Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update 3.18.2020

Analysis of COVID-19 M Protein for Possible Clues Regarding Virion Stability, Longevity and Spreading

Beijing Fears COVID-19 Is Turning Point for China, Globalization

Iran Backs China, Calls to Investigate U.S. 'Creation and Spread' of Coronavirus

Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart tests positive for COVID-19

Giving the Right Name to the Virus Causing a Worldwide Pandemic ("CCP Virus")

Man on plane to Nashville reportedly joking about having coronavirus leads to 8-hour delay

This blood test can tell us how widespread coronavirus really is

Mayor Fischer Says His Wife Has Coronavirus (Louisville, KY)

Spring-breakers defy coronavirus lockdown: ‘This virus ain’t that serious’

CDC analysis shows coronavirus poses serious risk for younger people

WHO Claimed In January Wuhan Virus Couldn’t Be Transmitted to Humans, Because China Said It Wasn’t Contagious, Destroyed Evidence

An Effective Treatment for Coronavirus (COVID-19) (Stanford study on Chloroquine)

Baltimore Mayor Begs Residents To Stop Shooting Each Other So Hospital Beds Can Be Used......

Oxivir tb Wipes & EPA List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-2

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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update 3.11.2020

Acute Myocardial Injury of Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019

From a well respected friend and intensivist/A&E consultant who is currently in northern Italy

What Do We Do When the Coronavirus Bankrupts the Health Insurance Industry

Almost 200 North Korean Soldiers Have Reportedly Died From the Coronavirus, While Thousands More Are in Quarantine. The Government Won’t Acknowledge They Even Exist.

Russia, Which Closed Its Border in January, Has Coronavirus Under Control

Coronavirus: Iran Reports Leap in Death Toll

Abbas Declares State of Emergency as Coronavirus Spreads to West Bank

Estimate the incubation period of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19)

How Much $$ Will the CDC Profit From a COVID-19 Vaccine?

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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update 3.9.2020

Testimony of a surgeon working in Bergamo, in the heart of Italy’s coronavirus outbreak

Scientists may have found a way to prevent coronavirus spread

Coronavirus Update: Cases Skyrocket In Germany, Prompting Economic Concerns

Gates-funded program will soon offer home-testing kits for new coronavirus

Discovery of anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents from commercially available flavor via docking screening

Inhibitors for Novel Coronavirus Protease Identified by Virtual Screening of 687 Million Compounds

Coronavirus: Ten Dead in China Quarantine Hotel Collapse

Bioweapons Expert Speaks Out About Novel Coronavirus

Iran Reports Its Largest Coronavirus Death Toll Within 24-Hour Period

Netherlands: Big Jump in Breda Coronavirus Cases; 34% of Country’s Patients in Noord-Brabant

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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update 3.7.2020

Virtual Screening of Inhibitors Against Spike Glycoprotein of 2019 Novel Corona Virus: A Drug Repurposing Approach

The best, and the worst, of the Coronavirus dashboards

Identification of COVID-19 Can be Quicker through Artificial Intelligence framework using a Mobile Phone-Based Survey in the Populations when Cities/Towns Are …

As tonnes of used masks pile up, China struggles to cope with medical waste

How Taiwan managed to avoid a coronavirus outbreak 

Clinical trials for a new coronavirus vaccine approved at a Seattle research institute 

N.Y. Cases Surge; Italian, French Lawmakers Ill: Virus Update

As the coronavirus spreads, one study predicts that even the best-case scenario is 15 million dead and a $2.4 trillion hit to global GDP

Adviser to Iran’s Foreign Minister Dies of Coronavirus

Stanford closes arts facilities due to coronavirus threat

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Qatar: Is it about Trump, Israel or Nascent Influence?

Now as most of my readers know, I voted for Donald Trump, as well as I voted for Barack Obama in 2008.  This is one reason I do not see a difference between democrats and republicans. Moreover, my voting for whomever doesn’t come with me supporting them just because they received my vote.  Rather, it requires I speak up objectively about policy and events that occur under their leadership that in my view I consider to be wrong-headed and generally fcked up. The recent severing of all relations with Qatar by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates coincidentally after a visit from President Donald Trump in my opinion is such an event. Supposedly or at least based on media reports, because Qatar has relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas and funds terrorism in the region. Iraq has indicated that they will not be taking sides on this issue.

Saudi Arabia has demanded that Qatar ends these relationships and this has left me scratching my head. Did Trump give a green light for this, knowingly or unknowingly? How far will this go? How will this impact any of the recent OPEC agreements? What could or would the worst-case scenario be? Why now? The fear of other area nations, namely Oman and Kuwait is that tensions may escalate and result in more unforeseen problems for all Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, maybe even a possible break-up of the GCC.

So far the Saudi royal family has imposed a naval blockade stopping most if not all of its  maritime trade and more importantly Qatar’s ability to export Liquefied natural gas is natural gas and oil. They have also closed their borders with Qatar, which immediately led to a run-on food the Qatari capital of Doha and suspended the license of Qatar Airways and ordered its banks to sell tall Qatari currency.  The Saudi’s have also ordered their citizens out of Qatar and gave Qataris abroad 14 days to return to Qatar. Now Saudi Arabia has given Qatar 24 hours to fulfill 10 conditions given to Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, who is operating as a mediator between Saudi and Qatar. If Qatar does not conform to the Saudi’s request, will a military operation be on the table for Riyadh?

President Recep Erdogan of Turkey has come out in support of Qatar and questions the validity of the Saudi’s allegations and their effort to isolate Doha. But this isn’t too much of an unexpected position for Erdogan to take, since the ruling AKP party is a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate and both have provided support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and groups currently fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Erdogan has also decided to deploy troops to Qatar after the 24-hour Saudi ultimatum was made. As part of an agreement signed in 2014 Turkey set up a military base in Qatar like the US base in Qatar. In his most recent statement about the growing tensions, Erdogan noted he did not consider sanctions against Qatar as being a good idea and added that in his view, the other nations were trying to impose a “guardianship over Qatar, which is in itself a violation of its sovereignty, and is rejected outright."

Honestly it is a weak argument for the Saudi’s and their supporting cast and Trump needs to seriously monitor and evaluate this situation. Saudi Arabia calling another nation out for funding terrorism is like the pot calling the kettle black. Although Saudi Arabia has provided no proof to support its claims against Qatar, the history books do confirm that the Saudi’s have remained as being one of the biggest sources of funding to so-called jihadi groups going back decades. Notwithstanding that nine of the fifteen 911 terrorist were from Saudi Arabia. So, there must be something else behind this.

Maybe it is Israel.  We all know they have been trying for decades to drive a wedge between the Arab states. True, Israel has worked with Doha and maintains amenable relationships but they have also let it be known of how their authentic feelings about the small nation. Israel may see this as an opportunity to drive a wedge between the Arab states (if the words of defense minister Avigdor Lieberman reflect the position of the Netanyahu administration and their views of all the Sunni Arab countries except for Qatar) who do not see a nuclear Iran as the number one threat in the middle east).

We know there has been bad blood between the Saudi’s and Qatar for decades most likely starting with overthrow of the former Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani by his son. Plus, there are a few other events over the past 20 years have seem to support this position. If I were asked, I’d say this was about the future of the middle east and energy resources. Doha doesn’t agree with the Saudi view of how the middle east should be.  In fact, they have openly shown how the despise the tyrants and dictators in the region including Saudi, Egypt and the Emirates and Qatar is on record for being willing to negotiate with Iran. The Saudi clique on the other hand see a single direction for the middle east which could shape it for many years to come.  They are against and move toward democratic rule which is one reason they hate the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas (which regardless of being terrorist or not, push for bottom up government).  This is something the monarch's fear and a reason why some suggest Saudi pushed for Present Egyptian President El-Sisi to take over Egypt. The Saudi’s have also given the world Salafism and Wahhabism and have been funding every Islamic fundamentalist ultra-conservative movement in support of jihad since the beginning of OPEC. Without the Saudi’s we would have never had Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

SiSi served as Egypt’s military attaché in Riyadh before returning to Egypt. Evidence supports that he was and remains paid and supported by the Saudi government, who used him to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Egypt Mohamed Morsi (again, they fear popular democratic rule and to stop such in Egypt, the had to overthrow the leader the people elected). One could say that it is the desire for the Saudi’s to stop all and every democratic movement in the region and maintain their feudalistic political domination, even if that means war as is evident for their support for bombing even other Sunni nations like Yemen and Syria.  Qatar was very critical of Sisi killing thousands of civilians during his Coup while Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Emirates were silent. Qatar is also anti secularist, dictatorships and unaccountable royals pushing their weight around and they express this openly.

This is about punishing Qatar not terrorism, so what is going on and why now? Qatar is a major energy producer and has become the single biggest natural gas supplier in the region. The offshore North Field, the world’s largest liquid natural gas reservoir which they share with Iran, may also be a causal factor for Saudi Arabia’s new stance. This may be why the Saudi’s acted so abruptly (it can no longer be a step-child of Saudi Arabia based on its increasing financial influence alone). Then there is the little item of Qatar removing a self-imposed ban on working with Iran to work jointly in operating the North Field.  This not only angers the Saudi’s but Israel equally, and only worsen the fact that the government in Doha has refused to sign on to the Saudi-Israel alliance (against Iran).

If the Trump team is smart, they may be able to take advantage of the good relationship the US military has with Qatar to squash this nonsense. As it stands, no one knows were Trump stands other than a few tweets which in my observation are just pouring gasoline on an already burning part of the globe. First Trump applauded the actions against Qatar, but later stressed the need for unity by the GCC during a phone call with Saudi King Salman. Moreover, Qatar is the location of al-Udeid air base, the U.S. largest airfield in the region were all missions for Syria are originated.

So, I don’t have the answers, but it interesting to think about and I would rather occupy my mind with this than nonsensical Russia Trump collusion BS.  I feel that Qatar will be alright and that nations including but not limited to Iran, Russia, China, and Turkey will jump to fill the void. I also see this as a fight among two versions of extreme Islam and as the Saudi’s overtly showing their fear for a Shia dominated middle east. I worry about Saudi military intervention in Qatar but do not fear of any Saudi annexation and occupation of Qatar: Qatar shares largest natural gas field in the world with Iran, and they won’t allow an occupation or invasion to happen.

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The Snap, Crackle & Pop of Susan Rice

Now I don’t watch the Sunday network talk shows, but I do get to read the transcripts.  I was sent one via email from a friend of mine on Susan Rice’s appearance on the Sunday talk show hosted by Former Bill Clinton Press Secretary George Stephanopoulos.  My friend was cracking up and couldn’t stop laughing. Now for the record I like Susan Rice, I may not agree with her often, but I do like her (nothing like a smart black woman to make me smile). I digress. Nonetheless, it was obvious the powers that be on the mainstream media wanted or needed to get former Ambassador Susan Rice into the collective unconscious of the public left.

From reading the transcript, the first thing that jumped out was that Stephanopoulos was tossing former Ambassador Rice under hand softball pitches or even worse, setting the ball on the T for her to hit without much difficulty. The set up (as has been the case since the presidential primary), is to first use a few of Trump tweets like they were chum (fish parts, bone and blood) to attract the anger and lure Ambassador Rice like a shark to the Trump smell. This is followed by the introduction of the Great White or Tiger Shark they are baiting (chumming) for: this time it being the person who served as national security adviser and UN ambassador under President Obama. His first question, referring to the commixture of tweets pertained to how alarmed should we be because of the recent terrorist attacks in London? Rice gave the basic scripted Benghazi type answer: “We need to remain very focused on dealing with that threat. But at the same time, we need to recognize that there will be homegrown extremists in all our countries. And there is no easy way to predict and defeat every single one of them.” 

Stephanopoulos’s next question was pure chum. "You heard the president say that travel ban would bring an extra level of safety. Your response?”

RICE: “Well, George, there's really no evidence to suggest that by banning Muslims or banning Muslims from a particular set of six countries that we would make ours here in the United States safer. And that's, I believe, one of the major reasons why the courts thus far have been very skeptical of the travel ban. Moreover, I think there's a very real risk that by stigmatizing and isolating Muslims from particular countries and Muslims in general that we alienate the very communities here in the United States whose cooperation we most need to detect and prevent these homegrown extremists from being able to carry out the attacks.”

Yes, that is correct, targeting the same predominantly Muslim nations Obama did in 2011 would only result in the “real risk that by stigmatizing and isolating Muslims from particular countries and Muslims in general that we alienate the very communities here in the United States.” It would be easy to conclude then that Obama’s slowing down of refugees and the level of Iraqi resettlement, would have resulted in the same. Now both programs are different, but it is the logic (or illogic) that sticks out as peculiar.

His next line of questioning briefly (and I mean briefly) addressed leaks.  From reading the transcript and lack of follow-up by Stephanopoulos it was clear he did not want to accidently ask her about possible leaks and unmasking by Obama administration appointees so he deftly moved to the next subject which was her critique of President Trump published in The New York Times. Stephanopoulos stated, “… one of the things you wrote is that Russia has been a big winner under President Trump. How so?”

RICE: "Well, George, the United States has been the leader of the world because the world trusts and respects us, because we have an unprecedented network of alliances with close partners that work with us, whether it's to defeat ISIS, whether it's to deal with a threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon, or to go after challenges of a new sort like pandemic disease or climate change. We need these partners. And when we alienate our western allies, when the president went to NATO and failed to reaffirm, as every president has since 1948, that we're committed and remain committed to the defense of our NATO partners, he sent shockwaves through Europe. And that is exactly what Vladimir Putin wants. Because Putin's interests, as he reaffirmed just on Friday, is to see NATO weakened and ultimately destroyed. And when the United States, the most important player in NATO, casts doubt about our commitment to that vital alliance, it undermines our security. It undermines the security of our closest allies. And it's a big win for Vladimir Putin.”

Now what is missing from this response you might ask? For starters, it is questionable if the prior administration tried to or wanted to go after ISIS. Obama did call them the JV team and blamed everyone in the universe (Bush, the second amendment & even global warming) for his not recognizing them as a threat.  In fact, Obama was occupied with Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden so much so that he basically breast fed ISIS into existence with his policy of unilateral invasion of Libya under the dress of NATO. Which reminds us of how poorly he and Rice responded to the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens. Moreover, the concept that Iran as a major nuclear threat is also laughable given that they are still on the path and the deal negotiated by team Obama does nothing to prevent them from becoming a nuclear power. Not to mention the illegal and off the record $1.7 billion payment to Iran in 2016 made entirely in cash, with non-U.S. currency.

When asked about President Putin, Rice quickly responded that “he's lying” and that "The reality is, …the Russian government, at the highest levels, was behind the very unprecedented effort to meddle in our 2016 presidential election.” Continuing she said, “Russia is an adversary. Russia not only has invaded a sovereign country and annexed part of it in Ukraine and Crimea [After Obama orchestrated coup]. It's not only in cahoots with a regime in Syria that uses chemical weapons [yet to be proven], it has interfered directly and deliberately at the direction of the highest levels of its government in our democratic process…That is a threat to the integrity of our democracy. That's a threat to our country on a bipartisan basis. And we need to hold Russia accountable.”

Who else to know if someone is lying than the always honest Susan Rice who had the gumption to go on national television and lie to hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens and people around the globe when on one news show she said: “Based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is at present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy, sparked by this hateful video.…We do not — we do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned. I think it’s clear that there were extremist elements that joined in and escalated the violence. Whether they were al-Qaeda affiliates, whether they were Libyan-based extremists or al-Qaeda itself I think is one of the things we’ll have to determine.”

Again Stephanopoulos let her hit the pitch right up the middle of the field without making a play on the ball. Without a transition, it was easy for him too move to the next point of liberal discontent – when he asked, “Would it have been appropriate for Jared Kushner to have a back-channel during the transition? Your successor, General McMaster, has suggested there's nothing wrong with it.”

RICE: "Well, George, I think, these reports, if accurate, are concerning, not just because of communication between the Trump transition and the Russian government, and we do have communications between transition teams and foreign governments, but rarely with adversaries like the Russians, and rarely with the frequency that we have seen. But what I found most concerning about that report, which, if true, is that Jared Kushner suggested to the Russian ambassador that they communicate using Russian communications in a Russian diplomatic facility to hide their conversation from the United States government. That's extraordinary, if not mind-boggling from the point of view of a national security professional. I have worked in this field for 25 years. And I have never heard of such a thing. The United States -- and from one administration to the next -- has one government, one president at a time. And we worked very hard to do a professional and effective handoff. A seamless one. We worked very hard in this transition to accomplish that and to do so transparently.”

This was probably the most historically inaccurate and artfully mendacious crock of Buffalo feces of the entire interview. First communication alone is not as heinous as Rice makes it out to regardless of who is President or what country it is, even Russia. And the part about advisories is either the result of a historically ill-informed person or a calculated lie.

After the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, his future national security adviser Henry Kissinger set up a back-channel to contact and communicate with the Soviet leadership via a known KGB operative named Boris Sedov, whom Kissinger had come to know from interactions at Harvard. Even before Nixon, FDR’s used a long time fried Harry Hopkins as a go between the U.S., U.K. and Stalin. Only difference was that Roosevelt was President at the time. Then there’s Obama’s backchannel fiasco with Iran which occurred in 2008 while he was running for president in which prior to even being elected, his staff established secret communications with the Iranian leadership using William Miller to relay how they planned to interact with Iran if Obama was elected.

I don’t know if Rice believes what she says in interviews or rather if she just like hearing herself talk. One thing for certain is that she has a short memory span and here knowledge of history is suspect or intentionally confined. I mean, the Obama administration and the democrats went from loving Russia to hating Russia and calling the nation the greatest threat in the world when just a little while back it wasn't.

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Bush, Obama & Trump Middle East Policy is one in the same

I have attempted to stay out of the fray regarding what has just happened in Syria.  It is almost as if Obama is still in Office and as if Trump has turned into Obama in the same fashion Obama turned into Bush. For all I know Trump is putting together a secret “kill list” like his predecessor and continuing Obama’s drone strike assassination program. I have read some interesting perspectives on this topic and agree with many of them.  For example, Norman Solomon’s suggesting that all this incessant Russian bashing may have been used to ‘bait’ Trump to bomb Syria, with or without evidence. I also agree with MIT professor of Science, Technology, and International Security Dr. Theodore Postol in his assessment of the White House report noting that it provides no evidence that the Sarin came from or was dropped from an Airplane and that without being on the ground at the time such a position is impossible to prove given Assad’s advantage in his battle against IS and other western supported terrorist proxies. For lack of a better statement, to use the words of Mike Whitney, “You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that the case against Syrian President Bashar al Assad is extremely weak.” Or as the free-thinking cats at MOA have pointed out, the White House “assessment” begins with "The United States is confident that the Syrian government conducted a chemical weapon attack, ..." noting that “The U.S…. does not have"proof" - it is just "confident".” And returning to Dr. Postol, he was also correct in 2013 when he disproved the Obama Administration uninformed position that Assad was responsible for a chemical nerve agent attack in Damascus.  My question is will Trump be another Obama with respect to Foreign policy in West Asia and use his war powers even out there past Obama? Will he engage in even more unjustified and clandestine wars in the same way Bush and Obama did by targeting even more majority-Muslim countries?

Let us begin with some historical perspective. The west has had its eye on Syria for decades now.  Although many would assert it started with a 1949 coup attemp timplemented by the CIA just 3 years after Syria became an independent country, I would suggest it started after WW1 in 1919 and continued up until the Franco-Syrian war initially. Specifically, after the implementation of the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916 - which cut up what was left of the Ottoman Empire between France and Britain. The war itself happened in 1920 ending in a victory for the French and the formation of a new pro-French government. This resulted in Syria being divided in to several regions according to religion. This is an important historical event because it appears the object of current western interference and the call for regime change in the nation has a similar objective.

In addition, history shows us that the objective of these efforts was to dominate and control the rich natural resources (oil and natural gas) in the region. As early as 1957 President Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan were making plans to establish and support financially the establishment of what they called a “Free Syria Committee” for the singular purpose of regime change in Syria to try and control the oil fields of not only Syria but also Iraq. There was no real geopolitical reason for this other than the desire of the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) to build a Trans-Arabian Pipe Line (TAPLINE) from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean via Syria through to Turkey. This required a “Syrian right-of-way” to be agreed upon without input from the Syrian people of course.

Unfortunately, the efforts of the west resulted in making a divide between Shiite and Sunni that has been going on since the seventh century even worse especially if one considers that Shiites are the majority in Iran and Iraq, and are the largest Muslim group in Lebanon and their lands include what many consider the richest oil fields in the entirety of the Middle East. 

These efforts have only increased and intensified over the past few decades with regime change in Syria being priority. First a unified Syria stands in the way of policy objectives in the region to numerous and nuanced to discuss (US interests both in Lebanon and preventing the establishment of an Iraq’s pipeline to the Mediterranean for example). We know this because recently unclassified documents show that the CIA even made plans to use Iraq, Israel and Turkey as proxies in 1983 to pressure the Syrian government by using covert military actions just to establish a pipeline. Although this didn’t manifest, it did not prevent the CIA from continuing to try for in 1986 they drew up some more ideas to overthrow Syria by provoking sectarian tensions (does this sound familiar?). The same policy goals were desired again in 1991 and in 2001.

What we see now - with the supposed “civil war” in Syria - has been years in the making and the recent efforts of ISIS and other terrorist extremist (all supported by the West and Saudi Arabia) may have finally come to fruition after hard work put in by the British government according to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas who is on record saying that he got it from the horse’s mouth that “top British officials” were in the process of arming Sunni nationals “to invade Syria” in 2009 – two years before the anti-Assad protest. Then there is what then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in 2012: that the best way to help Israel deal with Iranis to help overthrow Bashar Assad.

So it seems that President Trump is no different than Obama or Bush or his democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and their desire to use any excuse to make bankers and oil giants the benefactors of the wealth to be generated by a divided Syria without Assad at the helm.  Chemical weapons like WMDs in Iraq, was contrived as an excuse to justify their goals.  I mean we know that Turkey supplied Sarin gas to Syrian rebels in 2013in order to frame the Syrian government. We also know that independent Humanitarian organizations have documented that ISIS has used chemical weapons, including Sarin, chlorine and sulfur mustard agents, at least 52 times on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq since 2014.

We also know that just like the Bush Administration, Hillary Clinton and Obama cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government to fund and arm clandestine operations designed to take down Iran and its ally Syria  by encouraging Sunni extremist groups that not only champion a militant view of Islam but are also are anti-America and sympathetic to ISIS and Al Qaeda. All which seem to be from extremist Islamic fundamentalist groups with origins in or connections to Saudi Arabia. 

In all sincerity, the west, as in Yemen, is backing the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Sunni’s who are an openly admitted group that considers the U.S. and of Israel as lifelong enemies. By bombing Assad, we are basically s one writer put it serving as the ISIS/Al Qaeda Air force. This in my opinion, is no different that when Barack Obama invaded Libya without Congressional approval in 2011.  Trump clearly is no different and seems to take his marching orders from the neoconservatives and neoliberals who won’t be happy until a major U.S. military intervention happens in Syria (and other places) even if it means a confrontation with Russia and/or China. You may question my analysis but for what it is worth, NSC adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster is no dissimilar than Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland, or Nuland’s husband – Robert Kagen on this matter.

Again as I asked in the beginning of this essay, is Trump any different than Bush or Obama? I suspect not. As one writer pointed out: “I don’t think that anybody seriously believes that Assad or anybody else in the Syrian government really ordered a chemical weapons attack on anybody.  To believe that it would require you to find the following sequence logical: first, Assad pretty much wins the war against Daesh which is in full retreat.  Then, the US declares that overthrowing Assad is not a priority anymore (up to here this is all factual and true).  Then, Assad decides to use weapons he does not have.  He decides to bomb a location with no military value, but with lots of kids and cameras.  Then, when the Russians demand a full investigation, the Americans strike as fast as they can before this idea gets any support.  And now the Americans are probing a possible Russian role in this so-called attack.  Frankly, if you believe any of that, you should immediately stop reading and go back to watching TV.”

I remember the Gulf of Tonkin and other major U.S. lies to justify war like the one in 1970 when our government lied to the American people and said, “We didn’t cross the border going into Cambodia” when in fact we did. Former UK ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, was correct in his assessment equally when he said like Libya, Syria will "implode" if President Assad was removed from office period. Not to mention bombing Syria does nothing to provide humanitarian relief and merely distracts the world from the West supported atrocities in Yemen, Mosul and the South Sudan.

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The Aleppo Misdirection

The mess in Syria has been going on for the past six years.  There still is no clarity on the events there with the exception of the facts and the main fact that the US Nobel prize winning president is true to the play book of his predecessor George H.W. Bush. I wanted to write in detail about this a while ago but it was difficult to extract my attention from the humor of liberals whining because their loss to Trump and the sore loseritus was a gift I could not avoid writing about.  But since the U.K., France and U.S. convened this special meeting of the UN Security Council, I had to go in, and I will explain.

I think since Obama announced months ago his plan to attack Mosul (as if he was telegraphing’ to the terrorist, I mean moderates he supports in Iraq and Syria to get ready), he had not perceived that there was even the possibility that Aleppo would be liberated. Given this major lapse in judgement and reasoning, coalition forces have been back peddling ever since. It seems that the manipulation of language (Newspeak) was the first sign that things were all over the place regarding a standard approach on how to deal with Syria.  I say Syria because Aleppo is really a misnomer. They say they just want to help and offer humanitarian aid for the more than a million residents of Aleppo although there is no equal concern for the civilians in Mosul or cities in Yemen. So to try and support their position that Assad must go, the Obama Administration created the term “Moderate Syrian Rebels.”

To be truthful, there is no such thing as a moderate terrorist no more as there is a such thing as a moderate Crip or Blood, in particular with the fluid nature of all of the groups, the alliances they form and assorted reasons for fighting including but not limited to [1] forming a Sunni state run under Sharia law, [2] those who are fighting for autonomous rule (Kurds), and/or [3] the few that want to violently over throw the democratically elected Assad who won a sizable majority last election with more than 70% voter turnout. What has been documented is that militants who are integrated with terror groups like Jaysh al Fatah, Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham and Nour al din al Zenki - all of them affiliated with the Al Qaeda terrorist network – are what Western coalition governments consider to be portions of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and at the same time claim to be at war with.

Now before I dive into these so-called moderate rebels, I have to go back to the earlier supposition regarding Mosul and the Obama Administration.  In all fairness, the operation to retake Mosul was not about destroying ISIS but rather to push ISIS back into Syria so they could focus all of their efforts on taking down Assad.  Why do I say this? Well if one reads Carl von Clausewitz, typically the military objective is to close all escape routes and incessantly enclose the enemy and crush them.  The Obama administration had planned operations from all sides with the exception of routes towards the Iraq-Syria border. Thus the objects would have to be removing these terrorist from Iraq and into Syria resulting in the PR circus of claiming a speedy victory in Mosul.  But after three months this is not the case.

Mosul and Raqqa are the two major cities in the self-proclaimed IS caliphate. To destroy IS these must be destroyed. However, when Russia and Iran got involved, the Obama Administration never calculated that they would be able to sway so much influence with the present Iraqi government and subsequently were able to modify the U.S. battle plan to one that would encircle and attempt to destroy all ISIS/ Al Qaeda affiliates in Mosul. This threw a wrench in the Administration’s goal to engender a “Salafist principality” designed to break up or “Balkanize” Syria. It was the same play book used in Libya with the exception of a no-fly zone. So without a no-fly zone, the coalition had to result to other means – namely trying to protect the Salafist in Aleppo they had been funding and arming since they began this proxy war. This is why reports from Aleppo by the West are all over the place.

The information, if any we are getting from Aleppo is really no different than a Hollywood screen play. First the Obama Administration threatened the Russians saying that their planes would be shot down and their troops would be coming home in body bags while at the same time shipping tons of anti-aircraft weaponry to rebels in and around Aleppo when the Obama Administration were supposedly trying to achieve a cease fire. This was at the same time SOS John Kerry was saying he was going to suspend discussions with the Russians regarding Syria, just after US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, vilified the Russian’s for convening a special security council meaning to discuss coalition airstrikes that targeted Syrian government forces, killing more than 80 soldiers. The same US ambassador to the UN would weeks later confront the Russians again, using unverified reports accusing them in concert with Assad of murdering innocent civilians. Now all of this is hard for me to keep track of so I’m guessing it is the same for a lot of people. The reason why is because there never was or has been a civil war in Syria.

The Syrian revolution is a myth. Western Aleppo is being targeted because they resisted these U.S backed Salafist foreign terrorist and the record indicates that clearly more than a half a million civilians left the eastern portion of the city for the west for the same reason. The majority left in Eastern Aleppo are being held hostage by the terrorist or are terrorist and their families. Thus the remaining civilians in this area are being used as human shields and the query remains, if the US narrative of Assad murdering and bombing his own people is accurate, then why would they flee Eastern Aleppo and go to the part held by Assad forces? Makes no sense. Seven million have fled to government held sections over the past four plus years. But the media call these folk Assad supporters when in fact they may or may not be - they just don’t support terrorist or believe that killing and destroying Syria is the best approach for improving their government.

We never check with organizations on the ground like the Aleppo Medical Association about the number of physicians working there because if we did we would see that there are more than 4000 working there and many are being paid by the Assad government (opposite of the narrative of western media). Unfortunately the rebels or opposition which are really terrorist prevent them from coming in and even giving their services. Add to this that Eastern Aleppo is under the control by the Al Nusura front (Al Qaeda in Syria), yet the Obama administration wants to protect these folk. The Free Idlib army are terrorist too. So given the US media isn’t even on the ground in Aleppo, how can they verify their information? Verification isn’t required when it is all for show bearing in mind the main goal has been and remains regime change in Syria. Just like in Iraq the goal is to create a shadow state in Syria to be controlled by and for the benefit of the West.

The more logical and truthful depiction is that Syrian civilians are at last able to flee from terror gangs that have held them under siege. But this is in contradiction to the reporting by Western media on Syria and Aleppo especially since the US and Western narrative about what has been going on in Aleppo and Syria, Assad and Syrian civilians is far removed from the facts. One has to wonder why they are never in Aleppo or even Syria, if so they are there rarely or else they would have been able to at least interview any one of the tens of thousands of civilians who have left areas once controlled by the motley collection terrorist groups.  They preclude they hate the Assad government but never ask them if they do or fail to query as to how life was living under these terrorist groups – journalism 101. We see US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power refer to unverified reports of civilians being executed in Aleppo while asking at the same time if Syria, Iran or Russia have any shame. But they never seem to compare the devastation US coalition forces are delivering in Yemen or Mosul.

The actuality is Aleppo was invaded by Western-backed mercenary terrorist proxies, or fake moderate rebels, whom the Western governments have sponsored in an attempt to overthrow the government of Syria since July 2012.  These same Western-backed mercenary terrorist proxies, or fake moderate rebels have turned the eastern side of the city into terror haven for a caliphate of manic Wahhabi jihadists that take more pleasure in chopping off heads than secular democratic rule. From Jeish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) to Jabha Fatah al-Sham (Front for the Conquest of the Levant) and Fatah Halab (Conquest of Aleppo)  they are all terrorist the U.S. supports and arms and would never engage in a ceasefire being implemented of any kind and the Obama administration knows this.

They understand that these groups must keep fighting if the breakup of Syria and the take-down of Assad is ever to be achieved. Otherwise, the Syrian national bank will remain free of western influence and will never be brought under the Bank of International Settlements and thus continue to operate without loans from the IMF which means they can decide their own foreign policy and that dream of a natural gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey will never come to fruition. Moreover, Syria will not be made to submit to using GMO seeds. Recall one of the first things US did after the conquering of Iraq was to outlaw seeds stores and force Iraqi farmers to buy international GMO seeds (see order 81 Iraq).

Regardless of what comes out of Washington from the Administration or the media, Syria as Libya before it will be remembered as just another war crime committed by President Obama in the name of humanitarian intervention by the West when the real geopolitical aim was regime change for the fact remains that US or western security interests were never involved or at risk.  Just as with Gaddafi, who never really ever threaten to massacre civilians, the same is true for Assad.  Gaddafi, just as Assad currently, only went after rebels and similarly, offered them amnesty and free passage out if they would drop their weapons. In both cases, the “responsibility to protect”, is just a fancy way to say it is okay to violate the sovereignty of another nation state.

As the Obama era comes to a close, what can be noted is that he will be remembered as the man who destroyed Libya (at the time Africa's most thriving nation) and will have nothing to show for his foreign policy in Syria with the exception of more than a half a million deaths and a Europe in consternation due to a colossal refugee and migrant crisis. So expect for the amplification of anti-Syrian and anti-Russian newspeak in the US mainstream media to continue because the Syrian Army are continuously advancing through Aleppo and routing the US funded terrorist.  

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Is Obama Just Stupid Enough to want a war with Russia?

Growing up I loved movies, in particular gangster movies.  One of my all-time favorites was The Public Enemy with James Cagney. The movie was about these two lifelong friends and their growth and maturation into the world of gangsterism during the time of prohibition.  In many respects, it is all I can think about comparatively speaking when I think of the how Putin has been maneuvering himself in comportment when compared to President Obama.

Over the past few weeks, and some may say even two years since Russia began airstrikes in Syria, overtly supporting the sovereign nation state of under the leadership of President Bashar al Assad, the Obama Administration hasn’t had any clear approach to Syria that can be honestly explained to the U.S. public – in particular since his “Redline” statement.  Why is this?

Well to begin with, the Obama administration has no policy let alone any strategy to deal with what the U.S. has created in Syria.  All that exist are goals, goals mainly proffered to accomplish objectives to benefit a select group of oligarchs more so than the citizens of Syria (who overwhelmingly support Assad) and the surrounding region or Americans. Attacking Assad was not only designed to accomplish  regime change, it was also designed to do such in order to covet assets in the form of invaluable gas line routes, crude oil, gold and more importantly – to crush the state own National Bank of Syria.

I suspect that the powers that be via the current U.S. administration had a completely new landscape planned for the Middle East. Just taking a look at what has happened in Libya and Egypt for example makes this clear. However Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has come to the stage.

Putin clearly isn’t well liked on the world stage by the West, but he has positioned himself and Russia like Knights and Bishops on the chessboard of geopolitics like a Lasker defense and counter attack.

After Obama’s classic ‘redline’ proposition, Putin made his opening mood by boldly going where no man has gone before – to openly stand with the sovereign nation of Syria and backing it up with his military apparatus. His next move was to have a closed door meeting with Obama to discuss securing the Syrian-Turkish border, although it may have been useless without the participation of Syria and Turkey. The objective for Putin was to try and end the continuous influx of arms entering Syria from Turkey and also expressing the need for “moderate” rebels to distance themselves from IS and associated Al-Qaeda derivatives. At the same time Turkey and Russia were on opposite ends regarding how they viewed the Syrian conflict, while Obama knew he needed Turkey to continue supplying weapons to ISIS. 

Fast forwarding to the past few months and we have seen, Russia announce that they will be rebuilding its Soviet-era network of airfields in Vietnam and the northwestern Pacific island of Matua and that they conducted naval exercises in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea that started on Aug. 15. This is in the background of Erdogan previously willingly expressing his views of President Obama and his policies in the Middle East. From Obama failing to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq to his support for Kurdish autonomy (without admitting such). Also, Erdogan has disagreed with the enduring economic sanctions from the West against Russia since the crisis in the Ukraine began. Then the Coup attempt happened and mind you this was after the attack on Istanbul's Ataturk airport.

Erdogan made his first trip abroad since the July 15 coup attempt when he visited Russia, in which he had his first direct meeting with Putin since the shooting-downof a Russian fighter jet. Some are under the impression that he has Putin to thank for surviving the recent military coup and for even for saving his life (another reason his selection of Moscow for his first foreign visit since the coup is viewed with difficult eyes by London, Berlin, Paris and Washington­). Not only would this put a wrench in the region but it would or could upset the entire geopolitical landscape by rebuking the West and entering a closer relationship with Russia.

This benefits both Turkey and Russia and this fledgling Moscow-Ankara axis as Erdogan described it from an economic and geopolitical perspective. Moreover it allows Putin to highlight and disrupt U.S foreign policy inconsistencies and also those of the European Union.

We cannot forget that Turkey is a NATO member state and that the European Union needs the nation to serve as a shield between refugees and migrants from the Middle East to Europe.  The posturing by the EU and their lucid desire to keep Turkey out of the club is being used by Putin equally as a postulate in his strategy. Now not only has Russia managed this, Putin has also been able to establish newrelationships for Turkey with Iran and opened their perspective to a future Syria that doesn’t require the ouster of Assad. In essence, Putin has altered the past 50-60 years of U.S. power dynamics in the Middle East in less than three months.

After Erdogan’s visit to Russia, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif in a meeting that resulted in both nations agreeing on more dialogue and cooperation on resolving the Syria crisis. It was the first meeting between top Iranian and Turkish officials since the failed coup attempt. This was during the same week when Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Turkey was willing to accept a role for Syrian President Bashar Assad during a transitional period. Ironically this came when Assad's forces started attacking Kurdish positions which may be an indication that a Syrian-Turkish rapprochement was underway (say goodbye to Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria).

The last nail was the Coup, which has provided the momentum for all of the aforementioned. Since this event, Turkey has incessantly carped about a lack of support from its Western allies and as with the rest of the world, has been watching EU’s power shrinking in real time. Now true, some have suggested that Turkey is using Russia as some kind of leverage (Obama’s state department word of the day) to place some heat in the Obama administration and EU after the coup attempt, but it seems in my opinion to be way more than that. It is also a reflection of Turkey’s and Russia’s perceived lack of U.S. leadership in the region with President Obama placing his tail between his legs when confronted with Russia on every major issue concerning Syria.

Since this, deeply anti-American sentiments and allegations that the Obama administration was behind the coup attempt (nearly 70 percent of Turks believe the U.S. was involved in the coup) and failure of the Administration to take serious (whether true or not) Erdogan’s request for the U.S. to quickly extradite Fethullah Gulen has placed more distance between the U.S. and the Muslim Brotherhood-led government of Sunni Arab Turkey.

Just this past week, we saw Russia and Turkey signed an agreement to build a gas pipeline from Russia, called the TurkStream pipeline which would bring Russian natural gas to Europe on a southern route that would bypass Ukraine with the main pipeline running across the bottom of the Black Sea.

Based on all of the aforementioned factual observation, it is no wonder why President would do anything, even something stupid, half-baked and witless as to even speak of taking military action against Russia, sadly as well, over any provocation (bombing parts of West Aleppo occupied by ISIS and Al-Nusra to a make believe propagandized hack on the Clinton campaign).

I should have seen this coming.  Ever since Obama touted his so-called Russian ‘reset’ all we have seen from the Administration is Russia raise their flag over Crimea and more bungled relations with the Russians (clearly a major failure of Obama’s foreign policy).  Seems as if President Obama is no longer in charge of any of the activity regarding Russia or anything involving Syria.  This is true for his activities at home, with the coalition and even NATO. What we are presently viewing in Syria may be one of the most unstable and hazardous geopolitical situations in modern times, at least since the last World War. On the surface, it is more than evident that Obama or his handlers are pushing the limit with Russia. From the war games NATO is conducting in Russia’s backyard to the massive influx of U.S. and NATO troops into the Baltic States and elsewhere in EasternEurope. And in Syria, suffice it to say the administration never wanted a ceasefire in Syria anywhere.

Before this week there was a bellicose Ambassador Samantha Power (who ran over a child and killed him with her car in Africa recently) calling the bombings in Russia barbarous and the suspension of military contact between the U.S. and Russia. Now we hear U.S. intelligence officials (without evidence) accusing the Russian government for being responsible for recent hacking in an effort to disrupt America’s political process.  One has to ask why is there such an angry and aggressive tone coming from the Whitehouse?

For one, President Obama has spent a lot of loot arming therebel in Syria, in particular Jabhat al-Nusra and the Obama administration will continue to support Jabhat al-Nusra and even call the “moderate Rebels” or member of the “Free Syrian Army” when a name change will never obviate the reality that they are still al-Qaeda and/or a part of al-Qaeda in Syria. Abual-Ezz, a major commander of the group has gone on the record and has openly stated that his organization is part of al-Qaeda. Thus the folk that the Obama administration is supporting with weapons are an affiliate to the terrorist organization the United States has been at war with since 9/11 – as a recently leaked Hillary Clinton email reveals. On the opposite end Russia is fighting the groups that the United States are funding and arming. So in essence we have is a rebel group funded and backed by the United States fighting against the Russians and Syrians.

The Obama Administration needs to stop arming and funding the Jabhat al-Nusra and discontinue this idiocy directed towards Russia because if this doesn’t stop, Obama’s will be leading the nation closer to World War III.  What we need to do is to fight on the same side as Russia and Syria, considering that they are actually targeting al Qaeda and ISIS, but this makes too much sense. The problem is that even when President Obama leaves office, if Hillary wins, she will carry on what Obama has started.

What is clear is that Putin has taken the lead in this race and that it may be a premonition of things to come regarding U.S. and Russian interaction on the world stage. Obama, neoliberal, neocons and Clintonites are occupied with the goal of U.S. military intervention and aggression against Syria although it may lead to a war with Iran and Russia. I don’t understand why, although I outlined a few reason and known facts in the beginning of this essay. Not to mention, Putin has been basically pimp slapping Obama around the room like he was James Cagney smashing a grapefruit in Mae Clarke’s face.

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