U.S. Defends the Caliphate + Hillary Mounts Dead Mother Again

First, let's go to the last paragraph of a story ("U.S. Moves to Block Russian Military Buildup in Syria" by Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt) that appears in today's paper. It is a quote from U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby:

“Russia is not a member of the coalition against ISIL, and what we’ve said is that their continued support to the Assad regime has actually fostered the growth of ISIL inside Syria and made the situation worse,” [Kirby] said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “If they want to be helpful against ISIL, the way to do it is to stop arming and assisting and supporting Bashar al-Assad.”

This is the U.S. position: Russia is indirectly responsible for the rise of Islamic State because it supports the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic. Put another way, by supporting international law, Russia is fostering terrorism.

Notice the absurdity of the U.S. position. Never mind that U.S. allies in the region -- member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as Turkey and Israel -- have been actively collaborating with ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front to destabilize Iraq, Syria and Lebanon; the important question to ask is what is the U.S. plan for Syria the day after Assad relinquishes power.

The answer is that there is none, which means that, absent Assad, a caliphate, in one form or another, is going to be the de facto state. Russia's moves to fortify Latakia Province with Spetsnaz special forces is Putin's way of saying that such an outcome is unacceptable. Once again Russia is on the correct side. U.S. attempts to block Russian overflight is pitiful.

Before signing off this morning I can't help mention a word or two on the latest Hillary reboot (Maggie Haberman, "Hillary Clinton, Citing Her ‘Mistake,’ Apologizes for Private Email"):

When asked if she had ever second-guessed her decision to make another run at the White House, Mrs. Clinton began to choke up, admitting that she had, at times, before invoking her mother’s admonitions to “fight for what you believe in, no matter how hard it is.” 

“I think about her a lot. I miss her a lot. I wish she were here with me,” Mrs. Clinton said of her mother, who died in 2011. But, she added: “I don’t want to just fight for me. I mean, I could have a perfectly fine life not being president. I want to fight for all the people like my mother who need somebody in their corner. And they need a leader who cares about them again. So that’s what I’m going to try to do.”

The Clinton campaign riding the bones of Hillary's dead mother was at the core of the last reboot, the one at the end of this past spring. Now that summer is coming to a close it must be time to flay the corpse again. Hillary showing emotional vulnerability is the only thing that the Clinton campaign has for a sure-fire winner. What I am waiting for next is a tearful revelation from the candidate that she was sexually abused as a child by an adult male relative who has recently passed away.

Believe Russia, Not Kiev/U.S.

With the Kiev junta dangerously upping the ante on Flight 17, saying that it can prove that Russia supplied the antiaircraft missile battery that was used to destroy the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, Russia fired back. David Herszenhorn reports that,

In Russia on Saturday, the Kremlin announced that President Vladimir V. Putin had spoken by telephone with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, about both the airliner investigation and the need to pursue a cease-fire in southeastern Ukraine.

The two leaders agreed to the need for a “thorough and objective investigation of all the circumstances of the incident,” according to a brief statement on the Kremlin website. 

The Russian government maintained that the Ukrainian military could possibly have shot down the aircraft. The deputy minister of defense, Anatoly I. Antonov, called on Ukraine to hand over all the documents related to its surface-to-air missile systems to the international investigators — once such an inquiry was organized. 

Appearing on the state-run Rossiya 24 satellite, Mr. Antonov said that the rush to blame Russia or the militiamen in southeastern Ukraine smacked of the “information war” that Ukraine and its Western allies had been waging for months. He said that he wanted to know why the Ukraine military deployed its Russian-made SA-11 Buk antiaircraft system in the east of the country since the insurgents have no air force. 

“Are Ukrainian armed forces officials ready to provide international experts with the documents about the number of the air-to-air missiles and surface-to-air missiles that are available for its anti-aircraft-missile systems?” the deputy minister said. “This is a very important question that will allow us to determine what systems were used against the Malaysian Boeing.” 

At a news conference in Washington on Friday, Rear Admiral John F. Kirby said that it would have been difficult for the separatists to have fired the SA-11 without Russian help.

So this is what we know: The narrative appears to be cohering around the idea that Novorossiyan forces could not have brought down Flight 17 without direct Russian assistance; this coming from no less than the Pentagon spokesman. The Novorossiyans deny having anything to do with it. Residents from the area where Flight 17 crashed laugh at the idea of Novorossiyan forces being able to down the passenger jet.

Basically what we have here is Kiev/U.S. saying the Russians did it, and the Russians saying, No we did not. Who do you believe? I think the answer to that is very easy. I believe the Russians. The Russians came up with a peaceful solution to bail Obama out of his disastrous decision to bomb Syria. The Russians saved his presidency, something that they are probably regretting right now. Also -- remember! -- Russia has been the nation at the forefront of calling for negotiations between Kiev and Novorrosiya. Kiev has insisted on unconditional surrender.

Will the fascists in Kiev be able to account for all their antiaircraft missiles?