The World Needs to Know What Really Happened Last November

(Hat tip: KimR) - Important questions linger about what went down in Paris If the November attacks on Paris have the fingerprints of a foreign intelligence service on them, mimicking the DRS relationship with GIA, where dimwitted jihadists don’t realize they are being set up, the list of potential suspects presents itself at once. It’s long been understood by Western security services that ISIS and the Syrian regime are partners as well as enemies. Read more at the Observer Read More......

Syrian rebels have long wanted anti-aircraft missiles. Their wish may have been granted

(Hat tip: KimR) - Syrian rebels operating in the country’s northern region shot down a government warplane Tuesday, suggesting that they have been supplied with anti-aircraft weapons. Read more at the Los Angeles Times Read More......

U.S. Proxies in Syria Are Attacking Each Other

(Hat tip: KimR) - The administration's Syria policy has been a joke for years, and it's getting even worse: Officials with Syrian rebel battalions that receive covert backing from one arm of the U.S. government told BuzzFeed News that they recently began fighting rival rebels supported by another arm of the U.S. government. Read more at the American Conservative Read More......

A Disaster Worse Than Libya

(Hat tip: KimR) - Now that another presidential primary is over, can the media take a few minutes to insist that the candidates address some important issues like the crisis in Aleppo, Syria? Tens of thousands of Syrians are dying or fleeing the Russians and the Iranians, who have invaded the country. President Obama is doing nothing to save them... Read more at Accuracy in Media Read More......

Sources: 150,000 Saudi Mercenaries Ready To Enter Syria

Informed sources revealed that Riyadh is holding training courses for 150,000 Saudi, Sudanese, Egyptian and Jordanian forces to prepare them for war in Syria. --The Saudi sources told the CNN channel that the 150,000-strong army is now stationed in Saudi Arabia and will soon be dispatched to Syria.

Read more at FARS News Agency
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Hagel: The White House Tried to ‘Destroy’ Me

Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant in northern Virginia when his phone rang. It was the White House on the line. President Barack Obama wanted to speak with him. --It was Aug. 30, 2013, and the U.S. military was poised for war. Obama had publicly warned Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad that his regime would face consequences if it crossed a “red line” by employing chemical weapons against its own people.

Read more at Foreign Policy
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Russia hits back at Turkey by changing Syria 'game'

Russia is striking back after a "stab in the back by an accomplice to terrorists" by changing the "game" in Syria. --Moscow's retaliation is not just about severing economic and diplomatic ties. It is pursuing a policy that could tie Turkey's hands in Syria.

Read more at Al Jazzera
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Putin: Downing Of Russian Jet Over Syria Stab In The Back By Terrorist Accomplices

Turkey backstabbed Russia by downing the Russian warplane and acted as accomplices of the terrorists, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. The plane was hit by a Turkish warplane as it was traveling 1 km away from the Turkish border, Putin said. The plane posed no threat to Turkish national security, he stressed.

Read more at rt.com
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Syria insurgents destroy Russian rescue helicopter with missile

Syrian fighters destroyed a Russian helicopter with a missile, shortly after they forced it to make an emergency landing in a nearby government-held area in Syria's Latakia province on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Read more at Reuters
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The Combat of Champions

Paul Richter and Brian Bennett of the Los Angeles Times argue that the Russian strongman is doing something very peculiar in modern history. He is engaging in single combat with the Leader of the Free World. Putin is tearing down one man and not as one would expect, the entire system of a rival nation state in order to gain success. They write, “Putin is using his Syria gambit to disparage Obama”.

Read more at Belmont Club Read More......

We Continually Underestimate Russian President Putin

A few months ago I attended a two day conference on the subject of the future of U.S.-Russian relations, attended by an impressive array of officials from Administrations past and present and experts on things Russian. One of the subjects discussed was the possibilities for additional, even more dangerous crises between our two countries. There were lots of potential flash points identified, beyond the current crisis in Ukraine, ranging from the Baltics to Kaliningrad, Moldova, Kazakhstan and the Arctic. But for each of these there were also “cooler” heads who argued that it would be stupid for Putin to initiate a new crisis in any of these places.

Read more at Real Clear Defense
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The Moscow-Washington-Tehran Axis of Evil

The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin has blindsided Barack Obama in the Middle East, catching the U.S. off-guard. It’s another Obama “failure,” we’re told. “Obama administration scrambles as Russia attempts to seize initiative in Syria,” is how a Washington Post headline described it. A popular cartoon shows Putin kicking sand in the faces of Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on a beach. --The conventional wisdom is driven by the notion that Obama has the best of intentions but that he’s been outmaneuvered. What if his intention all along has been to remake the Middle East to the advantage of Moscow and its client state Iran?

Read more at Accuracy in Media
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Russian fighter jets enter Syria with transponders off

A U.S. official told CNN Thursday that Russian fighter jets turned off their transponders as they flew into Syria in an apparent attempt to avoid detection. The official said the fighters flew very close to a transport plane that had its transponder on and functioning.

Read more at CNN
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Putin has already scored an important victory in Syria

Putin did not have to fire a shot to assert Russian power, focus the world’s attention, and counter U.S. influence. --According to reliable press reports, President Vladimir Putin has already made major changes in the Russian military role in Syria. --No one can yet estimate how many more forces and weapons Russia will provide, but so far Putin’s major actions include: • Expanding Russian port facilities in the naval base at Tartus and expanding an airfield south of Latakia into an air base.

Read more at Business Insider
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Russia warns US of ‘unintended incidents’ over Syria

The growing rift between the United States and Russia over concerns that Moscow is employing its military to protect Syria's embattled president appeared to widen Friday when a Russian official called for military cooperation with Washington in order to avoid "unintended incidents." The comments were made after Western intelligence sources told Fox News that Russia escalated its presence in the Middle East country days after a secret Moscow meeting in late July between Iran's Quds Force commander -- their chief exporter of terror -- and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Read more at Fox News
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Obama’s Syria achievement

This may be the most surprising of President Obama’s foreign-policy legacies: not just that he presided over a humanitarian and cultural disaster of epochal proportions, but that he soothed the American people into feeling no responsibility for the tragedy. --Starvation in Biafra a generation ago sparked a movement. Synagogues and churches a decade ago mobilized to relieve misery in Darfur. When the Taliban in 2001 destroyed ancient statues of Buddha at Bamiyan, the world was appalled at the lost heritage.

Read more at the Washington Post
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How Israel prevented ISIS from going nuclear

The entire free world owes Israel an enormous debt of gratitude.
Were it not for a prescient strike against a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, which foreign media sources credit Israel with carrying out, the fanatics of Islamic State would now be in possession of their own nuclear facility. --This revelation came to light thanks to a recent article on the NK News website by former US diplomat Dennis P. Halpin, who highlighted an intriguing tidbit of information that was otherwise almost completely ignored by the mainstream press.

Read more at the Jerusalem Post
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Gulf Arabs respond with alarm to Kerry comment on Assad talks

A remark by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that President Bashar al-Assad should be included in negotiations on a Syrian political transition provoked alarm and dismay on Monday among commentators close to Gulf Arab governments opposed to his rule.  Saudi Arabia, the top oil exporter and main Arab ally of the United States, has long feared that the administration of President Barack Obama lacks the resolve to tackle Assad and that it is instead focusing on a nuclear deal with the Syrian leader's main supporter Iran.

Read more at Reuters Read More......

Obama Rejected "Best Military Advice"

As he laid out his strategy to combat the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, President Obama rejected the “best military advice” of his top military commander in the Middle East.

Read more at Real Clear Defense Read More......

Putin's letter

New York Times/Opinion "A Plea for Caution From Russia" by Vladimir V. Putin, published September 11, 2013 - What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria Read More......