Syria’s Rojava [Where They Run Torture Camps] Is in Grave Danger +

Federalization of Syria a.k.a. Balkanization

Syria’s Rojava Revolution Is in Grave Danger (Reason magazine)

If the Kurdish-Arab alliance unravels, the U.S. military may decide to directly back Arab tribes as a bulwark against Iran and the Islamic State, according to Nicholas Heras, who has advised the U.S.-led military coalition in Syria and is now senior director for strategy at the nonprofit New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington. In 2019, when former President Donald Trump wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, the Trump administration considered a strategy of letting the Kurdish forces fall to Turkey and buying off Arab tribes.

The United States has, directly and indirectly, backed all sides of the fight. Turkey is a NATO ally. Some of the SNA [Syrian National Army] units now attacking Kobane had received weapons and training from the CIA and the U.S. military. (After the Trump administration cut off support, a U.S. official condemned these same factions as “thugs, bandits, and pirates that should be wiped off the face of the earth,” and the Biden administration imposed human rights sanctions.) Meanwhile, several hundred U.S. troops are embedded with the SDF.

In his Sunday victory speech about the fall of the Assad government, President Joe Biden said that he wanted to support an “independent, sovereign—an independent—independent—I want to say it again—sovereign Syria.” But U.S. policy at the moment seems to be creating the opposite: a Syria chopped up [Balkanization] by foreign powers.

Rojava is also known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

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World Spending On Nukes Explodes To More Than $90 Billion

World Spending On Nukes Explodes To More Than $90 Billion

Honeywell International, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics topped the list of companies profiting from nuclear weapons expenditures.

That flood of public funds to private contractors was coupled by significant spending by these companies on efforts to shape the debate around government spending. The companies spent $118 million lobbying governments in the U.S. and France in 2023 and donated more than $6 million to think tanks researching and writing about nuclear weapons.

Lockheed Martin contributed to the most think tanks, including: Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, Chatham House, Center for a New American Security, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Hudson Institute, and Observer Research Foundation.

The Growing Weakness of Western Artillery Capabilities

After decades of waging war against impoverished nations with destitute armies, or no standing armies at all, the US has suddenly found itself in a rapidly changing world where peer and near-peer competitors are outpacing it in military capabilities. Many of these capabilities are showing up on the battlefield in places the US has until recently enjoyed relative military superiority.

The Growing Weakness of Western Artillery Capabilities

Clear signs of US trying to topple Sheikh Hasina govt: Regime change operation underway in Bangladesh and why India should be alert

Full video

Regime change operation underway in Bangladesh and why India should be alert (archived)

Related:

Bangladesh: The government must stop killing protestors and silencing dissent (OMCT*)

*OMCT Donors and Finances

National Endowment for Democracy, Oak Foundation, Open Society Foundations (George Soros), Open Society Justice Initiative, European Commission, United States of America,

Michael Kugelman (Wilson Center**): The U.S. Ups the Ante in Bangladesh

**Wilson Center Sponsors

BAE Systems, Coca-Cola, BlackRock, Carnegie Corporation, Hewlett Foundation, ClimateWorks (Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg) Morgan Stanley, Northrop Grumman,

Front organizations