So, in the space of two weeks the Russians have done more to smash ISIS than the US & UK have in years.

Anyone would think ISIS is a CIA-backed front....

It's a measure of the war-madness which is currently coursing through the veins of the US ruling class, Neocons etc. that you have guys like Zbigniew Brizinski saying things like, (paraphrase) [i"We should tell the Russians that if they touch Al-Qaeda we will go to WAR!"[/i

Although, we shouldn't forget that Brizinski is the FATHER of Al-Qaeda...

Best line of the week"Putin is playing chess, and Obama is playing candy crush."[/i

And now we have a standing US Secretary of Defence, Ashton Carter (a Dr. Strangelove nutcase if ever I've seen one) saying, [i“This will have consequences for Russia itself, which is rightly fearful of attacks. In coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer from casualties.”[/i

To be fair to Obama - he's probably the only member of his administration who isn't on some kind of kamikaze death mission.

Clearly he wasn't put off by that done landing close to the White House ....

If you recall, all those years ago when Obama was elected to much euphoria, my expressed view was that he would be a weak leader who would make the world a more dangerous place. Seems to have turned out that way..

If by "weak" you mean he's the least willing member of his jingo-Strangelove administration to commit to direct confrontation with a nuclear super-power then yeah, I guess he's weak.

Obama might not be doing all he can to stop this war mongering profiteering. But the last President who tried that got his head blown off.
But I'd take Obama over most of the other leading contenders for that job both at the time and now.
He's at least managed to hold back the tide urging an invasion and another land war. It's pretty obvious the trade off for that is drone strikes.

Why do so many people still believe the old Cold War propaganda that America and its allies are the good guys and Russia are the bad guys. ISIS and similar groups are supplied and funded by the USA and trained by the CIA/Mossad. Russia has entered the fray and is actually causing major damage to ISIS and the USA is getting upset.

I'm hoping Trump wins the Republication nomination and then the presidency, I'm 57,, had some great years but I'd take nuclear Armageddon over dementia any day of the week.

You have to laugh at the Torygraph. Here we have a paper which never misses an opportunity to ridicule conspiracy theory. And yet over the last few years it has stood behind some absolute whoppers seemingly without a shred of self-doubt.

Today's edition is a good example in which the paper rlclaims Gareth Williams, the so called "Spy in the Bag"rl, was offed by Russian hitmen after he had been blackmailed over compromising photos.

The source for this political bombshell? An anonymous insider at the FSB (close to the Kremlin) who passed the story to a former KGB double-agent living in exile in Britain for the best part of two decades!

The paper never explains how someone based in Latvia during the nineties could not only know a high-ranking FSB official stationed right in the heart of Moscow today - but be close enough for him not to worry about the potential consequences of admitting that Russians blackmailed and then murdered a British intelligence officer - on British soil - to a political enemy who has more than likely spilled his guts in exchange for a British passport.

No intelligence agency would dream of taking this story at face value without cast-iron corroboration - not least because spies are liars before they are anything else and - as Machiavelli (who gets an undeserved bad reputation these days) understood - political exiles are among the least trustworthy people to take seriously - for reasons which shouldn't need much brainpower to work out.

Damn i was hoping you was going to say russia 20 isis still nil

Won't take too many joint Syrian-Russian airstrikes before ISIS bug out for good.

I mean, you can believe they are fighting some kind of Holy Jihad and would rather die than surrender. But I think a far more believable motivation is US money laundered through Qatar and/or Saudi. Or even better - paper-wrapped bricks of high-quality heroin smuggled through northern Iran & Iraq from the poppy fields of Afghanistan which have been doing a roaring trade since 9/11.

Mercenaries throughout the ages aren't known for their Rourke's Drift spirit. The moment those Russian ODABs start falling they'll vanish quicker than the Christmas tab at the bar.

If the Metrojet air disaster in Egypt does turn out to be a bomb, then maybe ISIS have got one back. I hope not.

I think the bomb is more likely to have been planted by the Israelis in retaliation for Russian air strikes against Israeli-trained ISIS groups in Syria. Early news reports stated that Mossad were at the site of the crash within hours. What other reason explains their presence other than the removal of potentially incriminating evidence?

It remains to be seen where Putin will lay the blame officially. Given that Russian soldiers are currently engaged in Syria he might well admit ISIS involvement in order to shore up domestic support for the campaign.

But you can be sure he'll take action against the West for this act of cold-blooded murder. As is usually the case with major powers - they rarely act against each other directly and prefer instead to hit their proxies. Which is probably the reason behind Britain's snap decision to rush holidaymakers back from Egypt.

All this ridiculous hemming and hawing by Cameron & Obama over whether or not ISIS planted the bomb reflects their concern over what Putin's public response will be.

My guess is Putin will let the dust settle for a few weeks before giving the order to blast a Western passenger jet out of the sky in retaliation.