U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley appears on Face the Nation for an interview with Margaret Brennan about the U.S., U.K. and French coordinated military strikes against Syria.
Earlier today the Pentagon conducted a press conference to debrief media and outline the outcome of a coordinated U.S., U.K. and French military mission against elements within Syria who used chemical weapons. U.S. General Kenneth McKenzie Jr. gives the specifics on the targets and the outcomes therein.
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Is military action eminent? The White House has informed national media there will be a Presidential Address tonight at approximately 9:00pm from the White House.
“A short time ago, I ordered the United States Armed Forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad,” Trump said. “A combined operation with the armed forces of France and the United Kingdom is now underway.”
UPDATE 9:40pm EST – Airstrikes by combined forces from the United States, France and the U.K. have begun against elements of Syrian Bashir Assad forces in response to prior use of chemical weapons.
Earlier today President Trump hosted a cabinet meeting amid the backdrop of media discussions of a chemical weapons attack; Chinese trade negotiations, and ongoing border security.
[Transcript] 11:39 A.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I’d like to begin by condemning the heinous attack on innocent Syrians with banned chemical weapons. It was an atrocious attack. It was horrible. You don’t see things like that. As bad as the news is around the world, you just don’t see those images.
Very cautious optimism because Red Dragon has history of using the Panda Mask to cloud intents as a strategy. North Korea is a proxy state to their enabler, China. DPRK Kim Jong-un is little stompy-feet panda to the big panda/red dragon, Chairman Xi Jinping.
The one constant in an ever-changing universe is the gravity of China; it only goes one-way. China allows and directs what is in China’s best interests. Period.
Chinese Chairman-for-life Xi Jinping (all he represents) view smiling panda economics as modern intercontinental nuclear weapons.
Chairman Xi and President Trump have been deep inside a geopolitical smiling contest for over a year. Xi and Trump are playing grandmaster level geopolitical economics. Their most consequential moves are well beyond the horizon; far away from the gaze of the crowd; the media is oblivious to them.
•Japan (Shinzo Abe) has stated they have “great confidence” in President Trump’s Asian national security approach. •South Korea (President Moon Jae-in) stated they are “confident there will not be war again on the Korean peninsula“; •and they are willing to send a special envoy to North Korea to begin talks. •In addition, China quietly removed the 71-year-old veteran diplomat, Wu Dawei, from the position of negotiator toward the DPRK, and replaced him with 58-year-old Kong Xuanyou. Kong is a long time Chinese diplomat in charge of Asian affairs and he speaks Korean.
All of this was generally under-reported and took place months before President Trump arrived in Asia last year. The U.S. media was busy pushing racism and Charlottesville narratives. More importantly this quiet activity took place while President Trump directed US Trade Rep Robert Lighthizer to begin a section 301 trade investigation (Intellectual Property theft) into China.
There has been some non-broadcast media discussion about a battle that took place in Syria on February 7th, 2018. According to the generally accepted overview, U.S. and coalition forces appear to have killed scores of Russian mercenaries, some reports put the number as high as 200.
Officially Russia has denied their troops were engaged in the failed attack against U.S. and coalition forces; however, actions by Russia since the battle seem to convey a more confirming message.
Bloomberg reported around 100 Russian contracted mercenary soldiers, hired by Syria’s Bashir Assad, were killed by a coalition force of U.S. and Kurdish forces in what would easily be the deadliest clash between Russians and Americans since the cold war.
More than 200 contract soldiers, mostly Russians fighting on behalf of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, died in a failed attack on a base held by U.S. and mainly Kurdish forces in the oil-rich Deir Ezzor region, two of the Russians said. The U.S. official put the death toll in the fighting at about 100, with 200 to 300 injured, but was unable to say how many were Russians. (link)
The contracted mercenaries are likely from a Russian company Wagner, similar to the U.S. company Blackwater. Because they are not officially Russian soldiers there’s a great deal of built in plausible deniability. As Bloomberg also noted: ““This is a big scandal and a reason for an acute international crisis,” said Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat and lawmaker who’s now an independent political analyst. “But Russia will pretend nothing happened.””
Catching up. If you watched the prior two updates from Brett McGurk you’ll note he does an exceptional job explaining how the administration is coordinating with multiple partners to defeat ISIS. The Trump administration plan was labeled the “D-ISIS” strategy.
Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Brett McGurk provides an update on D-ISIS Campaign, at the Department of State on December 21, 2017.
Swamp Guardian and Fox News primary Decepticon, Brett Baier, interviews former Obama CIA Director Leon Panetta and President Trump’s current CIA Director Mike Pompeo during a Reagan Defense Forum summit at the Reagan Library.
Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton worked hand in hand over the horrific policy execution in Libya and Syria. The joint CIA/DoS mission, Operation Zero Footprint, was an outcome of President Obama’s finding memo authorizing the covert mission in Libya.
Panetta is 100% full-on Deep State/Deep Swamp. Current CIA Director Mike Pompeo is a bridge leading away from the larger Deep State apparatus. The distinction between the two comes out in buckets.
Yesterday while exiting the White House, President Trump told reporters he had just finished a 90 minute phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin:
“We had a great call with President Putin. We’re talking about peace in Syria — very important. We’re talking about North Korea. We had a call that lasted almost an hour and a half. We’ve just put out a release on the call. But we’re talking very strongly about bringing peace for Syria. We’re talking about very strongly about North Korea and Ukraine.” (transcript)
Important to note that conversation was longer than would have been possible at any of the Bilat’s (Bilateral Discussion) during the ASEAN Summit or APEC Meeting in Asia. A further review of the White House readout:
(more…)
Less than nine months after taking the oath of office – today President Donald Trump announces the defeat of Islamic State fighters in their self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa is “a critical breakthrough” in a worldwide campaign against the militants.
October 21, 2017 – Statement by President Donald J. Trump on the Defeat of ISIS in Raqqah
I am pleased to announce that the Syrian Democratic Forces, our partners in the fight against ISIS in Syria, have successfully recaptured Raqqah the terrorist groups self-proclaimed capital city. Together, our forces have liberated the entire city from ISIS control.
The defeat of ISIS in Raqqah represents a critical breakthrough in our worldwide campaign to defeat ISIS and its wicked ideology. With the liberation of ISISs capital and the vast majority of its territory, the end of the ISIS caliphate is in sight.