Politics

Submitted by Justin Raimondo via AntiWar.com,

The vicious attack on the Brussels airport and metro underscores the futility of focusing on the Syrian “Caliphate” as the epicenter of terrorism: as I’ve been saying in this space since 2001, the snake has no head. Both al-Qaeda and now ISIS are protean entities with a vast geographical spread, and what the Brussels attack – and, before it, the Paris attack – show is that they have successfully colonized Europe.

For the first time since January 2009, 12-month Saudi interbank rates have breached 2.00% - double the 1% lows of August.

This 'stress' is also evident in the record pace of collapse of Saudi money-supply.

 While Riyal forwards have rallied back from extreme bets on devaluation, they remain concerning for Saudi officials who to undertake some deep and fundamental changes to their economy, reforms that no amount of browbeating from organizations like the IMF could induce.

It appears George R.R. Martin's best-selling book series has a lot of similarities to the 'ice' and 'fire' of the current election campaign. Two powerful families (the establishment vs Bernie and Trump) of liars and honest men (and women) playing a deadly game for control of the 'kingdom'...

h/t @g_mastropavlos

It would be difficult to find a program that better exemplifies the word “failure” than the Pentagon’s “train and equip” effort in Syria.

Last May, US Central Command issued a hilariously absurd press release outlining what was quite obviously going to be a disastrous effort to arm rebel fighters. “The US military and partner forces have begun training the initial class of appropriately vetted Syrian opposition recruits this week to support the effort to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL in Syria,” the PR read.