With all the U.S.-trained fighters dead, captured or missing and their leader in the hands of Al Qaeda, top U.S. commanders are scrambling this week to determine how to revive the half-billion dollar program to create a moderate Syrian army to fight the Islamic State. The outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General … Read more
Members of al Qaeda’s branch in Syria have a surprising advocate in the corridors of American power: Retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus. The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been quietly urging U.S. officials to consider using so-called moderate members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front to fight ISIS in … Read more
“The only way the United States can have any effect in this region and turn the tide,” Mr. Scales said, “is to start killing Russians … killing so many Russians that even Putin’s media can’t hide the fact that Russians are returning to the motherland in body bags. But, given the [small] amount of support we’ve … Read more
Telling Hasan that he had read the document himself, Flynn said that it was among a range of intelligence being circulated throughout the US intelligence community that had led him to attempt to dissuade the White House from supporting these groups, albeit without success. Despite this, Flynn’s account shows that the US commitment to supporting … Read more
This post is a follow up to a piece I published in June titled: New Thousand Page Pentagon War Manual Potentially Lumps Journalists in with “Unprivileged Belligerents.” Here’s an excerpt: A 1,176 page Pentagon war manual was recently released that hasn’t received the attention it deserves. The book of combat instructions, titled “Department of Defense Law of War Manual,” … Read more
One of the most interesting articles I published last year, but one that failed to receive the attention it deserved, was related to a $100 million “loan” to Zimbabwe’s brutal dictator Robert Mugabe, in which Wall Street firms played a key role. The post was titled, The Bailout of Robert Mugabe – How Wall Street Money … Read more
If these people are radicalized and don’t support the United States, and they’re disloyal to the United States, as a matter of principal that’s fine, that’s their right. It’s our right and our obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict. – General Wesley Clark in a MSNBC interview … Read more
BuzzFeed News obtained internal Ministry of Education data for 2011 that has never before been made public. For Afghanistan overall, the data showed 1,174 schools — almost 1 in every 12 — was a ghost school, an educational facility that the Afghan government publicly claimed was open but that was, in fact, not operating. In … Read more
CHAPTER ONE War is a Racket WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket … Read more
BEIJING — When a Chinese honor guard joins a military parade in Russia’s capital this weekend, watched by China’s President Xi Jinping, it will mark more than just a symbolic recognition of the two countries’ contributions to the Allied victory in 1945. China’s participation also reflects an upgrade of its military ties with Russia, including joint naval … Read more