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Yemen as Vietnam or Afghanistan | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...emen-as-vietnam-or-afghanistan war & peace Yemen Egypt Saudis
shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Yemen as Vietnam or Afghanistan April 1, 2015 With U.S. intelligence help, Saudi Arabia has launched air strikes into Yemen and wants Egypt and Pakistan to invade, threatening to turn a long-simmering civil war into a regional conflict, a scenario that reminded retired U.S. diplomat William R. Polk of his work for President Kennedy on an earlier Yemeni war.By William R. PolkAs the events unfold with the Saudi and Egyptian engagement in Yemen, I was reminded of my discussion with Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser on “his” Yemen war, sometimes called the North Yemen Civil War that began in 1962, became a stalemate and finally ended in 1970. As Mark Twain may have said, “history doesn’t repeat but sometimes it rhymes.” The rhymes, at least, seem unmistakable.In the course of our first lengthy talk on Yemen, Nasser (rather angrily) replied to one of my comments, “you don’t think I will win the war, do you?”
  • “No, Mr. President,” I replied, “I don’t.”
  • “Well,” Nasser retorted, “you American’s think you know all about everything, and you don’t even have any of your people in Sanaa and none up in the north where the fighting is going on. You don’t know anything about Yemen.” Then, without thinking of the implication, I suppose, he said, ” You should go see.”“Mr. President,” I quickly said. “I regard that as an invitation.” Impolitely, I then stood up. He looked at me with narrow, angry eyes. He obviously had not meant what I had inferred.“All right, go see,” he said. “I will give instructions that you can go anywhere you want, talk to anyone you want, see everything..”“But, of course, I cannot even get there without your help,” I said.“You can have my plane.”Rather off-handedly and not warmly, we shook hands. I said goodbye and rushed back to our embassy and wrote an “eyes only” message to  President John Kennedy. I did not want it scattered around our government so I prevailed upon the CIA station chief to send it by his rather more restricted route. It was encrypted and sent in three batches. Before the second batch got sent, a reply came back: “go.”
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  • s I was leaving, Nasser took me out to my car and even opened the car door for me. His guards were as astonished as I was, Apparently, he had never before done this. As we shook hands, he said, “Well, Bill, where are you off to this time?”“This time, Mr. President, I am not going to tell you!”He burst out laughing as did I. We did not meet again but our frankness and respect later enabled me to work out the 1970 ceasefire on Suez with him shortly before his death.
  • It is hard to believe that history now seems to be repeating with Egypt and Saudi Arabia again engaged in a counter-guerrilla war in Yemen! For Nasser, it was Egypt’s Vietnam. Will the new Yemen war be Egypt’s (and Saudi Arabia’s) Afghanistan? I think it is very likely. All of the signs point in that direction.And, as I have laid out in numerous essays on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Mali and Algeria, and in my little book Violent Politics, guerrilla wars are almost never “won” but usually drain the supposedly dominant power of its wealth, moral position and political unity.
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Syria: Al Qaeda Seeks "Consultations" to Rule Newly Seized City | nsnbc international - 1 views

nsnbc.me/...ions-to-rule-newly-seized-city war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Al-Nusrah rebranding
shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Making headlines recently has been Al Qaeda’s temporary seizure of the city of Idlib, in Idlib province, northern Syria. The embattled city lies just miles from NATO-member Turkey’s borders. With the Syrian Arab Army controlling the south of Idlib, it is clear that militants based in and supplied via Turkey took part in the operation, leading the Syrian government itself to accuse the NATO member of directly supporting Al Qaeda.
  • Reuters in its article, “Syrian military source alleges Turkish role in Idlib offensive,” noted: A Syrian military source accused Turkey on Monday of helping Islamist rebels to stage an assault on Idlib, a provincial capital which fighters seized at the weekend.  The source declined to comment on the situation in Idlib, citing security considerations, but a monitoring group has confirmed the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and allies now control Idlib and said the Syrian air force bombed the city on Monday. For years, prominent Western papers, including the New York Times in their report, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition,” have admitted that Turkey (as well as Jordan to the south) has harbored militants throughout the duration of the conflict, and has even hosted the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies as they armed, trained, and coordinated with militants bound for Syria. It is a coincidence, we are expected to believe, that now Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Jabhat al Nusrah just so happens to be strongest in regions bordering Turkey, and its Arab accomplice, Jordan.
  • Further implicating Western support behind the recent Al Qaeda offensive, comes not from the Syrian government, but from the Wall Street Journal, who has claimed, with the terrorists not even holding the city for a week, that they are already well underway to “governing” it. The Wall Street Journal in an article titled, “Syrian Opposition Tries to Govern Newly Won Idlib City,” claims: The rebel groups that took over a provincial capital in northwest Syria over the weekend are now trying to consolidate control and establish civil governance.  After days spent tearing down the ubiquitous images of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the coalition of Islamist groups, which includes al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, say they will help form a civilian government to run Idlib, capital of Idlib province. For now the streets are full of armed fighters with little organizational direction.
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  • The Journal is apparently using the terms “opposition” and Al Qaeda interchangeably, while also lumping the exiled “Syrian National Coalition” in with the notorious terrorist franchise – a US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization. The Journal is also admitting that the Coalition is funding Al Qaeda to run “local councils.” The narrative, repeated across the Western media, is that Idlib has been irreversibly seized by the “opposition,” and destined to become the capital of Syria’s alleged “opposition.”
  • Only a handful of Western sources include Al Qaeda in their headlines regarding Idlib. Many headlines are referring to Jabhat al Nusra, a US State Department-listed terrorist organization, as the “Syrian opposition,” or a “Jihadi” or “Islamist” coalition. It is clear that the West is attempting to spin the fall of an entire city to Al Qaeda as a victory, rather than a threat to global peace and stability. Talk from the terrorists themselves attempts to portray a softer image, asking for “consultation” regarding the administration of the city. This comes in the wake of other recent calls by US ally, and host of the US Combat Air Operations Center for the Middle East, Qatar, who openly admitted it was supporting Al Qaeda in Syria, and sought to back it further with the precondition al Nusra scaled back its extremist rhetoric (note: not scale back its actual extremism). In Reuters’ article, “Syria’s Nusra Front may leave Qaeda to form new entity,” it would be reported that: Leaders of Syria’s Nusra Front are considering cutting their links with al Qaeda to form a new entity backed by some Gulf states trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad, sources said. Sources within and close to Nusra said that Qatar, which enjoys good relations with the group, is encouraging the group to go ahead with the move, which would give Nusra a boost in funding.
  • Reuters admits inadvertently that al-Nusrah is already enjoying Qatari support. It is clear that al Nusra has not “severed ties to Al Qaeda” because it is Al Qaeda. What is forming before the world’s collective eyes is an attempt to sell the concept of an Al Qaeda-led opposition government, based in Idlib, behind which NATO and its Persian Gulf allies will place their support. While this scenario seems “implausible,” it should be mentioned that from the beginning of the fighting in Libya in 2011, it was pointed out by many geopolitical analysts that the so-called “freedom fighters” were in fact literally Al Qaeda, with NATO providing it  with air cover, weapons, cash, and diplomatic support. In Libya, operational momentum outpaced the public’s awareness regarding the true nature of the opposition. In Syria, the West is desperately trying to reshape the public’s awareness that the opposition is in fact Al Qaeda – before a NATO buffer zone can be created around Idlib.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Apr 15
     
    So, is there a rebranding of Al-Nusrah (Al Qaeda-Syria) as the "moderate Syrian opposition" under way? All previous U.S. and allies efforts to create a "moderate Syrian opposition" have failed. Rebranding of Al Nusrah would be necessary, since it is formally classified by the U.S. as a "terrorist organization" and the U.S. voted for an adopted U.N. Security Council Resolution forbidding all forms of suopport for Al Nurah, Al Qaeda, and ISIL. 
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Moscow behind possible peaceful Solution for Syria War | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...eaceful-solution-for-syria-war war & peace Syria Russia peace-talks
shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Recent talks with the Syrian government and opposition resulted in the first adoption of a joint agreement between the government and the opposition, prompting UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura to stress that the international community should pay more attention to Moscow’s efforts.  Speaking to the British The Independent, de Mistura said that it is time for the world to listen more closely to Russia with regard to Moscow’s effort to broker a peaceful resolution to the four-year-long conflict that has cost more than 210,000 lives and caused an unprecedented rise in Islamist terrorism.
  • De Mistura stressed the long-standing ties between Damascus and Moscow and added that Russia cannot manage to bring about a peaceful resolution without the help of others. Last week Moscow hosted talks between representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition, including the first direct talks. The head of the Syrian government’s delegation and Syrian UN Envoy Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari described the outcome of the talks as positive and confirmed the adoption of a joint document entitled “An Assessment of the Situation in Syria”. The talks were facilitated by Vitaly Naumkin who is the Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Naumkin stressed that it was the first time that the two sides managed to unanimously adopt a document of political character, reports the Russian Tass news agency. The document reportedly contains provisions on resolving the Syrian crisis based on the principles of the June 30, 2012 Geneva Communique and the UN Security Council’s resolution on the fight against terrorism. It envisions the lifting of all restrictive economic measures against Syria and the international community’s assistance in repatriating refugees.
  • It also stipulates that the inter-Syrian dialog must be conducted without foreign interference, stressing that this would be the only way to resolve the crisis peacefully. Both the Syrian government, Syrian political parties and civil society organizations have repeatedly stressed that everybody who renounces violence and vouches for the territorial integrity of Syria is welcome to participate in Syria’s political discourse, constitutionally, and on equal terms with others. Last week the head of the foreign-based opposition, Qadri Jamil, said that the opposition would apply to the UN to arrange a Geneva III conference to continue the work toward a peaceful settlement. Both the “opposition” as well as the government and Syrian self-defense forces have increasingly been pressed by the advance of ISIS. Meanwhile, the United States is preparing its “train and equip” program in Turkey which will work towards launching more so-called “moderate rebels” into Syria. In 2014 some 5,000 of these “moderate rebels” would join the ranks of the Islamic State.
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Jeb Bush's Administration Steered Florida Pension Money to George W. Bush's Fundraisers - 0 views

www.ibtimes.com/ge-w-bushs-fundraisers-1880592 Auction 2016 Jeb-Bush bribery
shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Four years before the financial collapse, Goldman Sachs executive George Herbert Walker IV had much to be thankful for. "I've been fortunate to be a small part of teams leading U.S. restructurings, European privatizations, global pension management and now hedge fund and private equity investing,” he said in the annual report of a banking colossus that would soon be known as the “great vampire squid” of Wall Street. “The world,” said Walker, “just keeps getting more interesting." As the head of Goldman Sachs’ alternative investment unit, Walker’s ebullience was understandable. At the same time he was raising $100,000 for his cousin George W. Bush’s successful presidential re-election effort, the administration of another cousin, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, returned the family favor, delivering $150 million of Florida pension money to an alternative investment fund run by Walker’s firm. Like other executives whose companies received Florida pension money, Walker is now renewing the cycle, reportedly attending in February a high-dollar fundraiser for Jeb Bush’s political committee.
  • Walker is not alone: He is one of 19 top fundraisers for George W. Bush -- known as “Pioneers” and “Rangers” -- whose financial firms received state business from Jeb Bush’s administration in Tallahassee. In all, an International Business Times’ review of government documents shows Jeb Bush oversaw Florida directing at least $1.7 billion of state workers’ retirement money to the financial firms of his elder brother’s major donors. As Jeb Bush oversaw the State Board of Administration (SBA) that runs Florida’s massive public pension system, the state shifted billions of dollars into higher-risk, higher-fee alternative investments, benefiting the same sector of the investment industry he would work in upon leaving office. Many of those state deals delivered returns that fell short of projections. Roughly 20 percent of that system’s 53 private investment deals during Bush’s governorship went to companies that employed his brother’s Pioneers. Those financial firms, in turn, delivered more than $5 million of campaign cash to George W. Bush, the Republican National Committee and Jeb Bush’s Republican Party of Florida. (Click here to see the full list of Bush Pioneers whose firms received Florida pension investments from Jeb Bush’s administration).
  • Ethics experts say the connection between Bush family donors and Florida pension deals raises questions about whether the investments were properly insulated from political influence. “If not an actual conflict of interest, these examples would provide fodder for apparent conflicts of interest,” said Common Cause Florida’s Peter Butzin. “Those folks who give … expect something in return. And if that something in return is not blatantly sending business their way or resulting in a particular vote, it most certainly is at least providing an opportunity for access, to get the foot in the door, so that they can make the case with that official.” Jeb Bush’s aides did not respond to questions from IBTimes, and Walker declined to comment for this story. Dennis MacKee, an SBA spokesperson, said the agency’s “elected Trustees do not now, nor did they during Governor Bush’s term, participate in the selection of individual investments.” MacKee’s statement conflicts with emails reviewed by IBTimes that show that, as governor, Jeb Bush was deeply involved in the state’s investment decisions, periodically brokering conversations between Florida officials and individual financial firms, including one whose top executive was a longtime Bush family donor.
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The CIA and Signals Intelligence - 0 views

www2.gwu.edu/...NSAEBB506 surveillance state NSA CIA signals-intelligence turf-wars
shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The CIA and Signals Intelligence Formerly Top-Secret Multi-Volume History Details Spy Agency’s Conflicts with NSA and Military over SIGINT Role Additional Declassified Documents Describe CIA Domestic and Foreign SIGINT Activity CIA Role Often Put It in Direct Competition with NSA, but Recent Cooperation Made Possible Controversial Exploits Uncovered by Edward Snowden National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 506
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Clinton Foundation's Deep Financial Ties to Ukrainian Oligarch Revealed | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5438165 Auction 2016 Hillary Clinton-Foundation foreign-donations
shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Fortunately, I did decide to take a look and pretty soon my jaw absolutely hit the floor. Although the Wall Street Journal didn’t play up the connection, I was stunned to see that of all the oligarchs connected to foreign governments who donated to the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State, Ukraine was at the very top. I thought this to be strange, but as I read on I just couldn’t believe how connected the main donor was to the current regime in power. Considering this is the main geopolitical hotspot on earth right now, many, many questions need to be asked.
  • Let’s also recall some of the more shady aspects of the new government in Ukraine by taking a look back at the post, Made in the USA – How the Ukrainian Government is Giving Away Citizenships so Foreigners Can Run the Country [17]. Here are a few excerpts:
  • Claims that the new government in Ukraine is nothing more than a Western puppet Parliament have been swirling around consistently since February. Nevertheless, I think it’s very significant that the takeover is now overt, undeniable and completely out in the open. Nothing proves this fact more clearly than the recent and sudden granting of citizenship to three foreigners so that they can take top posts in the government. At the top of the list is American, Natalie Jaresko, who runs private equity fund Horizon Capital. She will now be Ukraine’s Finance Minister, and I highly doubt she will be forced to pay the IRS Expatriation Tax [18] (one set of laws for the rich and powerful, another set of laws for the peasants). For Economy Minister, a Lithuanian investment banker, Aivaras Abromavicius, will take the reins. Health Minister will be Alexander Kvitashvili of Georgia. Now read the following from the WSJ [14]:
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  • The Clinton Foundation swore off donations from foreign governments when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. That didn’t stop the foundation from raising millions of dollars from foreigners with connections to their home governments, a review of foundation disclosures shows. Some donors have direct ties to foreign governments. One is a member of the Saudi royal family. Another is a Ukrainian oligarch and former parliamentarian. Others are individuals with close connections to foreign governments that stem from their business activities. Their professed policy interests range from human rights to U.S.-Cuba relations. All told, more than a dozen foreign individuals and their foundations and companies were large donors to the Clinton Foundation in the years after Mrs. Clinton became secretary of state in 2009, collectively giving between $34 million and $68 million, foundation records show. Some donors also provided funding directly to charitable projects sponsored by the foundation, valued by the organization at $60 million.
  • Former President Bill Clinton promised the Obama administration the foundation wouldn’t accept most foreign-government donations while his wife was secretary of state. The agreement didn’t place limits on donations from foreign individuals or corporations. Between 2009 and 2013, including when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, according to that foundation, which is based in Kiev, Ukraine. It was created by Mr. Pinchuk, whose fortune stems from a pipe-making company. He served two terms as an elected member of the Ukrainian Parliament and is a proponent of closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union. In 2008, Mr. Pinchuk made a five-year, $29 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, a wing of the foundation that coordinates charitable projects and funding for them but doesn’t handle the money. The pledge was to fund a program to train future Ukrainian leaders and professionals “to modernize Ukraine,” according to the Clinton Foundation. Several alumni are current members of the Ukrainian Parliament. Actual donations so far amount to only $1.8 million, a Pinchuk foundation spokesman said, citing the impact of the 2008 financial crisis. During Mrs. Clinton’s time at the State Department, Mr. Schoen, the pollster, registered as a lobbyist for Mr. Pinchuk, federal records show. Mr. Schoen said he and Mr. Pinchuk met several times with Clinton aides including Melanne Verveer, a Ukrainian-American and then a State Department ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues. The purpose, Mr. Schoen said, was to encourage the U.S. to pressure Ukraine’s then-President Viktor Yanukovych to free his jailed predecessor, Yulia Tymoshenko.
  • Mr. Schoen said his lobbying was unrelated to the donations. “We were not seeking to use any leverage or any connections or anything of the sort relating to the foundation,” he said. Please Schoen, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.
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Israel Spied on Iran Nuclear Talks With U.S. - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...spied-on-iran-talks-1427164201 war & peace surveillance state Israel spying Iran-negotiations leaks-to-Congress
shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks. The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.
  • The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said. “It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.
  • The U.S. and Israel, longtime allies who routinely swap information on security threats, sometimes operate behind the scenes like spy-versus-spy rivals. The White House has largely tolerated Israeli snooping on U.S. policy makers—a posture Israel takes when the tables are turned. The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said. Israeli officials denied spying directly on U.S. negotiators and said they received their information through other means, including close surveillance of Iranian leaders receiving the latest U.S. and European offers. European officials, particularly the French, also have been more transparent with Israel about the closed-door discussions than the Americans, Israeli and U.S. officials said.
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  • Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer early this year saw a rapidly closing window to increase pressure on Mr. Obama before a key deadline at the end of March, Israeli officials said. Using levers of political influence unique to Israel, Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer calculated that a lobbying campaign in Congress before an announcement was made would improve the chances of killing or reshaping any deal. They knew the intervention would damage relations with the White House, Israeli officials said, but decided that was an acceptable cost. The campaign may not have worked as well as hoped, Israeli officials now say, because it ended up alienating many congressional Democrats whose support Israel was counting on to block a deal. Obama administration officials, departing from their usual description of the unbreakable bond between the U.S. and Israel, have voiced sharp criticism of Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer to describe how the relationship has changed.
  • “People feel personally sold out,” a senior administration official said. “That’s where the Israelis really better be careful because a lot of these people will not only be around for this administration but possibly the next one as well.” This account of the Israeli campaign is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. and Israeli diplomats, intelligence officials, policy makers and lawmakers. Weakened ties Distrust between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Obama had been growing for years but worsened when Mr. Obama launched secret talks with Iran in 2012. The president didn’t tell Mr. Netanyahu because of concerns about leaks, helping set the stage for the current standoff, according to current and former U.S. and Israeli officials. U.S. officials said Israel has long topped the list of countries that aggressively spy on the U.S., along with China, Russia and France. The U.S. expends more counterintelligence resources fending off Israeli spy operations than any other close ally, U.S. officials said.
  • A senior official in the prime minister’s office said Monday: “These allegations are utterly false. The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies. The false allegations are clearly intended to undermine the strong ties between the United States and Israel and the security and intelligence relationship we share.” Current and former Israeli officials said their intelligence agencies scaled back their targeting of U.S. officials after the jailing nearly 30 years ago of American Jonathan Pollard for passing secrets to Israel. While U.S. officials may not be direct targets, current and former officials said, Israeli intelligence agencies sweep up communications between U.S. officials and parties targeted by the Israelis, including Iran. Americans shouldn’t be surprised, said a person familiar with the Israeli practice, since U.S. intelligence agencies helped the Israelis build a system to listen in on high-level Iranian communications.
  • As secret talks with Iran progressed into 2013, U.S. intelligence agencies monitored Israel’s communications to see if the country knew of the negotiations. Mr. Obama didn’t tell Mr. Netanyahu until September 2013. Israeli officials, who said they had already learned about the talks through their own channels, told their U.S. counterparts they were upset about being excluded. “ ‘Did the administration really believe we wouldn’t find out?’ ” Israeli officials said, according to a former U.S. official.
  • The episode cemented Mr. Netanyahu’s concern that Mr. Obama was bent on clinching a deal with Iran whether or not it served Israel’s best interests, Israeli officials said. Obama administration officials said the president was committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Mr. Dermer started lobbying U.S. lawmakers just before the U.S. and other powers signed an interim agreement with Iran in November 2013. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Dermer went to Congress after seeing they had little influence on the White House. Before the interim deal was made public, Mr. Dermer gave lawmakers Israel’s analysis: The U.S. offer would dramatically undermine economic sanctions on Iran, according to congressional officials who took part. After learning about the briefings, the White House dispatched senior officials to counter Mr. Dermer. The officials told lawmakers that Israel’s analysis exaggerated the sanctions relief by as much as 10 times, meeting participants said.
  • When the next round of negotiations with Iran started in Switzerland last year, U.S. counterintelligence agents told members of the U.S. negotiating team that Israel would likely try to penetrate their communications, a senior Obama administration official said. The U.S. routinely shares information with its European counterparts and others to coordinate negotiating positions. While U.S. intelligence officials believe secured U.S. communications are relatively safe from the Israelis, they say European communications are vulnerable. Mr. Netanyahu and his top advisers received confidential updates on the Geneva talks from Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and other U.S. officials, who knew at the time that Israeli intelligence was working to fill in any gaps. The White House eventually curtailed the briefings, U.S. officials said, withholding sensitive information for fear of leaks. Current and former Israeli officials said their intelligence agencies can get much of the information they seek by targeting Iranians and others in the region who are communicating with countries in the talks. In November, the Israelis learned the contents of a proposed deal offered by the U.S. but ultimately rejected by Iran, U.S. and Israeli officials said. Israeli officials told their U.S. counterparts the terms offered insufficient protections.
  • U.S. officials urged the Israelis to give the negotiations a chance. But Mr. Netanyahu’s top advisers concluded the emerging deal was unacceptable. The White House was making too many concessions, Israeli officials said, while the Iranians were holding firm. Obama administration officials reject that view, saying Israel was making impossible demands that Iran would never accept. “The president has made clear time and again that no deal is better than a bad deal,” a senior administration official said. In January, Mr. Netanyahu told the White House his government intended to oppose the Iran deal but didn’t explain how, U.S. and Israeli officials said. On Jan. 21, House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) announced Mr. Netanyahu would address a joint meeting of Congress. That same day, Mr. Dermer and other Israeli officials visited Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers and aides, seeking a bipartisan coalition large enough to block or amend any deal. Most Republicans were already prepared to challenge the White House on the negotiations, so Mr. Dermer focused on Democrats. “This deal is bad,” he said in one briefing, according to participants.
  • A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington, Aaron Sagui, said Mr. Dermer didn’t launch a special campaign on Jan 21. Mr. Dermer, the spokesperson said, has “consistently briefed both Republican and Democrats, senators and congressmen, on Israel’s concerns regarding the Iran negotiations for over a year.” Mr. Dermer and other Israeli officials over the following weeks gave lawmakers and their aides information the White House was trying to keep secret, including how the emerging deal could allow Iran to operate around 6,500 centrifuges, devices used to process nuclear material, said congressional officials who attended the briefings. The Israeli officials told lawmakers that Iran would also be permitted to deploy advanced IR-4 centrifuges that could process fuel on a larger scale, meeting participants and administration officials said. Israeli officials said such fuel, which under the emerging deal would be intended for energy plants, could be used to one day build nuclear bombs. The information in the briefings, Israeli officials said, was widely known among the countries participating in the negotiations. When asked in February during one briefing where Israel got its inside information, the Israeli officials said their sources included the French and British governments, as well as their own intelligence, according to people there.
  • “Ambassador Dermer never shared confidential intelligence information with members of Congress,” Mr. Sagui said. “His briefings did not include specific details from the negotiations, including the length of the agreement or the number of centrifuges Iran would be able to keep.” Current and former U.S. officials confirmed that the number and type of centrifuges cited in the briefings were part of the discussions. But they said the briefings were misleading because Israeli officials didn’t disclose concessions asked of Iran. Those included giving up stockpiles of nuclear material, as well as modifying the advanced centrifuges to slow output, these officials said. The administration didn’t brief lawmakers on the centrifuge numbers and other details at the time because the information was classified and the details were still in flux, current and former U.S. officials said. Unexpected reaction The congressional briefings and Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to address a joint meeting of Congress on the emerging deal sparked a backlash among many Democratic lawmakers, congressional aides said.
  • On Feb. 3, Mr. Dermer huddled with Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, who said he told Mr. Dermer it was a breach of protocol for Mr. Netanyahu to accept an invitation from Mr. Boehner without going through the White House. Mr. Manchin said he told Mr. Dermer he would attend the prime minister’s speech to Congress, but he was noncommittal about supporting any move by Congress to block a deal. Mr. Dermer spent the following day doing damage control with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, congressional aides said. Two days later, Mr. Dermer met with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the SenateIntelligence Committee, at her Washington, D.C., home. He pressed for her support because he knew that she, too, was angry about Mr. Netanyahu’s planned appearance. Ms. Feinstein said afterward she would oppose legislation allowing Congress to vote down an agreement.
  • Congressional aides and Israeli officials now say Israel’s coalition in Congress is short the votes needed to pass legislation that could overcome a presidential veto, although that could change. In response, Israeli officials said, Mr. Netanyahu was pursuing other ways to pressure the White House. This week, Mr. Netanyahu sent a delegation to France, which has been more closely aligned with Israel on the nuclear talks and which could throw obstacles in Mr. Obama’s way before a deal is signed. The Obama administration, meanwhile, is stepping up its outreach to Paris to blunt the Israeli push. “If you’re wondering whether something serious has shifted here, the answer is yes,” a senior U.S. official said. “These things leave scars.”
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 15
     
    Obama is moving preemptively to blunt Israel's influence in Congress on the Iran negotiation.
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Information Warfare: Automated Propaganda and Social Media Bots | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5438304 automated-propaganda social-media-bots
shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • NATO has announced that it is launching an “information war” against Russia. The UK publicly announced a battalion of keyboard warriors to spread disinformation. It’s well-documented that the West has long used false propaganda to sway public opinion. Western military and intelligence services manipulate social media to counter criticism of Western policies. Such manipulation includes flooding social media with comments supporting the government and large corporations, using armies of sock puppets, i.e. fake social media identities. See this, this, this, this and this. In 2013, the American Congress repealed the formal ban against the deployment of propaganda against U.S. citizens living on American soil. So there’s even less to constrain propaganda than before.
  • Information warfare for propaganda purposes also includes: The Pentagon, Federal Reserve and other government entities using software to track discussion of political issues … to try to nip dissent in the bud before it goes viral “Controlling, infiltrating, manipulating and warping” online discourse Use of artificial intelligence programs to try to predict how people will react to propaganda
  • Some of the propaganda is spread by software programs. We pointed out 6 years ago that people were writing scripts to censor hard-hitting information from social media. One of America’s top cyber-propagandists – former high-level military information officer Joel Harding – wrote in December: I was in a discussion today about information being used in social media as a possible weapon.  The people I was talking with have a tool which scrapes social media sites, gauges their sentiment and gives the user the opportunity to automatically generate a persuasive response. Their tool is called a “Social Networking Influence Engine”. *** The implications seem to be profound for the information environment. *** The people who own this tool are in the civilian world and don’t even remotely touch the defense sector, so getting approval from the US Department of State might not even occur to them.
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  • How Can This Real? Gizmodo reported in 2010: Software developer Nigel Leck got tired rehashing the same 140-character arguments against climate change deniers, so he programmed a bot that does the work for him. With citations! Leck’s bot, @AI_AGW, doesn’t just respond to arguments directed at Leck himself, it goes out and picks fights. Every five minutes it trawls Twitter for terms and phrases that commonly crop up in Tweets that refute human-caused climate change. It then searches its database of hundreds to find a counter-argument best suited for that tweet—usually a quick statement and a link to a scientific source. As can be the case with these sorts of things, many of the deniers don’t know they’ve been targeted by a robot and engage AI_AGW in debate. The bot will continue to fire back canned responses that best fit the interlocutor’s line of debate—Leck says this goes on for days, in some cases—and the bot’s been outfitted with a number of responses on the topic of religion, where the arguments unsurprisingly often end up. Technology has come a long way in the past 5 years. So if a lone programmer could do this 5 years ago, imagine what he could do now. And the big players have a lot more resources at their disposal than a lone climate activist/software developer does.  For example, a government expert told the Washington Post that the government “quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type” (and see this).  So if the lone programmer is doing it, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the big boys are widely doing it.
  • How Effective Are Automated Comments? Unfortunately, this is more effective than you might assume … Specifically, scientists have shown that name-calling and swearing breaks down people’s ability to think rationally … and intentionally sowing discord and posting junk comments to push down insightful comments  are common propaganda techniques. Indeed, an automated program need not even be that sophisticated … it can copy a couple of words from the main post or a comment, and then spew back one or more radioactive labels such as “terrorist”, “commie”, “Russia-lover”, “wimp”, “fascist”, “loser”, “traitor”, “conspiratard”, etc. Given that Harding and his compadres consider anyone who questions any U.S. policies as an enemy of the state  – as does the Obama administration (and see this) – many honest, patriotic writers and commenters may be targeted for automated propaganda comments.
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Costa Rican Ambassador Fired for Defending Venezuelan Government Amid Escalating Media ... - 0 views

venezuelanalysis.com/11299 war & peace Venezuela U.S.-foreign-policy coup-attempts Costa-RIca kidnapping
shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The Costa Rican government fired its recently appointed ambassador to Venezuela yesterday after the latter expressed support for the Bolivarian government in an interview with a prominent rightwing Venezuelan newspaper.Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis stated that his government did not share the opinions of ex-ambassador Federico Picado, which have generated an uproar in the small Central American country with rightwing politicians demanding the ambassador's immediate dismissal.In his interview with La Nacion conducted via email, the 69 year-old ex-ambassador ridiculed suggestions of a lack of press freedom in Venezuela and attributed scarcities of essential goods to sabotage by "political factors" and "big business" seeking "internal destabilization". Picado also contrasted the image of the country presented by international media externally and the reality that he experienced on the ground.
  • Picado praised the example of Venezuela in the area of citizens' referenda and advocated that Costa Rica institute the option of midterm plebiscites for unseating inefficient leaders from their elected posts.However, not all Costa Rican political leaders sanctioned the firing of Picado.Patricia Mora of the leftwing Broad Front party stood up for the ex-ambassador, informing La Nacion, “It seems that they were objective declarations, he is experiencing what is happening [in Venezuela].”Kidnapping False ClaimThe dismissal of the Costa Rican ambassador for voicing support for the Bolivarian government comes in midst of an intensifying misinformation campaign directed against Venezuela in the international media.
  • Over the past few days, news headlines and social media feeds have been dominated by the story of an alleged kidnapping of a child in Venezuela.Nevertheless, Chief Prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz announced today that there was no kidnapping and that the child's mother was paid $18,000 of a total of $1 million Bolivars in order to issue the false claim.Carmen Yanet Briones, who is of Ecuadorian nationality, was detained yesterday, along with those accused of paying her, after the child's father dismissed the claim as false.President Nicolas Maduro denounced the false kidnapping as an instance of "psychological war" waged against Venezuela and called for those responsible to be brought to justice, mentioning the name of rightwing Venezuelan media consultant and fugitive J.J. Rondón.
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  • The Venezuelan leader compared the plot to previous misinformation campaigns against Venezuela and other revolutionary governments, invoking the example of "Operation Peter Pan" in the 1960s, in which the CIA circulated the lie that the Cuban government intended to take custody of the island's children, while transporting thousands of Cuban children to the United States and placing them under foster care.Venezuelan authorities have stated that they will release further information on the case as it becomes available.
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Silicon Valley spars with Obama over 'backdoor' surveillance | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...ama-over-backdoor-surveillance surveillance state NSA encryption-backdoors Obama
shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Silicon Valley and a bipartisan group of lawmakers are lining up against the Obama administration, criticizing what they see as a lack of support for total online privacy.The steady rise of sophisticated privacy techniques such as encryption and anonymity software has put the government in a difficult position — trying to support the right to privacy while figuring out how to prevent people from evading law enforcement.ADVERTISEMENT“The technologies are evolving in ways that potentially make this trickier,” President Obama said during a January news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.The conundrum has led to a heated debate in Washington: Should law enforcement have guaranteed access to data?
  • The Obama administration — from officials with FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA) to the president himself — has come out in favor of some form of guaranteed access while still endorsing strong encryption.“If we get into a situation in which the technologies do not allow us at all to track somebody that we're confident is a terrorist,” Obama said, “that's a problem.”What shape that access takes, however, is unclear.“The dialogue that we're engaged in is designed to make sure that all of us feel confident that if there is an actual threat out there, our law enforcement and our intelligence officers can identify that threat and track that threat at the same time that our governments are not going around phishing into whatever text you might be sending on your smartphone,” Obama said. “And I think that's something that can be achieved.”Privacy hawks on Capitol Hill aren’t buying it.
  • “I don’t think much of that,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), co-founder of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, told The Hill. “We have a huge homeland security apparatus with almost unlimited authority to — with some sort of a reasonable suspicion — check almost any type of communication, whether it’s voice, Internet, telephonic, electronic, you name it.”“Those were positions that did not receive rave reviews here in Silicon Valley,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), whose district includes parts of tech-heavy San Jose.Many believe the administration’s stance is inherently at odds with robust digital protection.“In order to fully implement what he's suggesting, you would need one of two things,” Lofgren said.One would be installing so-called “backdoors” in encryption — an access point known only to law enforcement agencies. Security experts find this concept abhorrent, since cyber crooks or foreign intelligence agencies would likely exploit it.
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  • The second would be to have a third-party company hold all user data, with some sort of agreement to disclose information to the government, Lofgren said.“I think actually the trend line is in a different direction, which is encryption that is not accessible to the companies that provide it, either,” she added.  Major tech companies like Apple have done exactly that, claiming that even they can’t unlock data on newer devices.
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Senators skewer Obama's Syria policy | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...rs-shred-obamas-syria-strategy war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy Senate-Armed-Services McCain Graham
shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Senators on Tuesday blasted President Obama's Syria strategy as incoherent, questioning efforts to force Bashar Assad to step down and grilling Defense Secretary Ash Carter on efforts to counter extremists.Carter at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing discussed new changes to the administration's strategy against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Syria, where the U.S. and allies are currently launching airstrikes and arming about a dozen Syrian Arab groups to counter ISIS.ADVERTISEMENTCarter said the U.S.-led military coalition hopes to strengthen the new Syrian Arab Coalition, intensify the air campaign, and target more ISIS leaders and the group's oil operations.“If done in concert as we intend, all those actions on the ground and from the air should help shrink ISIL’s territory into a smaller and smaller area and create new opportunities for targeting ISIL — ultimately denying this evil movement any safe haven in its supposed heartland,” Carter said, using another acronym for ISIS.“This is a half-assed strategy at best,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a Republican presidential candidate and a leading defense hawk in the Senate.
  • Committee members questioned how the U.S.-led coalition intended to support Syrian rebels going after ISIS when the Syrian regime — assisted by Hezbollah, Russia and Iran — was targeting them in a bid to shore up Assad’s grip on power in the country’s four-year civil war.Carter said the U.S. was only obligated to protect the small number of rebels who had taken part in a now-defunct Pentagon plan to train and equip a rebel force against ISIS, leaving many senators incredulous.That program only yielded 145 rebels, out of a planned force of 5,000 this year.Carter acknowledged that Russian forces were already hitting moderate Syrian rebel groups — including some supported by the coalition — but said the U.S. was not obligated to protect them since they were not Pentagon-trained.His comments come amid reports that the Russian strikes have targeted groups that were trained by the CIA.  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committed, called that policy “immoral.”“You are making a distinction without a difference, Mr. Secretary,” he said, exasperated. “These are American-supported and coalition-supported men who are going in and being slaughtered.”The administration has tried to avoid actions that would bring them into direct conflict with Syria or Russia, and maintains the coalition is supporting rebels who will target ISIS, not the Assad regime. 
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 15
     
    I watched that hearing last night on CSPAN. It was surreal. We are led by idiots or liars; let them take their pick of the two possibilities. The neocons were all pushing for regime change, blissfully unaware that the U.S. legal excuse for bombing in Syria is less than tenuous but extends only to fighting ISIL on grounds of protecting Iraq from that group. Bombing Syrian government targets would be an act of war, a war of aggression. 
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The Business Offensive: A Symmetrical Ruling Class - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...ive-a-symmetrical-ruling-class Ruling-Class American-Oligarchy Corporate-Oligarchs Corporate-Facsists
shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Since the close of World War II, America has sought an integrated policy as the militarization of capitalism
  • In the intervening years, this was not always easy to achieve, as, depending on circumstances, one or the other, the corporate-financial order, and the military itself, asserted itself and made strong demands on government.
  • the Cold War itself providing a cover for the US globalization of power via market penetration, international financial and monetary architecture under US supervision, and the steady build-up of an Armaments State.
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  • Yet, the dynamism of early modern capitalism, realized in part through grinding methods of labor suppression, notably, the privatization of force, helped on by a compliant government, meant that within capitalism itself there was tremendous jockeying for power requiring the imposition of Order if major railroads and industrial firms were to enjoy their secure monopoly status.
  • Here government was crucial to harmonious internal structural arrangements, anticompetitive in its policies for the promotion of monopolism sector-by-sector including banking (the House of Morgan, whose offshoots firmed up the organization of railroads and manufacturing) as the means to systemic consolidation—an end to internecine competition—which was achieved in the early 20th century under Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (themselves the Janus-faced construct of the Battleship Navy and supposed liberal internationalism) setting the stage for the present era.
  • In practice, we see the interpenetration of business and government as the integration of monopoly capitalism in its own right.
  • By the late 1940s one can say that the military remained a junior partner of a synthesized ruling group or class, given the overwhelming thrust of business and its ascendant banking wing in defining American capitalism.
  • American capitalism could no longer go it alone, the military increasingly supplying the muscle for continued expansion and profitability. Korea and Vietnam were important chapters in the reshaping of a capitalist polity, with numerous interventions beyond mention the underpinning for a coalescent framework of elites, all making for a structural process of shaking down to the bare essentials the capitalist and military components in search of equilibrium. For otherwise, America feared its decline and would do anything to prevent.
  • Granted, it is hard to conceive of capitalism as a perpetual war machine, especially in America, which labors under the fiction of being, or if it ever was, then remaining, a democracy.
  • But there it is, an arms budget dwarfing all else, military bases strategically gathered worldwide, death squads euphemistically termed Special Ops, presidential-directed drone assassinations, the list goes on—so much so that one almost forgets capitalism is centrally about business and profits, not murder and mayhem.
  • the Great Capitalist Synthesis
  • an accomplice to the more successful militarization of capitalism by holding its own as an integral part in the relationship. In sum, the desideratum of business as usual, as in fleecing the consumer and jeopardizing his/her safety, destroying the environment, and best of all, removing itself from the constitutional foundations of the rule of law.
  • Corporations and banks have become a law unto themselves, with all the organs of government stretching from the Executive, Congress, the Supreme Court, to myriad regulatory agencies some unbeknownst to the public, sitting as a chorus of admiring voices egging them on.
  • Corporate Rescindment of Legal Rights: Business Power Run Amuck,
  • Class-action law suits, frequently the only feasible action of the poor for seeking redress of grievances against the giant corporations, are all but prohibited, replaced in contracts by compulsory-arbitration clauses, intended in the first place to kill class actions, which compel the individual standing alone to face insurmountable odds in a process by which the corporation names the arbitrator, keeps the proceedings secret, and determines the rules of procedure.
  • Civil courts are thrown to the winds.
  • It is as though capitalism, in this one seemingly minor area touching primarily the normalization of everyday relationships, has gone on the offensive, not of course to re-establish its relation to the military, but specifically and directly to exercise its domination over the people.
  • The now-and-future business polity is the fulfillment of the fascist dream, an authoritarian power structure of corporate consolidation supported through governmental suppression of dissent at home and an aggressively waged foreign policy to capture world markets.
  • The small print of the contracts one signs, whether for car rentals or nursing homes, and thousands of transactions in between, emboldens capitalism to go its solipsistic way, to the destruction of freedom, the planet, and human dignity.
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Nov 15
     
    "Since the close of World War II, America has sought an integrated policy as the militarization of capitalism. In the intervening years, this was not always easy to achieve, as, depending on circumstances, one or the other, the corporate-financial order, and the military itself, asserted itself and made strong demands on government. The result was never an intracompetitive mold because each needed and recognized the value of the other, but still there were periods of imbalance in their respective surges of governmental policy-emphasis. American capitalism had become a functional duopoly (C. Wright Mills' Power Elite was a good popular discussion of this general structure at an earlier point in our capitalist-development trajectory after the war), the Cold War itself providing a cover for the US globalization of power via market penetration, international financial and monetary architecture under US supervision, and the steady build-up of an Armaments State. There is nothing actually new here about the American historical pattern, except of course the more explicit and pronounced role to be assigned the military in the stabilization and expansion of American capitalism. The military was never at any point following the Civil War a negligible input in synthesizing the materials for an operational ruling class, but essentially, as in the late-19th century policy of the Open Door, business was sufficiently confident of its own power (the "imperialism of free trade") to carry forward the process of expansion largely on its own. Yet, the dynamism of early modern capitalism, realized in part through grinding methods of labor suppression, notably, the privatization of force, helped on by a compliant government, meant that within capitalism itself there was tremendous jockeying for power requiring the imposition of Order if major railroads and industrial firms were to enjoy their secure monopoly status."
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Secret program at secret Guantánamo prison hears everything | Miami Herald - 0 views

www.miamiherald.com/...article44541324.html surveillance state GITMO-detainees military-tribunal fair-trial
shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • A secret Defense Department program provides unfettered eavesdropping on the accused terrorists imprisoned at Guantánamo’s clandestine Camp 7 lockup, recently released war court documents show.Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge in 9/11 trial, discovered the existence of the secret surveillance program during a recent war court hearing. Little is publicly known about the program, not even its unclassified two-word nickname.
  • The disclosure of pervasive eavesdropping at Guantánamo’s lockup for 14 former CIA prisoners comes in before-and-after documents released by the court from the recent Oct. 19-30 pretrial hearings in the death-penalty case of five men accused of orchestrating the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.At issue was accused 9/11 plotter Walid bin Attash’s request for guidance on how he could function as his own attorney. Bin Attash is a Yemeni in his mid-30s who is accused of training some of the hijackers. “You must assume anything you say in Camp 7 is not confidential and will be disclosed to the U.S. Government,” warns an Oct. 23 draft of the advisory, crafted after the judge was informed of the covert program. “Only when you are in Echo 2 will anything you say be covered by the attorney-client privilege.”An Oct. 20 draft of the advisory omits those lines.
  • This is not the first time in the proceedings that a surveillance program caught Pohl by surprise. In January 2013, he ordered the CIA to unplug a button that allowed an unseen observer to cut the court’s audio feed to the public. Perhaps ironically, the lone site the judge considers safe for consultative trial preparation — the Camp Echo compound of wooden huts, each containing a cell — at one time had covert recording devices that looked like smoke detectors. The judge ordered them disabled in February 2013.Attorney Dror Ladin of the American Civil Liberties Union, who was an observer at the Guantánamo hearings last month, said the apparent disclosure of “pervasive surveillance at Camp 7” is the latest issue to challenge the possibility of a fair trial.“It is shocking that for years neither defense counsel nor the judge were made aware that the government was capturing everything said aloud by the detainees there,” he said Thursday. It also adds to mounting questions of “how these military commissions can produce a fair result,” said Ladin, especially if one of the men represents himself. “These are detainees who really can’t see the evidence against them and simultaneously have been provided no rehabilitation services for the torture they suffered for years. It would be astonishing if any of them could craft a fair defense for capital charges.”
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  • A defense attorney in another case said the prosecution wants to use a surreptitiously recorded conversation between two Camp 7 captives against an alleged al-Qaida commander. And in 2012 the journalist Daniel Klaidman wrote in his book “Kill or Capture” that the U.S. government had recordings made in a Guantánamo prison recreation yard of the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed talking about evidence that could be used against him.The latest disclosure comes at a time of decreasing transparency at the war court.On Oct. 29, the judge held a 13-minute secret session without advanced notice to the public. A day later the judge wrote in a three-page ruling that he closed the court at the request of “the Government” — war-court-speak for the prosecution — to protect state secrets whose disclosure “could result in grave danger to national security.”Pohl also ordered the court to issue a censored transcript of the parts the excluded public and accused would be allowed to see. No transcript has been released.Then the next day, Oct. 30, the judge held a daylong, open hearing on a restraining order he issued forbidding female guards from touching the 9/11 accused when they are being taken to court or legal meetings. The judge’s order has outraged members of Congress and the Pentagon brass.
  • In that public court hearing, soldiers called as witnesses from the prison discussed staffing patterns at Camp 7. Normally the Pentagon releases transcripts of open hearings the same day. Unusually, the court has not yet released the Oct. 30 transcript. A Pentagon spokesman suggested Thursday — 13 days after the open court hearing — that somebody was scrubbing the transcript of information already made public. “The security review of the Oct. 30 transcript remains ongoing,” said Navy Cmdr. Gary Ross. “We will provide an update once additional information becomes available.”Much of the October session focused on bin Attash’s question about how he’d act as his own lawyer in a system that does not let the accused terrorist see classified information in the case. The judge and attorneys devoted days to designing a script Pohl would read to any accused 9/11 terrorist who tries to take charge of his defense — and spent a full afternoon huddling in a closed meeting on the secret program.
  • In it, Pohl made clear that he never intended to let bin Attash dismiss his Pentagon-paid defense attorneys — Chicago criminal defense attorney Cheryl Bormann and Air Force Maj. Michael Schwartz. Instead, the script shows Pohl planned to appoint Bormann and Schwartz as “standby counsel” the judge could activate to carry out cross-examination of certain witnesses who might have “particular sensitivities” to being questioned by the alleged terrorist.“If you are represented by lawyers, then it is the lawyers, and not you, who will conduct the defense,” the warning says. “Correspondingly, if you represent yourself, you will be able to perform the lawyer’s core functions, but you will not necessarily be allowed to direct special appearances by counsel when it is convenient to you.”The language suggests a far more limited role by the American lawyers than those carried out in an aborted attempt to hold the Sept. 11 trial during the Bush administration. In those proceedings, alleged 9/11 terrorists serving as their own lawyer regularly had standby counsel write and argue motions in court.The script also envisions a scenario in which an accused 9/11 plotter serving as his own lawyer becomes unruly, disruptive or disobedient rather than respect “the dignity of the courtroom.” In such a case, the judge said he could deal with “obstructionist misconduct” by putting “physical restraints” on bin Attash or ejecting him from the court.Bin Attash, for his part, has not been noticeably disruptive across years of pretrial proceedings. An amputee, he was brought to his May 5, 2012 arraignment in a Guantánamo prison restraint chair routinely used for forced-feeding of hunger strikers — with guards carrying his prosthetic leg separately.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    It's long past time to recognize that the military cannot provide a fair trial for GITMOI detainees, transfer them to the U.S., and try them in a civilian Article II court. If this kind of crap were going down before an Article II judge, those conducting the surveillance would be sitting in jail. 
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Turkey to be offered €3bn to help curb influx of refugees to EU - RT News - 0 views

www.rt.com/...21-turkey-refugee-grant-influx war & peace EU Germany UK Turkey refugees bribery
shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other EU leaders want to clinch a €3-billion deal with Ankara to curb the influx of asylum seekers coming to Europe from Africa and the Mideast. The EU wants Turkey to beef up its border patrols with Greece in return. The EU leaders have agreed to invite Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to a special summit in Brussels to speed up an agreement that would see Turkey patrolling the EU’s southern border with Greece in an attempt to halt the flow of refugees.
  • The executive European Commission proposed to EU leaders, meeting in the Maltese capital of Valletta, that Ankara be offered a "refugee grant facility," worth up to €3 billion, to help Turkey accommodate over two million Syrians, Reuters reported. More than 650,000 of the 800,000 refugees who have reached EU countries by sea this year have left from Turkey, according to AFP.In return for its help, Ankara wants the EU to provide visa-free travel for Turkish nationals, and a resumption of negotiations on Turkey's long-stalled application to join the 28-nation bloc, AFP reported.
  • Of the €3 billion ($3.2bn), 500 million would come from the EU budget and the rest, under the Commission proposal, from the 28 member states according to their national incomes.No EU country has yet committed to paying its share of the €3-billion bill, except Britain, according to the Guardian. While in Valletta, Prime Minister David Cameron offered €400 million for the Turkey plan.The current refugee crisis, dubbed the worst since WWII, has already proved to be a real challenge for Europe. Germany (population 80 million) may receive 1.5 million asylum seekers this year alone. It has already accepted more asylum applications than any other European nation, with a number of critics pointing to a high number of uneducated and illiterate people coming to the country.
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  • There has been a spike in hate crimes against refugees, with much far-right anger and criticism directed at Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to suspend the Dublin Regulation, which stipulates that migrants and refugees can only claim asylum at a German port of entry.
  • The migration crisis has given fresh impetus to the PEGIDA movement (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident), whose activists staged a number of demos across Germany last month.Some EU member countries are introducing temporary border controls to halt the influx of refugees and to screen those trying to enter the country illegally.
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Africa's possible Exit from the ICC | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...cas-possible-exit-from-the-icc neocolonialism Africa ICC
shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Several African nations, first and foremost South Africa, have signaled that AU member States have no advantage from being bound by the Rome Statutes and the International Criminal Court (ICC). The development comes in response to what a growing number of African policy makers denounce as the ICC’s selective prosecution and the ICC being an impediment to conflict resolution.
  • South Africa’s governing African National Congress is trailblazing a development that could result in South Africa’s and eventually African Union (AU) member States’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court (ICC). This month, former South African President Thabo Mbeki gave a lecture at the 2015 Tmali Alumni Forum that reflects a growing consensus among African nations. That is, that the ICC is notorious for selective prosecution, and especially for the prosecution of African and other political leaders and nationals from States with a policy that opposes the western neo-colonialist discourse.
  • Mbeki would also stress that the ICC is an impediment to conflict resolution on the African continent. Mbeki stressed the example of the ousted Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo was ousted by a clearly French-backed coup d’état in 2010. Gbagbo has since been extradited to The Hague.
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  • The ousted President is still being held in pre-trial detention. Mbeki stressed that the presence of Gbagbo was crucial for national reconciliation in Ivory Coast. Mbeki would add that there are several indicators that suggest that a civil war could erupt during the upcoming elections in the country, and that the ICC’s detention of Gbagbo threatens the country’s stability and is an impediment to national reconciliation. It is noteworthy that Ivory Coast, as a former French colony, is a member of the UMEOA (UEMOA). The economies of the monetary union’s African constituents is dominated and to a large degree dictated by France. Several analysts argue that Gbagbo’s downfall came due to his ambitions to set an end to what is widely known a French Finance Nazism. One of the latest controversies between South Africa, the ICC and several dominant western powers focused on what the ICC touted as South Africa’s failure to arrest and extradite Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. The South African and multiple other African governments in return, would argue that al-Bashir traveled to South Africa as President and representative of Sudan, enjoying diplomatic immunity. Another widely voiced objection to the ICC is that core permanent UN Security Council members USA, Russia and China are not subject to the provisions of the Rome Statute while the USA is among the first to call for prosecutions at the ICC. The ICC is, arguably, the plaything of superpowers and an extension of both colonialism and of Yalta.
  • AU member States, quitting the Rome Statute and ICC membership would be one step into a direction that may lead to increased independence from superpowers. Historical precedence has shown that it is a hazardous undertaking to challenge any superpower. The question is, how will South Africa and the AU play their cards and whether they play them in a manner that leads to sovereignty, or whether they play them in a manner that continues the post-Yalta hegemonic world that is euphemistically sold as a multi-polar world.
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On this Veterans Day, suicide has caused more American casualties than wars in Iraq and... - 0 views

www.montereyherald.com/...151119969 war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy veterans suicide stats
shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • One of the most tragic problems afflicting those who served their country is the specter of suicide, often the fallout of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After more than a year of intense lobbying by veterans groups, Congress this year passed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, named for a Marine veteran who took his own life even after working as an advocate for suicide prevention. The law is designed to reduce military and veteran suicides, and improve access to quality mental health care. But veterans experts estimate that 17 of the 22 daily suicides involve vets not enrolled in the VA’s healthcare system, suggesting more research — and far greater funding — will be necessary to get a handle on the problem.
  • With U.S. combat operations winding down in Afghanistan and Iraq, the suicide rate among ex-military members has risen from 18 a day in 2010, although studies undertaken by the Veterans Administration have failed to pinpoint a direct cause. Only about a third of all vets use the VA for healthcare, which leaves a wide swath of people who once wore the uniform outside the reach of the military’s data gathering.“Common sense would have us expect a correlation between number of deployments and combat with suicide risk,” says Fred MacRae, lead suicide prevention coordinator at the VA hospital in Palo Alto. But recent research suggests that’s not necessarily the case. #AD_text{ font-size: 11px; color: #999999; } Advertisement Not even the horrors of battle are a proven cause. “More and more,” says Jackie Maffucci, research director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), “the data are suggesting that exposure to combat is not one of the high-risk factors.”
  • Almost everyone who has served in the military now knows someone — often several someones — who suffers from disabling depression. Some end their own lives. Members of the IAVA were asked in a survey last year if they knew at least one post-9/11 veteran who had attempted suicide, and 47 percent answered yes. Another 40 percent knew at least one veteran who had died by suicide. “And 31 percent indicated they had thought about taking their own life since joining the military,” says Maffucci. “Those are startling numbers.”Daniel Faddis told another veteran in his family that he felt he had let down his military buddies when he was booted out. “He carried around a lot of guilt about that,” Stan Faddis says. “Some guys he knew ended up dying in combat, and he felt bad he wasn’t there to save them, or to die with them.”The current wait time for a mental health appointment at the VA in Palo Alto is about 12 days, and in a recent national study by the Government Accountability Office it averaged 26 days. Still, that’s considerably shorter than when the country went on a wartime footing following 9/11. “In 2001, your chances of dying by suicide were greater if you got your care in the VA system than if you got it elsewhere,” MacRae acknowledges. The new federal legislation is creating a program to help the VA recruit psychiatrists by assisting with their tuition payments, and it also requires an annual evaluation of VA mental health and suicide-prevention programs.
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With US Backing, France Launches Bombing Campaign in Syria | Global Research - Centre f... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5489440 war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy NATO-intervention
shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The G-20 summit of world political leaders being held in Turkey to discuss the economic issues impacting on the world economy has been turned into a council of war. The major imperialist powers are moving rapidly to escalate their military intervention in Syria in the wake of Friday night’s terror attack in Paris. Yesterday evening French fighter jets carried out their biggest raid on Syria. It was launched simultaneously from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, dropping 20 bombs on the Syrian city of Raqqa, reportedly targeting an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) command centre, a munitions depot and a training camp. The operation was carried out in coordination with US forces. Earlier, Ben Rhodes, the US deputy national security adviser, said he was confident that in the “coming days and weeks” the US and France would “intensify our strikes against [ISIS] … to make clear there is no safe haven for these terrorists.” Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rhodes said there would be an “intensification” of US military efforts and “what we are doing here at the G-20 is seeking to gain additional contributions from some of our partners so we can bring more force to bear on that effort.”
  • Demands are being brought forward from within the American military and political establishment for a major escalation in US action, regardless of the consequences. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican candidate for president, said that ISIS would “not be deterred by targeted air strikes with zero tolerance for civilian casualties, when the terrorists have such utter disregard for innocent life.” His call for vastly stepped-up US military action, without any regard for the consequences for the civilian population already devastated by the US-inspired civil war, were echoed by California Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It has become clear,” Feinstein said, “that limited air strikes and support for Iraqi forces and the Syrian opposition are not sufficient to protect our country and our allies.” Retired Navy admiral John Stavridis, who served as NATO’s top commander in Europe from 2009 to 2013, called for direct NATO intervention in Syria and Iraq. “Soft power and playing the long game matter in the Middle East, but there is a time for the ruthless application of hard power. This is that time, and NATO should respond militarily against the Islamic State with vigor,” Stavridis said.
  • The subsequent discussions between Obama and Putin at the G-20 were held as part of the US objective of sidelining, if not completely removing, Russian support for the Syrian regime of president Bashar al-Assad. Under the agreement, following a ceasefire, a process would be set in motion to establish “inclusive and non-sectarian” governance, the drafting of a new constitution and the holding of elections under UN supervision within 18 months. However, the crucial sticking point remains the future of Assad. In an interview on the eve of the G-20 summit, Putin said other nations had no right to demand that Assad leave office and that “only those who believe in their exceptionality [a thinly-veiled reference to the US] allow themselves to act in such a manner and impose their will on others.” The US has been waging a campaign since 2011 for the overturn of the Assad government as part of its regime-change operations in the Middle East, in order to bring the region under its control. Russia has backed Assad in order to protect its strategic interests in the region, including a naval facility in Syria. The US has made clear that as far as it is concerned there can be no resolution without Assad’s ouster—a position repeated by Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice. She said a “transition regime” had to come to power “and it’s very hard to envision how that could be accomplished with Assad still in power.”
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  • These remarks make clear that while the stepped up military offensive is being conducted under the banner of a “war” against ISIS, the real target is the Assad regime, which both the US and France want to see overturned. Other imperialist powers are also preparing to intervene. British Prime Minister David Cameron indicated his intention to seek parliamentary backing for the US of British forces. The UK refused to back the US in August–September 2013 over plans to attack Syria, causing Obama to pull back and accept a Russian intervention to destroy Syrian chemical weapons. “It’s becoming even more clear that our safety and security depends on degrading and ultimately destroying Isil [ISIS] whether it’s in Iraq or Syria,” Cameron said. Following the talks with Obama at the G-20, a spokesman for Putin said that, while it was too early to speak of a rapprochement, there was need for “unity” in the fight against terror. This was met with what the Financial Times described as “thinly disguised scorn” on the part of EU Council President Donald Tusk. “We need not only more co-operation but also more goodwill, especially from Russian action on the ground in Syria. It must be focused more on Islamic state and not … against the moderate Syrian opposition,” he said.
  • The “moderate Syrian opposition” is a mythical being created by imperialist politicians and a compliant media. The forces opposed to the Assad regime are dominated by groups such as Al Nusra, spawned by Al Qaeda, from which ISIS also developed. The fictional character of the so-called “moderates” was exposed earlier this year when it was revealed that, despite an expenditure of millions of dollars for the purpose of military training, the US was only able to find four or five people who could fall into that category. The Paris terror attack is a terrible blow-back consequence of US operations in the Middle East. The statements emanating from imperialist world leaders and the discussions at the G-20 make clear that terror attacks resulting from yesterday’s crimes are rapidly being employed for the commission of new ones.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    Looking more and more like Paris was a false flag to justify NATO intervention in Syria.
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Syrian Air Strike Exterminates Commander Behind 2013 Chemical Weapons Attack in Ghouta ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...mical-weapons-attack-in-ghouta war & peace Syria Alloush Jaysh al-Islam Liwa al-Islam Ghouta sarin false-flag
shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Zahran Alloush, the commander of the Jaysh al-Islam alliance was killed in a Damascus suburb. August 21, 2013 the Saudi intelligence asset Alloush was commanding Liwa-al-Islam when he gave the order to launch the chemical weapons attack against the East Ghouta suburb of Damascus. Zahran Alloush has been on the payroll of Saudi intelligence since the 1980s.
  • The Central Command of the Syrian Arab Army confirmed that it successfully launched an air strike in the Damascus suburb of Otaya, targeting and killing several Jihadist commanders. Among them the leader of Jaysh al-Islam, Zahran Alloush. Jaysh al-Islam is an alliance of several Jihadist militia, including Liwa-al-Islam. Jaysh al-Islam is allied with the Syrian Al-Qaeda Franchise Jabhat Al-Nusrah. An in-depth investigation by nsnbc international, in 2013, concluded that Zahran Alloush was the commander who gave the direct order to launch the chemical weapons attack in East Ghouta on August 21, 2013.
  • The investigation also concluded that command responsibility for Alloush’s decision led directly to the U.S.’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House, and to the Saudi government. Alloush would also be in control over choosing the “security guards” UN inspectors had to submit to while gathering evidence after the chemical weapons attack in East Ghouta. (see details and names in the report). Zahran Alloush, Liwa-al-Islam and Saudi intelligence also played central roles in the attempt to obstruct Syria’s decommissioning of chemical weapons by launching attacks against chemical weapons transports. The information about these transports was highly classified, leading the Syrian government to the conclusion that Saudi intelligence provided information to Liwa-al-Islam. Zahran Alloush was since the 1990s involved in the Salafist – Wahabbist terrorist networks in Syria which led to his arrest by Syrian intelligence. He was released in early of 2011, when the Assad administration granted a general amnesty. Immediately after his March 2011 release from prison, Zahran Alloush began receiving substantial funds and weapons from Saudi intelligence, which enabled him to establish Liwa-al-Islam as a de facto Saudi Arabia sponsored mercenary brigade under the auspices of the Saudi Interior Ministry.
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  • The Saudi intelligence assets Alloush and Liwa-al-Islam also played crucial roles in the demise of the predominantly Qatari and Turkish backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other, predominantly Qatari-backed insurgencies. In June 2013 in the Jobar district of Damascus, for example, Alloush withdrew his Liwa-al-Islam troops during a major battle with the Syrian Arab Army without announcing the sudden withdrawal to the Qatar-sponsored First Brigade and the Liwa Jaish al-Muslimeen. Both brigades were literally wiped out by the Syrian Army. The air strike that exterminated Zahran Alloush also exterminated one of the primary field commanders who were responsible for the transition from the primacy of Muslim Brotherhood linked insurgencies to Al-Qaeda-linked insurgencies in the Syrian theater. That includes the primacy of Jabhat al-Nusrah, Jaysh al-Islam, Liwa-al-Islam, and ultimately also the self-proclaimed Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIL, ISIS or Daesh.
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Can the AEC be a success? - nsnbc international | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...can-the-aec-be-a-success trade ASEAN AEC outlook
shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • After almost two decades of discussion, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be proclaimed on 31st December. The AEC is a potentially significant and competitive economic region, should it be allowed to develop according to the aspiration of being a “single market and production base, with free flow of services, investments, and labour, by the year 2020”.
  • The ASEAN region as a composite trading block has the third highest population at 634 million, after China and India. GDP per capita is rapidly rising. The AEC would be the 4th largest exporter after China, the EU, and the United States, with still very much scope for growth from Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam from a diverse range of activities ranging from agriculture, food, minerals and commodities, electronics, and services. The coming AEC is already the 4th largest importer of goods after the United States, EU, and China, making it one of the biggest markets in the world. Unlike the other trade regions, the AEC still has so much potential for growth with rising population, rising incomes, growing consumer sophistication, and improving infrastructure. Perhaps the biggest benefit of the upcoming AEC is the expected boost this will give to intra-ASEAN trade. Most ASEAN nations have previously put their efforts into developing external relationships with the major trading nations like the EU, Japan and the US through bilateral and free trade agreements. To some extent, the potential of intra-ASEAN trade was neglected, perhaps with the exception of the entrepot of Singapore. The AEC is an opportunity to refocus trade efforts within the region, especially when Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia are rapidly developing, and Myanmar is opening up for business with the rest of the region.
  • There are no integrated banking structures, no agreement on common and acceptable currencies (some ASEAN currencies are not interchangeable), no double taxation agreements, and no formal agreements on immigration. There is not even any such thing as a common ASEAN business visa. These issues are going to hinder market access for regional SMEs. Any local market operations will have to fulfil local laws and regulations which may not be easy for non-citizens to meet and adhere to. Even though there are some preferential tariffs for a number of classes of ASEAN originating goods, non-tariff barriers are still in existence, which are insurmountable in some cases like the need for import licenses (APs) in Malaysia, and the need to have a registered company which can only be formed by Thai nationals within Thailand. Some of these problems are occurring because of the very nature of ASEAN itself. ASEAN was founded on the basis of consultation, consensus, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other members. This means that no formal problem solving mechanism exists, and the ASEAN Secretariat is a facilitator rather than implementer of policy. Illegal workers, human trafficking, money laundering, and haze issues between member states have no formal mechanisms through which these issues can be solved from an ASEAN perspective. This weakens the force for regional integration.
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  • However the necessary infrastructure to support intra-ASEAN trade growth is lagging behind with a delay in the completion of the Trans-Asia Highway in Cambodia, and vastly inadequate border checkpoints between Malaysia and Thailand in Sadao and Kelantan. Some infrastructure development projects have been severely hit by finance shortfalls within member states. There are a number of outstanding issues concerning the growth and development of the AEC. The ASEAN Secretariat based in Jakarta has a small staff, where the best talent is lacking due to the small salaries paid. The Secretariat unlike the EU bureaucratic apparatus in Brussels relies on cooperation between the member state governments for policy direction, funding and implementation of the AEC. Thus the frontline of AEC implementation are the individual country ministries, which presents many problems, as some issues require multi-ministry cooperation and coordination, which is not always easy to achieve as particular ministries have their own visions and agendas. Getting cooperation of these ministries isn’t easy. There are numerous structural and procedural issues yet to be contended with. At the inter-governmental level, laws and regulations are yet to be coordinated and harmonized. So in-effect there is one community with 10 sets of regulations in effect this coming January 1st. Consumer laws, intellectual property rights, company and corporate codes (no provision for ASEAN owned companies), land codes, and investment rules are all different among the individual member states.
  • One of the major issues weakening the potential development of the AEC is the apparent lack of political commitment for a common market by the leadership of the respective ASEAN members. Thailand is currently in a struggle to determine how the country should be governed. Malaysia is in the grip of corruption scandals where the prime minister is holding onto power. Myanmar is going through a massive change in the way it will be governed. Indonesia is still struggling with how its archipelago should be governed. There is a view from Vietnam that business within the country is not ready for the AEC. Intense nationalistic sentiments among for example Thais, exasperated by the recent Preach Vihear Temple conflict along the Thai-Cambodian border need to be softened to get full advantage out of the AEC. The dispute in the International Court of Justice over Pedra Branca, and the Philippine rift with China over the South China Sea show the delicacy of relationships among ASEAN members. The recent Thai court decision on the guilt of Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun in the murder of two young British tourists may also show how fragile intra-ASEAN relationships can be. The AEC is going to fall far short of achieving its full potential of becoming a major influence in global trade. The AEC is not intended to be the same model as the EEC. The AEC is far from being any fully integrated economic community. The lack of social, cultural, and political integration within the ASEAN region indicates the massive job ahead that Europe had been through decades ago. There is still a lot of public ignorance about what the AEC is, and lack of excitement or expectation for what should be a major event within the region. Respective national media are scant on information about the forthcoming launch of the AEC.
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Brazil Refuses Israeli Settler as Diplomatic Envoy - International Middle East Media Ce... - 0 views

www.imemc.org/74388 war & peace Israel Palestine Brazil settlements ambassador
shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Brazil’s reluctance to accept an Israeli ambassador who is a West Bank colonist has set off a diplomatic crisis and led to concerns in the Israeli government that the clash could encourage pro-Palestinian activism against it.
  • The appointment four months ago of Dani Dayan, a former head of the Jewish colony movement, did not go down well with Brazil’s left-leaning government, which has supported Palestinian statehood in recent years. Most world powers deem the "Jews-only" colonies on Palestinian land as illegal. The regime’s previous ambassador, Reda Mansour, left Brasilia last week and the Israeli government said on Sunday that Brazil risked degrading bilateral relations if Dayan was not allowed to succeed him. “Israel will leave the level of diplomatic relations with Brazil at the secondary level if the appointment of Dani Dayan is not confirmed,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Israel’s Channel 10 TV, saying Dayan would remain the sole nominee. She said Israel would lobby Brasilia through the Brazilian Jewish community, confidants of President Dilma Rousseff and direct appeals from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • Brazilian government officials declined to comment on whether Rousseff will accept the nomination of the Argentine-born Dayan. But one senior Foreign Ministry official said: “I do not see that happening.”
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  • The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said Israel would have to choose a different envoy because the choice of Dayan has further worsened relations that turned sour in 2010 when Brazil decided to recognise Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in a 1967 war and colonised. Israel quit Gaza in 2005 but claims occupied Jerusalem as its “indivisible capital” and wants to keep swathes of West Bank colonies under any eventual peace deal with the Palestinians.
  • Brazil’s government was also angered by the announcement of Dayan’s appointment by Netanyahu in a Twitter message on August 5 before Brasilia had been informed, let alone agreed to the new envoy as is the diplomatic norm. Over the weekend, Dayan went on the offensive to defend his nomination, telling Israeli media that Netanyahu’s government was not doing enough to press Brazil to accept him. Dayan said not doing so could create a precedent barring colonists from representing Israel abroad.
  • Israel has a considerable role in providing avionics technology for Brazil’s aerospace and defense industry. Celso Amorim, a former Brazilian foreign and defence minister, said on Friday that the diplomatic dispute over Dayan’s appointment showed that “it is time the Brazilian armed forces reduced their dependence on Israel.”
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