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Paul Merrell

Top US and Saudi Officials responsible for Chemical Weapons in Syria | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...-for-chemical-weapons-in-syria

war & peace Syria WMD sarin Damascus whodunnit Saudis

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • On 21 August 2013, the Syrian Arab Army launched a major military campaign in Damascus. The campaign, called “Operation Shield of the Capital”, was the largest military operation of the Syrian Arab Army in the Damascus region since the beginning of the war in 2011.
  • Although U.S. Intelligence reports repeatedly stressed that the opposition was incapable of launching a major, well coordinated attack, the Syrian Army in Damascus was confronted with an organized fighting force of 25.000 men under arms. The Saudi Arabia backed Jihadist front had amassed 25.000 fighters, organized in 13 battalions or kitab, to to launch a major assault against the capital Damascus. Most of the battalions belonged to Jabhat al-Nusrah and Liwa-al-Islam. The other battalions that took part in the campaign, were the Abou Zhar al-Ghaffari, al-Ansar, al-Mohajereen, Daraa al-Sham, Harun al-Rashid, Issa bin Mariam, Sultan Mohammad al-Fatih, Syouf al-Haqq, the Glory of the Caliphate, the Jobar Martyrs. During the night of 20 to 21 August and during the early morning hours of 21 August, the Syrian Arab Army broke through the insurgent lines in the area near the Jobar entrance. The breakthrough resulted in a collapse of the jihadists defensive positions and to a crushing and decisive strategic defeat of the Jabhat al-Nusrah led brigades.
  • Loosing Jobar effectively cut off the insurgents connection to the Jordanian border town of Al-Mafraq, the most important logistical base for the insurgents as well as for Saudi Arabia and the United States in Jordan. Al-Mafraq was already used as a major staging ground for the two failed attempts to conquer the city of Homs in June and July 2012. In 2012 al-Mafraq became the staging ground for some 40.000 fighters; more than 20.000 of them fought under the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which was under the command of Abdelhakim Belhadj and his second in command, Mahdi al-Harati. The CIA maintains a station, US Special Forces (JSOC) train insurgents, and several other US institutions are present in al-Mafraq. The point is of particular importance with regards to the visit of the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Jordan, which will be detailed below. Al-Mafraq has been the major transit point for Saudi and U.S. arms shipments since 2012, and the delivery of advanced Saudi and U.S. weapons to the insurgents since early August 2013.
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  • The collapse of the insurgent front prompted the front commanders, most of which work in liaison to U.S. Special Forces, to deploy an elite force that should prevent the Syrian Army, at all costs, from gaining access to the Jobar Entrance, and from gaining control over the Jobar area. The majority of the insurgent crack forces came from Liwa-al-Islam with some additional troops from Jabhat al-Nusrah. The commanding officer of the elite forces was a Saudi national who is known by the name Abu Ayesha, whom eyewitnesses from Ghouta later identified as Abu Abdul-Moneim. Abdul-Moneim had established a cache of weapons, some of which had a tube-like structure, and others which looked like big gas bottles. The cache was located in a tunnel in the Eastern Ghouta district of Damascus. Reports about this tunnel and the weapons cache emerged in international media, after the son of Abdul-Moneim and 12 other fighters lost their lives there, because they mishandled improvised chemical weapons and caused a leak in one of them. Besides Abu Abdul-Moneim, the supreme leader of the Liwa-al-Islam and commander of their chemical weapons specialists, Zahran Alloush took personal charge of the elite troops and chemical weapons specialists who were operating under his direct command. Liwa-al-Islam has, along with other al-Qaeda brigades, the capability to manufacture and launch primitive, but none the less very deadly chemical weapons. The chemical weapons which Zahran Alloush had delivered to Damascus were most likely from al-Qaeda’s (ISIL) chemical weapons stockpiles in Iraq.
  • In early September 2013, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated, that Iran had sent a memo to the White House via the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. Tehran had reportedly informed the USA that handmade articles for chemical weapons, including Sarin gas, were being transferred to Syria. The White House failed to respond. Having to hold the Jobar Entrance and the Jobar district of Damascus “at any cost to maintain any hopes of launching a successful, major military assault on Damascus”, the insurgent commanders decided to launch a chemical weapons attack to halt the advance of the Syrian Arab Army. The political and military opposition and core members of the international alliance behind them had already decided that chemical weapons should be used in August – September. The large scale use of chemical weapons should justify renewed calls for a military intervention. Intelligence about this decision transpired in June.  nsnbc international issued several reports in late June and early July, warning that the insurgents would use large scale chemical weapons attacks in August or September.
  • The decision to launch the chemical weapon on 21 August was most likely based on two considerations. That the use of chemical weapons was already planned. That the Jobar Entrance should be defended at all costs. The final decision, made by Zahran Alloush may in fact have been predetermined together with his U.S. – Saudi liaison officers. Launching a chemical weapons attack would allow the USA, UK and France, to call for military strikes against Syria and to turn the tide. Also, Russian and Syrian intelligence sources described the weapons which were used in the attack as rockets which were altered so as to carry chemicals, launched by Liwa-al-Islam. The projectiles were most likely fired from a flatbed.
  • There is a growing and substantial amount of evidence that indicates direct U.S. and Saudi involvement in the chemical weapons attack. To begin with one merely has to answer the fundamental question “Who Benefits”, and the answer is definitely not “the Syrian government”. In fact, the  Federal German Intelligence Service (BND) claims that it has intercepted phone calls between Syrian officers and the Syrian High Command. The BND is convinced that none of the Syrian forces have used a chemical weapon. Leaving alone any moral considerations, the domestic and international repercussions were foreseeable and there would not have been any strategic benefit for the Syrian Army or the government.
  • Also, the involvement of Saudi Arabia ultimately points towards Washington and the White House. The involvement of Liwa-al-Islam in the chemical weapons attack establishes a strong chain of circumstantial evidence to the Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The supreme leader of Liwa-al-Islam and commander of the groups’ chemical weapons specialists, Zahran Alloush, has been working for the then Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Turki al-Faisal in both Afghanistan and Yemen in the 1980s. Since the 1990s, Alloush was involved in the Salafist – Wahabbist terrorist networks in Syria which led to his arrest by Syrian intelligence. He was released in early of 2011, when the Assad administration granted a general amnesty. Immediately after his March 2011 release from prison, Zahran Alloush began receiving substantial funds and weapons from Saudi intelligence, which enabled him to establish Liwa-al-Islam as a de facto Saudi Arabia sponsored mercenary brigade under the auspices of the Saudi Interior Ministry.
  • Saudi funding enabled Alloush to establish the Liwa-al-Islam as a major fighting force in Syria. The group gained fame due to risky, high-profile attacks. On 8 July 2012, the group carried out a bomb attack against the headquarters of Syria’s National Security Council in Rawda Square, Damascus. The group succeeded in assassinating several high profile members of Syria’s security establishment, including the Deputy Minister of Defense and brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad, Assaf Shawkat, Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Hassan Turkmani, a former Defense Minister and military adviser to then Vice-President Farouk al-Sharaa.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 15
     
    One I had missed before. Whodunnit on the Ghouta, Syria sarin gas attack, right down to the unit commander, a Saudi intelligence asset working with a U.S. Special Forces unit, both controlled by the U.S.-led command and control center in Jordan.   
Paul Merrell

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

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

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

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

Who Benefits From A War Between The United States And Syria? - BlackListedNews.com - 0 views

www.blacklistednews.com/...M.html

Syria Banksters Saudis Sunni-Shiite-War

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Someone wants to get the United States into a war with Syria very, very badly.  Cui bono is an old Latin phrase that is still commonly used, and it roughly means "to whose benefit?"  The key to figuring out who is really behind the push for war is to look at who will benefit from that war. 
  • If a full-blown war erupts between the United States and Syria, it will not be good for the United States, it will not be good for Israel, it will not be good for Syria, it will not be good for Iran and it will not be good for Hezbollah. 
  • The party that stands to benefit the most is Saudi Arabia, and they won't even be doing any of the fighting.  They have been pouring billions of dollars into the conflict in Syria, but so far they have not been successful in their attempts to overthrow the Assad regime.  Now the Saudis are trying to play their trump card - the U.S. military. 
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  • If the Saudis are successful, they will get to pit the two greatest long-term strategic enemies of Sunni Islam against each other - the U.S. and Israel on one side and Shia Islam on the other.  In such a scenario, the more damage that both sides do to each other the happier the Sunnis will be.
  • it is well-known that Qatar wants to run a natural gas pipeline out of the Persian Gulf, through Syria and into Europe.  That is why Qatar has also been pouring billions of dollars into the civil war in Syria.
  • This war would not be good for Israel either.  I have seen a number of supposedly pro-Israel websites out there getting very excited about the prospect of war with Syria, but that is a huge mistake. Syria has already threatened to attack Israeli cities if the U.S. attacks Syria.  If Syrian missiles start landing in the heart of Tel Aviv, Israel will respond. And if any of those missiles have unconventional warheads, Israel will respond by absolutely destroying Damascus. And of course a missile exchange between Syria and Israel will almost certainly draw Hezbollah into the conflict.  And right now Hezbollah has 70,000 rockets aimed at Israel. If Hezbollah starts launching those rockets, thousands upon thousands of innocent Jewish citizens will be killed.
  • For the United States, there really is no good outcome in Syria. If we attack and Assad stays in power, that is a bad outcome for the United States. If we help overthrow the Assad regime, the rebels take control.  But they would be even worse than Assad.  They have pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda, and they are rabidly anti-American, rabidly anti-Israel and rabidly anti-western.
  • Someone should ask Barack Obama why it is necessary for the U.S. military to do the dirty work of his Sunni Muslim friends.
  • Even if Assad is overthrown, the rebel government that would replace him would be even more anti-Israel than Assad was.
  • If the Saudis want this war so badly, they should go and fight it.  Everyone knows that the Saudis have been bankrolling the rebels.  At this point, even CNN is openly admitting this... It is an open secret that Saudi Arabia is using Jordan to smuggle weapons into Syria for the rebels. Jordan says it is doing all it can to prevent that and does not want to inflame the situation in Syria.
  • Syrian rebels in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta have admitted to Associated Press correspondent Dale Gavlak that they were responsible for last week’s chemical weapons incident which western powers have blamed on Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, revealing that the casualties were the result of an accident caused by rebels mishandling chemical weapons provided to them by Saudi Arabia.
  • “From numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families….many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the (deadly) gas attack,” writes Gavlak.
  • The Voice of Russia has also been reporting on Gavlak's bombshell findings... The rebels noted it was a result of an accident caused by rebels mishandling chemical weapons provided to them. “My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta. As Gavlak reports, Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels died in a weapons storage tunnel. The father stated the weapons were provided to rebel forces by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, describing them as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.” “They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K’. “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.” “When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,” she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.
  • Gavlak also refers to an article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph about secret Russian-Saudi talks stating that Prince Bandar threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin with terror attacks at next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if Russia doesn’t agree to change its stance on Syria. “Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord,” the article stated. “I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” Saudi Prince allegedly told Vladimir Putin.
  • The Saudis are absolutely determined to make this war happen, and they expect us to do the fighting. And Barack Obama plans to go ahead and attack Syria without the support of the American people or the approval of Congress.
  • Gary Edwards on 31 Aug 13
     
    This article wins my award as the best analysis to date.  Hits like a macchine gun, and laying the blame on the Saudis makes sense to me.  Chalk up 911 and the Boston Marathon Massacre also.  And don't miss the coverage of the recent talks between Russia and the Saudis.  Very eye opening stuff.
Paul Merrell

Land Destroyer: NATO's War on Syria Just Got Dirtier - 0 views

landdestroyer.blogspot.com/...on-syria-just-got-dirtier.html

war & peace Syria WMD false-flag Brown-Moses emails Syrian-Electronic-Army

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • But even with the West's capitulation in Syria, and months passing without a shred of credible evidence produced, hacks among Western media continue to perpetuate the original narrative. Among these are of course corporate-financier funded think-tanks and propaganda fronts like the Brookings Institution, Foreign Policy Magazine, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), and establishment papers like the Guardian. In the middle of it all is couch-potato self-proclaimed weapons expert, Eliot Higgins, a representation of the West's propaganda 2.0 campaign.  UK-based Higgins lost his job and now spends his days combing social media sites for "evidence" he then analyzes and reports on. The Western media, with its propagandists expelled from Syria and many of its "sources" in Syria exposed in humiliating attempts to fabricate and manipulate evidence, quickly picked Higgins up and elevated his armchair blogging to "expert analysis." Since then, Higgins has joined the already discredited "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" another UK-based individual, as the basis upon which the West's Syrian narrative spins. 
  • Whitaker is desperately attempting to keep the wheels on the establishment's new propaganda 2.0 vehicle - manipulating social media, much the way Hersh describes intelligence being manipulated, to create any outcome necessary to bolster a predetermined narrative.  What he doesn't address is the fact that Higgins' work almost entirely depends on videos posted online by people he does not know, who may be misrepresenting who they are, what they are posting, and their motivations for doing so - such is the nature of anonymity on the web and why this evidence alone is useless outside of a larger geopolitical context.  Both Whitaker and Higgins, who maintain that the Syrian government was behind the attacks, fail to address another glaring reality. A false flag attack is designed to look like the work of one's enemy. In other words, terrorists in Syria would use equipment, uniforms, weapons, and tactics that would pin the crime on the Syrian government. All Higgins has proved, thus far, is that the superficial details of the operation made for a convincing false flag attack. 
  • Toward the end of Higgin's piece, he, like his friends at the Guardian, attempt to claim Al Nusra, contrary to Hersh's report, are most likely not capable of producing sarin.
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  • The e-mails illustrate prior knowledge of chemical weapons falling into the hands of terrorists who fully planned on using them in a false flag operation. Higgins and others had this information, and now, have Seymour Hersh's report as well, yet they still pose the argument that the militants had neither the ability nor the means to carry out the attacks. In fact, it appears that the Western media and underlings like Higgins went out of their way specifically to discredit the notion from even being considered.  In other words, a concerted cover-up.  The e-mails above, and others in the large cache also reveal the possible motivation for these lies. So-called journalists and researchers peddling the West's narrative appear to have a wide range of lucrative offers presented to them, as well as funding for them to continue doing the work they are already involved in. This of course is only the case so long as their narratives mesh with the institutions, corporations, and individuals cutting the checks. 
  • The e-mails reveal multiple correspondences regarding chemical weapons falling into the hands of terrorists aimed at using them in a false flag operation, Higgins' and Van Dyke's mutual "benefactor" located in Virginia, "near DC" (Langley, Virginia?), and job offers for Higgins from NGOs and a defense contractor involving "open source intelligence," the new buzzword used by Higgins and Whitaker in regards to the new form of propaganda they both participate in. 
  • While perhaps Higgins and company missed that CNN report, it is now revealed that at least Higgins, and several other journalists were told by an American contractor on the ground inside of Syria, that militants had gained access to chemical weapons and more importantly, were planning to use them in a false flag attack - this months before the August 21 attack in Damascus.   The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) has released e-mails this week between American contractor Matthew Van Dyke and members of the Western media, including Higgins. The e-mails indicated that militants had chemical weapons and were planning to use them in an attack to frame the Syrian government - serving as impetus for wider foreign intervention. SEA's emails have been confirmed by Higgins himself in a series of self-incriminating tweets where he goes, point-by-point, attempting to provide explanations for the damning revelations. 
  • Why would Higgins even mention the possibility of a false flag attack, when all that would do is alienate him from the establishment he is so eagerly trying to be a part of? His recent piece in Foreign Policy and the Guardian's ceaseless promotion of his work are favors that demand reciprocation - in the form of toeing the line and selling a narrative Higgins and others know is deceitful.  That Higgins, the Guardian, and Foreign Policy are prepared to throw veteran journalist Seymour Hersh under the bus to protect their interests, gives us a look into the depths of depravity within which this "new" media Whitaker celebrates, operate.  Worst of all for the West, is that the transparency and accountability they claim to uphold, had to be kept in check by the SEA - an organization wanted by the FBI as "terrorists." We would be led to believe by the likes of Whitaker, Higgins, and Van Dyke that the Syrian government and their supporters are the villains, but in their own words and actions we see the truth. 
  • Note: The full extent of SEA's leaked e-mails exposes Van Dyke and the journalists he associates with as utterly depraved, deceitful, unprincipled individuals each driven by untethered greed and narcissism. The e-mails also reveal that "aid ships" are used to bring in weapons and foreign fighters, that the Syrians are almost entirely behind the government and that the so-called revolution was "fake." Van Dyke is exposed as having conspired to kill a man and his entire family over a trivial personal dispute and much, much more. Readers are encouraged to comb through the archives, and to follow SEA on Twitter  @Official_SEA16.
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Jan 14
     
    "Brown Moses" (Eliot Higgins) has been the principle source of "evidence" that the Assad government used chemical weapons, arguing strenuously that the "rebels" had no such capability. But the Syrian Electronic Army obtained a large number of emails between Higgins and an American mercenary working in Syria showing beyond doubt that Higgins had been put on notice in May 2013 -- months before the sarin gas attack near Damascus in late August -- that the "rebels" had sarin.   Oopsies!
Paul Merrell

What GOP Senators Don't Understand About Iran | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

america.aljazeera.com/...not-understand-about-iran.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Iranian-nukes-myth Security Council Obama negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • There’s a charming naiveté to the open letter [PDF] by 47 Republican senators that condescendingly seeks to explain features of the U.S. constitutional system to Iran’s leaders that they otherwise “may not fully understand.” The missive warns that, with respect to “your nuclear negotiations with our government ... any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress” could be revoked by the next president “with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”
  • Beyond the amusing inaccuracies about U.S. parliamentary order, it seems there are some features of the nuclear negotiations that the signatory senators don’t fully understand — not only on the terms of the deal, but also on who would be party to an agreement. There are no negotiations on Iran’s “nuclear-weapons program” because the world’s intelligence agencies (including those of the U.S. and Israel) do not believe Iran is currently building nuclear weapons, nor has it made a strategic decision to use its civilian nuclear infrastructure to produce a bomb. An active Iranian nuclear-weapons program would render moot the current negotiations, because Iran would be in fundamental violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As things stand, Tehran remains within the terms of the NPT, which allows nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, but monitors member states to prevent weaponization. Tehran and the IAEA remain in dispute over full compliance with all transparency requirements of the NPT, particularly over alleged previous research into weapons design. But Iran’s nuclear facilities remain under constant monitoring by international inspectors who certify that no nuclear material is being diverted.
  • The current negotiations are focused on strengthening verifiable safeguards against weaponization over-and-above those required by the NPT, yet the Republican-led Congress, egged on by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is warning that those goals are insufficient, and the terms and time-frame of the deal are unacceptable. The key element missing from the GOP Senators’ letter, however, is that the deal is not being negotiated between Iran and the United States; it is being negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 group, in which the U.S. is joined by Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. Even if the U.S. is the key player in that group, the deal being pursued reflects an international consensus — the same consensus that has made sanctions against Iran so effective. This was likely in the mind of Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, who dismissed the letter as “of no legal value” and a “propaganda ploy.” Zarif noted that the deal would indeed be an international agreement adopted by the U.N. Security Council, which a new administration would be obliged to uphold — and that any attempt by the White House or Congress to abrogate, unilaterally modify or impede such an agreement would be a breach of U.S. obligations. 
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 15
     
    "Zarif noted that the deal would indeed be an international agreement adopted by the U.N. Security Council, which a new administration would be obliged to uphold - and that any attempt by the White House or Congress to abrogate, unilaterally modify or impede such an agreement would be a breach of U.S. obligations." Apparently, I was wrong. I thought Obama would work around the demand for Congressional input by letting the other P5+1 members ink the deal but the U.S. not signing. But a U.N. Security Council Resolution is even stronger medicine for the War Party, since the SC has the power to forbid economic sanctions as well. Take that, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Boehner!
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 15
     
    Could anything make it more clear that Netanyahu's speech to Congress was only to aid in his reelection in Israel? Israel has been briefed on the negotiations all along, so Netanyahu surely knew that the goal was a Security Council resolution that Congress could not affect. And while admittedly, the fact that it was a Security Council Resolution in the making was not widely known, are we to believe that the Speaker of the House of Representatives did not know that too? So are now not down to the entire spectacle of Netanyahu's speech being political, Netanyahu electioneering and Boehner mud-slinging the President?
Paul Merrell

Report: 40% of weapons sent to Afghanistan are unaccounted for - Washington Times - 0 views

www.washingtontimes.com/...-of-time-to-find-mass-of-missi

war & peace Afghanistan missing-weapons

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • A government oversight agency says the Pentagon has lost track of more than 40 percent of the firearms it has provided to Afghanistan’s security forces, prompting officials to contemplate a “carrot and stick” approach to arming the fledgling military.A Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report scheduled to be made public Monday says the Pentagon’s two primary information systems that track weapons sent to Afghanistan — the Operational Verification of Reliable Logistics Oversight Database and the Security Cooperation Information Portal — are rife with errors.Although the oversight agency cannot say at this point whether any of the arms have made their way into neighboring countries such as Pakistan, the flawed tracking methods are fostering fears that militants could gain control of Pentagon-supplied weapons.
  • Over the past decade, the Pentagon has provided what the report describes as more than 747,000 weapons and auxiliary equipment to the Afghan National Security Forces at a cost of $626 million. Small arms, such as rifles, pistols, machine guns, grenade launchers and shotguns, account for the majority of those weapons.Of the 474,823 serial numbers recorded in the oversight database, 203,888 of those numbers — or about 43 percent — had missing or duplicate information, according to data collected by auditors. Auditors discovered in the course of their research that 24,520 serial numbers were repeated in the database, often more than once, and that no shipping or receiving dates were attached to 50,304 serial numbers.
Paul Merrell

Islamic State militants allegedly used chlorine gas against Iraqi security forces - The... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...0-a7ed-033218f15cbb_story.html

war & peace ISIL al-Qaeda WMD chlorine

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Dizzy, vomiting and struggling to breathe, 11 Iraqi police officers were rushed to a government hospital 50 miles north of the capital last month. The diagnosis: poisoning by chlorine gas. The perpetrators, according to the officers: Islamic State extremists. The chlorine attack appears to be the first confirmed use of chemical weapons by the Islamic State on the battlefield. An Iraqi Defense Ministry official corroborated the events, and doctors said survivors’ symptoms were consistent with chlorine poisoning. Iraqi forces say two other crude chlorine attacks have occurred since the extremists seized vast tracts of Iraqi territory this summer, but details on those incidents remain sketchy. The reported assaults all raise concerns that the militants are attempting to hone their chemical weapons capabilities as they push to control more ground
  • Chlorine, a common component in industry, is sold legally, but its use as a weapon violates the Chemical Weapons Convention. It was widely employed in trench warfare during World War I, including infamously at Ypres in Belgium, where German forces dispersed more than 160 tons of chlorine into the breeze, killing thousands of French and Allied soldiers.
  • One physician on the team, Hassanain Mohammed, had treated similar cases­ before. In 2006 and 2007, al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that later morphed into the Islamic State, carried out a string of chlorine bombings in the country.
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  • An Iraqi Defense Ministry official confirmed this week that a bomb rigged with chlorine canisters was used in the Duluiyah attack. “They use it just to create terror,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide the information publicly. “But of course we are very concerned.” In a statement, the Defense Ministry confirmed that the Islamic State has used the gas in a “primitive and ineffective way” near water-treatment plants where it has gained access to chlorine, as well as in roadside bomb attacks. It did not specify the locations of the attacks, but there are several water plants near Duluiyah on territory controlled by the Islamic State.
  • Chlorine bombs are an easy-to-create but inexact weapon, experts say. All that is needed is a small explosive charge to rupture containers filled with the substance. “It’s difficult to deliver on target in combat situations,” said Jean Pascal Zanders, an independent researcher who specializes in chemical and biological weapons and disarmament. “Chlorine dissipates fast unless someone is able to concentrate it in a confined area.” Fighters in Duluiyah say it was not the only time chlorine has been used against them. Another attack this month caused minor injuries, and the fighters were treated locally, police officials said.
  • Soldiers who escaped an Islamic State rout of a besieged army base in Saqlawiyah, where hundreds of soldiers were killed last month, also said chlorine gas was used there — though reports of where and how the gas was delivered varied and could not be confirmed. While some officers said they believed artillery- or mortar-launched canisters fired by the attackers fell short of the base, others, who claimed to have remained in the installation for a longer period, said the canisters fell within its perimeter. Another claimed that the militants detonated chlorine-filled containers.
Paul Merrell

Egypt's foreign policy accommodates world's multipolarity: ECFA discussion | Cairo Post - 0 views

www.thecairopost.com/...-multipolarity-ecfa-discussion

economic-warfare Egypt Russia China New-Silk-Road Suez-Canal

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • In a step to follow the world’s political  evolution, Egypt is working on changing its foreign policy to accommodate the “multipolarity” system, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamed Kamel Amr said in a conference held by the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA), Tuesday. The two-day international conference dubbed “Egypt and the World… a New Era” was held in order to “correct misconceptions” of Egypt’s political development after the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. The members of ECFA, which was formed 15 years ago, are predominantly former diplomats. “To say that Egypt is turning its back to a certain power is emotional for it is rebalancing its relations,” Amr said at the “Egypt and the World’s Major Powers” session of the conference. The U.S. delivered 10 Apache Helicopters to Egypt in November, but other than that, strategic cooperation has pretty much stopped in the past two years, said Mostafa Elwi, a Cairo University professor of political science. China and Russia supported the change after June 30, 2013, when millions marched to topple Morsi, and exchanged visits between Egyptian officials and their counterparts from these two countries have been “very fruitful,” unlike U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visits to Egypt, Elwi added. Amr explained that Egypt’s foreign policy has been successful in moving forward in coalitions, rather than its own, in the face of major powers, such as the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab League and as part of coordination with regional forces.
  • “Ridding Egypt of the U.S. dominancy is not an easy task because it is the only country in the world that has the four factors of being a dominant power: military, economy, culture and science,” Elwy said. However, he added that as bilateral relations with China and Russia have very wide and open horizons, renewed strategic relations with them should not stop at purchasing arms, but should expand to cooperation in manufacturing weapons in Egypt.
  • For his part, Councilor of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs Wu Sike emphasized that China respects the Egyptian people’s will, and that foreign interference in Egypt’s internal affairs is “unacceptable.” Economically, Elwy and Sike underlined that their countries realize the potential of their anticipate cooperation, especially in the New Suez Canal Project and the proposed project of the New Silk Road, planned to pass through Egypt and expected to change the course of world trade. “After the revolution of June 30, relations with Egypt, including strategic relations, will deepen. Our government encourages Chinese companies to invest in Egypt’s Suez Canal and the route of the Silk Road in its territory,” said Sike, who was also a former Egyptian Ambassador, calling on Egypt to focus on development efforts to “compensate for the time it lost.”
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15
     
    One I had missed in December, 2014. China is bankrolling an upgrade of the Suez Canal and Egypt has rejected U.S. hegemony. Egypt will buy Russian and Chinese weapons but wants to expand to collaborative manufacture of weapons in Egypt.  The U.S. is paying the price of having initiated a failed "color revolution" in Egypt that gave temporary control of Egyptian government to the non-secular Muslim Brotherhood, subsquently overthrown by the Egyptian military with enormous public support. 
Paul Merrell

Tomgram: Nick Turse, How "Benghazi" Birthed the New Normal in Africa | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/...rthed_the_new_normal_in_africa

war & peace Africa AFRICOM Benghazi

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 May 14 - No Cached
  • Amid the horrific headlines about the fanatical Islamist sect Boko Haram that should make Nigerians cringe, here’s a line from a recent Guardian article that should make Americans do the same, as the U.S. military continues its “pivot” to Africa: “[U.S.] defense officials are looking to Washington’s alliance with Yemen, with its close intelligence cooperation and CIA drone strikes, as an example for dealing with Boko Haram.” In fact, as the latest news reports indicate, that “close” relationship is proving something less than a raging success.  An escalating drone campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has resulted in numerous dead “militants,” but also numerous dead Yemeni civilians -- and a rising tide of resentment against Washington and possibly support for AQAP.  As the Washington-Sana relationship ratchets up, meaning more U.S. boots on the ground, more CIA drones in the skies, and more attacks on AQAP, the results have been dismal indeed: only recently, the U.S. embassy in the country’s capital was temporarily closed to the public (for fear of attack), the insurgents launched a successful assault on soldiers guarding the presidential palace in the heart of that city, oil pipelines were bombed, electricity in various cities intermittently blacked out, and an incident, a claimed attempt to kidnap a CIA agent and a U.S. Special Operations commando from a Sana barbershop, resulted in two Yemeni deaths (and possibly rising local anger).  In the meantime, AQAP seems ever more audacious and the country ever less stable.  In other words, Washington’s vaunted Yemeni model has been effective so far -- if you happen to belong to AQAP.
  • One of the poorer, less resource rich countries on the planet, Yemen is at least a global backwater.  Nigeria is another matter.  With the largest economy in Africa, much oil, and much wealth sloshing around, it has a corrupt leadership, a brutal and incompetent military, and an Islamist insurgency in its poverty-stricken north that, for simple bestiality, makes AQAP look like a paragon of virtue.  The U.S. has aided and trained Nigerian “counterterrorism” forces for years with little to show.  Add in the Yemeni model with drones overhead and who knows how the situation may spin further out of control.  In response to Boko Haram’s kidnapping of 276 young women, the Obama administration has already sent in a small military team (with FBI, State Department, and Justice Department representatives included) and launched drone and "manned surveillance flights," which may prove to be just the first steps in what one day could become a larger operation.  Under the circumstances, it’s worth remembering that the U.S. has already played a curious role in Nigeria’s destabilization, thanks to its 2011 intervention in Libya.  In the chaos surrounding the fall of Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi, his immense arsenals of weapons were looted and soon enough AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, and other light weaponry, as well as the requisite pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns or anti-aircraft guns made their way across an increasingly destabilized region, including into the hands of Boko Haram.  Its militants are far better armed and trained today thanks to post-Libyan developments.
  • All of this, writes Nick Turse, is but part of what the U.S. military has started to call the “new normal” in Africa.  The only U.S. reporter to consistently follow the U.S. pivot to that region in recent years, Turse makes clear that every new African nightmare turns out to be another opening for U.S. military involvement.  Each further step by that military leads to yet more regional destabilization, and so to a greater urge to bring the Yemeni model (and its siblings) to bear with... well, you know what effect.  Why doesn’t Washington?
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  • The U.S. Military’s New Normal in Africa A Secret African Mission and an African Mission that’s No Secret By Nick Turse What is Operation New Normal? 
  • Paul Merrell on 16 May 14
     
    With the kidnaped girls in Nigeria, the lid is beginning to come off the U.S. military's pivot to Africa, with violence exacerbated by the flood of weapons flowing from Libya and lately, funding from Qatar. The Washington Post has finally noticed that blowback from our military intervention throughout Africa is occurring. But TomDispatch's Nick Turse is the only western journalist who has been nipping at AFRICOM's heels, for more than a year, with a steady flow of leaked documents and hard-hitting reporting. If you are interested in backtracking this emerging regional war the U.S. has instigated in resource-rich Africa to send the Chinese government's investments in Africa packing, do a TomDispatch site search for "nick turse".      
Paul Merrell

M of A - Nusra On The Run - Trump Induces First Major Policy Change On Syria - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...or-policy-change-on-syria.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Al-Nusrah Russia target-shift Trump Obama Israel

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • The first significant step of the new administration comes while Trump is not even in offices. Obama, selfishly concerned with his historic legacy, suddenly makes a 180 degree turn and starts to implement Trump polices. Lets consider the initial position: Asked about Aleppo in an October debate with Clinton, Trump said it was a humanitarian disaster but the city had "basically" fallen. Clinton, he said, was talking in favor of rebels without knowing who they were. The rebels fighting Assad in western Syria include nationalists fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner, some of them trained in a CIA-backed program, and jihadists such as the group formerly known as the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. The Obama administration, through the CIA led by Saudi asset John Brennan, fed weapons, training and billions of dollars to "moderate rebels". These then turned around (vid) and either gave the CIA gifts to al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al Nusra) or joined it themselves. The scheme was no secret at all and Russia as well as Syria pointed this out several times. The Russian foreign Minister Lavrov negotiated with the U.S. Secretary of State Kerry who promised to separate the "moderate rebels" from al-Qaeda. But Kerry never delivered. Instead he falsely accuse Russia of committing atrocities that never happened. The CIA kept the upper hand within the Obama administration and continued its nefarious plans. That changed the day the president-elect Trump set foot into the White House. While Obama met Trump in the oval office, new policies, prepared beforehand, were launched. The policies were held back until after the election and would likely not have been revealed or implemented if Clinton had won.
  • The U.S. declared that from now on it will fight against al-Qaeda in Syria: President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government, U.S. officials said. That shift is likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. ... possibly in direct cooperation with Moscow. ...U.S. officials who opposed the decision to go after al-Nusra’s wider leadership warned that the United States would effectively be doing the Assad government's bidding by weakening a group on the front line of the counter-Assad fight. ... Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and other Pentagon leaders initially resisted the idea of devoting more Pentagon surveillance aircraft and armed drones against al-Nusra.
  • Ash Carter is, together with John Brennan, the major anti-Russian force in the Obama administration. He is a U.S. weapon industry promoter and the anti-Russia campaign, which helps to sell U.S. weapons to NATO allies in Europe, is largely of his doing. He saw al-Qaeda in Syria as a welcome proxy force against Russia. But Obama has now shut down that policy. We are not yet sure that this is for good but the above Washington Post account is not the only signal: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action today to disrupt al-Nusrah Front’s military, recruitment, and financing operations. Specifically, OFAC designated four key al-Nusrah Front leaders – Abdallah Muhammad Bin-Sulayman al-Muhaysini, Jamal Husayn Zayniyah, Abdul Jashari, and Ashraf Ahmad Fari al-Allak – pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. ... These designations were taken in coordination with the U.S. Department of State, which today named Jabhat Fath al Sham as an alias of al-Nusrah Front – al-Qa’ida’s affiliate in Syria. ... Abdallah Muhammad Bin-Sulayman al-Muhaysini was designated for acting for or on behalf of, and providing support and services to or in support of, al-Nusrah Front. This is a major change in U.S. policy. Nusra will from now on be on the run not only from Russian and Syrian attacks but also from the intelligence and military capabilities of the United States. The newly designated Al-Muhaysini, a Saudi cleric, is Nusra's chief ideologue in Syria. Some considered him the new Osama Bin-Laden.
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  • Hadi Abdullah, friend of the designated al-Qaeda terrorist Muhaysini, just received the 2016 Press Freedom Price from the CIA/Soros financed "regime change" influence operation Reporters Without Borders. Might this mean that Hadi Abdullah is himself a CIA assets? He would not be the first such "journalist" in Syria. Obama, obviously as a direct consequence of the Trump election, now ordered the Pentagon to wage war on al-Qaeda in Syria just as the Russians do. This after five years of nearly unlimited U.S. support for al-Qaeda and its "moderate" Syrian affiliates. It is not yet know what new orders, if any, Obama gave to the CIA. Will the CIA follow these policies or will it (again) try to counter the Pentagon policies in Syria? It is unusual that the WaPo report above about this new direction includes no commenting voice from the CIA. Why is such missing? Russia and Syria will welcome the new Obama policies should they come to fruit on the ground. Hillary Clinton had planned and announced to widen the conflict in Syria and with Russia and Iran. Obama would surely not have acted against such policies if she had been elected. But with Trump winning and thereby a new policy on the horizon he now changed course to a direction that will provide "continuity" when Trump takes over. Not only is Trump kicking a black family out of its longtime limewashed home, he also ends U.S. government support for the disenfranchised Jihadis in Syria and elsewhere. This even months before taking office. He really is the menace we have all been warned about.
  • UPDATE: This interview in today's WSJ confirms that Trump is still in the pro-Syrian/anti-Jihadist camp that is opposed to Obama's original policy: Donald Trump, in Exclusive Interview, Tells WSJ He Is Willing to Keep Parts of Obama Health Law He said he got a “beautiful” letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that a phone call between them is scheduled shortly. ... Although he wasn’t specific, Mr. Trump suggested a shift away from what he said was the current Obama administration policy of attempting to find moderate Syrian opposition groups to support in the civil war there. “I’ve had an opposite view of many people regarding Syria,” he said. He suggested a sharper focus on fighting Islamic State, or ISIS, in Syria, rather than on ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting ISIS, and you have to get rid of ISIS. Russia is now totally aligned with Syria, and now you have Iran, which is becoming powerful, because of us, is aligned with Syria. … Now we’re backing rebels against Syria, and we have no idea who these people are.” If the U.S. attacks Mr. Assad, Mr. Trump said, “we end up fighting Russia, fighting Syria.”
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 16
     
    I think b has it right here; this is Trump impact on U.S. foreign policy. And the fact the Trump is going full bore on al Nurah and ISIL suggests that Trump is not so strongly pro-Israel as he's been made out to be. (Israel's right-wing leadership has been very strongly anti-Assad.)
Paul Merrell

The NUMEC Affair: Was Nuclear Weapons Fuel Diverted to Israel? - 0 views

nsarchive.gwu.edu/...eapons-Fuel-Diverted-to-Israel

war & peace Israel espionage nukes U.S.-uranium

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Beginning more than 50 years ago, and extending over the period from 1957 to 1978, according to official U.S. government records and studies, more than 300 kilograms of uranium 235 (U-235) in the form of highly enriched uranium (HEU) went missing from a nuclear fuel manufacturing plant in the small town of Apollo, Pennsylvania. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) concluded in 1966 that there was about a 200-kilogram deficit between the U-235 in the form of HEU supplied to the plant and the amount returned in products to customers. After the AEC and its Oak Ridge office calculated the processing losses based on NUMEC’s records, they determined that the fate of about 100 kilograms of U-235 in the form of HEU remained unexplained. NUMEC paid for the missing material, but later disputed the AEC calculations, maintaining that the unexplained 100 kgs could be attributed to other processing losses. After decommissioning of the Apollo plant, more than 330 kgs of U-235 in the form of HEU were unaccounted for, with most of that deficit occurring while NUMEC ran the plant. For decades there have been allegations and suspicions that foreign agents, perhaps aided by American citizens, diverted a significant fraction of NUMEC’s unexplained uranium deficits to Israel for its nuclear-weapons program. Because of the high stakes involved, the affair has been clouded in denial and concealment for nearly a half century. Several recent books and articles, including a book by this Briefing Book’s primary author, Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel, have attempted to account for what is known and what is still a mystery.[1] Using recently declassified documents published today for the first time by the National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, this Electronic Briefing Book aims to make more widely available to the public the fascinating information that has been declassified so far.
Paul Merrell

Syria may turn out to be Obama's defining legacy | Asia Times - 0 views

www.atimes.com/ay-turn-obamas-defining-legacy

Auction 2016 war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Russia Aleppo

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • By M.K. Bhadrakumar October 5, 2016 9:54 AM (UTC+8) Share 0 Tweet Print Email Comment 0 Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report. On Monday, the Barack Obama administration fulfilled its week-old threat to suspend bilateral talks with Russia over the Syrian crisis. Does this signal that the dogs of war are about to be unleashed? The thought may seem preposterous but tensions are palpable. US spy planes are spotted ever more frequently in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea over Russian bases, especially Tartus and Hmeimim in Syria.
  • Russia has deployed SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems in Syria, the first-ever such deployments outside Russia. Western analysts see it as a pre-emptive step to counter any American cruise missile attack. Russia is not taking any chances.
  • Moscow factors in that the US may use some rebel groups to ensure that Russian “body bags” are sent to Moscow, as threatened explicitly by US state department spokesman John Kirby last week. Moscow suspects American involvement in the missile attack on the Russian embassy in Damascus — “Brits and Ukrainians clumsily helped the Americans”, a Russian statement in New York said on Tuesday. Indeed, passions are running high. There could be several dozen western intelligence operatives trapped with the rebel groups in east Aleppo. Clearly, the turning point was reached when the US and western allies undertook a fierce air attack on the Syrian army base at Deir Ezzor lasting an hour and killing 62 government troops. The US explanation of that being an accident lost credibility, since within an hour of the airstrike, extremist groups of al-Qaida followed up with ground attack as if acting in tandem.
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  • Trust has consequently broken down. The Russians are convinced that the US was never really interested in separating the moderate groups from extremists despite repeated promises, because Washington sees a use for al-Qaida affiliates, which happen to be the only capable fighting force to push the ‘regime change agenda in Syria. Put differently, Russians are inclined to agree with what Tehran has been saying all along. Moscow, therefore, switched tack and put its resources behind the Syrian operations to capture the strategic city of Aleppo and the military campaign is within sight of victory.
  • That is, unless there is US intervention in the coming days to tilt the military balance in favor of extremist groups trapped in the eastern districts of Aleppo with supply lines for reinforcements cut.
  • With no prospect of getting reinforcements, facing relentless air and ground attacks from the north and south, the rebels are staring at a hopeless battle of attrition. The point is, with the fall of Aleppo, the Syrian war becomes a residual military operation to purge the al-Qaida affiliate Jubhat al-Nusra from Idlib province as well, which means regime forces would secure control over the entire populous regions of Syria, all main cities and the entire Mediterranean coast. In a nutshell, the Syrian war ends with President Bashar al-Assad ensconced in power. The specter of “total victory” for Assad haunts Washington. It explains the string of vituperative statements against Moscow, betraying a high level of frustration. Theoretically, Obama can order missile attacks on the victorious Syrian government forces, but that will be like pouring oil on fire. On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry warned the Pentagon that any US military intervention to remove Assad would result in “terrible tectonic shifts” across the region.
  • In considering the war option, Obama has three things to take into account. First, Washington’s equations with Ankara and Riyadh are hugely uncertain at the moment and both regional allies are key partners in Syria.
  • Second, Turkish President Recep Erdogan is unlikely to gamble on another confrontation with Russia when his country’s legitimate interests in Syria can be secured by working in tandem with President Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table.
  • Third, and most important, Obama is unlikely to lead his country into a war without any clear-cut objective to realize when the curtain is coming down on his presidency. In this current state of play, Assad stands between the West and the deluge.
  • But what rankles is that Russian victory in Syria would mark the end of western hegemony over the Middle East, and historians are bound to single it out as the defining foreign-policy legacy of Obama’s presidency. Certainly, Moscow cannot but be sensing this. Russia may offer at some point a face-saving exit strategy — but only after the capture of Aleppo. After all, there is really no hurry between now and January to salvage Russia-US ties.
  • The debris of Russia’s ties with the US lies all around and no one knows where to begin a clean-up. Relations got worse when Obama called the Kremlin leadership “barbarous” in regard to Aleppo. Then, on Monday, Moscow explained its decision to suspend cooperation in getting rid of excess plutonium (that could be used to make nuclear weapons) as being due to “the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions” by the US. This was a decision that Moscow could have deferred until Obama left office. After all, it meant suspending the sole Russian-American nuclear security initiative carrying Obama’s imprimatur. However, Moscow couldn’t resist depicting a Nobel Prize winner who promised to ensure “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” as someone who actually enhanced the role of nuclear weapons in the security strategy of the US.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16
     
    If you haven't been following the Syrian War in the last couple of weeks, you'd have missed that the U.S. government has gone bats**t crazy lately, since the ceasefire agreement Kerry negotiated with Lavrov fell apart because the U.S. couldn't deliver its fundamental promise to separate the "moderate" Syrian opposition from Al-Nusrah and ISIL The U.S. problem was two-fold: [i] the Pentagon mutinied and ended all talk of intelligence sharing with Russia by bombing a Syrian Army unit, killing over 60 and wounding over 100, followed within minutes by a coordinated Al-Nusra ground attack; and [ii] all the "moderate Syrian opposition groups refused the U.S. instruction to separate from the head-choppers, saying that ISIL and Al-Nusrah were their brothers-in-arms. (In fact, there are no "moderate" Syrian rebels; just agents of ISIL and Al-Nusrah who fly a different flag when it's time to pick up their supplies and ammunition from the U.S.) What's the Empire of Chaos to do when the mercenaries refuse to obey orders? So with all major elements of al-Nurah surrounded in an East Aleppo noose with the knot rapidly tightening (Aleppo will be taken before Hillary takes her throne), it's up to Obama to decide whether to unleash the Pentagon to save the CIA's al-Nusrah from destruction. He can't kick that can down the road to Hillary (or Donald). MSM is flooding its viewership with anti-Putin propaganda of the most vituperative kind as well as horror stories about all those poor freedom fighters and their kids being ruthlessly killed by Russia in East Aleppo. James Clapper dutifully trotted out an announcement of sorts blaming the Russian government for attempting to hack the U.S. election process, so Hillary could red-bait Donald's "I'd get along with Putin" position in the last debate. The choice must be painful for Obama. Does he want his legacy to be the President who lost the Middle East or the President who waged a war of aggression to protect al-Qaeda from destructio
Paul Merrell

US plan to arm Syrian rebels receives cool reactions | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/rebels-receives-cool-reactions

war & peace syria WMD

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Syrian rebels firing locally made shells made from gas cylinders against the Syrian forces, in Idlib province, northern Syria, Tuesday, May 21, 2013 (photo credit: (AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN, File)
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13
     
    Don't miss this Associated Press photo ofr Syrian "rebels" firing an artillery piece with a large gas container protruding from the barrel. Then contrast that with White House claims that they have no reason to suspect that rebels are using chemical weapons. 
Paul Merrell

NASA's Secret Relationships with U.S. Defense and Intelligence Agencies - 0 views

nsarchive.gwu.edu/...NSAEBB509

Dark-State CIA NASA DoD

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Declassified Records Trace the Many Hidden Interactions Between the U.S. Civilian and National Security Space Programs Secret Cooperation Punctuated by Disputes over Budgets, Encryption of Scientific Data, and Fallout from the Challenger Tragedy National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 509
  • Furnishing cover stories for covert operations, monitoring Soviet missile tests, and supplying weather data to the U.S. military have been part of the secret side of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) since its inception in 1958, according to declassified documents posted for the first time today by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org). James E. David, a curator in NASA's Division of Space History, obtained the documents in the course of researching his critically praised book, Spies and Shuttles: NASA's Secret Relationships with the DoD and CIA (University Press of Florida, 2015). David has compiled, edited and introduced more than 50 of these records for today's posting. Even though Congress's intention in forming NASA was to establish a purely civilian space agency, according to David a combination of circumstances led the agency to commingle its activities with black programs operated by the U.S. military and Intelligence Community. This often tight cooperation did not, however, keep disputes from bubbling over on issues such as cost sharing, access to classified information, encryption of data originally intended for civilian use, and delays to military satellite launches caused by the Challenger disaster. Over the years, classification restrictions have kept most of the story of NASA's secret activities out of the public eye. Today's posting brings to light previously unpublished primary source material that underpins Spies and Shuttles and other important literature on the subject. The records were acquired through agency declassification review procedures, specific declassification requests, and archival research.
  • The documents presented here were obtained in the research and writing of Spies and Shuttles: NASA's Secret Relationships with the DoD and CIA. Most were declassified by agencies under the automatic/systematic declassification review program or acquired through declassification requests. They are grouped into the following categories: NASA as a consumer of intelligence NASA's assistance to analyzing intelligence on foreign aeronautical and space programs NASA's participation in cover stories NASA's acquisition and use of classified technologies in its lunar exploration program Restrictions on NASA's remote sensing programs NASA's application satellites and national security requirements Space Shuttle
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Apr 15
     
    For some reason, proponents of space exploration have a tendency to frame their arguments as an issue of moral necessity for human species preservation, often because self-extinction is likely. It's a weak argument. One can more forcefully argue that homo sapiens has no moral right to migrate outside the planet until such time as it learns to not destroy its own life support systems on Earth; in the meantime, the incredible funding devoted to space exploration would be better spent learning that lesson. But evidence of NASA ties to the Dark State, which has often come to mind when reading such drivel, has been wanting. Now we learn that it does exist but had been concealed. In light of these disclosures, we can discuss the moral issues with more clarity. But still missing: the obvious overlap of NASA's mission with the development of ICBMs and deployment of orbiting weapons platforms.   
Paul Merrell

Missing Libyan Jetliners Raise Fears of Suicide Airliner Attacks on 9/11 | Washington F... - 0 views

freebeacon.com/...uicide-airliner-attacks-on-911

war & peace 11-Libyan-airliners war-propaganda

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Islamist militias in Libya took control of nearly a dozen commercial jetliners last month, and western intelligence agencies recently issued a warning that the jets could be used in terrorist attacks across North Africa. Intelligence reports of the stolen jetliners were distributed within the U.S. government over the past two weeks and included a warning that one or more of the aircraft could be used in an attack later this month on the date marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, said U.S. officials familiar with the reports. “There are a number of commercial airliners in Libya that are missing,” said one official. “We found out on September 11 what can happen with hijacked planes.”
  • A senior State Department counterterrorism official declined to comment on reports of the stolen jetliners.  A second State department official sought to downplay the reports. “We can’t confirm that,” he said.
  • The officials said U.S. intelligence agencies have not confirmed the aircraft theft following the takeover of Tripoli International Airport in late August, and are attempting to locate all aircraft owned by two Libyan state-owned airline companies, as security in the country continued to deteriorate amid fighting between Islamists and anti-Islamist militias.
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  • The aircraft were reportedly taken in late August following the takeover of Tripoli International Airport, located about 20 miles south of the capital, by Libyan Dawn. Al Jazeera television reported in late August that western intelligence reports had warned of terror threats to the region from 11 stolen commercial jets. In response, Tunisia stopped flights from other Libyan airports at Tripoli, Sirte, and Misrata over concerns that jets from those airports could be on suicide missions.
  • Ansar al Sharia, which is based in Benghazi, recently publicized on social media that it has obtained large numbers of more sophisticated weapons, including SA-6 surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns, rocket-propelled grenades, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, assault rifles, and armored vehicles. The group is closely aligned with al Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Sep 14
     
    "We found out on September 11 what can happen with hijacked planes." Wrong. Make that, "We found out on September 11 what can happen with controlled demolition." Please notice that no one in U.S. government will confirm that the aircraft were actually taken or ever existed. Just in time for the anniversary of 9/11 and Congress convening to consider new authorizations for use of military force anytime and anywhere he pleases.  Stamp this one as "War Party propaganda until proved otherwise."
Paul Merrell

Finian CUNNINGHAM - Russia Vindicated by Terrorist Surrenders in Syria - Strategic Cult... - 0 views

www.strategic-culture.org/...errorist-surrenders-syria.html

war & peace Syria Russia mercenary-surrenders mercenary-evacuations

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • As Syrians gather in their capital Damascus to celebrate, there is a sense that the New Year will bring a measure of peace – the first time such hope has been felt over the past five years of war in the country. Russia’s military intervention to help its Arab ally at the end of September has been the seminal event of the year. After three months of sustained Russian aerial operations in support of the Syrian Arab Army against an array of foreign-backed mercenaries, there is an unmistakable sense that the «terrorist backbone has been broken», as Russian President Vladimir Putin recently put it.
  • What is interesting is how the Western news media are reporting all this. Their reportage of the truces and evacuations are straining to minimize the context of these developments. This BBC report is typical, headlined: «Syria fighters’ evacuation from Zabadani ‘under way’». The British state-owned broadcaster tells of hundreds of «fighters» being relocated from the town of Zabadani as if the development just magically materialized like a present donated by Santa Claus. What the BBC fails to inform is that that truce, as with several others around Damascus, has come about because of Russia’s strategic military intervention in Syria dealing crushing blows against the militant networks. The Western media have preoccupied themselves instead with claims from the US State Department that Russia’s military operations have either been propping up the «Assad regime» or allegedly targeting «moderate rebels» and civilians. The disingenuous Western narrative, or more prosaically «propaganda», then, in turn, creates a conundrum when widespread truces and evacuations are being implemented. That obviously positive development signaling an end to conflict thanks to Russia’s military intervention has to be left unexplained or unacknowledged by the Western media because it negates all their previous pejorative narrative towards Russia and the Assad government.
  • Furthermore, the Western media are obliged to be coy about the exact identity of the «fighters» being evacuated. As noted already, the militants are variously described by the Western media in sanitized terms as «fighters» or «rebels». But more informative regional and local sources, such as Lebanon’s Al Manar, identify the brigades as belonging to the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State group and al-Nusra Front. These are terror groups, as even defined by Washington and the European Union. So, the Western media has to, by necessity, censor itself from telling the truth by peddling half-truths and sly omissions. The Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), whose commander was killed, is also integrated with the al-Qaeda terror network. Jaish al-Islam is funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and serves as a conduit for American CIA weapons to the more known terrorist outlets. Notably, Voice of America referred to the terror commander Zahran Alloush with the euphemistic cleansing term as a «rebel leader». What the Russian-precipitated truces and termination of sieges is demonstrating is that the western side of Syria, from Daraa in the south, through Damascus and up to the northern Mediterranean Sea coast around Aleppo and Latakia, are infested with the terror brigades of IS and Al-Nusra and their myriad offshoots.
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  • Western media have repeatedly accused Russia of conducting air strikes against «moderate rebels» and not the IS brigades, which they claim, were concentrated in the east of Syria. It is true that the IS is strongly based in eastern cities of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, from where its oil smuggling operations are mounted. Russia has stepped up its air strikes on IS smuggling routes in eastern Syria with devastating results. But also integral to the air operations is the cutting off of weapons routes in the northwest to fuel the insurgents along the entire western flank, including around Damascus. The surrender of the various mercenary brigades and the breaking of sieges around Damascus is vindication of Russia’s military tactics; and also its narrative about the nature of the whole conflict in Syria. The Western notion of «moderate rebels» and «extremists» is being exposed as the nonsense that it is. And so Western media are compelled to evacuate any meaningful context from their coverage of recent events in Syria. Riad Haddad, Syria’s ambassador to Russia, spoke the plain truth in recent days when he said: «We are at a turning point in the Syrian army operations against terrorists – namely the transition from defense to attack… [because of] the effective work of the Russian air force in Syria». But the ambassador’s comments were scarcely, if at all, reported in the Western media. Simply because those words vindicate Russia’s military intervention and its general policy towards Syria.
  • Also missing or downplayed in the Western media coverage of the truces across Syria is the question of where the surrendering mercenaries are being evacuated to. They are not being bussed to other places inside Syria. That shows that there is no popular support for these insurgents. Despite copious Western media coverage contriving that the Syrian conflict is some kind of «civil war» between a despotic regime and a popular pro-democracy uprising, the fact that surrendering militants have no where to go inside Syria patently shows that these insurgents have no popular base. In other words, this is a foreign-backed war on Syria; a covert war of aggression on a sovereign country utilizing terrorist proxy armies. So where are the terrorist remnants being shipped to? According to several reports, the extremists are being given safe passage into Turkey, where they will receive repair and sanctuary from the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and no doubt subsidized by the European Union with its $3.5 billion in aid to Ankara to «take care of refugees».
  • Again, this is another indictment of the state-terrorist links of NATO-member Turkey, which the EU is recently giving special attention to for accession to the bloc. Russia is not only vindicated in Syria. The Western governments, their media and their regional client regimes are being flushed out like the bandits on the ground in Syria.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Dec 15
     
    I don't normally bookmark ariticles by the author of this one.  He's too inclined to hyperbolic overstatement. But I think he struck true in this instance, albeit I'm less than certain that U.S. and allies don't have a major counter-attack in store and ISIL is still firmly ensconsced in Iraq. But the tide has definitely turned in Syria. 
Paul Merrell

Remarks by Director David H. Petraeus at In-Q-Tel CEO Summit - Central Intelligence Agency - 0 views

www.cia.gov/...in-q-tel-summit-remarks.html

surveillance state CIA Patraeus internet of things CIA-targets NSA-targets

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • In any event, our partnership with In-Q-Tel is essential to helping identify and deliver groundbreaking technologies with mission-critical applications to the CIA and to our partner agencies.
  • As you know, our Agency has a global charter to collect intelligence. It’s our job to ensure that challenges that arise in any corner of the world are not surprises to the President or to other policymakers. Certainly, we will continue relentlessly to pursue terrorists and support the troops in several different theaters. That is imperative, and the last year has seen considerable achievement in the fight against al-Qa‘ida and its affiliates. But, to use the kids’ soccer analogy, we cannot turn the counterterrorist fight into a game of magnetball, in which the leadership is always focused on the counterterror mission. Everyone can’t flock to the ball and lose sight of the rest of the field—the whole rest of the world. And it’s an enormous field to cover:  again, the whole world, with proliferation of weapons and technology, cyber threats, counterintelligence threats, the next developments in the evolution of the Arab Spring, Iran, North Korea, China, illegal narcotics, emerging powers, non-state organizations, and even lone wolves. Our duty is nothing less than to be on top of every potential foreign challenge and opportunity facing the United States—and we now have to do it without the steady budget growth we saw in the years after 9/11. And this is why my job is so intellectually stimulating.
  • First, given the digital transparency I just mentioned, we have to rethink our notions of identity and secrecy. In the digital world, data is everywhere, as you all know well. Data is created constantly, often unknowingly and without permission. Every byte left behind reveals information about location, habits, and, by extrapolation, intent and probable behavior. The number of data points that can be collected is virtually limitless—presenting, of course, both enormous intelligence opportunities and equally large counterintelligence challenges. We must, for example, figure out how to protect the identity of our officers who increasingly have a digital footprint from birth, given that proud parents document the arrival and growth of their future CIA officer in all forms of social media that the world can access for decades to come. Moreover, we have to figure out how to create the digital footprint for new identities for some officers. As you all know, exploiting the intelligence opportunities—which is an easier subject to discuss in an unclassified setting than the counterintelligence challenges—will require a new class of in-place and remote sensors that operate across the electromagnetic spectrum. Moreover, these sensors will be increasingly interconnected.
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  • The current “Internet of PCs” will move, of course, toward an “Internet of Things”—of devices of all types—50 to 100 billion of which will be connected to the Internet by 2020. As you know, whereas machines in the 19th century learned to do, and those in the 20th century learned to think at a rudimentary level, in the 21st century, they are learning to perceive—to actually sense and respond. Key applications developed by our In-Q-Tel investment companies are focused on technologies that are driving the Internet of Things. These include: Item identification, or devices engaged in tagging; Sensors and wireless sensor networks—devices that indeed sense and respond; Embedded systems—those that think and evaluate; And, finally, nanotechnology, allowing these devices to be small enough to function virtually anywhere.
  • Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters—all connected to the next-generation Internet using abundant, low cost, and high-power computing—the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing. In practice, these technologies could lead to rapid integration of data from closed societies and provide near-continuous, persistent monitoring of virtually anywhere we choose. “Transformational” is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies, particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft. Taken together, these developments change our notions of secrecy and create innumerable challenges—as well as opportunities.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 13
     
    I missed this gem before, from March 1, 2012. Speech by then-CIA chief Gen. David Patraeus to a group of reps. from ICT startups who are employed by CIA through its In-Q-Tel technology development non-profit corp. See https://www.iqt.org/about-iqt/ Patraeus announces that the Internet of Things (devices of all kinds) is becoming an intelligence target. And that boils down to everything from your clock radio to your home's climate control system and more becoming a potential intelligence source. If the CIA is investing in this, you can bit your bippy that NSA is too; Patraeus mentions that "partner agencies" are also receiving applications via the In-Q-Tel investments.  Finally, Patraeus also acknowledges that the intelligence mission extends far beyond counter-terrorism, offering some detail. So it seems that before the Snowden leaks his the press, the intelligence mission was not all about counter-terrorism.
Paul Merrell

The Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria - 0 views

www.boilingfrogspost.com/...-stupid-saudi-us-deal-on-syria

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy war by proxy Ukraine Syria pipelinestan-war

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King. The unintended consequence will be to push Russia even faster to turn east to China and Eurasia. One of the weirdest anomalies of the recent NATO bombing campaign, allegedly against the ISIS or IS or ISIL or Daash, depending on your preference, is the fact that with major war raging in the world’s richest oil region, the price of crude oil has been dropping, dramatically so. Since June when ISIS suddenly captured the oil-rich region of Iraq around Mosul and Kirkuk, the benchmark Brent price of crude oil dropped some 20% from $112 to about $88. World daily demand for oil has not dropped by 20% however. China oil demand has not fallen 20% nor has US domestic shale oil stock risen by 21%.
  • What has happened is that the long-time US ally inside OPEC, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been flooding the market with deep discounted oil, triggering a price war within OPEC, with Iran following suit and panic selling short in oil futures markets. The Saudis are targeting sales to Asia for the discounts and in particular, its major Asian customer, China where it is reportedly offering its crude for a mere $50 to $60 a barrel rather than the earlier price of around $100. [1] That Saudi financial discounting operation in turn is by all appearance being coordinated with a US Treasury financial warfare operation, via its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in cooperation with a handful of inside players on Wall Street who control oil derivatives trading. The result is a market panic that is gaining momentum daily. China is quite happy to buy the cheap oil, but her close allies, Russia and Iran, are being hit severely.
  • The US-Saudi oil price manipulation is aimed at destabilizing several strong opponents of US globalist policies. Targets include Iran and Syria, both allies of Russia in opposing a US sole Superpower. The principal target, however, is Putin’s Russia, the single greatest threat today to that Superpower hegemony. The strategy is similar to what the US did with Saudi Arabia in 1986 when they flooded the world with Saudi oil, collapsing the price to below $10 a barrel and destroying the economy of then-Soviet ally, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and, ultimately, of the Soviet economy, paving the way for the fall of the Soviet Union. Today, the hope is that a collapse of Russian oil revenues, combined with select pin-prick sanctions designed by the US Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence will dramatically weaken Putin’s enormous domestic support and create conditions for his ultimate overthrow. It is doomed to fail for many reasons, not the least, because Putin’s Russia has taken major strategic steps together with China and other nations to lessen its dependence on the West. In fact the oil weapon is accelerating recent Russian moves to focus its economic power on national interests and lessen dependence on the Dollar system. If the dollar ceases being the currency of world trade, especially oil trade, the US Treasury faces financial catastrophe. For this reason, I call the Kerry-Abdullah oil war a very stupid tactic.
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  • According to Rashid Abanmy, President of the Riyadh-based Saudi Arabia Oil Policies and Strategic Expectations Center, the dramatic price collapse is being deliberately caused by the Saudis, OPEC’s largest producer. The public reason claimed is to gain new markets in a global market of weakening oil demand. The real reason, according to Abanmy, is to put pressure on Iran on her nuclear program, and on Russia to end her support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria.[2] When combined with the financial losses of Russian state natural gas sales to Ukraine and prospects of a US-instigated cutoff of the transit of Russian gas to the huge EU market this winter as EU stockpiles become low, the pressure on oil prices hits Moscow doubly. More than 50% of Russian state revenue comes from its export sales of oil and gas.
  • The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King. The unintended consequence will be to push Russia even faster to turn east to China and Eurasia. One of the weirdest anomalies of the recent NATO bombing campaign, allegedly against the ISIS or IS or ISIL or Daash, depending on your preference, is the fact that with major war raging in the world’s richest oil region, the price of crude oil has been dropping, dramatically so. Since June when ISIS suddenly captured the oil-rich region of Iraq around Mosul and Kirkuk, the benchmark Brent price of crude oil dropped some 20% from $112 to about $88. World daily demand for oil has not dropped by 20% however. China oil demand has not fallen 20% nor has US domestic shale oil stock risen by 21%.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Dec 14
     
    One I missed from late October.
Paul Merrell

The War Against Austerity | The American Conservative - 0 views

www.theamericanconservative.com/...the-war-against-austerity

war & peace Defense-spending

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • From the president to the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and every Republican and Democrat at the top of Congress’ defense committees, they all agree: “austerity” at the Pentagon must end. American forces are not getting enough money for training; weapons are short of maintenance; our forces are shrinking, and the defense industrial base is struggling. The Islamic State’s success in the Middle East makes the argument for a bigger Pentagon budget compelling at the strategic level. One au courant pundit articulated this conventional wisdom saying “the [budget] cuts intensify a growing global concern that America is in decline.”
  • Joining the crowd, President Obama said the “Draconian” cuts in the Pentagon budget must be reversed. The fix is in. The Pentagon is to be rescued from the spending cuts imposed by the three-year-old Budget Control Act of 2011 and its sequestration process. The rationale for reduction has been overtaken by world events, precipitous declines in military readiness, contraction of our forces and badly needed hardware modernization. These arguments collapse under scrutiny.
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Nov 14
     
    Good, hard criticism and suggestions for reform in U.S. military spending. Backed by hard statistics and good graphs. But still missing the number I really want to see: What is our interventionist foreign policy costing us as opposed to a foreign policy that was aimed at peace, i.e., defensive only.  Interference in the internal affairs of foreign nations is prohibited by international law, treaties that the U.S. is party to. If the U.S. abided by that law instead of inflicting violence all over the globe, it is a certainty that "defense" spending could at least be halved. 
Paul Merrell

'Realists' Warn Against Ukraine Escalation | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...arn-against-ukraine-escalation

war & peace Ukraine Russia U.S.-foreign-policy Mearsheimer Wald

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The neocons’ war-and-more-war bandwagon is loaded up again and rolling downhill as “everyone who matters” in Washington is talking up sending sophisticated weapons to Kiev to escalate Ukraine’s civil war, but some “realists,” an endangered species in U.S. foreign policy, dissent, notes Robert Parry.
  • In Foreign Policy, Wald notes that despite the emerging consensus to ship arms to Ukraine, “few experts think this bankrupt and divided country is a vital strategic interest and no one is talking about sending U.S. troops to fight on Kiev’s behalf. So the question is: does sending Ukraine a bunch of advanced weaponry make sense? The answer is no.”
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15
     
    While I have a lot of respect for Mearsheimer and Wald, they have completely missed why the U.S. is involved in the Ukraine. The U.S. has done its level best to create an arc of instability from Russia south to the Mediterranean and Suez Canal in order to protect the petrodollar from merger of the European and Asian markets. It's about pipelines and railroads both existing and to be built in the future. It's about getting in the way of China's rising economy. It's about combating de-dollarization. It makes sense to Western banksters, in a "prolong the decline of the American Empire as long as possible" way.  
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