VASSAL STATES

JOHN HELMER—In his opening Steenhuis claimed it was forbidden to make video recordings for re-broadcast. The lack of a document or film archive means the Dutch are restricting the press to presence at a designated courtroom in the Schiphol building and to listen there, making notes as the proceedings unfold. The Dutch Government is also deciding who may attend from the press, and who may not. The court’s livestream link acknowledges it is live; no recovery is possible, officially.  

MoA—oday a U.S. fighter jet bombed a Taliban unit which was fighting with an Afghan government checkpoint.

The air attack came just a day after U.S. President Trump had a telephone call with the Taliban leaders in Doha. The Taliban will likely see this as a breach of the recent ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban.

The Russian Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov supports that view:

“This is a treaty violation, because both the US and the Taliban entered into legally binding commitments not to attack. The Taliban did not attack the Americans or other foreign forces. If the US did that, they violated the agreement blatantly,” the diplomat pointed out.

MoA—Trump wants a murky peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan to better his chance for a reelection. A seven day long ‘reduction in violence’ phase was supposed to begin this week after which the Taliban and the U.S. would sign a longer term agreement. Only after that would talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban begin. But a conflict over the presidential election in Afghanistan now threatens to blow up the whole process.

CHRISTIAN STOCKER—In truth, things are like this: At the time of the Snowden revelations, NSA and GCHQ, with their superior capabilities and huge shadow network, were probably far ahead of what the GCHQ once called “mastering the Internet” . Chinese and other state hackers , although very busy and no less ruthless, could only dream of the same level of power. The United States and its Five Eyes partners have turned the Internet into a weapon system that even a U.S. president named Obama did not want to give up. 

TIM KIRBY—In order for the U.S. to maintain its global military presence it needs to take a look at cases in which occupation has been seen as a positive by locals – South Korea. No matter what one’s personal feelings are about the North and South, the simple fact of the matter is that the Korean Peninsula is an all or nothing game. If the U.S. were to give up on Seoul then the North (with Chinese support) would come down and “unify” the nation.