Missile detente in Europe died the day that Obama signed off those strategic missile stations for Romania and Poland (2009)
The death of the INF
The death of the INF
Obviously a bulk of it is posturing on both sides ... external enemies have been used as a distraction to internal problems throughout the history of civilization.. plus on both sides it feeds the military industrial complex and all the debting and unnecessary spending related to that..
Mainly find it funny that Putin and Russians played key role in getting trump elected.. obviously having hillary on the other side by itself was the main reason ha.. just two utterly terrible candidates..
---------
CPI came in hot/higher than expected..
staglflation looming..
markets on crack but what what do I know..
core cpi 2.3% yoy fed target supposedly 2%
plus the cpi data is garbage.. as far as average joe is concerned.. high end gadgets and things you don't need tend to deflate over the long haul.. so the necessities (food, gas, rent, power bills, healthcare, housing) are inflating much more than advertised...
Mainly find it funny that Putin and Russians played key role in getting trump elected.. obviously having hillary on the other side by itself was the main reason ha.. just two utterly terrible candidates..
---------
CPI came in hot/higher than expected..
staglflation looming..
markets on crack but what what do I know..
core cpi 2.3% yoy fed target supposedly 2%
plus the cpi data is garbage.. as far as average joe is concerned.. high end gadgets and things you don't need tend to deflate over the long haul.. so the necessities (food, gas, rent, power bills, healthcare, housing) are inflating much more than advertised...
up within the next 12 months.
Who knows what's true anymore..
but if i were putin I would be all about a trump presidency...
time article..
like your updated photo btw.. get a fucking haircut! Looks like your mother fucked a monkey!
------
[h=1]U.S. Intelligence Report Identifies Russians Who Gave DNC Emails to Wikileaks[/h](WASHINGTON) — The CIA has identified Russian officials who fed material hacked from the Democratic National Committee and party leaders to Wikileaks at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin through third parties, according to a new U.S. intelligence report, senior U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Central Intelligence Agency and others have concluded that the Russian government escalated its efforts from discrediting the U.S. election process to assisting President-elect Donald Trump's campaign.
The intelligence assessment was presented to President Barack Obama on Thursday and will be briefed to Trump on Friday. Trump has rejected the broad intelligence community's assessment that Russia staged cyber attacks during the election campaign to undermine Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Russia has rejected the hacking allegations.
"By October, it had become clear that the Russians were trying to help the Trump campaign," said one official familiar with the full report speaking on the condition of anonymity because the complete version is Top Secret.
In some cases, one official said, the material followed what was called "a circuitous route" from the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, to Wikileaks in an apparent attempt to make the origins of the material harder to trace, a common practice used by all intelligence agencies, including U.S. ones.
These handoffs, the officials said, enabled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to say the Russian government or state agencies were not the source of the material published on his website.
In an interview with Fox News this week, Assange said he did not receive emails stolen from the DNC and Clinton aide John Podesta from "a state party." Assange did not rule out the possibility that he got the material from a third party.
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)]
White HouseMichael Flynn Leaks Show White House Strain With Intelligence Community
russiaTreasury Department Adjusts Sanctions on Russia's Intelligence Agency FSB
intelligencePresident Trump Keeps FBI Director He and Hillary Clinton Criticized
intelligencePresident Trump Is Trying to Make Up With the CIA
intelligencePresident Trump Is About to Visit the CIA After Weeks of Acrimony
intelligenceThe CIA Just Published Its Updated Rules on Citizen Surveillance
intelligenceYou Can Now Search the CIA’s Online Database of 12 Million Declassified Pages
intelligenceWikiLeaks Said Julian Assange Would Agree to Extradition if Chelsea Manning Was Granted Clemency
[/COLOR]
Details of the report emerged as the top U.S. intelligence official, James Clapper, said on Thursday he was "even more resolute" in his belief that Russia staged cyber attacks on Democrats during the 2016 election campaign.
Not all 17 intelligence agencies participated in preparing the assessment. An unclassified version of the report is expected to be released on Friday morning, two officials said.
The report contains some of what the officials called "minor footnotes" about open questions and other uncertainties, in part because some of the evidence supporting the conclusion is inferential.
One such example, the officials said, was that intercepted messages and conversations among senior Russian officials in Putin's inner circle indicated they were aware of the hacking campaign and celebrated Trump's election as a victorious end to the campaign.
The officials declined to discuss the nature of the communications, including whether they were domestic, international, or both.
"People who knew what this was about were celebrating a victory over the United States," said one official.
Another example of inferential evidence, the officials said, was that as time passed and the early leaks attracted media attention that undermined or eclipsed Clinton's campaign, the Russians increasingly focused their hacking "almost exclusively" on Democratic rather than Republican targets.
There was also strong resemblance -- including the use of the same computer malware -- the Russians have used against targets in Europe and the marriage of traditional espionage tactics used by Soviet and Russian intelligence such as bribery, blackmail and internet vulnerabilities, which they said Putin has devoted increasing resources and attention to exploiting.
For example, one official said, the Democratic databases and email servers the Russians hacked also contained personal information that Wikileaks has not published.
Such information could be used to search for financial, medical, browsing history and other records that can be used to target individuals for recruiting efforts by Russian spies.
Who knows what's true anymore..
but if i were putin I would be all about a trump presidency...
time article..
like your updated photo btw.. get a fucking haircut! Looks like your mother fucked a monkey!
------
[h=1]U.S. Intelligence Report Identifies Russians Who Gave DNC Emails to Wikileaks[/h](WASHINGTON) — The CIA has identified Russian officials who fed material hacked from the Democratic National Committee and party leaders to Wikileaks at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin through third parties, according to a new U.S. intelligence report, senior U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Central Intelligence Agency and others have concluded that the Russian government escalated its efforts from discrediting the U.S. election process to assisting President-elect Donald Trump's campaign.
The intelligence assessment was presented to President Barack Obama on Thursday and will be briefed to Trump on Friday. Trump has rejected the broad intelligence community's assessment that Russia staged cyber attacks during the election campaign to undermine Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Russia has rejected the hacking allegations.
"By October, it had become clear that the Russians were trying to help the Trump campaign," said one official familiar with the full report speaking on the condition of anonymity because the complete version is Top Secret.
In some cases, one official said, the material followed what was called "a circuitous route" from the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, to Wikileaks in an apparent attempt to make the origins of the material harder to trace, a common practice used by all intelligence agencies, including U.S. ones.
These handoffs, the officials said, enabled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to say the Russian government or state agencies were not the source of the material published on his website.
In an interview with Fox News this week, Assange said he did not receive emails stolen from the DNC and Clinton aide John Podesta from "a state party." Assange did not rule out the possibility that he got the material from a third party.
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)]
White HouseMichael Flynn Leaks Show White House Strain With Intelligence Community
russiaTreasury Department Adjusts Sanctions on Russia's Intelligence Agency FSB
intelligencePresident Trump Keeps FBI Director He and Hillary Clinton Criticized
intelligencePresident Trump Is Trying to Make Up With the CIA
intelligencePresident Trump Is About to Visit the CIA After Weeks of Acrimony
intelligenceThe CIA Just Published Its Updated Rules on Citizen Surveillance
intelligenceYou Can Now Search the CIA’s Online Database of 12 Million Declassified Pages
intelligenceWikiLeaks Said Julian Assange Would Agree to Extradition if Chelsea Manning Was Granted Clemency
[/COLOR]
Details of the report emerged as the top U.S. intelligence official, James Clapper, said on Thursday he was "even more resolute" in his belief that Russia staged cyber attacks on Democrats during the 2016 election campaign.
Not all 17 intelligence agencies participated in preparing the assessment. An unclassified version of the report is expected to be released on Friday morning, two officials said.
The report contains some of what the officials called "minor footnotes" about open questions and other uncertainties, in part because some of the evidence supporting the conclusion is inferential.
One such example, the officials said, was that intercepted messages and conversations among senior Russian officials in Putin's inner circle indicated they were aware of the hacking campaign and celebrated Trump's election as a victorious end to the campaign.
The officials declined to discuss the nature of the communications, including whether they were domestic, international, or both.
"People who knew what this was about were celebrating a victory over the United States," said one official.
Another example of inferential evidence, the officials said, was that as time passed and the early leaks attracted media attention that undermined or eclipsed Clinton's campaign, the Russians increasingly focused their hacking "almost exclusively" on Democratic rather than Republican targets.
There was also strong resemblance -- including .
I wish I had a head of hair like that haha. That article you posted does say Julian S did not get cable from Russia. And this all the claim was. It was said to be a leak from the DNC. The amount of pedophilia and deals made by Clinton in those were/are staggering. And youre 100% coreect. Kremlin warns trump all day over her. She was flaking no fly zone over Syria and shooting down Russian planes evoking ww3 on be half of the Davos Group. Funny, trump wins and Aleppo is liberated and Syria is returning to normal. There is much bigger stakes here than just what we are seeing on tv. The dollar war is coming to a bank near you.
[h=1]Russian Security Expert Maintains Putin Was Behind DNC Hack[/h]Despite official Kremlin denials and worthless U.S. intelligence reports, Russia's leading Internet security expert says the fingerprints of Putin's cyber-warriors are all over the Democratic National Committee hack.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Moscow has flatly denied any interference in the U.S. presidential election. The Kremlin says a recent U.S. intelligence report that accuses Russia of hacking political networks proves absolutely nothing. Journalist Andrei Soldatov has been investigating Russia's intelligence services for almost two decades, and he told NPR's Lucian Kim the U.S. report missed the real story.
LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: I meet Andrei Soldatov in a cultural center named after the Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. The center has become one of the few places in Moscow where opponents of the Kremlin still gather. Soldatov was presenting his latest book about the Russian surveillance state which was first published in English under the title "The Red Web." When asked about the recent U.S. report on alleged Russian hacking, Soldatov agrees with the view that it was short on detail.
ANDREI SOLDATOV: For months, we expected the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to provide something new, something which would point out to a particular agency and to provide some hard evidence about how the whole thing was organized.
KIM: That's not to say Soldatov doubts that the Russian government was behind the hacking, but he thinks U.S. intelligence is overlooking what he calls the murky world of informal actors.
SOLDATOV: It's a very murky world with lots of actors, some of them formal actors, like security agencies, intelligence agencies and the military. But also, we have lots of informal actors. And these people - well, they tend to be much more dangerous. They enjoy direct access to the Kremlin. And sometimes the Kremlin uses these people, not the formal actors, to do the most sensitive operations.
KIM: Using hard-to-trace freelance operatives, Soldatov says, helps the Russian government deny involvement in covert operations. He says the freelancers infiltrate servers and email accounts over many months, collecting potentially damaging information which can then be released when it's politically expedient.
SOLDATOV: It’s about a very interesting phenomenon that the information is not only stolen but also made public, which is a very Russian way of doing these things.
KIM: Soldatov and his partner, the journalist Irina Borogan, say they have faced harassment because of their work investigating the Russian security services.
SOLDATOV: It’s absolutely impossible for us to be hired by Russian media for many years. And now if we need to - or we have something sensitive, first, we need to find a Western publication to get it published.
KIM: Soldatov and Borogan signed copies of their book under a large photograph of dissident Andrei Sakharov, who suffered repression under the Soviet Union. They say that Russia's new cyber-warriors are following in the tradition of the Soviet secret police, only now their weapons are passwords and computers. Lucian Kim, NPR News, Moscow.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONSTER RALLY SONG, "ORCHIDS")
Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of useand permissions pages at www.npr.orgfor further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Moscow has flatly denied any interference in the U.S. presidential election. The Kremlin says a recent U.S. intelligence report that accuses Russia of hacking political networks proves absolutely nothing. Journalist Andrei Soldatov has been investigating Russia's intelligence services for almost two decades, and he told NPR's Lucian Kim the U.S. report missed the real story.
LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: I meet Andrei Soldatov in a cultural center named after the Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. The center has become one of the few places in Moscow where opponents of the Kremlin still gather. Soldatov was presenting his latest book about the Russian surveillance state which was first published in English under the title "The Red Web." When asked about the recent U.S. report on alleged Russian hacking, Soldatov agrees with the view that it was short on detail.
ANDREI SOLDATOV: For months, we expected the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to provide something new, something which would point out to a particular agency and to provide some hard evidence about how the whole thing was organized.
KIM: That's not to say Soldatov doubts that the Russian government was behind the hacking, but he thinks U.S. intelligence is overlooking what he calls the murky world of informal actors.
SOLDATOV: It's a very murky world with lots of actors, some of them formal actors, like security agencies, intelligence agencies and the military. But also, we have lots of informal actors. And these people - well, they tend to be much more dangerous. They enjoy direct access to the Kremlin. And sometimes the Kremlin uses these people, not the formal actors, to do the most sensitive operations.
KIM: Using hard-to-trace freelance operatives, Soldatov says, helps the Russian government deny involvement in covert operations. He says the freelancers infiltrate servers and email accounts over many months, collecting potentially damaging information which can then be released when it's politically expedient.
SOLDATOV: It’s about a very interesting phenomenon that the information is not only stolen but also made public, which is a very Russian way of doing these things.
KIM: Soldatov and his partner, the journalist Irina Borogan, say they have faced harassment because of their work investigating the Russian security services.
SOLDATOV: It’s absolutely impossible for us to be hired by Russian media for many years. And now if we need to - or we have something sensitive, first, we need to find a Western publication to get it published.
KIM: Soldatov and Borogan signed copies of their book under a large photograph of dissident Andrei Sakharov, who suffered repression under the Soviet Union. They say that Russia's new cyber-warriors are following in the tradition of the Soviet secret police, only now their weapons are passwords and computers. Lucian Kim, NPR News, Moscow.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONSTER RALLY SONG, "ORCHIDS")
Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of useand permissions pages at www.npr.orgfor further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
President-elect Donald Trump said today he accepts the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia was behind the massive alleged hacking of political organizations and individuals during the U.S. presidential race — the first time he has conceded that Russia was behind the cyberattacks.
"As far as hacking, I think it was Russia," Trump told reporters during his first press conference since winning the Nov. 8 election. "But I also think we've been hacked by other countries, other people."
----
and trump who supposedly got the intelligence report along with obama during the transition..eventually sided with the CIA after he talked shit about um in the early days.. maybe just shut up so he didn't end up like JFK.. who knows what's reality anymore..
"As far as hacking, I think it was Russia," Trump told reporters during his first press conference since winning the Nov. 8 election. "But I also think we've been hacked by other countries, other people."
----
and trump who supposedly got the intelligence report along with obama during the transition..eventually sided with the CIA after he talked shit about um in the early days.. maybe just shut up so he didn't end up like JFK.. who knows what's reality anymore..
Huh on Syria?
pentagon wants trump to send in ground troops..
ww3 began the minute we invaded Iraq and created a huge disruption in a very complex place.. just not how past wars looked like with people lining up in a line and doing battle..
---------
[h=1]Pentagon considering recommending ground troops in Syria to fight ISIS[/h]
- Pamela Engel
- Feb 15, 2017, 5:57 PM ET
Politics
"It's possible that you may see conventional forces hit the ground in Syria for some period of time," a defense official told CNN.
There are currently hundreds US troops in Syria to offer training and assistance to US-backed local forces there. But conventional forces would likely be on the ground in larger numbers, according to CNN.
CNN reported last month that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was taking control of a Pentagon review to determine which options the Defense Department would present to President Donald Trump on the fight against ISIS.
The defense official CNN cites in Wednesday's report stressed that any decision on Syria would ultimately be up to Trump.
Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and an expert on Syria, said he's "not surprised" to see that the US is considering ground troops in Syria to fight ISIS.
"Fits Trump desire for a rapid victory + withdrawal," he tweeted.
[h=3]NOW WATCH: Why Ivanka can't serve in a Trump cabinet[/h]
China sits back and laughs as we waste our time and resources in the region..
iraq invasion worst foreign policy mistake our country ever made by a large margin..
--------
World War Three may have already begun in Iraq and Syria
Soldiers take pictures as flame and smoke are seen following air bombardments during the Northern Thunder exercises, in Hafr Al-Batin, near Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq, March 10, 2016. REUTERS/Abedullah al-Desori
The recent death of a Marine in Iraq exposed the fact the United States set up a firebase there, which in turn exposed the fact the Pentagon misrepresented the number of American personnel in Iraq by as many as 2,000. It appears a second firebase exists, set up on the grounds of one of America’s largest installations in the last Iraq war. Special operations forces range across the landscape. The Pentagon is planning for even more troops. There can be no more wordplay: America now has boots on the ground in Iraq.
The regional picture is dismal. In Syria, militias backed by the Central Intelligence Agency are fighting those backed by the Pentagon. British, Jordanian and American special forces are fighting various enemies in Libya, which, as a failed state, is little more than a nascent Iraq likely to metastasize in its neighbors.
But Iraq remains the center of what Jordanian King Abdullah now refers to as the Third World War. It is where Islamic State was birthed, and where the United States seems to be digging in for the long haul.
Though arguably the story of Islamic State, Iraq and the United States can be traced to the lazy division of the Ottoman Empire after World War One, things truly popped out of place in 2003, when the U.S. invasion of Iraq unleashed the forces now playing out across the Middle East. The garbled post-invasion strategy installed a Shi’ite-dominated, Iranian-supported government in Baghdad, with limited Sunni buy-in.
Sectarian fighting and central-government corruption favoring the Shi’ites drove non-ideologues without jobs, and religious zealots with an agenda, together. Clumsy policy cemented the relationship. A senior Islamic State commander explained that the prison at Camp Bucca, operated by the United States, was directly responsible for the rise of the violent, theocratic state inside the divided, but then still largely secular Iraq. “It made it all; it built our ideology,” he said. “We could never have all got together like this in Baghdad, or anywhere else.” So, first came al Qaeda in Iraq, followed by its successor, Islamic State.
Fast-forward through about a year and half of Washington fear-mongering (that caliphate, those lone wolves), as well as the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels, and America’s re-entry into Iraq moved quickly from a Yazidi rescue mission to advisors to air power to commandos to today’s boots on the ground.
Even if Islamic State is destroyed (as every American leader or potential leader has promised), the problems in Iraq, Syria and virtually everywhere else in the Middle East would still plague the rest of the world. Islamic State is a response, and its absence would only leave a void to be filled by something else. The root problem is the disruption of the balance of power in the Middle East, brought on by a couple of regime changes too many.
The primary forces that the United States are supporting to attack Islamic State in Iraq’s Sunni territories are Shi’ite militias. Though they have been given a new name — Popular Mobilization Units — that does not change who they are. One particularly horrifying example: A Shi’ite fighter asked his Instagram viewers to vote on whether or not he should execute a Sunni prisoner.
Washington clings to the hope that the militias and the U.S. administration are united against a common foe – the bad Sunnis in Islamic State. The Iranians and their allies in Baghdad, who are also supporting many of the same militias, are more likely to see this is as a war against the Sunnis in general.
As for any sort of brokered settlement among the non-Islamic State actors in Iraq, if 170,000 American troops could not accomplish that in almost nine years of trying, retrying it on a tighter timetable with fewer resources is highly unlikely to work. It is unclear what solutions the United States has left to peddle anyway, or with what credibility it would sell them, but many groups will play along to gain access to American military power for their own ends.
With no change on the horizon, it seems likely that President Barack Obama’s successor will be inheriting, in the words of one commentator, a “bold new decade-old strategy” that relies on enormous expenditures for minimal gains. The question that needs to be asked is: If war in Iraq didn’t work last time, why will it work this time?
iraq invasion worst foreign policy mistake our country ever made by a large margin..
--------
World War Three may have already begun in Iraq and Syria
The recent death of a Marine in Iraq exposed the fact the United States set up a firebase there, which in turn exposed the fact the Pentagon misrepresented the number of American personnel in Iraq by as many as 2,000. It appears a second firebase exists, set up on the grounds of one of America’s largest installations in the last Iraq war. Special operations forces range across the landscape. The Pentagon is planning for even more troops. There can be no more wordplay: America now has boots on the ground in Iraq.
The regional picture is dismal. In Syria, militias backed by the Central Intelligence Agency are fighting those backed by the Pentagon. British, Jordanian and American special forces are fighting various enemies in Libya, which, as a failed state, is little more than a nascent Iraq likely to metastasize in its neighbors.
But Iraq remains the center of what Jordanian King Abdullah now refers to as the Third World War. It is where Islamic State was birthed, and where the United States seems to be digging in for the long haul.
Though arguably the story of Islamic State, Iraq and the United States can be traced to the lazy division of the Ottoman Empire after World War One, things truly popped out of place in 2003, when the U.S. invasion of Iraq unleashed the forces now playing out across the Middle East. The garbled post-invasion strategy installed a Shi’ite-dominated, Iranian-supported government in Baghdad, with limited Sunni buy-in.
Sectarian fighting and central-government corruption favoring the Shi’ites drove non-ideologues without jobs, and religious zealots with an agenda, together. Clumsy policy cemented the relationship. A senior Islamic State commander explained that the prison at Camp Bucca, operated by the United States, was directly responsible for the rise of the violent, theocratic state inside the divided, but then still largely secular Iraq. “It made it all; it built our ideology,” he said. “We could never have all got together like this in Baghdad, or anywhere else.” So, first came al Qaeda in Iraq, followed by its successor, Islamic State.
Fast-forward through about a year and half of Washington fear-mongering (that caliphate, those lone wolves), as well as the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels, and America’s re-entry into Iraq moved quickly from a Yazidi rescue mission to advisors to air power to commandos to today’s boots on the ground.
Even if Islamic State is destroyed (as every American leader or potential leader has promised), the problems in Iraq, Syria and virtually everywhere else in the Middle East would still plague the rest of the world. Islamic State is a response, and its absence would only leave a void to be filled by something else. The root problem is the disruption of the balance of power in the Middle East, brought on by a couple of regime changes too many.
The primary forces that the United States are supporting to attack Islamic State in Iraq’s Sunni territories are Shi’ite militias. Though they have been given a new name — Popular Mobilization Units — that does not change who they are. One particularly horrifying example: A Shi’ite fighter asked his Instagram viewers to vote on whether or not he should execute a Sunni prisoner.
Washington clings to the hope that the militias and the U.S. administration are united against a common foe – the bad Sunnis in Islamic State. The Iranians and their allies in Baghdad, who are also supporting many of the same militias, are more likely to see this is as a war against the Sunnis in general.
As for any sort of brokered settlement among the non-Islamic State actors in Iraq, if 170,000 American troops could not accomplish that in almost nine years of trying, retrying it on a tighter timetable with fewer resources is highly unlikely to work. It is unclear what solutions the United States has left to peddle anyway, or with what credibility it would sell them, but many groups will play along to gain access to American military power for their own ends.
With no change on the horizon, it seems likely that President Barack Obama’s successor will be inheriting, in the words of one commentator, a “bold new decade-old strategy” that relies on enormous expenditures for minimal gains. The question that needs to be asked is: If war in Iraq didn’t work last time, why will it work this time?
russia clearly testing the waters eekster.. got a hot headed thin skinned authoritarian wannabe in White House now.. obviously Putin and Kim (missle test while he was spending the weekend with Japanese PM) gonna have some fun...
kim had his half bro poisoned in Malaysia as well..
trump already tucked his tail and ran on challenging chinas policy regarding Taiwan..
--------
Russian spy ship reported off Connecticut shore
Reports of a Russian “spy ship” lurking in the Atlantic south of the U.S. Navy’s submarine base in Groton, Conn., has brought a swift response from the state’s congressional delegation.
On Wednesday morning, the Russian spy ship Viktor Leonov was seen close to the U.S., not far from the U.S. Navy's primary East Coast sub base and home of the Coast Guard Academy in New London.
The ship spotted 30 miles south of the Groton, New London area, remains in international waters that extends 12 miles from the coast.
“The presence of this spy ship has to be regarded very seriously because Russia is an increasingly aggressive adversary. It reflects a clear need to harden our defenses against electronic surveillance and cyber espionage,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee
Tourists in a old American car pass by Russian Vishnya (also known as Meridian) class warship CCB-175 Viktor Leonov, docked, on Feb. 26, 2014, at Havana harbor.
Photo: ADALBERTO ROQUE, Getty ImagesImage 2 of 8
A Soviet-made Lada limousine passes by Russian Vishnya (also known as Meridian) class warship CCB-175 Viktor Leonov, docked, on February 26, 2014, at Havana harbor. The Vishnya class ships are used for
“The return of a Russian vessel is particularly concerning in the context of escalating Russian aggression - within days of the Russians buzzing a U.S. Navy ship in the Black Sea, as well as deploying a cruise missile in violation of our arms control treaty - which only underscores the need for an independent investigation into possible collusion between the Trump administration and Russian agents."
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he wasn’t surprised a Russian spy ship would be interested in a submarine base.
“I think that clearly they (the Russians) like to track submarines. We know that they do. This is not something that is brand new. It’s getting a lot of coverage because I think of other Russian stories related to the Trump administration. They seek to understand how we have the best submarines in the world. And they’re made here.
“The fact that we know that it’s there is probably a good thing and I suspect that we have some of our ships in delicate places as well. I think it’s getting a lot of coverage because of the president’s changed policy towards Russia, which is very different than has been sustained by other administrations. It’s not that we shouldn’t be talking to the Russians, but we shouldn’t necessarily be embracing everything they are doing. And quite frankly, now that we understand that they have recently been active in our own elections, we should be wary of that. But that there are spy ships in the world - we shouldn’t be surprised.”
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)]Related Stories
- Officials: Trump kept Pence in dark over Flynn-Russia call
- Trump aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence
- For GOP, a dimmed zeal for investigations in Trump era
[/COLOR]
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted Wednesday morning “Russia is acting like it has a permission slip to expand influence, test limits of reach. Questions are obvious: Does it, and if so, why?”
In a statement released after his tweet, Murphy said, “While this is not wholly unprecedented, it’s part of a series of aggressive actions by Russia that threaten U.S. national security and the security of our allies. Just yesterday, news broke that Russia violated an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Coupled with escalating fighting in eastern Ukraine and Russian jets buzzing a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Black Sea, Putin clearly thinks the Trump administration has given him a permission slip to flex his muscles. President Trump and his administration must end their silence and immediately respond to these threats to our national security.”
The Russian ship is armed with surface-to-air missiles, but its main function is to intercept communications and collect data on U.S. Navy sonar capability. This was the furthest north the Viktor Leonov had ever traveled up the Eastern Seaboard.
A U.S. defense official told the Associated Press the Russian intelligence-collection ship made a port call in Cuba prior to moving north along the East Coast. The ship was seen off of Delaware on Tuesday.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., whose district includes the submarine base, said “the Russian spy ship patrolling 30 miles off the coast of Groton and the sub base underscores the very real threat posed by a resurgent Russia. This unacceptable, aggressive action, combined with the buzzing of U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea yesterday, is a clear indication that Russia is testing the resolve of the new administration. I have total confidence in our Navy’s vigilant, responsible readiness, but the White House needs to move past their infatuation with Putin and treat him like the serious threat to global peace that he has been for the last five years.”
Courtney said “Anyone who would loiter off the coast of Connecticut is not doing it because of the great climate and weather; it’s freezing out there. They are obviously doing it with aggressive intent.”
Courtney assured Connecticut residents that “we are are top of the situation with our Navy team down here in Washington. However, it is a reminder that the Russian government and the investment they have put into their Navy fleet is not a friendly gesture in terms of creating a system of global peace ans security. And this administration needs to wake up and recognize that and move on to bipartisan effort to respond to this threat.”
U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn., echoed Courtney view the ship’s close presence near the U.S. shore should be a wake-up call for the Trump admistration.
“Russia’s escalating aggression is a serious national security threat. Yet again, the Kremlin is testing the resolve of the Trump administration. It is long past time for the White House to stop making excuses for Vladimir Putin and respond to his acts of thuggery with the toughness our security demands.”
Outbrain
Huh on Syria?
pentagon wants trump to send in ground troops..
ww3 began the minute we invaded Iraq and created a huge disruption in a very complex place.. just not how past wars looked like with people lining up in a line and doing battle..
---------
Pentagon considering recommending ground troops in Syria to fight ISIS
- Pamela Engel
- Feb 15, 2017, 5:57 PM ET
Politics
REUTERS/Youssef BoudlalIraqi Shiite militia fighters hold the Islamic State flag as they celebrate after breaking the siege of Amerli by Islamic State militants, September 1, 2014.The Defense Department is considering recommending the US send ground troops into Syria to fight the terrorist group ISIS, according to a source who spoke to CNN.
"It's possible that you may see conventional forces hit the ground in Syria for some period of time," a defense official told CNN.
There are currently hundreds US troops in Syria to offer training and assistance to US-backed local forces there. But conventional forces would likely be on the ground in larger numbers, according to CNN.
CNN reported last month that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was taking control of a Pentagon review to determine which options the Defense Department would present to President Donald Trump on the fight against ISIS.
The defense official CNN cites in Wednesday's report stressed that any decision on Syria would ultimately be up to Trump.
Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and an expert on Syria, said he's "not surprised" to see that the US is considering ground troops in Syria to fight ISIS.
"Fits Trump desire for a rapid victory + withdrawal," he tweeted.
NOW WATCH: Why Ivanka can't serve in a Trump cabinet
Trump wants no part of Syria. I dont think you're grasping what happening. There is two governments working alongside and inside one another. Trump and the Establishment. We (Obummer) backed Al Nusra front and the like and watched them use Aleppo as a human shields. We hit Libya. Iraq like you mentioned. And Trump thought all were stupid. What makes you think he does a 180 on this now?? No way. Yes we did kick a hornets nest with Iraq but Trump isnt going to war with any of these countries anymore. The only one i could see would be Iran and that would only be to avoid a war with Russia as NATO troops continue to pile up on the Russian border. Think of it like this... you and a bunch of your friends go to the biggest bully on the block and you start talking shit and mooning him in front of his house. Youre itching to call in John Cena whos sworn to protect you.... however if john Cena is kicking Irans ass he cant justify two fronts.
He's gonna regret this one me thinks.. as it all comes crumbling down soon..
--------
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Stock market hits new high with longest winning streak in decades. Great level of confidence and optimism - even before tax plan rollout!6:34 AM · Feb 16, 2017
--------
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Stock market hits new high with longest winning streak in decades. Great level of confidence and optimism - even before tax plan rollout!6:34 AM · Feb 16, 2017
[h=1]The Syrian war isn’t stopping for Trump[/h]By Ishaan Tharoor
February 14, 2017 at 1:00 AM
WorldViews
Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? Sign up for the Today's WorldView newsletter.
So far, the most meaningful role played by President Trump in the miserable conflict in Syria has been his relentless demonization of Syrian refugees.
But the war still smolders, and the White House will, sooner or later, have to reckon with its complexity. It may also need to confront the mounting evidence of atrocities committed by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
On Monday, Human Rights Watch issued a report on the regime's alleged use of chlorine bombs during its successful campaign last year to reclaim the last rebel-held territory in the city of Aleppo. The rights group documented at least eight separate chlorine gas attacks before a cease-fire was signed on Dec. 13. "The attacks resulted in the deaths of nine civilians, including four children, and wounded roughly 200," reported my colleague Thomas Gibbons-Neff. "If confirmed, the attacks would be a significant breach of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention that Syria signed in 2013."
That year, the Obama administration almost went to war against the Assad regime for its alleged role in a sarin gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians. The U.S. ultimately chose not to launch punitive air strikes, in part because of a deal brokered by Moscow that saw Syria sign on to the convention and pledge to give up its chemical weapons stockpiles. Nevertheless, chemical attacks seem to have continued, and even insurgent groups like the Islamic State have deployed munitions from their own illicit stores.
A separate report released on Monday by the Atlantic Council, entitled "Breaking Aleppo," also confirmed the use of chemical weapons, as well as the regime's widespread and deliberate targeting of civilian areas in the city, including hospitals, schools and bakeries. Its analysis was based on an exhaustive study of satellite imagery, eyewitness accounts and surveillance footage. The report rebuked both the Russian government, which assisted the regime's aerial bombing campaign, and Iran, whose proxy militias fought on the ground alongside Assad's forces.
"The biggest revelation of this report is not necessarily that these attacks were happening, but the scale at which they were happening," said Eliot Higgins, a senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, to CNN.
Perhaps the most grisly revelations came last week in an Amnesty International report, which alleged the regime carried out a campaign of mass executionsbetween 2011 and 2015, hanging as many as 13,000 suspected dissidents in that time.
Assad, though, laughed off these claimsin an interview with Yahoo News on Friday. He also darkly warned that some people among the roughly 5 million Syrian refugees now languishing outside their homeland were actually "terrorists." Assad frames the war as a battle pitting his government against those "terrorists," sinister jihadist forces propped up by shadowy foreign powers. He and his supporters extol the success of small-scale ceasefires and "reconciliation" measures in various towns and neighborhoods once controlled by rebels.
The irony is that the Assad narrative seems welcome in the Trump White House, which has made clear it's not interested in fomenting regime change in Syria and simply wants to tackle the threat of the Islamic State.
The White House's main solution for Syria's humanitarian calamity — beyond shutting the door to refugees — would be the creation of safe zones in the north of the country, something politicians as disparate as Hillary Clinton and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have suggested before. But Trump officials have been largely silent on how they would achieve this goal. Experts point out that such an intervention would itself be provocative and likely opposed by the Syrian regime and its ally, Russia, in the U.N. Security Council. Even then, the safe zones may not be that safe.
"The objective of this kind of project may be described as fundamentally humanitarian, but the reality is that any number of parties, starting with the Assad regime and the Islamic State, are going to see it as a threat, and that’s going to make it a target instead of a safe place,” said Daniel Byman, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University, to the Christian Science Monitor.
Russia, Iran and Turkey are now steering the slow-moving Syrian peace process forward. A new round of talks is expected to take place later this week in the Kazakh capital of Astana, with the U.S. taking a back seat. That Ankara and Moscow — once on opposite sides of the conflict — are now tightening cooperationunderscores the increasing irrelevance of the United States to the Syrian endgame.
"In the aftermath of Aleppo’s destruction, the Trump Administration inherits a U.S. position that is weaker than ever, in an even more shattered Syria," concludes the Atlantic Council report. But it's not clear yet whether the Trump administration has much desire to improve that position.
Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? Sign up for the Today's WorldView newsletter.
Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor at TIME, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.
