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Canada to repatriate six women, 13 children from Syrian detention, lawyer says

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Ottawa – The lawyer for six Canadian women and 13 children being held in Syrian camps says the federal government has agreed to help bring them home.

Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon says a “mutually acceptable” agreement was reached today with Ottawa to repatriate the 19 Canadians.

The Canadians are among the many foreign nationals in Syrian camps run by Kurdish forces that reclaimed the war-torn region from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Family members of the women and children, as well as four men, have been arguing in Federal Court that the government must arrange for their return, saying that refusing to do so violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Greenspon says that as a result of the agreement, the application from the six women and 13 children is being discontinued, but the case of the four men remains before the court.

He says details of the newly reached agreement with the government are confidential.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 19, 2023.

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Col. Douglas Macgregor torches Trump over support for bill funding wars in Ukraine and Israel

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From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

” He’s essentially throwing his principles overboard and his supporters under the bus.

If I were working for him right now and he were president I would have advised him under no circumstances to support the bill and instead focus our attention on the on the borders of the United States [and] restoring the rule of law. “

With another interview appearance, retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor has warned the United States is no longer in control of the wars it continues to fund, against overwhelming public opposition.

According to Macgregor and host Clayton Morris, a former Fox News anchor, “70 percent of the American people” now oppose sending money to fund wars present and future in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

What is more, Macgregor says that given Donald Trump’s “catastrophically stupid” support of the $95 billion funding bill passed by Congress on April 20, if he were working for Trump now he “would have to resign.”

Speaking of Trump’s approval for the bill, Macgregor said, “What he did… is essentially align himself with the money pigs in Washington who were interested in everything other than the American people.”

Macgregor’s verdict on Trump was damning:

He’s essentially throwing his principles overboard and his supporters under the bus.

If I were working for him right now and he were president I would have advised him under no circumstances to support the bill and instead focus our attention on the on the borders of the United States [and] restoring the rule of law.

So why did Trump go ahead and endorse billions more for two wars which are widely acknowledged as having been disastrous – if not genocidal – failures?

“I think Mr. Trump wants desperately to be president,” explained Macgregor. “So, he is turning to everyone and anyone who has money willing to support him and will promise to do so – whatever they’re asking.”

The retired colonel is the CEO of Our Country, Our Choice, an organization which appeals to Americans “to come together to save America.” It’s motto is “Truth sets you free,” echoing the Christian roots of the American dream which is, according to Macgregor, verging on becoming a nightmare.

Instead of supporting the funding bill, Macgregor says Trump “should have stood with the 21 members” of Congress who opposed it because, “quite frankly, most of America stands with those 21 members.”

Macgregor is aware that this is about political power, not the interests of the people – whether they be in the U.S. or in Ukraine. He is practically alone in noting that throughout the proxy war, the Ukrainian people seldom get a mention.

“No one expresses any interest in what’s happened to the Ukrainian people,” he said, before citing the horrendous toll of deaths and injuries which has devastated the Ukrainian populace.

“Ukrainians are exhausted. They’re tired of this war. They’ve lost now, we think, 600,000 dead and another million or two wounded.”

Added to these sobering figures is the fact that much of the surviving population has fled.

“Millions have left. The country is destroyed. It desperately needs peace.”

As the Washington Post claimed last December, up to “90 percent” of the money given in “aid” stays in the U.S. anyway. On April 21, the U.K.’s Financial Times concluded that the aid package “would not stop Russia.” On April 23, it reported that Ukraine now “pressures draft-age men abroad to join the war effort,” following a Politico report of last month titled “Draft-dodging plagues Ukraine as Kyiv faces acute soldier shortage.” The report cites the BBC in claiming up to “650,000 military aged men have fled the country” in the past two years, despite a law forbidding them to do so.

Former humanitarian volunteer and Catholic convert Ryan Miller told LifeSiteNews last month of how human traffickers operate freely on the Ukrainian border, preying on women and children separated by this law from their husbands and fathers.

This news portrays a grim reality behind the Ukraine flag-waving seen on the United States House floor. It is a narrative of ugly truths supporting Macgregor’s assessment of a war he has consistently claimed could never have been won. Against the notion that America must “stop Putin,” he said:

We’ve never had any option other than to accept his [Putin’s] victory because, as we said from the very beginning, Ukraine had no more chance against Russia than Mexico would have against us in the United States.

The second war funded in this package has, according to Israeli media, already ended in “total defeat.”

Israeli newspaper Haaretz published this story on April 11, “Saying What Can’t Be Said: Israel Has Been Defeated – a Total Defeat”

The story by Chaim Levinson displayed a remarkable level of candor.

“The war’s aims won’t be achieved, the hostages won’t be returned through military pressure, security won’t be restored and Israel’s international ostracism won’t end.”

Macgregor shares this assessment, which he couples with a warning that “Biden is not in control” of events in the Middle East, and neither is the U.S. “Mr. Netanyahu is in control. And he cannot back down. If he does not escalate, he is finished.”

Macgregor warns that the “world has turned against Israel, we are increasingly isolated, but we are not in control. Mr. Netanyahu owns us. What do we do?”

Macgregor stressed that U.S. backing for Netanyahu is the result of his having more influence in the U.S. government than the president. This means, in effect, that the U.S. is funding a man whose only option is to escalate to war with Iran.

“Mr. Netanyahu is in a difficult position,” explains Macgregor, “we can’t help him. All we can do is tell him to back down. He can’t back down.”

“Netanyahu has to escalate or he’s finished. So I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the Israeli-Iranian confrontation.”

Warning that Netanyahu is likely going to “kill women, children, and men with no connection to Hamas in Gaza’s Rafah area,” he foresees a real potential for the outbreak of a major regional war involving the U.S.

I don’t think we’ve even seen the beginnings of what could happen in the region because, if anything, we’re seeing more and more and more solidarity across national lines inside the Muslim world.

As this develops, Macgregor claims even the Western military alliance is leaderless:

NATO is essentially a battleship with no one on the bridge and engines that don’t power the ship anymore. It’s adrift.

He says in previous years the “stupid comments” of French President Emmanuel Macron to threaten to send French troops to Ukraine would have been unimaginable. Responding to claims that French and American soldiers are now on the ground in Odessa in Ukraine, he replied, “A Russian this morning contacted me… and said that he sees no French or American troops in Odessa.”

His relief at this news was tempered by a stern reminder that such an action would lead to a U.S. war with Russia, which has the largest nuclear arsenal on earth.

I sincerely hope that that condition does not change. If it does, then I think the Russians will accelerate all of their movements and we will find ourselves at war with Russia unnecessarily.

He asks, “For what particular purpose?”

The direct funding of two major flashpoints for a global war left the host, Clayton Morris, unable to explain Trump’s support of the move.

“This rises to the level of coming out and supporting the COVID vaccines,” he said, speaking of Trump’s recent praise for the mRNA injections.

“I think there was a lot of MAGA Republicans who said ‘Wait a second – did Trump just praise COVID vacc [sic] – wait did I hear that right?’”

The news of Trump’s backing for the war funding has left Morris equally baffled, as he quoted Trump’s recent comments:

In the same week [Trump] says we’ve spent 7 to 9 trillion dollars on boondoggle wars in the Middle East… where we have blood on our hands… we’ve got nothing but blood and misery, we should have never supported those Wars.

He added, “and then four days later… supporting speaker Johnson supporting all of this money to Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan? I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

For Colonel Macgregor, this is a decision which will follow Trump long into the future.

“So we have to be realistic about this whole business. He’s let a lot of people down. I think it will come back to haunt him.”

The dangerous business of funding death no longer haunts only the politicians – like Trump and Netanyahu – who rely on it to secure their power. If Macgregor is right, the world may be engulfed in a nuclear war as a result of these bargains with the devil.

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Col. Douglas Macgregor: US is ‘facing disaster’ as it funds overseas wars while bankrupt

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From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

“We have a government that consists of 525 lobbyists – and that’s why we have the policies we have.”

Following the news that the U.S. Congress has finally approved $95 billion in “aid” to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor has returned to ask the difficult question – why is the U.S. funding wars when it is bankrupt?

In an April 21 video interview with U.K. member of Parliament George Galloway, Macgregor gave a blunt and shocking answer.

“We have a government that consists of 525 lobbyists – and that’s why we have the policies we have.”

His full remarks open the video with a searing assessment of the level of corruption in the United States government:

I would currently say that we have a government that consists of 525 lobbyists as opposed to representatives – people who are all busy lobbying for money with which they can line their pockets. Now some of them are just ignorant … some are destructive … but all of them, I’m afraid, with very few exceptions, are bought men.

The U.S. is facing disaster, says Macgregor. With the national debt at over $34 trillion, and the total U.S. debt including households and corporations at almost $100 trillion, the economic situation is just one dimension of the disaster of debt and corruption he says has financed the capture of the political system.

His startling description of a blackmailed captive political class would account for why such an indebted nation is so keen to hand over so much money to fund foreign wars. After six months of wrangling, the House voted to approve $95 billion in lethal and non-lethal aid. $60 billion goes to Ukraine, $26 billion to Israel, and the rest is allotted to future flashpoint Taiwan.

With Macgregor and others saying there is no public support for these measures, how is this level of spending possible?

Washington, D.C. ‘a large Epstein Island’

Epstein Island, as you know, is the place where people were set up with underage girls, and it looks like enough of them have been involved in it that they’re all they’re all blackmailed.

Macgregor notes he is not the only one to reach this conclusion:

That was Tucker Carlson’s most recent allegation – that people on the Hill who lead sadly bizarre lives are blackmailed.

Macgregor is referring to this April 3 interview between Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, in which Carlson asks why Speaker Mike Johnson seems “completely disconnected from what we want.” The video below shows a brief excerpt from the interview.

Carlson observed the striking difference between Mike Johnson’s principles and his actions:

Mike Johnson has made a complete departure of who he is and what he stands for – and to the point where people are literally asking, ‘Is he blackmailed?’

Carlson also noted that “70 percent of Americans … and the majority of Republicans do not support funding Ukraine.”

Macgregor’s Epstein Island thesis may explain the mystifying personality change in Mike Johnson. Macgregor went on to conclude:

If that’s the case [the elected representatives] could be compelled to vote in whatever direction the very wealthy and powerful oligarchs in the United States [desire].

We are used to hearing “mogul,” “scion,” or even “philanthropist” to describe the billionaires in the West with state-level influence. This is the reason for Macgregor’s use of the term “oligarch” – usually reserved for the same class of people in enemy nations.

I say oligarch because someone who’s a billionaire hedge fund manager can just as easily buy policy outcomes as an oligarch in Russia or Ukraine.

Macgregor sees this sponsorship of politics as the root of the crisis in America.

I think that’s our biggest problem.  The only way that it will end is with some form of financial collapse – which many of us think is going to happen.

Macgregor points out that the vaunted GDP – the Gross Domestic Product by which the size and health of the economy is measured – “is an illusion.”

“We are currently living on income that is close to 50% of government income,” he said, pointing out that the U.S. is living not only on borrowed money, but also on borrowed time.

“This can’t go on forever. We just don’t know when it’s going to happen but something is going to come along and tip us over,” he warned. “When that happens there will be an opportunity to clean house and hopefully start over – and put an end to this unnecessary overseas empire.”

The domestic crisis is largely ignored, said Macgregor, by a political elite which “acts as if it is still 1991.”

This crisis, which includes that on the U.S. border, and a breakdown in law and order so severe that Elon Musk called for crime to be made illegal again, is one which sees no explanation at all as to why actions are taken to make everything worse.

As Carlson pointed out, no one in power ever really explains why they are taking these decisions, as their policies fuel an expanding global and domestic catastrophe.

Since Joe Biden became president, the U.S. government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting an undeclared war against Russia.

No one in all of that time has explained really the purpose of this war, why it would benefit the United States or the world.

Yet the war in Ukraine is not the only one being funded. The genocide in Gaza simply could not continue without a constant supply of U.S. arms – and money. Carlson added that “ethnic and religious” reasons play a part, but that even these fall short of a convincing reason.

Clearly, at least some policy makers are motivated by ethnic and religious hatred. That’s probably part of the real reason. But officially, no one has told us why we are doing this.

Ukraine war – and NATO – lost?

Regardless of the dark motives for the wars, Macgregor considers the one in Ukraine lost, and the money will make no difference to Russia’s post-war plans. He thinks this defeat will break the NATO alliance, with the Europeans breaking away to forge a different future.

I think even the Europeans, who were even more misguided and utterly confused than much of the American population, are going to realize that there’s no future in this relationship between us and them.

He says the European allies will see “that they too have to save themselves – that they’ll have to chart a new destiny for themselves. So I think that’ll be the end of NATO.”

With a dissolving military alliance abroad, Macgregor turned to the question of Israel. Why has the Biden administration changed its initial tune of “unconditional support” for Benjamin Netanyahu?

Until recently it was unconditional support for Israel. I think the reality has begun to set in with some of the senior people behind the scenes that are instructing Biden and controlling the Congress, that there’s a very real potential for a major war that would draw in Russia and China – and other countries – and could frankly destroy Israel and fatally harm us.

So now I think there’s a sense of helplessness, and that helplessness leads to pleas for cooperation with Mr. Netanyahu.

Macgregor warns that though it is “a good thing” that Netanyahu “did not get his war with Iran,” he counsels that this “doesn’t end the probability of a future war with Iran,” as Netanyahu “continues to enjoy unconditional support [from the U.S. government] for this program of mass expulsion and murder in Gaza.”

‘You’ve got to save yourselves’

With politics controlled by a “donor class” that effectively dictates spending, Macgregor warns against the desperate belief in some national savior.

“I’m one of these people that really dislikes the notion that any one candidate is going to rescue us,” he said, addressing the idea that some “Napoleon” may emerge to save America.

I keep telling people: stop talking about Donald Trump or RFK Jr. or anybody else saving us.

You’ve got to save yourselves.

He thinks this message is getting through – “but we’ve got a long way to go”. Most Americans are “too busy trying to put food on the table,” he adds, with others sadly taking in “the usual nonsense from the mainstream media.”

He thinks perhaps a third of Americans have awoken to the gravity of the situation:

Right now perhaps a third fully understand what’s happening in the country and the dangers abroad- but that’s about it.

Macgregor, a retired US Army colonel, makes an impressive summary of nuclear capabilities in the Middle East, mentioning the widely held assessment of Iran as a “threshold” nation. His appraisal is that the dangers of war are misunderstood, or even ignored, by a political management that is out of its depth and disconnected from contemporary reality.

Speaking of President Biden, he said “we’re dealing with someone now who is eminently incapable of coping with the reality of what you and I have been discussing,” before going on to note that those behind the president are less incapacitated, but deluded.

However, there are others behind Biden who are not total fools. They … are simply amateurs.

He says their assessment is of a reality that no longer exists – and whose God-given rights and way of life their policies are destroying.

They’ve been playing at everything as though America is still what it was in 1991: they are ignoring the open borders which they have deliberately created to dilute our population and essentially erase the American culture and national identity.

Macgregor says they are responsible for the chaos inside what were America’s borders.

They are the ones who are releasing criminals onto the street by destroying the justice system. They’ve ruined the armed forces in terms of morale and capability – it’s at an all-time low.

This toxic combination makes for a bleak prognosis from the retired colonel.

So you add that to the equation and the only thing I can see ahead for the United States right now is total disaster.

Yet Macgregor does not simply pronounce doom. He is trying to mobilize Americans in defense of their nation under God.

Macgregor is the CEO of Our Country, Our Choice – an organization which stresses the centrality of God, family, and country to the American success story whose passing he laments in detail.

Its founder, RJ, describes himself as a “devoted Christian” appalled at the theft of liberties under lockdown and shocked into action by the chaos flowing from the Biden administration.

“We’re driven by an unwavering commitment to protect what matters most: our faith, our loved ones, and the land we call home,” says the founding father-of-four, describing why he created OCOC in 2021 himself. “As I witnessed America’s trajectory under the Biden administration, it became increasingly chaotic and disheartening.”

He tells how he was moved to do so:

I reached a breaking point, realizing that the responsibility of reclaiming our country and defeating the deep state ultimately rests with us, the American people. No one else will step up. So, I made a bold decision, risking everything I had, and founded Our Country Our Choice.

His message to the American people is that they can take back their country and their politics from a class determined to destroy them.

It is one which Macgregor is determined to spread. There is hope amidst this desolation, says Macgregor, who believes that it lies with the American people themselves, and the defense of their God-given rights.

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