Davide Battistella — Were Democrats Beaten By Their Own "War Of Narratives"?

I read a quote somewhere last week that went something like, “JFK put a man on the moon, Obama put a man in the ladies room”. This got me thinking about President Obama’s oft cited, “war of narratives”.

Who says something like this? Well, it’s people who believe that as long as they control the narrative, as long as they control the story, then they are winning. The facts don’t matter, the actual events, the situations, the way things unfold, these are also the things that do not matter.
What matters most to a person who believes that the world is based on a “war of narratives” is that their ideas and world view are the only possible alternative.Isn’t this what doomed the Democrats in the Election? Did they not just believe that they had a superior narrative to the one that was being proposed by Donald Trump? So much so that they practically hid their candidate while waiting for her pronouncement as president. 

With a president and leader, who holds a belief that the “war of narratives” is all that matters, Democrats have slipped into a very narrow (albeit progressive) world view....

From this perch, you ignore what is going on around you and it is your job and the job of your party to push any given issue through the filter of a given narrative. So take any issue and run it into the ground to convince people your narrative is the only acceptable one. You can blame people for falling down this slippery slope because it usually involves, at some point, the absence of using common sense. 

Sure, Republicans push narratives as well, but they don’t seem to do it with such zeal and with the world view that whichever particular narrative du jour is the only plausible, logical story that exists.

This is a worthwhile read about controlling the narrative. 

I disagree somewhat with the author about this being more a problem for the Democrats than the Republicans. It may seem that way now, since the Democratic establishment is a victim of its own narrative during the election, first, to marginalize Bernie Sanders, and then Donald Trump. They started to believe their own BS.

But I think this also affected the campaigns of John McCain and Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney was just a sure that he was going to win as was Hillary Clinton, right up until the final hours of the voting. Mitt apparently got over it, but I don't think that John McCain ever did.

Zero Hedge
Were Democrats Beaten By Their Own "War Of Narratives"?

Davide Battistella

Zero Hedge — Caught On Tape: China's Currency Rigging

The "currency rigging" involves is China's supporting the peg rather than let the market break the peg by driving the RMB down.

China needs to float and let the RMB stabilize. Any devaluation will be one-off. 

Zero Hedge
Caught On Tape: China's Currency Rigging
Tyler Durden

Reuters — As yuan weakens, Chinese rush to open foreign currency accounts

Zhang Yuting lives and works in Shanghai, has only visited the United States once, and rarely needs to use foreign currency. But that hasn’t stopped the 29-year-old accountant from putting a slice of her bank savings into the greenback.

She is not alone. In the first 11 months of 2016, official figures show that foreign currency bank deposits owned by Chinese households rose by almost 32 percent, propelled by the yuan's recent fall to eight-year lows against the dollar.

The rapid rise - almost four times the growth rate for total deposits in the yuan and other currencies as recorded in central bank data – comes at a time when the yuan is under intense pressure from capital outflows. The outflows are partially a result of concerns that the yuan is going to weaken further as U.S. interest rates rise, and because of lingering concerns about the health of the Chinese economy.

Reuters
As yuan weakens, Chinese rush to open foreign currency accounts 

Winni Zhou and John Ruwitch | SHANGHAI

More China Pollution

Trump:  "Hey, I'm looking at your USD account balance here.... you got a pretty high balance there you think you might want to take a look at some of our US pollution control products?"

China: "cough.... Ahh... cough.... no....cough... that's ok... cough... we're good... cough... we can just use an old sweatshirt... cough ... to... cough ... breath through... cough... we got this.... cough...."

Pollution in many Chinese cities is expected to peak from Dec 19-21. PM 2.5 level is forecast to reach 500 micrograms per cubic meter pic.twitter.com/TfWfaxqEXj

— People's Daily,China (@PDChina) December 18, 2016

Salman Rafi Sheikh — Obama’s departing gift to the “Syrian rebels”

According to the decision, the waived sections of the law will allow the US to provide “defence articles and services” to forces within Syria allied to the US, the White House said on Thursday December 8, 2016, a decision which the White House said is “essential to national-security interests” of the US.

While such a decision was taken in 2013 too, what makes this announcement different from the past is the (deliberately inserted) vagueness, allowing for wider interpretations in multiple ways based on what group the US identifies as a terrorist threat. According to the statement, “foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals” will receive these weapons to ‘counter terrorism in Syria.’

While the mainstream Western media has identified Kurds as the potential beneficiaries of this announcement currently fighting the IS in and around Raqqa, this decision, if not cancelled by the Trump administration, will have larger implications, particularly in terms of prolonging and complicating the war.…

Let’s call a spade a spade. There is nothing new in the newly announced decision. This is potentially what the US has been doing for years. Being yet another step in the direction of protecting (read: John Kerry’s deal) and arming (read: waiver decision) “rebels”, the US is deliberately encouraging armed groups in Syria, regardless of what these groups call themselves.

They are groups who fight alongside Al Qaeda-affiliated forces and some of whom are reportedly willing to join Al- Qaeda in the wake of their defeat in Aleppo....

NEO
Obama’s departing gift to the “Syrian rebels”

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs

James J. Zogby — Middle East Perceptions of the Roles Played by Global and Regional Powers

About what one would expect, excepting this shocker.

While attitudes toward Turkey and Iran are in decline across the region, Saudi Arabia continues to receive the highest favorable ratings in all Arab countries and Turkey. Majorities in all the Arab countries also see the Kingdom contributing to peace and stability and view having good relations with Saudi Arabia as important—with a majority of Iranians also favoring good relations with the Kingdom.

So much for Wahhabism, Salafism, and Takfirism being outliers in Islam. The liberal West has a problem in the Middle East. Assuming this represent both the leadership and the "Arab street," they apparently do "hate our freedoms" after all.

Lobe Log
Middle East Perceptions of the Roles Played by Global and Regional Powers

James J. Zogby | President of the Arab American Institute

Sputnik — News Polls: Half of US 'Bothered' by Hacking, Want Electoral College Vote Delayed

It's working!

More than half of the Americans in two recent polls said they were disturbed by allegations of Russian hacking into the presidential race that ended last month and that they favored delaying the Electoral College vote scheduled for December 19 until it can be looked into.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,000 adults found that 43% of respondents were bothered a "great deal" by the purported Russian hacking and 12% were bothered "quite a bit." Nearly a quarter — 23% — aren't bothered at all by the accusations.

One in 4 Dems in US Electoral College Seeks Briefing on Alleged Russia's Hacking However, NBC pointed out December 18, there is a sharp partisan divide evident: 86% of Democrats polled reported being bothered quite a bit or a great deal, versus only 29% of Republican respondents. Among independents, it was 49%.

One can assume that the folks behind this are working madly to pull it off before the vote is finalized tomorrow. It's a the topic of the day on the Sunday talk shows.

McCain is calling for a "select committee," that is, one that has confirmation bias.

Sputnik News
Polls: Half of US 'Bothered' by Hacking, Want Electoral College Vote Delayed

Alexander Mercouris — Vladimir Putin outlines road map for Syrian peace settlement

Some sanity that also reflects the facts on the grounds.

The West opposes, of course. After all, "Assad must go." no matter what. That what is jihadi rule. What could go wrong?

The Duran
Vladimir Putin outlines road map for Syrian peace settlement
Alexander Mercouris

Patrick Cockburn — There's More Propaganda Than News Coming Out of Aleppo This Week

It has just become more dangerous to be a foreign correspondent reporting on the civil war in Syria. This is because the jihadis holding power in east Aleppo were able to exclude Western journalists, who would be abducted and very likely killed if they went there, and replace them as news sources with highly partisan “local activists” who cannot escape being under jihadi control.

The foreign media has allowed – through naivety or self-interest – people who could only operate with the permission of al-Qaeda-type groups such as Jabhat al-Nusraand Ahrar al-Sham to dominate the news agenda.

The precedent set in Aleppo means that participants in any future conflict will have an interest in deterring foreign journalists who might report objectively. By kidnapping and killing them, it is easy to create a vacuum of information that is in great demand and will, in future, be supplied by informants sympathetic to or at the mercy of the very same people (in this case the jihadi rulers of east Aleppo) who have kept out the foreign journalists.

Killing or abducting the latter turns out to have been a smart move by the jihadis because it enabled them to establish substantial control of news reaching the outside world. This is bad news for any independent journalist entering their territory and threatening their monopoly of information.

There was always a glaring contradiction at the heart of the position of the international media: on the one hand it was impossibly dangerous for foreign journalists to enter opposition-held areas of Syria, but at the same time independent activists were apparently allowed to operate freely by some of the most violent and merciless movements on earth....

Why everything in the Western media about Aleppo is fake news created by jihadis and jihadi sympathizers. "Jihadi sympathizers" includes the Western mainstream including the MSM.

But what about the moderates, you say?

There was a period in 2011 and 2012 when there were genuinely independent opposition activists operating inside Syria, but as the jihadis took over these brave people were forced to flee abroad, fell silent or were dead.

Probably most in the West have no idea that their governments are allied with al Qaeda, its affiliates and other jihadis because they believe what they are told. The Big Lie depends on being so big that most people don't doubt it. In the West, most people are still taken in by propaganda, even through they known that they have been taken in the past. The saying, 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you," doesn't always hold. Publics are extremely gullible and politicians, PR people, and advertisers know this and take advantage of it.

Propagandists should read the Aesop fable, "The Boy Cried Wolf." This tactic of controlling the narrative with fake news will end up backfiring.

The social fabric underling functional society is based on trust. When trust breaks down, so do societies. As the social fabric frays, social dysfunction increases.

I would also remind people that post 9/11, constitutional liberties were suspended by the Patriot Act and other legislation, domestic security was militarize, posse comitatus was suspended for the military to operate domestically, intelligence services were provided with unlimited surveillance, effectively transforming a liberal democracy in to a police state, a national security state, and a surveillance state, in which the chief executive has the power of indefinite detention and even summary assassination (read execution).

The Unz Review
There's More Propaganda Than News Coming Out of Aleppo This Week
Patrick Cockburn

Feedspot Top 100 Economics Blogs And Websites For Economists

MNE is #55.

Feedspot
Top 100 Economics Blogs And Websites For Economists

ht Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism (NC is #20)

Moon of Alabama Sabotage Of East-Aleppo Evacuation Is Part Of A Plan

I doubt that this is a solely al-Qaeda induced incident. It seems to me that the certain U.S. forces (aka the CIA) are trying to prolong the removal of al-Qaeda from east-Aleppo for their own purpose.
Just yesterday the Washington Post (again) reported on the years long collusion between the CIA and al-Qaeda in Syria:

The CIA meanwhile continued to push a program that targeted Russia and its Syrian and Iranian allies — and helped shield Jabhat al-Nusra.

There are several "western" groups that want to keep the evacuation stalled to continue their anti-Syrian, anti-Russian and anti-Iran agenda.

The U.S. administration is miffed that it was kept out of the recent negotiations. It wants to demonstrate that any negotiations without its participation will not have any positive result.

The hundreds of "last video from Aleppo" of "Bana" and other propaganda creatures claiming to be there look like a highly coordinated Information Warfare campaign. The "Stand with Aleppo" campaign in the U.S. was started and is propelled by a Democratic party operative who is also CEO of a public relations company and "strategic affairs consultant" in Chicago, Becky Carroll. Its aim is to escalated the situation in Syria.

Meanwhile members of the Syrian opposition, or rather their "western" controllers in the CIA, are now emphasizing Iran, not Russia, as alleged spoiler in Syria. They claim, without any evidence, that Iran or its operatives held up the evacuations. This is part of a plan to preempt announced Trump policies of negotiating an end of the Syria conflict.

Meanwhile, Western propaganda and fake outrage that "Assad," aided by Russia, Iran, and Hizbullah, is murdering the populace strengthens the liberal narrative of R2P.

The Syrian army should tell al-Qaeda in Aleppo that there will be no longer be any ceasefire. It must make clear that they will now either be interned or killed.

This is also the view of other US military veterans writing elsewhere. Evacuating an enemy to fight them elsewhere after they have regrouped and been rearmed makes no sense militarily. Once the kettle is covered, they should be terminated.

All the protestation of the West is to save their jihadi proxies to fight another day to remove Assad and replace him with a Saudi/Qatari Sunni regime that would end secularism and liberalism in Syria.

It is time to end such sorry play. Clean up Aleppo already. Hollande, Samantha Power and other stooges will howl anyway - no matter how the final scene is done.

Moon of Alabama
Sabotage Of East-Aleppo Evacuation Is Part Of A Plan

b

Also

NEO
Aleppo Proves Western Media Sources Wrong

Jean Perier

Idlib is the city/region to which the evacuees from Aleppo are being taken. It is controlled by various jihadi groups.

Idlib is to US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization Jabhat Al Nusra (also known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham or Al Qaeda in Syria) as the eastern Syrian city of Al Raqqa is to the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (IS).

It is also home to a wide range of other militant groups cooperating with the terrorist organization, as well as a myriad of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) funded and directed by the US, Europe, Turkey and the Gulf states.

These are the people that the "coalition" plans to replace Assad.

Welcome to Idlib: America’s Model Syrian City
Ulson Gunnar

John Helmer — URGENT MESSAGE FROM THE RAMPARTS — WEBSITE UNDER NEW ATTACK

The site is down now, Sunday, 18 Dec., 5:25 PM Greenwich Mean Time.

Dances with Bears
URGENT MESSAGE FROM THE RAMPARTS — WEBSITE UNDER NEW ATTACK
John Helmer

Robert Parry — A Spy Coup in America?

As the Electoral College assembles, U.S. intelligence agencies are stepping up a campaign to delegitimize Donald Trump as a Russian stooge, raising concerns about a spy coup in America, reports Robert Parry.

Consortium News
A Spy Coup in America?

Robert Parry

Robert Skidelsky — Website Slouching Toward Trump

Entering an uncharted new era as a reaction to neoliberal globalization.

Robert Skidelsky's Website
Slouching Toward Trump

Robert Skidelsky | Emeritus Professor of Political Economy in the University of Warwick, England

Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board — Editorial: Just who is undermining election? Russians or CIA?

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.

They ask the right questions. Inquiring minds want to know the answers.

Albuquerque Journal
Editorial: Just who is undermining election? Russians or CIA?
Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board
ht Raúl Ilargi Meijer at The Automatic Earth

Trump stimulus? Fuhgeddaboudit. A super duper deficit hawk is now his Budget Director.

Trump has been choosing deficit hawk after deficit hawk, casting MAJOR doubt on his stimulus plans, except of course for rich people and corporations. Everyone else is likely to get screwed.

The Donald just chose super hardline deficit hawk, Mickey Mulvaney (R-SC) as his budget director.

Here's Mulvaney:

Mulvaney, 49, was elected to Congress in 2010 in the wave that brought a cohort of younger, staunchly conservative members into the House. Mulvaney quickly staked out ground as one of Congress’s most outspoken fiscal hawks — playing a key role in the 2011 showdown between President Obama and House Republicans that ended in the passage of strict budget caps.

He has been an advocate for spending cuts, often taking on his own party to push for more aggressive curbs to government spending.

And Trump seems to be 100% behind this. Check it out.

“We are going to do great things for the American people with Mick Mulvaney leading the Office of Management and Budget,” Trump said in a statement. “Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink.

Recession time, people. Recession time. I am shorting stocks.

David Ferguson — There are four ways Donald Trump may be guilty of treason, says law expert

The attack on Donald Trump intensifies.

I should say "bogus attack."

While there has been no disclosure thus far of evidence….

Expect "treason" to be the new meme.

If that doesn’t work, I suppose they will try cannibalism.

Someone tell them they already jumped the shark some time ago.

Raw Story
There are four ways Donald Trump may be guilty of treason, says law expert

David Ferguson

Also at Raw Story

Intelligence expert: 10 years ago Trump would have faced a treason trial after being ‘co-opted’ by Putin
Tom Boggioni

Matt Stoller — Monopoly Is the Problem UNDERLYING “Fake News”

Tweet srorm by Matt Stoller on fake news and media power.

Washington's Blog
Monopoly Is the Problem UNDERLYING “Fake News”
WashingtonsBlog

David Stanway — Heralding Social, Financial Change, China Aims Blow At Iron Rice Bowl

This is earthshaking change for China. The leadership has to be very confident in "market socialism" to undertake it. It's like cutting Social Security and Medicare in the US, only bigger, since the "iron rice bowl" is cradle to grave.

Reuters
Heralding Social, Financial Change, China Aims Blow At Iron Rice Bowl

David Stanway

Mike Lillis — Trump pick signals sharp shift on Israel

President-elect Donald Trump's selection of a pro-Israel hardliner to head the U.S. embassy in that country signals a sharp shift in Washington's approach to its closest ally in the Middle East.

David Friedman, a New York-based bankruptcy attorney with no diplomatic experience, has challenged the so-called two-state solution as an avenue toward peace between the Israelis and Palestinians after decades of violent instability.

He's also pushed to move the U.S. embassy from its current spot in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their spiritual capital....

Trump buys into ethno-nationalism as a political alternative, abandoning Western liberalism.

Alt-Right wins. Steve Bannon scores points.

The Hill
Trump pick signals sharp shift on Israel

Mike Lillis

Larry C. Johnson — Obama’s Grand Delusions About Terrorism, Russia and Syria

Another backgrounder.

No Quarter
Obama’s Grand Delusions About Terrorism, Russia and Syria

What Barack Obama Didn’t Know and When He Didn’t Know It
Larry C. Johnson | CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm with expertise combating terrorism and investigating money laundering, formerly Deputy Director in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism (1989-1993, and CIA operations (1984-1989)

Adam Garrie — Why Bashar al-Assad remains popular among the Syrian people

Backgrounder.

The Duran
Why Bashar al-Assad remains popular among the Syrian people

Adam Garrie

Lord Keynes — Trump on the Free Market

When was the last time a Republican president was so hostile to free trade and dismissed the usual “free market” apologetics as the “dumb market”?

It would be so much better if he had said something like this:

“I love free trade in principle, OK? But, in practice, we just don’t have it, OK? We just don’t have it. Everybody cheats. China cheats. Japan cheats. The Europeans cheat. So therefore we need to be smart, and have fair trade, and protect American jobs and manufacturing. And, if we need tariffs, then that’s smart trade.”

Social Democracy For The 21St Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective
Trump on the Free Market
Lord Keynes

Pat Lang — Syria/Iraq Roundup

Col. Lang mentions the involvement of the UK at the end. Some may be wondering what's up with that, as well as why France is so interested in Syria, too. Britain and France were the colonial powers in the region and can't beyond it. Of course, this pertains to much more than in the Middle East and Africa.

Sic Semper Tyrannis 

Syria/Iraq Roundup - 17 December 2016

Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.), former military intelligence officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency

Jon Hellevig — EU's Infowar On Russia - Putting In Place A Totalitarian Media Regime And Speech Control

... while Russia has been identified both in the EU and the US as the supposed adversary against whom these states are supposedly protecting, the real target of their crackdown is internal dissent. Their scandalous calls to an infowar against Russia is actually a red herring intended to conceal the much more sinister aim of establishing a totalitarian media regime and speech control with all-out propaganda and censorship internally in the EU states.

Obviously the EU and USA have very little to fear from Russia's quite limited media resources. Russia has no propaganda reach over the West and based on my observations has not even been engaged in any such attempts. Russia has, however, increased its legitimate reporting in English with an aim at Western and other global audiences. These are quite insignificant operations and reach only a very limited audience. Hereby, there is no need for Russia even to try to do anything called propaganda – in the sense of trying to push false narratives by subterfuge. The Western propaganda machine is the one that takes care of producing the propaganda content, and Russian and other alternative media sources need not do anything else than sit there and refute the Western propaganda narratives 24 hours a day, as well as report the real news.

For sure, this is annoying enough for the West, but their real concern is yet much more baleful. They have a need to enact a totalitarian media regime and speech control in order to continue unhindered in their geopolitical new world order machinations and in their endeavors to establish a World Government with its political and cultural agenda....

That the European mainstream media had been converted into a totalitarian propaganda machine should have become clear to the most lazy observer by the latest in 2013/2014 with the jaw-dropping anti-Sochi propaganda and the massive propaganda support and whitewashing of the Ukrainian coup and the atrocities in its wake - which clearly were perpetrated by people and groups that openly displayed their adherence to fascist and Nazi ideologies – on the Maidan, Odessa, Mariupol and its war of terror on the population of Donbass. The Western propaganda war on Syria in support of jihadists and Western mercenary terrorists labeling these groups “moderate rebels” should have come as final proof for those who still wanted to give the Western media the benefit of the doubt. – Now, they want to remove that doubt once and for all by the introduction of a totalitarian media regime and speech control.

Jon Hellevig's Blog
EU's Infowar On Russia - Putting In Place A Totalitarian Media Regime And Speech Control
Jon Hellevig, founder, Awara Group

Rebecca Gordon — In Yemen, Yet Another Undeclared U.S. War

On how many countries is U.S. ordnance falling at the moment? Some put the total at six; others, seven. For the record, those seven would be Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and, oh yes, Yemen.

The United States has been directing drone strikes against what it calls al-Qaeda targets in Yemen since 2002, but our military involvement in that country increased dramatically in 2015 when U.S. ally Saudi Arabia inserted itself into a civil war there. Since then, the United States has been supplying intelligence and mid-air refueling for Saudi bombers (many of them American-made F-15s sold to that country). The State Department has also approved sales to the Saudis of $1.29 billion worth of bombs — “smart” and otherwise — together with $1.15 billion worth of tanks, and half a billion dollars of ammunition. And that, in total, is only a small part of the $115 billion total in military sales the United States has offered Saudi Arabia since President Obama took power in 2009.

Why are American bombs being dropped on Yemen by American-trained pilots from American-made planes?….

The Saudi-led coalition includes Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. Between March 2015 and the end of August 2016, according to the Yemen Data Project, an independent, nonpartisan group of academics and human rights organizations, the coalition launched more than 8,600 air strikes. At least a third of them struck civilian targets, including, the Guardian reports, “school buildings, hospitals, markets, mosques and economic infrastructure.”…

Why is Saudi Arabia, along with its allies, aided by the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom, fighting in Yemen?…

So, once again, why do the Saudis (and their Sunni Gulf State allies) care so much about the roiling internal politics and conflicts of their desperately poor neighbor to the south? It’s true that the Houthis have managed to lob some rockets into Saudi Arabia and conduct a few cross-border raids, but they hardly represent an existential threat to that country.
The Saudis firmly believe, however, that Iran represents such a threat. As Saudi diplomatic documents described in the New York Times suggest, that country has “a near obsession with Iran.” They see the hand of that Shi’a nation everywhere, and certainly everywhere that Shi’a minorities have challenged Sunni or secular rulers, including Iraq.

There seems to be little evidence that Iran supported the Houthis (who represent a minority variant of Shi’a Islam) in any serious way — at least until the Saudis got into the act. Even now, according to a report in the Washington Post, the Houthis “are not Iranian puppets.” Their fight is local and the support they get from Iran remains “limited and far from sufficient to make more than a marginal difference to the balance of forces in Yemen, a country awash with weapons. There is therefore no supporting evidence to the claim that Iran has bought itself any significant measure of influence over Houthi decision-making.”

So to return to where we began: why exactly has Washington supported the Saudi war in Yemen so fully and with such clout? The best guess is that it’s a make-up present to Saudi Arabia, a gesture to help heal the rift that opened when the Obama administration concluded its July 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. Under that agreement’s terms, Iran vowed “that it will under no circumstances ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons” in return for the United States lifting years of economic sanctions.

The US has no direct national interest in Yemen.

Lobe Log
In Yemen, Yet Another Undeclared U.S. War

Rebecca Gordon

Caleb Weiss — Moroccan jihadist group merges with local Syrian faction

Harakat Sham al Islam, a jihadist group founded by and primarily comprised of Moroccans, has announced its merger with the local Syrian jihadist faction Harakat Fajr al Sham al Islamiyya. The two groups previously operated as part of the al Qaeda-linked alliance Jabhat Ansar al Din.

According to a statement released on Twitter on Dec. 10, the two groups have merged under the Jabhat Ansar al Din name with a “total integration” of forces headed by former Harakat Fajr al Sham al Islamiyya leader Dr. Abu Abdullah al Shami.

It goes on to read that “this blessed move comes at a desperate time in the Syrian Revolution and its blessed jihad to close the ranks, unite, and gather efforts.” This move reportedly came after “listening to the scholars and reformers on the need for unity” to protect the jihad in Syria. “Scholars and reformers” is a reference to the line peddled by al Qaeda officials for its efforts in Syria. The “need for unity” is one of the main reasons behind the Al Nusrah Front’s re-branding into Jabhat Fateh al Sham, along with many other smaller bands.

Ayman al Zawahiri, the overall leader of al Qaeda, and his deputies have long stressed the need for jihadist unity. Before Nusrah’s rebranding, Zawahiri’s deputy, Abu Khayr al Masri, released a message blessing the re-branding to unify the ranks and “preserve the jihad” in Syria. Abu Muhammad al Jolani, the leader of al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, spoke in a similar tune in an interview to Al Jazeera in Dec. 2015. [See FDD’s Long War Journal report, Analysis: Al Nusrah Front rebrands itself as Jabhat Fath Al Sham.]

Harakat Sham al Islam was founded in 2013 by Ibrahim bin Shakran, Ahmed Mizouz, and Mohammed Alami, three Moroccans who were captured in Afghanistan after the US invasion in 2001, detained at Guantanamo Bay, and then released to the custody of the Moroccan government in 2004 and later released. Bin Shakran was released despite an assessment by Joint Task Force Guantanamo that identified him as a “high-ranking member” of the theological commission of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization....

FDD's Long War Journal
Moroccan jihadist group merges with local Syrian faction

Caleb Weiss

Paul Robinson — The peaceful city

Countering incredible Western naiveté.

Western propaganda has convinced most people in the West that the "reblels" were liberals fighting against the "dictatorial" Assad and his "repressive" regime rather than Sunni Islamists trying to impose their strict version of Islamic custom and law, similar to the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia.

BTW, life in Damascus is reported to be similar to that described in the post about Aleppo prior to Western and Saudi/Qatari arming and funding of the "opposition."

Irrussianality
The peaceful city
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

CNBC — Trump's pick for budget director has urged big spending cuts

Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney, President-elect Donald Trump's choice as his budget director, is a fierce deficit hawk with a record of pushing deep spending cuts across the federal government to balance the budget.

Is DJT caving to Paul Ryan?

Maybe not.

Strongly anti-establishment, Mulvaney has supported cuts beyond what House Republican leaders preferred and has refused to back deals to raise the government's borrowing limit, more recently causing heartburn for current Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

What was that about Trump's big spending plans?

In a statement, Trump commended Mulvaney's strong voice in Congress who will get America's fiscal house in order.

"Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation's finances and save our country from drowning in red ink," Trump said.

Mulvaney said he looked forward to working with Congress to create policies that will be "friendly to American workers and businesses."

"The Trump administration will restore budgetary and fiscal sanity back in Washington after eight years of an out-of-control, tax and spend financial agenda," he said.

Bait and switch? Change of heart?

CNBC
Trump's pick for budget director has urged big spending cuts

Associated Press

Alex Christoforou — Julian Assange tells Fox News Sean Hannity, definitively, ‘Our source is NOT the Russian government’

[Sean] Hannity interviewed Julian Assange, who once again confirmed that Russia and “no state actor” was the source of the Wikileaks Podesta emails or DNC leaks.

Hannity is also the only MSM show to explore the Craig Murray report, that chronicles the genesis of the leaks…stating that the former Ambassador had met with the source of the email leaks…confirming and corroborating Assange’s factual claim that no state actor, including Russia, was involved in any kind of “hack” or leak....

The Duran
Julian Assange tells Fox News Sean Hannity, definitively, ‘Our source is NOT the Russian government’

Alex Christoforou