By CONRAD BLACK, Special to the Sun | October 18, 2019

By Diane Bederman

Globalists are fretting over populists and nationalists. They are interfering in their agenda. How dare they?

I just read an interview with John le Carré;  alias David Cornwall. His new book will be out late October.  The master of spy tales, le Carré is worried about world events and today’s geopolitical moment. The rise in nationalism and populism. le Carré  refers to populists as “the ultras” poisoning public opinion. He sees Trump enabling authoritarianism. He compared the relationship of Trump and Putin to Molotov, who worked with Stalin, and Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany, from 1938 until 1945.

It seems that Trump and Boris Johnson are dangerous to world peace.  le Carré refers to Johnson as a man “totally without principle.”  He says Trump and Johnson promote nationalism and populism rather than the much vaunted globalism.  After all, globalists promote progressive values. Progressive: Given the predilection to progress, the past is viewed as an inferior state of existence with various afflictions that wither away over time. So we simply wipe out the past or rewrite it based on values we have, today.
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Trump hails ceasefire and ‘safe zone’ on Turkey-Syria border as ‘great day for civilisation’ but few believe it

By Julian Borger, GUARDIAN

Last modified on Fri 18 Oct 2019 09.11 BST

Turkey-backed Syrian rebel fighters in the border town of Tal Abyad. The US-Turkey agreement calls for a 120-hour ceasefire in a “safe zone”. Photograph: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

The deal agreed between the US and Turkey immediately achieved the priority objective of vice-president Mike Pence’s peace mission to Ankara: Donald Trump was able to claim victory on Twitter.

The president had unwittingly alienated most of his own party over his acceptance of the Turkish invasion of north-eastern Syria, and was already in the midst of an impeachment battle.

So when the talks were over in Ankara, the president’s thumbs were hovering over his phone and he turned the usual hyperbole up to maximum. “This is a great day for civilisation,” he exulted. “People have been trying to make this ‘Deal’ for many years. Millions of lives will be saved.” Read more…

T. Belman. The US can’t have it both ways. The more she gets out of the ME, the less influence she will have. The more she stays in the ME, the more influence she will have.

By David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, NYT

Updated 8:38 p.m. ET

The agreement, announced by Vice President Mike Pence, may stop the killing in the Kurdish enclave in northern Syria. But the cost to American influence is expected to be high.

WASHINGTON — The cease-fire agreement reached with Turkey by Vice President Mike Pence amounts to a near-total victory for Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who gains territory, pays little in penalties and appears to have outmaneuvered President Trump.

The best that can be said for the agreement is that it may stop the killing in the Kurdish enclave in northern Syria. But the cost for Kurds, longtime American allies in the fight against the Islamic State, is severe: Even Pentagon officials were mystified about where tens of thousands of displaced Kurds would go, as they moved south from the Turkey-Syria border as required by the deal — if they agree to go at all.
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RUDAW

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkey and the United States have agreed to a Turkish ceasefire in northern Syria, US Vice President Mike Pence told a press conference in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday evening.

Under the 13-point agreement, Turkish military operations will be paused for 120 hours to allow US forces to facilitate the safe withdrawal of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from the 20-mile-wide ‘safe zone’ along the shared border, Pence told reporters.

Once the withdrawal is concluded, Operation Peace Spring will be halted completely and the US will lift its sanctions on Turkey.
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© REUTERS

22:36 17.10.2019 (updated 23:02 17.10.2019)

Syrian president’s political adviser Bouthaina Shaaban on Thursday described US-Turkey agreement on ceasefire in northern Syria as “unclear.”

Syrian president’s political adviser said that Damascus is categorically against the establishment of Kurdish autonomy in Syria as there are no reasons for that in the country.

“Of course we cannot accept it,” Shaaban said in an interview with al-Mayadeen television responding to the question of whether Damascus could accept a “copy” of Iraqi Kurdistan on its territory.
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US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser to travel to Israel and meet both PM Netanyahu and Blue and White chairman.

By Elad Benari, INN

US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will travel to Israel during the last week of October, Israeli officials told Channel 13 News on Thursday.

According to the report, Kushner is expected to meet Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as well as Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz.

Kushner knows Netanyahu well after their many meetings, but this will be his first meeting with Gantz since his entry into politics. This is another acknowledgement by the Trump administration, which had dealt solely with Netanyahu for two and a half years, that Gantz is a key political player in Israel, according to Channel 13’s Barak Ravid.
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BY Jordaine Carney, THE HILL – 10/17/19 03:41 PM EDT

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) ripped the administration over the recently announced cease-fire in Syria, calling President Trump‘s decision to withdraw troops “a bloodstain in the annals of American history.”

“The announcement today is being portrayed as a victory. It is far from a victory. Serious questions remain about how the decision was reached precipitously to withdraw from Syria and why that decision was reached,” Romney said.

Romney’s Senate floor speech came after Vice President Pence announced a five-day cease-fire.

Under the agreement Pence said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an agreed to halt Turkey’s offensive in Syria for 120 hours in order to allow Kurdish YPG forces to evacuate. The agreement will also maintain a “permanent cease-fire” once the evacuation is complete.

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Eric Mandel does an excellent job of tearing down the Trump decision.

By Valerie Sobel 

• Christopher Columbus is a war mongerer.
• NFL players take the knee.
• NBA players are loud sympathizers and profiteers of a communist regime notorious for re-education gulags and disappearances of millions.
• Democratic 2020 candidates (Warren & Buttigieg) propose decriminalization of HIV non-disclosures. HIV patients would be free to engage in sex without ever disclosing their contagious condition to intercourse partner(s). Kind of like spiking someone’s drink with arsenic without facing any consequences.

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TURKEY HAS AGREED TO A CEASEFIRE.
THE KURDS HAVE ALSO ACCEPTED THE TERMS.
A GREAT DAY FOR EVERYONE

MEMRI

In his September 24, 2019 column in the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour, ‘Abd Al-Hamid Al-Hamshari wrote that the 9/11 attacks were planned by the U.S. National Security Council with the aim of destabilizing the Middle East and preventing the rise of an Arab power that would compete with the U.S. for hegemony in that region.

Al-Hamshari, who is a member of Jordanian human rights organizations,[1] adds that since 9/11, the U.S. has continued to sow chaos in the region by means of terror organizations like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, which it established, in order to redraw its borders along sectarian and ethnic lines and serve the interests of its ally, Israel.

It should be mentioned that, several days before the anniversary of 9/11, Al-Dustour posted another conspiratorial article on this topic, which claimed that the Muslims were the true victims of the attacks.[2]
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T. Belman.  Essentially Prager writes to Brin as a child of Russian emigres, we helped liberate you and now you or your company Google are stiffling our freedom of speech which is the mainstay of Freedom.  Is this the thanks we get?

By Dennis Prager, TOWNHALL   October 15, 2019

Dear Mr. Brin: Fifty years ago this week, when I was a 21-year-old college senior, I was in the Soviet Union, sent by the government of Israel to smuggle in Jewish religious items and smuggle out names of Jews who wanted to escape the Soviet Union and could then be issued a formal invitation to Israel.

I was chosen because I was a committed Jew and because I knew Hebrew and Russian. I was no hero, but the trip did entail risk. The Soviets did not appreciate people smuggling out names of Soviet citizens who sought to emigrate, information the Israeli government and activist groups in America used to advocate on their behalf.

My four weeks in the USSR were, of course, life-changing. This young American, lucky beyond belief to have spent his entire life in the freest country in the world, experienced what it was like to live in a totalitarian police state. People feared merely being seen speaking with a Westerner, lest the KGB arrest and interrogate them. People arranged to meet me at a certain tree in a certain park and only spoke to me while walking to avoid eavesdroppers. I met with Jewish engineers, doctors and professors who could find no work because they were known to the government to be “otkazniki,” or “refuseniks” — Jews who had applied for exit visas to leave the Soviet Union and been refused permission. I’m sure you know of them from your parents.

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T. Belman.  To drive this message home, the US should sell to Israel refuelling planes and bunker-buster bombs.

Unmentioned by Gordon is the fact that we will have to neutralize Hesbollah at the same time.

I would like a preemptive strike on Hezbollah before they convert their missiles into smart misiles.

They may actually make war with Iran less likely because they send the vital message that if Tehran attacks Israel, Jerusalem will hit back – and hard.

by  Evelyn Gordon

US President Donald Trump’s latest Middle East decisions cast Israeli airstrikes in Syria and (reportedly) Iraq in a different light. Previously, these airstrikes seemed to be aimed solely at preventing Iran from establishing military infrastructure in both countries that could threaten Israel. But it now turns out they were also sending an important deterrent message: If Tehran attacks Israel, Jerusalem will have no qualms about striking back.

The conventional wisdom has been that even if these airstrikes were necessary for Israel’s defense, they posed a real risk of escalation. And obviously, that remains a possibility.
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TOI

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman reiterates that his party won’t hold coalition talks with Likud unless they focus on “essence” and not the divvying up of ministerial portfolios.

“More than once or twice we’ve reached out to Likud in order to open negotiations and discuss essential matters,” Liberman writes on Facebook, rattling off issues such as military conscription of yeshiva students, public transportation on Shabbat and ending the government’s “surrender policy” in Gaza, among others.

“It’s incredible how much our requests have fallen on inattentive ears.”

Liberman’s comments come a week before the expiration of Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s mandate to form a government. While Netanyahu can request a two-week extension, analysts have posited that President Reuven Rivlin is unlikely to agree.
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T. Belman.  The author suggests the following:

Instead of sanctions, the United States and Europe need to devise a mutually agreed plan of action with Ankara that would incorporate three major elements. First, they need to acknowledge that the policy of support to the Y.P.G. has ended; no long-term constructive engagement with Turkey can work otherwise.

Second, Turkey, the United States and Europe should restart a strategic dialogue to foster a common approach to the constitutional order and security arrangements for a new Syria. Otherwise, Moscow and Tehran will be in increasingly strong positions to reshape the regional order.

And third, Turkey’s western partners should incentivize Ankara to return to an agenda of domestic political reforms, which would also tackle the country’s longstanding Kurdish problem.

Much to think about.  But is the Islamist Erdogan the one to lead this.

By Sinan Ulgen, NYT Oct. 16, 2019

The United States and Europe are erroneously banking on sanctioning Turkey to contain the fallout in Syria.

Ras al Ain, Syria, during bombardment by Turkish forces on Wednesday.

ISTANBUL — The sudden decision by President Trump to endorse Turkey’s move to send its troops into Syria and pull out most of the American forces posted there seems to have shocked the country’s political and military establishment. American analysts and policymakers see events of the past week as largely benefiting Russia, the Syrian government, the remnants of the Islamic State and Iran.

Amid the great clamor of commentary, the United States and Europe are erroneously banking on sanctioning Turkey to contain the fallout. The harsh truth is that the United States, Europe and Turkey share responsibility for the creation of this crisis. They have all made a series of policy mistakes since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011.
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