging ground for terrorists in N Syria is quickly going up in smoke.

Seen in this light, Obama’s recent request for Turkey to deploy “30,000 (troops) to seal the border on the Turkish side”, (See: Wall Street Journal) should be viewed with extreme skepticism. Clearly, Washington has not relented in its “Assad must go” policy at all, in fact, Obama reiterated that mantra less than a week ago. That means the Obama crew may be hoping that Turkish ground forces can succeed where his jihadi proxies failed, that is, that the 30,000 troops will be used to clear and hold a 60×20-mile stretch of Syrian territory that can be used as the proposed safe zone. All Turkey would need is a pretext to invade and a little bit of air cover from the USAF. It wouldn’t be the first time a false flag was used to start a war. The bottom line is this: Putin had better move quickly before Washington and Ankara get their ducks in a row and begin to mobilize. The time to seize the border is now.

There have been reports about mass desertations of ISIL fighters who reportedly “shaved off their beards and got rid of their Afghan uniform”. A local source told nsnbc that a large contingent of ISIL fighters in plain clothes and their families are fleeing toward Deir Ez-Zor in Syria where ISIL has a stronghold.

It was, in fact, the accidental one-hour-long bombing of Syrian troops in Deir Ez-Zor by US-led coalition forces that killed about 90 Syrian soldiers and enabled ISIL to briefly recapture a key position near Deir Ez-Zor Airport. It was this “accident” that, among others, led to the collapse of US – Russian talks on Syria. The leader of the predominantly Christian Al-Hashd al-Shaabi militia a.k.a. the Babylon Brigades, stressed on Monday that the US-led international coalition air forces did not target ISIS convoys as they fled from Mosul towards Syria. Ryan al-Kildani the group’s Secretary-General, stressed his astonishment about the fact that the US-led coalition air forces let ISIL fighters slip away to Syria.

More importantly however, is what kind of message an US statement like that sends to ISIS, as well as Al Nusra and other terrorist brigades inside Syria, which is basically, “we do not need to worry about US air strikes, only Syrian Army and Russian strikes.” This situation really sums up the utter fraud and contempt of the US deception in Syria, and it’s no surprise that the Russian Foreign Ministry are reticent to extend themselves any more where the US is concerned. Then, in March 2016, when ISIS fled Palmyra, back across the desert towards Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa – the great and powerful US ‘Coalition’ airforce actually helped ISIS in a number of ways, including allowing them free passage once more. In late August, we were told that the Turkish Army, alongside “allied Syrian rebels” (terrorist group Faylaq al-Sham) backed by the US air cover, invaded Syria in order to capture the “ISIS-held” town of Jarabulus, Syria, this supposedly to cut off ISIS’s last open route into Turkey. But what happened to ISIS? The NYT even admitted that, “… it appeared that most of the militants had fled without a fight.” Here, ISIS appears to have been given advanced warning – by either US or Turkish intelligence, as they left the contested town of Jarabulus quietly, but in droves. In reality, Turkey twisted this operation in order to attack and degrade Kurdish militias including the US-backed artificial construct called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and pro-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian affiliate of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq and Turkey – all of whom are meant to be fighting ISIS. Instead, they are now busy dodging Turkish artillery rounds. Confusing, yes, but true nonetheless.

It’s also common knowledge now, that top of the line US weaponry is being used by ISIS, both in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Syria as well. In fact, if not for US weapons and supplies (along with US air intervention, or noninterventions), ISIS would have struggled to maintain many of the strategic positions it enjoys today. For the last 3 years, US officials have been dodging this issue, and when they do admit this is true, their patronizing party line is that, “this must be a mistake, if they do have US weapons, we didn’t mean it.” As if the world was born yesterday. Perhaps the most flagrant violation by the US-led forces in aiding and abetting ISIS took place on Sept 17, 2016, when the US-led Coalition bombed Syrian Army positions outside of Deir ez-Zor near al-Tharda Mountain, killing some 80 soldiers and injuring 100 more.  As if by design, an ISIS offensive began immediately following the US massacre of Syrian soldiers. Clearly, this bold move by the Pentagon paved the way for a major ISIS advance. To any normal observer, the US attack was a belligerent act of war that effective destroyed an already fragile bilateral ceasefire agreement, and yet the US response was to somehow blame Russia for calling an emergency UNSC meeting to discuss the incident. Judging by this response, it’s pretty clear that US wants to see the Syrian Conflict carry on for a while, and it will need groups like ISIS to make that happen.

The other problem with Washington’s hollow righteousness in the Middle East is that there are key members of the US-led “Coalition” who are financing ISIS, Al Nusra Front, Nour al Din Zinki, and Arar al Sham (all ‘moderate’ terrorists we’re told) militants in Syria, Iraq and beyond. This fact was recently admitted by former US Secretary of State and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, as revealed in this week’s batch of Wikileaks emails. Clinton writes: “While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”  Add to that the multiple exposures over the last 3 years of the US CIA illegally trafficking lethal arms to Al Nusra and other terrorists through covert operations like Timber Sycamore. Still, US and NATO member state officials and their media gatekeepers continue to deny it and play dumb, rather than come clean that the United States and its ‘partners’ in the region are helping, not hindering ISIS terrorism. Some might ask: why would they do a thing like that? By now, the answer should be simple, but threefold:

ISIS is still one of Washington’s best hope for continuing instability, and “regime change” in Syria. The existence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq guarantees that Washington can invite itself to the party.  The ISIS brand has been a boon for the global military industrial complex and all of its bottom-feeder businesses and ‘security’ contract firms. What’s so comical yet even more tragic, is how prominent the topic of “ISIS” factors into all of the vapid ‘national security’ debates and media panels in this year’s US Presidential election, and in the dumbed-down ‘coverage’ of the delusional US mainstream media, led by Pentagon surrogate CNN, and hopeless FOX News. Judging by their prosaic ‘coverage’, neither the networks, nor Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump have the slightest clue of what the reality on the ground is. Instead we here, “My ISIS plan is better than yours!” The US political conversation has gone beyond ridiculousness. The corps of US military and CIA media spokesman aren’t much better. The sad part is some of them do know what is really happening, but would rather lie to the American public. With so much double dealing, who can you trust? Certainly not anyone in Washington. More on the White House’s latest dangerous proposition….

A good plan when your overall aim is to create an obedient mercenary statelet in the center of the Middle East. As the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency wrote in 2012: THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME. But this plan requires to fight the Syrian and Russian air-forces which will do their utmost to defend the SAA group and the 100-200,000 ISIS besieged Syrian civilians in Deir Ezzor. The the U.S. and its allies may be willing to do that. A well known British Tory member of parliament already made noise that British fighter jets should be free to shoot down Russian planes in Syria. The U.S. had claimed that British planes took part in the Deir Ezzor ambush. The defenders of Deir Ezzor lack their own air defenses. The Russian systems at the Syrian west-coast can not reach that far east. The Syrian system are mostly positioned to defend Damascus and other cities from attacks by Israel. Russia recently talked about delivering 10 new Pantsyr-S1 short-to-medium range air defense systems to Syria. At least two of those should be airlifted to Deir Ezzor as soon as possible.

UPDATE: I was just made aware of a recent speech by Hizbullah leader Nasrallah who smells the same stinking plot: Sayyed Nasrallah said that the Americans intend to repeat Fallujah plot when they opened a way for ISIL to escape towards eastern Syria before the Iraqi warplanes targeted the terrorists’ convoy, warning that the same deceptive scheme is possible to be carried out in Mosul.

All the .mil conspiracy theory folks (me) knew why those ships were sent into the straits. The only thing we couldn't figure out was what kind of false flag the U.S. would use to Tomahawk Yemen because nobody would believe the Houthis would be dumb enough to fire on a U.S. missile cruiser. They hate the U.S., but have no reason to rattle our cage THAT much. They fired on the UAE-contracted Swift because it was bringing armor and weapons to Saudi puppet Hadi's forces in Yemen. Attacking a U.S. missile destroyer accomplishes absolutely nothing for them. When the Houthis heard the USS Mason and Nitze were attacked, they thought it was a joke. They denied any such attack as preposterous, asking the obvious question: "Why the hell would we ever do that? But it gets a little better for us in tinfoil hat land. This post by someone looking for images of deleted Tweets sums it up nicely: https://twitter.com/teddy_cat1/status/786333929309556736 Few hours before Reuter's announcement of a U.S. Navy destroyer came under missile attack off Yemen on Sunday, Saudi official accounts on tweeter like Journalist Fahd Kamely and Saudi-24 News had tweeted that the Royal Saudi Naval Forces targeted what they thought to be an Iranian ship for suspicion of supplying Houthis with weapons! They immediately deleted their tweets following this announcement, but many people have saved a picture for those tweets before being deleted and since then are circulating them on tweeter...

So we know the U.S. Navy lied when they said the missiles came from Yemen. The RSNF most likely did launch the missiles and used the 'Iranian arms smuggling' as a cover story in case anyone noticed. The U.S. destroyers were never targeted or in danger, but probably did use the occasion to test their anti-missile defenses. All this set up the false flag, providing Obama and excuse to order the U.S. Navy to Tomahawk the Yemeni coastal radars at the behest of some pissed-off UAE emir (likely a Clinton Foundation donor).

a 3-year ongoing CIA program (here, here, and here) all along the Turkish-Syrian border to "monitor" and "arm" "moderate" militants fighting the Syrian government, the US claims it was caught "by surprise." If drones and CIA operatives operating in ISIS territory weren't enough to detect the impending invasion, perhaps the CIA should have just picked up a newspaper.Indeed, the Lebanon Daily Start in March 2014 reported that ISIS openly withdrew its forces from Latakia and Idlib provinces in western Syria, and redeployed them in Syria's east - along the Syrian-Iraqi border. The article titled, "Al-Qaeda splinter group in Syria leaves two provinces: activists," stated explicitly that: On Friday, ISIS – which alienated many rebels by seizing territory and killing rival commanders – finished withdrawing from the Idlib and Latakia provinces and moved its forces toward the eastern Raqqa province and the eastern outskirts of the northern city of Aleppo, activists said.

The NEO report includes links to the US Army’s West Point Countering Terrorism Center reports, “Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa’ida’s Road In and Out of Iraq,” and “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq,” which detail extensively the terror network used to flood Iraq with foreign terrorists, weapons, and cash to fuel an artificial "sectarian war" during the US occupation, and then turned over to flood Syria with terrorists in the West's bid to overthrow the government in Damascus. What's ISIS Doing in Iraq? The NEO report would also post Seymour Hersh's 2007 article, "The Redirection," documenting over the course of 9 pages US, Saudi, and Israeli intentions to create and deploy sectarian extremists region-wide to confront Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hersh would note that these "sectarian extremists" were either tied to Al Qaeda, or Al Qaeda itself. The ISIS army moving toward Baghdad is the final manifestation of this conspiracy, a standing army operating with impunity, threatening to topple the Syrian government, purge pro-Iranian forces in Iraq, and even threatening Iran itself by building a bridge from Al Qaeda's NATO safe havens in Turkey, across northern Iraq, and up to Iran's borders directly. Labeled "terrorists" by the West, grants the West plausible deniability in its creation, deployment, and across the broad spectrum of atrocities it is now carrying out.  

It is a defacto re-invasion of Iraq by Western interests - but this time without Western forces directly participating - rather a proxy force the West is desperately attempting to disavow any knowledge of or any connection to. However, no other explanation can account for the size and prowess of ISIS beyond state sponsorship. And since ISIS is the clear benefactor of state sponsorship, the question is, which states are sponsoring it? With Iraq, Syria, and Iran along with Lebanese-based Hezbollah locked in armed struggle with ISIS and other Al Qaeda franchises across the region, the only blocs left are NATO and the GCC (Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular).

With the West declaring ISIS fully villainous in an attempt to intervene more directly in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, creating a long desired "buffer zone" within which to harbor, arm, and fund an even larger terrorist expeditionary force, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and others are offered an opportunity to preempt Western involvement and to crush the ISIS - cornering and eliminating NATO-GCC's expeditionary force while scoring geopolitical points of vanquishing Washington's latest "villain." Joint Iraq-Iranian operations in the north and south of ISIS's locations, and just along Turkey's borders could envelop and trap ISIS to then be whittled down and destroyed - just as Syria has been doing to NATO's proxy terrorist forces within its own borders.Whatever the regional outcome may be, the fact is the West has re-invaded Iraq, with a force as brutal, if not worse than the "shock and awe" doctrine of 2003. Iraq faces another difficult occupation if it cannot summon a response from within, and among its allies abroad, to counter and crush this threat with utmost expediency.

A simple search at reveals that MH17 was in fact diverted 200 kilometers north from the usual flight path taken by Malaysia Airlines in the previous days - and plunged right in the middle of a war zone. Why? What sort of communication MH17 received from Kiev air control tower? Kiev has been mute about it. Yet the answer would be simple, had Kiev released the Air Traffic Control recording of the tower talking to flight MH17; Malaysia did it after flight MH370 disappeared forever. It won't happen; SBU security confiscated it. So much for getting an undoctored explanation on why MH17 was off its path, and what the pilots saw and said before the explosion. The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, has confirmed that a Kiev-controlled Buk anti-aircraft missile battery was operational near the MH17's crash. Kiev has deployed several batteries of Buk surface-to-air missile systems with at least 27 launchers; these are all perfectly capable of bringing down jets flying at 33,000 ft.

Radiation from a battery's Kupol radar, deployed as part of a Buk-M1 battery near Styla (a village some 30km south of Donetsk) was detected by the Russian military. According to the ministry, the radar could be providing tracking information to another battery which was at a firing distance from MH17's flight path. The tracking radar range on the Buk system is a maximum of 50 miles. MH17 was flying at 500 mph. So assuming the "rebels" had an operational Buk and did it, they would have had not more than five minutes to scan all the skies above, all possible altitudes, and then lock on. By then they would have known that a cargo plane could not possibly be flying that high. For evidence supporting the possibility of a false flag, check here.

And then there's the curiouser and curiouser story of Carlos, the Spanish air traffic controller working at Kiev's tower, who was following MH17 in real time. For some Carlos is legit - not a cipher; for others, he's never even worked in Ukraine. Anyway he tweeted like mad. His account - not accidentally - has been shut down, and he has disappeared; his friends are now desperately looking for him. I managed to read all his tweets in Spanish when the account was still online - and now copies and an English translation are available. These are some of his crucial tweets: "The B777 was escorted by 2 Ukrainian fighter jets minutes before disappearing from radar (5.48 pm)" "If the Kiev authorities want to admit the truth 2 fighter jets were flying very close a few minutes before the incident but did not shoot down the airliner (5.54)" "As soon as the Malaysia Airlines B777 disappeared the Kiev military authority informed us of the shooting down. How did they know? (6.00)"

"Everything has been recorded on radar. For those that don't believe it, it was taken down by Kiev; we know that here (in traffic control) and the military air traffic control know it too (7.14)" "The Ministry of the Interior did know that there were fighter aircraft in the area, but the Ministry of Defense didn't. (7.15)" "The military confirm that it was Ukraine, but it is not known where the order came from. (7.31)" Carlos's assessment (a partial compilation of his tweets is collected here http://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/spanish-air-controller-kiev-borispol-airport-ukraine-military-shot-down-boeing-mh17/ ): the missile was fired by the Ukraine military under orders of the Ministry of Interior - NOT the Ministry of Defense. Security matters at the Ministry of the Interior happen to be under Andriy Parubiy, who was closely working alongside US neo-cons and Banderastan neo-nazis on Maidan.

Assuming Carlos is legit, the assessment makes sense. The Ukrainian military are divided between Chocolate king President Petro Poroshenko - who would like a d?tente with Russia essentially to advance his shady business interests - and Saint Yulia Timoshenko, who's on the record advocating genocide of ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine. US neo-cons and US "military advisers" on the ground are proverbially hedging their bets, supporting both the Poroshenko and Timoshenko factions. So who profits? The key question remains, of course, cui bono? Only the terminally brain dead believe shooting a passenger jet benefits the federalists in Eastern Ukraine, not to mention the Kremlin. As for Kiev, they'd have the means, the motive and the window of opportunity to pull it off - especially after Kiev's militias have been effectively routed, and were in retreat, in the Donbass; and this after Kiev remained dead set on attacking and bombing the population of Eastern Ukraine even from above. No wonder the federalists had to defend themselves.

And then there's the suspicious timing. The MH17 tragedy happened two days after the BRICS announced an antidote to the IMF and the World Bank, bypassing the US dollar. And just as Israel "cautiously" advances its new invasion/slow motion ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Malaysia, by the way, is the seat of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, which has found Israel guilty of crimes against humanity. Washington, of course, does profit. What the Empire of Chaos gets in this case is a ceasefire (so the disorganized, battered Kiev militias may be resupplied); the branding of Eastern Ukrainians as de facto "terrorists" (as Kiev, Dick Cheney-style, always wanted); and unlimited mud thrown over Russia and Putin in particular until Kingdom Come. Not bad for a few minutes' work. As for NATO, that's Christmas in July. From now on, it all depends on Russian intelligence. They have been surveying/tracking everything that happens in Ukraine 24/7. In the next 72 hours, after poring over a lot of tracking data, using telemetry, radar and satellite tracking, they will know which type of missile was launched, where from, and even produce communications from the battery that launched it. And they will have access to forensic evidence.

Unlike Washington - who already knows everything, with no evidence whatsoever (remember 9/11?) - Moscow will take its time to know the basic journalistic facts of what, where, and who, and engage on proving the truth and/or disproving Washington's spin. The historical record shows Washington simply won't release data if it points to a missile coming from its Kiev vassals. The data may even point to a bomb planted on MH17, or mechanical failure - although that's unlikely. If this was a terrible mistake by the Novorossiya rebels, Moscow will have to reluctantly admit it. If Kiev did it, the revelation will be instantaneous. Anyway we already know the hysterical Western response, no matter what; Russia is to blame. Putin is more than correct when he stressed this tragedy would not have happened if Poroshenko had agreed to extend a cease-fire, as Merkel, Hollande and Putin tried to convince him in late June. At a minimum, Kiev is already guilty because they are responsible for safe passage of flights in the airspace they - theoretically - control. But all that is already forgotten in the fog of war, tragedy and hype. As for Washington's hysterical claims of credibility, I leave you with just one number: Iran Air 655.

A later memo, from September 2011, asserts that Sarkozy urged the Libyans to reserve 35% of their oil industry for French firms — Total in particular — when he traveled to Tripoli that month. In the end, however, Italy’s Eni came out ahead with Russian and Chinese firms biding their time, even as the Libyan oil production plummeted because of the civil war. The veracity of the memos’ content is difficult if not impossible to ascertain. While Levy has long been a controversial figure in France, the council was riven by internal rivalries. Younis himself was assassinated in July 2011 — at Jalil’s urging according to an Aug. 8 memo to Clinton. And Drumheller himself has courted controversy for his role in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, with liberals celebrating him as a truth-teller and conservatives saying he helped concoct some of the false information he later debunked.

French spymasters’ role in Libya has been alluded to before, most notably in the 2012 book “The Truth About our War in Libya” by French historian Jean-Christophe Notin. That book said Henry-Levy’s role in the French decision to go to war had been overblown. “All has not been said about this war, because it has only had one narrator: Bernard-Henri Levy,” Notin told L’Express magazine. “Yes, he was one of the Libyans’ interlocutors. But his telling glosses over not only the coalition’s military exploits, but also the underground work of diplomatic and military officials on the ground, sometimes for quite some time, in Libya.” Other memos released June 22 give credence to the notion that Sarkozy was determined from the start of the uprising to get rid of Gadhafi, despite earlier efforts to court him after he abandoned his weapons program and sought closer ties with the West. A March 20 memo, for instance, states that Sarkozy “plans to have France lead the attacks on [Gadhafi] over an extended period of time” and “sees this situation as an opportunity for France to reassert itself as a military power.”

Here’s a partial reading list of essential reporting on torture in Iraq and Afghanistan: Senate Report on Abuses of Military Detainees (2008): http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/pdf/12112008_detaineeabuse.pdf Haditha Killings by Tim McGirk: http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1174649,00.html Taguba Report on Abuses at Abu Ghraib: https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/torturefoia/released/TR3.pdf Abu Ghraib Abuses by Seymour Hersh: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib Special Forces in Afghanistan by Matt Aikens: http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/a-team-killings-afghanistan-special-forces Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treament (See especially chapter 3): http://detaineetaskforce.org/report/ “The Dark Side” by Jane Mayer: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dark-Side-Inside-American/dp/0307456293

“None of Us Were Like This Before” by Joshua Phillips: http://www.amazon.com/None-Were-Like-This-Before/dp/1844678849 The Killing of Dilawar by Carlotta Gall: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/04/international/asia/04AFGH.html “Pay Any Price” by James Risen (See especially Chapter 7): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pay-any-price-james-risen/1117916812?ean=9780544341418 “Dirty Wars” by Jeremy Scahill (a founder of The Intercept): http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Wars-The-World-Battlefield/dp/156858671X “How to Break a Terrorist” by Matthew Alexander: http://www.amazon.com/How-Break-Terrorist-Interrogators-Brutality/dp/B0085S1S5K “The Black Banners” by Ali Soufan: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Banners-Inside-Against-al-Qaeda/dp/0393079422 “Kandahar’s Mystery Executions” by Anand Gopal: http://harpers.org/archive/2014/09/kandahars-mystery-executions/ “No Good Men Among the Living” by Anand Gopal: http://www.amazon.com/No-Good-Men-Among-Living/dp/0805091793

Of course, these "extremist groups" who "espouse a militant vision of Islam" and are "sympathetic to Al Qaeda," describe the "Islamic State" verbatim. ISIS constitutes NATO's mercenary expeditionary force, ravaging its enemies by proxy from Libya in North Africa to Lebanon and Syria in the Levant, to Iraq and even to the borders of Iran. Its seemingly inexhaustible supply of weapons, cash, and fighters can only be explained by multinational state sponsorship and safe havens provided by NATO ISIS' enemies - primarily Syria, Hezbollah, Iran, and Iraq - cannot strike. DW's report specifically notes how ISIS terrorists regularly flee certain demise in Syria by seeking safe haven in Turkey.  One of NATO's primary goals since as early as 2012, was to use various pretexts to expand such safe havens, or "buffer zones," into Syrian territory itself, protected by NATO military forces from which "rebels" could operate. Had they succeeded, DW camera crews would probably be filming convoys staging in cities like Idlib and Allepo instead of along Turkey's border with Syria. 

With the documented conspiracy of the US and its allies to create a sectarian mercenary force aligned to Al Qaeda, the so-called "moderate rebels" the US has openly backed in Syria now fully revealed as sectarian extremists, and now with DW documenting a torrent of supplies originating in Turkey, it is clear that the ISIS menace NATO poses as the solution to, was in fact NATO all along. What is  revealed is a foreign policy so staggeringly insidious, few are able to believe it, even with international broadcasters like DW showing ISIS' supply lines leading from NATO territory itself.