Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
The rising hysteria about Russia is best understood as fulfilling two needs for Official Washington: the Military Industrial Complex’s transitioning from the “war on terror” to a more lucrative “new cold war” – and blunting the threat that a President Trump poses to the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist foreign-policy establishment.
Obama has deployed US Special Forces close to the Russian border to defend Baltic states who are allegedly ‘scared to death’ of Putin’s aggression. As part of a “persistent” presence of American troops in the Baltics, dozens of special ops solders will be being stationed along Europe’s eastern flank to provide reassurance to NATO allies Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. They will also complement around 4,000 Nato troops being posted to Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia in the coming months.
Four days after the first sporadic protests emerged in Mexico City, following the infamous "gasolinazo", or mandatory 15%-20% increase in Mexican gas prices which went into effect on January 1, the mood across the country has significantly deteriorated, with hundreds of demonstrators blocking highways, snarling traffic, raiding gas stations, jeopardizing critical supplies, and looting stores as angry but impotent motorists lashed out at the price surge, which is only going to get worse as inflation spikes even more following the record plunge in the Mexican Peso.
In 2016, the international community was outraged when a video clip recording showed a young Israeli soldier, Sargeant Elor Azaria, executing at point blank range a Palestinian assailant who lay wounded and motionless on the ground, after he stabbed another Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank.
Russia has accused the US government of allowing ISIS militants to steal oil in Syria in order to earn hundreds of millions of dollars. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov warned that the US-led international coalition deliberately avoided bombing oil production facilities run by ISIS due to the fact that the US had a vested interest in the illegal oil sales.