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Elusive Conflict Resolution in Syria
Stephen Lendman
Five years of Russian good faith efforts haven’t borne fruition. Conflict in Syria continues raging. Peace remains elusive.
While Putin and Erdogan discussed Syria and other issues in Sochi, Russia, anti-Assad terrorists comprising the Western-sponsored Syrian National Coalition (SNC), an artificial construct, a rogue outlaw gang supporting war, abhorring peace, walked out of the latest round of Astana, Kazakhstan peace talks Its spokesman Ahmad Ramadan said the “delegation…suspend(ed) (participation)…until shelling stops across all Syria” - wrongfully accusing government forces of targeting civilians.
Talks were scheduled to focus on creating “de-escalation zones” in terrorists-held Idlib and Homs provinces, along with Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.
Why Americans Distrust the Press More Than They Distrust Trump
Eric Zuesse
A Morning Consult poll published on April 28th showed that “roughly half (51 percent) of Americans said the national political media ‘is out of touch with everyday Americans,' compared with 28 percent who said it ‘understand the issues everyday Americans are facing’.” Plus: “Thirty-seven percent of Americans said they trusted Trump’s White House to tell the truth, while 29 percent opted for the media.” So: the U.S. ‘news’ media are widely distrusted by the American people.
Among Republicans, 72% trusted “Trump’s White House” over (or more than) “National Political Media,” and 10% trusted the media over Trump, and that’s a ratio of 7.2 to 1 trusting Trump over the media. Among Democrats, however, 54% trusted media over Trump, and 12% trusted Trump over media, and that’s a ratio of 4.5 to 1 trusting media over Trump. So: Democrats there were far more trusting of the media than were Republicans.
Korean Peninsula Tensions Risk Boiling Over
Stephen Lendman
On Wednesday, addressing State Department staff, Rex Tillerson stressed “leaning hard” on China to pressure Pyongyang on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula “backed up by very strong (US) resolve…”
“So it’s a pressure campaign…to lean into people” to go along with Washington’s agenda. “We’ve told them we’re watching what you’re doing.” Punishment will be administered to non-compliers by sanctions and other means, he said. His message was meant mainly for Beijing - on North Korea, trade and South China Sea issues. Friendly bilateral relations depend on playing ball with America was his message.
World’s Leading Abuser of Women Appointed a UN CSW Member
Stephen Lendman
Saudi Arabia is the Arab world’s leading rogue state, a regional menace, supporting terrorism, abusing its own people ruthlessly, opposing fundamental rights for women.
The US-led world community turns a blind eye, supporting what demands condemnation. On April 19, 47 UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) member-states voted to appoint Riyadh to the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
None voted “no.” It wasn’t an option. Seven countries abstained, letting the world’s leading abuser of women become a CSW member, making ECOSOC a laughing stock, supporting pure evil instead of denouncing and rejecting it.
UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said “(e)lecting Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief. This is a black day for women’s rights, and for all human rights.”
Bigoted Americans Far More Supportive of War Against Syria
Eric Zuesse
On April 23rd, the U.S. mega-corporate and government-funded National Public Radio network, NPR, interviewed voters about their views on President Trump’s achievements so far; and a typical respondent, the 33-year-old Jamie Ruppert, of White Haven, Pennsylvania, said, "I don't think he's been terrible. I mean, he definitely stepped up when the people of Syria kind of needed some help.” She was referring actually to this, though she wasn’t even aware of it; she believed instead the U.S. government’s lies about Syria’s government, just like the Americans who had supported the lies that produced the destruction of Iraq by the psychopathic American government had done, back then in 2003.
Polls show that highly prejudiced (i.e., misinformed) Americans tend to be especially supportive of the jihadists’ war to overthrow and replace Syria’s secular Russian-backed government. (The jihadists in Syria are backed by the U.S. government, which however opposes ISIS jihadists, which are too extreme for even the rulers of Saudi Arabia to trust. But the U.S. and Saudi governments have been backing in Syria every jihadist group that accepts Al Qaeda’s leadership, because Al Qaeda was created to hate Russia, which fact was even captured on video at the time, but is effectively denied by U.S. ‘news’media, after-the-fact, and America’s ‘history’-books also generally hide the actual cause of what today’s U.S. President refers to as “radical Islamic terrorism,” a joint U.S.-Saudi operation. Such realities would be called ‘fake news’ by America’s ‘news’media, if they reported these truths at all, which their censors or ‘editors’ occasionally do — they occasionally slip-up, and allow such facts through, and some reporters and ‘news’room managers even lose their jobs for doing that.)
For example, the polls by ABC News and Washington Post have indicated that whereas Republicans strongly opposed the Democratic President, Barack Obama’s, bombing of Syria as a U.S. response to the U.S.-backed jihadists’ sarin gas attack in 2013, which the U.S. blamed against Bashar al-Assad's government (and Britain’s MI6 found that Obama was lying, so UK refused to join Obama’s planned invasion, and it was called-off), the similar but fully executed American bombing of Syria for a similar set-up-job jihadist-produced gas-attack in Syria, occurring now under the Republican President Donald Trump, is overwhelmingly supported by Republicans, and mildly opposed by Democrats — indeed, "The sharpest change has been among Republicans, among whom 22 percent supported missile strikes [in 2013] compared with 86 percent today.” By contrast, among Democrats today, “37 percent support, while 59 percent are opposed,” to the Republican Trump’s bombing of Syria on April 7th. So: Party-affiliation is a big determinant of whether a given American citizen favors an American invasion of a foreign country. (America’s ‘independent’ voters tend to be between the two types of prejudice, but a few of them are simply unprejudiced. However, even a few Republicans and Democrats are also unprejudiced.)
Upcoming Erdogan Meetings with Putin and Trump
Stephen Lendman
After consolidating dictatorial powers by a manipulated referendum, a process OSCE observers said “fell short” of international standards, citing numerous irregularities, Erdogan will meet with Vladimir Putin Wednesday in Sochi, Russia, followed by a May 16-17 meeting with Trump in Washington.
He’s part of the geopolitical landscape problem, not the solution - waging war on Kurds at home and abroad, wanting northern Syria and Iraq annexed, pretending to want conflict resolution.
His belligerence and despotic rule belie his duplicitous rhetoric. According to Turkey’s deputy director for Syria policy Mustafa Yurdakul, he and Putin “will discuss, among other issues, the strengthening of the ceasefire regime, the situation with prisoners and issues of mine clearance.”
Turkish troops invaded northern Syria last August. Erdogan talks peace while waging war.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he and Putin will discuss the ongoing conflict in Syria, offering no further elaboration.
Putin/Merkel Meeting
Stephen Lendman
At a time of US responsibility for dismal East/West relations, Angela Merkel will meet one-on-one with Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia on Tuesday for the first time in two years.
According to the Kremlin press service, both leaders will discuss “key international problems, including the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East, and the implementation of the Minsk agreements aimed at resolving the Ukrainian crisis,” along with the current state and prospects for improving dismal bilateral relations, notably on trade.
Things were further strained after Germany’s Bundestag was cyberattacked in late April 2015, falsely blamed on Moscow.
Hostility toward Russia remains intense in America and Europe, including a steady stream of anti-Russia disinformation.
Ahead of Merkel’s trip, NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence director Janis Sarts said Germany anchors the EU, falsely adding “Moscow equates a strong Europe with a weakening of Russia’s position and that is the reason for” the cyberattack.
WaPo Big Lies About Russian Meddling in Western Elections
Stephen Lendman
The neocon Washington Post is a CIA house organ. Owner Jeff Bezos is bought, paid for and owned by dark forces running America.
He got a $600 million CIA contract for much more than Amazon Web Services. He publishes what his CIA masters dictate - all fake news all the time on issues mattering most.
In November 2013, he said “(w)e look forward to a successful relationship with the CIA.” He has a longstanding history of currying favors from Washington’s national security establishment.
He’s an enemy of fundamental freedoms and responsible journalism, collaborating with rogue US government elements, betraying WaPo readers.
America’s Rapacious Aristocracy and WW3
Eric Zuesse
The disenchanted Reagan Administration official and much-honored economist and political scientist, Paul Craig Roberts, headlined on April 27th, "Washington Plans to Nuke Russia and China” and stated an impressive case that this radical conclusion is realistic, no mere alarmism. Roberts even said in it that "Russia and China cannot simply sit there and await America’s preemptive nuclear strike,” which is an extremely bold and even courageous thing to assert in a country that the rest of the world labels as being overwhelmingly “the greatest threat to peace in the world today” (and this U.S.-government-sponsored global poll was taken only once, in 2013, and because of its finding was never repeated, nor was it mentioned in the government-controlled media).
Dr. Roberts employed his trademark unflinchingly unambiguous style to state that, “The US military/security complex has clearly prevailed over Trump’s intention to normalize relations between the US and Russia, and anti-Russian venom continues to pour out of NATO and Washington’s European vassal states. The majority of the American people seem to have accepted the propaganda that Russia is the number one threat to the United States. With propaganda controlling the explanation, Washington’s aggressive actions are explained as defense against a threat and not as a policy that will end life on earth.”
But how can this possibly be true, given that a war between the U.S. and Russia would ultimately release 15,000 nuclear warheads before the ‘winner’ would even be able to contemplate what he had ‘won’, and the ‘winner’ would almost certainly die from radiation sickness within, at most, a decade, if not from starvation or illnesses or injuries produced by the nuclear-destroyed planet, occurring within even less time than that? We’ll get to that question; he has an answer to it.
US Aegis Ashore Anti-Missile System Violates INF Treaty
Stephen Lendman
On Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry called Washington’s Eastern European deployment a flagrant INF violation, saying:
“The United States has deployed Aegis Ashore anti-missile systems at its base in Romania, and plans…another such system in Poland.”
“(They) incorporate vertical launch systems similar to Mk-41 universal systems that are capable of launching intermediate-range (Tomahawk) cruise missiles…”
For over two decades, Washington repeatedly breached INF mandates, continuing missile tests prohibited by the treaty. It’s boosting production and use of unmanned offensive vehicles, falling under its definition of ground-based cruise missiles.
“Notably, we have been pointing (out US) violations of the INF Treaty for 15 years. But there is no constructive reaction,” said Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
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