The Pentagon has acknowledged for the first time it has deployed its troops to Yemen more than a year after pulling out following military intervention by the Arab-led coalition.

The security void created in the wake of the more than a year of war between loyalists of exiled government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Shia Houthi rebels has been exploited by the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Pentagon spokesperson Jeff Davis said on Friday the US military had also stepped up air strikes against AQAP fighters in the war-torn country.

A "very small number" of American military personnel has been working from a "fixed location" with Yemeni and Arab coalition forces - especially the Emiratis - in recent weeks around Mukalla, a port city seized by AQAP a year ago, Davis said.

"This is of great interest to us. It does not serve our interests to have a terrorist organisation in charge of a port city, and so we are assisting in that," the spokesman added.

He said the troops were helping the Emiratis with "intelligence support," but declined to say if they are special operations forces.

AQAP fighters have now fled Mukalla and other coastal areas, due to the government offensive.    

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/government-admits-deploying-troops-yemen-160507095524640.html

An international ban on the use of cluster munitions, which can kill and maim people long after being deployed, was agreed in 2008. Saudi Arabia, which joined the civil war in Yemen in March last year, is not a signatory. 

“Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners, as well as their US supplier, are blatantly disregarding the global standard that says cluster munitions should never be used under any circumstances,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch (HRW) and chair of the international Cluster Munition Coalition. “The Saudi-led coalition should investigate evidence that civilians are being harmed in these attacks and immediately stop using them.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemen-war-saudi-arabia-accused-of-deploying-illegal-us-supplied-cluster-bombs-in-conflict-a6875776.html

Alain Juillet, former deputy director of intelligence at France’s General Directorate for External Security, accused French authorities of making a range of poor foreign policy choices, such as its pro-rebel stance in the Syrian crisis and anti-Russian response to the Ukrainian turmoil, which he says have proven detrimental to French citizens.

To highlight the importance of maintaining constructive relations with the Syrian authorities, he mentioned the hostage situation in which four French journalists in Syria spent nearly a year in captivity before being freed in 2014. 

“At the time of the conflict in Iraq, when four journalists were taken hostage in Syria, we maintained good relations, though not official, with Syrian services. These relationships have always served us. Suddenly, all the bridges are cut. This is utter nonsense,” he said.

Juillet also blamed the government for being manipulated into helping “people, supposedly rebels, who are in fact Al-Qaeda affiliates backed by the Gulf countries.” He complained that the “advice of the intelligence services is ignored,” which is “a serious mistake.” 

The former intelligence officer also lamented the damage being done to French industry by sticking to the pro-American policy in the Ukraine conflict.

'Resurgent Russia': New hardline #NATO Europe commander raises hackles in Moscow https://t.co/DDNNywPuPHpic.twitter.com/wrSAxrUwG8

“By following policy set by Americans, we didn’t anticipate the consequences of the embargo against Moscow. It, of course, has created some problems for Russia, but look what is happening to our agriculture! We ourselves cut its access to the Russian market.”

He also questioned the effectiveness of the US-endorsed embargo on Russia, saying it had been “fabricated” by American neoconservatives. 

US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s admission that the war in Iraq was a mistake shows that he doesn’t mind breaking “a taboo existing among Republicans, who had buried the case,” and indicates that “Americans are beginning to wash their dirty laundry,” according to Juillet, who expects that more and more Americans will begin to question the necessity and nature of the US’ involvement in Ukraine. Several articles have already been published disputing Washington’s handling of the crisis.

https://www.rt.com/news/342244-france-wrong-syria-ukraine-sanctions/

Gus: The embargo on Russia has been designed not so much to hurt the Russians BUT TO MOSTLY HURT EUROPE. WAKE UP ! This has been the plan all along — weaken Russia AND Europe at the same time... The Yanks are laughing... They hate the idea of a strong united Europe, which to say the least, would do well to send the Brits adrift...

There are some people (especially from the English hegemony) who will complain that RT is slanted news coming out of Russia BUT in order to retain a clear head one has to double check the source and value of the information, so go and read on:

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu/International/Alain-Juillet-Un-service-de-renseignement-doit-etre-neutre-962323

NATO military vehicles with American flags that were put on display in a central square of Chisinau, Moldova’s capital, had to withdraw before Monday’s V-Day march and retreat outside the town after the show-off sparked fierce opposition from the locals.

The exhibition of US military equipment on the city’s Great National Assembly Square on Sunday was presented as part of the V-Day celebrations, but instead provoked hundreds of protesters to take to the streets in outrage.

Activists opposing NATO’s presence in the country waved banners that read “Go home,”“We don’t need NATO,”and “Moldova is a neutral state.” 

 Protesters also reportedly handed out St. George ribbons, a symbol of victory in post-Soviet states, to the American soldiers before the exhibition, which saw about two dozen infantry, engineering vehicles and military trucks being showcased to the public. However, soon after the protests began, the exhibition was rolled up, and the US troops returned to their stationing site in Negresti, some 20 kilometers outside Chisinau.

read more: https://www.rt.com/news/342315-moldova-nato-military-vday-protest/

In a debate hosted by RT America, Green Party candidates Jill Stein, Kent Mesplay and Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza-Curry shared their views on everything from whistleblowers to foreign relations with Russia. Here are 15 of their best quotes.

#1

The threat of Islamic terrorism “was created by the CIA and the Saudis in order to fight the Russians in Afghanistan” before it spread to other parts in the Middle East, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said. “The war in Iraq, Syria, and Libya has fanned the flames of ISIS,” she added, urging the US to “stop the arming and the funding.”

#2

“Under a Stein administration, when we turn the White House into a ‘Green House,’ we will ensure that everyone has healthcare as a human right,” Stein said, stressing that the government will have nothing to do with “dictating” the health of US citizens.

Green Party presidential candidate Kent Mesplay said there is a need for a “cultural shift to not have a militarized police force” and stressed a need to “take the money out of the military.”

'

#4

Stein called the current surrounding of Russia with missiles and nuclear weapons a “Cuban missile crisis on steroids” to which the US is playing a “major instigator role.”

'

#5

“Election day should be a legal holiday,” Green Party presidential candidate Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza-Curry said. The election system is based on an “outdated” concept of the Electoral College and should be entirely “wiped out,” she added.

#6

Mesplay said the US is “heavily militarized” and is acting as a “predator across the planet.” He added that he does “not believe in giving up our guns as long as we have a military that poses a threat.”

#7

Moyowasifza-Curry said that to achieve economic equality, it is crucial to abandon capitalism, which in her opinion is “barbaric.”

#8

Stein said that the current “unsustainable and industrialized” food system which has “waste at all ends” is in need of a complete transformation. She advocated the Green New Deal – a food system that would “run for people and not for profit.”

Other members, too, called for a “redesign” of the food system.

#9

“We need whistleblowers to act as a counter-balance to our nation and our society...I would not only pardon the whistleblowers...I would advocate for them and actually praise their activity,” Mesplay said.

Whistleblowers such as Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange should be “welcomed home heroes,” as they revealed information that Americans “desperately needed to know about,” Stein said.

“There is a litany of wonderful whistleblowers that we need to celebrate” so that we can “make this government ours,” Moyowasifza-Curry said, adding that “this is not my government that is acting nuts.”

#10

Speaking on US-Russia relations, Mesplay said the “Eagle and Bear” should establish common ground to defeat their common enemy – climatic instability, which he referred to as the “World War III of our time.”

#11

Moyowasifza-Curry said that her presidency would “end corporate financing” of parties, adding that “we should have publicly financed elections.”

Mesplay also agreed that campaigns should be publicly financed, saying “we need to close loopholes and ban pacts and super-pacts.”

Stein said: “We have seen the incredible corrupting influence of big corporate media in this race.” She cited Donald Trump receiving practically $2 billion in free media from big corporate exposure, noting that Hillary Clinton has also received a substantial amount of free media.

#12

Moyowasifza-Curry called herself “anti-nuclear,” adding that nuclear energy is not needed because there is enough sustainable technology to replace it.

#13

The US has shown a “lack of respect” to Russia, stating that not allowing the Russian president to come to the White House or be involved in a dialogue or discussion shows the US government's “immaturity.”

#14

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are a “perfect storm” for people to turn to the “independent politics” that we need, Stein said.

#15

The weapons industry and war profiteers “need big enemies” because they need big, trillion-dollar projects and a nation-state to fight, adding that the US is creating a “trade war” with China right now with the Trans-Pacific Partnership..

Yet, the White House has enabled Congress to shirk its responsibility by arguing that a new war authorization would be ideal but not necessary. Administration officials could have forced Congress to act by declaring that it could not rely indefinitely on the Afghanistan war authorization and giving lawmakers a deadline to pass a new law.

By failing to pass a new one, Congress and the administration are setting a dangerous precedent that the next president may be tempted to abuse. That is particularly worrisome given the bellicose temperament of Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee.

It is not too late to act before the presidential election in November. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and House Speaker Paul Ryan have shown little interest in passing an authorization. They should feel compelled to heed the call of a young deployed soldier who is asking them to do their job.

https://www.rt.com/usa/342470-green-party-debate-best/

Russia and the US announced Monday that they would work towards reviving February's ceasefire agreement, which has deteriorated since. Much of the renewed fighting is taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, where Syrian government forces are fighting against Al-Nusra militants, who are considered terrorists and were exempt from the ceasefire.

“We would not have gotten the initial ceasefire without Russia. And literally tens of thousands of lives were saved. You can add it up: 200 people a day were being killed. That stopped for a period of time,” Kerry told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday. “People hadn’t received any humanitarian assistance for years. Almost a million people have now received humanitarian assistance, and so there has been some benefit to this. Is it perfect? No. Are there still problems to work out? Yes.”

Citing the battles in Aleppo, Amanpour argued that Russia was not a partner of the US, but rather of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“Russia has an interest in not being bogged down forever in Syria,” Kerry countered, adding, “Russia has an interest in not becoming the target of the entire Sunni world and having every jihadi in the region coming after Russia.”

“If Russia is going to avoid a morass in Syria altogether, they actually need to find a political solution,” Kerry explained. “Right now they are angling for the political solution they want. And it's not necessarily a workable equation.”

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Washington has maintained that the government in Damascus “lost legitimacy” by fighting “its own people.” Both the Pentagon and the CIA have sent weapons and equipment to “moderate” rebel groups in Syria, with the publicly stated aim of opposing Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

During a meeting with top military officials and arms manufacturers in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed hope that the US-Russian cooperation in Syria would “lead to positive and fundamental changes.”

read more: https://www.rt.com/usa/342560-kerry-syria-ceasefire-russia/

The cease-fire would never have happened had the Russians not intervened in Syria. The Empire has decided to give Syria to Saudi Arabia nonetheless. See toon from top. See also: 

By Robert Fisk...

So ol‘ Doc Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s chief executive successor, has told the Syrian Jabhat al-Nusra that it can dissociate itself from Al-Qaeda. Good public relations: Nusra doesn’t like the Isis “caliphate” very much, but as long as it remains a Qaeda clone, it can’t get off America’s terrorist list and qualify to join the (non-existent) 70,000 Syrian “moderates” dreamed up by David Cameron and a lot of American television networks.

Qatar's relations with Nusra raises questions. It denies direct ties with the group, and yet six months ago the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel interviewed Nusra’s leader, Mohamed al-Jolani, who said that it had nothing against Christians, Alawites or Americans – only that pesky president in Damascus who’s got Hezbollah, Iran and Russia on his side.

Have no doubts about the Qatar link. Nusra boys have just released three Spanish journalists held in northern Syria for the past 10 months, after which the Qatari state news agency boasted that the Qatari authorities were involved in freeing them. You bet they were. Had the unlucky three fallen into the hands of those other morbid sons-of-the-desert, Isis (for whom many Saudis seem to have an unhappy affection), then the reporters would have had their throats cut on videotape against a soundtrack of yet more mushy "nasheed" music. 

When a group of Christian nuns fell into Nusra hands in Syria in 2013, Qatar helped to bail them out via Lebanon – at a reported price of more than $1m a nun – and was duly thanked by the Lebanese security authorities. If readers are getting a little bit suspicious, perhaps wondering if the Qataris are trying to take over the armed Syrian opposition from Isis and its Saudi Salafist brothers, they may well be right.

But now the flip side of the story. Just a week ago, an essay appeared in Foreign Policy magazine, the bi-weekly co-founded by the late Samuel Huntington (of Clash of Civilisations infamy) and now owned by the Washington Post, no less. The author Charles Lister’s thesis, if such it can be called, is that al-Qaeda is trying to take total control of the Nusra and overshadow Isis through an unprecedented debate within its ranks to “integrate into the ‘mainstream opposition’”. The "mainstream opposition" presumably refers to the fictional 70,000-strong legions beloved of Dave Cameron and, presumably, the future US President Hillary Clinton.

Nusra, according to Lister, is “rebuilding a military coalition and plans to soon initiate major offensive operations south of Aleppo” in order to spoil US and Russian efforts for a truce in the city. The best way of thwarting Al-Qaeda’s ambitions “is to dramatically scale up assistance to vetted [sic] military and civil components [sic, again] of the mainstream opposition inside Syria,” he writes. All this, of course, because we’ve so far given “insufficient backing” to those “moderate elements of the opposition” who can’t compete with the “battlefield power and capacity to control territory” of Nusra.

So far, so good. Far from breaking free of al-Qaeda, Lister’s version of Nusra suggest that it’s been ever more deeply penetrated by al-Qaeda – or “Al-Qaeda Central”, as he calls it – to the point where Saif al-Adel, “the most influential living al-Qaeda figure other than Zawahiri”, has arrived in Syria. And Adel has done so “almost certainly”, as Lister adds reassuringly, with “three other key al-Qaeda figures”.

These guys are now supposedly discussing the setting up of yet another "emirate” in Syria’s Idlib province. But the recent cessation of hostilities “catalyzed a dramatic re-empowerment of Syria’s moderate protest movement and the revitalisation of the most [sic, yet again] moderate elements of the opposition”.

An anonymous Free Syrian Army (ie: ‘moderate’) commander is quoted by Lister as confirming that al-Qaeda forces “represent everything we are opposed to, they are the same as the regime. But what can we do when our supposed friends abroad give us nothing to assert ourselves?” What “a broad spectrum of Syria’s opposition” need, therefore, is “a substantial expansion of military, political and financial assistance”.

These Free Syrian Army groups, Lister says, now number 50 – phew! – vetted by the CIA, all of which “operate in coordination with locally legitimate [sic yet once more] civil, political and judicial bodies”.

So who is the writer Charles Lister? Among his various academic duties, he’s a senior consultant for the “Shaikh Group’s Track II Syria Initiative”. The “shaikh” in question is not a Middle East potentate but Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Centre in Qatar and fellow at the Centre for Middle East Policy, formerly the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy (the “Saban” being Haim Saban, the American-Israeli film and television mogul who donated $13m to the centre and has given substantial funds to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign).

Lister, according to his various CVs, was a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre and has helped negotiate a process of “engagement with the leaderships of over 100 Syrian armed opposition groups”. Which is an awful lot of rebels – far more than the 70,000 conjured up by Dave Cameron.

So what’s going on down in Doha? The Brookings Doha Centre belongs to the Brookings Institute and its co-chair is Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber bin Thani al-Thani, a member of the Qatari ruling family and former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. Is the real debate, therefore – far from being thrashed out in Idlib province – really going on down in Qatar, whose present leadership has gone a long way to clean up Nusra’s reputation and to present it as the real moderate “opposition” which deserves all that CIA help?

A final point. Isis has been bloody quiet recently, in every sense of the word. No gory videos, no nasheed songs. Why? Because it’s losing ground to the Syrians and their allies? Because it lost Palmyra?

Or because it’s waiting to find out whether Nusra is going to be the darling of the Syrian opposition – and thus America and Europe – or targeted by all of us as an even more apocalyptic version of Isis?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/after-splitting-with-al-qaeda-al-nusra-is-being-presented-to-the-west-as-a-moderate-force-it-s-a7022271.html

200 Christians Massacred in Aleppo Rocket Attacks

Islamic Opposition Groups Hostile to Christians Warn They Will Drive Believers Out of Syria

As many as 200 Christians have been killed in recent weeks in bombardments in the war-torn city of Aleppo, relief groups have said, with women and children accounting for half of the victims.

"Lift up in prayer the Christian community of Aleppo and all innocent civilians in the city following a sustained period of bombardment, which mainly targeted the Christian area," aid group Barnabas Fund told BosNewsLife in a statement.

The Christian area in Aleppo was hit by 1,350 rockets between April 22 and April 30, the group said, which killed some 132 people, half of them women and children. Further bombardments on May 3 resulted in the deaths of 65 others, while hundreds more were injured.

"Of the 65 killed on May 3, an estimated 35 died when Dabbit Hospital, which treated only women and children, was destroyed by a rocket explosion," Barnabas Fund noted. "Two patients died whilst on the operating table. Another hospital in the government area was damaged in part and has now been closed down."

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/200-christians-massacred-in-aleppo-roc...

Remind me again? "Islamic Opposition Groups Hostile to Christians Warn They Will Drive Believers Out of Syria"... Ah Yes, these Islamic Opposition Groups (made of Wahhabi Sunnis) are those that the US government supports — and they are the ones which are bombing the Christian areas of Aleppo... Hey, you, the smart evangelicals, why don't you tell your government in Washington that it is making a huge mistake?. Assad is (has always been, will always be) in favour or letting ALL RELIGIOUS GROUPS  exist in Syria, so why has he been demonised by the US government? (Don't tell me because he "gassed" his people... It's bullshit.)

Assad is in the way of the US grand plan to let the Saudis (Wahhabi Sunnis) take over Syria. See, the Saudis want to run gas and oil pipelines direct to Europe and destroy the Russian economy (to satisfy the Yanks), in the process. I believe that for this little glorious caper, defeating the bad godless (not quite, a lot are orthodox Christians who support Putin) communists, a little sacrifice from a few Christians in Syria is in order, no?

The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”

Such a step would represent a radical shift in the administration’s approach to the civil war in Syria, and there is little evidence that President Obama has plans to change course. Mr. Obama has emphasized the military campaign against the Islamic State over efforts to dislodge Mr. Assad. Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, have all but collapsed.

But the memo, filed in the State Department’s “dissent channel,” underscores the deep rifts and lingering frustration within the administration over how to deal with a war that has killed more than 400,000 people.

The State Department set up the channel during the Vietnam War as a way for employees who had disagreements with policies to register their protest with the secretary of state and other top officials, without fear of reprisal. While dissent cables are not that unusual, the number of signatures on this document, 51, is extremely large, if not unprecedented.

The names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials — many of them career diplomats — who have been involved in the administration’s Syria policy over the last five years, at home or abroad. They range from a Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former deputy to the American ambassador in Damascus.

While there are no widely recognized names, higher-level State Department officials are known to share their concerns. Mr. Kerry himself has pushed for stronger American action against Syria, in part to force a diplomatic solution on Mr. Assad. The president has resisted such pressure, and has been backed up by his military commanders, who have raised questions about what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power — a scenario that the draft memo does not address.

Robert S. Ford, a former ambassador to Syria, said, “Many people working on Syria for the State Department have long urged a tougher policy with the Assad government as a means of facilitating arrival at a negotiated political deal to set up a new Syrian government.”

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/syria-assad-obama-airstrikes-diplomats-memo.html?_r=0

The removal of Assad is a bit like the removal of Saddam... The reasons are fabricated to suit the person the West wants to get rid off. For Saddam it was the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" of which there were none. Do you think that the "intelligence" has improve after this cock up which led to the rise of ISIS?

For Assad, the "reason" is that he is a bad man who has killed 400,000 people. He has not.

What would we get for our removal of Assad? Peace? dream on. ASSAD IS MORE MODERATE and more tolerant THAN THE MODERATES that are supported by the US, all of whom are affiliated to Al Qaeda, As Nusra and ISIS for being Sunni Wahhabi TERRORISTS. Getting rid of Assad would only Empower ISIS.

If the US department of foreign invasions and festering war cannot see this, it's because they have an interest in letting the Saudi win this conflict. Nothing to do with ASSAD.

See too at top.

"Why Are We The Good Guys?" is the title of a brilliant 2012 book by David Cromwell of the media monitoring organization, Media Lens. The book challenges the dominant elite orthodoxy that whatever "mistakes" they may make, the US and its closest allies always mean well - and are an undoubted force for good in the world.

Well, that might have been true in World War Two, when the US, the Soviet Union, Britain and others were fighting the Nazis, but I wonder if there's anyone out there (and whose salary isn't paid by the US defense industry, NATO, George Soros or Rupert Murdoch), who would still claim that the US — and its closest allies — are benign actors in international affairs?  It's not just the effects of the Iraq war — an illegal conflict in which blatant lies about WMDs were told in order to justify a brutal invasion which led to the death of one million people and the rise of Daesh, also known as ISIL. In the past few weeks, we've had a number of reminders as to what the 21 century "US Empire" is really about — and the shamefully duplicitous way in which it operates.

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/columnists/20160927/1045744139/us-empire-unmasked.html