Will Obama concede defeat? Plus: Some charities have Certain Interesting AssoCIAtions

Well, this is good news: Obama will probably end the program to train those ever-so-vetted "moderate" Syrian rebels.

The Obama administration has ended the Pentagon’s $500 million program to train and equip Syrian rebels, administration officials said on Friday, in an acknowledgment that the beleaguered effort had failed to produce any kind of ground combat forces capable of taking on the Islamic State in Syria.

In fact, "our" Syrians never accomplished anything except the "accidental" transfer of equipment to ISIS and Al Qaeda.

But don't breathe a sigh of relief yet:

A senior defense official said that the remaining training “will be much more minimal” than the previous program. The Central Intelligence Agency runs a separate program to train and arm selected groups, many of which are now battling Syrian army units backed by Russian air power.

The new program, the official said, will begin in the next few days.

Uh oh.

Fortunately, there's more good news:

A week into Russia's military intervention in Syria, some top White House advisers and National Security Council staffers are trying to persuade President Barack Obama to scale back U.S. engagement there, to focus on lessening the violence and, for now, to give up on toppling the Syrian regime.

“The White House somehow thinks we can de-escalate the conflict while keeping Assad in power,” one senior administration official told us.

That view, being pushed by top White House National Security staffers, including senior coordinator for the Middle East Rob Malley, is not new. But it has received fresh emphasis given Russian intervention.

There must have been a guy in Hitler's circle who really wanted to warn the Fuehrer that Operation Barbarossa wasn't the best idea in the world. That fellow, whoever he was, must have been Rob Malley's spiritual grandfather.

Not-so-sweet charities. I normally would not read a conservative rag like the Washington Free Beacon, but this story caught my eye: "Syrian Children ‘Brutalized’ by Assad Regime in Attacks on Schools, Homes."

Apparently, Bashar Assad spends all of his time thinking of devilish new ways to make children suffer. "Die, children! DIE!" sayeth Assad (as envisioned by The Washington Free Beacon). "I just hope I can stay in power just long enough to murder a million more children! BWAH HA HA HA!"

Oh, and you'll love this sub-head: "Russian intervention likely to exacerbate humanitarian crisis." Subtle, huh? If the editors of The Washington Free Beacon could find some way to blame the Atlanta Child Murders on Assad and Putin, they would.

The afore-linked story makes its propaganda points by quoting representatives from two charities: CARE USA and Save The Children. The reference to the latter group commanded my immediate attention, since I've long known about the links between Save The Children and the CIA. This connection was fairly common knowledge among spook-watchers back in the 1990s.

Around 1994, actress Sally Struthers appeared on TV nonstop to plead for donations to STC. I kept wanting to ask her: "Sally, don't you know...?"

Charities make great cover for spooks. A little thought should tell you why.

If you want to know what STC has been up to lately (spookily-speaking), fire up Google. The group was linked to that instantly-infamous fake vaccinations program in Pakistan, instituted by the Cigar Importers of America. Thanks to that stunt, the Pakistani government kicked out Save The Children.

Caught red-handed, the organization tried to blame the whole affair on a fellow named Shakil Afridi, who supposedly claimed to represent STC even though he really didn't. But Afridi had a different story:

Dr. Afridi has told interrogators for the top Pakistani military intelligence agency, the ISI, that he was introduced to the C.I.A. through Save the Children, according to Pakistani officials and Western aid workers. Save the Children vigorously denies the claim, saying it has been made a scapegoat by a desperate man who, according to senior American officials, has been tortured in Pakistani custody.

Plausible deniability strikes again. Knowing STC's background as I do, I'm more inclined to accept Afridi's confession at face value.

And then there's the Tony Blair connection. Here's a memorable headline: "Tony Blair honoured with Save The Children's Global Legacy Award at charity gala attended by Ben Affleck and Lassie." If the new Batman couldn't figure out the problem here, how the heck can he hope to defeat Superman? (Having seen Hondo, I already knew that Lassie has a mean streak.)

Many STC staffers protested this gala mass blowjob for the UK's leading war criminal, on the grounds that it might discredit the organization. Ya think?

Allow me to remind you how much Tony Blair loved the children of Iraq:

Without Blair's claims of fantasy WMDs with which Iraq could wreak annihilation in "45 minutes", a lie quoted by General Colin Powell at the United Nations exactly twelve years ago, 5th February 2003, for the children of Iraq a genocidal "preventable cause" might have been avoided.

"Nutritious food and clean water", had, of course, been deliberately destroyed on US Central Command's order to bomb all water facilities in Iraq in 1991. Food was poisoned by the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons, contaminating all fauna and flora. DU's "half-life" is 4.5 Billion years. And it is not "depleted."

The contamination nightmare was compounded in orders of magnitude by the further use of DU weapons in 2003, used again by the UK under Blair's government. (2)

Befoulment of air, water and food for infinity condemns future generations of unborn, newborn and developing children in Iraq and the region to a poisoned legacy of cancers and deformities for generations to come.

Certain wags suggested that the organization should change its name to "Kill The Children." STC eventually apologized.

The chief executive for Save the Children is Justin Forsythe, who used to be Tony Blair's chief adviser. Let us stand back and savor the tableau: The man who accompanied Blair down the dark pathways of neoconservatism is now leading a "charity" with historical links to the CIA -- the very organization that is helping to train commandos trying to put Al Qaeda in power in Syria.

I have not looked into the background of CARE, but I can tell you this: If they really are making anti-Assad statements to the Washington Free Beacon, then they're dirty. Plain and simple. A real charity can't take sides politically, because doing so endangers workers in the field.

Other charities, such as World Vision, have been repeatedly accused of providing cover for spooks.

In this post, Craig Murray zooms out and takes in the larger picture:

As I have written before, very few charities are in any sense independent any more. Save the Children Fund gets 176 million pounds – over half its income - in grants from various governments, including over 80 million from the British government. That compares to 106 million in donations from the public.

(Emphasis added.) There's a line in Lawrence of Arabia for every occasion. On this occasion, the line is: "The servant is the one who takes the money."