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Gary Edwards

Sandy Hook and Obama's Connecticut Social Security number | Fellowship of the Minds - 1 views

fellowshipoftheminds.com/...ecticut-social-security-number

Obama-Birth-Certificate

shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • In May 2011, blogger The Obama Hustle conducted a database pull for SSN 042-68-4425 and got the names of Harrison J. Bounel and Barack Obama (see below), indicating that one SSN was being used by both men.
  • Gary Edwards on 28 Dec 14
     
    "Sandy Hook and Obama's Connecticut Social Security number Posted on December 27, 2014 by Dr. Eowyn | 18 Comments One of the many curiosities about the sitting President of the United States is the fact that, unlike us, he has not one, but multiple Social Security numbers (SSN). In 2010, two licensed private investigators, Susan Daniels and Neal Sankey, found that multiple SS numbers are associated with Barack Obama's name. Daniels and Sankey put their findings in sworn affidavits. Dr. Orly Taitz further verified their information with a third source, a retired Department of Homeland Security senior investigator named John Sampson. In May 2010, the mystery deepened when it was determined that the SSN Obama is currently using (042-68-4425) has a Connecticut prefix, 042, but Obama had never lived in nor had associations with the state of Connecticut. Obama has been using that 042 SS number since 1979 when he was 18 years old. In an article for Western Journalism, Stephen Baldwin writes: All told, there are 49 addresses and 16 different Social Security numbers listed for a person whose name is spelled "Barack Obama." […] the one Social Security number Obama most frequently used, the one beginning with 042, is a number issued in Connecticut sometime during 1976-1977, yet there is no record of Obama ever living or working in Connecticut. Indeed, during this time period Obama would have been 15-16 years old and living in Hawaii at the time. In late February 2011, the mystery further deepened when retired US Air Force Col. Gregory Hollister, the litigant in an Obama eligibility lawsuit, conducted a search for Obama's Connecticut SSN in the Social Security Number Verification System used by small businesses to verify employment eligibility. The results came back as: Failed: SSN not in file (never issued) To the question of why Obama obtained a Connecticut-issued SSN instead of one by Hawaii, Joel Gilbert, maker of the documentary Dreams from
Paul Merrell

Obama, Biden are war criminals under UN Charter: Analyst - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33348.htm

war & peace war crimes U.S. International Criminal Court

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Most Americans, their minds focused at the moment on the tragic slaughter of 20 young children aged 5 and 6, along with five teachers and a school principal in Connecticut by a heavily-armed psychotic 21-year-old, are blissfully unaware that their previous president, George W. Bush, along with five key members of his administration, were recently convicted in absentia of war crimes at a tribunal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They are unaware because the US corporate media have ignored the story, just as that same corporate media have failed to note that the crimes of which Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and five White House lawyers, were convicted all could apply equally well to current President Barack Obama and his administration. Bush, Cheney, White House counsel (and later Attorney General) Alberto Gonzalez and others were found guilty earlier this month of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to the executive orders that launched the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as of authorizing and failing to punish torture and other war crimes by US forces, including the military and the CIA.
  • But as international law expert Francis Boyle, a professor of law at the University of Illinois, notes, under the Geneva Convention, failing to take action to prosecute those guilty of war crimes such as the “Crime against Peace” (invading a country that does not pose an imminent threat to the attacker), and torture, are war crimes in and of themselves. Speaking last week at a Summit Conference on Human Rights held at the University of the Sacred Heart in the US island colony of Puerto Rico, Boyle said US authorities, including President Obama, are engaged in an “ongoing criminal conspiracy under international law” both to cover up and protect criminals like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, and to continue the commission of war crimes by the US government.
  • Obama, when initially campaigning in 2008 for the presidency, vowed that he wanted to restore the respect for the law and the Constitution, once elected President, he and his attorney general Eric Holder quickly made it clear that they were “looking forward, not backward,” and that there would be no prosecutions or indictments for war crimes of any Bush administration people.   The thing is, at that moment, both President Obama and AG Holder became war criminals themselves under the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles, which declare that covering up war crimes by prior government and military leaders, and failure to prosecute such war crimes, are in themselves war crimes.
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  • But as Boyle noted in his address in San Juan, P.R., Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden, and the various secretaries of defense and state, the head of the CIA and the Pentagon Chiefs of Staff, as well as other Obama administration personnel, are also guilty of perpetrating ongoing war crimes themselves. Boyle accuses the Obama administration of continuing to conduct a “bogus” war on “international terrorism” including the ever escalating campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and other jurisdictions. He termed the president’s program of “targeted killings,” in which President Obama himself draws up the “kill list,” to be simply a case of “pure murder” under both traditional British common law and international law, and says these attacks constitute a “Crime against Humanity under Article 7(1)(a) of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court.”
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 12
     
    While the charge that Obama and other administration officials committed crimes under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court might seem odd because the U.S. never acceded to that treaty or to the jurisdiction of the ICC, the statute applies to those who commit war crimes within the jurisdictions of nations that have acceded to the treaty and to their superiors who either knew of should have known that such crimes would be committed and did not act to prevent them.  Pakistan  and Yemen have acceded to the treaty. The Rome treaty requires the arrest of those classified as war criminals under that treaty if they set foot in any nation that has acceded to the treaty. So just as Bush administration figures have done, Obama and crew will need to restrict where they travel after he leaves office.
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 12
     
    The linked article should have mentioned that it was a mock tribunal, without legal authority or powers.
Gary Edwards

PETITION URGING CONGRESS TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA - 0 views

www.wnd.com/...impeach-president-barack-obama

Impeach-Obama articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Jun 13
     
    "PETITION URGENTLY REQUESTING THAT CONGRESS LAUNCH AN INDEPENDENT AND COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATION INTO UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES ON THE PART OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA To: All members of the U.S. Congress: Whereas, President Barack Obama not only failed to aid U.S. personnel under lethal and prolonged terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, resulting in the deaths of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, but also led an outrageously deceitful cover-up for weeks afterward, rivaling the Watergate-era cover-up that ended the presidency of Richard Nixon; Whereas, the IRS under Obama - in accord with direct instructions from congressional Democrats - has engaged in the most egregious and widespread attack on conservative groups in modern history, with the knowledge of top agency officials; Whereas, the Obama Justice Department, on top of its many first-term scandals, has spied on and harassed journalists at Fox News and the Associated Press, prompting widespread, bipartisan condemnation of the DOJ for "criminalizing journalism"; Whereas, top constitutional attorneys from across the political spectrum now agree that Obama has committed certain specific offenses that unquestionably rise to the level of impeachable "high crimes and misdemeanors"; Whereas, one of these offenses - that of illegally conducting war against Libya - has been deemed by a bipartisan panel of constitutional experts to be "clearly an impeachable offense" and "gross usurpation of the war power"; Whereas, Obama's policy of targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens without any constitutionally required due process - including the drone assassination of an American-born 16-year-old as he was eating dinner - is unanimously deemed by experts, both liberal and conservative, as "an impeachable offense"; Whereas, Obama's Justice Department has presided over the disastrous "Fast and Furious" operation in which approximately 2
Gary Edwards

Stasi in the White House - Paul Craig Roberts - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...berts-Stasi-in-the-White-House

Paul-Craig-Roberts End-of-America Obammunism Stassi ruling-class-elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • On June 19, 2013, US President Obama, hoping to raise himself above the developing National Security Agency (NSA) spy scandals, sought to associate himself with two iconic speeches made at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy pledged: "Ich bin ein Berliner." In 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Obama's speech was delivered to a relatively small, specially selected audience of invitees. Even so, Obama spoke from behind bullet proof glass.
  • Obama's speech will go down in history as the most hypocritical of all time. Little wonder that the audience was there by invitation only. A real audience would have hooted Obama out of Berlin.
  • Obama spoke lofty words of peace, while beating the drums of war in Syria and Iran. Witness Obama's aggressive policies of surrounding Russia with missile bases and establishing new military bases in the Pacific Ocean with which to confront China.
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  • This is the same Obama who promised to close the Guantanamo Torture Prison, but did not; the same Obama who promised to tell us the purpose for Washington's decade-long war in Afghanistan, but did not; the same Obama who promised to end the wars, but started new ones; the same Obama who said he stood for the US Constitution, but shredded it; the same Obama who refused to hold the Bush regime accountable for its crimes against law and humanity; the same Obama who unleashed drones against civilian populations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen; the same Obama who claimed and exercised power to murder US citizens without due process and who continues the Bush regime's unconstitutional practice of violating habeas corpus and detaining US citizens indefinitely; the same Obama who promised transparency but runs the most secretive government in US history.
  • The tyrant's speech of spectacular hypocrisy elicited from the invited audience applause on 36 occasions.
  • Here was Obama, who consistently lies, speaking of "eternal truth."
  • Here was Obama, who enabled Wall Street to rob the American and European peoples and who destroyed Americans' civil liberties and the lives of vast numbers of Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, Pakistanis, Syrians − and others, speaking of "the yearnings of justice."
  • Obama equates demands for justice with "terrorism."
  • Here was Obama, who has constructed an international spy network and a domestic police state, speaking of "the yearnings for freedom."
  • Here was Obama, president of a country that has initiated wars or military action against six countries since 2001 and has three more Muslim countries − Syria, Lebanon, and Iran − in its crosshairs and perhaps several more in Africa, speaking of "the yearnings of peace that burns in the human heart," but clearly not in Obama's heart.
  • Obama has turned America into a surveillance state that has far more in common with Stasi East Germany than with the America of the Kennedy and Reagan eras. Strange, isn't it, that freedom was gained in East Germany and lost in America?
  • At the Brandenburg Gate, Obama invoked the pledge of nations to "a Universal Declaration of Human Rights," but Obama continues to violate human rights both at home and abroad.
  • Obama has taken hypocrisy to new heights. He has destroyed US civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
  • In place of a government accountable to law, he has turned law into a weapon in the hands of the government.
  • He has intimidated a free press and prosecutes whistleblowers who reveal his government's crimes. He makes no objection when American police brutalize peacefully protesting citizens.
  • Obama kept Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for nearly a year assaulting his human dignity in an effort to break him and obtain a false confession. In defiance of the US Constitution, Obama denied Manning a trial for three year
  • Obama sends in drones or assassins to murder people in countries with which the US is not at war, and his victims on most occasions turn out to be women, children, farmers and village elders.
  • His government intercepts and stores in National Security Agency computers every communication of every American and also the private communications of Europeans and Canadians, including the communications of the members of the governments, the better to blackmail those with secrets.
  • On Obama's instructions, London denies Julian Assange free passage to his political asylum in Ecuador. Assange has become a modern-day Cardinal Mindszenty.
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13
     
    Wow.  I remember Paul Craig Roberts writing on the backpage of NewsWeek Magazine, back in the late 1960's.  Wow, we've come a long way since the days of protesting the Vietnam War, the socialism behind LBJ's Great Society, and the outrageous coup d'état that took place with the in-your-face-America assassination of JFK.  The circle is almost complete. The American Constitution hangs by a thread.  The anger and heart ache of Paul Craig Roberts says it all. I wonder who will win this years "Dancing with the Stars" competition?
Gary Edwards

The Qatari Deal To Hold The Taliban - The Qataris Have Been Used Before By President Ob... - 1 views

theconservativetreehouse.com/...ama-with-horrific-consequences

Benghazi-coverup Qatar Gitmo-5 Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Three months, a naval fleet, 3,000 marines, one Billion dollars, and 450 cruise missiles later, it’s May 2011 and Obama had yet to ask for permission to engage in his offensive war from anyone but himself and the previously noted ‘club of the traveling pantsuits’. Despite the Office of Legal Council (the golfers own legal team) telling him approval is needed, he chose to violate the War Powers Act and more importantly the Constitution. It is critical to remember the political battle being waged at the time over whether President Obama had the authority to take “offensive military action”, without congressional approval,  when the threat was not against the United States. It’s critical because from that initial impetus you find the reason why arming the Libyan rebels had to be done by another method – because President Obama never consulted congress, nor sought permission.
  • Normally, in order to send arms to the rebels lawfully, President Obama would have to request approval from Congress. He did not want to do that.   Partly because he was arrogant, and partly because he did not want the politically charged fight that such a request would engage.  It would hamper his ability to take unilateral action in Libya.
  • So an alternate method of arming the rebels needed to be structured.    Enter the State Department, Hillary Clinton, and CIA David Petraeus. Weapons, specifically MANPADS or shoulder fired missiles, would be funneled to the Benghazi rebels by the State Dept, through the CIA under the auspices of ongoing NATO operations.   May, June, July, August, Sept, 2011 this covert process was taking place. It was this covert missile delivery process which later became an issue after Gaddafi was killed.    It was during the recovery of these missiles , and the redeployment/transfer to the now uprising “Syrian Rebels” when Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed on Sept. 11th 2012.
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  • [O]n July 25, 2012, Taliban fighters in Kunar province successfully targeted a US Army CH-47 helicopter with a new generation Stinger missile. They thought they had a surefire kill. But instead of bursting into flames, the Chinook just disappeared into the darkness as the American pilot recovered control of the aircraft and brought it to the ground in a hard landing. The assault team jumped out the open doors and ran clear in case it exploded. Less than 30 seconds later, the Taliban gunner and his comrade erupted into flames as an American gunship overhead locked onto their position and opened fire. The next day, an explosive ordnance disposal team arrived to pick through the wreckage and found unexploded pieces of a missile casing that could only belong to a Stinger missile. Lodged in the right nacelle, they found one fragment that contained an entire serial number. The investigation took time. Arms were twisted, noses put out of joint. But when the results came back, they were stunning: The Stinger tracked back to a lot that had been signed out by the CIA recently, not during the anti-Soviet ­jihad. Reports of the Stinger reached the highest echelons of the US command in Afghanistan and became a source of intense speculation, but no action. Everyone knew the war was winding down. Revealing that the Taliban had US-made Stingers risked demoralizing coalition troops. Because there were no coalition casualties, government officials made no public announcement of the attack. My sources in the US Special Operations community believe the Stinger fired against the Chinook was part of the same lot the CIA turned over to the ­Qataris in early 2011, weapons Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department intended for anti-Khadafy forces in Libya. They believe the Qataris delivered between 50 and 60 of those same Stingers to the Taliban in early 2012, and an additional 200 SA-24 Igla-S surface-to-air missiles.  (link)
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jun 14
     
    The pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together, and it isn't pretty. This article connects Qatar, Afghanistan and hero of Benghazi, to the fabulous five terrorist dream team Obama let out of the gitmo prison. Incredible story. excerpt: "How Our Stinger Missiles Wound Up In Afghanistan Being Used Against Our Own Troops: On February 15th 2011 a civil war erupted inside Libya.   Egyptian Islamists previously  freed from jail by the Muslim Brotherhood flooded into Eastern Libya and joined with their ideological counterparts.  al-Qaeda operatives hell bent on using the cover of the Arab Spring to finally rid themselves of their nemesis, Muammar Gaddafi. President Obama chose to ignore an outbreak of violence in Libya for 19 days.  Perhaps Obama was tentative from the criticism he and Hillary received over the mixed messaging in Egypt.  Regardless, eventually Obama was begged to engage himself by leaders from France, The United Kingdom, and Italy. The White House advisors (Emanuel, McDonough, Donolin, Jarrett, Axelrod, Plouffe) were more cautious this time.  Initially Obama ignored the EU requests and later chose to dispatch the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to Europe to address their concerns. "Look, enough with the jokes shorty; you got us into this mess, now the turban heads are laughing at us"… "ah, bot of course, zeah av bullets, no? Vee ave to shoot" For the following 11 days American citizens, including State Dept. embassy officials, were trying to evacuate the country as vast swathes of the country erupted in bloodshed and violence, they became trapped in Tripoli.   A bloody national revolution was underway. The United Nations Security Council held urgent immediate emergency meetings to try to determine what to do.    However, the United States Ambassador to those meetings, Susan Rice, was not present.    She was attending a global warming summit in Africa. Without the U.S. present the United  Natio
Paul Merrell

America Is Guilty if We Don't Prosecute Obama Washington's Blog - 0 views

www.washingtonsblog.com/...ilty-dont-prosecute-obama.html

impeachment Obama Democratic-party

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • I write both as a Democrat (which Barack Obama merely claims to be, but shows by his actions that he is not) and as an American (which he, unfortunately, actually is, but which Republicans often deny), in the hope of preserving the honor not just of my Country, but of my Party, both of which he violates routinely. When President Obama refused to allow the prosecution of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for their manifest crimes, after they had been in office (their having lied this country into invading a country that was no imminent threat to the United States, tortured people, violated the 4th Amendment by unleashing the NSA against the American public, unleashed Wall Street crooks against the American people via MBS frauds, etc.), Obama thereby took upon himself Bush’s and Cheney’s crimes, as being his own. Those crimes still need to be prosecuted — now by America prosecuting Obama himself, for his covering them up: he still does it, after all of these years. Those crimes are no less heinous and, indeed, no less treasonous, now that a so-called “Democrat” is hiding them, than they were when his self-acknowledged Republican predecessors, and now in some cases even the fake “Democrat” Obama himself, were and have been and still are perpetrating them.
  • On 11 July 2014, Rebecca Gordon at rinf.com bannered, “America: Where the ‘Good Guys’ Torture,” and she noted that: There are several important reasons why the resurgence of torture remains a possibility in post-Bush America:     Torture did not necessarily end when Obama took office.     We have never had a full accounting of all the torture programs in the “war on terror.”     Not one of the senior government officials responsible for activities that amounted to war crimes has been held accountable, nor were any of the actual torturers ever brought to court. She documented each one of her points, the last two of which are urgent indicators of the necessity for Democrats (yes, Democrats, since Obama claims to be one of us) to bring forth in the U.S. House of Representatives an impeachment resolution and proceedings against the worst “Democratic” President in U.S. history, or else we shall be implicitly accepting his crimes as being unpunished crimes by our Party, in the person of Obama, just like the Republican Party accepts Bush’s and Cheney’s crimes as being unpunished crimes by their Party, in the persons of Bush and Cheney. And, if Obama’s crimes are acceptable by our Party, then our Party is an embarrassment to our country and should be dissolved,
  • However, there are two more reasons why Obama needs to be impeached, removed from office, and then prosecuted for treason: PROTECTING BANKSTERS:
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  • PERPETRATING ETHNIC CLEANSING ABROAD: Finally, just as President Bush defiled the Presidency by unwarrantedly invading Iraq in 2003 and lying through his teeth all the way there and afterward about it, Obama has defiled the Presidency in 2014 by overthrowing the democratically elected President of Ukraine and lying through his teeth all the way and afterward, about that. And Obama’s crime in Ukraine is even worse than Bush’s crime in Iraq, because it’s much more dangerous, with even bigger stakes and risks (all of which are purely downside for both the American and the Ukrainian peoples — much as Bush’s Iraq-invasion also was, for both Americans and Iraqis).
  • DO-OR-DIE TIME FOR DEMOCRATS: If Democrats don’t initiate impeachment proceedings against Obama, then the Democratic Party will be at least as dishonored as the Republican Party is after George W. Bush, for their protecting him; and I, for one, will quit it and urge its replacement, hoping for a leader like Abraham Lincoln to emerge, who had quit the Whig Party and who succeeded at replacing it by the new (and, tragically, only briefly progressive) Republican Party (which tragically then became taken over by northern aristocrats the very moment when Lincoln was assassinated). Either Democrats need to retake our Party, or else to end it, now. We have tolerated Obama’s outrages too long, as it is. For Democrats to retake the Party, requires Democrats to impeach President Obama.
Paul Merrell

And The Benghazi Media Circus Plays On… | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5380682

war & peace Benghazi Obama Hillary lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 May 14 - No Cached
  • A recent article written by this writer for Global Research posted last Saturday – “The Benghazi Scandal Is Obama’s Watergate But Worse” – was written in an effort to seek and uncover the truth. Accurate reporting on major world events is a challenge in today’s world where propaganda and disinformation are mainstream media norms and where virtually all major players in American politics simply lie through their teeth every time they open their mouths in constant effort to look good and cover up the truth. The American public knows this pathetic and sobering fact that deception has come to rule in the world of both politics and the media. People today neither believe their newscasters nor their political leaders. That is why examining the content of the tidal wave of assertions and opinions spewing forth from politicians and pundits in the aftermath of the latest Benghazi revelations must be taken with a grain of salt. Again, truth in today’s world is hard to come by. But as an investigative reporter, presenting a brief overview of recent comments and statements for any informed citizen to process and digest seems a worthwhile and important enterprise.
  • A timeline of recently unfolding events: On 10/12/12 exactly one month after the Benghazi incident, the legal conservative group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents related to the Benghazi attack on September 11th, 2012 that killed the US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Obama, who had campaigned on a promise of transparency in the criminal wake of the Bush regime, has proven to be anything but open and transparent. Having to sue the US government for access to the records, on April 18th, 2014, a full year and a half later, the Obama administration’s stonewalling ultimately failed and Judicial Watch successfully got hold of 41 State Department Benghazi related documents. Emails between high level White House officials discussing damage control strategies in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi assault were released last week. Jubilant Republicans are now calling one of those emails their “smoking gun,” believing it is so incriminating that it will do in their would-be opponent Hillary Clinton from potentially competing in the 2016 presidential election.
  • The newly declassified email written by Obama’s then Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes specifically directed then UN Ambassador Susan Rice in preparation for her Sunday morning talk show appearances on September 16th, 2012 to explain the administration’s take on what it knew of the Benghazi murders. Rhodes advised Rice to attribute the Benghazi uprising as “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy,” pushing talking points designed to bolster Obama’s presidential image as a cool-as-a-cucumber-under-fire kind of wise and benevolent leader and statesman. The major emphasis of the email instructed Rice to blame the bogus anti-Moslem video as inciting a spontaneous protest like in other countries in the region that apparently grew violently out of control, of course all the while knowing that that was a boldface lie. This crucial piece of evidence proves that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both knew that the video did not cause the attack but that they chose to willfully deceive the American public in order to protect their own political careers and hence was born the infamously never ending Benghazi cover-up. Obama and Hillary withheld this damning email evidence even from the House Oversight Committee led by Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA) requesting all documents pertaining to Benghazi more than a year ago. With the presidential election less than two months away at the time of the attack, Obama and Hillary were determined at all cost to keep hidden from Americans the real truth of criminal Benghazi activity they were guilty of engaging in during the months leading up to the attack. Last Thursday an angry Issa subpoenaed current Secretary of State John Kerry to appear before the committee on May 21st to further explain why those critical State Department records recently given to Judicial Watch were not among the 3200 documents originally handed over to his committee well over a year ago.
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  • Investigative reporter Kenneth R. Timmerman as author of a new forthcoming book entitled ‘Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi’ states: We know that orders were issued, then recalled, to deploy a 50-man Special Forces unit from Croatia that could have reached Benghazi within hours.Timmerman concludes that to date no documents revealing the person who ordered that unit to stand down have yet to surface.
  • Within hours of the general’s testimony came rebukes from both the senior Republican and Democrat on the powerful House Armed Services Committee making claims backing the administration’s that the military was incapable of responding in time to assist the ill-fated Americans in Benghazi. Because they represent the military in Congress that had already drawn the conclusion that nothing tactically could have been done to save the four Americans, they were quick to rebut the general’s testimony. Yet the day before 9/11 every year since 9/11/01 including on 9/10/11, the president meets with top military and security personnel to ensure that US embassies around the globe are bolstered with much needed extra security for 9/11 readiness. Yet the Benghazi compound was so insecure despite repeated requests, both Obama and the military apparently failed to have any military units on standby that could reach Benghazi to be of service on the night of 9/11/12. And this comes after intelligence sources have been reporting insufficient security at the Benghazi embassy compound.
  • Another disclosure at last Thursday’s House Oversight Committee hearing further damaging the credibility and actions of the Obama administration came from retired Air Force General Robert Lovell who at the time of Benghazi was in Germany serving as the senior African Command deputy director for intelligence. Lovell testified, “We should have sent help,” adding that the White House decision not to attempt military assistance due to the time factor was unacceptable. Lovell also stated unequivocally that the military knew that the Benghazi attack had nothing to do with the video falsely used by the administration to explain away the tragedy. The ex-general felt his military should have intervened and was waiting all night long for the call that never came from his bosses in Washington. Clearly he feels a sense of remorse and regret over the passivity imposed on him by his commander-in-chief Obama and State Department head Clinton.
  • Meanwhile, last week in a heated exchange with ABC correspondent Jon Karl a visibly agitated White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted that Rhodes’ email was not related to Benghazi at all but referred to the Moslem protests generally taking place in the region in response to the video. The next day Fox reporter Ed Henry engaged Carney on the same issue, eliciting the same haranguing reaction. All this appears to be yet more desperate lies in a feeble attempt to cover his bosses’ Obama and Hillary’s asses called criminal guilt, and by so doing committing his own. Carney had been among the original recipients of Rhodes’ email. Carney further explained that the same Rhodes talking points echoed those delivered earlier to Congress and the White House by deputy CIA director Mike Morell who a month ago claimed he received no pressure or influence from anyone in the Obama administration in coming up with his version of what most likely transpired on 9/11/12 based on all CIA intelligence sources available at the time. Yet on his own Morell admitted to toning down the intelligence reports leading up to the Benghazi attack purposely so as to not appear to be an “I told you so” gesture that would offend Hillary and her State Department. That said, Hillary’s underling and rising star Victoria Nuland (the later promoted to profanity-speaking Assistant Secretary of State who played such a key role in the recent US backed fascist Ukrainan coup) objected to Morell’s talking points that in her mind leaned too heavily toward blaming her boss and their State Department for insufficient security at the Benghazi compound. Her words:
  • Why do we want Hill to start fingering Ansar Al Sharia [the known al Qaeda affiliated attackers that murdered the four Americans], when we aren’t doing that ourselves until we have the investigation results…and the penultimate point could be abused by Members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings so why do we want to feed that?… Concerned.Observe how the exclusive focus of all post-Benghazi interdepartmental correspondence from Rhodes’ to Morell’s to Nuland’s all center on appearance and potential perception to avoid CYA blame. Furthest down on their priority list is honest and truthful disclosure and self-accountability. Again, the name of the game in the world of politics is passing the buck whenever possible to minimize potential heat that comes with looking bad and maximizing looking good by any means or lies necessary. Benghazi perfectly illustrates all of this.
  • Based on the information finally coming to light all last week, last Friday House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) called for a special select committee not unlike the one for Watergate to further investigate Benghazi. Representative Trey Gowdy (SC-R) has already been selected as its lead investigator. This grandstanding ploy seems a bit superfluous and redundant since the House Oversight Committee has ostensibly been trying to get to the bottom of Benghazi for nearly a year and a half, albeit thus far ineffective in its results, no help from the State Department’s prior email omissions. Not only is Benghazi the hot topic buzzing here in America, on that same day last Friday, more bullets was buzzing in Benghazi as well. Nine police security soldiers were gunned down by, you guessed it, the same murderers still remaining at large that were behind the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack – the militant group the US has for years labeled an al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organization Ansar al-Sharia. After massacring 31 peaceful demonstrators protesting outside the militants’ headquarters last June, last week’s massacre is a powerful statement showing that the terrorists are still in charge in Benghazi and immune from any accountability from the US installed puppet government either in Tripoli or Washington. They remain free men at large despite Obama’s promise to hunt them down and bring them to justice.
  • The senior Democratic House Intel Committee Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) typifies the partisan Obama-Hillary politics games of each side racing to the media to point fingers at each other in their same old, same old blame game. On Sunday Schiff stated he does not want any Democrats to participate in the newly forming select committee that the Republican House Speaker Boehner has just recently called for, already naming its GOP chair. That is simply a game the Dems will refuse to play. Why? Because Republicans cannot make them. Sound familiar? Perhaps your 7-year old child might employ this same game strategy. Insider Dems like former White House advisor turned ABC analyst (and another original recipient of Rhodes’ infamous email) David Plouffe conveniently took to ABC’s Sunday morning On This Week with George Stephanopoulos crying foul even louder with their familiar “conspiracy” chant they customarily use to discredit any criticism leveled at the Obama administration. His cries reaching desperation this week accuse a “very loud, delusional minority” of Republicans of an obsessive politics game over Benghazi. Another all too familiar grade school tactic, whatever misbehavior you are accused of, simply accuse your enemy of the same offense, an old early childhood trick that you never need outgrow in the world of politics.
  • Still another indignant reaction hardcore defenders of Hillary and Obama are now quick to cite are the thirteen embassy attacks that occurred as so called “Benghazi’s on Bush’s watch” when not a peep was ever heard from the press. This straw house strategy is designed to show how Republicans and Fox News are hypocritical in their obsession to find dirt on Benghazi where they deny any exists. Yet this accusation seems to omit one very significant fact. Not one of those embassy attacks during the Bush regime resulted in any murdered Americans, much less four of them and one being a US Ambassador, something that has not happened in the last 32 years before Benghazi. The media circus demonizing partisan politics players on both sides epitomizes why the US government is so utterly broken, horribly dysfunctional, morally bankrupt and totally ineffective in addressing any and all of the most pressing problems facing America and the world today. The blame game is all they know. Yet in all their exaggeration, lies, name calling and finger pointing, not one of them is even addressing the pink elephant in the room.
  • Obama, Hillary and then CIA Director retired General Betrayus Petraeus were/are international gun running criminal outlaws of the worst kind, working with the very same al Qaeda terrorist bunch that murdered those four nearly forgotten Americans. US tax dollars were/are going into the pockets of Ansar al-Sharia and al Qaeda mercenaries that looted Muammar Kaddafi’s gold cache and enormous weapon arsenal that included chemical weapons as well as surface to air missiles. And Obama, Petraeus and 2016 presidential heir apparent Hillary were in deep over their heads under Hillary and Stevens’ State Department cover, shipping them from Benghazi through Turkey to Syria to covertly fight a war by proxy against Assad’s government forces. After more than three bloody years, to this day the US is still bent on destroying another sovereign nation posing absolutely no security threat to America. These are the war crimes constantly being committed by Obama, Petraeus and Hillary and their lies upon lies are unraveling at an accelerated clip with each passing month. Thus, expect to see more desperate acts of aggression from desperate despots who know that their jig is up. Yet desperate despots do not care how many humans they will take down with them. But justice for these longtime perpetrators of multiple crimes against humanity will be served in the end.
Paul Merrell

Israel decries US 'knife in back' over Palestinian govt - Yahoo News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/alestinian-govt-210018880.html

war & peace Israel Palestine Kerry Obama Netanyahu negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Washington's support for a new Palestinian government backed by Israel's Islamist foe Hamas, has left the Jewish state feeling betrayed, triggering a new crisis with its closest ally. Several Israeli ministers expressed public anger on Tuesday after the US State Department said it was willing to work with the new Palestinian unity government put together by the West Bank leadership and Gaza's Hamas rulers. Technocratic in nature, the new government was sworn in on Monday in front of president Mahmud Abbas, with Washington offering its backing several hours later.
  • Speaking to reporters on Monday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the new cabinet would be judged "by its actions.""At this point, it appears that president Abbas has formed an interim technocratic government that does not include ministers affiliated with Hamas," she said. "With what we know now, we will work with this government."
  • The US endorsement was viewed as a major blow for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had on Sunday urged the international community not to rush into recognising the new government, which he said would only "strengthen terror."
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  • "Unfortunately, American naivety has broken all records," said Communications Minister Gilad Erdan, a cabinet hardliner who is close to Netanyahu."Collaborating with Hamas, which is defined as a terror organisation in the United States, is simply unthinkable. "US capitulation to Palestinian tactics badly damages the chance of ever returning to negotiations and will cause Israel to take unilateral steps to defend its citizens from the government of terror which Abu Mazen (Abbas) has set up." Public radio said Netanyahu was feeling "betrayed and deceived," particularly as he had assured his security cabinet that US Secretary of State John Kerry had promised him Washington would not recognise the new government immediately.
  • "And it wasn't immediate -- it was five hours later that this recognition took place," the radio noted ironically. A senior political official quoted by the Israel Hayom freesheet, widely regarded as Netanyahu's mouthpiece, said the US move was "like a knife in the back." - 'Answer with annexation' - Israeli commentators said the Palestinians had chalked up a "major success" in driving a new wedge between Israel and its US ally.
  • With the peace process in tatters, hardliners within Netanyahu's rightwing coalition have been pushing for Israel to take unilateral steps such as the annexation of the main Jewish settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.
  • The security cabinet agreed on Monday to set up a team to examine the annexation option, but Yediot Aharonot commentator Shimon Shiffer said the move was a sop to Bennett and other hardliners rather than a serious policy change.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14
     
    What's remarkable here is that Obama has apparently ratcheted down his fear of the Israel Lobby. But it's not as though Mr. Netanyahu was not warned that the world would see Israel as responsible if it blew up the Kerry-brokered negotiation between Israel and Palestine. Israel did blow it up by not delivering the last shipment of Palestinian prisoners required by the pre-negotiation agreement, attempting to gain further concessions using their release as leverage.  Palestine responded by joining a large number of U.N. treaty organizations and was thus recognized by most nations on the planet as a nation: a critically important move, because it is recognition by other nations as a nation that qualifies Palestine as a full-fledged U.N. member rather than an observer state, an application Palestine can now make at the time of its choosing. That is also important because Palestine is now positioned to join the Rome Convention that created the International Criminal Court, providing Palestine with legal standing to file war crime charges against high Israeli officials that would then obligate the Court to investigate. Palestine is holding back on that move, using it as bargaining leverage on the world stage.   Palestine also responded by forming a coalition "unity" government with Hamas, the political party that nominally rules the Gaza strip, the world's largest open-air concentration camp. At Israel's request, the U.S. had several years ago designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. But that was a purely political move. It seems that the political situation has changed. Obama is pivoting out of the Mideast as he performs his ballyhooed "pivot to Asia," which is actually a pivot to contain Russia that isn't working and a pivot to subjugate Africa and its huge store of untapped natural resources, including lots of oil. Blocking China's economic deals in Africa with military force seems to be the current top concern in the White House. Israel was already a pari
Paul Merrell

What Obama Told Us At West Point -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org - 0 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...-west-point-paul-craig-roberts

war & peace Obama West-Point U.S.-foreign-policy rule-of-law war crimes

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • At West Point Obama told us, to the applause of West Point cadets, that “American exceptionalism” is a doctrine that justifies whatever Washington does. If Washington violates domestic and international law by torturing “detainees” or violates the Nuremberg standard by invading countries that have undertaken no hostile action against the US or its allies, “exceptionalism” is the priest’s blessing that absolves Washington’s sins against law and international norms. Washington’s crimes are transformed into Washington’s affirmation of the rule of law. Here is Obama in his own words: “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.” Actions indeed. In the 21st century “American exceptionalism” has destroyed seven countries in whole or in part. Millions of people are dead, maimed, and displaced, and all of this criminal destruction is evidence of Washington’s reaffirmation of international norms and the rule of law. Destruction and murder are merely collateral damage from Washington’s affirmation of international norms.
  • “American exceptionalism” also means that US presidents can lie through their teeth and misrepresent those they choose to demonize. Listen to Obama’s misrepresentations of the Putin and Assad governments: “Russia’s aggression towards former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe . . . In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe .” Obama misrepresents Assad as “a dictator who bombs and starves his own people.” Did any of the cadets in Obama’s West Point audience wonder why, if Assad is a brutal dictator who bombs and starves his own people, the Syrian people are supporting Assad instead of the American-backed “liberation forces,” the combination of imported jihadists and al Qaeda fighters who object to Assad’s government because it is secular? The US military is taught to respect its civilian commander-in-chief, but if West Point cadets actually do obtain an education, it is remarkable that Obama’s audience did not break out in laughter.
  • Obama’s speech is probably the most disingenuous ever given by a Western politician. We could have fun for hours with all the crimes that Washington commits but buries in rhetoric directed at others. Perhaps my favorite is Obama evoking a world in which “individuals aren’t slaughtered because of political belief.” I am sure Obama was thinking of this just world when he murdered without due process of law four American citizens “outside of areas of active hostilities.” Another favorite is the way Obama flushed the US Constitution of its meaning. Obama said, with reference to bringing the Guantanamo prisoners to the US, that “American values and legal traditions don’t permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders.” No, Obama, the US Constitution prevents the indefinite detention of US citizens by the US government anywhere on earth, especially within our borders. By detaining and by murdering US citizens without due process of law, Obama has violated his oath of office and should be impeached. It was only a short time ago that President Bill Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives (the Senate saved him from conviction) for lying about his sexual affair with a White House intern. How times change. Today a president who violates his oath of office to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic gets a free ride. The Constitution has lost its power to protect citizens from the arbitrary power of government. The US is the Constitution. Without the Constitution the US ceases to exist, and the country becomes a tyranny, both at home and abroad.Today the US is a tyranny cloaked in the garb of “freedom and democracy.”
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  • Instead of laughing our way through Obama’s ridiculous speech to what apparently was a dumbed-down West Point graduating class, lets pay attention to Obama’s bottom line: “America must always lead on the world stage. . . . The military is, and always will be, the backbone of that leadership.” In other words, Washington doesn’t use diplomacy. Washington uses coercion. The favorite threat is: “Do as you are told or we will bomb you into the Stone Age.” Obama’s speech is a justification of Washington’s criminal actions on the grounds that Washington acts for the exceptional Americans whose exceptionalism places them and, thereby, their government above law and international norms. In this way of thinking, only the failure to prevail constitutes failure. Americans are the new ubermensch, the new master race. Inferior humans can be bombed, invaded, and sanctioned. Obama’s West Point speech asserts American superiority over all others and Washington’s determination to continue this superiority by preventing the rise of other powers. This arrogant hubris was not enough for the Washington Post editorial board. The newspaper’s editorial damned Obama for binding US power and limiting its use to “a narrow set of core interest,” such as direct threats to America.
  • The American “liberal media” object that Obama’s claim of exceptionalism is not broad enough for Washington’s purposes. Obama’s address, the Washington Post wrote, bound “US power” and “offered scant comfort” to those militarists who want to overthrow Syria, Iran, Russia, and China. The world should take note that the most militarily aggressive American president in history is considered a wimp by the neoconized American media. The media drives wars, and the American media, firmly allied with the military/security complex, is driving the world to the final war.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14
     
    Obama's speech at West Point was indeed a gigantic slap in the face at international law and at the Constitution. http://goo.gl/icJGDz The Rule of Law is no longer a guiding light in the White House, now only an obligatory nod of nominal respect. The Imperial Presidency has announced that we are now citizens of post-constitutional America.  
Paul Merrell

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs - 2 views

www.atimes.com/...MID-03-090913.html

war & peace Syria Obama Pipelinestan U.S.-credibility

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Sep 13 - No Cached
Gary Edwards liked it
  • There is nothing tragic about the Obama presidency, capable of drawing the analytical talents of a neo-Plutarch or a neo-Gibbon. This is more like a Pirandello farce, a sort of Character in Search of An Author. Candidates to Author are well documented - from the Israel lobby to the House of Saud, from a select elite of the industrial-military-security complex to, most of all, the rarified banking/financial elite, the real Masters of the Universe. Poor Barack is just a cipher, a <a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9473bc7&cb=%n' target='_blank'><img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&cb=%n&n=a9473bc7&ct0=%c' border='0' alt='' ></a> functionary of empire, whose ''deciding'' repertoire barely extends to what trademark smile to flash at the requisite photo-ops. There's nothing ''tragic'' about the fact that during this week - marking the 12th anniversary of 9/11 - this presidency will be fighting for its bombing ''credibility'' trying to seduce Republican hawks in the US Congress while most of the warmongers du jour happen to be Democrats.
  • Republicans are torn between supporting the president they love to hate and delivering him a stinging rebuke - as much as they are aching to follow the orders of their masters, ranging from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to military contractors. Once again, this is farce - caused by the fact that a man elected to finish off wars is eager to start yet another one. And once again without a United Nations vote. The White House ''strategy'' in this crucial negotiating week boils down to this; to convince the US Congress that the United States must start a war on Syria to punish an ''evil dictator'' - once again, as bad as Hitler - for gassing children. The evidence? It's ''indisputable''. Well, it's not ''irrefutable''. It's not even ''beyond-a-reasonable-doubt''. As Obama's Chief of Staff Denis McDonough admitted, with a straight face, it boils down to ''a quite strong common sense test, irrespective of the intelligence, that suggests that the regime carried this out''. So if this is really about ''common sense'', the president is obviously not being shown by his close coterie of sycophants this compendium of common sense, compiled by a group of top, extremely credible former US intelligence officials, which debunks all the ''evidence'' as flawed beyond belief. To evoke a farce from 12 years ago, this clearly seems to be a case of ''facts being fixed around the policy''.
  • The Arab street doesn't buy it because they clearly see through the hypocrisy; the desperate rush to ''punish'' the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria while justifying everything the apartheid state of Israel perpetrates in occupied Palestine. The Muslim world doesn't buy it because it clearly sees the demonization only applies to Muslims - from Arafat to bin Laden to Saddam to Gaddafi and now Assad. It would never apply to the military junta in Myanmar, which was clever enough to engineer an ''opening''; the next day Westerners were lining up to kiss the hem of Burmese longyis. It would never apply to the Islam Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan because ''we'' always need to seduce him as one of our bastards away from Russia and China. It eventually applies, on and off, to the Kim dynasty in North Korea, but with no consequences - because these are badass Asians who can actually respond to an US attack. Informed public opinion across the developing world does not buy it because they clearly see, examining the historical record, that Washington would never really be bothered with the sorry spectacle of Arabs killing Arabs, or Muslims killing Muslims, non-stop. The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war is a prime piece of evidence.
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  • Then there's the ''credibility'' farce. The Obama administration has convoluted the whole world in its own self-spun net, insisting that the responsibility for the ''red line'' recklessly drawn by the president is in fact global. Yet the pesky ''world'' is not buying it.
  • At the Group of 20 summit last week, the BRICS group of emerging powers - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - as well as Indonesia and Argentina, clearly stressed that a war on Syria without UN Security Council approval would qualify Obama as a war criminal. Even among the European poodles ''support'' for the White House is extremely qualified. Germany's Angela Merkel and even France's attack dog Francois Hollande said the primacy is with the UN. The European Union as a whole wants a political solution. It's enlightening to remember that the EU in Brussels can issue arrest warrants for heads of EU governments guilty of war crimes. Someone in Paris must have warned attack dog Hollande that he would not welcome the prospect of slammer time. ''Evil'' as a political category is something worthy of the brain dead. The key question now revolves around the axis of warmongers - Washington, Israel and the House of Saud. Will the Israel lobby, the more discreet but no less powerful Saudi lobby, and the Return of the Living Dead neo-cons convince the US Congress to fight their war?
  • And then there's the curioser and curioser case of al-Qaeda - essentially the Arabic denomination for a CIA database of US-Pakistani-Saudi trained mujahideen during the 1980s: the oh so convenient transnational bogeyman that ''legitimized'' the Global War On Terror (GWOT) of the George W Bush years; the ''opening'' for al-Qaeda to move to Iraq; and now, no middle men; the CIA and the Obama administration fighting side-by-side with al-Qaeda in Syria. No wonder the denomination ''al-CIAeda'' has gone viral. With farce after farce after farce piling up in their own Tower of Babel, the much-vaunted ''US credibility'' is in itself the biggest farce of all. Politically, no one knows how the vacuum will be filled. It won't be via the UN. It won't be via the BRICS. It won't be via the G-20 - which is seriously divided; at least new multipolar players are carrying way more weight than US poodles. Much would be made to restore ''US credibility'' if the Obama administration had the balls to force both the House of Saud and Qatar (''300 people and a TV station'', in the epic definition of Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar Sultan - aka Bandar Bush) to end once and for all their weaponizing of hardcore ''rebels'' and ultimately hardcore jihadis, and accept Iran in the negotiating table for a real Geneva II peace process in Syria. It won't happen because this bypasses farce. Once again; helpless Barack is just a paperboy. The plutocrats in charge are getting extremely nervous. The system is melting - and they need to act fast.
  • They need a Syria as docile as the Arab petro-monarchies. They want to hit Russia bad - and then discuss missile defense and Russian influence in Eastern Europe from a position of force. They want to hit Iran bad - and then continue to issue ultimatums from a position of force. They want to facilitate yet another Israeli attempt to capture southern Lebanon (it's the water, stupid). They want a monster gas pipeline from Qatar for European customers bypassing Iran and Syria as well as Gazprom. Most of all, this is all about control of natural resources and channels of distribution. These are real motives - and they have nothing to do with farce. Farce is only deployed to kill any possibility of real diplomacy and real political discussion. Farce is a theatrical mask - as in ''humanitarian'' imperialism - the ''acceptable'' version of the Dick Cheney-run years. It's as if Dick Cheney had never left the building; paperboy Barack is Dick Cheney with a ''human'' face. The only good outcome in this multi-sorrowful tale is that the real ''international community'', all around the world, has seen the naked Emperor in all its (farcical) glory.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Sep 13
     
    What can I say? The iconoclastic Pepe Escobar strikes again. 
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Sep 13
     
    Outstanding article Paul. Wow! Watching the 911 link now. But here's one for you: Massimo Mazzucco's new 5-hour documentary "September 11- The New Pearl Harbor" summarizes 12 years of public debate on 9-11, looking at the events from all sides. Watch a trailer for the film here: http://goo.gl/M5c0dj Full five hours available here: http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=167 I listened to a two hour interview with Massimo last night. Awesome stuff.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 13
     
    A 5-hour documentary will have to wait for tomorrow. I'm about 7 hours away from a deadline for the current development cycle's Help file. :-) I do think Pepe is a off on a couple of details in this article. The Neocons were mostly silent on this one and Rumsfeld came out against the intervention, saying that Obama hadn't made a valid case for war. That's most likely because the Neocons are joined at the hip with Israeli government and that government is a house divided this time around, with only factions supporting the military strike. The current thinking in Tel Aviv/Jerusalem is, in line with the Israeli right's long term strategy, that it's just fine with them to have Muslims running around killing each other in Syria. That long-term strategy is to destabilize Israel's Arab neighbor states while Israel builds its economic empire and military hegemony in the region. Israeli government isn't exactly thrilled by the prospect of Obama delivering fulfillment of the Saudi goal of transforming Syria from a secular state into a non-secular Islamic state run by Wahabi extremists. Such a state, armed to the teeth by the U.S. and/or the Saudi-Qatari zillionaires could be very bad news for Israel. Notably, the very strongest case thus far that the August 21 chemical attack was conducted by the opposition forces with the U.S. and Syria in on it to create a false flag attack, has been delivered in installments by Yossef Bodansky, an Israeli-American uber-scholar of Islamic "terrorism" and Soviet/Russian weaponry who is incapable of criticising Israel's decades-long terrorism inflicted on the Palestinian people and Israel's continuing unlawful occupation of Palestine plus parts of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Bodanysky sits at the center of an intelligence web of intelligence professionals from nations worried about Islamic "terrorism." In other words, he's extremely pro-Israeli and to boot, very close to Mossad and Israel's IDF intelligence forces. Israel's AIPAC lobby d
Paul Merrell

Obama May Find It Impossible to Mend Frayed Ties to Netanyahu - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ahu-obama-israel-election.html

war & peace Israel Palestine 2-state-solution Obama-threat Netanyahu

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • But now that Mr. Netanyahu has won after aggressively campaigning against a Palestinian state and Mr. Obama’s potential nuclear deal with Iran, the question is whether the president and prime minister can ever repair their relationship — and whether Mr. Obama will even try.On Wednesday, part of the answer seemed to be that the president would not make the effort. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Win in Israel Sets Netanyahu on Path to Rebuild and Redefine GovernmentMARCH 18, 2015 Palestinian Leaders See Validation of Their Statehood EffortMARCH 18, 2015 Netanyahu Soundly Defeats Chief Rival in Israeli ElectionsMARCH 17, 2015 News Analysis: Deep Wounds and Lingering Questions After Israel’s Bitter RaceMARCH 17, 2015 In strikingly strong criticism, the White House called Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign rhetoric, in which he railed against Israeli Arabs because they went out to vote, an attempt to “marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens” and inconsistent with the values that bind Israel and the United States. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, told reporters traveling with Mr. Obama on Air Force One on Wednesday that Mr. Netanyahu’s statement was “deeply concerning and it is divisive and I can tell you that these are views the administration intends to communicate directly to the Israelis.”
  • And with Mr. Netanyahu’s last-minute turnaround against a Palestinian state alongside Israel, several administration officials said that the Obama administration may now agree to passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution embodying principles of a two-state solution that would be based on the pre-1967 lines between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip and mutually agreed swaps.Most foreign policy experts say that Israel would have to cede territory to the Palestinians in exchange for holding on to major Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank.
  • Such a Security Council resolution would be anathema to Mr. Netanyahu. Although the principles are United States policy, until now officials would never have endorsed them in the United Nations because the action would have been seen as too antagonistic to Israel.Continue reading the main story “The premise of our position internationally has been to support direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” a senior White House official said. “We are now in a reality where the Israeli government no longer supports direct negotiations. Therefore we clearly have to factor that into our decisions going forward.”
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  • Administration officials said that although the relationship between Israel and the United States would remain strong, it would not be managed by Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu. Instead it would be left to Secretary of State John Kerry, one of Mr. Netanyahu’s only remaining friends in the administration, and to Pentagon officials who handle the close military alliance with Israel. “The president is a pretty pragmatic person and if he felt it would be useful, he will certainly engage,” said a senior administration official, who asked not to be identified while discussing Mr. Obama’s opinions of Mr. Netanyahu. “But he’s not going to waste his time.”
  • Another source of administration anger is Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to Washington and an American-born former Republican political operative. Some administration officials said that it would improve the atmosphere if Mr. Dermer stepped down — he helped orchestrate an invitation from Speaker John A. Boehner to have Mr. Netanyahu address Congress without first consulting the White House — but it would not change the underlying divisions over policy.
  • Despite the fractured relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu, Israel, which has received more American aid since the end of World War II than any other country, will continue to get more than $3 billion annually in mostly military funding. In addition, the United States military will continue to work closely with the Israel Defense Forces to maintain Israel’s military edge against its regional adversaries.Foreign policy experts said that the United States would for the most part continue to side with Israel internationally, even as a growing number of European allies seek to pressure Israel to stop settlement expansion in the West Bank and to recognize Palestinian statehood.
  • But Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who is now the head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, warned that the administration’s patience was growing thin. “What the Obama administration is saying is that, ‘Yes, we’re still committed to you,’ ” Mr. Levy said. “But if you don’t give us something to work with, we can’t continue to carry the rest of the world for you.”Mr. Netanyahu’s objections to a nuclear deal with Iran, and his decision to firmly ally himself with Mr. Obama’s Republican opponents in expressing his ire over the Iran talks, may well have hardened the president’s decision to push for an agreement, one Obama adviser said Wednesday. At the very least, Mr. Netanyahu’s opposition has done nothing to steer Mr. Obama away from his preferred course of reining in Iran’s nuclear ambitions through an international agreement that would sharply limit Tehran’s ability to produce nuclear fuel for at least 10 years, in exchange for a gradual easing of economic sanctions. Mr. Kerry and Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, are continuing talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, this week with the goal of reaching an agreement by the end of the month.
  • “We do think we’re going to get something,” one senior administration official said. He noted, pointedly, “We are backed by the P-5 plus 1” — using the diplomatic moniker for Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, and the United States. Mr. Netanyahu, the official added, should “look carefully” at his own anti-deal coalition, which, besides congressional Republicans, consists mostly of the Sunni Arab states that all detest Israel but lately have come to fear a rising Iran more.
  • Although Mr. Netanyahu is certain to be a major critic of any Iran agreement and to push Republicans in Congress to oppose it, Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who is now a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said that in the end the Israeli leader would not get his way. “You will have an Iran deal,” Mr. Miller said. ”The Israelis will not like it. But in the end, Israel will not be able to block it.”That is in part because the administration expects lawmakers will be reluctant to reject a deal for fear that they would be held responsible for what could happen after — either a nuclear-armed Iran or war with Iran.
  • After Iran, administration officials said the next major confrontation with Mr. Netanyahu would most likely be over continued Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. The Palestinians plan to file a case in the International Criminal Court in April contending that the settlements are a continuing war crime.Martin S. Indyk, Mr. Obama’s former special envoy on recent negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and now the executive vice president of the Brookings Institution, said that although the United States would always be a strong supporter of Israel, Mr. Netanyahu was in dangerous terrain. “Israel does not need to be, and should not aspire to be, a nation that dwells alone,” Mr. Indyk said.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Mar 15
     
    Haven't made my way back to it yet, but Obama called Netanyahu to congratulate him on reelection, but gave him some marching orders, then the White House leaked enough to make it clear that the tail is no longer wagging the dog.  Coupled with this NY Times piece yesterday, Netanyahu undoubtedly got the message. He did a 180 degree about face today.
Gary Edwards

You Won't BELIEVE What's Going On with Government Spying on Americans - BlackListedNews... - 1 views

www.blacklistednews.com/...M.html

NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA NSA-Whistleblower Edward-Snowden Tyranny-by-Executive-Order spying

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Aug 13
     
    "New Revelations Are Breaking Every Day" This web page is very well sourced and filled with links where you will get lost for hours. Excellent reference document ............................ Revelations about the breathtaking scope of government spying are coming so fast that it's time for an updated roundup: - Just weeks after NSA boss Alexander said that a review of NSA spying found not even one violation, the Washington Post published an internal NSA audit showing that the agency has broken its own rules thousands of times each year - 2 Senators on the intelligence committee said the violations revealed in the Post article were just the "tip of the iceberg" - Glenn Greenwald notes:  "One key to the WashPost story: the reports are internal, NSA audits, which means high likelihood of both under-counting & white-washing".(Even so, the White House tried to do damage control by retroactively changing on-the-record quotes) - The government is spying on essentially everything we do. It is not just "metadata" … although that is enough to destroy your privacy - The government has adopted a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act which allows it to pretend that "everything" is relevant … so it spies on everyone - NSA whistleblowers say that the NSA collects all of our conversations word-for-word - It's not just the NSA … Many other agencies, like the FBI and IRS - concerned only with domesticissues - spy on Americans as well - The information gained through spying is shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes.  The agencies are instructed to intentionally "launder" the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way … and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges - Top counter-terror experts say that the government's mass spying doesn't keep us
Paul Merrell

Bush Administration Convicted of War Crimes - Dr. Francis Boyle #N3 | Next News Network... - 0 views

nextnewsnetwork.com/...war-crimes-dr-francis-boyle-n3

war & peace war crimes Bush Admjnistration international law

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Former U.S. President George W. Bush recently dedicated his Presidential Library in Dallas. The ceremony included speeches by President Obama, ex-President Bush, and every other living ex-president. But none of the speeches so much as mentioned to Iraq war — the undertaking that dominated George W. Bush’s presidency, and will define his historic legacy. This omission might be due, at least in part, to the fact that Mr. Bush is now a convicted war criminal who dares not travel abroad out of fear of being arrested. In February 2011, Bush was forced to cancel a scheduled appearance in Geneva, Switzerland after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint charging him with violating international treaties against torture. His trouble increased dramatically a year ago when Bush — along with former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and several other top Bush administration officials — were convicted of war crimes in absentia by a special war crimes tribunal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
  • The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission was convened and conducted according to internationally recognized procedures and rules of evidence, and the week-long hearing ended with the five-member panel unanimously delivering guilty verdicts. What is the significance of that tribunal? Is its verdict legally binding? Are there troublesome aspects to the idea that a foreign tribunal can sit in judgment of a U.S. President — whatever we may think of his actions? We will discuss these vitally important questions with Dr. Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He served as a prosecutor at the tribunal.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 13
     
    I did not bookmark the news about this tribunal's decision last year because I mistakenly assumed that it was a mock trial, that it had no legal force.  But in this interview with renowned international law professor Francis Boyle, who served as co-prosecutor, I learned that the trial was legally constituted, and that international law requires other nations to either extradite Bush and his top officials or independently try them for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Note that Boyle gives Obama no points either, calling for his impeachment and prosecution. So we might look forward to a similar prosecution of Obama and his top officials after he leaves office. 
Gary Edwards

It begins: Major demand to impeach Obama - 1 views

www.wnd.com/...demand-obamas-impeachment-now

Impeach-Obama articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Jun 13
     
    "Watergate investigator Bob Woodward of the Washington Post compares Barack Obama to Richard Nixon. Members of Congress say it's about time to consider it. Rock legend Ted Nugent says Obama's constitutional violations make him eligible. And even Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin has called for Obama's impeachment. Now you can join a petition that calls on Congress to immediately investigate the "unconstitutional and impeachable offenses" of Obama. The document is addressed to members of Congress, who have the responsibility to make sure government officials don't go outside the bounds of the U.S. Constitution and to bring appropriate retribution when they do. The petition cites a number of scandals in just the last few weeks and months. Among them are the "lethal and prolonged terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, and the subsequent 'Watergate-era cover-up.'" And then there's the big - and getting bigger - scandal involving the federal government's use of the Internal Revenue Service to harass and attack "conservative groups." There's also the spying and harassment of journalists and the Associated Press. "Top constitutional attorneys from across the political spectrum now agree that Obama has committed certain specific offenses that unquestionably rise to the level of impeachable 'high crimes and misdemeanors," the petition explains. Sign the petition right away!" http://goo.gl/JH6sn
Gary Edwards

Nate Jackson: Does Seeking to Jail Political Opponents Count as a 'Smidgen of Corruptio... - 0 views

patriotpost.us/36287

IRS Lois-Lerner Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • And they wonder why people don’t trust the NSA’s mass metadata collection. The conversations that began at least in 2010 continued for three years. In fact, two days before Lerner “apologized” and outed the whole conspiracy, she wrote an email to the acting IRS commissioner’s chief of staff detailing ongoing discussions with DOJ officials. “These new documents show that the Obama IRS scandal is also an Obama DOJ and FBI scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection. And this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining confidential taxpayer information. How can the Justice Department and FBI investigate the very scandal in which they are implicated?”
  • The answer to that last, albeit rhetorical, question is that they can’t and they aren’t. Any “investigation” by the DOJ or FBI will no doubt exonerate anyone of importance in the Obama administration. If any guilt is unavoidable, it will be hung around the necks of those rascals in Cincinnati or some other unfortunate scapegoat. All while Lerner continues to enjoy her comfortable retirement, and Obama himself remains untouched. On top of the serious breach of law and abuse of power in targeting Obama’s political opponents, the agencies' carefully crafted stonewall blocked the timely release of information. As with Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Benghazi cover-up, the slow bleed of information leaves the public tired of hearing “old news” and makes it all the more certain the perpetrators won’t face real accountability, much less justice.
  • Finally, we’re reminded of a commencement speech Obama delivered in 2009 at Arizona State University, after university officials declined to give Obama an honorary doctorate. Obama “joked” that “[university president Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.” Clearly, that wasn’t much of a joke.
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 15
     
    "There was "not even a smidgen of corruption" at the IRS, Barack Obama told us in February 2014, though he conceded "there were some bone-headed decisions." That was a bald-faced lie at the time, and new information only reinforces that conclusion. While the mainstream media turns a blind eye and deaf ear, Judicial Watch has continued digging for information regarding IRS targeting of Tea Party and Patriot groups leading up to (and almost surely aiding in) Obama's re-election in 2012. And they discovered some serious collusion that sounds more like something out of Soviet Russia or Red China than here in the U.S. "Judicial Watch … released new Department of Justice (DOJ) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents that include an official 'DOJ Recap' report detailing an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity." In other words, imprisoning political opponents. Remember when the IRS initially blamed the whole fiasco on a couple of low-level employees in Cincinnati? Good times. The documents reveal numerous conversations between the three agencies, including Lois Lerner, about creative ways to charge and jail conservatives for the "crime" of political activity opposing Obama. To do so, the DOJ and FBI needed to illegally obtain taxpayer information from the IRS. So the IRS sent the FBI more than one million pages of taxpayer information on 113,000 non-profit groups."
Paul Merrell

DOJ's Motion to Dismiss in Smith v. Obama, the case challenging the legality of the war... - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...-challenging-legality-war-isil

war & peace Smith_v._Obama war-powers-resolution Iraq Syria litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • As I noted in an earlier post, Nathan Smith, a U.S. Army captain deployed to Kuwait as part of the campaign against ISIL, Operation Inherent Resolve, has sued the President, seeking a declaration that Congress has not authorized the hostilities in Iraq and Syria and that therefore the War Powers Resolution requires the President to remove U.S. forces from hostilities in those nations. On Tuesday, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the case. Its brief in support of the motion includes one argument that I think is correct (albeit not for all the reasons the government offers) — namely, that Smith lacks standing to sue. That ought to be sufficient to have the case dismissed. The brief also includes an argument on the merits (albeit not designated as such) that is very interesting and potentially important — an account of how Congress has allegedly authorized Inherent Resolve in three ways: (i) in the 2001 AUMF; (ii) in the 2002 AUMF; and (iii) in current appropriations statutes. The heart of the brief, however, is devoted to a third argument — that Judge Koller-Kotelly must dismiss the case on the basis of the political question doctrine — that is not only wrong, but that simply ignores the Supreme Court’s recent (and repeated) repudiation of that very argument.
  • On page 39 of its 45-page brief, the government finally gets around to the reason why the court should dismiss the complaint: Smith lacks standing. Importantly, Smith’s theory of standing is not that he — an Army captain deployed to perform intelligence services in Kuwait — is more likely to be injured or killed by virtue of the President’s decision to deploy troops into hostilities in Iraq and Syria. It is, instead, that the President’s alleged failure to comply with the War Powers Act results in Captain Smith’s own violation of his officer’s oath to “support and defend” the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “bear true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution.
  • The government’s standing argument begins (p. 35) by suggesting that “[p]laintiff’s claim that he is being forced to betray his oath is insufficient to establish standing because the violation of an oath, by itself, is not an injury in fact.” The cases the government cites for that proposition, however, do not say that a forced oath violation would not be an injury in fact — and that’s not a question the judge needs to resolve. What the cases establish, instead, is the point the government finally argues at page 39 — namely, that a government officer does not violate his oath by complying with superiors’ orders, even if it turns out that the law prohibits the military operation in which those orders are issued. Indeed, Smith would not violate his oath of office even if his superiors’ orders themselves were unauthorized, or if the intelligence activities he is ordered to performed were unauthorized. But he does not allege even those things (as I discuss below, he does not, for instance, alleged that he is being ordered to do anything unlawful). Instead, he merely argues that because President Obama should have withdrawn troops from Syria and Iraq 60 days after their deployment, Smith himself is violating his oath to “bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution.” This is a non sequitur: Even if Smith is right that the continuation of Operation Inherent Resolve is unlawful, that would not mean that he is acting in violation of his oath. (Much more on this in my earlier post.) And that simple fact is reason enough for Judge Koller-Kotelly to dismiss the case.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • One of Smith’s counsel, Professor Bruce Ackerman, argues that this reason for rejecting the oath-based theory of standing ignores the Supreme Court’s 1804 decision in Little v. Barreme. Little, however, is not on point. In that case, Navy Captain Little was sued by the owners of a Danish ship for damages caused when Little seized that neutral ship. The Court held that Little could be liable, notwithstanding the fact that he was following orders, because the capture violated a implicit statutory prohibition on the military’s seizure of ships sailing from France to the United States. In this case, however, Captain Smith has not argued — nor could he — that he has been ordered to do anything unlawful (in violation of a statute), let alone that he has been ordered to do something that would subject him to possible liability for damages. He is, instead, arguing that President Obama violated a statute. That is not enough to establish Smith’s standing to sue.
  • The government’s main argument, to which it devotes far too many pages, is that the judge must dismiss the case because it raises a “political question” that courts cannot answer. This is flatly wrong — and it ignores several controlling precedents, including the Supreme Court’s recent 8-1 rejection of virtually the same government argument in Zivotofsky v. Clinton.
  • The most interesting thing about the government’s brief — and by far the most important aspect of it, for public purposes apart from the lawsuit itself — is that, in the section ostensibly arguing that the case is nonjusticiable (see pp. 25-30, and also pp. 4-14), DOJ actually offers the Executive branch’s most detailed defense yet about why Operation Inherent Resolve is congressionally authorized. As some of us predicted, the government relies on three arguable authorizations, any one of which would be sufficient to defeat Smith’s WPR claim if the courts were to reach the merits. In this post I’m not going to assess the merits of the three arguments. For now, my purpose is only to describe them, and to raise one issue with respect to the third. i. First, the government argues that the 2001 AUMF authorizes the operation against ISIL.
  • Second, the government argues that the 2002 AUMF also authorizes Operation Inherent Resolve, just as it authorized operations in Iraq against AQI (which became ISIL) from 2003 to 2011, after the Hussain regime fell.
  • Finally, and most interestingly (in part because the government has not previously made this argument), DOJ argues that a recent “unbroken stream” of appropriations statutes not only confirm the authorities allegedly conferred by the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs, but also offer their own, independent congressional authorization.
  • Two things are fairly clear from this: The members of Congress approve of Operation Inherent Resolve — indeed, there’s virtually no opposition. And Congress has (most likely) appropriated funds to pay for it. The operative question, however, is whether Congress’s appropriations also serve as an authorization that would supersede the requirement of WPR section 5(b). The government brief alludes to one important argument that the plaintiff will undoubtedly raise: Section 8(a)(1) of the WPR provides that, for purposes of tolling the 60-day clock of section 5(b), “[a]uthority to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances shall not be inferred (1) from any provision of law . . . including any provision contained in any appropriations Act, unless such provision specifically authorizes the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into such situations and states that it is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of this chapter.” Obviously, the 2016 Act does not satisfy that requirement. Is that fatal to the appropriations-as-authorization argument?
  • As the Office of Legal Counsel 50 U.S.C. 1542 and 1543). These provisions might be read simply to convey that the executive must continue to comply with the consultation and reporting requirements of WPR sections 3 and 4, even after the 2016 Act authorizes the introduction of troops into hostilities in Iraq and Syria. Or they might alternatively be construed to also specify that the Act is not providing the authority that section 5(b) of the WPR calls for.
  • Not surprisingly, DOJ argues for the former view (pp. 27-28 of the brief): “[I]n the few provisions in which Congress did reference the War Powers Resolution, to clarify that no funds made available for Operation Inherent Resolve are to be used ‘in contravention’ of the Resolution, Congress signaled its agreement that the President’s counter-ISIL military actions were authorized by simultaneously funding Operation Inherent Resolve. If Congress believed that the United States had been conducting airstrikes and other counter-ISIL military activities ‘in contravention of the War Powers Resolution,’ it would have made no sense for Congress to use the ‘in contravention’ proviso in the same laws that make funds available for the express purpose of continuing those military activities.” That’s not a bad argument, at least at first glance; but it’s not a slam-dunk, either, in part because appropriations provisions do not necessarily establish authorizations. It’ll be interesting to see how Captain Smith’s lawyers respond to this particular aspect of the merits argument. I doubt Judge Koller-Kotelly will reach it, however, because she is likely to dismiss the case for want of standing.
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Jul 16
     
    I've read the brief. I don't think the implied partial repeal of the War Powers Resolution argument should fly. The relevant provision establishes a rule of interpretation of later statutes and the appropriations bills neither reject the rule of interpretation nor specifically provide authorization for use of military force. They just authorize funding. On the standing issue, I think the DoJ position is correct; the oath of office applies only to senior officers who make the decision to initiate a war. But DoJ may have opened the door to a more compelling standing argument by arguing that the war does not constitute a war crime, a crime against peace, or a crime against humanity under international law. DoJ did not need to make that argument because Smith had not alleged in his complaint that he was being ordered to commit such crimes, but by doing so DoJ waives any argument that such issues are beyond the scope of Smith's standing and the evidence that the Iraq and Syrian wars are illegal under international law is, to say the least, strong.
Gary Edwards

Articles of Impeachment Against Obama - 0 views

blackrepublican.blogspot.com/...an-citizens-file-articles.html

Impeachment articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 16 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 16 Aug 13
     
    Sarasota, FL ( August 12, 2013) - The National Black Republican Association (NBRA) based in Sarasota, FL, headed by Chairman Frances Rice, filed Articles of Impeachment against President Barack Obama with the following language.   We, black American citizens, in order to free ourselves and our fellow citizens from governmental tyranny, do herewith submit these Articles of Impeachment to Congress for the removal of President Barack H. Obama, aka, Barry Soetoro, from office for his attack on liberty and commission of egregious acts of despotism that constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.   On July 4, 1776, the founders of our nation declared their independence from governmental tyranny and reaffirmed their faith in independence with the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791.   Asserting their right to break free from the tyranny of a nation that denied them the civil liberties that are our birthright, the founders declared:   "When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."  -  Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.   THE IMPEACHMENT POWER   Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution provides: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."   THE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT   In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Barack H. Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that:   ARTICL
Gary Edwards

Google News - 1 views

news.google.com/?ar=1376592686

Impeachment articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Aug 13
     
    Ten Articles of Impeachment have been drawn up and submitted to the House Judiciary Committee for consideration. Very well written, the articles are a clear indictment of Obama, listing his offenses in the most concise and clear manner I've seen to date. Excellent stuff. "The National Black Republican Association (NBRA) based in Sarasota, FL, headed by Chairman Frances Rice, filed Articles of Impeachment against President Barack Obama with the following language: We, black American citizens, in order to free ourselves and our fellow citizens from governmental tyranny, do herewith submit these Articles of Impeachment to Congress for the removal of President Barack H. Obama, aka, Barry Soetoro, from office for his attack on liberty and commission of egregious acts of despotism that constitute high crimes and misdemeanors. On July 4, 1776, the founders of our nation declared their independence from governmental tyranny and reaffirmed their faith in independence with the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791.  Asserting their right to break free from the tyranny of a nation that denied them the civil liberties that are our birthright, the founders declared: "When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."  -  Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. THE IMPEACHMENT POWER Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution provides: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." THE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Barack H. Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disre
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Aug 13
Paul Merrell

White House OKd spying on allies, U.S. intelligence officials say - latimes.com - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...-20131029,0,4289803,full.story

surveillance state NSA Obama NSA-targets lies scandal

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • The White House and State Department signed off on surveillance targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said Monday, pushing back against assertions that President Obama and his aides were unaware of the high-level eavesdropping. Professional staff members at the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies are angry, these officials say, believing the president has cast them adrift as he tries to distance himself from the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have strained ties with close allies. The resistance emerged as the White House said it would curtail foreign intelligence collection in some cases and two senior U.S. senators called for investigations of the practice. France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Sweden have all publicly complained about the NSA surveillance operations, which reportedly captured private cellphone conversations by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among other foreign leaders.
  • On Monday, as Spain joined the protest, the fallout also spread to Capitol Hill.
  • Until now, members of Congress have chiefly focused their attention on Snowden's disclosures about the NSA's collection of U.S. telephone and email records under secret court orders. "With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies — including France, Spain, Mexico and Germany — let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Unless the United States is engaged in hostilities against a country or there is an emergency need for this type of surveillance, I do not believe the United States should be collecting phone calls or emails of friendly presidents and prime ministers," she said in a statement. Feinstein said the Intelligence Committee had not been told of "certain surveillance activities" for more than a decade, and she said she would initiate a major review of the NSA operation. She added that the White House had informed her that "collection on our allies will not continue," although other officials said most U.S. surveillance overseas would not be affected. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee, said Congress should consider creating a special select committee to examine U.S. eavesdropping on foreign leaders.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • "Obviously, we're going to want to know exactly what the president knew and when he knew it," McCain told reporters in Chicago. "We have always eavesdropped on people around the world. But the advance of technology has given us enormous capabilities, and I think you might make an argument that some of this capability has been very offensive both to us and to our allies."
  • Precisely how the surveillance is conducted is unclear. But if a foreign leader is targeted for eavesdropping, the relevant U.S. ambassador and the National Security Council staffer at the White House who deals with the country are given regular reports, said two former senior intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing classified information. Obama may not have been specifically briefed on NSA operations targeting a foreign leader's cellphone or email communications, one of the officials said. "But certainly the National Security Council and senior people across the intelligence community knew exactly what was going on, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous." If U.S. spying on key foreign leaders was news to the White House, current and former officials said, then White House officials have not been reading their briefing books. Some U.S. intelligence officials said they were being blamed by the White House for conducting surveillance that was authorized under the law and utilized at the White House. "People are furious," said a senior intelligence official who would not be identified discussing classified information. "This is officially the White House cutting off the intelligence community."
  • Any decision to spy on friendly foreign leaders is made with input from the State Department, which considers the political risk, the official said. Any useful intelligence is then given to the president's counter-terrorism advisor, Lisa Monaco, among other White House officials. Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said Monday that Obama had ordered a review of surveillance capabilities, including those affecting America's closest foreign partners and allies. "Our review is looking across the board at our intelligence gathering to ensure that as we gather intelligence, we are properly accounting for both the security of our citizens and our allies and the privacy concerns shared by Americans and citizens around the world," Carney said.
  • Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the review would examine "whether we have the appropriate posture when it comes to heads of state, how we coordinate with our closest allies and partners, and what further guiding principles or constraints might be appropriate for our efforts." She said the review should be completed this year.
  • Intelligence officials also disputed a Wall Street Journal article Monday that said the White House had learned only this summer — during a review of surveillance operations that might be exposed by Snowden — about an NSA program to monitor communications of 35 world leaders. Since then, officials said, several of the eavesdropping operations have been stopped because of political sensitivities.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13
     
    Good. The Intelligence community is calling BS on Obama's claim that he didn't know about the spying on foreign heads of allied states. And McCain says we need a select Congressional committee to look into what the president knew and when he knew it. That's an implicit slam of the Feinstein-led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's oversight of the intelligence agencies and a signal that there is a scandal lurking here. More importantly, a new select committee would not have the same membership as the existing Intelligence Community, which has largely functioned as a rubber stamp for what the intelligence agencies want. We have been down this road before, in the mid-70s, when the Defense Dept. intelligence agencies were caught spying on Americans, leading to the Select Committee investigation headed by former Sen. Frank Church and to the initial passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, among other legislation delivering a strong message to the intelligence agencies that what happens within the U.S. is off-limits to them. But that was a lesson forgotten as new technology came along for NSA to play with. If Obama is smart, he will promptly respond to the LA Times article with a clarification that top members of his staff knew and the previous statement dealt only with his personal knowledge. But the Obama Administration has overwhelmingly demonstrated an inability to head off scandals and a big tendency to cover-up rather than get out in front of story, particularly in matters involving the NSA. So we may see a major scandal emerge from this already enormous scandal that is laid directly at Barack Obama's feet, a cover-up scandal.   Who knew what when, where, why, and how? My favorite question. 
Gary Edwards

Obama gives himself control of all communication systems in America - RT - 0 views

rt.com/...ident-order-communications-770

Obammunism executive-orders

shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Jul 12
     
    Awful stuff.  Another Obama executive order suspending the Constitution and terminating the Bill of Rights. Revoking the right of habeas corpus is unconstitutional. So is declaring a national emergency without congressional approval. The Constitution declares, "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." While Congress has passed many an unConstitutional Law regarding "National Emergency Powers", there is nothing in the Constitution granting any branch of the Federal government to tear up the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Atrocities like FiSA, The Military Commissions Act, NSP51, HSPD20, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, the National Emergencies Act, and the Patriot Act are un Constitutional to the core.   Only the American people, through their representatives in Congress, can declare a national emergency.  With the exception of the habeas corpus clause, the Constitution makes no allowance for the suspension of any of its provisions during a national emergency.  Many statist seeking to breach the Constitution and Bill of Rights argue that the granting of emergency powers by Congress is implicit in its Article I, section 8 authority to "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare," the commerce clause, its war, armed forces, and militia powers, and the "necessary and proper" clause empowering it to make such laws as are required to fulfill the executions of "the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." But this issue of "implied" powers defies an actual reading of the Constitution, and seeks to breach the meaning of that most basic of all Madisonian  Constitutional concepts embedded into the framework of limited government: "enumerated powers".  The United States is a government of enumerated powers.  N
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