by Stephen Lendman

Turkey under Erdogan partners with America’s imperial enterprise, both regimes operating more like international crime syndicates than legitimate nation-states, threatening world peace and security by their rage for power and profit.

It’s no secret both countries aid and abet ISIS. Washington uses its jihadists as imperial foot soldiers, terrorizing populations wherever they’re deployed, mainly in Syria and Iraq.

They operate freely because of key foreign backing (from America, Turkey, Britain, France, other NATO members, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan) - now for the first time challenged effectively by Russia’s righteous intervention, changing things dramatically on the ground.

Erdogan, his family members and other Turkish officials were caught red-handed, supporting ISIS, training and arming their fighters, complicit with CIA operatives and US special forces, providing them a key revenue source, smuggling stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil for refining on its territory and black market sales to regional markets.

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Eric Zuesse

Some of the world’s top Al Qaeda operatives were freed from a Lebanese prison on Tuesday December 1st, to rejoin the U.S.-led war against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

America’s anti-Assad ally, Qatar, the chief financiers of the Muslim Brotherhood, negotiated with the neutralist Lebanese government, to swap the 26 imprisoned Al Qaeda jihadists for 16 Lebanese soldiers who had been captured by Al Qaeda in Lebanon.

Lebanese and Syrian Al Qaeda are called Al Nusra. Al Nusra had captured these soldiers in Lebanon this past summer.

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by Stephen Lendman

Longstanding Times policy suppresses what’s most important to report - especially on issues of war and peace.

Its editorial policy supports naked US aggression - in Korea, Southeast Asia, the rape of Yugoslavia, and notably post-9/11.

Nothing about Washington’s support for ISIS is explained, creating and using its terrorists as imperial foot soldiers, especially in Iraq and Syria - heading wherever US policymakers intend deploying them destructively.

Instead of exposing America’s evil agenda, Times editors headlined “What It Will Take to Bankrupt ISIS,” avoiding the obvious answers:

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by Stephen Lendman

Turkey is one of many US imperial partners against world peace, stability and security - both nations waging endless wars of aggression, profiteering from grand theft.

Moscow documented Turkey’s involvement in refining and selling stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil - President Erdogan, his son, one or more other family members, and complicit regime officials profiting directly.

Putin blasted his lawless enterprise, along with supporting terrorists and committing an act of war by downing a Russian aircraft.

Washington rejects what’s clear for the whole world to see, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren calling Ankara a “great partner.”

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by Stephen Lendman

Britain is a longstanding US imperial partner, involved in virtually all its wars of aggression - four post-9/11.

It’s been covertly bombing Syrian targets jointly with US warplanes since last year, along with Israel, France, Canada and Australia - on the phony pretext of combating ISIS.

Now it’s official after parliament voted 397 to 223 for war (a nearly two-thirds majority), following nearly a half-day debate - dozens of Labour and Lib Dem MPs joining with hawkish Torries.

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s strong opposition didn’t help. In response to the vote, he twittered: “I have argued, and will continue to do so, that we should re-double our efforts to secure a diplomatic and political end to the conflict in Syria.”

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by Stephen Lendman

On Thursday, Putin delivered his 12th annual state of the nation address to Russia’s Federal Assembly, its bicameral legislature, and invited guests - at a time of grave danger to world peace.

America’s imperial wars head recklessly toward possible direct confrontation with Russia. Putin and other government officials understand the current threat. Free societies everywhere are at risk.

Putin began by thanking Russian military forces engaged in combating “international terrorism.” He expressed deep sorrow and respect for the widows and families of two fallen Russian servicemen - victims of Turkish aggression, OK’d and facilitated by Washington.

Its surveillance aircraft determined the flight path and coordinates of Russia’s Su-24 bomber enabling Erdogan to dispatch a warplane to down it - a clear act of war, aggression Putin won’t forgive or forget, nor will millions of ordinary Russians and Turks opposed to rogue state rule.

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by Stephen Lendman

Israeli viciousness has no limits. No high crimes are too heinous for its forces to commit - reflecting longstanding institutionalized racism, treating Palestinians brutally, the reason for courageous intifada resistance.

Palestinians have no safe havens. Fair game are attacks on schools, mosques, residential neighborhoods, fishermen at sea, farmers in their fields, children at play and hospitals, treating sick, wounded and dying patients - depraved acts committed by a ruthless regime unaccountably.

Its daily high crimes are so numerous, it’s hard keeping up - a recent one, involving an attack on Jerusalem’s Al-Makassed Hospital.

Soldiers rampaged through its wards, firing tear indiscriminately. Children, intensive care and other patients, as well as medical staff and visitors suffered the effects of toxic tear gas inhalation, potentially lethal at times, the sick and weak most vulnerable.

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By Michael Collins

By reinforcing the Turkish military presence along the routes of ISIS oil to Turkey, NATO is protecting the illicit ISIS oil trade that supports the reviled terrorist organization.

(Washington, DC 12/02) NATO announced Tuesday that it would send patrol aircraft and missile defense systems to bolster Turkey’s air defenses at that nation’s border with Syria. This announcement was made on the same day that the Russian Defense Ministry produced satellite imagery and other evidence showing what has been claimed for months, namely that Turkey is receiving oil sent by truck from ISIS oil wells in Iraq and Syria. (Image)

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by Stephen Lendman

Obama maintains the fiction of America’s war on terrorism, a complete fabrication, suppressing its full responsibility for creating and supporting its scourge, a monstrous enemy of humanity, vital to combat, contain and eliminate.

Addressing reporters at the Paris climate conference, he lied, saying no one should be “under any illusions” about Russia waging war on terrorism - absurdly claiming its campaign achieved no substantial changes on the ground.

Fact: America’s war on terrorism is fake. It’s the world’s greatest proliferator OF terrorism. Russia’s campaign is real, changing the dynamic significantly on the ground in Syria.

Fact: It’s routing ISIS forces effectively, destroying their weapons, facilities, ability to produce and transport stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil to Turkey for refining and black market sales, and in some areas their will to fight, letting Syrian combat troops recapture earlier lost territory, a major change from before Moscow got involved.

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by Stephen Lendman

International solidarity with Palestinians is commemorated on November 29 - when General Assembly members in 1947 passed Res. 181, the Palestine Partition Plan against the will of its majority population.

It granted 56% of historic Palestine’s most valued land to Jews (with one-third of the population), 42% to Palestinians, Jerusalem designed an international city under a UN Trusteeship Council, including the entire city, Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, encompassing area holy sites.

The resolution called for an independent Palestinian state by October 1, 1948 - never achieved, Israel defiantly opposed to this day - wanting all Judea and Samaria for itself, Palestinians at most confined to isolated bantustans on worthless scrubland, victimized by Israeli state terrorism.

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