Politics

The US government’s claim of killing thousands of terrorists in the fight against ISIS is the “stuff of fairy tales” and far removed from reality, according to former American diplomat, J. Michael Springmann. Springmann, who had been a high-ranking US diplomat in Saudi Arabia, made his remarks after a senior American military official said that the US-led coalition conducting airstrikes in Iraq and Syria had killed terrorists in the two countries since 2014.

This morning Trump has confirmed his intention to nominate retired Marine General John Kelly to head the Department of Homeland Security, a pick that had been rumored for days.  In a statement, Trump highlighted Kelly's experience in defending the homeland from threats of terrorism and said that he was the right person to "spearhead the urgent mission of stopping illegal immigration and securing our borders."

On Sunday morning, Trump reignited the diplomatic spat with China when during an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday the President-elect said that his support for the "One China" policy which has underpinned U.S. behavior toward Taiwan since the 1970s,  will hinge on cutting a better deal on trade, in other words it will be a "barter chip" to extract future concessions from Beijing.

In a Sunday interview with Chris Wallace, President elect Donald Trump did the unthinkable: he refused to cow tow to the One China policy, drawing a hard line in the sand with China that resulted in harsh rebuttals from both Chinese government officials and state run media.
 

Submitted by Wayne Madsen via Strategic-Culture.org,