Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald looks at the foreign policies of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. "You have President Obama, who himself has been very militaristic—he has bombed seven predominantly Muslim countries in the last seven years—and yet Secretary Clinton’s critique of his foreign policy is, in every case, that he’s not aggressive enough, he’s not militaristic enough," Greenwald said. "And in Syria, in particular, they seem to really be itching to involve the U.S. a lot more directly and a lot more aggressively in that conflict."

read more: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/31/7

The US combat mission in Iraq officially ended six years ago, but did America ever really leave? Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear speaks with British parliamentarian and renowned anti-war activist George Galloway about the history of US involvement in Iraq and how a campaign of endless war has hastened the destabilization of the country and the region.

On August 31, 2010, US President Barack Obama announced,"The American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country."​

Galloway called Obama’s statement "a hollow and meaningless boast," and said that not only has the US continued to bomb Iraq, but, "The sectarian political system the US and Britain imposed on Iraq at the point of their bayonets and from atop their tanks in 2003 persists, and fuels the very war that the United States has ineluctably been drawn back into." 

"Not just by air power," Galloway continued, "but also by boots on the ground. There are many special forces from Western countries having to fight alongside the sectarian forces that they imposed on Iraq against the people that the very same countries are assisting just across the border in Syria." 

The parliamentarian described a byzantine policy of fighting violent extremist groups in one country while supporting them in another. He claimed that American tax dollars are “Funding Al-Qaeda with a different name, wearing a different badge. The very same Al-Qaeda that destroyed your twin towers and killed all those people on 9/11." 

"You really couldn’t make this labyrinthian pattern of double standards up. We’re fighting terrorism in the West and assisting terrorists in Syria while fighting the same terrorists in Iraq."

Iraq had been bombed constantly, from December 1998 until the "Shock and Awe" campaign of 2003. Additionally, economic sanctions had a devastating impact on the Iraqi people.

The activist observed that there was no logistical or geopolitical point to this wanton destruction. 

read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160901/1044834808/after-iraq-invasion-not-free.html

It was a retort perhaps only one American politician could have produced, and one that silenced the room.

Faced with a determined heckler during a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden reached for a very personal response in Cleveland on Thursday.

“My friends died, my American friends,” the heckler was shouting, remonstrating with the vice-president over US policy in Syria.

“My friend died,” he repeated, challenging Biden to explain his recent demand that Kurdish allies withdraw from captured Isis territory.

Interrupted again while trying to explain the complex Middle East policy, something snapped on stage after the third shout of “my friend died”.

“Will you listen? So did my son, OK?” shot back the vice-president, instantly silencing both the heckler and those in the crowd who had been trying to drown out the disruption by shouting: “Hillary, Hillary.”

Biden’s son Beau, an Iraq war veteran and former attorney general of Delaware, died of cancer last year at the age of 46.

The vice-president’s very public grief over the loss – of a son he raised alone after Beau’s sister and mother were killed in a car accident in 1972 – moved much of the nation.

read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/02/my-friends-died-heckler-shouts-so-did-my-son-joe-biden-shoots-back

One here should feel the pain of Joe Biden, but one should not allow him to mix oranges and apples. Yes Biden has much to grieve about, but all of is circumstantial, contrary to those who die in wars which have been "decided" by the Washington political Mafia of neocons... And what is this "ordering a retreat from the Kurds who have conquered ISIS territories". Let's get rid of ISIS then do a tally of who should settle where. Now is not the moment to tell the Kurds to piss off. ISIS would be likely to come back. Biden is crap at understanding diplomacy mixed with war. Yes we know, the Yankee-Doodle-Doozies want the "moderate" Al Qaeda members take over the area... Piss off. 

The United States has pursued two strategies to resolve the Syrian crisis – one led by the CIA, the other devised by the Pentagon, but instead of reinforcing each other they are getting in each other's way, with Turkey's military operation in northern Syria serving as tangible evidence of this trend.

Ankara launched its offensive, dubbed Operation Euphrates Shield, on August 24 to ostensibly push Daesh out of the border town of Jarablus and the surrounding areas. The Free Syrian Army backed by Turkish warplanes, tanks, artillery and special forces seized the town largely without any resistance from Daesh. The Turkish troops and the rebels then started fighting US-backed Kurdish militias in areas that have already been liberated from the terrorist group by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160903/1044921950/us-syria-two-strategies.html

President Obama is continuing his historic trip to Laos—the first trip there for a sitting U.S. president—although he has so far refused to issue a formal apology for the secret U.S. bombing campaign in Laos during the U.S. war in Vietnam. Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped an average of eight bombs per minute on Laos, including as many as 270 million cluster bombs. Laos authorities say as many as one-third of these cluster bombs did not explode at the time. President Obama has pledged $90 million to help clear Laos of the unexploded U.S. bombs.

President Barack Obama "For all those years in the 1960s and '70s, America's intervention here in Laos was a secret to the American people, who were separated by vast distances and a Pacific Ocean, and there was no internet, and information didn’t flow as easily. For the people of Laos, obviously, this war was no secret. Over the course of roughly a decade, the United States dropped more bombs on Laos than Germany and Japan during World War II. Some 270 million cluster bomblets were dropped on this country."

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/7/headlines/obama_does_not_apologize_for_secret_us_bombing_in_laos

Please change the dates and the targets, as well as the methods to deliver bombs, including using surrogate states like Saudi Arabia and drones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States#2...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States#2...

He's the war-ending President who, as of Tuesday, has ordered airstrikes in seven different countries (that we know of).
President Barack Obama has always acknowledged there are times when military force is necessary. Even when he accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, he said there could be instances when war is "morally justified."
But though he campaigned for the presidency on ending U.S.-led wars, Obama's administration has certainly been willing to use force when it sees fit.
read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/23/politics/countries-obama-bombed/

Nor does it make sense to expand our enemies list in that bleeding and broken country — from ISIS and the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front — to Syria’s armed forces, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

These last three have been battling to save Assad’s regime, because they see vital interests imperiled should it fall.

We have not plunged into Syria, because we have no vital interest at risk in Syria. We have lived with the Assads since Richard Nixon went to Damascus.

President Obama, who has four months left in office, is not going to intervene. And Congress, which has the sole power to declare war, has never authorized a war on Syria.

Obama would be committing an impeachable act if he started shooting down Russian or Syrian planes over Syrian territory. He might also be putting us on the escalator to World War III.

For Russia has moved its S-400 anti-aircraft system into Syria to its air base near Latakia, and its S-300 system to its naval base at Tartus.

As the rebels have no air force, that message is for us.

Russia is also moving its aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, into the Med. Vladimir Putin is doubling down in Syria.

Last weekend, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that U.S. attacks in Syria “will lead to terrible tectonic consequences not only on the territory of this country but also in the region on the whole.”

Translation: Attack Syria’s air force, and the war you Americans start could encompass the entire Middle East.

Last week, too, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, warned that creating a “no-fly zone” in Syria could mean war — with Russia. Dunford’s crisp retort to Sen. Roger Wicker:

“Right now, senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria it would require us to go to war, against Syria and Russia. That’s a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to make.”

And neither, thankfully, will Barack Obama.

So, where are we, and how did we get here?

Five years ago, Obama declared that Assad must step down. Ignoring him, Assad went all out to crush the rebels, both those we backed and the Islamist terrorists.

Obama then drew a “red line,” declaring that Assad’s use of chemical weapons would lead to U.S. strikes. But when Obama readied military action in 2013, Americans rose up and roared, “No!”

Reading the country right, Congress refused to authorize U.S. military action. Egg all over his face, Obama again backed down.

When Assad began losing the war, Putin stepped in to save his lone Arab ally, and swiftly reversed Assad’s fortunes.

Now, with 10,000 troops — Syrian, Iraqi Shiite militia, Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Afghan mercenaries — poised to attack Aleppo, backed by Russian air power, Assad may be on the cusp of victory in the bloodiest and most decisive battle of the war.

Assad and his allies intend to end this war — by winning it.

For the U.S. to reverse his gains now, and effect his removal, would require the introduction of massive U.S. air power and U.S. troops, and congressional authorization for war in Syria.

The time has come to recognize and accept reality.

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/fight-isis-in-syria-not-russia/

Five years on from the murder of Muammer Gaddafi on October 20, 2011, Libya is a failed state. His murder, and Libya's descent into an abyss of lawlessness, sectarian violence and anarchy thereafter, marks another miserable chapter in western foreign policy.

The regime-change crew who dominate western governments have a long indictment sheet against their names. Since 9/11 they have wrought havoc and human misery on a grand scale in their determination to reshape and own a world that has never been theirs to own. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya — Syria currently embroiled in a pitiless conflict for its survival as a secular, non-sectarian state — this is the miserable legacy of nations which speak the language of democracy while practising the politics of domination. 

Read more: 

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201610201046510092-libya-gaddafi-death-anniversary/

See toon at top... 

See also:

https://www.rt.com/news/363454-timeline-gaddafi-death-anniversary/