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The statement also points to Israel’s deliberate destruction of the homes of thousands of people and Israel’s practice of giving “warnings” either in the form of smaller projectiles fired at a building, or via text message or telephone. Despite such warnings, “it remains illegal to willfully attack a civilian home without a demonstration of military necessity as it amounts to a violation of the principle of proportionality,” the experts say.

“Not only are these ‘warnings’ generally ineffective, and can even result in further fatalities,”the statement notes, “they appear to be a pre-fabricated excuse by Israel to portray people who remain in their homes as ‘human shields.’” “Israel’s illegal policy of absolute closure imposed on the Gaza Strip has relentlessly continued, under the complicit gaze of the international community of States,” the statement says. The statement also denounces “the launch of rockets from the Gaza Strip, as every indiscriminate attack against civilians, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators, is not only illegal under international law but also morally intolerable.”

“However,” it adds, “the two parties to the conflict cannot be considered equal, and their actions – once again – appear to be of incomparable magnitude.”

Calling for accountability, the statement blames “several UN Member States and the UN” for pressuring de facto Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas not to seek “recourse to the International Criminal Court (ICC).” The statement calls on “the Governmental leaders of Palestine” – presumably a reference to Abbas – to ratify the ICC treaty.

It also urges the UN Security Council to “exercise its responsibilities in relation to peace and justice by referring the situation in Palestine to the Prosecutor of the ICC” – an action that would require the support of veto-wielding countries such as the US, France and UK, all of which have defended Israel’s assault on Gaza. The full statement and list of signers follow.

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Even at face value, the reported settlement is minuscule compared to the harm caused by Bank of America companies. The on-paper cost of the deal is less than 7 percent of the value of the mortgage deals Bank of America and its subsidiaries Countrywide and Merrill Lynch made before the crisis that have since gone bad. (Bank of America bought Countrywide and Merrill Lynch at the height of the crisis.) Those three companies issued just shy of a trillion dollars in mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial collapse, and $245 billion of those products have gone bad, according to Bloomberg. Bank of America had pushed for a much smaller settlement for months, arguing that it should not have to pay for the sins of the firms it bought at bargain-bin prices when the economy was reeling. But a court ruling last month regarding Countrywide’s most notorious mortgage swindle caused the bank to change its tune, according to the New York Times. Judge Jed Rakoff ordered the bank to pay about $1.3 billion for one tranch of defective mortgages sold under a program that Countrywide nicknamed “Hustle” because of its fraudulent nature. Having lost one court case over Countrywide’s notorious misdeeds, the Times says, Bank of America decided to stop resisting federal officials’ settlement demands.

After tax deductions, the settlement could easily shrink below the roughly $15 billion in profits the company has reported since 2011. And because the financial crisis sucked something like $14 trillion out of the economy and destroyed tens of trillions of dollars in wealth for homeowners, the DOJ can hardly claim to have delivered a proportional response. The department’s claims about the Bank of America settlement are likely to draw political scrutiny. A bipartisan bill from Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) would require government officials to state the full tax deductibility and true cost of corporate legal settlements in all public statements about them. That bill, inspired by the revelations that JP Morgan’s sweetheart deal with the DOJ didn’t come close to the portrait that Attorney General Eric Holder painted of it, was passed out of committee late last month.

In turn, U.S. forces might need a forward operating base with a security perimeter, more force protection and a logistical supply line. Medevac capabilities may require a helicopter detachment and a small aviation maintenance shed.“You’re talking about a 10,000- to 15,000-soldier effort to include maintenance, and medevac and security,” said retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who served as executive officer to David Petraeus during the 2007 surge in Iraq and now is a professor of military history at Ohio State University.“But that is the price you’re going to pay if you want to roll back [Islamic State]. You can’t just snap your fingers and make it go away,” Mansoor said.

While the need for U.S. ground troops may be limited, Jones said, Obama’s plan poses another risk: If air strikes are successful in the area around Erbil, pressure may grow for the U.S. to provide similar air strikes in other parts of Iraq. “The slippery slope may be a much broader demand for air strikes,” Jones said.It’s unclear how far Obama and his military leaders plan to take this current campaign.“There is still some question about whether this is going to be a major air campaign to defeat [the Islamic State] or whether it is going to me more along the lines of strikes and raids to deny them access and prevent them from making further advances. I’m not sure,” Gunzinger said.Obama’s language Thursday was ambiguous, Posen said. Despite his repeated aversion to sending “combat troops” back into Iraq, Obama has signaled a long-term commitment to support the Iraqi military and a continued belief in a cohesive, Democratic Iraq in which Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds share power under a Bagdad led government.“Is this going to be a limited mission? Or is this the beginning of a project where we are once again going to fix Iraq, to build a homogenous, unified Iraq?” Posen said. .

“If they are going to succumb to that logic, if they are going to try to build the beautiful outcome that the Bush Administration failed to build, then they are not edging up to the slippery slope — they are diving over it.”

A separate document related to the same contract noted that one purpose of the effort was to conduct “market research” of al-Qaida and its affiliates in Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Northern Nigeria, and Somalia. Four American companies eventually won the $1.5 billion contract: Tennessee-based Jacobs Technology and Virginia-based Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI-WGI, and SRA International. Notably, while some 3,000 contractors provided service in some capacity to USSOCOM, just eight of the contractors earned more than 50 percent of the $13 billion total identified in Black’s report. Those were: Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, Boeing, Harris Corporation, Jacobs Engineering Group, MA Federal, Raytheon, and ITT Corporation.

One of the largest single transactions ($77 million) was paid to a subsidiary of Alaska’s Shee Atika – a company that the report says provided “interrogation services” as well as translation assistance.

Last year, the then-commander of USSOCOM, Adm. William McRaven, told the House Armed Services Committee that U.S. special operations forces were engaged in “annual deployments to more than 100 countries.” But very little is known about the scope and purpose of those operations, given the extreme secrecy that often shrouds them. The report from the Remote Control Project, however, is a reminder of how public data can sometimes be used to obtain information about even the most shadowy government activities – in this case, offering a valuable glimpse into the burgeoning nature of the U.S. military’s special operations and, in particular, the supporting role played by private contractors. “The Special Operations Command is outsourcing many of its most sensitive information activities,” says Black. “Remote warfare is increasingly being shaped by the private sector.”

It’s as though ISIS and the U.S. media and political class worked in perfect unison to achieve the same goal here when it comes to American public opinion: fully terrorize them. (3) Although Americans favor military action against ISIS, today’s above-cited CNN poll finds that – at least of now – most do not want ground troops in Iraq or Syria (“61%-38%, oppose placing U.S. soldiers on the ground in Iraq and Syria to combat the terrorist group”). But almost every credible expert has said that airstrikes, without troops, is woefully inadequate to achieve any of the stated goals. Other than further inflaming anti-American sentiment in the region and strengthening ISIS, what possible purpose can such airstrikes have? The answer given by much of the U.S. media, as FAIR documented, seems clear: to “flex muscles” and show “toughness”:

What kind of country goes around bombing people with no strategic purpose and with little motive other than to “flex muscles” and “show toughness”? This answer also seems clear: one that is deeply insecure about its ongoing ability to project strength (and one whose elites benefit in terms of power and profit from endless war). (4) For those who favor air strikes: if, as most regional and military experts predict, it turns out that airstrikes are insufficient to seriously degrade ISIS, would you then favor a ground invasion? If you really believe that ISIS is a serious threat to the “homeland” and other weighty interests, how could you justify opposing anything needed to defeat them up to and including ground troops? And if you wouldn’t support that, isn’t that a compelling sign that you don’t really see them as the profound threat that one should have to see them as before advocating military action against them?

(5) For those who keep running around beating their chests talking about the imperative to “destroy ISIS”: will that take more or less time than it’s taken to “destroy the Taliban”? Does it ever occur to such flamboyant warriors to ask why those sorts of groups enjoy so much support, and whether yet more bombing of predominantly Muslim countries – and/or flooding the region with more weapons – will bolster rather than subvert their strength? Just consider how a one-day attack in the U.S., 13 years ago, united most of the American population around the country’s most extreme militarists and unleashed an orgy of collective violence that is still not close to ending. Why does anyone think that constantly bringing violence to that part of the world will have a different effect there?

6) When I began writing about politics in 2005, it was very common to hear the “chickenhawk” slur cast about: all as a means of arguing that able-bodied people who advocate war have the obligation to fight in those wars rather than risking other people’s lives to do so. Since January, 2009, I’ve almost never heard that phrase. How come? Does the obligation-to-fight apply now to those wishing to deploy military force to “destroy ISIS”? (7) It’s easy to understand why beheading videos provoke such intense emotion: they’re savage and horrific to watch, by design. But are they more brutal than the constant, ongoing killing of civilians, including children, that the U.S. and its closest allies have been continuously perpetrating? In 2012, for instance, Pakistani teenager Tariq Kahn attended an anti-drone meeting, and then days later, was “decapitated” by a U.S. missile - the high-tech version of beheading – and his 12-year-old cousin was also killed by that drone. Whether “intent” is one difference is quite debatable (see point 3), but the brutality is no less. It’s true that we usually don’t see that carnage, but the fact that it’s kept from the U.S. population doesn’t mean it disappears or becomes more palatable or less savage.

(8) Here’s how you know you live in an empire devoted to endless militarism: when a new 3-year war is announced and very few people seem to think the president needs anyone’s permission to start it (including Congress) and, more so, when the announcement - of a new multiple-year war - seems quite run-of-the-mill and normal. (9) How long will we have to wait for the poll finding that most Americans “regret” having supported this new war in Iraq and Syria and view it as a “mistake”, as they prepare, in a frenzy of manufactured fear, to support the next proposed war?   UPDATE [Tues.]: In case you’re wondering how so many Americans have been led to embrace such fear-mongering tripe, consider the statement last week of Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida:

“This is a terrorist group the likes of which we haven’t seen before, and we better stop them now. It ought to be pretty clear when they start cutting off the heads of journalists and say they’re going to fly the black flag of ISIS over the White House that ISIS is a clear and present danger.” They’re a “clear and present danger” because they threatened to “fly the black flag of ISIS over the White House.” It’s hard to believe the fear-mongering is anything but deliberate.

A United Nations report this week said more than 2,200 people have been killed, not including the 298 who died when a Malaysian airliner was shot down over rebel-held territory in July.

Donetsk and Lugansk have formed militias and taken the war to the enemy. They’ve engaged Obama’s proxy-army on the battlefield and pounded it into mincemeat. That’s why Obama deployed his propagandists to lie about the fictitious “Russian invasion”. The administration needs a diversion because the Novorussia forces (aka-the “pro Russia separatists”) are kicking the holy crap out of Obama’s legions. That’s why Washington and Kiev are in full panic-mode, because none of this was supposed to happen. Obama figured the army would put down the insurrection, crush the resistance, and move him one step closer to his goal of establishing NATO bases and missile defense systems on Russia’s western flank. Well, guess what? It’s not playing out that way and it probably never will. The Novorussia fighters are too tough, too smart and too motivated to be one-upped by Obama’s feckless troopers. (Check out this short video and you’ll see why the rebels are winning: Vineyard of the Saker)

Putin hasn’t sent tanks and artillery into Ukraine. He doesn’t need to. The militias are loaded with battle-hardened veterans who know how to fight and who are quite good at it. Just ask Poroshenko whose army has been taking it in the shorts for the last couple of weeks. Check out this blurb in Thursday’s Itar Tass: “Over the week of August 16-23, the self-defense fighters of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics seized 14 T-64 tanks, 25 infantry fighting vehicles, 18 armored personnel carriers, one armored reconnaissance and patrol vehicle, one Uragan multiple launch rocket system, two Gvozdika self-propelled artillery guns, four D-30 howitzers, four mortars, one ZU-23-2 air defense system and 33 vehicles.” (East Ukraine militias seize large amount of Ukrainian armor, Itar Tass) Get the picture? The Ukrainian army is getting beaten to a pulp, which means that Obama’s glorious “pivot strategy” just slammed into a brick wall.

Bottom line: Russia has not invaded Ukraine. The propagandists in the media are just trying to hide the fact that the Novorussia Army Forces (NAF; aka-the pro Russia separatists) are kicking ass and taking names. That’s what’s really going on. That’s why Obama and his gaggle of miscreant neocons are in a furor. It’s because they don’t know what to do next, so they’ve returned to their default position on every issue; lie like hell until they settle on a plan.

So, who do you believe; Kerry or the facts? And who are you going to believe this time; “Aluminum tubes” Gordie or Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitor Andrey Kelin who said yesterday: “We have said that no Russian involvement has been spotted, there are no soldiers or equipment present.” “Accusations relating to convoys of armored personnel carriers have been heard during the past week and the week before that. All of them were proven false back then, and are being proven false again now.” (RT) Repeat: “No Russian involvement”. All the accusations “were proven false.” “False” as in fake, phony, propaganda, bunkum, lies which, by the way, appears to be Gordon’s area of expertise.

The NSA has also infiltrated the Internet communications of PKK leaders living in Europe. Turkish intelligence helped pave the way to the success by providing the email addresses used by the targets. The exchange of data went so far that the NSA even gave Turkey the location of the mobile phones of certain PKK leaders inside Turkey, providing updated information every six hours. During one military operation in Turkey in October 2005, the NSA delivered the location data every hour. In May 2007, then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell signed a “memorandum” pledging deeper intelligence support for Turkey. A report prepared on the occasion of an April 2013 visit by a Turkish delegation to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade indicates that cooperation in targeting the PKK had “increased across the board” since then. That partnership has focused overwhelmingly on the PKK—NSA assets in Turkey collected more data on PKK last year than any other target except for Russia. It resulted in the creation of a joint working group called the Combined Intelligence Fusion Cell, a team of American and Turkish specialists working together on projects that included finding targets for possible Turkish airstrikes against suspected PKK members. All the data for one entire wave of attacks carried out in December 2007 originated from this intelligence cell, according to a diplomatic cable from the WikiLeaks archive.