Trevor Thrall and John Glaser make an excellent case against U.S. support for the war on Yemen:
Beyond placating overexcited Saudi fears of a U.S. strategic tilt towards Iran, there simply is no moral, legal, or strategic justification for what the U.S. is doing in Yemen.
A top Kurdish commander has claimed that he has documentary evidence confirming that Turkey has given support to the terrorist groups. Murat Karayılan, co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) told Russian media that along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey has been furnishing extremists with weapons and munitions. RT reports: Karayılan has been the acting leader of the PKK, a group considered terrorists by Turkey and the US, since its original leader Abdullah Öcalan was captured in 1999.
A huge explosion has been reported in Ankara close to the Turkish parliament building. At least five people were reportedly killed in the explosion the city’s governor has said and up to a dozen more injured #Explosion hits military dormitory in central #Ankara – Turkish broadcaster NTV — LBCI News English (@LBCI_News_EN) February 17, 2016 According to local media a military dormitory was hit A Turkish police official quoted by the Reuters news agency said the blast was caused by a vehicle exploding. Photos on social media showed large plumes of smoke rising from the area.
With Turkey on the brink of going to war with Russia and, implicitly, Iran, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is looking for an excuse to invade Syria.
The rebels Turkey and Saudi Arabia back are staging what amounts to a last stand at Aleppo and the Kurdish YPG is moving to cut the Azaz corridor, which would effectively mean that Turkey has no way of resupplying the insurgency.
For the past five days, Ankara has been shelling the YPG in a futile attempt to stop their advance.
Rod Dreher points to Patrick Ruffini’s tweets on Trump from yesterday, and says this:
Which, I suppose, means a brokered Republican convention. Mayhem. If Trump is denied the nomination, it’s hard to see his people accepting that. It’s hard to see him accepting it.