The 8 Reasons:

1) Putin, Assad, Xi, and Trump all knew that the incident in
Khan Sheikoun was a false-flag.
2) The Pentagon warns the MOD 4 hours ahead of time;
Shayrat is then evacuated.
3) While having dessert with Trump, the strike is launched; Xi
Jinping then vocally endorses the attack on his ally Assad.
4) Less than half of the Tomahawks hit Shayrat airbase.
5) Air defense and EW jamming systems were not used.
6) Trump had been fighting the CIA right up until the false-flag.
7) The CIA was excluded from the April 6th situation room.
8) The US and Russia make peace 6 days later on April 12th.
 Did Trump sell out? or wage a psy-op against the Deep State?

Trumps regular supporters do not know about false-flags, so

Trumps attack can seem somewhat justified to them.

But for Trumps truther supporters (who know that Trump

knew that it was a false-flag) Trumps actions constitute a
betrayal. He should have stated that the chemical incident in
Khan Sheikoun was a false-flag by Al Nusra and not attacked.
 P1) The chemical incident was a false flag. Why? *1

P2) Trump was not involved. Why? *2

P3) Trump knew that it was a false-flag. Why? *3

P4) Putin, Assad, & Xi knew about P1, P2, & P3. Why? *4

Conclusion: thus, the collusion scenario is possible; and it

becomes plausible & likely after considering the other Reasons.
 P1) In accordance with their joint-memorandum, the American
and Russian forces use a military-to-military-deconfliction-line for
all of their flights operating over Syria (manned or unmanned).*5
P2) Its highly likely that the Pentagon warns the MOD 4 hours
ahead of time about the 59 Tomahawks bound for Shayrat.*6
P3) Some of Russias helicopter forces are based at Shayrat; they
make preparations for the strike: park craft in specific areas and
stay in their barracks; Syrian forces also make preparations:
evacuate aircraft and senior officers, move aircraft to different
locations on the base, move personnel to the Russian barracks.*7
Conclusion: thus, the warning/preparations make the collusion
scenario plausible. Reason 1 made it possible, Reason 2, plausible.
 P1) Trump launches the strike in the middle of a crucial 2-day
summit with China. *8 Is he insane? He needs a trade deal badly.
P2) Trump & Xi are alone together for hours on both days; a
friendship is forged. Xi tells Trump about his ongoing and deadly
fight against the Chinese Deep State/Jiang Zemin.*9 Trump likely
tells Xi about his own battle against the US Deep State/CIA/IC.
P3) Despite knowing that it was a false-flag, and being notified
of Trumps attack in advance *10, Xi Jinping vocally endorses the
illegal strike on his ally while eating cake with Trump. *11 So did
Xi betray Assad? After having protected Syria 7 times with its
veto power at the UN Security Council? *12 Chinas economy and
military are strong, Xi would never sell out his key ally Syria. *13
Conclusion: given Reasons 1 & 2, its highly likely that the strike
was a fake response, and that Trump & Xi had teamed up. Their
actions after the summit demonstrate even further collusion. *14
 According to the Pentagon, 58 Tomahawk missiles hit their
targets at Shayrat. However, the Russian MOD claims that only
23 missiles had struck the base. So who is telling the truth? *15
The Russian MOD releases just 2 minutes of UAV footage
showing post strike damage at the base. Then the Pentagon
releases some satellite images of Shayrat. Then the Israeli
satellite company ISI releases a few before-&-after-images. *16
What do the images show? Do they refute Russias account? *17
ISI claims to have found 44 hits; some areas being double-taps.
But many observers have noted that ISIs satellite images are
misleading and only show 14-18 hits, not 44. *18 However, the
sparse satellite images from the Pentagon & ISI do contradict
the MODs insinuation that the strike was of very low-quality, as
we can see that some concrete hangars were hit. The ISI images
show the quality of the hits, they dont prove a quantity of 44.
 On the other hand, the images cant serve as positive evidence
that 23 missiles had hit the base: ISI only showed the world 3
sets of before-and-after-images. There could be more images
of other areas. The absence of evidence doesnt necessarily
mean the evidence of absence. However, given that ISI has
asserted that there were 44 targets, its safe to conclude that
ISI/the Pentagon would have shown more images proving that
if they had them. So far, the Russian narrative concerning the
strikes quantity (not quality) is more plausible than the U.S one.
 Then what happened to the rest of the launched Tomahawks?
The issue of the missing missiles must be examined. Various
analysts have either ignored it, or attributed it to a false cause.
Thus, we have 5 possible scenarios:
A: the missing Tomahawks were shot down by the Syrian air
defense systems. (with S-200 or S-300 anti-missile systems)
B: they were shot down by Russian air defense systems in
Syria. (with the S-400 Triumph or S-300)
C: they were brought down or redirected covertly by
advanced Russian jamming systems in Syria.
D: More than 50% of the 59 Tomahawks had malfunctioned.
E: they were dumped into the Mediterranean by the US Navy.
Conclusion: we will see with Reason 5 that A & B did not
happen, and that C would have been impossible. D is also
impossible.*19 Thus, E becomes the Best Explanation, and
especially so in light of Reasons 1, 2, & 3. Contrary to what
many people have been saying, C could never have happened.
 Why didnt the Syrians or Russians use their air defense systems?
*20 a) incapable Col. Khodarenok *21 b) it would have violated
the memorandum *22 c) no mandate: V. Ozerov. *23
Were electronic warfare jamming systems used instead?
Many people have claimed that Russia jammed those TLAMs
without knowing the exact capabilities of Russian jammers. *24
And if EW jammers were used, then why is it that only 23
missiles reached the base? But 36 did not? a technical limitation?
or were 23 missiles let through to conceal Russian involvement?
But in fact, its impossible to jam a TLAM due to its plethora of
guidance systems. GPS signals can be jammed, but the missile
also uses inertial guidance, TERCOM mapping, and a camera. *25
Conclusion: despite being warned in advance, the Russians and
Syrians opted to make preparations and evacuate Shayrat
airbase rather than activate air defense or EW jamming systems.
Thus, the missing missiles can only be attributed to the US Navy.
Dumping half (or sending them elsewhere) ensures collusion.*26
 P1) Trumps pre-presidency fight against the CIA-controlled
media, Deep State, CIA, & IC was clearly evident to most. *27
P2) Post-election fight: Jan: Trump threatens the CIA with Lt. Gen.
Flynn (their enemy) in person! *28; Flynn and Trump send Seal
Team 6 to Yemen to fight Al Q/CIA *29; Feb: Swamp draining
begins: Tillerson fires the 7th floor of the State Dept.*30; Trump
sets a canary trap with Flynn to catch the leakers in the IC. *31
Trump stops all aid to terrorist training centers. *32 March 22nd:
Destroy DAESH Conference, which is a black spot for the CIA,
S.A & Israel *33. April 2nd: Trump says that Assad can stay. *34
Conclusion: thus, its unlikely that Trump would have bowed
down to the Deep State after the false-flag by bombing Syria
for them. Its more probable that his strike was a continuation
of his resistance against the Deep State and the CIA. Post
strike, Trump is still resisting. In May, clear signs emerged of his
opposition to Israel & Saudi Arabias agenda for the region. *35
 P1) CIA director Mike Pompeo was absent from the April 6th
situation room and its video conference call in Mar-a-lago FL. *36
P2) April 7th: the New York Times writes "if there were C.I.A. and
other intelligence briefers around, as there were in the famous
photo of President Barack Obamas team during the 2011 Osama
bin Laden raid, they are out of the picture". April 8th: Independent
and credible journalist Robert Parry writes that a source told him
that "Pompeo was excluded because Trump disagreed with his
assessment that Assad was innocent". April 10th: the CIA releases a
statement saying that the news is false.*37 April 12th: former CIA
officer Kevin Shipp repeats the news on RTs Cross talk, himself
clearly puzzled by it. Shipps mentioning of it on RT confirms that
Parrys source does exist, and it is obviously someone in the CIA.
 Parry does have some good CIA patriot sources, but in this
case, his source is wrong. The news is false because it claims
that Pompeo had briefed Trump about Assads innocence, but then Trump
did not relay that information to his NSC team, instead launching a missile
attack. But that cannot be true as Trump is not the sole source
of intelligence information for his NSC team: they also meet
regularly with the IC; so Trump could never freeze them out.
Nonetheless, the rumour exists, and could have arisen 2 ways:
a) somebody in the CIA came up with it to explain Pompeos
absence from the April 6th Mar-a-lago situation room: if that is
the case, it would have come from a patriot, and not a Deep
State traitor, as a Deep State traitor would never have told
Parry, "the CIA director said that Assad was innocent". Or, b)
Trumps team created it and then released it into the ranks of
the Deep State CIA to confuse them about Pompeos absence.
B is far likelier given that 1) Pompeo agreed with Trump, 2)
Trump has created fake news in the past to catch leakers and
confuse foes, and 3) Trumps strike was a 1-time fake response.
 Conclusion: Reason 6 established Trumps clandestine or overt
opposition to the CIA, S.A, & Israel pre & post strike; & Reasons
1, 2, 3,& 4 have shown why Trumps strike was very likely a one-
time fake response to a false-flag launched by Al Nusra. Given
all of that, the Best Explanation for P1 & P2 is that Pompeo
(whos very likely a patriot) stayed clear of the operation lest
he expose its real purpose to the CIAs Deep State apparatus.
What was it specifically that Trumps team wouldnt have
wanted the by-and-large corrupt CIA to see? It wouldve had to
have been the 36 Tomahawks that did not reach Shayrat, and
which would serve to facilitate post-strike collusion between
Washington and Moscow. Trump wouldve been keen on
knowing the status and whereabouts of those missiles, and
would not have wanted the 5th column in the CIA to see that.
 P1) 5 days after the strike, Tillerson arrives in Moscow. No
rude words from the Russian side. Tillerson meets Putin for 2
hours. No transcript is made available by the Kremlin. *38
P2) Tillerson agrees that America will not strike Syria again
and states that only a political solution is possible. *39
P3) Russia reopens its de-confliction line with the US. The US
continues its flights over Syria under the memorandum. *40
P4) Russia & the US create a bilateral group to discuss major
issues *41. US affirms that ISIS in Syria will be destroyed. *42
Conclusion: thus, it is highly likely that the missile strike was a
fake response, and that the US and Russia are now colluding.
 Trump, Xi, Assad, and Putin colluded in order to block the
attempt to instigate a war and bring on regime-change in Syria.
Collusion definitely happened between all the players, and not
confrontation. The collusion between Trump and Xi obviously
occurred pre and post strike, whereas the collusion between
Trump and Putin took place post strike, not becoming locked in
step until Tillersons private meeting with Putin on April 12th.
Putins measured response to the strike was likely due to him
having a hunch that it was a one-time fake response to a false-
flag attack, thanks to Xi being with Trump at that time. Hearing
about Xis approval of the strike and the 36 missing Tomahawks
would have confirmed his hunch. Everyone steered a volatile
situation towards peace. 6 days after the strike, the US & Russia
harmonize their goals for Syria. However, the media & some
alternative news outlets remain clueless. In fact, the US & Russia
are now closer than they were before the illegal April 6th strike.

 Primary effects:
#1: Tillersons affirmation that the US should not strike Syria
again blocks the agenda for regime change & Greater Israel. *43
#2: Now the focus is on defeating ISIS in Syria. The US, Syria,
Russia, & Iran share the same view. Back to square 1. The CIA,
Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and France are all furious.
Secondary effect:
Trump yanked the Russia card out of the Democrats hands *44.
 Sorcha Faal, a proven CIA shill, says that the attack was real
and that a warning was given 30 minutes prior *45; mentions
the 36 missing missiles, but doesnt say what happened to
them. A CIA shill-writer would never want people to think that
Trump, Xi & Putin had colluded against the Deep State/CIA.

Gordon Duff, a shill from Veterans Today, asserts that the

strike was real and that the 36 missing missiles were jammed
by the Russians *46; for evidence, he provides a deceptive
photo. He is then caught lying by commenters. *47

Trustworthy anti-NWO reporters have proffered the collusion

theory: Thierry Meyssan of Voltaire Network *48, Larry Chin of
Global Research *49, and Mike King of Tomato Bubble *50.
 Sept 11th 2001 - Trump, who knows about buildings, says on live TV that
bombs must have brought down the Twin Towers given their construction.
Nov 21st 2015 - Trump mentions the dancing Muslims in New Jersey on 911
Jan 21st 2017 - Upon becoming president, Trumps 1st stop is the CIA, where
he threatens them with Lt. General Mike Flynn, their biggest enemy within
US military intelligence circles. Trump states that the CIA must destroy ISIS,
and he subtly alludes to knocking down the traitorous 5th Column in the CIA.
Jan 29th 2017 - Trump and Flynn send Seal Team 6 to Yemen to fight the
CIA/Al Qaeda. Seal Team 6 takes a treasure trove of digital information.
Feb 13th 2017 - Mike Flynn resigns, and by doing so him and Trump set a
canary trap to catch and purge leakers in the Intelligence Community.
March 22nd - Destroy DAESH Conference is held in Washington. Saudi Arabia,
Turkey, Israel, and the EU are all angry. They need ISIS to topple Assad.
March 27th - Israel bombs Syrian troops; trying to get a war underway.
April 2nd - Trump says that Assad can stay and that the focus will be on ISIS.
April 4th - A false-flag in Khan Sheikoun, an Al Nusra Front stronghold.
April 6th-7th - important 2-day bilateral summit between the US and China.
April 6th - US strikes Shayrat airbase at 3:42am with Tomahawk missiles.
April 12th - Tillerson makes peace in Moscow; agrees to not strike Syria again.
 1

References
1. Kevin Shipp (former CIA officer) - RTs Cross Talk: War-alago April 12th 2017: 11:05-11:24: I think
that there is some shadow government/Deep State involvement here. For Assad to do this is military
and political suicide. A week ago, the US just announced that it was going to allow Assad to stay in
power. And he was engaging in successful operations against ISIS. It just does not make sense at all.

1. Sputnik: Chemical Weapons Attack on Idlib: Why Questions Need to Be Asked - Sputnik - April 5th
2017: The Assad government has nothing to gain from launching chemical weapons attacks in
Syria - and never more than now when it is winning the conflict, both on the ground and
diplomatically. Indeed, launching such an attack now would be tantamount to insanity. When it
comes to this particular attack, just consider for a moment the timing. It arrived immediately after
the Trump administration confirmed that regime change was off the table where Syria was
concerned, stating that its priority was fighting Daesh.

1. Assessment of White House intelligence report about nerve agent attack in Khan Shaykhun,
Syria - Global Research - by Dr. Theodore Postol - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Apr
13th 2017: I am responding to your distribution of what I understand is a White House statement
claiming intelligence findings about the nerve agent attack on April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria. I
have reviewed the document carefully, and I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document
does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the
government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria at roughly 6 to 7
a.m. on April 4, 2017. In fact, a main piece of evidence that is cited in the document points to an attack
that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft, on the morning of April 4.

1. UN accuses Syrian rebels of chemical weapons use: Syrian rebels have made use of the deadly
nerve agent sarin in their war-torn countrys conflict, UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte
has said - The Telegraph - by Damien McElroy and agencies - May 6th 2013: According to the
testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas", del
Ponte, a former war crimes prosecutor, said in an interview with Swiss radio late on Sunday. "We
still have to deepen our investigation, verify and confirm the findings through new witness testimony,
but according to what we have established so far, it is at the moment opponents of the regime who
are using sarin gas", she added.

1. Sources: US helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons - CNN Blog -
Elise Labott - Dec 9th 2012: The United States and some European allies are using defense
contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior
U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. The training, which is taking place in
Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and
materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with
the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials. The nationality of the
trainers was not disclosed, though the officials cautioned against assuming all are American.
 2

1. Sputnik: Chemical Weapons Attack on Idlib: Why Questions Need to Be Asked - Sputnik - April
5th 2017: This, of course, is not the first time that pro-government forces have been accused of
launching a chemical weapons attack during the conflict in Syria. In August 2013, it was claimed that
the Syrian Army fired artillery shells containing the nerve agent sarin against civilians in the then
pro-opposition district of eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus. The fallout on that occasion
almost led to US and Western military intervention against the government - intervention called off
at the very moment the ships and aircraft were ready to be unleashed by the Obama administration.
In the wake of what would have been a disastrous turn of events, should said intervention have gone
ahead, Russia succeeded in brokering a deal with the Syrian government that saw its entire stock of
chemical weapons destroyed. This was undertaken and completed in 2014 under the supervision of
the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The UN investigation into the
attack on eastern Ghouta did not establish the provenance of the weapons, or who used them,
regardless of the howl of condemnation of the government that ensued in the West. However
various dissenting voices were raised challenging the allegations, though likewise they also found
themselves demonized. Among those dissenting voices was the veteran US investigative reporter,
Seymour Hersh. In an article that appeared in the London Review of Books in December 2013, Hersh
provided a forensic deconstruction and debunking of the official narrative, writing:

In the months before the attack [on eastern Ghouta], the American intelligence agencies produced a
series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order a planning document that
precedes a ground invasion citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-
Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity.
When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked
intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.

1. Mark Sleboda (Intl affairs & security analyst) - RTs Cross Talk: Trumps War April 8th: 4:00-4:21:
Peter Lavelle: Though we have no evidence of who perpetrated this chemical weapons attack. We
have no evidence. Mark: More than that, no evidence. More than that it is just no evidence. What
the mainstream media isnt telling you is that Khan Shaykhun, since 2014, has been an Al Qaeda
stronghold.

1. Unlicensed Physician Syrian British Dr Shajul Islam of the Al Qaeda/Nusra Medical Drama Wing,
Claims Sarin Gas, But Slips Off Script and says Chlorine Gas by KathJuliane: Not-Doctor Islam has
become the professional face of White Helmets/al Nusra. He is certainly a British intelligence
black propaganda and ops asset. Dr Islam of the Al Qaeda/Nusra medical drama wing of the White
Helmets, isnt a licensed physician anymore. The British National Health Services yanked his license
when he was accused of kidnapping two journalists. He wound up in Syria in 2016.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3711118/Russia-airstrikes-killing-women-children-MISSING-
ISIS-Struck-Brit-NHS-doctor-accused-kidnapping-Western-hostages-treating-bomb-victims-Syria.html
In his most recent Sarin Gas attack video on his own YT, Islam slips off script and says chlorine
gas attack at 1:23..00:01- 00:16 This center is now being overwhelmed with patients being hit by
some kind of chemical - this is not chlorine. We do not smell chlorine on these patients. This is not
chlorine gas, its not chlorine. Weve seen a lot of chlorine attacks. 01:23: The patients from the
chlorine gas attack are flooding into our patients. These are all patients that come from Khan
Sheikhoun (oops!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTszOjAZNtI
 3

1. Media Goes Quiet as Russia Exposes US Lies at Security Council - Russia Insider - by Richard
Brandt - April 5th 2017: Russias deputy United Nations ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said that the
Wests obsession with regime change is what hinders this Security Council. He noted that for
Washington and its partners, everything is guided by regime change and allegations that Assad used
chemical weapons in an attack in Idlib province on Tuesday are based on falsified reports from the
White Helmets, an organization that has been discredited long ago. He further added that taking
[the White Helmets] at face value is not professional and not serious. Safronkov pointed out that
the White Helmets are getting mixed up in their reports. Their versions keep changing. They speak of
bombs from helicopters, then from planes. Russias UN representative observed that in photos and
videos we see the White Helmets acting very unprofessionally. Their behavior is very relaxed in these
extreme circumstances.

1. Defense Secretary says U.S. is still focused on ISIS in Syria - by Associated Press - Apr 11th 2017:
Russia's General Staff says the Syrian government is willing to let international experts to examine
its military base for signs of chemical weapons. The United States on Friday carried out an airstrike
on the Shayrat air base which is believed to have been used for last week's chemical weapons attack
in the Idlib province. Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy of the Russian General Staff said in televised remarks
on Tuesday that the Syrian government is ready to let international experts to examine the base
and that Russia will provide security for them.

2. Mark Sleboda (Intl affairs & security analyst) - RTs Cross Talk Trumps War April 8th: 3:31-4:01:
We saw earlier in the week, we saw the Trump administration suddenly, not that it is their right to do
so- but saying that Assad can stay, and that his fate would be decided in elections, and that their
focus was going to be solely on ISIS. And this came out of Tillerson, this came out of Trump, this
came out of Nikki Haley. Within 48 hours, all around the events in this one Syrian town of Khan
Shaykhun- all of this went 180 degrees.

2. The White House converts to democracy - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyssan - April 4th 2017:
A considerable step has just been taken by the Trump administration - his principal diplomats have
announced that they recognise the right of the Syrian people to democracy. They admit that as a
nation, the Syrian people made the sovereign choice of Bashar el-Assad as their President. That is
the end of all the rhetoric about forced democratisation which accompanied the military
adventures of the previous administrations. Slowly, the Trump administration is organising its new
Middle East policy. After having reformed the National Security Council, after having exchanged
intelligence with the Russian army, after having forbidden his men to continue to support the
jihadists wherever they may be, and after having launched genuine attacks on them in Yemen, Iraq,
Libya and Somalia.

2. Former CIA Officer: "The Intelligence Confirms the Russian Account On Syria" - Consortium
News - by Robert Parry - April 8th 2017: But a number of intelligence sources have made
contradictory assessments, saying the preponderance of evidence suggests that Al Qaeda-affiliated
rebels were at fault, either by orchestrating an intentional release of a chemical agent as a
provocation or by possessing containers of poison gas that ruptured during a conventional bombing
raid. One intelligence source told me that the most likely scenario was a staged event by the rebels
intended to force Trump to reverse a policy, announced only days earlier, that the U.S. government
 4

would no longer seek regime change in Syria and would focus on attacking the common enemy,
Islamic terror groups that represent the core of the rebel forces.

3. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky): I dont think Assad is behind Syria attack: GOP rep. stuns anchor -
April 5th 2017: CNN - Washington: Republican Rep. Thomas Massie expressed doubt Wednesday
that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is responsible for Tuesdays chemical attack, and reinforced
his stance that US intervention could end up making the situation worse. Speaking on CNNs At
This Hour with Kate Bolduan, the Kentucky lawmaker told the host that he didnt think the Syrian
leader launched the attack, and that further intervention by the US government may aggravate the
situation. Frankly, I dont think Assad would have done that, Massie said. It does not serve his
interests. When a visibly stunned Bolduan pressed Massie on who if not Assad - may be
responsible for the attack, Massie seemed to suggest that the incident could have been
unintentional. Youve got a war going on over there, Massie said. Supposedly that airstrike was
on an ammo dump, and so I dont know if it was released because there was gas stored in the ammo
dump or not - thats plausible. Massie, who voted against Syrian intervention in 2014, repeated his
past statements that US involvement may exacerbate the conflict, citing uncertainty of the reality of
the situation. We might end up making the situation worse if we launch airstrikes, Massie said. The
first casualty of war is the truth, and its hard to know exactly whats happening in Syria right now.

3. Why did Trump bomb Shayrat? - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyysan - May 2nd 2017: Aware
that Syria was not guilty, either in the Ghouta or in Khan Sheikoun, he managed to warn the Syrian
Arab Army in advance so that they had time to evacuate the base before the strike.

3. Former CIA Officer: "The Intelligence Confirms the Russian Account On Syria" - Consortium
News - by Robert Parry - April 8th 2017: In both cases 2013 and 2017 there were strong reasons to
doubt Assads responsibility. In 2013, he had just invited United Nations inspectors into Syria to
investigate cases of alleged rebel use of chemical weapons and thus it made no sense that he
would launch a sarin attack in the Damascus suburbs, guaranteeing that the U.N. inspectors would
be diverted to that case. Similarly, now, Assads military has gained a decisive advantage over the
rebels and he had just scored a major diplomatic victory with the Trump administrations
announcement that the U.S. was no longer seeking regime change in Syria. The savvy Assad
would know that a chemical weapon attack now would likely result in U.S. retaliation and
jeopardize the gains that his military has achieved with Russian and Iranian help.

4. Haaretz: Putin to Netanyahu: Unacceptable to Make Groundless Accusations on Syria Chemical

Attack - April 6th 2017: Putins remarks come hours after Defense Minister Lieberman said he was
100 percent certain that Assad ordered the attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday
told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it was unacceptable to make groundless accusations
over this weeks suspected chemical weapons attack in a Syrian province. The Kremlin said in a
statement that Putin highlighted that it was unacceptable to make groundless accusations against
anyone without conducting a detailed and unbiased investigation. According to the Prime Ministers
Office, it was Netanyahu who initiated the phone call in order to convey his condolences over the St.
Petersburg attack. Netanyahu also told Putin that he was deeply shaken by the chemical weapons
attack in Idlib. The international community must complete the effort to clean Syria of chemical
weapons as was agreed in 2013. Russia has said it was too early to accuse the Syrian government
and called for an investigation. The call came several hours after Defense Minister Avigdor
 5

Lieberman said that Assad ordered the chemical attack. Lieberman told Yedioth Ahronoth that Syrian
planes carried out the two chemical attacks, which were directly ordered and planned by Syrian
President Bashar Assad. He stressed he was 100 percent certain. The defense minister said he did
not know if Russia was involved in the attack.

4. Russian president Vladimir Putin to the AFP - April 11th 2017: We have reports from multiple
sources that false-flags like this one, and I cannot call it otherwise, are being prepared in other parts
of Syria, including the Southern suburbs of Damascus. They plan to plant some chemical there, and
accuse the Syrian government of an attack. However, we think that any such incident has to be
thoroughly investigated.

4. Syrian President Bashar al Assad to the AFP - April 13th 2017: As you know, Khan Shaykhun is
under the control of Al Nusra Front, which is a branch of Al Qaeda. So the only information that the
world has had till this moment is published by an Al Qaeda branch. No one has any other information.
We dont know if all of the pictures and videos that weve been seeing are true or fabricated. Thats
why weve asked for an investigation into what happened in Khan Shaykhun And how can you
verify the video? We have a lot of fake videos, like the White Helmets, for example. They are Al
Qaeda, they are Al Nusra Front, who shave their beards, wear white hats, and appear as humanitarian
heroes. Which is not the case; the same people were killing Syrian soldiers. And you have the proof on
the internet.

4. Russia, China block U.N sanctions on Syria over gas attacks - United Nations - by Michelle Nichols
- Feb 28th 2017: China backed Russia and has cast its seventh veto on Syria, blocking a bid by
Western powers to impose sanctions over accusations of chemical weapons attacks during the six-
year Syrian conflict.

5. Russia, US sign 'deconfliction' memorandum on air safety over Syria - ABC News - by AFP - Oct
20th 2015: The United States and Russia have signed a memorandum of understanding establishing
air safety measures as they conduct separate bombing campaigns over Syria, the Pentagon says.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the agreement, which ensures pilots from the two
countries steer clear of one another in the air, was signed early Tuesday (local time). Russian media
reported the agreement had been signed by officials in both Moscow and the US. "The
memorandum contains a number of rules and restrictions aimed at preventing incidents between
American and Russian planes," deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov said, according to Russian
news agency Ria Novosti. Russia asked for "deconfliction" talks with the US after Moscow began
bombings in Syria on September 30. ABC/AFP.

5. Russia, United States sign 'memorandum' on air safety over Syria - Jordan Times - by AFP - Oct
20th 2015: WASHINGTON - Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the document was signed
earlier in the day and took immediate effect. "There's a series of protocols in place that effectively
are intended to avoid any sort of risk of a mid-air incident between our air crews and Russian air
crews," Cook said. "If they follow these protocols, we should not have the risk of engagement with
Russian air crews over Syria." Moscow also reported that both countries had signed the
memorandum. The Pentagon says Russia had initially asked for "deconfliction" talks with the United
States after Moscow launched its air war in Syria on September 30 in support of President Bashar
Assad's forces. US defence officials were furious after they only got a vague "heads-up" from
 6

Moscow about an hour before Russia began its bombing campaign. Cook said the memorandum
establishes several protocols aimed at maintaining professional airmanship, as well as the use of
radio frequencies and the creation of a secondary line of communication on the ground. However,
he was quick to stress that the understanding did not signal broader agreement with Russia's Syria
strategy. "The MOU does not establish zones of cooperation, intelligence-sharing or any sharing of
target information in Syria", he said.

6. The US warned Russians ahead of Syria missile strikes - CNBC.com - Apr 7th 2017: A U.S. official
said the Russians had been warned before the U.S. launched at least 59 tomahawk missiles aimed
at Syria. Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said in an official statement: "Russian forces were
notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line. U.S. military planners took
precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield. The strikes, which
hit an airfield near Homs, struck aircraft and infrastructure including the runway, NBC reported.
There is no word on casualties yet, but no people were targeted, the official told NBC. No Russian
assets were targeted, according to the report. On Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said
that Russia had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure Syrian chemical weapons, adding that
Moscow was either complicit or incompetent in its ability to uphold that deal. Tillerson said that the
U.S. had a high degree of confidence that sarin nerve gas had been used in the Tuesday chemical
weapons attack in a rebel-held area of northern Syria hit by government air strikes. The Secretary of
State said the U.S. "sought no approval from Moscow" on the strike.

6. No Prior Contacts or Discussions with Russia Prior to Airstrike on April 6th - US Department of
State Website: QUESTION: Did you or the President speak with President Putin prior to the attack?
Can you talk about the discussions that you had with Moscow? And what the expectation is from
them? SECRETARY TILLERSON: There were no discussions or prior contacts, nor have there been any
since the attack, with Moscow. QUESTION: So is it more accurate to say that you didnt seek
approval from Moscow or anything like that for them to kind of give you the green light, but you
followed protocol in terms of the military SECRETARY TILLERSON: We sought no approval we
sought no approval from Moscow or at any other level within the Russian infrastructure. This was
strictly following the rules that we have put in place in agreement with the Russian military to de-
conflict, because our target in this attack was not Russian. It was not the Russians. It was not their
forces nor any Russian individuals. Our target was this airfield and the Syrian regime.

6. Russian air defense and the US strike on Al-Shayrat - Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume 14 Issue 50 -
by Roger McDermott - April 11th 2017: Moscow had been informed two hours in advance (although
mainstream US media reporting suggests the Russians were given only one hour), and measures
were taken to ensure that no Russian personnel at the airbase would be harmed.

6. US strikes on Syria: Xi Jinping told Donald Trump he understood the US response because of
the death of children - The Telegraph - April 7th 2017: No Russian soldiers or equipment were
reported to have been damaged in the attack. The Pentagon said it informed Russia of its plans to
strike hours ahead, giving them time to remove any aircraft they had stationed at the base.
 7

6. How the U.S. Planned and Executed the Tomahawk Strike Against Syria - by Megan Eckstein -
April 7th 2017 : THE PENTAGON - Senior U.S. defense officials today briefed reporters on the
planning and execution of a Tomahawk strike on al-Shayrat Airfield in Western
Syria Thursday night, which involved two guided-missile destroyers launching 59 missiles at targets.
The following is a timeline of the April 4 attack and the decision process of U.S. leaders leading up
to Thursdays strike. The Strike: Shortly after the attack, the following day on the fifth, the
president directed the Secretary of Defense to come up with military options in response to this
attack, a senior defense official told reporters this morning at the Pentagon. We came up with
military options on the 5th; those options were basically put together into recommendations. It went
forward to the National Security Council, multiple meetings with not only the presidential senior
advisors but also with the Chairman, the Vice Chairman, the Secretary of Defense. Interagency
members deliberated, looked at the proposals on the 5th, and then on the 6th of April those
proposals were presented to the president. The official said that all the options presented to
President Donald Trump were also sent to U.S. Central Command, and to destroyers
USS Porter (DDG-78) and USS Ross (DDG-71), to begin preparing for any potential decision. During
that planning period, all the forces, in this case the two ships, had basically options, and then all they
had to do was, we just had to tell them the presidential-picked option. And that helps speed up that
execution, the official said. We prepositioned forces so that if there was an order received we
could have that quick response. So by the time the options were given to the president, we were
in position to execute upon order. And so when the order was given and passed along to the
commander, forces were in position in order to launch the missiles. On April 6, Trump selected the
Tomahawk Land Attack Missile strike option, which military officials have described as both
proportional but also our lowest-risk option to conduct the attack due to the standoff range
they allow. We got orders from the president around 4:30 yesterday afternoon, who directed the
Secretary of Defense and passed down to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff down to the
[U.S. Central Command] commander to execute those orders. Four hours after those orders were
received, there were 59 TLAMs that were launched and hit their target at
approximately 8:40 yesterday evening Eastern Standard Time.

My note: I think its safe to say that the Russians got a four hour advance warning. Shortly after
Trump decided at 4:30pm on April 6th, the Russians were very likely informed over the deconfliction
line (the sooner, the safer). The Syrians share that base, so they obviously got that 4 hour warning.
The Tomahawk strike began at 8:40pm EST (3:40am Syrian time). 4 hours and ten minutes later.

7. US military has launched 59 cruise missiles at airbase in Syria. Heres what we know so far - by
David Cenciotti - April 7th 2017: Shayrat Airbase is a Forward Operating Base for a few Russian Air
Force Mi-35 and Ka-52 helicopters. The status of the choppers, provided some of these were there
at the moment of the air strike, is unknown. However, considered that these are not mentioned in
the Russian Defense Ministry statement its safe to assume they were not damaged by the TLAM
attack.

7. Babak Taghvaee @BabakTaghvaee:

#Sharyat AB which was targeted by the #USNavy today was a main fwd operating base of #Russia|n
Air Force Mi-24/35 & Ka-52 in #Syria https://twitter.com/cnni/status/850179579276820480
11:59 PM - 6 Apr 2017
 8

7. Syria missile attack: satellite photos show major damage to airfields - FOX News - April 07th 2017:
The officials said that all of the destroyed aircraft were jets -- not helicopters. U.S. officials told Fox
News there were between 12 and 100 Russian military personnel present at the base when the
missiles hit and said the U.S. "took pains" to avoid hitting their barracks.

7. Syrian airbase targeted by US missiles - Al Masdar News - April 7th 2017: Beirut: The U.S. Navy
fired more than 50 tomahawk cruise missiles at the Shayrat Airbase this morning, causing significant
damage to this military installation in the eastern countryside of the Homs GovernorateRussians
were present at the airbase when it was attacked.

7. ISI satellite image analysis about missile strike damage. Before and after: satellite pictures
reveal the damage to the Syrian base - Ynet - April 7th 2017: A source in the Syrian army reveals
they were warned prior to the attack. A source in the Syrian army revealed to the AFP news agency
that the Syrian army had received a warning about the American attack a few hours before it was
carried out. "We learned that the Americans were about to attack and we took precautionary
measures in several military compounds, including the base that was attacked, and we transferred
several aircrafts to other locations". This source failed to mention who warned the Syrian
government. Thus far, it was only known that the US had informed Russia and some of its allies,
including Israel, of its intention to attack.

7. Images show aftermath of U.S. strikes on Syrian airfield - Washington Post - by Thomas Gibbons-
Neff - April 7th 2017: While the United States alerted Russia that it was going to strike prior to the
attack, ABC News reported Friday that Syrian forces moved personnel and equipment before the
U.S. missiles were launched. Satellite imagery, posted to the website Strafor in December 2015,
showed that the Shayrat airbase had undergone some refurbishments following Russias entry into
the conflict in September of that year. The imagery also showed that Russian helicopter gunships
had been moved to the base and one of the runways was in the process of being resurfaced.

7. A visual guide to the US missile strike on a Syrian airbase - by Emma Graham-Harrison - April 7th
2017: The US fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the warships USS Ross and Porter in the
eastern Mediterranean in the early hours of Friday morning Syrian time. They hit the Shayrat airbase
in central Syria, near the city of Homs. The US had identified the base as the location used to
launch Tuesdays chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikun that killed more than 80
people. Syrian and Russian forces used the base. Russians first deployed there in the autumn of
2015, when they reportedly reinforced some facilities. Moscow was told of the strikes in advance,
and no Russian forces or equipment were hit in the strike. There were reports that senior Syrian
officers also evacuated the base.

7. US strikes on Syria: Xi Jinping told Donald Trump he understood the US response because of
the death of children - The Telegraph - April 7th 2017: Syrian military sources said that they also
received intelligence about the strike in advance and moved equipment out of the base, in a sign
the missile strikes were intended as a show of force rather than a serious attempt to damage the
Syrian regime's airstrike capabilities.

My note: The warning for Shayrat over the deconfliction line gives us a definite scenario, and this is
because, luckily enough- Russian helicopter forces were at the airbase at the time of the bombing:
 9

the US must have been told by the Russians where the Russian servicemen and equipment were
located at Shayrat, and to avoid hitting those areas. That surely happened, as the US could not have
just used its own intell on the whereabouts of Russian forces and equipment there. Those areas,
which were not to be hit by the Pentagon, then became safe zones for Syrian forces & equipment.

8. Trump invited Chinas leader to his home, then bombed one of his allies during dinner - Reuters
- April 7th 2017: US president Donald Trump welcomed Chinese president Xi Jinping and his wife to
his private club in Florida on Thursday evening, and then announced he had bombed Syria, one of
Chinas allies. The move, which included launching dozens of missiles at Syrian airfields, was a stark
reversal for Trump, who had long endorsed a policy of non-intervention without Congressional
approval when his predecessor Barack Obama was president. It may have been a massive surprise
for Xi as wellChina, along with Russia, voted against sanctioning Syria in the United Nations in
February this year, and the meeting between Xi and Trump was billed by the US as an uneventful
meet-and-greet session beforehand. Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in
Syria from where the chemical attack was launched, Trump said at Mar-a-Lago, about an hour after Xi
and his wife had left in their motorcade for another seaside hotel. In February, the United Nations
Security Council voted against putting sanctions on Syria over the alleged use of chemical weapons
by the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. China has vetoed Syria-related action at the UN
several times, along with Russia. In March, Syrias president said in an interview with a Chinese
television channel that relations with China were on the upswing, calling the country a real
friend. The bombing during the very public meeting with Xi could also disturb relations between
the two nations. As China experts in the US government noted earlier, the last thing that Xi would
want during such a meeting is a surprise. In addition, the second day of talks on Friday will likely be
overshadowed by US lawmakers and journalists seeking more clarity on the administrations plans
for Syria. Willy Lam, who researches Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says
that Beijing will be somewhat dismayed that the summit will play second fiddle to Syria in
international media coverage. Making matters worse, the US has said it had notified Russia before
the bombing, according to a statement from the Pentagon, but it is not yet clear when Xi was made
aware of the action.

8. After Xi leaves US, Chinese media assail strike on Syria - New York Times - by Jane Perlez - April
8th 2017: Chinese officials had feared that the two leaders 24-hour encounter at Mr. Trumps Mar-
a-Lago estate in Florida might be marred by a campaign-style anti-China outburst from Mr. Trump.
Instead, it was interrupted by the unexpected missile attack. Some Chinese analysts viewed the
strikes timing as no coincidence. Mr. Trump wants China to do more to deter the development
of nuclear weapons by North Korea, its ally, and these analysts viewed the Syria attack as a reminder
to Mr. Xi that the United States could also attack the North, if necessary.

My note: this interpretation of the missile strike is prevalent, that Trump was reminding China that
the US could also attack North Korea, if necessary. It is flat out wrong for a number of reasons. It
fails to take into consideration Trump and Xis alone time for 3 hours on the morning of April 6th,
Day 1 of their summit (the strike occurred in the evening). During that time, Xi told Trump about his
ongoing battle against former Chinese president Jiang Zemins faction, and how he has little
control over North Korea, and how his is not even friendly with the Kim regime. It is clear that
Trump understood that, given his later words to FOX News and The Wall Street Journal. Therefore,
 10

Trump would not have wanted to intimidate Xi with the missile strike (he also needs a trade deal).
But most importantly, which most analysts have failed to take into account, Xi vocally endorsed the
strike in front of many people while having cake with Trump! Which refutes the notion that
intimidation or subtle threats were involved. On the contrary, it shows collusion and cooperation.
After the summit, we can see further cooperation between Trump and Xi, which dispels the idea
that their meeting at Mar-a-lago was all about a show of force and intimidation towards Xi & China.

9. Deciphering Trumps optimism for Chinas Xi Jinping - Epoch Times - by Larry Ong - April 19th
2017: We were together hours and hours and hours by ourselves, Trump told Fox and Friends.
We had a 15-minute scheduled meeting and it lasted for three hours. And the same thing happened
the next day. The six hours of private talk time- or somewhat less, considering breaks and
translation time-would be sufficient for Xi to give Trump a decent breakdown of the challenges he
faces from a rival political faction headed by former Chinese Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin.
Jiang was Party leader from 1989 to 2002, and remained a powerful backroom presence during the
tenure of Hu Jintao (2002-2012). Jiangs time as the paramount political force in the Chinese regime
was marked by corruption, kleptocracy, and persecution. Jiang was not just influential in mainland
China. Semiautonomous Hong Kong is considered a political fiefdom of Jiangs, while Jiang and his
top lieutenants have close ties with the Kim regime in North Korea. Xi Jinping has been trying to
eliminate Jiangs faction and consolidate his control over the Chinese regime since becoming Party
leader in 2012. Xis anti-corruption campaign has seen the downfall of many key Jiang allies and
supporters. In October 2016, Xi took on the politically symbolic title of Party core leader,
effectively displacing the previous core, Jiang Zemin. Jiang, however, remains at large, and his
faction is down but not out. Associates of Jiang hold important portfolios in the Politburo Standing
Committee, the regimes top decision making body. Key governing organs, such as security and
propaganda, are still largely following Jiangs directions. And growing tensions in Hong Kong and
with North Koreas recent nuclear provocations are phenomena that the Jiang faction could very
well have a hand in manipulating. If Xi has indeed informed Trump about the internal problems he
is facing, that would put into perspective Trumps comments to various media outlets about the Xi
leaderships efforts to rein in North Koreas Kim Jong Un. After listening for 10 minutes, I realized
its not so easy, Trump told the Wall Street Journal, adding that he had felt pretty strongly that
the Xi leadership had tremendous power over North Korea. But its not what you would think,
he said, hinting at complexities between the two communist regimes. A Kim regime that is close
with Xis chief rival would certainly not be easy for Xi to bring in line.

9. Trump and Xi at the joint American-Chinese press conference - PBS News hour - April 7th 2017: Xi:
This bilateral meeting is a thoughtful and ingenious arrangement. It is an important and meaningful
development in the US China relationship. Trump: The relationship developed by President Xi and
myself I think is outstanding. We look forward to being together many times in the future, and I
believe lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away.

9. North Korea and the Chinese Regimes Deep State: Communist factional infighting influenced
Beijing's stance on nuclear threat - Epoch Times - by Leo Timm - April 20th 2017: Within China,
entrenched political rivals of leader Xi Jinping share common ground with North Koreas
totalitarian Kim regime, and appear to have been leveraging the threat of nuclear weapons even at
 11

the expense of Chinese national security. For years, leaders affiliated with former Communist Party
boss Jiang Zemin had a stake in maintaining North Koreas nuclear threat as a distraction from their
own human rights abuses, as well as to tie the hands of their political rivals, according to an expert
in Chinese affairs. Today, Pyongyangs nuclear brinksmanship has made headlines, and stirred U.S.
and Chinese leaders into a surprising degree of collaboration when Xi and Trump met in Florida to
discuss the crisis. But such discussions must take into account the previous ties between China and
North Korea, fostered by former leader Jiang. At 90, Jiang is more a symbol for corruption and
human rights abuses than he is a participant in the nations contemporary governance. But one
generation away is a sprawling clique of Party cadres that are on the retreat as they resist attempts
by the Xi administration to purge them from the influential positions Jiang and his allies provided
them. Photos from 2004 show Jiang and late North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il in fraternal
embrace. Politicians associated with Jiang, including three of the seven members of the Politburo
Standing Committee that directs the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), have had particularly close
links with Pyongyang. And around the time of Xis rise to power in 2012, Tse says, there was a plot
by then-Chinese security czar Zhou Yongkang to hamstring Hu Jintaos attempts at Korean
denuclearization. Zhou, director of the CCPs political and legal affairs commission and head of
international Chinese security forces, was a main pillar of the Jiang network, who was arrested,
purged, and imprisoned by Xi. In 2012, when Jang Song Thaek [Kim Jong Uns uncle] visited China
and held secret talks with Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, they discussed persuading Kim Jong
Un to abandon nuclear testing, as well as the possibility that Kim Jong Un could be replaced by his
brother, Kim Jong Nam, Tse said. Don Tse, expert with China affairs website China Decoding, but
Zhou Yongkang leaked this information to Kim Jong Un, who had Jang purged. North Korean
media reported that Jang was executed on Dec. 12, 2013, after a one-day trial. Under Jiang Zemin,
who made his name during and after the Tiananmen protests, the CCP retained some of the most
brutal characteristics of its Marxist-Leninist ideology, launching an all-out persecution of the Falun
Gong spiritual practice in 1999. Chinas internal security budget ballooned, at one point surpassing
even that of the Peoples Liberation Army. Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong adherentsas
well as Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans, and house church Christianshave been murdered to
feed Chinas state-sponsored organ harvesting industry. Jiang Zemin made use of the nuclear
threat from North Korea to distract American attention from Chinese human rights violations, as well
as resist political attack from factions within the CCP who dont have the blood of innocents on their
hands, Tse said. Recent events likely support this analysis. As a politician with no ties to Jiang or his
legacy of mass persecution, Xi is not likely to see Pyongyangs antics as benefiting his prestige or
his nation.

9. Terrorism Strikes China Part 1 (2015) - Youtube - by Joseph Gallagher: This episode and Part 2
explain why the purported warehouse explosions in Tianjin's Binhai District on August 12th 2015
could never have happened. In fact, detailed analysis of the site shows that the detonations came
from under the parking lot behind the warehouse in question. Clearly, the explosions were acts of
 12

terrorism. But more shockingly, the 2 detonations were micro-nuclear events. This video uses expert
evidence via Jeff Smith, who is a nuclear specialist working at Veterans Today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG57gl-kvzQ

9. Terrorism Strikes China Part 2 (2015) - Youtube - by Joseph Gallagher:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-tEX2leHcs

9. Terrorism Strikes China Part 3 (2015) - Youtube - by Joseph Gallagher: From July 16th to
September 30th 2015, China was struck with 7 terror attacks. The first 6 were industrial, but the
seventh one blatantly targeted civilians in Liuzhou city on September 30th. What is going on in
China? Is China under attack by America? Impossible, given what we know about the nature of the
nuclear crime that ensued in Tianjin, as well as the sheer number of bombings that have transpired.
Is it the Chinese government then? False-flag terror? Obviously not, considering many things: a) Xi
Jinping's government released vital drone footage which shows that 2 mini-nukes had been used in
Tianjin, b) the locations of the terror attacks: 6 industrial facilities that the government claimed were
only accidents, thus making them look incompetent and liable in a court of law c) they have not
blamed the 6 industrial bombings on any terrorist group or separatists from Xinjiang (which they
would have done if it was government-caused false-flag terror against civilians), and d) in light of
certain political events that unfolded in Tianjin in June of 2015: when Zhou Yongkang, the former
vastly powerful security czar, was jailed for life in Tianjin's 'Intermediate Court'. All taken together,
they point towards Jiang Zemin, the former president of China from 1989-2003. Xi Jinping is going
to arrest Jiang for his crimes against humanity, and Jiang and his faction are doing everything to
prevent that from happening. Waging terror attacks to stop his conviction of genocide would be
nothing for Jiang Zemin. They chose industrial sites at first because they would appear to be
accidents to the public, but a clear warning to Xi Jinping. After China's awesome military parade on
September 3rd, which was a show of force warning Jiang who has the power now, Xi is still forging
ahead to arrest Jiang, and that would explain why Jiang's faction has upped the ante now by waging
terror attacks in China's residential areas (in Liuzhou city on September 30th, which killed 7 and
injured 51): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDHx2n80Uw8

9. Terrorism Strikes China Part 4 (2015) - Youtube - by Joseph Gallagher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiXNylLi7x8

9. Terrorism Strikes China Part 5 (2015) - Youtube - by Joseph Gallagher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o53OtXlSVF4

9. Terrorism Strikes China Part 6 (2015) - Youtube - by Joseph Gallagher: The coup plot against Xi
is uncovered, he fights back, following Putin's model of cleaning house in Russia. In 2015, he arrests
and jails 3 of Jiang Zemin's most powerful associates in China's police and military apparatus. The
former security czar is sentenced to life in Tianjin in May; hear him repent to the court:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhToIEi91Xw

9. Terrorism Strikes China: Jiang Zemin on 60 minutes (2015) - Youtube - by Joseph Gallagher:
Jiang Zemin was interviewed by Mike Wallace in 2000 at his summer retreat. Mike hurls tough
questions at him, asking him why he is killing Falun Gong adherents, and how he got into power in
 13

1989, and if he will relinquish it in 2002. He also asks him about 'Tank Man'. Jiang lies many times,
notably when he says that he fought against the Japanese, when in fact, he was a spy for them
during WW2. This interview is very important, as Jiang has done very few with any Western
journalists. It shows him lying many times, and his facial reactions at various parts are very telling.
Jiang is good at speaking English, and was trained as a performer and singer. He is musically talented,
and very well-read. He comes across as an intellectual, suddenly quoting ancient poems and old
Chinese proverbs, but in fact, he has mediocre talents. He consolidated his quest for power in China's
political system by scheming with Zheng Qinghong and others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiLeZx46Ubg

10. Trump invited Chinas leader to his home, then bombed one of his allies during dinner -
Reuters - April 7th 2017: The US has said it had notified Russia before the bombing, according to a
statement from the Pentagon, but it is not yet clear when Xi was made aware of the action. This
article was updated April 7th at 9:20am EDT with Chinas reaction and a report that Xi had been
notified of the attacks.

My note: so when was Xi given notice of the missile strike? Obviously, Xi did not first learn about it
while having dessert with Trump. We established in footnote #6 that Trump gave the command at
4:30pm EST, and then the 59 missiles were launched at 8:40pm EST (4 hours and 10 minutes later; as
the 2 destroyers, Ross & Porter, needed to be prepped). Trump was with Xi and the Chinese
delegation all day long. At the least, its very likely that Xi was informed shortly after Trump gave
the command. But it is also highly possible that Trump talked to Xi about the missile strike option
earlier in the morning, during their 3 hours of alone time, with just their translators present. Also,
Trumps recounting to FOX News of how he informed Xi about the attack over dessert (and how Xi
responded) shows that Trump telling him in front of the dinner guests was staged by Trump and Xi.
Trump says that he first told Xi during dessert, after he had given the command, but thats not true.

11. Trump says he told Xi how he bombed Syria over most beautiful piece of cake - Fox Business
Network - April 12th 2017: Trump: I was sitting at the table. We had finished dinner. Were now having
dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen and President Xi
was enjoying it, Trump told Fox Business Networks Maria Bartiromo, during an interview that aired
on Wednesday morning. And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked
and loaded, what do you do? And we made a determination to do it, so the missiles were on the way.
Trump says that he was faced with a dilemma - whether to inform Xi, who was eating the cake, and
was silent of the attack. What does he do, finish his dessert and go home and then they say, you
know, the guy you just had dinner with just attacked a country? Trump mused, and then told his
counterpart the news. He [Xi] paused for 10 seconds and then he asked the interpreter to please say
it again. I didn't think that was a good sign, said Trump. And he said to me, anybody that uses
gases - you could almost say or anything else - but anybody that was so brutal and uses gases to do
that to young children and babies, it's OK. Trump spoke of a great feeling between himself and
Xi, who he really likes being with. China issued no clear position on the US strike on April 7,
merely calling for a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis. Xi has avoided commenting.

11. After Xi leaves US, Chinese media assail strike on Syria - New York Times - by Jane Perlez - April
8th 2017: Mr. Tillerson told reporters that when Mr. Trump notified Mr. Xi about the Syria strike
 14

toward the end of dinner, Mr. Xi expressed understanding, because it was punishment for a
chemical attack that had killed children. The Chinese president very rarely talks to the Chinese or
foreign news media, making it almost impossible to determine his opinion about the attack or how
he expressed it to Mr. Trump.

11. US strikes on Syria: Xi Jinping told Donald Trump he understood the US response because of
the death of children - The Telegraph - April 7th 2017: Donald Trump, the US president, announced
the attack from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, where he was meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping,
after at least 86 people including 33 children were killed in a nerve-gas attack in rebel-held Idlib
province earlier this week. Mr. Xi told Mr. Trump he understood the US reaction given the deaths of
children, according to Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state.

12. Russia, China block U.N sanctions on Syria over gas attacks - United Nations - by Michelle
Nichols - Feb 28th 2017: China backed Russia and has cast its seventh veto on Syria, blocking a bid by
Western powers to impose sanctions over accusations of chemical weapons attacks during the six-
year Syrian conflict.

12. Trump invited Chinas leader to his home, then bombed one of his allies during dinner - Reuters
- April 7th 2017: In March, Syrias president said in an interview with a Chinese television
channel that relations with China were on the upswing, calling the country a real friend.

13. Military to Military - Seymour M. Hersch on US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war - London
Books of Review - by Seymour Hersch - Jan 2016: Chinas growing concern about the Uighur problem
and its link to Syria and the Islamic State have preoccupied Christina Lin, a scholar who dealt with
Chinese issues a decade ago while serving in the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld. I grew up in
Taiwan and came to the Pentagon as a critic of China, Lin told me. I used to demonise the Chinese as
ideologues, and they are not perfect. But over the years as I see them opening up and evolving, I have
begun to change my perspective. I see China as a potential partner for various global challenges,
especially in the Middle East. There are many place Syria for one where the United States and China
must cooperate in the regional security and counterterrorism exercises. And today China and Russia
both want to cooperate on terrorism issues with the United States. As China sees it, Lin suggests,
Uighur militants who have made their way to Syria are being trained by Islamic State in survival
techniques intended to aid them on covert return trips to the Chinese mainland, for future terrorist
attacks there. If Assad fails, Lin wrote in a paper published in September, jihadi fighters from
Russias Chechnya, Chinas Xinjiang and Indias Kashmir will then turn their eyes towards the home-
front to continue jihad, supported by a new and well-sourced Syrian operating base in the heart of the
Middle East.

14. Deciphering Trumps optimism for Chinas Xi Jinping - Epoch Times - by Larry Ong - April 19th
2017: On the presidential campaign trail, Donald Trump promised to get tough with China on
currency and trade issues. President Trump, however, appeared to change tack after a meeting with
Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He tweeted on April 16, Why would I call China a currency manipulator
when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? We will see what happens! Trump has
since been criticized by several mainstream news outlets for softening his stance on the Chinese
regime. But a close parsing of Trumps comments to the media on the regime and Xi may suggest
 15

that Trump recently gained some insight into the delicate political situation in China. This insight,
and the Xi leaderships prompt actions against North Korea, could have convinced Trump to hold
off rebuking Xi. Xi and Trump announced at the conclusion of the two-day U.S.-China summit in
Florida that they had established a good understanding with each other.

14. China sounds the alarm: Trump prepares for war against North Korea - Global Research - by
Brian Becker - April 12th 2017: Following his tweet Trump placed a direct phone call to Xi Jinping.
Immediately after the phone call with Trump the Chinese media sounded the alarm and insisted that
the DPRK not proceed with its expected missile tests. The Chinese media sharply demanded that the
DPRK cancel any weapons test for April 15, the anniversary of Kim Il Sungs birth. The Global Times
editorial is truly unprecedented and announces that China is ready to cut off oil exports to North
Korea whose economy has stabilized in recent years.

14. Trumps turn toward China curtails Navy patrols in disputed zones - New York Times - by Helene
Cooper - May 2nd 2017: WASHINGTON - Six weeks ago, the United States Pacific Command
requested permission from senior American officials for a United States warship to sail within 12
nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea that is claimed by the
Philippines and China. The Navy had good reason to think the request would be granted. During last
years campaign, Donald J. Trump labeled President Barack Obama as weak in defending
international waters in the South China Sea, where Beijing has started a sharp military buildup to
reclaim land, install runways and haul equipment onto reefs and shoals it claims as its own. Secretary
of State Rex W. Tillerson, during his confirmation hearing in January, called for China to be denied
access to the artificial islands. And foreign policy experts and Asia watchers braced for a return to
routine Navy patrols within Chinas self-proclaimed territorial waters, something Mr. Obama allowed
sparingly. But instead, the Pacific Command request - and two others by the Navy in February - was
turned down by top Pentagon officials before it even made it to President Trumps desk. More than
100 days into the Trump presidency, no American Navy ship has gone within 12 miles of any of the
disputed islands in the South China Sea, Defense Department officials said. The decision not to
challenge Chinas territorial claims represents a remarkable deference toward Beijing from an
administration that is increasingly turning toward President Xi Jinping for help amid the escalating
crisis in the Korean Peninsula. With each missile launch, Mr. Trumps newfound affection for the
Chinese leader, Mr. Xi, has increased. Last week, after the most recent launch, Mr. Trump wrote on
Twitter: North Korea disrespected the wishes of China and its highly respected president when it
launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!. In an interview with The New York Times in
March 2016, Mr. Trump said that Beijing had built in the South China Sea a military fortress, the
likes of which perhaps the world has not seen. Amazing, actually, he said. They do that at will
because they have no respect for our president and they have no respect for our country. Mr.
Tillerson came to office saying that Chinas island-building campaign was akin to Russias taking of
Crimea. He said that the Trump administration was going to have to send China a clear signal that,
first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be
allowed. That denial of access is now on the back burner. In fact, said Mr. Daly, of the Wilson
Center, China has continued to militarize the islands and has bomb-proofed airplane hangars that
were built on the reclaimed islands, as well as brought in additional equipment.

14. Deciphering Trumps optimism for Chinas Xi Jinping - Epoch Times - by Larry Ong - April 19th
2017: In an interview with FOX & Friends, Trump said: China is trying to help us-I dont know if
theyre going to be able to or not. Presuming that Trump is aware of the factional struggle in the
 16

Chinese regime, it would make sense for him to not immediately label China a currency
manipulator, a move that the Jiang faction would almost certainly use against Xi. Without pressure
from the United States, the Xi leadership can then focus its efforts on tackling the Jiang faction.
And without the Jiang faction as political backers, the North Korean regime might not be willing to
so recklessly advance its nuclear program, as it has in recent months.

14. Deciphering Trumps optimism for Chinas Xi Jinping - Epoch Times - by Larry Ong - April 19th
2017: A possible long-term resolution to the problem of North Korea might not be the only thing
that has shifted Donald Trumps perception of China and Xi Jinping. Xi promised Trump in Florida
that he will resolve a prominent human rights issue in China, The Epoch Times learned from a
source in Xis inner circle. I believe lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away, Trump
said at the conclusion of his meeting with Xi. Whether this refers to the prominent human rights
issue, North Korea, or something else entirely is not clear. The Chinese regimes suppression of
practitioners of Falun Gong, the most severely persecuted group of prisoners of conscience in China
today, has somewhat lessened during Xis tenure. Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun
Gong on July 20, 1999. For nearly 18 years, practitioners have been arrested for their faith, and
subjected to brutal torture and abuse that in some cases lead to death. One of Xis first actions in
office was to order the dismantling of the labor camp system, whose inmate population was at one
point half Falun Gong practitioners, according to reports cited by the U.S State Department and the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Also, high-ranking officials overseeing the anti-Falun
Gong campaign have been purged on corruption charges. Should the Xi Jinping leadership end and
expose the persecution of Falun Gong, it could also inspire further political change given the
severity of the crimes, the huge number of Chinese affected, and the inevitable impact on the
Communist Partys image. For President Trump, there is much to be optimistic about. In appearing
to renege on campaign promises, he may help to bring about the end of a brutal persecution, and
even communism, in China.

14. Trump sends Xi Jinpings old friend to China - Epoch Times - by Larry Ong - December 7th 2016:
When Terry Branstad first met Xi Jinping in 1985, Branstad was governor of Iowa and Xi was an
agricultural official in northern China. For two weeks, Xi stayed with a family in the town of
Muscatine, an experience he fondly recalled when visiting Iowa and Gov. Branstad in 2012 as vice
chairman of the Chinese regime. Xi, now leader of China, will soon get to host Branstad in Beijing.
President elect Donald Trump picked Branstad, 70, for the post of U.S. ambassador to China. The
appointment of Branstad, a six-term governor who has maintained a cordial 30-year relationship with
Xi, could prove pivotal for both the Trump and Xi administrations in the coming months. Branstad
and his wife Chris met Trump and his top advisers at Trump Tower in New York on the afternoon of
Dec. 6. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang welcomed Branstad playing a bigger role in
advancing ChinaU.S. relations when asked about the Iowa governors likely appointment in a
regular press briefing on Dec. 7. Branstad is an old friend of the Chinese people, Lu said. The
feeling might be mutual: Branstad has led four-trade missions to China in the past six years and
maintains good relations with Xi, whom he called a long-time friend when Xi visited Iowa in
February 2012. Trumps selection of Branstad for the most important diplomatic position to China
suggests that the President elect is keen to keep negotiating channels open with Beijing, rather than
adopt a wholly confrontational attitude as might be interpreted from his social media posts, his
proposed trade policies, and his accepting a phone call from Taiwan president Tsai Ingwen.
Branstads appointment comes at a moment of possibly significant change in China. Since taking
power in 2012, Xi has been pushing a political transition in the Chinese regime. For 13 years (1989
 17

2002), Jiang Zemin was the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, and then for another 10 years he
was the de facto ruler of China. Jiang was able to influence matters of the day through his allies in
the Politburo Standing Committee, the regimes most powerful decision making body, and through
his sprawling political faction. Over the past four years, Xi has used an anticorruption campaign to
clear out Jiangs faction and supporters. Xi now appears to have the upper hand over the old guard
of Jiang supporters, as indicated by Xi taking on the title of Communist Party core leader in
October. In other words, Trump is dealing directly with a Chinese leader with actual influence, not a
puppet of Jiangs like Xis immediate predecessor Hu Jintao. The Trump administration could also
recognize how Xi is seeking to replace Jiangs corruption and kleptocracy. Xi frequently emphasizes
the need for a disciplined, restrained officialdom and is also becoming more vocal in promoting the
virtues of traditional Chinese culture. In late 2013, Xi abolished the labor camp system, which held
hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners at any one time. This year, the Xi leadership
made public gestures that suggest he is considering ending the persecution of Falun Gong, one of
the worst abuses in modern Chinese history.

14. Maverick former Chinese official explains dynamics of elite communist party politics - Epoch
Times - by Frank Fang - Oct 31st 2016: Xi Jinping is widely misunderstood by the media and
intellectuals because they dont understand the power dynamics inside the Chinese communist
regime today, according to maverick retired defense official Xin Ziling. Question: Do you that think
that Xi Jinping might resolve the issues of Tiananmen and Falun Gong when he becomes core
leader? Xin: Its not a question of probability Xi Jinping will definitely resolve these issues. Falun
Gong practitioners can and have filed criminal complaints against Jiang Zemin with the Supreme
Peoples Court and the Supreme Peoples Procuratorate these judicial organs have already
accepted these complaints. Falun Gong and Tiananmen must be resolved. Xi Jinping cannot carry this
burden going forward. He is crystal clear on this matter. Q: Human rights lawyers have been
arrested, petitioners have been suppressed, freedom of speech is being restricted, and many people
have been prosecuted for comments theyve made on the internet. Could these incidents have
happened if Xi Jinping didnt give a nod? Xin: Let me make a clarification. There are currently two
power centers in the Chinese Communist Party. And Xi Jinping doesnt have complete power before
the 6th Plenum. Take the political and legal apparatus, for example. In theory, after Zhou Yongkang
was purged, Xi ought to have regained control over the apparatus. In reality, however, the
apparatus direction can be influenced in countless ways. Many officials are still carrying out Zhou
Yongkangs policies, whether knowingly or unknowingly. Recently there was a man named Wang
Zhiwen [the former Falun Gong coordinator in Beijing] who was prevented from leaving the country
in Guangzhou. Xi Jinping is definitely not behind this. Because the people who blocked Wang still
have some power. Nowadays, who does the common folk blame when they are unhappy about
something? They blame the top leader, and say that it is Xi Jinpings doing even when its not his idea.
This situation arises from slandering and the so-called advanced blackening [gaojihei in Chinese].
Those old tigers and big tigers from the Jiang faction face the fate of being purged. So they think: If
Im a goner, then Im going to bring you down, too. They then try to sabotage Xi, and damage his
political reputation. But Xi is not behind many incidents. The shutting down of Yanhuang Chunqiu [a
reformist publication ran by mostly elderly Party cadres] was the handiwork of Liu Yunshan [the
propaganda and ideology chief].

14. Heres how former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin could be brought down - Epoch Times - by Larry
Ong - Nov 3rd 2016: For the past four years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been steadily maneuvering
into an advantageous position to deal with his predecessor Jiang Zemin and end the culture of
 18

corruption that Jiang fostered in China. In the wake of Xis ascendancy as paramount leader and the
passing of strict regulations governing the lives of elite Party cadres at a recently concluded political
conclave, the 6th Plenum, the checkmating of Jiang seems to loom ever nearer. Xi has recently made
his ultimate goal more transparent by hinting at the presence of fractious cadres in the Partys upper
echelons. Meanwhile, the anti-corruption agency headed by his ally Wang Qishan is starting to probe
the regimes security apparatus and key judicial organs, possibly in preparation to bring in Jiang
Zemin by the lawa view expressed recently by a retired Chinese official with links to moderate
voices in the Party elite. Under Xi Jinpings anticorruption campaign, however, many of Jiangs allies
have gradually been rounded up and found guilty of abusing their office, taking sometimes
hundreds millions of Yuan in bribes. Unofficial estimates in overseas Chinese language media puts
the figures in the billions of Yuan collectively, though even this may be a gross underestimate. In
speeches last year, Xi hinted that the political crimes of Jiangs top associates like the former
Politburo member Bo Xilai, Zhou Yongkang, and ex-military vice chairs Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong,
were more severe than their immense personal greed. Jiangs men, Xi intimated, were guilty of
trying to wreck and split the Partycode for an attempted coup. Xi repeated his condemnation
at a meeting on Nov. 2: An extremely small number of high-level cadres have inflated political
ambitions formed cliques and cabals seek power and position, and other political conspiracies,
he said, according to a statement carried by state mouthpiece Xinhua.

14. Mark Sleboda (Intl affairs & security analyst) - RTs Cross Talk: Bullhorns wiretapped - March
27th 2017: 22:40-23:13 : Tillerson, what hes doing with both trips to China and Russia is setting up
Trumps meetings; because Trump is going to meet with the Chinese president in April, and then
presumably theyll arrange one for Russia. But I think, it was very interesting, Tillersons verbiage
during the press conference. He exactly echoed Chinese attempts to iterate what they call a new
model for great power relations: no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect, and win win
cooperation. 23:40-24:02: So, despite his initial flubs during his confirmation committee hearings
when he talked about blocking China from accessing their own islands in the South China Sea, this
is seen as a move. And as I predicted, I think on this show originally, I think were going to see the
Trump administration, rather than hostile, have a very good quid pro quo contractual relationship
with the Chinese government.

15. How the U.S. Planned and Executed the Tomahawk Strike Against Syria - by Megan Eckstein -
April 7th 2017: THE PENTAGON - Senior U.S. defense officials today briefed reporters on the planning
and execution of a Tomahawk strike on al-Shayrat Airfield in Western Syria Thursday night, which
involved two guided-missile destroyers launching 59 missiles at targets: we developed a
proportional response option for the president, which included military response option targets. And
what I mean by that are those that are encircled (on initial damage assessment images) so a
military response target would be hardened aircraft shelters, aircraft, fuel that would go into the
aircraft, munitions that go into the aircraft, anything that would be a part of a military operation was
part of the target area. Between the two of them (Ross and Porter), they launched this salvo of
59 missiles. And we have, with positive confirmation, that each one of those missiles hit the
target. Targets included various aspects of Syrian regime capabilities but they steered clear of
known Russian assets, including rotary wing aircraft, facilities for between 20 and 100 Russian
military personnel and more.The defense official said that initial damage assessments show
that all 59 targets were hit, though it is impossible at this point to verify that all the planes that had
been inside the hardened aircraft shelters were still there at the time of the attack and were
 19

destroyed. Officials are calling the damage about 20 aircraft, all of them Russian-made and Syrian-
operated fixed-wing aircraft including those that were involved in the April 4 chemical
attack..The runway itself was not targeted the TLAM, based on its size and capability, would
have had little impact on the runway and would be a waste for that target set, a senior defense
official said. The timing of the attack around 3 a.m. local time, was chosen to avoid any potential
civilian casualties, though the official said there are no towns or homes near the airfield.

15. A visual guide to the US missile strike on a Syrian airbase - by Emma Graham-Harrison - April 7th:
The Pentagon said its missiles had targeted aircraft, shelters, fuel storage and other logistics
buildings, air defence systems, radars and ammunition supply bunkers. The attack was said to be
over in a couple of minutes. Syrias military said seven people were killed and several wounded. Six
Syrian air force planes undergoing repairs at the base were destroyed, but the runways were
undamaged, the Russian defence ministry said after the attack. Images released by the Pentagon
showing post-strike areas of impact singled out several buildings, identifying them as damaged
or destroyed aircraft shelters. Several appeared blackened, matching reports that fires raged at the
base after the strike. The images did not note any damage to runways.

15. Images show aftermath of U.S. strikes on Syrian airfield - Washington Post - by Thomas
Gibbons-Neff - April 7th 2017: After U.S. ships fired more than 50 cruise missiles at the
Sharyat Airbase in Syria, images have started circulating online showing what appears to be the
aftermath of the strikes.The Pentagon said that the retaliatory missile strikes targeted aircraft,
hangars and the bases infrastructure, including fuel pumps and anti-air defenses. It is unclear how
many aircraft were stationed at the airfield at the time of the strikes..Open-source reports
indicate that the base was home to a relatively modest contingent of Su-22 ground attack jets and
MiG-23 fighter aircraft. Photos taken by Russian journalists and displayed on Russian media outlets,
including Sputnik, show that some of the U.S.-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles destroyed
aircraft located in reinforced hangars, while some were left unscathed.

15. RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY: ONLY 23 OUT OF 59 TOMAHAWK MISSILES REACHED THEIR
TARGET IN SYRIA: Only 23 out of 59 Tomahawk missiles launched by the US Navy reached their
target and hit the ash Shayrat military airfield near the Syrian city of Homs, the Russian Defense
Ministry has claimed. The locations of the remaining 36 missiles impact is now unknown. According
to the statement, the US missiles destroyed a training facility, a material storage depot, a canteen,
six MiG-23 aircraft in repair hangars and a radar station. Meanwhile, the airbases runway, taxiways
and aircraft on the parking apron remained undamaged.

15. Low efficiency: Only 23 Tomahawk missiles out of 59 reached Syrian airfield, Russian MOD
says - Russia Today - April 7th 2017 - Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor
Konashenkov: The combat effectiveness of the US massive missile strike on Syrias air-base was thus
very low. According to the data recording equipment, only 23 missiles reached the Syrian air-base. The
place where the other missiles fell remains unknown. Russian radar data shows that the Tomahawk
missiles were fired from the US destroyers Porter and Ross in the Mediterranean between 03:42 and
03:56 Moscow time.
 20

15. US military has launched 59 cruise missiles at airbase in Syria. Heres what we know so far - by
David Cenciotti - April 7th 2017: Last night, Alreigh Burke-class destroyers USS Porter (DDG-78) and
USS Ross (DDG-71) launched cruise missiles into Syria, in response to the chemical weapons attack
that killed dozens of civilians on Apr. 4. On President Donald Trumps order, 59 BGM-109 Tomahawk
Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) targeted runways, hardened aircraft shelters, ammunition supply
bunkers, air defense systems, radars and fuel points at Shayrat Airbase, the airfield in western Syria
from where, according to the intelligence gathered by the U.S., the aircraft that carried out the
chemical attacks were launched. According to the first reports, all the aircraft based there have
been destroyed or severely damaged, including some 30 Syrian Arab Air Force Su-22 Fitter attack
planes, several SyAAF MiG-23s and also some Su-24 Fencers according to sources. For sure,
considering the status of Assads air force, the attack may have had a significant impact on the ability
of the loyalist air force to conduct air strikes. However, later reports say that most of the aircraft
based there were evacuated before the strike, and initial footage from Shayrat seems to show at
least some areas of the airports, including taxiways, shelters, aprons, etc. with little or no
damages.

15. Satellite images show before, after US strikes on Syrian base - CNN - by Paul P. Murphy - April 8th
2017: (CNN) Despite the damage from the US missile strikes, the Syrian Air Force has resumed
military flights at the air field. A correspondent from Russian state-run RIA Novosti witnessed
aircraft taking off and returning, in addition to technical checkups and fuel refills.

15. Pentagon defends limited scope of Syrian attack - The Washington Times - by Carlo Muoz -
April 10th 2017: Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top U.S. military leaders on Monday
defended the limited scope of the U.S. bombardment of a Syrian military base, downplaying recent
reports that the American naval strike did little to deter the countrys military operations. Mr.
Mattis said in the statement. Damascus has lost the ability to refuel or rearm aircraft at Shayrat
airfield, he said. The U.S. attack demonstrated that the United States will not passively stand by
while Assad murders innocent people with chemical weapons, the Pentagon chief added.

15. Russian MOD statement on the April 6th Syrian strike - Youtube - Defense Ministry Spokesman
Major-General Igor Konashenkov: The strike destroyed a logistics warehouse, a training building, a
canteen, six MIG-23 planes in the repair hangars and also a radar station. The runway, taxiways and
parked planes of the Syrian air-force have not been damaged.

15. Russian air defense and the US strike on Al-Shayrat - Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume 14 Issue 50 -
by Roger McDermott - April 11th 2017: Russian reporting concerning the attack establishes the
following basic facts. Around 03:40 (Moscow time), on April 7, the USS Porter and
USS Ross destroyers launched a massive assault by firing 59 sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCM)
against the Al-Shayrat airbase in Syria. At this point, many of the other details surrounding the
Tomahawk cruise missile strike diverge between Moscow and Washington: the former suggests
only 23 missiles hit the target. One issue that stands out in Russian media analysis is that the strike
supposedly proved ineffective, destroying only nine aircraft, damaging hangers and airbase
infrastructure but failing to cripple the airbase. Within a short period, the Syrian Air Force resumed
operational use of the airbase, the Russian media reports (Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye,
April 10; Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, April 7).
 21

16. Russian UAV MOD Shayrat footage - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xYM-

yC0dtA

16. Pentagon releases satellite images of Syrian airfield hit by US airstrikes - Metro.co.uk - by
Ashitha Nagesh - April 7th 2017
22
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16. Based on very high resolution imagery captured less than 10 hours after the attack, ISI presents
in depth battle damage assessment - ISI - April 7th 2017: The Shayrat Airfield base was attacked by
the US military using Tomahawk cruise missiles. According to the Pentagon, 59 missiles were fired at
the base, 58 of them hit targets. The strike was conducted using Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, or
TLAMs, launched from the destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, Davis
said in his statement. A total of 59 TLAMs targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and
logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars. The results of the
attack: ISI very high resolution satellite imagery was able to reveal the results of the Tomahawk
cruise missiles attack on the Al-Shayrat Air Base. According to ISI experts, a total of 44 targets were
hit. Several targets may have been hit twice. Photo and analysis of the attack were carried out
within 10 hours of the attack. An in-depth examination of the damage to the objectives shows that
13 double hardened aircraft shelters (HAS) got 23 hits. 5 workshops got hit. The workshops are not
necessarily related to WMD, but to aircraft and their ability to do maintenance and fly. Ten
ammunition storages got hit. Seven fuel reservoirs of the AFB got hit at two sites with eight hits in
total. Two locations remain untouched. One SA6 Battery was utterly destroyed along with its
radars and control systems. In total, five SA6 Battery elements were hit. The results show that the
target hits were accurate and that the Tomahawks have been used effectively against quality
 24

targets. Although 58 missiles hit the base, it seems that the overall damage to the base is limited
because the warhead of the Tomahawk is not considered large and weighs about 450 kg.
25
 26

16. Satellite images show before/after of US missile strikes on Syrian air base - CNN WIRE - April 7th
2017: WASHINGTON - New satellite imagery released by Image Sat International shows the
damage 59 US Tomahawk missiles inflicted at Syrias Shayrat airfield. Initial indications are that this
strike has severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment,
said Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis. [They] targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters,
 27

petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars.
Satellite imagery provided by Image Sat International reveals the extent of that damage, in
comparison to previous records. It was not clear Friday how soon after the strikes the images were
recorded. Two hardened aircraft bunkers on the airfields northeast shows holes in their roofs,
with what appears to be charring and debris spraying out of them. Two apparent impact craters
are near one of the bunkers. The third bunker in the group is completely obliterated, as is the
building directly next to it. Image Sat International, a company that operates high-resolution
satellites, notes five workshops that appear to be hit on the airfields western edge, just north of
ammunition sites. A bunker on base is all but wiped out; the buildings appearing to be blown away.
Two US senior military officials told CNNs Barbara Starr about 20 planes were destroyed in the hail
of missiles early Friday. A U.S. defense official told CNNs Ryan Browne that 58 out of 59 of the
Tomahawk missiles, severely degraded or destroyed their intended targets.

17. Commercial Satellite Imagery Shows Russia Lied In Its Cruise Missile Assessment - by Duane
Norman - April 14th 2017: The Russians reported that the US attack was inefficient, claiming that
only 23 of the 59 missiles hit the Shayrat Air Base in Syria: Only 23 missiles flew to the Syrian air
base and just 6 MiG-23s were destroyed there along with a radar station, spokesman for the Russian
Defense Ministry, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, said at a briefing. Where the remaining 36 cruise
missiles have landed is unknown, he said. However, a quick glance over commercially available
satellite imagery shows that Konashenkov has been caught red-handed peddling some serious
fiction with his statement. Image Sat International, which operates its own satellites, released an
article shortly after the missile strike detailing the damage to the Shayrat Air Base. Even their
commercially available technology directly contradicts the Russian military statement.

18. ISI satellite image analysis about missile strike damage - Syrian Civil War Forum:
Commenter Ferroca: the images are not showing all 44 target hits, like what they've claimed; only
14 of them. Not saying whether they are right or wrong, only stating the fact.

Commenter TJ Fourty Four: About 16 hits; everything else looks the same as the before photos. The
close-ups only show 16 targets hits. If they have close-ups which show all supposed 44 hits, why not
release them? They only show 16 because thats all theyve got.

Commenter Nobody Is Perfect: I am able to identify 18 bomb hits on the 3 close view images, and
some of the marks, they have set, are not bomb hits but secondary destroyed parts. And we see only
three targeted areas. Why have they shown only three areas in close view? This is a commercial
company, perhaps they have sold the others to news services for good money. They have shown
some of them now, so if you want to see/publish the rest, then you have to pay for it.

Commenter Ds advocate: It's nice to get some decent pictures. Thanks. It's interesting that the
number of hits on is about equal to the number of total hits on the airbase claimed by the
Russians.

19. A multi-level analysis of the US cruise missile attack on Syria and its consequences - The Saker -
April 11th 2017: While the Tomahawk cruise missile was developed in the 1980s, there is no reason to
believe that the missiles used had exceeded their shelf-life, and there is even evidence that they
 28

were built in 2014. The Tomahawk is known to be accurate and reliable. There is absolutely no basis
to suspect that over half the missiles fired simply malfunctioned.

20. A multi-level analysis of the US cruise missile attack on Syria and its consequences - The Saker -
April 11th 2017: There is no evidence and even no reports that the Russians shot even a single air-
defense missile.

20. Top NATO general: Russians starting to build air defense bubble over Syria - Washington
Post - by Thomas Gibbons-Neff - Sept 29th 2015: While Russias stated goal in moving into Syria is to
fight the Islamic State, NATOs top commander believes Russias new presence includes the first
pieces of an intricate layer of defensive systems deployed to hinder U.S. and coalition operations in
the region. As we see the very capable air defense systems beginning to show up in Syria, were a
little worried about another A2/AD bubble being created in the eastern Mediterranean, said
Breedlove to an audience at the German Marshall Fund Monday. A2/AD stands for anti-access/area
denial. According to Breedlove, the introduction of an A2/AD bubble in Syria would be Russias third
denial zone around Europe. The first and oldest he said, was in the Baltics where the Russian naval
base in Kaliningrad has robust anti-air capabilities. The second zoneoriginating from Russian-
occupied Crimeacovers the Black Sea. Russia has developed a very strong A2/AD capability in the
Black Se, said Breedlove. Essentially their anti-ship cruise missiles range the entire Black Sea, and their
air defense missiles range about 40 to 50 percent of the Black Sea. These very sophisticated air
defense capabilities are not about the Islamic State, theyre about something else, said Breedlove.
High on Mr. Putins list in Syria is preserving the regime against those that are putting pressure on the
regime and against those that they see who might be supporting those putting pressure on the regime.

20. Tomahawk strike in Syria stokes debate about performance of Russian air defenses - Janes
Defense Weekly - by Reuben F. Johnson - April 13th 2017: The US Navy's ability to hit Syria's Al-Shayrat
Air Base with a large number of Raytheon RGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) on 7
April raised questions about the capabilities of Russia's air defence systems, specifically its current
frontline long-range system: the Almaz-Antey S-400 Triumph. Russia deployed an S-400 battery to
its air base in Syria's Latakia province in November 2015 after one of its Su-24 strike aircraft was shot
down by a Turkish F-16 fighter close to the border. The Russian Ministry of Defence announced in
October 2016 that it had also deployed an S-300 system to the Syrian naval base at Tartus. This
followed a US report citing US officials as saying an SA-23 'Gladiator' system - an apparent reference
to an S-300V4 - had been deployed to Tartus. Despite this bolstering of air defences in western Syria,
59 Tomahawks launched from two US Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean managed to get
through to Al-Shayrat on 7 April, according to the US Department of Defense. This prompted much
criticism in numerous Russian publications and online forums about the apparent failure of the S-
400 and S-300 systems to intercept the cruise missiles.

21. Russian air defense and the US strike on Al-Shayrat - Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume 14 Issue 50 -
by Roger McDermott - April 11th 2017: These systems are not principally designed to counter low-
flying subsonic Tomahawks; their capacity to attempt this is limited to approximately 3040 km.
Colonel (retired) Mikhail Khodarenok, a defense correspondent for Gazeta.ru and an air defense
specialist, notes the Al-Shayrat airbase is located around 200 km from Latakia, which he suggests
 29

lies at the outer limit of the S-400 range: to strike a target at this range requires it to be flying at an
altitude of 89 km. If it flies lower, the S-400s multifunctional radar cannot see the cruise missile
due to the curvature of the Earths surface. Similarly, the S-300V4 at Tartus has a range of around
100 km and requires a target altitude of 67 km.

21. Tomahawk strike in Syria stokes debate about performance of Russian air defenses - Janes
Defense Weekly - by Reuben F. Johnson - April 13th 2017: Both Western and Russian military analysts
pointed out that the TLAMs could have flown low and close to the Lebanese border to ensure they
were below the engagement envelope of the S-400, located some 80 km to the north, due to the
Earth's curvature. That flight path would have taken them through the engagement envelope of an
S-300 in Tartus, but the deployment of this system has never been independently confirmed by
satellite imagery. If there is an S-300 near Tartus it could have been avoided by flying the Tomahawks
across Lebanon, at which point only sophisticated short-range air defence systems deployed at Al-
Shayrat would have been able to significantly mitigate the scale of the attack.

21. After U.S strikes Syrian air base, Russians ask: where were our vaunted air defense systems?
- by Tom Balmforth - April 7th 2017: All this talk that we have secured the whole of Syrian airspace is
artistic whistling, said Pavel Felgengauer, a Moscow-based military analyst, and suggested this
boasting was intended to boost the sale of arms showcased in Syria. They certainly cant intercept
cruise missiles at that distance from their location. At the very most, they can defend the nearest
approach of the base where they are located, he said. The S-400 air-defense systems are located at
Russias air base at Latakia and its naval base at Tartus. The strike, which hit the Shayrat air base near
Homs more than 75 kilometers away from the city of Tartus and more than 120 kilometers from Latakia,
meant the American cruise missiles were safely out of the Russian air-defense systems effective range
for cruise missiles, he said. You can more or less defend a perimeter of about 40 kilometers.

21. Russian air defense and the US strike on Al-Shayrat - Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume 14 Issue 50 -
by Roger McDermott - April 11th 2017: According to Air Force Colonel General (retired) Igor Maltsev,
the former chief of the Main Staff in the Air Defense Troops, since Tomahawks fly at 5060 meters
above the ground, the outer effective range for the S-300V4 system would only be around 2426
km in cross country terrain. Maltsev concluded that the S-400 and S-300V4 located in Latakia and
Tartus did not have even a theoretical chance to counter the US cruise missile strike. Moreover, to
protect against a similar strike in the future, Maltsev believes Al-Shayrat would need four to five S-
400 battalions, alongside a radar reconnaissance system to provide depth of detection against cruise
missiles, in addition to an air regiment of Su-30SM or Su-35 fighters (Gazeta.ru, April 7).

21. There was no way for Russia to shoot down Trumps Syria cruise missiles: the Earth is round:
there was never a way that Russias radars 200km away could detect relief-hugging missiles -
Russia Insider - by Russia Insider Staff - April 12th 2017: Could Russia have in some way thwarted
Trumps April 6th cruise missile strike against the Syrian military but chose not to? According to
Russian military analysts, the answer is no. Bringing down those missiles was never a possibility for
the Russian air defense systems in Syria because they are stationed too far away and are not
primarily designed to counter cruise missiles. In other words, the US planned its strike mission
around the Russian capabilities and chose precisely the mode of attack that could circumvent
Russias otherwise potent S-400 and S-300 anti-air systems. The Tomahawk missiles used are old and
 30

slow but they are also low altitude. Flying at not more 50-60 meters off the ground, there is not even
a theoretical way that they can be detected by radar that is more than 24-26km away. The Russian
anti-air systems, however, were in Latakia and Tartus, some 200km away. From such a distance, they
are still effective against high-flying fighter jets and ballistic missiles, but not against relief-hugging
Tomahawks.

21. After U.S strikes Syrian air base, Russians ask: where were our vaunted air defense systems?
- by Tom Balmforth - April 7th 2017: Justin Bronk, a defense analyst at the London-based think tank
Royal United Services Institute, agreed, saying that despite the sophistication of the S-400s radar --
which covers up to 400 kilometers at higher altitudes -- the system would encounter problems with
targets at low altitudes farther away. "Any rough terrain between the radar and the flight path of the
cruise missiles will prevent that system, in this case at Latakia and Tartus, engaging", said Bronk. "Also,
while the S-400 is advertised as having an anti-cruise missile capability, it is more geared toward ballistic
missiles coming in from very high angles, very quickly, and other tactical aircraft", he said. "It's more
geared toward those kinds of targets than subsonic, land-skimming missiles".Aytech Bizhev, the
former deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force, told Interfax that the "flight path was
set to bypass our missile-defense system so that they would not enter our strike range. The Americans
are also not idiotsRussias Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on April 7 that
Russia would beef up Syrias air defenses "very soon in order to defend the most vulnerable objects of
Syrian infrastructure", Interfax reported.

21. Russian air defense and the US strike on Al-Shayrat - Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume 14 Issue 50 -
by Roger McDermott - April 11th 2017: Some of the technical aspects of the strike on Al-Shayrat were
assessed by Nikolai Novichkov, in Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer. Novichkov concurs with air
defense specialists such as Khodarenok and Maltsev that the S-400 and S-300V4 is effective to
around 40 km against cruise missile targets, but he examines details surrounding the US strike to
extrapolate lessons for the Russian military. Novichkov refers to the timing of the attack,
considering whether the strikes were synchronized between USS Porter and USS Ross; he
concludes they probably were (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, April 10). Noting the Russian
defense ministry version, which places the attack between 03:42 (Moscow time) and 03:56, the
author argues nearly 30 pairs of Tomahawks were fired almost simultaneously. The time interval
from the lead pair to the final pair was about seven minutes, giving a total time interval of 14
minutes. Novichkov highlights the use of EW-18G Growler aircraft to provide electronic warfare (EW)
cover for the attack, and suggests the cruise missiles could have crossed the Syrian coast close to
Tartus, allowing some degree of tracking. This would provide the Russian military with a real world
lesson in anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) in Syria, which can be applied elsewhere (Voyenno
Promyshlennyy Kuryer, April 10). The US cruise missile strike on Al-Shayrat did not expose the
Russian air defense systems to be flawed. On the contrary, US planners are well aware of the
characteristics of these systems and took careful steps to circumvent them. The strikes were
conducted at sufficient distance from the Syrian coast, and likely flew far enough south of Tartus to
avoid Russian air defense assets, or through Lebanese airspace before entering Syria and were also
supported by EW (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, April 10; Gazeta.ru, April 7).

22. After U.S strikes Syrian air base, Russians ask: where were our vaunted air defense systems? -
by Tom Balmforth - April 7th 2017: Another observer, however, left open the possibility that the
system very well could have worked, but that Moscow opted not to activate it. Moscow-based
military analyst Aleksandr Golts noted that U.S. officials notified Russian forces of the strike ahead of
 31

time in order to minimize losses to Russian and Syrian personnel -- in compliance with an airspace
safety memorandum between Russia and the U.S.-led coalition in Syria, which is conducting separate
air campaigns in the country. "We don't know whether the Russian military was not able (to intercept
it) or if it did not want to, Golts said. "As far as we can see, the memorandum on preventing incidents
was operating. The Americans complied with it by informing the Russians before the attack. In such a
situation, again, we don't know if Russia wanted to or didn't want to use their air-defense system.

23. Russia says it wont shoot down US missiles if Trump orders another Syrian strike because they
are there to fight terrorism, not external threats - Reuters - April 11th 2017: Today the head of the
Russian Federation Council's Defense and Security Committee insisted Kremlin forces stationed in
Syria will not try to intercept US missiles should Washington order further strikes. Russia says it will
not shoot down US missiles if Donald Trump orders another Syrian airstrike because they are 'there
to fight terrorism, not external threats'. America unleashed a wave of 59 Tomahawk strikes on one
of Bashar al-Assad's airbases in the wake of a horrifying chemical attack on 87 Syrian civilians last
week. Viktor Ozerov told the news agency Interfax: Our armed forces are in Syria to fight terrorism
not to defend against external threats. Thats not our mandate, and were not going to intercept
anything. But he also warned that the Syrian military still had a 'legal right' to try to shoot down
rockets.

23. A multi-level analysis of the US cruise missile attack on Syria and its consequences - The Saker -
April 11th 2017: I would note that those who say that the Russian air defense systems did not work
dont know what they are talking about. Not only did Russia sign an agreement with the US not to
interfere with US flight operations, the Russian air defenses in Syria are NOT tasked with the
protection of the Syrian Air Space. That is a task for the Syrian air defenses. The Russian air
defenses in Syria are only here to protect Russian personnel and equipment. This is why the Russians
have never targeted Israeli warplanes.

24. A multi-level analysis of the US cruise missile attack on Syria and its consequences - The Saker -
April 11th 2017: Explanation B: The Russians could not legally shoot down the US missiles. However,
since the Russians were warned about the attack they had plenty of time to prepare their
electronic warfare stations to fry and otherwise disable at least part of the cruise
missiles. Whether the Russians were technically unable to destroy and confuse the 23 missiles
which reached the base, or whether a political decision was taken to let less than half of the cruise
missiles through in order to disguise the Russian role in the destruction of 36 missiles, I cant be
sure. What I am sure of is that 36 advanced cruise missile do not just disappear. There are two
reasons why the Russians would have decided to use their EW systems and not their missiles: first, it
provides them plausible deniability (at least for the general public; there is no doubt that US signal
intelligence units did detect the Russian electronic interference, unless it happened at very low
power and very high frequency and far away inland); and because by using EW systems it allowed
them to keep their air defense missiles for the protection of their own forces. Can the Russians really
do this?
 32

Take a look at this image, taken from a Russian website, which appears to have been made by the
company Kret, which produces some of the key Russian electronic warfare systems. Do you notice
that on the left hand side, right under the AWACs aircraft you can clearly see a Tomahawk type
missile turning around and eventually exploding at sea? How this is done is open to conjecture. All
that we are told is that the missile is given a false target, but for our purposes this really does not
matter. What matters is that the Russians have basically leaked the information that they are capable
of turning cruise missiles around. There are other possibilities such as directed energy beams which
basically fries or, at least, confuses the terrain following and or inertial navigation systems. Some
have suggested a kill switch which would shut down the entire missile. Maybe. Again, this really
doesnt matter for our purposes. What matters is that the Russian have the means to spoof, redirect
or destroy US cruise missiles.

24. What spooked the USS Donald Cook so much in the Black Sea? - Voltaire Network - by Thierry
Meyssan - Nov 8thth 2014: The State Department acknowledged that the crew of the destroyer USS
Donald Cook has been gravely demoralized ever since their vessel was flown over in the Black Sea by
a Russian Sukhoi-24 (Su-24) fighter jet which carried neither bombs nor missiles but only an electronic
warfare device. This video shows the USS Donald Cook sailing into the Black Sea to position itself
near Russias territorial waters. On 10 April 2014, the USS Donald Cook entered the waters of the
Black Sea and on 12 April a Russian Su-24 tactical bomber flew over the vessel triggering an incident
that, according to several media reports, completely demoralized its crew, so much so that the
Pentagon issued a protest [1]. The USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) is a 4th generation guided missile
destroyer whose key weapons are Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of up to 2,500 kilometers,
and capable of carrying nuclear explosives. This ship carries 56 Tomahawk missiles in standard mode,
and 96 missiles in attack mode. The US destroyer is equipped with the most recent Aegis Combat
System. It is an integrated naval weapons systems which can link together the missile defense
systems of all vessels embedded within the same network, so as to ensure the detection, tracking
and destruction of hundreds of targets at the same time. In addition, the USS Donald Cook is
equipped with 4 large radars, whose power is comparable to that of several stations. For protection,
it carries more than fifty anti-aircraft missiles of various types. Meanwhile, the Russian Su-24 that
buzzed the USS Donald Cook carried neither bombs nor missiles but only a basket mounted under the
 33

fuselage, which, according to the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta [2], contained a Russian
electronic warfare device called Khibiny. As the Russian jet approached the US vessel, the electronic
device disabled all radars, control circuits, systems, information transmission, etc. on board the US
destroyer. In other words, the all-powerful Aegis system, now hooked up - or about to be - with the
defense systems installed on NATOs most modern ships was shut down, as turning off the TV set
with the remote control. The Russian Su-24 then simulated a missile attack against the USS Donald
Cook, which was left literally deaf and blind. As if carrying out a training exercise, the Russian
aircraft - unarmed - repeated the same maneuver 12 times before flying away. After that, the 4th
generation destroyer immediately set sail towards a port in Romania. Since that incident, which the
Atlanticist media have carefully covered up despite the widespread reactions sparked among
defense industry experts, no US ship has ever approached Russian territorial waters again. According
to some specialized media, 27 sailors from the USS Donald Cook requested to be relieved from active
service. Vladimir Balybine - director of the research center on electronic warfare and the evaluation
of so-called "visibility reduction" techniques attached to the Russian Air Force Academy - made the
following comment. "The more a radio-electronic system is complex, the easier it is to disable it
through the use of electronic warfare.

[1] Pentagon Protests Russian Jet Buzzing Antimissile Ship in Black Sea - Global Security Newswire -
April 15th 2014.
[2] Rossyskaya Gazeta - April 30th 2014 edition

24. Russian jamming system blocks all NATO electronics inside bubble 600km in diameter over
Syria - by Webster Tarpley - Oct 17th 2015: New Russian Jamming System Near Latakia Blocks All
NATO Electronics Inside Bubble 600 Km in Diameter; Radar, Satellites, Communications All
Disrupted; System Shifts Military Balance in Favor of Russia: from the combat zone in northern Syria
comes news of the deployment of a new Russian electronic jamming system which can reportedly
blind radar, disrupt electronic guidance systems, and interfere with satellite imagery as well. As a
result, NATO is effectively blinded inside a bubble of 600 km in diameter centered on the Russian
base at Latakia, reports, Thierry Meyssan from Damascus. The technology in question seems similar
to the KRET Richag-AV system, although it apparently functions on a larger scale. A tactical version
of this system was presented to journalists in the Russian city of Back in April 2015. As Sputnik
reported then: The Richag-AV system, mounted on the Mi-8MTPR1 (a variant of the Mi-8MTB5-1
helicopter) is said to have no global equivalent. Its electronic countermeasures system is designed to
jam radar, sonar and other detection systems in the aims of defending aircraft, helicopters, drones,
ground and naval forces against air-to-air and surface-to-air defense systems within a radius of several
hundred kilometers. It can be mounted on units from any branch of the armed forces, including
helicopters and airplanes, as well as ground and ship-based forces. The Mi8-MTPR1-based Richag-AV
platform, using multi-beam antenna arrays with DRFM technology, is designed to actively jam and
thus blind radar systems in order to defend against radio-electronic guided weapons systems. In a
combat situation, the system would operate as part of an aviation shock attack group aimed at
breaking through virtually any defense system, blinding everything up to and including the US MIM-
104 Patriot anti-aircraft missile system. In addition, the Russian military had provided a
demonstration of their ability to blind even the sophisticated Aegis phased array radar, which is part
of the equipment of modern US cruisers and destroyers. This incident came during the Crimean crisis
of spring 2014, when the US sent a destroyer into the Black Sea. This ship was repeatedly buzzed up
 34

by a Russian Sukhoi-24 jet fighter, which was able to cripple the radar guidance of the systems of the
vessel.

24. The Russian army asserts its superiority in conventional warfare - Voltaire Network - by Thierry
Meyssan - Oct 19th 2015: The Russian military intervention in Syria, which was at first considered a
risky bet by Moscow against the jihadists, has transformed itself into a demonstration of power
which upsets the strategic balance of the world [1]. Originally conceived to isolate and then destroy
the armed groups equipped by states who support the jihadists in violation of the pertinent
resolutions of the Security Council, the operation has now blinded all the Western actors and their
allies. The Pentagon is now divided between those who tend to minimise the facts while attempting
to find a weakness in the Russian system, and those who, on the contrary, consider that the United
States have lost their superiority in terms of conventional warfare, and that it will take long years
before they are able to recover it. So how has the Russian Federation managed to rebuild its
defence industry, and to design and produce very high-technology weapons without the Pentagon
measuring the importance of the phenomenon, and allowing itself to be over-taken? Have the
Russians used all their new weapons in Syria, or do they have other surprises in reserve? [4] We
know, since the incident of the USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea on the 12th April 2014, that the
Russian Air Force has at its disposition a weapon which enables it to jam all radars, all control circuits,
all systems for the transmission of information, etc. Since the beginning of its military deployment,
Russia had installed a jamming centre at Hmeymim, to the North of Latakia. Then, suddenly, the USS
Donald Cook incident occurred, but this time within a perimeter of 300 kilometres which includes
the NATO base at Incirlik (Turkey). And this is still going on. Because the event happened during a
sand-storm of historical proportions, the Pentagon first thought its measuring equipment had
malfunctioned, but then discovered that it had been jammed. Completely. According to the
Romanian expert Valentin Vasilescu, Russia has installed several Krasukha-4, equipped its planes
with SAP-518/ SPS-171 jamming equipment (like the plane that overflew the USS Donald Cook), and
its helicopters with the Richag-AV system. Besides this, it is using the spy-ship Priazovye (Project
864 Vishnya class, to use NATO terminology), in the Mediterranean. It seems that Russia has agreed
not to interfere with Israli communications a US preserve which means that it will not deploy
its jamming system in South Syria. Russian planes have enjoyed the privilege of violating Turkish air
space many times. Their purpose was not to measure the reaction time of the Turkish Air Force, but
to verify the efficiency of their jamming capabilities in the area concerned, and also to keep an eye
the installations which are at the disposition of the jihadists in Turkey.

[1] Russian Military Uses Syria as Proving Ground, and West Takes Notice- Steven Lee Myers & Eric
Schmitt - The New York Times - October 14th 2015
[4] Russias quiet military revolution and what it means for Europe - Gustav Gressel -European
Council on Foreign Relations - October 2015

24. Russias cutting-edge weaponry capable of blinding enemys army - TASS Military and Defense
- April 19th 2017: Ground-based EW systems - Krasukha-S4 EW system: this system incorporates the
best of previous-generation EW technologies. Specifically, the Krasukha-S4 has inherited a unique
antenna system from its predecessor, the SPN-30 jamming station. The Krasukha-4 is designed to
provide protection for command posts, force groupings, air defense means, important industrial
facilities from aerial radar reconnaissance and precision weapons. The systems broadband active
jamming station is capable of effectively fighting all modern radars used by various aircraft, and
also cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.
 35

Airborne EW systems - Vitebsk EW system: it is one of the most effective defensive aids systems.
It is designed to protect aircraft and helicopters against surface-to-air missiles with radar and
optical (thermal) homing heads. The Vitebsk system is installed on: modernized Sukhoi Su-25SM
strike aircraft; Kamov Ka-52 and Mil Mi-28N attack helicopters; military transport helicopters of the
Mi-8 family; Mi-26 and Mi-26T2 heavy transport helicopters; domestically-made special and civil
aircraft and helicopters. In the future, the Vitebsk defensive aids systems will be mounted on military
transport aircraft like the Ilyushin Il-76MD-90A plane. The Vitebsk is a series of systems that can be
adapted virtually to any type of aircraft, including military transport and civil aviation planes. Such a
platform has been developed and all necessary trials aboard some types of aircraft have already
been held. Richag-AV: this is a specialized helicopter-borne jammer tasked with conducting
electronic suppression and creating a deceptive environment to provide cover for friendly fixed-
wing or rotocraft and protect the most important ground facilities. The Richag-AV is capable of
fully blinding the enemy within a radius of several hundred kilometers and suppressing several
targets at a time. The helicopters jamming deprives enemy air defense missile systems and
airborne interceptors of the possibility to detect any targets and guide air-to-air, surface-to-air and
air-to-surface missiles towards them while the survivability and the combat efficiency of friendly
aircraft increase considerably. Specialized Mi-8MTPR-1 helicopters fitted out with Richag EW
systems are currently being supplied to the Russian Defense Ministry. Overall, the Russian military
has ordered 18 such platforms. A serial production of the upgraded Rychag-AVM version may begin
in coming years. Khibiny EW system: the Khibiny electronic warfare system was made operational
in the Russian Armed Forces in 2013 to defend aircraft against air defense systems. The Khibiny EW
system differs from the previous-generation technology by its increased power and intelligence
capability. It can assist in aircraft weapons control, create a deceptive electronic environment and
help break through an enemys layered air defenses. This is what happened with the US destroyer
Donald Cook in 2014 when the warships air defense systems locked on a Russian Su-24 plane. The
data appearing on the warships radars put the crew at a loss: the aircraft would now and then
disappear from radar screens or suddenly change its location and speed or create electronic clones
of additional targets while the destroyers information and weaponry control combat systems
were actually disabled. Considering that the warship was in the Black Sea some 12,000 kilometers
away from the US territory, it was not difficult to imagine what the destroyers crew felt. Now a
new complex, the Khibiny-U, is in development for frontline aviation, in particular, for Su-30SM
aircraft.

25. Naval Technology - Tomahawk Cruise Missiles & Russian EW: Tomahawk cruise missiles proved
to be difficult targets for Russian electronic warfare systems - TASS - April 18th 2017: The US Navy
hit Syrian air base Al-Shayrat with Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCM) early in April. A
leading Russian designer of electronic warfare (EW) equipment has spoken with the Izvestia daily
about why the Tomahawk is a very hard target to deal with and how friendly forces, airfields and
 36

intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos may be protected and defended against it. Cruise
missiles are very hard targets to hit. Both Russia and the rest of the world lack effective EW gear
able to dupe cruise missiles through and through to make them miss the target or to render them
inefficient altogether. One can only degrade their guidance or force them to climb to the altitude
where it will become theoretically vulnerable to air defense (AD) systems. Many an expert says that
it is enough to jam the GPS signal to prevent the cruise missile from getting a fix on its own position
and veer off the course. Alas, this is far from the fact. Experts make such statements due to their
ignorance of the operating principles of the Tomahawks guidance and navigation systems. The
Tomahawk carries a rather sophisticated inertial navigation system (INS) operating in conjunction
with the radar altimeter and the electro-optical system. The terrain contour matching (TERCOM)
data and the targets grids are uploaded to the INS that steers the weapon along the route and sets
its flight speed and altitude in self-contained mode. If the flight takes several hours, however, the
INS accumulates a navigational error. The missile gradually drifts off the course, but this comes
unnoticed by the INS. Hence, the latter has to be updated by means of outside data in order to
figure out its whereabouts and correct itself. The Tomahawks INS relies on waypoints. Waypoints
are well discernible terrain features with the characteristic outlines, e.g. mountains, hills, valleys,
river bends, etc. When passing waypoints, the missile turns on its electro-optical system. The INS
has the master image showing how the terrain the missile is passing through should look like if the
missile is on course. Comparing the standard image with the imagery provided by the optics, the
INS realizes the degree of its deviation. As a rule, there are several waypoints on the route. The
Tomahawk flies 30-50 m above the ground. During its navigation correction, it climbs to 100 m for a
few seconds but then descends again. The cruise missile climbs sharply once it reaches the target to
ensure the best view for its electro-optical system, because the TLAM finds the target by using both
its grids and video imagery. The targets image is stored in its memory. The guidance system analyzes
the video, finds the targets outline, compares it against the memory-stored image and only then
steers the weapon to the target. Russian media have run reports that a Russian-made Rychag-AV
EW system jammed several dozen Tomahawks and made them drop to the ground. The Rychag-AV
deals mostly with AD missile systems. Hence, only an utter layman can say that the system
jammed the Tomahawks. Another option is to overwhelm the Tomahawks radar with heavy
electronic countermeasures (ECM). If the radar fails, the missile will climb to several hundred
meters at once to avoid collision with terrain features. Once it has climbed, it will expose itself to
the air defenses. However, jamming the radar is difficult. Its radar return is very weak and aimed
vertically to boot. Therefore, the jammer has to cover a huge area. For this purpose, it has to enjoy
very high power and be mounted tens of meters above the ground. The higher the jammer, the
longer its range. However, such jammers are effective only when they are set up on the cruise
missile approaches, i.e. close to where Tomahawks will fly. Otherwise, they are useless. A laser may
blind the Tomahawks electro-optical system, making the missile unable to identify the targets
outline and forcing it to attack using the pre-loaded target coordinates alone. This will reduce its
accuracy, but that will be that. The lasers effectiveness depends heavily on weather conditions and
the distance to the target to boot. For now, the most effective counter to the Tomahawk is the
Pantsir (NATO reporting name: SS-22 Greyhound) anti-air gun/missile system. It has proved to be very
effective against such threats in trials and on exercises. There also are advanced anti-cruise missile
defense systems in trials, which are based on new physical principles, according to the Izvestia
daily.

25. Why the Tomahawk Missile Was Trump's Weapon of Choice Against Syria - Popular Mechanics -
by David Hambling - Apr 7th 2017: The Tomahawk is a cruise missile, so rather than taking on a high,
 37

ballistic trajectory, it hugs the ground, steering around terrain features, propelled by an efficient
turbofan engine. By keeping lowbecause of its small radar signaturethe Tomahawk avoids
radar-guided defenses that can threaten manned aircraft. That said, cruise missiles are not simple
fire-and-forget weapons. The Block IV version can be retargeted in flight via a satellite link with
targets selected from several pre-programmed before launch. The link can also be used to send back
images from the missile's camera, giving a view of the target immediately before impact. The
Tomahawk is usually aimed at a fixed targetlike the aircraft shelters and ammo bunkers at Shayrat.
Navigation is via two 70's-era systems, terrain-following radar (TERCOM) in the approach to the
target and an optical systemthe Digital Scene Matching Area Correlationfor guidance to the
target. These are supplemented by GPS, but the earlier systems cannot be jammed and will still
work even if GPS is lost.

25. TECHNICAL REVIEW ON CRUISE MISSILE TECHNOLOGY GUIDANCE SYSTEMS - by Seshasai

Chowdary: INTRODUCTION: a cruise missile is basically a small, pilotless airplane. Cruise missiles
have an 8.5-foot (2.61-meter) wingspan, are powered by turbofan engines and can fly 500 to 1,000
miles (805 to 1,610 km) depending on the configuration. A cruise missile's job in life is to deliver a
1,000-pound (450- kg) high-explosive bomb to a precise location -- the target. Tomahawk Cruise
missile 3. GENERAL DESIGN: 4. GUIDANCE SYSTEMS: The purpose of a guidance system is to direct
the missile to target. Guidance systems vary greatly. Use of an automatic target recognition
(ATR) algorithm/device in the guidance system increases accuracy of the missile. 5. TYPES OF
GUIDANCE SYSTEMS: Inertial navigation system TERCOM (Terrain Contour Matching) DSMAC
(Digital Scene-Mapping Area Correlator) Satellite navigation 6. INERTIAL NAVIGATION SYSTEM:
An inertial navigation system includes at least a computer and a platform containing
accelerometers, gyroscopes, or other motion-sensing devices. Accelerometers measure the
vertical, lateral, and longitudinal accelerations of the controlled missile. Gyroscopes measure the
angular velocity of the system. 7. Inertial navigation system: 8. TERCOM (TERRAIN CONTOUR
MATCHING): It uses a pre-recorded contour map of the terrain that is compared to
measurements made during flight by an on-board radar altimeter. The missile's radar altimeter
feeds measurements into a smaller buffer, and averages them out to produce a single
measurement. The series of such numbers a strip of measurements similar to those held in the
maps. The two are compared to overlay the strip on the known map, and 9. The guidance system
then uses this information to correct the flight path of the missile. 10. DSMAC (DIGITAL SCENE-
MAPPING AREA CORRELATOR): A series of photographs are taken from surveillance aircraft and
are put into a carousel in the missile. Another camera takes pictures out of the bottom of the
missile. A computer compares the two images and attempts to line up areas of high contrast.
This system is very slow and its role is being taken up by TERCOM.

25. Russian jamming expert says that Tomahawks cannot be jammed - Facebook - by Viktor Alksnis
- April 11th 2017: https://www.facebook.com/VAlksnis/posts/1921810414729950: Internet is buzzing
again. Free Press has published some sensational material, according to which Russia has applied in
Syria the latest electronic warfare equipment, and which allegedly targeted and turned off the
external action instruments of the Tomahawks. As a result, they lost control and fell to the
ground. http://svpressa.ru/war21/article/170204/. They provide a link to the source of this sensational
 38

information, an American independent online magazine "Veterans Today". Veterans even has a
photograph of one of the "fallen Tomahawks".
http://www.veteranstoday.com/.../trump-humilated-syria-shoot.../. This information made me proud
of our army, having such a miracle weapon. But on the other side, my many years of experience as a
military aviation engineer in electronics forced me to doubt the reliability of the information. I
went to the site Veterans Today and found a photo of a cruise missile that had fallen (although
winged, and more like a tactical missile Tochka - U). I decided to check its accuracy and used Google
search to look for similar images. I found that on February 15th 2016 a Ukrainian Russophobian site
posted this same image with the caption, "one of 8 rockets fired from the Russian ship, it fell to a
vacant lot and did not explode." (http://sokrytoe.org/31011-siriya-russkie-voyska-bombyat-shk...). So
my pride in our army was somewhat premature. And now to the point. Disabling a Tomahawks
pointing devices with the help of electronic warfare systems is impossible. Yes, these systems are
able to score radio interference, for example, on its GPS receiver. But onboard the cruise missile are
several overlapping and complementary systems that provide high target accuracy. Firstly, it is has
an inertial guidance system based on gyroscopes. It is fully autonomous, and any interference will
not stop it from operating. In addition to that the guidance of the cruise missile uses two other
systems which allow precise target access. This correlation is between the Tercom system and the
optical system DSMAC. Tercom includes a computer, a radio altimeter, and a set of reference maps
of areas along the route of the missile. Determination of terrain data is performed by comparing
the radio altimeter and barometric data. The first measures the height of the earth's surface, and
the second its height in relation to sea level. Information about a particular terrain that has been
digitally injected into the on-board computer is then compared with the data on the topography of
the actual terrain maps and reference areas. The computer outputs the correction signals for the
inertial control subsystem. Theoretically it is possible to put the radio altimeter through EW
interference, but it is quite a difficult task. The pattern of the antenna of the radio altimeter is fairly
narrow (about 12-14 degrees) and therefore must be created along the entire route of flight. To
affect the Tomahawk one would need very large interference power, as a rocket takes special
measures for the suppression of signals received on the side lobes of the antenna of its radio
altimeter. To have a shot at jamming the Tomahawks radio altimeter, jammers must be placed on
the whole territory of the missiles flight path, requiring hundreds or even thousands of terrestrial
jammers. This is technically impossible. Or it would be necessary to place jammers on planes or
helicopters and follow the cruise missiles during their entire route of flight. And this is also
technically very difficult. The photo from Veterans Today does not show a Tomahawk. Its a
Russian-made Tochka-U. This is evidenced by the grid-fin behind the rocket.

26. My note: Dumping half of the missiles in the Mediterranean, or sending them elsewhere-
facilitates post-strike collusion with Russia. Putin is not dumb, he knows from Russian radar
recordings that 59 were launched, yet only 23 made it to Shayrat. By dumping half of the missiles,
Putin would see clearly that the strike was a one-time fake response, and so walk in step with Trumps
post-strike actions (though raising their post-strike rhetoric for show). When he finally met Tillerson,
who he has known for years, behind closed doors, both sides were then able to show each other their
cards, and truly form a cooperative relationship. If the 36 Tomahawks were sent elsewhere, then
where did they go? Did they hit Deep State black assets? Or ISIS locations? Dumping them would
have been a waste of money, as each one costs 1.5 mill, so perhaps Trump sent them elsewhere.
 39

27. The Deep State vs. Donald Trump - Global Research - by Justin Raimondo - Dec 12th 2016: The
CIA is up to its old tricks: overthrowing a democratically elected government. Only this time its our
government. But why would the CIA, in particular, have a special aversion to Trump? Marcy
Wheeler, whose analytical abilities I respect despite our political disagreements, has this to say: First,
if Trump comes into office on the current trajectory, the US will let Russia help Bashar al Assad stay
in power, thwarting a 4 year effort on the part of the Saudis to remove him from power. The CIA is
institutionally quite close with the Saudis right now, and has been in charge of their covert war
against Assad. The Saudis, having given millions to the Clinton Foundation, along with their Gulf
state allies, were counting on a Clinton victory. The CIA has a longstanding relationship with
Riyadh, and together they have been working assiduously to not only overthrow Assad in Syria but
to forge a moderate Sunni alliance that will effectively police the region while establishing the
Saudis as the regional hegemon. This was the Clintonian strategy while Hillary was at the helm of
Foggy Bottom: Libya, Syria, the alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, are all examples of
this utterly disastrous Sunni turn. Trump represents a threat to this grand design, and therefore
has to be stopped by whatever means necessary. His desire to get along with Russia, his
opposition to regime change in Syria, his critique of the Libyan misadventure, his foreign policy
stance in general all this meant that he would come to power and drain the swamp of the CIA
and the State Department. The irony here is that the accusation leveled at Trump that his historic
victory represents a successful attempt by a foreign power to take control of the White House is a
classic case of projection. What we are witnessing is a joint CIA-Saudi operation to overthrow the
duly elected President of the United States. In a recent speech given on his victory tour, Trump
said the following: We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the
past. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments. Our goal is stability not
chaos.

27. Regime change comes home: the CIAs overt threats against Trump - Global Research - by
Professor James Petras - Jan 18th 2017: The outgoing President Obama mobilized the entire
leadership of the security state to fabricate dodgy dossiers linking Donald Trump to the Russian
President Vladimir Putin, insisting that Trump was a stooge or vulnerable to KGB blackmail. The
CIAs phony documents (arriving via a former British intelligence operative now free-lance
security contractor) were passed around among the major corporate media who declined to
publish the leaked gossip. Months of attempts to get the US media to take the bite on the smelly
dossier were unsuccessful. The semi senile US Senator John McCain (war hero and hysterical
Trump opponent) then volunteered to plop the reeking gossip back onto the lap of the CIA Director
Brennan and demand the government act on these vital revelations! Under scrutiny by serious
researchers, the CIA dossier was proven to be a total fabrication by way of a former British
official now in hiding! Undaunted, despite being totally discredited, the CIA leadership
continued to attack the President-elect. Trump likened the CIAs dirty pictures hatchet job to the
thuggish behavior of the Nazis and clearly understood how the CIA leadership was involved in a
domestic coup dtat. CIA Director John Brennan, architect of numerous regime changes overseas
had brought his skills home against the President-elect. For the first time in US history, a CIA
director openly charged a President or President-elect with betraying the country and threatened
the incoming Chief Executive. He coldly warned Trump to just make sure he understands that the
implications and impacts (of Trumps policies) on the United States could be profound. Clearly CIA
Director Brennan has not only turned the CIA into a sinister, unaccountable power dictating policy
 40

to an elected US president, by taking on the tone of a Mafia Capo, he threatens the physical
security of the incoming leader.

27. The soft-coup collapses- CIA bluffing, Russia did not hack, blackmail revealed- whats next?
Global Research - by Robert David Steele - Jan 9th 2017: CIA was bluffing, produced no evidence
Russians did not hack the election. Is this the beginning of the end of the Deep State in the USA?
Can Trump clean house & wage peace? Aided by enormous restraint on the part of Vladimir Putin,
President of Russia, the soft coup in the USA has collapsed. Not only has the US Intelligence
Community (US IC) lost all semblance of credibility with incoming President Donald Trump, but the
blackmail by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham
has been revealed by investigative journalist Wayne Madsen.

27. Trump vs. the CIA - Global Research - by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts - Jan 17th 2017: The CIA is
discrediting itself with its fierce and transparently false attack on the president elect. The attack on
Trump from the CIA and its media agents at the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, the
network TV channels, the BBC, the Guardian, and every other Western print and TV source with the
exception of Fox News, is based on no evidence whatsoever. None of the US 16 intelligence
agencies can produce a tiny scrap of evidence. The evidence consists of nothing but constant
repetitions of blatant lies fed into the presstitute media by the CIA.

27. The conspiracy against Trump - Global Research - by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts - March 21st 2017: It
is undeniable that the CIA controls the media, both in Europe and in the US. Udo Ulfkottes book,
Gekauftge Journalisten, exposed the CIAs hold on European journalists when it was published in
Germany in 2014. An English language edition, Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys the News, is
due out in May. In the meantime Joel Whitneys book, Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the Worlds
Best Writers, suffices to establish that Americas most respected journalists drank the CIAs Kool-
Aid and thought they were saving freedom by serving as propagandists. People in the West need
to understand that if the news they receive bears on the interests of the US military/security
complex, the news is scripted by the CIA. The CIA serves its interests, not the interests of the
American people or the interests of peace.

27. Colour revolution against Donald Trump - Global Research - by Professor Michel Chossodovsky -
Jan 18th 2017: What will happen on Inauguration Day? Anti-Trump protest movements are envisaged
alongside a campaign to disrupt. While there are genuine protests e.g. those led by the Answer
Coalition and Workers World, the main thrust is coming from an engineered campaign supported
and financed by the Neocons, which is largely intent upon disrupting the inauguration and
destabilizing the Trump presidency. The organizers of this movement are acting on behalf of
powerful elite interests. The engineered protest ops are coordinated with a relentless propaganda
campaign led by the mainstream media, which includes accusations of high treason and sedition
directed against Donald Trump, who is portrayed as an instrument of the Kremlin. Even prior to the
November 8 elections, former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leo Panetta had already
intimated that Trump is a threat to National Security. According to The Atlantic, Trump is a Modern
Manchurian Candidate serving the interests of the Kremlin.
 41

27. Trumps 4D chess game - Churchmouse Campanologist - March 7th 2017: Many American
conservatives are trying to figure out President Donald Trumps game plan. Common comments I
have read over the past three months on a conservative site, which will go unnamed, typify the
uncertainty: If Trump wants to drain the swamp, why is he employing people closely tied to it? He
doesnt seem to be very alert as to what is going on. Why isnt he doing anything? Two online
comments - one from The Donald and another from 4chan - clarify the 4-dimensional chess game
that Trump is playing. Its far more strategic than the average person can appreciate. This is
the analysis from a commenter at The Donald: Donald Trump our president is a pragmatist and a
businessman, a highly successful international one at that. Everything he does, for the most part, is
part of a larger strategy and people would be foolish to think otherwise. I personally believe that he
presents these charges such as voter fraud, Hillarys illegal activities, the Obama wiretap, and then
purposely doesnt follow up right away, because if he did they would try to bury them or slant the
narrative. For example, they would be pushing the argument that it was legal for the wiretap if he
provided based evidence. Instead, however, by doing it this way all over the media, they are saying
well, yes it would be wrong if it happened but it never happened. This saturates headlines for a
few days to a week and gets in the public knowledge for most people. Hes been doing this bit by bit
and then, I believe, when he drops the hammer of evidence for these accusations, there is now
much larger public knowledge than there would have been otherwise, which can radically shift
public opinion once he presents the evidence. Additionally, who knows what other angles he has,
but I guarantee you hes not tweeting for tweetings sake.

27. George Soros lashes out at Trump and his self-contradictory ideas - Russia Today - Jan 19th
2017

27. Judea declares war on Trump - by Gilad Atzmon - Nov 9th 2016: Back in 1933, long before Hitler
imposed a single restriction on German Jews the leaders of worldwide Jewry declared a war on
Hitler's Germany. Some argue that the German animosity towards Jews in the 1930's, which led to
the Holocaust, cannot be realized without taking into consideration the Judea war against Germany.
Seemingly some Jews never learn the lesson. Performing the symptoms of Pre Traumatic stress
disorder, the Jewish Chronicle is already at war with the next American president. Trump
Triumphant. So What Now? - The Jewish Chronicle - By Leader - Nov 9th 2016: Its not an accusation,
merely a statement of fact, to describe Donald Trump as a racist, misogynist bully. That such a man can
be elected as President of the United States is deeply chilling. For Jews, there is one specific aspect of
his ascendency that is so worrying. His campaign was self-consciously anti-Semitic. One of his main
themes was that a global elite was conspiring against ordinary Americans. This is not only a classic
anti-Semitic meme; the examples cited by Mr. Trump were all every one of them Jewish, such as
George Soros and the President of the Federal Reserve. Anyone who denies this element to Mr.
Trumps campaign is living in a self-deluded fantasy.

27. Who is Donald Trump? Why the US globalist elites dread president-elect Donald Trump: fearing
hell lead people to revolt against New World Order - Global Research - by Joachim Hagopian - Nov
9th 2016: 76% of Americans accurately believe that Washingtons run by a few big special interests
strictly out for themselves rather than for the benefit of all people. In other words, Abraham
Lincolns of the people, by the people, for the people long embedded as a defining principle of our
democracy, did in fact perish from the Earth, by PNAC design right after the Mossad-neocons
inside job of 9/11. In recent weeks weve been witnessing an unheard of stampeding backlash of
desperate name-calling, slings and arrows, all blatant, over-the-top attempts to assassinate Trumps
 42

character, subdue, smear and silence his campaign, and even go so far as to plant the seed to
assassinate him. A few weeks ago after New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in a tweet joked
about how Trumps campaign will end, both alternative and mainstream media had a field day
reacting and speculating over whether Donald Trump will become a KIA (killed in action) while
running for president of the United States. The current and two former Mexican presidents have
called Trump the next Hitler, perhaps the ultimate name in demonology. Indeed leaders from a
host of other nations around the world have also expressed their upset toward the presidential
frontrunner for what they regard as his racist views, among them Canada, Ireland, Britain, Germany,
France, Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Of course these Trump critics are members of the same
governments that per their globalists multiculturalism agenda have welcomed over a million
refugees that are now overloading the system and potentially destroying Europe. And Israel and
Saudi Arabia as the very home of Wahhabi terrorism, theyre about the only nations refusing to take
in any refugees except for terrorists as two of the biggest supporters for both terrorism and the
wars that created the migration crisis in the first place. And Turkeys provided the terrorist safe
haven and training ground. So in view of the harm that their policies have caused, none of them
should have anything to say about Trump.

27. Trump says bombs were used on 9/11 - Trump: "I happen to think that they had not only a plane,
but that they had bombs that exploded almost simultaneously because I just can't imagine anything
being able to go through that wall".- Donald Trump being interviewed on TV on September 11th 2001:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSSwXvsEX_c

27. 9 11 and Israel Alan Sabroskis shocking Press TV interview - (Dr. Alan Sabroski is the former
Director of Studies at the US Army War College; he has written dozens of books and hundreds of
academic articles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0v7_O53J0k&t=455s

My note: many patriots within US military circles know the truth about 9/11.

27. U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study - by The Washington Times - Monday,
September 10th 2001: An elite U.S. Army study center has devised a plan for enforcing a major
Israeli-Palestinian peace accord that would require about 20,000 well-armed troops stationed
throughout Israel and a newly created Palestinian state. There are no plans by the Bush
administration to put American soldiers into the Middle East to police an agreement forged by the
long-time warring parties. In fact, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is searching for ways to
reduce U.S. peacekeeping efforts abroad, rather than increasing such missions. But a 68-page paper
by the Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) does provide a look at the daunting task
any international peacekeeping force would face if the United Nations authorized it, and Israel and
the Palestinians ever reached a peace agreement. Located at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the School for
Advanced Military Studies is both a training ground and a think tank for some of the Army's brightest
officers. "This was just an academic exercise," said Maj. Garver. "They were trying to take a current
situation and get some training out of it." The exercise was done by 60 officers dubbed "Jedi
Knights," as all second-year SAMS students are nicknamed. The SAMS paper attempts to predict
events in the first year of a peace-enforcement operation, and sees possible dangers for U.S. troops
from both sides. It calls Israel's armed forces a "500-pound gorilla in Israel. Well-armed and trained.
Operates in both Gaza. Known to disregard international law to accomplish mission. Very unlikely
to fire on American forces. Fratricide a concern especially in air space management." Of the
 43

Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS officers say: "Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning.
Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act."

27. The Walking dead: Donald Trump as an enemy of Greater Israel living every day of his
candidacy in Netanyahus cross-hairs - by Mark Glenn - Feb 2016: All can be assured that on 21
November 2015, when presidential hopeful Donald Trump announced at a campaign rally in
Birmingham, Alabama that he personally witnessed thousands of Muslims celebrating in Jersey
City, New Jersey on the morning of 9/11, tidal waves of panic swept through the organized Zionist
community both in America and Israel. Not because such a statement was 100% factually bankrupt
with no truth to it whatsoever. Those at the top of the Zionist interests food chain, including but
certainly not limited to groups such as ADL, the American Jewish Committee, AIPAC, to say nothing
of Mossad itselfunderstood immediately the documented and historical significance associated
with Jersey City, New Jersey and the Middle Easterners whose celebratory activities taking place
on the morning of 9/11 led to their arrest, detainment, and 2 months of intensive questioning by the
FBI. What would be the inevitable result of such statements being made by a man like Trump,
whose every word is attentively heard and weighed by tens (hundreds?) of millions of Americans
on a daily basis. Given that this strange memethe celebrating Muslims of New Jersey on 9/11has
never been discussed before, amidst all the millions of words spoken about the events of that day
covering a time span of 15 years means that introducing such a LOUD and controversial statement
into the political discourse at this moment can have but one resultextreme curiosity on the part of
those hearing it for the first time. More dangerous to Israel than the curiosity itself however is
what must surely to take place as a result of that interest, where in this, the information age,
hundreds of millions of fingers would begin typing away at various internet search engines, using
words such as 911 New Jersey dancing celebrating, etc, which thenthrough the algorithmic
process known as SEO or Search Engine Optimizationopens a very problematic door for a certain
group of individuals desperate to keep Americans in the dark about some of the lesser-known
events of that day, and especially those events described in news stories with problematic titles
such as Were the Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies?, which was published by ABC News. That
Trumps statement concerning the thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheering the events of 9/11
touched a raw nerve was apparent from the beginning. The same Jewish mainstream media in
America that never misses an opportunity in throwing buckets of gasoline on the already-out-of-
control inferno known as Islamophobia in America immediately lept into action, denouncing Trump
as a bigot and castigating his celebrating Muslims assertions as outrageous and baseless. Salvo
after salvo was launched, Op Eds and news pieces were blasted across both the print and electronic
media, all of which obviously aimed at shooing away otherwise curious eyes from the internet-
based ticking time bombs just waiting to go off in the minds of the American people curious to
know more about just who was celebrating on the morning of 9/11. Besides the obvious panic on
the part of the JMSM, other indicators as well suggested that indeed Trumps statement was
having the dreaded effect Israels supporters feared. When it was obvious that Trump was not
going to back down from his statement, despite the organized screeching campaign being waged
against him and that the cat was already out of the bag so to speak, pro-Israel websites then
flooded the internet with stories proving Trump was right and that indeed Muslims were
celebrating in New Jersey on the morning of 9/11. The stories and Op Eds proving Trump was
rightaimed at stopping people dead in their tracks from digging any deeperwere sewn together
from a small number of pieces written immediately after the attacks that day but which then
received no follow-up coverage in the days, weeks, and months that followed. Nevertheless,
indeed curious eyes were flocking to the internet and researching Trumps allegations, as
 44

evidenced by none other than the front page of the abcnews.com website itself, which, a mere few
days after Trumps initial statement and all the hullaballu that it created, listed the Israeli espionage
story as the #3 most read piece for that day, something quite telling in and of itself, given that the
story is almost as old as 9/11 and not likely to be such a popular item some 15 years after its initial
publication. But of all the noise generated in the aftermath of Trumps statement concerning the
monkey-business taking place in Jersey City, New Jersey on the morning of 9/11, the one piece of
commentary indicating that indeed he had struck gold in terms of Judaic angst came from no less
than the ADL itself, considered the domestic arm of Israels intelligence service Mossad with
tentacles spread throughout the world and who responded to Trumps statement in part to witIt
is unfortunate that Donald Trump is giving new life to long-debunked conspiracy theories about
9/11This seems to be a variation of the anti-Semitic myth that a group of Israelis were seen
celebrating as the Twin Towers fellHis comments are irresponsible, not to mention factually
challenged. So, in other words, the ADL recognized IMMEDIATELY the connection between
Trumps assertion and what actually took place on the morning of 9/11 involving the 5 dancing
Israelis who later that dayAFTER BEING SEEN BY WITNESSES CHEERING AND CELEBRATINGwere
indeed arrested, held for over 2 months and subjected to intensive questioning by the FBI. Clearly,
the various entities that work day and night in keeping the American mind properly-poisoned in such
a way that Israels interests are furthered understood that Trumps statement had just set in motion
something that could have all sorts of systemic and sustained problems for Israel and for the
chokehold that she maintains over the American political process. In other words, what the Zionist
apparatus in America feared as a result of the sudden Trump-generated public interest vis a vis 9/11
was the political equivalent of large, dangerous animal waking up from some previously-
administered anesthetic keeping it manageable, and upon waking, would then tear to pieces all
those in its immediate environment attempting to capture and imprison it. The obvious result of such
an awakening would be something akin to 9/11 itself, where the seemingly indestructible structures
making up the special relationship between the US and the Jewish state would come crumbling
down. I, Donald J. Trump, do hereby retract my original statement that there were thousands of
Muslims celebrating in Jersey City, New Jersey on the morning of 9/11. My staff, after looking into
the matter and speaking with law enforcement officials who were involved directly with the events
of that day, have learned that in fact it was not Muslims who were celebrating that day, but rather 5
Israeli intelligence officers who were then arrested, held for questioning for more than 2 months and
then sent back to Israel, after which time they admitted on Israeli TV that they were sent to America
to document the event. I sincerely apologise if my comments offended anyone in the Islamic
community. And all can be assured that something along these lines was precisely what Trump was
prepared to do, and that in some fashionback door or otherwisehe let those goombahs making
up the organized Jewish power structure working against his candidacy know that this might be
the next surprise coming out of his black bag of political magic tricks if certain concessions
favorable to him were not met. All can abandon the notion that Trump somehow found himself in
the midst of some senior moment and that he misremembered hearing that Muslims were
celebrating on the morning of 9/11. The possibility that in the midst of this terrible event taking
place on 9/11IN TRUMPS BACKYARD no lessand that with all the well-connected and influential
people that he knows, from police to intelligence to military, along with his access to inside
information not readily available to the average Joe 6-Pack on the street, that somehow, amidst all
the kibitzing that had to have taken place in the hours, days, weeks, and months following that he
did not hear with his own ears some variation of Did you hear about the 5 Israelis arrested on the
morning of 9/11 in Jersey City, taking pictures of the Twins and joking about it? lies somewhere
between the improbable and the impossible. Indeed, Donald Trump, a big shark in a tank full of
other big sharks, a man who makes sure to know from A to Z the particulars of a business venture
 45

long before he commits himself to any investment, knew when he stood on that stage in
Birmingham, Alabama on 21 November 2015 that the cheering Muslims in New Jersey on the
morning of 9/11 were in fact not Muslims at all, but rather Jews working for Israeli intelligence, a
skeleton which Israel and her supporters desperately need to keep hidden away in that closet. The
obvious question that must be asked therefore iswhy would he do such a thing? Why set in motion
drama such as this, knowing what kind of noise and controversy something like this must by its
very nature create? The question basically answers itselfcontroversy, or better yet, scandal. The
topic of the 5 dancing Israelis arrested on 9/11 is the stuff of coercion and of gaining concessions
from an uncooperative adversary but doing so in such a way that the general public is unaware of
the fact that a gang war is taking place right in their midst. Having said this, what Americaand
indeed the entire worldwitnessed with the entire celebrating Muslims on 9/11 debacle was a shot
across the bow from Trump & co towards those powerful Jewish interests chewing away day and
night at his chances for winning the presidency. By ripping open the old wound of 9/11 and using
the celebrating Muslims motif as the dull, rusty, scalpel for doing so, what Trump & co were
saying to the Kristols, Krauthammers, Adelsons, Singers, et al who are indeed working in close
cooperation with each other and with other as-of-this-moment unnamed individuals, both in the US
and Israel, in making sure he does not win is that there are all sorts of skeletons in the political
closet that Israel would really rather not be made part of the public discourse, and that with a
mouth like his and with the hundreds of millions of ears who are glued to it, he could bring down
the whole house of cards faster than these jermites who are gnawing away at the American
political structure can get on a plane and head back to Israel, where their true allegiance lies. Other
evidence suggesting that indeed a very serious yet nuanced gang war is taking place between
Trump and the organized Jewish power structure out to scuttle his presidency has been manifested
in other ways as well. Exactly 1 month after Trumps now-infamous celebrating Muslims comment
in Birmingham, a protestor at a rally in Michigan who managed to make his way to the front row
confronted Trump and shouted from a mere few feet away that it wasnt Muslims who were
arrested on 9/11, but rather 5 Israeli Jews. Predictably, the crowd reacted as virtually all Americans
have been programmed to react when anything untoward is uttered about Americas only ally in
the Middle East, which is to shout down the accuser like a herd of braying jackasses, but Trumps
reaction was very curious andall can be assuredunnerving to the powerful pro-Israel interests
who heard what he said as the protestor was being escorted out of the rally-Be nice to himHes
one of us Any other candidate faced with the same situation would havefor the sake of their
own political neckroused the crowd to fits and to fury, denounced the heckler as an anti-Semite, a
neo-Nazi, a conspiracy theorist, and put as much distance between themselves and such ideas as
possible. Trumps response was Be nice to him, hes one of us, saying in a very nuanced way that
the hecklers statement was not in conflict with Donald Trump or his campaign and that it was ok
for others to adopt the same kinds of theories if they wanted to. Which brings this conversation
around to the next level in what is an already multi-level and complicated operation, which is that
in all likelihood, Trumps use of the word us has more meaning to it than some would imagine,
something much deeper and which involves more than just the superficial and overly-simplistic 1st
person plural pronouns most people would assume. This being the case, it is also by no means any
stretch to speculate as to what kinds of friends in high places are assisting Trump with his
Presidential campaign while remaining in the shadows and thus comfortably out of public sight.
That there is a contingent of people working within the US intelligence community who know full
well what really took place on 9/11 and who understand that if drastic measures are not taken soon
that the US will become a footnote of history is now an established fact. In the aforementioned
piece appearing in Counterpunch, Christopher Ketcham writes of what his sources told him
concerning the mood of those US intelligence agencies tasked with investigating 9/11, to wit
 46

There is a lot of frustration inside the FBI about this caseThey feel the higher echelons
torpedoed the investigation into the Israeli New Jersey cell. Leads were not fully investigated.
Intelligence expert and author James Bamford described similar frustration within the CIA: People
Ive talked to at the CIA were outraged at what was going on. They thought it was outrageous that
there hadnt been a real investigation, and that the facts were hanging out there without any
conclusion. One of the first indications that a change of seasons had taken place and that there
was some pushback against Likuds hijacking of the U.S. presidency in the wake of 9/11 was
evidenced by the release of the National Intelligence Estimate in 2007. To the surprise of many, and
certainly to the fury of Netanyahu and his Likud party who recognized the implications associated
with the release of this official statementthe 16 intelligence agencies tasked with putting together
up-to-date intelligence estimates on certain hot-button topics stated clearly and with absolutely no
wiggle room that Iran was not working towards the development of nuclear weapons. Yes, as
much as it may contradict certain pre-conceived notions held by many, all can be confident of the
fact that within the US intelligence community, there are personspowerful individuals with pull
and with resourceswho know exactly what took place on 9/11, and, more importantly, who know
where it is all headed. More than anyone else, they are fully aware of the fact that 9/11 was an act of
arson meant not just to incinerate the Islamic world, but as well the United States, Europe, Russia,
China, and anyone else Israel has deemed must be wiped off the map as a preparatory step to
bringing about the long dreamed-of Caliphate which Netanyahu and his fellow juhadists refer to as
Greater Israel. Put another way, as stated by U.S. Admiral William Fallon, former Commander of
CENTCOM, revealing that he was just one amongst a larger group of powerful individuals working
in close cooperation with each other in circumventing and preventing the next phase of a period of
overt American hostilities in the Middle EastThere are several of us trying to put the crazies back in
the box.

28. Trumps world of intrigue: twists and turns of the Michael Flynn resignation - Global Research -
by Larry Chin - Feb 20th 2017: Flynn: the lightning rod: Michael Flynn was central to the Trump
foreign policy. Flynn headed the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama, and brought a wealth
of inside knowledge of the intelligence community to his brief, action-packed stint as national
security adviser. Flynn, a registered Democrat, is an outspoken critic of the Obama/Clinton foreign
policy, and of the CIAs deliberate use of AL Qaeda/ISIS/Al Nusra terrorists in Syria. He sought major
reforms to the politicized intelligence community. He pushed for better relations with Russia, and
sought to expose and undo the Obama administrations dealings with Iran. The controversial Flynn
is a hero to the Trump support base. He is for locking up Hillary Clinton, and draining the
swamp. Trump respects Flynn, and seemed to have no issues with Flynns combative style. He was
controversial during his tenure under Obama before he joined Trump, and controversial during the
campaign and throughout the election. Trump tapped Flynn as national security adviser instead of
another cabinet post, to save Flynn from having to go through a brutal congressional approval
(that he likely would not have passed).

28. Military to Military - Seymour M. Hersch on US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war - London
Books of Review - by Seymour Hersch - Jan 2016: Barack Obamas repeated insistence that Bashar al-
Assad must leave office- and that there are moderate rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him
has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most
senior officers on the Pentagons Join Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the
administrations fixation on Assads primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to
 47

Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasnt adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both
countries share Washingtons anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like
Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped. The militarys resistance dates back to
the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the
fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos, and potentially, to Syrias takeover by jihadi
extremists, much as was happening in Libya. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a
year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to ship guns and goods to be used for the
overthrow of Assad from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director
of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of
classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The
jihadists, he said, were in control; of the opposition. If the American public saw the intelligence we
were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic, Flynn told me: The DIAs
reporting, he said, got enormous pushback from the Obama administration. I felt that they did
not want to hear the truth. The Joint Chiefs believed that Assad should not be replaced by
fundamentalists. The administrations policy was contradictory. The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct
challenge to Obamas policy would have had zero chance of success. So in the autumn of 2013 they
decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing
US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on
to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.Flynn
incurred the wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria, said Patrick Lang,
a retired army colonel who served for nearly a decade as the chief Middle East civilian intelligence
officer for the DIA. He thought truth was the best thing and they shoved him out. He wouldnt shut
up. Flynn told me his problems went beyond Syria. I was shaking things up at the DIA- and not just
moving deckchairs on the Titanic. It was radical reform. In a recent interview in Der Spiegel, Flynn
was blunt about Russias entry into the Syrian war: we have to work constructively with Russia.
Whether we like it or not, Russia made a decision to be there and act militarily. They are there, and this
has dramatically changed the dynamic. So you cant say, Russia is bad; they have to go home. Its not
going to happen. Get real.

28. Was the ousting of General Flynn an elaborate ruse to expose leakers? - By the Real Fly - Feb
16th 2017: It's also worth reminding you of his cryptic address to the CIA after he first took office,
telling them he'd like to remove the columns inside the buildings, perhaps a reference to the fifth
column theory aka shadow government.
 48

28. My note: Trump goes to the corrupt CIA, who have been helping ISIS, and tells them that ISIS will
be destroyed. He subtly alludes that the traitorous 5th column elements within the CIA must be
removed. This is shockingly confirmed when Trump tells Lt. General Michael Flynn to stand up in front
of everyone, who was his National Security advisor at that time. Flynn had been warring against the
CIA and ISIS from 2012-2014, during his official capacity as head of the Pentagon's Defense
Intelligence Agency. Flynn helped Assad fight ISIS and the CIA. He is the CIA's greatest enemy when it
comes to their agenda of using terrorists as proxy foot soldiers for imperial wars of destabilization.
Flynn was always against regime change in Syria as it would allow the jihadists to take over there.

28. President Donald Trump Delivers Remarks at CIA Headquarters (1/21/2017):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xagAlOXT9Wk: President Trump Speaks at CIA: The day after
his inauguration, President Donald Trump addressed CIA employees at the Agency's headquarters.
Video of his remarks is available below courtesy of The Washington Post, along with a transcript
courtesy of CSPAN: Thank you. Well. I want to thank everybody. Very, very special people. And it is
true: this is my first stop. Officially. Were not talking about the balls, and were not talking about
even the speeches. Although, they did treat me nicely on that speech yesterday [laughter]. I
always call them the dishonest media, but they treated me nicely. But, I want to say that there is
nobody that feels stronger about the Intelligence Community and the CIA than Donald Trump.
[applause]. Theres nobody. Nobody. And the wall behind me is very very special. Weve been
touring for quite a while. And Ill tell you what: twenty nine? I cant believe it... No. Twenty eight.
Weve got to reduce it. Thats amazing. And we really appreciate it what youve done in terms of
showing us something very special. And your whole group. These are really special, amazing people.
Very. Very few people could do the job you people do. And I want to just let you know: I am so
behind you. And I know, maybe sometimes, you havent gotten the backing that youve wanted. And
youre going to get so much backing. Maybe youre going to say please dont give us so much
backing. [laughter] Mr. President, please, we dont need that much backing. But youre going
to have that. And I think everybody in this room knows it. You know, the military, and the law-
enforcement generally speaking, -- but, all of it -- but the military, gave us tremendous percentages
of votes. We were unbelievably successful in the election with getting the vote of the military and
probably almost everybody in this room voted for me, but I will not ask you to raise your hands if you
did. [laughter] But I would guarantee a big portion. Because were all on the same wavelength,
folks. Were all on the same wavelength. [applause] Alight? [pointing to the crowd] He
knows. Took Brian about 30 seconds to figure that one out, right? Because we know. Were on the
same wavelength. Were going to do great things. Were going to do great things. Weve been
fighting these wars for longer than any wars weve ever fought. We have not used the real abilities
that we have. Weve been restrained. We have to get rid of ISIS. We have to get rid of ISIS. We have
no choice [applause] Radical Islamic terrorism - and I said it yesterday - has to be eradicated.
Just off the face of the Earth. This is evil. This is evil. And you know, I can understand the other side.
We can all understand the other side. There can be wars between countries. There can be wars. You
can understand what happened. This is something nobody could even understand. This is a level of
evil that we havent seen. Youre going to go to it, and youre going to do a phenomenal job. But
were going to end it. Its time. Its time right now to end it. You have somebody coming on who is
extraordinary. You know for the different positions, of secretary of this and secretary of that and all
of these great positions, Id see five, six, seven, eight people. And we had a great transition. We had
 49

an amazing team of talent. And by the way, General Flynn is right over here. Put up your hand,
Mike. What a good guy [applause].. (near the end): I am coming back. We may have to get
you a larger room. [laughter, applause] We may have to get you a larger room. And maybe -
maybe - itll be built by somebody that knows how to build and we wont have columns
[laughter] You understand that? Wed get rid of the columns. I just wanted to really say that I
love you. I respect you. Theres nobody that I respect more. Youre going to do a fantastic job. And
were going to start winning again. And youre going to be leading the charge. So thank you all very
much. Thank you, beautiful. Thank you all very much. Have a good day. Ill be back. Ill be back. Thank
you.

28. Transcript: Michael Flynn on ISL - Head to Head - Al Jazeera - Jan 13th 2016: Medi: Let me just
clarify once more, you are basically saying that even in government at that time you knew these
groups were around, you saw the intelligence analysis, and you were arguing against it- but who
wasnt listening? Flynn: I think the administration. Medi: The administration turned a blind eye to
your analysis? Flynn: I dont think it was turning a blind eye, I think it was a willful decision. Medi:
A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salfists, Al Qaeda, and the Muslim
Brotherhood? Flynn: It was a willful decision to do what theyre doing, which you have to really ask
the president what it is that he actually is doing with the policy that is in place because it is very
confusing. Im sitting here today, Medi, and I cant tell you exactly what that is, and Ive been at this
for a long time.

28. General Flynns Proposals to Reform Intelligence - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyysan - Dec
1st 2016: General Michael Flynn, the next US National Security Adviser is in the process of
organizing a radical overhaul of the Intelligence Services. According to sources, he is getting ready
to challenge the big reforms that took place during the Bush and Obama years: placing all 16
intelligence agencies under the exclusive authority of the National Security Adviser.

28. Mark Sleboda (Intl affairs & security analyst) - RTs Cross Talk: Bullhorns on the Case - March
13th 2017: 22:36-23:22: Mark: The CIA is completely amok right now. The reason why the Western
media is not interested in this story, the liberal media, is because right now theyre very interested in
portraying the CIA, the Deep State, as the good guys that are protecting the country by waging this
guerilla war against the Trump administration. So, this all ties in; and this is why getting rid of Flynn,
you know, in the end Trump acquiesced to it- is so very important because Flynn wanted to
restructure this out-of-control intelligence community, and purge this Deep State of the
intelligence services, the blob in the foreign state community. He cant do it now, and no one else is
going to do it.

29. Trumps world of intrigue: twists and turns of the Michael Flynn resignation - Global Research -
by Larry Chin - Feb 20th 2017: Flynns role behind the Yemen raid could also have triggered CIA
retaliation. This high-risk operation resulted in the death of 14 Al Qaeda militants (including top
operational personnel), 25 civilians, and Navy Seal William Ryan Owens, and the wounding of six
US soldiers. Although details remain cloaked, the Yemen raid appears to have pitted Special
Forces/Navy Seals against Al Qaeda. Given the fact that AL Qaeda is a CIA front, the firefight was
essentially, the Trump military intelligence team against the CIA itself. The target appears to have
 50

been tipped off, resulting in the Special Forces/Seal team meeting with fierce resistance. (Did the CIA
tip off its own assets in Yemen?) Although heavily criticized by mainstream media as botched and a
disaster, the administration saw it as a huge success that achieved its main objective, which was
intelligence documents to aid future anti-terror campaigns. The Seal team came away with a
treasure trove of intelligence on computer drives, cell phones and files. Did Flynn and his team act
on the intelligence contained in the files? Did this further infuriate the CIA, adding impetus to the
campaign against him?

29. Yemen anti-terror raid turned up intell treasure trove, sources says - Fox News.com - by
Jennifer Griffin - Jan 31st 2017: A raid targeting senior Al Qaeda leaders in Yemen over the weekend
yielded a large amount of potential intelligence, military sources tell Fox News. One source described
the information as a "treasure trove. Navy SEALs managed to grab a laptop, about 10 cell phones,
thumb drives, documents, and "a couple bags full" of material, according to officials with knowledge
of the debriefing. Intelligence analysts are said to be still sifting through all of the material
collected, which included computer hard drives.

30. It has begun, Tillerson fires most of the 7th floor - by S. Noble - Feb 17th 2017: Americans were
stunned to learn of the State Department rogue Shadow Government which operated in secret from
the 7th floor. They were behind the corrupt handling of the Clinton documents. CBS
News announced that Rex Tillerson, the new Secretary of State, fired most of the 7th floor policy
makers who so famously called themselves the shadow government. Among the firings were
staffers in the offices of deputy secretary of state for management and resources as well as
counselors, according to CBS News. Policy will be controlled by the White House, not professional
diplomats, CBS stated. CBS bemoans the loss of the shadow governments policy-making
expertise.

31. Trumps world of intrigue: twists and turns of the Michael Flynn resignation - Global Research -
by Larry Chin - Feb 20th 2017: With Donald Trump, nothing is as it seems. The Michael Flynn episode
exemplifies the elusive, unpredictable and deadly nature of the high stakes conflict that continues
to unfold. What is obvious and beyond question Is that President Trump is at war with the Deep
State in all of its forms, including significant factions of the American intelligence and law
enforcement community, the mainstream media (largely controlled by the CIA), and virtually the
entire political establishment. Trump is clearly viewed as an existential threat to their criminal
enterprise. This apparatus, on every level, is engaged in a coup detat. What is not clear, and
extremely difficult to assess, is the nature of Trumps response to his enemies. Also not clear is the
internal state of his administration. Foes as well as allies have been kept off balance.

31. The Flynn Conundrum - Global Research - Feb 20th 2017: Citing that this was not a time for
petty partisanship, former Rep Dennis Kucinich indicated that the White House is under attack from
rogue elements within the US intel community and that the President must act forthrightly to
identify what may be treasonous sources of repeated leaks within intelligence that have occurred
since January 20th. At Thursdays press conference, the President indicated he had requested the
Department of Justice to conduct a criminal investigation into the leaks and identity of the
leakers.
 51

31. And what if Trump had not changed his mind? - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyysan - Apr 10th
2017: The chancelleries and the Press are claiming that President Trump changed his policy and
betrayed his electors by accepting the resignation of General Flynn. Thierry Meyssan, however,
points out several incoherencies which seem to indicate just the opposite.

31. Trumps Feb 16th Press Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5FRUM-AK9k

31. Trumps world of intrigue: twists and turns of the Michael Flynn resignation - Global Research -
by Larry Chin - Feb 20th 2017: A curious resignation: The Flynn episode has been described as a
cover-up without a crime. Flynn broke no laws. He was cleared by the FBI, as detailed in this
Washington Post article. (The Washington Post is among the leading anti-Trump organs.) Flynn acted
appropriately and within his authority as the incoming national security adviser, and did not (as
opposition propaganda claims) negotiate sanctions while on the phone with the Russian
ambassador. Transcripts bear this out. Trump himself has repeatedly maintained that Flynn did his
job. Why was Flynn asked to resign? According to the official White House line, Trump and Vice
President Mike Pence were not pleased with the manner of Flynns communication. Was Flynns
resignation merely a matter of internal protocol? A chemistry problem or power struggle within
the Trump inner circle? If so, what was the nature of this internal problem, and why wasnt it
handled internally? Who and what forced a dramatic and publicly damaging scandal? Tables turned:
Following a full day of media onslaught, Trump took to Twitter. He quickly set up a news
conference, during which he publicly reversed the narrative in aggressive fashion. Leaks are the
real story. Leaks. Not Flynn, not problems within the administration, not Russia. The leaks are
real. The news is fake. Was it a sting operation?: The intriguing speculation, not reported in the
mainstream media, is that the entire Flynn scenario could have been an elaborate sting operation, a
trap set by Trump deliberately to expose leakers, as part of a larger operation being directed
against Deep State. This operation, in turn, is part of the draining the swamp agenda the long
awaited sweeping cleanup campaign to flush out the political establishment. There are several
accounts that also argue persuasively that it was a sting operation: Ousting General Flynn
Elaborate Ruse to Expose Leakers, Is the Flynn Resignation a Sting?, Leakers Beware - Trump Leak
Operation Timeline. According to a detailed analysis (citing Russian intelligence sources), the Flynn
episode was a canary trap- classic spy craft set up in advance by Trump and Flynn, in
coordination with the FBI and other branches of intelligence and law enforcement, to expose and
catch leakers and corrupt media figures working on behalf of the Deep State. Flynn was
concurrently running operations targeting major international drug trafficking networks
connected to the CIA, Islamic militants, and the Clintons. According to the above account, it is
believed or rumored that Flynn and his team remain operational, working in the Bureau of
Intelligence and Research. This suggests that Flynns was not really fired, but moved to a more
covert role, for practical reasons. The official US Treasury sanction about the most recent case
against the network of Samark Jose Lopez Bello headed by Flynn, dated February 13, 2017, can be
seen here: https://www.treasury.gov/presscenter/pressreleases/Pages/as0005.aspx?src=ilaw. The
Flynn trap/operation is not over (the media has not stopped tossing around purposely leaked
material). It may not be the only sting operation that the Trump administration has in the works.
According to Jack Posobiec of Citizens for Trump, and a strong Trump supporter, Trump
successfully used sting operations throughout his presidential campaign and the election. In
Posobiecs view, the story of Trumps plan to use the National Guard to round up immigrants was
intentionally planted. The Associated Press has been caught with this trap. Further evidence of a
massive cleanup campaign- the long awaited swamp draining includes the bloodbath firing
 52

of 7th floor State Department officials by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and the dismissal of
numerous staff employees, allegedly for failing to pass background checks. Craig Deare, senior NSC
official, was just fired for expressing opinions counter to Trumps agenda. Flynns role behind the
Yemen raid could also have triggered CIA retaliation.

31. Leakers beware: Trump has utterly defeated the disloyal coteries of the US intelligence
community - by Thomas Wictor - Feb 13th 2017: President Trump has defeated Democrats in the
intelligence community (IC) who were leaking classified information to the press. Such leaks have
been a problem for many presidents, but Trump is the first who took a proactive approach and set
up a sting operation that identified the leakers. Its highly illegal to leak classified information. Its
also illegal to PUBLISH this information, but Trump is too smart to try and prosecute reporters. I
thought that Trump would fire members of the IC until the leaks stopped, but the president solved
the problem with a much more imaginative and deadly approach: He fed the IC false information.
When this information was published, Trump was able to identify individual leakers. How? Each
group or individual who leaked was given a different version of events. This is CLASSIC spycraft. If
nine individuals are told nine different stories, and then each of those stories is published, you know
the identity of each person who talked to the press. Its called a barium meal, after the medical
test used to detect problems in the gastrointestinal tract. Soft tissues dont show up on X-rays.
Barium salts are radio-opaque, meaning that they show up in a radiograph or X-ray. Author Tom
Clancy called it a canary trap. You give multiple sources multiple versions of events. When the
sources repeat their version word for word, you can identify each leaker individually. Magic: In World
War II, Magic was the code name for the code-breaking done by the US Armys Signals Intelligence
Service (SIS) and the US Navys Communication Special Unit. Japanese military code was called
Purple. Although Magic had been able to break much of Purple, some things were still a mystery.
Magic determined in early 1942 that the Japanese were close to carrying out a major attack.
However, the location of the attackwhich the Japanese called AFcould not be figured out.
Therefore the Americans carried out a barium test: Using an underwater cable, they contacted
Midway Island, telling the base to broadcast a radio message in the clear that the desalinization
plant had broken down. The Japanese immediately sent a coded message to their forces that the
desalinization plant at AF had broken down. Now the Americans knew that the target of the
impending attack was Midway Island. The greatest admiral in the US NavyFrank Jack Fletcher
was sent out to meet the Japanese before they arrived. Fletcher was like Donald Trump. He was
fearless and imaginative, a man who took massive but CALCULATED risks when given a nearly
impossible job. He sank all four of the Japanese aircraft carriers, killing the most experienced
officers, sailors, airmen, flight-deck facilitators, and mechanics. Japan never recovered, since there
wasnt enough time to train replacements. Frank Jack Fletcher was the only flag officer who refused
to be interviewed for the official US naval history of World War II. He said that his own actions were
unimportant; all that mattered was what his men did. Winner of the Medal of Honor for his actions at
the Battle of Veracruz (April 21-24, 1914), he died four days before his 88th birthday. Hiring a hit man:
In law enforcement, officers must avoid entrapment. A potential criminal must decide to commit
the crime him or herself. Officers cant put the idea into the persons head. If, for example, a person
wants to hire a hit man to murder a spouse, a police officer will pose as a murderer. That officer will
ask over and over, Are you sure you want to do this? The officer will describe in detail what hes
going to do, as well as the consequences. The person hiring the hit man therefore makes an
informed choice to commit the crime. Donald Trump posed as a hit man. He made sure that the
leakers in the IC knew that their actions were illegal. He WARNED them. Then he launched his sting.
 53

Timeline of the leakers being identified: August 17, 2016 As the Republican nominee, Donald
Trump received his first classified briefing by the IC. The briefing was prepared by Director of
National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper. Retired US Army General Michael Flynn sat in.
September 29, 2016 Time magazine published classified information that the IC briefed Donald
Trump that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The source for this claim is an
unidentified intelligence official. October 31, 2016 Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid
wrote a letter to FBI Director James Comey, claiming that Comey had explosive information about
close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government
a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States. November 15, 2016 Donald Trump received
his first presidential daily briefing (PDB). He was given highly classified information by members of
the IC. Immediately the IC told the press that Trump demanded security clearances for his children.
Trump denied the claim. General Michael Flynn sat in on the PDB. November 18, 2016 Trump chose
General Michael Flynn as his National Security Adviser. A former head of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, Flynn is trained in espionage. December 9, 2016 The IC told the press that Trump receives
only one PDB per week, at his request. Initially the press did not report that Vice President Elect Mike
Pence received the six other presidential daily briefings. Pence is very experienced in foreign policy,
having brought multiple Israeli defense contractors to Indiana when he was governor. The press also
did not report the context for Trump receiving one PDB per week: Trump delegates responsibilities.
Mike Pence will serve as the presidents surrogate in the foreign policy realm, freeing up Trump to
concentrate on domestic policy. Late December, 2016 The FBI opened an investigation into the
claims that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 US presidential election. January 10, 2017 The
press began to write about a 35-page dossier put together by an alleged British former spy. The
dossier claimed that Russia was attempting to blackmail Donald Trump through the use of sex tapes.
Trump denied the allegation. January 11, 2017 Trump described his first sting. In order to identify the
people leaking classified information to the press, Trump did not tell his staff that the IC was about
to brief him. After the briefing, the news was leaked to the press. Trump was therefore able to
identify the leakers. He warned them that this behavior is illegal. January 11, 2017 DNI James
Clapper spoke to Trump by telephone about the leaks. Clapper issued a statement that the leaks are
extremely corrosive and damaging to our national security. January 23, 2017 Having LISTENED TO
THE TAPES, the FBI cleared General Michael Flynn of any wrongdoing in his conversations with
Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Flynn did not violate the Logan Act by attempting to
influence US foreign policy. February 2, 2017 The IC leaked what it said were details of
conversations between President Trump, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and Mexican
President Enrique Pea Nieto. Both Australia and Mexico denied media reports that the calls were
acrimonious and that Trump made threats, was rude, and behaved badly. February 8, 2017 In an
interview with the Washington Post, General Michael Flynn categorically denied having discussed
sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Thus we see that the Washington Post had been
given classified information by the IC and wanted to get Flynn on record so that they could spring
what they thought was a brilliant trap. February 9, 2017 The New York Times and the Washington
Post published articles claiming that General Michael Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian
ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December of 2016. The articles were very confusing and contradictory.
Why couldnt the IC tell us if Flynn had broken the law or not? Because everyone had been given a
different story. General Flynn also knew he was being recorded. Therefore we can have no doubt
that this was a sting operation coordinated between President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence,
General Flynn, the FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). February 13,
2016 The IC told the press that in late January, acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates warned the
White House that General Michael Flynn may be vulnerable to Russian blackmail, due to his
conversations with Ambassador Kislyak. Yates based her opinion on a report. Sally Q. Yates is the
 54

first of the disloyal Democrats to be passed false information. She never listened to the actual tapes
of Flynns conversations. February 16, 2017 Donald Trump gave a press conference in which he
admitted to the sting. He said that the leaks are real, but the news is fake. In other words, the ODNI
fed the IC false information that the IC then blathered to the press. The ODNI did this in order to
restore to President Trump complete control over the IC so that he can stop the corrosive and
damaging leaks. Trump also said that the conversations with Australia and Mexico were almost
like a test. In reality they WERE a test. No transcripts of the conversations were ever produced, and
both Australia and Mexico denied the ICs claims. The leakers have no access to actual information.
They were set up. Its clear that the Trump sting operation involved PATRIOTIC members of the
National Security Agency (NSA) and PATRIOTIC members of the ODNI. Its also clear that General
Michael Flynn helped create the barium test or canary trap. The CIA hates Flynn due to his criticism of
their incompetence. After the major leaks began in September of 2016, General Flynn, Trump, Pence,
James Comey, and James Clapper hatched a plan to identify the leakers by giving them false
information. Flynn had to be fired so that the leakers and the press would continue their collusion.
This means that Trump has even MORE evidence of their criminality, since they didnt immediately
stop. The firing of Flynn made them overconfident and careless. One down, more to go! A fake
trophy scalp: Flynn was not fired against his will. For some reason people dont understand that. Im
very surprised. Do you not grasp that Flynn CREATED this operation? The position of National
Security Adviser is almost ceremonial. When the leaks began in September of 2016, it was FLYNN
who crafted this sting. He hasnt been sacrificed. Instead, hes working behind the scenes to root out
corruption in the IC. Today at his press conference, Donald Trump said he thinks the leaks will stop.
This is because the leakers are looking at very long prison sentences. Like Tom Cruise in The
Firm, Donald Trump now knows everything. Its up to the IC whether or not Trump unloads his cargo
of information or keeps it at sea forever.

31. Is the Flynn resignation a sting? - by Mr. Biggs - Feb 15th 2017: As Ive said before, Im generally
not into the day to day political gossip. Especially when the mainstream press cries impeachment
wolf for the countless time. So when I heard of Flynns resignation I initially shrugged my shoulders.
But I also take a Trump victory seriously, and I take his pledge to #draintheswamp seriously. Theres
lots of slimy things in the swamp that dont want their precious habitat destroyed, and they fight
back. So when my friend Thomas Wictor started talking about how the Flynn resignation was a sting,
I started paying attention. This could very well be phase I of Trumps plan to drain the swamp. And
an indication of just how serious Trump is about committing to his campaign promises. Thomass
theory was strung along in 20 tweets. Ive compiled them in edited form for you below. Oh, and he
does some great military and foreign policy research. You should check him out. Lets say a
person wants to hire a killer to bump off a spouse. They ask Mikey the Biker. Mikey goes to the
cops. A police officer poses as a killer for hire. He asks the person 900 times if they REALLY want to
kill the spouse. The cops says, Lets be clear: You want this person dead, right? You want me to
shoot him in the head, right? It was clear that the CIA was telling the media stories about Flynn
having inappropriate connections to Russia. Now, imagine Trump as a cop playing a killer for hire. He
began ASKING THE CIA IF IT REALLY WANTED TO DO THIS. January 11: Trump announces that he
pulled a sting operation and identified intelligence official who leaked information. Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper issues a statement opposing leaks. January 23: The OBAMA FBI
CLEARS FLYNN OF WRONGDOING in his conversation with the Russian ambassador. Now, the
murderous spouse goes ahead and tries to hire the killer. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warns
the Trump administration that Flynn might be subject to blackmail by Russia. Yates bases her
warning ON A TRANSCRIPT. Shes the first murderous spouse caught in the sting. She was fired
 55

January 31 for refusing to enforce the travel ban. February 9: The New York Times and Washington
Post claim that Flynn discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador. The articles are crap. They
contradict themselves. If those intelligence officials have first-hand knowledge, why cant they tell us
a straight story? New York Times. Again, total confusion about what was said. Finally, the proof that
this was a sting: FLYNN KNEW HE WAS BEING RECORDED. From the Times: some officials regarded
the conversations as a potential violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from
negotiating with foreign governments in disputes involving the American government, according to one
current and former American official familiar with the case. Federal officials who have read the
transcript of the call were surprised by Mr. Flynns comments, since he would have known that
American eavesdroppers closely monitor such calls. They were even more surprised that Mr. Trumps
team publicly denied that the topics of conversations included sanctions. Trump warned, Clapper
warned, and the FBI warned, but the CIA went ahead and leaked ANYWAY. Trump, Flynn, Clapper,
and the FBI set up the CIA. And now the CIA gets to have its peepee whacked REALLY HARD. Right
now a bunch of fat drunks are making deals with the feds to keep out of prison. Why would Trump
be impeached? You have to commit a crime to be impeached. Stop being silly. The end. UPDATE: I
told someone time will tell and gave a month to figure out the aftermath. Turns out it took hours.
The leaks are real, the news is fake. Though its not inexplicable if you go by this theory. Thomas
Wictor continues to explain: The New York Times and Washington Post interviewed over a dozen
intelligence officials. All those officials had seen transcripts of Flynns conversation with the
Russians. Yet all the officials told different stories. A foolproof method of identifying someone talking
to the press is to give him a specific story. If that story is published, you know where it came from,
because its a unique story. Why would the intelligence officials have so many different stories if they
read the same transcripts? The only possible answer is that each official was given a different transcript.
The FBI cleared Flynn on January 23. The leaks were published February 9. So Trump has everything
he needs to reform the CIA, NSA, etc. The FBI and Senate Intelligence Committee are going to investigate
now. Trump ran his own sting a month back, when he identified intelligence officials as leakers. Trump
warned them that this was illegal. It appears hes taken dramatic action. The end.

31. Was the ousting of General Flynn an elaborate ruse to expose leakers? - By the Real Fly - Feb
16th 2017: It sounds outlandish from a plebeian point of view. But the question should be proffered:
was the whole Flynn fiasco a ruse, getting the left and the media going crazy, chasing their tails over
a non-existent Russian conspiracy, an operation to expose disloyal leakers inside the administration
and/or intelligence agencies? A few things to consider. Contrary to what the mental midgets on
twitter tell you, both Bannon and Trump are brilliant strategists. If you need proof of this, accept
the fact that Hillary spent $1.6b to lose to Trump's twitter account. Ok? General Flynn has been in
intelligence almost his entire professional career. Of course he knew they were monitoring his
communications with Russia. That's a non-starter. Taking into consideration that Dr. Steve
Pieczenik is blatantly saying it was the plan the whole time to have Flynn gone very early during the
Trump administration, coupled with the fact that Rep. Chaffetz is calling for an investigation into
the leaks, I think the Machiavellian angle here is worth considering. This morning Trump tweeted
about catching low life leakers, pointing out the NY Times was complicit in the scandal.
 56

The Trump administration had to know they were surrounded by jackals when they planted a flag
inside the White House. Trump has been discussing government corruption and dishonest
intelligence reports for years. You'll know this theory is true should we start to see heads roll over
the coming weeks and months.

32. Mark Sleboda (Intl affairs & security analyst) - RTs Cross Talk: Bullhorns on the Case - March
13th 2017: 2:27-3:09: Peter Lavelle: Why Mark? Because are they there to fight terrorists or not?
Mark: Thats the ten million dollar question. What we have right now, we have conflicting signals.
And that is perfectly understandable, during the Obama administration we also had conflicting
signals. The CIA and the Pentagon were each running their own operations, often against each
other in Syria. And this, to some extent, is still going on. However, all indications are that the
Trump administration has cut off funding, arms, and supplies to the Mom centers, as they were
called in Turkey, that were funding the FSA and other Islamist groups and rebels that were allied
with Al Qaeda in Syria. That is a big change. That is what Trump promised to do.

32. Trump charged Pentagon to develop plan to destroy ISIS in 30 days: One of the points of the
future plan is to form a new coalition to fight the Islamic state in Syria and Iraq - January 29th 2017:
President Donald Trump signed a decree that charged the Pentagon within thirty days to develop
a plan to destroy Islamic State organization (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq. The text of the decree
was posted on the White House Web site. According to the text of the decree, the Pentagon should
present a comprehensive strategy and a clear plan for the elimination of ISIS. In particular, it should
provide diplomatic measures, information activities and cyber strategies designed
to isolate and delegitimize ISIS radical Islamic ideology. Also, the document provides the creation of
a new coalition to fight ISIS. In addition, it provides the mechanisms of deprivation Islamic state of
financial support, including financial transactions, money transfers, the income from the sale of oil
and trafficking, profits from the sale of works of art and historical artifacts, all other sources of
funding.

32. Trump- Clarification? - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyssan - March 14th 2017: As soon as the
new Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis, had been nominated, President Donald Trump
asked him to prepare plans which would enable him not simply to displace the jihadists here or there,
or to rely on some and not on others, but to eliminate them all.During his speech before
Congress, on 28 February, he confirmed that his objective was to put an end to radical Islamic
terrorism. In order to avoid errors of interpretation, he pointed out that both Muslims and
Christians were victims of this form of terrorismPutting an end to jihadism would mean
abandoning the joint plan by London and Washington to remodel the Greater Middle East and
 57

place the Muslim Brotherhood in power everywhere. That would be tantamount to recognising
that the Arab Springs were nothing more than the re-run by the CIA and MI6 of the Arab Revolt
of 1916. This would make it necessary for the United Kingdom to abandon a map that it has been
developing patiently for a century; for Saudi Arabia to dismantle the Muslim World League, which
has been coordinating the jihadists since 1962; for France to let go of its fantasy of a new mandate
over Syria; and for Turkey to cease sponsoring their political organisations. In all probability it is
therefore not a uniquely US decision, but one implicating at least four other states. Despite
appearances, this decision is a lot bigger than Syria. It could mean the end of the Anglo-Saxon
imperial policy and its innumerable consequences for international relations. This is in fact the aim
of Donald Trumps electoral programme, but no-one can tell if he will be able to implement it
effectively, faced as he is with the extraordinary opposition of the US elites.

32. What would happen if Washington gave up on the jihad? - Voltaire Network - by Thierry
Meyssan - March 21st 2017: President Trumps desire to fight Daesh and to put an end to
international terrorism is going to be extremely difficult to implement. Indeed, it will cause
damage to the states who organised it, and implies a reorientation of international politics. The
new President of the United States does not seem ready to give his troops the order to attack until
he has found and sealed new alliances. On the ground, the plan is restricted to the exchange of
information from the United States on one hand, and Russia and Iran on the other. In order to
maintain the status quo, the three powers have agreed to prevent any confrontation between the
Turks and the Kurds. And intensive bombing campaigns are being carried out against al-Qada in
Yemen and against Daesh in Iraq. But nothing decisive. Orders are to hold..The opposition
against President Donald Trump is so strong that the plan to fight Daesh, which is scheduled to be
presented on 22 March during a Coalition summit in Washington, is still not ready.The weapon
of international terrorism has been managed on behalf of London and Washington by the Muslim
World League since 1962. It includes both the Muslim Brotherhood (composed of Arabs) and the
Order of the Naqshbandis (mostly composed of Turko-Mongols and Caucasians)..The point is
not simply to abandon the weapon of terrorism, but also: to shatter the alliance between London
and Washington for the control of the Greater Middle East; to deprive Saudi Arabia and Turkey of
the weapon they have been developing on behalf of London and Washington for half a century.
This is why President Trump seems to be looking for new allies who will enable him to impose the
changes he wants. He is currently organising a meeting with President Xi Jinping during which he
would be able to plan the membership of his country in the Chinese Investment Bank. He would
therefore be placing his allies before the fait accompli if the United States participate in the
construction of the Silk Roads, it would become impossible for the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia,
Turkey, Germany and France to continue the jihad in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine.

33. Tillerson: Defeating ISIS No. 1 Goal for U.S., But Others Should Do More - NPR - by Michele
Kelemen - March 22nd 2017: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks Wednesday at the meeting of
the Global Coalition on the Defeat of ISIS in Washington. Top officials from the 68-nation coalition
are looking to increase pressure on ISIS. At the State Department on Wednesday, officials from 68
countries and organizations gathered for a two-day summit to coordinate plans to fight ISIS. This
was the first full meeting of the Global Coalition on the Defeat of ISIS since 2014, and a chance for the
Trump administration to flesh out what it wants to do differently. So far, it is mainly stepping up a
fight that the Obama administration put in motion. But the language is certainly different. While the
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Obama administration used to talk about the need to degrade and destroy ISIS, the Trump
administration speaks only of destroying and defeating the group. Degradation of ISIS is not the
end goal. We must defeat ISIS, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the gathered officials. I
recognize there are many pressing challenges in the Middle East, but defeating ISIS is the United
States No. 1 goal in the region. Iraqs prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, said the coalitions goal is
not to contain ISIS but to decimate it. President Trump used to tout his secret plan to defeat ISIS
on the campaign trail, but officials gathered for this weeks meeting say they have yet to see it. The
French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, says administration officials at the conference told him
they need more time to finalize a plan, though he says Defense Secretary James Mattis spoke of
threats emanating from the ISIS-held Syrian city of Raqqa and the need to act quickly. Ayrault says
France has been advocating for that for a while. Tillerson spoke in a conference room decorated with
flags from the coalition members and huge banners saying Defeat ISIS. Tillerson says the U.S. and
its partners are promising more than $2 billion this year to help areas that have been liberated from
ISIS in Iraq and Syria. At a time of massive budget cuts to his department, though, he also made clear
that he is counting on others to do more. Tillerson pointed out that the U.S. provides about 75
percent of the military resources in the fight and a quarter of the humanitarian resources. As a
coalition, we are not in the business of nation-building or reconstruction, he said. We must ensure
that our respective nations precious and limited resources are devoted to preventing the
resurgence of ISIS and equipping the war-torn communities to take the lead in rebuilding their
institutions and returning to stability.

33. Destroy DAESH? - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyssan - March 29th 2017: While Washington
multiplies the signals confirming its intention to destroy Daesh, the British and the French,
followed by the rest of the Europeans, are contemplating going their own way The meeting of
the anti-Daesh Coalition in Washington, on 22-23 March, went very badly. Although in appearance,
the 68 members reasserted their will to fight this organisation, in reality, they only displayed their
differences. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reminded the 68 members of President Trumps
commitment to destroy Daesh, and no longer simply to reduce it, as the Obama administration had
stated. By doing so, he placed the members of the Coalition before the fait accompli without
discussionFirst problem how can the Europeans in general, and the British in particular, save
their own jihadists, if its no longer a question of displacing them, but eliminating them. When
asked by the Europeans what Washington intends to do with liberated Rakka, Rex Tillerson gave
this strange answer that he would bring back the population that had been displaced or had left
seeking refuge. The Europeans therefore concluded that since this population is massively
favourable to Damascus, Washington intends to give back the territory to the Syrian Arab Republic.
The Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs des Affaires, Augusto Santos Silva, then spoke to make
the point that this proposition went against everything that had been decided previously. The
Europeans have the moral duty, he stressed, to pursue their efforts to protect the refugees who
had fled the bloody dictatorship. Even if it were liberated, Rakka would not be in a safe zone, since
the Syrian Arab Army would be worse than DAESH.

33. Israel's US envoy: Tel Aviv always wanted Syria President Assad to go -Sept 17th 2013 - Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GviM1W76IdI

33. Yaalon: I would prefer Islamic State to Iran in Syria: Defense minister says jihadists dont have
capabilities of Islamic Republic, which he brands Israels greatest enemy - Times of Israel - by Judah
 59

Gross - Jan 19th 2016: Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Tuesday that Iran poses a greater threat
than the Islamic State, and that if the Syrian regime were to fall, Israel would prefer that IS was in
control of the territory than an Iranian proxy. In Syria, if the choice is between Iran and the Islamic
State, I choose the Islamic State. They dont have the capabilities that Iran has, Yaalon told a
conference held by the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. Our greatest enemy is the
Iranian regime that has declared war on us, the defense minister said of the threats facing Israel.

33. New UN report reveals collaboration between Israel and Syrian rebels: the new documents
show that Israel has been doing more than simply treating wounded Syrian civilians in hospitals -
Jerusalem Post - by Maya Shwader - December 7th 2014: NEW YORK - The Syrian ambassador to the
UN has long complained of a Zionist conspiracy working with the Syrian rebels to overthrow
President Bashar Assad. Now, a report from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF)
reveals that Israel has been working closely with Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights and have kept
close contact over the past 18 months. The report was submitted to the UN Security Council at the
beginning of the month. The documents show that Israel has been doing more than simply treating
wounded Syrian civilians in hospitals. This and a few past reports have described transfer of
unspecified supplies from Israel to the Syrian rebels, and sightings of IDF soldiers meeting with the
Syrian opposition east of the green zone, as well as incidents when Israeli soldiers opened up the
fence to allow Syrians through who did not appear to be injured. At one point, a small tent city was
erected around 300 meters away from the Israeli sector for about 70 families of Syrian deserters, the
report said. The Syrian army then sent a letter of complaint to UNDOF, warning them to evacuate the
camp or it would be considered a target, and claiming that terrorists were using the camp to cross
into Israel. Israels health ministry says around 1,000 Syrians have received treatment in Golan
hospitals, but maintains that only civilians are treated. The UNDOF report, on the other hand, says
they have seen Israelis treating civilians as well as insurgents, including members of al-Qaida and
Islamic State. The report said UNDOF observed at least 10 wounded persons being transferred by
armed members of the opposition from the Bravo side across the cease-fire line. UNDOF has
monitored the Golan Heights buffer zone between Israel and Syria since 1974. Six countries
contributed to the 1,200-strong brigade. UNDOF peacekeepers have been the target of kidnappings
and attacks carried out by al-Qaida on the Syrian side since September, causing hundreds of troops
to withdraw to across Israeli border.

33. Report: Israel treating Al Qaeda fighters wounded in Syria civil war - Jerusalem Post - by JPost
staff - March 13th 2015: Nusra Front is the Sunni Muslim al-Qaida offshoot which is currently
fighting the Iranian-backed axis of Bashar Assad and Hezbollah in Syria. Israel has opened its
borders with Syria in order to provide medical treatment to Nusra Front and al-Qaida fighters
wounded in the ongoing civil war, according to The Wall Street Journal. The prominent American
newspaper reported that Nusra Front, the Sunni Muslim al-Qaida offshoot which is currently fighting
the Iranian-backed axis of Bashar Assad and Hezbollah, "hasn't bothered Israel since seizing the
border area last summer" along the Golan Heights. While Israel views al-Qaida and its allies as
enemies, it is far more disturbed by what it views as an even bigger menace Iran and its proxies.
According to The Wall Street Journal, this attitude has caused tension with the United States, which
has also targeted al-Qaida and Nusra Front fighters in Syria. Amos Yadlin, the former military
intelligence chief who is currently in the running to be defense minister should the Zionist Union, led
by Isaac Herzog, succeed in defeating incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the elections
next week, told the Journal that Hezbollah and Iran "are the major threat to Israel, much more than
the radical Sunni Islamists, who are also an enemy." Those Sunni elements who control some two-
 60

thirds to 90% of the border on the Golan aren't attacking Israel. This gives you some basis to think
that they understand who their real enemy is - maybe it isnt Israel, Yadlin is quoted by The Wall
Street Journal as saying. The fact that the Israel-Syria border area along the Golan Heights has
remained largely quiet has sparked accusations among supporters of embattled President Bashar
Assad that the Sunni Islamist alliance, which includes al-Qaida, is backed by Israel. Some in Syria
joke: 'How can you say that al-Qaida doesnt have an air force? They have the Israeli air force',
Assad told Foreign Affairs magazine earlier this year. They are supporting the rebels in Syria. It is
very clear. Israel has denied actively aiding al-Qaida, though it makes no secret of its determination
to thwart Hezbollah's attempts to establish a foothold near the Golan frontier from whence it could
harass the North. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon has stated repeatedly his contention that Iran is
seeking to open a new front against Israel from the Syrian Golan Heights. Earlier this year, an air
strike attributed by international media reports to Israel struck and killed 12 Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps and Hezbollah operatives in Quneitra, Syria, near the Israeli border. In retaliation,
Hezbollah guerillas launched a missile attack near the Har Dov region straddling the Lebanon-Israel
border weeks later, killing two Israeli soldiers. Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, which has
claimed the lives of upwards of 200,000 people, Israel has provided medical assistance to nearly
2,000 Syrians. The Wall Street Journal quoted "an Israeli military official" who said that most of
those treated were armed rebels fighting the regime. We dont ask who they are, we dont do any
screening," the official said. "Once the treatment is done, we take them back to the border and
they go on their way.

34. The White House converts to democracy - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyssan - April 4th
2017: The new President of the United States has announced that he is putting an end to his
countrys interference in Syrian politics. The US ambassador to the Security Council, Nikki Haley,
did not stop at announcing that overthrowing President el-Assad was no longer Washingtons
priority - she clearly declared that only the Syrian people had the right to choose its own
President. Her declaration was immediately confirmed by the Secretary of State, Rex
TillersonThe astonishment of the member states of NATO was as great as the measure of the
event and because since 9/11 they have been using the concept of democracy completely back to
front, they said nothing. Finally, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jean-Marc Ayrault, spoke
up. The question is not to enquire whether or not we must throw Assad out, he declared. The
question is to know whether the international community will respect its own engagements.
Translation: The question is not to enquire what the Syrians want, but whether or not the United
States and its allies will respect the promise of the Obama administration to re-establish a French
mandate for Syria.

35. May 22nd 2017 - Breaking: USA Is Under Attack By the Deep State - Thats The Real
Constitutional Crisis Interview with Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Governor Mike
Huckabee - Global Research - by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich and Catherine J. Frompovich:
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, has delineated the real problem about whats
going on in Washington, DC, and the deliberately created political kabuki theater regarding
President Trump. Kucinich says President Trump is under attack by Deep State bureaucrats who
want to take out Trump.
 61

35. Adelson said to hail Trump as likely best president for Israel ever: Jewish billionaire casino
magnate and staunch supporter of Netanyahu reportedly makes remark in front of Dick Cheney -
The Times of Israel - March 21st 2017

35. Adelson reportedly furious with Tillerson for tying embassy move to peace deal
Republican-backing casino billionaire said dismayed at suggestion that relocating diplomatic
mission is negotiable - Times of Israel - by Stuart Winer - May 15th 2017: Jewish-American billionaire
and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is reportedly angry at US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for
saying that a previously promised move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem now
depends on whether or not it would harm peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. A
furious Adelson rejected Tillersons assertion that the embassy move should be connected to the
peace process, sources told the Axios news site in a report published Monday. One of the biggest
backers of Republican candidates, Adelson had previously told Trump that the Palestinians were not
partners for peace and that their demands were impossible for Israel to agree to, the report said. The
report gave no other details. In an interview with NBC that was broadcast on Sunday, Tillerson said
US President Donald Trump was deliberating whether the embassy relocation would help or harm
peace prospects, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to release a statement saying
relocation will boost efforts in that it will shatter Palestinian fantasies of Jerusalem as the capital
of a future Palestinian state. Last month, the Politico website reported that Adelson has not funded
any pro-Trump groups since the inauguration in January because Trump did not follow through on
a campaign promise to move the embassy to Jerusalem. In his election campaign, Trump promised
to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital and relocate the American mission there, drawing a fierce
rebuke from Palestinian Authority officials and concern from the European Union and others that
the move could spark violence. While other presidential candidates have also promised to move the
embassy, in line with a 1995 bill ordering the move, once taking office all have signed waivers
postponing the move for security reasons. The current waiver will expire on May 31, when Trump
will have to decide whether to extend it or move the mission. Despite the enthusiasm expressed by
Israeli officials over a possible embassy move, Trump has seemed to walk back his pledge to
relocate the embassy since his inauguration. Tillersons comments came ahead of Trumps
scheduled trip to Israel next week, which will coincide with Israeli celebrations marking the fiftieth
anniversary of the capture of the eastern part of the city from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War.

35. HARSH EXCHANGE BETWEEN TRUMP AND NETANYAHU TEAMS DAYS AHEAD OF KEY ISRAEL
VISIT - The Jerusalem Post - by Joy Bernard - May 15th 2017: The two leaders' teams clashed on
Monday evening as reports claim that a US official told Netanyahu's team that the Western Wall
was part of the W. Bank and was a "disputed territory." A dramatic rift was created between
Washington and Jerusalem as US President Donald Trump's team as well as Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's team both issued harsh statements on Monday evening less than a week
prior to the president's much-expected visit to Israel. The drama unfolded when a senior White
House official said that the Western Wall was part of the West Bank and not part of Israel's
territory, as Channel 2 reported on Monday. "The Western Wall is not in your territory", the official
reportedly said. It seems that the official was prompted to make the statement after members of
Netanyahu's team asked if Netanyahu could join Trump on the visit to the Western Wall and whether
Israeli photographers could document the event, to which the Americans replied that the Western
Wall was a "disputed territory". According to Channel 2, the same official told members of
Netanyahu's team that Trump's visit to the Western Wall was a private visit and also added: "No way,
why is this your business?" The official allegedly went on to say: "This is not your territory but rather
 62

part of the West Bank. A source close to the preparations team in Israel told Channel 2 that the
statements made by the White House official were received with utter shock by Netanyahu's team.
"In Israel they're convinced that this statement is opposed to President Trump's policy as it was
expressed recently in his behavior and in his firm resistance to the most recent Security Council
resolution. Israel has turned to the US [to discuss this further]. Netanyahu on Monday called again
on Trump to move the embassy to Jerusalem, on the same day that his controversial Israel envoy
pick David Friedman arrives in Israel to begin his tenure.

35. Trump Comes to Israel Citing a Palestinian Deal as Crucial - Jerusalem Post - by Peter Baker -
May 22nd 2017: JERUSALEM - President Trump began a two-day visit to Israel on Monday with a
blunt assessment for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: If Israel really wants peace with its Arab
neighbors, the cost will be resolving the generations-old standoff with the Palestinians. For years,
Mr. Netanyahu has sought to recalibrate relations with Sunni Arab nations in a mutual bid to
counter Shiite-led Iran, while subordinating the Palestinian dispute as a secondary issue. But as Mr.
Trump arrived in Jerusalem after meetings in Saudi Arabia, the president indicated that he and
those Arab states see an agreement with the Palestinians as integral to that new regional
alignment. On those issues, there is a strong consensus among the nations of the world including
many in the Muslim world, Mr. Trump said. I was deeply encouraged by my conversations with
Muslim world leaders in Saudi Arabia, including King Salman, who I spoke to at great length. King
Salman feels very strongly and, I can tell you, would love to see peace with Israel and the
Palestinians. Mr. Trump added that line to the remarks prepared for him, in effect tying the future
of the anti-Iran coalition to the Palestinian issue despite Mr. Netanyahus long-time efforts to unlink
the two. There is a growing realization among your Arab neighbors that they have common cause
with you in the threat posed by Iran, and it is indeed a threat, theres no question about that, Mr.
Trump said. The presidents arrival here opened a new chapter in Middle East peacemaking, one that
will test whether a career of business-deal-making can translate to success in the world of
international diplomacy. Mr. Trump sought to showcase his friendship with Mr. Netanyahu as the
two shared dinner with their wives and called each other Donald and Bibi, the prime ministers
nickname. But neither publicly cited any concrete steps in pursuing a peace agreement. Mr. Trump
did not formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as some Israeli officials hoped he
would do since he has shelved his promise to move the American Embassy here from Tel Aviv. Nor
for that matter did he publicly press Israel to curb settlement construction in the West Bank as
Palestinians hoped. Mr. Netanyahu offered nothing more than a few modest gestures like extending
the hours at the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, recycled from previous
moments in the long-running dispute with the Palestinians. During his most extended comments,
toward the end of the day, Mr. Netanyahu skipped right over the Palestinian question to focus on
Iran. He, too, saw the possibility of an accommodation with Arab neighbors but did not tie it to the
Palestinian dispute. For the first time in my lifetime, I see a real hope for change, he told Mr.
Trump. The Arab leaders who you met yesterday could help change the atmosphere, and they
could help create the conditions for a realistic peace. Even as they talked, the pressures that
underscore the complexities of any negotiation were evident. More than 1,000 Palestinians in the
occupied West Bank marched to the Qalandiya checkpoint from Ramallah, carrying posters of
Palestinian inmates on hunger strike in Israeli prisons, and setting off clashes with Israeli soldiers,
who fired tear-gas containers, rubber bullets and live ammunition. In a separate episode, Israeli
authorities reported that a Palestinian teenager who tried to stab police officers near a Palestinian
town on the outskirts of Jerusalem was shot to death. On the other side of the equation, Mr.
Netanyahu came under continuing pressure from the right wing of his governing coalition not to
 63

make concessions. Naftali Bennett, a pro-settler cabinet minister, used the opportunity of meeting
Mr. Trump in an airport receiving line to press him to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital. He
can be the one who goes into history, Mr. Bennett told an Israeli radio station. Mr. Trumps
reported reply was noncommittal. Trump said, Thats an idea, Mr. Bennett recalled. To some on
the political left, the presidents message linking an anti-Iran coalition to peace with the Palestinians
seemed a chance that Mr. Netanyahu should seize. The regional opportunity is ready and ripe,
Isaac Herzog, head of the opposition Labor Party, said in an interview after meeting Mr. Trump in the
same receiving line. I was very pleased as one who leads the Israeli opposition and the peace camp
in Israel. We were very pleased that the president showed he is trying to break the impasse. Mr.
Trump arrived on what was believed to be the first open, direct flight to Israel from Saudi Arabia,
which do not have diplomatic relations, a sign of the possibility he sees for what he has called the
ultimate deal. After meeting with Reuven Rivlin, who holds the largely ceremonial position of
president of Israel, Mr. Trump toured the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, home of what is believed to
be the tomb of Jesus Christ. He then became the first sitting president to visit the Western Wall, the
holiest site for Jewish prayer, where he donned the traditional skullcap and left a note in a crevice.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump is to travel the short distance to Bethlehem, in the West Bank, to meet with
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Trump is then scheduled to return to
Jerusalem to lay a wreath at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance center, and to deliver a
speech at the Israel Museum. At the airport arrival ceremony, Mr. Netanyahu repeated his
longstanding position that he shares the commitment to peace but with the same conditions as
always. Israels hand is extended in peace to all our neighbors, including the Palestinians, he said.
The peace we seek is a genuine and durable one, in which the Israeli state is recognized, security
remains in Israels hands and the conflict ends once and for all. No previous American president has
come to Israel this early in his tenure. Bill Clinton visited in his second year in office and Jimmy
Carter in his third, while Richard M. Nixon, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all waited until their
second terms to make the trip. But a visit that was once anticipated as a powerful expression of
solidarity between two like-minded leaders, Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu, has become more
complicated amid a series of logistical and political stress points. Among other things, Mr. Trump
last week disclosed to Russias foreign minister and ambassador some classified information that
came from Israel about an Islamic State plot, potentially jeopardizing the Israeli intelligence source
and deeply angering some Israeli security officials. Determined not to spoil the visit, Mr. Netanyahu
had resolved not to mention the intelligence breach publicly. When a reporter asked the two leaders
about it on Monday, the prime minister brushed it off. Intelligence cooperation is terrific, he said.
Its never been better. Mr. Trump, who said last week that he had every right to disclose the
information, denied identifying Israel as the source. I never mentioned the word or the name
Israel, he said. Never mentioned during that conversation. Theyre all saying I did, so you have
another story wrong. Never mentioned the word Israel. The stories did not report that he had
mentioned Israel by name. Instead, they quoted current and former intelligence officials as saying
that he had mentioned enough details about the intelligence to potentially expose the source.
The $110 billion in arms sales that Mr. Trump announced in Saudi Arabia was also a source of
concern in Israel. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson sought to reassure the Israelis. There has been
nothing entered into with the arms sales agreements with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia or any of the
other countries that do not fully allow us to fulfill our commitments to Israel and the longstanding
security arrangements we have with Israel, he told reporters on Air Force One. Still, much as he was
in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump was greeted by many in Israel as a welcome change from Mr. Obama,
whose relationship with Mr. Netanyahu soured early on after Mr. Obama called for a settlement
freeze, and only worsened when he struck an agreement with Iran intended to curb its nuclear
program. Mr. Trump repeated his criticism of the nuclear deal on Monday with Mr. Netanyahu
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standing by his side. He also credited Mr. Netanyahu with being serious about peace with the
Palestinians, an assessment the prime ministers critics do not share, and expressed optimism about
reaching an agreement. Ive heard its one of the toughest deals of all, he said, but I have a
feeling were going to get there eventually. I hope.

35. Why Trump is on track to disappoint Israels Netanyahu - Washington Post - by Ishaan Tharoor -
May 23rd 2017: Even by their standards, the bromance between President Trump and Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed particularly deep in Jerusalem on Monday. Netanyahu, relaxed
and beaming, welcomed the American president to the united capital of the Jewish state, the
second stop on Trump's overseas tour. I think we quote each other, said Netanyahu, with Trump
grinning at his side. We understand each other and so much of the things that we wish to
accomplish for both our countries. It was a marked change in atmosphere from meetings with
Trump's predecessor. Netanyahu and former president Barack Obama clashed over the American
role in brokering a nuclear deal with Iran, which Netanyahu actively lobbied against - including during
a 2015 speech to Congress. The American refusal to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution on Israeli
settlements in the waning weeks of the Obama presidency led to howls of fury from the Israeli
government. Now all is sunny again. But no matter the comparatively good vibes surrounding
Trump's trip to Israel, Netanyahu may grow disappointed in the coming months and years. Trump's
election lifted hopes among Israeli right-wingers and ultranationalists that Washington would
shelve talk about the two-state solution and look the other way as vast settlement expansion took
place in the West Bank. But, just a few months later, Trump seems genuinely eager to strike a
peace accord and has slow-pedaled his promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a gesture
that would enrage Palestinians and infuriate the Arab statesmen Trump hopes to enlist in his peace
efforts. That has some on the Israeli right grumbling already. There's also no indication so far that
the president is moving to scrap the nuclear deal, which Netanyahu and his allies hoped would be
jettisoned soon after Trump took office. Sure, Trump did offer up the sort of harsh language on Iran
- Israel's regional foe - that Netanyahu wanted to hear. The United States would work with Israel to
roll back the threat of an Iranian regime that is threatening the region and causing so much violence
and suffering, Trump said. He also took the unprecedented step of visiting the Western Wall,
something no sitting American president has ever done because of the sensitivities around the site
and Jerusalem's disputed status. Netanyahu celebrated the act, telling Trump that the people of
Israel applaud you for it - but Trump pointedly did not bring any Israeli politicians along on his visit.
The bottom line is that not only does Trump have no intention of jeopardizing his relations with
Sunni Arab leaders by moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, he wont even make the tiniest
gesture in that direction by allowing Netanyahu to join him for a few minutes in the Old
City, wrote Haaretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer. Instead of breaking from the past, Trump seems to
be taking the equivocating posture of his predecessors. The early perceptions that Trump would
reverse all of Obamas policy decisions and never challenge Israel very quickly proved
inaccurate, wrote Daniel Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel under Obama. So far, his
administration has embarked on a much more traditional approach of seeking to restrain Israeli
settlements, curtail Palestinian violence and incitement, and revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations
toward a two-state solution, with the support of key Arab states. On Tuesday, Trump will travel to
Bethlehem to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a politician who is increasingly
unpopular at home but still championed by foreign leaders as a key interlocutor for Mideast peace.
Trump has built up Abbas by treating him with respect. And his envoy is pressing the Israelis to
take meaningful steps to allow the Palestinians to grow their economy, said Martin Indyk, a
former U.S. envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in an interview with the Atlantic. Its almost
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exactly what Bill Clinton did when he was president. The big question is whether Trump will follow
through on his stated zeal to fix the problem, especially when the status quo seems to serve his
friend Netanyahu's interests. Both the Israelis and Palestinians are aware that even a more
traditional American president is unlikely to have the political will to do what is necessary to broker a
just peace agreement, wrote Yousef Munayyer, a scholar at the Middle East Institute. With Trump,
they know the chances are even more remote. At the same time, neither can afford to alienate
Washington. So they must carefully play along as Trump engages the issues, and they will likely seek
opportunities to get whatever they can from him in the process. Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East
expert at the Center for a New American Security, suggested Netanyahu is now freaked
out because Trump seems serious about peace. That means he will have to produce at the risk
of antagonizing key right-wing allies - and likely losing votes to their parties.

35. Donald Trump against jihadism - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyssan - May 23rd 2017: Donald
Trumps speech to the leaders of the Muslim world marks a radical change in US military policy. As
from now, the enemy is no longer the Syrian Arab Republic, but jihadism, in other words the
strategic tool of the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. During his electoral campaign,
Donald Trump had declared that he had no interest in overthrowing regimes, although he intends to
put an end to Islamic terrorism. Since his election, his adversaries have been attempting to force him
to follow their policy using the power of the Muslim Brotherhood to overthrow the Syrian Arab
Republic. They have used anything they could to destroy the team chosen by candidate Trump,
notably by provoking the resignation of his National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn. In 2012,
Flynn had opposed Barack Obamas project to create Daesh, and he continued to finger the Muslim
Brotherhood as the source of Islamic terrorism. Everything has been used to present the new US
President as an Islamophobe. He was criticised for having promulgated a decree forbidding entry
into his country to citizens of six Muslim States. Democrat magistrates abused their functions in
order to uphold this accusation. In reality, Donald Trump has suspended entry for people whose
consulates are unable to verify their identity, because they are subject to civil troubles or open war.
The problem that Donald Trump has to face is not posed by the survival of the Syrian Arab
Republic, but by the loss of what would represent, for certain allies of Washington, the end of the
terrorist strategy. It is clearly recognised in all international conferences that all states are publicly
opposed to Islamic terrorism, although in private, some of these states have been organising it for
the last 66 years. This is primarily the case of the United Kingdom, which, in 1951, built the Muslim
Brotherhood on the ruins of the organisation of the same name, which had been dissolved two years
earlier, and almost all of whose leaders were in prison. It is also the case of Saudi Arabia, who, at the
demand of London and Washington, created the Muslim World League in order to support both the
Brotherhood and the Naqshbandi Order. It is this League, whose budget is superior to that of the
Saudi Ministry of Defence, which supplies money and weapons to the jihadist system throughout
the world. And finally, it is also the case of Turkey, which now supervises the command of the
military operations of this system. By concentrating his speech in Riyadh on the clarification of the
misconceptions concerning his relations with Islam and the affirmation of his intention to put an
end to the jihadist tool of the Anglo-Saxon secret services, Donald Trump imposed his will on the
fifty states gathered to listen to him. In order to avoid misunderstanding, his Secretary for Defense,
James Mattis, clearly explained his military strategy to encircle the jihadist groups, and then to
exterminate them without allowing a single one to escape. We do not yet know what Londons
reaction will be. As for Riyadh, Donald Trump was very careful to whitewash the Saudis for their
past crimes. Saudi Arabia has not been accused of anything, but Iran has been handed the role of
scapegoat. This is obviously absurd, since the Muslim Brotherhood and the Naqshbandis are Sunnis,
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while Teheran is Shiite. The accusations against Iran have no importance, since Teheran knows
which way the wind is blowing. For the last 16 years, Washington which never misses an
opportunity to spit in their faces has been destroying, one by one, all their enemies the Taliban,
Saddam Hussein and soon Daesh. What is now in play, as we announced eight months ago, is the
end of the Arab Springs and the return to regional peace.

35. Trumps Speech at Riyadh focuses on eradicating terrorism, not Islam - Voltaire Network -
by Thierry Meyssan - May 22nd 2017: Contrary to what Western Press agencies are reporting and
President Obamas delivery in Egypt eight years ago, President Donald Trump did not deliver a
speech on Islam during his trip to Saudi Arabia. Recalling that his voyage which began in Saudi
Arabia, the land of Islams holy places and would continue to Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the Vatican.
He has called for the practice of tolerance and respect between the three religions of Abraham.
Focusing his discussion on the fight against terrorism, he appealed to the religious and humanist
sentiments of the Muslim leaders present, pleading that they no longer cooperate with those
sowing the seeds of death. He invited them to participate in the Global Center for Combating
Extremist Ideology. What follows are the principal extracts of his speech: We are not here to give
sermons; we are not here to preach to others how they must live, act, learn or worship. Instead, we
are here to offer a partnership based on interests and shared values so that we all can pursue a
future that will be brighter for us all.It is a choice between two futures it is a choice that
America cannot make for you. A better future is only possible if your nations reject terrorists and
extremists. Throw them out. Throw them out of your places of worship. Throw them out of your
communities. Throw them out of your holy land. Banish them from our earth. For our part, America is
committed to adjusting its strategies to face new threats and facts as they develop. We will eliminate
strategies that have not worked and will apply new techniques that have emerged from experience
and judgement. We are adopting a pragmatic approach, anchored in common values and shared
interests....The religious leaders must make this absolutely clear; inhumanity will not bring any
glory to you devotion to evil will not bring you any dignity. If you choose the path of terror, then
your life will be short and your soul condemnedWith Gods help, this summit will mark the
beginning of the end for those who practise terror and who propagate their vile credo. At the same
time, we pray so that we may remember the day of this gathering as the beginning of peace in the
Middle East - and possibly throughout the entire world..I ask you to join me, to join me, to work
together United, we will not fail. I thank you. May God bless you; may God bless your country. And
may God bless the United States of America.

35. US & Saudi Arabia say it's necessary to maintain Syria whole & united - White House - Russia
Today - May 23rd 2017: The Syrian conflict must be solved through political means with the
countrys unity and territorial integrity maintained, the US and Saudi Arabia has said in a joint
statement released by the White House on Tuesday. Washington and Riyadh emphasized the
importance of reaching a permanent solution to the conflict in Syria based on the Geneva declaration
and Security Council resolution 2254, in order to maintain the unity and integrity of Syrian
territory, the statement read. The announcement, which summed up the discussions of US
President Donald Trumps visit to Saudi Arabia last weekend, said that after the end of hostilities,
Syria must become a country that represents the entire spectrum of the Syrian community and free
from sectarian discrimination. Saudi Arabia has also backed President Trumps decision to launch
missiles at Shayrat Airbase. During Trumps visit to the Gulf kingdom, the US President and King
Salman agreed to boost cooperation in order to eliminate Daesh, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist
organizations, the statement also said. The two leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to
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curb the flow of foreign fighters and cutting off funding supplies for terrorist organizations. Saudi
Arabia had previously been blamed for backing extremists in Syria, with Hillary Clintons leaked
emails saying the Saudis are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other
radical Sunni groups. The US has provided weapons to the so-called moderate rebels fighting the
Syrian government with the arms often ending up in the hands of Islamic State or the al-Qaeda
offshoot, Jabhat al-Nusra. Washington and Riyadh also supported the Iraqi governments efforts to
tackle the Islamic State (IS, Daesh, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group while underlining the
importance of preserving the unity and integrity of Iraqi territory.

35. Donald Trump's Saudi Speech: Full Transcript - May 21st 2017: I want to thank King Salman for
his extraordinary words, and the magnificent Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for hosting todays summit. I
am honored to be received by such gracious hosts. I have always heard about the splendor of your
country and the kindness of your citizens, but words do not do justice to the grandeur of this
remarkable place and the incredible hospitality you have shown us from the moment we arrived. You
also hosted me in the treasured home of King Abdulaziz, the founder of the Kingdom who united
your great people. Working alongside another beloved leaderAmerican President Franklin
RooseveltKing Abdulaziz began the enduring partnership between our two countries. King
Salman: your father would be so proud to see that you are continuing his legacyand just as he
opened the first chapter in our partnership, today we begin a new chapter that will bring lasting
benefits to our citizens. Let me now also extend my deep and heartfelt gratitude to each and every
one of the distinguished heads of state who made this journey here today. You greatly honor us with
your presence, and I send the warmest regards from my country to yours. I know that our time
together will bring many blessings to both your people and mine. I stand before you as a
representative of the American People, to deliver a message of friendship and hope. That is why I
chose to make my first foreign visit a trip to the heart of the Muslim world, to the nation that serves
as custodian of the two holiest sites in the Islamic Faith. In my inaugural address to the American
People, I pledged to strengthen Americas oldest friendships, and to build new partnerships in
pursuit of peace. I also promised that America will not seek to impose our way of life on others, but
to outstretch our hands in the spirit of cooperation and trust. Our vision is one of peace, security,
and prosperityin this region, and in the world. Our goal is a coalition of nations who share the aim
of stamping out extremism and providing our children a hopeful future that does honor to God. And
so this historic and unprecedented gathering of leadersunique in the history of nationsis a
symbol to the world of our shared resolve and our mutual respect. To the leaders and citizens of
every country assembled here today, I want you to know that the United States is eager to form
closer bonds of friendship, security, culture and commerce. For Americans, this is an exciting time. A
new spirit of optimism is sweeping our country: in just a few months, we have created almost a
million new jobs, added over 3 trillion dollars of new value, lifted the burdens on American industry,
and made record investments in our military that will protect the safety of our people and enhance
the security of our wonderful friends and alliesmany of whom are here today. Now, there is even
more blessed news I am pleased to share with you. My meetings with King Salman, the Crown
Prince, and the Deputy Crown Prince, have been filled with great warmth, good will, and tremendous
cooperation. Yesterday, we signed historic agreements with the Kingdom that will invest almost
$400 billion in our two countries and create many thousands of jobs in America and Saudi Arabia.
This landmark agreement includes the announcement of a $110 billion Saudi-funded defense
purchaseand we will be sure to help our Saudi friends to get a good deal from our great
American defense companies. This agreement will help the Saudi military to take a greater role in
security operations. We have also started discussions with many of the countries present today on
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strengthening partnerships, and forming new ones, to advance security and stability across the
Middle East and beyond. Later today, we will make history again with the opening of a new Global
Center for Combating Extremist Ideologylocated right here, in this central part of the Islamic
World. This ground-breaking new center represents a clear declaration that Muslim-majority
countries must take the lead in combatting radicalization, and I want to express our gratitude to
King Salman for this strong demonstration of leadership. I have had the pleasure of welcoming
several of the leaders present today to the White House, and I look forward to working with all of
you. America is a sovereign nation and our first priority is always the safety and security of our
citizens. We are not here to lecturewe are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do,
who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnershipbased on shared interests
and valuesto pursue a better future for us all. Here at this summit we will discuss many interests
we share together. But above all we must be united in pursuing the one goal that transcends every
other consideration. That goal is to meet historys great testto conquer extremism and vanquish
the forces of terrorism. Young Muslim boys and girls should be able to grow up free from fear, safe
from violence, and innocent of hatred. And young Muslim men and women should have the chance
to build a new era of prosperity for themselves and their peoples. With Gods help, this summit will
mark the beginning of the end for those who practice terror and spread its vile creed. At the same
time, we pray this special gathering may someday be remembered as the beginning of peace in the
Middle East- and maybe, even all over the world. But this future can only be achieved through
defeating terrorism and the ideology that drives it. Few nations have been spared its violent reach.
America has suffered repeated barbaric attacksfrom the atrocities of September 11th to the
devastation of the Boston Bombing, to the horrible killings in San Bernardino and Orlando. The
nations of Europe have also endured unspeakable horror. So too have the nations of Africa and even
South America. India, Russia, China and Australia have been victims. But, in sheer numbers, the
deadliest toll has been exacted on the innocent people of Arab, Muslim and Middle Eastern nations.
They have borne the brunt of the killings and the worst of the destruction in this wave of fanatical
violence. Some estimates hold that more than 95 percent of the victims of terrorism are themselves
Muslim. We now face a humanitarian and security disaster in this region that is spreading across the
planet. It is a tragedy of epic proportions. No description of the suffering and depravity can begin to
capture its full measure. The true toll of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and so many others, must
be counted not only in the number of dead. It must also be counted in generations of vanished
dreams. The Middle East is rich with natural beauty, vibrant cultures, and massive amounts of
historic treasures. It should increasingly become one of the great global centers of commerce and
opportunity. This region should not be a place from which refugees flee, but to which newcomers
flock. Saudi Arabia is home to the holiest sites in one of the worlds great faiths. Each year millions of
Muslims come from around the world to Saudi Arabia to take part in the Hajj. In addition to ancient
wonders, this country is also home to modern onesincluding soaring achievements in architecture.
Egypt was a thriving center of learning and achievement thousands of years before other parts of
the world. The wonders of Giza, Luxor and Alexandria are proud monuments to that ancient
heritage. All over the world, people dream of walking through the ruins of Petra in Jordan. Iraq was
the cradle of civilization and is a land of natural beauty. And the United Arab Emirates has reached
incredible heights with glass and steel, and turned earth and water into spectacular works of art. The
entire region is at the center of the key shipping lanes of the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Straits
of Hormuz. The potential of this region has never been greater. 65 percent of its population is under
the age of 30. Like all young men and women, they seek great futures to build, great national
projects to join, and a place for their families to call home. But this untapped potential, this
tremendous cause for optimism, is held at bay by bloodshed and terror. There can be no coexistence
with this violence. There can be no tolerating it, no accepting it, no excusing it, and no ignoring it.
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Every time a terrorist murders an innocent person, and falsely invokes the name of God, it should be
an insult to every person of faith. Terrorists do not worship God, they worship death. If we do not
act against this organized terror, then we know what will happen. Terrorisms devastation of life
will continue to spread. Peaceful societies will become engulfed by violence. And the futures of
many generations will be sadly squandered. If we do not stand in uniform condemnation of this
killingthen not only will we be judged by our people, not only will we be judged by history, but
we will be judged by God. This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different
civilizations. This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent
people of all religions who seek to protect it. This is a battle between Good and Evil. When we see
the scenes of destruction in the wake of terror, we see no signs that those murdered were Jewish or
Christian, Shia or Sunni. When we look upon the streams of innocent blood soaked into the ancient
ground, we cannot see the faith or sect or tribe of the victimswe see only that they were Children
of God whose deaths are an insult to all that is holy. But we can only overcome this evil if the forces
of good are united and strongand if everyone in this room does their fair share and fulfills their
part of the burden. Terrorism has spread across the world. But the path to peace begins right here,
on this ancient soil, in this sacred land. America is prepared to stand with youin pursuit of shared
interests and common security. But the nations of the Middle East cannot wait for American power
to crush this enemy for them. The nations of the Middle East will have to decide what kind of
future they want for themselves, for their countries, and for their children. It is a choice between
two futuresand it is a choice America CANNOT make for you. A better future is only possible if
your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists. Drive. Them. Out. DRIVE THEM OUT of your
places of worship. DRIVE THEM OUT of your communities. DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land, and
DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH. For our part, America is committed to adjusting our strategies to
meet evolving threats and new facts. We will discard those strategies that have not workedand
will apply new approaches informed by experience and judgment. We are adopting a Principled
Realism, rooted in common values and shared interests. Our friends will never question our
support, and our enemies will never doubt our determination. Our partnerships will advance
security through stability, not through radical disruption. We will make decisions based on real-
world outcomes not inflexible ideology. We will be guided by the lessons of experience, not the
confines of rigid thinking. And, wherever possible, we will seek gradual reforms not sudden
intervention. We must seek partners, not perfectionand to make allies of all who share our goals.
Above all, America seeks peacenot war. Muslim nations must be willing to take on the burden, if
we are going to defeat terrorism and send its wicked ideology into oblivion. The first task in this
joint effort is for your nations to deny all territory to the foot soldiers of evil. Every country in the
region has an absolute duty to ensure that terrorists find no sanctuary on their soil. Many are
already making significant contributions to regional security: Jordanian pilots are crucial partners
against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Saudi Arabia and a regional coalition have taken strong action against
Houthi militants in Yemen. The Lebanese Army is hunting ISIS operatives who try to infiltrate their
territory. Emirati troops are supporting our Afghan partners. In Mosul, American troops are
supporting Kurds, Sunnis and Shias fighting together for their homeland. Qatar, which hosts the U.S.
Central Command, is a crucial strategic partner. Our longstanding partnership with Kuwait and
Bahrain continue to enhance security in the region. And courageous Afghan soldiers are making
tremendous sacrifices in the fight against the Taliban, and others, in the fight for their country. As we
deny terrorist organizations control of territory and populations, we must also strip them of their
access to funds. We must cut off the financial channels that let ISIS sell oil, let extremists pay their
fighters, and help terrorists smuggle their reinforcements. I am proud to announce that the nations
here today will be signing an agreement to prevent the financing of terrorism, called the Terrorist
Financing Targeting Center co-chaired by the United States and Saudi Arabia, and joined by every
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member of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It is another historic step in a day that will be long
remembered. I also applaud the Gulf Cooperation Council for blocking funders from using their
countries as a financial base for terror, and designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization last
year. Saudi Arabia also joined us this week in placing sanctions on one of the most senior leaders of
Hezbollah. Of course, there is still much work to do. That means honestly confronting the crisis of
Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires. And it means standing together against
the murder of innocent Muslims, the oppression of women, the persecution of Jews, and the
slaughter of Christians. Religious leaders must make this absolutely clear: Barbarism will deliver you
no glory piety to evil will bring you no dignity. If you choose the path of terror, your life will be
empty, your life will be brief, and YOUR SOUL WILL BE CONDEMNED. And political leaders must
speak out to affirm the same idea: heroes dont kill innocents; they save them. Many nations here
today have taken important steps to raise up that message. Saudi Arabias Vision for 2030 is an
important and encouraging statement of tolerance, respect, empowering women, and economic
development. The United Arab Emirates has also engaged in the battle for hearts and soulsand
with the U.S., launched a center to counter the online spread of hate. Bahrain too is working to
undermine recruitment and radicalism. I also applaud Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon for their role in
hosting refugees. The surge of migrants and refugees leaving the Middle East depletes the human
capital needed to build stable societies and economies. Instead of depriving this region of so much
human potential, Middle Eastern countries can give young people hope for a brighter future in their
home nations and regions. That means promoting the aspirations and dreams of all citizens who
seek a better lifeincluding women, children, and followers of all faiths. Numerous Arab and Islamic
scholars have eloquently argued that protecting equality strengthens Arab and Muslim communities.
For many centuries the Middle East has been home to Christians, Muslims and Jews living side-by-
side. We must practice tolerance and respect for each other once againand make this region a
place where every man and woman, no matter their faith or ethnicity, can enjoy a life of dignity and
hope. In that spirit, after concluding my visit in Riyadh, I will travel to Jerusalem and Bethlehem,
and then to the Vaticanvisiting many of the holiest places in the three Abrahamic Faiths. If these
three faiths can join together in cooperation, then peace in this world is possible including peace
between Israelis and Palestinians. I will be meeting with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Starving terrorists of their territory, their
funding, and the false allure of their craven ideology, will be the basis for defeating them. But no
discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete without mentioning the government that
gives terrorists all threesafe harbor, financial backing, and the social standing needed for
recruitment. It is a regime that is responsible for so much instability in the region. I am speaking of
course of Iran. From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and
other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. For decades, Iran has
fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror. It is a government that speaks openly of mass
murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations
in this room. Among Irans most tragic and destabilizing interventions have been in Syria. Bolstered
by Iran, Assad has committed unspeakable crimes, and the United States has taken firm action in
response to the use of banned chemical weapons by the Assad Regimelaunching 59 tomahawk
missiles at the Syrian air base from where that murderous attack originated. Responsible nations
must work together to end the humanitarian crisis in Syria, eradicate ISIS, and restore stability to
the region. The Iranian regimes longest-suffering victims are its own people. Iran has a rich history
and culture, but the people of Iran have endured hardship and despair under their leaders reckless
pursuit of conflict and terror. Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations
of conscience must work together to isolate Iran, deny it funding for terrorism, and pray for the day
when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they deserve. The decisions we
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make will affect countless lives. King Salman, I thank you for the creation of this great moment in
history, and for your massive investment in America, its industry and its jobs. I also thank you for
investing in the future of this part of the world. This fertile region has all the ingredients for
extraordinary success a rich history and culture, a young and vibrant people, a thriving spirit of
enterprise. But you can only unlock this future if the citizens of the Middle East are freed from
extremism, terror and violence. We in this room are the leaders of our peoples. They look to us for
answers, and for action. And when we look back at their faces, behind every pair of eyes is a soul
that yearns for justice. Today, billions of faces are now looking at us, waiting for us to act on the
great question of our time. Will we be indifferent in the presence of evil? Will we protect our citizens
from its violent ideology? Will we let its venom spread through our societies? Will we let it destroy
the most holy sites on earth? If we do not confront this deadly terror, we know what the future will
bringmore suffering and despair. But if we actif we leave this magnificent room unified and
determined to do what it takes to destroy the terror that threatens the worldthen there is no limit
to the great future our citizens will have. The birthplace of civilization is waiting to begin a new
renaissance. Just imagine what tomorrow could bring. Glorious wonders of science, art, medicine
and commerce to inspire humankind. Great cities built on the ruins of shattered towns. New jobs and
industries that will lift up millions of people. Parents who no longer worry for their children, families
who no longer mourn for their loved ones, and the faithful who finally worship without fear. These
are the blessings of prosperity and peace. These are the desires that burn with a righteous flame in
every human heart. And these are the just demands of our beloved peoples. I ask you to join me, to
join together, to work together, and to FIGHT togetherBECAUSE UNITED, WE WILL NOT FAIL.
Thank you. God Bless You. God Bless Your Countries. And God Bless the United States of America.

36. Kevin Shipp (former CIA officer) - RTs Cross Talk: War-alago April 12th 2017: 11:24-11:52: And
what is really puzzling to me is where is the director of the CIA in all of this? Hes been strangely
silent, and strangely absent from this. Even the picture that the White House released with Trumps
staff and everyone involved in the decision, the director of the CIA was absent, and he was absent
from the conference call calling in. And I understand that there were CIA analysts that did not
agree with the Assad assessment, and its really puzzling, where is the director of central
intelligence in all of this?
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37. Where Was CIAs Pompeo on Syria? - Consortium News - by Robert Parry - April 8th 2017:
Exclusive: As President Trump was launching his missile strike against Syria, CIA Director Pompeo
and other intelligence officials werent at the table, suggesting their doubts about Bashar al-
Assads guilt, reports Robert Parry: There is a dark mystery behind the White House-released photo
showing President Trump and more than a dozen advisers meeting at his estate in Mar-a-Lago after
his decision to strike Syria with Tomahawk missiles: Where are CIA Director Mike Pompeo and other
top intelligence officials? Before the photo was released on Friday, a source told me that Pompeo
had personally briefed Trump on April 6 about the CIAs belief that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
was likely not responsible for the lethal poison-gas incident in northern Syria two days earlier - and
thus Pompeo was excluded from the larger meeting as Trump reached a contrary decision. At the
time, I found the information dubious since Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other
senior U.S. officials were declaring quite confidently that Assad was at fault. Given that apparent
confidence, I assumed that Pompeo and the CIA must have signed off on the conclusion of Assads
guilt even though I knew that some U.S. intelligence analysts had contrary opinions, that they
viewed the incident as either an accidental release of chemicals or an intentional ploy by Al Qaeda
rebels to sucker the U.S. into attacking Syria. As strange as the Trump administration has been in its
early months, it was hard for me to believe that Trump would have listened to the CIAs views and
then shooed the director away from the larger meeting before launching a military strike against a
country not threatening America. As much as Trump stood to benefit politically by acting
aggressively in attacking Syria and thus winning praise even from his harshest critics the idea
that he would ignore the views of the U.S. intelligence community on an issue of war or peace was
something that I found hard to believe. So, I put aside what I had heard from the source about the
discordant Pompeo-Trump meeting as the sort of tidbit that may come from someone who lacks
first-hand knowledge and doesnt get all the details right. After all, in almost every similar situation
that I had covered over decades, the CIA Director or the Director of National Intelligence has played
a prominent role in decisions that depend heavily on the intelligence communitys assessments and
actions. For instance, in the famous photo of President Obama and his team waiting out the results
of the 2011 raid to kill Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, CIA Director Leon Panetta is the one on the
conference screen that everyone is looking at. Even when the U.S. government is presenting false
information, such as Secretary of State Colin Powells 2003 speech laying out the bogus evidence of
 73

Iraq hiding WMDs, CIA Director George Tenet was seated behind Powell to lend credibility to the
falsehoods. But in the photo of Trump and his advisers, no one from the intelligence community is
in the frame. You see Trump, Secretary of State Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster,
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, strategic adviser Steve Bannon, son-in-law Jared Kushner
and a variety of other officials, including some economic advisers who were at Mar-a-Lago in
Florida for the meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, you dont see Pompeo or
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats or any other intelligence official. Even The New York
Times noted the oddity in its Saturday editions, writing: If there were C.I.A. and other intelligence
briefers around, they are not in the picture. That made me wonder whether perhaps my original
source did know something. The claim was that CIA Director Pompeo had briefed Trump personally
on the analysts assessment that Assads forces were not responsible, but then with Pompeo
sidelined Trump conveyed his own version of the intelligence to his senior staff. In other words,
the other officials didnt get the direct word from Pompeo but rather received a second-hand
account from the President, the source said. Thus, a serious question arises whether President
Trump did receive that high degree of confidence assessment from the intelligence community
or whether he shunted Pompeo aside to eliminate an obstacle to his desire to launch the April 6
rocket attack. If so, such a dangerous deception more than anything else weve seen in the first
two-plus months of the Trump administration would be grounds for impeachment ignoring the
opinion of the U.S. intelligence community so the President could carry out a politically popular
(albeit illegal) missile strike that killed SyriansInvestigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of
the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

Some comments for the article at Consortium News:

Brad Benson - April 8th 2017: Has Pompeo fired the top five or six levels of Executive Service CIA
officials? If so, perhaps Trump might believe their assessment. This was political and he cant trust
the CIA in any case. He made a foolish mistake, but now he can make a trip to meet Putin and no one
can call him Putins Stooge. If he attacks again, he should be impeached. He made sure that everyone
was notified in advance and the Russians still hacked about half of our missiles and they didnt get
through. It was a WAR CRIME. Had the CIA been involved, it might have been worse. He gets one
more week with me. When and if Tillerson goes to Moscowwell see how he behaves thereafter.

Mark - April 8th 2017: This is grasping at straws. There is no significance from DCIA and DNI not going
to Florida for the weekend. Plus two things, the photo was taken after the strikes, not a debate to
launch them. And DNI Coats was on video.
See https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/04/07/white-house-releases-
photo-mar-a-lago-situation-room/100167552/. Your first impression was probably right. The not-first
hand source probably got it wrong. But more importantly, the NSC doesnt need to get the info from
the president. You make it sound like Trump is pulling a fast one by freezing out Pompeo and the
exclusive info at his briefing. Thats not possible. Thanks for keeping the site going. Great work.

Mark - April 8th 2017: The photo was after the launch, they are getting briefed on the results. Robert
implies that Trumps senior advisors only get information from the IC through Trump himself. So
Trump could tell his NSC something different than what he was briefed and they wouldnt know it.
Thats not possible.
 74

Abe - April 8th 2017: Considering the CIAs history of support for terrorist forces operating in Syria,
we should be careful how we construe the CIAs absence at the table for Trumps Tomahawk
barrage.

Paul Sorrells - April 10th 2017: Sean Spicer posted this WH photo via his account and underneath the
photo was a paragraph which included (ed. for security), which I took to mean that the photo had
been cropped, leaving out the foreground and whatever was left and right of the photos viewpoint
(wide-angle?). So, what or whom, was cropped out of this picture for security reasons at Mar-a-Lago?
We saw what Trump did when the Seal Team 6 attack occurred in Yemen, so exactly who sat in on
this Trump photo op? Chinese President Xi, maybe?

Flow in - April 10th 2017: Or the CIA briefed Trump, and a false strike (with 36 undisclosed targets)
was planned in response to the false flag. The CIA stayed away from the meeting to avoid an
accidental reveal. The CIA loves Trump, as he vowed to destroy the 5th column within it.
My bet is deep state black assets were hit.

37. Who Was in the Room? These Advisers Joined Trump for the Syria Strike - The New York Times -
by David E. Sanger - April 7th 2017: WASHINGTON - In any major crisis involving speed, judgment and
getting reliable information, the first question any president needs to decide is this: Who is invited to
the meeting to discuss the strategic options? So the photograph of President Trumps group of
advisers at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday night released by the White House and
edited for security in the words of Sean Spicer, the press secretary was immediately scrutinized
for what it said about who has the commander in chiefs ear at a critical moment. And of course,
what you see may depend on what you are looking for. Or, in this case, whom. Does Stephen K.
Bannons position on the outer ring reflect his recent removal from the principals committee of the
National Security Council, or does his presence, and that of the adviser Stephen Miller, suggest a
change in title but not in influence? What about the presence of the only woman visible in the room,
Dina Powell, a former aide to President George W. Bush and a long-time friend of Ivanka Trump who
was recently brought on as a deputy national security adviser? And why would the commerce and
Treasury secretaries be involved in a Tomahawk strike? (Answer: Because they were at the resort to
meet Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.) For those debating the meaning here, it is important to
remember that pictures can be over-interpreted. The defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph F. Dunford Jr., were joining by secure video
conference; the photo shows the back of a screen. If there were C.I.A. and other intelligence
briefers around, as there were in the famous photo of President Barack Obamas team during the
2011 Osama bin Laden raid, they are out of the picture. (Several people joined the meeting from the
White House Situation Room, and they are not shown.) By the time this photo was taken, all the
major decisions had been made. The only issue was whether the attack was successful.

37. CIA Denies 'Ridiculous' Claim It Exonerated Assad: an anonymously sourced report suggested
Trump sidelined dissent before ordering strikes - Washington Post - by Steven Nelson - April 10th
2017: The CIA is denying a report that its director told President Donald Trump he didn't believe
Syrian President Bashar Assad deployed chemical weapons on a rebel-held town. The disputed
report cites a single anonymous source who said CIA Director Mike Pompeo personally informed
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Trump on Thursday that Assad "was likely not responsible" for a Tuesday chemical incident that
killed dozens, and that "Pompeo was excluded from a larger meeting as Trump reached a contrary
decision." The report, appearing in Consortium News, connects the source's claim with Pompeo's
absence from a photo of Trump surrounded by advisers as he was briefed Thursday evening on the
launch of 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase. Spokespeople for the intelligence community
tell U.S. News the claims presented in the report are untrue and that intelligence officials believe
Assad is guilty. The report is "completely erroneous," CIA spokesman Dean Boyd says. "The fact
that Consortium News made such a ridiculous claim based upon one photo and an anonymous
source without ever contacting CIA for comment speaks volumes," Boyd says. Pompeo briefs
Trump virtually every day, Boyd says, and "there was and is no daylight between CIA and the White
House in the conclusion that the Syrian regime was responsible for the April 4 chemical weapons
attack. A photo of President Donald Trump on the evening he launched airstrikes against Syria's
government does not show senior intelligence officials, though Director of National Intelligence
Dan Coats reportedly was on the phone. Tim Barrett, a spokesman for Director of National
Intelligence Dan Coats, also pushed back on the report, which notes Coats' absence from the photo,
expressing concern that "Trump [chose] to rely on the smug certainty from the TV shows."
Consortium is wrong, Barrett says. I can speak for DNI Coats, who was at the White House for
roughly eight hours the afternoon and evening of the strike. Trump was in West Palm Beach,
Florida, at the time of the U.S. attack. Coats reportedly was involved via a secure conference call. I
dont think theres any question about the analysis from within the [intelligence community]"
concerning responsibility for the chemical incident, Barrett says. ODNI and CIA are in lockstep on
this issue. The Consortium News report has not gained widespread attention since it was published
by Robert Parry, a veteran journalist who wrote for The Associated Press and Newsweek before
founding Consortium as an investigative non-profit. Parry doesn't do much to vouch for the
credibility of his source. At first, he writes, he dismissed the account as the sort of tidbit that may
come from someone who lacks first-hand knowledge and doesnt get all the details right." The
photo, he wrote, "made me wonder whether perhaps my original source did know something."
Parry did not address the reliability of his source in response to an email seeking comment. But he
says The New York Times "also noted how strange it was not to have [Coats] or other intelligence
officials involved in an issue such as this." (His Consortium report pointed to this Times article, which
does not directly say that.) "The photo speaks for itself," Parry says.

38. My note: the footnotes for 38 are long as I want people to get a sense of various analysts
pessimistic expectations for Tillersons visit to Moscow on April 11th. It is interesting to note how
Tillerson flexed his muscles before the visit, giving outrageous demands such as, Russia should
give up Syria, and rethink its priorities in the Donbass. Despite these demands, Tillerson quickly
makes peace with Lavrov and Putin, which shows that most of the heated rhetoric was for show.

38. Defense Secretary says U.S. is still focused on ISIS in Syria - by Associated Press - Apr 11th 2017:
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says Russia must choose between aligning itself with the U.S.
and likeminded countries or embracing Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iran and the militant group
Hezbollah. Tillerson says it's unclear whether Russia failed to take seriously its obligations in Syria
or has been incompetent. But he says that distinction "doesn't much matter to the dead". He says
of the recent chemical attack: "We cannot let this happen again." Tillerson says the U.S. sees no
future role for Assad in Syria, but he says the U.S. isn't pre-supposing how Assad's departure will
 76

occur. Tillerson traveled Tuesday to Moscow. He says Russia can play a role in Syria's future but
that aligning with Assad won't serve Russia's long-term interests.

38. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meets with Putin in Moscow - CNN WIRE - April 12th 2017: US
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as a
diplomatic rift between the two nations deepens over a chemical attack in Syria. The meeting is
taking place at the Kremlin with Tillersons counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov,
Putins spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed. The talks come after Lavrov issued Tillerson an icy
warning Wednesday against any further US strikes on the Syrian regime. The two top diplomats had
sat down together earlier in the day to work through the fallout of a chemical attack in northwestern
Syria last week that plunged the old Cold War enemies to a new low. Moscow and Washington have
traded barbs over last weeks chemical attack, which killed 89 people, and prompted the US to carry
out its first strike against the Syrian regime in the six-year conflict, taking out aircraft and
infrastructure at a Syrian military air base. Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia saw some very
troubling actions regarding the attack on Syria. We believe it is fundamentally important not to let
these actions happen again, Lavrov said, according to an official Russian interpreter. The White
House on Tuesday accused Russia and Syria of carrying out a confusion campaign over who was
responsible for the chemical attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made comparisons
between the US response and its 2003 intervention in Iraq, calling it a tedious story. The deaths
have been widely blamed on Syrian President Bashar al-Assads regime, but Russia, Assads most
powerful ally, has denied the regime carried out the attack. Lavrov also complained about the mixed
messages coming out of Washington on the Trump administrations policy on Syria, with the US
envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, making clear Assad should have no future in Syria as Tillerson took a
softer line. I will be frank that we had a lot of questions regarding a lot of very ambiguous as well
as contradictory ideas on a whole plethora of bilateral and international agenda coming from
Washington, Lavrov said. He hit back at remarks Tillerson made a day earlier that Russia would
have to decide whether it was with the US and the West in standing up against Assad, or against
them, describing the comments as wrong choices. Tillerson took a more diplomatic tone in his
opening remarks, saying that he hoped to clarify areas of common objectives, areas of common
interests, even when our tactical approaches may be different. And to further clarify areas of
sharp difference, so we can better understand why these differences exist and what the prospects
for narrowing those differences may be. It was an icy start to the long-awaited meeting, which
began with the two men entering a conference room making very little eye contact. The two stood in
front of their respective flags beneath a grand chandelier and took their seats on opposite sides of a
meters-long table, from which Lavrov delivered his welcome. The fallout over the chemical attack
follows comments by the Trump administration and Russia that a reset in relations between the
countries was possible after decades of hostility. But Putin said in an interview with state-run MIR
television station that relations had only deteriorated. The working level of confidence in Russian-
American relations, especially at the military level, under the administration of Donald Trump, has
not improved, but rather worsened. Russias position Washington has said that Russia and Syria are
trying to confuse the world community about who is responsible for using chemical weapons
against the Syrian people in this and earlier attacks. Russia claims the Syrian regime is being unfairly
blamed for the chemical attack, and on Wednesday Putin said that the attack was simply staging
and a provocation, in his interview with MIR. Putin suggested on Monday that forces within Syria
 77

were plotting more chemical attacks, including near Damascus, which they intended to pin on the
Syrian regime. Moscow earlier claimed that the deaths had been caused when a Syrian regime
airstrike hit a chemical weapons stockpile held by terrorist groups. But Syria gave a murky account of
what happened, denying its planes were in the air at the time of the dawn attack, claiming it carried
out its first strike that day five hours later, hitting the alleged chemical weapons cache. What is the
US Syria policy? Following the chemical attack, US President Donald Trump ordered a Tomahawk
missile strike against the Shayrat airfield in Syria, from where the US says the aircraft took off to
launch the attack The US claims the strike destroyed 20% of Syrias operational aircraft, a figure
disputed by Russias Defense Ministry. But the White House has also caused a great deal of confusion
- the US position on Syria is still woefully unclear, as Trump has made no comprehensive statement
on Syria since last weeks missile attack. He has made some comments to Fox News on Syria, saying
he did not plan for the US to be drawn fully into the Syrian war. White House press secretary Sean
Spicer has said that the Trump administration would respond if the Assad regime used barrel
bombs against his own people, something that has been a regular occurrence in the six-year civil
war. Aides later clarified that this did not signal a change in administration policy. Haley, the UN
envoy, said removing Assad from power was a priority, whereas Tillerson said he merely hoped
the Syrian people would choose to oust Assad and reiterated that defeating ISIS was the US first
priority in Syria.

38. BREAKING: Putin and Tillerson meet in Moscow - by Vladimir Rodzianko - April 12th 2017:
Despite speculations that a meeting would never take place, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is
in fact meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow today. The unexpected meeting
comes after Rex Tillersons meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, where Lavrov
issued a stern warning to Tillerson - DO NOT strike Syria again. Most experts and commentators
claimed this wouldnt happen due to the escalated tensions between Russia and the US over Syria. A
joint press conference is scheduled between the two foreign ministries. Secretary Tillerson
expressed hope that this meeting will promote open and frank dialogue between the Russian
Federation and the United States. While this is their first official diplomatic meeting, Putin and
Tillerson enjoyed a professional relationship going back to 1999, when Putin was Russias Prime
Minister ahead of his first presidential term. The two met then over a proposed joint oil project on
Russias island of Sakhalin, which Tillerson went on to head, before being elected ExxonMobils CEO.
Over the past decade, the two have signed multiple deals over oil development, and in 2013,
Tillerson was awarded the Order of Friendship by Putin for his contribution to developing
cooperation with Russia in the energy sector.

38. Cross Talk: Bullhorns Go to War April 17th 2017: 1:16-2:07:

Peter Lavelle: Usually the Kremlin
will put out a synopsis of the conversation that the guest had, in this case Tillerson, and he spoke
with Putin- and that is not to be found on the Kremlin website, which is rather odd. I hear it was a
rather contentious conversation. Dmitry Babich: Well, of course it was an unpleasant
conversation, but, please notice: despite the fact that the United States bombed a sovereign
country, you know that Syrian airbase; despite Tillerson not being very polite towards us, him
giving us advice on our interests in Donbass- Tillerson was still received by President Putin. They
had a talk. He was received by the foreign minister; there were no rude words from the Russian
side.
 78

38. Putin meets with Rex Tillerson in Russia amid escalating tensions over Syria. The two were
expected to discuss dispute over a chemical weapons attack in Syria last week that led to US
retaliatory cruise missiles - The Guardian - by Alec Luhn & the AP- April 12th 2017: Vladimir Putin met
with US secretary of state Rex Tillerson in Moscow on Wednesday, in what was thought to be the
first meeting between the Russian president and a Trump cabinet official. Tillerson went to the
Kremlin in the early evening local time to meet the Russian president, the US embassy and the
Kremlin said. Though Donald Trump has spoken with Putin by phone, the meeting was believed to
be the first between Putin and a top member of Trumps administration since the new US president
took office in January. The agenda for the meeting wasnt announced. The two were expected to
discuss their dispute over whether Syrian president Bashar al-Assad or his opposition was
responsible for a chemical weapons attack last week that led to US retaliatory cruise missiles.
Conflicts over Russias actions in Ukraine and Russias alleged interference in the US presidential
campaign were also likely topics. A huge red carpet was rolled out on the tarmac of the Moscow
airport where Tillersons plane touched down, but it was unlikely Russia would similarly welcome
his calls for it to stop backing Assad. While the US secretary of states decision to skip a Nato summit
and visit Moscow initially seemed to highlight the White Houses desire for better relations with
Russia, expectations shifted after Donald Trump launched cruise missile strikes on a Syrian airbase
last week, a move condemned by the Kremlin. The days when Russian politicians talked about better
relations and state television trumpeted Trump as a real man were clearly over. The question is
not so much whether Tillerson can reach an agreement on Syria, but whether he can start any sort
of dialogue at all. His first meeting with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, at Februarys
G20 summit in Germany began with an apparent disagreement over the presence of journalists. Their
interaction seemed cold compared to the fellow feeling between Lavrov and the former US
secretary of state John Kerry. Lavrov sounded an ominous note just before his meeting with Tillerson
on Wednesday, referring to the cruise missile attack as unlawful. Russia had lots of questions
about the Trump administrations very ambiguous and contradictory ideas, he added, saying
that it was important for Moscow to understand Americas real intentions. The Russian
presidents spokesman Dmitry Peskov had reportedly said on Tuesday that Putin would probably
meet with Tillerson only if the sit-down with Lavrov were relatively cordial and productive. If they
remain totally opposed and are only talking about America putting forward an ultimatum, and
Russia refuses, then a meeting with Putin is meaningless, said Alexei Makarkin, a political analyst.
In light of the chemical attack that killed more than 70 people in Syria last week, Tillerson said Russia
had failed to uphold its 2013 promise to destroy Assads chemical weapons, adding that
Washington saw no further role for Assad as the countrys leader, a harsher line on him than it had
taken before. In response, Putin doubled down on his support for Assad, comparing western
accusations that the regime was responsible for the chemical attack to the false assertions that Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction before the US invasion in 2003. He called for a United Nations
investigation into the attack, while claiming that nefarious forces were planning to again plant
some substance and accuse the Syrian authorities of using [chemical weapons]. On Wednesday the
Russian president said ties with the US appear appeared to have deteriorated. You can say that the
level of trust on a working level, especially on the military side, has not improved but most likely
worsened, Putin said in a TV interview transcript posted by the Kremlin. The toughest talk on the
Russian side has come from the defence ministry, which vowed to boost Syrian anti-aircraft
capabilities. A programme on its nationwide television channel Zvezda on Tuesday night declared
that only a demonstration of force could stop Trump in Syria. Trump pulled no punches on
Wednesday, telling Fox Business Network: Frankly, Putin is backing a person thats truly an evil
person. I think its very bad for Russia. I think its very bad for mankind. Referring to Assad, Trump
 79

said: This is an animal. In another move likely to grate on Russia, Trump signed a treaty on Tuesday
in support of Montenegro joining Nato, an alliance that Moscow sees as a top threat. But with all the
rancor comes a possibility for new dialogue, pundits said, especially since the United States had
warned Russia before launching last Thursdays missile strikes, and the airbase was reportedly
already functioning again the next day. Fyodor Lukyanov, an analyst, said the strikes had given the
United States a stronger bargaining position on Syria and created the preconditions for a
conversation that wont be one-sided. Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow Center added
that realistic expectations had replaced exaggerations of privileged good relations before the
meeting. The sides had been conducting themselves as if they owed each other, he said. Now no
one is acting like anyone owes anything. In a hint that Moscow might still be willing to negotiate,
the foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tillersons statement was not an
ultimatum but rather just muscle-flexing before talks. While the vice-speaker of parliament,
Pyotr Tolstoy, told Interfax news agency that no breakthrough could be expected at the
negotiations, he said the fact they were going ahead was a good sign, because there could have
been none at all. He warned that any attempts to adopt further sanctions against Russia wont
result in anything. But such a threat was quashed on Tuesday when the G7 summit in Italy refused
to back a British call for new sanctions, a small victory for Moscow. Until late last month, Donald
Trump was fine with Bashar al-Assad remaining in power. Since then, his administration has
struggled to articulate a clear plan. Any agreement about Assads future was clearly off the table on
Wednesday, as was an east-west partnership against the Islamic State, about which both Trump and
Putin have spoken in the past. Moscows major bargaining chip the help of Russian and Syrian
forces in fighting Isis was no longer good now that the Syrian army has become a military
adversary of the United States, Baunov said.

38. Tillersons Bad Hand in Kremlin Showdown - by Gilbert Doctorow - April 13, 2017: President
Trumps hasty decision to attack Syria may have lightened political pressure at home but Russias
retaliation suspending a key deconfliction agreement left Secretary of State Tillerson as
supplicant at the Kremlin, reports Gilbert Doctorow.The Russian media offered no complete
account of what may have been accomplished during Secretary of State Rex Tillersons two-day visit
to Russia, but there were hints of what the Russian negotiating position would have been behind
closed doors and what may have justified Vladimir Putin making two hours available for Tillerson in
what was otherwise a very busy day for the Russian President relating to domestic concerns. Before
Tillersons arrival Russian media reported widely on his failure the day before at the G7 meeting to
win support for imposing more sanctions on Russia for backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in
light of the chemical weapons event in Idlib on April 4. That proposal was raised by U.K. Foreign
Minister Boris Johnson and affirmed by Tillerson but rejected by all other G7 members. With that
resounding defeat, Tillerson had no sticks from the international community to wield as an
ultimatum against the Russians, telling them to get behind a U.S.-imposed regime change in Syria
or suffer the consequences of further economic isolation from the West. Tillerson also carried little in
the way of carrots, given President Trumps retreat on his campaign pledges to improve relations
with Russia. Tillersons empty diplomatic bag was a topic discussed on Russian prime-time television
the evening before his arrival. Senior Duma member and United Russia Party leader Vyacheslav
Nikonov rhetorically demanded of Tillerson on the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show: So,
make us an offer of what it means to go with America, what it brings us, and then we will consider
it. In effect, Nikonov was calling the Trump administrations bluff. He and the Russian elites
understand perfectly that Donald Trump has no political capital to spend to get Congressional
approval of normalized relations with Russia. Just as the Tillerson-Putin meeting was taking place on
 80

Wednesday, another widely watched Russian talk show First Studio on the Pervy Kanal state channel
opened with host Artyom Sheinin posing a baiting question to the American journalist Michael Bohm,
a frequent visitor to the program who is often used as a punching bag. Referring to Tillersons initial
meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the doubt that Putin would grant Tillerson
a meeting, Sheinin said, I believe there is the practice in big corporations for a new visitor who has
come to see the boss to first undergo a screening interview. It looks as if Tillerson passed this
screening process and so he was allowed in to speak to the boss. Do you think this was a positive
thing? In other words, the Russians knew that Tillerson came with empty hands and that he was the
suitor, not the one being wooed. Tillerson came to discuss reinstatement of the Memorandum of
Understanding on Deconfliction in Syria because on the U.S. side there was great concern over
Russias refusal now to speak at the regional level to U.S. military counterparts and avert clashes on
the ground and in the air that could lead to escalation of confrontation and possibly to all-out-war.
The Russian withdrawal from the deconfliction arrangement following the U.S. missile strike on a
Syrian airfield on April 6 put the continuation of U.S.-led military operations against Islamic State
militants inside Syria in danger. On April 8, senior Pentagon officials were denying that the
Russians had severed all military-to-military hot lines, but there was a cold sweat in Washington.
The uncertainty over whether Syrian and Russian air defenses might take aim at NATO aircraft had
already led the Belgians to publicly announce cessation of all their flights within the U.S.-led anti-
terror coalition. Presumably other NATO members had come to the same conclusion. Meanwhile,
my information backchannels indicate that the Russians set down their preconditions for
reinstatement of the deconfliction arrangements: no further U.S. air attacks on Syrian government
positions. We may be sure that this was the major subject for discussion and possible agreement
during Tillersons talks with Putin. The result may be something similar to the resolution of the
Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the U.S. claimed victory publicly as the Soviets pulled their missiles
out of Cuba, but privately the U.S. had granted what Moscow had wanted, the removal of U.S.
missiles from Turkey. But Putin is no Nikita Khrushchev, who lost prestige among his Kremlin peers
for striking the agreement with the Americans; Putin is likely to gain stature from such an
arrangement. Meanwhile, the mainstream U.S. media presented the Putin-Tillerson meeting in
relatively neutral terms given the American press corps general hostility to all things Russian. The
Washington Post did better than other media outlets, with Moscow Bureau Chief David Filipov and
his colleague covering the State Department in Washington highlighting the undeniable fact that the
parties were sharply at odds and noting: Russia made it clear it was unwilling to roll back its
strategic alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The talks appeared unlikely to bring any
significant breakthroughs after last weeks missile strike plunged U.S. relations to one of the lowest
points since the Cold War. But despite the growing rifts, some general compromises were
discussed. The areas of potential compromise were possible reinstatement of the information-
sharing deconfliction Memorandum of Understanding with the United States that the Russians
suspended immediately after the April 6 missile attack and creation of a U.S.-Russian working
group to find ways to ease tensions between the two nuclear superpowers. After that, the authors
moved on to more trivial pursuits such as Donald Trumps latest remarks about Assad being an
animal. However, even amidst this swill there were a few points worthy of note because they gave
expression to Russian policy positions at the talks: Russias refusal to accept ultimatums, such as
Tillerson brought with him over choosing ties with the U.S. or Syria; Russias rejection of the
allegations that Assad was behind the chemical attack in Idlib; Russias call for the Organization for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate the use of chemical weapons there; and Putins
likening the present situation to the one immediately preceding the U.S. invasion of Iraq. All of these
important points are presented in the article at face value, alongside U.S., U.K. and other Western
accusations directed against Russia. The New York Times coverage gave more attention to American
 81

action than to Russian reaction, as the opening of its cover headline for its several related articles
indicates: U.S. Pressures Russia The sub-article dealing with the Tillerson visit devotes more
attention to what came before and after Putins meeting with Tillerson than to what they may have
agreed on. The Times bureau chief David Sanger noted how Tillerson was held in suspense as his
anticipated meeting with Putin was left in doubt until the last minute, what was described as a
typical maneuver by the Russian president to keep his interlocutors off balance, a characterization
which ignores the widely reported urgings of Russias talking heads before Tillersons arrival that
their President not receive him because of the objectionable message on Syria that he had laid out
on Monday at the meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Italy. Indeed, the Times article said almost
nothing about what may have justified the Putin meeting and what was agreed other than the
working group to ease tensions, which Sanger correctly identifies as devoted to small and not the
big divisive issues - Gilbert Doctorow is a Brussels-based political analyst. His latest book Does
Russia Have a Future? Was published in August 2015.

38. Tillerson's visit to Russia - The Middle East Media Research Institute Special Dispatch
No. 6879 - April 14th 2017: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to Moscow on April 11-12,
2017 came against the backdrop of a recent U.S. missile strike on a Syrian airbase that was followed
by political tensions between Russia and the U.S.[1] However, Tillerson's visit was perceived as
positive and was described by Russian political analysts as "productive" and as "the start of
dialogue."[2] During a joint press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that
the two counterparts agree to continue bilateral cooperation. Lavrov said: "Russia is open not only
to a dialogue with the United States in the most different areas but also to joint actions directed at
achieving results in spheres that meet the interests of both countries." Lavrov also underlined that
Tillerson did not threaten Russia with sanctions and that both parts are committed to overcoming
"barriers." Concerning Syria, Lavrov said that Russia in not backing "any particular person, be it
President Assad or somebody else." However, he said that the most important thing is not to
remove "this or that individual from the political scene," but rather to agree on the organization of a
democratic and secular Syrian state. Lavrov added: "I cannot think of any positive examples of a
dictator being toppled and things going smoothly afterwards." Lavrov also reiterated Russia's desire
for an independent international investigation into the chemical attacks in Syria. Following are
excerpts of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovs remarks and answers to media questions at the
joint news conference following talks with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in Moscow, on April
12, 2017:[3] Lavrov's Opening Address: 'We Are Realists And Understand That Serious Efforts Are
Needed To Overcome... Barriers': "This has been a long day. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
and I held talks, followed by a lengthy meeting with President of Russia Vladimir Putin, which
lasted for more than two hours. "The talks were detailed and frank, covering the whole range of
issues that are key to our bilateral relations and interaction on international matters. It was stated
that the current stage in our bilateral relations and in the international situation is quite unstable.
There are many issues, including those left by Barack Obama's administration as delayed action
mines. We are realists and understand that serious efforts are needed to overcome these barriers.
We are clearly committed to undertaking these efforts, while expecting our U.S. colleagues to do
the same. Today, President of Russia Vladimir Putin once again reaffirmed our unwavering
commitment to moving in this direction. "We are seeing attempts to impede our cooperation and
even exacerbate the confrontation. We view this approach as short-sighted, especially since it has
been proven time and again over the course of history that when Moscow and Washington work
together, not only our nations, but the whole world stands to win. "We confirmed our shared
commitment to an uncompromising struggle against international terrorism, the topic our
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presidents discussed during the course of several telephone conversations, including a telephone
conversation on the night of April 3-4, when Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin to express
condolences in connection with the terrorist attack in the St Petersburg metro. Of course, in the
context of the fight against terrorism we discussed the situation in Syria. We touched upon the
incident that occurred after April 4 in Idlib in Syria when chemical weapons were used, followed by
a U.S. missile strike on a military airfield on April 7. As you know, we have repeatedly stated our
assessments on this issue. Today, we said that it is vitally important to conduct a thorough
investigation into the incident, which has already become the subject of numerous speculations.
"The Russian Federation urged the need to draw the attention of the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) at The Hague to the fact that it has all the powers needed
to initiate such an investigation. We drew attention to the official letter of the Syrian government to
the UN and OPCW asking for an immediate dispatch of a group of inspectors to carry out an impartial
and objective investigation at the sites of the incidents in Idlib Province and at the airfield which has
been struck. We saw that our American colleagues are ready to support such an investigation. We
expect that the powers of the UN and the OPCW will be exercised without delay. In this connection
we believe it is counter-productive to try to get the UN SC to pass a resolution which would be
devoted not so much to investigating the incident as to legitimizing the accusations which a priori
blame official Damascus for what happened. We have other facts. I repeat, we are not trying to
impose them on anyone. We want to see an objective, unbiased and honest investigation. "We also
discussed the actions of the Russian Aerospace Forces and the U.S.-led coalition in the context of
the existing Memorandum on the Prevention of Incidents and Ensuring Flight Safety in Syria. As
you know, Russia has suspended the Memorandum. Today, Russian President Putin reaffirmed our
readiness to resume compliance with the Memorandum provided there is a clear understanding of
the main aims pursued by the U.S.-led coalition air forces and the Russian Aerospace Forces,
namely, the fight against ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other associated terrorist groups. "We also
assume that the publicly declared line of Russia and the U.S. ruling out the intention to interfere in
the internal affairs of Syria or other states remains in force. We hope that the examples of Iraq, Libya
and some other countries will serve as a potent warning against a repeat of such attempts
somewhere else, including in the Middle East and North Africa. I would like to reiterate that our
shared determination to destroy and defeat ISIS and other terrorists remains in force, which was
fully confirmed today. "In addition to fighting terrorism in Syria and in the region as a whole we have
a common interest in achieving a political settlement of the extremely complicated Syrian crisis.
Russia and the U.S. have over the past years led international efforts to find compromises, to bring
all the participants of the internal Syrian conflict and external players to the negotiating table under
the UN auspices. Today, we agreed to continue bilateral interaction in order to move forward the
multilateral process. We appreciate the fact that in addition to the Geneva process, in which we are
fully involved together with the American colleagues, we also have the Astana venue, at which the
American partners are present as observers. "Russia and the United States can do a great deal to
help the international community settle conflicts in Yemen and Libya and also find a way to break the
impasse in the Palestinian-Israeli settlement. I am confident that continued contacts on these issues
can be useful. "There is also the issue of Afghanistan. As you know, over the past few years we have
used different formats to rally international support for the intra-Afghan settlement. The next such
attempt will be undertaken in Moscow on April 14, at the so-called Moscow format meeting of
Afghanistan and neighboring countries, including from Central Asia, to which American
representatives have been invited. We hope that they will take part in this meeting in some capacity.
"We also talked about the Ukrainian crisis. We have agreed that the 2015 Minsk Agreements must be
implemented. We also recalled that under the previous US administration we put in place a system of
bilateral consultations between Moscow and Washington, in addition to the four-party Normandy
 83

format. We sensed that the new US administration wishes to continue these bilateral contacts to
help find practical ways towards the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements. We will welcome
such efforts. We are ready for this. "We also discussed the situation in the Korean Peninsula, which is
a common concern. Russia and the United States stand for strict compliance with UN Security
Council resolutions on this issue. Today, we also talked about finding a way to break out of spiraling
confrontation and creating conditions for negotiations and for finding political and diplomatic
methods to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. "We also pointed out that Russia and the United
States are responsible for military and political security at the global and regional levels. We touched
base on the implementation of strategic stability and arms reduction treaties between our countries.
We have agreed to end the pause in these processes, which occurred due to objective reasons
connected with the change of the U.S. administration. We hope to resume our contacts on bilateral
strategic stability and arms control and that they will take place in a business-like and pragmatic
manner with a view to ensuring strict compliance with our agreements. "We also talked about our
economic cooperation. We see that both sides are interested in strengthening interaction and
overcoming the current negative trend in the volume of our trade and investment, which has both
objective and subjective causes. For our part, we proposed supporting the initiatives of our countries
business communities, which would like the Russian authorities and the U.S. administration to
support direct contacts between them. "There is yet another agreement. We have arranged to
appoint special representatives from our ministries the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
the U.S. Department of State to analyze in detail the irritants that have piled up in our relations
over recent years, primarily during the Obama administration's term, and do it without emotion or
any artificial exacerbations. I think this could certainly yield results and afford an opportunity to
make our relations healthier, if both parties use a pragmatic approach. "Generally, I think that we all
understand what a difficult situation has taken shape in our relations and in the world: there are too
many people willing to try their hand at using the specifics of advanced communication
technologies, cybersphere and the virtual world as a whole; some people abuse the capabilities
provided by modern technology in a bid to further their unscrupulous political agenda. I think both
the United States and Russia have enough sensible people who are able to 'separate the wheat from
the chaff' and be guided by the cardinal, rather than time-serving, interests of our peoples, countries,
and the world community. "This is my feeling after the talks we held. Despite the number of existing
problems, both real and artificially created, there are quite a few prospects for cooperation. Russia is
open not only to a dialogue with the United States in the most different areas but also to joint
actions directed at achieving results in spheres that meet the interests of both countries. Of course,
we will expect reciprocity from the United States. I am confident that today's meeting and the many
hours we spent with Rex Tillerson and with the President of Russia, were not in vain. We better
understand each other after what we have done together today. I hope that these contacts will
continue both directly between us and our staffs and between other U.S. and Russian government
agencies.

39. Highly provocative: Lavrov says agreed with Tillerson no future strikes on Syrian govt -
Russia Today - April 13th 2017: Moscow and Washington have reached an understanding that further
US strikes similar to the one carried out against Syria's Shayrat Air Base "should not occur again,"
the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Lavrov emphasized that this issue was raised
during his discussions with the US Secretary of State on Wednesday when Rex Tillerson was
visiting Moscow. We have discussed this issue with the US Secretary of State in details yesterday and
agreed upon the fact that a similar [strike] should not occur again, he told journalists ahead of his
meeting with his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem, in Moscow. Lavrov further underlined that the
 84

US missile strike against the Shayrat Air Base played a highly provocative role. He went on to say
that the US confirmed its commitment to the idea that there is no other option of resolving the
Syrian conflict other than the political dialog, adding that this offers hope for the future of the peace
process. It is encouraging to some extent that Rex Tillerson confirmed yesterday that [the US still
holds] the opinion that there is no alternative to the political process [of the resolution of the Syrian
crisis] despite all the recent negative developments, he said.

39. Lavrov Reveals What Pleased Russia in US Stance on Syria - Sputnik - April 13th 2017: The fact
that the United States confirmed its approach of there being no alternative to political resolution
to the Syrian crisis is encouraging, despite recent negative events, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov said Thursday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Lavrov also said that during a Moscow meeting on April
12 with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson the sides reached a common understanding that the US
provocative missile strike against Syria should not take place again. "I want to emphasize the
extremely provocative role of the US missile strike at the Shayrat airfield." "We spoke in great detail
about this situation with the US Secretary of State and agreed that this should not happen again, and
we will insist on an independent objective investigation by the OPCW with additional experts,"
Lavrov added. "The fact Rex Tillerson confirmed yesterday such approach of favoring there being no
alternative to political process, despite all negative events of recent days, gives certain hope," Lavrov
said at a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Tillerson
visited Moscow for the first time after his appointment as US state secretary. Tillerson held a
meeting with Lavrov and then a joint meeting with President Vladimir Putin, which lasted for about
two hours. Both sides said that the talks were constructive, as they had managed to inform each
other of their views on bilateral relations and major international problems. Lavrov, in particular,
said that Moscow saw a readiness on behalf of the United States to support an international
investigation of the April 4 events in Idlib.

40. Russian air defense and the US strike on Al-Shayrat - Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume 14 Issue 50 -
by Roger McDermott - April 11th 2017: Moscows reaction to the United States cruise missile strike
on a regime target in Syria, on April 7, has proved both swift and predictable: ranging from
condemning an act of aggression, to suspend the bilateral de-confliction agreement and
promising to further boost Syrias air defense capability (Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye,
April 9th).

40. Moscow Suspends US-Russia Memorandum on Flights Safety in Syria - TASS - April 7th 2017:
The Russian Foreign Ministry calls for urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss aftermath of
US missile strike on Syrian base. Russia suspends the Memorandum on preventing incidents and
ensuring flights safety during operations in Syria earlier signed with the United States in the wake
of the US strike on the Syrian airbase, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported on Friday. The
Russian side suspends the Memorandum on preventing incidents and ensuring flights safety during
operations in Syria signed with the US, the ministry said. Were urging the UN Security Council to
hold an emergency meeting to discuss the current situation, the ministry said. The ministry claims
the strike was prepared in advance.

40. Trump, 2 steps forward, 1 step back - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyysan - Apr 18th 2017:
The meeting, behind closed doors, lasted for more than 4 hours, which seems fairly long for people
who have nothing to say to one another. Finally, the two men requested an audience with President
 85

Putin, who received them for an extra 2 hours. After these meetings, the Ministers gave a press
conference. They declared without irony that they had done little more than take note of their
divergences. Sergey Lavrov warned the journalists of the danger that this rupture represented for
the world. However, the next day, the same Lavrov, addressing the Russian press, indicated that he
had concluded an agreement with his guest. Washington had agreed not to continue their attacks
on the Syrian Arab Army, and the military coordination between the Pentagon and the Russian
army for circulation in Syrian airspace had been re-established.

41. Highly provocative: Lavrov says agreed with Tillerson no future strikes on Syrian govt
Russia Today - April 13th 2017: speaking at the joint news conference with Tillerson on Wednesday
following talks in Moscow, Lavrov also denounced attempts to hamper cooperation between Russia
and the US as short-sighted. The two diplomats also announced the creation of a joint expert
group tasked with analyzing bilateral relations and addressing sources of mutual concern as they
revealed plans to improve ties between Moscow and Washington.

41. Jonathan Steele (international affairs commentator) - RTs Cross Talk: Shattered Relations
April 14th 2017: 17:06-18:21: Well, I would slightly dissent from the excessive pessimism that you have
been talking about in your description at the very beginning that the meeting in Moscow was a
disaster. They reinstated the deconfliction arrangements, whereby the two air-forces in Syria, the
Russian and the American, will now go back to informing each other in advance of their flight plan, so
theres no risk of collusion, er, collision. Theres also, they set up a special group between the Russians
and the Americans to discuss all the various bilateral issues in the international ones. They did reconfirm,
I mean the Americans reconfirmed that the military priority in Syria is still the fight against IS. So there
were some small signs forward, and I think, one must get away from some of this media shouting by all
the media that everything is a disaster and were going down the hill. Diplomacy is a slow process;
were not on the brink of WW3. Sensible heads will return I think. We shouldnt be too pessimistic.

42. Tillerson: Defeating ISIS 'first priority' in Syria - The Hill - by Max Greenwood - April 8th 2017:
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in an interview clip released Saturday that the United States'
first priority in Syria is to take out the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group. "It's
important that we keep our priorities straight, and we believe that the first priority is the defeat of
ISIS," Tillerson said in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation," set to air on Sunday. "By defeating
ISIS and removing their caliphate from their control, weve now eliminated at least or minimized a
particular threat not just to the United States, but to the whole stability in the region," he
continued. "Once the ISIS threat has been reduced or eliminated, I think we can turn our attention
directly to stabilizing the situation in Syria," he added. Tillerson said that any political solution to the
ongoing civil war in Syria will require the cooperation of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, as
well as Russia, a fierce backer of Assad. "Clearly, that requires the participation of the regime with
the support of their allies," Tillerson said. "Were hopeful that Russia will choose to play a
constructive role in supporting ceasefires through their own Astana talks, but also, ultimately,
through Geneva." "If we can achieve ceasefires in zones of stabilization in Syria, then I believe we
hope we will have the conditions to begin a useful political process." Tillerson's comments on the
role of Assad have shifted in recent days. On Thursday, ahead of U.S. strikes on a regime air base in
response to a deadly chemical weapons attack, Tillerson said "Assads role in the future is
uncertain, clearly, and with the acts that he has taken, it would seem that there would be no role
 86

for him to govern the Syrian people." That followed him saying last week that the "longer-term
status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people".

42. Defense Secretary says U.S. is still focused on ISIS in Syria - by Associated Press - Apr 11th 2017:
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says the campaign against the Islamic State group is still the main
focus of the U.S. in Syria and remains on track. He says the bombing of the Syrian air field Thursday
in retaliation for the government's use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians was a
separate issue in the military campaign.

42. Trump Approves New Pentagon Strategy to Annihilate ISIS - World Socialist Web Site -
by Niles Niemuth - May 20th 2017: Defense Secretary James Mattis announced at a press briefing on
Friday that President Donald Trump had approved a new Pentagon plan that would escalate the war
for US domination of the Middle East and North Africa. Mattis told reporters that the plan would
aim to militarily encircle strongholds of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to annihilate the
Islamist militia, which still controls significant portions of Syria and Iraq. The immediate target is
the ISIS capital of Raqqa in northern Syria, where a major offensive is being prepared by the US in
coordination with the various Kurdish and Arab Syrian militias it has built up during the five-year
conflict. The civil war has been stoked by the US and its regional allies with the aim of unseating
Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Mattis also reported that Trump had delegated the ability to
authorize military operations to him and to commanders on the ground to speed up operations.
Weve accelerated the campaign, Mattis said, indicating that commanders were already taking
advantage of their new-found authority. The Obama administration used the emergence of ISIS in
Iraq and Syria in 2014 to justify redeploying thousands of US troops to Iraq and deploying hundreds
of troops to Syria, while opening a campaign of airstrikes across both countries. The bloody
campaigns by US and Iraqi forces to retake cities seized by ISIS, including Fallujah and Mosul, have
resulted in the complete destruction of entire neighborhoods and have displaced hundreds of
thousands of people. US airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians, with a significant uptick in
casualties since Trump took office in January. ISIS developed out of the invasion and occupation of
Iraq in 2003, in which the US stoked sectarian divisions between Shiites and Sunnis to assert its
control, and the war for regime change in Syria beginning in 2011, in which the CIA and Pentagon
supported Sunni Islamist militias, elements of which formed ISIS. According to the Pentagon, ISIS
now maintains branches and affiliates in multiple countries, all of which will require US military
intervention across a broad swath of territory from Central Asia to West Africa. Military operations
waged against ISIS and other Islamist militias are underway in Libya, Yemen, Somalia and
Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the US recently dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in
combat on a network of caves allegedly being used by the ISIS Khorasan affiliate. The ever-
expanding use of military force is not limited to the United States. At Fridays press conference,
Mattis singled out the deployment of 4,000 French troops to the Lake Chad region of West Africa.
France has been fighting Islamist insurgents there since 2014, including Boko Haram militants who
have pledged their allegiance to ISIS. The announcement of the Pentagons new strategy came as
Trump left Washington for his first foreign trip in office. The first stop will be Saudi Arabia, where
the president is expected to announce a record $110 billion arms deal with the Saudi monarchy. The
deal reportedly includes precision guided bombs that had been withheld by the Obama
administration while it funneled billions of dollars of other weaponry.

42. US changes tactics against ISIS, working on plan with 'enthusiastic' Russians - Russia Today -
May 19th 2017: The Trump administration is giving more leeway to field commanders and focusing
 87

on annihilating Islamic State forces, top US officials said. A proposal is also in the works to
deconflict operations in Syria with Russia. US forces are legally precluded from coordinating with
the Russians, General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the
Pentagon on Friday. However, the US and Russian militaries have been maintaining multiple
communication channels to deconflict operations in Syria. We have a proposal that were
working on with the Russians right now, Dunford added, declining to offer any details. He did say
that it would address the presence of a Syrian government pocket in Deir ez-Zor, halfway down the
Euphrates River between the IS (formerly ISIS/ISIL) stronghold of Raqqa and the Iraqi border. The
Russians are as enthusiastic as we are to deconflict operations and focus on fighting IS, Dunford
said. The comments came after Moscow condemned the US airstrike against a government-allied
force near the Jordanian border as illegitimate and unlawful. Advisers with the Pentagon-backed
Maghawir Al-Thawra militia group in the town of Tanf called in the strike. Defense Secretary James
Mattis described the targeted fighters as Iran-backed, rather than backed by the Syrian government,
and called the airstrike self-defense of our forces. It was necessitated by offensive movement, of
what we believe were Iranian-directed forces, Mattis said, that acted against the advice of the
Russians. Mattis did not speculate whether the targeted forcers were directed by Irans
Revolutionary Guards Corps or Hezbollah, but he did blame Iran for "extending a war that should
have been done years ago. Dunford described the attack as force protection, adding that
measures were being put into place to ensure such situations do not happen again. Mattis also
briefed reporters on the major changes to the strategy against IS adopted by the Trump
administration. First, he delegated the authority to the right level to aggressively and in a timely
manner move against the enemy vulnerabilities, Mattis said. Secondly, the tactical objective
shifted from pushing IS forces back in a battle of attrition to surrounding them in a war of
annihilation. IS forces have been surrounded both in the western parts of Mosul and in Raqqa,
and there is no escape for them, Mattis said. We carry out an annihilation campaign, so we
dont simply translate this problem from one location to another, Mattis said. Our intent is that
foreign fighters dont get out.

43. Former CIA Officer: "The Intelligence Confirms the Russian Account On Syria" - Consortium
News - by Robert Parry - April 8th 2017: If changing the narrative was Trumps goal, it achieved some
initial success with several of Trumps fiercest neocon critics, such as neocon Senators John McCain
and Lindsey Graham, praising the missile strike, as did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The neocons and Israel have long sought regime change in Damascus even if the ouster of Assad
might lead to a victory by Islamic extremists associated with Al Qaeda and/or the Islamic State.

43. Greater Israel: The Zionist Plan for the Middle East: the Infamous 1982 "Oded Yinon Plan" -
Global Research - Introduction by Michel Chossudovsky - by Israel Shahak - May 17th 2017

44. Trump just yanked the Russia card out of Democrats hands - CNBC.com - by Jake Novak - April
7th 2017: What a difference 24 hours and 59 Tomahawk missiles can make. Yesterday if you
mentioned the words "Russia and Trump," you were probably having a conversation about the
enduring allegations that the Russians somehow colluded with the Trump campaign and that they
somehow tipped the 2016 election. But now those words are likely a part of a conversation about
how President Donald Trump broke with Russia in his decision to respond to the alleged Syrian
nerve gas assault on its own people with Thursday night's missile strike. That's a dramatic flipping
of the script in Washington, Moscow, and beyond. It's not exactly an example of a totally negative
 88

story turning into a totally positive one for President Trump, but it is close. Because from now on,
the narrative that the president is some kind of puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin is going
to be much harder to promote. An independent President Trump is harder to completely tear down
than a man supposedly being remote-controlled by the Kremlin... no matter what he does.

44. McCain, Graham applaud Syrian airstrikes - The Hill: Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey
Graham (R-S.C.) applauded President Trump for launching airstrikes targeting the Syrian regime,
saying he confronted a pivotal moment unlike former President Obama. For that, he deserves
the support of the American people. Trump on Thursday ordered the military to strike a Syrian
airfield in response to a chemical weapons attack earlier this week that killed more than 70 civilians.
It also marked a startling departure for Trump, who before this week had resisted drawing the
country deeper into the conflict.

45. Where did they go? asks Russia after 36 missiles fired at Syria fail to arrive - by Sorcha Faal -
April 7th 2017 - My note: In the article, Faal betrays his CIA colours by asserting that the Pentagon is
responsible for arming the jihadists, and not the CIA.

46. Trump humiliated: Syria shoots down 34 of 59 cruise missiles, Russia to upgrade system soon -
Veterans Today - by Gordon Duff - Senior Editor - April 9th 2017 - My note: In this article, Duff asserts
that Trump launched the attack because he had been blackmailed into doing it, due to a tape of him
having sex with, and then murdering, a child. Duff: If this is a conspiracy theory, and it may well be,
then Trump was planning this all along, which is my belief. The tape involves the murder of a minor. It
may well not exist except that when it was offered to us, at a price we cant pay, VT was taken down
by presidential order.

47. Trump humiliated: Syria shoots down 34 of 59 cruise missiles, Russia to upgrade system soon -
Veterans Today - by Gordon Duff - Senior Editor - April 9th 2017:

Commenter ggeraldf: the missile shown is not a tomahawk. Its actually a Russian missile. The US does
not use waffle fins on its cruise missiles. The image is actually taken from a Turkish news site from Feb
16 of 2016 and was about a Russian missile downed in Syria.

Commenter Dave Thorson: Hey what are you guys trying to pull here? A google image search brings
up that photo of a supposed Tomahawk missile fired the other day to a Daily Mail story from one year
ago!
 89

Commenter CRM114: The picture that you posted of the downed missile has grid fins (also known as
lattice fins). The Tomahawk does not have grid fins. A number of Russian missiles have grid fins, but
thats not a Tomahawk downed in the olive grove.

Commenter ggeraldf: In addition, those warfare trucks have no ability to jam a tomahawk, they are
broadband and airborne EW jammers they would have no impact on a tomahawk as all versions
have redundancy and use lodged mapping. Such jammers would be irrelevant and have no impact on
disrupting the target set.

48. Donald Trump asserts his authority over his allies - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyysan - Apr
7th 2017: Dont be confused by the diplomatic games and the Pied Piperism of the major medias.
What happened this morning in Syria has no connection with the story you are being told about it,
nor the conclusions which are being drawn for you. This morning, the United States is said to have
fired 59 cruise missiles from the Mediterranean in order to destroy the Syrian military air base at
Shairat. The attack was intended as a unilateral action aimed at punishing the chemical weapons
attack which the US attributes to the Syrian Arab Army. Stunned by the amplitude of the reaction by
the US, all commentators concluded that the Trump administration had made a 180 turn concerning
the Syrian question. The White House was claimed to have finally adopted the position of its US
opposition and its British, French and German allies. Really? Without hindrance, the US cruise missiles
crossed the zone controlled by the new Russian weapon which inhibits NATO communications and
commands. According to General Philip Breedlove, ex-Supreme Commander of NATO, this weapon
enabled Russia to gain the advantage over the United States in terms of conventional warfare. It
should normally have upset the guidance systems of these missiles, but apparently did not function.
This indicates either that the Pentagon has finally found a technical riposte, or that the weapon had
been de-activated by the Russians. The Syrian anti-air defence system includes S-300s controlled by
the Syrian Arab Army and S-400s served by the Russian army. These weapons are supposed to be
capable of intercepting cruise missiles, although the situation has never yet presented itself in
combat conditions. They are, of course, triggered automatically, but they did not function either.
Therefore no anti-missile missiles were fired, neither by the Russian army, nor by the Syrian army.
When the US cruise missiles hit their targets, they landed on a military base which was almost
deserted, having been evacuated only a short time before. Therefore, the missiles destroyed the
tarmac, the radar equipment and a number of aircraft which had long been out of service, some
hangars and living quarters. They nonetheless caused a dozen victims, six of whom died. Although
no cruise missile was officially tracked as off-course or destroyed, only 23 and not 59 hit the base at
Shairat. Since he acceded to the White House, President Trump has been trying to change his
countrys policies, to substitute cooperation for the current confrontational system. On the question
of the Greater Middle East, he took position for the destruction of jihadist organisations (and not
for their reduction, as his predecessor claimed). Over the last few days, Trump has recognised the
legitimacy of the Syrian Arab Republic, and thus the maintenance in power of the democratically-
elected President, Bashar el-Assad. He received the Egyptian President, Marshall Abdel Fattah al-
Sissi, an ally of Syria, and congratulated him for his fight against the jihadists. He has re-established a
direct communications channels between Washington and Damascus. In any case, President Trumps
problem was to convince his allies to apply his policies whatever the investment they had made to
overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic. It is of course possible that President Trump made his about-
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face in three days simply because he saw a video broadcast on YouTube, but it is more probable that
this mornings military action is the continuation of his previous diplomatic actions. By attacking,
President Trump satisfied his opposition, so they will be unable to oppose the next phase of
operations. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton called for the bombing of Syria in a riposte to the alleged use of
chemical weapons. Donald Trump ordered his troops to fire cruise missiles on an almost empty base,
after having given advance notice to the whole world, including Russia and Syria. Damascus, by
sacrificing this base and the lives of a few men, gave him the authority to carry out a vast action
against anyone who uses chemical weapons. But so far, the only people who actually use these
weapons, and have been identified by the United Nations for doing so, are the jihadists. Daesh,
which had also been warned of the US attack (but by its British, French and German commanders),
immediately launched an attack on Homs, which is now deprived of an air base. We shall see in the
next few days how Washington and its allies will react to the jihadist advance. It will only be at that
moment that we shall know if Donald Trumps maneuver and the gamble by Vladimir Putin and
Bashar el-Assad has worked.

48. And what if Trump had not changed his mind? - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyysan - Apr 10th
2017: The chancelleries and the Press are claiming that President Trump changed his policy and
betrayed his electors by accepting the resignation of General Flynn, and then by bombing Chayrat.
Thierry Meyssan, however, points out several incoherencies which seem to indicate just the
opposite. The US military aggression against Syria may in fact be directed, in the long term, against
Washingtons allies. Did Donald Trump, who was elected for his programme promising the end of
imperialism, and for service of the interests of his people, suddenly change his mind only three
months after his arrival at the White House? This is the ultra-majority interpretation of the bombing
of the base at Chayrat on 6 April 2017. All of the allies of the United States approved the action in the
name of humanitarian principles. Every one of the allies of Syria condemned it in the name of
International Law. And yet, during the debate at the United Nations Security Council, the argument
of a chemical attack perpetrated by Damascus was not considered by the representative of the
Secretary General. On the contrary, he stressed the impossibility of knowing, at this stage, how the
alleged attack could have occurred. Bolivia even raised doubts about the very existence of the
attack, which was only reported by the White Helmets, in other words the al-Qada group that MI6
supervises for the needs of its propaganda. Moreover, all military experts emphasize that combat
gases must always be delivered by shell-fire, and never, absolutely never, by aerial bombing. In any
case, the US attack against the base in Chayrat was characterised by its apparent brutality the 59
BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles had an accumulated power almost twice that of the atomic bomb that
was dropped on Hiroshima. But the aggression was also characterised by its inefficiency although
there were in fact several martyrs who died attempting to extinguish the fires, the damage was so
slight that the base was functioning again the next morning. We are obliged to conclude either that
the US Navy is a paper tiger, or that the operation was no more than a sham. If this hypothesis
should be true, it is easier to understand why the Russian anti-air defence failed to react - supposing
that the S-400 anti-missile missiles, which are triggered automatically, were deliberately de-activated
beforehand. Everything played out as though the White House had imagined a trick aimed at
dragging its allies into a war against anyone who uses chemical weapons - which means, in fact,
against the jihadists. Indeed, according to the United Nations, the only proven cases of the use of
these weapons in Syria and Iraq to date have been attributed to them. Over the last three months,
the United States have broken with the politics of Republican George Bush Jr. (who signed the
declaration of war which was the Syrian Accountability Act) and Barack Obama (who supported the
Arab Spring , which was in reality the replay of the Arab Revolt of 1916 organised by the British).
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However, Donald Trump has so far been unable to convince his allies, in particular the Germans, the
British, and the French. Jumping on what seems to be a radical change in US policy, London has
multiplied its declarations against Syria, Russia and Iran. The British Minister for Foreign Affairs, Boris
Johnson, cancelled his visit to Moscow. But heres the thing - if Washington has really changed its
policy, why has Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, on the contrary, confirmed his own visit to Moscow?
And why did Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was the guest of his US opposite number during the
bombing of Chayrat, react so half-heartedly, when his own country used its veto six times at the UN
Security Council in order to protect Syria? In the midst of all this speechy unanimity and factual
incoherences, President Trumps advisor, Sebastian Gorka, claims that the White House still
considers President el-Assad as legitimate and the jihadists as the enemy. Gorka is a very close friend
of General Michael T. Flynn, who drew up the Trump plan against the jihadists in general and Daesh
in particular.

48. Trump, 2 steps forward, 1 step back - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyysan - Apr 18th 2017:
While the international press details the astonishing about-face by Donald Trump, Thierry
Meyssan shows that it is nothing of the sort- far from having abandoned his ideal of peace, the
president is raging and bombing while taking great care to not commit anything irreparable.
President Trumps radical change in rhetoric concerning his foreign policy was accompanied by the
bombing of an air base in Cheyrat, and that of an Afghan mountain. The world trembled before the
deployment of such force - 59 Tomahawk missiles in Syria and one GBU-4/B3 mega-bomb in
Afghanistan. Yet the base in Cheyrat was already operational again the following morning, while the
Mother of All Bombs certainly caused the collapse of three exits of a natural tunnel, but did not
destroy the kilometres of underground passages created over time by the rivers within the
mountain. In short, much ado about nothing. These two operations were clearly intended to
convince the US deep state that the White House was once again supporting its imperial politics.
They had the desired effect on Germany and France. Chancellor Angela Merkel and President
Franois Hollande applauded their lord and master, and called for an end to the Syrian situation. The
surprise arrived from elsewhere. The United Kingdom did not only follow the movement. Their
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Boris Johnson, proposed to levy sanctions against Russia, according to
him an accomplice in the Syrian crimes , and responsible in one way or another for the Afghan
resistance and a plethora of other evils. During the meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs at the
G7, Johnson announced the cancellation of his trip to Moscow, and invited all his partners to break
off their political and commercial relations with Russia. However, though approving the British
initiative, these partners prudently stayed in the background. Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of
State, incontrovertibly dismissed this insane proposition and maintained his trip to Moscow.
Brazenly, Johnson then declared that the Europeans had appointed Tillerson to go and talk some
sense into the Russians. Although international protocol states that Ministers are to be received by
their opposite numbers, and not by the Head of State, the Atlantist Press presented Tillersons
welcome by Lavrov as a cooling of Russo-US relations. Before he had the time to salute his guest,
Sergey Lavrov was interrupted by a Washington journalist who took him to task. Reminding him of
the conventions of basic politeness, the Russian Minister refused to answer him and cut the
presentations short. The meeting, behind closed doors, lasted for more than 4 hours, which seems
fairly long for people who have nothing to say to one another. Finally, the two men requested an
audience with President Putin, who received them for 2 extra hours. After these meetings, the
Ministers gave a Press conference. They declared without irony that they had done little more than
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take note of their divergences. Sergey Lavrov warned the journalists of the danger that this rupture
represented for the world. However, the next day, the same Lavrov, addressing the Russian Press,
indicated that he had concluded an agreement with his guest. Washington had agreed not to
continue their attacks on the Syrian Arab Army, and the military coordination between the Pentagon
and the Russian army for circulation in Syrian airspace had been re-established. In appearance, the
Trump administration is roaring its power and throwing bombs around, but in reality, it is taking
great care not to cause any irreparable damage. The worst and the best are therefore possible.

48. Why did Trump bomb Shayrat? - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyysan - May 2nd 2017:
Contrary to appearances, the US administration, far from behaving erratically, is attempting to
define the framework for its foreign policy. President Donald Trump is negotiating with a
spokesperson for the Deep State which has been governing his country since 11 September 2001 -
and it would seem that they have found the conditions for an agreement, whose details are still to
be specified. Members of the administration will have to clarify the White Houses new foreign policy
at the end of May, before a Congressional Committee. During the bombing of Cheyrat, I observed
that it was no more than a show of power, and that the Secretary of State had used the attack to
bring pressure to bear on its allies and force the real organisers of this war - the United Kingdom - to
reveal themselves. However, we know a little more today. President Trump, who has to face up not
only to the opposition of his countrys ruling class, but also to that of the deep US State, used this
attack to restore the credibility of the White House. In the summer of 2013, President Obama
accused Syria of having used poison gas in the Ghouta, thereby crossing a red line. And yet he
mentioned no consequences, and hid behind the Congress in order to do nothing. His impotence was
all the more conspicuous in that, by virtue of the declaration of war of 2003 (the Syrian
Accountability Act), he had all the power to bomb Syria without any further authorisation from
Parliament. By accusing Syria, in his turn, of having used poison gas, this time in Khan Sheikoun, and
by bombing them immediately, Donald Trump demonstrated the credibility that his predecessor
lacked. Aware that Syria was not guilty, either in the Ghouta or in Khan Sheikoun, he managed to
warn the Syrian Arab Army in advance so that they had time to evacuate the base before the strike.
Based on this action, he began negotiations with the US Deep State, or at least with one of its
spokespersons, Senator John McCain. A representative of Israel, Senator Lindsey Graham, was also
present during the discussions. The Europeans were of course surprised to learn that Donald Trump
had acted as a warlord, thus confirming his status as the President of a member state of the UNO.
We have to keep in mind the particular context of the United States, where the deep State is
composed primarily of military figures, and only incidentally of civilians. According to our
information, it would seem that President Trump has agreed to give up for the time being the
dismantling of NATO and its civilian chapter, the European Union. This decision implies that
Washington still considers - or pretends to consider that Russia is its main enemy. Also the deep US
State seems to have agreed to give up supporting the jihadists and pursuing the British plan of the
Arab Springs. To seal this agreement, two neo-conservative personalities should soon enter the
Trump administration, where they will handle European policy. Kurt Volker, Director of the McCain
Institute (Arizona State University) will apparently be nominated as Director of the Eurasian bureau
for the Secretary of State. Volker, an ex-military judge, was President Bush Jrs ambassador to NATO
during the war in Georgia (August 2008). Tom Goffus, one of McCains assistants at the Senate
Committee for Armed Services, will be nominated as deputy assistant for the Secretary of Defense,
and tasked with Europe and NATO. Goffus is an Air Force officer who has already occupied this type
of function on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the National Security Council. As for Syria, this agreement,
if ratified by both parties, should mark the end of the US war against the Syrian Arab Republic a
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war that was pursued thanks to the initiative of the United Kingdom and Israel, with their allies
(Germany, Saudi Arabia, France, Turkey, etc.). Little by little, the phony Friends of Syria, which united
130 States and international organisations in 2012, began shrinking. There are only 10 left today.

48. Trump advances his pawns - Voltaire Network - by Thierry Meyssan - May 30th 2017: Thierry
Meyssan observes the actions that President Trump is taking to convince his allies and partners to
drop the jihadists that they support, arm, and supervise. Contrary to the picture painted by the
international Press and its political adversaries, for the last four months, the White House has been
pursuing an anti-imperialist policy which is beginning to bear fruit: the process of the cessation of
Saudi support for the Muslim Brotherhood, the end of the coordination of the jihadists by NATO,
and the process of the cessation of Western financing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Although NATO
was conceived to protect the West against the Soviet Union, Donald Trump has redirected it. While it
maintains the goal of rivalling with Russia, it will now dedicate half of its means to the fight against
jihadism. From the 3rd conference of the Friends of Syria, on 6 July 2012 in Paris, to the investiture of
President Trump, on 21 January 2017 in Washington, the United States, France and the United
Kingdom never ceased organising the war against Syria, while constantly pretending to be
negotiating a political resolution. Over the last 16 years, and particularly during his Presidential
electoral campaign, Donald Trump has presented himself as a militant anti-imperialist. Contrary to
what is claimed by his detractors, the fact that he is a billionaire in no way compromises his political
convictions. Since he arrived at the White House [1], President Trump has had to fight against his
own administration, of which 98% of the senior civil servants voted Hillary Clinton, and also against
the allied governments of his predecessor. So, over the last four months, he has continued to follow
his desire to liberate his country and the world by instigating a series of actions which his adversaries
either deform or present as contradictory. During the Summit of the Arab-Muslim States, on 21 May
in Riyadh, Donald Trump appealed to his interlocutors in general and Saudi Arabia in particular to
break off all contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood and to sever all ties with Islamic terrorism [2].
Aware that he was asking King Salman to give up his main army, he gifted him with a replacement
arsenal worth 110 billion dollars. Despite the bursts of generosity of the King and his court, at the end
of the summit, Saudi Arabia published a declaration without prior approval by the other
participants [3]. This document may be read as the announcement of the creation of an Islamic
Military Coalition, an expansion of the Joint Arab Forces whom we saw at work in Yemen. But it may
also serve later as a justification for Saudi occupation of regions of Syria, Iraq and elsewhere which
had been liberated by Daesh. At the Nato summit, on 25 May in Brussels, Donald Trump invited his
allies to offer a minute of silence before a fragment of the Berlin Wall and a piece of dbris from
the Twin Towers. Reminding them that they had accepted in the name of Article 5 of the Treaty -
the principle of the fight against terrorism during the attacks of 9/11, he obliged them to redirect
the aims of the Alliance [4]. It will of course maintain its anti-Russian function, but is now dedicated
to the eradication of the jihadists which it has so far been coordinating from the base at Izmir
(Turkey). As well as this, he compelled them to share their information concerning terrorist
organisations via a Coordinated Intelligence Cell. At the G7 Summit in Taormina, 26 May, Donald
Trump managed to strong-arm his allies into making a declaration against terrorism and violent
extremism [5]. In reality, his partners only accepted the agreement in order to prevent the spilling
over of terrorism to the West from the areas where they organise it, finance it and supervise it. In
any case, the G7 began a process aimed at drying up not only the financing of terrorism, but also that
of violent extremism, in other words the Muslim Brotherhood, the source of terrorism. This
declaration was only possible in the context of the attack in Manchester perpetrated on 22 May, by
the son of an M16 double agent, both an ex-member of Mouamar Kadhafis security services and of
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Al-Qada [6]. But it is clear that the British still have no intention of depriving themselves of the
Muslim Brotherhood. However, it does seem possible that France and Germany are beginning to
clean up their services. It will take them a while. Donald Trump has still not been able to do so in his
own administration. Thus, on 20 May in Jeddah, the Pentagon delivered arms to the jihadists,
honouring a contract signed in the final days of the Presidential transition [7]. These new weapons
include multiple rocket-launchers and Bulgarian OT-64 SKOT tanks.

[1] Donald Trump Inauguration Speech, by Donald Trump, Voltaire Network, 21 January 2017.
[2] Donald Trumps Speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit, by Donald Trump, Voltaire
Network, 21 May 2017.
[3] Riyadh Declaration, Voltaire Network, 23 May 2017.
[4] Remarks by Donald Trump at NATO Unveiling of the Article 5 and Berlin Wall Memorials, by
Donald Trump, Voltaire Network, 25 May 2017.
[5] G7 Taormina Statement on the Fight Against Terrorism and Violent Extremism, Voltaire
Network, 26 May 2017.
[6] Manchester Attack as MI6 Blowback, Translation Evan Jones, Voltaire Network, 25 May 2017.
[7] The Pentagon is following through on arms agreements that Obama made with Jihadists.

49. Trump playing high stakes 4-D chess games - Global Research - by Larry Chin - April 12th 2017:
Both Russia and Syria were warned in advance. Only 23 missiles hit their mark (why and where did
the others go?). The damage was relatively minor. The runway was left intact. Syrian military
planes were able to conduct sorties from the same runway against rebel targets the following
morning. Was Trump nave and ignorant enough to be manipulated by the Deep State propaganda,
and act recklessly out of emotion? Or was he playing a game? Was the missile strike a limited one-
time staged propaganda deception? A fake response to a fake chemical attack- done with the back
channel cooperation of the Russians and Syrians? Who were warned in advance? The relatively
minor damage, and the runway being left intact, suggest this possibility.

50. Could Trump, Putin, and Xi be conspiring for peace? - Tomato Bubble - by Mike King - April 17th
2017