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Paul Merrell

Obama to propose legislation to protect firms that share cyberthreat data - The Washing... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html

surveillance state U.S. digital-privacy legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • President Obama plans to announce legislation Tuesday that would shield companies from lawsuits for sharing computer threat data with the government in an effort to prevent cyber­attacks. On the heels of a destructive attack at Sony Pictures Entertainment and major breaches at JPMorgan Chase and retail chains, Obama is intent on capitalizing on the heightened sense of urgency to improve the security of the nation’s networks, officials said. “He’s been doing everything he can within his executive authority to move the ball on this,” said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss legislation that has not yet been released. “We’ve got to get something in place that allows both industry and government to work more closely together.”
  • The legislation is part of a broader package, to be sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, that includes measures to help protect consumers and students against ­cyberattacks and to give law enforcement greater authority to combat cybercrime. The provision’s goal is to “enshrine in law liability protection for the private sector for them to share specific information — cyberthreat indicators — with the government,” the official said. Some analysts questioned the need for such legislation, saying there are adequate measures in place to enable sharing between companies and the government and among companies.
  • “We think the current information-sharing regime is adequate,” said Mark Jaycox, legislative analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group. “More companies need to use it, but the idea of broad legal immunity isn’t needed right now.” The administration official disagreed. The lack of such immunity is what prevents many companies from greater sharing of data with the government, the official said. “We have heard that time and time again,” the official said. The proposal, which builds on a 2011 administration bill, grants liability protection to companies that provide indicators of cyberattacks and threats to the Department of Homeland Security.
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  • But in a provision likely to raise concerns from privacy advocates, the administration wants to require DHS to share that information “in as near real time as possible” with other government agencies that have a cybersecurity mission, the official said. Those include the National Security Agency, the Pentagon’s ­Cyber Command, the FBI and the Secret Service. “DHS needs to take an active lead role in ensuring that unnecessary personal information is not shared with intelligence authorities,” Jaycox said. The debates over government surveillance prompted by disclosures from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have shown that “the agencies already have a tremendous amount of unnecessary information,” he said.
  • The administration official stressed that the legislation will require companies to remove unnecessary personal information before furnishing it to the government in order to qualify for liability protection. It also will impose limits on the use of the data for cybersecurity crimes and instances in which there is a threat of death or bodily harm, such as kidnapping, the official said. And it will require DHS and the attorney general to develop guidelines for the federal government’s use and retention of the data. It will not authorize a company to take offensive cyber-measures to defend itself, such as “hacking back” into a server or computer outside its own network to track a breach. The bill also will provide liability protection to companies that share data with private-sector-developed organizations set up specifically for that purpose. Called information sharing and analysis organizations, these groups often are set up by particular industries, such as banking, to facilitate the exchange of data and best practices.
  • Efforts to pass information-sharing legislation have stalled in the past five years, blocked primarily by privacy concerns. The package also contains provisions that would allow prosecution for the sale of botnets or access to armies of compromised computers that can be used to spread malware, would criminalize the overseas sale of stolen U.S. credit card and bank account numbers, would expand federal law enforcement authority to deter the sale of spyware used to stalk people or commit identity theft, and would give courts the authority to shut down botnets being used for criminal activity, such as denial-of-service attacks.
  • It would reaffirm that federal racketeering law applies to cybercrimes and amends the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by ensuring that “insignificant conduct” does not fall within the scope of the statute. A third element of the package is legislation Obama proposed Monday to help protect consumers and students against cyberattacks. The theft of personal financial information “is a direct threat to the economic security of American families, and we’ve got to stop it,” Obama said. The plan, unveiled in a speech at the Federal Trade Commission, would require companies to notify customers within 30 days after the theft of personal information is discovered. Right now, data breaches are handled under a patchwork of state laws that the president said are confusing and costly to enforce. Obama’s plan would streamline those into one clear federal standard and bolster requirements for companies to notify customers. Obama is proposing closing loopholes to make it easier to track down cybercriminals overseas who steal and sell identities. “The more we do to protect consumer information and privacy, the harder it is for hackers to damage our businesses and hurt our economy,” he said.
  • In October, Obama signed an order to protect consumers from identity theft by strengthening security features in credit cards and the terminals that process them. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said there is concern that a federal standard would “preempt stronger state laws” about how and when companies have to notify consumers. The Student Digital Privacy Act would ensure that data entered would be used only for educational purposes. It would prohibit companies from selling student data to third-party companies for purposes other than education. Obama also plans to introduce a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. And the White House will host a summit on cybersecurity and consumer protection on Feb. 13 at Stanford University.
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu arrives in U.S., signs of easing of tensions over Iran speech | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...a-israel-idUSKBN0LX13D20150302

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth negotiations Netanyahu speech

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Mar 15 - No Cached

  • (Reuters) - The United States and Israel showed signs of seeking to defuse tensions on Sunday ahead of a speech in Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he will warn against a possible nuclear deal with Iran.

    Policy differences over the negotiations with Iran remained firm, however, as Netanyahu arrived in the United States on Sunday afternoon for a speech to Congress, which has imperiled ties between the two allies.

    Israel fears that U.S. President Barack Obama's Iran diplomacy, with an end-of-March deadline for a framework accord, will allow its archfoe to develop atomic weapons, something Tehran denies seeking.

     
     

    By accepting an invitation from the Republican Party to address Congress on Tuesday, the Israeli leader infuriated the Obama administration, which said it was not told of the speech before plans were made public in an apparent breach of protocol.

  • Netanyahu did not repeat those remarks as he departed on Sunday. The Israeli prime minister, who is running for re-election in a March 17 ballot, has framed his visit as being above politics and he portrayed himself as being a guardian for all Jews."I’m going to Washington on a fateful, even historic, mission," he said as he boarded his plane in Tel Aviv. "I feel that I am an emissary of all Israel's citizens, even those who do not agree with me, and of the entire Jewish people," he told reporters.
  • Hard-line U.S. supporters of Israel say Netanyahu must take center-stage in Washington to sound the alarm over the potential Iran deal, even at the risk of offending long-time supporters.But a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the "politicized" nature of his visit threatened "what undergirds the strength of the relationship".As one former U.S. official put it: "Sure, when Netanyahu calls the White House, Obama will answer. But how fast will he be about responding (to a crisis)?"Last month, U.S. officials accused the Israeli government of leaking information to the Israeli media to undermine the Iran negotiations and said this would limit further sharing of sensitive details about the talks.
Paul Merrell

Land Destroyer: ISIS: Region-wide Genocide Portended in 2007 Now Fully Realized - 0 views

landdestroyer.blogspot.com/...ide-genocide-portended-in.html

war & peace iraq ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy false-flag

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • American journalist James Wright Foley was allegedly brutally murdered on video by terrorists of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS). The development would at first appear to portray a terrorist organization openly declaring itself an enemy of the West, but in reality, it is the latest attempt by the West itself to cover up the true genesis of the current region-wide catastrophe of its own creation now unfolding in the Middle East.  As early as 2007, the stage was being set for the regional genocide now unfolding from Syria and Lebanon along the Mediterranean to northern Iraq. The "sudden" appearance of the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq, otherwise known as ISIS, betrays years of its rise and the central part it played in Western-backed violence seeking to overthrow the government of Syria starting in 2011 amid the cover of the so-called "Arab Spring." 
  • Paul Merrell on 21 Aug 14
     
    Yup. Tony Cartalucci into the breach again, pulling together the pieces to show that the Islamic Caliphate is the creation of the U.S. and its allies in the Mideast. This should be read together with another Cartalucci article at http://journal-neo.org/2014/08/20/staged-provocations-ahead-possible-us-syrian-war/ Yet another false flag maneuver by the War Party to keep the money pump flowing to the military-industrial complex and the banksters. 
Paul Merrell

Obama's crackdown views leaks as aiding enemies of U.S. | McClatchy - 0 views

www.mcclatchydc.com/...-crackdown-views-leaks-as.html

government secrecy Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Even before a former U.S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans’ phone records, the Obama administration was pressing a government-wide crackdown on security threats that requires federal employees to keep closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions. President Barack Obama’s unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of “insider threat” give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct.
  • Government documents reviewed by McClatchy illustrate how some agencies are using that latitude to pursue unauthorized disclosures of any information, not just classified material. They also show how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers and could face penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.
  • Employees must turn themselves and others in for failing to report breaches. “Penalize clearly identifiable failures to report security infractions and violations, including any lack of self-reporting,” the strategic plan says.The Obama administration already was pursuing an unprecedented number of leak prosecutions, and some in Congress – long one of the most prolific spillers of secrets – favor tightening restrictions on reporters’ access to federal agencies, making many U.S. officials reluctant to even disclose unclassified matters to the public. The policy, which partly relies on behavior profiles, also could discourage creative thinking and fuel conformist “group think” of the kind that was blamed for the CIA’s erroneous assessment that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction, a judgment that underpinned the 2003 U.S. invasion. “The real danger is that you get a bland common denominator working in the government,” warned Ilana Greenstein, a former CIA case officer who says she quit the agency after being falsely accused of being a security risk. “You don’t get people speaking up when there’s wrongdoing. You don’t get people who look at things in a different way and who are willing to stand up for things. What you get are people who toe the party line, and that’s really dangerous for national security.”
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  • The program could make it easier for the government to stifle the flow of unclassified and potentially vital information to the public, while creating toxic work environments poisoned by unfounded suspicions and spurious investigations of loyal Americans, according to these current and former officials and experts. Some non-intelligence agencies already are urging employees to watch their co-workers for “indicators” that include stress, divorce and financial problems.
  • The program, however, gives agencies such wide latitude in crafting their responses to insider threats that someone deemed a risk in one agency could be characterized as harmless in another. Even inside an agency, one manager’s disgruntled employee might become another’s threat to national security. Obama in November approved “minimum standards” giving departments and agencies considerable leeway in developing their insider threat programs, leading to a potential hodgepodge of interpretations. He instructed them to not only root out leakers but people who might be prone to “violent acts against the government or the nation” and “potential espionage.”
  • The Department of Education, meanwhile, informs employees that co-workers going through “certain life experiences . . . might turn a trusted user into an insider threat.” Those experiences, the department says in a computer training manual, include “stress, divorce, financial problems” or “frustrations with co-workers or the organization.”An online tutorial titled “Treason 101” teaches Department of Agriculture and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees to recognize the psychological profile of spies.
Paul Merrell

Judges Poised to Hand U.S. Spies the Keys to the Internet | Threat Level | Wired.com - 0 views

www.wired.com/...courtint

surveillance state FBI NSA Lavabit litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • How does the NSA get the private crypto keys that allow it to bulk eavesdrop on some email providers and social networking sites? It’s one of the mysteries yet unanswered by the Edward Snowden leaks. But we know that so-called SSL keys are prized by the NSA – understandably, since one tiny 256 byte key can expose millions of people to intelligence collection. And we know that the agency has a specialized group that collects such keys by hook or by crook. That’s about it. Which is why the appellate court challenge pitting encrypted email provider Lavabit against the Justice Department is so important: It’s the only publicly documented case where a district judge has ordered an internet company to hand over its SSL key to the U.S. government — in this case, the FBI. If the practice — which may well have happened in secret before — is given the imprimatur of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, it opens a new avenue for U.S. spies to expand their surveillance against users of U.S. internet services like Gmail and Dropbox. Since the FBI is known to work hand in hand with intelligence agencies, it potentially turns the judiciary into an arm of the NSA’s Key Recovery Service. Call it COURTINT. Oral arguments in the Lavabit appeal were heard by a three-judge panel in Richmond, Virginia last week. The audio (.mp3) is available online (and PC World covered it from the courtroom). It’s clear that the judges weren’t much interested in the full implications of Lavabit’s crypto key breach, which one of the judges termed “a red herring.”
Paul Merrell

Propaganda, lies and the New York Times: Everything you really need to know about Ukrai... - 0 views

www.salon.com/...lly_need_to_know_about_ukraine

war & peace Ukraine Russia U.S. foreign policy lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • You need a machete these days to whack through the thicket of misinformation, disinformation, spin, propaganda and straight-out lying that daily envelopes the Ukraine crisis like kudzu on an Alabama telephone pole. But an outline of an outcome is now faintly discernible.Here is my early call: We witness an American intervention in the process of failing, and the adventure’s only yields will be much pointless suffering among Ukrainians and life for years to come in the smothering embrace of a justifiably suspicious Russian bear.Nice going, Victoria Nuland, you of the famous “F the E.U. tape,” and your sidekick, Geoffrey Pyatt, ambassador in Kiev. Nice going, Secretary of State Kerry. For this caper, Nuland and Pyatt should be reassigned to post offices in the bleak reaches of Kansas, Khrushchev-style. Kerry is too big to fail, I suppose, but at least we now know more about what caliber of subterfuge lies behind all those plane trips, one mess following another in his jet wash.On the ground, Vladimir Putin continues to extend the Russian presence in Crimea, and we await signs as to whether he will go further into Ukraine. This is very regrettable. Viewed as cause-and-effect, however, it is first a measure of how miscalculated the American intervention plot was from the first.
  • The more I scrutinize it, the more the American case on Ukraine is held together with spit and baling wire. Were I Obama or Kerry, I would be looking for an out by now, cutting losses on a commitment to intervention that was sheer hubris from the first.Significantly in this connection, the contorted logic of just who is running things in Kiev is soon to fail, in my view. Washington is all out in denying the character of the protest movement and the provisionals, casting Putin as a paranoid in his characterizations. It is wishful thinking. Incessantly repeated untruths never transform into truths.
  • I read Ukraine as a case of what happens when so much of policy, in all kinds of spheres, is conducted in secret. Ordinary citizens cannot see events and are left to judge them blind. And the media are not going to help you. However, there have been notable exceptions to the media’s cooperation in keeping things from us instead of informing.Earlier this week, Leslie Gelb let loose with a vigorous blast in the Daily Beast, calling on the Americans (and others) to “stop their lies and self-destructive posturing or pay costs they’re loath to admit.” Gelb is a longtime presence in foreign policy cliques — former Times columnist, former State Department official, now president emeritus at the Council on Foreign Relations. The critique reveals a significant breach in the orthodoxy.Not to root for the home team, but Nicholas Davies just published in Salon an inventory of 35 cases wherein Washington has split the sheets with fascists in the interest of intervention. Read it. Splendidly timed, it demolishes all argument that what is in front of our eyes is somehow not. History so often does the job, I find.
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  • Next Sunday Crimeans will vote in a referendum as to whether they wish to break with the rest of Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. The semi-autonomous region’s parliament has already voted to do so, and good enough that they put the thought to a popular vote.But no. Self-determination was the guiding principle when demonstrators and pols with records as election losers pushed Yanukovych out and got done via a coup (I insist on the word) what they could not manage in polling booths. But it cannot apply in Crimea’s case. The Crimeans are illegitimate and have no right to such a vote.Simply too shabby. I cannot see how it can hold much longer.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Mar 14
     
    Excellent overview of the Ukraine situation, re colliding U.S. and Russian foreign policies. Author Patrick Smith's tea leaves tell him that the U.S. position is unsustainable.  
Paul Merrell

The UN Congo Offensive: A Continent Betrayed | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...o-offensive-continent-betrayed

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy UK Belgium U.N. Rwanda Congo Uganda Hutu Burundia RPF FDLR

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • On January 5, 2015 the United Nations announced that offensive operations by its forces, known as MONUSCO, along with Congolese army elements, are being prepared against the Democratic Forces For the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) based in the east of the Republic of Congo (DRC). This follows a Security Council statement of October 3, 2014 calling for the neutralization of the FDLR if they did not surrender, which itself followed a demand by the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, and the South African Development Community made on July 2nd last year that the FDLR demobilise.
  • The Security Council “rejected any call for political dialogue” and went on to call the FDLR a group of war criminals. This rejection of dialogue based on a false characterization of the FDLR and on a false history of the events in Rwanda and central Africa for the past twenty years is itself a violation of Chapter 1, Article 1 of the UN Charter that states that the purposes of the United Nations are to “maintain peace and security …and to bring about by peaceful means…settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.” It is also surprising since the UN’s own Mapping Exercise Report of 2010 which examined crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against Hutu refugees in the DRC between 1996 and 2003 described countless mass atrocities and massacres of those refugees by Rwandan, Burundian, Ugandan and allied forces, amounting to genocide against the Hutus. Those massacres have not stopped since 2003 as several proxy forces of the Rwandans and Ugandans, using various names, and claiming to be Congolese rebels, have continued attacks on Hutus in the DRC as well as on Congolese who got in the way of their objective of looting the resources of the region.
  • The FDLR is the only force trying to protect Hutu refugees in the DRC from being totally exterminated by the Rwandan and Ugandan forces, the same forces that attacked and pillaged Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 and that have slaughtered several million more Hutus and Congolese since. Because the FDLR is the only effective armed political opposition to the military dictatorship of Paul Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), it is a clear threat to the countries that have mining and resource interests in the DRC and who have been using Uganda and Rwanda as local enforcers to carry out their effective division of the country that makes it easier to control and exploit those resources. All the countries in the pan-African groups that called for the demobilisation of the FDLR have interests in the resources of the Congo region. All have an interest in continued war in the DRC, its continued division and weakness, and the destruction of any effective opposition to the forces assigned the role of carrying out that policy. This includes the DRC itself whose President, Joseph Kabila, is known to be a partner and agent of Kagame and rules the DRC not in the interests of the Congolese but in the interests of Kagame, Musuveni and their western masters.
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  • But then the UN has a lot to cover up. There was heartrending testimony by Hutu witnesses at the ICTR Military II trial describing the flight of 2 to 3 million Hutu refugees fleeing with the retreating Rwandan Armed forces into Zaire in July 1994, pursued by RPF units intent on exterminating them. The Rwandan government armed forces, disarmed by Congolese forces when they crossed the border, were unable to protect these Hutu refugees when, in 1996, and subsequently, the Rwandans and Ugandans attacked the Hutu refugee camps killing hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians. The survivors were either forced into the forest or forced to return to Rwanda at gunpoint, on UN planes, only to be thrown into RPF prisons without charge, tortured, or killed en masse. Those who escaped through the forest told of being pursued day and night through thousands of kilometres of jungle and swamps by the RPF and stated that just before being shelled or attacked by those forces they saw spotter planes overhead with either US or UN markings. All the witnesses were consistent on this. Rwandan Army officers testified that they were surprised to see themselves under attack by UN forces in Kigali in support of the RPF in April 1994. A journalist testified that UN officers at Amohoro Stadium, in Kigali, where General Dallaire had his headquarters, stood by and did nothing as RPF soldiers, on a daily basis, selected Hutus seeking protection there, and shot them.
  • The Americans and British have been at the heart of the problem from 1990, when they supported the invasion of Rwanda by units of the Ugandan National Resistance Army (NRA), calling themselves the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and commanded by a senior ranking intelligence officer of the NRA, Paul Kagame. They supported 4 years of terrorist attacks against Hutus and local Tutsis by the RPF that included the attack on the town of Ruhengeri in February 1993 in which the RPF massacred 40,000 Hutu civilians before the government forces were able to recapture the town.
  • This pattern of UN complicity in the mass crimes committed by the RPF, Ugandan and allied western forces in the Rwandan war, has been followed ever since. The evidence is compelling that the CIA, US military forces, and UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda in 1993-94, commanded by Canadian General Dallaire, were involved in helping the RPF overthrow the Rwandan interim government and in preparing the RPF’s final offensive launched on the night of April 6th when the Rwandan President’s plane was shot down by RPF missiles, killing two African heads of state, President Habyarimana of Rwanda and President Ntaryamira, of Burundi.
  • The ICTR prosecutor and the UNHCR also had in their possession a copy of a letter from Paul Kagame, written in August 1994, in which Kagame refers to a meeting with President Musuveni of Uganda and that their “plan for Zaire” was going forward, assisted by the Americans, British, and Belgians. The letter stated that the Hutus were in the way and must be removed at any cost. That letter says a lot and yet it was suppressed until 2009 when it was discovered in prosecution files. In fact that letter indicates that the wars in the DRC were planned long ago and the announcement of the new offensive against the FDLR is a continuation of that plan. Now the only force that exists to protect the Hutus, the FDLR, is going to be attacked again, by the UN. Once again, the Hutus are betrayed by the international community. The UN has lots of things to answer for in Rwanda and Congo and elsewhere and has long been used to further the interests of the west in Africa in general. That certain members of the Security Council, who should know better, go along with protecting those really responsible for the tragedy that is central Africa and Africa as a whole, and for the crimes committed there, is an indictment of the entire UN system.
  • It is ironic that on December 11, 2014th the UN general assembly voted to reopen the investigation into the death of the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold who was killed in then Rhodesia when his plane went down near Ndola. The report of the investigative commission that examined new information stated that there is evidence that the plane was shot down by another aircraft and that the US and British and Belgian governments were likely involved. The death of Hammarskjold is intimately connected with the murder of Patrice Lumumba that led to the installation of Mobutu as President of Congo. We now know that the Rwanda war was the first phase of the greater war for control of the resources of the Congo basin, which was beginning to slip from the west, as Mobutu began to turn towards China. That long and terrible war is not over and it is the UN itself that wants to keep it going.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Jan 15
     
    I've been hitting more and more information on the U.S., U.K. and Belgium's role in the infamous Hutu massacres in Rwanda and vicinity. Still ongoing. U.S. military forces in the area -- part of AFRICOM -- are ostensibly there to assist in fighting the "Christianist" Lord's Resistance Army.  
Gary Edwards

Columbine Survivor Pens Bold Open Letter to Obama Rejecting Gun Control: 'Whose Side Ar... - 0 views

www.theblaze.com/...-control-whose-side-are-you-on

Gun-Control second-amendment Evan-Todd

shared by Gary Edwards on 21 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 21 Feb 13
     
    Amazing letter from Columbine survivor, Evan Todd, to Obama, explaining why Obama's gun control proposals are non sense. Evan Todd's open letter to Obama, below. - Mr. President, As a student who was shot and wounded during the Columbine massacre, I have a few thoughts on the current gun debate. In regards to your gun control initiatives: Universal Background Checks First, a universal background check will have many devastating effects. It will arguably have the opposite impact of what you propose. If adopted, criminals will know that they can not pass a background check legally, so they will resort to other avenues. With the conditions being set by this initiative, it will create a large black market for weapons and will support more criminal activity and funnel additional money into the hands of thugs, criminals, and people who will do harm to American citizens. Second, universal background checks will create a huge bureaucracy that will cost an enormous amount of tax payers dollars and will straddle us with more debt. We cannot afford it now, let alone create another function of government that will have a huge monthly bill attached to it. Third, is a universal background check system possible without universal gun registration? If so, please define it for us. Universal registration can easily be used for universal confiscation. I am not at all implying that you, sir, would try such a measure, but we do need to think about our actions through the lens of time. It is not impossible to think that a tyrant, to the likes of Mao, Castro, Che, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and others, could possibly rise to power in America. It could be five, ten, twenty, or one hundred years from now - but future generations have the natural right to protect themselves from tyrannical government just as much as we currently do. It is safe to assume that this liberty that our forefathers secured has been a thorn in the side of would-be tyrants ever since the Second Amendmen
Paul Merrell

Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...ention_on_Diplomatic_Relations

surveillance state NSA targets-diplomats law international

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 is an international treaty that defines a framework for diplomatic relations between independent countries. It specifies the privileges of a diplomatic mission that enable diplomats to perform their function without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country. This forms the legal basis for diplomatic immunity.
  • The treaty is an extensive document, containing 53 articles. Following is a basic overview of its key provisions.[2]
  • Article 22. The premises of a diplomatic mission, such as an embassy, are inviolate and must not be entered by the host country except by permission of the head of the mission. Furthermore, the host country must protect the mission from intrusion or damage. The host country must never search the premises, nor seize its documents or property. Article 30 extends this provision to the private residence of the diplomats. Article 27. The host country must permit and protect free communication between the diplomats of the mission and their home country. A diplomatic bag must never be opened even on suspicion of abuse. A diplomatic courier must never be arrested or detained.
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  • Article 37. The family members of a diplomat that are living in the host country enjoy most of the same protections as the diplomats themselves.
  • Original text related to this article Diplomatic Relations Protocols The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 50th Anniversary Website Created by the 2011 VCDR 50th Anniversary Project Introductory note by Eileen Denza, procedural history note and audiovisual material on the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in the Historic Archives of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law Lecture by Eileen Denza entitled Diplomatic and Consular Law – Topical Issues in the Lecture Series of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law Lecture by John Dugard entitled Diplomatic Protection in the Lecture Series of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Nov 13
     
    Remember the NSA's electronic surveillance of foreign embassies and diplomats around the world and of U.N. missions and diplomats? The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is the governing international law. I've just completed reading the entire treaty but will highlight portions from its Wikipedia entry instead.  Disputes involving the treaty are decided by the International Court of Justice.  The treaty itself goes into far more detail, but suffice it to say that the NSA's electronic surveillance of diplomats and their staff is beyond doubt in direct conflict with both the letter and the spirit of the treaty. The inviolability privacy of diplomats and staff communications with each other and with their government is an obligation of the host nation. The U.S. committed a serious breach of the treaty by intercepting communications in this circumstance. 
Paul Merrell

US military denied treatment to soldiers exposed to chemical weapons in Iraq (+video) -... - 0 views

www.csmonitor.com/...chemical-weapons-in-Iraq-video

war & peace Iraq U.S.-WMD U.S.-foreign-policy veterans

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The New York Times's C.J. Chivers has dropped a bombshell of a scoop that details 17 US troops and seven Iraqi policemen who were exposed to old chemical weapons in Iraq, some of whom were declined appropriate medical care and service awards on the grounds of secrecy.If Mr. Chivers' reporting holds up – and there's little reason to doubt his deeply-reported piece – this is a scandal that eclipses long waits and poor funding at VA hospitals in the US. Sure, far fewer people were affected by exposure to mustard agents or sarin in Iraq, but these allegations represent enormous callousness and a direct breach of trust with soldiers.
  • Jarrod L. Taylor, a former Army sergeant on hand for the destruction of mustard shells that burned two soldiers in his infantry company, joked of “wounds that never happened” from “that stuff that didn’t exist.” The public, he said, was misled for a decade. “I love it when I hear, ‘Oh there weren’t any chemical weapons in Iraq,’” he said. “There were plenty.” That chemical weapons from before the first Gulf War remained in Iraq was an operating assumption at the time the US invaded the country in 2003 and was established fact by the end of that year. But, while the US made the search for evidence of ongoing chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons programs a priority (it failed to find any), disposing of whatever they did find apparently was not.
  • The American government withheld word about its discoveries even from troops it sent into harm’s way and from military doctors. The government’s secrecy, victims and participants said, prevented troops in some of the war’s most dangerous jobs from receiving proper medical care and official recognition of their wounds. “I felt more like a guinea pig than a wounded soldier,” said a former Army sergeant who suffered mustard burns in 2007 and was denied hospital treatment and medical evacuation to the United States despite requests from his commander. Congress, too, was only partly informed, while troops and officers were instructed to be silent or give deceptive accounts of what they had found. “ 'Nothing of significance’ is what I was ordered to say,” said Jarrod Lampier, a recently retired Army major who was present for the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war: more than 2,400 nerve-agent rockets unearthed in 2006 at a former Republican Guard compound.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • That's the central issue in Chivers' piece, which is hard to read in full without mounting anger. But the following four graphs contain the nut of the scandal here, as I see it (emphasis mine): 
  • In the first year of the US-led war, the military didn't have the manpower to secure all of the hundreds of conventional weapons bunkers that littered the country. The shells, RPGs, and rifles that were looted from these bunkers were put to use by the then-growing Iraqi insurgency to attack both foreign soldiers and the new government in Baghdad.Chivers' story details how as late as 2008, US soldiers were involved in the secret destruction of chemical weapons in ways that violate the protocols set out in the United Nations's Convention on Chemical Weapons. The lax US approach appears to have led to the exposure of the soldiers – and it left behind an unknown quantity of old chemical weapons, some possibly in the hands of anti-government insurgents like the so-called Islamic State. The US knew it was leaving old chemical weapons behind when soldiers withdrew from the country at the end of 2011. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administrations had ever made their destruction a priority. 
  • Much of the reaction to the story has missed the central point, distracted by partisan finger pointing. Fox News predictably frames the story as "There were chemical weapons in Iraq after all." No. This is not news – and the possible existence of old sarin and mustard agent shells inside the country was not the reason that the Bush administration presented for going to war. Folks on the left have focused on the fact that these old chemical weapons were US "designed." That isn't really news either (nor that the US was notably silent about Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war).The story is an enormous breach of trust between the US and its own soldiers. It starts with the officers and the members of the Bush administration involved, whose names the story doesn't give.
Paul Merrell

PA eyes The Hague as Abbas accuses Israel of 'genocide' | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/bas-accuses-israel-of-genocide

war & peace Palestine Israel ICC

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • he Palestinian Authority moved to join the International Criminal Court in The Hague on Wednesday, accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians amid Israel’s military campaign to stem rocket fire from the Gaza Strip
  • “It’s genocide — the killing of entire families is genocide by Israel against our Palestinian people,” he told the meeting of Palestinian leadership at his Ramallah bureau. “What’s happening now is a war against the Palestinian people as a whole and not against the [terrorist] factions.” “Shall we recall Auschwitz?” he added.
  • PA President Mahmoud Abbas called a crisis meeting of the Palestinian leadership in the afternoon with the intention of signing paperwork to apply to join the ICC in The Hague and other international organizations. Abbas charged Israel with committing “genocide” in Gaza during its Operation Protective Edge — launched to stem Hamas rocket fire on civilians across Israel — which has so far killed 43 Palestinians.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “We know that Israel is not defending itself; it is defending settlements, its main project,” Abbas continued. “We are moving in several ways to stop the Israeli aggression and spilling of Palestinian blood, including talking to Egyptian President [Abdel Fattah] el-Sissi and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.” At the outset of peace negotiations in July 2013 the Palestinians pledged to US Secretary of State John Kerry that they would not apply for membership in international bodies during the nine-month negotiating period in return for the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. On April 1, 2014, Abbas surprised Israel by applying for membership in 15 international bodies and treaties, but had so far refrained from joining more robust organizations such as the International Criminal Court, where Palestinians could seek recourse for alleged Israeli war crimes.
  • Wednesday was the second day of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge. Israeli warplanes have so far hit 550 targets in Gaza. Hamas terrorists have fired 165 rockets into Israel, some of which struck Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and as far away as Hadera and Zichron Yaakov, both about 120 kilometers (75 miles) to the north of the coastal enclave. Palestinian fatalities have included terrorists but also women and children. More than 370 people have been wounded. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system has intercepted more than 20 rockets that were heading for residential areas.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Jul 14
     
    This is an article in an Israeli newspaper. It omits mentioning that the Palestine Authority only joined the 15 international bodies after Israel had breached the negotiation agreement by refusing to release the last batch of Palestinian prisoners.  The PA in response to Israel's renewed military attacks on Gaza now says it will join the International Criminal Court, where Israeli leaders can be charged with war crimes, with genocide quite deservedly being high on the list of potential charges. However, it's likely that the U.S. would cut off aid to the PA if it files charges against Israeli leaders. Would another nation step in to fill the funding shortfall, e.g., Russia or one of the Gulf Coast states?  Maybe we will find out.
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu vows to scuttle world powers' Iran deal | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/scuttle-world-powers-iran-deal

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth Netanyahu-speech boycott

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • A Channel 10 news report Saturday indicated that some 60 Democratic legislators were expected to stay away from the address.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15
     
    The Democratic boycott of Netanyahu's speech is gaining strength. Republicans need to get on board too. 
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15
     
    The Democratic boycott of Netanyahu's speech is gaining strength. Republicans need to get on board too. 
Paul Merrell

Hillary's Lies and the Benghazi Attack | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...s-lies-and-the-benghazi-attack

war & peace Benghazi-coverup Hillary Auction 2016

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony on Thursday certainly confirmed suspicions that she knew that the September 11, 2012 attack on the US Consulate was not a spontaneous protest by individuals enraged by an anti-Muslim video. Rather, as the emails she fought so fiercely to protect from public disclosure reveal, the attack was a pre-planned operation, involving fore- knowledge by the assailants of the whereabouts of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, among other details.
  • Clinton and the Obama Administration had attempted to place the blame for the attack, which resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans, on an unplanned protest, a “spontaneous mob.” However, knowing that Clinton and other Administration officials lied extensively as to the genesis of the attack raises further questions. According to the Wall Street Journal, Clinton lied in order to “attempt to avoid blame for a terror attack in a presidential re-election year”  The WSJ article maintains that the House Select Committee on Benghazi, chaired by Representative Trey Gowdy, has ferreted out the deception. “What that House committee did Thursday was finally expose the initial deception,” writes WSJ reporter Kimberley Strassel.
  • It is known now, through the subsequent email and cable releases, that the responsibility for the attack was claimed by Ansar al Sharia, al Qaeda’s affiliate on the Arabian Peninsula. In an email to her daughter Chelsea, sent at 11:12 pm the night of the attack, Hillary Clinton wrote: “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al Queda-like group.” Not by a spontaneous mob, protesting a YouTube video. But by a group which has already been exposed as having deep and covert ties to the United States intelligence agencies. Questions must be addressed as to why the Benghazi compound was not guarded. US Embassies abroad are known to be protected by an elite corps of US Marines. Known as the MSG (Marine Security Group), this elite group is pledged to protect US information and persons in Embassies and Consulates.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 15
     
    There's also an unanswered question why the consulate's existence had not been reported to the Libyan government, a serious breach of protocol for an official "consulate." (The article incorrectly refers to it as an "embassy," but the U.S. Embassy in Libya was in Tripoli. Seymour Hersh reported that Ambassador Stevens' role was only to provide political cover for a CIA team that was working on collecting and shipping via a "ratline"  Libyan weapons left from the Gadaffi government's military to Syria. Stevens was the logical choice, having served earlier in the year at Benghazi as the State Department's Special Representative to the Libyan National Transitional Council (from March 2011 to November 2011) during the Libyan "revolution." During the "revolution" the Transitional Council was located in Benghazi, the unofficial transitional capital of Libya while the war progressed. In other words, Stevens already had connections with the forces that overthrew Gaddafi, so would be able to pull strings to get access to the weapons. The lack of Marine guards is probably best explained by the fact that Stevens' mission was essentially clandestine.   
Paul Merrell

Russian military: U.S. not implementing its part of Syria ceasefire plan | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...syria-russia-usa-idUSKCN11L13T

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria cease-fire U.S.-breach Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Russia's Defense Ministry said on Thursday the United States was using "a verbal smokescreen" to hide its reluctance to fulfill its part of a ceasefire agreement on Syria, including separation of moderate opposition units from terrorist groups.After the third day of the ceasefire which came into force on Monday evening, only Syria's government forces are observing the truce, the ministry said in a statement.It said that units of the opposition "controlled by the U.S." have intensified their shelling of civilian residential areas.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 16
     
    As expected.
Paul Merrell

Taliban assault Camp Bastion, storm foreign guest house in Kabul - The Long War Journal - 0 views

www.longwarjournal.org/...taliban_assault_camp.php

war & peace Afghanistan Taliban

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban inside Camp Bastion, the large military complex in Helmand province that was evacuated by US and British troops just one month ago, continues for the third day. Meanwhile, in the capital of Kabul, the jihadist group overran a guest house used by foreigners and may have taken hostages. The Taliban initially launched their attack on Camp Bastion on Nov. 27, and Afghan officials quickly claimed the assault was defeated and the jihadists did not penetrate the perimeter of the base. But the attack continued as the Taliban attacked Camp Bastion from two sides, according to Pajhwok Afghan News. An Afghan Army general who commands a regiment in Helmand said that heavily armed fighters with assault weapons and suicide vests are still fighting Afghan forces inside the base.
  • British and US forces handed over Camp Bastion, which served as the British headquarters in the country, to Afghan forces on Oct. 26. The base, along with neighboring Camp Leatherneck, which was the US Marine headquarters in the south, were the main hubs of counterinsurgency and air operations against the Taliban in Helmand, Nimroz, and Farah provinces. Leatherneck was also turned over to Afghan control on Oct. 26. The Taliban have successfully breached security at Camp Bastion once in the past. On Sept. 14, 2012, a 15-man Taliban team penetrated the perimeter at the airbase, destroyed six USMC Harriers and damaged two more, and killed the US squadron commander and a sergeant. Fourteen of the 15 members of the assault team were killed, while the last was wounded and captured. Coalition forces captured one of the leaders of the operation days later, while the Taliban released a video that highlighted the attack.
  • Also today, Taliban fighters assaulted a "foreign guesthouse" just 200 meters from the Afghan parliament building in the capital, according to Pajhwok Afghan News. It is unclear which organization runs the guesthouse. The Taliban claimed it was run by "a Christian organization seeking to convert Muslims," Reuters reported. According to eyewitnesses, "three gunmen in military uniforms" opened fire on the guesthouse, while others stormed the compound and engaged security guards inside. Two fighters wearing suicide vests are said to have entered the compound. Afghan officials said there may be hostages. Today's attack in Kabul is the fourth major assault against Western targets in the capital this week.
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  • The recent attacks in the capital are likely executed by what the International Security Assistance Force and US military officials have previously called the Kabul Attack Network. This network is made up of fighters from the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, and pools resources and cooperates with terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and al Qaeda. Top Afghan intelligence officials have linked the Kabul Attack Network to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate as well. The network's contacts extend outward from Kabul into the surrounding provinces of Logar, Wardak, Nangarhar, Kapisa, Kunar, Ghazni, and Zabul.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Nov 14
     
    I haven't been posting bookmarks for action inside Afghanistan for some time because the trend has been stable, with attacks by the Taliban and other Muslim groups on the U.S. trained and supplied Afghan Army continuing. Even Kabul's Green Zone has seen plenty of action. Prognosis: Taliban retakes control of Afghanistan soon after the last NATO troops withdraw. Obama's prolonging of U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan only postpones the inevitable. But that has been the prognosis for many years now.  
Paul Merrell

Belhaj v. Straw: UK Supreme Court Hearing Case on UK Complicity in US Rendition and Tor... - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...k-complicity-rendition-torture

war & peace CIA rendition torture UK Supreme-Court legal-remedies

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The United Kingdom Supreme Court heard arguments this week in two critical cases concerning the UK’s role in the United States’ rendition, detention, and interrogation efforts in the years after 9/11. In both cases, the UK government is arguing that the claims cannot be considered by English courts. If the government succeeds, one potential practical implication would be to limit the extent to which individuals could seek redress for wrongs done against them, including torture, where the alleged wrongs involve other States. The first case, Belhaj & another v. Straw & others, involves one of the most controversial claims of rendition involving the UK. The government has appealed against the lower court’s ruling, which found against the government for its alleged role in the 2004 abduction of Libyan national, Abdul-Hakim Belhaj, and his wife, and their subsequent rendition to Libya and mistreatment at the hands of US and other foreign officials. In December 2013, the High Court dismissed a civil suit brought by Belhaj on the basis that it lacked jurisdiction because of the act of state doctrine (a rule of English law which prevents courts from considering claims where the court would have to examine the acts of a foreign state). But in October 2014, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that the act of state doctrine did not preclude Belhaj’s claim against the British government, citing, among other reasons, the universal condemnation of torture and the “stark reality” that these allegations would escape judicial investigation unless the English courts were able to exercise jurisdiction over the case.
  • Specifically, the Court found that: [T]he present case falls within the established limitation on the act of state doctrine imposed by considerations of public policy on grounds of violations of human rights and international law and that there are compelling reasons requiring the exercise of jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal also rejected the government’s controversial attempt to invoke the domestic law on immunity of foreign states from domestic proceedings as a bar to any claim against the UK government whenever the conduct of foreign states may be called into question, a concept known as the doctrine of indirect impleader in state immunity.
  • The government’s appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision in Belhaj is being heard jointly with the appeal in another case, Ministry of Defense and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office v. Yunus Rahmatullah, involving a Pakistani citizen captured by British forces in Iraq. In 2004, Rahmatullah was transferred from UK to US custody in Iraq and thereafter rendered to Bagram air base in Afghanistan, with UK knowledge and in breach of Article 45 and Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Held by the US without trial for more than a decade, Rahmatullah was denied access to a lawyer and subjected to numerous acts of torture and mistreatment before being repatriated to Pakistan and released without charge in May 2014. He now seeks to sue the British government for damages. The main thrust of the UK government’s argument, in both cases, is that the litigation will most likely damage the UK’s relationship with the United States. If accepted by the Supreme Court, this argument may lead the Court to find that it lacks jurisdiction to hear the claims. The far-reaching implications of such a ruling would be to protect individual states and their institutions from the scrutiny of British courts in cases where it is alleged that they acted in concert with other states, even if their actions were unlawful. Such an expansive interpretation of a “but they did it too” excuse would constitute a notable limitation on British courts’ jurisdiction in the context of events arising from the so-called global war on terror. Since Belhaj and Rahmatullah, and others like them, are unlikely to secure redress directly in a US court, a ruling in favor of the government would essentially preclude them from securing redress in any forum. You can find the full Court of Appeal judgment here and below.   Belhaj v. Straw – Court of Appeal Judgment (30 Oct 2014) by Just Security
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    Hopefully, the "we can't be held liable because it would upset the U.S." defense won't be sustained by the Supreme Court. What a brazen assertion of UK subservience to the U.S.!
Paul Merrell

Organization of the Islamic Conference gathers in Istanbul for Jerusalem - 0 views

www.hurriyetdailynews.com/-istanbul-for-jerusalem-124024

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Jerusalem Islamic-Conference

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 17 - No Cached
  • High-level representatives, including some heads of states from the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), will come together on Dec. 13 in Istanbul at a summit to consider a joint stance against United States’ recent recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Turkey, as the term president of the OIC, will host leaders from Muslim-majority countries on Dec. 13, with a joint position of Muslim countries to be announced under the title of the Istanbul Declaration.  The move comes after U.S. President Donald Trump instructed the State Department to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in line with the 1995-dated Jerusalem Embassy Act.  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will preside over the OIC meeting in Istanbul and will address the opening and closing ceremonies of the summit. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, Bangladeshi President Abdoul Hamid and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani are among 22 heads of state and government who will be present at the summit. Some 25 foreign ministers will also be represented, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Kazakhstan. Saudi Arabia will be represented by Islamic Affairs Minister Salih bin Abdulaziz al-Shaikh.
  • A very strong message will be delivered from the summit,” Çavuşoğlu said, adding that this message will stress that the decision taken by the U.S. unilaterally breaches international law, and will call all nations to stand against it while also calling nations to recognize the State of Palestine. “If we don’t defend Jerusalem today, when will we defend it? If we don’t defend Jerusalem, one of the three most sacred places of Islam, what will we defend?” he stated, hinting that the text would cite East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine with pre-1967 borders.
Paul Merrell

N.S.A. Breached Chinese Servers Seen as Security Threat - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...servers-seen-as-spy-peril.html

surveillance state NSA NSA-targets China Huawei

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • American officials have long considered Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, a security threat, blocking it from business deals in the United States for fear that the company would create “back doors” in its equipment that could allow the Chinese military or Beijing-backed hackers to steal corporate and government secrets.But even as the United States made a public case about the dangers of buying from Huawei, classified documents show that the National Security Agency was creating its own back doors — directly into Huawei’s networks.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 14
     
    New York TImes version of same story published yesterday by Der Spiegel, with much more detail in this version. 
Paul Merrell

Ellen Brown ~ Did The Other Shoe Just Drop? Black Rock And PIMCO Sue Banks For $250 Bil... - 0 views

www.shiftfrequency.com/imco-sue-banks-for-250-billion

banksters investors litigation BlackRock PIMCO

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • For years, homeowners have been battling Wall Street in an attempt to recover some portion of their massive losses from the housing Ponzi scheme. But progress has been slow, as they have been outgunned and out-spent by the banking titans. In June, however, the banks may have met their match, as some equally powerful titans strode onto the stage.  Investors led by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and PIMCO, the world’s largest bond-fund manager, have sued some of the world’s largest banks for breach of fiduciary duty as trustees of their investment funds. The investors are seeking damages for losses surpassing $250 billion. That is the equivalent of one million homeowners with $250,000 in damages suing at one time. The defendants are the so-called trust banks that oversee payments and enforce terms on more than $2 trillion in residential mortgage securities. They include units of Deutsche Bank AG, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, HSBC Holdings PLC, and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. Six nearly identical complaints charge the trust banks with breach of their duty to force lenders and sponsors of the mortgage-backed securities to repurchase defective loans.
  • Why the investors are only now suing is complicated, but it involves a recent court decision on the statute of limitations. Why the trust banks failed to sue the lenders evidently involves the cozy relationship between lenders and trustees. The trustees also securitized loans in pools where they were not trustees. If they had started filing suit demanding repurchases, they might wind up suedon other deals in retaliation. Better to ignore the repurchase provisions of the pooling and servicing agreements and let the investors take the losses—better, at least, until they sued. Beyond the legal issues are the implications for the solvency of the banking system itself. Can even the largest banks withstand a $250 billion iceberg? The sum is more than 40 times the $6 billion “London Whale” that shook JPMorganChase to its foundations.
Paul Merrell

To beat ISIS, kick out US-led coalition | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...isis-kick-out-us-led-coalition

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Iraq Iran Russia Lebanon ISIL sandbagging

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 May 15 - No Cached
  • It’s been a bad time for foes of ISIS. Islamic State scored a neat hat-trick by invading strategic Ramadi in Iraq’s mainly Sunni Anbar province, occupying Syria’s historic gem Palmyra, and taking over Al-Tanf, the last remaining border crossing with Iraq. The multinational, American-led ‘Coalition’ launched last August to thwart Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS) march across Syria and Iraq…did nothing.
  • The Iraqis have shot back. Key MP Hakim al-Zamili blames Ramadi’s collapse on the US’s failure to provide “good equipment, weapons and aerial support” to troops. Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Mutlaq, himself a Sunni from Anbar Province, concluded that the Americans were coming up short in all areas. “The Coalition airstrikes are not enough to eliminate IS.” Furthermore, the US policy of recruiting Sunni tribes for the fight, he added, was “too late” – it is “important but not enough.” If ever there was an understatement, this is it. Washington’s long-stated objective of rallying together a vetted Sunni fighting force – or its equivalent in the form of a National Guard – has always served as a placeholder to avoid facing realities.
  • One thing we have learned from IS gains in small and large Sunni towns alike, is that the extremist group prides itself on sleeper cells and alliances inside of these areas. Sunni tribes and families, both, are divided on their support of IS. And the militants ensure that everyone else falls in line through a brutal campaign of inflicting fear and pain indiscriminately. So the likelihood of a significant, anti-IS, well-trained and equipped Sunni fighting force emerging anytime soon is just about nil. So too is the idea of a US-led Coalition air force that can cripple Islamic State. Washington has run fewer sorties over Syria and Iraq in the nine months since inception of its air campaign, than Israel ran in its entire three-week Gaza blitz in 2008-09. Where were the American bombers when Ramadi and Palmyra were being taken? And why does the US Air Force only seem to engage in earnest when their Kurdish allies are being threatened – as in Kobani (Ain al-Arab), Syria, and Erbil in Iraq?
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • If actions speak louder than words, then Washington’s moves in the Mideast have been deafening. Forget talk of a ‘unified Iraq’ with a ‘strong central government’. And definitely forget loudly-proclaimed objectives of ‘training moderate forces’ to ‘fight off IS’ across the Jordanian and Turkish borders in Syria. That’s just talk. An objective look at US interests in the region paint an entirely different picture. The Americans seek to maintain absolute hegemony in the Mideast, even as they exit costly military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Their primary interests are 1) access to low cost oil and gas, 2) propping up Israel, and more recently, 3) undermining Russian (and Chinese) influence in the region. Clinging on to hegemony would be a whole lot easier without the presence of a powerful, independent Islamic Republic of Iran, which continues to throw a wrench in many of Washington’s regional projects. So hegemony is somewhat dependent on weakening Iran – and its supportive alliances.
  • But why ignore Sunni groups who are unreservedly opposed to IS? Aren’t they America’s natural constituents inside Iraq? The Takfiri extremist groups serve a purpose for Washington. IS has had the ability – where competing Sunni factions, with their ever-growing lists of demands from Baghdad, have not – to transform the US’ ‘buffer’ project into a physical reality. And Washington has not needed to expend blood, treasure or manpower to get the job done.
  • You only have to look at recent US actions in Iraq to see this unspoken plan in action. Washington’s most intensive airstrikes to date were when Kurdish Erbil and its environs came under threat by ISIS.Washington’s most intensive airstrikes to date were when Kurdish Erbil and its environs came under threat by ISIS. Congress has breached all international norms by ushering through legislation to directly arm Sunni and Kurdish militias and bypass the central government in Baghdad. And despite endless promises and commitments, the Americans have failed at every hurdle to train and equip the Iraqi Army and security forces to do anything useful. A weak, divided Iraq can never become a regional powerhouse allied with Iran and the Resistance Axis. Likewise a weak, divided Syria. But without US control over these central governments, the only way to achieve this is 1) through the creation of sectarian and ethnic strife that could carve out pro-US buffers inside the ‘Resistance states’ and/or 2) through the creation of a hostile ‘Sunni buffer’ to break this line from Iran to Palestine.
  • General Walid Sukariyya, a Sunni, pro-resistance member of Lebanon’s parliament, agrees. “ISIS will be better for the US and Israel than having a strong Iran, Iraq and Syria…If they succeed at this, the Sunni state in Iraq will split the resistance from Palestine.” While Washington has long sought to create a buffer in Iraq on the Syrian border, it has literally spent years trying – and failing – to find, then mold, representative Sunni Iraqi leaders who will comfortably toe a pro-American line. An example of this is the Anbar delegation US General John Allen handpicked last December for a DC tour, which excluded representatives of the two most prominent Sunni tribes fighting IS in Iraq – the Albu Alwan and Albu Nimr. A spokesman for the tribes, speaking to Al-Jarida newspaper, objected at the time: “We are fighting ISIL and getting slaughtered, while suffering from a shortage of weapons. In the meantime, others are going to Washington to get funds and will later be assigned as our leaders.”
  • With the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the US inadvertently extended Iran’s arc of influence in a direct geographic line to Palestine, leaving the Israeli colonial project vulnerable. Former President George W. Bush immediately took on the task of destroying this Resistance Axis by attempting to neuter Iranian allies Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas – and failed. The Arab Spring presented a fresh opportunity to regroup: the US and its Turkish and Persian Gulf allies swung into action to create conditions for regime-change in Syria. The goal? To break this geographic line from Iran – through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – to Palestine. When regime-change failed, the goalpost moved to the next best plan: dividing Syria into several competing chunks, which would weaken the central state and create a pro-US ‘buffer’ along the border with Israel. Weakening the central government in Iraq by dividing the state along Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite lines has also been a priority for the Americans.
  • The DIA brief makes clear that the escalation of conflict in Syria will create further sectarianism and radicalization, which will increase the likelihood of an ‘Islamic State’ on the Syrian-Iraqi border, one that would likely be manned by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). So what did Washington do when it received this information? It lied. Less than one month after the DIA report was published, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this about the Syrian opposition: “I just don’t agree that a majority are Al-Qaeda and the bad guys. That’s not true. There are about 70,000 to 100,000 oppositionists … Maybe 15 percent to 25 percent might be in one group or another who are what we would deem to be bad guys…There is a real moderate opposition that exists.” Using the fabricated storyline of ‘moderate rebels’ who need assistance to fight a ‘criminal Syrian regime’, the US government kept the Syrian conflict buzzing, knowing full well the outcome would mean the establishment of a Sunni extremist entity spanning the Syrian-Iraqi border…which could cripple, what the Americans call, “the strategic depth of the Shia expansion.”As US Council on Foreign Relations member and terrorism analyst Max Abrahms conceded on Twitter: “The August 5, 2012 DIA report confirms much of what Assad has been saying all along about his opponents both inside & outside Syria.”
  • Since last year, numerous Iraqi officials have complained about the US airdropping weapons to IS – whether deliberately or inadvertently remains disputed. Military sources, on the other hand, have made clear that the US-led Coalition ignores many of the Iraqi requests for air cover during ground operations. If the US isn’t willing to play ball in Iraq’s existential fight against IS, then why bother with the Americans at all? Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is viewed as a ‘weak’ head of state – a relatively pro-American official who will work diligently to keep a balance between US interests and those of Iraq’s powerful neighbor, Iran. But after the disastrous fall of Ramadi, and more bad news from inside Syria, Abadi has little choice but to mitigate these losses, and rapidly. The prime minister has now ordered the engagement of thousands of Hashd al-Shaabi (Shiite paramilitary groups, commonly known as the Popular Mobilization Forces) troops in the Anbar to wrest back control of Ramadi. And this – unusually – comes with the blessings of Anbar’s Sunni tribes who voted overwhelmingly to appeal to the Hashd for military assistance.
  • Joining the Hashd are a few thousand Sunni fighters, making this a politically palatable response. If the Ramadi operation goes well, this joint Sunni-Shiite effort (which also proved successful in Tikrit) could provide Iraq with a model to emulate far and wide. The recent losses in Syria and Iraq have galvanized IS’ opponents from Lebanon to Iran to Russia, with commitments pouring in for weapons, manpower and funds. If Ramadi is recovered, this grouping is unlikely to halt its march, and will make a push to the Syrian border through IS-heavy territory. There is good reason for this: the militants who took Ramadi came across the Syrian border – in full sight of US reconnaissance capabilities. A senior resistance state official told me earlier this year: “We will not allow the establishment of a big (extremist) demographic and geographic area between Syria and Iraq. We will work to push Syrian ISIS inside Syria and Iraqi ISIS inside Iraq.”
  • Right now, the key to pushing back Takfiri gains inside Syria’s eastern and northwestern theaters lies in the strengthening of the Iraqi military landscape. And an absolute priority will be in clearing the IS ‘buffer’ between the two states. Eighteen months ago, in an analysis about how to fight jihadist militants from the Levant to the Persian Gulf, I wrote that the solution for this battle will be found only within the region, specifically from within those states whose security is most compromised or under threat: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. I argued that these four states would be forced to increase their military cooperation as the battles intensified, and that they would provide the only ‘boots on the ground’ in this fight. And they will. But air cover is a necessary component of successful offensive operations, even in situations of unconventional warfare. If the US and its flimsy Coalition are unable or unwilling to provide the required reconnaissance assistance and the desired aerial coverage, as guided by a central Iraqi military command, then Iraq should look elsewhere for help.
  • Iran and Russia come to mind – and we may yet get there. Iraq and Syria need to merge their military strategies more effectively – again, an area where the Iranians and Russians can provide valuable expertise. Both states have hit a dangerous wall in the past few weeks, and the motivation for immediate and decisive action is high today. Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah is coming into play increasingly as well – its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has recently promised that Hezbollah will no longer limit itself geographically, and will go where necessary to thwart this Takfiri enemy. The non-state actors that make up the jihadist and Takfiri core cannot be beaten by conventional armies, which is why local militias accustomed to asymmetric warfare are best suited for these battles. Criticizing the US’s utterly nonexistent response to the Ramadi debacle yesterday, Iran’s elite Quds Force Commander Qassem Suleimani points out: “Today, there is nobody in confrontation with [IS] except the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as nations who are next to Iran or supported by Iran.” The Iranians have become central figures in the fight against terror, and are right next door to it – as opposed to Washington, over 6,000 miles away.
  • If the US has any real commitment to the War on Terror, it should focus on non-combat priorities that are also essential to undermine extremism: 1) securing the Turkish and Jordanian borders to prevent any further infiltration of jihadists into Syria and Iraq, 2) sanctioning countries and individuals who fund and weaponize the Takfiris, most of whom are staunch US allies, now ironically part of the ‘Coalition’ to fight IS, and 3) sharing critical intelligence about jihadist movements with those countries engaged in the battle. It is time to cut these losses and bring some heavyweights into this battle against extremism. If the US-directed Coalition will not deliver airstrikes under the explicit command of sovereign states engaged at great risk in this fight, it may be time to clear Iraqi and Syrian airspace of coalition jets, and fill those skies with committed partners instead.
  • Related documentation: DIA Doc Syria and Iraq:_ Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 May 15
     
    Woh! Things definitely coming to an inflexion point in Syria and Iraq. This is a reprint from RT.com, the Russian video and web page news service. The hint of direct and overt military action by Russia and Iran should not be ignored. The U.S. is sandbagging for ISIL and al Nusiryah. 
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