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Paul Merrell

The Virtue of Subtlety: A U.S. Strategy Against the Islamic State - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...tegy-against-the-islamic-state

war & peace ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • U.S. strategy is sound. It is to allow the balance of power to play out, to come in only when it absolutely must — with overwhelming force, as in Kuwait — and to avoid intervention where it cannot succeed. The tactical application of strategy is the problem. In this case the tactic is not direct intervention by the United States, save as a satisfying gesture to avenge murdered Americans. But the solution rests in doing as little as possible and forcing regional powers into the fray, then in maintaining the balance of power in this coalition. Such an American strategy is not an avoidance of responsibility. It is the use of U.S. power to force a regional solution. Sometimes the best use of American power is to go to war. Far more often, the best use of U.S. power is to withhold it. The United States cannot evade responsibility in the region. But it is enormously unimaginative to assume that carrying out that responsibility is best achieved by direct intervention. Indirect intervention is frequently more efficient and more effective.
  • The United States cannot win the game of small mosaic tiles that is emerging in Syria and Iraq. An American intervention at this microscopic level can only fail. But the principle of balance of power does not mean that balance must be maintained directly. Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia have far more at stake in this than the United States. So long as they believe that the United States will attempt to control the situation, it is perfectly rational for them to back off and watch, or act in the margins, or even hinder the Americans. The United States must turn this from a balance of power between Syria and Iraq to a balance of power among this trio of regional powers. They have far more at stake and, absent the United States, they have no choice but to involve themselves. They cannot stand by and watch a chaos that could spread to them. It is impossible to forecast how the game is played out. What is important is that the game begins. The Turks do not trust the Iranians, and neither is comfortable with the Saudis. They will cooperate, compete, manipulate and betray, just as the United States or any country might do in such a circumstance. The point is that there is a tactic that will fail: American re-involvement. There is a tactic that will succeed: the United States making it clear that while it might aid the pacification in some way, the responsibility is on regional powers. The inevitable outcome will be a regional competition that the United States can manage far better than the current chaos.
  • There is then the special case of the Islamic State. It is special because its emergence triggered the current crisis. It is special because the brutal murder of two prisoners on video showed a particular cruelty. And it is different because its ideology is similar to that of al Qaeda, which attacked the United States. It has excited particular American passions. To counter this, I would argue that the uprising by Iraq’s Sunni community was inevitable, with its marginalization by Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite regime in Baghdad. That it took this particularly virulent form is because the more conservative elements of the Sunni community were unable or unwilling to challenge al-Maliki. But the fragmentation of Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions was well underway before the Islamic State, and jihadism was deeply embedded in the Sunni community a long time ago. Moreover, although the Islamic State is brutal, its cruelty is not unique in the region. Syrian President Bashar al Assad and others may not have killed Americans or uploaded killings to YouTube, but their history of ghastly acts is comparable. Finally, the Islamic State — engaged in war with everyone around it — is much less dangerous to the United States than a small group with time on its hands, planning an attack. In any event, if the Islamic State did not exist, the threat to the United States from jihadist groups in Yemen or Libya or somewhere inside the United States would remain.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • The issue is whether the United States can live with this situation or whether it must reshape it. The immediate question is whether the United States has the power to reshape it and to what extent. The American interest turns on its ability to balance local forces. If that exists, the question is whether there is any other shape that can be achieved through American power that would be superior. From my point of view, there are many different shapes that can be imagined, but few that can be achieved. The American experience in Iraq highlighted the problems with counterinsurgency or being caught in a local civil war. The idea of major intervention assumes that this time it will be different. This fits one famous definition of insanity.
  • A national strategy emerges over the decades and centuries. It becomes a set of national interests into which a great deal has been invested, upon which a great deal depends and upon which many are counting. Presidents inherit national strategies, and they can modify them to some extent. But the idea that a president has the power to craft a new national strategy both overstates his power and understates the power of realities crafted by all those who came before him. We are all trapped in circumstances into which we were born and choices that were made for us. The United States has an inherent interest in Ukraine and in Syria-Iraq. Whether we should have that interest is an interesting philosophical question for a late-night discussion, followed by a sunrise when we return to reality. These places reflexively matter to the United States. The American strategy is fixed: Allow powers in the region to compete and balance against each other. When that fails, intervene with as little force and risk as possible. For example, the conflict between Iran and Iraq canceled out two rising powers until the war ended. Then Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened to overturn the balance of power in the region. The result was Desert Storm.
  • The American strategy is fixed: Allow powers in the region to compete and balance against each other. When that fails, intervene with as little force and risk as possible. For example, the conflict between Iran and Iraq canceled out two rising powers until the war ended. Then Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened to overturn the balance of power in the region. The result was Desert Storm. This strategy provides a model. In the Syria-Iraq region, the initial strategy is to allow the regional powers to balance each other, while providing as little support as possible to maintain the balance of power. It is crucial to understand the balance of power in detail, and to understand what might undermine it, so that any force can be applied effectively. This is the tactical part, and it is the tactical part that can go wrong. The strategy has a logic of its own. Understanding what that strategy demands is the hard part. Some nations have lost their sovereignty by not understanding what strategy demands. France in 1940 comes to mind. For the United States, there is no threat to sovereignty, but that makes the process harder: Great powers can tend to be casual because the situation is not existential. This increases the cost of doing what is necessary. The ground where we are talking about applying this model is Syria and Iraq. Both of these central governments have lost control of the country as a whole, but each remains a force. Both countries are divided by religion, and the religions are divided internally as well. In a sense the nations have ceased to exist, and the fragments they consisted of are now smaller but more complex entities.
  • This strategy provides a model. In the Syria-Iraq region, the initial strategy is to allow the regional powers to balance each other, while providing as little support as possible to maintain the balance of power. It is crucial to understand the balance of power in detail, and to understand what might undermine it, so that any force can be applied effectively. This is the tactical part, and it is the tactical part that can go wrong. The strategy has a logic of its own. Understanding what that strategy demands is the hard part. Some nations have lost their sovereignty by not understanding what strategy demands. France in 1940 comes to mind. For the United States, there is no threat to sovereignty, but that makes the process harder: Great powers can tend to be casual because the situation is not existential. This increases the cost of doing what is necessary. The ground where we are talking about applying this model is Syria and Iraq. Both of these central governments have lost control of the country as a whole, but each remains a force. Both countries are divided by religion, and the religions are divided internally as well. In a sense the nations have ceased to exist, and the fragments they consisted of are now smaller but more complex entities.
  • There is then the special case of the Islamic State. It is special because its emergence triggered the current crisis. It is special because the brutal murder of two prisoners on video showed a particular cruelty. And it is different because its ideology is similar to that of al Qaeda, which attacked the United States. It has excited particular American passions. To counter this, I would argue that the uprising by Iraq’s Sunni community was inevitable, with its marginalization by Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite regime in Baghdad. That it took this particularly virulent form is because the more conservative elements of the Sunni community were unable or unwilling to challenge al-Maliki. But the fragmentation of Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions was well underway before the Islamic State, and jihadism was deeply embedded in the Sunni community a long time ago. Moreover, although the Islamic State is brutal, its cruelty is not unique in the region. Syrian President Bashar al Assad and others may not have killed Americans or uploaded killings to YouTube, but their history of ghastly acts is comparable. Finally, the Islamic State — engaged in war with everyone around it — is much less dangerous to the United States than a small group with time on its hands, planning an attack. In any event, if the Islamic State did not exist, the threat to the United States from jihadist groups in Yemen or Libya or somewhere inside the United States would remain.
  • The issue is whether the United States can live with this situation or whether it must reshape it. The immediate question is whether the United States has the power to reshape it and to what extent. The American interest turns on its ability to balance local forces. If that exists, the question is whether there is any other shape that can be achieved through American power that would be superior. From my point of view, there are many different shapes that can be imagined, but few that can be achieved. The American experience in Iraq highlighted the problems with counterinsurgency or being caught in a local civil war. The idea of major intervention assumes that this time it will be different. This fits one famous definition of insanity.
  • Because the Islamic State operates to some extent as a conventional military force, it is vulnerable to U.S. air power. The use of air power against conventional forces that lack anti-aircraft missiles is a useful gambit. It shows that the United States is doing something, while taking little risk, assuming that the Islamic State really does not have anti-aircraft missiles. But it accomplishes little. The Islamic State will disperse its forces, denying conventional aircraft a target. Attempting to defeat the Islamic State by distinguishing its supporters from other Sunni groups and killing them will founder at the first step. The problem of counterinsurgency is identifying the insurgent. There is no reason not to bomb the Islamic State’s forces and leaders. They certainly deserve it. But there should be no illusion that bombing them will force them to capitulate or mend their ways. They are now part of the fabric of the Sunni community, and only the Sunni community can root them out. Identifying Sunnis who are anti-Islamic State and supplying them with weapons is a much better idea. It is the balance-of-power strategy that the United States follows, but this approach doesn’t have the dramatic satisfaction of blowing up the enemy. That satisfaction is not trivial, and the United States can certainly blow something up and call it the enemy, but it does not address the strategic problem. In the first place, is it really a problem for the United States?
  • There is no reason not to bomb the Islamic State’s forces and leaders. They certainly deserve it. But there should be no illusion that bombing them will force them to capitulate or mend their ways. They are now part of the fabric of the Sunni community, and only the Sunni community can root them out. Identifying Sunnis who are anti-Islamic State and supplying them with weapons is a much better idea. It is the balance-of-power strategy that the United States follows, but this approach doesn’t have the dramatic satisfaction of blowing up the enemy. That satisfaction is not trivial, and the United States can certainly blow something up and call it the enemy, but it does not address the strategic problem. In the first place, is it really a problem for the United States? The American interest is not stability but the existence of a dynamic balance of power in which all players are effectively paralyzed so that no one who would threaten the United States emerges. The Islamic State had real successes at first, but the balance of power with the Kurds and Shia has limited its expansion, and tensions within the Sunni community diverted its attention. Certainly there is the danger of intercontinental terrorism, and U.S. intelligence should be active in identifying and destroying these threats. But the re-occupation of Iraq, or Iraq plus Syria, makes no sense. The United States does not have the force needed to occupy Iraq and Syria at the same time. The demographic imbalance between available forces and the local population makes that impossible.
  • The danger is that other Islamic State franchises might emerge in other countries. But the United States would not be able to block these threats as well as the other countries in the region. Saudi Arabia must cope with any internal threat it faces not because the United States is indifferent, but because the Saudis are much better at dealing with such threats. In the end, the same can be said for the Iranians. Most important, it can also be said for the Turks. The Turks are emerging as a regional power. Their economy has grown dramatically in the past decade, their military is the largest in the region, and they are part of the Islamic world. Their government is Islamist but in no way similar to the Islamic State, which concerns Ankara. This is partly because of Ankara’s fear that the jihadist group might spread to Turkey, but more so because its impact on Iraqi Kurdistan could affect Turkey’s long-term energy plans.
  • The United States cannot win the game of small mosaic tiles that is emerging in Syria and Iraq. An American intervention at this microscopic level can only fail. But the principle of balance of power does not mean that balance must be maintained directly. Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia have far more at stake in this than the United States. So long as they believe that the United States will attempt to control the situation, it is perfectly rational for them to back off and watch, or act in the margins, or even hinder the Americans. The United States must turn this from a balance of power between Syria and Iraq to a balance of power among this trio of regional powers. They have far more at stake and, absent the United States, they have no choice but to involve themselves. They cannot stand by and watch a chaos that could spread to them. It is impossible to forecast how the game is played out. What is important is that the game begins. The Turks do not trust the Iranians, and neither is comfortable with the Saudis. They will cooperate, compete, manipulate and betray, just as the United States or any country might do in such a circumstance. The point is that there is a tactic that will fail: American re-involvement. There is a tactic that will succeed: the United States making it clear that while it might aid the pacification in some way, the responsibility is on regional powers. The inevitable outcome will be a regional competition that the United States can manage far better than the current chaos.
  • U.S. strategy is sound. It is to allow the balance of power to play out, to come in only when it absolutely must — with overwhelming force, as in Kuwait — and to avoid intervention where it cannot succeed. The tactical application of strategy is the problem. In this case the tactic is not direct intervention by the United States, save as a satisfying gesture to avenge murdered Americans. But the solution rests in doing as little as possible and forcing regional powers into the fray, then in maintaining the balance of power in this coalition. Such an American strategy is not an avoidance of responsibility. It is the use of U.S. power to force a regional solution. Sometimes the best use of American power is to go to war. Far more often, the best use of U.S. power is to withhold it. The United States cannot evade responsibility in the region. But it is enormously unimaginative to assume that carrying out that responsibility is best achieved by direct intervention. Indirect intervention is frequently more efficient and more effective.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Sep 14
     
    The article is by the Chairman of Stratfor, a private intelligence company. I don't agree with its analysis because I am decidedly non-interventionist. But this article should be required reading for all who have fallen for the war fever being spread by the War Party for full-scale military invasion of Iraq and Syria. The article at least lays a sound basis for a large degree of restraint.
Gary Edwards

Possible Constitutional Amendments in the event of an Article V Convention of States - ... - 0 views

teapartyorg.ning.com/...show

Oren-LOng Tea-Party-Patriots Constitutional-Amendments Article-V-Convention

shared by Gary Edwards on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • NUMBER ONE: "Section One:   The Constitution of the United States shall be read and interpreted literally.   No words or phrases shall be changed or substituted and no part of the Constitution shall be used to expand or increase Federal Power or Authority beyond that EXPRESSLY granted and enumerated in the Constitution.   The language of the Constitution shall be interpreted according to the definition of words at the time of their inclusion in the Constitution. Section Two:    Congress shall have, by two thirds vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the power to override individual rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States and/or subordinate Federal Courts.   The President shall not have veto authority over Congressional overrides of Federal Court decisions."
  • NUMBER TWO: "Section One:    No person shall be elected to Congress more than once unless serving in Congress at the time of the ratification of this amendment, in which case members of Congress shall be eligible for re-election to their respective seats one time. Section Two:     In the event the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is repealed members of the Senate of the United States shall serve at the pleasure and discretion of the Legislature of their respective State. Section Three:  Neither Congress, the President, nor any Federal Court shall make any law, rule, regulation, or order that does not apply equally to themselves and all citizens of the United States.   Nor shall Congress, the President, or any Federal Court cause or allow any law, rule, regulation, or order to be made by any agent or agency of the Federal Government that does not apply equally to themselves and all citizens of the United States.
  • Section Four:    Neither Congress nor the President shall receive any publically-funded retirement or benefit beyond appropriate pay not available to all citizens of the United States. Section Five:    Section Four shall not apply to members of Congress or Presidents, serving or retired, at the time of the ratification of this amendment. Section Six:      The President shall be subject to popular recall by his/her constituency.   Within 90 days of the ratification of this amendment Congress shall pass legislation governing the recall of the President.   In the event Congress fails to pass the required legislation within the required 90 days, the President shall be considered to have been recalled and a new election held within 60 days. Section Seven: Members of Congress shall be subject to popular recall by their respective constituencies, unless the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is repealed, in which case only members of the House of Representatives shall be subject to popular recall.   Within 90 days of the ratification of this amendment each State shall pass legislation governing the recall of its Congressional Delegation.   In the event a State fails to pass the required legislation within the required 90 days, that State's Congressional Delegation shall be considered to have been recalled and new elections held within 60 days."
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  • NUMBER THREE: "Congress shall make and the President shall sign a Balanced Federal Budget every year and before the beginning of the ensuing fiscal year.   In the event Congress and the President fail to make said Balanced Federal Budget before the beginning of the ensuing fiscal year, the last Constitutionally passed and signed Federal Budget shall go into effect and shall be the Federal Budget for the entirety of the ensuing fiscal year.   Balanced shall be defined as expenditures not to exceed revenues except in time of war as declared by Congress.   Revenues shall be defined as monies received; not monies predicted, anticipated, or forecasted.   Unfunded liabilities, obligations, and/or mandates shall be included in the calculation of the Balanced Federal Budget."
  • NUMBER FOUR: "The Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States are hereby repealed.   All Federal agencies, programs, laws, rules, regulations, and/or orders created, passed, or handed down as a direct or indirect result of the Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and/or Seventeenth Amendments are hereby stricken from Law, declared null and void, and have no force of effect."
  • NUMBER FIVE: "Section One:     Only persons born of two parents, both of whom are citizens of the United States at the time of the birth of the person, shall be citizens of the United States unless naturalized under the terms and conditions of the Constitution of the United States. Section Two:      Only United States Citizens shall enjoy or receive all rights, benefits, and privileges of United States Citizenship. Section Three:   Non-citizens shall not receive, directly or indirectly, Federal or Constitutional benefits, privileges, or protections."
  • NUMBER SIX:   "The several States are hereby empowered, individually or collectively, to enforce the Constitution of the United States and Federal Law, within their respective borders, regardless of Federal resistance or objections."
  • NUMBER SEVEN:   "Section One:   The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States shall be interpreted to mean the FUNDAMENTAL right of individual citizens and/or groups of citizens to keep and bear arms; in their homes and/or other properties, in public and private, and on their persons. Section Two:    Non-citizens and persons convicted of a violent felony by a jury of their peers do not have this right."
  • NUMBER EIGHT: "The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States shall not be interpreted to prohibit or restrict the peaceful, free exercise or expression of religion, in public or private, or in or on public property."
  • Gary Edwards on 16 Jan 15
     
    "Possible Constitutional Amendments in the event of an Article V Convention of States Posted by Oren Long on January 12, 2015 at 3:42am in Tea PartyView Discussions ARTICLE V CONVENTION OF STATES; ARE YOU WILLING TO CHANGE THE STATUS QUO IN D.C.?   One of our astute and true conservative members of this site has drafted suggested changes to the Constitution to be proposed in an Article V, Convention of States. I know many of you have seen his postings on here about this issue. Mr. Oren Long is very knowledgeable and well educated and has honorably served our country. He has put a tremendous amount of time and thought into ways to, in his words, "armor and reinforce" the Constitution and return it to its Original Intent, as envisioned by the Founders. Therefore, because I agree with every one of his suggested changes, I am publishing it for him, with his permission. I truly hope that we, as a group, as conservatives and as a people who believe that our country is heading toward disaster, because of the course we are on, I fully endorse his recommended suggestions. I believe that we must take any and every course of action we can to "stop the madness" It is quite long, so PLEASE take the time to read each and every one of them. I am sure that some or many, may have suggestions to this document and they are welcome and open to discussion. If you agree with this, please call your State elected officials and urge them to get on board with an Article V Convention of States. To review or obtain more information of this process, please visit one of these sites:    http://www.conventionofstates.com/           http://www.cosaction.com/              To Whom It May Concern, The following is neither sanctioned by nor proposed by the Article V Convention of States Project.   Rather, it is entirely my work as a volunteer for the Convention of States Project.   To give you an overview of the kinds of amendments that may or may not be consid
Gary Edwards

American Thinker: Obamacare - The Perfect Constitutional Storm - 0 views

www.americanthinker.com/...erfect_constitutional_sto.html

obamacare Obammunism constitution constitutional-challenge

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Apr 10
     
    Much has been made of several states suing the federal government over the passage of ObamaCare. The argument is, essentially, that the new law violates the 10th Amendment and infringes on the "commerce clause" of the Constitution. In this article, I will argue that this approach by the states will probably fail (in and of itself) -- but that the suits brought by the states could play a role in a more comprehensive strategy to challenge the constitutionality of ObamaCare. Let's make one thing clear up front. The states are motivated to take legal action to stop the recently passed health care bill because of one primary factor: political pressure. Around 60% of the people in America are mad as hell about the passage of ObamaCare -- and any local or state elected official with a lick of sense knows it. There are some governors and state legislators who have figured out that ObamaCare may amount to the final nail in the coffins of their financially deceased states' treasuries. But few politicians worry about their states' debts; most agonize over being reelected. States have ceded power, with few complaints, to the federal government for highway funding, control of education, Medicare and Medicaid mandates, management of waterways, etc., etc., ad nauseam, for over fifty years. The states, acting alone in a constitutional challenge of the new health care legislation, will have some difficult hurdles to overcome: A) Article VI of the Constitution states in part: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. States can pass all the laws that they want "nullifying" ObamaCare. But they can't nullify the Constitution. Article VI is a huge obstruction for the states because, like it or not, ObamaCare is now the "law of the land." B) The "comme
Paul Merrell

Resurrecting the Dubious State Secrets Privilege | John Dean | Verdict | Legal Analysis... - 0 views

verdict.justia.com/...ubious-state-secrets-privilege

Dark-State state-secrets government secrecy Restis DoJ Holder

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • In an unusual move, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a motion to make a private lawsuit simply disappear. While the U.S. Government is not a party to this defamation lawsuit—Victor Restis et al. v. American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc.—filed July 19, 2013, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Attorney General Eric Holder is concerned that the discovery being undertaken might jeopardize our national security.
  • The government’s argument for intervening in this lawsuit is technical and thin.
  • The strongest precedent in the government’s brief in the current case is the 1985 case of Fitzgerald v. Penthouse Intern., Ltd. Fitzgerald had sued Penthouse Magazine for an allegedly libelous article, but the U.S. Navy moved to intervene on the ground that the government had a national security interest which would not be adequately protected by the parties, so the government requested the action be dismissed, after invoking the state secrets privilege. The federal district court granted the motions and dismissed the case, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for Fourth Circuit affirmed. So there is precedent for this unusual action by the government in a private lawsuit, but the legitimacy of the state secrets privilege remains subject to question.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Lou Fisher looked closely at the state secrets privilege in his book In The Name of National Security, as well as in follow-up articles when the Reynolds case was litigated after it was discovered, decades after the fact, that the government had literally defrauded the Supreme Court in Reynolds, e.g., “The State Secrets Privilege: Relying on Reynolds.” The Reynolds ruling emerged from litigation initiated by the widows of three civilian engineers who died in a midair explosion of a B-29 bomber on October 6, 1948. The government refused to provide the widows with the government’s accident report. On March 9, 1953, the Supreme Court created the state secrets privilege when agreeing the accident report did not have to be produced since the government claimed it contained national security secrets. In fact, none of the federal judges in the lower courts, nor the justices on the Supreme Court, were allowed to read the report.
  • In February 2000, Judith Loether, a daughter of one of the three civilians killed in the 1948 B-29 explosion, discovered the government’s once-secret accident report for the incident on the Internet. Loether had been seven weeks old when her father died but been told by her mother what was known of her father’s death and the unsuccessful efforts to find out what had truly happened. When Loether read the accident report she was stunned. There were no national security secrets whatsoever, rather there was glaringly clear evidence of the government’s negligence resulting in her father’s death. Loether shared this information with the families of the other civilian engineers who had been killed in the incident and they joined together in a legal action to overturn Reynolds, raising the fact that the executive branch of the government had misled the Supreme Court, not to mention the parties to the earlier lawsuit.
  • Lowell states in his letter: “By relying solely upon ex parte submissions to justify its invocation of the state secrets privilege, especially in the unprecedented circumstance of private party litigation without an obvious government interest, the Government has improperly invoked the state secrets privilege, deprived Plaintiffs of the opportunity to test the Government’s claims through the adversarial process, and limited the Court’s opportunity to make an informed judgment. “ Lowell further claims that in “the typical state secrets case, the Government will simultaneously file both a sealed declaration and a detailed public declaration.” (Emphasis in Lowell’s letter.) To bolster this contention, he provided the court with an example, and offered to provide additional examples if so requested.
  • To make a long story short, the Supreme Court was more interested in the finality of their decisions than the fraud that had been perpetrated upon them. They rejected the direct appeal, and efforts to relegate the case through the lower courts failed. As Fisher notes, the Court ruled in Reynolds based on “vapors and allusions,” rather than facts and evidence, and today it is clear that when it uncritically accepted the government’s word, the Court abdicated its duty to protect the ability of each party to present its case fairly, not to mention it left the matter under the control of a “self-interested executive” branch.
  • As Fisher and other scholars note, there is much more room under the Reynolds ruling for the court to take a hard look at the evidence when the government claims state secrets than has been common practice. Fisher reminds: “The state secrets privilege is qualified, not absolute. Otherwise there is no adversary process in court, no exercise of judicial independence over what evidence is needed, and no fairness accorded to private litigants who challenge the government . . . . There is no justification in law or history for a court to acquiesce to the accuracy of affidavits, statements, and declarations submitted by the executive branch.” Indeed, he noted to do so is contrary to our constitutional system of checks and balances.
  • Time to Reexamine Blind Adherence to the State Secrets PrivilegeIn responding to the government’s move to intervene, invoke state secrets, and dismiss the Restis lawsuit, plaintiffs’ attorney Abbe Lowell sent a letter to Judge Edgardo Ramos, the presiding judge on the case on September 17, 2014, contesting the Department of Justice’s ex parte filings, and requesting that Judge Ramos “order the Government to file a public declaration in support of its filing that will enable Plaintiffs to meaningfully respond.” Lowell also suggested as an alternative that he “presently holds more than sufficient security clearances to be given access to the ex parte submission,” and the court could do here as in other national security cases, and issue a protective order that the information not be shared with anyone. While Lowell does not so state, he is in effect taking on the existing state secrets privilege procedure where only the government knows what is being withheld and why, and he is taking on Reynolds.
  • The Justice Department’s memorandum of law accompanying its motion to intervene states that once the state secrets privilege has been asserted “by the head of the department with control over the matter in question . . . the scope of judicial review is quite narrow.” Quoting from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling establishing this privilege in 1953, U.S. v. Reynolds, the brief adds: “the sole determination for the court is whether, ‘from all the circumstances of the case . . . there is a reasonable danger that compulsion of the evidence will expose military [or other] matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged.’”In short, all the Justice Department need claim is the magic phrase—”state secrets”—after assuring the court that the head of department or agency involved has personally decided it is information that cannot be released. That ends the matter. This is what has made this privilege so controversial, not to mention dubious. Indeed, invocation by the executive branch effectively removes the question from judicial determination, and the information underlying the decision is not even provided to the court.
  • Lowell explains it is not clear—and suggests the government is similarly unclear in having earlier suggested a “law enforcement privilege”—as to why the state secrets privilege is being invoked, and argues this case can be tried without exposing government secrets. Citing the Fitzgerald ruling, Lowell points out dismissal is appropriate “[o]nly when no amount of effort and care on the part of the court and the parties will safeguard privileged material is dismissal warranted.”
  • No telling how Judge Ramos will rule, and the government has a remarkable record of prevailing with the deeply flawed state secrets privilege. But Lowell’s letter appears to say, between the lines, that he has a client who is prepared to test this dubious privilege and the government’s use of it in this case if Judge Ramos dismisses this lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where that ruling would be reviewed, sees itself every bit the intellectual equal of the U.S. Supreme Court and it is uniquely qualified to give this dubious privilege and the Reynolds holding a reexamination. It is long past time this be done.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Sep 14
     
    Interesting take on the Restis case by former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean. Where the State Secrets Privilege is at its very nastiest, in my opinion, is in criminal prosecutions where the government withholds potentially exculpatory evidence on grounds of state secrecy. I think the courts have been far too lenient in allowing people to be tried without production of such evidence. The work-around in the Guantanamo Bay inmate cases has been to appoint counsel who have security clearances, but in those cases the lawyer is forbidden from discussing the classified information with the client, who could have valuable input if advised what the evidence is. It's also incredibly unfair in the extraordinary rendition cases, where the courts have let the government get away with having the cases dismissed on state secrecy grounds, even though the tortures have been the victim of criminal official misconduct.  It forces the victims to appeal clear to the Supreme Court before they can start over in an international court with jurisdiction over human rights violations, where the government loses because of its refusal to produce the evidence.  (Under the relevant treaties that the U.S. is a party to, the U.S. is required to provide a judicial remedy without resort to claims of national security secrecy.) Then the U.S. refuses to pay the judgments of the International courts, placing the U.S. in double breach of its treaty obligations. We see the same kinds of outrageous secrecy playing out in the Senate Intellience Committee's report on CIA torture, where the Obama Administration is using state secrecy claims to delay release of the report summary and minimize what is in it. It's highly unlikely that I will live long enough to read the full report. And that just is not democracy in action. Down with the Dark State!   
Gary Edwards

Articles of Impeachment Against Obama - 0 views

blackrepublican.blogspot.com/...an-citizens-file-articles.html

Impeachment articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 16 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 16 Aug 13
     
    Sarasota, FL ( August 12, 2013) - The National Black Republican Association (NBRA) based in Sarasota, FL, headed by Chairman Frances Rice, filed Articles of Impeachment against President Barack Obama with the following language.   We, black American citizens, in order to free ourselves and our fellow citizens from governmental tyranny, do herewith submit these Articles of Impeachment to Congress for the removal of President Barack H. Obama, aka, Barry Soetoro, from office for his attack on liberty and commission of egregious acts of despotism that constitute high crimes and misdemeanors.   On July 4, 1776, the founders of our nation declared their independence from governmental tyranny and reaffirmed their faith in independence with the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791.   Asserting their right to break free from the tyranny of a nation that denied them the civil liberties that are our birthright, the founders declared:   "When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."  -  Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.   THE IMPEACHMENT POWER   Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution provides: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."   THE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT   In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Barack H. Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that:   ARTICL
Paul Merrell

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

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

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

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

A First Look at the Book "The Liberty Amendments", by Mark Levin - Tea Party Command Ce... - 0 views

teapartyorg.ning.com/...show

Liberty-Amendments

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Aug 13
     
    Excellent youtube interview! "Mark Levin has just published his much-anticipated book The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic. Three of his eleven proposed Constitutional amendments appear below, and a Sean Hannity interview of Levin appears at the bottom of this post. Levin's book is centered around the Constitution's Article V (aka "Article 5″). That article specifies two methods for amending the Constitution. Just briefly - In the first method of creating amendments, Congress proposes and the States dispose. In the second method of creating amendments, the States propose and the States dispose. The second method has never been used successfully, although there have been many attempts.  It is that second method that the Founders provided as a remedy for an overreaching federal government. In the second method, neither Congress, nor the President, nor the Supreme Court have any voting or veto authority whatsoever.  The states are in full control. Period. It is, by design, the ultimate override for an over-spending, over-taxing, over-regulating, and increasingly dictatorial and lawless federal government. Clearly, its time has come. In that second method, Congress has at most a mere ministerial role.  Of course Congress is very protective of its power, and could, through delay and inaction, attempt to convert their mere ministerial role into a de facto veto power, halting any attempt for a state-driven amendment action. Apparently Congress has done exactly that many times, acting in bad faith and contrary to the Framers' spirit and intent for Article V which is clearly expressed in the Federalist Papers. Legal scholars have been trying to find a way around the federal government's intransigence, so far with little success. Now more than ever, it is time for We the People to bring the power of Article V to the center ring of American politics. That starts with awareness, and Levin's book will br
Paul Merrell

Saudi Arabia warns of shift away from U.S. over Syria, Iran | Reuters - 1 views

www.reuters.com/...audi-usa-idUSBRE99L0K120131022

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - Upset at President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Syria, members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family are threatening a rift with the United States that could take the alliance between Washington and the kingdom to its lowest point in years. Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief is vowing that the kingdom will make a "major shift" in relations with the United States to protest perceived American inaction over Syria's civil war as well as recent U.S. overtures to Iran, a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday.Prince Bandar bin Sultan told European diplomats that the United States had failed to act effectively against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was growing closer to Tehran, and had failed to back Saudi support for Bahrain when it crushed an anti-government revolt in 2011, the source said."The shift away from the U.S. is a major one," the source close to Saudi policy said. "Saudi doesn't want to find itself any longer in a situation where it is dependent."It was not immediately clear whether the reported statements by Prince Bandar, who was the Saudi ambassador to Washington for 22 years, had the full backing of King Abdullah.
  • Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief is vowing that the kingdom will make a "major shift" in relations with the United States to protest perceived American inaction over Syria's civil war as well as recent U.S. overtures to Iran, a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday.Prince Bandar bin Sultan told European diplomats that the United States had failed to act effectively against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was growing closer to Tehran, and had failed to back Saudi support for Bahrain when it crushed an anti-government revolt in 2011, the source said."The shift away from the U.S. is a major one," the source close to Saudi policy said. "Saudi doesn't want to find itself any longer in a situation where it is dependent."It was not immediately clear whether the reported statements by Prince Bandar, who was the Saudi ambassador to Washington for 22 years, had the full backing of King Abdullah.The growing breach between the United States and Saudi Arabia was also on display in Washington, where another senior Saudi prince criticized Obama's Middle East policies, accusing him of "dithering" on Syria and Israeli-Palestinian peace.
  • In unusually blunt public remarks, Prince Turki al-Faisal called Obama's policies in Syria "lamentable" and ridiculed a U.S.-Russian deal to eliminate Assad's chemical weapons. He suggested it was a ruse to let Obama avoid military action in Syria."The current charade of international control over Bashar's chemical arsenal would be funny if it were not so blatantly perfidious. And designed not only to give Mr. Obama an opportunity to back down (from military strikes), but also to help Assad to butcher his people," said Prince Turki, a member of the Saudi royal family and former director of Saudi intelligence.The United States and Saudi Arabia have been allies since the kingdom was declared in 1932, giving Riyadh a powerful military protector and Washington secure oil supplies.The Saudi criticism came days after the 40th anniversary of the October 1973 Arab oil embargo imposed to punish the West for supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur war.That was one of the low points in U.S.-Saudi ties, which were also badly shaken by the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
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  • Saudi Arabia gave a clear sign of its displeasure over Obama's foreign policy last week when it rejected a coveted two-year term on the U.N. Security Council in a display of anger over the failure of the international community to end the war in Syria and act on other Middle East issues.Prince Turki indicated that Saudi Arabia will not reverse that decision, which he said was a result of the Security Council's failure to stop Assad and implement its own decision on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."There is nothing whimsical about the decision to forego membership of the Security Council. It is based on the ineffectual experience of that body," he said in a speech to the Washington-based National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.
  • Prince Bandar is seen as a foreign policy hawk, especially on Iran. The Sunni Muslim kingdom's rivalry with Shi'ite Iran, an ally of Syria, has amplified sectarian tensions across the Middle East.A son of the late defense minister and crown prince, Prince Sultan, and a protégé of the late King Fahd, he fell from favor with King Abdullah after clashing on foreign policy in 2005.But he was called in from the cold last year with a mandate to bring down Assad, diplomats in the Gulf say. Over the past year, he has led Saudi efforts to bring arms and other aid to Syrian rebels."Prince Bandar told diplomats that he plans to limit interaction with the U.S.," the source close to Saudi policy said."This happens after the U.S. failed to take any effective action on Syria and Palestine. Relations with the U.S. have been deteriorating for a while, as Saudi feels that the U.S. is growing closer with Iran and the U.S. also failed to support Saudi during the Bahrain uprising," the source said.The source declined to provide more details of Bandar's talks with the diplomats, which took place in the past few days.
  • But he suggested that the planned change in ties between the energy superpower and the United States would have wide-ranging consequences, including on arms purchases and oil sales.Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, ploughs much of its earnings back into U.S. assets. Most of the Saudi central bank's net foreign assets of $690 billion are thought to be denominated in dollars, much of them in U.S. Treasury bonds."All options are on the table now, and for sure there will be some impact," the Saudi source said.He said there would be no further coordination with the United States over the war in Syria, where the Saudis have armed and financed rebel groups fighting Assad.The kingdom has informed the United States of its actions in Syria, and diplomats say it has respected U.S. requests not to supply the groups with advanced weaponry that the West fears could fall into the hands of al Qaeda-aligned groups.Saudi anger boiled over after Washington refrained from military strikes in response to a poison gas attack in Damascus in August when Assad agreed to give up his chemical weapons arsenal.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Oct 13
     
    This lengthy article from Reuters deserves attention. The peace initiatives by Russia/Syria and by Iran are forcing realignment of foreign policies throughout the Mideast. The U.S. is no longer perceived as being on the side of only Sunni Muslim states. One of the most visible changes (after cancellation of the U.S. military strike on Syria) is a go-it-alone declaration by the House of Saud that parallels the stance taken by Israel's ruling right-wing coalition. Both Israel and the Saudis had very successfully isolated the U.S. from the non-Sunni Arab nations, fueling and deepening a religious divide within the Arab nations. It remains to be seen whether the declarations by the House of Saud and Bibi Netanyahu will translate into effective military action against Iran and Syria, although Saudi money and weapons will continue to flow into Syria for the foreseeable future. Both nations will continue attempts to undo the looming Iran-U.S. thaw in relations. Predictably, the Zionist/Neocon hawks in Congress are pushing legislation to put a big freeze back on the Iran-U.S. thaw in relations, including a bill to stiffen economic sanctions on Iran and authorize military strikes against Syria. But that legislation seems to be going nowhere; the mood of the U.S. population (and thus of those up for election next year) has shifted to profoundly anti-war, at least as applied to Syria and Iran. It would be ironic if Russia/Syria and Iran's peace initiatives actually resulted in a lasting U.S. shift away from the Zionist/Neocon strategy to destabilize all of Israel's neighboring states except Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan (those three have already been destabilized and swept into Israel's influence). If so, Obama might yet leave a positive legacy.
Paul Merrell

Moon of Alabama - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org

war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy moderate-rebels military-defeat

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 15 - Cached
  • Over the last year the U.S. bombed Jabhat al-Nusra personal and facilities in Syria some five or six times. The al-Qaeda subgroup also has a history of attacking U.S. paid "relative moderate" proxy forces in Syria. The Pentagon recently inserted another U.S. mercenary group into north Syria. This was accompanied by a media campaign in which the administration lauded itself for the operation. The newly inserted group is especially trained and equipped to direct U.S. air attacks like those that earlier hit al-Nusra fighters. Now that freshly inserted group was attacked by Jabhat al-Nusra. Some of its members were killed and others were abducted. The Obama administration is shocked, SHOCKED, ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED that Jabhat al-Nusra would do such a ghastly deed. "Why would they do that?" "Who could have known that they would attack U.S. proxy forces???"
  • There is no longer an Jihadist ISIS or ISIL in Syria and Iraq. The people leading that entity declared (pdf) today, at the highly symbolic beginning of Ramadan, themselves to be a new caliphate:
  • Could someone explain to the fucking dimwits in the Pentagon and the Obama administrations that people everywhere, and especially terrorists group, hate it when you bomb them and kill their leaders? That those people you bomb might want to take revenge against you and your proxies? That people you bombed will not like your targeting team moving in next door to them? That alQaeda is not an "ally"? These people are too pathetically clueless to even be embarrassed about it. The accumulated intelligence quotient of the administration and Pentagon officials running the anti-Syria operation must be below three digits. But aside from their lack of basic intelligence the utter lack of simple "street smarts" is the real problem here. These people have no idea how life works outside of their beltway cages.
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  • The attack on Friday was mounted by the Nusra Front, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda. It came a day after the Nusra Front captured two leaders and at least six fighters of Division 30, which supplied the first trainees to graduate from the Pentagon’s anti-Islamic State training program. In Washington, several current and former senior administration officials acknowledged that the attack and the abductions by the Nusra Front took American officials by surprise and amounted to a significant intelligence failure. While American military trainers had gone to great lengths to protect the initial group of trainees from attacks by Islamic State or Syrian Army forces, they did not anticipate an assault from the Nusra Front. In fact, officials said on Friday, they expected the Nusra Front to welcome Division 30 as an ally in its fight against the Islamic State....A senior Defense Department official acknowledged that the threat to the trainees and their Syrian recruiters had been misjudged, and said that officials were trying to understand why the Nusra Front had turned on the trainees. Like other Obama administration operations this one did not fail because of "intelligence failure" but because an utter lack of common sense.
  • UPDATE: The one sane guy at the Council of Foreign relations, Micah Zenko, foresaw this debacle and wrote on March 2: [The U.S. trained mercenaries] will immediately be an attractive target for attacks by the Islamic State, Assad’s ground and air forces, and perhaps Nusra and other forces. Killing or taking prisoner fighters (or the families of those fighters) who were trained by the U.S. military will offer propaganda value, as well as leverage, to bargain for those prisoners’ release. He compared the whole operation to the 1961 CIA invasion of Cuba: Last September, the White House and Congress agreed to authorize and fund a train-and-equip project similar to the Bay of Pigs, but this time in the Middle East, without any discussion about phase two. The Syrian project resembles 1961 in two ways: What happens when the fighting starts is undecided, and the intended strategic objective is wholly implausible.
  • On more thought from me on why the dimwits did not foresee that Nusra would attack. The White House insisted on calling a part of Nusra the "Khorasan group" and explained that it was only bombing this groups of alQaeda veterans now part of Nusra because the "Khorasan group" planning to hit in "western" countries. No expert nor anyone on the ground in Syria thought that this differentiation was meaningful. Nusra is alQaeda and so are all of its members. But the White House and Pentagon probably thought that Nusra would accept the artificial separation they themselves had made up. That Nusra would understand that it is seen as an "ally" and only the "Khorasan group" is seen as an enemy. If that was the line of thinking, and the situation seems to point to that, then these people have fallen for their own propaganda stunt. They probably believed that the "Khorasan group" was an accepted narrative because they were telling that tale to themselves. Poor idiots.
  • U.S. media can no agree with itself if Russia is giving ISIS an airforce or if Russia pounds ISIS with the biggest bomber raid in decades. Such confusion occurs when propaganda fantasies collide with the observable reality. To bridge such divide requires some fudging. So when the U.S. claims to act against the finances of the Islamic State while not doing much, the U.S Public Broadcasting Service has to use footage of Russian airstrikes against the Islamic State while reporting claimed U.S. airstrike successes. The U.S. military recently claimed to have hit Islamic State oil tankers in Syria. This only after Putin embarrassed Obama at the G-20 meeting in Turkey. Putin showed satellite pictures of ridiculous long tanker lines waiting for days and weeks to load oil from the Islamic State without any U.S. interference.
  • The U.S. then claimed to have hit 116 oil tankers while the Russian air force claims to have hit 500. But there is an important difference between these claims. The Russians provided videos showing how their airstrikes hit at least two different very large oil tanker assemblies with hundreds of tankers in each. They also provided video of several hits on oil storage sites and refinery infrastructure. I have found no video of U.S. hits on Islamic State oil tanker assemblies. The U.S. PBS NewsHour did not find any either. In their TV report yesterday about Islamic State financing and the claimed U.S. hits on oil trucks they used the videos Russia provided without revealing the source. You can see the Russian videos played within an interview with a U.S. military spokesperson at 2:22 min.
  • The U.S. military spokesperson speaks on camera about U.S. airforce hits against the Islamic State. The video cuts to footage taken by Russian airplanes hitting oil tanks and then trucks. The voice-over while showing the Russian video with the Russians blowing up trucks says: "For the first time the U.S. is attacking oil delivery trucks." The video then cuts back to the U.S. military spokesperson. At no point is the Russian campaign mentioned or the source of the footage revealed. Any average viewer of the PBS report will assume that the black and white explosions of oil trucks and tanks are from of U.S. airstrikes filmed by U.S. air force planes. The U.S. military itself admitted that its strikes on IS oil infrastructure over the last year were "minimally effective". One wonders then how effective the claimed strike against 116 trucks really was. But unless we have U.S. video of such strikes and not copies of Russian strike video fraudulently passed off as U.S. strikes we will not know if those strikes happened at all.
  • The wannabe Sultan Erdogan did not get his will in Syria where he had planned to capture and annex Aleppo. The Russians prevented that. He now goes for his secondary target, Mosul in Iraq, which many Turks see as historic part of their country
  • Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city with about a million inhabitants, is currently occupied by the Islamic State. On Friday a column of some 1,200 Turkish soldiers with some 20 tanks and heavy artillery moved into a camp near Mosul. The camp was one of four small training areas where Turkey was training Kurds and some Sunni-Arab Iraqis to fight the Islamic State. The small camps in the northern Kurdish area have been there since the 1990s. They were first established to fight the PKK. Later their Turkish presence was justified as ceasefire monitors after an agreement ended the inner Kurdish war between the KDP forces loyal to the Barzani clan and the PUK forces of the Talabani clan. The bases were actually used to monitor movement of the PKK forces which fight for Kurdish independence in Turkey. The base near Mosul is new and it was claimed to be just a small weapons training base. But tanks and artillery have a very different quality than some basic AK-47 training. Turkey says it will increase the numbers in these camps to over 2000 soldiers.
  • Should Mosul be cleared of the Islamic State the Turkish heavy weapons will make it possible for Turkey to claim the city unless the Iraqi government will use all its power to fight that claim. Should the city stay in the hands of the Islamic State Turkey will make a deal with it and act as its protector. It will benefit from the oil around Mosul which will be transferred through north Iraq to Turkey and from there sold on the world markets. In short: This is an effort to seize Iraq's northern oil fields. That is the plan but it is a risky one. Turkey did not ask for permission to invade Iraq and did not inform the Iraqi government. The Turks claim that they were invited by the Kurds: Turkey will have a permanent military base in the Bashiqa region of Mosul as the Turkish forces in the region training the Peshmerga forces have been reinforced, Hürriyet reported. The deal regarding the base was signed between Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani and Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu, during the latter’s visit to northern Iraq on Nov. 4. There are two problems with this. First: Massoud Barzani is no longer president of the KRG. His mandate ran out and the parliament refused to prolong it. Second: Mosul and its Bashiqa area are not part of the KRG. Barzani making a deal about it is like him making a deal about Paris.
  • The Iraqi government and all major Iraqi parties see the Turkish invasion as a hostile act against their country. Abadi demanded the immediate withdrawal of the Turkish forces but it is unlikely that Turkey will act on that. Some Iraqi politicians have called for the immediate dispatch of the Iraqi air force to bomb the Turks near Mosul. That would probably the best solution right now but the U.S. installed Premier Abadi is too timid to go for such strikes. The thinking in Baghdad is that Turkey can be kicked out after the Islamic State is defeated. But this thinking gives Turkey only more reason to keep the Islamic State alive and use it for its own purpose. The cancer should be routed now as it is still small. Barzani's Kurdistan is so broke that is has even confiscated foreign bank accounts to pay some bills. That may be the reason why Barzani agreed to the deal now. But the roots run deeper. Barzani is illegally selling oil that belongs to the Iraqi government to Turkey. The Barzani family occupies  not only the presidential office in the KRG but also the prime minister position and the local secret services. It is running the oil business and gets a big share of everything else. On the Turkish side the oil deal is handled within the family of President Erdogan. His son in law, now energy minister, had the exclusive right to transport the Kurdish oil through Turkey. Erdogan's son controls the shipping company that transports the oil over sea to the customer, most often Israel. The oil under the control of the Islamic State in Iraq passes the exactly same route. These are businesses that generate hundreds of millions per year.
  • It is unlikely that U.S., if it is not behinds Turkey new escapade, will do anything about it. The best Iraq could do now is to ask the Russians for their active military support. The Turks insisted on their sovereignty when they ambushed a Russian jet that brushed its border but had no intend of harming Turkey. Iraq should likewise insist on its sovereignty, ask Russia for help and immediately kick the Turks out. The longer it waits the bigger the risk that Turkey will eventually own Mosul.
  • Another fake news item currently circling is that Trump has given order to the military to create safe zones for Syria. The reality is still far from it: [H]is administration crafted a draft order that would direct the Pentagon and the State Department to submit plans for the safe zones within 90 days. The order hasn't yet been issued. The draft of the order, which will be endlessly revised, says that safe zones could be in Syria or in neighboring countries. The Pentagon has always argued against such zones in Syria and the plans it will submit, should such an order be issued at all, will reflect that. The safe zones in Syria ain't gonna happen
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 15
     
    So the first group of U.S. trained "moderate" Syrian opposition fighters are an epic fail. Who'd of thunk? 
Gary Edwards

Seven Things You Should Know about the IRS Rule Challenged in King v. Burwell | Cato In... - 0 views

www.cato.org/...rule-challenged-king-v-burwell

ObamaCare King-v-Burwell

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Mar 15
     
    "By Michael F. Cannon and Jonathan H. Adler This article appeared on National Review (Online) on March 4, 2015. This week, the Supreme Court considers King v. Burwell. At issue is whether the IRS exceeded its authority under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by issuing a final IRS rule that expanded the application of the Act's subsidies and mandates beyond the limits imposed by the statute. King v. Burwell is not a constitutional challenge. It challenges an IRS rule as being inconsistent with the Act it purports to implement. The case is a straightforward question of statutory interpretation. Here are seven things everyone needs to know about how the IRS developed the rule at issue in King v. Burwell. But first, a little background. If you're familiar with the case, you can skip to number one. Background Section 1311 of the Act directs states to establish health-insurance "Exchanges." Section 1321 directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish Exchanges in states that "fail[]" to establish Exchanges. Confounding expectations, 38 states failed to establish Exchanges, in almost every case due to opposition to the Act. Section 1401 (creating I.R.C. § 36B) authorizes health-insurance subsidies (nominally, tax credits) "through an Exchange established by the State." The availability of those subsidies triggers tax penalties under the law's individual and employer mandates. In January 2014, the IRS began issuing those subsidies and imposing the resulting penalties through not only state-established Exchanges but also Exchanges established by the federal government as well (i.e., HealthCare.gov). In King v. Burwell, the plaintiffs allege that the IRS exceeded its powers under the Act by issuing a so-called final rule that purports to authorize subsidies in states with Exchanges established by the federal government. The plaintiffs claim that the rule and the subsidies being issued in such states are unlawful, because
Paul Merrell

Libya: From Africa's Richest State Under Gaddafi, to Failed State After NATO Interventi... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5408740

war & peace Libya failed-state U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • This week marks the three-year anniversary of the Western-backed assassination of Libya’s former president, Muammar Gaddafi, and the fall of one of Africa’s greatest nations. In 1967 Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated, Gaddafi had turned Libya into Africa’s wealthiest nation. Libya had the highest GDP per capita and life expectancy on the continent. Less people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands. After NATO’s intervention in 2011, Libya is now a failed state and its economy is in shambles. As the government’s control slips through their fingers and into to the militia fighters’ hands, oil production has all but stopped. The militias variously local, tribal, regional, Islamist or criminal, that have plagued Libya since NATO’s intervention, have recently lined up into two warring factions. Libya now has two governments, both with their own Prime Minister, parliament and army.
  • For over 40 years, Gaddafi promoted economic democracy and used the nationalized oil wealth to sustain progressive social welfare programs for all Libyans. Under Gaddafi’s rule, Libyans enjoyed not only free health-care and free education, but also free electricity and interest-free loans. Now thanks to NATO’s intervention the health-care sector is on the verge of collapse as thousands of Filipino health workers flee the country, institutions of higher education across the East of the country are shut down, and black outs are a common occurrence in once thriving Tripoli. One group that has suffered immensely from NATO’s bombing campaign is the nation’s women. Unlike many other Arab nations, women in Gaddafi’s Libya had the right to education, hold jobs, divorce, hold property and have an income. The United Nations Human Rights Council praised Gaddafi for his promotion of women’s rights. When the colonel seized power in 1969, few women went to university. Today, more than half of Libya’s university students are women. One of the first laws Gaddafi passed in 1970 was an equal pay for equal work law. Nowadays, the new “democratic” Libyan regime is clamping down on women’s rights. The new ruling tribes are tied to traditions that are strongly patriarchal. Also, the chaotic nature of post-intervention Libyan politics has allowed free reign to extremist Islamic forces that see gender equality as a Western perversion.
  • Hifter’s forces are currently vying with the Al Qaeda group Ansar al-Sharia for control of Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi. Ansar al-Sharia was armed by America during the NATO campaign against Colonel Gaddafi. In yet another example of the U.S. backing terrorists backfiring, Ansar al-Sharia has recently been blamed by America for the brutal assassination of U.S. Ambassador Stevens. Hifter is currently receiving logistical and air support from the U.S. because his faction envision a mostly secular Libya open to Western financiers, speculators, and capital. Perhaps, Gaddafi’s greatest crime, in the eyes of NATO, was his desire to put the interests of local labour above foreign capital and his quest for a strong and truly United States of Africa. In fact, in August 2011, President Obama confiscated $30 billion from Libya’s Central Bank, which Gaddafi had earmarked for the establishment of the African IMF and African Central Bank. In 2011, the West’s objective was clearly not to help the Libyan people, who already had the highest standard of living in Africa, but to oust Gaddafi, install a puppet regime, and gain control of Libya’s natural resources.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • On one side, in the West of the country, Islamist-allied militias took over control of the capital Tripoli and other cities and set up their own government, chasing away a parliament that was elected over the summer. On the other side, in the East of the Country, the “legitimate” government dominated by anti-Islamist politicians, exiled 1,200 kilometers away in Tobruk, no longer governs anything. The fall of Gaddafi’s administration has created all of the country’s worst-case scenarios: Western embassies have all left, the South of the country has become a haven for terrorists, and the Northern coast a center of migrant trafficking. Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia have all closed their borders with Libya. This all occurs amidst a backdrop of widespread rape, assassinations and torture that complete the picture of a state that is failed to the bone. America is clearly fed up with the two inept governments in Libya and is now backing a third force: long-time CIA asset, General Khalifa Hifter, who aims to set himself up as Libya’s new dictator. Hifter, who broke with Gaddafi in the 1980s and lived for years in Langley, Virginia, close to the CIA’s headquarters, where he was trained by the CIA, has taken part in numerous American regime change efforts, including the aborted attempt to overthrow Gaddafi in 1996.
  • Three years ago, NATO declared that the mission in Libya had been “one of the most successful in NATO history.” Truth is, Western interventions have produced nothing but colossal failures in Libya, Iraq, and Syria. Lest we forget, prior to western military involvement in these three nations, they were the most modern and secular states in the Middle East and North Africa with the highest regional women’s rights and standards of living. A decade of failed military expeditions in the Middle East has left the American people in trillions of dollars of debt. However, one group has benefited immensely from the costly and deadly wars: America’s Military-Industrial-Complex. Building new military bases means billions of dollars for America’s military elite. As Will Blum has pointed out, following the bombing of Iraq, the United States built new bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Following the bombing of Afghanistan, the United States is now building military bases in Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Following the recent bombing of Libya, the United States has built new military bases in the Seychelles, Kenya, South Sudan, Niger and Burkina Faso.
  • Given that Libya sits atop the strategic intersection of the African, Middle Eastern and European worlds, Western control of the nation, has always been a remarkably effective way to project power into these three regions and beyond. NATO’s military intervention may have been a resounding success for America’s military elite and oil companies but for the ordinary Libyan, the military campaign may indeed go down in history as one of the greatest failures of the 21st century.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Oct 14
     
    Indeed, Muammar Gadafi was well on his way to becoming the Simón Bolívar of Africa when the U.S. snuffed out his government and his life to end his efforts to create a United States of Africa with its own gold-backed currency. Were there Justice in this world, Barack Obama would be in prison today for his war crimes against the Libyan people. 
Gary Edwards

Major Banksters, Governmental Officials and Their Comrade Capitalists Targets of Spire ... - 0 views

www.marketwatch.com/...ted-states-treasury-2012-10-25

Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Nov 12
     
    "NEW YORK, Oct. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Spire Law Group, LLP's national home owners' lawsuit, pending in the venue where the "Banksters" control their $43 trillion racketeering scheme (New York) - known as the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History and identifying $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money by the "Banksters" and their U.S. racketeering partners and joint venturers - now pinpoints the identities of the key racketeering partners of the "Banksters" located in the highest offices of government and acting for their own self-interests. In connection with the federal lawsuit now impending in the United States District Court in Brooklyn, New York (Case No. 12-cv-04269-JBW-RML) - involving, among other things, a request that the District Court enjoin all mortgage foreclosures by the Banksters nationwide, unless and until the entire $43 trillion is repaid to a court-appointed receiver - Plaintiffs now establish the location of the $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money in a racketeering enterprise participated in by the following individuals (without limitation): Attorney General Holder acting in his individual capacity, Assistant Attorney General Tony West, the brother in law of Defendant California Attorney General Kamala Harris (both acting in their individual capacities), Jon Corzine (former New Jersey Governor), Robert Rubin (former Treasury Secretary and Bankster), Timothy Geitner, Treasury Secretary (acting in his individual capacity), Vikram Pandit (recently resigned and disgraced Chairman of the Board of Citigroup), Valerie Jarrett (a Senior White House Advisor), Anita Dunn (a former "communications director" for the Obama Administration), Robert Bauer (husband of Anita Dunn and Chief Legal Counsel for the Obama Re-election Campaign), as well as the "Banksters" themselves, and their affiliates and conduits. The lawsuit alleges serial violations of the United States Patri
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Nov 12
     
    This is the first time anyone has tried to go after the Bankster class of midievil (mediæval) elites to recover theft of funds. Charges include racketeering, fraud and international money laundering. The mass tort action is now in the Brooklyn Federal Courts. Dead bodies are starting to show up as the Banksters move to shut down press coverage. Amazing stuff.
Paul Merrell

Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council Wins Rosemary Award - 0 views

www2.gwu.edu/...20150318

Hillary Auction 2016 email-scandal State-Dept. gov't.-CIOs

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Hillary Clinton E-Mail Controversy Illuminates Government-Wide Failure National Security Archive Lawsuit Established E-Mails as Records in 1993 CIO Council Repeats as Rosemary "Winner" for Doubling Down On "Lifetime Failure" Only White House Saves Its E-Mail Electronically, Agencies No Deadline Until 2016
  • The Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council has won the infamous Rosemary Award for worst open government performance of 2014, according to the citation published today by the National Security Archive at www.nsarchive.org. The National Security Archive had hoped that awarding the 2010 Rosemary Award to the Federal Chief Information Officers Council for never addressing the government's "lifetime failure" of saving its e-mail electronically would serve as a government-wide wakeup call that saving e-mails was a priority. Fallout from the Hillary Clinton e-mail debacle shows, however, that rather than "waking up," the top officials have opted to hit the "snooze" button. The Archive established the not-so-coveted Rosemary Award in 2005, named after President Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who testified she had erased 18-and-a-half minutes of a crucial Watergate tape — stretching, as she showed photographers, to answer the phone with her foot still on the transcription pedal. Bestowed annually to highlight the lowlights of government secrecy, the Rosemary Award has recognized a rogue's gallery of open government scofflaws, including the CIA, the Treasury Department, the Air Force, the FBI, the Justice Department, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
  • Chief Information Officer of the United States Tony Scott was appointed to lead the Federal CIO Council on February 5, 2015, and his brief tenure has already seen more references in the news media to the importance of maintaining electronic government records, including e-mail, and the requirements of the Federal Records Act, than the past five years. Hopefully Mr. Scott, along with Office of Management & Budget Deputy Director for Management Ms. Beth Cobert will embrace the challenge of their Council being named a repeat Rosemary Award winner and use it as a baton to spur change rather than a cross to bear.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Many on the Federal CIO Council could use some motivation, including the beleaguered State Department CIO, Steven Taylor. In office since April 3, 2013, Mr. Taylor is in charge of the Department's information resources and IT initiatives and services. He "is directly responsible for the Information Resource Management (IRM) Bureau's budget of $750 million, and oversees State's total IT/ knowledge management budget of approximately one billion dollars." Prior to his current position, Taylor served as Acting CIO from August 1, 2012, as the Department's Deputy Chief Information Officer (DCIO) and Chief Technology Officer of Operations from June 2011, and was the Program Director for the State Messaging and Archival Retrieval Toolset (SMART). While Hillary Clinton repeatedly claimed that because she sent her official e-mail to "government officials on their State or other .gov accounts ... the emails were immediately captured and preserved," a recent State Department Office of Inspector General report contradicts claims that DOS' e-mail archiving system, ironically named SMART, did so.
  • The report found that State Department "employees have not received adequate training or guidance on their responsibilities for using those systems to preserve 'record emails.'" In 2011, while Taylor was State's Chief Technology Officer of Operations, State Department employees only created 61,156 record e-mails out of more than a billion e-mails sent. In other words, roughly .006% of DOS e-mails were captured electronically. And in 2013, while Taylor was State's CIO, a paltry seven e-mails were preserved from the Office of the Secretary, compared to the 4,922 preserved by the Lagos Consulate in Nigeria. Even though the report notes that its assessments "do not apply to the system used by the Department's high-level principals, the Secretary, the Deputy Secretaries, the Under Secretaries, and their immediate staffs, which maintain separate systems," the State Department has not provided any estimation of the number of Clinton's e-mails that were preserved by recipients through the Department's anachronistic "print and file" system, or any other procedure.
  • The unfortunate silver lining of Hillary Clinton inappropriately appropriating public records as her own is that she likely preserved her records much more comprehensively than her State Department colleagues, most of whose e-mails have probably been lost under Taylor's IT leadership. 2008 reports by CREW, right, and the GAO, left, highlighted problems preserving e-mails. Click to enlarge. The bigger issue is that Federal IT gurus have known about this problem for years, and the State Department is not alone in not having done anything to fix it. A 2008 survey by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and OpenTheGovernment.org did not find a single federal agency policy that mandates an electronic record keeping system agency-wide. Congressional testimony in 2008 by the Government Accountability Office indicted the standard "print and file" approach by pointing out:
  • "agencies recognize that devoting significant resources to creating paper records from electronic sources is not a viable long-term strategy;" yet GAO concluded even the "print and file" system was failing to capture historic records "for about half of the senior officials."
  • Troublingly, current Office of Management and Budget guidance does not require federal agencies to manage "all email records in an electronic format" until December 31, 2016. The only part of the federal government that seems to be facing up to the e-mail preservation challenge with any kind of "best practice" is the White House, where the Obama administration installed on day one an e-mail archiving system that preserves and manages even the President's own Blackberry messages. The National Security Archive brought the original White House e-mail lawsuit against President Reagan in early 1989, and continued the litigation against Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, until court orders compelled the White House to install the "ARMS" system to archive e-mail. The Archive sued the George W. Bush administration in 2007 after discovering that the Bush White House had junked the Clinton system without replacing its systematic archiving functions. CREW subsequently joined this suit and with the Archive negotiated a settlement with the Obama administration that included the recovery of as many as 22 million e-mails that were previously missing or misfiled.
  • s a result of two decades of the Archive's White House e-mail litigation, several hundred thousand e-mails survive from the Reagan White House, nearly a half million from the George H.W. Bush White House, 32 million from the Clinton White House, and an estimated 220 million from the George W. Bush White House. Previous recipients of the Rosemary Award include: 2013 - Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (for his "No, sir" lie to Senator Ron Wyden's question: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?") 2012 - the Justice Department (in a repeat performance, for failing to update FOIA regulations to comply with the law, undermining congressional intent, and hyping its open government statistics)
  • Rogue Band of Federal E-mail Users and Abusers Compounds Systemic Problems Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other federal officials who skirt or even violate federal laws designed to preserve electronic federal records compound e-mail management problems. Top government officials who use personal e-mail for official business include: Clinton; former U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration; chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board Rafael Moure-Eraso; and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who told ABC's This Week "I don't have any to turn over. I did not keep a cache of them. I did not print them off. I do not have thousands of pages somewhere in my personal files." Others who did not properly save electronic federal records include Environmental Protection Agency former administrator Lisa Jackson who used the pseudonym Richard Windsor to receive email; current EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, who improperly deleted thousands of text messages (which also are federal records) from her official agency cell phone; and former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner, whose emails regarding Obama's political opponents "went missing or became destroyed."
  • 2011- the Justice Department (for doing more than any other agency to eviscerate President Obama's Day One transparency pledge through pit-bull whistleblower prosecutions, recycled secrecy arguments in court cases, retrograde FOIA regulations, and mixed FOIA responsiveness) 2010 - the Federal Chief Information Officers' Council (for "lifetime failure" to address the crisis in government e-mail preservation) 2009 - the FBI (for having a record-setting rate of "no records" responses to FOIA requests) 2008 - the Treasury Department (for shredding FOIA requests and delaying responses for decades) 2007 - the Air Force (for disappearing its FOIA requests and having "failed miserably" to meet its FOIA obligations, according to a federal court ruling) 2006 - the Central Intelligence Agency (for the biggest one-year drop-off in responsiveness to FOIA requests yet recorded).
  • The destruction of other federal records was even more blatant. Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official in charge of the agency's defunct torture program ordered the destruction of key videos documenting it in 2005, claiming that "the heat from destroying [the torture videos] is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into the public domain;" Admiral William McRaven, ordered the immediate destruction of any emails about Operation Neptune Spear, including any photos of the death of Osama bin Laden ("destroy them immediately"), telling subordinates that any photos should have already been turned over to the CIA — presumably so they could be placed in operational files out of reach of the FOIA. These rogues make it harder — if not impossible — for agencies to streamline their records management, and for FOIA requesters and others to obtain official records, especially those not exchanged with other government employees. The US National Archives currently trusts agencies to determine and preserve e-mails which agencies have "deemed appropriate for preservation" on their own, often by employing a "print and file" physical archiving process for digital records. Any future reforms to e-mail management must address the problems of outdated preservation technology, Federal Records Act violators, and the scary fact that only one per cent of government e-mail addresses are saved digitally by the National Archive's recently-initiated "Capstone" program.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Mar 15
     
    Complete with photos, names, titles, of the 41 federal department and independent agency CIOs. The March 2015 Insopector General report linked from the article belies Hillary Clinton's claim that all emails she sent to State Department staff had been preserved by the Department.   
Gary Edwards

BENGHAZI - THE BIGGEST COVER-UP SCANDAL IN U.S. HISTORY? - WAS BENGHAZI A CIA GUN-RUNNI... - 0 views

www.libertynews.com/...r-insurgents-fighting-in-syria

Benghazi Benghazigate Benghazi-coverup

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 May 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 May 13
     
    "LibertyNEWS.com - Editorial Team Special Report It's never fun to admit you've been lied to and duped. There is no comfort in realizing a high-level group in government has conned you. The wound created from such a realization would be deep and painful when paired with extraordinary insult when you realize the cons are people you not only trusted, but people who are tasked with protecting your rights, your liberty, your life. When these people betray you, you're in trouble - big trouble. Unfortunately, we believe America is being betrayed by powerful individuals tasked with our protection. These people are found in the White House, the Congress, the CIA and other government entities - and they're lying to you. Then they're covering it up on an epic scale, in a never-before-seen manner. Here are the basics of what the schemers in government and the complicit media would like for us all to focus on and buy into: Why wasn't there better security at the consulate (keep this misleading word in mind) in Benghazi? Why didn't authorization come to move special forces in for protection and rescue? Why was an obscure video blamed when everyone knew the video had nothing to do with it? Did Obama's administration cover-up the true nature of the attacks to win an election? Truth is, as we're starting to believe, the above questions are convenient, tactical distractions. And truth is, answers to these questions, if they ever come, will never lead to revelations of the REAL TRUTH and meaningful punishment of anyone found responsible. Rep. Darrell Issa knows this, members of the House Committee investigating the Benghazi attacks know this, the White House knows this, and much of the big corporate media infrastructure knows it, too. How do they know it? Because they know the truth. They know the truth, but cannot and/or will not discuss it in public. Here are the basics that we (America, in general) should be focusing on, but aren't: Why do media
Gary Edwards

What Is or Should Be the Law? essay on Frederik Bastiat's "The Law" - 1 views

dailyreckoning.com/what-is-or-should-be-the-law

The-Law Frederick-Bastiat executive-orders Rule Rule-of-Law

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 May 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 May 12
     
    Jeffrey Tucker at The Daily Reckoning wonders about all those Presidential Executive Orders that make Law while by-passing the Congressional process and making mockery of the USA Constitution.  He ends up referencing the great libertarian, Frederick Bastiat's seminal work, The Law - written in 1849.    
    excerpt: One party gets annoyed when the other party's president enacts laws without regard to any constitutional conventions.
    But what is the law, and what should it be? These are the bigger questions that are not part of public consciousness.
    The same was true in the time of Frédéric Bastiat (1801-50). At the very end of his life, he wrote an impassioned plea on the topic. He tried to get people to think hard about what was happening and how law had become an instrument of plunder, rather than a protector of property.
    He writes:
    ...... "It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents or our pleasures. The function of law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these same rights by any other person." .......
    This is from Bastiat's The Law, one of the great political essays to emerge from the whole Continental world of the 19th century. It vanished into obscurity in France, was resurrected in late 19th century English, and then disappeared again, only to reappear in the United States in the 1950s, thanks to the efforts of the Foundation of Economic Education.
    This essay asks fundamental questions that most people go through life never having thought about.
    The problem is that most people accept the law as a given, a fundamental fact. As a member of society, you obey or face the consequences. It is not safe to question why. This is because the enforcement arm of the law is the state, that peculiar agency with a unique power in society to
Paul Merrell

UN Report Finds Mass Surveillance Violates International Treaties and Privacy Rights - ... - 0 views

firstlook.org/...ort-condemns-mass-surveillance

surveillance state UN-report digital-privacy

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • The United Nations’ top official for counter-terrorism and human rights (known as the “Special Rapporteur”) issued a formal report to the U.N. General Assembly today that condemns mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core privacy rights guaranteed by multiple treaties and conventions. “The hard truth is that the use of mass surveillance technology effectively does away with the right to privacy of communications on the Internet altogether,” the report concluded. Central to the Rapporteur’s findings is the distinction between “targeted surveillance” — which “depend[s] upon the existence of prior suspicion of the targeted individual or organization” — and “mass surveillance,” whereby “states with high levels of Internet penetration can [] gain access to the telephone and e-mail content of an effectively unlimited number of users and maintain an overview of Internet activity associated with particular websites.” In a system of “mass surveillance,” the report explained, “all of this is possible without any prior suspicion related to a specific individual or organization. The communications of literally every Internet user are potentially open for inspection by intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the States concerned.”
  • Mass surveillance thus “amounts to a systematic interference with the right to respect for the privacy of communications,” it declared. As a result, “it is incompatible with existing concepts of privacy for States to collect all communications or metadata all the time indiscriminately.” In concluding that mass surveillance impinges core privacy rights, the report was primarily focused on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty enacted by the General Assembly in 1966, to which all of the members of the “Five Eyes” alliance are signatories. The U.S. ratified the treaty in 1992, albeit with various reservations that allowed for the continuation of the death penalty and which rendered its domestic law supreme. With the exception of the U.S.’s Persian Gulf allies (Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar), virtually every major country has signed the treaty. Article 17 of the Covenant guarantees the right of privacy, the defining protection of which, the report explained, is “that individuals have the right to share information and ideas with one another without interference by the State, secure in the knowledge that their communication will reach and be read by the intended recipients alone.”
  • The report’s key conclusion is that this core right is impinged by mass surveillance programs: “Bulk access technology is indiscriminately corrosive of online privacy and impinges on the very essence of the right guaranteed by article 17. In the absence of a formal derogation from States’ obligations under the Covenant, these programs pose a direct and ongoing challenge to an established norm of international law.” The report recognized that protecting citizens from terrorism attacks is a vital duty of every state, and that the right of privacy is not absolute, as it can be compromised when doing so is “necessary” to serve “compelling” purposes. It noted: “There may be a compelling counter-terrorism justification for the radical re-evaluation of Internet privacy rights that these practices necessitate. ” But the report was adamant that no such justifications have ever been demonstrated by any member state using mass surveillance: “The States engaging in mass surveillance have so far failed to provide a detailed and evidence-based public justification for its necessity, and almost no States have enacted explicit domestic legislation to authorize its use.”
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  • Instead, explained the Rapporteur, states have relied on vague claims whose validity cannot be assessed because of the secrecy behind which these programs are hidden: “The arguments in favor of a complete abrogation of the right to privacy on the Internet have not been made publicly by the States concerned or subjected to informed scrutiny and debate.” About the ongoing secrecy surrounding the programs, the report explained that “states deploying this technology retain a monopoly of information about its impact,” which is “a form of conceptual censorship … that precludes informed debate.” A June report from the High Commissioner for Human Rights similarly noted “the disturbing lack of governmental transparency associated with surveillance policies, laws and practices, which hinders any effort to assess their coherence with international human rights law and to ensure accountability.” The rejection of the “terrorism” justification for mass surveillance as devoid of evidence echoes virtually every other formal investigation into these programs. A federal judge last December found that the U.S. Government was unable to “cite a single case in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack.” Later that month, President Obama’s own Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies concluded that mass surveillance “was not essential to preventing attacks” and information used to detect plots “could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional [court] orders.”
  • Three Democratic Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote in The New York Times that “the usefulness of the bulk collection program has been greatly exaggerated” and “we have yet to see any proof that it provides real, unique value in protecting national security.” A study by the centrist New America Foundation found that mass metadata collection “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism” and, where plots were disrupted, “traditional law enforcement and investigative methods provided the tip or evidence to initiate the case.” It labeled the NSA’s claims to the contrary as “overblown and even misleading.” While worthless in counter-terrorism policies, the UN report warned that allowing mass surveillance to persist with no transparency creates “an ever present danger of ‘purpose creep,’ by which measures justified on counter-terrorism grounds are made available for use by public authorities for much less weighty public interest purposes.” Citing the UK as one example, the report warned that, already, “a wide range of public bodies have access to communications data, for a wide variety of purposes, often without judicial authorization or meaningful independent oversight.”
  • The report was most scathing in its rejection of a key argument often made by American defenders of the NSA: that mass surveillance is justified because Americans are given special protections (the requirement of a FISA court order for targeted surveillance) which non-Americans (95% of the world) do not enjoy. Not only does this scheme fail to render mass surveillance legal, but it itself constitutes a separate violation of international treaties (emphasis added): The Special Rapporteur concurs with the High Commissioner for Human Rights that where States penetrate infrastructure located outside their territorial jurisdiction, they remain bound by their obligations under the Covenant. Moreover, article 26 of the Covenant prohibits discrimination on grounds of, inter alia, nationality and citizenship. The Special Rapporteur thus considers that States are legally obliged to afford the same privacy protection for nationals and non-nationals and for those within and outside their jurisdiction. Asymmetrical privacy protection regimes are a clear violation of the requirements of the Covenant.
  • That principle — that the right of internet privacy belongs to all individuals, not just Americans — was invoked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden when he explained in a June, 2013 interview at The Guardian why he disclosed documents showing global surveillance rather than just the surveillance of Americans: “More fundamentally, the ‘US Persons’ protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it’s only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%.” The U.N. Rapporteur was clear that these systematic privacy violations are the result of a union between governments and tech corporations: “States increasingly rely on the private sector to facilitate digital surveillance. This is not confined to the enactment of mandatory data retention legislation. Corporates [sic] have also been directly complicit in operationalizing bulk access technology through the design of communications infrastructure that facilitates mass surveillance. ”
  • The latest finding adds to the growing number of international formal rulings that the mass surveillance programs of the U.S. and its partners are illegal. In January, the European parliament’s civil liberties committee condemned such programs in “the strongest possible terms.” In April, the European Court of Justice ruled that European legislation on data retention contravened EU privacy rights. A top secret memo from the GCHQ, published last year by The Guardian, explicitly stated that one key reason for concealing these programs was fear of a “damaging public debate” and specifically “legal challenges against the current regime.” The report ended with a call for far greater transparency along with new protections for privacy in the digital age. Continuation of the status quo, it warned, imposes “a risk that systematic interference with the security of digital communications will continue to proliferate without any serious consideration being given to the implications of the wholesale abandonment of the right to online privacy.” The urgency of these reforms is underscored, explained the Rapporteur, by a conclusion of the United States Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that “permitting the government to routinely collect the calling records of the entire nation fundamentally shifts the balance of power between the state and its citizens.”
Paul Merrell

Moody's downgrades 4 US giant lenders - RT Business - 0 views

rt.com/...downgrades-four-us-lenders-766

financial-collapse too-big-to-fail bail-ins U.S. Cyprus

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Moody’s is to cut the credit rating of US major banks, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Bank of New York Mellon. The rating agency thinks the government is now less likely to support the lenders in times of new financial difficulties. The debt rating of the holding company of Goldman Sachs was cut from A3 to Baa1, JPMorgan - from A2 to A3, Morgan Stanley - from Baa1 to Baa2, and Bank of New York Mellon -  from Aa3 to A1.
  • "We believe that US bank regulators have made substantive progress in establishing a credible framework to resolve a large, failing bank," said Robert Young, the Moody’s Managing Director. "Rather than relying on public funds to bail-out one of these institutions, we expect that bank holding company's creditors will be bailed-in and thereby shoulder much of the burden to help recapitalize a failing bank." Lower credit rating can cost the lenders a higher loan price, increasing their financial burden. However the bank executives complained about unfairly assessed downgrades, and optimism overcompensation, the Financial Times reported. The review is similar to one by Standard & Poor's in June and comes from government’s unwillingness to repeat bailouts in a crisis.
  • The decision was made after the ratings of eight American banks, including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and State Street were placed on revision in August, when more details of government’s intention to abandon banks support were unveiled.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 13
     
    So Moody's thinks Cyprus like bail-ins for large failing U.S. banks are more likely than government bail-outs and names the large banks most likely to fail, with their projected likelihood to fail reflected in Moody's adjusted credit ratings. For those who don't understand what a "bail-in" is, it means that the bank gets your deposits and you get back a bit of ownership in a failing enterprise. Try to spend that. 
Paul Merrell

Under Intense Pressure to Silence Wikileaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Propose... - 0 views

truepundit.com/drone-strike-on-julian-assange

war & peace Wikileaks Assange assassination-plot Hillary

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Clinton’s State Department was getting pressure from President Obama and his White House inner circle, as well as heads of state internationally, to try and cutoff Assange’s delivery of the cables and if that effort failed, then to forge a strategy to minimize the administration’s public embarrassment over the contents of the cables. Hence, Clinton’s early morning November meeting of State’s top brass who floated various proposals to stop, slow or spin the Wikileaks contamination. That is when a frustrated Clinton, sources said, at some point blurted out a controversial query. “Can’t we just drone this guy?” Clinton openly inquired, offering a simple remedy to silence Assange and smother Wikileaks via a planned military drone strike, according to State Department sources. The statement drew laughter from the room which quickly died off when the Secretary kept talking in a terse manner, sources said. Clinton said Assange, after all, was a relatively soft target, “walking around” freely and thumbing his nose without any fear of reprisals from the United States. Clinton was upset about Assange’s previous 2010 records releases, divulging secret U.S. documents about the war in Afghanistan in July and the war in Iraq just a month earlier in October, sources said. At that time in 2010, Assange was relatively free and not living cloistered in in the embassy of Ecuador in London. Prior to 2010, Assange focused Wikileaks’ efforts on countries outside the United States but now under Clinton and Obama, Assange was hammering America with an unparalleled third sweeping Wikileaks document dump in five months. Clinton was fuming, sources said, as each State Department cable dispatched during the Obama administration was signed by her.
  • Following Clinton’s alleged drone proposal, another controversial remedy was floated in the State Department to place a reward or bounty for Assange’s capture and extradition to the United States, sources said. Numbers were discussed in the realm of a $10 million bounty. A State Department source described that staff meeting as bizarre. One minute staffers were inquiring about the Secretary’s blue and black checkered knit sweater and the next minute, the room was discussing the legalities of a drone strike on Assange and financial bounties, sources said. Immediately following the conclusion of the wild brainstorming session, one of Clinton’s top aides, State Department Director of Policy Planning Ann-Marie Slaughter, penned an email to Clinton, Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and aides Huma Abebin and Jacob Sullivan at 10:29 a.m. entitled “an SP memo on possible legal and nonlegal strategies re Wikileaks.” “Nonlegal strategies.” How did that phrasing make it into an official State Department email subject line dealing with solving Wikileaks and Assange? Why would the secretary of state and her inner circle be discussing any “nonlegal strategies” for anything whatsoever? Against anyone? Shouldn’t all the strategies discussed by the country’s top diplomat be strictly legal only? And is the email a smoking gun to confirm Clinton was actually serious about pursuing an obvious “nonlegal strategy” proposal to allegedly assassinate Assange? Numerous attempts were made to try and interview and decipher Slaughter’s choice of email wording, however, she could not be reached for comment.
  • Slaughter’s cryptic email also contained an attached document called “SP Wikileaks doc final11.23.10.docx.” That attachment portion of Slaughter’s “nonlegal strategies” email has yet to be recovered by federal investigators and House committee investigators probing Clinton’s email practices while at State. Even Wikileaks does not have the document. Slaughter, however, shed some light on the attachment: “The result is the attached memo, which has one interesting legal approach and I think some very good suggestions about how to handle our public diplomacy.” But did it also include details on the “nonlegal strategies” teased in the subject line? Sources confirm Clinton took the email and attachment with her to the White House for an afternoon meeting with Secretary of Defense Bob Gates and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon prior to an additional evening meeting at the White House. President Obama, sources said, did not attend the early meeting with Gates as he was traveling with Vice President Joe Biden. President Obama did attend the second meeting, however, and Wikileaks and Assange’s planned release of secret cables were discussed at length, sources said. Attending this meeting were President Obama, Clinton, Gates, Donilon, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral “Mike” Mullen, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright as well as a half dozen or more various policy aides, sources confirmed. Did Clinton also share her alleged morning query of droning Assange with the members of the National Security Council and the President? Was it discussed among the top secret subjects in the meeting? Or was Clinton planning to conduct or hatch her own secret foreign policy in defiance of the President, a likely violation of the Logan Act?
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  • The FBI’s 302 report from Clinton’s email investigation interview, again, specified that Clinton had “many discussions” related to “nominating” drone strikes on individuals: “Clinton could not recall a specific process for nominating a target for a drone strike and recalled much debate pertaining to the concurrence process. Clinton knew there was a role for DOD, State and the CIA but could not provide specifics as to what it was. Due to a disagreement between these agencies, Clinton recalled having many discussions related to nominating an individual for a drone strike. When Clinton exchanged classified information pertaining to the drone program internally at State, it was in her office or on a secure call. When Clinton exchanged classified information pertaining to the drone program externally it was at the White House. Clinton never had a concern with how classified information pertaining to the drone program was handled.” Sources said Clinton’s comments on neutralizing Assange fits a pattern of callousness when combined with the FBI testimony that she often considered droning individuals and then coupled with her reaction to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s death in Oct. 2011.
  • Unable to legally counter or stop Wikileaks, and likely abandoning any and all legal and “nonlegal strategies,” Clinton and her staff were forced to weather the collateral damage of CableGate. In fact, just five days after Clinton’s meetings on Mahogany Row in the State Department and the White House, Wikileaks began releasing cables to news outlets globally on Sunday November 28, 2010. Shortly after CableGate, the WikiLeaks founder sought refuge from authorities and threats by hiding at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Now 45, Assange is in his fifth year living quarantined inside the embassy. Clinton remains the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States.
  • Perhaps Democratic political operative Bob Beckel wasn’t a party outlier during this controversial Fox broadcast. Likely, Beckel was projecting what others, including Clinton, had already privately proposed.
Gary Edwards

Impeach Judge James Robart for violating sovereignty and Constitution - 0 views

www.conservativereview.com/...g-sovereignty-and-constitution

Byron-York Trump-Immigration-Order

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Feb 17
     
    "It's still hard to believe we now live in a country where a district judge can demand that we bring in refugees from state sponsors of terror and failed states saturated with terrorists and no data systems during a time of war. It's almost unfathomable that a district judge, an institution created by Congress, can overturn long-standing refugee law and bar the federal government from prioritizing persecuted religious minorities for refugee resettlement. All in contravention to statute, numerous clauses of the Constitution, the social contract, the social compact, popular sovereignty, jurisdictional sovereignty, and 200 years of case law. If Obergefell redefined the building block of all civilization, Judge James Robart's ruling redefined the building block of a sovereign nation. It's hard to comprehend a judicial opinion more divorced from our Constitution, sovereignty, fundamental laws, founding values, history, and tradition. It's also hard to imagine an opinion that is of greater consequence - unless it is ignored. In the long run, Congress must strip the federal judiciary of their power grab and restore Congress' plenary power over immigration, as it was since our founding. However, in the meantime, it's time to make impeachment great again. Impeachment was a critical check on abuse of power   Before the growth of political parties killed the separation of powers, the tool of impeachment was regarded by our founders as one of the most effective ways of checking the executive and judicial branches of government. By my count, impeachment is referenced 58 times in the Federalist Papers and countless times during the Constitutional Convention. Impeachment [U.S.CONST. art. II, §4] was not only reserved for those who engage in criminal behavior. It was clearly designed to check abuse of power. As the Congressional Research Service observes, Congress has identified "improperly exceeding or abusing the powers of the office" as a criterion for
Gary Edwards

How World War I Paved the Way for the Warfare State :: The Mises Economics Blog: The Ci... - 0 views

bastiat.mises.org/...-the-way-for-the-warfare-state

David-Stockman FDR-S FDR-Socialism Great-Depression Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 14
     
    Part ONE "by David Stockman Remarks To The Committee For The Republic, Washington DC, February 2014 (Part 1 of 6 Parts) [From David Stockman's Contra Corner.] Flask in hand, Boris Yelstin famously mounted a tank outside the Soviet Parliament in August 1991. Presently, the fearsome Red Army stood down-an outcome which 45 years of Cold War military mobilization by the West had failed to accomplish. At the time, the U.S. Warfare State's budget- counting the pentagon, spy agencies, DOE weapons, foreign aid, homeland security and veterans--was about $500 billion in today's dollars.  Now, a quarter century on from the Cold War's end, that same metric stands at $900 billion. This near doubling of the Warfare State's fiscal girth is a tad incongruous.  After all, America's war machine was designed to thwart a giant, nuclear-armed industrial state, but, alas, we now have no industrial state enemies left on the planet. The much-shrunken Russian successor to the Soviet Union, for example, has become a kleptocracy run by a clever thief who prefers stealing from his own citizens. Likewise, the Red Chinese threat consists of a re-conditioned aircraft carrier bought second-hand from a former naval power--otherwise known as the former Ukraine. China's bubble-ridden domestic economy would collapse within six weeks were it to actually bomb the 4,000 Wal-Mart outlets in America on which its mercantilist export machine utterly depends. On top of that, we've been fired as the world's policeman, al Qaeda has splintered among warlords who inhabit the armpits of the world from Yemen to Somalia and during last September's Syria war scare the American people even took away the President's keys to the Tomahawk missile batteries.  In short, the persistence of America's trillion dollar Warfare State budget needs some serious "splainin". The Great War and Its Aftermath My purpose tonight is to sketch the long story of how it all happened, starti
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