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Pence Begins Presidential Campaign Unofficially
Eric Zuesse
On Wednesday, May 17th, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who has built his political career as both a fundamentalist Christian, and a client of the libertarian Koch brothers’ extensive fundraising network, made his unofficial but starting bid to become the U.S. President: he formed an organization to raise funds from billionaires and centi-millionaires, in order for Pence to be able to distribute those wealthy investors’ funds to Republican politicians (especially to ones in the U.S. Senate and House) whom Pence favors, and who might reasonably then be expected to return that favor by their supporting a Pence bid to become the U.S. President. Of course, the Presidency is the only American political office that's higher than Pence’s current one, the Vice Presidency.
Confrontation between militants plays into hands of Syrian army
Anna Jaunger
The Syrian Army continues to conduct its successful counter-terrorist operations. On May 14, after heavy fighting against ISIS, the government forces managed to take full control over al-Jarrah in eastern Aleppo. Undoubtedly, not only high spirit, cohesion and unity, but also panic in the ranks of the radicals contributes to the Syrian Army's success.
Thus, recently, the number of violent clashes between various radical groups once acting as a united front against the government of Bashar Assad, has increased. As a result, the real number of casualties among them has already reached hundreds of dead and seriously wounded.
The NYT Disgracefully Suggests North Korean Responsibility for Last Friday’s Global Malware Attack
Stephen Lendman
The Times provides daily reasons to ignore its disinformation and fake news.
Citing unnamed intelligence and private security officials, it claimed “new digital clues point to North-Korean-linked hackers as likely suspects” for what happened - while admitting no incriminating evidence exists, adding:
“(I)t could be weeks, (maybe) months, before investigators” learn the origin of attacks, possibly never knowing names of culprits. At this stage, blaming anyone for what happened is irresponsible - impossible to know unless and until reliable evidence is found. None so far exists.
US Political Schizophrenia
Stephen Lendman
The Mayo Clinic calls the disease “a severe mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally, (including) some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.”
It’s “a chronic condition, requiring lifelong treatment.” Symptoms include beliefs not based on reality - bad enough in people, potentially catastrophic for nuclear powers afflicted this way.
Vladimir Putin called America “political(ly) schizophreni(c),” - an out-of-control monster threatening world peace, my comment not his, though no doubt we’re likeminded.
US Wants Syria Balkanized and Destroyed
Stephen Lendman
Russian and US objectives are world’s apart in Syria. Moscow hopes de-escalation zones can be an important step toward conflict resolution, wanting them instituted nationwide, a major turning point if achieved.
Neocon policymakers in Washington want endless conflict, regime change, and Syrian sovereignty destroyed, balkanizing the country part of their scheme.
US special forces and marines in northern Syria, bordering Turkey, aided by US terror-bombing, want the territory split from Damascus.
A similar scheme is intended for southern Syria, bordering Jordan and Iraq, an unnamed Syrian military source saying government forces won’t let US-led Western and rogue regional allies create a buffer zone to be used as a safe haven for terrorists they support.
Russian-language Investia cited a military source, saying government forces intend securing control over parts of the Damascus road to Baghdad - to secure arms and munitions supplied from Iraq.
Putin’s Beijing Press Conference
Stephen Lendman
In Beijing for its Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and regional integration, Putin commented at length for reporters.
His remarks are always refreshingly candid and straightforward - polar opposite how duplicitous US-led Western leaders operate, why whatever he says is important and trustworthy.
The Kremlin web site said he “answered media questions following a working visit to the People’s Republic of China.”
Dispensing with opening remarks, he got straight to taking and answering questions. He stressed that nearly all officials in Beijing (including from North Korea) “see growing uncertainty in major political and economic power centres (including in America where anti-Trumpism rages and in troubled EU countries)…”
Israeli Minister Calls for Assassinating Assad
Stephen Lendman
The US/Israeli axis represents humanity’s greatest threat - serial aggressors, partners in high crimes, waging endless wars.
Today is the most perilous time in world history because of their sinister agenda - along with the threat NATO represents.
Housing and construction minister Yoav Galant formerly was an IDF general, heading its Southern Command, in charge of December 2008/January 2009 preemptive naked aggression on Gaza - later criticized by then-attorney general Yehuda Weinstein for illegally seizing public land, judged unfit to be IDF chief of staff.
Elected to the Knesset in 2015, he’s part of Netanyahu’s extremist regime. As housing and construction minister, he’s responsible for expanding illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land, ruthlessly displacing its legal occupants.
On Tuesday, he called for assassinating Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, fabricating accusations against him, saying he “does not have a place in this world.”
Trump’s Plan Finally Becomes Clear
Eric Zuesse
The first stage of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to restore America’s former dominance as a manufacturing country will be announced this coming weekend in Riyadh Saudi Arabia and Washington DC, but its outlines are now already more than clear. The biggest-ever foreign sale of U.S.-made weaponry will be announced at that time, and, according to a little-noticed report by Reuters on May 12th, an unidentified U.S. government official informed Reuters that "We are in the final stages of a series of deals,” whose size will be of truly extraordinary historic proportions.
Trump will announce during this, his first trip abroad as the U.S. President, starting on Friday May 19th, deals for the fundamentalist-Sunni government of Saudi Arabia to purchase more than $100 billion, and perhaps more even than $300 billion, in U.S.-made weaponry. The announced intention of Saudi princes is to defeat what they declare to be the ‘existential threat' they face from Iran and from Shia Islam, and so these weapons will presumably be used for ‘defense’ against the fundamentalist-Shiite government of Iran, and against any nation whose leader is Shiite (even if not fundamentalist, and including non-sectarian and even secular Shiite, such as Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad, and such as the Houthis in Yemen). The U.S. (especially the major investors in corporations such as Lockheed Martin) will therefore be in a position to profit from intensification of the wars in Syria and in Yemen, as well as from other national battlefields between Sunni and Shia. That’s the plan, and, on this basis, as soon as Trump won the 2016 election, he appointed to all of his national-security posts people who have solid records as being rabidly hostile, above all, towards Iran, and secondarily, toward Iran’s allies, such as Russia and Syria. (Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, was hostile, above all, toward Russia; her aim was to conquer it, which would entail unlimited spending on nuclear weapons. Trump’s plan is focused instead on unlimited spending on conventional weapons, and the deal that he has reached with the Sauds is designed specifically to supply them with that — not with nuclear.)
US Pursues Everything but the Right Things
Stephen Lendman
Churchill was wrong once saying “(y)ou can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they’ve tried everything else.”
In modern times especially, it’s consistently and recklessly on the wrong side of vital issues - notably on war and peace and responsible diplomatic relations with all countries. Its rage for unchallenged dominance is humanity’s greatest threat. Eventual nuclear war seems virtually certain if its recklessness isn’t halted - no simple task given neocon-infested Washington, trigger-happy for new conquests, permanently at war, peace and stability considered sissy and unpatriotic.
Hostility toward Russia shows no signs of ebbing, just the opposite. Phony accusations of US election meddling and witch-hunt investigations going nowhere persist.
Opposing Russia/US Aims in Syria
Stephen Lendman
Russia seeks conflict resolution, Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity protected, and the right of its people to decide who’ll lead them, free from foreign interference. Washington seeks regime change, why Obama launched aggression in 2011.
Generals delegated warmaking authority under Trump seek the same objective, wanting the Syrian Arab Republic destroyed, its leadership ousted, pro-Western puppet rule replacing it.
Russia’s de-escalation zone plan hopes to restore peace and stability to these areas - if successful, followed by instituting the plan nationwide.
According to Sergey Lavrov on Sunday, “several days ago, at the meeting in Astana, Russia, Turkey, Iran, the Syrian government and the armed opposition coordinated the memorandum, which sets such zones in four Syrian districts, meaning that this practice will be then extended to the rest part of the Syrian territory” - if things go as planned.
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