This is a live dispatch from TelesurTV, an independent channel created by Bolivarian Venezuela to bypass the contaminated news constantly emanating from US-controlled media.
US MILITARY
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The Empire Files: Trump is Expanding the US Empire
22 minutes readABBY MARTIN—In the first installment of this multi-part series, Trump Expanding the Empire, Abby Martin debunks the notion that Trump is an anti-interventionist president, outlining his first two years of aggressive foreign policy that has expanded US wars and occupations. From the biggest military budget in history, to removing its restrictions to “bomb the hell out of” Iraq and Syria, to ramping-up brutal economic sanctions, to becoming America’s ‘Arms Salesman-In-Chief.’
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ERIC ZUESSE—Invasions and coups, like those, are (and were, before Trump became President) pure aggressions. Despite Trump’s lies, America is the global aggressor, in fact (even recognized globally as being such). Trump does nothing to stop and reverse that horrendous bipartisan (Democratic and Republican) American aggressive reality. Trump’s actions have instead been like that of his recent predecessors: neo-conservative, neo-imperialist, aggressive, foreign policies. They’ve made mockeries of his repeated promises not to do that sort of thing. He has even stocked his Administration with loads of G.W. Bush infamous neocons like John Bolton, some of whom he had condemned when he was running for President.
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PATRICE GREANVILLE—The clamor about four Americans recently killed in Syria reeks of infantile petulance: what do you expect when you send soldiers into battle zones? Some professions have built-in risks. Ask any firefighter. Yet this response—used, as noted elsewhere, to make Trump walk back his promise to get the US troops out of Syria—is only too typical of American discourse. The ugly fact is that for a variety of reasons, none too healthy or honorable, the American people have been conditioned to believe in fighting endless wars with practically no casualties, or a ratio of losses so absurdly small when compared to the enemy’s that every casualty is mourned indignantly, as if the targets of American meddling had no right to inflict any punishment on our legions.
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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—MSNBC’s deranged intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance topped everyone as usual with a babbling nonsensical post about how US troops were killed in Manbij because there were no US troops in Manbij, proving that Assad and Putin may have allowed the attack to happen, which proves Trump is a Russian asset.
“The moment Russia and Assad took over patrolling Manbij on Trump’s go ahead we get hit with suicide bombers for the first time. It’s possible Russia/Assad let the attack happen. Trump’s treachery on this matter now kills our special operators. #RussianAsset,” Nance tweeted between huffs of paint thinner.