World View: ISIS Kidnaps Around 90 Assyrian Christians in Syria

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• ISIS kidnaps around 90 Assyrian Christians in Syria
• John Kerry says that Russia has repeatedly lied to his face

ISIS kidnaps around 90 Assyrian Christians in Syria

Photo released by ISIS on Tuesday showing a terrorist firing anti-aircraft weapons

The Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) abducted around 90 Assyrian Christians in Syria in a pre-dawn raid as part of a larger offensive on Assyrian villages in the area. ISIS took over several villages in the offensive. The Assyrian villages were supposed to be under the protection of the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG), but the pre-dawn attack apparently took everyone by surprise.

ISIS jihadists’ intentions with the abducted Assyrians remain unclear. One possibility is that ISIS will post a gruesome video showing them being beheaded, as happened with the Egyptian Coptic Christians who were abducted from Sirte, Libya. Another possibility is that they will be used as leverage to obtain the release of jailed ISIS terrorists.

Either way, the abduction of scores of Christians is certain to inflame passions in the West, and may soon lead to increased anti-ISIS military action from the US or NATO. Drawing the West into the conflict in Syria and Iraq is thought to be part of the strategy of ISIS. ARA News (Syria) and Long War Journal and CNN

John Kerry says that Russia has repeatedly lied to his face

Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that Russian officials have repeatedly lied to him. He was referencing Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Kerry said:

Russia is engaged in a rather remarkable period of the most overt and extensive propaganda exercise that I’ve seen since the very height of the Cold War. And they have been persisting in their misrepresentations – lies – whatever you want to call them about their activities there to my face, to the face of others on many different occasions.

Long-time readers of Generational Dynamics will not be the least bit surprised that Putin and Lavrov have lied constantly, but they, like me, might be excused for wondering what took Kerry so long to point it out.

In particular, readers may recall what I wrote in 2011 in “22-Apr-11 News — Russia seeks to cripple Nato through Libya United Nations politics”. Russia had previously abstained on the Security Council vote authorizing the Libya military action, and was now changing policy to use its veto to exercise almost total control over American and Nato foreign policy. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

Russia plans to demand that Nato restrict its activities to only the humanitarian acts allowed by the UN resolution, and then veto any attempt to expand the resolution in the Security Council, in order to guarantee a continued stalemate in Libya.

This will set a precedent that allows Russia to effectively control future activities of Nato, since only activities approved by the Security Council, and hence by Russia, could ever be permitted.

Moscow has a broader interest in seeing the US and NATO tied down in wars of choice and other protracted confrontations. These wars increase Russia’s leeway for action in ex-Soviet territories, which is Russia’s top priority, according to the article. Furthermore, if Libya’s oil exports are stopped, then Russia’s own oil exports become more valuable.

Four years later, it is almost unbelievable how successful this policy has been. Russia has become an international criminal organization, invading Ukraine, annexing Ukrainian territory, supplying weapons to Syria’s genocidal monster president Bashar al-Assad. Putin had been unhappy at the Libya military action, but his policies have had even worse outcomes, provoking war in Ukraine, and pursuing a Syria policy that is the direct cause of the creation of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).

The latest wrinkle is that Putin is now saying that the recent Minsk agreement on Ukraine has been approved by the Security Council, and so has the force of international law. This is laughable because Russia violated the Minsk agreement before the ink was dry, continuing the invasion of Ukraine with Russian troops and weapons. Nonetheless, Putin and Lavrov will continue to demand that the West abide by the Minsk agreement, while Russia continues as a criminal organization, with impunity. CBS News and Global Research and Deutsche Welle

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Assyrian Christians, Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, Kurdish People’s Protection Unit, YPG, John Kerry, Russia, Vladimir Putin, Sergei Lavrov, Security Council, Ukraine, Minsk agreement
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