Iraq

I hope against hope that the rumors are wrong and that President Donald Trump will not open the State Department door to the neocons....

After having left Syria, Bartlett took part in a press conference organized by the Syrian mission to the United Nations. After giving a brief statement about what she has observed in Syria and how she is aware firsthand of the Western media’s deception in terms of coverage of the crisis, she was questioned by a Norwegian journalist, Christopher Rothenberg, who challenged her claims that the Western media was lying.

54,000 Iraqi troops and 5,000 US servicemen supported by 90 warplanes and 150 heavy artillery pieces - were invested in the Mosul campaign when it was launched in October. They proved unable to beat 9,000 jihadists. Aware of the crisis on the Mosul front, the Pentagon has drawn up plans for sending out US reinforcements in the hope of turning the tide of the stalled battle.

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis to be secretary of defense, according to people familiar with the decision, nominating a former senior military officer who led operations across the Middle East to run the Pentagon less than four years after he hung up his uniform.

Obama has approved a proposal to give JSOC independent authority to operate outside the regional commands, essentially as a globalized assassination force. JSOC units will bypass the regional commanders and report directly to Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in the Pentagon.

President-elect Donald Trump met with retired General David Petraeus Monday, as a senior official with the transition said the former CIA director is being considered for secretary of state amid open infighting among Trump’s advisers about who to pick for the post. “Just met with General Petraeus -- was very impressed!” Trump said in a Twitter post after

Blood-curdling proposals for the persecution of Muslims played a central role in Trump’s election campaign. At one moment, he promised to stop all Muslims from entering the US, though this was later changed to “extreme vetting”. The use of torture by water-boarding was approved and applauded, and Hillary Clinton was pilloried for not speaking of “radical Islamic terrorism”.

Launched under George W. Bush in 2002, drone warfare is part of the explosion of American militarism aimed at establishing US global hegemony. That drone strikes constitute war crimes under international law has not slowed their pace. Far from it. The British human rights organization, Reprieve, currently estimates the “US has used drones to execute without trial some 4,700 people––that we know of.”

This sudden, unplanned visit led some to wonder if there was a rupture between Ankara’s strategic thinking on Iraq and Syria and the United States’ goals in the region. This article will attempt to analyze the factors that prompted the Dunford visit and scenarios of what Ankara may have in mind.

"It has been said more than once that this evil [terrorism] can be defeated only through polled effort of all world countries. Russia has offered that and is offering it to all of its partners," Putin said at a meeting of the Valdai international discussion club. "Colossal damage requires a long-term and all-round program, a kind of the Marshall Plan to revive