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What About the Wagner Group? ...it's all about the OIL

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Long before and ever since the Blackwater Nisour Square massacre, the United States has employed contractors to pursue any particular US military agenda so desired, just about anywhere. However, under US law - depending upon who interprets it and when - US military contractors are not allowed to engage in aggression. Of course, the perception of "armed aggression" versus "self-defense" varies markedly, especially depending upon who or whom - ie which side - is doing the perceiving. The line between mercenary and contractor is indeed fine.

Besides the Nisour Square massacre, plenty of evidence exists that US military contractors do participate in military offensives, and invariably there is no independent observer to determine otherwise. The United States military employs contractors to train and instruct foreign troops in the use of arms and combat too, a technicality not addressed by the Anti-Pinkerton Act

The presence of the United States military and its contractors in Syria is illegal. It is illegal according to Article 25 of the UN Charter; illegal according to the Syrian government and international law; and illegal according to the historically established principles of Westphalian sovereignty. In other words, the United States government is acting as a terrorist entity and insurgency in Syria.
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Trump cancels the pullout from Syria then flip-flops, threatens war with Turkey and gives money to terrorists

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The long nightmare in Syria might finally be coming to an end, but not thanks to the United States and the administration of President Donald Trump. Trump’s boast that “this was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else” was as empty as all the other rhetoric coming out of the White House over the past two and a half years.
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Thanks to a Soviet Navy Captain — We Survived 1962

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Oct. 27, 1962, is the date on which we humans were spared extinction thanks to Soviet Navy submarine Captain Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov.

Arkhipov insisted on following the book on using nuclear weapons. He overruled his colleagues on Soviet submarine B-59, who were readying a 10-kiloton nuclear torpedo to fire at the USS Randolph task force near Cuba without the required authorization from Moscow.

Communications links with naval headquarters were down, and Arkhipov’s colleagues were convinced WWIII had already begun. After hours of battering by depth charges from US warships, the captain of B-59, Valentin Grigorievich Savitsky, screamed, “We’re going to blast them now! We will die, but we will sink them all — we will not disgrace our Navy!” But Captain Arkipov’s permission was also required. He countermanded Savitsky and B-59 came to the surface.

Much of this account of what happened on submarine B-59 is drawn from Daniel Ellsberg’s masterful book, “The Doomsday Machine” — one of the most gripping and important books I have ever read. Dan explains, inter alia, on pages 216-217 the curious circumstance whereby the approval of Arkhipov, chief of staff of the submarine brigade at the time, was also required.
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'Rothbard and War' - Lew Rockwell, Jr

Legendary founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Lew Rockwell, delivers a fascinating and very important talk at the 2019 RPI Summer Washington Conference: Murray Rothbard's views on the centrality of the war and peace issue to the libertarian movement. You will not want to miss this essential speech!
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Trump Flip-Flops on Syria Withdrawal. Again.

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President Trump is reversing his foreign policy decisions so quickly these days that it almost seems like he overturns himself before making the decision in the first place. Last week he was very clear that the US was pulling its troops out of Syria. “Bringing soldiers home,” he said. “Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.”
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Trump’s Imaginary Withdrawal From Syria: A Look Behind the Wizard’s Curtain

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Manjib:  The city of Manjib in northeastern Syria has become a focal point for those who have attacked President Trump for pulling American troops from Syria. Newspaper columnists, Internet bloggers and even Senators have accused President Trump of “abandoning the Kurds” and pointed to Syrian government troops moving into the city of Manjib as proof.
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Barr Changes the Dynamic, The Threat of Obstruction of Justice

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I do not believe in coincidence. I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that these three events occurred late last night:

1. The investigation of the roots of the plot to destroy Donald Trump and his Presidency is now a criminal matter.

2. A letter from Inspector General Horowitz announcing that his report on the FISA fraud would be out shortly with no major redactions.

3. The Government caved to Honey Badger Sidney Powell and allowed her to fully expose criminal conduct by Michael Flynn's prosecutors.

What is going on? Two words. Bill Barr. The Attorney General has pulled the trigger and altered the landscape in the Russiagate saga. Having been granted full authority by the President to declassify information, including intel from the CIA and the NSA, he has now acted in a powerful, but low key way.

The announcement that this is now a criminal investigation means that anyone, including FBI agents and CIA officers, who try to hold back information or hide information will be vulnerable to obstruction of justice charges. Criminal penalties attach.
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Trump and Erdogan Are Alike: Both Are ‘Thin-Skinned’ and Relied on ‘Deplorables’ to Win

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The apparent communications problems that have arisen between US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are basically due to Trump’s failure to understand that Erdogan is essentially his Turkish counterpart in more ways that the title of the office that they both hold. They rose to power in a similar fashion, based on an understanding that there were large numbers of disenchanted essentially conservative voters, and they continue to rule in an unorthodox fashion that combines a high level of personal sensitivity with a tolerance for corruption plus a tendency to come out with brash misstatements.

One does not expect Trump to actually know anything about Turkey and its history, or, for that matter, about the political trajectory of Erdogan, but the American president’s businessman’s belief that his personal relationship with other countries’ leaders is enough to run a foreign policy is nevertheless seriously flawed. Trump has described Erdogan as a “friend” based on several personal meetings and phone calls, though it is very unlikely that the canny politician Erdogan would describe the relationship in the same manner. Trump’s most recent personal letter to the Turkish leader was reportedly thrown into the waste basket without being read.

Istanbul-born Erdogan, unlike Trump, came from a poor family and first became known as a professional soccer player. Also unlike Trump, he was and is deeply religious. He became a ward politician in Istanbul and was subsequently elected Mayor of the city in 1994 as the candidate of the moderately Islamist Welfare Party. Openly espoused religious parties were at that time illegal under the secular constitution imposed by the military in 1982, so he was stripped of his position by a military tribunal, banned from political office, and imprisoned for four months for the crime of “inciting religious hatred.”
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