A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – Growing Israeli concern over Iran gaining an ever increasing foothold in Syria has been impossible to miss lately, as evidenced by the prime minister’s statements along those lines. Mossad Director Yossi Cohen also alerted the government to the fact that Iran’s influence in Syria in particular and the region in general is growing stronger by the day.

In light of these events, and moments before Prime Minister Netanyahu’s next meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of the more prominent figures shaping events in Syria, intelligence analyst Ronen Salomon has put together a project trying to trace the presence of Iranian forces in Syria.

Salomon’s research shows that Iranian presence is shoring up its presence in Lebanon through the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, headed by General Qasem Soleimani. This military-intelligence body works in tandem with the Guard’s intelligence division to carry out operations outside of Iran, with the assistance of the Ministry of Intelligence and other ministries and agencies. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Secret Service can no longer pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission – in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump’s family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast.

Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles, in an interview with USA TODAY, said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year.

The agency has faced a crushing workload since the height of the contentious election season, and it has not relented in the first seven months of the administration. Agents must protect Trump – who has traveled almost every weekend to his properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia – and his adult children whose business trips and vacations have taken them across the country and overseas. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Declaring the US will win “in the end,” President Donald Trump vowed Monday night to keep American troops fighting in Afghanistan despite his earlier inclination to withdraw. But he insisted the US would not offer “a blank check” after 16 years of war, and he pointedly declined to say whether or when more troops might be sent.

In a prime-time address billed as the unveiling of his new Afghanistan strategy, Trump said the US would shift away from a “time-based” approach, instead linking its assistance to results and to cooperation from the beleaguered Afghan government, Pakistan and others.

Still, he offered few details about how that approach would differ substantively from what the US has already tried unsuccessfully under the past two presidents. [ Source (Read More…) ]

Afghanistan speech: Trump rejects ‘timetables,’ ups pressure on Pakistan, refocuses on ‘killing terrorists’

President Trump outlined a comprehensive new strategy Monday night for achieving a “lasting peace” in Afghanistan – rejecting what he called “arbitrary timetables” for the U.S. troop presence, ratcheting up pressure on Pakistan to stop harboring militants and vowing to refocus the mission on “killing terrorists,” not nation-building.

“From now on, victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing Al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America,” Trump said, in a primetime address to the nation.

“We are not nation-building again,” Trump said. “We are killing terrorists.” [ Source (Read More…) ]

Trump to send 4,000 more U.S. forces to Afghanistan

But in an implicit shot at former President Barack Obama, he said he would not set an arbitrary timeline or discuss troop numbers in detail but would instead empower the military to give the U.S. a path to victory.

The expected increase of 4,000 additional U.S. forces into Afghanistan will increase the total American force to over 10,000 for the first time since the Pentagon ended combat operations in the country in 2015. Should NATO members opt to match the American increase, the combined U.S.-NATO footprint could exceed 20,000 troops. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – The Pentagon has ordered a temporary halt to US navy operations around the world and a full safety review, after the second serious collision in two months involving its ships in the Pacific.

Ten American sailors are missing and five injured after the guided-missile destroyer USS John S McCain collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore early on Monday morning local time. Seven sailors died in June when the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship hit each other in waters off Japan, in an accident the US navy has conceded was caused by poor leadership and seamanship by senior officers.

“This is the second collision in three months and is the last in a series of incidents in the Pacific theater,” the commander of naval operations, Adm John Richardson, said in a statement. “This trend demands more forceful action.”

The McCain collision was the fourth accident the Pacific fleet has had this year. In January, the cruiser Antietam ran aground in Tokyo Bay, and in May, another cruiser, Lake Champlain, crashed into a Korean fishing boat in the Sea of Japan. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – Some graduates of Liberty University say they’re returning their diplomas to the evangelical school to denounce President Jerry Falwell Jr.’s latest show of support for Donald Trump.

Falwell dismissed the protest on Monday, telling The Associated Press that it’s “all just grandstanding.”

The students organized the effort after Falwell, in tweets and interviews, defended the president’s response to a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to deadly violence. Democrats and Republicans, business executives, artists and other religious leaders have criticized Trump for saying “both sides” share blame, but Falwell has repeatedly gone to bat for Trump. [ Source (Read More…) ]

(Worthy News) – A disturbing report from CBS News last week revealed Iceland is systemically aborting babies with Down syndrome. While some have hailed the news as a cultural advancement, pro-lifers note the so-called progress has only moved the country toward genocide.

The small Nordic island nation has a population of about 330,000 but averages only two babies born with Down syndrome each year. In the early 2000s, Iceland began prenatal testing to spot babies at high risk for Down syndrome and other abnormalities.

About 80 percent of pregnant women in Iceland choose screening and nearly 100 percent of those women decide to abort if their babies test positive for Down syndrome—a scary example of modern eugenics. [ Source (Read More…) ]