In this mailing:
- Malcolm Lowe: How Putin Outfoxed Trump, Pence and Erdogan
- Alain Destexhe: Should Europe Bring Back the Fighters Who Left for ISIS?
by Malcolm Lowe • November 6, 2019 at 5:00 am
President Donald Trump claimed the entire credit for this outcome. But in reality it was the culmination of a scheme that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been planning since at least January 2019.
The drama of recent weeks began with joint Turkish-US patrols along the Syrian side of the border and ended with joint Russian-Turkish patrols. This switch already indicates who intimidates Erdogan and who does not.
Above all, the "Joint U.S.-Turkish Statement" nowhere defined the length or even the depth of the "safe zone," allowing Erdogan to understand it to mean – as in the various Turkish statements at the UN – the entire length of the border and a variable depth enabling the settlement of one or two or three million Islamist Syrian refugees.
Assad and Putin may be scheming to recapture Afrin in same style as they have used to regain most of western Syria, namely, Assad regime infantry backed by heavy Russian bombing. Only this time the SDF will be available to serve as infantry.
Note the opinion of Robert Pearson, a former US Ambassador to Turkey, speaking on Middle East Forum Radio on October 23, that "Sooner or Later, Putin Will Force Turkey out of Syria."
Pictured: US Vice President Mike Pence visits Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, Turkey on October 17, 2019. (Photo by Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Turkish Presidency via Getty Images)
On October 17, brandishing President Donald Trump's threat to destroy the Turkish economy, US Vice President Mike Pence visited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Feigning a spirit of compromise, Erdogan agreed on a memorandum with Pence that effectively gave Erdogan the green light to complete his ethnic cleansing of the Syrian Kurds.
On October 22, Erdogan went to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin. This time, Erdogan feigned full satisfaction with a joint memorandum that limited his ethnic cleansing to an Arab-majority stretch of Syrian territory adjacent to the Turkish border, where few Kurds live anyway, while conceding the protection of all other Syrian Kurds to Putin.
Trump claimed the entire credit for this outcome. But in reality it was the culmination of a scheme that Putin had been planning since at least January 2019, when he promoted a meeting between representatives of the Syrian Kurds and of the Assad regime.
by Alain Destexhe • November 6, 2019 at 4:00 am
This debate about repatriation is another example of how confused the West has become when trying to apply its moral principles. The real victims here are the people who were murdered, injured, raped, tortured or displaced by ISIS. Their children, if still alive, will have to live with the consequences of ISIS terror.
If European governments have to choose between supporting a Yazidi rape survivor and her unwanted child or a woman who willingly left Europe to spit in the face of Western societies and the values of her country of origin to join ISIS, they should choose the former. Sorry, do-gooders. These deserters should not be allowed back to Europe.
European governments are confronted with the thorny problem of what to do with their citizens who were "foreign fighters" for ISIS. Most of the surviving fighters are being held in Iraqi or Kurdish jails. There is currently growing pressure to bring them back to Europe. (Source of Heathrow border photo: dgmckelvey/Flickr)
After the Turkish offensive into Syria, European governments are confronted again with the thorny problem of what to do with the "foreign fighters".
Foreign fighters are Muslim extremists who left their countries of residence to join ISIS and fight against Western civilization and values. Most of them are men, but many women joined them to support the Caliphate. Many of these women later became pregnant with the children of ISIS terrorists.
Since the fall of Mosul and Raqqa, most of the surviving fighters are currently being detained in Iraqi or Kurdish jails. Some are also in detention in northern Syria, a territory whose future is uncertain. Most women (and their children) live in refugee camps, often in miserable conditions.
by Chris Farrell • November 5, 2019 at 5:00 am
We are not witnessing a legitimate impeachment process, and certainly not any form of justice recognizable in America since the Massachusetts Spring of 1693.
Will United States Attorney John Durham empanel a grand jury and indict anyone? What of the "journalists" in the overtly partisan American press corps? Will a brave US Senator dare to ask: "What did President Obama know, and when did he know it?"
While the House Intelligence Committee negligently fixates on carrying out their coup against the President, what are they missing from the real threats arrayed against our country?
House Resolution 660 is a false and maliciously dishonest legislative maneuver by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, intended retroactively to inoculate Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), et al. from their earlier "inquiry" abuses, and possible criminality. Pictured: Schiff and Pelosi at an October 2, 2019 press conference in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
November, the month signaling the approach of winter, brings the American public the promise of a bitter, dishonest, political spectacle -- casting a poisonous gloom over the traditional winter holidays celebrating faith and family. Worse -- the long-term consequences may irreparably damage our constitutional republic.
House Resolution 660 is a false and maliciously dishonest legislative maneuver by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, intended retroactively to inoculate Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), et al. from their earlier "inquiry" abuses, and possible criminality. Criminality? Yes -- abuse of power on a grand scale, as well as the violation of individual rights and constitutional due process guarantees can be criminal. Speaker Pelosi's unilateral declaration on September 24, 2019, of an "official inquiry," now bears the phony, partisan imprimatur of the House of Representatives, by a slim margin of 232-196.
by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 5, 2019 at 4:00 am
What Iran evidently wants is to see Arabs protesting against the US and Israel -- and against nothing else.
It now remains to be seen whether the Arabs who have finally woken up to realize that Iran -- and not Israel -- is the real threat to their well-being will be able to keep up the momentum and continue their uprising against corruption and Iranian dominance over their countries.
Instead of firing rockets at Israel and demonstrating at the Gaza-Israel border, Palestinians ought to learn from their brothers in Lebanon and Iraq who their real enemies are: Iranian-backed dictators and fake Palestinian leaders, who only know how to lead their people towards further suffering.
Iran has enlisted Khaled Masha'al, the former head of the "political bureau" of the Palestinian Hamas movement, to warn Arabs about the consequences of their demands for reform and democracy. Pictured: Masha'al with Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Image source: khamenei.ir)
In the context of its effort to thwart the current anti-corruption protests in Lebanon and Iraq, Iran has enlisted Khaled Masha'al, the former head of the "political bureau" of the Palestinian Hamas movement, to warn Arabs about the consequences of their demands for reform and democracy.
Iran considers the anti-corruption protests a major threat to its interests in the region. That is most likely why it has decided to unleash Hamas and its other proxies -- Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq -- against the demonstrators on the streets of Beirut and Baghdad. What Iran evidently wants is to see Arabs protesting against the US and Israel -- and against nothing else.
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