EU panel slams Kiev’s probe into Odessa 2014 tragedy for lack of independence
RT | November 4, 2015
An EU panel on Ukraine has slammed Kiev’s investigation into the May 2014 violence in Ukraine’s southern city of Odessa, saying it lacks independence. It also added there’s evidence that police were complicit in the disorder.
The Council of Europe’s International Advisory Panel said in a statement on Wednesday the probe failed to comply with the requirements of the European Human Rights Convention.
On May 2, 2014, Ukrainian ultra-right football fans attacked an anti-Kiev protesters’ camp outside the Trade Unions Building in central Odessa. Football hooligans were soon joined by Maidan activists – supporters of the pro-EU February protests in Kiev – and members of the Right Sector group. Violent clashes and a fire in the Trade Union Building led to 48 deaths and several hundred people were injured.
The Council of Europe’s International Advisory Panel found that the investigations lacked independence, pointing toward police complicity in the violence.
“Given the evidence indicative of police complicity in the mass disorder of 2 May 2014 and the hierarchical relationship between the SES [State Emergency Service] and the Ministry of the Interior, the investigations as a whole should have been carried by an organ independent of the Ministry,” the report states.
The Panel stressed that this calls for “an independent and effective mechanism for the investigation of serious human rights violations committed by law enforcement officers and other public officials.”
The report pointed to inefficient division of investigative work and inadequately allocated resources. The investigation of the actions of the SES was allocated to the local Ministry of the Interior, which remained inactive during the crucial early stages of the investigation.
The panel also stressed the “deficient quality of the investigation,” saying there were no efforts made until December 2014 to investigate the unexplained delay of over 40 minutes in the arrival of firefighters at the Trade Union Building.
The Panel also found that Ukrainian authorities failed to provide sufficient public scrutiny of the events.
“In contrast to the Maidan investigations, the authorities did not take any coordinated measures directly and regularly to inform the victims and next-of-kin about the progress of the investigations.”
The International Advisory Panel was constituted by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in April 2014, initially to oversee the Maidan violence investigations. In September 2014, the Panel’s mandate was extended to examine whether the Odessa investigations met all the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights and the case-law of the European Court.
To conclude, the Panel “considers that the deficiencies identified in this Report have undermined the authorities’ ability to establish the circumstances of the Odessa-related crimes and to bring to justice those responsible.”
As for their initial analysis into Ukraine’s investigation of the Maidan demonstrations, the Panel called Ukraine’s Interior Ministry “uncooperative and obstructive” and the investigation not meeting the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights
NYPD under fire over cop who ‘converted’ to Islam to spy on college students
RT | November 4, 2015
Civil rights activists are speaking out about revelations that an undercover detective with the New York Police Department “converted” to Islam in order to spy on Muslim students at Brooklyn College over a four-year period.
That work led to the recent arrest of two Queens women allegedly involved in a terrorist bomb plot.
The NYPD has already been under fire for running a demographics unit which conducted blanket surveillance of the Muslim community after 9/11 in New York and New Jersey, despite such activity being in violation of the Constitution.
“The problem has been that the courts who are tasked with determining what is and what is not unconstitutional, illegal – and what is and is not entrapment – have been complicit, and have expanded the prosecutorial and police powers to engage in predatory practices against Muslim communities in particular,” human rights attorney Lamis Deek told RT.
“While under law and logic this would be considered entrapment. If you look at the complaint, it is clear this case is entrapment. Unfortunately we are not going to find a court or a judge to do that,” Deek added.
The revelations about the NYPD’s undercover operation came from a Justice Department release announcing the arrest of two Queens women, Noelle Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui, on conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in April 2015. It revealed that a detective from the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau was heavily involved in bringing the girls to justice and foiling the bomb plot, according to the Gothamist.
“The work of the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau, its undercover Detective, and its seamless collaboration with the Special Agents and the Detectives of the Joint Terrorism Task Force… should serve as a model for early detection and prevention of terrorist plotting,” said NYPD Commissioner William Bratton in the release.
Deek said that in a case like Velentzas and Siddiqui’s, where the plot is manufactured and orchestrated by a confidential informant – in this case, the officer went by “Mel” – and those working with the informant, law enforcement will make sure that the defendants’ lives are so “infiltrated” and controlled that they behave in a way that ensures they can have no defense.
“The law says that if defendants speak about political issues that relate to the case then [they] are predisposed to engaging in these acts, and that predisposition overcomes [their] defense of entrapment,” said Deek.
The Justice Department alleged the girls had researched how to construct bombs to use as a weapon of mass destruction on American soil. They obtained bomb-making instructions and materials, and used instructions provided by Al-Qaeda’s online magazine.
Deeks said that what is telling about the complaint is that the NYPD informant, Mel, had been working around young people at the college for four years. Yet there was no issue or suspicious activity until she met the two Queens women who were ultimately arrested in July 2014.
“The complaint only lists actions that these two girls took from August onwards, from the time they met this undercover informant and she built a relationship with them,” Deek said. “What we see instead is the Joint Terrorism Task Force informant was in the very least inciting them to engage in these actions that would later lead to their arrest.”
Mother Jones reported that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and its use of informants takes a majority share of the Bureau’s budget, requiring $3.3 billion to support a national network of 15,000 informants who are paid $100,000 per case, or who work off criminal or immigration violations.
“The problem with the cases we’re talking about is that defendants would not have done anything if not kicked in the ass by government agents,” says Martin Stolar, a lawyer who represented a man caught in a 2004 sting involving New York’s Herald Square subway station, told Mother Jones. “They’re creating crimes to solve crimes so they can claim a victory in the war on terror.”
On this point, Deek concurs, but she added that while this operation is not effective, it is creating fear.
“What they have done effectively is terrorize the Arab-Muslim-Pakistani communities of New York and the US. People are afraid to talk to each other. They don’t know who is who, and what is what. They are being disciplined and their First Amendment rights are being actively curtailed, so this is a very violative program that mimics tactics … of occupying governments,” Deek said.
International human rights defenders arrested and evicted while “Hebron is becoming ghettoized”
International Solidarity Movement | November 4, 2015
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Two international human rights defenders were arrested in Hebron (al-Khalil) yesterday morning, November 3rd, while six others were ordered to leave an apartment in the H2 neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida by threat of arrest.
The German and American nationals were arrested at 7.50am while monitoring checkpoint 56 at the entrance of Shuhada Street, after being seemingly arbitrarily denied access to checkpoint 55 further down the street. They were arrested while peacefully observing the checkpoint on allegations of ‘disturbing soldiers’ and being in a closed military zone after a soldier at the checkpoint made a complaint to officers in a passing police vehicle.
The internationals were denied their legal right to communicate with their embassies, and were only given water to drink at the police station after repeated requests. ‘We were scared about what was going to happen, but we were still so much better off than the Palestinian we heard being beaten by Israeli forces in the police station’ one of the women announced. They were released at 4.30pm, on agreeing to sign conditions barring them from Hebron for one week. Immediately before being released from the police station, the investigating officer actually admitted that there was ‘no evidence’ against them, but they were still being punished for the soldiers allegations.
Several hours later, other members of the team were prevented from passing through Checkpoint 56 which divides Tel Rumeida from the H1 area of Hebron, which is under full Palestinian authority. As of Saturday, 31st of October, when Tel Rumeida was declared a ‘closed military zone’ for 24 hours, both internationals’ and Palestinian movement through the area has been severely restricted. Residents were ordered to register their ID’s or risk being prevented from passing the checkpoints which intersect the entire district.
While official documentation of the zoning of Tel Rumeida has been conspicuously inconsistent recently, the activists were shocked this afternoon when their passports were confiscated and they were confronted with an order to leave the closed military zone which encapsulates their apartment. Israeli forces demanded that they immediately sign an absent legal contract declaring their residency in the area, or they would be forcibly removed and deported.
Checkpoint 55 is frequented by students from several school groups, who pass it on route to and from schools which abut the Tel Rumeida illegal settlement. It was blocked for passage last Sunday in what soldiers described as “new measures against terrorism.” For years now international agencies have been monitoring the impact of the occupation on the schoolchildren of Hebron however this work has been severely restricted in recent weeks, amid mounting tensions in the district.
A volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a school teacher from Australia known as Phoebe, stated: “Will they never be satisfied? In the past month, Israeli forces have blatantly disregarded international law. They have performed extrajudicial executions of Palestinians in front of eyewitnesses with complete impunity.” She added: “We have been physically attacked on a daily basis by settlers in front of soldiers and police and then been ordered to leave, by threat of arrest for provoking them by our presence. We have been intimidated, harassed, abused, detained, and now this: arrest for our monitoring of human rights abuses on children and eviction for our presence in a fraught neighbourhood. Our presence is lawful and we believe more essential than ever.”
However, the internationals have stated their greatest concerns remain for the Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida and the disturbing intensification of both settler violence and the physical manifestations of the occupation, including an expansion of infrastructure used to limit movement on the streets. Echoing concerns by local Palestinian residents, a Dutch volunteer stated that such measures have created an alarming sense that, “Hebron is being ghettoized.” He added, “if the international community does not react to this now then the illegal settlement will surely take over all of Tel Rumeida…This is what we are most afraid of.”
The internationals, from Holland, Italy, Britain, Germany, Unites States, Poland, France and Australia have vowed to return to their work of protective presence, monitoring and journalism in the district and consider this to be an appalling reflection on Israel’s supposedly democratic ideals.
Israel orders aircraft carrier as part of US military aid package
MEMO | November 4, 2015
Israel has provided the United States with a list of weapons that it would like to have available as part of the US aid package, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth revealed yesterday.
According to the newspaper the list included a modern aircraft carrier and a squadron of F-15 aircrafts as well as material assistance to support Israel’s anti-ballistic missile system, Arrow 3.
According to the newspaper Israeli officials have asked for these weapons during closed-door meetings with US officials attended by Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon and US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter in Washington.
The list of arms exceeded the maximum assistance provided by the United States each year, amounting to nearly $3 billion, therefore it has been referred to US President Barack Obama before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House scheduled for next week, the paper reported.
UN suspected of smuggling CIA agents into Yemen
thewallwillfall | November 2, 2015
[This is a translation of an article that recently appeared in Al Akhbar.]
Ansar Allah detain two Americans on Espionage Charges
Two Americans have been under surveillance who have regularly visited the site that is the current temporary residence of the UN team. The UN are based in the Sheraton Hotel in Yemen’s capital Sanaa.
This hotel had been used previously by the US diplomatic mission until it’s evacuation from Sanaa early 2015. The U.S. Diplomatic Mission allowed the UN to work from these premises temporarily until it could be considered safe for the Mission to return to Yemen once the hostilities had ceased.
The UN does not pay anything for the use of the facility and is not responsible for the maintenance of the premises that belong to the US Foreign Affairs Ministry but events over the last two weeks reveal that perhaps the UN repays Washington in more ways than one for the use of these premises.
The UN mission in Yemen operates with a very small staff, probably less than a hundred, consisting of Yemeni nationals, non Yemeni Arab nationals and foreign nationals.
These UN staff members travel between Yemen and Djibouti on UN-chartered private planes. Djibouti is now the only gateway to the world for Yemenis who are under an internationally supported blockade.
The two Americans who were under surveillance were transported using UN vehicles despite the fact that UN law prohibits the use of their vehicles for the transportation of any non-UN staff regardless of the situation, in order to maintain its neutral status.
On the evening of the 20th of October, a private UN plane arrived in Sanaa, from Djibouti. On board were two American citizens, Mark McAllister and John Hamen, who were ostensibly working for a maintenance company, Al Rafideen, contracted by the US Mission to provide services to their now vacated offices in the Sheraton Hotel, Sanaa.
At this point, Yemen National Security moved in and arrested the two men, taking them to an unknown location.
Attempts were made by the chief of staff of the UN mission in Sanaa to intervene and secure the release of the two Americans. The UN engaged in direct talks with the Yemeni government and Ansar Allah. The response from the Yemeni side was curt and to the point stating that this was not within the UN’s jurisdiction and the UN has nothing to do with the two men in question.
The UN official confirmed to the local government and AnsarAllah that the two men were working for a company now contracted by the UN and had been invited to Sanaa by the UN to maintain premises [that they do not pay for and where the UN is not responsible for maintenance – edit]. Unsurprisingly all UN efforts to secure the release of McAllister and Hamen have been unsuccessful.
The UN was then informed that one of the two men was recognised as a “security agent” who had been working with the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Sanaa prior to their departure. The UN was informed by the relevant local Yemeni authorities that the UN’s involvement with any foreign intelligence is in direct violation of its fundamental principles and lawful activities in Yemen. This puts the UN in a very precarious and embarrassing position in Yemen.
Al-Akhbar asked the official spokesman on behalf of the UN Secretary General whether UN staff members were facing any hardships in Yemen:
“Yes, we face hardships due to the security situation and we are unable to distribute relief aid to Yemenis as we would be able to under normal circumstances.”
Responding to the question of whether or not the UN is in communication with the Saudi-led coalition, the UN official stated:
“As in the case of every war-torn area, the UN maintains communication with all factions involved in the conflict to guarantee UN convoy security.”
Al-Akhbar also asked the UN official why the UN had allowed two non UN operatives, now in Yemeni & AnsarAllah custody, to travel to Yemen in a UN privately chartered plane. This contravenes all internationally agreed upon protocols that strictly prohibit the use of UN transportation for non UN staff. The seriousness of the situation is intensified by the fact that Yemen authorities have accused both men of being Washington intelligence agents.
The UN official responded cautiously, stating that he is aware of the two men whom he believes to be UN contractors. He is aware of their situation but has no update on the incident. He added that the UN would not have transported any such operatives into or out of Yemen without using the proper channels of communication. He reiterated the official line that the two men are likely to be service contractors brought in to carry out maintenance on the adopted UN premises. [edit: despite the UN not being responsible for the premises]
The incident is highly sensitive. It does not only involve McAllister and Hamen, still in custody, but raises the uncomfortable question, what role is the UN playing in Yemen and for that matter, in other war torn countries in the region?
Yemeni citizens working for the UN have expressed their frustration at not being allowed to implement solutions to the dire humanitarian situation in their country, and have complained of having their movements and activities closely surveyed.
Yemeni security have informed the UN directly that this particular case violates the sovereignty of their country and its security.
A local security official informed the UN in Yemen that such actions will have serious repercussions upon their activities within Yemen. Initial investigations into the two Washington assets in custody have shown that both men are linked to activities suspected to be espionage and investigations have exposed one of the men as a Washington intelligence agent who had already worked with Yemeni agents and who was well known to Yemen’s security officials.
The second man is an officer in the US Marines who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.
The naturally concerned Yemeni authorities have informed the UN that the UN has no jurisdiction over these two men and should not interfere in Yemen’s security matters.
As a consequence, all UN vehicles are being carefully and systematically inspected in the capital Sanaa. UN drivers are being checked and all passenger passports demanded for verification. This is now routine both at the airport and on the streets of Sanaa.
The matter was further complicated when a shot was fired at a UN vehicle and the bullet penetrated the car on October 22, 2015 while it was travelling towards Sanaa airport. No casualties were reported but its quite possible that this was a warning shot across UN bows.
What is certain however, is that both Ansar Allah and the General People’s Congress party in Yemen are highly displeased with UN Peace Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh’s recent role in siding with the Saudi-led coalition and disregarding all the points agreed upon in the Muscat talks.
Both parties are also understandably enraged by Washington’s role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition’s aggression on Yemen that is devastating the country. Washington has provided direct support to the Saudi coalition by supplying weapons, intelligence information, air surveillance and logistic support for air strikes. This support has been widely documented in the media.
Yemeni officials in Sanaa are on high alert regarding any intelligence network that could provide support to the Saudi-led coalition air strikes that have predominantly targeted civilians. This, despite continuous UN communications with the Saudi coalition’s operations room in the Saudi capital Al-Riyadh informing them of the co-ordinates of the UN location and areas of work.
Riyadh however, does not seem to be overly concerned with that information as was clearly seen when the Saudis directly targeted and bombed the UN Development Project in Aden. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon expressed criticism of Riyadh’s disregard and called for an investigation into the strikes but to date no such investigation has been initiated.
Riyadh came under criticism again for the disregard it showed by directly bombing the World Food Programmes’s storage facility, and several hospitals operating under international organizations directly affiliated with the UN.
Putin signs law allowing retaliatory sequestration of foreign property in Russia
RT | November 4, 2015
Russia’s president has signed legislation enabling countermeasures in the case of the wrongful arrest of Russian state property abroad. The law, based on reciprocity, curtails the jurisdictional immunity of the country in question if not agreed otherwise.
The document was published on Russia’s official legal information website and therefore has come into effect.
According to the new law, the jurisdictional immunities of a foreign state and its property could be limited on the territory of Russia on the principle of mutuality, in the case that the jurisdictional immunity of Russia has been found to be suffering limitations on the sovereign territory of that country.
The provisions of the law would not be applied if Russia and the other country have reached an agreement to act differently.
The judicial immunity of a foreign entity that has filed a legal action, entered legal argument or has taken any other substantive action in a Russian court will be considered revoked.
The revoking of a foreign country’s judicial immunity in any given legal argument is irrevocable and will be applied to all stages of judicial examinations.
Read more:
Russia will ‘protect its interests’ in European assets freeze – Putin
America’s Non-representative War Government
By Sheldon Richman | Free Association | November 3, 2015
“The success of government…,” the late historian Edmund Morgan wrote, “requires the acceptance of fictions, requires the willing suspension of disbelief, requires us to believe that the emperor is clothed even though we can see that he is not.”
Representation is chief among those fictions.
“Just as the exaltation of the king could be a means of controlling him,” Morgan continued, “so the exaltation of the people can be a means of controlling them…. If the representative consented, his constituents had to make believe that they had done so.”
Questioning the authenticity of representative government may seem beyond the pale in America. But occasionally the veil slips, and we glimpse reality. If we really live under a representative government, how can a president take the country to war without even a show vote in Congress, much less a referendum? (The proposed Ludlow Amendment to the Constitution would have required a referendum on war.)
Barack Obama has announced he is sending special operations forces into Syria to help those fighting both the government of Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State, just as last year he ordered airstrikes in Syria. He previously said he would not send ground forces, but you can forget about that now. After a Delta Force soldier was killed there while on a raid last month, Secretary of War Ash Carter acknowledged that Americans will be at risk. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said, “The norm is not going out in raids. I’m obviously not going to rule anything out.”
Note well: the U.S. Congress has not declared war on Syria (nor should it), so Obama’s moves are unconstitutional and illegal. Last year Obama asked Congress for an “authorization for the use of military force” (AUMF) — it went nowhere and is going nowhere — while insisting he did not need it. The administration (echoing George W. Bush) says any president has the inherent power under the Constitution to do what he’s doing in Syria. The administration first suggested the AUMFs of 2001 and 2002 were sufficient, but that claim was demolished. The 2001 AUMF said Bush could attack al-Qaeda and its associates. Neither Assad nor the Islamic State qualifies: al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, al-Nusra Front, is also trying to overthrow Assad, and the Islamic State emerged from a split in al-Qaeda. The 2002 AUMF was aimed at Iraqi president Saddam Hussein — it could hardly apply to Syria.
More fundamentally, an AUMF is not a declaration of war; it’s a blank-check, unconstitutional delegation of power from Congress to a president. Consider the 2002 AUMF. As I wrote back then:
The resolution would authorize Mr. Bush to “use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to 1) defend the national security interests of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq and 2) to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” The key phrase is “as he determines to be necessary and appropriate.” It would be consistent with the resolution for Mr. Bush to decide that it was neither necessary nor appropriate to use force against Iraq at all.
In other words, the Congress is not declaring that a state of war exists between Iraq and the United States. On the contrary, the President will decide when and if a state of war exists. The resolution requires only that he “certify” that diplomatic efforts have failed before he uses force. Indeed, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt confirmed that Congress will not be declaring war when he said, “we should deal with it [the Iraqi problem] diplomatically if we can, militarily if we must. And I think this resolution does that.”
Orwellian war-denial is nothing new for the Obama administration. Obama refused to call the 2011 regime-changing air campaign in Libya a war; thus he dismissed the War Powers Resolution as irrelevant. (That 1973 measure was Congress’s feeble attempt to rein in de facto presidential power to make war and rectify the constitutional usurpation that began with Harry Truman’s “police action” in Korea in 1950.)
Going to war is the most consequential step a government can take. If the people have nothing to say about war ex ante, the government can hardly be described as representative.
War in Syria? Where Is Speaker Ryan?
By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • November 3, 2015
“The United States is being sucked into a new Middle East war,” says The New York Times. And the Times has it exactly right.
Despite repeated pledges not to put “boots on the ground” in Syria, President Obama is inserting 50 U.S. special ops troops into that country, with more to follow.
U.S. A-10 “warthog” attack planes have been moved into Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, close to Syria.
Hillary Clinton, who has called for arming Syrian rebels to bring down Bashar Assad, is urging Obama to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria.
Citing Clinton and Gen. David Petraeus, John McCain is calling for a no-fly zone and a safe zone in Syria, to be policed by U.S. air power.
“How many men, women and children,” McCain asks, “are we willing to watch being slaughtered by the Russians and Bashar al-Assad?”
Yet, if we put U.S. forces onto sovereign Syrian territory, against the will and resistance of that government, that is an act of war.
Would we tolerate Mexican troops in Texas to protect their citizens inside our country? Would we, in the Cold War, have tolerated Russians in Cuba telling us they were establishing a no-fly zone for all U.S. warplanes over the Florida Strait and Florida Keys?
Obama has begun an escalation into Syria’s civil war, and not only against ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, but against Syria’s armed forces.
Mission creep has begun. The tripwire is being put down. Yet, who authorized Obama to take us into this war? The Russians and Iranians are in Syria at the invitation of the government. But Obama has no authorization from Congress to put combat troops into Syria.
Neither the al-Nusra Front nor ISIS has an air force. Against whom, then, is this Clinton-McCain no fly-zone directed, if not Syrian and Russian warplanes and helicopters?
Is America really prepared to order the shooting down of Russian warplanes and the killing of Russian pilots operating inside Syria with the approval of the Syrian government?
In deepening America’s involvement and risking a clash with Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces, Obama is contemptuously ignoring a Congress that has never authorized the use of military force against the Damascus regime.
Congress’ meek acquiescence in being stripped of its war powers is astonishing. Weren’t these the Republicans who were going to Washington to “stand up to Obama”?
Coming after Congress voted for “fast track,” i.e., to surrender its constitutional right to amend trade treaties, the capitulations of 2015 rank as milestones in the long decline into irrelevance of the U.S. Congress. Yet in the Constitution, Congress is still the first branch of the U.S. government.
Has anyone thought through to where this U.S. intervention can lead?
This weekend, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regained full control of the parliament in a “khaki election” it called after renewing its war on the Kurdish PKK in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.
Erdogan regards the PKK as a terror group. As do we. But Erdogan also considers Syria’s Kurdish fighters, the YPG, to be terrorists. And Ankara has warned that if the YPG occupies more territory along the Syrian-Turkish border, west of the Euphrates, Turkey will attack.
Why should this concern us?
Not only do we not regard the YPG as terrorists, they are the fighting allies we assisted in the recapture of Kobani. And the U.S. hopes Syria’s Kurds will serve as the spear point of the campaign to retake Raqqa, the ISIS capital in Syria, which is only a few dozen miles south of YPG lines.
Should the YPG help to defeat ISIS and become the dominant power in northern Syria, the more dangerous they will appear to Erdogan, and the more problems that will create between the Turkish president and his NATO ally, the United States.
Not only does a Congressional debate on an authorization to use military force appear constitutionally mandated before we intervene in Syria, but the debate itself on an AUMF might induce a measure of caution before we plunge into yet another Middle East quagmire.
When Saddam fell, we got civil war, ISIS in Anbar, and a fractured and failed state with hundreds dying every week.
And, as of today, no one knows with certitude who rises if Assad falls.
The leading candidates are Jabhat al-Nusra, the front for an al-Qaida that brought down the twin towers[sic], and the butchers of ISIS, who captured another town on the Damascus road this weekend.
Monday, The Wall Street Journal wrote that Erdogan’s regrettable victory is “a reminder of what happens when America’s refusal to act to stop chaos in places like Syria frightens allies into making unpalatable choices.”
Now there’s an argument for America’s plunging into Syria: Send our troops to fight and die in multisided civil war that has cost 250,000 lives, so Turks will feel reassured enough they won’t vote for “strongmen” like Erdogan.
America needs an America First movement.
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