Author Archives: News Sources

How Donald Trump turned the tax code into a giant tax shelter

James B Stewart writes: Now we know: Donald J. Trump racked up losses so huge in the early 1990s that he wouldn’t have had to pay federal or New York State income tax on nearly a billion dollars in income.

None of this seems to have made the slightest dent in Mr. Trump’s opulent lifestyle over the years. At the nadir of his personal financial crisis in the early 1990s, his lenders put him on a monthly “budget” of $450,000 in personal expenses — more than enough to sustain his lifestyle of lavish homes, private jets, country clubs and golf courses — even as he was using the tax code to avoid paying any federal income tax.

It’s hard to imagine a starker contrast with the vast number of Americans who struggle to both pay taxes and make ends meet, or a more damning indictment of a tax code that makes that possible.

“If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: The tax code is tilted toward the rich in its statutory framework, its exceptions, and in how it is enforced and administered,” said Steven M. Rosenthal, a real estate tax specialist and senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

“The American public,” he said, “needs to wake up and send a message that the tax code should be written to generate revenue and enforced to collect it, not to favor wealthy real estate developers and other special interests and their lobbyists.”

If Mr. Trump’s pattern of generating losses and using them to offset other income has continued, as seems likely, it’s obvious why he has not released his tax returns: not because he is being audited, or because the returns are too complicated, but because he hasn’t paid any taxes. [Continue reading…]

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Brexit: What will happen now timescale for article 50 has been revealed?

The Guardian reports: As the man who drafted it has said, the EU’s divorce clause was never meant to be triggered: article 50 was inserted into the Lisbon treaty purely to silence British complaints that there was no official way out of the union.

So there is a certain irony in Britain now becoming the first European Union member state to formally begin the two-year leaving process, after Theresa May said Brexit would finally start by the end of March 2017.

With the start date now known, albeit approximately, British efforts will redouble to open informal talks before official negotiations begin – despite Brussels’s repeated insistence on “no negotiation without notification”.

David Davis’s Brexit ministry, expected soon to number as many as 500 staff, and the government’s legal department will bear the brunt of extracting Britain from the bloc and defining its future relationship. The key question they must resolve – and still a source of conflict within the government – remains whether the UK will push for enhanced access to the single market.

That, Brussels and other EU capitals have repeatedly insisted, can only come at the price of free movement for European migrant workers, an acceptance of the single market’s rules and regulations, and a contribution to Brussels’s budget.

DExEU, Davis’s department, will model different “soft” and “hard” Brexit scenarios and their impact on dozens of sectors of the UK economy, help define the cabinet’s preferred Brexit target, and draw up negotiating priorities: what does Britain want, what can it not do without, what might it be prepared to sacrifice.

Both DExEU and the government’s legal department will also now begin work on the act that will repeal the 1972 European Communities Act – the law that binds EU law to the British statute book – and new legislation to transpose EU legislation into British law in its entirety.

The bill, announced by May on Saturday night, will be brought forward in the next parliamentary session. It will take effect on the day Britain leaves the EU, now set at no later than the end of March 2019, with future governments able to unpick EU-derived laws as desired. [Continue reading…]

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Colombia peace deal is defeated, leaving a nation in shock

The New York Times reports: A Colombian peace deal that the president and the country’s largest rebel group had signed just days before was defeated in a referendum on Sunday, leaving the fate of a 52-year war suddenly uncertain.

A narrow margin divided the yes-or-no vote, with 50.2 percent of Colombians rejecting the peace deal and 49.8 percent voting in favor, the government said.

The result was a deep embarrassment for President Juan Manuel Santos. Just last week, Mr. Santos had joined arms with leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC, who apologized on national television during a signing ceremony.

The surprise surge by the “no” vote — nearly all major polls had indicated resounding approval — left the country in a dazed uncertainty not seen since Britain voted in June to leave the European Union. And it left the future of rebels who had planned to rejoin Colombia as civilians — indeed, the future of the war itself, which both sides had declared over — unknown.

Both sides vowed they would not go back to fighting.

Mr. Santos, who appeared humbled by the vote on television on Sunday, said the cease-fire that his government had signed with the FARC would remain in effect. He added that he would soon “convene all political groups,” especially those against the deal, “to open spaces for dialogue and determine how we will go ahead.”

Rodrigo Londoño, the FARC leader, who was preparing to return to Colombia after four years of negotiations in Havana, said he, too, was not interested in more war. [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s supporters don’t care about his morals

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Yoni Appelbaum writes: How can conservative, Christian, values voters back a thrice-married, philandering, candidate for the presidency, who trails a record of stiffed creditors, broken promises, and ruthless practices behind him?

Maybe because communities that feel themselves besieged tend not to look for moral exemplars — instead, they seek out champions.

Saturday night’s report in the New York Times that Donald Trump apparently claimed a $916 million loss on his 1995 tax returns, and may have used it to avoid paying federal income taxes for up to 18 years, is the latest in a long string of revelations that might have doomed any previous Republican nominee. Yet Trump has repeatedly rebounded from these disclosures. That must surely be, at least in part, a testament to the power of partisanship in this increasingly divided age. But that is hardly a sufficient explanation.

“I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president,” Trump tweeted in response, “and am the only one who can fix them.”

That echoes the pitch he made in his acceptance speech at the Cleveland convention:

I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens.

Ascendant political coalitions can afford to impose litmus tests on their candidates. They look for politicians who not only endorse their favored positions, but embody them. But coalitions that believe the moral consensus is cracking, that see their values under attack, and fear their own eclipse may turn away from candidates whose own lives exemplify a moral vision that the broader society no longer endorses. Instead, they seek out figures who seem strong enough, tough enough, ruthless enough to roll back social change, or at least to hold it at bay. They look for a champion. [Continue reading…]

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The clear and present danger of Donald Trump

In an editorial, the Washington Post says: If you know that Donald Trump is ignorant, unprepared and bigoted, but are thinking of voting for him anyway because you doubt he could do much harm — this editorial is for you.

Your support of the Republican presidential nominee may be motivated by dislike of the Democratic alternative, disgust with the Washington establishment or a desire to send a message in favor of change. You may not approve of everything Mr. Trump has had to say about nuclear weapons, torture or mass deportations, but you doubt he could implement anything too radical. Congress, the courts, the Constitution — these would keep Mr. Trump in check, you think.

Well, think again. A President Trump could, unilaterally, change this country to its core. By remaking U.S. relations with other nations, he could fundamentally reshape the world, too.

Of course, in many areas Mr. Trump would not have to act unilaterally. If he won, chances are Republicans would maintain control of Congress. GOP majorities there would be enthusiastic participants in much of what Mr. Trump would like to do: gutting environmental and workplace regulations, slashing taxes so that the debt skyrockets, appointing Supreme Court justices who oppose a woman’s right to have an abortion. In areas where Republican officeholders such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) imagine themselves acting as a brake on Mr. Trump’s worst instincts, skepticism is in order. If these supposed leaders are too craven to oppose Mr. Trump as a candidate, knowing the danger he presents, why should we expect them to stand up to the bully once he was fully empowered? [Continue reading…]

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Trump tax records obtained by NYT reveal he could have avoided paying taxes for nearly two decades

The New York Times reports: Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.

The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: Dean Baquet wasn’t bluffing.

The New York Times executive editor said during a visit to Harvard in September that he would risk jail to publish Donald Trump’s tax returns. He made good on his word Saturday night when the Times published Trump tax documents from 1995, which show the Republican presidential nominee claimed losses of $916 million that year — enough to avoid paying federal income taxes for as many as 18 years afterward.

Federal law makes it illegal to publish an unauthorized tax return: [Continue reading…]

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Russia warns against U.S. attack on Syrian forces

The Associated Press reports: Russia warned the United States Saturday against carrying out any attacks on Syrian government forces, saying it would have repercussions across the Middle East as government forces captured a hill on the edge of the northern city of Aleppo under the cover of airstrikes.

Meanwhile, airstrikes on Aleppo struck a hospital in the eastern rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour on Saturday, putting it out of service, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees. They said at least one person was killed in the airstrike.

Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying that a U.S. intervention against the Syrian army “will lead to terrible, tectonic consequences not only on the territory of this country but also in the region on the whole.” [Continue reading…]

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Headline-grabbing interview with an alleged rebel commander near Aleppo lacks credibility

Christoph Reuter reports: The interview lasted around 10 minutes. It was filmed in the picturesque setting of a stone quarry near Aleppo and caused a stir around the world. Even the Russian foreign minister is reported to have mentioned it in a telephone conversation with his American counterpart. In the video, an alleged commander in rebel-held eastern Aleppo made statements that strangely confirmed the war propaganda being propagated by the Assad regime — that America is indirectly supporting al-Qaida and that the rebels are opposed to aid deliveries to civilians. But indications are mounting that the interview may not have been authentic.

Jürgen Todenhöfer, a former member of German parliament with the conservative Christian Democratic Union party and a prominent author, conducted the interview. Todenhöfer has claimed that his interview partner, whose face was masked entirely, was a commander with the Syrian radical group formerly known as the Nusra Front, a group that renamed itself in August and split again from al-Qaida. Abu Al Ezz, as the man is introduced in the video, claims that the rebel group has been armed with modern anti-tank weapons by the US. “We’ve had” officers from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and even from Israel “here during the siege.” The interview subject also said the rebels were opposed to aid deliveries to the besieged civilians in East Aleppo, saying: “If a truck comes in anyway, we will arrest the driver.” It is an astonishing statement. It was the radicals themselves who were largely responsible for breaking through after Assad’s troops encircled Aleppo, making food deliveries possible in the first place. This engendered considerable popularity for the Islamists, even among their ideological opponents.

Even more puzzling than the contents of the interview is the site where it is alleged to have been filmed. Which side of the front it was actually filmed on is crucial in terms of determining the video’s credibility. During the drive into the quarry, a voice altered in editing to hide the person’s identity can be heard saying, “I mean, if they need to do anything bad, we’re stuck.” The sentence fragments suggest they are entering dangerous terrain. Problematic, though, is the fact that a young man in an army uniform, and without a beard, is walking in front of the car. Such is the normal appearance of Assad’s soldiers, but not that of Nusra fighters. [Continue reading…]

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Did Turkish-backed jihadis threaten to kill U.S. soldiers in Syria? Or was it a carefully crafted publicity stunt?

Michael Weiss reports: “Dogs!” the bearded fighters shouted.

“American agents!”

“No to the Christian coalition!”

“Down with America and all the countries that side with America!”

“Pigs!”

These were just some of the choice epithets hurled at U.S.-backed Syrian forces — and U.S. advisors among them — as their convoy passed through the border town of al-Rai in Aleppo province earlier this month.

An unnamed man in a black mask threatened, “We are going to slaughter you. You will not have a place among us. We will kill those who are fighting with you.”

A video of this incident — which pitted the shouting partisans of an anti-Assad Islamist rebel group known as Ahrar al-Sharqiya against the passing convoy of a rival rebel brigade backed by the U.S. — was posted on YouTube on Sept. 17. It quickly got picked up in both English and Arabic language media. And it seemed to show the humiliation of the United States and its chosen paladins in the war against ISIS.

The BBC, no less, wrote that “Free Syrian Army rebels” appeared “to chase U.S. special forces out of the northern Syrian town of al-Rai, calling them ‘infidels’ in Arabic.”

There have been so many embarrassments for America’s proxy warfare in Syria, and this looked like another one. Given the overheated U.S. political season, and at a time when the Syrian war is sinking into ever deeper circles of hell, this smelled like a potent symbol of Obama administration failure.

But a fortnight later, both U.S. Central Command and a rebel eyewitness in al-Rai have told The Daily Beast that, far from being run out of Dodge, the U.S. commandos were hardly even aware of the demonstration, much less threatened by it. And further analysis suggests it may have been a set-up with backing from Washington’s ostensible allies, the Turks.

According to the eyewitness, the entire spectacle was staged to brand an American-backed Sunni Arab militia as hirelings of a despised superpower. [Continue reading…]

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Syria’s ‘White Helmets’ risk everything to save the victims of airstrikes

 

Murtaza Hussain reports: Raed Al Saleh says that before Syria’s civil war he could never have imagined the position that he is in today. A former electronics trader from the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughour, Saleh, 33, is now head of Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer force dedicated to rescuing victims of bombings and shellings. The 3,000-member group, also known as the “White Helmets,” are first responders at the scenes of airstrikes by Russian and Syrian government forces, pulling survivors from the rubble of collapsed apartment buildings and homes.

Saleh spends most of his time between Turkey and opposition-held areas of northern Syria, but is currently visiting the United States to promote Civil Defense’s work as well as a new Netflix documentary about the group. Soft-spoken and reserved, Saleh expresses deep frustration over the civil war that upended his quiet life, thrusting him almost by accident into an extremely dangerous occupation. “Starting from 2011, after the government’s crackdown began, I started helping with humanitarian relief and the evacuation of wounded people in our area following attacks,” he told The Intercept during an interview in New York this week. “We got experience from this practical work and later received some training from a Turkish NGO. By 2013, we started to do search and rescue work after airstrikes, and that year created the Civil Defense.”

The group’s work has garnered international attention, including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination as well as the Netflix documentary, which is titled “The White Helmets.” The film chronicles the experiences of several members of a Civil Defense unit in Aleppo, following them between missions as they spend time with their families, conduct training, and reflect on their reasons for volunteering with the group. It also includes harrowing footage of government airstrikes on the city. The aftermath of many such aerial attacks, recorded by Civil Defense members and broadcast on social media, has provided crucial evidence of government war crimes and attacks against civilian targets. [Continue reading…]

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Why the internet of things is the new magic ingredient for cyber criminals

John Naughton writes: Brian Krebs is one of the unsung heroes of tech journalism. He’s a former reporter for the Washington Post who decided to focus on cybercrime after his home network was hijacked by Chinese hackers in 2001. Since then, he has become one of the world’s foremost investigators of online crime. In the process, he has become an expert on the activities of the cybercrime groups that operate in eastern Europe and which have stolen millions of dollars from small- to medium-size businesses through online banking fraud. His reporting has identified the crooks behind specific scams and even led to the arrest of some of them.

Krebs runs a blog – Krebs on Security – which is a must-read for anyone interested in these matters. Sometimes, one fears for his safety, because he must have accumulated so many enemies in the dark underbelly of the net. And last Tuesday one of them struck back.

The attack began at 8pm US eastern time, when his site was suddenly hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This is a digital assault in which a computer server is swamped by trivial requests that make it impossible to serve legitimate ones. The attack is called a distributed one because the noxious pings come not from one location, but from computers located all over the world that have earlier been hacked and organised into a “botnet”, which can then direct thousands or millions of requests at a targeted server in order to bring it down. Think of it as a gigantic swarm of electronic hornets overwhelming a wildebeest.

DDoS attacks are a routine weapon in the cybercriminal’s armoury. They are regularly used, for example, to blackmail companies, which then pay a ransom to have the hornets called off. They’re a useful tool because it’s very difficult to pinpoint the individuals or groups that have assembled a particular botnet army. And in the past Krebs has had to deal with DDoS attacks that were probably launched by people who were not amused by the accuracy of his investigative reporting.

Last Tuesday’s attack was different, however – in two respects. The first was its sheer scale. It got so bad that even Akamai, the huge content delivery network that handles 15-30% of all web traffic, had to tell Krebs that it couldn’t continue to carry his blog because the attack was beginning to affect all its other customers. So he asked them to redirect all traffic heading for krebsonsecurity.com to the internet’s equivalent of a black hole. This meant that his site effectively disappeared from the web: a courageous and independent voice had been silenced. [Continue reading…]

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Is America becoming a police state?

 

The Daily Beast reports: Documentary filmmaker Craig Atkinson wants everyone to know he doesn’t hate cops.

Far from it — he’s the loving son of a cop.

“My perception of law enforcement was always very favorable — and I still have a favorable opinion of police officers,” he told The Daily Beast. “I have great respect for my father. Growing up, I had a very biased view of my dad as an officer, and I knew he had a great deal of integrity as an individual. I assumed that all police officers operated in the same way he did.”

Yet Atkinson’s new movie, Do Not Resist — opening Friday at New York’s Film Forum and later nationwide — shows that actually they don’t. It depicts local police departments deploying military-grade equipment, in many cases armored vehicles gifted by the Homeland Security and Defense departments direct from Iraq and Afghanistan, while using brute force to control, and occasionally abuse, economically depressed minority communities.

Atkinson’s movie is especially timely as the Black Lives Matter movement continues to protest this year’s spate of police shootings of African American men — from Ferguson to Tulsa to Charlotte to, most recently, the suburbs of San Diego, where on Tuesday night cops shot Alfred Olango, an unarmed mentally ill person who was wandering in traffic. [Continue reading…]

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Pattern of unlawful killings by Israeli forces reveals shocking disregard for human life

Amnesty International: Nearly a year on from a bloody spike in violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) Israeli forces continue to display an appalling disregard for human life by using reckless and unlawful lethal force against Palestinians, Amnesty International said today.

In a memorandum sent to the Israeli authorities on 14 September, the organization has detailed 20 cases of apparently unlawful killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces seeking clarification about the status of investigations. In at least 15 of the cases, Palestinians were deliberately shot dead, despite posing no imminent threat to life, in what appear to be extrajudicial executions. The Israeli authorities have not responded to Amnesty International’s concerns.

“Since the escalation of violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories last year, there has been a worrying rise in unlawful killings by Israeli forces, fostered by a culture of impunity,” said Philip Luther, Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. [Continue reading…]

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Snowden as Superman: The man behind the myth

 

Ken Silverstein used to write for The Intercept and has had a long career as an investigative journalist — he’s not an apologist for the security state. He started CounterPunch, but like anyone with a sincere interest in what’s true, has no political loyalties. He writes: Let’s pretend for a moment that the official story as told by Snowden and his admirers — with Glenn Greenwald, who’s been chasing a movie deal of his own for ages that depends on Snowden being the perfect hero, being his No. 1 cheerleader — is 100 percent true. Snowden was a loyal, patriotic American when he worked for the CIA and the NSA through private contractors but was outraged by what he discovered and felt compelled to expose U.S. government abuses to the world.

OK, there are still a few questions:

First, a lot of what Snowden released was damaging to U.S. foreign policy and NATO — and that’s in principle fine by me — but why didn’t he steal and reveal anything embarrassing to Russia and China, for example? There’s no way he didn’t have access to damaging information about those countries — both who have plenty of dirty secrets as well — so why, if he was just out to save the world, didn’t he think to expose that as well?

It’s reminiscent of Julian Assange of Wikileaks, which gave Snowden huge support, and raises questions about him as well. Whatever his relationship to Russia, Putin must be thrilled with his recent activities. And Assange and Wikileaks get all sorts of leaked and hacked information, but they don’t seem especially eager to expose much damaging to Russia.

Second, Snowden has recently made a few comments critical of Russia, but I’m pretty sure he’s not going to make it a habit. Nor is he in any position to do so. Some believe Snowden was played by Russian intelligence — and that is certainly a plausible theory though one his fawning fans refuse to even entertain — but there is no question that at the moment he effectively answers to Vladimir Putin. “I don’t know if Snowden understood the rules when he got there, but I’m sure he understands them now,” one former CIA case officer told me. “It’s pretty simple. Whether he was told directly or not, Putin let him know the deal: ‘You can live here and help us out or we can send you home. Do you have any questions’.”

And for Russia, Snowden is the gift that just keeps on giving. As noted above, he’s a global celebrity and a regular of the digital speaking network. He’s beloved by the left and civil liberties advocates and every time he makes an appearance he scores points for Russia. He may not be a witting propaganda tool of the Kremlin but he may as well be. Putin clearly wants Snowden in Moscow, otherwise it would be a simple matter for him to put him on a private plane and send him off to Cuba or any other country that will take him. He’s keeping him there because it serves Putin’s interests, not because the former KGB officer is a champion of free speech and civil liberties.

By the way, Yahoo has reported that Snowden has made about $200,000 in speaking fees and apparently pocketed most of it, even though he has claimed he gives much of it to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, where he, Greenwald and Poitras are board members. [Continue reading…]

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How Turkish ground forces, backed by NATO, could lead a humanitarian intervention in Syria

David Owen writes: The argument that diplomacy has failed in Syria and that the best thing to bring the suffering to an end in Aleppo would be a quick victory for Bashar al-Assad is too pessimistic. We need to recognise that the diplomacy has never faced up to the need for an initial partition or zones of influence involving neighbouring states on the path to an eventual unified settlement in Syria.

Between 2012 and 2014, Turkey was ready to create a protected area in Syria for refugees, but for various reasons this was never supported by Nato. Turkey was understandably very reluctant to move militarily across the border into Syria on its own. When Russia extended an airfield close to Latakia, not far from the naval port it has had in Syria since 1971, and put sophisticated aeroplanes in to protect Assad’s forces, everything changed. Turkey shot down a Russian plane and felt threatened by Kurdish forces pushing along its border with Syria. Turkish relations also became very strained within Nato, particularly with the US over strategies for dealing with Islamic State and the EU over refugee policies and human rights. Turkey responded perfectly reasonably by defusing tensions with Russia.

In this period the Russians militarily achieved their objective, reinforced by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon and Iranian forces, of winning back control of the key roads linking Damascus to the Mediterranean Sea for Assad. These forces, as a consequence, are back in control of this area, including Hama, which has become a Russian zone of influence.

Only Turkey is in a political and military position to intervene on the ground over Aleppo and it is demonstrating this at present by attacking Isis. Turkey can now, because of changed circumstances, create a crucial balancing factor in Syria by taking urgent humanitarian action with its troops and air power in relieving the siege of Aleppo. Under the UN charter, even if the security council is blocked by a Russian veto, Turkey has a regional locus and a measure of legitimacy, having taken large numbers of Syrian refugees. [Continue reading…]

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Russian jets pound Aleppo as U.S. clings to diplomacy

Reuters reports: Russian war planes struck rebel held areas north of Aleppo on Saturday as the army shelled the besieged old quarter in a major offensive, rebels and a monitoring group said.

Russia was reported on Friday to be sending more warplanes to Syria to ramp up its air campaign as the United States said it had not yet given up on finding a diplomatic resolution.

The latest strikes come 10 days into a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive to capture rebel-held eastern Aleppo and crush the last urban stronghold of a revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in 2011.

Saturday’s air strikes focused on major supply lines into rebel-held areas – the Castello Road and Malah district – while fighting raged in the Suleiman al Halabi neighborhood, the front line to the north of Aleppo’s Old City.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by telephone for a third day on Friday, with Russia’s top diplomat saying Moscow was ready to consider more ways to normalize the situation in Aleppo.

But Lavrov criticized Washington’s failure to separate moderate rebel groups from those the Russians call terrorists, which had allowed forces led by the group formerly known as the Nusra front to violate the U.S.-Russian truce agreed on Sept. 9.

The United States made clear it would not, at least for now, carry through a threat made on Wednesday to halt the diplomacy if Russia did not take immediate steps to end the violence. [Continue reading…]

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It’s been one year since Russia began bombing in Syria, and there may be no end in sight

The Los Angeles Times reports: One year ago, Russian planes started dropping bombs on war-torn Syria.

The airstrikes, which began Sept. 30, propped up Syrian President Bashar Assad’s collapsing government, which controlled an ever-shrinking area of the country after more than four years of civil war.

Dozens of warring groups opposed to Damascus — including moderates and jihadists such as Islamic State and the Al Qaeda-allied Nusra Front — were more concerned about fighting each other while government forces kept losing ground and morale. The area held by Assad’s forces had been reduced to territory along Syria’s west and the Mediterranean coast, with several tentacle-like strategic corridors in the central and northern parts of the country.

Russia’s involvement was a surprising game-changer. It reversed the momentum in the war and helped keep Assad in power. From the Russian perspective, it also put a spotlight on perceived American weakness — and certainly put the United States in an awkward position, since it shared the Russian goal of defeating Islamic State and Al Qaeda, but strongly opposed the larger goal of saving Assad.

One year in, however, the unanswered question is how long Russia will be bogged down in Syria — and whether it will achieve, at best, a hollow victory.

President Vladimir Putin explained Russia’s involvement in a nationally televised address the day after the strikes began.

“The best way to fight international terrorists … is to act preemptively, to fight and eliminate militants in the areas they have already occupied without waiting for them to enter our home,” he told his citizens.

Moscow deployed dozens of bombers and fighter jets and up to 4,000 military personnel. Within weeks, they were conducting up to 60 strikes a day, bombing Assad’s opponents of all stripes — and killing hundreds of civilians, human rights groups said.

A Syrian opposition monitoring group that tracks Syria’s civil war said a year of Russian airstrikes have killed 9,364 people in the war-torn country, the Associated Press reported.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead include 3,804 civilians, including 906 children. The dead also include 2,746 members of the Islamic State group and 2,814 from other rebel and militant groups, including Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. [Continue reading…]

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Stories from inside Aleppo: ‘It feels like we are in prison’

The Guardian reports: Aleppo has become synonymous with destruction and death, barrel bombs, bunker busters and shattered hospitals. For the doctors and rescue workers racing to save lives around the clock, life has become a blur of blood, death and desperation.

But between the explosions and the street fights, there are more than 200,000 civilians trying to cling to a semblance of normal life in east Aleppo, a quarter of them children.

Taxis and bakeries, water plants and market stalls, schools and charities all operated in rebel-held east Aleppo. Until government forces began a siege in July, vital supplies filtered in and out, residents could visit friends or even leave if they wanted to. Some stayed out of loyalty, others for desperation or fear of life as a refugee in squalid camps.

Among the factions fighting in the city are hardline Islamists, including a group formerly linked to al-Qaida. But east Aleppo is also still home to artists and moderate activists, including women who work in its charities and schools.

A new term had been due to start on Saturday, but classes have been suspended indefinitely in the face of last week’s unprecedented bombing campaign on the city, which the UN’s chief humanitarian officer described as a “terrible descent into the pitiless and merciless abyss”.

The siege is also biting hard. Food supplies are shrinking, fruit and vegetables have all but gone from people’s plates, and fuel is dwindling too, so most cars have vanished from the streets. They are hoarding supplies for generators that power not just hospitals but also the internet connections that are east Aleppo’s link with the world.

In other eras, cutting supply lines also cut communication, but smartphones and satellite internet routers mean the people of Aleppo can reach out online beyond the circumscribed world that one resident described as a “vast, open-air prison”. [Continue reading…]

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