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Did Obama Know that ISIS Planned to Invade Iraq? » CounterPunch: Tells the Fa... - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...at-isis-planned-to-invade-iraq war & peace Iraq ISIL intelligence Obama
shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Today’s head-scratcher: How could a two-mile long column of jihadi-filled white Toyota Land rovers barrel across the Syrian border into Iraq–sending plumes of dust up into the atmosphere –without US spy satellites detecting their whereabouts when those same satellites can read a damn license plate from outer space? And why has the media failed to inquire about this massive Intelligence failure?
  • By the way, according to the Telegraph, Obama and friends knew what ISIS was up to, and knew that the terrorist group was going to launch attacks on cities in the Sunni territories, just as they have. Get a load of this: “Five months ago, a Kurdish intelligence “asset” walked into a base and said he had information to hand over. The capture by jihadists the month before of two Sunni cities in western Iraq was just the beginning, he said. There would soon be a major onslaught on Sunni territories. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), a renegade offshoot of al-Qaeda, was about to take its well-known cooperation with leftovers of the regime of Saddam Hussein,  and his former deputy Izzat al-Douri, to a new level.
  • His handlers knew their source of old, and he had always proved reliable, officials told The Telegraph. So they listened carefully as he said a formal alliance was about to be signed that would lead to the takeover of Mosul, the biggest city north of Baghdad, home to two million people. … ‘We had this information then, and we passed it on to your (British) government and the US government,’ Rooz Bahjat, a senior lieutenant to Lahur Talabani, head of Kurdish intelligence, said. ‘We used our official liaisons.’ ‘We knew exactly what strategy they were going to use, we knew the military planners. It fell on deaf ears.’  (How US and Britain were warned of Isis advance in Iraq but ‘turned a deaf ear, Telegraph)
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  • “Deaf ears”? I’m not buying it. I think the intelligence went straight to the top, where Obama and his neocon colleagues came up with the plan that is unfolding as we speak. They figured, if they just look the other way and let these homicidal madhatters seize a few cities and raise a little Hell, they’d be able to kill two birds with one stone, that is,  get rid of al Mailiki and partition the country at the same time. But, it’s not going to work out like Obama expects, mainly because this is just about the dumbest plan ever conjured up. I would give it an 80 percent chance blowing up in Obama’s face in less than a month’s time. This turkey has failure written all over it.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Jun 14
     
    Seems that those in the White House can't see the connections between the dots even when someone draws those connections for them. Or, as this author suggests, they were happy about the way the dots were connected.
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Ted Cruz: Legal Limit Report 4 - 0 views

www.scribd.com/...Ted-Cruz-Legal-Limit-Report-4 Ted-Cruz rule-of-law
shared by Gary Edwards on 07 May 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 07 May 14
     
    "  1 THE LEGAL LIMIT: THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S ATTEMPTS TO EXPAND FEDERAL POWER  Report No. 4: The Obama Administration's Abuse of Power By U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) Ranking Member Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on The Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President's persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat. The President's taste for unilateral action to circumvent Congress should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology. The great 18th-century political philosopher Montesquieu observed: "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates." America's Founding Fathers took this warning to heart, and we should too. Rule of law doesn't simply mean that society has laws; dictatorships are often characterized by an abundance of laws. Rather, rule of law means that we are a nation ruled   by laws, not men. No one-and especially not the president-is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." R ather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. In the more than two centuries of our nation's history, there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same. For all those who are silent now: What would they think of a Republican president who announced that he was going to ignore th
  • Gary Edwards on 08 May 14
     
    "  1 THE LEGAL LIMIT: THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S ATTEMPTS TO EXPAND FEDERAL POWER  Report No. 4: The Obama Administration's Abuse of Power By U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) Ranking Member Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on The Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President's persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat. The President's taste for unilateral action to circumvent Congress should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology. The great 18th-century political philosopher Montesquieu observed: "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates." America's Founding Fathers took this warning to heart, and we should too. Rule of law doesn't simply mean that society has laws; dictatorships are often characterized by an abundance of laws. Rather, rule of law means that we are a nation ruled   by laws, not men. No one-and especially not the president-is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." R ather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. In the more than two centuries of our nation's history, there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same. For all those who are silent now: What would they think of a Republican president who announced that he was going to ignore the law, or unil
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The Qatari Deal To Hold The Taliban - The Qataris Have Been Used Before By President Ob... - 1 views

theconservativetreehouse.com/...ama-with-horrific-consequences Benghazi-coverup Qatar Gitmo-5 Obammunism
shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Three months, a naval fleet, 3,000 marines, one Billion dollars, and 450 cruise missiles later, it’s May 2011 and Obama had yet to ask for permission to engage in his offensive war from anyone but himself and the previously noted ‘club of the traveling pantsuits’. Despite the Office of Legal Council (the golfers own legal team) telling him approval is needed, he chose to violate the War Powers Act and more importantly the Constitution. It is critical to remember the political battle being waged at the time over whether President Obama had the authority to take “offensive military action”, without congressional approval,  when the threat was not against the United States. It’s critical because from that initial impetus you find the reason why arming the Libyan rebels had to be done by another method – because President Obama never consulted congress, nor sought permission.
  • Normally, in order to send arms to the rebels lawfully, President Obama would have to request approval from Congress. He did not want to do that.   Partly because he was arrogant, and partly because he did not want the politically charged fight that such a request would engage.  It would hamper his ability to take unilateral action in Libya.
  • So an alternate method of arming the rebels needed to be structured.    Enter the State Department, Hillary Clinton, and CIA David Petraeus. Weapons, specifically MANPADS or shoulder fired missiles, would be funneled to the Benghazi rebels by the State Dept, through the CIA under the auspices of ongoing NATO operations.   May, June, July, August, Sept, 2011 this covert process was taking place. It was this covert missile delivery process which later became an issue after Gaddafi was killed.    It was during the recovery of these missiles , and the redeployment/transfer to the now uprising “Syrian Rebels” when Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed on Sept. 11th 2012.
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  • [O]n July 25, 2012, Taliban fighters in Kunar province successfully targeted a US Army CH-47 helicopter with a new generation Stinger missile. They thought they had a surefire kill. But instead of bursting into flames, the Chinook just disappeared into the darkness as the American pilot recovered control of the aircraft and brought it to the ground in a hard landing. The assault team jumped out the open doors and ran clear in case it exploded. Less than 30 seconds later, the Taliban gunner and his comrade erupted into flames as an American gunship overhead locked onto their position and opened fire. The next day, an explosive ordnance disposal team arrived to pick through the wreckage and found unexploded pieces of a missile casing that could only belong to a Stinger missile. Lodged in the right nacelle, they found one fragment that contained an entire serial number. The investigation took time. Arms were twisted, noses put out of joint. But when the results came back, they were stunning: The Stinger tracked back to a lot that had been signed out by the CIA recently, not during the anti-Soviet ­jihad. Reports of the Stinger reached the highest echelons of the US command in Afghanistan and became a source of intense speculation, but no action. Everyone knew the war was winding down. Revealing that the Taliban had US-made Stingers risked demoralizing coalition troops. Because there were no coalition casualties, government officials made no public announcement of the attack. My sources in the US Special Operations community believe the Stinger fired against the Chinook was part of the same lot the CIA turned over to the ­Qataris in early 2011, weapons Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department intended for anti-Khadafy forces in Libya. They believe the Qataris delivered between 50 and 60 of those same Stingers to the Taliban in early 2012, and an additional 200 SA-24 Igla-S surface-to-air missiles.  (link)
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jun 14
     
    The pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together, and it isn't pretty. This article connects Qatar, Afghanistan and hero of Benghazi, to the fabulous five terrorist dream team Obama let out of the gitmo prison. Incredible story. excerpt: "How Our Stinger Missiles Wound Up In Afghanistan Being Used Against Our Own Troops: On February 15th 2011 a civil war erupted inside Libya.   Egyptian Islamists previously  freed from jail by the Muslim Brotherhood flooded into Eastern Libya and joined with their ideological counterparts.  al-Qaeda operatives hell bent on using the cover of the Arab Spring to finally rid themselves of their nemesis, Muammar Gaddafi. President Obama chose to ignore an outbreak of violence in Libya for 19 days.  Perhaps Obama was tentative from the criticism he and Hillary received over the mixed messaging in Egypt.  Regardless, eventually Obama was begged to engage himself by leaders from France, The United Kingdom, and Italy. The White House advisors (Emanuel, McDonough, Donolin, Jarrett, Axelrod, Plouffe) were more cautious this time.  Initially Obama ignored the EU requests and later chose to dispatch the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to Europe to address their concerns. "Look, enough with the jokes shorty; you got us into this mess, now the turban heads are laughing at us"… "ah, bot of course, zeah av bullets, no? Vee ave to shoot" For the following 11 days American citizens, including State Dept. embassy officials, were trying to evacuate the country as vast swathes of the country erupted in bloodshed and violence, they became trapped in Tripoli.   A bloody national revolution was underway. The United Nations Security Council held urgent immediate emergency meetings to try to determine what to do.    However, the United States Ambassador to those meetings, Susan Rice, was not present.    She was attending a global warming summit in Africa. Without the U.S. present the United  Natio
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Annals of National Security: The Redirection : The New Yorker - 0 views

www.newyorker.com/...070305fa_fact_hersh war & peace Syria Syrian war origins U.S. Hersh
shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
  • Jumblatt said, “We told Cheney that the basic link between Iran and Lebanon is Syria—and to weaken Iran you need to open the door to effective Syrian opposition.” There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.
  • Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be “the ones to talk to,” Jumblatt said.
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  • Partition would leave Israel surrounded by “small tranquil states,” he said. “I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small ethnic and confessional states,” he said. “In other words, Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East.”
  • Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But, he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.”
  • Fourth, the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations.
  • Flynt Leverett, a former Bush Administration National Security Council official, told me that “there is nothing coincidental or ironic” about the new strategy with regard to Iraq. “The Administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, when—if you look at the actual casualty numbers—the punishment inflicted on America by the Sunnis is greater by an order of magnitude,” Leverett said. “This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.”
  • “It seems there has been a debate inside the government over what’s the biggest danger—Iran or Sunni radicals,” Vali Nasr, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has written widely on Shiites, Iran, and Iraq, told me. “The Saudis and some in the Administration have been arguing that the biggest threat is Iran and the Sunni radicals are the lesser enemies. This is a victory for the Saudi line.”
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Jan 14
     
    Propaganda issued by the U.S. government has it that the war in Syria began with peaceful protesters seeking reform of the Syrian government. This Seymour Hersh article from 2007 gives us a better glimpse of the truth, that the Neocon-led Bush II Administration worked with Saudi Arabia to undermine the Syrian government using radical Sunnis as their vehicle. That is in line with the Israeli/Zionist long-term plan to Balkanize other nations in the Mideast while expanding Israeli territory and influence. 
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AIPAC girds for rare high-noon showdown with White House | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/noon-showdown-with-white-house war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth Congress AIPAC Obama
shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • It will be the DC equivalent of the showdown at the OK Corral. Stepping into the summer haze on Capitol Hill, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee and its allies are set to face off against the ultimate power broker – 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – backed up by a cadre of its allied groups
  • The lobbying showdown, over a Congressional vote on the nuclear deal with Iran, represents a rare moment for AIPAC, with the avowedly bipartisan organization publicly splitting with the sitting administration over a major foreign policy initiative. Even at the peak of tensions between the Obama administration and the Israeli government earlier this year, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress coincided with the AIPAC policy conference’s lobbying day, the pro-Israel organization worked hard to keep its head above an ugly fray. AIPAC’s efforts at bipartisanship, and specifically at avoiding picking a fight with the president, extend back decades. For years, the organization has maintained a policy of remaining tight-lipped on budgetary face-offs, preferring instead to focus on completed deals and lobbying successes.
  • On Iran, the fight has been growing increasingly rancorous. AIPAC publicly backed legislation sponsored by senators Mark Kirk and Bob Menendez that would have threatened Iran with additional sanctions if talks had failed – a bill that the administration fervently opposed. The administration has accused skeptics of the Iran deal of suggesting no alternative short of war, and in a lengthy press conference Wednesday, President Barack Obama warned Congress against being swayed by “lobbyists” – suggesting that deal opponents were not concentrating solely on the US interest.
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  • While such a scrap between AIPAC and the administration is not without precedent, it has been over two decades since the last bare-knuckles fight. In fact, longtime Washington insiders can only recall two other cases in the past 40 years in which the organization took on the president. Significantly to this battle, neither instance ended with a clear win for the pro-Israel lobby. Such standoffs remain so sensitive that few involved are willing to discuss publicly the dramas of past decades.
  • But despite the vitriol of that fight, it still falls short of the battle shaping up in Washington today. The AWACS sale was, when push came to shove, a weapons transfer meant to solidify the US-Saudi alliance; it did not hold the same status for the Reagan administration as the landmark Iran deal, which many see as a legacy project of the Obama administration.
  • This is the first time, Washington old-timers agree, that the self-imposed stakes have been quite so high for the administration. Neither side is likely to retreat, setting the stage for the history-making clash. Only the coming two months will tell whether this showdown will end any differently than the previous ones – or how deep the bad blood will run before it’s done.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Jul 15
     
    I suspect this is a bit overdone; it's from the Times of Israel. Other reporting says that a deal has already been struck; Israel gets advanced U.S. weaponry and even greater foreign aid; Israel and its allies put up only token resistance in Congress. 
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The Homeland and Ignorance About Terrorism « LobeLog - 0 views

www.lobelog.com/-and-ignorance-about-terrorism war & peace terrorism™ U.S. stats Muslims whites
shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Many misconceptions about terrorism prevail among the American public. Occasionally one of these misconceptions gets challenged when hard data conveying a different picture become available. This is true of a recent New America study showing that most of the deaths in the United States from terrorist attacks since September 2001 have been perpetrated not by jihadists or other radical Muslims but instead by white supremacists, antigovernment activists, and other non-Muslim extremists. The discrepancy between such findings and prevalent American beliefs about terrorism can be glaring enough for the discrepancy to become literally a front-page story. But even that sort of attention is insufficient to kill prevailing beliefs—in this case, the belief that terrorism and specifically terrorism that threatens Americans is overwhelmingly a radical Muslim thing. Information similar to that in the New America study has been around for some time; a survey of law enforcement agencies, for example, yielded similar data. The recent multiple killings by a white supremacist in a predominantly black church in Charleston, South Carolina has led some to raise a closely related issue of what tends to get called terrorism and what doesn’t. But this incident is another attention-grabbing event that seems again unlikely to overturn the popular notions of who most terrorists are and what they believe. The misconceptions have multiple roots.
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U.S. to defend Syrian rebels with airpower, including from Assad | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...yria-usa-idUSKCN0Q803Y20150803 war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy targeting-Assad Obama cover-up
shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • The United States has decided to allow airstrikes to defend Syrian rebels trained by the U.S. military from any attackers, even if the enemies hail from forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. officials said on Sunday.The decision by President Barack Obama, which could deepen the U.S. role in Syria's conflict, aims to shield a still-fledging group of Syrian fighters armed and trained by the United States to battle Islamic State militants -- not forces loyal to Assad.But in Syria's messy civil war, Islamic State is only one of the threats to the U.S. recruits. The first batch of U.S.-trained forces deployed to northern Syria came under fire on Friday from other militants, triggering the first known U.S. airstrikes to support them.U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to confirm details of the decision, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, said the United States would provide offensive strikes to support advances against Islamic State targets. The United States would also provide defensive support to repel any attackers.
  • The Pentagon and the White House declined to discuss the decision on rules of engagement or confirm comments by the unnamed U.S. officials.
  • The U.S. military launched its program in May to train up to 5,400 fighters a year in what was seen as a test of Obama's strategy of getting local partners to combat extremists and keep U.S. troops off the front lines.The training program has been challenged from the start, with many candidates being declared ineligible and some even dropping out.
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Aug 15
     
    Typical. Authorized leakers announce that Obama has declared war against the democratically-elected government of Syria, then White House officials refuse to confirm it on grounds that a declaration of war is somehow a mere "rule of engagement."  Yet the Constitution holds that only Congress can declare war. 
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White House Seeks to Soothe Relations With Venezuela - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-relations-with-venezuela.html war & peace Venezuela U.S.-foreign-policy
shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • A White House official said Tuesday that Venezuela was not a threat to the national security of the United States, backing off language in an executive order that had inflamed relations with the South American nation and drawn criticism from other countries in the region.The comments came as President Obama prepared to leave for a trip to the Caribbean and Latin America that will include a meeting of heads of state from the hemisphere.“The United States does not believe that Venezuela poses some threat to our national security,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, during a telephone call with reporters to discuss the president’s trip.
  • He was referring to an executive order signed by Mr. Obama last month that called for economic sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials who the United States said were involved in human rights abuses or violations of due process. Continue reading the main story Related in Opinion Editorial: A Failing Relationship With Venezuela MARCH 12, 2015 The executive order said that Venezuela was a threat to national security and that it constituted a national emergency for the United States.
  • The language escalated tensions between the two countries and provoked an angry response from President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Even Venezuelan opposition leaders said it was excessive and had inadvertently played to Mr. Maduro’s political benefit.American officials had previously sought to play down the language in the order, saying that the administration was required by law to make the security threat designation to carry out the sanctions.But Mr. Rhodes went further on Tuesday, explicitly stating that Venezuela did not pose a threat, adding that the language was “completely pro forma.”“We, frankly, just have a framework for how we formalize these executive orders,” he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Apr 15
     
    "completely pro forma".  "When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all." So because Congress said Obama has to make a written finding of a threat to national security in order to issue sanctions, Obama can make such a finding whether or not there is such a threat? Outrageous. Any judge who ruled that it is a winning argument would be laughed off the bench. Mr. Rhodes insults the public's intelligence. 
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Dorothy Rabinowitz: The Alien in the White House - WSJ.com - 1 views

online.wsj.com/...3302604575294231631318728.html obammunism dorothy-rabinowitz wsj
shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Jun 10
     
    Wow.  Maybe the best analysis of the growing awareness of the vast differential between the patriot citizens of America and the Obammunist now in charge of our country. excerpt:  The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill. There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president-single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival-was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice-and for good reason. Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July. A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.
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Stansberry's Investment Advisory - 0 views

www.stansberryresearch.com/...PR Banksters Porter-Stansberry financial-collapse dollar-destruction Obammunism
shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Sep 11 - No Cached
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 10 Sep 11
       
      excerpt: THE FOLLOWING IS A FICTIONAL DRAMATIZATION OF A PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, ADDRESSING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, FROM THE EAST ROOM OF THE WHITE HOUSE Set in December 2012, this speech details what we believe The President might say on the day America's foreign creditors finally stop lending us money, and demand repayment for our country's debts. The largest debts EVER accumulated in the history of mankind. intro: Barack Obama Impersonator Records Shocking "Speech"  It may be fiction for now... But this eye-opening "speech," recently recorded by a Barack Obama impersonator, is sending shock waves through the financial community. It could forever change how you think about our country and your safety. 
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Sep 11
     
    Comment:  While researching the September 2008 financial collapse, a freind introduced me to Porter Stansberry (thanks Marux!).  I've been following Porter through the Daily Crux Report ever since, and, as extreme as his opinions appear, time and again he has proven to be drop dead right.  This latest presentation summarizes Porter's thinking and is buttressed with facts and quotes.  The first part of the presentation is a fictional press conference dated December 2012.  This about 15 minutes.  Porter then follows that with near 45 minutes of facts and quotes woven into a comprehensive summary of how we got into this mess and what the possible outcomes going forward.   The basics are simple enough: the combination of Government borrowing, spending, printing and regulating is killing the dollar.  Our currency is very special in that it's the world's reserve currency; a good fortune that has unfortunately resulted in our spending and borrowing way more than we produce.  On top of this dilemma, the financial crisis of 2008 resulted in the world's Banksters offloading their $Trillions of debt and losses onto the US Treasury; the taxpayers.  So now we have the taxpayers holding the debt of an out of control socialist government spending, borrowing, and regulating us into the dirt regulating.  And, these same taxpayers picking up all the losses of the World's most greedy and evil criminals - the Banksters.  At the center of it all is the Federal Reserve, a world Bankster cartel in control of our currency, and printing it out like there's no tomorrow.  Porter talks about that tomorrow, and what it might look like if we the people do not take back our government and our currency.   excerpt: THE FOLLOWING IS A FICTIONAL DRAMATIZATION OF A PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, ADDRESSING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, FROM THE EAST ROOM OF THE WHITE HOUSE Set in December 2012, this speech details what we believe The President might say on the day America's fore
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EFF Fights Destruction of Spying Evidence in Court Wednesday | Electronic Frontier Foun... - 0 views

www.eff.org/...pying-evidence-court-wednesday surveillance state NSA-blowback litigation
shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Government Claims EFF's Lawsuits Don't Cover Ongoing Surveillance – Raising Fears Key Documents May Have Been DestroyedUPDATE: Judge White today continued his temporary restraining order in these two cases until a more permanent order could be put in place. The question of whether the government improperly destroyed evidence so far will be briefed over the next several weeks.
  • San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will fight disturbing new government claims in an emergency court hearing Wednesday – claims that may imply records documenting ongoing government surveillance have been destroyed despite a judge's order. Over the last several weeks, EFF has been battling to ensure that evidence of the NSA surveillance program will be preserved as part of its two cases challenging the illegal government spying: Jewel v. NSA and First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA. But in a court filing late Monday, the government made shocking new assertions, arguing that its obligation to preserve evidence was limited to aspects of the original Bush-era spying program, which the government contends ended eight years ago with a transition to FISA court orders.
  • Government Claims EFF's Lawsuits Don't Cover Ongoing Surveillance – Raising Fears Key Documents May Have Been DestroyedUPDATE: Judge White today continued his temporary restraining order in these two cases until a more permanent order could be put in place. The question of whether the government improperly destroyed evidence so far will be briefed over the next several weeks.
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  • This argument simply does not make sense. EFF has been demanding an injunction to stop this illegal spying program, regardless of the government's shifting justifications," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn, who will argue in front of U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White at the hearing Wednesday. "But these government claims aren't just nonsensical – they are extremely worrisome and dangerous. The government is suggesting it may have destroyed years' worth of evidence about its illegal spying, justified by its own secret interpretation of our case. This is about more than just phone records; it's about evidence concerning all of the government's spying. EFF is asking the court for a full accounting of just what is going on here, and it's time for the government to come clean." EFF has been litigating against illegal NSA surveillance for more than eight years. Jewel v. NSA is a case brought on behalf of AT&T customers who were subject to unconstitutional NSA spying. In First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA, EFF represents 22 groups whose First Amendment rights to association are violated by the NSA program.
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What Obama Told Us At West Point -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org - 0 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...-west-point-paul-craig-roberts war & peace Obama West-Point U.S.-foreign-policy rule-of-law war crimes
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  • At West Point Obama told us, to the applause of West Point cadets, that “American exceptionalism” is a doctrine that justifies whatever Washington does. If Washington violates domestic and international law by torturing “detainees” or violates the Nuremberg standard by invading countries that have undertaken no hostile action against the US or its allies, “exceptionalism” is the priest’s blessing that absolves Washington’s sins against law and international norms. Washington’s crimes are transformed into Washington’s affirmation of the rule of law. Here is Obama in his own words: “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.” Actions indeed. In the 21st century “American exceptionalism” has destroyed seven countries in whole or in part. Millions of people are dead, maimed, and displaced, and all of this criminal destruction is evidence of Washington’s reaffirmation of international norms and the rule of law. Destruction and murder are merely collateral damage from Washington’s affirmation of international norms.
  • “American exceptionalism” also means that US presidents can lie through their teeth and misrepresent those they choose to demonize. Listen to Obama’s misrepresentations of the Putin and Assad governments: “Russia’s aggression towards former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe . . . In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe .” Obama misrepresents Assad as “a dictator who bombs and starves his own people.” Did any of the cadets in Obama’s West Point audience wonder why, if Assad is a brutal dictator who bombs and starves his own people, the Syrian people are supporting Assad instead of the American-backed “liberation forces,” the combination of imported jihadists and al Qaeda fighters who object to Assad’s government because it is secular? The US military is taught to respect its civilian commander-in-chief, but if West Point cadets actually do obtain an education, it is remarkable that Obama’s audience did not break out in laughter.
  • Obama’s speech is probably the most disingenuous ever given by a Western politician. We could have fun for hours with all the crimes that Washington commits but buries in rhetoric directed at others. Perhaps my favorite is Obama evoking a world in which “individuals aren’t slaughtered because of political belief.” I am sure Obama was thinking of this just world when he murdered without due process of law four American citizens “outside of areas of active hostilities.” Another favorite is the way Obama flushed the US Constitution of its meaning. Obama said, with reference to bringing the Guantanamo prisoners to the US, that “American values and legal traditions don’t permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders.” No, Obama, the US Constitution prevents the indefinite detention of US citizens by the US government anywhere on earth, especially within our borders. By detaining and by murdering US citizens without due process of law, Obama has violated his oath of office and should be impeached. It was only a short time ago that President Bill Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives (the Senate saved him from conviction) for lying about his sexual affair with a White House intern. How times change. Today a president who violates his oath of office to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic gets a free ride. The Constitution has lost its power to protect citizens from the arbitrary power of government. The US is the Constitution. Without the Constitution the US ceases to exist, and the country becomes a tyranny, both at home and abroad.Today the US is a tyranny cloaked in the garb of “freedom and democracy.”
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  • Instead of laughing our way through Obama’s ridiculous speech to what apparently was a dumbed-down West Point graduating class, lets pay attention to Obama’s bottom line: “America must always lead on the world stage. . . . The military is, and always will be, the backbone of that leadership.” In other words, Washington doesn’t use diplomacy. Washington uses coercion. The favorite threat is: “Do as you are told or we will bomb you into the Stone Age.” Obama’s speech is a justification of Washington’s criminal actions on the grounds that Washington acts for the exceptional Americans whose exceptionalism places them and, thereby, their government above law and international norms. In this way of thinking, only the failure to prevail constitutes failure. Americans are the new ubermensch, the new master race. Inferior humans can be bombed, invaded, and sanctioned. Obama’s West Point speech asserts American superiority over all others and Washington’s determination to continue this superiority by preventing the rise of other powers. This arrogant hubris was not enough for the Washington Post editorial board. The newspaper’s editorial damned Obama for binding US power and limiting its use to “a narrow set of core interest,” such as direct threats to America.
  • The American “liberal media” object that Obama’s claim of exceptionalism is not broad enough for Washington’s purposes. Obama’s address, the Washington Post wrote, bound “US power” and “offered scant comfort” to those militarists who want to overthrow Syria, Iran, Russia, and China. The world should take note that the most militarily aggressive American president in history is considered a wimp by the neoconized American media. The media drives wars, and the American media, firmly allied with the military/security complex, is driving the world to the final war.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14
     
    Obama's speech at West Point was indeed a gigantic slap in the face at international law and at the Constitution. http://goo.gl/icJGDz The Rule of Law is no longer a guiding light in the White House, now only an obligatory nod of nominal respect. The Imperial Presidency has announced that we are now citizens of post-constitutional America.  
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Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, Behind the Coup in Egypt | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/...ro%2C_behind_the_coup_in_egypt U.S.-foreign-policy Egypt coup decline of the American Empire nations-jumping-ship
shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Given how long the United States has been Egypt’s critical supporter, the State Department and Pentagon bureaucracies should have built up a storehouse of understanding as to what makes the Land of the Pharaohs tick. Their failure to do so, coupled with a striking lack of familiarity by two administrations with the country’s recent history, has led to America’s humiliating sidelining in Egypt. It’s a story that has yet to be pieced together, although it’s indicative of how from Kabul to Bonn, Baghdad to Rio de Janeiro so many ruling elites no longer feel that listening to Washington is a must.
  • The helplessness of Washington before a client state with an economy in freefall was little short of stunning. Pentagon officials, for instance, revealed that since the “ouster of Mr. Morsi,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had had 15 telephone conversations with coup leader General Sisi, pleading with him to “change course” -- all in vain. Five weeks later, the disjuncture between Washington and Cairo became embarrassingly overt. On September 23rd, the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters ordered the 85-year-old Muslim Brotherhood disbanded. In a speech at the U.N. General Assembly the next day, President Obama stated that, in deposing Morsi, the Egyptian military had “responded to the desires of millions of Egyptians who believed the revolution had taken a wrong turn.” He then offered only token criticism, claiming that the new military government had “made decisions inconsistent with inclusive democracy” and that future American support would “depend upon Egypt's progress in pursuing a more democratic path.” General Sisi was having none of this. In a newspaper interview on October 9th, he warned that he would not tolerate pressure from Washington “whether through actions or hints.” Already, there had been a sign that Uncle Sam’s mild criticism was being diluted. A day earlier, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden stated that reports that all military assistance to Egypt would be halted were “false.”
  • In early November, unmistakably pliant words came from Secretary of State John Kerry. “The roadmap [to democracy] is being carried out to the best of our perception,” he said at a press conference, while standing alongside his Egyptian counterpart Nabil Fahmy during a surprise stopover in Cairo. “There are questions we have here and there about one thing or another, but Foreign Minister Fahmy has reemphasized to me again and again that they have every intent and they are determined to fulfill that particular decision and that [democratic] track.”
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  • By this time, the diplomatic and financial support of the oil rich Gulf States ruled by autocratic monarchs was proving crucial to the military regime in Cairo. Immediately after the coup, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) poured $12 billion into Cairo's nearly empty coffers. In late January 2014, Saudi Arabia and the UAE came up with an additional $5.8 billion. This helped Sisi brush off any pressure from Washington and monopolize power his way.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14
     
    Add Egypt to the score card of nations departing from U.S. control, with the U.S. still shoving money at it. (The Egyptian generals told the U.S. that they would cut a weapons deal with Russia if the U.S. stopped providing them. Of course when the profits of the U.S. armaments industry and Israel's imperial ambitions are involved, incredible human rights violations don't look nearly as bad in the White House. And note that the Egyptian generals were assisted in their escape by the House of Saud, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Note that I've added a new tag, "nations-jumping-ship" to begin tracking what nations formerly under U.S. control are jumping off the U.S. ship.
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2014sigint_mem_ppd_rel.pdf - The White House Search Results - 0 views

search.whitehouse.gov/search surveillance state NSA-reform Obama
shared by Paul Merrell on 23 May 14 - No Cached
  • [PDF] THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary www.WHITEhouse.gov/sites/default/.../2014sigint_mem_ppd_rel.pdf THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release January 17, 2014 January 17, 2014 PRESIDENTIAL POLICY DIRECTIVE/PPD-28
  • Paul Merrell on 23 May 14
     
    January 17, 2014 PRESIDENTIAL POLICY DIRECTIVE/PPD-28 SUBJECT: Signals Intelligence Activities Obama's policy directive regarding NSA "reform." Downloadable PDF. Also at http://goo.gl/1wxNtE
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White House Authorized NSA Spying on OSCE - Report | World | RIA Novosti - 0 views

en.ria.ru/...SA-Spying-on-OSCE--Report.html surveillance state NSA NSA-targets OSCE
shared by Paul Merrell on 23 May 14 - No Cached
  • The US National Security Agency has been spying on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) by authority of the White House, Austrian newspaper Die Presse reported Thursday, citing a German journalist acquainted with documents released by Edward Snowden. According to Die Presse, senior Der Spiegel correspondent Holger Stark obtained access to classified NSA data revealing the goals of the agency’s surveillance activities, with the OSCE marked as one of the targets. The report said that the intelligency agency snooped on OSCE foreign policy and looked for information related to arms and trade control issues. Reports concerning weaponry were rated as a third-level priority meaning they were later handed over to the US Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State.
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Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief Under Pressure - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ense-chief-under-pressure.html war & peace Hagel Obama
shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and the struggles of his national security team amid an onslaught of global crises.The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said.
  • The officials described Mr. Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Hagel, 68, as a recognition that the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ. A Republican with military experience who was skeptical about the Iraq war, Mr. Hagel came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestration.But now “the next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus,” one administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that the defense secretary initiated discussions about his future two weeks ago with the president, and that the two men mutually agreed that it was time for him to leave.
  • But Mr. Hagel’s aides had maintained in recent weeks that he expected to serve the full four years as defense secretary. His removal appears to be an effort by the White House to show that it is sensitive to critics who have pointed to stumbles in the government’s early response to several national security issues, including the Ebola crisis and the threat posed by the Islamic State.Even before the announcement of Mr. Hagel’s removal, Obama officials were speculating on his possible replacement. At the top of the list are Michèle Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense; Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former officer with the Army’s 82nd Airborne; and Ashton B. Carter, a former deputy secretary of defense.
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  • Whatever the case, Mr. Hagel struggled to fit in with Mr. Obama’s close circle and was viewed as never gaining traction in the administration after a bruising confirmation fight among his old Senate colleagues, during which he was criticized for seeming tentative in his responses to sharp questions. Continue reading the main story Recent Comments Janet Camp 10 minutes ago The “Ebola Crisis”? How is the Defense Secretary responsible for this bit of manufactured hoo-hah? Or for the rise of IS, for that matter?... Dale 10 minutes ago Somehow Obama always chooses the least of the least for his cabinet. StandingO 10 minutes ago Expect appointment of another known figure from Congress who is similarly in tune with Obama's views. Nancy Pelosi might well be the one. See All Comments Write a comment He never really shed that pall after arriving at the Pentagon, and in the past few months he has largely ceded the stage to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who officials said initially won the confidence of Mr. Obama with his recommendation of military action against the Islamic State.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Nov 14
     
    Obama has definitely turned his back on winding down U.S. foreign wars.  Notice that General Dempsey now stands accused by anonymous White House officials of having recommended "military action against the Islamic State." I doubt that. The Pentagon's focus seems lately to have been on making sure that the world knows they predicted that war against ISIL would fail. 
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The United Nations' Response to ISIS Beheadings in Syria. "Resolutions" Calling for "Re... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5423221 war & peace Syria ISIL Foley-family blackmail ransom
shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Following the gruesome beheading of James Foley, by a terrorist group called “The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” and the group’s threats to behead other captives in August 2014, The New York Times headline on page A19 reads, with Kafkaesque “logic”:  “U.S. Invokes Defense of Iraq in Legal Justification of Syria Strikes.”  US/NATO had failed, for three years, to get UN Security Council authorization for military action against Syria, and unilateral military action against Syria would be a violation of international law. However, the very visible emergence of ISIS, now defined as the most dangerous terrorist organization in the Middle East, or, perhaps, globally, and their widely publicized video beheadings of James Foley, Steve Sotloff and others, appeared to give some form of de facto justification for broader military action, including against Syria.  On August 22, 2014, The New York Times reported, page A6: “When the United States began airstrikes in Iraq this month, senior Obama administration officials went out of their way to underscore the limited nature of their action.  ‘This was not an authorization of a broad-based counterterrorism campaign,’ a senior Obama administration official told reporters at the time.  But the beheading of an American journalist and the possibility that more American citizens being held by the group might be slain has prompted outrage at the highest levels of the American government.”
  • In an interview with Anderson Cooper, Diane Foley stated that a military official forbade the family from going to the media and threatened to prosecute them for supporting terrorism if they attempted to raise the $1.32 million dollar ransom demanded by ISIS. “Three times he intimidated us with that message.  We were horrified he would say that.  He just told us we would be prosecuted.  We knew we had to save our son, we had to try,” Mrs. Foley told Anderson Cooper. Foley’s brother, Michael noted in an interview that he was ‘directly threatened with possible prosecution for violating anti-terrorism laws by a State Department official.”  Reporter Michael Isikoff states, in a September 12 article: “The parents of murdered journalist Steven Sotloff were told by a White House counterterrorism official at a meeting last May that they could face criminal prosecution if they paid ransom to try to free their son.”
  • Indeed, it can be asserted that these same administration officials who claimed “outrage” after the beheadings, inflicted the most extreme psychological torture upon the families of James Foley and Stephen Sotloff, who were desperately trying to save the lives of their sons and brother. On September 12, 2014, ABC news reported:  “Obama administration officials repeatedly threatened the family of murdered journalist James Foley that they might face criminal charges for supporting terrorism if they paid ransom to the ISIS killers who ultimately beheaded their son, his mother and brother said this week.  ‘We were told that several times and we took it as a threat and it was appalling,’ Foley’s mother Diane told ABC news in an interview.  She said the warnings over the summer came primarily from a highly decorated military officer serving on the White House National Security Council staff, which five outraged current and former officials with direct knowledge of the Foley case also recounted to ABC news in recent weeks.”
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  • Mrs. Foley diplomatically implies that her son’s death was in the “strategic interest” and she stops just short of accusing the administration of using her son’s beheading as the fig-leaf they needed to justify the administration’s unilateral attack on Syria, which was in violation of international law. If saving Foley was not in the “strategic interest,” a very frightening possibility exists. The murders of Foley and Sotloff, both of whom were beheaded by ISIS, were called ‘acts of barbarism’ by Obama in his speech announcing a military campaign to destroy the terrorist organization. Frenzied hysteria over human rights abuses in Syria continues to be incited by mainstream media, as the middle east is fragmented and decomposed by US/NATO bombings and internecine warfare so complex that the UN’s call for the “diplomatic resolution” of multiple devastating conflicts becomes an increasingly remote possibility.  Saudi Arabia and Qatar continue arming the terrorist opposition.
  • “Sotloff’s father, Art, was ‘shaking’ after the meeting with the official, who works for the National Security Council.  Sources close to the family say that at the time of the White House meeting the Sotloffs and Foleys were exploring lining up donors who would help pay multimillion dollar ransoms to free their sons.  But after the meeting those efforts collapsed, one source said, because of concerns that ‘donors could expose themselves to prosecution.’” James Nye for Mailonline reported:  “Mrs. Foley poured scorn on the Pentagon’s claim they tried to rescue Foley on July 4, only to raid the wrong base…Throughout the 20 month ordeal, Mrs. Foley said she came to regard her and her family’s efforts to rescue James as an ‘annoyance’ to the administration and began to feel that their desperation to bring James Foley home did not ‘seem to be in the strategic interest, if you will.’”
  • The front page headline states:  “U.S. General Says Raiding Syria is Key to Halting Isis.  The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria cannot be defeated unless the United States or its partners take on the Sunni militants in Syria,’ General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on August 21, 2014. ‘This is an organization that has an apocalyptic end-of-days strategic vision that will eventually have to be defeated.  Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria?  The answer is no.” Public horror at the beheading of James Foley and Steven Sotloff transformed public reluctance to engage in yet another seemingly endless and futile distant war, paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, into public outrage and support for retaliation against the terrorists who beheaded Foley and Sotloff.  US/NATO now had a de facto form of support and legitimacy for attacking Syria.  Given little publicity, however, then and now, was the fact that ISIS offered to exchange the lives of James Foley and Stephen Sotloff for $100 million dollars in ransom.  Although top U.S. officials used their “outrage” at the beheading of Foley and Sotloff to “justify” a unilateral attack on Syria, they were not sufficiently outraged to do what was necessary to prevent these beheadings, which, once executed, provided a convenient fig-leaf for the attack on Syria for which  they had sought and failed to attain legal justification during the preceding three years.
  • At the same time that the military-industrial complex thrives on huge profits derived from these geo-politically engineered conflicts, it is worth recalling the September 10, 2014 report by Mazzetti, Schmitt and Landler in The New York Times: “Washington – “The violent ambitions of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have been condemned across the world:  in Europe and the Middle East, by Sunni nations and Shiite ones, and by sworn enemies like Israel and Iran.  Pope Francis joined the call for ISIS to be stopped. “As President Obama prepares to send the United States on what could be yearslong military campaign against the militant group (ISIS), American intelligence agencies have concluded that it poses no immediate threat to the United States.  Some officials and terrorism experts believe that the actual danger posed by ISIS has been distorted in hours of television punditry and alarmist statements by politicians, and that there has been little substantive public debate about the unintended consequences of expanding American military action in the Middle East. “Daniel Benjamin, who served as the State Department’s top counterterrorism adviser during Mr. Obama’s first term, said the public discussion about the ISIS threat has been a ‘farce,’ with ‘members of the cabinet and top military officers all over the place describing the threat in lurid terms that are not justified.’  “It’s hard to imagine a better indication of the ability of elected officials and TV talking heads to spin the public into a panic, with claims that the nation is honeycombed with sleeper cells, that operatives are streaming across the border into Texas or that the group will soon be spraying Ebola virus on mass transit systems – all on the basis of no corroborated information,’ said Mr. Benjamin, who is now a scholar at Dartmouth College.”
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Jan 15
     
    The Feds' "no ransom" policy might better be changed to "pay the ransom then extract retribution." It would still serve as a deterrent. Nonetheless, that policy is now part of a U.N. Security Council Resolution. 
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Russia's Humanitarian 'Invasion' | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...russias-humanitarian-invasion war & peace Ukraine Russia U.S.-foreign-policy humanitarian-aid Luhansk
shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Before dawn broke in Washington on Saturday, “Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists” – more accurately described as federalists of southeast Ukraine who oppose last February’s coup in Kiev – unloaded desperately needed provisions from some 280 Russian trucks in Luhansk, Ukraine. The West accused those trucks of “invading” Ukraine on Friday, but it was a record short invasion; after delivering their loads of humanitarian supplies, many of the trucks promptly returned to Russia. I happen to know what a Russian invasion looks like, and this isn’t it. Forty-six years ago, I was ten miles from the border of Czechoslovakia when Russian tanks stormed in to crush the “Prague Spring” experiment in democracy. The attack was brutal.
  • I was not near the frontier between Russia and southeastern Ukraine on Friday as the convoy of some 280 Russian supply trucks started rolling across the border heading toward the federalist-held city of Luhansk, but that “invasion” struck me as more like an attempt to break a siege, a brutal method of warfare that indiscriminately targets all, including civilians, violating the principle of non-combatant immunity. Michael Walzer, in his War Against Civilians, notes that “more people died in the 900-day siege of Leningrad during WWII than in the infernos of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki taken together.” So the Russians have some strong feelings about sieges. There’s also a personal side for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was born in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, eight years after the long siege by the German army ended. It is no doubt a potent part of his consciousness. One elder brother, Viktor, died of diphtheria during the siege of Leningrad.
  • Despite the fury expressed by U.S. and NATO officials about Russia’s unilateral delivery of the supplies after weeks of frustrating negotiations with Ukrainian authorities, there was clearly a humanitarian need. An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team that visited Luhansk on Aug. 21 to make arrangements for the delivery of aid found water and electricity supplies cut off because of damage to essential infrastructure. The Ukrainian army has been directing artillery fire into the city in an effort to dislodge the ethnic Russian federalists, many of whom had supported elected President Viktor Yanukovych who was ousted in the Feb. 22 coup. The Red Cross team reported that people in Luhansk do not leave their homes for fear of being caught in the middle of ongoing fighting, with intermittent shelling into residential areas placing civilians at risk. Laurent Corbaz, ICRC head of operations for Europe and Central Asia, reported “an urgent need for essentials like food and medical supplies.” The ICRC stated that it had “taken all necessary administrative and preparatory steps for the passage of the Russian convoy,” and that, “pending customs checks,” the organization was “therefore ready to deliver the aid to Luhansk … provided assurances of safe passage are respected.” The “safe passage” requirement, however, was the Catch-22. The Kiev regime and its Western supporters have resisted a ceasefire or a political settlement until the federalists – deemed “terrorists” by Kiev – lay down their arms and surrender.
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  • Accusing the West of repeatedly blocking a “humanitarian armistice,” a Russian Foreign Ministry statement cited both Kiev’s obstructionist diplomacy and “much more intensive bombardment of Luhansk” on Aug. 21, the day after some progress had been made on the ground regarding customs clearance and border control procedures: “In other words, the Ukrainian authorities are bombing the destination [Luhansk] and are using this as a pretext to stop the delivery of humanitarian relief aid.”
  • Despite all the agreements and understandings that Moscow claims were reached earlier with Ukrainian authorities, Kiev insists it did not give permission for the Russian convoy to cross its border and that the Russians simply violated Ukrainian sovereignty – no matter the exigent circumstances they adduce. More alarming still, Russia’s “warning” could be construed as the Kremlin claiming the right to use military force within Ukraine itself, in order to protect such humanitarian supply efforts – and perhaps down the road, to protect the anti-coup federalists, as well. The risk of escalation, accordingly, will grow in direct proportion to the aggressiveness of not only the Ukrainian armed forces but also their militias of neo-fascists who have been dispatched by Kiev as frontline shock troops in eastern Ukraine.
  • Moscow’s move is a difficult one to parry, except for those – and there are many, both in Kiev and in Washington – who would like to see the situation escalate to a wider East-West armed confrontation. One can only hope that, by this stage, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union realize they have a tiger by the tail. The coup regime in Kiev knows which side its bread is buttered on, so to speak, and can be expected to heed the advice from the U.S. and the EU if it is expressed forcefully and clearly. Not so the fanatics of the extreme right party Svoboda and the armed “militia” comprised of the Right Sector. Moreover, there are influential neo-fascist officials in key Kiev ministries who dream of cleansing eastern Ukraine of as many ethnic Russians as possible. Thus, the potential for serious mischief and escalation has grown considerably. Even if Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wants to restrain his hardliners, he may be hard-pressed to do so. Thus, the U.S. government could be put in the unenviable position of being blamed for provocations – even military attacks on unarmed Russian truck drivers – over which it has little or no control.
  • The White House second-string P.R. team came off the bench on Friday, with the starters on vacation, and it was not a pretty scene. Even if one overlooks the grammatical mistakes, the statement they cobbled together left a lot to be desired. It began: “Today, in violation of its previous commitments and international law, Russian military vehicles painted to look like civilian trucks forced their way into Ukraine. … “The Ukrainian government and the international community have repeatedly made clear that this convoy would constitute a humanitarian mission only if expressly agreed to by the Ukrainian government and only if the aid was inspected, escorted and distributed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). We can confirm that the ICRC is not escorting the vehicles and has no role in managing the mission. … “Russian military vehicles piloted by Russian drivers have unilaterally entered the territory controlled by the separatist forces.”
  • The White House protested that Kiev had not “expressly agreed” to allow the convoy in without being escorted by the ICRC. Again, the Catch 22 is obvious. Washington has been calling the shots, abetting Kiev’s dawdling as the supply trucks sat at the border for a week while Kiev prevented the kind of ceasefire that the ICRC insists upon before it will escort such a shipment. The other issue emphasized in the White House statement was inspection of the trucks: “While a small number of these vehicles were inspected by Ukrainian customs officials, most of the vehicles have not been inspected by anyone but Russia.” During a press conference at the UN on Friday, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin took strong exception to that charge, claiming not only that 59 Ukrainian inspectors had been looking through the trucks on the Russian side of the border, but that media representatives had been able to choose for themselves which trucks to examine.
  • Regardless of this latest geopolitical back-and-forth, it’s clear that Moscow’s decision to send the trucks across the border marked a new stage of the civil war in Ukraine. As Putin prepares to meet with Ukrainian President Poroshenko next week in Minsk – and as NATO leaders prepare for their summit on Sept. 4 to 5 in Wales – the Kremlin has put down a marker: there are limits to the amount of suffering that Russia will let Kiev inflict on the anti-coup federalists and ethnic Russian civilians right across the border. The Russians’ attitude seems to be that if the relief convoys can be described as an invasion of sovereign territory, so be it. Nor are they alone in the court of public opinion.
  • Charter members of the Fawning Corporate Media are already busily at work, including the current FCM dean, the New York Times’ Michael R. Gordon, who was at it again with a story titled “Russia Moves Artillery Units Into Ukraine, NATO Says.”  Gordon’s “scoop” was all over the radio and TV news; it was picked up by NPR and other usual suspects who disseminate these indiscriminate alarums. Gordon, who never did find those Weapons of Mass Destruction that he assured us were in Iraq, now writes: “The Russian military has moved artillery units manned by Russian personnel inside Ukrainian territory in recent days and was using them to fire at Ukrainian forces, NATO officials said on Friday.” His main source seems to be NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who famously declared in 2003, “Iraq has WMDs. It is not something we think; it is something we know.” Cables released by WikiLeaks have further shown the former Danish prime minister to be a tool of Washington.
  • However, Gordon provided no warning to Times’ readers about Rasmussen’s sorry track record for accuracy. Nor did the Times remind its readers about Gordon’s sorry history of getting sensitive national security stories wrong. Surely, the propaganda war will be stoked by what happened on Friday. Caveat emptor.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Aug 14
     
    Former Army officer and CIA analyst Ray McGovern informs that the Russian humanitarian aid convoy to Luhansk. It should be noted that "humanitarian intervention" has increasingly been used by the U.S. as grounds for full-fledged regime change military operations that invade other nation's sovereignty. Kosovo and Libya and prime examples, and the U.S. war by proxy against Syria has also been justified only by the humanitarian pretext of saving civilian lives, more than 100,000 of which have been extinguished by the war so far. So an actual humanitarian relief effort that invades the coup government of Ukraine's "sovereignty" seems like small potatoes in comparison. 
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Aug 14
     
    Former Army officer and CIA analyst Ray McGovern informs that the Russian humanitarian aid convoy to Luhansk. It should be noted that "humanitarian intervention" has increasingly been used by the U.S. as grounds for full-fledged regime change military operations that invade other nation's sovereignty. Kosovo and Libya and prime examples, and the U.S. war by proxy against Syria has also been justified only by the humanitarian pretext of saving civilian lives, more than 100,000 of which have been extinguished by the war so far. So an actual humanitarian relief effort that invades the coup government of Ukraine's "sovereignty" seems like small potatoes in comparison. 
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Statement by NSC Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden on Russian Convoy in Ukraine | The White H... - 0 views

www.whitehouse.gov/...-hayden-russian-convoy-ukraine war & peace Ukraine Russia U.S.-foreign-policy Luhansk humanitarian-aid Obama-NSC
shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Today, in violation of its previous commitments and international law, Russian military vehicles painted to look like civilian trucks forced their way into Ukraine.  While a small number of these vehicles were inspected by Ukrainian customs officials, most of the vehicles have not been inspected by anyone but Russia. We condemn this action by Russia, for which it will bear additional consequences.
  • As we and governments around the world have said all along, Russia has no right to send vehicles, persons, or cargo of any kind into Ukraine, whether under the guise of humanitarian convoys or any other pretext, without the express permission of the government of Ukraine.
  • At the same time as Russian vehicles violate Ukraine’s sovereignty, Russia maintains a sizable military force on the Ukrainian border capable of invading Ukraine on very short notice.  It has repeatedly fired into Ukrainian territory, and has sent an ever-increasing stream of military equipment and fighters into Ukraine.  As a result, the international community has been profoundly concerned that Russia’s actions today are nothing but a pretext for further Russian escalation of the conflict.  We recall that Russia denied its military was occupying Crimea until it later admitted its military role and attempted to annex this part of Ukraine. 
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • This is a flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by Russia.  Russia must remove its vehicles and its personnel from the territory of Ukraine immediately.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Aug 14
     
    Excerpts from the White House's condemnation of Russia send humanitarian aid to Luhansk, Ukraine.  The quoted statement about Russia having no right to send vehicles, persons, or cargo of any kind including humanitarian aid supplies into Ukraine without the express permission of the government of Ukraine is especially comedic. Make that U.S. sending weapons into Syria and training armed mercenaries to invade Syria without the Syrian government's approval and you get an idea of the double standard the U.S. wields.   
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The White Book on Violations of Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Ukraine - 0 views

www.voltairenet.org/article183646.html war & peace Ukraine EU U.S.-foreign-policy war-crimes Russia
shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • he Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation a White Paper on violations of human rights and the rule of law in Ukraine that have occurred since November 2013. The book is divided into six chapters:  Violations of Human rights;  Interference by the European Union and the United States;  Weapons and violent methods used by the protesters;  Restrictions on basic freedoms and crackdown on dissidents;  Discrimination based on ethnic background;  Religious persecution. Each chapter consists of a detailed chronology of events. This essential document is available in the English and Russian versions. The White Book on Violations of Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Ukraine, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 5 mai 2014, 81 pp.
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