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FSA chief says U.S.-Russia deal is a blow to Syrian uprising - Alarabiya.net English | ... - 0 views

english.alarabiya.net/...a-blow-to-Syrian-uprising.html war & peace Syria FSA Russia U.S. U.N.
shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • The head of the opposition Free Syrian Army on Saturday rejected an agreement between the United States and Russia to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons stock by mid-2014. “We cannot accept any part of this initiative,” General Selim Idriss told reporters in Istanbul, saying it is a blow to the two-and-a-half year uprising aiming to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “We in the Free Syrian Army are unconcerned by the implementation of any part of the initiative... I and my brothers in arms will continue to fight until the regime falls,” he said in a statement carried by Agence-France-Presse. Idriss said the deal would allow Assad to avoid being held accountable for killing hundreds of civilians in a poison gas attack on Damascus on Aug. 21. Assad has denied responsibility for the purported attack.
  • The United States’ strike plans were put off after Russia proposed that Damascus put its chemical arms under international supervision, Assad agreed to the proposal. Idriss spoke shortly after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the agreed time frame, after three days of talks in Geneva. “Are we Syrians supposed to wait until mid-2014, to continue being killed every day and to accept [the deal] just because the chemical arms will be destroyed in 2014,” asked Idriss.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 13
     
    Hillary's Free Syrian Army doesn't like this Peace Idea.  
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Neocons Still Hoping for US-Iran Clash | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...still-hoping-for-us-iran-clash war & peace neocons Israel Iran Iranian nukes myth neocon-moves
shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The Israelis, the Saudis and U.S. neocons are thrilled that the latest plan for limiting (but not ending) Iran’s nuclear program collapsed, thus reviving hopes of an eventual U.S. military strike, writes Robert Parry.
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NSA grapples with huge increase in records requests - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...3519889 surveillance state NSA litigation constitutional law
shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Fueled by the Edward Snowden scandal, more Americans than ever are asking the National Security Agency if their personal life is being spied on.And the NSA has a very direct answer for them: Tough luck, we're not telling you.Americans are inundating the NSA with open-records requests, leading to an 888% increase in such inquiries in the past fiscal year. Anyone asking is getting a standard pre-written letter saying the NSA can neither confirm nor deny that any information has been gathered."This was the largest spike we've ever had," said Pamela Phillips, the chief of the NSA Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Office, which handles all records requests to the agency. "We've had requests from individuals who want any records we have on their phone calls, their phone numbers, their e-mail addresses, their IP addresses, anything like that."
  • News reports of the NSA's surveillance program motivates most inquirers, she said.During the first quarter of the NSA's last fiscal year, which went from October to December 2012, it received 257 open-records requests. The next quarter, it received 241. However, on June 6, at the end of NSA's third fiscal quarter, news of Snowden's leaks hit the press, and the agency got 1,302 requests.In the next three months, the NSA received 2,538 requests. The spike has continued into the fall months and has overwhelmed her staff, Phillips said
  • The first court challenge to the federal government's mass surveillance of Americans' phone and Internet records opened Monday with two potential strikes against it, but the judge predicted it could go all the way to the Supreme Court.Federal District Court Judge Richard Leon expressed concern that conservative activist Larry Klayman and others lacked standing to bring the case and that his court lacked jurisdiction -- factors that could further insulate the spy programs from public oversight."To me, this is the overarching question," Leon said, referring to "this court's authority or lack thereof to inject itself into this situation."
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  • The two programs, made public earlier this year by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor now living in Russia, are reviewed by a top-secret court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But challengers from the political right and left are trying to have that court's periodic approvals circumvented.From the right on Monday came Klayman, a former Reagan administration lawyer who leads the advocacy group Freedom Watch. In an hour-long hearing, he called Leon "the last guard ... the last sentry to the tyranny in this country."But Justice Department lawyer James Gilligan said Klayman lacked standing to bring the case because he cannot prove the NSA examined his phone or Internet records. Gilligan also said Leon cannot review the statutory authority granted by Congress under FISA -- only the secret courts and the Supreme Court have that power.
  • Coincidentally, the Supreme Court on Monday turned down a chance to review the NSA's harvesting of Verizon phone records in a case brought by the watchdog group Electronic Privacy Information Center. The justices offered no reason for their decision.The law "makes it very difficult to challenge these determinations,' said Marc Rotenberg, president of the privacy group.Another challenge, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, will be heard by U.S. District Court Judge William Pauley in Manhattan on Friday. Those two cases are likely to be appealed "upstairs," Leon said -- to appeals courts and possibly the Supreme Court.Both Klayman and the ACLU are seeking preliminary injunctions that would put a halt to the NSA surveillance. Both have targeted a program that sweeps up domestic telephone records, even though the targets are foreign terrorists. Klayman also is challenging a separate program that goes after cellphone and computer data from major wireless companies and Internet service providers.
  • Amnesty International and a coalition of lawyers, journalists and others brought the last Supreme Court challenge to government surveillance programs in 2012. But in February, the justices ruled 5-4 that the challengers lacked standing because they could not prove they had been wiretapped.Even if judges rule against Klayman and the ACLU, the controversial programs may get a full court test because the Justice Department has begun notifying criminal defendants whose arrests were based on warrantless surveillance. That makes the prospect of a future Supreme Court case more likely.
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The Sides Are Forming For The Coming Civil War. | Militia News - 1 views

www.militianews.com/rming-for-the-coming-civil-war Obammunism financial-collapse financial-oligarchs banksters
shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • America is in the choosing sides phase of the coming civil war. To use a college recruiting phrase, it is accurate to state that the letters of intent to join one side or another have mostly been signed and the commitments offered. However, there is one big uncommitted piece, but very soon the sides will be drawn.
  • The Chess Pieces of Civil War What is going on today in America all about choosing sides. There are clear lines being formed in the United States. The recruiting pool consists of the Department of Homeland Security, the American military, local law enforcement, the Russian troops pouring into the United States, the trickle of Chinese troops coming into the country through Hawaii and, of course, the poor, the middle class and elite. This is the recruiting pool which will form the chess pieces of the coming American Civil War. Even if all parties in this country wanted the country to continue, even in its present mortally wounded state, it would be foolish to believe that it could continue for much longer.
  • Barring a false flag event, US martial law will have a trigger event, which will lead to martial law, that will be financial and it will naturally occur as we are already on a collision course with destiny.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • The net result of these staggering numbers can only end one way, and that is with a financial collapse, followed by a bank holiday, rioting in the streets and the full roll out of martial law. These financial numbers guarantee that the party cannot continue much longer. Since America, in her present form, cannot continue much longer without experiencing a cataclysmic shift, we would be wise to realize what resources are going to be the impetus for civil war. When you play the board game, Monopoly, the properties on Boardwalk are among the most coveted. It is no different in real life. The biggest prize of the coming conflict is real estate. Homes, office buildings and shopping malls are the most coveted prize. The MERS mortgage fraud continues unabated as millions of homes have been confiscated through mortgage fraud. When the dollar is worthless and is awaiting its replacement (e.g. the Amero or the Worldo), real estate will be more valuable than gold.
  • Other big game that is being hunted by both sides in the coming civil war will be bank accounts, which must be looted before the dormant computer digits we call money can be converted into hard assets. That is why my advice is, and has been, convert your cash into tangible assets which can enhance your survivability in the upcoming crash.
  • Also, your pensions, your 401K’s and your various entitlement programs are also at risk as evidenced by Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew’s “borrowing” from various Federal retirement accounts in order to increase the debt ceiling fight that will resurface in Congress, again, early next year.
  • Again, my advice is to convert your assets in tangible items which will aid in getting you through some very dark days coming up in the near future.
  • Before the cognitive dissonance crowd rears their ugly heads and accuses me of fear mongering, ask yourself what the elite did prior to the crash of the economy in 1929. For example, Joseph Kennedy took his money out of the stock market the day BEFORE it crashed. Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Westinghouse, et al., all took their money out just prior to the crash, leaving the ignorant masses unaware of what was coming. Don’t make the same mistake.
  • I have news for you, there are Federal officials in every town, city and county in America. If one violates HR 347, they will be immediately arrested and charged with a felony.
  • The NDAA constitutes another big fence being built around the people in which all due process will soon be gone. The NDAA will allow the administration the “legal” right to secretly remove any burgeoning leadership of citizen opposition forces.
  • There are three paramount numbers that every American should be paying attention to and they are (1) national deficit ($17 trillion dollars), (2) the unfunded liabilities debt ($238 trillion dollars), and (3) the derivatives/futures debt (one quadrillion dollars which is 16 times the entire wealth of the planet.
  • In short, this spells the potential enslavement of the American people.
  • For those of you who still have your blinders on, research the NDAA and EO 13603 and then when you realize that I am correct in my interpretation, ask yourself one question; If the powers that be were not going to seize every important asset, then why would the government give itself the power to do just that?
  • And while you are at it, remember the Clean Water Act gives the EPA to control all private property as well as the precious resources of all water. And then of course, the FDA and the conflicts with local farmers is escalating.
  • And if this is not enough to convince the sheep of this country that the storm clouds are overhead, then take a look at HR 347 which outlaws protesting and takes away the First Amendment. This unconstitutional legislation makes it illegal to criticize the President and the government, as a whole, in the presence of Federal officials.
  • The second provision which will allow this country to quickly transition to martial law is Executive Order (EO) 13603 which allows the President to take control over any resource, property and even human labor within the United States. This EO gives the President unlimited authority including the ability to initiate a civilian draft as well as a military draft.
  • I just saw the Hunger Games sequel, Catching Fire, and this is eerily similar to what I saw in the movies in that the people are being provoked to revolution.
  • in the TV show, Revolution, the most evil entity in the series is the re-emergence of the United States government and the heroes of the show are rebelling against the abuse.
  • It seems like everywhere we turn in the media, the people are being encouraged to rise up now and challenge authority. I am sure the establishment would rather confront a small group of dissidents and squelch the rebellion now, before the numbers can become significant and overwhelming to the establishment and this theme is being carried out in the media.
  • The final action will consist of gun confiscation and one side of the coming conflict is attempting to position themselves to do that in the near future and that would be the DHS, the Russians and the Chinese.
  • I cannot think of another legitimate reason which would describe why they are here.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Nov 13
     
    While I'd be the first to agree that the degree of fiscal mismanagement of this nation's economy is beyond insane and have to admit that I see very little to admire in Barack Obama's presidency, the meme about Executive Order 13603 authorizing confiscation of any property and enslavement of the American public needs to be put to rest. See http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/2012.html#13603 E.O. 13603 is not much more than an updating of similar executive orders issued by prior presidents beginning with Dwight Eisenhower. In fact, in skimming it a few minutes ago, I didn't see anything drastically different from some of the prior related orders. E.g., it reflects that a bunch of agencies that were formerly either independent or under other departments are now under the newish Department of Homeland Security, whose Secretary now gets the authority formerly delegated to other department and agency heads. If blame must be cast, it belongs on the Congress that enacted the Defense Production Act of 1950, 50 U.S.C. 2061, et seq. The executive order does no more than obey that Act's instructions. For example there is a section authorizing pre-emption of manufacturing capacity of critical industries over any existing civilian contracts in the event of a national emergency, but that language is in the statute as well. But that power hasn't had much traction since Harry Truman tried to nationalize the steel industry to break a nationwide strike. The Supreme Court swatted down that effort as an abuse of a power that would be lawful in a true emergency, like another major. But even that semi-radical "survival" power is ameliorated by other provisions of the statute and the order that authorize loan guarantees for companies' construction and maintenance of critical productive capacity. Much of that has been implemented over the years as outright grants. So for example, many chemical manufacturing plants were built with Defense Production Act funds, with
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Pension-Fund Looters Get Tax Breaks, Too | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone - 0 views

www.rollingstone.com/...rs-get-tax-breaks-too-20131004 banksters pensions looting
shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • A few weeks ago, I wrote a feature on pension reform in states like Rhode Island for Rolling Stone. Since the piece was sharply critical of alternative investments like hedge funds, I expected a heated response, and got one right away. In fact, a series of raving/chest-thumping emails from one Manhattan Institute hedge fund billionaire appeared in my email inbox about four and a half seconds after the piece went live on the Rolling Stone website. This colorful personage calmed down eventually, though, and I figured a more sophisticated, for-public-consumption response would come from those quarters later on. It finally showed up this week in GoLocalProv, when Aaron Henn, an "opinion-leading urban affairs analyst" who appears in striking tie-and-folded-arms pose in his column photo, wrote a piece in defense of the Rhode Island Treasurer profiled in the piece called "Matt Taibbi's Deceptive Hatchet Job on Gina Raimondo."
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Oct 13
     
    Matt Taibbi responds to his critics. 
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Germany to send intelligence chiefs to U.S. over Merkel allegations - chicagotribune.com - 0 views

www.chicagotribune.com/...summit-20131024,0,665586.story surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback E.U. digital-privacy
shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Germany will send its top intelligence chiefs to Washington next week to seek answers from the White House on allegations that U.S. security officials tapped the mobile phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
  • Berlin will dispatch the heads of its foreign intelligence agency BND and of its domestic counterpart, the BfV. Merkel's chief of staff Ronald Pofalla, who is responsible for the intelligence services, may also join them.
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded on Thursday that the United States strike a "no-spying" agreement with Berlin and Paris by the end of the year, saying alleged espionage against two of Washington's closest EU allies had to be stopped. Speaking after talks with EU leaders that were dominated by allegations that the U.S. National Security Agency had accessed tens of thousands of French phone records and monitored Merkel's private mobile phone, the chancellor said she wanted action from President Barack Obama, not just apologetic words. Germany and France would seek a "mutual understanding" with the United States on cooperation between their intelligence agencies, and other EU member states could eventually take part. "That means a framework for cooperation between the relevant (intelligence) services. Germany and France have taken the initiative and other member states will join," she said.
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  • As EU leaders arrived for the two-day summit there was near-universal condemnation of the alleged activities by the NSA, particularly the monitoring of Merkel's mobile phone, a sensitive issue for a woman who grew up in East Germany, living under the Stasi police force and its feared eavesdropping.
  • Some senior German officials, and the German president of the European Parliament, have called for talks between the EU and United States on a free-trade agreement, which began in July, to be suspended because of the spying allegations. Merkel, whose country is one of the world's leading exporters and stands to gain from any trade deal with Washington, said that was not the right path to take, saying the best way forward was to rebuild trust. The series of Snowden-based leaks over the past three months have left Washington at odds with a host of important allies, from Brazil to Saudi Arabia, and there are few signs that the revelations are going to dry up anytime soon.
  • As well as raising questions about the EU-US trade negotiations, the spying furor could also have an impact on data-privacy legislation working its way through the EU. The European Parliament has already opened an inquiry into the effect on Europe of U.S. intelligence activities revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. It has also led a push for tougher data protection rules and the suspension of a transatlantic data-sharing deal. The Parliament, with 766 members directly elected from the EU's 28 member states, voted this week in favor of an amended package of laws that would greatly strengthen EU data protection rules that date from 1995. The new rules would restrict how data collected in Europe by firms such as Google and Facebook is shared with non-EU countries, introduce the right of EU citizens to request that their digital traces be erased, and impose fines of 100 million euros ($138 million) or more on rule breakers.
  • The United States is concerned the regulations, if they enter into law, will raise the cost of handling data in Europe. Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and others have lobbied hard against the proposals. Given the spying accusations, France and Germany - the two most influential countries in EU policy - may succeed in getting member states to push ahead on negotiations with the parliament to complete the new data regulations by 2015. For the United States, it could substantially change how data privacy rules are implemented globally.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 13
     
    I'd like to have a "no spying" agreement with the Feds too.  
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NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say - ... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html surveillance state NSA NSA-targets Google Yahoo must-read
shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials. By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.
  • According to a top-secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, the NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from internal Yahoo and Google networks to data warehouses at the agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — including “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, as well as content such as text, audio and video.The NSA’s principal tool to exploit the data links is a project called MUSCULAR, operated jointly with the agency’s British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters . From undisclosed interception points, the NSA and the GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information among the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.
  • The infiltration is especially striking because the NSA, under a separate program known as PRISM, has front-door access to Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process. The MUSCULAR project appears to be an unusually aggressive use of NSA tradecraft against flagship American companies. The agency is built for high-tech spying, with a wide range of digital tools, but it has not been known to use them routinely against U.S. companies.
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  • In a statement, Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, said the company has “long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping” and has not provided the government with access to its systems.“We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform,” he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 13
     
    It says later in this 3-page article that Google's data centers back up their content to each other in case one goes down. So no question that U.S. citizens' data is collected, I think. See also closely related article, Why the NSA Wanted More Access, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/30/prism-already-gave-the-nsa-access-to-tech-giants-heres-why-it-wanted-more/ ("Scooping up data is deep in the NSA's DNA, and it may simply have been unable to help itself."). See also http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/how-the-nsas-muscular-program-collects-too-much-data-from-yahoo-and-google/543/ (excerpts from documents discussed in the main article). 
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IPS - U.N. Will Censure Illegal Spying, But Not U.S. | Inter Press Service - 0 views

www.ipsnews.net/...ure-illegal-spying-but-not-u-s surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback U.N. international law
shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • When the 193-member General Assembly adopts a resolution next month censuring the illegal electronic surveillance of governments and world leaders by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the U.N.’s highest policy-making body will spare the United States from public condemnation despite its culpability in widespread wiretapping. A draft resolution currently in limited circulation – a copy of which was obtained by IPS – criticises “the conduct of extra-territorial surveillance” and the “interception of communications in foreign jurisdictions”. But it refuses to single out the NSA or the United States, which stands accused of spying on foreign governments, including political leaders in Germany, France, Brazil, Spain and Mexico, among some 30 others.
  • The draft says that while the gathering and protection of certain sensitive information may be justified on grounds of national security and criminal activity, member states must still ensure full compliance with international human rights. The resolution will also emphasise “that illegal surveillance of private communications and the indiscriminate interception of personal data of citizens constitutes a highly intrusive act that violates the rights to freedom of expression and privacy, and threatens the foundations of a democratic society.” Additionally, it will call for the establishment of independent oversight mechanisms capable of ensuring transparency and accountability of state surveillance of communications. And the resolution will request the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi PIllay, to present an interim report on the issue of human rights and “indiscriminate surveillance, including on extra-territorial surveillance.” This report is to be presented to the 69th session of the General Assembly next September, and a final report to its 70th session in 2015.
  • Chakravarthi Raghavan, a veteran Indian journalist who has been reporting on the U.N. and its activities since the 1960s, both in New York and later in Geneva, told IPS the resolution may help start a process under which the national security interests of every state, international security and right to privacy and human rights of people can be discussed and a balance found in some universal forum. “Otherwise, the U.N. world order will break down, and no one will benefit or emerge unscathed,” he said. Much will depend on the follow-up action that the General Assembly resolution calls for, and with what tenacity members pursue it. “Frankly, I am not at all clear that some of the nations raising the issue now are really serious,” said Raghavan, editor-emeritus of the Geneva-based South-North Development Monitor SUNS. “If they were, any one of them in Europe would have granted asylum to Edward Snowden, and not play footsie with U.S. in its attempts to have him jailed in the U.S. on espionage charges.” The revelations of U.S. spying have come mostly from documents released by Snowden, a former NSA contractor, who sought political asylum in Russia after he was accused of espionage by the United States.
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  • One Third World diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS the draft could undergo changes by the time it reaches the General Assembly mid-November. But he held out little hope the final resolution will specifically castigate the United States because of the political clout it wields at the United Nations, and Washington’s notoriety for exerting diplomatic pressure on its allies and aid recipients. Besides which, he said, everybody plays the spying game, including the French, the Germans, the Chinese and the Russians — and therefore none of them can afford to take a “holier than thou” attitude. Still, as the New York Times put it last week, “One thing is clear: the NSA’s Cold War-era argument, that everyone does it, seems unlikely to win the day.”
  • There has been a longstanding tradition that the “Five Eyes” do not spy on each other, the five being the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But the surveillance of European political leaders has triggered a strong rejoinder from the 28-member European Union (EU). Raghavan told IPS that even if other countries are not publicly feuding with the U.S. over this — and perhaps their own security apparatuses are secretly collaborating in this global “surveillance state” — the NSA activities at a minimum raise several systemic issues involving basic violations. These include violations of the U.N. Charter; “unauthorised” and blatantly illegal invasions and/or intrusions into national space; World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements, in particular the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); the International Telecommunication Union Treaty and Conventions; treaties and protocols of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO); the Universal Human Rights Declaration and conventions; and the Vienna diplomatic conventions and codes of behaviour among civilised nations. “All these strike at the roots of the very basics of international law and international public law,” he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Oct 13
     
    So if Raghavan is correct, a new treaty will emerge from the debacle that limits but does not end foreign surveillance. And if so, I predict that it will have no enforcement provisions and absolutely no citizen remedies for rights violated. The farther we go down the NSA rabbit hole, the more convinced I am that it is a stark choice between having spy agencies equipped for digital surveillance and Internet Freedom.  Internet Freedom seems far better equipped to produce world peace through understanding than spy agencies who deliver their "intelligence" to only the favored few. 
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Conflicts of interest in the Syria debate | Public Accountability Initiative - 1 views

public-accountability.org/...f-interest-in-the-syria-debate war & peace pro-war propaganda mainstream-media
shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • During the public debate around the question of whether to attack Syria, Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser to George W. Bush, made a series of high-profile media appearances. Hadley argued strenuously for military intervention in appearances on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg TV, and authored a Washington Post op-ed headlined “To stop Iran, Obama must enforce red lines with Assad.” In each case, Hadley’s audience was not informed that he serves as a director of Raytheon, the weapons manufacturer that makes the Tomahawk cruise missiles that were widely cited as a weapon of choice in a potential strike against Syria. Hadley earns $128,500 in annual cash compensation from the company and chairs its public affairs committee. He also owns 11,477 shares of Raytheon stock, which traded at all-time highs during the Syria debate ($77.65 on August 23, making Hadley’s share’s worth $891,189). Despite this financial stake, Hadley was presented to his audience as an experienced, independent national security expert.
  • Though Hadley’s undisclosed conflict is particularly egregious, it is not unique. The following report documents the industry ties of Hadley, 21 other media commentators, and seven think tanks that participated in the media debate around Syria. Like Hadley, these individuals and organizations have strong ties to defense contractors and other defense- and foreign policy-focused firms with a vested interest in the Syria debate, but they were presented to their audiences with a veneer of expertise and independence, as former military officials, retired diplomats, and independent think tanks. The report offers a new look at an issue raised by David Barstow’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series on the role military analysts played in promoting the Bush Administration’s narrative on Iraq. In addition to exposing coordination with the Pentagon, Barstow found that many cable news analysts had industry ties that were not disclosed on air. If the recent debate around Syria is any guide, media outlets have done very little to address the gaps in disclosure and abuses of the public trust that Barstow exposed. Some analysts have stayed the same, others are new, and the issues and range of opinion are different. But the media continues to present former military and government officials as venerated experts without informing the public of their industry ties – the personal financial interests that may be shaping their opinions of what is in the national interest.
  • This report details these ties, in addition to documenting the industry backing of think tanks that played a prominent role in the Syria debate. It reveals the extent to which the public discourse around Syria was corrupted by the pervasive influence of the defense industry, to the point where many of the so-called experts appearing on American television screens were actually representatives of companies that profit from heightened US military activity abroad. The threat of war with Syria may or may not have passed, but the threat that these conflicts of interest pose to our public discourse – and our democracy – is still very real.
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Asia Times Online :: US neo-cons despair over Iran diplomacy - 0 views

www.atimes.com/...MID-02-091013.html war & peace U.S. foreign policy Iran Iranian nukes myth neocons
shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Last week began with a blistering denunciation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Iranian duplicity and ended with diminished prospects for Israel to take direct action to address Iran's nuclear capabilities ."The Israelis find themselves in a far worse position now than they have been for several years," concluded Elliott Abrams, a leading neo-conservative who served as George W Bush's main Middle East adviser, in Foreign Affairs. While Israel could still attack Iran's nuclear sites on its own, "[i]ts ability to do so is already being narrowed considerably by the diplomatic thaw" between Iran and the United States, Abrams wrote. "It is one thing to bomb Iran when it appears hopelessly <a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9473bc7&cb=%n' target='_blank'><img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&cb=%n&n=a9473bc7&ct0=%c' border='0' alt='' ></a> recalcitrant and isolated and quite another to bomb it when much of the world - especially the United States - is optimistic about the prospects of talks." Abrams' assessment was widely shared among his ideological comrades who believe Israel will be the big loser if hopes for detente between Washington and Tehran gather steam after next week's meeting in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany).
  • Gary Sick, an Iran expert who served on the National Security Council under presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, told IPS that neo-conservatives' recent outpouring of defiance and despair constituted "the most convincing evidence I have seen to date that the die-hard supporters of sabotaging an agreement between the US and Iran are in full defensive mode".
  • A week before Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is expected to sit down with his P5+1 interlocutors in Geneva, Netanyahu and supporters in Washington face a diplomatic and political environment distinctly different from that of just five weeks ago. That environment is defined above all by a pervasive war-weariness among the US electorate, clearly indicated by strong public support for Obama's choice of diplomacy over missile strikes to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons arsenal.
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  • According to Ignatius, Washington's engagement with Russia over Syria and Iran over its nuclear program presents a "great strategic opportunity" which critics are wrong to see as "signs of American weakness or even capitulation". "The United States will be stronger if it can create a new framework for security in the Middle East that involves Iran and defuses the Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict threatening the region," and that "accommodates the security needs of Iranians, Saudis, Israelis, Russians and Americans." But such accommodation is anathema to Netanyahu and his neo-conservative supporters, who insist on Israeli primacy in the Middle East and depict its competition with Iran as a zero-sum proposition that cannot be compromised.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 13
     
    Nice to see the NeoCons and Zionists on the defensive for a change. 
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Criminal action is expected for JPMorgan in Madoff case - 0 views

www.cnbc.com/101266885 banksters JPMorgan Ponzi-scheme Madoff liability
shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • JPMorgan Chase and federal authorities are nearing settlements over the bank's ties to Bernard L. Madoff, striking tentative deals that would involve roughly $2 billion in penalties and a rare criminal action. The government will use a sizable portion of the money to compensate Mr. Madoff's victims. The settlements, which are coming together on the anniversary of Mr. Madoff's arrest at his Manhattan penthouse five years ago on Wednesday, would fault the bank for turning a blind eye to his huge Ponzi scheme, according to people briefed on the case who were not authorized to speak publicly.
  • A settlement with federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the people said, would include a so-called deferred-prosecution agreement and more than $1 billion in penalties to resolve the criminal case. The rest of the fines would be imposed by Washington regulators investigating broader gaps in the bank's money-laundering safeguards. The agreement to deferred prosecution would also list the bank's criminal violations in a court filing but stop short of an indictment as long as JPMorgan pays the penalties and acknowledges the facts of the government's case. In the negotiations, the prosecutors discussed the idea of extracting a guilty plea from JPMorgan, the people said, but ultimately chose the steep fine and deferred-prosecution agreement, which could come by the end of the year.
  • The government has been reluctant to bring criminal charges against large corporations, fearing that such an action could imperil a company and throw innocent employees out of work. Those fears trace to the indictment of Enron's accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, which went out of businesses after its 2002 conviction, taking 28,000 jobs with it. Ever since, prosecutors have increasingly relied on deferred-prosecution agreements, which rebuke companies without threatening their health. Although a Wall Street bank has never faced a deferred-prosecution agreement, according to a University of Virginia Law School database, Wachovia and the banking arm of American Express have entered into such deals. The agreements, however, have fueled concern that some banks, having grown so large and interconnected, are too big to indict.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 13
     
    I'll say it again: there will no deterrence against future financial crimes by the megabanksters until some of them are sentenced to prison time. A criminal prosecution of a corporation is criminal prosecution of an imaginary being. One must prosecute human beings to actually deter misconduct. 
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CIA misled on interrogation program, Senate report says - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html war & peace CIA torture Senate-Intelligence_Committee-Report
shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years — concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques. The report, built around detailed chronologies of dozens of CIA detainees, documents a long-standing pattern of unsubstantiated claims as agency officials sought permission to use — and later tried to defend — excruciating interrogation methods that yielded little, if any, significant intelligence, according to U.S. officials who have reviewed the document.
  • “The CIA described [its program] repeatedly both to the Department of Justice and eventually to Congress as getting unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives,” said one U.S. official briefed on the report. “Was that actually true? The answer is no.”
  • Several officials who have read the document said some of its most troubling sections deal not with detainee abuse but with discrepancies between the statements of senior CIA officials in Washington and the details revealed in the written communications of lower-level employees directly involved.Officials said millions of records make clear that the CIA’s ability to obtain the most valuable intelligence against al-Qaeda — including tips that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 — had little, if anything, to do with “enhanced interrogation techniques.”The report is divided into three volumes — one that traces the chronology of interrogation operations, another that assesses intelligence officials’ claims and a third that contains case studies on virtually every prisoner held in CIA custody since the program began in 2001. Officials said the report was stripped of certain details, including the locations of CIA prisons and the names of agency employees who did not hold ­supervisor-level positions.One official said that almost all of the critical threat-related information from Abu Zubaida was obtained during the period when he was questioned by Soufan at a hospital in Pakistan, well before he was interrogated by the CIA and waterboarded 83 times.Information obtained by Soufan, however, was passed up through the ranks of the U.S. intelligence community, the Justice Department and Congress as though it were part of what CIA interrogators had obtained, according to the committee report.
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  • The Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to vote Thursday to send an executive summary of the report to Obama for declassification. U.S. officials said it could be months before that section, which contains roughly 20 conclusions and spans about 400 pages, is released to the public. The report’s release also could resurrect a long-standing feud between the CIA and the FBI, where many officials were dismayed by the agency’s use of methods that Obama and others later labeled torture. CIA veterans have expressed concern that the report reflects FBI biases. One of its principal authors is a former FBI analyst,
  • “The CIA conflated what was gotten when, which led them to misrepresent the effectiveness of the program,” said a second U.S. official who has reviewed the report. The official described the persistence of such misstatements as among “the most damaging” of the committee’s conclusions.Detainees’ credentials also were exaggerated, officials said. Agency officials described Abu Zubaida as a senior al-Qaeda operative — and, therefore, someone who warranted coercive techniques — although experts later determined that he was essentially a facilitator who helped guide recruits to al-Qaeda training camps.The CIA also oversold the role of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. CIA officials claimed he was the “mastermind.” The committee described a similar sequence in the interrogation of Hassan Ghul, an al-Qaeda operative who provided a critical lead in the search for bin Laden: the fact that the al-Qaeda leader’s most trusted courier used the moniker “al-Kuwaiti.” But Ghul disclosed that detail while being interrogated by Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq who posed questions scripted by CIA analysts. The information from that period was subsequently conflated with lesser intelligence gathered from Ghul at a secret CIA prison in Romania, officials said. Ghul was later turned over to authorities in Pakistan, where he was subsequently released. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in 2012.
  • Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has previously indicated that harsh CIA interrogation measures were of little value in the bin Laden hunt. “The CIA detainee who provided the most significant information about the courier provided the information prior to being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques,” Feinstein said in a 2013 statement, responding in part to scenes in the movie “Zero Dark Thirty” that depict a detainee’s slip under duress as a breakthrough moment.
  • As with Abu Zubaida and even Nashiri, officials said, CIA interrogators continued the harsh treatment even after it appeared that Baluchi was cooperating. On Sept. 22, 2003, he was flown from Kabul to a CIA black site in Romania. In 2006, he was taken to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His attorneys contend that he suffered head trauma while in CIA custody. Last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Baluchi’s attorneys for information about his medical condition, but military prosecutors opposed the request. A U.S. official said the request was not based solely on the committee’s investigation of the CIA program.
  • Officials said a former CIA interrogator named Charlie Wise was forced to retire in 2003 after being suspected of abusing Abu Zubaida using a broomstick as a ballast while he was forced to kneel in a stress position. Wise was also implicated in the abuse at Salt Pit. He died of a heart attack shortly after retiring from the CIA, former U.S. intelligence officials said.
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Obama Issues Threats To Russia And NATO -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org - 0 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...russia-nato-paul-craig-roberts surveillance state EU USTR WTO Russia reserve currrencies NATO
shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • The Obama regime has issued simultaneous threats to the enemy it is making out of Russia and to its European NATO allies on which Washington is relying to support sanctions on Russia. This cannot end well. As even Americans living in a controlled media environment are aware, Europeans, South Americans, and Chinese are infuriated that the National Stasi Agency is spying on their communications. NSA’s affront to legality, the US Constitution, and international diplomatic norms is unprecedented. Yet, the spying continues, while Congress sits sucking its thumb and betraying its oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. In Washington mumbo-jumbo from the executive branch about “national security” suffices to negate statutory law and Constitutional requirements. Western Europe, seeing that the White House, Congress and the Federal Courts are impotent and unable to rein-in the Stasi Police State, has decided to create a European communication system that excludes US companies in order to protect the privacy of European citizens and government communications from the Washington Stasi.
  • The Obama regime, desperate that no individual and no country escape its spy net, denounced Western Europe’s intention to protect the privacy of its communications as “a violation of trade laws.” Obama’s US Trade Representative, who has been negotiating secret “trade agreements” in Europe and Asia that give US corporations immunity to the laws of all countries that sign the agreements, has threatened WTO penalties if Europe’s communications network excludes the US companies that serve as spies for NSA. Washington in all its arrogance has told its most necessary allies that if you don’t let us spy on you, we will use WTO to penalize you. So there you have it. The rest of the world now has the best possible reason to exit the WTO and to avoid the Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic “trade agreements.” The agreements are not about trade. The purpose of these “trade agreements” is to establish the hegemony of Washington and US corporations over other countries. In an arrogant demonstration of Washington’s power over Europe, the US Trade Representative warned Washington’s NATO allies: “US Trade Representative will be carefully monitoring the development of any such proposals” to create a separate European communication network. http://rt.com/news/us-europe-nsa-snowden-549/ Washington is relying on the Chancellor of Germany, the President of France, and the Prime Minister of the UK to place service to Washington above their countries’ communications privacy.
  • It has dawned on the Russian government that being a part of the American dollar system means that Russia is open to being looted by Western banks and corporations or by individuals financed by them, that the ruble is vulnerable to being driven down by speculators in the foreign exchange market and by capital outflows, and that dependence on the American international payments system exposes Russia to arbitrary sanctions imposed by the “exceptional and indispensable country.” Why it took the Russian government so long to realize that the dollar payments system puts countries under Washington’s thumb is puzzling.
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  • Now that the Russian government understands that Russia must depart the dollar system in order to protect Russian sovereignty, President Putin has entered into barter/ruble oil deals with China and Iran. However, Washington objects to Russia abandoning the dollar international payment system. Zero Hedge, a more reliable news source than the US print and TV media, reports that Washington has conveyed to both Russia and Iran that a non-dollar oil deal would trigger US sanctions. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-04/us-threatens-russia-sanctions-over-petrodollar-busting-deal Washington’s objection to the Russian/Iranian deal made it clear to all governments that Washington uses the dollar-based international payments system as a means of control. Why should countries accept an international payments system that infringes their sovereignty? What would happen if instead of passively accepting the dollar as the means of international payment, countries simply left the dollar system? The value of the dollar would fall and so would Washington’s power. Without the power that the dollar’s role as world reserve currency gives the US to pay its bills by printing money, the US could not maintain its aggressive military posture or its payoffs to foreign governments to do its bidding. Washington would be just another failed empire, whose population can barely make ends meet, while the One Percent who comprise the mega-rich compete with 200-foot yachts and $750,000 fountain pins. The aristocracy and the serfs. That is what America has already become. A throwback to the feudal era. It is only a matter of time before it is universally recognized that the US is a failed state. Let’s pray this recognition occurs before the arrogant inhabitants of Washington blow up the world in pursuit of hegemony over others.
  • Washington’s provocative military moves against Russia are reckless and dangerous. The buildup of NATO air, ground, and naval forces on Russia’s borders in violation of the 1997 NATO-Russian treaty and the Montreux Convention naturally strike the Russian government as suspicious, especially as the buildups are justified on the basis of lies that Russia is about to invade Poland, the Baltic States, and Moldova in addition to Ukraine. These lies are transparent. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has asked NATO for an explanation, stating: “We are not only expecting answers, but answers that will be based fully on respect for the rules we agreed on.” http://rt.com/news/lavrov-ukraine-nato-convention-069/ Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Washington’s puppet installed as NATO figurehead who is no more in charge of NATO than I am, responded in a way guaranteed to raise Russian anxieties. Rasmussen dismissed the Russian Foreign Minister’s request for explanation as “propaganda and disinformation.” Clearly, what we are experiencing are rising tensions caused by Washington and NATO. These tensions are in addition to the tensions arising from Washington’s coup in Ukraine. These reckless and dangerous actions have destroyed the Russian government’s trust in the West and are moving the world toward war. Little did the protesters in Kiev, called into the streets by Washington’s NGOs, realize that their foolishness was setting the world on a path to armageddon.
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Syria accuses rebels of planning gas attack near Damascus | News , Middle East | THE DA... - 0 views

www.dailystar.com.lb/...-gas-attack-near-damascus.ashx war & peace Syria WMD
shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Syria is charging in a letter to the United Nations that opposition groups are planning a toxic gas attack in a rebel-held area near Damascus so they can then blame it on government security forces. In a letter dated March 25 and circulated by the U.N. this week, Syria's U.N. envoy, Bashar Ja'afari, said his government had intercepted communications between "terrorists" that showed a man named Abu Nadir was secretly distributing gas masks in the rebel-held Jobar area. "The authorities also intercepted another communication between two other terrorists, one of whom is named Abu Jihad," Ja'afari said. "In that communication, Abu Jihad indicates that toxic gas will be used and asked those who are working with him to supply protective masks." Ja'afari said in the letter addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council that this information "confirms that armed terrorist groups are preparing to use toxic gas in Jobar quarter and other areas, in order to accuse the Syrian government of having committed such an act of terrorism."
  • Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed to destroy his chemical weapons following global outrage over the large-scale sarin gas attack in Ghouta in August. The gas attack sparked a U.S. threat of military strikes, which was dropped after Assad's pledge to give up chemical arms. But the Syrian government, locked in a three-year-old war with rebels seeking to overthrow Assad, failed to meet a Feb. 5 deadline to move all of its declared chemical substances and precursors, some 1,300 tonnes, out of the country. Syria has since agreed to a new timetable to remove its chemical weapons by late April. Sigrid Kaag, head of the joint Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and United Nations mission overseeing the removal of Syria's chemical weapons, is due to brief the Security Council on Thursday. Kaag told Reuters last month that Syria could ship out its remaining chemical weapons within a month and still meet a mid-year target for their final destruction.
  • In a separate letter to Ban and the Security Council, Syria's Ja'afari also warned that "armed terrorist groups continue to threaten and carry out terrorist attacks against chemical weapons facilities and the chemical substances." The senior Western diplomat said: "I don't think there's any evidence that any of the groups have any interest in attacking the convoys ... we don't see that as a major risk." Syria's three-year civil war has killed more than 150,000 people, a third of them civilians, and caused millions to flee.
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How Wall Street Money Is Driving Out the Last Populist House Republican | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...last-populist-house-republican banksters Auction-2014 North-Carolina Jones Griffin
shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Congressman Walter Jones, a Republican who represents a wide swath of eastern North Carolina, might not strike you as a populist. But as a lawmaker, the veteran politician with a slow Southern drawl has become a gadfly in his own party for thumbing his nose at powerful political interests. He is the only GOP co-sponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, a measure to reveal the donors of dark-money campaign advertisements. He is among the loudest critics of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, telling an audience one that “Lyndon Johnson’s probably rotting in hell right now because of the Vietnam War, and he probably needs to move over for Dick Cheney.” And Speaker John Boehner removed Jones from the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees Wall Street. His sin? Bucking leadership and supporting many bills to further regulate the financial sector, along with serving as the last remaining House Republican to have voted for the Dodd-Frank reform package. The Republican establishment has attempted to remove Jones from office by dispatching a number of primary challengers over the years. For this cycle, a former Bush administration aide named Taylor Griffin is the party favorite to finally wipe out Jones. Several outlets, such as Bloomberg News, have reported that Griffin’s candidacy is being heavily promoted by the financial industry. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and other banks helped fuel the $114,000 fundraising haul Griffin reported in his first campaign disclosure report. Earlier this week, a Super PAC financed in part by hedge fund titan Paul Singer went on air with a negative ad against Jones.
  • What hasn’t been reported, however, is that Griffin himself is a longtime political consultant for the biggest predators on Wall Street. Republic Report has obtained a disclosure report that shows that Griffin’s client list reads like a who’s who of financial interests that have preyed upon North Carolina families for short term gain.
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Poll: Public doesn't want another Iraq War | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...upport-obamas-approach-in-iraq war & peace Iraq U.S.-foreign-policy military-intervention polls
shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • A new poll shows strong opposition to sending any troops into Iraq.The survey released Tuesday by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling found 74 percent of the public is opposed to sending combat troops back into Iraq, with only 16 percent supporting that option. ADVERTISEMENTMajorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents all said they are strongly opposed to sending in combat troops. Just over a quarter of Republicans support deploying them. More than half of those surveyed said they agreed with President Obama that U.S. troops shouldn’t return to Iraq. Just over a quarter, by contrast, agreed with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that troops should have remained in Iraq past 2011. 
  • Obama has come under fire from some Republicans for not striking a deal with Iraq's government that would have allowed some U.S. troops to stay in the country after 2011 to help with security. They've blamed the current violence in Iraq on that failure to reach an agreement. However, the poll found that more than two-thirds say the renewed violence in Iraq is a result of a centuries-old conflict that was worsened by the 2003 invasion launched by President George W. Bush. Twenty percent, meanwhile, say the current situation is a result of the U.S. pullout of Iraq in 2011.A majority of the public supports the option of the U.S. providing intelligence to the Iraqi government and a diplomatic initiative to neutralize the escalating situation. The poll didn’t address voters’ opinions of possible U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, an option the White House is still considering. On Monday, Obama announced that he is sending 275 U.S. troops to Baghdad to protect the U.S. Embassy and personnel there. The poll surveyed 790 registered voters on June 14 and 15, and has a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.  
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U.S. deployed amphibious transport dock ship to Persian Gulf in response to Iraq crisis... - 0 views

www.upi.com/...8311403021116 war & peace Iraq U.S.-foreign-policy naval-deployment
shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • (UPI) --U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has deployed an additional warship to the Persian Gulf in response to the lightning offensive launched by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq.The USS Mesa Verde, an amphibious transport dock ship, joins USS George H.W. Bush, USS Philippine Sea, USS Truxtun, USS Arleigh Burke and USS Okane in the Persian Gulf.Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby announced Mesa Verde's repositioning on Monday."Its presence in the Gulf adds to that of other U.S. naval ships already there -- including the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush -- and provides the commander in chief additional options to protect American citizens and interests in Iraq, should he choose to use them."The USS Mesa Verde is "capable of conducting a variety of quick-reaction and crisis response operations," Kirby noted. The amphibious transport dock ship is transporting an unspecified number of MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.
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M of A - U.S. Again Gunning For "Regime Change" In Iraq - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...for-regime-change-in-iraq.html war & peace Iraq U.S.-foreign-policy regime change
shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Three days ago we said: The U.S. has conditioned any involvement on the Iraqi government side on a change in its structure towards some "unity government" that would include representatives of the rebellious Sunni strains. Prime Minister Maliki, who received good results in the recent elections, will see no reason to go for that. As expected Maliki declined to follow orders out of Washington DC and he is right to do so. Isn't Iraq supposed to be a sovereign state? No says Washington. It is us who are choosing a new Iraqi prime minister: Over the past two days the American ambassador, Robert S. Beecroft, along with Brett McGurk, the senior State Department official on Iraq and Iran, have met with Usama Nujaifi, the leader of the largest Sunni contingent, United For Reform, and with Ahmad Chalabi, one of the several potential Shiite candidates for prime minister, according to people close to each of those factions, as well as other political figures. “Brett and the ambassador met with Mr. Nujaifi yesterday and they were open about this, they do not want Maliki to stay,” Nabil al-Khashab, the senior political adviser to Mr. Nujaifi, said Thursday.
  • This move lets arouse suspicions that the recent insurgency against the Iraqi state, with ISIS takfiris in the front line, did not just by chance started after Maliki's party, the State of Law Coalition, won in the parliamentary elections a few weeks ago. It had been decided that he had to go. When the elections confirmed him, other methods had to be introduced. Thus the insurgency started and is now used as a pretext for "regime change". The U.S. media and policies again fall for the "big bad man" cliche portraying Nouri al-Maliki (Arabic for Ngo Dinh Diem) as the only person that stands in the way of Iraq as a "liberal democracy". That is of course nonsense. Maliki is not the problem in Iraq: The most significant factor behind Iraq’s problems has been the inability of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and its Sunni neighbors to come to terms with a government in which the Shias, by virtue of their considerable majority in Iraq’s population, hold the leading role. This inability was displayed early on, when Iraq’s Sunnis refused to take part in Iraq’s first parliamentary elections, and resorted to insurgency almost immediately after the US invasion and fall of Saddam Hussein. All along, the goal of Iraqi Sunnis has been to prove that the Shias are not capable of governing Iraq. Indeed, Iraq’s Sunni deputy prime minister, Osama al Najafi, recently verbalized this view. The Sunnis see political leadership and governance to be their birthright and resent the Shia interlopers.
  • The U.S., with strong support from its GCC allies who finance the insurgency, now seems to again lean towards the Sunni minority side in Iraq and wants to subvert the ruling of a Shia majority and its candidate. Maliki doesn't follow Washington orders, is somewhat friendly with Iran and even wins elections. Such man can not be let standing. So the program is again "regime change" in Iraq, now with the help of Jihadists proxies, even after the recent catastrophic "successes" in similar endeavors in Libya, Egypt and Ukraine and the failure in Syria. Phil Greaves seems thereby right when he characterizes the insurgency and ISIS as a expression of Washington's imperialism: The ISIS-led insurgency currently gripping the western and northern regions of Iraq is but a continuation of the imperialist-sponsored insurgency in neighboring Syria. The state actors responsible for arming and funding said insurgency hold the same principal objectives in Iraq as those pursued in Syria for the last three years, namely: the destruction of state sovereignty; weakening the allies of an independent Iran; the permanent division of Iraq and Syria along sectarian lines establishing antagonistic “mini-states” incapable of forming a unified front against US/Israeli imperial domination. The best thing Maliki could now do is to shut down the U.S. embassy and request support from Russia, China and Iran. South Iraq is producing lots of oil and neither money nor the number of potential recruits for a big long fight are his problem. His problem is the insurgency and the states, including the United States, behind it. The fight would be long and Iraq would still likely be parted but the likely outcome would at least guarantee that the will of the majority constituency can not be ignored by outside actors.
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Iraq crisis: Maliki's days in power numbered as Iran and US lose faith - Midd... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...and-us-lose-faith-9552936.html war & peace Iraq Maliki ISIL
shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Isolated and discredited by humiliating military defeat, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is likely to go soon, battered as he is by only slightly veiled demands for his immediate departure from powerful figures who once supported him. Within hours of President Obama making it implicitly clear that he wants a change of political leadership in Baghdad, the spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shia, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was calling for a new and “effective” government that avoided the mistakes of the old. Nobody in Baghdad has any doubts that he wants the Prime Minister gone. The longer Mr Maliki clings on to power the more likely it is that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) will win further victories and the Sunni community will remain united behind the al-Qa’ida-type group. Military sources in Baghdad say Mr Obama’s clear signal that the US was not going to use its air force to preserve the status quo in Baghdad has “damaged the army’s morale and self-confidence”. The army had been hoping somewhat unrealistically for a promise of air strikes to stem the advance of Isis and its allies.
  • There are other less diplomatic voices demanding that Mr Maliki, who has held office since 2006, should go. Umm Nahid, a resident of Ramadi, the capital of the vast and overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar province, told The Independent that the city had been mostly taken by the Anbar Tribes Revolutionary Council, led by Hatem Suleiman. Suleiman says he is preventing Isis advancing down the road towards Baghdad, but will stop doing this unless the Iraqi army fully withdraws from Ramadi, all prisoners are released (some 100,000 are believed to be in jail) and, above all, “Maliki is removed from power”.
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Tomgram: Engelhardt, A Record of Unparalleled Failure | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/...record_of_unparalleled_failure war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy military-failure
shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • The United States has been at war -- major boots-on-the-ground conflicts and minor interventions, firefights, air strikes, drone assassination campaigns, occupations, special ops raids, proxy conflicts, and covert actions -- nearly nonstop since the Vietnam War began.  That’s more than half a century of experience with war, American-style, and yet few in our world bother to draw the obvious conclusions. Given the historical record, those conclusions should be staring us in the face.  They are, however, the words that can’t be said in a country committed to a military-first approach to the world, a continual build-up of its forces, an emphasis on pioneering work in the development and deployment of the latest destructive technology, and a repetitious cycling through styles of war from full-scale invasions and occupations to counterinsurgency, proxy wars, and back again. So here are five straightforward lessons -- none acceptable in what passes for discussion and debate in this country -- that could be drawn from that last half century of every kind of American warfare:
  • 1. No matter how you define American-style war or its goals, it doesn’t work. Ever. 2. No matter how you pose the problems of our world, it doesn’t solve them. Never. 3. No matter how often you cite the use of military force to “stabilize” or “protect” or “liberate” countries or regions, it is a destabilizing force. 4. No matter how regularly you praise the American way of war and its “warriors,” the U.S. military is incapable of winning its wars. 5. No matter how often American presidents claim that the U.S. military is “the finest fighting force in history,” the evidence is in: it isn’t.
  • And here’s a bonus lesson: if as a polity we were to take these five no-brainers to heart and stop fighting endless wars, which drain us of national treasure, we would also have a long-term solution to the Veterans Administration health-care crisis.  It’s not the sort of thing said in our world, but the VA is in a crisis of financing and caregiving that, in the present context, cannot be solved, no matter whom you hire or fire.  The only long-term solution would be to stop fighting losing wars that the American people will pay for decades into the future, as the cost in broken bodies and broken lives is translated into medical care and dumped on the VA.
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