Something amazing is happening in Saudi Arabia and the world is starting to notice - Israel Video Network

Islamic oppression is facing some serious pushback.... Saudi women (and some men) have recently embarked on a campaign against the oppressive laws that require a woman to have a male guardian (who may end up being a male child) who must approve almost any decision she makes from travel to education to health care. We in the free world must stand together with brave women like this!

Watching Turkey (Day 3) - Joel Richardson on the Jim Bakker Show

Watch here: Watching Turkey (Day 3) - Joel Richardson on the Jim Bakker Show

Jim & Lori Bakker

Pastor Jim and Lori Bakker discuss the upcoming election and the growing threat of ISIS, with special guest, Joel Richardson.

Quotes

While there is always the temptation to read one’s enemies into Scripture, instead we should simply take the Bible for what it says. – Joel Richardson

The Saudis have engaged in the single largest propaganda or evangelistic campaign in the history of mankind. – Joel Richardson

Everybody tries to preach a gospel that you can change things, you can change some things, but you can’t change the Bible. You can’t change the last days. – Jim BAkker

Scripture

Isaiah 27:1 NKJV In that day the Lord with His severe sword, great and strong, Will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan that twisted serpent; And He will slay the reptile that is in the sea.

James 4:10 KJV Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Revelation 13:3 NIV One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.

I Timothy 6:10 KJV For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Matthew 10:28 KJV And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Romans 1:28 KJV And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

Islam, Sexual Violence and the West - Noah Beck ISRAEL TODAY

Islam, Sexual Violence and the West

Sunday, July 31, 2016 |  

Noah Beck  ISRAEL TODAY

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Topics:

Islam

Originally written for the Investigative Project on Terrorism

The mass rape of hundreds of German women mostly by Muslim migrants last New Year's was recently revealed to be far worse than originally acknowledged. Authorities now believe that more than 1,200 women were sexually assaulted – over twice the original estimate of 500. While more than 2,000 men were allegedly involved, only 120 suspects — about half of them recently arrived migrants — have been identified.

One explanation for why it took half a year for the full extent of the crime to be revealed is the German police's effort to avoid a public backlash against refugees. But ultimately, Holger Munch, president of the German Federal Crime Police Office, acknowledged to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that there is "a connection between the [sexual assaults] and the rapid migration in 2015."

Denial is not a strategy. Western countries that cherish women's rights must wake up to the fact that many migrants could challenge those values. Most of the mass migration comes from violence-plagued, Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa, where women are second-class citizens subject to honor killings and various legal restrictions, and where the local culture often condones rape, encourages wife-beating, and treats women as sexual objects (with 72 virgins promised to Muslim men who reach heaven).

Thus, just as the mass migration from the Middle East and North Africa raises the specter of regular Islamist terror on European soil, it also augurs the kind of sexual abuse that those regions have traditionally tolerated. German officials implicitly seemed to acknowledge as much with their laughably impotent campaign to re-educate migrants using signs that explain acceptable behavior towards women.

Non-Muslim ("infidel") women are especially vulnerable to sexual assault: Christian women are often abused and denigrated in Islamic societies, as extensively exposed by Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again. The Islamic State (ISIS) regards the Yazidi, another religious minority, as devil worshippers and reportedly enslaved up to 5,000 Yazidi women, subjecting them to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and other acts of extreme brutality, like burning alive a 20-year-old girl "because she refused to perform an extreme sex act."

Saudi Arabia, arguably the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, has a legal system based on strictsharia law, which prohibits women from dressing as they wish or even driving a car. Saudi rulings are notoriously abysmal when it comes to rape. Last year, a Saudi woman was sentenced to 200 lashes after being gang raped by seven men. In 2013, a Saudi preacher who raped, tortured, and murdered his 5-year old daughter was punished with just eight years of prison, 800 lashes, and a $270,000 fine. With such legal norms, it's not surprising that when members of the country's ruling elite travel to the West, their behavior may not change accordingly (last October three womenaccused a Saudi prince of sexual assault in Beverly Hills). By ironic and tragic contrast, U.S. soldiers stationed in Muslim majority countries are trained to respect local norms to the point that marines stationed in Afghanistan were actually taught to look away if they find Afghanis raping children, a common local practice.

While sharia advocates often claim that the Islamic dress code protects women, the brutally unfair treatment of women by Islamists seems driven more by power-hungry male chauvinism and/or sexual insecurity than by any genuine concern for women's welfare, judging from the staggering hypocrisy of its proudest proponents. The 9/11 jihadists visited strip clubs, and paid for prostitutes in their motel rooms. Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American-born imam whose sermons continue to attract recruits to jihad, frequented prostitutes. Osama bin Laden had an extensive pornography collection, and is among the many examples of jihadis obsessed with porn and prostitution collected by Phyllis Chesler, a CUNY emerita professor of psychology and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Between 1997 and 2013, well before the recent mass migration to Europe began, an estimated 1,400 children had been sexually abused in Rotherham, England, predominantly by gangs of British-Pakistani men.

While that scandal involved mostly "white" victims, an Oxford-educated Pakistani-British woman revealed her own exploitation, noting that "sexual abuse has been systemically under-reported among Asian girls due to deeply entrenched cultural taboos – obscuring the reality that there is a similarly rampant problem of minority girls being abused by members of their own community."

A few weeks ago, Swedish police received 35 complaints from girls aged 12 to 17 who claimed that "foreign young men" sexually assaulted them at a popular music festival.

Soeren Kern, a distinguished senior fellow of the Gatestone Institute, compiled details of dozens of sexual assaults by migrants in Germany during the first two months of 2016, and noted the enabling reaction from "the upside-down worldview of German multiculturalism: Migrants who assault German women and children are simply rebelling against German power structures. Germans who dare to criticize such assaults are racists."

In contrast to the initial cover-up by German police of the mass rape by mostly Muslim migrants, France's top security official recently spoke with candid alarm about the threat that his country faces. Just two days before the truck-ramming, ISIS-inspired massacre in Nice, Patrick Calvar, chief of the Directorate General of Internal Security, warned members of the French parliamentary commission that France is on the verge of a "civil war" that could be sparked by the mass sexual assault of women by migrants.

There are remarkable exceptions within Islam itself, such as the Tuareg, an Islamic tribe in Africa, where women embrace sexual freedoms, dictate who gets what in divorce, and don't wear the veil because men "want to see their beautiful faces." But how long can the Tuareg's enlightened version of Islam survive in southwest Libya when ISIS is expanding there, or in Mali, Niger and northern Nigeria, where Boko Haram is on the march?

There are also brave Muslim reformers trying to improve the way Islam treats women. However, they mostly operate in the West, where they still face death threats; one example is Irshad Manji. Another, Fadela Amara, founded Ni Putes Ni Soumises, a group that defends Muslim French girls against the pressures they face to wear the hijab, drop out of school, and marry early without the right to choose their husband. Amara went on to serve in the government of Nicolas Sarkozy, but she, too, received death threats for her efforts to liberate Muslim women.

Muslim feminists outside of the West assume far greater risks. Pakistani social media celebrity Qandeel ‎Baloch, who openly expressed her feminist views online, was recently strangled to deathby her brother in their family's home, in an "honor killing." Her "intolerable behavior" is what drove him to murder her, he said, because her risqué persona was bringing "dishonor" to the family. There are an estimated 1,000 honor killings per year in Pakistan.

Even in the West, few feminists dare to criticize Islam because doing so can invite threats and violence. Absurdly, those brave enough to do so also risk being prosecuted for "hate speech."

Western countries must support courageous Muslim reformers while protecting all women living in their territories from the sexual abuse often encouraged by Islamist culture – whether that abuse is perpetrated by recent immigrants or long-time residents. The survival of the West depends on it.

Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.

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Super Soft On Islamic Terror: Obama Says That ISIS ‘Is Not An Existential Threat To Us’ - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BOG

Super Soft On Islamic Terror: Obama Says That ISIS ‘Is Not An Existential Threat To Us’ Posted: 23 Mar 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BOG In the wake of the horrible bombings in Brussels, Barack Obama is insisting that there is no need to change our approach in the fight against ISIS.  He believes that Islamic terror is not a fundamental threat to our way of life, and he wants all of us to be convinced that the way that he is handling ISIS right now is just fine.  Well, in this article you are going to learn some very shocking things about Obama and ISIS that are likely to make you very angry.  It turns out that our allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been arming, funding and aiding ISIS and other radical jihadist groups such as the al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in Syria), and Obama has known about it all along.  The goal was to take down the Assad regime in Syria, and the American people were never supposed to find out the truth. Earlier today, Barack Obama told reporters that ISIS is not “an existential threat to us” during a news conference down in Argentina.  You can see video of him making these remarks right here.  But at the same time, he is promising “to continue to go after” ISIS until they are “finally destroyed”… The United States will “continue to go after ISIL aggressively until it’s removed from Syria and from Iraq and finally destroyed,” Obama said, using another name for ISIS. “The world has to be united against terrorism,” Obama said, adding that “that’s a top priority of ours.” He added that “we can and we will” defeat terrorism. So what precisely is Obama actually doing to pursue this “top priority”? We are told that the U.S. military is bombing ISIS targets, but in all the months that this has been happening, U.S. aircraft never targeted the endless convoys of ISIS oil trucks that were transporting stolen oil into Turkey.  It has been estimated that ISIS sold 800 million dollars worth of oil in Turkey, and Obama knew about it the entire time. Why didn’t Obama say anything about this or do anything to stop it? When the Russians came in, they showed satellite evidence of what was happening to the entire world and they immediately began bombing those oil convoys into oblivion. But why hadn’t the U.S. already done that? Massive convoys of oil trucks that stretched as far as the eye could see would go back and forth over the Turkish border completely unmolested and Obama did nothing. In fact, if the Russians had not come in and bombed the living daylights out of those convoys it would still be happening. This should be the biggest Obama scandal of them all, and yet nobody is talking about it.  Sometimes I think that I must be going crazy because what Obama did was so obviously wrong and yet nobody wants to touch this.  For much more on all of this, please see my previous article entitled “The Biggest Obama Scandal? He Knows That Turkey Is Buying Oil From ISIS And He Is Doing Nothing To Stop It“. In addition, Obama knows that both Saudi Arabia and Turkey continue to provide advanced weaponry to ISIS and the al-Nusra Front. He also knows that ISIS fighters use Turkey as a home base, and that when they are injured fighting in Syria they hop back over the border where they are treated at hospitals inside Turkish territory. But have you heard Obama say anything about these things? Has he done anything to stop any of this from happening? No. The reason why Obama hasn’t done or said anything is because ISIS and the other radical jihadist groups were supposed to win in Syria.  Once they had overthrown Assad, then the U.S., the Saudis and the Turks were going to come in and set up a Sunni puppet government.  Of course Russian intervention has completely changed the game, and so now the Sunni militants are losing.  That is why Saudi Arabia and Turkey are in such a panic about what is going on in Syria right now. And we are also learning that western intelligence agencies had advance knowledge of the attacks in Brussels.  The following comes from a Haaretz report… The Belgian security services, as well as other Western intelligence agencies, had advance and precise intelligence warnings regarding the terrorist attacks in Belgium on Tuesday, Haaretz has learned. The security services knew, with a high degree of certainty, that attacks were planned in the very near future for the airport and, apparently, for the subway as well. Despite the advance warning, the intelligence and security preparedness in Brussels, where most of the European Union agencies are located, was limited in its scope and insufficient for the severity and immediacy of the alert. So what are we to make of this? Was this terror attack allowed to happen? Could it be possible that someone out there helped make it happen? Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to minimize the threat of Islamic terror one bit.  I just wonder sometimes which side our government is actually on. And ISIS is warning of more attacks in the near future.  In fact, they are telling us that what is coming “will be more devastating and bitter”… Even if we were somehow able to completely wipe out ISIS, the threat of Islamic terror would be far from over. All over the planet, radical Islam is on the rise.  These jihadists have a fanatical hatred for Christians and for Jews, and their ultimate goal is world conquest. And an act of terror does not have to result in mass casualties. Examples of what I am talking about are all over the place.  Earlier today, I came across a Christian Post article that talked about how two radical Muslims hacked a 68-year-old Christian convert to death with machetes in the nation of Bangladesh… Unidentified attackers hacked a Christian convert to death this week in northern Bangladesh in the latest attack in the Muslim-majority country. The incident occurred Tuesday morning in the northern city of Kurigram, where 68-year-old Hossain Ali was hacked to death by two assailants wielding machetes. Tobarak Ullah, the police chief of Kurigram, told the AFP that the militants were able to carry out the heinous crime by using distractions and a getaway vehicle. Many in the western world may dismiss a story like this because it was the death of only one man. But what happens when these radical jihadists start getting their hands on bigger weapons? Former president Ronald Reagan once made the following statement… “I don’t think you can overstate the importance that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism will have to the rest of the world in the century ahead-especially if, as seems possible, its most fanatical elements get their hands on nuclear and chemical weapons and the means to deliver them against their enemies.” The use of a single chemical, biological or nuclear weapon in a major western city would set off panic on a scale that would be unlike anything we have ever seen before. Even something as basic as sarin gas could accomplish what I am talking about.  Sarin gas has been used in both Syria and Iraq in the past, and it is exceedingly deadly.  The following comes from the Huffington Post… Inhaled or absorbed through the skin, the gas kills by crippling the respiratory center of the central nervous system and paralyzes the muscles around the lungs. The combination results in death by suffocation, and sarin can contaminate food or water supplies, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which notes that antidotes exist. “Sarin is 26 times more deadly than cyanide gas. Just a pinprick-sized droplet will kill a human,” according to the World Health Organization. Of course there are other chemical weapons that are many, many times more lethal than sarin gas, and it is inevitable that terrorists will get their hands on biological and nuclear weapons at some point as well. Yes, terror organizations such as ISIS most definitely do represent “an existential threat” to our way of life. Unfortunately, we have a man in the White House that does not seem particularly inclined to protect us from this threat.

World War 3 Could Very Easily Turn Into The Very First Nuclear War In The Middle East - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

World War 3 Could Very Easily Turn Into The Very First Nuclear War In The Middle East 

Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

Saudi Arabia already has nukes, Iran probably does, and the Russians are one of the two great nuclear powers on the entire planet.  So if Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies do decide to conduct a full-blown ground invasion of Syria, could someone ultimately decide to use nuclear weapons when their backs get pushed up against a wall?

As you read this article, there are thousands of military vehicles and hundreds of thousands of troops massed along the southern border of Turkey and the northern border of Saudi Arabia.  If the command is given and those forces start streaming toward Damascus, it is inevitable that the Syrians, the Iranians, Hezbollah and the Russians would fight back.  It would literally be the start of World War 3, and the Saudis and the Turks are trying very hard to convince the United States to be involved.

But the truth is that we don’t want any part of this conflict, because it could very easily become the very first nuclear war in the history of the Middle East.

Perhaps you didn’t know that the Saudis already have nukes.  Of course the official position is that they don’t, but it is a fact that they were the ones that funded the development of Pakistan’s nuclear program.  It is an open secret that the Saudis have the bomb, but nobody is really supposed to talk about it.

That is why it was so alarming what Saudi political analyst Dahham Al-‘Anzi told RT just recently…

Earlier this week a Saudi political analyst told RT’s Arab network the kingdom has a nuclear weapon.
Dahham Al-‘Anzi made the claim while saying Saudi Arabia is engaged in an effort to “minimize the Iranian threat in the Levant and Syria.”
Although Saudi Arabia has officially denied it has a nuclear weapons program and has publicly stated it opposes nuclear weapons in the Middle East, it has funded a military nuclear program and received scientific assistance from the United States and Pakistan.

You can watch video of this exchange right here…

If you don’t want to believe him, perhaps you will believe the former director of the CIA counter-terrorism operations center.  He told Fox Business that everyone in the intelligence world knows the Saudis have nukes…

If the fur started flying in Syria and Russia and Iran decided to start bombing Saudi airbases, would Saudi Arabia resort to using their nukes?

Let’s hope not.

In the event of a massive ground invasion by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies, it is actually more likely that Russia may decide to be the first one to use nukes.  An invasion force of hundreds of thousands of troops would vastly outnumber the relatively small Russian force that is already inside Syria, and so the Russians may feel that the only way that they can keep the Sunni powers out of Damascus is to use tactical nukes.

Russia has more tactical nukes that anyone else in the world by far, and there are some reports that indicate that Russia may be prepared to use them in Syria.  For example, former Associated Press reporter Robert Parry, the author of America’s Stolen Narrative, says that a source has told him that the Russians have already warned Turkey that this could potentially happen…

If Turkey (with hundreds of thousands of troops massed near the Syrian border) and Saudi Arabia (with its sophisticated air force) follow through on threats and intervene militarily to save their rebel clients, who include Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, from a powerful Russian-backed Syrian government offensive, then Russia will have to decide what to do to protect its 20,000 or so military personnel inside Syria.

A source close to Russian President Vladimir Putin told me that the Russians have warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, any such conflict could quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear confrontation.

Given Erdogan’s megalomania or mental instability and the aggressiveness and inexperience of Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman (defense minister and son of King Salman), the only person who probably can stop a Turkish-Saudi invasion is President Obama. But I’m told that he has been unwilling to flatly prohibit such an intervention, though he has sought to calm Erdogan down and made clear that the U.S. military would not join the invasion.

Are you starting to understand how serious this is?

With all of the talk of a potential invasion in recent days, the Russians are on high alert and are rapidly preparing for a direct conflict with both Saudi Arabia and Turkey.  The following comes from Infowars…

Still, the Russians are taking no chances and they have put all their forces into high alert. They have very publicly dispatched a Tu-214r – her most advanced ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) aircraft. You can think of the Tu-214R as an “AWACS for the ground”, the kind of aircraft you use to monitor a major ground battle (the regular Russian A-50Ms are already monitoring the Syrian airspace). In southern Russia, the Aerospace forces have organized large-scale exercises involving a large number of aircraft which would be used in a war against Turkey: SU-34s. The Airborne Forces are ready. The naval task forces off the Syrian coast is being augmented. The delivery of weapons has accelerated. The bottom line is simple and obvious: the Russians are not making any threats – they are preparing for war. In fact, by now they are ready.

In addition, it is important to remember that it is quite likely that the Iranians have nuclear weapons as well.

Of course the U.S. government and the Iranian government both insist that Iran does not have nukes, but many of those in the know insist otherwise.

For instance, you may want to consider what retired U.S. Army Major General Paul Vallely and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Dennis B. Haney are saying.  The following comes from an article that was authored by Jerome Corsi of WND…

In a joint statement, Vallely and Haney say an accumulation of available evidence shows a coalition of Russia, China and North Korea have assisted Iran since 1979 in achieving a nuclear weapon, despite sanctions, under the guise of a domestic nuclear energy program.
Vallely explained to WND that he and Haney have taken a systematic approach to evaluating each component needed to deliver a nuclear weapon, from the development and testing of a ballistic missile system, to the design of a nuclear weapons warhead, to the development of the weapons-grade uranium needed to produce a bomb.
“To come to our conclusion that Iran is a nuclear weapons power right now, we supplemented publicly available research, plus information from intelligence sources, including Iranian resistance groups such as the National Council of Resistance of IRAN, NCRI,” Vallely explained.

I happen to agree with Vallely and Haney.  I cannot prove it, but all of the intel that I have received indicates that Iran already has nukes.

Hopefully I will not be proven accurate any time soon.

It had been hoped that a cease-fire could be negotiated that would at least temporarily defuse tensions in Syria.  Unfortunately, it does not look like the shooting is going to stop, and this is going to put immense pressure on both Saudi Arabia and Turkey to do something to rescue the radical Sunni militants that are on the verge of defeat.  The Saudis, the Turks and their allies have poured enormous amounts of money and resources into this war over the past five years, and now they are faced with the choice of either accepting defeat or directly intervening in this conflict themselves.

But in order to conduct a full-fledged ground invasion, they are going to need justification for doing so.  There are some that are suggesting that we could soon see a false flag attack that would provide that justification, so that is something to watch out for.
I can’t remember a time when our planet has been so close to World War 3 potentially beginning.

And if it does break out, I believe that it is quite likely that nuclear weapons will be used.

So what do you think?

Do you agree with me?

World War III Approaches: Saudi Arabia And Turkey Drop Hints That An Invasion Of Syria Is Imminent - MICHAEL SNYDER THE ECONOMIC COLLPASE

World War III Approaches: Saudi Arabia And Turkey Drop Hints That An Invasion Of Syria Is Imminent Posted: 15 Feb 2016   MICHAEL SNYDER  THE ECONOMIC COLLPASE As you read this article, Turkish forces are massing along the border with Syria, and the largest “military exercises” in the history of the Middle East are being held in northern Saudi Arabia.  The Saudis are publicly warning that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “will be removed by force” if a political solution cannot be found, and Turkey is claiming that it may have to establish a “safe zone” in northern Syria “for humanitarian purposes”.   Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies have poured massive amounts of money and arms into the conflict in Syria, and now that their Sunni insurgents are on the verge of total defeat, they are trying to come up with a way to justify going in there and doing the job themselves. For the Saudis, their focus is on trying to convince everyone that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is an extremely dangerous dictator that must be removed at all costs.  The following comes from the London Independent… Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be removed by force if the peace process fails, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister has said. “Bashar al-Assad will leave – have no doubt about it,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN. “He will either leave by a political process or he will be removed by force.” Saudi Arabia has sent troops and fighter jets to a Turkish military base ahead of a possible ground invasion of Syria. So precisely who will be doing the “removing” if force is necessary? Are the Saudis ready to send in ground troops? Apparently they are.  Just consider what Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN… Saudi Foreign Minister Jubeir made clear that his country’s troops would not go it alone. “I can tell you that there is some serious discussion going on with regards to looking at a ground component in Syria, because there has to be a possibility of taking and holding ground, that one cannot do from the air.” “We are saying we will participate within the U.S.-led coalition, should this coalition decide to send ground troops into Syria, that we are prepared to send special forces with those troops.” But if the Saudis try to take Damascus and remove Assad by force, the Syrians and their allies will certainly fight back.  That means that the Saudis will be fighting Hezbollah, the Iranians and the Russians. Needless to say, Saudi Arabia is going to need a lot of help to do that. So that may explain why Saudi Arabia has organized the largest “military exercise” in the history of the Middle East.  CNN finally reported on this gigantic gathering of military forces in northern Saudi Arabia earlier today… Saudi Arabia launched a massive military exercise that will include troops from 20 nations, state media reported Monday. The drill, dubbed North Thunder, involves Arab and Muslim countries, according to the Saudi Press Agency. It’s taking place in King Khalid Military City in northeastern Saudi Arabia. The news agency did not provide much information on what the exercise entails but called it “the largest in the region’s history.” The agency said it will involve air, sea and land forces. This is the list of nations that are reportedly participating in these “exercises” so far… -Saudi Arabia -Jordan -Bahrain -Senegal -Oman -Qatar -United Arab Emirates -Sudan -Kuwait -the Maldives -Morocco -Pakistan -Chad -Tunisia -Comoro Islands -Djibouti -Malaysia -Egypt -Mauritania -Mauritius As I discussed yesterday, 350,000 soldiers, 20,000 tanks, 2,450 warplanes and 460 military helicopters are reportedly gathering for these “military exercises”. To me, that seems to be a great deal of overkill if the goal is just “training”. Here is more about these “exercises” from RT… The Saudi state agency made the announcement on Sunday, adding that participating troops will begin arriving in “the next few hours.” The oil-rich nation described the exercises as “the largest and most important” military drills in the region’s history. The so-called “Northern Thunder” exercise will take place in the north of the country and will include air, sea and land forces. SPA said that it will show that Riyadh and its allies “stand united in confronting all challenges and preserving peace and stability in the region.” So are these forces massing for a ground invasion of Syria? We shall see. In the end, we probably won’t have to wait too long before we find out the answer. Meanwhile, Turkish officials continue to assert that they may have to establish a “safe zone” for refugees in northern Syria.  Since thousands of refugees are continually pouring their direction, they claim that they have no other choice but to go in and take control of the situation. In fact, Turkey has already established several very large refugee camps on the Syrian side of the border… Some 100,000 Syrian refugees are being looked after in camps inside Syria close to the Turkish border, including 35,000 who this month fled a Russian-backed regime offensive in northern Aleppo province, a top Turkish official said Friday. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan, whose country has come under increasing pressure to open its border to people fleeing the violence, said the refugees were being accommodated in nine camps just across the border with Syria. But make no mistake – this is not just about helping refugees. The truth is that ISIS has been using Turkey as a home base for years, and hundreds of millions of dollars of ISIS oil has been shipped into Turkey where it has then been sold to the rest of the world.  Barack Obama knows about all of this, and yet he has refused to do anything to stop it. At this point the cooperation between ISIS and Turkey has become so obvious that even CNN is admitting that ISIS militants are being resupplied from Turkey… To the east of Aleppo, Kurdish forces are, with American support, eyeing the remaining ISIS strongholds along the Turkish border — Jarablus and Manbij. The U.S. wants ISIS out, to remove its access to resupply of materiel and fighters from Turkey. Meanwhile, Turkey, America’s NATO ally that is engaged in a brutal but often unseen war with the Kurds’ allies in Turkey’s southeast, doesn’t want the Kurds to advance, and may stop at nothing to prevent that. Fortunately, the Russian bombing campaign has pretty much put an end to the endless parade of ISIS oil trucks that were entering Turkey, and now the primary supply line to Sunni militants in the strategically important city of Aleppo is about to be cut off. The corridor that runs through the city of Azaz is vitally important, and the Prime Minister of Turkey recently insisted that the Turkish government “will not allow Azaz to fall”… Turkey shelled YPG positions for a third straight day on Monday to try to stop its fighters seizing Azaz, just 8 km from the border. Ankara fears the Kurdish militia, backed by Russia, is trying to secure the last stretch of around 100 km along the Syrian border not already under its control. “We will not allow Azaz to fall,” Davutoglu told reporters on his plane on the way to Ukraine. “If they approach again they will see the harshest reaction,” he said. Unfortunately for the Turkish government, it appears that Azaz is already slipping away from the militants.  The following was reported by an Iranian news source… Ankara is likely to take action to counter the Syrian military and allied groups on choking up a supply link on which militants relied to get weapons and logistics. Syrian troops and Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters have retaken the town of Azaz, located to the northwest of Aleppo, prompting Saudi Arabia and Turkey to hint at deployment of ground forces to the region. Asked if Ankara might act to reverse the gains, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (seen below) said on Friday, “Wait for the next few days and you will have the answer,” Turkish paper Hurriyet reported. Wait for the next few days and you will have the answer? That sounds rather ominous. Like I said yesterday, I don’t think that I have ever seen a scenario which was more likely to lead to World War III than the one that we are watching play out right now. Do Saudi Arabia and Turkey actually expect to waltz into Syria and start taking territory without a response from the Syrians, Hezbollah, the Iranians and the Russians? And if fighting does break out, how is the United States possibly going to stay out of it? The truth is that Saudi Arabia and Turkey would never invade Syria in the first place without the express approval of the Obama administration. The next couple of weeks are key.  If we can get into early March without an invasion, by that time Saudi Arabia and Turkey may have missed their window.  The troops gathered for the massive military exercise in northern Saudi Arabia will start to go home, and by then the Sunni militants remaining in Aleppo will probably be pretty much completely defeated. But will Saudi Arabia and Turkey really be willing to walk away after pouring so much time, effort and money into the conflict in Syria?  They had dreamed of turning Syria into a full-blown Sunni nation, and if they give up now Syria will end up being dominated by Iran and Hezbollah.  It will be a result that is far worse than if they never tried to overthrow Assad in the first place. So my gut feeling is telling me that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies are not done in Syria.  But their obsession with that country threatens to plunge us into World War III, and if that happens the consequences will be felt by every man, woman and child on the entire planet.