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Paul Merrell

Former Terrorist Group To Enjoy Close Ties to Rumored Trump Cabinet « LobeLog - 0 views

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Trump-administration terrorist-ties Giuliani bolton

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump’s rumored picks for key foreign-policy positions have already set off alarm bells about the future administration’s embrace of war hawks and Islamophobes. Today, Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin pointed out that former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is currently reported to be under consideration for an appointment to secretary of state or attorney general, potentially violated the law when he made paid speaking appearances for the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), when the State Department listed the Iranian dissident group as a foreign terrorist organization. Giuliani isn’t the only likely member of the future administration to have maintained close ties and advocated on behalf of the former terrorist group, which assassinated six Americans in Iran between 1973 and 1976. John Bolton (another rumored choice for secretary of state), Clare Lopez (who is reportedly short-listed for deputy national security adviser), and Newt Gingrich (who allegedly turned down an offer of secretary of state but has shown interest in serving as a policy adviser in the Trump administration) have all advocated for the former terrorist group and praised its cultish leader, Maryam Rajavi. Shortly after the overthrow of the Shah, the group experienced a falling out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and fled into exile. Over the following years, the group’s leaders, Maryam and Massoud Rajavi, aligned with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war (7,000 members fought alongside Saddam Hussein, against Iran) and shifted toward increasingly cultish behavior, mandating divorces and celibacy for their soldiers while cultivating a cult of personality around themselves.
  • Massoud Rajavi hasn’t been seen since overseeing the surrender of MEK forces to the U.S. following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This summer, the former head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud referred to Massoud Rajavi as “the late Massoud Rajavi,” suggesting that he may be deceased. Turki’s participation at an MEK event, meanwhile, was a tacit acknowledgement of Saudi Arabia’s support of the group. Indeed, forming opportunistic alliances has been a hallmark of the MEK. In 2012, U.S. officials told NBC News that Israel’s national intelligence agency, Mossad, was training and arming the MEK to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. The group seeks to portray itself as a government-in-exile and the secular, democratic alternative to Iran’s theocratic government. But the MEK’s lack of influence inside Iran and skepticism about their allegations regarding Iran’s nuclear program—for example, photographic evidence the MEK provided last year allegedly showing evidence of “Lavizan-3,” a secret uranium enrichment facility in the suburbs of Tehran, turned out to be a stock photo from an Iranian safe company – haven’t prevented the group from gaining footholds in Washington through campaign contributions and lucrative speaking gigs for politicians who praise Rajavi and call for regime change in Iran at MEK rallies. The MEK is known for paying generous sums to former officials who speak at their events. Lee Hamilton, a former chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee who headed the Woodrow Wilson Center for 12 years, told InterPress Service that he was paid “a substantial amount” to appear on an MEK panel in 2011. Giuliani, Bolton, Lopez, and Gingrich have all sung the praises of Maryam Rajavi, called for the U.S. to work towards regime change in Tehran, and treated the MEK as a legitimate Iranian government in exile.
  • peaking at an MEK rally outside Paris last year, Giuliani, who had taken speaking fees from the group when it was on the foreign terrorist organization (FTO) list, told the audience: I will not support anyone for President of the United States who isn’t clear on that slogan behind me. What does it say? It says “Regime Change.” … I will not support a candidate who does not have the moral fiber and the courage to stand up to the Ayatollah and tell him “We are going to do everything we can to get you out and you are never going to become a nuclear power.” Bolton, who also advocated for the group when it was on the FTO list, told an MEK audience outside Paris last summer: There is only one answer here: To support legitimate opposition groups that favor overthrowing the military theocratic dictatorship in Tehran, and it should be the declared policy of the United States of America and all of its friends to do just that at the earliest opportunity. Gingrich, who also spoke for the group before it was delisted, told the 2016 gathering in Paris: There are no moderates in the dictatorship. The dictatorship cannot be trusted. The [nuclear] agreement made with it is insane.
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  • He concluded by praising the commitment of Rajavi’s followers, saying: I want you to know that the message I will take home to America is that there are thousands and thousands of Iranians who are prepared, who are ready, who are committed to and who believe that we can truly bring democracy to Iran. Lopez, who serves as a vice president at the Center for Security Policy, a far-right think tank headed by anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney, and as executive director of the long-time MEK advocacy group, the Iran Policy Committee, from 2005 to 2006, wrote that Prince Turki’s surprising appearance marked a watershed moment for the MEK. She wrote: …[T]he implications of official Riyadh government support for the largest, most dedicated, and best-organized Iranian opposition movement will reverberate through the Middle East. Although not openly stated by bin Faisal, the new NCRI-Riyadh alliance may be expected to involve funding, intelligence sharing, and possible collaboration in operations aimed at the shared goal of overthrowing the current Tehran regime. If Lopez, Giuliani, Bolton, or Gingrich serve in the Trump administrations, the MEK will have the highest level access its ever enjoyed in the U.S. government, a remarkable journey for a fringe Islamic-Marxist group that, until 2012, was on the State Department’s terrorism list for its role in assassinating Americans.
Paul Merrell

"Dólar Today" Admits Support for Venezuelan Opposition | venezuelanalysis.com - 0 views

venezuelanalysis.com/12839

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Venezuela banksters economic-warfare

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Gustavo Díaz of Venezuelan currency website “Dólar Today” declared his admiration and support for opposition leadership on the Miami-based television program “Agárrate” with Venezuelan Patricia Poleo this week. Díaz is a retired military official and served as security chief for Pedro Carmona Estanga who swore himself into the Venezuelan presidency after orchestrating a coup d’état against former President Hugo Chávez in April 2002. "We were the first ones to call [the Bolivarian government] 'dictatorship', 'totalitarian', 'tyranny', 'Chávez is a tyrant," he said, explaining the hard right-wing orientation of the website.  Dólar Today tracks the black market exchange rate between the US dollar and South American bolivar based on the dubious rates set by Colombian currency traders in Cúcuta.  Caracas has denounced Dólar Today’s allegedly outsized role in what it has called an "economic war" aimed at destabilizing the country. The website, it says, has influenced the bolivar’s devaluation and manipulated the exchange rate by evading government currency controls.    Díaz expressed praise for well-known opposition leaders such as Leopoldo López, Antonio Ledezma, and Maria Corina Machado, among others. 
  • The three are notorious for their ties to the US Embassy and for allegedly instigating violence against supporters of the Bolivarian government. Ledezma, former mayor of Caracas, was arrested by authorities in February 2015 in connection to the 2014 guarimba protest violence and the failed “Blue Coup” attempt against President Nicolás Maduro’s government. Ledezma is currently under house arrest. López, for his part, was the public face of the violent 2014 anti-government protests known as "The Exit", which left 43 dead, the majority of whom security personnel, government supporters, and passerby. He was sentenced to a 13 year prison sentence in September 2015.   Díaz resides in Alabama, United States after seeking asylum in 2005. The other two founders of Dólar Today live in Seattle and Miami according to Díaz’s interview. Dólar Today has faced two lawsuits filed by the Bolivarian government for “cyberterrorism” due to their alleged destabilization efforts. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in November, Díaz admitted to his intentional attacks against the government saying, “It's ironic that with Dólar Today in Alabama, I do more damage to the government than I did as a military man in Venezuela."
Paul Merrell

Obama grants waiver for military support of foreign fighters in Syria - White House - 0 views

www.almasdarnews.com/...ign-fighters-syria-white-house

war & peace Syria mercenaries Obama weapons Al-Nusrah

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • President Barack Obama has ordered a waiver of restrictions on military aid for foreign forces and others in Syria, deeming it “essential to the national security interests” of the US to allow exceptions from provisions in the four-decades-old Arms Export Control Act.
  • A White House press release Thursday announced that foreign fighters in Syria supporting US special operations “to combat terrorism in Syria” would be excused from restrictions on military assistance. “I hereby determine that the transaction, encompassing the provision of defense articles and services to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals engaged in supporting or facilitating ongoing U.S. military operations to counter terrorism in Syria, is essential to the national security interests of the United States,” President Obama affirmed in the presidential determination and waiver. The order delegates responsibility to the US secretary of state to work with and report to Congress on weapons export proposals, requiring 15 days of notice before they are authorized. Obama announced a similar waiver of the Arms Export Control Act in September 2013, following the Ghouta chemical attack in August of that year. That order facilitated the transfer of US military weaponry to "select vetted members" of opposition forces battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Thursday's order appears less narrow in scope. Last year, Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2016, which allocated nearly $500 million to arm and train "moderate rebels" in Syria, despite a failed Pentagon program abandoned earlier in 2015. The challenge of differentiating between terrorist forces, such as Al-Nusra, and more moderate forces in Syria has been acknowledged by press secretaries in recent State Department briefings
  • The “counterterrorism” pretext is just a “convenient misappropriation of language,” aimed at arming various militants to battle the Syrian Army and its allies, believes geopolitical analyst Patrick Henningsen. “Putting this under the banner of fighting terrorism … follows on [from] a sort of fantasy concept that’s been pushed out as a talking point for the last year and a half, that if we train and equip the ‘moderate opposition’ they will fight [Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)],” Henningsen told RT. “They want to open the floodgates basically for trafficking weapons to religious extremists and militants and terrorist groups, internationally recognized terrorist groups … it’s all being done still under this kind of false pretense of the fight against ISIS, that somehow ‘moderate’ rebels, if they even exist, will turn their weapons and fight against ISIS. And we know from the facts on the ground, from the beginning, that [this] simply has not been the case. This is to arm the opposition to fight the Syrian government and to fight Russian forces. This is a desperate move on the part of the lame duck president.” President Obama’s decision could lead to an almost immediate escalation of the conflict and basically put the US in a situation of “waging a proxy war against the Russians and Syrians,” a former Pentagon official, Michael Maloof, told RT. “The rebels, whom we cannot identify, are going to be getting some very sophisticated weapons. Potentially, I should say, man-portable air defense systems, which can knock down Russian and Syrian aircraft,” Maloof said. “And the fact too, that we have stocks already in Europe, that can easily be transferred with this waiver. Under the waiver, it’s supposed to be a 15-day notification to Congress, but Congress, as of tonight, Washington time, is going to be out of session until January. So these arms can go within hours.”
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 16
     
    Here we go. Obama sending more arms to al-Qaeda.
Paul Merrell

The TPP is Dead. What Happens Next? | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5560781

U.S.-foreign-policy TPP Trump

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • On Monday, the US president-elect Donald Trump announced that the US will pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact on his first day in office (January 20). In a video message outlining his policy plans for the first 100 days in the Oval Office, Trump stated: “I am going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from TPP, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back on to American shores.” The Obama administration was trying hard to seek US congressional ratification this year but it abandoned efforts after the victory of Trump. The TPP faced stiff political opposition cutting across party lines and ideologies. Both the major presidential candidates expressed their opposition to TPP and avowed to reject it once elected. Trump was very vocal in his opposition to TPP as well as NAFTA throughout his campaign. Whereas Hillary Clinton flip-flopped on the TPP pact. While serving as Secretary of State, she had praised TPP as setting the “gold standard in trade agreements” but reversed her position during the presidential campaign due to tough primary challenge from TPP critic Bernie Sanders.
  • Japan is the only member-country which voted to ratify the TPP deal early this month. As per the rules laid out in the TPP, the agreement allows a two-year ratification period in which at least six original member-countries, representing 85 percent of the combined GDP of the grouping, should approve the text for the agreement to be implemented. The US accounts for nearly 60 percent of the grouping’s GDP. With the US announcing its withdrawal, the TPP agreement simply cannot enter into force even if all the remaining 11 member-countries ratify it. In simple terms, the TPP, in its present form, is effectively dead.
Paul Merrell

Trump is just what Netanyahu needs to annex the West Bank | +972 Magazine - 0 views

972mag.com/...125141

war & peace Israel Palestine Netanyahu Trump Bennett

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • A slip of the tongue from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month is worthy of attention. In an unprepared response to a Likud Knesset member, Netanyahu said: “What I’m willing to give to the Palestinians is not exactly a state with full authority, but rather a state-minus, which is why the Palestinians don’t agree [to it].”
  • This almost never happens to Netanyahu. He is calculated, in contrast to Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman who once threatened to execute Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and destroy his movement. In his public appearances, Netanyahu’s statements are carefully worded. His mind operates mechanically, and it is for this reason that a slip of the tongue warrants attention. He has given away more than he intended to. Netanyahu’s words need to be tied back his stance during the negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as part of the 2013-4 peace talks initiated by then-Secretary of State John Kerry. Netanyahu’s position was that even following an agreement, Israel would retain security control over the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea over the coming decades. The best case scenario for the Palestinians would have been a severely handicapped state. What would a less ideal scenario have looked like? In order to answer that question, we must also look at Netanyahu’s support for the Formalization Law and for settlement expansion, two processes he has pushed forward with since Donald Trump entered the White House. The significance of these processes, territorially-speaking, is the end of the “temporary” occupation and the effective annexation of around 60 percent of the West Bank.
  • Where Netanyahu differs from Jewish Home head Naftali Bennett is in the type and reach of annexation, not in the principle of annexation itself. Bennett wants to advance from legal to practical annexation as soon as possible. Netanyahu is more cautious. He first of all wants de facto annexation, and to do it in stages so that the world and the Palestinians can adjust to the new reality.
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  • This would be followed by a self-evident de jure annexation, which would seem almost natural. Palestinians would be left with what they currently have: enclaves that are barely connected to one another. Israel would govern them externally and enter them at will. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, if the Palestinians want to call this kind of autonomy a state, that’s their affair. This would also mark the definite end of the Oslo Accords; the Palestinian Authority would not be upgraded to a sovereign state on the entirety of the 1967 territories. Netanyahu is exploiting Abbas’ adaptability and passivity. Abbas pays no attention to the voices calling on him to shutter the Palestinian Authority and hand over the keys to Israel, who would then have to bear full responsibility for its policies. He persists in security cooperation with Israel on the grounds that they share the same enemies: Hamas and the Islamic State. Abbas and the PA also have an interest in keeping the benefits that they receive as part of a ruling class sponsored by Israel. The continued existence of a hobbled PA is also in Europe’s interests. European countries donate heavily in order to keep the PA in its current incarnation, on the premise that it is a stable factor in fighting radical Islam and prevents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from engulfing the continent’s cities.
  • Yet Netanyahu is using Trump even more than he is using Abbas, hence the importance of their upcoming meeting in D.C. Trump’s position on Israel-Palestine remains unclear, and his limited attention prevents him from getting into the details. He is a man of simplistic principles that can be summarized in a formula — the opposite of Barack Obama and Kerry. Trump rejected UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which reaffirmed the international understanding of the borders of June 4, 1967 as the future border between Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state. Trump also condemned Obama’s decision not to use the U.S.’s veto. Trump also denounced Kerry’s final speech on the Middle East, in which he portrayed the Netanyahu government’s annexationist policy as racist. Israel believes that continuing to rule over the Palestinians when there are equal numbers in both demographic groups will allow it to remain a Jewish and democratic state. Kerry called this an illusion, saying that the result would be “separate but unequal.” He deliberately used the term for the racist regime of separation that formerly prevailed in the U.S. According to Kerry, such a regime is in opposition to America’s democratic principles, and as such, the U.S. could not support it. Trump’s executive orders and senior appointments, however, have shown that he has a different understanding of American democracy and the rights of minorities.
  • Netanyahu and Trump hold similar basic positions. Netanyahu can try to nail down Trump’s agreement to a “state-minus” policy, and present it as a security necessity that will prevent the West Bank from falling into the hands of radical Islamists. As part of such an approach, Netanyahu could also secure the president’s blessing for settlement expansion in the West Bank, especially in the Jerusalem area. In play are two sets of Israeli building plans aimed at completely sealing off the area that separates Palestinian Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank: Givat HaMatos, which sits between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and the larger expanse between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, also known as the E1 area. The surprising hush that has fallen over the campaign for a law that would annex Ma’ale Adumim indicates that it will be on the agenda when Netanyahu and Trump sit down together. An agreement with Trump would allow Netanyahu to tackle the expected opposition from Western European countries to the plan for a state-minus. These countries’ guiding values will be far more similar to those of the Obama administration than the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Netanyahu was encouraged by the U.K.’s decision to activate Article 50 in order to leave the European Union, and its overtures to Trump as a replacement; he hurried to meet Prime Minister Theresa May, who had herself just returned from D.C. The Israeli government has also drawn encouragement from the various messages coming out of Europe that continued settlement-building endangers the two-state solution. That is, indeed, the aim. Up until Kerry’s speech, that had also been the automatic response of the Obama administration. From the moment Kerry declared that the settlements were creating a racist regime, Netanyahu perceived the danger of a new international agenda. Instead of the question of a Palestinian state, attention is now on the question of whether Israel is an apartheid state
Gary Edwards

A Battle the President Can't Win - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3889904577199523577373982.html

USA-Constitution Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • This is in fact a potentially unifying moment for American Catholics, long split left, right and center. Catholic conservatives will immediately and fully oppose the administration's decision. But Catholic liberals, who feel embarrassed and undercut, have also come out in opposition. The church is split on many things. But do Catholics in the pews want the government telling their church to contravene its beliefs? A president affronting the leadership of the church, and blithely threatening its great institutions? No, they don't want that. They will unite against that. The smallest part of this story is political. There are 77.7 million Catholics in the United States. In 2008 they made up 27% of the electorate, about 35 million people. Mr. Obama carried the Catholic vote, 54% to 45%. They helped him win. They won't this year. And guess where a lot of Catholics live? In the battleground states. There was no reason to pick this fight. It reflects political incompetence on a scale so great as to make Mitt Romney's gaffes a little bitty thing. There was nothing for the president to gain, except, perhaps, the pleasure of making a great church bow to him. Enjoy it while you can. You have awakened a sleeping giant.
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 12
     
    Delicious irony. excerpt: Obama just may have lost the election. The president signed off on a Health and Human Services ruling that says that under ObamaCare, Catholic institutions-including charities, hospitals and schools-will be required by law, for the first time ever, to provide and pay for insurance coverage that includes contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization procedures. If they do not, they will face ruinous fines in the millions of dollars. Or they can always go out of business. In other words, the Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can't be Catholic anymore. This is in fact a potentially unifying moment for American Catholics, long split left, right and center. Catholic conservatives will immediately and fully oppose the administration's decision. But Catholic liberals, who feel embarrassed and undercut, have also come out in opposition. The church is split on many things. But do Catholics in the pews want the government telling their church to contravene its beliefs? A president affronting the leadership of the church, and blithely threatening its great institutions? No, they don't want that. They will unite against that. The smallest part of this story is political. There are 77.7 million Catholics in the United States. In 2008 they made up 27% of the electorate, about 35 million people. Mr. Obama carried the Catholic vote, 54% to 45%. They helped him win. They won't this year. And guess where a lot of Catholics live? In the battleground states. There was no reason to pick this fight. It reflects political incompetence on a scale so great as to make Mitt Romney's gaffes a little bitty thing. There was nothing for the president to gain, except, perhaps, the pleasure of making a great church bow to him. Enjoy it while you can. You have awakened a sleeping giant.
Paul Merrell

Is Thailand Heading for a Coup This Week? | VICE United Kingdom - 0 views

www.vice.com/...d-heading-for-a-coup-this-week

banksters Thailand protests coup

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Mass protests, made up largely of middle-class urbanites, have been taking place in Bangkok since November of last year. The demonstrations are in reaction to Shinawatra's party, the Pheu Thai Party, trying to rush an amnesty bill through parliament, which, if passed, would see her brother – controversial former PM, Thaksin Shinawatra – being able to return from exile. Because the protesters widely view him as corrupt – owing predominately to the fact he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for corruption while serving as prime minister – they don't want that to happen, and their plan is to oust the ruling party and replace them with an unelected people's council. Their newest plan to ramp up the pressure is to move their main rally site from Bangkok’s historic quarter to the heart of the capital, sparking concerns ranging from traffic gridlock to a fear of bloodshed and military intervention.
  • But as the protesters prepare to move, the Royal Thai Army – generally considered to be sympathetic to the anti-government movement – has been busy ferrying troops and tanks into the city. The generals say it is in preparation for the annual Armed Forces Day, which is to be held later this month (as it is every year). However, many are sceptical, and Bangkok’s rumour mill has worked itself into a frenzy over what the influx of troops really means. In addition – just in case tanks and imminent city shutdowns weren't enough – the protest movement’s own astrologer has apparently nominated the 14th of next week as an auspicious day for a military takeover, which has many convinced that a coup is inevitable. That said, much of the talk about coups and the potential for violence has come from the current government and its own supporters, happy to drum up a bit of fear into the rest of the country over what they say the protesters are planning. But a bit of fear is perhaps not entirely misplaced. There have been almost nightly attacks on the current protest camp, and fears that this will continue when they move to the city centre have left many demonstrators nervous. On Saturday, at least seven protest guards were injured when unknown gunmen on motorcycles reportedly opened fired with M16 assault rifles. The day before, battles had taken place in a town just north of Bangkok when anti-government and pro-government supports clashed, leaving a number of people injured.
  • In fact, in almost every situation where supporters from both sides have confronted each other, violence – often involving guns – has broken out almost immediately. These outbreaks of violence stoke fears that the move further into Bangkok is a provocation designed to escalate violence, thus opening the door to military intervention – an accusation that the protesters firmly deny. In an interview earlier this week, Army Chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha said that, "The military does not shut nor open the door to a coup. Anything can happen, depending on the situation." Other army spokespersons have since tried to allay fears of an imminent coup, but considering Thailand’s history (18 coups in the last 80 years), not many of those fears have been quelled. The reality is that a coup is entirely possible, if not likely. It could come in the aftermath of potential chaos next week, or following an indecisive outcome in the upcoming elections, which are scheduled to be held on the 2nd of February. The elections are being boycotted by the opposition, and (if they take place at all) are unlikely to produce the required number of parliamentarians to fill the house. In this scenario, the army may well feel justified in taking over the running of the country.
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  • However, we might not need to wait that long. Last week, the National Anti Corruption Commission found evidence for 308 lawmakers to be charged for supporting a bill that looked to amend certain workings of the government. According to at least one interpretation of the constitution, all those members are now – or will be – suspended, leaving a vacuum that, again, the army may feel obligated to fill. And the rumours don’t stop at coups. There is talk of civil war, of a divided country: the north, run from Chiang Mai (where Yingluck lives when she's not in Bangkok), versus those in the south, in Bangkok – the power base of the opposition and current protest movement. It could happen. It could all spiral out of control and there could be widespread bloodshed. But it's unlikely. This isn’t a grassroots revolution where the masses are rising up against the ruling, power-hungry elite. These are heavily invested, largely middle-class members of society who would have nothing to gain from a crumbling nation.
  • Instead, according to long-term observers of Thailand's political landscape, this whole affair is about more than removing the present government. They suggest it's wrapped up in what will happen when the current – and deeply revered – king dies, but due to Thailand’s strict lèse-majesté law, not much more can be said on the matter. Internationally, Thailand is too deeply integrated into the global community for it to fall into bloody conflict unnoticed. It’s not a pariah state, nor a country shielding itself from globalisation or the winds of international opinion. Earlier today, for the first time, it was reported that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been holding talks between Yingluck and the leader of the opposition party in an effort to help them bridge their differences. Ultimately, though, nobody knows what is going to happen. The city has been busily preparing itself for the shutdown, with schools closing, public transport routes bolstered and measures underway to help maintain some semblance of normalcy. The US Embassy in Thailand recently updated their own travel advice, suggesting that their citizens living in Bangkok stock up on food and supplies for the next two weeks. However, most people are just waiting to see what happens, with few precautions being taken by local businesses and no reports of a rush on shops.
  • So the shutdown could be a major inconvenience and nothing more, or it could be the start of a whole new violent chapter for Thailand. At the very least, next week should provide a little more clarity on where Thailand is headed amid its current political turmoil.
Paul Merrell

New analysis of rocket used in Syria chemical attack undercuts U.S. claims | Nation | Ne... - 0 views

www.star-telegram.com/...nalysis-of-rocket-used-in.html

war & peace Syia WMD sarin whodunnit

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • A series of revelations about the rocket believed to have delivered poison sarin gas to a Damascus suburb last summer are challenging American intelligence assumptions about that attack and suggest that the case U.S. officials initially made for retaliatory military action was flawed.A team of security and arms experts, meeting this week in Washington to discuss the matter, has concluded that the range of the rocket that delivered sarin in the largest attack that night was too short for the device to have been fired from the Syrian government positions where the Obama administration insists they originated.
  • In Washington, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said its assertion of Syrian government responsibility remains unchanged. “The body of information used to make the assessment regarding the August 21 attack included intelligence pertaining to the regime’s preparations for this attack and its means of delivery, multiple streams of intelligence about the attack itself and its effect, our post-attack observations, and the differences between the capabilities of the regime and the opposition. That assessment made clear that the opposition had not used chemical weapons in Syria,” it said Wednesday in an email.But the authors of a report released Wednesday said that their study of the rocket’s design, its likely payload and its possible trajectories show that it would have been impossible for the rocket to have been fired from inside areas controlled by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
  • To emphasize their point, the authors used a map produced by the White House that showed which areas were under government and rebel control on Aug. 21 and where the chemical weapons attack occurred. Drawing circles around Zamalka to show the range from which the rocket could have come, the authors conclude that all of the likely launching points were in rebel-held areas or areas that were in dispute. The area securely in government hands was miles from the possible launch zones.In an interview, Postol said that a basic analysis of the weapon – some also have described as a looking like a push pop, a fat cylinder filled with sarin atop a thin stick that holds the engine – would have shown that it wasn’t capable of flying the 6 miles from the center of the Syrian government-controlled part of Damascus to the point of impact in the suburbs, or even the 3.6 miles from the edges of government-controlled ground.
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  • The report also raised questions whether the Obama administration misused intelligence information in a way similar to the administration of President George W. Bush in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Then, U.S. officials insisted that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had an active program to develop weapons of mass destruction. Subsequent inspections turned up no such program or weapons.“What, exactly, are we spending all this money on intelligence for?” Postol asked.
  • Lloyd, who has spent the past half-year studying the weapons and capabilities in the Syrian conflict, disputed the assumption that the rebels are less capable of making rockets than the Syrian military.“The Syrian rebels most definitely have the ability to make these weapons,” he said. “I think they might have more ability than the Syrian government.”Both said they were not making a case that the rebels were behind the attack, just that a case for military action was made without even a basic understanding of what might have happened.
  • He questioned whether U.S. intelligence officials had actually analyzed the improbability of a rocket with such a non-aerodynamic design traveling so far before Secretary of State John Kerry declared on Sept. 3 that “we are certain that none of the opposition has the weapons or capacity to effect a strike of this scale – particularly from the heart of regime territory.”“I honestly have no idea what happened,” Postol said. “My view when I started this process was that it couldn’t be anything but the Syrian government behind the attack. But now I’m not sure of anything. The administration narrative was not even close to reality. Our intelligence cannot possibly be correct.”
  • PDF: Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013 
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Jan 14
     
    In a mainstream Texas newspaper, no less. 
Paul Merrell

Push for New Sanctions on Iran Stalls Amid Growing Resistance | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...stalls-amid-growing-resistance

war & peace War-Party Israel-lobby Iran Iranian-nukes-myth

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • A bid to slap Iran with a new round of economic sanctions appears to have stalled in the Senate, after leading Democrats amplified concern about the threat such a move poses to a fragile diplomatic process. Early in the week, reports that a bill introduced by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Robert Menendez was within striking distance of a veto-proof majority cast a shadow over news that negotiators had finalized a temporary agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program, beginning Monday. New sanctions would likely kill negotiations for a final deal, the White House warned lawmakers, and increase the chances of an armed conflict with Iran. But Senate majority leader Harry Reid has given no indication that he will bring the bill up for a vote, and the pressure to do so is falling now that top Democrats have intensified opposition to the proposed legislation. The Kirk-Menendez bill gained no new endorsements this week, and even one supportive senator admitted Wednesday to a break in momentum.
  • The gorilla in the room is the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, which has been calling for new sanctions for months. Of the 16 Democrats who have endorsed the Kirk-Menendez legislation, several are up for re-election in closely contested states; Senator Kirk himself suggested Tuesday that a vote for new sanctions would be an opportunity for lawmakers to shore up support from the powerful lobby. “The great thing, since we represent a nationwide community — the pro-Israel community is going to be heavily present in most states — this is a chance for senators to go back and tell them, ‘I’m with you,’” Kirk said. Other Democrats pushing for the bill have close ties with the group, particularly Chuck Schumer and Cory Booker. Tellingly, the Kirk-Menendez bill states that if Israel takes "military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapons program,” the US "should stand with Israel and provide…diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence." The language is nonbinding, but it raises flags about whose interests the legislation would truly serve.
  • Dianne Feinstein addressed this point more directly than perhaps any other politician so far. “While I recognize and share Israel’s concern, we cannot let Israel determine when and where the US goes to war,” she said. “By stating that the US should provide military support to Israel should it attack Iran, I fear that is exactly what this bill will do.” Such outspokenness about the relationship between US policymaking in the Middle East and Israeli interests is remarkable. But other lawmakers are signalling that they too are shrugging off the lobby: Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, normally a high-profile ally for AIPAC, reportedly argued against the Kirk-Menendez bill at a White House meeting attended by several dozen of her colleagues on Wednesday night. How things play out in the next week, and in the duration of the talks with Iran, will be a good test of AIPAC’s influence, which seemed diminished when Congress considered military strikes in Syria last year. Progressives claimed a victory when diplomacy prevailed then; as Peter Beinart points out, the current debate presents a real opportunity for the anti-war left to reassert itself, not only to punish lawmakers who start wars, but to set new expectations for a diplomacy-first approach.
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  • Read Next: Robert Scheer on the 1953 CIA-supported coup in Iran.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Jan 14
     
    More signs that the power of the Israel Lobby in Congress is on the wane and that it is now a fit topic for open discussion. Might we yet again see the day when members of the Israel Lobby will be required to register as agents of a foreign power, as required by law?  (That bit about "Progressives claimed a victory when diplomacy prevailed then" is in my opinion off the wall. There are exceedingly few true "progressives" in Congress; they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The statement ignores that members of Congress in both parties came out in opposition to war on Syria, as did the Pentagon. The precipitating sarin gas attack was quickly exposed as a false flag  attack cooperatively mounted by the Saudis and U.S. government officials to justify the planned U.S missile strikes. Public opinion was overwhelmingly against war on Syria and Russian diplomats offered Obama a face-saving path of retreat. Oh, yeah. Mid-term elections are coming up this year, and no Congressman up for reelection relished the thought of facing voter wrath on this issue.     it was public opinion against war with Syria, Russia capitalizing on John Kerry's hoof-in-mouth disease, 
Paul Merrell

Russia Provides Syria With Advanced Missiles - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ia-with-advanced-missiles.html

war & peace Syria Syrian-missiles Russia Yakhonts

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, American officials said Thursday.
  • Russia has previously provided a version of the missiles, called Yakhonts, to Syria. But those delivered recently are outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them more effective, according to American officials who are familiar with classified intelligence reports and would only discuss the shipment on the basis of anonymity. Unlike Scud and other longer-range surface-to-surface missiles that the Assad government has used against opposition forces, the Yakhont antiship missile system provides the Syrian military a formidable weapon to counter any effort by international forces to reinforce Syrian opposition fighters by imposing a naval embargo, establishing a no-fly zone or carrying out limited airstrikes. “It enables the regime to deter foreign forces looking to supply the opposition from the sea, or from undertaking a more active role if a no-fly zone or shipping embargo were to be declared at some point,” said Nick Brown, editor in chief of IHS Jane’s International Defense Review. “It’s a real ship killer.”
  • Paul Merrell on 04 Sep 13
     
    This article is from May 16, 2013. The ship-killer missiles described have a range of 180 miles, easily capable of reaching the U.S. destroyers poised to strike Syria with cruise missiles and other U.S. Navy ships stationed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, even those docked in Cyprus.  So the question becomes what Syria does if it detects inbound U.S. missile? Does Syria, acting on the likelihood that the Yakhonts missiles may be destroyed by the inbound missiles, fire their own missiles at U.S. Navy ships? Or does Syria hold off in fear of escalation by the U.S.? Depending on Syria not to counter-strike seems like a risk prudent U.S. admirals would not take. But there the destroyers, the Nimitz aircraft carrier group, and a Marine troop carrier sit well within range.  This and other factors leave me with some doubt that Obama has any real desire or intent to carry out the attack. 
Paul Merrell

Caught Red-Handed » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...caught-red-handed

war & peace Ukraine U.S. CIA pipelinestan

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • “In the latest debacle for the US State Department and the Obama Administration, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was caught on tape micro-managing Ukraine opposition party strategies with US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. That the Ukraine regime-change operation is to some degree being directed from Washington can no longer be denied….The taped conversation demonstrates in clear detail that while Secretary of State John Kerry decries any foreign meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs, his State Department is virtually managing the entire process.” – Daniel McAdams, “‘F**k the EU’: Tape Reveals US Runs Ukraine opposition“, Ron Paul Institute Washington is at it again, up to its old tricks. You’d think that after the Afghanistan and Iraq fiascos someone on the policymaking team would tell the fantasists to dial-it-down a bit. But, no. The Obama claque is just as eager to try their hand at regime change as their predecessors, the Bushies. This time the bullseye is on Ukraine, the home of the failed Orange Revolution, where US NGOs fomented a populist coup that brought down the government and paved the way for years of social instability, economic hardship and, eventually, a stronger alliance with Moscow. That sure worked out well, didn’t it? One can only wonder what Obama has in mind for an encore.
  • Let’s cut to the chase: The US still clings to the idea that it can dominate the world with its ham-fisted military (that hasn’t won a war in 60 years) its scandalized Intel agencies, its comical Rambo-style “Special Ops” teams, and its oh-so-brilliant global strategists who think the days of the nation-state will soon be over hastening the onset of the glorious New World Order. Right. Ukraine is a critical part of that pipe dream, er, strategy which is why the US media puts demonstrations in Kiev in the headlines while similar protests in the US are consigned to the back pages just below the dog food ads. In any event, the crisis is likely to intensify in the months ahead as Washington engages in a no-holds-barred tug-o-war with Moscow over the future of civilization.
Paul Merrell

Leaked conversation about Ukraine fans U.S.-Russian tensions - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article16724431

war & peace Ukraine U.S. EU Russia pipelinestan

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Ukraine’s protest standoff came dangerously close to becoming a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States on Thursday as shockingly unguarded words from Washington and Moscow officials reached public ears, either voluntarily or otherwise.A recording of a phone conversation between two senior U.S. diplomatic officials, in which they discussed their efforts to influence the membership of the Ukrainian government that would be formed to replace the one dismissed under protester pressure by President Viktor Yanukovych, was leaked to the public – almost certainly by an intelligence agency – just as one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top aides issued a direct threat to the United States over its involvement in Ukrainian affairs.
  • Mr. Yanukovych’s explicitly pro-Russian government has long been accused of being a puppet of Mr. Putin – especially after it abandoned a European Union open-borders treaty in November to instead endorse a trade-and-aid deal with Russia, a move that angered many Ukrainians and provoked the protests that have convulsed the nation for two months.But now, with the leak of the apparently bugged State Department call, the Kremlin and Mr. Yanukovych have new ammunition with which it can accuse the protesters of being puppets of U.S. and European agendas.
  • The call, if it is genuine, was posted on YouTube by an anonymous source on Tuesday under the headline “puppets of Maidan,” a reference to the protests in Kiev’s central square. It was then linked on Twitter by Russian government officials on Thursday – exactly as U.S. and European Union officials were descending on Kiev to try to broker a resignation, a new election and a constitutional change from Mr. Yanukovych.The voices the audio resemble those of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. They appear to be talking about their preference of political party leaders to form a new Ukrainian government, and about their efforts, including several phone calls to Mr. Yanukovych by Vice President Joe Biden, to influence that outcome. The EU was prepared to begin negotiating government-opposition talks toward a new government on Friday.Much of the call is devoted to efforts to keep Ukrainian liberal parties in government, and to prevent right-wing ultranationalist parties, which have been prominent in the protest movement, from gaining influence.
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  • “I’m just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead, we want to keep the moderate democrats together,” Mr. Pyatt says at one point. Ms. Nulund explicitly endorses moderate opposition party leader Arseniy Yatseniuk and argues that “what he needs” is fellow opposition leaders Vitali Klitschko, a former boxer with a populist style, and Oleh Tiahnybok, a far-right leader whose party is known for intolerance.“I think Yats [Yatseniuk] is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience … what he needs is Klitsch and Tiahnybok on the outside,” she adds. Mr. Pyatt says: “Let me work on Klitschko, and I think we get a Western personality to come out here and midwife this thing.”And then Ms. Nuland says, a propos of nothing: “And you know, fuck the EU.” This was an apparent reference to the EU’s hesitancy to threaten to impose sanctions on the Yanukovych government, something the U.S. – and Canada – have done. On Thursday, the European Parliament voted to impose limited sanctions, including the stripping of visas, on Ukrainian officials directly responsible for violence.
  • Sergei Glazyev, a top adviser to the Russian president, said that U.S. “interference” contravened a 1994 treaty that granted Ukraine its independence from the Soviet Union and guaranteed that outside nations would not intervene. Russian leaders, he told the paper, “are obliged to intervene when conflict situations of this nature arise.”Asked if violence should be used to remove the protesters, Mr. Glazyev said: “As for starting to use force, in a situation where the authorities face an attempted coup d’état, they simply have no other course of action. Otherwise, the country will be plunged into chaos.”
Paul Merrell

Saudi Arabia Replaces Key Official in Effort to Arm Syria Rebels - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...702303775504579392942097203608

war & peace Syria Saudis Bandar bin-Nayef MIteb

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Saudi Arabia has sidelined its veteran intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, as leader of the kingdom's efforts to arm and fund Syrian rebels, replacing him with another prince well-regarded by U.S. officials for his successes fighting al-Qaeda, Saudi royal advisers said this week. The change holds promise for a return to smoother relations with the U.S., and may augur a stronger Saudi effort against militants aligned with al Qaeda who have flocked to opposition-held Syrian territory during that country's three-year war, current and former U.S. officials said.
  • Saudi Arabia has sidelined its veteran intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, as leader of the kingdom's efforts to arm and fund Syrian rebels, replacing him with another prince well-regarded by U.S. officials for his successes fighting al-Qaeda, Saudi royal advisers said this week. The change holds promise for a return to smoother relations with the U.S., and may augur a stronger Saudi effort against militants aligned with al Qaeda who have flocked to opposition-held Syrian territory during that country's three-year war, current and former U.S. officials said.
  • Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who has won praise in Washington for his counterterror work against al Qaeda in Yemen and elsewhere, is now a main figure in carrying out Syria policy, a royal adviser and a security analyst briefed by Saudi officials said Tuesday. Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, Saudi King Abdullah's son and head of the Saudi National Guard, has also assumed a bigger share of responsibility for the kingdom's policy towards Syria, the advisers said. A Saudi analyst who serves as adviser to top royals said the changes signaled the kingdom would also now emphasize diplomatic means, including outreach to and pressure on Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, the main backers of Mr. Assad's regime.
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  • "Prince Miteb and Mohammed bin Nayef, they are in charge," the adviser said. The world will see a "new strategy for Syria—quieter, more open, not too extreme. There will be more politics to it, and probably much less military." U.S. officials said Prince Mohammed enjoys good relations with Secretary of State John Kerry and CIA Director John Brennan. The latter first met the prince in 1999, shortly before he left Saudi Arabia after serving as the CIA station chief there. The officials also credit the prince with providing intelligence that foiled at least two al Qaeda bomb plots against Western targets.
  • The changes put the Syria efforts in the hands of princes who are believed to have been among the most cautious among top royals about aggressively supporting the rebels. The U.S. wants to see the moderate rebels it supports fight both the regime and radical fighters such as the al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS). Increasingly, this is happening on the ground in Syria. "You could see a smarter Saudi approach, one more targeted on the Assad regime and one also targeting extremists," said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute think tank. "It seems as if they continue to back the rebels. I think the question is what will that entail."
  • Prince Mohammed, as a leading counterterror figure globally, is in a position to assuage American fears that if the West supplies weapons, they will wind up in the possession of radicals, said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst with the Gulf Research Center who is close to Saudi security and intelligence circles. "The Americans have to change their policy, and Prince Mohammed is the right person to take this mission.…He's the one who can calm their worries," Mr. Alani said. Saudi officials have told their American counterparts that they intend to ramp up their support for the moderate opposition after the collapse of peace talks in Geneva last month. U.S. officials say they haven't given the Saudis a green light to move forward with plans to give shoulder-fired missiles that can bring down jets to hand-picked rebels. But it is unclear to what extent the U.S. would move to block the Saudis if they insisted on going ahead with the deployment of the weapons over Washington's objections.
  • Prince Mohammed's appointment reflects shifting U.S. interests in the conflict, with both the Americans and Saudis increasing their focus on countering al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria. U.S. and European officials fear these groups could plot attacks against the West from camps in Syria and that foreign fighters now in Syria will pose a significant threat when they return home to Europe, the Gulf and the U.S. The U.S. has gradually expanded its involvement in Syria at the urging of the Saudis, though not nearly as quickly as the Saudis had hoped. The Saudis persuaded the CIA to pay salaries to some fighters of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army rebel group, and the payments started about a year ago.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Feb 14
     
    Bandar Bush exits, stage right, as the Obama Administration scrambles for realignment in the Mideast. 
Paul Merrell

Team America no longer wants to be the World's Police - 1 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...-wants-to-be-the-worlds-police

war & peace U.S. foreign-intervention polls

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • We've written repeatedly in this space over the past two weeks about how much Americans (and Congress) don't want to get involved in what's going on in Syria. This much is clear. But Americans' hesitation isn't really about Syria; it's more about their increasingly non-interventionist attitude toward foreign policy.
  • Case in point: opposition to military action in Syria tracks very closely to overall opposition to foreign intervention. Take two new polls. A newly released CBS News/New York Times poll asked people whether they felt the United States should "take the leading role ... in trying to solve international conflicts."
  • A CNN/Opinion Research poll, meanwhile, asked: "As a general rule, do you think the United States should be ready and willing to use military force around the world, or the United States should be very reluctant to use military force?" In each case, just 34 percent of Americans said they wanted a more involved foreign policy, while more than six in 10 Americans wanted to be more non-interventionist. The CBS/NYT poll also asked whether the United States should seek to remove dictators where it can. Americans opposed this resoundingly, 72-15.
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  • President Obama, who is undoubtedly aware of these numbers, sought to address this issue during Tuesday's speech. Obama assured that the United States wouldn't be acting as the "world's policeman" in Syria. "Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong," he said. "But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional." The problem for Obama is that Americans pretty clearly view the proposed military action in Syria as "police"-work. And this, more than the details of chemical weapons attacks and international diplomacy efforts, is what prevents the American public from getting behind military intervention in Syria.
  • What's more interesting is that, in each of these polls, opposition to military action is also higher than it has been in more recent years -- even at the height of the unpopularity of the Iraq and Afghanistan efforts. As recently as 2011, the CNN poll showed 46 percent of Americans saying the United States should be "ready and willing" to use military force; now it's 34 percent. And the 72 percent who opposed overthrowing dictators in the CBS/NYT poll was slightly higher than it was in 2011, 2008 and 2007, and much higher than it was in 2003. In other words, even as the United States withdraws from overseas conflicts, Americans appear to be getting more non-interventionist, not less.
  • We've written repeatedly in this space over the past two weeks about how much Americans (and Congress) don't want to get involved in what's going on in Syria. This much is clear. But Americans' hesitation isn't really about Syria; it's more about their increasingly non-interventionist attitude toward foreign policy.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Mar 14
     
    They should have voted for Ron Paul. 
Paul Merrell

The Relatively Free Press: Knocking the Paint Off Sen. Merkley and Sen. Wyden's Peace Credentials - 0 views

relativelyfreepress.blogspot.com/...t-off-sen-merkley-and-sen.html

war & peace Syria ISIL legislation RFP

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • This post is to place on the record that both Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Jeff Merkley were placed on notice at about 4 a.m. on September 18, 2014 of the facts stated in my emails to them, reprinted below. That was many hours before both joined a majority of the Senate in authorizing President Obama to provide weapons and training to the Syrian opposition, ostensibly to fight the "terrorist organization," the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as the Islamic State. That authorization was tucked in yesterday as an amendment to H.J.Res. 124 --- Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015, and became section 149 in the bill that passed the House a few hours later. The Senate passed the same bill today unaltered, without any debate allowed. That was a decidedly sneaky ambush method for Congress to authorize war against Syria, obviously designed to avoid public participation. The authorization unless vetoed by President Obama plainly constitutes a declaration of war against the the nation of Syria.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Sep 14
     
    My article from Thursday about the incredible legislation that was rammed through both houses of Congress in less than 24 hours, authorizing the arming of the Syrian opposition. And some curiosity about it: all major organizations in Syria that were fighting ISIL either stopped fighting ISIL or had their leadership blown to bits since Sept. 1. 
Paul Merrell

Operation Jericho Airforce Officials Sentenced to 4-8 Years | venezuelanalysis.com - 0 views

venezuelanalysis.com/11380

war & peace Venezuela U.S.-foreign-policy conspirators-sentenced litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 May 15 - No Cached
  • Eight Venezuelan military officials charged with involvement in last year’s infamous “Operation Jericho” plot against President Nicolas Maduro have been sentenced by a military court to between four and eight years in prison.   The men were amongst 30 mostly airforce officials arrested in March and April 2014 in connection with a plan to sow rebellion in the country’s armed forces and launch a coup against the current socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro. The plot is reported to have been planned throughout a two year period but was dramatically foiled by Venezuelan authorities in March 2014 following a series of tip offs from other members of the armed forces.   “The homeland is delivering justice! Military Tribunals sentence 8 officials from “Operation Jericho” for inciting rebelling and violating military decorum”, confirmed Defence Minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, on his Twitter account. Although Lopez did not give details on the length of the sentences handed down to the officials, according to press reports the men received between four to eight years each. 
  • The jailed officials include Andres Thomas Martinez, the great grandson of Venezuelan twentieth century military dictator, Juan Vicente Gomez, who ruled Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935, and former Vice-minister for Defence Education, General Oswaldo Hernández. They are all reported to have links to the United States government, as well as to prominent members of Venezuela’s rightwing opposition, including Member of Parliament for the Justice First party, Julio Borges, who was named in a confession by Hernandez.  The sentencing of the men follows the jailing of a ninth airforce official involved in the plot, Captain Acacio Moreno Mora, who was handed a prison term of 3 years and 11 months after pleading guilty on the first day of the high profile trial in February this year. 2014’s “Operation Jericho” is just one of several attempts to oust the Bolivarian government over the last 15 years, including a partially successful coup in 2002 which saw then-president, Hugo Chavez, forcefully deposed from office for 47 hours before he was returned by a popular rebellion. Earlier this year, another plot by airforce officials against the government was also discovered by Venezuelan authorities. Dubbed “the Blue Coup,” the plan included an attempt to assassinate the president, as well as the bombing of a series of “strategic” targets in the capital city using a Toucan warplane. 
  • The Blue Coup is reported to be an offshoot of last year’s Operation Jericho, with those involved having allegedly planned to release pre-recorded footage of Operacion Jericho’s General Hernandez announcing the overthrow of the Maduro government via a military uprising in order to launch the Blue Coup. Several opposition politicians such as Leopoldo Lopez, Maria Corina Machado and Antonio Ledezma have also been linked to the Blue Coup attempt. All three signed and released a “Call for a National Transition Agreement” just twenty-four hours before the Blue Coup was scheduled to take place.  The document calls on Venezuelans to back their initiative to depose the Maduro administration and install an interim de-facto government.  Both Lopez and Ledezma are currently behind bars and awaiting trial due to their alleged involvement in the opposition street violence which erupted in 2014. Ledezma in particular is being tried for his links to paramilitary groups connected to the violence. 
  • Paul Merrell on 13 May 15
     
    Venezuelan co-conpirators of of of the several CIA coup attempts sentenced to prison.  
Paul Merrell

Israeli army incursion into Syria hits refugee camp | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...ursion-syria-hits-refugee-camp

war & peace Syria Israel-invasion

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • The Israeli military on Wednesday stormed a camp for displaced Syrians near the boundary line between the 70 percent of the Golan Heights occupied by Israel and the rest of Syria, according to Syrian activists. The al-Shahaar refugee camp is located near Jabata al-Khashab, a Syrian town in the Quneitra province. The area is mostly controlled by Syrian opposition forces fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “This camp includes a large number of civilians fleeing the fighting between opposition forces and the regime, and who were forced today to go to Jabata al-Khashab in search of refuge after the Israeli army’s raid,” Abu Hamza al-Jowlani, a media activist, told al-Araby al-Jadeed in an Arabic-language report. Jabata al-Khashab, a nearby town, is located within the boundary lines of the United Nations-administered “buffer zone” between the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan and the rest of the area.
  • After instructing the camp’s residents to leave, the Israeli army also destroyed tents, according to Syria Mubasher, a Syrian opposition-affiliated news site.  “Israeli army soldiers entered the al-Shahaar camp accompanied by several armored vehicles,” Syria Mubasher reported in Arabic, citing witnesses. “After ordering [the residents] to evacuate, [the Israelis] took and destroyed the tents with no people in them, and returned to the other side of the boundary line,” the report stated. Although Israel claims that it is a neutral bystander in the Syrian civil war, which began as a popular uprising against the Assad regime in 2011, it regularly intervenes in Syria.
Paul Merrell

The Trump/Sanders Phenomena | Consortiumnews - 0 views

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Auction 2016 Hillary sins neocons

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • At nearly every juncture, Hillary Clinton has opted for what seemed like the safe play at the time. Indeed, it is hard to think of any case in which she showed anything approaching genuine political courage or statesmanlike wisdom. Here is just a short list of her misjudgments after the Iraq War:–In summer 2006, as a New York senator, Clinton supported Israel’s air war against southern Lebanon which killed more than 1,000 Lebanese. At a pro-Israel rally in New York on July 17, 2006, Clinton shared a stage with Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman, a renowned Muslim basher who proudly defended Israel’s massive violence against targets in Lebanon.“Let us finish the job,” Gillerman told the crowd. “We will excise the cancer in Lebanon” and “cut off the fingers” of Hezbollah. Responding to international concerns that Israel was using “disproportionate” force in bombing Lebanon and killing hundreds of civilians, Gillerman said, “You’re damn right we are.” [NYT, July 18, 2006] Clinton did not protest Gillerman’s remarks.–In late 2006, Clinton fell for the false conventional wisdom that President George W. Bush’s nomination of Robert Gates to be Secretary of Defense was an indication that Bush was preparing to wind down the Iraq War when it actually signaled the opposite, the so-called “surge.” Later, to avoid further offending the Democratic base as she ran for president, she opposed the “surge,” though she later acknowledged that she did so for political reasons, according to Gates’s memoir Duty.
  • In the early months of the Obama administration, with Gates still Defense Secretary and Clinton the new Secretary of State, Gates reported what he regarded as a stunning admission by Clinton, writing: “Hillary told the president that her opposition to the surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary [in 2008]. She went on to say, ‘The Iraq surge worked.’”–In 2009, Clinton joined with Gates and General David Petraeus to pressure President Barack Obama into a similar “surge” in Afghanistan which – like the earlier “surge” in Iraq – did little more than get another 1,000 U.S. soldiers killed along with many more Iraqis and Afghans while extending the bloody chaos in both countries.–Also, in 2009, Clinton supported a right-wing coup in Honduras, overthrowing left-of-center President Manuel Zelaya.–In 2011, Clinton helped spearhead the U.S.-backed “regime change” in Libya, which led to the torture/murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as Clinton chuckled, “we came, we saw, he died.” Like the “regime change” in Iraq, the Libyan “regime change” left the once-prosperous nation in bloody anarchy with major gains by Islamic extremists, including the Islamic State.
  • –Also, in 2011, Clinton pressed for a similar “regime change” in Syria adopting the popular though false notion that a “moderate opposition” would neatly fill the void after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. The reality was that Al Qaeda and its spin-off, the Islamic State, stood to be the real beneficiaries of the U.S.-supported destabilization of Syria. These Islamic terrorist groups now have major footholds in all three Arab countries where Clinton supported “regime change” – Iraq, Syria and Libya.
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  • Throughout her time as Senator and Secretary of State, Clinton supported the aggressive foreign policy prescriptions of the neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist allies. In each of these cases, the neocons and liberal hawks were dominating Official Washington’s debate and it would have taken some political courage to stand in their way. Hillary Clinton never did.The enduring mystery with Hillary Clinton is whether she is a true neocon or whether she simply judges that embracing neocon positions is the “safest” course for her career – that by parroting the neocon “group think” she can win praise from the national-security elite and that big donors who favor a hard-line strategy for the Middle East will reward her with campaign contributions.Whatever the case, Clinton has carefully curried favor with key neocons, including consulting with Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the neocon Project for the New American Century, and promoting his wife, Victoria Nuland, making her the State Department spokesperson and putting her on track to become Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. In that post, Nuland orchestrated “regime change” in Ukraine, which like other neocon targets has descended into bloody chaos, but this adventure also has precipitated a dangerous showdown with nuclear-armed Russia.
Paul Merrell

The Effort to Destroy the Iran Agreement: Chapter Two « LobeLog - 0 views

www.lobelog.com/the-iran-agreement-chapter-two

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth deal Israel-lobby Republicans Auction 2016

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • The voting and possible vetoing that will take place later this month thus will mark only the end of one chapter in a continuing political contest. Opponents of the agreement will continue to try to subvert it even after it enters into force. The partisan divide in sentiment on the issue, which, as Jim Lobe points out, has become increasingly sharp as reflected in opinion polls over the past year, will be one of the drivers of continued opposition. The issue has exhibited a familiar pattern in which members of the public who have little substantive knowledge of the matter of question take their cues from leaders of the party with which they most identify. A self-reinforcing cycle of adamant opposition by Republican politicians and consequent opposition by a cue-taking Republican base has put the Iranian nuclear issue on a similar trajectory as the Affordable Care Act—i.e., endless preoccupation by the Congressional portion of half the political spectrum with killing it rather than implementing it, no matter what experience may show is working or not working.
  • Efforts to kill the agreement, after the votes this month that will determine whether the agreement will go into effect, will center on getting the United States not to live up to its end of the agreement. Given that the United States has no obligations under the agreement other than to end some of the punishment it has been inflicting in the form of economic sanctions, the agreement-killing strategy will entail slapping new sanctions on Iran until Tehran is pressed passed the limits of its tolerance for such accord-circumventing behavior. The specific tactics may involve in effect restoring some of the nuclear-related sanctions that are due to be relaxed under the agreement, but under some new label such as terrorism or something having to do with other Iranian behavior. Ideas have already been advanced along these lines. Other creative ideas of opponents include having states rather than the federal government sanction Iran. All such maneuvers will make it difficult for Iranian leaders committed to observance of the agreement to deflect charges from their domestic opponents that the United States snookered Iran and that it is not in Iran’s interests to continue to live up to the agreement.
  • The U.S. presidential election calendar has given diehard opponents of the nuclear agreement added incentive to inflict lethal sabotage on the agreement within the next 16 months. The prospect of a Republican entering the White House in January 2017 may in this respect present more of a vulnerability than an opportunity for opponents. Republican presidential candidates have been competing with each other in telling the primary-voter party base how quickly and peremptorily they would renounce the agreement with Iran—with the only differences being whether it would be on the very first day in office, whether renunciation would take place before or after consulting with advisers, etc. It would be tough for any of these candidates, if elected, to back down from such an oft-repeated pledge. But such a presidential renunciation would be a more direct and blatant unilateral U.S. reneging on a multilateral accord than even some of the more aggressive sanctions-restoring tactics mentioned earlier. And such a renunciation would come after three years (counting from when the JPOA came into effect) of Iran living up to its commitments under the agreement and notmoving to make a nuclear weapon. The discomfort that the future president would be feeling in this situation would reflect what has been the underlying concern of confirmed opponents of the nuclear agreement all along: not that the accord will fail, but that it will succeed.
Gary Edwards

The Daily Bell - Doug Casey on the Continuing Debasement of Money, Language and Banking in the Modern Age - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...-and-Banking-in-the-Modern-Age

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • This isn't going to last because the way you get wealthy is by producing more than you consume and saving the difference – not by consuming more than you produce, and borrowing the difference. With the Fed keeping interest rates at artificially low levels, hoping to increase consumption, they're making it very foolish to save – when you get ½% or 1% on your savings. So people are saving less and they're borrowing more than they otherwise would. This is a formula for making things worse, not better.
  • They are, idiotically, doing exactly the opposite of what they should be.
  • In point of fact, the Fed should be abolished; the market, not bureaucrats, should determine interest rates. We wouldn't be in this pickle to start with if the government wasn't involved in the economy.
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  • The Chinese, the Japanese – everybody is selling, trying to pass the Old Maid card of US Government debt, which represents return–free risk. Nobody other than the Fed is buying, and interest rates would skyrocket if they stopped. The more QE there is, the more distortions it will cause, however, making for a bigger disaster the longer it goes on.
  • Will the Fed continue to inflate the money supply? Doug Casey: They have to, because with the huge amount of debt in the world – and the amount of debt in the world has increased something like 40 or 50% just since the Greater Depression started – if they don't keep increasing the amount of money in the world then nobody's going to be able to service the huge amount of debt that is out there. So I don't see anything changing in the years to come. They've truly painted themselves into a corner. They're caught between Scylla and Charybdis, and we don't have Odysseus steering the ship of state.
  • Let me say, again, that the Fed serves no useful purpose and it should be abolished. Central banks create "super money" by buying government or other debt with new currency units that they credit to the sellers' accounts at commercial banks. That's the actual engine of inflation.
  • But it's greatly compounded in the commercial banking system through fractional reserve lending – which would not be possible without a central bank. Fractional reserve lending allows banks to multiply the money supply several times.
  • If $100 of Fed super money, freshly created, is deposited in a commercial bank like Chase or Citibank, then $90 can be lent out with a 10% reserve, the current number. That money is redeposited. They'll then lend out 90% of that $90, or $81, and then 90% of that $81, so it multiplies.
  • Central banking and fractional reserve lending go hand-in-hand.
  • Without a central bank, any bank that engaged in fractional reserve banking would be considered guilty of fraud and, when discovered, would be punished by a bank run, followed by criminal charges. The point to be made here is that the entire banking system today is totally unsound and totally corrupt.
  • In a sound banking system you have two types of deposits – checking account (or demand) deposits, and savings account (or time) deposits. They are completely different businesses. With demand deposits, you pay the bank to store your money securely, and write checks against it. A bank should no more lend out demand deposit money than Allied Storage should lend out the furniture you're paying them to store.
  • Savings accounts are completely different. Here you lend money to a bank, perhaps at 3%, and they relend it at 6%, making 3% to cover costs, risks and profits. A sound bank not only has to match the maturities of its deposits with the maturities of its loans, but must insure loans are both highly secured and self-liquidating.
  • These principles have been totally lost. Today banks operate as hedge funds.
  • As an aside, if someone were to set up a well-capitalized 100% reserve bank in a tax haven, especially using gold as an alternative currency, it would be immensely successful in the years to come – when most all conventional banks will fail.
  • By all historical, normal parameters, the stock market is greatly overvalued.
  • The trillions of new currency units that the Fed is creating are creating bubbles, and one of them is in the stock market. The biggest bubble, of course, is in the bond market – that's a super bubble.
  • Not only does the dollar have no real value but the banks you keep it in are all insolvent.
  • There are few sound investments out there. Today there are no investments; there are only speculations.
  • From the economist's point of view, the bubbles created by central banking are a disaster, but from a speculator's point of view they're a godsend. It's becoming harder and harder to be an investor; I define an investor as someone who allocates capital to productive business. It's hard to be an investor because you now have to spend more money on lawyers than on engineers and workers if you want to produce something. You're increasingly forced to be a speculator in today's climate.
  • Stock and bond markets all over the world are overpriced – with the exception of Russian stocks right now; they could be a very interesting speculation. I wouldn't touch anything in China yet, because all the Chinese banks are going to go bust.
  • The Chinese have been more profligate inflating the yuan than the Americans have been with the dollar. It's fantastic what the Chinese have done since Deng liberalized the economy in the early '80s, but now's not a time to be in their markets.
  • You've got to remember there are two types of people in the world: people who want to control material reality and people who want to control other people.
  • It's that second type who go into politics. They play games – here it's called the Great Game, which dignifies it in a way it shouldn't be – with other people's lives and property. It's been this way ever since the state was created about 5,000 years ago, and I don't think you should play games with other people's lives.
  • On the bright side, there are more scientists and engineers alive today than in all of human history put together, and so technology is advancing more rapidly than ever for that reason. That's a huge plus.
  • The second good thing is that the average person, at least those who aren't on welfare, tries to produce more than he consumes. That creates capital.
  • But I'm afraid that Western civilization reached its peak before World War I. World War I destroyed a huge amount of capital and, more importantly, it changed the moral bases of so many things.
  • Then World War II institutionalized the State as the most important part of society – which is perverse, because the state is actually the enemy of civil society.
  • I think Western civilization reached its peak in 1913, when it reached its maximum geographical extent. That was coincidental with the peak of its technological and philosophical influence on the world, much the way the Roman Empire reached its peak at about the end of the first century, then went down, slowly at first and then quickly. That's what's happening to the West.
  • Relative to the rest of the world, and contribution to world production, our piece of the economic pie is getting smaller and smaller. If we have another serious war it would be absolutely smaller, and the final nail in the coffin. Meanwhile, the US, with its bloated military, is just itching for another war. It's out of control, and unlikely to change at this point. That's a big trend that is in motion that I think is going to stay in motion.
  • Europe is in particularly bad shape. The place is a fascist/socialist disaster.
  • It was possible for the average European to keep his head above water through tax evasion in the past, but now those governments have broken bank secrecy everywhere, and it will destroy a lot of capital.
  • The "nation-state" is a really stupid and dysfunctional idea, and I'm glad it's on its way out.
  • That said, even the US, which from a cultural point of view is as much of a country as any place in the world, should actually break up into at least five or six regions.
  • Canada should break up into at least five or six regions initially.
  • I don't think politically; politics is the problem, not the solution. I think that the ideal solution is for every individual to opt out of the current system. When they give a war, you don't come. When they give a tax, you don't pay. When they give an election, you don't vote. You even try not to use their currency and their banking system. T
  • he ideal thing is to let the system collapse under its own weight as opposed to starting a new political party and then continuing to act politically, which is to say to use force on other people.
  • Market risk is huge today, but political risk is even bigger. One indication of that was, when the banks in Cyprus went bust some months ago, the government essentially confiscated everybody's account above 100,000 euros, in what they called a "bail-in."
  • You need several options. It seems like people haven't learned anything from what happened in Russia in 1917, Germany in 1933, China in 1948, Cuba in 1959, or Vietnam in 1975. Rwanda, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Syria ... there are lots of examples and these things can and will eventually happen almost everywhere. When the chimpanzees go crazy, you don't want to be where they are. You've got to have a Plan B. You've got to have a crib out of that political jurisdiction. Acting like a plant, and staying put, isn't a good survival strategy for a human.
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 15
     
    "Doug Casey: I don't see a real recovery until they stop debasing the currency, radically cut government spending and taxation and eliminate most regulation. In other words, cease doing the things that caused this depression. And that's not going to happen until there's a collapse of the current order. Things have cyclically improved since the height of the crisis of 2008-09. The trillions of currency units created by the Federal Reserve have jammed the stock market higher and kept the big banks from going under. What surprises me is that retail prices have not moved as significantly as I would have expected. The reason, I believe, is that most of that money is still sitting in financial institutions. It has gone into cash out of fear, into stocks because they represent real wealth with earning power and into various speculative assets like artwork and collectible cars. Real estate has recovered somewhat, not because of strong fundamentals but strictly because of money creation. This isn't going to last because the way you get wealthy is by producing more than you consume and saving the difference - not by consuming more than you produce, and borrowing the difference. With the Fed keeping interest rates at artificially low levels, hoping to increase consumption, they're making it very foolish to save - when you get ½% or 1% on your savings. So people are saving less and they're borrowing more than they otherwise would. This is a formula for making things worse, not better. They are, idiotically, doing exactly the opposite of what they should be. Although, I hasten to add, I hate to pontificate on what the Fed "should" do. In point of fact, the Fed should be abolished; the market, not bureaucrats, should determine interest rates. We wouldn't be in this pickle to start with if the government wasn't involved in the economy. In fact, if it wasn't for the state, I suspect we'd all have a vastly higher standard of living, and would be colonizing the Moon, Mars and
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