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Paul Merrell

Bowe Bergdahl to Face Court-Martial on Desertion Charges - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...tial-on-desertion-charges.html

war & peace Bergdahl-court-martial

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • A top Army commander on Monday ordered that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a court-martial on charges of desertion and endangering troops stemming from his decision to leave his outpost in 2009, a move that prompted a huge manhunt in the wilds of eastern Afghanistan and landed him in nearly five years of harsh Taliban captivity. The decision by Gen. Robert B. Abrams, head of Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., means that Sergeant Bergdahl, 29, faces a possible life sentence. That is a far more serious penalty than had been recommended by the Army’s investigating officer, who testified at the sergeant’s preliminary hearing in September that prison would be “inappropriate.”
  • According to Sergeant Bergdahl’s defense lawyers, the Army lawyer who presided over the preliminary hearing also recommended that he face neither jail time nor a punitive discharge and that he go before an intermediate tribunal known as a “special court-martial,” where the most severe penalty possible would be a year of confinement.
  • Monday’s decision rejecting that recommendation means that Sergeant Bergdahl now faces a maximum five-year penalty if ultimately convicted by a military jury of desertion, as well as potential life imprisonment on the more serious charge of misbehavior before the enemy, which in this case means endangering the troops who were sent to search for him after he disappeared.Sergeant Bergdahl has been the focus of attacks by Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign, and it is far from clear that General Abrams’s decision will temper their criticisms.Donald J. Trump, for one, has called the sergeant a “traitor” who should be executed, while Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has vowed to hold hearings if the sergeant is not punished.
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  • Last week, House Republicans issued a report portraying as reckless and illegal Mr. Obama’s decision in May 2014 to swap Sergeant Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees who were being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Dec 15
     
    A shame. There's a strong appearance that politics is playing a strong role in the military decision to prosecute Bergdahl. But 5 years in captivity would seem to be punishment enough to me.
Paul Merrell

Joint Chiefs chairman: 'We have not contained' ISIS | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...ral-we-have-not-contained-isis

war & peace ISIL Obama containment Dunford

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The United States has "not contained" the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the nation's top military officer said Tuesday, contradicting President Obama's remarks last month about the terror group."We have not contained" ISIS, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing. ADVERTISEMENTThe comment runs counter to what the president said days before ISIS launched a string of attacks across Paris. "I don't think they're gaining strength. What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them," Obama told ABC News. Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, later said the president's remarks applied specifically to Iraq and Syria. Dunford said ISIS has been "tactically" contained in areas they have been since 2010 but added, "Strategically they have spread since 2010." His remarks were in response to questioning by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) on whether ISIS has been contained at any time since 2010. Dunford added that ISIS posed a threat beyond Iraq and Syria to countries such as Egypt, Nigeria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon and Jordan. 
Paul Merrell

Donald Trump to postpone Israel trip until 'after I become US president' | US news | Th... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...r-i-become-president-of-the-us

Auction 2016 Trump Israel-trip Netanoyahu

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump has said he will “postpone” a trip to Israel and a meeting with the country’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, until “after I become president of the US”.
  • Netanyahu had on Wednesday confirmed he would meet the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination to succeed Barack Obama in the White House despite an international outcry over his suggestion that Muslims should be banned from entering the US. Several hours after confirming the meeting, Netanyahu’s office tweeted that the prime minister rejected Trump’s comments about Muslims but had agreed to meet any US presidential candidate who visited Israel.
  • Trump’s visit had been opposed by dozens of Israeli MPs – both Jews and Arabs – after his remarks drew condemnation across the Israeli political spectrum. The cancellation also followed reports in the Israeli media that Trump had requested a visit to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount religious site, revered by Muslims and Jews alike, and home to the al-Aqsa mosque – one of the most important sites in Islam. Some 37 Israeli MPs had signed a letter asking that Trump not be allowed to visit in light of his remarks. The letter, drafted by MP Michal Rozin, and mainly signed by opposition lawmakers, said that, “while leaders around the world condemn the Republican presidential candidate’s racist and outrageous remarks, Netanyahu is warmly embracing him” and any meeting would “disgrace Israel’s democratic character and hurt its Muslim citizens”. Equally damaging for Trump was the fact that Israel’s rightwing energy minister, Yuval Steinitz, one of Netanyahu’s closest political allies, had weighed in, criticising Trump’s remarks. “I recommend fighting terrorist and extremist Islam, but I would not declare a boycott of, ostracism against, or war on Muslims in general,” Steinitz told Israel’s Army Radio.
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  • Netanyahu’s office insisted it had not intervened over the cancellation and had not spoken to Trump about his decision. Trump’s proposed visit had clearly created problems for Netanyahu, whose office had declined to comment on Tuesday about the billionaire’s intended trip, then said he was still welcome on Wednesday. By Wednesday evening, however, Netanyahu was seeking to distance himself more forcefully from Trump. A statement released by the prime minister’s office said: “The State of Israel respects all religions and protects stringently the rights of all its citizens. At the same time, Israel is struggling with extremist Islam that is attacking Muslims, Christian and Jews as one and is threatening the entire world.” The cancellation is a blow to Trump, with Israel treated as a regular campaign stop for many US presidential candidates.
  • As Noah Pollak, the executive director for the Emergency Committee for Israel said: “Israelis appreciate American moral support and will always give our politicians a gracious reception. For the candidates, visiting is an easy way to be seen showing support for a close ally and gaining exposure to Middle East policy issues.” However, Pollak pointed out “trashing anyone who disagrees with him works for Trump domestically, but it won’t work with the prime minister of a close ally who is especially beloved by Republicans. Netanyahu criticized Trump, and Trump can’t attack him. The trip would have been humiliating, so he bailed.” Underlining the hints of difficulties and tensions around his proposed trip, Trump – in yet another of the brazen untruths that have become the hallmark of his campaign – had on Wednesday attempted to deny he had said he would be meeting Netanyahu despite the fact that the comment had been recorded.
Paul Merrell

'Specialized' US troops to fight ISIS in Iraq - US & Canada - News - Arutz Sheva - 0 views

www.israelnationalnews.com/...204250

war & peace Iraq Syria U.S.-foreign-policy Special-Forces Obama lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The United States is deploying "specialized" troops in Iraq to fight the Islamic State group (ISIS), including by leading raids against the jihadists over the border in Syria, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday. Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee, the Pentagon chief said that a "specialized expeditionary targeting force" was being deployed in Iraq to help Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces battle ISIS.  
  • "These special operators will over time be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence, and capture ISIL leaders," he said, using another term for ISIS. "This force will also be in a position to conduct unilateral operations into Syria."
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 15
     
    "Leading raids?" Sounds like a combat role to me. 
Paul Merrell

Martin Shkreli Arrested on Securities Fraud Charges - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...artin-shkreli-securities-fraud

Shkreli criminal-prosecution embezzlement fraud

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Martin Shkreli, a boastful pharmaceutical executive who came under withering criticism for price gouging vital drugs, denied securities fraud charges on Thursday following an early morning arrest, and was freed on a $5 million bond. While the 32-year-old has earned a rare level of infamy for his brazenness in business and his personal life, what he was charged with had nothing to do with skyrocketing drug prices. He is accused of repeatedly losing money for investors and lying to them about it, illegally taking assets from one of his companies to pay off debtors in another. “Shkreli essentially ran his company like a Ponzi scheme where he used each subsequent company to pay off defrauded investors from the prior company,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said at a press conference.
  • Evan Greebel, a New York lawyer, who is alleged in the federal indictment to have helped Shkreli in his schemes, was also arrested and charged. Like Shkreli, he pleaded not guilty, and he was freed on a $1 million bond. Both men and their lawyers declined to comment after their court appearance.
  • Read the full text of the indictment here In the federal indictment and a complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission, authorities say Shkreli began losing money and lying to investors from the time he began managing money. In his mid-20s, he got nine investors to place $3 million with him and at one point he had only $331. Securities fraud is hardly unheard of on Wall Streeet and the amounts involved here are nowhere near on the scale of Bernie Madoff. But Shkreli’s case has drawn such attention because of his defiant price-gouging and his own up-by-the-bootstraps history. The son of immigrants from Albania and Croatia who did janitorial work and raised him and his brothers in working-class Brooklyn, Shkreli seemed at first to embody the American dream and then to mock it. After dropping out of an elite Manhattan high school, he worked as an intern for Jim Cramer’s hedge fund as a 17-year-old and quickly impressed with his ability to call stocks. He created hedge funds, taught himself biology and, after earning a BA at Baruch College in New York City, began hedge funds investing in biotech.
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  • He became famous within a certain world but entered public consciousness after he raised the price more than 55-fold for Daraprim in September from $13.50 per pill to $750. It is the preferred treatment for a parasitic condition known as toxoplasmosis, which can be deadly for unborn babies and patients with compromised immune systems including those with HIV or cancer. His company, Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, bought the drug, moved it to a closed distribution system and instantly drove the price into the stratosphere. He drew shocked rebukes from Congress, doctors and presidential candidates, and brought public attention to the rising prices of older drugs. Donald Trump called Shkreli a “spoiled brat,” and the BBC dubbed him the “most hated man in America.” Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate, rejected a $2,700 campaign donation from him, directing it to an HIV clinic. A spokesman said the campaign would not keep money “from this poster boy for drug company greed.” All the criticism seemed at first to have some impact and Shkreli said he would lower the price. Then he reneged. When Hillary Clinton tried one more time last month to get him to cut the cost, he dismissed her with the tweet “lol.” At a Forbes summit in New York this month, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, he said if he could have done it over, “I probably would have raised the price higher,” adding, “My investors expect me to maximize profits.”
  • Shkreli did further damage to his public image with other acts and boasts. He spent millions on the only copy of a Wu-Tang Clan album that music fans are desperate to hear and then told Bloomberg Businessweek that he had no immediate plans to listen to it. He takes often to Twitter and message boards, bragging about his business strategies, musical tastes and politics; he live-streams from his office for long stretches. The SEC complaint and federal indictment lay out a series of schemes and cover-ups carried out by Shkreli. Capers said authorities began investigating him as early as 2014.
  • Barely 23, he was managing hedge fund Elea Capital in New York and lost it all in 2007. Around then, a trade with Lehman Brothers ended with a $2.3 million judgment against him, prosecutors said. In 2010, he lost his clients’ $3 million investment in his new fund, MSMB Capital. In 2011, he bet that shares of Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. would fall and wound up owing $7 million to his broker, Merrill Lynch, authorities said. He couldn’t pay, and he, an unnamed accomplice and MSMB Capital eventually extinguished the debt with a $1.35 million settlement, they said. Part of that money came from his next firm, authorities said. After the collapse of MSMB Capital, Shkreli launched MSMB Healthcare with about $5 million from 13 investors. He paid himself “far in excess” of the agreed-upon 1 percent management fee and 20 percent profit incentive, according to the SEC.
  • Shkreli then used cash from MSMB Healthcare to invest in Retrophin, the pharmaceutical company he founded in 2011, even though it “had no products or assets,” prosecutors said. Later, he used the assets of Retrophin to repay angry investors in his hedge funds, prosecutors said. Shkreli is confident that he will be cleared of the charges, according to a statement on his behalf. Shkreli is particularly disappointed that his litigation with Retrophin has become a government enforcement matter, according to the statement. He also denied the charges regarding the MSMB entities, which he said involve complex accounting matters that prosecutors and the SEC fail to understand, according to the statement. “It is no coincidence that these charges, the result of investigations which have been languishing for considerable time, have been filed at the same time of Shkreli’s high-profile, controversial and yet unrelated activities,” according to the statement. “The government suggested that Mr. Shkreli was involved in a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi victims do not make money, yet Mr. Shkreli’s investors enjoyed strong results.”
  • As Shkreli’s losses mounted, so did his lies. He fabricated portfolio statements and, with his lawyer’s help, deceived the SEC and outside accountants. He backdated records, manufactured a phony loan agreement between Retrophin and a hedge fund, and created sham consulting agreements with Retrophin as a way to route the company’s cash to his earlier investors. Greebel, the arrested lawyer, made sure Retrophin’s outside accountants were unaware of Shkreli’s financial maneuvers and helped him concoct the consulting agreements used to repay the hedge fund investors, the U.S. said. The cases mirror a lawsuit brought by Retrophin. Shkreli blithely dismissed his old company’s claims, saying, “The $65 million Retrophin wants from me would not dent me. I feel great. I’m licking my chops over the suits I’m going to file against them.” Earlier, he had denied wrongdoing in a post on InvestorsHub after Retrophin disclosed it had received a subpoena from federal prosecutors and the preliminary findings from its own investigation of Shkreli. He called the company’s allegations “completely false, untrue at best and defamatory at worst.”
  • “Every transaction I’ve ever made at Retrophin was done with outside counsel’s blessing,” he said on the investment blog in February, without identifying the lawyers. When Shkreli was working for Cramer’s firm, he was still a teenager. After recommending successful trades, Shkreli eventually set up his own hedge fund, quickly developing a reputation for trashing biotechnology stocks in online chatrooms and shorting them, to enormous profit. Widely admired for his intellect and sharp eye, he set up Retrophin to develop drugs and acquire older pharmaceuticals that could be sold for higher profits. Turing, which is less than a year old and has raised $90 million in financing, has followed a similar strategy with the purchase of drugs, including Daraprim. Shkreli recently bought a majority stake in KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. after Turing received a warning from the New York attorney general that the distribution network for Daraprim may violate antitrust laws. State officials made their concerns known to Turing and Shkreli in an Oct. 12 letter obtained by Bloomberg.
  • KaloBios recently acquired the license for benznidazole, a standard treatment for Chagas, a deadly parasitic infection most common in South and Central America. The firm announced plans to increase the cost from a couple hundred dollars for two months to a pricing structure like that for hepatitis-C drugs, which can run to nearly $100,000 for 12 weeks.
  • With the federal charges and regulatory actions, Shkreli could be banned from running a public company, which could put the future of KaloBios into question. Trading in KaloBios shares was halted after the stock fell 53 percent. It’s less clear what the impact could be on Turing, which is closely held.
  • Federal authorities will have to ask a judge to impose an asset freeze if they want to guarantee Shkreli doesn’t dispose of ill-gotten gains. The charges suggest that a small group of health-care firms—ones that acquire the rights to drugs and significantly increase their prices—is drawing the scrutiny of regulators and prosecutors, with a possible chilling effect on aggressive drug-pricing strategies. Legislators are already paying attention. A hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging on Dec. 9 scrutinized such tactics. Before Shkreli started Turing, Retrophin raised the price of Thiola, used to treat a rare condition causing debilitating recurrences of kidney stones, from $1.50 a pill to $30. “Some of these companies seem to act more like hedge funds than traditional pharmaceutical companies,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who ran the recent hearing. George Scangos, CEO of biotechnology giant Biogen Inc., went further, saying in an interview, “Turing is to a research-based company like a loan shark is to a legitimate bank.”
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 15
     
    Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Paul Merrell

Beware: Someone Is Trying to Convince You That Bernie Can't Win | Common Dreams | Break... - 0 views

www.commondreams.org/...g-convince-you-bernie-cant-win

Auction 2016 Sanders MSM Dem-Establishment

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Perhaps you’ve noticed. Some people and institutions are working feverishly to convince us that real social change is not possible. Their target is Bernie Sanders and the growing army of his supporters who are fed up with politics as usual and the grip of Wall Street and corporate America on our political, economic and social system. The theme is to desperately convince us that Sanders can’t win. They repeat it over and over, even though Sanders polls as well or better than Hillary Clinton does against every leading Republican candidate. Behind this effort is an alarmed corporate old guard that still runs the Democratic Party establishment and their allies in the corporate think tanks and the media, with a special nod to NBC/MSNBC, which is owned and operated by General Electric and Comcast.
  • In this scenario to blunt the Sanders’ surge, and what it represents for the millions of people who want to reverse income inequality, guarantee health care to everyone, break up the banks, carry out meaningful environmental justice and criminal justice reform, and all the other far reaching planks of Sanders’ campaign and the coalition supporting it. A thrust of their effort is to persuade Sanders supporters that he cannot win, in large part by using all the well-funded mechanisms in their control to retard wider exposure to the message of Sanders and his allies. The power elite form of turning down the gaslights. Here’s a small part of how the manipulation works. 
  • The Democratic National Committee slashes the number of debates and schedules debates on Saturday nights when far fewer people are watching, and pressures its elected officials and convention super delegates for an early endorsement in an effort to lock down a coronation of their preferred candidate. Meanwhile the media, in particular NBC/MSNBC which has the biggest network audience of presumed Democratic Party voters, limits coverage of Sanders while it’s parent company, GE, also directs its Hollywood subsidiaries, including Universal Studios (co-owned by Comcast) and its NBC shows, to line up its contracted celebrities to endorse the politics as usual campaign. Other national media, which also has a stake in the status quo, contributes as well. While Sanders has now drawn more than 400,000 people to his rallies – far more than any other candidate – he routinely receives less coverage than most of the other leading candidates. A report, circulated by Media Matters, found that on one network alone Donald Trump has been given 81 minutes of coverage compared to less than one minute for Sanders, even though, as The Nation’s John Nichols notes, Sanders has broader support among Democratic voters than Trump does among Republicans in the first voting state, Iowa.
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  • In a fall speech to the DNC, Sanders put it bluntly. “The people of our country understand that given the collapse of the middle class and a grotesque level of income inequality, we do not need more establishment politics or establishment economics.”  “What we need,” Sanders emphasized, “is a political movement that is prepared to take on the billionaire class, a movement that works for all of us and not just the corporate class and a handful of the wealthiest people in this country.”  It’s a message, a campaign, and an uprising that has sent chills through those whose primarily loyalty is to the wealthy donors in mansions and corporate suites and the policy architects on Wall Street.  But it’s a message that sure has resonated in the grassroots.
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 15
     
    Sanders is getting the same treatment Ron Paul got last time around. But my guess is that like Trump, if elected Sanders wouldn't live long enough to take office. 
Paul Merrell

Clinton Tops List of Arms Company Donations | News | teleSUR English - 0 views

www.telesurtv.net/...y-Donations-20151214-0002.html

Auction 2016 Hillary bribes weapons-industry

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Hillary Clinton has received more money from arms and military service companies than any other candidate during the 2016 presidential campaign, data from Open Secrets shows. All but one of the world’s 10 biggest arms producers have contributed to Clinton’s previous campaigns, giving her — along with the top Republican receiver Ted Cruz — a significant margin over the other candidates. The numbers, collected by the Federal Election Commission and compiled by Open Secrets, also reveal that Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders make the list of top 20 senators and top six presidential candidates to receive money from arms and defense companies. Most of the funding is channeled through Political Action Committees, which have no limits to how much they donate. About 18 percent comes from individual contributions, totaling almost US$10 million between all of the companies.
  • A report released Sunday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showed that while U.S. arms sales have slowed, U.S.-based Lockheed Martin’s profits soared in 2014. Overall sales rose steadily until the financial crisis of 2008, when they mostly stabilized. Sunday’s report also indicates that the U.S. accounts for a staggering 54 percent market share of the global arms market. The United Kingdom has the second largest market share, with 10.4 percent. Russia has a market share of 10.2 percent, while France has a market share of 5.6 percent. The world’s top 10 arms companies are based in the U.S. and Western Europe, according to the report. Among these are Lockheed Martin, Boeing and BAE Systems, who make up the top three companies in terms of global market share.
Paul Merrell

U.S. Congresswoman: CIA Must Stop Illegal, Counterproductive War to Overthrow Assad - Y... - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Gabbard

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Tulsi Gabbard - a Democrat from Hawaii and member of the Armed Services Committee - demonstrates great knowledge and courage to go against the grain in the US and explain the Syria situation along with Russian and US roles the way it is. Speaking with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Tulsi explains why the US allying with Islamist extremists to overthrow Syrian President Assad is an illegal, counterproductive war that will cause even more human misery in the region and help ISIS and other Islamist extremists take over all of Syria. Instead of once again being distracted by trying to get rid of a secular dictator, Tulsi explains, the US must stay out of counter productive wars and focus on defeating the Islamist extremists who have declared war on America.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Nov 15
     
    A member of Congress, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) brands the U.S. efforts to overthrow the Assad Syrian government as illegal and calls for its end. Gabbard also makes the point that U.S. arms shipments are winding up in the hands of jihadi elements in Syria.  In her charge of illegality, Gabbard relies on the lack of Congressional authorization for a war against Syria. But she might also have relied on the even stronger ground that it is a war of aggression, the "supreme" war crime under Nuremburg Principles, U.N. Charter, and "customary" international law. "Customary international law" is international legal principles that are so firmly established that all nations -- regardless of whether they have ratified relevant treaties -- are subject to them. Customary international law was the basis for the Nuremburg Principles that enabled prosecution and punishment of Nazi war criminals even though Nazi Germany had withdrawn from relevant treaties.
Paul Merrell

Courthouse News Service - 0 views

www.courthousenews.com/...sive-testimony-for-chevron.htm

Ecuador Chevron litigation Guerra perjury Kaplan

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • During secret proceedings in Washington, a key witness in undermining the $9.5 billion judgment Chevron faces in Ecuador repudiated much of his explosive testimony, transcripts made public today show.     Since agreeing to testify for the oil giant, Judge Alberto Guerra's fortunes have changed, and so have Chevron's.     Roughly two years ago, Guerra took to the witness stand in a New York federal courtroom and swore that lawyers for rainforest villagers bribed him to ghostwrite a multibillion-dollar Ecuadorean court judgment against Chevron for oil contamination to the Amazon jungle.     About a year before he made a deal with Chevron, Guerra had little more than $100 to his name. He also owed tens of thousands of dollars in debt and could not afford to visit his children living in the United States.     U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan had warned early on in proceedings that he did not "assume that anyone's hands in this are clean," yet he credited Guerra's testimony last year in ruling that the Ecuadoreans obtained their award "by corrupt means."     The Ecuadoreans have long attacked Guerra, who has a contract with Chevron for various perks, including at least $326,000, an immigration attorney and a car, as a "paid-for" participant in the oil giant's self-styled witness-protection program.     Kaplan's decision conceded that "Guerra's credibility is not impeccable," but found that his account was "corroborated extensively by independent evidence."
  • Both that credibility and the corroborating evidence came under withering attack this year during closed-door proceedings before an international arbitration tribunal.     Though the hearings took place without press or public access at the World Bank in Washington on April 23 and 24, the tribunal agreed to release transcripts of the proceedings in response to a Courthouse News request that the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press supported.     Courthouse News obtained advanced copies of more than 3,000 pages of transcripts, which were formally released on Monday.     They show Guerra putting a new twist on an old saying. "Money talks, gold screams," Guerra said in a June 25, 2012, meeting with Chevron representatives - a meeting Chevron recorded.     Testifying about this comment at the arbitration hearing, Guerra said Chevron showed him a safe filled with money. He recounted Chevron's representatives telling him: "Look, look, look what's down there. We have $20,000 there."     He remembered replying: "Oh, OK, very well, very well."     Guerra said he had only $146 in his bank account a year earlier, and owed tens of thousands more to finish the construction of his house. He said he could not scrape money for airfare to visit his children in the United States.
  •  Minutes from Guerra's meeting with Chevron that came to light during the tribunal proceedings showed that Chevron's lawyers hoped to find evidence that the Ecuadorean government had pressured the Guerra to rule against the company.     Guerra disappointed by saying that Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa's administration "never butted in" to the process, the transcript shows.     "These guys are idiots, but the truth, the truth, I attest, damn, they never got involved," Guerra added, referring to Correa's government.     The remark appears to undercut the foundation of Chevron's arbitration case, which asks the tribunal to blame the Ecuadorean government for a miscarriage of justice.     Guerra stood by those comments on the arbitration panel's witness stand.      "My position is that the government did not intervene," Guerra said.     The only time an Ecuadorean government official tried to elbow into the case, Guerra testified, was under a prior administration. Correa's predecessors pushed to dismiss the case in Chevron's favor in 2003, he said.
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  •  Guerra also acknowledged bluntly on the witness stand that he had lied in telling Chevron's team that attorneys for the Ecuadoreans offered him $300,000.     "Yes, sir, I lied there," Guerra told Eric Bloom, who represents Ecuador for the firm Winston & Strawn. "I wasn't truthful."     Guerra maintains that other attorneys for the Ecuadoreans, specifically Steven Donziger and Pablo Fajardo, offered money in return for ghostwriting the judgment on behalf of Judge Nicolas Zambrano, the final jurist to preside over the case.     Shifting the details of this supposed arrangement, though, Guerra walked back his allegation that Zambrano offered him 20 percent.     "That was my sworn statement in New York, but what I said is that, because of a circumstance, because of a situation, I mentioned 20 percent when it wasn't true, and I think that, as a gentleman, I should say the truth, and we did not discuss - I did not discuss 20 percent with Mr. Zambrano - but we did discuss that he would share with me from what he received," he said.     In his nearly 500-page ruling, Judge Kaplan pointed to bank records, daily planners, shipping records and airplane tickets as corroborating evidence that outweighed Guerra's credibility problems.
  • Particularly persuasive for Kaplan was evidence that Ecuador's national airline, Tame, certified delivery of packages between Guerra and Zambrano.     Guerra told the arbitrators this spring, however, that all 11 of these packages "had nothing to do with the [Chevron] case."     As for his plane tickets to the rainforest from Aug. 11 and 12, 2010, Guerra said they occurred during an irrelevant time period.     "If I traveled during those dates, it wasn't for me to provide assistance to the Chevron case," he said.     Guerra testified that Chevron representatives told him that they would have raised his pay if he could provide them with the key physical evidence they were looking for: a draft of the judgment.     "We were unable to find the main document," Guerra recalled them saying. "Had we been able to find it, we would have been able to offer you a larger amount, something like that, we have $18,000 for you, and we're going to take the computer with us."     Though Guerra did not have a copy of the judgment, Ecuador's forensic expert Christopher Racich testified that he found a running draft of the judgment against Chevron on Zambrano's hard drives.
  • Ecuador now argues that this forensic evidence - which Courthouse News reported exclusively early this year - proves Zambrano painstakingly wrote the ruling and saved it hundreds of times throughout the case.     Chevron has not been able to produce emails between Guerra, Zambrano and the purported ghostwriters, Donziger and Fajardo, Ecuador's forensic expert says.     Guerra acknowledged to the arbitrators that that the bounty of physical evidence he promised Chevron fell short.     There are no calendars and day planners marked with meetings scheduled between Fajardo, Donziger or Guerra, he acknowledged.     While Guerra said he had payments from Zambrano from April 2011 and February 2012, he testified that these "had no connection to the Chevron case."     For Chevron, the thousands of pages of transcripts show that the company "proved its case before the International Arbitration Tribunal."     "Witness and expert testimony confirmed that the Ecuadorean judgment against Chevron was ghostwritten by Steven Donziger and his team and that the Ecuadorian government is responsible for any further remediation," Chevron spokesman Morgan Crinklaw said in a statement. "Chevron also proved that Ecuador breached the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty and international law."     Donziger, who still works for the Ecuadorean villagers seeking to collect from Chevron, said in a statement that Guerra's latest testimony "demonstrates once and for all that Chevron's so-called racketeering case has completely fallen apart."
  •   "Guerra has been the linchpin of Chevron's entire body of trumped up evidence and he now stands not only as an admitted liar, but also as a shocking symbol of how Chevron's management has become so obsessed with evading its legal obligations in Ecuador that it is willing to risk presenting false evidence in court to try to frame adversary counsel and undermine the rule of law," Donziger added.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 15
     
    Chevron has a "witness-protection program" as an excuse for paying off witnesses? And for paying them to lie under oath, it appears. Never in my legal career did I ever here of a non-governmental entity with a witness protection program. This reeks to high heavens.  Hats off to Courthouse News for digging deep on this one.   
Paul Merrell

Iraqi parliament approves Russian air strikes against ISIL - 0 views

www.todayszaman.com/rikes-against-isil_402565.html

war & peace Syria Iraq Russia airstrikes

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • After weeks of political wrangling, the Iraqi parliament finally agreed to allow Russia to launch air strikes against the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq, paving the way for the involvement of a powerful new combatant in an already complex battleground in a move that will likely incense the US.
  • Russia's foray into Iraq has created another quandary for the US, which has agreed to build a line of communication with Russia to avoid inadvertent incidents in the air between the two air forces that are operating in the same theater for the first time since World War II. Hakim al-Zamili, the head of the defense and security committee of the Iraqi parliament, announced on Monday that Iraq had struck a deal with Russia to launch operations against ISIL targets in the country. According to a report by Russian news agency Sputnik, once the air strikes are under way, ISIL fighters who might seek safe haven in Iraq after fleeing strikes in Syria will not find safety in Iraq. With the agreement, Russia aims to cut the supply lines of ISIL between Iraq and Syria. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had previously said Iraq might seek Russia's help against ISIL if Russian air strikes prove to be effective in Syria. Baghdad's appeal to Moscow has irked the US, which reportedly told the Iraqi government that it would have to choose between the US and Russia in the fight against ISIL. In a visit to Baghdad last week, US Chief of General Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford told Iraqi officials that possible Russian air operation would make it almost impossible for the US to continue its military campaign.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 15
     
    From October 26, 2015. I had missed this one, but so had U.S. mainstream media. Will the U.S. treat Russia's intervention in Iraq as grounds for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Syria? And what about U.S. command and control and supply of ISIL and al Nusrah?  Does that end too? The Obama Administration seems to be in the midst of a policy pivot in the Middle East, brought about by Russia's intervention. But does Obama yet know where his policies will land? 
Paul Merrell

Who owns space? US asteroid-mining act is dangerous and potentially illegal - 0 views

theconversation.com/-and-potentially-illegal-51073

space-exploitation Congress Space Act of 2015

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Nope, a flag is not enough to make the moon a colony.
  • An event of cosmic proportions occurred on November 18 when the US congress passed the Space Act of 2015 into law. The legislation will give US space firms the rights to own and sell natural resources they mine from bodies in space, including asteroids. Although the act, passed with bipartisan support, still requires President Obama’s signature, it is already the most significant salvo that has been fired in the ideological battle over ownership of the cosmos. It goes against a number of treaties and international customary law which already apply to the entire universe. The new law is nothing but a classic rendition of the “he who dares wins” philosophy of the Wild West. The act will also allow the private sector to make space innovations without regulatory oversight during an eight-year period and protect spaceflight participants from financial ruin. Surely, this will see private firms begin to incorporate the mining of asteroids into their investment plans.
  • Supporters argue that the US Space Act is a bold statement that finally sets private spaceflight free from the heavy regulation of the US government. The misdiagnosis begins here. Space exploration is a universal activity and therefore requires international regulation. The act represents a full-frontal attack on settled principles of space law which are based on two basic principles: the right of states to scientific exploration of outer space and its celestial bodies and the prevention of unilateral and unbriddled commercial exploitation of outer-space resources. These principles are found in agreements including the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and the Moon Agreement of 1979. The US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology denies there is anything in the act which violates the US’s international obligations. According to this body, the right to extract and use resources from celestial bodies “is affirmed by State practice and by the US State Department in Congressional testimony and written correspondence”. Crucially, there is no specific reference to international law in this statement. Simply relying on US legislation and policy statements to justify the plans is obviously insufficient.
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  • Gbenga Oduntan is the author of Sovereignty and Jurisdiction in Airspace and Outer Space: Legal Criteria for Spatial Delimitation. London: Routledge-Cavendish 2012. https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415562126
  • Ever since NASA discovered signs of liquid water on Mars, concerns have been raised about the risk of contaminating the red planet.
  • So what’s at stake? We can assume that the list of states that have access to outer space – currently a dozen or so – will grow. These states may also shortly respond with mining programmes of their own. That means that the pristine conditions of the cradle of nature from which our own Earth was born may become irrevocably altered forever – making it harder to trace how we came into being. Similarly, if we started contaminating celestial bodies with microbes from Earth, it could ruin our chances of ever finding alien life there. Mining minerals in space could also damage the environment around the Earth and eventually lead to conflict over resources. Indeed what right has the second highest polluter of the Earth’s environment got to proceed with some of the same corporations in a bid to plunder outer space? While we’re not there yet, developments towards actual space mining may begin to occur within a decade.
  • Ultimately, the US plans must be understood in the light of existing rules of space law. Money is not a dirty word in space – the total value of the satellite telecommunications industry in 2013 was more than $195bn. Free market principles also apply to the operations of the International Space Station. So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.
  • Currently corporations can exploit outer space in a number of ways, including for space tourism and scientific training. Companies may also be allowed to extract certain resources, but the very first provision of the Outer Space Treaty (1967), to which the US is a signatory, is that such exploration and use shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries. This therefore prevents the sale of space-based minerals for profit. The treaty also states that outer space shall be the “province of all mankind … and that states shall avoid harmful contamination of space". Meanwhile, the Moon Agreement (1979) has in effect forbidden states to conduct commercial mining on planets and asteroids until there is an international regime for such exploitation. While the US has refused to sign up to this, it is binding as customary international law. The idea that American companies can on the basis of domestic laws alone systematically exploit mineral resources in space, despite huge environmental risks, really amounts to the audacity of greed. The Romans had this all correctly figured out in their legal maxim: “What concerns all must be decided upon by all.”
Paul Merrell

NATO, Russia must talk, security leaders say - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...ato-russia-syria-turkey-216200

war & peace NATO Russia Turkey fighters

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The downing of a Russian fighter jet by Turkey highlights the growing danger posed by a pattern of provocative military behavior by Moscow, U.S. and European security officials said Tuesday, calling for a revival of military-to-military talks between Russia and NATO that were shelved last year. The first-ever shoot-down of a Russian plane by a member of the Western alliance comes after months of brinkmanship by Russian forces on several continents and a series of NATO responses, including stepped-up military exercises, that have placed the former Cold War foes on a footing that at times has looked just short of war.Story Continued Below NATO leaders themselves seemed anxious to find a way to turn down the temperature after a Turkish F-16 destroyed a Russian Su-24 that Turkey claimed had crossed over from Syria. Turkish leaders called it at the least the fourth such incursion in recent weeks, while Russia maintains it did not breach Turkish airspace.
  • On Capitol Hill, Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee who also serves as president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said in a statement: "I echo NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg's sentiments calling for all NATO partners to deescalate tensions and focus on the fight against ISIL." Others from across the spectrum viewed the disputed incident as a potential opportunity to de-escalate what has increasingly become a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Some security experts said NATO and Russia should convene a special forum that was established expressly for the two sides to hold military discussions. The forum has atrophied since the alliance cut off most ties over Moscow's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March 2014. "The way the Russians have behaved in the last 18 months, sending submarines into harbors, simulating nuclear bombing missions against NATO countries, flying their aircraft without transponders, and having incursions into Turkish air space, something was going to happen," said Ivo Daalder, who stepped down as the U.S. ambassador to NATO in 2013. "Because we don't have mechanisms to talk about this there is a danger that this could lead to escalation."
  • A collection of former defense and foreign ministers of Britain, Poland, Russia, Germany, Turkey and France also reissued their call Tuesday to use the NATO-Russia Council, codified in 2002, to hammer out a broad agreement to "prevent accidental incidents or miscalculations leading to an escalation of tension and even confrontation." Two former NATO secretaries general endorsed the position. The stakes were already high before Tuesday. NATO reported more than 400 intercepts of Russian aircraft in 2014 — four times as much as the year before. Russia also reported that it has detected twice as many NATO fighter aircraft flying near its borders in 2014 than in 2013 — more than 3,000 in all.
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  • The report, compiled by the European Leadership Network, the Russian International Affairs Council, the Polish Institute of International Affairs and the International Strategic Research Organisation in Ankara, was funded by the nonprofit Carnegie Corp. of New York and Nuclear Threat Initiative. "Each side is convinced that its actions are justified by the negative changes in their security environment," the task force concluded. "Second, an action-reaction cycle is now in play that will be difficult to stop." Russia has also sent its combat aircraft dangerously close to American and Canadian airspace in recent years. Earlier this year, for example, the North American Air Defense Command reported that two Russian tu-95 Bear bombers were intercepted flying off the coast of Alaska near key U.S. military facilities. The NATO-Russia Council, which grew out of an agreement between the two former enemies in 1997, has been used successfully in the past to work through several highly sensitive disagreements.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 15
     
    NATO blinked before Russia did. That's a rebuff for Turkey. 
Paul Merrell

Still Secret: Second Circuit Keeps More Drone Memos From the Public | Just Security - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...ret-circuit-drone-memos-public

tyranny secret-law targeted-killing OLC-opinions FOIA litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Secret law has been anathema to our democracy since its Founding, but a federal appeals court just gave us more of it.
  • We might forgive the citizenry’s confusion, though, in attempting to square those principles with the decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, published yesterday, holding that the government may continue to keep secret nine legal memoranda by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel analyzing the legality of targeted killings carried out by the US government. It was just more than a year ago that the same panel of the same court ordered the government to disclose key portions of a July 2010 OLC memorandum that authorized the targeted killing of an American citizen in Yemen. At the time, the court’s opinion seemed to promise at least a partial solution to a problem straight (as the district court in the same case put it) from Alice in Wonderland: that [a] thicket of laws and precedents … effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for its conclusion a secret.
  • Yesterday’s opinion retreats from that promise by keeping much of the government’s law of the targeted killing program secret. (In this and two other cases, the ACLU continues to seek more than 100 other legal memoranda authored by various agencies concerning targeted killing.) It does so in two ways that warrant attention. First, the court suggests that OLC merely gives advice to executive branch agencies, and that OLC’s legal memoranda do not establish the “working law” of the government because agencies might not “adopt” the memoranda’s legal analysis as their own. This argument is legally flawed and, moreover, it flies in the face of the public evidence concerning how the executive branch treats opinions issued by OLC. In an OLC memorandum published, ironically or not, the same day (July 16, 2010) and over the same signature (David Barron’s) as the targeted killing memorandum released at the Second Circuit’s behest last year, the OLC explains that its “central function” is to provide “controlling legal advice to Executive Branch officials.” And not even two weeks ago, the acting head of the OLC told the public that even informally drafted legal advice emanating from his office is “binding by custom and practice in the executive branch,” that “[i]t’s the official view of the office, and that “[p]eople are supposed to and do follow it.”
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  • But that’s not what the government told the Second Circuit, and it’s not what the Second Circuit has now suggested is the law. Second, the Second Circuit’s new opinion endorses the continued official secrecy over any discussion of a document that has supplied a purported legal basis for the targeted killing program since almost immediately after the September 11 attacks. The document — a September 17, 2001 “Memorandum of Notification” — is not much of a secret. The government publicly identified it in litigation with the ACLU eight years ago; the Senate Intelligence Committee cited it numerous times in its recent torture report; and the press frequently makes reference to it. Not only that, but the Central Intelligence Agency’s former top lawyer, John Rizzo, freely discussed it in his recent memoir. According to Rizzo, the September 17 MON is “the most comprehensive, most ambitious, most aggressive, and most risky” legal authorization of the last decade and a half — which is saying something. Rizzo explains that the MON authorizes targeted killings of suspected terrorists by the CIA, and in his new book, Power Wars, Charlie Savage reports that the MON is the original source of the controversial (and legally novel) “continuing and imminent threat” standard the government uses to govern the lethal targeting of individuals outside of recognized battlefields. The MON is also likely to have authorized an end run around the assassination “ban” in Executive Order 12333 — a legal maneuver that is discussed in, but almost entirely redacted from, an earlier OLC analysis of targeted killing.
  • In yesterday’s opinion, the Second Circuit upheld the government’s withholding of a 2002 OLC memorandum that “concerns Executive Order 12333,” which almost certainly analyzes the effect of the September 17 MON, as well as of five other memoranda that “discuss another document that remains entitled to protection.” If indeed that “document” is the MON, it would seem to be yet another case of what the DC Circuit pointedly criticized, in a 2013 opinion, as the granting of judicial “imprimatur to a fiction of deniability that no reasonable person would regard as plausible.” In that case, the DC Circuit went on to quote Justice Frankfurter: “‘There comes a point where … Court[s] should not be ignorant as judges of what [they] know as men’ and women.” Last year, the Second Circuit took that admonishment to heart when it published the July 2010 OLC memorandum. Unfortunately, yesterday, rather than once again opening the country’s eyes to the law our government is applying behind closed doors, the Second Circuit closed its own.
Paul Merrell

Leaked Audio Reveals Venezuelan Opposition in Secret Talks with IMF | venezuelanalysis.com - 0 views

venezuelanalysis.com/11581

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Venezuela IMF coup-attempts oligarchs

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • A leaked audio of a conversation between Venezuelan businessman, Lorenzo Mendoza, and former politician, Ricardo Hausman, has revealed Venezuela’s political and business opposition to be seeking collaboration with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections on December 6th. In the phone conversation, leaked in Venezuela last Wednesday, both men speak about the possibility of IMF intervention in the Venezuelan economy and frequently refer to each other as “mate”.   Mendoza currently ranks as one the wealthiest businessmen in the world and controls key areas of the Venezuelan economy, such as the production of cornflour, beer and other household staples. Government supporters hold him responsible for the widespread shortage of key products, which they say is an attempt to destabilise the administration of current leftwing President Nicolas Maduro.   Hausman was formerly Planning Minister (1992-1993) to disgraced ex-Venezuelan President president, Carlos Andres Perez. He currently resides in the US where he is a lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. 
  • The recording has caused shockwaves amongst Venezuela’s citizens, who have widely rejected any IMF involvement in the country’s economics. The fund is largely held responsible by citizens for the country’s debt crisis in the 1980s, the economic turmoil of the 1990s, as well as for the riots known as the Caracazo in 1989 which led to widespread police repression and thousands of killings.  The IMF’s poisonous legacy in the country has led the country’s political opposition to distance itself publicly from the organisation. Nonetheless, its spokespeople have been consistently linked to the ill reputed fund over the past fifteen years of leftist government.  Earlier in February 2015, the political opposition led by Leopoldo Lopez, Maria Corina Machado and Antonio Ledezma, released a “Call for a National Transition Agreement” just days before the national government reported that it had uncovered plans for an attempted coup amongst the airforce.  “The Call for a National Transition” contained a number of points orientating the politics of a transitional regime in Venezuela, including selling off national public enterprises and the input of “international financial organisations”. 
  • In the audio, which is dominated by Hausman, the ex-minister reveals that he is a longterm friend of the IMF’s Vice-president for the Western Hemisphere, who has asked him to go to the organisation to “talk about Venezuela”. He explains that the fund is “worried” that it will have to “intervene” in the country.   “The condition is that we have a small committee meeting to speak, gloves off, about what the hell we can do to see… Or, if you were to receive a call from Obama or Holland, or whoever and they say… Hell, mate, for us it’s really important that they get involved in Venezuela,” says Hausman.  The economist also assures Mendoza that he is committed to the “war in Venezuela” despite his absence, stating that “there is no exit for Venezuela without substantial international help,” appearing to reference the opposition’s violent street campaign to unseat the government last year, entitled La Salida (the exit).  Specifically Hausman recommends a 40-50 billion dollar loan from the IMF, which he says will entail a significant restructure of the country’s “debt profile” and “what they euphemistically term, private sector involvement”. The two men also reference a group of Hausman’s students in the US, who appear to have been pinned by both men to carry out the economic restructuring in a post-Chavista government.  The conversation finishes with Hausman revealing that he has “projects” in Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Albania, and confirming that the time is right for “carrying out an adjustment plan in Venezuela”. 
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  • After the government publicly released the recording between Hausman and Mendoza last week, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused the opposition of once again seeking financial support from the IMF in order to promote “insurrectionary violence” in the country.  “I have proof that the IMF has received a visit from a group of technocrats… who have requested 60 billion dollars in order to put their plan into action, and the fund has told them that they will give them [the money] if they unseat the government,” stated the president on his weekly television show, In Contact with Maduro.  Although Maduro has yet to reveal evidence, Mendoza at least seems to have corroborated the authenticity of the phone conversation, which he has slammed as an “illegal” recording of a “private talk” that he had with Hausman.  Maduro has called for Mendoza to be prosecuted.  “I hope the judicial bodies react,” he stated. 
Paul Merrell

JFK Assassination Plot Mirrored in France: Part 2 - WhoWhatWhy - 0 views

whowhatwhy.org/...plot-mirrored-in-france-part-2

war & peace CIA JFK France coup-attempts

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • What the colonial powers have done in Muslim countries is well known. Less well known are the machinations of Allen Dulles and the CIA in one of these colonial powers, France.Without the knowledge or consent of President John F. Kennedy, Allen Dulles orchestrated the efforts of retired French generals, rightwing French, Nazi sympathizers, and at least one White Russian, to overthrow Charles de Gaulle, who wanted to give Algeria its independence. Dulles et al feared an independent Algeria would go Communist, giving the Soviets a base in Africa.And there was another reason to hang onto Algeria: its natural resources. According to the US Energy Information Administration, it is “the leading natural gas producer in Africa, the second-largest natural gas supplier to Europe outside of the region, and is among the top three oil producers in Africa.”We note with great interest that the plot to bring down Charles De Gaulle — the kind of people involved, the role of Allen Dulles, the motive behind it — all bear an eerie similarity to the circumstances surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But that is another story.
  • As we have said earlier, Dulles’s job, simply put, was to hijack the US government to benefit the wealthy. And in this fascinating series of excerpts from David Talbot’s new biography on Dulles, we see how his reach extended deeply into the government of France.WhoWhatWhy Introduction by Milicent CranorThis is the second of a three-part series of excerpts from Chapter 15 (“Contempt”) of The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of the American Secret Government. HarperCollins Publishers, 2015. Go here to see Part 1. Previously, we presented excerpts from Chapter 20, and to see them, go here, here, and here.
  • When the coup against de Gaulle began three months later, Kennedy was still in the dark. It was a tumultuous time for the young administration. As he continued to wrestle with fallout from the Bay of Pigs crisis, JFK was suddenly besieged with howls of outrage from a major ally, accusing his own security services of seditious activity.
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  • It was a stinging embarrassment for the new American president, who was scheduled to fly to Paris for a state visit the following month. To add to the insult, the coup had been triggered by de Gaulle’s efforts to bring French colonial rule in Algeria to an end — a goal that JFK himself had ardently championed.The CIA’s support for the coup was one more defiant display of contempt — a back of the hand aimed not only at de Gaulle but at Kennedy.JFK took pains to assure Paris that he strongly supported de Gaulle’s presidency, phoning Hervé Alphand, the French ambassador in Washington, to directly communicate these assurances. But, according to Alphand, Kennedy’s disavowal of official US involvement in the coup came with a disturbing addendum — the American president could not vouch for his own intelligence agency. Kennedy told Alphand that “the CIA is such a vast and poorly controlled machine that the most unlikely maneuvers might be true.”
  • But at eight o’clock that evening, a defiant de Gaulle went on the air, as nearly all of France gathered around the TV, and rallied his nation with the most inspiring address of his long public career. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes. But he had put on his soldier’s uniform for the occasion, and his voice was full of passion.De Gaulle began by denouncing the rebellious generals. The nation had been betrayed “by men whose duty, honor and raison d’être it was to serve and to obey.” Now it was the duty of every French citizen to protect the nation from these military traitors. “In the name of France,” de Gaulle shouted, thumping the table in front of him, “I order that all means — I repeat all means — be employed to block the road everywhere to those men!”De Gaulle’s final words were a battle cry. “Françaises, Français! Aidez moi!” And all over France, millions of people did rush to the aid of their nation. The following day, a general strike was organized to protest the putsch. Led primarily by the left, including labor unions and the Communist Party, the mass protest won broad political support.Over ten million people joined the nationwide demonstrations, with hundreds of thousands marching in the streets of Paris, carrying banners proclaiming “Peace in Algeria” and shouting, “Fascism will not pass!” Even police officers associations expressed “complete solidarity” with the protests, as did the Roman Catholic Confederation, which denounced the “criminal acts” of the coup leaders, warning that they “threaten to plunge the country into civil war.”
  • In the wake of the crises in Cuba and France provoked by his own security officials, Kennedy began to display a new boldness. JFK’s assertiveness surprised CIA officials, who had apparently counted on Kennedy to be sidelined during the French coup.Agency officials assured coup leaders that the president would be too “absorbed in the Cuban affair” to act decisively against the plot. But JFK did react quickly to the French crisis, putting on high alert Ambassador Gavin, a decorated paratrooper commander in World War II who could be counted on to keep NATO forces in line. The president also dispatched his French speaking press spokesman, Pierre Salinger, to Paris to communicate directly with Élysée Palace officials.As Paris officials knew, the new American president already had something of a prickly relationship with de Gaulle, but he had strong feelings for France — and they made sure to absolve JFK of personal responsibility for the coup in their leaks to the press. French press accounts referred to the CIA as a “reactionary state within a state” that operated outside of Kennedy’s control.
  • But it was de Gaulle himself, and the French people, who turned the tide against the coup. By Sunday, the second day of the coup, a dark foreboding had settled over Paris. “I am surprised that you are still alive,” the president of France’s National Assembly bluntly told de Gaulle that morning. “If I were Challe, I would have already swooped down on Paris; the army here will move out of the way rather than shoot…. If I were in the position Challe put himself in, as soon as I burst in, I would have you executed with a bullet in the back, here in the stairwell, and say you were trying to flee.” De Gaulle himself realized that if Challe did airlift his troops from Algiers to France, “there was not much to stop them.”
  • This admission of presidential impotence, which Alphand reported to Paris, was a startling moment in US foreign relations, though it remains largely unknown today. Kennedy then underlined how deeply estranged he was from his own security machinery by taking the extraordinary step of asking Alphand for the French government’s help to track down the US officials behind the coup, promising to fully punish them.“[Kennedy] would be quite ready to take all necessary measures in the interest of good Franco-American relations, whatever the rank or functions of [the] incriminated people,” Alphand cabled French foreign minister Maurice Couve de Murville.
  • Hundreds of people rushed to the nation’s airfields and prepared to block the runways with their vehicles if Challe’s planes tried to land. Others gathered outside government ministries in Paris to guard them against attack. André Malraux, the great novelist turned minister of culture, threaded his way through one such crowd, handing out helmets and uniforms. Meanwhile, at the huge Renault factory on the outskirts of Paris, workers took control of the sprawling complex and formed militias, demanding weapons from the government so that they could fend off rebel assaults.“In many ways, France, and particularly Paris, relived its great revolutionary past Sunday night and Monday — the past of the revolutionary barricades, of vigilance committees and of workers’ councils,” reported The New York Times.
  • De Gaulle’s ringing address to the nation and the massive public response had a sobering effect on the French military. Challe’s support quickly began melting away, even — humiliatingly — within the ranks of his own military branch, the air force. Pilots flew their planes out of Algeria, and others feigned mechanical troubles, depriving Challe’s troops of the air transport they needed to descend on Paris.Meanwhile, de Gaulle moved quickly to arrest military officers in France who were involved in the coup. Police swooped down on the Paris apartment of an army captain who was plotting pro-putsch street riots, and de Gaulle’s minister of the interior seized the general in charge of the rebel forces that were gathered in the forests outside Paris. Deprived of their leader, the insurrectionary units sheepishly began to disperse.By Tuesday night, Challe knew that the coup had failed. The next day, he surrendered and was flown to Paris. Challe emerged from the plane “carrying his own suitcase, looking crumpled and insignificant in civilian clothes,” according to Time. “He stumbled at the foot of the landing steps, [falling] heavily on his hands and knees.” It was an ignominious homecoming for the man who had fully believed that, with US support, he was to replace the great de Gaulle.
Paul Merrell

Holder Defends Record of Not Prosecuting Financial Fraud - 0 views

theintercept.com/...ot-prosecuting-financial-fraud

banksters too-big-to-jail Holder DoJ Bernanke federal-reserve

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Former attorney general Eric Holder was the honored guest at a Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reception on Wednesday (leading investigative reporter Murray Waas to reasonably wonder: How’s that again?). And while I was primarily interested in hearing whether Holder regretted whiffing on torture prosecutions during his tenure (see story: “Holder, Too Late, Calls for Transparency on DOJ Torture Investigation”), I also asked him about whiffing on financial fraud prosecutions. Specifically, I noted his failure to hold accountable the people responsible for the wide-scale financial fraud that led to the massive economic recession of 2007-2009. And I noted that after he stepped down from his post in April, he went back to his job at Covington & Burling, the gigantic D.C. law firm whose clients have included many of the big banks that Holder chose not to prosecute. (The reception was actually held at Covington & Burling’s swanky new building downtown. While it was being built — while Holder was still attorney general! — the firm actually kept an 11th-story corner office reserved for his return. He was making over $3 million a year from the firm before his sojourn at the Justice Department; his current salary has not been disclosed.)
  • Holder bristled at my suggestion that there might be a connection between his current employer and his conduct at Justice, saying that many top prosecutors at Justice had pursued cases as best they could. “We were simply unable to do it under the existing statutes that we had, and given the ways the decision-making worked at those institutions,” he said. However, Holder had all the statutory authority he needed to prosecute straightforward crimes such as robosigning fraud, perjury in front of Congress by Goldman Sachs executives, or for that matter, HSBC’s money laundering for Mexican drug cartels. He simply chose not to. (In response to another questioner, he denied that any of his decisions not to prosecute were based on the massive legal teams that were fielded against the government.) Moreover, he actively waved off offers of additional help such as the suggestion from Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, that Congress give him more staff for his Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, or extend the statute of limitations on some crimes. At Wednesday’s event, Holder continued: “It’s an easy thing for people who are not a part of the process” to “ask questions,” he said. “It pisses me off, on the other hand,” for people “not conversant” in the process to “somehow say that I did something that was inconsistent with my oath or that I’m not a person of integrity.” “I’m proud to be back at the firm,” he said. “It’s a great firm. And I’m proud of the work I did at the Justice Department.”
  • Holder’s comment was only the most recent in a series of pronouncements from formerly powerful government officials that they were in fact powerless — while talking tough once they no longer have the ability to do anything about it. See, for instance, my colleague David Dayen’s recent article, “Bernanke Talks Tough But Was Weak When It Mattered,” about former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke saying that more Wall Street executives should have gone to jail for criminal misconduct that led to the financial crisis. As Fed chair, Beranke could have initiated criminal referrals to the Justice Department, but chose not to. As attorney general, Holder could have made pursuing financial fraud a top priority. And he did not.
Paul Merrell

PLO: France to submit Security Council resolution on international protection force at ... - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...ution-international-protection

war & peace Israel Palestine France UNSC-Resolution al-Asqa-Mosque observers

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • France will present a Security Council resolution this week on behalf of the Palestinian leadership calling for international observers deployed in Jerusalem, according to senior Palestinian official and member of the PLO executive committee Hanan Ashrawi. The proposal will seek a civilian monitoring force at the Noble Sanctuary, the holy complex that houses the Muslim sites the Dome of the Rock and the al-Asqa Mosque, and the Jewish sacred site the Western Wall and the location of two ancient synagogues, called the Temple Mount. It is expected to be similar to an Oslo Accords agreement between Israeli and Palestinian leaders to station in Hebron 150 international civilian observers with no mandate for intervention. Speaking at a briefing in Ramallah today Ashrawi said the draft resolution would be limited to “dealing with the current situation and therefore including observers and condemning the settlements and settlement activities,” noting, “it is not a political initiative that is comprehensive.” The proposal is scheduled for a vote at the Security Council “before Thursday,” Ashrawi said.
  • Both the Israel and the U.S. have come out against the resolution, condemning any effort to bring new parties into the now tenuous accord between Israel and Jordan, where Jordan is licensed to safeguard the holy sites plaza. Two weeks ago Jordan announced it would consider recalling its ambassador from Israel, in light of Israeli forces firing dispersants into the mosque during clashes with Palestinian protesters.
Gary Edwards

Does Trump Trump? Angelo Codevilla on Our Present Moment | Power Line - 1 views

www.powerlineblog.com/...illa-on-our-present-moment.php

Angelo-Codevilla Trump ruling-class-elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • Angelo Codevilla is a former staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, and the author of more than a dozen fine books on politics, arms control, and intelligence (if I had to pick a favorite it might be The Character of Nations), including a fine translation of Machiavelli’s Prince published by Yale University Press. Most recently his essay-turned-book The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It caught the attention of Rush Limbaugh and many others. It argues that our fundamental political problem is not “big government,” but the creation of a ruling class, inhabiting both parties, that is steadily increasing its authoritarian control over the nation. In a conversation a few months ago Angelo remarked, “The 2016 election is simple; the person who runs on the platform ‘Who do they think they are?’ will win.”
  • Donald Trump leapt atop other contenders for the Republican presidential nomination when he acted on the primordial fact in American public life today, from which most of the others hide their eyes, namely: most Americans distrust, fear, are sick and tired of, the elected, appointed, and bureaucratic officials who rule over us, as well as their cronies in the corporate, media, and academic world.
  • Trump’s attraction lies less in his words’ grace or even precision than in the extent to which Americans are searching for someone, anyone, to lead against this ruling class, that is making America less prosperous, less free, and more dangerous.
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  • three fifths of Democratic voters approve the conduct of their officials, only about one fifth of Republican voters approve what theirs do.
  • Moreover, Americans are becoming increasingly skeptical about their celebrities’ integrity. With good reason. McCain is just a minor example of a phenomenon that characterizes our ruling class: reputations built on lies and cover-ups, lives of myth protected by mutual forbearance, by complicitous journalists, or by records deep-sixed, including in in government archives.
  • As they lord it over us, they live lives that cannot stand scrutiny.
  • The point here is simple: our ruling class has succeeded in ruling not by reason or persuasion, never mind integrity, but by occupying society’s commanding heights, by imposing itself and its ever-changing appetites on the rest of us. It has coopted or intimidated potential opponents by denying the legitimacy of opposition. Donald Trump, haplessness and clownishness notwithstanding, has shown how easily this regime may be threatened just by refusing to be intimidated.
  • At increasing speed, our ruling class has created “protected classes” of Americans defined by race, sex, age, disability, origin, religion, and now homosexuality, whose members have privileges that outsider do not. By so doing, they have shattered the principle of equality – the bedrock of the rule of law. Ruling class insiders use these officious classifications to harass their socio-political opponents. An unintimidated statesman would ask: Why should not all “classes” be equally protected? Does the rule of law even admit of “classes”? Does not the 14th amendment promise “the equal protection of the laws” to all alike? He would note that when the government sets aside written law in favor of what the powerful want, it thereby absolves citizens any obligation to obey government.
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Jul 15
     
    "Does Trump trump? By Angelo M. Codevilla "In the land of the blind," so goes the saying, "the one-eyed man is king." Donald Trump leapt atop other contenders for the Republican presidential nomination when he acted on the primordial fact in American public life today, from which most of the others hide their eyes, namely: most Americans distrust, fear, are sick and tired of, the elected, appointed, and bureaucratic officials who rule over us, as well as their cronies in the corporate, media, and academic world. Trump's attraction lies less in his words' grace or even precision than in the extent to which Americans are searching for someone, anyone, to lead against this ruling class, that is making America less prosperous, less free, and more dangerous. Trump's rise reminds this class's members that they sit atop a rumbling volcano of rejection. Republicans and Democrats hope to exorcise its explosion by telling the public that Trump's remarks on immigration and on the character of fellow member John McCain (without bothering to try showing that he errs on substance), place him outside the boundaries of their polite society. Thus do they throw Br'er Rabbit into the proverbial briar patch. Now what? The continued rise in Trump's poll numbers reminds all that Ross Perot - in an era that was far more tolerant of the Establishment than is ours - outdistanced both Bush 41 and Bill Clinton before self-destructing, just by speaking ill of both parties before he self destructed. Republicans brahmins have the greater reason to fear. Whereas some three fifths of Democratic voters approve the conduct of their officials, only about one fifth of Republican voters approve what theirs do. If Americans in general are primed for revolt, Republican (and independent) voters fairly thirst for it. Trump's barest hints about what he opposes (never mind proposes) regarding just a few items on the public agenda have had such effect because they accord with
Paul Merrell

Most Americans Believe Palestinians Occupy Israeli Land - Antiwar.com Original by -- An... - 0 views

original.antiwar.com/...lestinians-occupy-israeli-land

war & peace Israel Palestine occupation public-opinion U.S.

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • According to an IRmep poll fielded by Google Consumer Surveys the majority of Americans (49.2 percent) believe that Palestinians occupy Israeli land rather than the reverse. The statistically-significant survey was fielded on March 9 in four nations and had a margin of error of 1.7-4.3 percent. The U.S. adult internet population is alone in North America believing that Israelis are under a Palestinian occupation. A simultaneous survey of Canadians reveals that 51.4 percent correctly believe Israelis occupy Palestinian land, while 54.6 percent of Mexicans also believe Israel occupies Palestinian territory. Adults living in the United Kingdom were the most convinced among the four countries surveyed with 57.7 percent believing “Israelis occupy Palestinian land.” The issue has taken on new relevance with the EU’s efforts to clearly label the origin of goods produced in Israeli West Bank settlements. The organization tasked with lobbying congress on behalf of many Israel affinity organizations in the US, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC, deems the EU labeling measure an “attack” on Israel and has sought to legitimize products from “Israeli-controlled territories” in US trade legislation. AIPAC has sought to “blur” the issue by promoting the Israeli government formulation of the lands as “disputed” rather than “occupied.”
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Mar 16
     
    While the statistic on the American public's ignorance is facially dismaying, it's going to change and change rather quickly as a result of the educational efforts of the mushrooming Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in the U.S. It's good to have a baseline public opinion to work from.
Paul Merrell

Pentagon Begins Low-Intensity, Stealth War in Syria - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...intensity-stealth-war-in-syria

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria mutiny covert-action

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • “Last Wednesday, at a Deputies Committee meeting at the White House, officials from the State Department, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed limited military strikes against the (Assad) regime … One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment.” – Washington Post Call it stealth warfare, call it poking the bear, call it whatever you’d like. The fact is, the Syrian war has entered a new and more dangerous phase increasing the chances of a catastrophic confrontation between the US and Russia. This new chapter of the conflict is the brainchild of Pentagon warlord, Ash Carter, whose attack on a Syrian outpost at Deir Ezzor killed 62 Syrian regulars putting a swift end to the fragile ceasefire agreement. Carter and his generals opposed the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire deal because it would have required “military and intelligence cooperation with the Russians”. In other words, the US would have had to get the greenlight from Moscow for its bombing targets which would have undermined its ability to assist its jihadist fighters on the ground. That was a real deal-breaker for the Pentagon. But bombing Deir Ezzor fixed all that. It got the Pentagon out of the jam it was in, it torpedoed the ceasefire, and it allowed Carter to launch his own private shooting match without presidential authorization. Mission accomplished.
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