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Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak held a meeting on concluding bilateral agreements on security commitments between Ukraine and partner states as part of the implementation of the G7 Joint Declaration signed in Vilnius. The meeting was attended by Deputy Heads of the Office of the President Ihor Zhovkva and Roman Mashovets, Special Presidential Commissioner for the Implementation of International Security Commitments and Development of the Defense Forces Yevhen Moysiuk, Head of the Security Service Vasyl Maliuk, Minister for Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin, Deputy Minister for Strategic Industries Serhiy Boyev, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mykola Tochytskyi, Deputy Minister...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a basically upbeat assessment of Ukraine’s long-awaited “counteroffensive” against invading Russian forces but conceded “nobody knows” if there will be a major breakthrough this year in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. Zelensky added that he thinks “we will have more success” in the coming year, following a slower-than-expected start for the big counteroffensive. As in several other recent interviews, he disputed criticism that Ukraine’s push has deteriorated into a stalemate, pointing to gains made by his forces in the east of the country.

The idea was that China's regime, given a stake in the existing system, would then defend it... By now, however, that bet looks like a mistake history will remember. For as the Communist Party grew stronger, it did not align itself with its Western supporters. On the contrary, it came to believe it could avenge centuries-old grievances and remake the world in its own image. The West's generous approach created the one thing it had hoped to avoid: an aggressive state redrawing its borders by force, attacking liberal values around the world, and undermining institutions at the heart of the...

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The U.S. is sending Ukraine about $325 million in additional military aid, including an enormous amount of artillery rounds and ammunition as the launch of the spring offensive against Russian forces approaches, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The U.S. has declined to say exactly how much munitions will be sent to Ukraine, but the latest package resembles other recent deliveries, which included rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, and howitzers, as well as an array of other missiles and anti-tank ammunition. It will all be pulled from Pentagon stocks, so it can go quickly...

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned on Sunday that potential 2024 GOP presidential contenders who have called for the U.S. to pull back its support for Ukraine in its war with Russia should be careful with their words. During an appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” moderator Margaret Brennan asked Rice about recent remarks from former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) criticizing the U.S. for its robust support for Kyiv.

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Here’s what you need to know about the United States: it’s a lie. All of those things we say we believe in, like individual liberty, the Bill of Rights, capitalism….the vast majority support them conditionally, at best. This haphazard adherence to basic civil liberties has been on full display recently as the Right and the Left seem to be in some kind of a race to see who can do the most damage to the First Amendment and principles of free speech. But while the Left works to implement dystopian “disinformation boards” and the Right passes laws giving states the...

The Pentagon announced on Monday it had carried out an airstrike against a senior leader of Al-Qaeda* located in Idlib Governorate, the northern Syrian province occupied by Turkish troops and radical Muslim rebel militias. "US forces conducted a kinetic counterterrorism strike near Idlib, Syria, today, on a senior al-Qaeda leader. Initial indications are that we struck the individual we were aiming for, and there are no indications of civilian casualties as a result of the strike," Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday. Kirby said he had no further details on the target's identity, but according to SITE Intelligence Group,...

Editor’s Note: Connecting the dots between how Afghanistan was handled for the last two decades and how the pandemic is being handled today is a fresh perspective that needs to be heard and read. Pay close attention and put your own thoughts into this. Then, spread the word. STORY AT-A-GLANCEIn a recent article, journalist Glenn Greenwald lays out evidence showing the U.S. government has intentionally lied about its impact and progress in Afghanistan for the last 20 yearsEvidence suggests the Afghan war was designed to funnel taxpayer money to security contractors and Afghan warlordsIf the U.S. government routinely lies to...

Former President Donald Trump issued a statement on Friday bemoaning the situation in Afghanistan, adding to criticism of the Joe Biden administration's handling of Taliban advances in the country.Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington issued the statement via Twitter as the administration is pushing ahead with a planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan due to end on August 31. "Tragic mess in Afghanistan, a completely open and broken Border, Crime at record levels, oil prices through the roof, inflation rising, and taken advantage of by the entire world," Trump's statement said. "DO YOU MISS ME YET?" the former president asked. His statement...

[H/T Oorang]Full title at link: US sends in B-52s in desperate bid to stop the Taliban seizing key Afghan cities - where British troops fought and died - as fighters seize prison and set all the inmates free in latest town to fallB-52 bombers and AC-130 Spectre gunships are attacking Taliban terrorists The Taliban have been advancing across Afghanistan as the US withdraws The Afghan army and Air Force have struggled against Taliban insurgents The UK government has advised all Britons to leave Afghanistan immediatelyUS President Joe Biden has ordered B-52 bombers and Spectre gunships to target Taliban terrorists in...

US President Joe Biden has ordered B-52 bombers and Spectre gunships to target Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan who are advancing towards three key cities. The Cold War-era strategic bomber first flew in the 1950s but is still used due to its 70,000lb payload and range of more than 8,000 miles. They are being supported by the AC-130 Spectre gunships which are armed with a 25mm Gatling gun, a 40mm Bofors cannon and a 105mm M102 cannon - which can provide pinpoint accurate fire from the air. The Taliban have been advancing across Afghanistan after the US-led coalition pulled out of...

James K. Polk was one of the most successful presidents in our history, exceeded in his accomplishments only by Washington, Lincoln, and Jackson. He had four goals when he took office in 1845, and he achieved all of them in his one term. He wanted to complete the process of Texas annexation, take California and its ports of San Diego and San Francisco from Mexico, settle the boundary dispute with Britain over the Oregon Territory, and reform the finances of the federal government. If you include Texas, the amount of territory he added to the United States exceeded that of...

THE U.S. MILITARY HAS BEEN fighting in Afghanistan for almost nineteen years. House Democrats, working in tandem with key pro-war GOP lawmakers such as Rep. Liz Cheney, are ensuring that continues. Last night, the House Armed Services Committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment — jointly sponsored by Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado and Congresswoman Cheney of Wyoming — prohibiting the expenditure of monies to reduce the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan below 8,000 without a series of conditions first being met. The imposed conditions are by no means trivial: for these troop reductions from Afghanistan...

THIES, Senegal (AP) — The only place in the world where fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are cooperating is in West Africa’s sprawling Sahel region, giving the extremists greater depth as they push into new areas, according to the commander of the U.S. military’s special forces in Africa. “I believe that if it‘s left unchecked it could very easily develop into a great threat to the West and the United States,” U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Dagvin Anderson told The Associated Press in an interview this week. The leader of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa described...

Macron says France has convinced Trump to "stay in Syria long-term"https://twitter.com/AFP/status/985594653075439616  

<p>World War II broke out when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. A once preventable war had become inevitable -- and would soon become global -- due to three fatal decisions.</p> <p>Most infamously, the Western European democracies had appeased Hitler during the late 1930s in hopes that he would quit gobbling up his neighbors. Unfortunately, the Nazis considered Western appeasement as weakness to be manipulated rather than magnanimity to be reciprocated.</p>

“It’s ending purposeless, perpetual, global warfare, stupid.” Republican presidential contenders for 2016 should embrace that campaign theme to demolish the ultra-hawkish Hillary Clinton and her Napoleonic complex. Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign theme, “It’s the economy, stupid,” is obsolete. Presidential strategists sermonize that voters are instinctively concerned more about jobs, mortgages, and health care than about national security policy. True enough. But that is because presidential aspirants have failed to discern and to explain the direct connection between, on the one hand, purposeless, perpetual, global warfare and the projection of military force everywhere that has created an exorbitant, inefficient, and corrupt...

President Barack Obama is setting a new precedent in America's history as an imperialist power. He is all but apologizing before he orders a military attack against a sovereign country with which the United States is not at war and which has not offended America's vital interests and concerns as a sovereign country even remotely. The Obama administration is publicizing in advance that it is going to be a "limited" military attack by the US on Syria. It is even willing to give advance notice of when the attack can be expected. Who would say Obama is not a humane...

During the NATO intervention in Libya, to date perhaps the great success of Obama's foreign policy, senior White House officials went so far as to suggest that the logic that led the president to intervene in order to protect the citizens of Benghazi from slaughter might be expanded into a broader principle: the Obama doctrine, they called it. The Obama doctrine had two basic components — imminence and collaboration. America ought to intervene militarily when it could prevent the imminent slaughter of civilians, the doctrine said, but it would not do so unless it could secure the collaboration of a...