War

Three weeks after John Kerry's State Department was humiliated one last time when Russia, Turkey and Syria sat down alone, demonstratively without inviting the US, to discuss the terms of a proposed Syrian ceasefire, Russia has already offered a diplomatic fig leaf to the incoming Trump administration when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the press Russia has invited the United States to take part in the upcoming talks on Syria, 

"As I said yesterday, we have already invited the US," Lavrov told journalists in Moscow on Thursday.

With just 24 hours left in Obama's tenure, the U.S. president launched his final airstrike on ISIS after two B-2 bombers carried out airstrikes on two ISIS camps in Libya overnight, defense officials said Thursday, part of an operation targeting militants driven out last year from their coastal stronghold. The stealth bombers struck jihadis 45 kilometers southwest of Sirte, located halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi.

A map showing location of Sirte, Libya.

Submitted by MiddleEastEye.net via TheAntiMedia.org,

A UN envoy held talks with Yemen’s President Abd Rabbuh Hadi on Monday as the United Nations said the death toll from the war had reached 10,000.

The envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, was in Aden for the meeting that focused on a return to a ceasefire and to political talks to end the nearly two-year war.

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Rather than being the bad guys, as per the usual Liberal world-view, the Armed Forces may well play a key role in reducing the utterly toxic influence of neocon-neoliberals within the Deep State.

Suddenly everybody is referring to the Deep State, typically without offering much of a definition.

ISIS and Al-Qaeda are both planning extensive terrorist attacks in Washington DC this Friday, during Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony.  As thousands of protestors descend onto the Capitol and millions watch the ceremony on television, ISIS militants will commit a “Nice-style” massacre aimed at creating the maximum amount of damage possible. The Sun reports: Nearly two million people are believed to have packed the streets when Barack Obama was first inaugurated in 2009.