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Even a determined debunker of 9/11 skeptics, while laying out a coherent argument that the official 9/11 Pentagon story is true (and conflating physical evidence with photography), ends up concluding: In this essay I asked what conclusions about the Pentagon attack were supported by physical evidence — primarily post-crash photographs of the site. I found that, in every aspect I considered, this evidence comports with the crash of a Boeing 757. At the same time, the evidence does not conclusively prove that the aircraft was a 757, much less that it was Flight 77. However, that lack of conclusiveness should not be surprising given the systematic suppression of evidence by authorities.

At best, the events of 9/11 represent the catastrophic failure of numerous American agencies, including airport security, air traffic controllers, national air defense command, and the U.S. Air Force. That reality alone is enough to raise suspicions of a cover-up, if only to avoid accountability for lethal incompetence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. At worst, the events of 9/11 were the result of an almost unimaginable criminal conspiracy designed to produce the “new Pearl Harbor” that would enable fans of the New American Century (many of them members of the Bush administration) to take the United States in new, warlike, world-dominating directions (maybe something like a Global War on Terror).

In any event, the Bush administration fought long and hard to prevent any investigation of 9/11 and continued to work to undermine the 9/11 Commission until it produced its flawed report in August 2004. That final report omits any mention, much less explanation, of what Vice President Dick Cheney knew and when he knew it regarding the attack on the Pentagon. The 9/11 Commission knew full well – and chose not to confront – the serious implications of the testimony to the commission by Transportation Secretary Norman Pinetta (May 23, 2003): During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!??”

A recent town hall meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders became heated when the conversation turned to Israel, Hamas and the recent fighting in Gaza.   

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has announced plans to disband Argentina's intelligence agency. In a TV address, she said she would draft a bill to set up a new body. Ms Fernandez said the intelligence services had kept much of the same structure they had during the military government, which ended in 1983. The move comes after the mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman - hours before he had been due to testify against senior government officials. He had been investigating the bombing of a Jewish centre in the capital in 1994 which left 85 people dead.

A USS Cole case defense attorney read aloud from just disclosed emails Tuesday in a ongoing bid to portray a recent order to war court judges to live permanently at Guantánamo as unlawful meddling meant to rush justice in the death-penalty case.Navy Cmdr. Brian Mizer, defending Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, said the documents he got through a court order overnight demonstrated that the Pentagon office knew that the rule change adopted last month would not just make waves but could constitute the U.S. military crime of unlawful influence.“In trying to speed up a trial, are we affecting its fairness?” wrote a legal adviser, Cmdr. Raghav Kotval, on the staff of the Convening Authority for Military Commissions. “If, for example, the judge is less inclined to grant a continuance because it means more time on Gitmo, is that adverse to the accused?”The Nov. 14 email circulated among U.S. military legal staff reviewing a proposed war-court regulation for the Convening Authority, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Vaughn Ary, the Pentagon–based overseer of military commissions. Less than a month later, on Dec. 9, Ary formally asked Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work for the change. Work did just that on Jan. 7, ordering judges assigned to Guantánamo cases to give up their prestigious day jobs.

Defense lawyers cast the open-ended relocation order to judges living with family in more comfortable settings in Italy and the East Coast of the United States as punishment that exiles them for not proceeding swiftly through a complicated pretrial phase to trials. The 9/11 and USS Cole case judges have spent years navigating thorny pretrial issues — such as torture and secrecy, CIA involvement in the court and evolving war court law.A case prosecutor, Navy Lt. Paul Morris, dismissed the documents as nothing more than routine “brainstorming of potential issues” among colleagues. Another prosecutor, Army Col. Robert Moscati, said there was no proof that their boss, Ary, knew of the reservations they raised.Ary was scheduled to testify Wednesday by video-teleconference from his headquarters outside Washington, D.C.

In a filing, prosecutors defend the judge’s move-in order as simply surging staff to the war court for “the increased operational tempo that’s expected.”The three war court judges hearing Guantánamo cases have not complied, in part, because the top lawyers in the Army, Navy and Air Force were taken by surprise by the decision that strips them of judges who handle the courts-martial of American service members, too. Mizer cast Kotval as a potential whistleblower, and asked the judge to order his testimony along with that of two other U.S. military officers serving as Ary’s legal advisers in the email chain that received this from Kotval:“Issue: Are we coercing or by unauthorized means influencing the action of a judge?” he wrote. “If not, why are we intruding on what is not typically or traditionally a convening authority’s role. What is the explanation for the action?”Defense attorneys call the order an example of unlawful command influence — a crime in the U.S. military — designed to rush the judges to trial so they can leave this remote base. They want the case dismissed.

Security Council - Veto List Security Council - Veto List (in reverse chronological order)

Date Draft Meeting Record Agenda Item Permanent Number Casting Negative Vote

European privacy regulators are putting U.S. surveillance practices under the microscope, this time with a crucial transatlantic data deal hanging in the balance.Legal and privacy advocates say European nations are poised to strike down the deal if they decide the U.S. hasn't done enough to reform its spying programs.The new test comes after the European Commission and the Commerce Department — after months of tense negotiations — reached a deal this week permitting Facebook, Google and thousands of other companies to continue legally handling Europeans’ personal data.ADVERTISEMENTCritics though have long warned that unless the U.S. overhauls its privacy and national security laws, there is no legal framework that can stand up in European court, where privacy is considered a fundamental right under the EU Charter.A working group of 28 EU nations’ data protection authorities — domestic entities separate from the Commission that will be in charge of enforcing the new agreement — may now cast the deciding vote.The group is spending the next few months picking through the so-called Privacy Shield agreement to determine if it adequately protects the personal data of European citizens.

“The Commission has said, ‘We’re satisfied. We believe them. We believe the U.S. has substantially changed its practices,’ and they are no longer going off the [Edward] Snowden revelations in the media,” said Susan Foster, a privacy attorney at Mintz Levin who works in both the EU and the U.S.“Whether the working group will go along with it is another question.”The privacy advocate whose complaint against Facebook brought down the Privacy Shield’s 15-year-old predecessor agreement is already questioning the new deal’s validity.“With all due respect ... a couple of letters by the outgoing Obama administration is by no means a legal basis to guarantee the fundamental rights of 500 million European users in the long run, when there is explicit U.S. law allowing mass surveillance,” Max Schrems of Austria said in a statement Tuesday.The United States has been fighting against the perception that it tramples on civil liberties after ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the breadth of the agency’s snooping.One sticking point in the Privacy Shield negotiations was over the scope of an exception allowing surveillance for national security purposes.

In announcing the deal, Commission officials insisted that the U.S. had provided “detailed written assurances” that surveillance of Europeans’ data by intelligence agencies would be subject to appropriate limitations.“The U.S. has clarified that they do not carry out indiscriminate surveillance of Europeans,” Andrus Ansip, Vice President for the Digital Single Market on the European Commission, said Tuesday.The U.S. has also agreed to create an office in the State Department, to address complaints from EU citizens who feel their data has been inappropriately accessed by intelligence authorities.Complicating the working group’s approval of the deal is the hodgepodge of competing regulators in Europe. Each nation has an agency in charge of its own country’s regulation. Some countries — such as Germany — are seen as tougher on privacy than others, like France or the U.K.While some countries consider U.S. privacy protections to be satisfactory, in others they are seen as woefully inadequate.

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela won at least 17 of the 23 governorships, also garnering 54 percent of the vote. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, cast doubt on the results of Venezuela's Regional Elections where candidates from the governing Socialist Party won a vast majority of seats, claiming the vote was not "free and fair." 

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or PSUV won at least 17 of the 23 governorships, also garnering 54 percent of the vote. The PSUV candidate for Bolivar state, where no official results have been declared yet, also claimed victory. Turnout was 61.14 percent in Sunday's polls, with ballots cast at 13,559 polling stations nationwide. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said it was the highest turnout in 15 years - more than 10 million people voted.

Prior to the vote, the U.S. State Department issued a statement questioning the "fairness of the electoral process" in Venezuela, and expressing "great concern that the regime will not permit the presence of independent international electoral observers." Over 1,300 national and international observers, including opposition appointed auditors, were on hand for the Oct. 15 vote. An audit of the vote will also be held, election officials confirmed Monday. The U.S.-backed opposition meanwhile, has stated they would not recognize the results that have been reported by the head of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena. "We do not recognize the results offered by Tibisay Lucena," said opposition coalition MUD campaign chief Gerardo Blyde. Blyde said the results are not reflective of those being tracked by his party. He also accused the electorate of misrepresenting the location of the polling stations in a bid to confuse voters.

HONG KONG - So it's going to be Our Man in Quito. The narrative may not be as elegant as Graham Greene's, but the plot certainly beats the Bourne trilogy - because it's happening live, in real time, right in front of our eyes. It takes a former CIA asset to beat US "intelligence" - more like intel deprivation. The story of Edward Snowden's escape from Hong Kong is textbook. This correspondent, at dim sum on Sunday, was alerted by a source; "Get ready for something big; he's leaving soon." That was about 12:30 pm Hong Kong time. In fact Snowden had already flown from Chek Lap Kok on SU 213 <a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9473bc7&cb=%n' target='_blank'><img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&cb=%n&n=a9473bc7&ct0=%c' border='0' alt='' ></a> bound for Moscow at 11:00 am. But nobody knew it yet. Hong Kong was still digesting the front page of the South China Morning Post displaying yet more devastating evidence of US cyber-spying of China.

Asia Times Online had also learned from another source close to Snowden's tight circle that a short stint in Hong Kong was always part of Plan A; he never intended to ask for political asylum in either Hong Kong or China. He was already focused on a "third country". What he did was to use Hong Kong as an ideal platform to unveil the inner workings of the Orwellian/Panopticon US surveillance state. First a set of general revelations to The Guardian. Then he went underground to prepare his escape - as he knew Washington would come after him with all guns (drones?) blazing. And then, a final set of revelations to the South China Morning Post closely focused on Asia and China. When Washington woke up to it, he was already out of the building. Jason Bourne, eat your heart out. Snowden was not "allowed to slip away". It all revolved around a meticulously timed operation involving Snowden, the Hong Kong government and WikiLeaks mediation.

So the US government thought it could simply intimate to Hong Kong to do it "our way or the highway" - while at the same time news of US serial hacking of Hong Kong and China was front-page news. Once again, five hours into Snowden's flight to Moscow, US corporate media was still parroting the official narrative - stressed by Obama's National Security Adviser Tom Donilon - that the noose was tightening around his neck. Whether Beijing had a subtly indirect input on the Hong Kong government's decision is open to a South China Sea of speculation. The fact is, not only was this a perfect solution for Hong Kong - which would be facing relentless pressure from the US government to extradite him - but also for Beijing, which maintains its upper-hand, furiously demanding a lot of explanations about the NSA targeting Chinese phone companies, the Asia-Pacific fiber-optic network and even Beijing's Tsinghua University.

Amidst another week of deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence, fifteen faith leaders representing U.S. churches and faith organizations have called on Congress to condition U.S. military aid to Israel upon Israel’s “compliance with applicable U.S. laws and policies.” These leaders--representing Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Orthodox, Quaker and other major Christian groups--agree that unconditional U.S. military assistance to Israel has contributed to “sustaining the conflict and undermining the long-term security interests of both Israelis and Palestinians.”  [SEE LETTER BELOW]   As a Quaker peace lobby that has advocated for Israeli-Palestinian peace for decades in Washington, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is proud to be a partner in this effort.   These organizations draw upon their decades of experience in the region, during which they have collectively witnessed the horror of suicide bombing, rocket attacks, shootings of civilians, home demolitions, forced displacement, and other widespread human rights violations. These faith groups “recognize that each party — Israeli and Palestinian — bears responsibilities for its actions and we therefore continue to stand against all violence regardless of its source.”      Unconditional U.S. military aid has become one of those sources fueling violence and further entrenchment of Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories. This statement highlights the United States’ responsibility to hold Israel accountable for “a troubling and consistent pattern of disregard by the government of Israel for U.S. policies that support a just and lasting peace.”

Congress must investigate possible violations of U.S. law The latest State Department human rights report on Israel and the Occupied Territories provides a devastating account of Israel’s human rights violations against civilians, many of which involve the misuse of U.S.-supplied weapons. This diverse religious coalition has called for “an immediate investigation into possible violations by Israel of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act and the U.S. Arms Export Control Act,” and urges Congress to “ensure that our aid is not supporting actions by the government of Israel that undermine prospects for peace”.     The signers affirm that these are laws that “should be enforced in all instances regardless of location,” but that it is especially critical for Israel to comply with laws that regulate the use of U.S. supplied weapons, since Israel is the single largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II. Notably, the United States has initiated investigations of violations of these laws by other countries, and on four different occasions between 1978 and 1982, the Secretary of State notified Congress that Israel “may” have violated the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act.   The coalition has called for renewed investigations into human rights violations documented by the State Department’s report, including Israel’s escalation of home demolitions, forced displacement, suppression of dissent, and its use of prohibited weapons in densely populated areas during Israel’s military Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.  

Echoing urgent warnings from Israeli leader The letter also echoes the urgency for immediate action to secure a diplomatic settlement to the crisis that has been acknowledged by scores of Israeli and Palestinian leaders, including Ehud Barak, Israel’s current Defense Minister and former Prime Minister. In a historic speech delivered at the prestigious Herzliya National Security Conference in Israel in early 2010, Mr. Barak warned of Israel’s future in the absence of a political settlement, saying in stark terms:   “The reality is cruel but simple. Between the Jordan River...and the Mediterranean, 12 million people live, 7.5 million Israelis and 4.5 million Palestinians. And the simple truth is that as long as in this territory to the West of the Jordan River, there is one political entity which is called Israel[...]and if this bloc of Palestinians would not be able to vote, it’s going to be an apartheid state.”     Israeli, Palestinian, and U.S. interests require urgent efforts to avoid the nightmare that Israeli leader Ehud Barak has described as an apartheid state. A just and peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians requires that all parties to a conflict are held accountable and that a comprehensive, inclusive diplomatic settlement be secured. An essential step for Congress to support Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts is to heed these warnings, and hold Israel accountable for how it uses U.S. military aid. (See full letter at:http://www.fcnl.org/middle_east

The troubled oil and gas industry has been a big factor in driving global corporate defaults to their highest rate in seven years.Four more companies defaulted this week, bringing the overall tally to 40 so far this year, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said Friday in a research note. The last time defaults hit such heights was in the depths of the global recession in 2009.About one-third of that total, or 14 defaults, came from oil and gas companies, which are struggling to pay off debt acquired when oil prices were higher. U.S. crude prices are down more than 60 percent from their June 2014 peak of $105 a barrel, trading at around $39 a barrel Friday. Investors now face tens of billions of dollars in energy defaults as the worst oil crash in decades leaves drillers struggling to stay afloat.

Baltimore Police didn’t bother to inform the public (or anyone, for that matter) when they implemented a privately-funded mass surveillance program in January using a wide-angle camera-equipped plane flying above the city — which instantly uploaded and stored everything it recorded, just in case they needed it later. As Bloomberg’s Monte Reel reports, a small Cessna plane equipped with “a sophisticated array of cameras” capable of capturing “an area of roughly 30 square miles,” funded by an a private donor and provided by Dayton, Ohio-based Persistent Surveillance Systems, sometimes circled above the city for up to 10 hours per day recording and storing everything without anyone being privy to its presence. Since January, Reel noted, the Baltimore Police Department has been using this covert Big Brother’s eye-in-the-sky “to investigate all sorts of crimes, from property thefts to shootings.” Gone, apparently, are the days when the government’s surveillance state drew ire for attempting to ferret out potential terrorists — residents of Baltimore have been guinea pigs for an altogether more insidious spy dragnet. Persistent Surveillance Systems’ technology automatically stores all the footage on massive hard drives, making it available to law enforcement long afterward — but the idea police could access this information to solve a simple property crime is no less than alarming.

Particularly considering the company’s founder has an intense military background. Ross McNutt, Bloomberg reports, “is an Air Force Academy graduate, physicist, and MIT-trained astronautical engineer who in 2004 founded the Air Force’s Center for Rapid Product Development. The Pentagon asked him if he could develop something to figure out who was planting the roadside bombs that were killing and maiming American soldiers in Iraq. In 2006 he gave the military Angel Fire, a wide-area, live-feed surveillance system that could cast an unblinking eye on an entire city.” Though the technology had imperfections — even determining the gender of a person on the ground was impossible — its TiVo-like capabilities more than made up for any shortcomings. A person of interest could be followed by rewinding footage after, say, an IED exploded roadside, to track their movements — even if the cameras weren’t focused directly on the explosion at the moment it occurred. If the cameras were in the air at the time, anything that happened was fully trackable both back and forward in time. McNutt’s pitch for his technology concisely summarized, “Imagine Google Earth with TiVo capability.” Angel Fire truly evolved at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico after 2007, when upgrades allowed for “all-weather and nighttime capabilities and then was used as the basis for another system, called Blue Devil, which coupled wide-area cameras with narrow-focus zoom lenses in the same package.”

Over time, after McNutt retired from the military, he worked to further improve the camera array and attended security conferences in hopes of garnering clients. After a brief but effective test run over the skies of Ciudad Juárez, Los Angeles became the first U.S. city to employ Persistent Surveillance’ system — and just as covertly as what has been taking place in Baltimore for the last eight months.

Democrats used to value things like global peace and justice in the workplace. But, for decades they have given their votes to warmongers and job-exporters. This week, they are mourning the defeat of a politician they once would have despised. In January, lots of Black Democrats will cry over the exit of a president who “won by making himself palatable to white people while also taking advantage of undeserved black pride.”

The most obvious example of Obama’s lack of substance was his relationship with black Americans. His disdain and contempt for the people who loved him the most was clear to anyone who paid attention. Jokes about “cousin Pookie” and parents serving fried chicken for breakfast should have been seen as the racist screeds they clearly were. But the desire to see a black face in a prominent place endures to our detriment.

Obama won by making himself palatable to white people while also taking advantage of undeserved black pride. Hillary Clinton would be the president elect if the new voters who emerged in 2008 had remained committed to the Democratic Party. But their loyalty was to the imagery of Barack Obama as president. Their joy was confined to seeing him meet the queen of England alongside his first lady or disembarking from Air Force One with his signature swagger. The sight of Barack and Michelle hosting a state dinner was enough to make black hearts swoon. Policy initiatives need not intrude upon the love fest. The end result of this unrequited and superficial love was six million fewer votes cast for Hillary Clinton in 2016 than for Obama in 2012. The apocryphal cousin Pookie stayed home and no one should be surprised. There is no secret to keeping voters engaged. They are engaged if their needs are met. Deliver for voters and they deliver in the voting booth. Even the unpopular and shady Hillary Clinton could have won Michigan if the people of Flint had received the federal help they needed so badly. Not only did the Obama environmental protection agency allow the beleaguered city to be given contaminated water, but he showed up for a photo opportunity and did nothing else as residents suffered. He drank a glass of water, posed for the cameras and returned to Washington. The people of Flint are still living under conditions Americans think of as being “Third World.”

Powerful elites are using the credibility of the US Intelligence agencies to demonize Russia and prepare the country for war. This is the real meaning of the “Russia hacking” story which, as yet, has not produced any hard evidence of Russian complicity. Last week’s 25-page report, that was released by the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, illustrates to what extent intelligence is being “fixed around the policy”.  Just as the CIA generated false information related to Weapons of Mass Destruction to soften public resistance to war with Iraq, so too, the spurious allegations in the DNI’s politically-motivated report are designed to depict Russia as a growing threat to US national security. The timing of the report has less to do with the election of Donald Trump as President than it does with critical developments in Syria where the Russian military has defeated US-proxies in Syria’s industrial hub, Aleppo, rolling back Washington’s 15-year War of Terror and derailing the imperialist plan to control vital resources and pipeline corridors across the Middle East and Central Asia. Russia has become the main obstacle to Washington achieving its strategic vision of pivoting to Asia and maintaining its dominant role into the next century. The Intelligence Community has been coerced into compromising its credibility to incite fear of Russia and to advance the geopolitical ambitions of deep state powerbrokers.

The “Russia hacking” flap shows how far the Intel agencies have veered from their original mandate, which is to impartially gather and analyze information that may be vital to US national security. As we have seen in the last two weeks, the leaders of these organizations feel free to offer opinions on  issues that clearly conflict with those of the new President-elect. Trump has stated repeatedly that he wants to reduce tensions and reset relations with Russia, but that policy is being sabotaged by members of the intelligence community, particularly CIA Director John Brennan who appeared just last week on PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff. Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “We see that there are still a lot of actions that Russia is undertaking that undermine the principles of democracy in so many countries. What has happened in our recent election is not new. The Russians have engaged in trying to manipulate elections in Europe for a number of years… the Russians tried to interfere in our electoral process recently, and were actively involved in that. And that is something that we can’t countenance.” (“Interview with CIA Director John Brennan”,  PBS Newshour)

Brennan, of course, provided no evidence for his claims nor did he mention the hundreds of CIA interventions around the world. But Brennan’s accusations are less important than the fact that his appearance on a nationwide broadcast identifies him as a political advocate for policies that conflict with those of the new president. Do we really want unelected intelligence officials — whose job it is to provide the president with sensitive information related to national security– to assume a partisan role in shaping policy? And why would Brennan –whose is supposed to “serve at the pleasure of the president”– accept an invitation to offer his views on Russia when he knew they would be damaging to the new administration? Powerful people behind the scenes are obviously pushing the heads of these intelligence agencies to stick to their ‘anti-Moscow’ narrative to force Trump to abandon his plan for peaceful relations with Moscow.  Brennan isn’t calling the shots and neither are Clapper or Comey. They’re all merely agents serving the interests of establishment plutocrats whose geopolitical agenda doesn’t jibe with that of the incoming administration. If that wasn’t the case, then why would the Intelligence Community stake its reputation on such thin gruel as this Russian hacking gibberish? It doesn’t make any sense. The people who launched this campaign are either supremely arrogant or extremely desperate. Which is it?

The outgoing U.S. director of national intelligence has extended an olive branch of sorts to Donald Trump — denouncing media leaks, casting skepticism on a report that Russia has damaging material on the president-elect, and assuring Trump that America's spies stand ready to serve him. In an unusual statement, James Clapper said he had spoken Wednesday evening with Trump, five days after the spy chief and some of his counterparts met with the incoming president to discuss U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election, possibly to help him win.Story Continued Below The assessment has badly aggravated existing tensions between the intelligence community and Trump. On Tuesday, CNN, BuzzFeed and other media outlets reported that, during Friday’s briefing, the intelligence officials told Trump about an unsubstantiated private report that detailed how Russia's government allegedly had salacious information about him. In addition, BuzzFeed published the apparent dossier, which Trump has since denounced as “fake news.” "I expressed my profound dismay at the leaks that have been appearing in the press, and we both agreed that they are extremely corrosive and damaging to our national security," Clapper said of the information that has come out since last week's intelligence briefing.

Clapper’s statement represented a dramatic turn of events only 24 hours after initial leaks about the intelligence leaders having told Trump of the dossier. And while Clapper’s statement indirectly confirmed the media reports of the briefing, it also could be viewed as a concession of sorts from an intelligence community that has come under repeated, direct fire from the president-elect. Trump had compared the leak from his briefing to “Nazi Germany” on Twitter on Wednesday morning, writing, “Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?” In a news conference, also held Wednesday, Trump defended the comparison and elaborated further, saying, “A thing like that should have never been written, it should never have been had, and it certainly should never have been released.” Clapper, however, said he did not believe the leaks to the press came from the intelligence community. At the same time, he indicated that the intelligence community decided to share the material with Trump because its mere existence was important for the incoming president to know about.

As far as the "private security company document," Clapper said, "I emphasized that this document is not a U.S. Intelligence Community product and that I do not believe the leaks came from within the IC. The IC has not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions."

Donald Trump endorsed an unabashedly noninterventionist approach to world affairs Monday during a day-long tour of Washington, casting doubt on the need for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and expressing skepticism about a muscular U.S. military presence in Asia. The foreign policy positions — outlined in a meeting with the editorial board of The Washington Post — came on a day when Trump set aside the guerrilla tactics and showman bravado that have powered his campaign to appear as a would-be presidential nominee, explaining his policies, accepting counsel and building bridges to Republican elites.

During the hour-long discussion, during which he revealed five of his foreign policy advisers, Trump advocated a light footprint in the world. In spite of unrest in the Middle East and elsewhere, he said, the United States must look inward and steer its resources toward rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

“At what point do you say, ‘Hey, we have to take care of ourselves?’ ” Trump said in the editorial board meeting. “I know the outer world exists, and I’ll be very cognizant of that. But at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially the inner cities.” Trump said U.S. involvement in NATO may need to be significantly diminished in the coming years, breaking with nearly seven decades of consensus in Washington. “We certainly can’t afford to do this anymore,” he said, adding later, “NATO is costing us a fortune, and yes, we’re protecting Europe with NATO, but we’re spending a lot of money.”

The American military has failed to publicly disclose potentially thousands of lethal airstrikes conducted over several years in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, a Military Times investigation has revealed. The enormous data gap raises serious doubts about transparency in reported progress against the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Taliban, and calls into question the accuracy of other Defense Department disclosures documenting everything from costs to casualty counts.In 2016 alone, U.S. combat aircraft conducted at least 456 airstrikes in Afghanistan that were not recorded as part of an open-source database maintained by the U.S. Air Force, information relied on by Congress, American allies, military analysts, academic researchers, the media and independent watchdog groups to assess each war's expense, manpower requirements and human toll. Those airstrikes were carried out by attack helicopters and armed drones operated by the U.S. Army, metrics quietly excluded from otherwise comprehensive monthly summaries, published online for years, detailing American military activity in all three theaters. Most alarming is the prospect this data has been incomplete since the war on terrorism began in October 2001. If that is the case, it would fundamentally undermine confidence in much of what the Pentagon has disclosed about its prosecution of these wars, prompt critics to call into question whether the military sought to mislead the American public, and cast doubt on the competency with which other vital data collection is being performed and publicized. Those other key metrics include American combat casualties, taxpayer expense and the military’s overall progress in degrading enemy capabilities.

What had been whispered up to a week or two ago is now publicly audible. The possibility of Israel attacking nuclear facilities in Iran in coming months, before the November presidential elections in the U.S., is a topic of detailed public debate. In the past 72 hours, three former top guns of Israeli intelligence discussed the subject with unnerving candor. Two of them expressed opposition to a unilateral Israeli attack under present circumstances.

Do these former security chiefs know something which remains opaque to the public? Former IDF intelligence officers continue to have access to security system briefings, even though they are not brought into the actual planning process of a secret military operation. No less importantly, they know how to analyze disclosed, public data − and developments of the past weeks teaches them that the likelihood of an Israeli decision in favor of an attack is now higher than it has been previously. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who apparently continues to want to attack Iran, is now operating against two layers of significant opposition − at home and overseas. In the domestic arena, the IDF general staff and the Mossad are staffed with senior officers who harbor doubts about the wisdom of a unilateral attack in this period; retired security officials, such as the trio which spoke out in past days, reinforce this skepticism.

In terms of overseas pressure, Netanyahu has had to ward off a series of messages and signals casting doubt about the desirability of an attack. One was the visit of U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta last week.

A bid to slap Iran with a new round of economic sanctions appears to have stalled in the Senate, after leading Democrats amplified concern about the threat such a move poses to a fragile diplomatic process. Early in the week, reports that a bill introduced by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Robert Menendez was within striking distance of a veto-proof majority cast a shadow over news that negotiators had finalized a temporary agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program, beginning Monday. New sanctions would likely kill negotiations for a final deal, the White House warned lawmakers, and increase the chances of an armed conflict with Iran. But Senate majority leader Harry Reid has given no indication that he will bring the bill up for a vote, and the pressure to do so is falling now that top Democrats have intensified opposition to the proposed legislation. The Kirk-Menendez bill gained no new endorsements this week, and even one supportive senator admitted Wednesday to a break in momentum.

The gorilla in the room is the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, which has been calling for new sanctions for months. Of the 16 Democrats who have endorsed the Kirk-Menendez legislation, several are up for re-election in closely contested states; Senator Kirk himself suggested Tuesday that a vote for new sanctions would be an opportunity for lawmakers to shore up support from the powerful lobby. “The great thing, since we represent a nationwide community — the pro-Israel community is going to be heavily present in most states — this is a chance for senators to go back and tell them, ‘I’m with you,’” Kirk said. Other Democrats pushing for the bill have close ties with the group, particularly Chuck Schumer and Cory Booker. Tellingly, the Kirk-Menendez bill states that if Israel takes "military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapons program,” the US "should stand with Israel and provide…diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence." The language is nonbinding, but it raises flags about whose interests the legislation would truly serve.

Dianne Feinstein addressed this point more directly than perhaps any other politician so far. “While I recognize and share Israel’s concern, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the US goes to war,” she said. “By stating that the US should provide military support to Israel should it attack Iran, I fear that is exactly what this bill will do.” Such outspokenness about the relationship between US policymaking in the Middle East and Israeli interests is remarkable. But other lawmakers are signalling that they too are shrugging off the lobby: Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, normally a high-profile ally for AIPAC, reportedly argued against the Kirk-Menendez bill at a White House meeting attended by several dozen of her colleagues on Wednesday night. How things play out in the next week, and in the duration of the talks with Iran, will be a good test of AIPAC’s influence, which seemed diminished when Congress considered military strikes in Syria last year. Progressives claimed a victory when diplomacy prevailed then; as Peter Beinart points out, the current debate presents a real opportunity for the anti-war left to reassert itself, not only to punish lawmakers who start wars, but to set new expectations for a diplomacy-first approach.