Group items tagged

Photo: Alex Brandon/APFormer President Bill Clinton on Monday met in secret (no press allowed) with roughly 100 leaders of South Florida’s Jewish community, and, as the Times of Israel reports, “He vowed that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would make it one of her top priorities to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance.” He also “stressed the close bond that he and his wife have with the State of Israel.” It may be tempting to dismiss this as standard, vapid Clintonian politicking: adeptly telling everyone what they want to hear and making them believe it. After all, is it even physically possible to “strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance” beyond what it already entails: billions of dollars in American taxpayer money transferred every year, sophisticated weapons fed to Israel as it bombs its defenseless neighbors, blindly loyal diplomatic support and protection for everything it does? But Bill Clinton’s vow of even greater support for Israel is completely consistent with what Hillary Clinton herself has been telling American Jewish audiences for months. In November, she published an op-ed in The Forward in which she vowed to strengthen relations not only with Israel, but also with its extremist prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Her comments on Israel have similarly contained implicit criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy: namely, that he has created or at least allowed too much animosity with Netanyahu. In her Forward op-ed, she wrote that the Israeli prime minister’s “upcoming visit to Washington is an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and governments of the United States and Israel.” She pointedly added: “The alliance between our two nations transcends politics. It is and should always be a commitment that unites us, not a wedge that divides us.” And in case her message is unclear, she added this campaign promise: “I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office.” Last month, Clinton wrote an even more extreme op-ed in the Jewish Journal, one that made even clearer that she intends to change Obama’s policy to make it even more “pro-Israel.” It begins: “In this time of terrorism and turmoil, the alliance between the United States and Israel is more important than ever. To meet the many challenges we face, we have to take our relationship to the next level.”

“With every passing year, we must tie the bonds tighter,” she wrote. Tie those bonds tighter. Thus: As part of this effort, we need to ensure that Israel continues to maintain its qualitative military edge. The United States should further bolster Israeli air defenses and help develop better tunnel detection technology to prevent arms smuggling and kidnapping. We should also expand high-level U.S.-Israel strategic consultations. As always, there is not a word about the oppression and brutality imposed on Palestinians as part of Israel’s decadeslong occupation. She does not even acknowledge, let alone express opposition to, Israel’s repeated, civilian-slaughtering bombing of the open-air prison in Gaza. That’s because for Clinton — like the progressive establishment that supports her — the suffering and violence imposed on Palestinians literally do not exist. None of this is mentioned, even in passing, in the endless parade of pro-Clinton articles pouring forth from progressive media outlets.

Moscow warned Thursday that any move by Gulf nations to send in troops to support the rebels in Syria would risk a “new world war.” It also said that it had made a “quite specific” cease-fire proposal for Syria as foreign ministers gathered in Munich, hoping to revive a floundering peace process amid warnings of a “new world war.”

Meanwhile, a Saudi source said a new Saudi-led coalition to fight “terrorism” in Islamic countries will gather in the kingdom next month for its first publicly announced meeting.This development came days after the kingdom, which backs some of the rebels that Moscow is helping to defeat, has floated the idea of sending ground troops to help the U.S. effort against Daesh (ISIS).This was criticized by Russian premier Dmitry Medvedev, who said, “The Americans and our [Arab] partners must think hard about this: Do they want a permanent war?” he told Germany’s Handelsblatt daily.

Russia is widely viewed as unlikely to halt support for the government advance until Damascus achieves its two main objectives: recapturing Aleppo and sealing the Turkish border, for years the lifeline for rebel-held areas.That would amount to the most decisive victory of the war so far, and probably put an end to rebel hopes of removing Assad by force, their goal throughout five years of fighting that has killed 250,000 people and driven 11 million from their homes.

U.S. DRONE OPERATORS are inflicting heavy civilian casualties and have developed an institutional culture callous to the death of children and other innocents, four former operators said at a press briefing today in New York. The killings, part of the Obama administration’s targeted assassination program, are aiding terrorist recruitment and thus undermining the program’s goal of eliminating such fighters, the veterans added. Drone operators refer to children as “fun-size terrorists” and liken killing them to “cutting the grass before it grows too long,” said one of the operators, Michael Haas, a former senior airman in the Air Force. Haas also described widespread drug and alcohol abuse, further stating that some operators had flown missions while impaired. In addition to Haas, the operators are former Air Force Staff Sgt. Brandon Bryant along with former senior airmen Cian Westmoreland and Stephen Lewis. The men have conducted kill missions in many of the major theaters of the post-9/11 war on terror, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“We have seen the abuse firsthand,” said Bryant, “and we are horrified.” An Air Force spokesperson did not address the specific allegations but wrote in an email that “the demands placed on the [drone] force are tremendous. A great deal of effort is being taken to bring about relief, stabilize the force, and sustain a vital warfighter capability. … Airmen are expected to adhere to established standards of behavior. Behavior found to be inconsistent with Air Force core values is appropriately looked into and if warranted, disciplinary action is taken.” Beyond the press conference, the group also denounced the program yesterday in an interview with The Guardian and in an open letter addressed to President Obama.

The Chief of the Russian Main Operations Center of the Russian Army’s General Staff, Andrey Kartapolov, confirmed that the Russian and French military forces will launch joint operations against terrorists in Syria. The statement follows previous announcements by the Russian Presidency, following the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and subsequent developments.

Kartapolov’s statement comes at the French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle is heading towards the Mediterranean to launch operations against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL or Daesh in Syria. It remains at this time uncertain on what legal grounds France launches air strikes against Daesh on Syrian territory and whether Paris has back channel talks with Syria, facilitated by Moscow in that regard. Russia is currently the only nation that operates in Syria on invitation of the Syrian government and on the basis of international law.

You know the country has really gone to the dogs when Washington’s main allies in its war on Syria are the two biggest terrorist incubators on the planet. I’m talking about Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both of which are run by fanatical Islamic zealots devoted to spreading violent jihad to the four corners of the earth. Not that the US doesn’t have blood on its hands too. It does, but that’s beside the point.

Four and half years later, the place is a worse mess than Iraq.  Half the population is either dead or internally displaced, the civilian infrastructure is a shambles, and nothing has been achieved. Nothing.  Assad is safely tucked away in Damascus, the jihadi proxies are on the run, and everyone hates the US more than ever. Great plan, eh? Where’s the downside? The downside is that now Washington finds itself backed against the wall with precious  few options that don’t involve a direct confrontation with Moscow.

These developments have forced Washington into a fallback position that will likely entail air-support for Turkish ground forces who will be deployed to Northern Syria to take and hold area sufficient for a “safe zone”, which is an innocuous sounding moniker the media invokes to conceal the fact that Turkey plans to annex sovereign Syrian territory which, by the way, is an act of war. Now fast-forward to last week:

US experts are reconstructing and equipping a desolate airport special to carrying agricultural products in the region controlled by the Kurdish forces in Hasaka region, Northeastern Syria, to turn it into a military base.The Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Saturday that a number of US experts have entered the region since 50 days ago to develop and prepare the runways with 2,500m length and 250m width to be used by fighter jets. Abu Hajar airport which has not been used since 2010 is located in Tal al-Hajar region in the Eastern countryside of Hasaka which is controlled by the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG).

The airbase is located Southeast of the town of Rimelan, which is one of the YPG’s main strongholds and “largest arms and ammunition depots”. The US has not received or even asked for a permission from Damascus for reconstructing the airbase. The United States does not have a UN mandate for interventing in the Syria war. The airport will help enable Washington to add an additional safe place to land its forces, commando units for instance, and bring in military support to its allies who are working to finalize control over Southern Hasaka countryside, al-Akhbar said. The report came over a week after the Kurdish region said that the US and Kurdish forces were working together to construct a 10 hectare military airbase South of the town of Rimelan in the village of Rimelan al-Basha. “American experts are directly supervising the airbase with a Kurdish workforce,” the reports claimed, saying that US unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had been flown from the facility to test it.

The latest media driven shooting attack said to have taken place in San Bernardino, California over a week ago now – and still there’s a growing list of details that don’t add up. After a week of whitewashed reports, a media scripted ransacking of the alleged ‘shooters’ home (tampering with a potential crime scene) and eyewitness accounts that contradict the official narrative, we also learn that the very room where 14 people were reportedly killed (along with 21 injured) during a deadly shooting attack at the Inland Regional Center, there was an “active-shooter” training drill involving some of the victims almost a year before the attack.

In our previous articles on this subject, we pointed out multiple markers which clearly indicate ‘active shooter’ armed rehersal drills held at and around the Inland Regional Center location. Here’s another – another unbelievable development discussed recently by the LA Times: “About a year ago, employees of San Bernardino County’s Environmental Health Services division underwent an “active-shooter training.” “It was held at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino — in the very same room that would one day be a site of bloodshed and horror.” “It was not clear if gunman Syed Rizwan Farook, an environmental health specialist for the county, attended the earlier training, but some of the victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting were likely to have participated, said a county spokeswoman.” One must consider that statistically speaking, the chances of a real shooting event taking place in the exact same room where a multi-agency ‘active shooter’ drill took place approximately one year ago – has to be close to zero. Furthermore, this strange and unlikely coincidence should highlight the suspicious nature of the shooting event itself.

Yesterday Hillary Clinton gave a speech in Washington at the Saban Forum of Brookings that included more pandering to Israel than any speech I’ve heard from any American politician. It was endless. Israel is a brave democracy, a light unto the nations, a miracle, its “prowess in war” is “inspiring,” and we must take the US-Israel relationship to the “next level.”

Just as the Republican candidates had attacked Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) at the Republican Jewish Coalition last week, Clinton said that BDS was hurting the U.S.’s ability to fight terrorism. This is language straight out of Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. Speaking of Netanyahu, Clinton was asked by Saban what she would do on her first day in office and she said dutifully: on the first day I would extend an invitation to the Israeli prime minister to come to the United States hopefully within the first month, certainly as soon as it could be arranged to do exactly what I briefly outlined. To work toward very much strengthening and intensifying our relationship on military matters, on terrorism and on everything else that we can do more to cooperate on that will send a strong message to our own peoples as well as the rest of the world. So that is on my list for the first day. Here are more incredible pander quotes.

The boycott movement against Israel is making our alliance with Israel “more indispensable than ever”. Here is where she suggests that BDS is hurting US efforts to fight terrorism: In this period of period of peril, Israel needs a strong America by its side, and America needs a strong and secure Israel by our side. It’s in our national interest to have an Israel that remains a bastion of stability and a core ally in a region in chaos. An Israel strong enough to deter its enemies, and strong enough to take steps in the pursuit of peace. We need a brave democracy whose perseverance and pluralism are a rebuke to every extremist and tyrant. We need a light unto the nations as darkness threatens. Today three trends in the region and the world are converging and making our alliance with Israel more indispensable than ever. The first is a rising tide of extremism across a wide arc of instability, from North Africa to South Asia. The second is Iran’s continued aggression. The third is the growing effort to delegitimize Israel on the world stage. America and Israel need to address these threats together. We must take an already strong relationship to the next level. We have to develop a common, strategic vision and pursue a coordinated approach, deepen our cooperation and consultation across the board.

The US Defense Department (DOD) is preparing to expand its global network of military bases by establishing a new “string” of bases in countries stretching from Africa to East Asia, unnamed Pentagon officials told the New York Times Wednesday. The enlarged US basing arrangements will include at least four new large-scale bases or “hubs,” including new facilities in East Africa and West Africa and Afghanistan, along with a greater number of smaller camps or “spokes,” sources told the Times . The new bases, which the Pentagon describes as “enduring” bases, will host forces ranging from dozens of commandos up to 5,000 soldiers at the largest hubs, the unnamed military officials said. West Africa is a main focus of the expanded basing plans, and will host one of the larger hubs. The West African countries of Niger and Cameroon are the only countries set to host smaller “spoke” bases listed by the Times report. The Pentagon plans to build a large “hub” near Erbil in northern Iraq, where US special forces have already been conducting combat operations for months. US Special Forces commandos affiliated with the “expeditionary targeting force” announced last week by US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter are already setting up operations in the same area, according to reports.

The new bases are only the latest development in the metastatic growth of Washington’s global military apparatus. According to the official list of US overseas bases, US forces are stationed in Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, British Indian Ocean Territory, Bulgaria, Cuba, Djibouti, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Honduras, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Romania, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom. Taking into account non-officially acknowledged bases, “forward operating posts,” and other long-term deployments, the list of US bases expands to include the majority of the countries in the world.

A new public opinion survey undertaken in six Arab countries, Iran, and Turkey finds that people are more likely to blame “corrupt, repressive, and unrepresentative governments” and “religious figures and groups promoting extremist ideas and/or incorrect religious interpretations” for the rise of violent groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State than they are to blame “anger at the United States.” These findings are the result of a series of face-to-face polls conducted by Zogby Research Services on a commission from the Sir Bani Yas Forum in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and released at a Middle East Institute-sponsored event on Wednesday. In September, ZRS interviewed a total of 7,400 adults across eight countries—Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE—on a broad range of topics, including the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen; the Israel-Palestine situation; the Iranian nuclear deal; and the threat of religious extremism. Respondents in Iran and Iraq were also asked a separate series of questions about internal affairs in those countries.

With respect to Israel-Palestine, the poll found that people in five of the six surveyed Arab nations are less likely to support a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace deal now than they were back in 2009, when Zogby International’s “Six-Nation Arab Opinion Poll” asked a similar question of respondents in those five countries. In Egypt, which has seen the sharpest decline in support for a peace deal, almost two-thirds of respondents said that they would oppose a peace deal “even if the Israelis agree to return all of the territories and agree to resolve the refugee issue,” compared with only 8% who answered similarly in the 2009 survey. This represents a potential risk for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has worked to improve Egyptian-Israeli relations despite the apparent feelings of most of the Egyptian public. Similar, albeit smaller, shifts were seen in Jordan (where 24% oppose a deal today, compared with 13% in 2009), Lebanon (30% vs. 18%), Saudi Arabia (36% vs. 18%), and the UAE (19% vs. 8%). Iraq was not part of the 2009 survey, but 59% of respondents in this survey said that they would also oppose a comprehensive peace deal with Israel.

Still, it was in the area of extremism and its causes where the poll generated its most interesting findings. When asked to rate eight factors on a 1-5 scale (where 1 means “very important factor”) in terms of their importance as a driver of religious extremism, respondents in all eight countries gave “anger at the U.S.” the fewest number of ones and twos, although that factor was still rated as important by a majority of respondents in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey. Zogby argued that this was a sign that Barack Obama’s attempt to leave a “softer U.S. footprint in the region pays off.” However, when asked whether the United States is playing a positive or negative role in combating extremist sectarian violence, large majorities in each country said that the U.S. was playing a negative role. Instead, the two most commonly cited factors in the development of religious extremism were “corrupt governments” and “extremist and/or incorrect religious ideas.” Other commonly cited factors, like “lack of education,” “poverty,” and “youth alienation” also speak to a consistent sense that extremism is an internal problem stemming from poor governance. Majorities in each of the eight countries except Iran agreed that “countering the messages and ideas promoted by recruiters for extremist groups” and “changing the political and social realities that cause young people to be attracted to extremist ideals” were “most important” in terms of defeating violent extremist groups like the Islamic State. Within Iraq, majorities from all three of the country’s major ethno-religious groups (Sunni Arabs, Shi?a Arabs, and Kurds) agreed that “forming a more inclusive, representative government” is the best way to resolve the conflict there, but even larger majorities from each group said that they were “not confident” that such a government will be formed within the next five years.

On November 24, a Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber near the border of Turkey and Syria. In the immediate aftermath, officials from the two countries offered contradictory versions of what transpired: Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed that the plane was flying over Syrian territory when it was downed; Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan countered that it was inside Turkey’s border and had been warned ten times to alter its course. Hours later, President Obama threw his support behind Erdogan. “Turkey,” he said, “has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.” I asked Pierre Sprey, a longtime defense analyst and member of the team that developed the F-16, to examine what we know about the downing and determine what actually occurred that morning.

Looking at the detailed Russian timeline of what happened—as well as the much less detailed Turkish radar maps—I’d say the evidence looks pretty strong that the Turks were setting up an ambush. They certainly weren’t doing anything that would point to a routine air patrol along the border. Their actions in no way represented a routine, all day long type of patrol.

A petition calling for Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump to be barred from entering the UK has gathered more than 370,000 names, so MPs will have to consider debating it.The petition went on Parliament's e-petition website on Tuesday. It was posted in response to Mr Trump's call for a temporary halt on Muslims entering the United States. Chancellor George Osborne criticised Mr Trump's comments but rejected calls for him to be banned from the UK.A counter-petition, set up on Wednesday, saying Mr Trump should not be banned as it would be "totally illogical" has attracted more than 9,000 signatures. Any petition with more than 100,000 signatures is automatically considered for debate in Parliament.

In other developments: Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has stripped Mr Trump of his status as a business ambassador for Scotland. Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University has revoked Mr Trump's honorary degree, which he received in 2010 in recognition of his achievements as an entrepreneur and businessman. One of the Middle East's largest retail chains, Lifestyle, has withdrawn Donald Trump products from its shelves following his comments.

The United Kingdom may soon begin bombing the Islamic State in Libya, following on from the recent decision to carry out air strikes against the group in Syria.A government source told the Daily Telegraph on Friday that the UK is “moving in the direction” of launching military action in war torn Libya, where IS has emerged out of a civil war that has paralysed the country since a revolution in 2011 overthrew long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi.“Things are moving in that direction. We are taking it one step at a time,” the source said.Ministers at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office told the Telegraph that they are “extremely concerned” by the rise of IS in Libya and want to intervene in the troubled North African country.Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said it is important “to keep an eye on Libya”, according to the Telegraph.Militants proclaiming affinity with IS have taken control in the central Libyan city of Sirte, and have carried out attacks across the country, including in the capital Tripoli and in the eastern town of Derna, where they have an ongoing presence.

Support for intervention in Libya is growing across Europe, with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Friday demanding that IS be confronted in Libya.“We are at war, we have an enemy, that we must fight and crush in Syria, in Iraq, and soon in Libya too,” he said.France has already sent reconnaissance plans over Libya to monitor militias battling on the ground for control of Africa’s largest oil reserves.The fear among Western officials is that IS may establish a presence along Libya’s Mediterranean coast in order to launch attacks against Europe.The group has already claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on European soil, including a string of massacres in Paris last month that saw 130 people killed.Middle East Minister Tobias Ellwood recently told MPs: “We are working closely with international partners to develop our understanding of its (IS’s) presence and how to tackle it there.”But any intervention in Libya will be dependent on a national unity government being formed. At the moment there are two rival administrations – one in the east and the other in Tripoli – who are vying for control, backed by opposing military forces waging war on the ground.

“There needs to be a recognised government in place in Libya that can ask us for help,” the government source told the Telegraph. “Then we will do whatever we can to help them deal with IS.”The rival Libyan parliaments have committed to signing a UN-backed deal to form a unity government next week. However, there remains staunch opposition to the agreement in both camps, with analysts suggesting a rushed deal will do little to bring a sustainable end to Libya’s civil war.

In a seminal decision updating and consolidating its previous jurisprudence on surveillance, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights took a sideways swing at mass surveillance programs last week, reiterating the centrality of “reasonable suspicion” to the authorization process and the need to ensure interception warrants are targeted to an individual or premises. The decision in Zakharov v. Russia — coming on the heels of the European Court of Justice’s strongly-worded condemnation in Schrems of interception systems that provide States with “generalised access” to the content of communications — is another blow to governments across Europe and the United States that continue to argue for the legitimacy and lawfulness of bulk collection programs. It also provoked the ire of the Russian government, prompting an immediate legislative move to give the Russian constitution precedence over Strasbourg judgments. The Grand Chamber’s judgment in Zakharov is especially notable because its subject matter — the Russian SORM system of interception, which includes the installation of equipment on telecommunications networks that subsequently enables the State direct access to the communications transiting through those networks — is similar in many ways to the interception systems currently enjoying public and judicial scrutiny in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. Zakharov also provides a timely opportunity to compare the differences between UK and Russian law: Namely, Russian law requires prior independent authorization of interception measures, whereas neither the proposed UK law nor the existing legislative framework do.

The decision is lengthy and comprises a useful restatement and harmonization of the Court’s approach to standing (which it calls “victim status”) in surveillance cases, which is markedly different from that taken by the US Supreme Court. (Indeed, Judge Dedov’s separate but concurring opinion notes the contrast with Clapper v. Amnesty International.) It also addresses at length issues of supervision and oversight, as well as the role played by notification in ensuring the effectiveness of remedies. (Marko Milanovic discusses many of these issues here.) For the purpose of the ongoing debate around the legitimacy of bulk surveillance regimes under international human rights law, however, three particular conclusions of the Court are critical.

The Court took issue with legislation permitting the interception of communications for broad national, military, or economic security purposes (as well as for “ecological security” in the Russian case), absent any indication of the particular circumstances under which an individual’s communications may be intercepted. It said that such broadly worded statutes confer an “almost unlimited degree of discretion in determining which events or acts constitute such a threat and whether that threat is serious enough to justify secret surveillance” (para. 248). Such discretion cannot be unbounded. It can be limited through the requirement for prior judicial authorization of interception measures (para. 249). Non-judicial authorities may also be competent to authorize interception, provided they are sufficiently independent from the executive (para. 258). What is important, the Court said, is that the entity authorizing interception must be “capable of verifying the existence of a reasonable suspicion against the person concerned, in particular, whether there are factual indications for suspecting that person of planning, committing or having committed criminal acts or other acts that may give rise to secret surveillance measures, such as, for example, acts endangering national security” (para. 260). This finding clearly constitutes a significant threshold which a number of existing and pending European surveillance laws would not meet. For example, the existence of individualized reasonable suspicion runs contrary to the premise of signals intelligence programs where communications are intercepted in bulk; by definition, those programs collect information without any consideration of individualized suspicion. Yet the Court was clearly articulating the principle with national security-driven surveillance in mind, and with the knowledge that interception of communications in Russia is conducted by Russian intelligence on behalf of law enforcement agencies.

On December 8, the IMF’s Chief Spokesman Gerry Rice sent a note saying: “The IMF’s Executive Board met today and agreed to change the current policy on non-toleration of arrears to official creditors. We will provide details on the scope and rationale for this policy change in the next day or so.” Since 1947 when it really started operations, the World Bank has acted as a branch of the U.S. Defense Department, from its first major chairman John J. McCloy through Robert McNamara to Robert Zoellick and neocon Paul Wolfowitz. From the outset, it has promoted U.S. exports – especially farm exports – by steering Third World countries to produce plantation crops rather than feeding their own populations. (They are to import U.S. grain.) But it has felt obliged to wrap its U.S. export promotion and support for the dollar area in an ostensibly internationalist rhetoric, as if what’s good for the United States is good for the world. The IMF has now been drawn into the U.S. Cold War orbit. On Tuesday it made a radical decision to dismantle the condition that had integrated the global financial system for the past half century. In the past, it has been able to take the lead in organizing bailout packages for governments by getting other creditor nations – headed by the United States, Germany and Japan – to participate. The creditor leverage that the IMF has used is that if a nation is in financial arrears to any government, it cannot qualify for an IMF loan – and hence, for packages involving other governments. This has been the system by which the dollarized global financial system has worked for half a century. The beneficiaries have been creditors in US dollars.

But on Tuesday, the IMF joined the New Cold War. It has been lending money to Ukraine despite the Fund’s rules blocking it from lending to countries with no visible chance of paying (the “No More Argentinas” rule from 2001). With IMF head Christine Lagarde made the last IMF loan to Ukraine in the spring, she expressed the hope that there would be peace. But President Porochenko immediately announced that he would use the proceeds to step up his nation’s civil war with the Russian-speaking population in the East – the Donbass. That is the region where most IMF exports have been made – mainly to Russia. This market is now lost for the foreseeable future. It may be a long break, because the country is run by the U.S.-backed junta put in place after the right-wing coup of winter 2014. Ukraine has refused to pay not only private-sector bondholders, but the Russian Government as well. This should have blocked Ukraine from receiving further IMF aid. Refusal to pay for Ukrainian military belligerence in its New Cold War against Russia would have been a major step forcing peace, and also forcing a clean-up of the country’s endemic corruption. Instead, the IMF is backing Ukrainian policy, its kleptocracy and its Right Sector leading the attacks that recently cut off Crimea’s electricity. The only condition on which the IMF insists is continued austerity. Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia, has fallen by a third this years, pensions have been slashed (largely as a result of being inflated away), while corruption continues unabated.

Despite this the IMF announced its intention to extend new loans to finance Ukraine’s dependency and payoffs to the oligarchs who are in control of its parliament and justice departments to block any real cleanup of corruption. For over half a year there was a semi-public discussion with U.S. Treasury advisors and Cold Warriors about how to stiff Russia on the $3 billion owed by Ukraine to Russia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. There was some talk of declaring this an “odious debt,” but it was decided that this ploy might backfire against U.S. supported dictatorships. In the end, the IMF simply lent Ukraine the money. By doing so, it announced its new policy: “We only enforce debts owed in US dollars to US allies.” This means that what was simmering as a Cold War against Russia has now turned into a full-blown division of the world into the Dollar Bloc (with its satellite Euro and other pro-U.S. currencies) and the BRICS or other countries not in the U.S. financial and military orbit. What should Russia do? For that matter, what should China and other BRICS countries do? The IMF and U.S. neocons have sent the world a message: you don’t have to honor debts to countries outside of the dollar area and its satellites. Why then should these non-dollarized countries remain in the IMF – or the World Bank, for that matter. The IMF move effectively splits the global system in half,between the BRICS and the US-European neoliberalized financial system.

Would you be willing to defend your country against a foreign invasion? That’s all Putin is doing in Syria. He’s just preempting the tidal wave of jihadis that’ll be coming his way once the current fracas is over.  He figures it’s better to exterminate these US-backed maniacs in Syria now than face them in Chechnya, St Petersburg and Moscow sometime in the future.  Can you blame him? After all, if Washington’s strategy works in Syria, then you can bet they’ll try the same thing in Beirut, Tehran and Moscow. So what choice does Putin have? None. He has no choice.  His back is against the wall. He has to fight.  No one in Washington seems to get this. They think Putin can throw in the towel and call it “quits” at the first sign of getting bogged down. But he can’t throw in the towel because Russia’s facing an existential crisis.  If he loses, then Russia’s going to wind up on the same scrap heap as Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya. You can bet on it. So the only thing he can do is win. Period. Victory isn’t an option, it’s a necessity.

Of course they’ve noticed. Everyone’s noticed. Everyone knows Washington is on the warpath and its leaders have gone stark raving mad. How could they not notice? But all that’s done is focus the mind on the task at hand, and the task at hand is to whoop the tar out of the terrorists, put an end to Washington’s sick little jihadi game, and go home. That’s Russia’s plan in a nutshell.  No one is trying to cobble together the long-lost Soviet empire. That’s pure bunkum.  Russia just wants to clean up this nest of vipers and call it a day. There’s nothing more to it than that. But what if the going gets tough and Syria becomes a quagmire? That doesn’t change anything, because Russia still has to win. If that means sending ground troops to Syria, then that’s what Putin will do. If that means asymmetrical warfare, like arming the Kurds or the Yemenis, or the Taliban or even disparate anti-regime Shiites in Saudi Arabia, then he’ll do that too. Whatever it takes. This isn’t a game, it’s a fight for survival; Russia’s survival as a sovereign country. That’s what the stakes are. That’s not something Putin takes lightly.

The reason I ask this now is because, on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to attend an emergency meeting in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss issues that are too sensitive to reveal to the public. There’s a lot of speculation about what the two men will talk about, but the urgency and the secrecy of the meeting suggests that the topic will be one of great importance. So allow me to make a guess about what the topic will be. When Kerry arrives in Moscow tomorrow he’ll be rushed to meeting room at the Kremlin where he’ll be joined by Lavrov, Putin, Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu and high-ranking members from military intelligence. Then, following the initial introductions, Kerry will be shown the evidence Russian intelligence has gathered on last Sunday’s attack on a Syrian military base east of Raqqa that killed three Syrian soldiers and wounded thirteen others. The Syrian government immediately condemned the attack and accused US warplanes of conducting the operation. Later in the day,  Putin delivered an uncharacteristically-harsh and threatening statement that left no doubt that he thought the attack was a grave violation of the accepted rules of engagement and, perhaps, a declaration of war.

The argument over the air strike on the Syrian military base in Deir az-Zor has taken a strange and worrying turn.The US has categorically denied that any of its aircraft were involved. It has admitted that its aircraft were in the area, but says that they carried out an air strike 55 km away.The Russians say that is true. However, they also say that it is not the whole truth.The Russians say that in addition to the US aircraft, two pairs of aircraft - in other words four aircraft in total - from two other countries that are also members of the US led coalition were also flying at the time of the air strike over Deir az-Zor.The Russians have not actually said it was these aircraft that carried out the air strike. However, they have pointed out that the US has failed to admit to the presence of these aircraft. They are asking why?

It is the broadest of hints, and it is difficult to believe that the Russians do not think that it was these aircraft that carried out the air strike.This information - if it is true - begs a host of questions.Firstly, the Syrian military base that was hit by the air strike was apparently the scene of a bitter battle between the Syrian military and the Islamic State.  It seems that shortly after the air strike - and most probably as a result of it - the Islamic State’s fighters were able to storm it.Inevitably, that begs the question of whether the aircraft that carried out the air strike were providing air support to the fighters of the Islamic State.  On the face of it, it looks like they were. After all, if what happened was simply a mistake, it might have been expected that the US and its allies would say as much.If so, it is an extremely serious and worrying development, suggesting that some members of the US-led anti-Islamic State coalition are actually in league with the Islamic State.

Secondly, Deir az-Zor is the area of Syria from which the Islamic State exports most of its oil. Again, this inevitably begs the question of whether the Islamic State attack on the base - and the air strike seemingly carried out in support of it - was in some way connected to the illegal oil trade, and might have been intended to protect it.Thirdly, there is the obvious question of which countries’ aircraft were involved. The Russians are not identifying these countries - at least for the moment - though they obviously know or think they know which they are.  The one thing however that the Russians are saying is that the aircraft of more than one country was involved.The Russians are also drawing attention to the US’ failure to admit to the presence of the aircraft of these countries, which strongly suggests that the US is protecting them, whichever countries they are.Lastly, it is interesting that the Russians seem to be so well informed about this incident.  If the Russians do indeed know how many aircraft from the US-led coalition were flying at any one time over Der az-Zor, and can identify the countries they belong to, then the inescapable conclusion is that their surveillance and intelligence operation in Syria is very effective indeed.

Russian planes carried out 71 sorties and 118 air strikes against Islamic fighters in Syria over the past two days compared to just one air strike by the US-led coalition – and this single strike, against a mortar position, was the first for four days. The Russian air campaign in Syria is far more intense than the US-led attempt to contain the “Islamic State” (Isis) that has focused on helping the Syrian Kurds and attacking Isis-controlled oil facilities in eastern Syria. Countries affected by the Syrian conflict sense that its nature is changing and are seeking new strategies to take account of this. 

The US says it will increase the number of its air strikes and possibly make limited use of special forces to target Isis leaders. The problem for the US is that, aside from Syrian-Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), which number about 25,000 fighters, it does not have an effective partner on the ground in Syria capable of identifying and giving the coordinates of targets to attack. Russia is providing an air force for the Syrian army, the largest military force in Syria and one which, unlike the Kurds, is not confined to one corner of the country.   Turkey is seeking an effective way to respond to two developments in Syria this year that are much against its interests. One is the start of Russian air strikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad on 30 September which makes Turkey’s policy of removing the Syrian leader, even if he is to be allowed to stay for a transition period, look unrealistic. The Russian presence also makes any direct Turkish military intervention increasingly risky. All attention in Turkey is on the parliamentary elections on 1 November, but last Sunday there was an ominous clash in Tal Abyad, a town on the Syrian-Kurdish border captured by the YPG from Isis in June, in which Turkish forces twice opened fire with machine guns on the Kurdish paramilitaries. Nobody was injured, but the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, confirmed that the Turkish army had targeted the YPG. He said that Turkey would not allow the Syrian Kurdish force “to go west of the Euphrates and that we would hit it the moment it did. We hit it twice.” 

Although it is not playing much of a role in the election, Turkey’s policy towards the war in Syria has been a complete failure. Its aim was to get rid of Mr Assad and his regime, but both are still power. Even more seriously, whatever Ankara’s intentions at the start of the conflict in 2011, it did not dream that four years later the Syrian Kurds, 10 per cent of the Syrian population, would have established a de facto state they call Rojava in north-east Syria which runs along half of Turkey’s 550-mile Syrian Kurdish border.  Furthermore, the mini-state is tightly controlled by the PYD, the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with whom the Turkish army has been fighting since 1984.

While Puerto Rican leaders look for ways to address the island’s $72 billion debt, some say the solution may be simple: Don’t pay it. A small group of Puerto Rican lawmakers is pushing the idea that significant portions of Puerto Rico’s debt may in fact be unconstitutional. Manuel Natal, one of the legislators behind the effort, claims that up to 75 percent of what the island owes could be voided in court. “If debt was issued in violation of the constitution that debt is illegal and subsequently should not be paid,” said Natal. “It should be put aside, because in legal terms, it’s like it never happened.” This strategy, called “debt nullification,” has been used elsewhere in the U.S. to address fiscal crises. But in Puerto Rico's case, it all but promises a legal showdown with Wall Street hedge funds that own a significant portion of the island’s debt — investors that the government is now trying to bargain with. While Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro García Padilla has acknowledged that debt found to be unconstitutional should not be repaid, his administration has tried nearly every other option so far.

After the White House quickly dismissed talk of a federal bailout, Puerto Rico’s government, and its congressional representative Luis Pierlusi, have pushed a bill to allow the U.S. territory access to bankruptcy proceedings. That bill has stalled in the Congress. Meanwhile, talks with a group of hedge funds were suspended. The gridlock over Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis has led many to wish the debt would simply disappear. Now, that might actually be possible.

he past few months have been a headache for a select group of Israel’s political echelon. International solidarity activists and their legal advocates have begun to gain traction in a series of petitions alleging war crimes in a variety of international judicial forums. The development of this legal strategy has not received much recognition, but the implications are real; a game-changer in the fight for justice and accountability in Palestine.