
Who today knows the name of Paul Wolfowitz? He was neither a Congressman, Senator, nor governor, yet until this month, official US ‘defense’ policy has borne his name.
A former President of the World Bank and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the neo-conservative he authored the “Defense Planning Guidance of 1992″, which came to be known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Intended to “set the nation’s direction for the next century,” its first objective was “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival.” In case the reader didn’t immediately get the message, it is spelled out as ‘deterring’ potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role’ by maintaining ‘unquestioned military superiority and, if necessary, employ[ing] force unilaterally.”
Both Colin Powell and President Bush objected to this brash approach to world affairs, so before becoming known as the Bush Doctrine it was rewritten in milder language. Since 2009, at the Foreign Policy Initiative think tank, Wolfowitz has advocated for the troop surge in the Afghanistan War [and direct military strikes in Syria, continuing to lament an “absence of American leadership, as global pressure against the American-led international order intensifies.”
Imagine now as candidate for the presidency, a real estate magnate enamored of ‘deals’ declares “Wouldn’t it be better if we could be friends with Russia?” From there, it’s a straight line to a Special Counsel being appointed by the Justice Department to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and President Putin.
Russia went from being a rival to be contained, to an ‘adversary’, then imperceptibly, an ‘enemy’, by supporting two breakaway regions of Ukraine after the US — in full view of the world — used Neo-nazi militias to carry out a coup against a democratically elected president who continued historical close ties with Russia. While loudly defending ‘human rights’, Washington claims that Russian-speaking Ukrainians are not entitled to separate themselves from a regime that flouts Nazi insignia, calls them ‘cockroaches’ (burning some alive), and makes use of their language illegal.
Given these events, could Russia count on that same Kiev government to respect the permanent lease of a naval station in Crimea dating back to Catherine the Great? Or might prudence have dictated it encourage Crimea’s Russian-speaking population to act on its long-held desire to once again be a part of Russia? Could the presence of ‘little green men’ to ensure that a referendum was carried out without interference possibly be construed as an attack? For daring once again to wield sovereignty over a territory that houses its only warm water naval base, Russia has become an ‘enemy’ of the West!
By a large margin, Americans believe that every effort should be made to avoid using nuclear weapons. They do not know that per the twenty-five year old Wolfowitz Doctrine, their country is building a case for nuclear war with the other major nuclear power. Russian ‘behavior’ (the word invariably spoken in the tone of an adult disciplining a child) in its own back yard justifies stationing NATO forces along its entire western border with Europe, then condemning its inevitable military build-up in response: Americans are gradually being accustomed to the idea that the inevitable use of nukes this situation could set off would be merely a temporary detour on the path of human progress.
Aside from ‘invading’ Ukraine’, Russia is guilty of having ‘interfered’ in the American election, now consistently referred to as ‘America’s ‘Democracy’. (Since the highest court baptized corporations as people, allowing them to spend unlimited money to help their candidates win elections, these are now referred to as Democracy with a capital D, the media breathlessly highlighting the amounts candidates raise, rather than the ideas they espouse.) This system had for decades brought to power candidates fully committed to the Wolfowitz Doctrine of unchallengeable American world hegemony. And in 2016, Hillary Clinton was its most fervent adept, consistently attacking the President of Russia.
Since the election, Vladimir Putin’s sin is not to have drawn a sword, but to have perhaps electronically tipped the scale toward peace and cooperation with the US — any other policy being tantamount to treason vis a vis the Russian people.
A century ago, Americans were taught to regard Russia as an ‘evil empire’ for having embraced a political philosophy intended to ensure the well-being of the 99%, (whether or not it succeeded). When, after seventy years of trying, it executed a stunning turnaround, allowing capitalism to flourish (creating many crooks and billionaires in the process), American policymakers could have applauded. Instead, fearing a capitalist Russia as much as a socialist one, the Wolfowitz Doctrine issued a year later, in 1992, called for the US to carve up the world’s largest country into loyal fiefdoms to ensure continuing American world hegemony.
Only now superseded by the Trump Doctrine, its purpose was to “prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union, whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.” This grammatical construction, whether or not deliberate, conveys the fact that Russia’s crime is to possess resources that could enable it to dominate the US. When the Wolfowitz doctrine, intended to ensure that no country is ever able to challenge American hegemony, was leaked to the New York Times, Senator Edward Kennedy described it as “a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept.” Rewritten in softer language, when the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan — neither of which could possibly challenge American hegemony – in its name, it became known as the Bush Doctrine.
The new version declared:
Our most fundamental goal is to deter or defeat attack from whatever source… The second goal is to strengthen and extend the system of defense arrangements that binds democratic and like-minded nations together in common defense against aggression, build habits of cooperation, avoid the re-nationalization of security policies, and provide security at lower costs and with lower risks for all. Our preference for a collective response to preclude threats or, if necessary, to deal with them is a key feature of our regional defense strategy. The third goal is to preclude any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our interests, and also thereby to strengthen the barriers against the re-emergence of a global threat to the interests of the U.S. and our allies.
Continued uninterruptedly at the cost of thousands of foreign lives, some might see in this doctrine echoes of Hitler’s plan for a thousand year Reich, but sadly, most Americans believe their country is ‘generously’ exercising ‘benevolent oversight’ over an innocent, ‘rules-based’ order of its creation. Ready to condemn Donald Trump’s challenge to the principle of US world dominance, they approve the pursuit of those who, having helped him get elected, are accused of ‘collusion with a foreign power’ (foreign powers having been America’s nemesis since the days of its ‘revolutionary’ separation from Great Britain).
Although Russia and China are the only countries capable of challenging US dominance, they have made no threats. Vladimir Putin’s crime was to have proposed, in a landmark speech to the 2007 Munich International Security Conference, an international architecture in which the four or five regional powers would cooperate on the international stage to ensure peace and prosperity for all.
Stunningly, from the very first paragraph, Donald trump’s security doctrine lifts its principles straight from that speech, calling, exactly like his Russian counterpart, for “a world of strong, sovereign, and independent nations, each with its own cultures and dreams, thriving side- by-side in prosperity, freedom, and peace—throughout the upcoming years...”
Since any form of power-sharing contradicts the Wolfowitz/Bush doctrine, the US responded to Putin’s Munich speech by fomenting a series of color revolutions, in Georgia in 2008, and in Ukraine in 2014. Then, it positioned NATO forces along Russia’s entire Western border as a prelude to carving it up before taking on the more formidable other major power, China.
It’s no surprise that candidate Trump’s foreign policy declarations set off a concerted effort to legally sideline him once elected. Erroneously convinced he is the boss, Trump ordered his Security Doctrine to be codified:
China and Russia want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests. China seeks to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model, and reorder the region in its favor. Russia seeks to restore its great power status and establish spheres of influence near its borders. The intentions of both nations are not necessarily fixed. The United States stands ready to cooperate across areas of mutual interest with both countries.
In addition, after being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition returned. China and Russia began to reassert their influence regionally and globally. Today, they are fielding military capabilities designed to deny America access in times of crisis and to contest our ability to operate freely in critical commercial zones during peacetime. In short, they are contesting our geopolitical advantages and trying to change the international order in their favor.
As President Putin in his New Years’ address calls for pragmatic dialogue, Trump formally criticizes ‘authoritarian regimes’, while pursuing that same objective, which if pointed out, would be approved by voters of both parties. Unlike Bush/Cheney/Obama, Trump’s concern is with the pursuit of our commercial interests, rather than with power as an absolute. To secure these interests (while satisfying the arms industry), Trump calls for the United States to “overmatch” its adversaries, described as:
….“the combination of capabilities in sufficient scale to prevent enemy success and to ensure that America’s sons and daughters will never be in an unfair fight. Overmatch strengthens our diplomacy and permits us to shape the international environment to protect our interests. To retain military overmatch the United States must restore our ability to produce innovative capabilities, restore the readiness of our forces for major war, and grow the size of the force so that it is capable of operating at sufficient scale and for ample duration to win across a range of scenarios.”
This policy is justified by the desire to “create wealth for Americans and our allies and partners.(‘Enemies’ or even ‘rivals’ are in Trump’s view ‘competitors’, and “prosperous states are stronger security partners who are able to share the burden of confronting competitors.”) –In support of this view, America’s ‘Priority Actions’ are:
- REINFORCE ECONOMIC TIES WITH ALLIES AND PARTNERS: We will strengthen economic ties as a core aspect of our relationships with like-minded states and use our economic expertise, markets, and resources to bolster states threatened by our competitors.
- DEPLOY ECONOMIC PRESSURE ON SECURITY THREATS: We will use existing and pursue new economic authorities and mobilize international actors to increase pressure on threats to peace and security in order to resolve confrontations short of military action.
- SEVER SOURCES OF FUNDING: We will deny revenue to terrorists, WMD proliferators, and other illicit actors in order to constrain their ability to use and move funds to support hostile acts and operations.
INFORMATION STATECRAFT
America’s competitors weaponize information to attack the values and institutions that underpin free societies, while shielding themselves from outside information. They exploit marketing techniques to target individuals based upon their activities and interests.
COMMON THREATS. Fair and reciprocal trade, investments, and exchanges of knowledge deepen our alliances and partnerships, which are necessary to succeed in today’s competitive geopolitical environment.
Trump replaces unchallengeable world hegemony with an “America First” foreign policy [that] “celebrates America’s influence in the world as a positive force that can help set the conditions for peace and prosperity and for developing successful societies.”
We are not going to impose our values on others. Our alliances, partnerships, and coalitions are built on free will and shared interests. When the United States partners with other states, we develop policies that enable us to achieve our goals while our partners achieve theirs.
Today, the United States must compete for positive relationships around the world. China and Russia target their investments in the developing world to expand influence and gain competitive advantages against the United States. China is investing billions of dollars in infrastructure across the globe. Russia, too, projects its influence economically, through the control of key energy and other infrastructure throughout parts of Europe and Central Asia. The United States provides an alternative to state-directed investments, which often leave developing countries worse off. The United States pursues economic ties not only for market access but also to create enduring relationships to advance common political and security interests.
PRIVATE SECTOR ACTIVITY AND RULE OF LAW. The United States will shift away from a reliance on assistance based on grants to approaches that attract private capital and catalyze private sector activity. We will emphasize reforms that unlock the economic potential of citizens, such as the promotion of formal property rights, entrepreneurial reforms, and infrastructure improvements—projects that help people earn their livelihood and have the added benefit of helping U.S. businesses. By mobilizing both public and private resources, the United States can help maximize returns and outcomes and reduce the burden on U.S. Government resources.
Here, Trump deliberately misrepresents an adversary: while most African countries welcome the fact that China builds infrastructure without requiring reciprocal purchases (unlike the US), Trump takes advantage of American ignorance to claim that:
Unlike the state-directed mercantilism of some competitors that can disadvantage recipient nations and promote dependency, the purpose of U.S. foreign assistance should be to end the need for it. The United States seeks strong partners, not weak ones. American-led investments represent the most sustainable and responsible approach to development and offer a stark contrast to the corrupt, opaque, exploitive, and low-quality deals offered by authoritarian states.
Continuing an apparent condemnation of authoritarianism, Trumps states that:
Actors have long recognized the power of multilateral bodies and have used them to advance their interests and limit the freedom of their own citizens. If the United States cedes leadership of these bodies to adversaries, opportunities to shape developments that are positive for the United States will be lost. All institutions are not equal, however. The United States will prioritize its efforts in those organizations that serve American interests, to ensure that they are strengthened and supportive of the United States, our allies, and our partners. Where existing institutions and rules need modernizing, the United States will lead to update them. At the same time, it should be clear that the United States will not cede sovereignty to those that claim authority over American citizens and are in conflict with our constitutional framework.
EXERCISE LEADERSHIP IN POLITICAL AND SECURITY BODIES: The United States will strive for outcomes in political and security forums that are consistent with U.S. interests and values, which are shared by our allies and partners. The United Nations can help contribute to solving many of the complex problems in the world, but it must be reformed and recommit to its founding principles. We will require accountability and emphasize shared responsibility among members. If the United States is asked to provide a disproportion- ate level of support for an institution, we will expect a commensurate degree of influence over the direction and efforts of that institution.
Although the menace of Soviet communism is gone, new threats test our will. Russia is using subversive measures to weaken the credibility of America’s commitment to Europe, undermine transatlantic unity, and weaken European institutions and governments. With its invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, Russia demonstrated its willingness to violate the sovereignty of states in the region. Russia continues to intimidate its neighbors with threatening behavior, such as nuclear posturing and the forward deployment of offensive capabilities.
The United States will deepen collaboration with our European allies and partners to confront forces threatening to undermine our common values, security interests, and shared vision. The United States and Europe will work together to counter Russian subversion and aggression, and the threats posed by North Korea and Iran. We will continue to advance our shared principles and interests in international forums.
For Washington bureaucrats, who remain the same from one president to the next, Wolfowitz will always be the law of the land. Trips to Moscow are invariably construed as ‘political’ and criminalized by the FBI. Even at home, Americans are required to signal any encounter with Russians to the FBI! Saudi Arabia can bomb tiny Yemen to smithereens in the biggest ethnic cleansing ever, but talking to Russians can land you in jail. The Republican Party — which had been dragged kicking and screaming behind Trump in the 2016 election, is now vociferously demanding an investigation of the FBI itself, in order to derail its investigation of the President’s Russian ties.
Whether or not one applauds the election of Donald Trump, it should be obvious that if the nuclear great powers do not maintain friendly relations, the future of mankind is in jeopardy. Why should Russia’s ‘behavior’ in its own back yard justify plans for war? Why, instead of praising those who reach out to Russia, is the deep state threatening to ruin their lives? Why do those who hope that President Trump will not challenge North Korea to a nuclear exchange not also worry about the missiles we installed in Europe, to be launched against Russia should a US-dominated Old World decide it’s had enough of Uncle Sam’s ‘solicitude’?
The commercialization of every aspect of their lives has brought much harm to Americans, and now they need to stop focusing on their commercially-oriented president’s puerile tweets, and hope that in foreign policy, he manages to gain the upper hand over Wolfowitz before it’s too late.
January 19, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Middle East, NATO, Paul Wolfowitz, United States, Zionism |
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The war for dominance in the Middle East, following the crushing of ISIS, appears about to commence in Syria — with NATO allies America and Turkey on opposing sides.
Turkey is moving armor and troops south to Syria’s border enclave of Afrin, occupied by Kurds, to drive them out, and then drive the Syrian Kurds out of Manbij further south as well.
Says President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “We will destroy all terror nests, one by one, in Syria, starting from Afrin and Manbij.”
For Erdogan, the Kurdish YPG, the major U.S. ally in Syria, is an arm of the Kurdish PKK in Turkey, which we and the Turks have designated as a terrorist organization.
While the Kurds were our most effective allies against ISIS in Syria, Turkey views them as a mortal peril and intends to deal with that threat.
If Erdogan is serious, a clash with the U.S. is coming, as our Kurdish allies occupy most of Syria’s border with Turkey.
Moreover, the U.S. has announced plans to create a 30,000-man Border Security Force of Kurds and Arabs to keep ISIS out of Syria.
Erdogan has branded this BSF a “terror army,” and President Bashar Assad of Syria has called BSF members “traitors.”
This U.S. plan to create a BSF inside Syria, Damascus declared, “represents a blatant attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity and unity of Syria, and a flagrant violation of international law.”
Does not the Syrian government have a point?
Now that ISIS has been driven out of Raqqa and Syria, by what authority do U.S. forces remain to arm troops to keep the Damascus government from reimposing its authority on its own territory?
Secretary of State Tillerson gave Syria the news Wednesday.
The U.S. troop commitment to Syria, he said, is now open-ended.
Our goals: Guarantee al-Qaida and ISIS do not return and set up sanctuary; cope with rising Iranian influence in Damascus; and pursue the removal of Bashar Assad’s ruthless regime.
But who authorized this strategic commitment, of indefinite duration, in Syria, when near two decades in Afghanistan have failed to secure that nation against the return of al-Qaida and ISIS?
Again and again, the American people have said they do not want to be dragged into Syria’s civil war. Donald Trump won the presidency on a promise of no more unnecessary wars.
Have the American people been had again?
Will they support a clash with NATO ally Turkey, to keep armed Kurds on Turkey’s border, when the Turks regard them as terrorists?
Are we prepared for a shooting war with a Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Shiite militias from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to hold onto a fourth of Syria’s territory in alliance with Kurds?
The U.S. coalition in Syria said this week the BSF will be built up “over the next several years” and “be stationed along the borders … to include portions of the Euphrates river valley and international borders to the east and north.”
Remarkable: A U.S.-created border army is going to occupy and control long stretches of Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq, over Syria’s objections. And the U.S. military will stand behind the BSF.
Are the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria really up to that task, should the Turks decide to cleanse the Syrian border of Kurds, or should the Syrian regime decide to take back territory occupied by the Kurds?
Who sanctioned this commitment to a new army, which, if Syria and its Russian and Iranian allies, and the Turks, do not all back down, risks a major U.S. war with no allies but the Kurds?
As for Syria’s Kurds casting their lot with the Americans, one wonders: Did they not observe what happened when their Iraqi cousins, after helping us drive ISIS out of Mosul, were themselves driven out of Kirkuk by the Iraqi army, as their U.S. allies watched?
In the six-year Syrian civil war, which may be about to enter a new phase, America faces a familiar situation.
While our “allies” and adversaries have vital interests there, we do not. The Assads have been in power for the lifetime of most Americans. And we Americans have never shown a desire to fight there.
Assad has a vital interest: preservation of his family regime and the reunification of his country. The Turks have a vital interest in keeping armed Kurds out of their border regions adjacent to their own Kurdish minority, which seeks greater independence.
The Israelis and Saudi royals want the U.S. to keep Iran from securing a land bridge from Tehran to Damascus to Lebanon.
The U.S. War Party wants us to smash Iran and remain in the Middle East forever to assure the hegemony of its favorites.
Have the generals taking us into Syria told the president how and when, if ever, they plan to get us out?
Copyright 2018 Creators.com.
January 19, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, NATO, Syria, Turkey, United States, Zionism |
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Confirming that the US military presence inside Syria had little to do with fighting ISIS, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson unveiled in detail today the real US strategy for Syria: overthrow of the Assad government.
In a speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and introduced by President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Secretary Tillerson vowed that the United States military would continue to occupy Syrian territory until three conditions are met:
First: ISIS must be destroyed.
This condition is made all the more problematic by the well-reported fact that it is the United States government that at every turn seems to pull ISIS chestnuts out of the fire. From handing them weapons to allowing them to escape when they are trapped in places like Raqqa, it almost seems like the US does not want to really see the end of ISIS.
Second: Assad must go.
Tillerson’s admission that this is a sine qua non for any US military departure from Syria confirms that the Trump foreign policy is no different from that of Hillary Clinton or her former boss, President Obama. Recall that as part of his “thank you” tour, President-elect Trump reiterated promises made by candidate Trump to break with the past:
We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments. …In our dealings with other countries we will seek shared interests wherever possible…”
It is clear that he lied, as it is reported that he signed off on this new Syria strategy last month at a meeting of his National Security Council.
Secretary Tillerson said today that new elections should be held in Syria and that President Assad should lose:
The United States believes that free and transparent elections … will result in the permanent departure of Assad and his family from power… Assad’s regime is corrupt, and his methods of governance and economic development have increasingly excluded certain ethnic and religious groups… Such oppression cannot persist forever.
Tillerson’s speech reveals that the old myth about the Syrian people “rising up” to overthrow Assad is still very much viewed as Gospel truth in Washington:
…our expectation is that the desire for a return to normal life … will help rally the Syrian people and individuals within the regime to compel Assad to step down.
Translation: we are going to continue to make life miserable for you until you overthrow Assad. Then it will return to “normal.” Presumably the people of Syria understand what “normal” life after a US “liberation” looks like from examples like Libya, Iraq, and Ukraine.
Tillerson also made the bizarre assertion that US troops will remain in Syria to prevent the Syrian government from re-establishing control over the parts of Syria abandoned by a defeated ISIS. So the legitimate government of Syria will be prevented by an illegal United States military occupation from reclaiming its own territory? This is supposed to be a coherent policy?
Third: Refugees must be returned to Syria.
Secretary Tillerson said today at Stanford University:
America has an opportunity to help people who have suffered greatly. The safe and voluntary return of refugees serves the security interests of the U.S. and our allies and partners. We must give Syrians a chance to return home and rebuild their lives.
But the one event that led to the biggest return of refugees back to Syria was violently opposed by the US government: the Syrian government’s liberation of east Aleppo from al-Qaeda control!
For additional consideration:
The US military is busy creating a 30,000-strong Kurdish militia to reportedly guard Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq. NATO-ally Turkey is violently opposing US moves to further arm Kurd groups that it considers terrorist.
The discredited “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) is back in Washington begging the Trump Administration to re-open the CIA weapons pipeline. The FSA is perhaps best known for immediately handing any weapons it gets from Washington directly to al-Qaeda in Syria. Will Trump’s neocon-filled ecosphere convince him to once again put some wind in al-Qaeda’s sails?
Will Congress awake from its slumber and finally dust off the part of the Constitution directing the Legislative Branch to decide on matters of war and peace? It’s probably an ill-advised bet, however there are a few whispers on Capitol Hill that a shift in US military focus from anti-ISIS to anti-Assad and anti-Iran might be slightly problematic.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has just unveiled a 100 percent neocon approved “new” US policy for Syria: No more pussyfooting around. We won’t abandon our project in Syria like Obama “abandoned” Libya (presumably, as the neocon myth goes, on the verge of becoming a new Switzerland after its “liberation” only to be thrust back into the mire by Obama’s premature withdrawal).
President Trump is set to out-neocon the neocons with this foolish and destructive policy. The showman is shown to be nothing but a fraud.
Copyright © 2018 by RonPaul Institute.
January 19, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Illegal Occupation | Syria, United States |
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When in 2016 Donald Trump mugged the bipartisan political establishment in the United States, there were three issues that put him beyond the pale:
- Restructuring America’s trade relations to favor American workers and producers, not international corporations keen to dump their costly domestic employees and relocate abroad, sending in their products tariff-free; and
- Stopping the migration invasion of the US, symbolized above all by building The Wall on the Mexican border – and making Mexico pay for it.
As Trump’s first year in office comes to a close, where do we stand?
War and Foreign Policy
The neoconservatives who have made a disaster of American policy for almost three decades are exultant that Trump is dancing to their tune. In the Middle East, “America First” has turned into “Israel and Saudi Arabia First” and a vendetta against Iran. While Trump has taken credit for the possible outbreak of peace between the two Koreas, that is a byproduct of the intransigence and bluster coming from Washington – which may resume as soon as the Olympics are over.
With respect to Russia, the picture is dreary and the trend worrisome. The absurdly named “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” passed last year with a bipartisan, veto-proof supermajority, stripped Trump of his constitutional authority to make policy toward Russia. A new round of legislatively mandated sanctions designed to block any possible outreach to Moscow by criminalizing contact with any Russian within screaming distance of the Kremlin is imminent. Early hopes of US-Russia cooperation in Syria against jihad terrorist have given way to a continued (illegal) US military presence east of the Euphrates, talk of a “New Syrian Army” (recycled Daesh and al-Qaeda terrorists, with a push to turn the CIA aid spigot back on), plausible Russian suggestions of a US hand in a drone attack on Russian personnel, and back to square one with “Assad must go!” Providing lethal weapons to Ukraine – which could entail American advisers on the ground near the conflict line in the Donbas – moves us closer to military confrontation.
All that said, there is a school of thought that says Trump is in so precarious a position vis-à-vis a Deep State working overtime to remove him (and if pushed too hard, might just “JFK” him), that he has no choice but to adopt a “rope-a-dope” strategy. Patrick Armstrong thinks that Trump is purposely undermining the imperial order bit by bit by degrading the narcissistic notion of US global “leadership.” This means Trump’s seeming to go along with his ubiquitous adversaries’ bellicose agenda to the Nth degree but in the process making the US less and less relevant.
Korea may be an example: bluster and threaten, so the panicked South reached out to the North. Recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital: the US is no longer the mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, and we defund the Palestinian Authority and the UN to boot. Threaten to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal: nervous Europeans distance themselves from Washington and cozy up to Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran, which may in turn lead to a diminished US enthusiasm for defending “disloyal” NATO allies. Double down on the failed Afghanistan non-strategy: blame Pakistan and cut off their money. Impose economic and financial sanctions with reckless abandon: an alternative international finance system is in the works.
In any case, among Trump’s three populist heresies from the bipartisan Swamp’s agenda, this is the least well articulated and least important to his base in Flyover Country, many of whom reflexively if ignorantly respond positively to anything that sounds “tough” and militaristic (“Support our troops!” – so how about we stop getting them killed and crippled in unnecessary missions?). Whatever Trump thinks he’s doing, as long as he doesn’t stumble us into a war somewhere like Korea, Iran, Ukraine, or Syria, things are still better than if Hillary had won.
- Verdict after one year: Let’s call it a wash. But there’s still reason to worry.
Trade
Not much can be said about trade at this time. Maybe that’s good. There are solid America First people in the administration, such as U.S Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Peter Navarro, who heads the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, backed up by speechwriter Stephen Miller, the main nationalist-populist left in the Trump inner circle. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is generally counted in this camp. Perhaps a low decibel level means quiet progress.
Or not. The trade nationalists are at daggers drawn with the globalists and generals: National Economic Council chief Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. The former two are ideological free traders and advocates for global corporations and banks. The latter favor the tried-and-failed decades-long policy of buying geopolitical and strategic advantage by taking it out of the hide of American workers and producers: we give our satellites like Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc., etc., free, non-reciprocal access to our domestic market, they hand over their sovereignty. What a deal!
Who will come out on top is unclear. Pulling out of TPP was a positive sign. What Trump does about NAFTA will be a critical, which is why the usual suspects are in full-throated hysteria over his threat to insist Canada and Mexico renegotiate it or to pull the US out. With respect to the 800-pound gorilla of America’s trade woes, an America First pitch to China ought to be getting us out of Korea and the South China Sea while rebalancing our enormously one-sided trade relationship. Unfortunately, the globalists and generals would rather do the opposite: keep sacrificing Americans’ economic well-being in an effort to “contain” China strategically.
Trade won’t matter much in the November elections amid happy-news perceptions of improved job creation, stock market record highs (though how much of that represents real economic growth and how much a ballooning investment bubble is open to debate), and higher consumer confidence. But over the long term, if this opportunity is lost to put Americans’ interests ahead of those of transnational corporations it might not come again.
- Verdict after one year: It could go either way.
Immigration
Of the three Trumpish heresies from bipartisan orthodoxy, this is the most important. While for the establishment it ranks with foreign policy and is closely tied to it (“Invade the world, invite the world”), for Trump’s base it is head and shoulders above the other two. If not for his pledge to build The Wall and make Mexico pay for it, Trump never would have been the Republican nominee and won the presidency.
For the past week the American media and political class have been in a tizzy over precisely what scatological term Trump may have used in a closed-door White House meeting over DACA (“Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals,” Obama’s so-called “Dreamers”) and immigration policy generally, including funds to build The Wall. (There evidently is some question of whether the second syllable was “hole” or “house.”) Is this the worst word ever uttered in a non-public meeting in the Oval Office? At least nobody claims Trump said whatever it was he said like Lyndon Johnson, perched on the presidential throne.
Trump’s real offense was less the word itself than its implication that certain Countries ABCD are horrible places to live, while other Countries WXYZ are quite the opposite. And since Countries ABCD are pretty much full of black and brown people, and Countries WXYZ are almost exclusively the abodes of white and yellow people, he’s a racist for noticing the difference. Hence, the media and Trump’s critics’ frenzied repetition of the R-word word, as though it were a sort of magical incantation that at some point will cause him to crumble into dust.
There are over seven and a half billion people inhabiting this orb of woe. Probably somewhere in the range of 90 percent of them would dramatically improve their lives if they left where they are and moved to the United States. Aside from the clear benefit to the Democratic Party in welcoming spanking new voters, how does it profit the American nation to import mobs of impoverished and uneducated people to drag down wages, especially in low-paying job categories, and to consume a disproportionate share of public benefits?
Keep in mind too that because a very high proportion of migrants in this category would be considered “minorities” under US law, they and their progeny would immediately qualify upon arrival for affirmative action status in hiring and education. What kind of idiot country imports foreigners and then discriminates in their favor against the natives? For what purpose – to offset historical wrongs to which the newcomers were never victim?
Conversely, the President’s defenders suggest that what’s really needed is to switch from a country-of-origin and family-reunification basis for our immigration system to a merit-based system. Let’s take only the best and the brightest, from whatever place they hail.
A supposed merit-based system is a bad idea too. First off – let’s show a little altruism here – it would make the plight of the horrible countries worse. I am not generally a fan of Pope Francis with respect to his views on migration, but he has a point when he says, like Pope John Paul II before him, that a “brain drain” from Third World countries robs them of much of their best talent and hope for improving their own homelands.
However, to note that is not to suggest that importing cherry-picked high-achievers into the US is such a blessing for us. Just as we don’t need a migrant underclass, neither do we need an imported overlord class taking the best jobs from American kids who have busted their hump getting through school and in many cases gone heavily into debt.
This is a particular problem in high-tech and IT, where massive companies with near-monopoly market control – and consequently almost total obsequy from the bipartisan political class – demand the importation of ever more foreign talent, particular in STEM fields. This is despite serious uncertainty as to whether there are enough jobs even for Americans trained in those disciplines.
A special area of concern is pushback against the Trump Administration’s modest effort to trim the much-abused H-1B program for supposedly “temporary” workers, a transgression against both the left’s multiculturalism and corporate plutocrats’ demand for cheap, docile indentured labor. There exists a kind of reverse-nativism, according to which America needs a vital “transfusion of fresh blood” from lots and lots of bright, energetic foreigners. You see, American-born people are just too lazy and stupid to succeed on their own and deserve to be replaced. If you or your offspring lose out to an “insourced” immigrant or H-1B via-holder, maybe one who can trump you on an affirmative action preference, too bad for you.
Here’s a suggestion. Let’s nix both imported underclass and overclass and have a long (if not permanent) immigration timeout like we had from the end of the first Great Wave of immigration in the mid-1920s until the current wave was set off by the 1965 immigration act. For almost half a century, those who entered in that previous wave (such as all four of this writer’s Spartan grandparents) and their progeny had time to assimilate and become Americans. Unless and until those who arrived in the past few decades have likewise Americanized (are we allowed to say that?) to the extent possible – and the millions now here illegally have been repatriated – entry should be cut down to the absolute minimum. That should be not much more than spousal visas, and those should be strictly scrutinized for fraud.
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s language, whatever it was, will translate into good policy. In the wake of “S-Gate,” he’s in a strong position. Republicans can move a clean federal government funding bill and dare the Democrats to block it and shut down the government of the whole country because it doesn’t save the “Dreamers.” But never underestimate the potential for panic among Congressional Republicans and their ability to throw away a winning hand.
That’s where the risk for Trump is. If he falls for a chump’s deal on immigration, where he yields on DACA in exchange for promises and gestures the way Ronald Reagan got suckered on the last big amnesty in 1986, his base – which indeed wouldn’t care if he gunned down someone in the middle of 5th Avenue – might not be so forgiving. They can overlook a lot, but not that. And if his base stays home this November, we’re looking at a Democratic Congress, impeachment, and President Mike Pence.
- Verdict after one year: Trump’s rough talk and the hateful reaction to it increase the chances he will stand his ground. But it still could go either way. This is the one to watch.
January 19, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Timeless or most popular | Middle East, NAFTA, NATO, United States |
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Turkish Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli says no troops have gone into Syria’s Kurdish-controlled Afrin region but the operation has started “de facto” with cross-border shelling.
Canikli said in an interview with broadcaster AHaber Friday that Turkey was developing weapons systems against anti-tank missiles used by US-backed YPG militants.
He said the planned military operations in the northwestern Syrian region should be carried out with no delay to purge the territories of what he called terrorist elements.
Amid its rising tensions with the US, Turkey said Thursday it would seek Russia’s approval for the operation as the country’s Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar traveled to Moscow for negotiations.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Akar’s trip was part of boarder efforts by Ankara to coordinate the campaign with Russia.
He said the presence of Russian observers in Afrin was an issue that has to be discussed ahead of the operation.
“When we carry out an intervention, we need to coordinate on this, it should not impact the Russian observers,” said Cavusoglu, adding that the coordination will also cover the situation in Idlib, a militant-controlled region northwest of Syria where Turkey backs an array of anti-Damascus groups.
“We are meeting the Russians and Iran on the use of air space,” the top Turkish diplomat added.
Cavusoglu had earlier said the planned Syria operation may expand beyond Afrin to the nearby city of Manbij.
Washington angered Ankara earlier this week when it announced a plan to work with US-backed militants of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to set up a new 30,000-strong “border security” force near the Turkish border.
The force would operate along the Turkish border with Iraq and within Syria along the Euphrates River.
Cavusoglu further reiterated Turkish concerns over Kurdish militant activities near its borders and said, “Our response to this is our legitimate right to retaliate. We told the United States this.”
The White House later denied the plan, with Secretary of State Tillerson saying that the issue, which has incensed its NATO ally Ankara, had been “misportrayed, misdescribed. Some people misspoke.”
Turkey said the denial was “important,” but that it “cannot remain silent in the face of any formation which will threaten its borders.”
Ankara views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), an offshoot of SDF, a terrorist organization linked to the homegrown Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, which has been fighting for independence inside Turkey.
Wary of the YPG’s activities at its doorstep, Turkey has repeatedly called on the US to stop supporting the Kurdish militants and take back the arms it has supplied to them under the pretext of fighting the Daesh terror group.
However, Syria has censured both the American and Turkish plans for a fresh wave of unilateral military operations on its soil. Damascus views such measures as an assault on the country’s sovereignty.
The Syrian government has also indicated that it would shoot down any Turkish planes entering its skies.
Turkey, Iran and Russia are the guarantors of a countrywide ceasefire in Syria. The three have been mediating a peace process since January 2016 among Syria’s warring sides in Astana, Kazakhstan.
As part of the Astana format, four de-escalation zones have been established across Syria amid ongoing political efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict gripping the Arab country since 2011.
The zones have helped reduce fighting significantly, while giving Turkey a breath to beef up security along its southern borders.
January 19, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation | Syria, Turkey, YPG |
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I have highlighted much of the mendacious nonsense coming out of the Lancet concerning climate change and pollution issues.
Now a hard hitting report by Mikko Paunio, a specialist in public health matters has destroyed both the credibility and integrity of two of the Lancet’s recent papers on pollution.
The GWPF, who commissioned the paper, report:
London, 18 January: A pair of influential reports published by the medical journal, The Lancet, are a “gross distortion” of public health science and threaten to devastate public health in the developing world. That is the warning by eminent epidemiologist Mikko Paunio.
The Lancet Commissions on Pollution and Health have claimed that the third world is suffering appalling health effects from industrial pollution. But as Professor Paunio explains, this is far from the truth:
“Most of the deaths that they say are caused by industrial air pollution are actually caused by domestic heating and cooking with renewable energy such as wood and dung, and most of the deaths from diarrhea that they say are caused by polluted water are actually caused by poor hygiene because the poor do not have enough water for washing.”
Professor Paunio also says that the Lancet Commissions’ proposal for a ban on new fossil-fueled power stations will be devastating for human health:
“To prevent most of the deaths from diarrhea, you need abundant water supplies, and that depends on having a reliable electricity grid, which can only come from fossil fuels. Clean air depends on centralised power generation in large power stations.”
Dr Paunio has set out his position in a hard-hitting report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) this week, just ahead of an important meeting of the World Health Organization Executive, which is expected to consider the Lancet Commission’s proposals.
“Professor Paunio writes clinically and factually to demonstrate the errors, exaggerations, distortions, misquotations and suppressions of established evidence which pervade The Lancet reports. His facts and arguments are vitally important and should be widely read,” writes former Labour minister Lord Donoughue in his foreword.
Dr Paunio is a former government scientist at the European Commission and the World Bank. He works at the health ministry in Finland and is an adjunct professor at the University of Helsinki. He is best known as one of the first scientists to speak out against Andrew Wakefield’s claims, also published in The Lancet, about the MMR vaccine and autism.
Full paper (pdf)
Lord Donoghue has written the very pertinent foreword to the paper:
Professor Paunio has enjoyed a distinguished career in global public health, both in Europe and the USA. He has a proven record of countering medical falsehoods, based more on environmental propaganda than on scientific evidence. He certainly adds to that reputation in this hard-hitting and evidence-based paper. It focusses on two recent reports published (to its discredit) in the medical journal The Lancet. They have been widely quoted in the British Parliament and in the popular media. They were predictably trumpeted by climate alarmists at the 23rd UN Convention on Climate Change, clearly their target political audience.
The reports’ conclusions are supportive of the familiar climate-campaign claims that industrial development, and especially pollution derived from coal-fired power generation, are the main cause of much ill health and mortality in the world. Their political purpose is to convince global policy makers to take radical environmental action, for example by regulating and restructuring our energy economy, however inefficiently and expensively, in order to serve the noble cause of saving lives and improving health. There may be a case for that, if based on scientific facts, but Professor Paunio shows that The Lancet does not respectably advance that cause.
The Lancet’s political activism is apparently part of a wider political environmental campaign to blame almost any issue of current public and media concern on climate change (which is happening and always has): mass migration, floods, droughts, storms (now conveniently named to make a greater impact on public memory), and (allegedly) disappearing animal species such as Al Gore’s polar bears – now interestingly at a near peak of population. Professor Paunio writes clinically and factually to demonstrate the errors, exaggerations, distortions, misquotations and suppressions of established evidence which pervade The Lancet reports. Focussing on their misrepresentation of the latest factual evidence relating to the health factors involving air pollution and water supplies, he demonstrates how the main cause of global pollution deaths is from open-fire cooking and heating in the less-developed world, which causes ten times as much health damage in China and India than do their coal-fired power plants, which the climate alarmists so hate.
He also points out that global health has in fact dramatically improved during the past near two centuries of modest global warming. This is mainly due to economic development and especially because of improvements in institutional health provision in the developed world, something which the climate alarmists choose to ignore since it does not fit in with their ideological position.
Interestingly in this debate, it should be noted that modest global warming of the degree we have enjoyed is actually less health-threatening than global cooling. Warming does not significantly increase mortality; it does reduce temperature-related deaths. It is officially estimated that in the UK only 3 deaths per 100,000 of the population are heat related. However, 61 deaths per 100,000, twenty times as many, are cold related. So a cooling cycle, should it reappear, would be intrinsically more threatening to health than a warming one. This is not just in the UK. Stanford University research estimates that an increase of warming temperatures of 2.5◦C would reduce mortality in the USA by 40,000 deaths a year and so greatly reduce medical costs.
Most global ill health and mortality derives, not from industrial development and related climate matters, but from underdevelopment, especially domestic pollution and the malnutrition that can render it fatal. This does not mean that there are not serious concerns over climate change, where properly evidenced. But they should be address rationally, and not dogmatically.
Professor Paunio’s well researched paper shows that The Lancet’s concerns are not properly evidenced. His facts and arguments are vitally important and should be widely read, especially by policy makers and media commentators, not just for exposing the particular falsehoods in the reports, but also for demonstrating the dangers lying in the wider climate change debate of political groupthink.
Bernard Donoughue MA, D.Phil (Oxon)
Senior Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister 1974–79
Minister for Farming and Food 1997–99
January 18, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | The Lancet |
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Syria has strongly condemned a US plan to maintain its military presence in the Arab country as interference in its internal affairs and a blatant violation of international law.
“The internal affairs in any country in the world is an exclusive right of the people of this country, thus nobody has the right to only give his opinion in that because this violates the international law and contradicts the most important theories of the constitutional law,” Syria’s state news agency, SANA, quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying in a statement on Thursday.
The statement comes after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said US troops would stay in Syria for the foreseeable future to defeat terrorists, and added that the US would not fund the reconstruction of any part of Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is in power.
According to figures the Pentagon released in December, there are at least 2,000 troops in Syria as well as a diplomatic presence in cities such as Kobani.
The Syrian statement further said US presence and all of Washington’s actions in the Arab country are aimed at protecting the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, which was created by the former American administration.
The Damascus government “does not need a single dollar from the United States for reconstruction because this dollar is stained with the blood of the Syrians,” the statement added.
Turkey reacts to Tillerson denial
Meanwhile, Turkey said on Thursday that Washington’s denial that it intended to build a border force in Syria was “important,” but added that Ankara would not remain silent in the face of any force that threatened its borders.
Tillerson on Wednesday denied that the United States had any intention to build a Syria-Turkey border force, saying the issue, which has incensed Ankara, had been “misportrayed, misdescribed. Some people misspoke.”
“This statement is important but Turkey cannot remain silent in the face of any formation which will threaten its borders,” Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul told broadcaster NTV.
On Sunday, the US announced that it will work, along with a coalition of its allies purportedly fighting Daesh, with US-backed militants of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to set up a new 30,000-strong “border security” force that includes the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
Turkey views the YPG as a terror organization and the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).
The force would operate along the Turkish border with Iraq and within Syria along the Euphrates River.
Washington’s plan has drawn angry reactions from Syria, Turkey and Russia. Syria views the formation of such a border force as an assault on its sovereignty.
The US and its allies back militants fighting to topple the Syrian government. American warplanes have also been bombing Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.
The airstrikes have on many occasions resulted in civilian casualties, seriously damaged Syria’s infrastructure and failed to fulfill their declared aim of countering terror.
Turkey reacted angrily to Washington’s plan and warned it would not hesitate to take action in Afrin district and other regions across the border in Syria unless the United States withdrew support for YPG.
In August 2016, Turkey began a unilateral military intervention in northern Syria, code-named Operation Euphrates Shield. Ankara said the campaign was aimed at pushing Daesh terrorists from Turkey’s border with Syria and stopping the advance of Kurdish forces.
Turkey ended its Syria offensive in March 2017, but has kept its military presence there.
Syria has voiced strong opposition to both Turkish and American military actions on its soil, repeatedly calling on the two NATO allies to pull their forces out.
January 18, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | Middle East, Syria, Turkey, United States, YPG |
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There is one thing missing from the upcoming Women’s March publicity and philosophy: the urgent need for Peace Not War!
The March will speak out against hate, discrimination and exploitation. That’s good.
The March will also speak out strongly in favor of equality, women’s reproductive choice and respect for all people regardless to disability, gender, orientation, etc… That’s also good.
But the subject of US military aggression and war is essential. We hope that many marchers will include this in their signage and discussions. Despite many antiwar groups and individuals actively advocating for “peace” to be in the platform/demands of the March, this is the second year peace is being minimized or ignored by the organizers.
For the past century the US has intervened aggressively against governments the Washington establishment does not like. A partial list includes Philippines, Korea, Guatemala, Iran, Cuba, Chile, Vietnam, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Lebanon, Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela, Honduras, Libya and Syria!
These acts of “regime change” have killed millions of people including many thousands of our own youth, both women and men. They have resulted in hundreds of thousands returning home injured physically or psychologically. Mothers, wives, sisters, aunts, and other family and friends have been profoundly, permanently, and unnecessarily handed a lifetime of pain and sorrow because of the US war machine.
Shouldn’t it be a priority to change the policies and acts of economic aggression and military intervention that result in violence, war and destruction?
Shouldn’t we address the causes of the refugee crisis as well as the symptom? After all, most refugees never wanted to leave their homelands.
We are sure that most of the women and allies who will be attending the Women’s March agree with us on the need for action and protest against our ongoing wars.
The escalating military budget is driving our country further and further into debt. Meanwhile infrastructure is decaying, health care and housing is diminishing and education is underfunded. College students now graduate with astronomical student debt. Meanwhile there is growing police oppression.
We must include PEACE in our march because unless we can stop the trend, a nuclear war is going to destroy civilization. There is no such thing as a winnable nuclear war and dismantling ALL nukes should be at the forefront of any of our activism. The continuity of human life on our planet is at stake. These are Women’s issues.
As we demand a change in tone and behavior in the White House, we must also demand a change in US international foreign policy away from militarism and aggression.
The demand for peace not war should be integral to the Women’s March.
January 18, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | United States |
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Late last week, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, repeated his public observations that members of the intelligence community — particularly the CIA, the NSA and the intelligence division of the FBI — are not trustworthy with the nation’s intelligence secrets. Because he has a security clearance at the “top secret” level and knows how others who have access to secrets have used and abused them, his allegations are extraordinary.
He pointed to the high-ranking members of the Obama administration who engaged in unmasking the names of some people whose communications had been captured by the country’s domestic spies and the revelation of those names for political purposes. The most notable victim of this lawlessness is retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, a transcript of whose surveilled conversation with then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak found its way into print in The Washington Post.
During the George W. Bush and Barack Obama years, captured communications — digital recordings of telephone conversations and copies of emails and text messages — did not bear the names of those who sent or received them. Those names were stored in a secret file. The revelation of those names is called unmasking.
Nunes also condemned the overt pro-Hillary Clinton bias and anti-Trump prejudice manifested by former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey and their agents in the field, some of whose texts and emails we have seen. The secrets that he argued were used for political purposes had been obtained by the National Security Agency pursuant to warrants issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Yet Nunes voted to enhance federal bulk surveillance powers.
Bulk surveillance — which is prohibited by the Constitution — is the acquisition of digital versions of telephone, email and text communications based not on suspicion or probable cause but rather on geography or customer status. As I have written before, one publicly available bulk surveillance warrant was for all Verizon customers in the United States; that’s 115 million people, many of whom have more than one phone and at least one computer. And it is surveillance of Americans, not foreigners as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act contemplates.
How did this happen?
It happened in the dark. The NSA has persuaded the FISC, which meets in secret and only hears the government’s arguments, to permit it to spy on any American it wishes on the theory that all Americans know someone who knows someone else who knows someone who could have spoken to a foreign person working for a foreign government that could wish us ill.
This is the so-called judicial logic used to justify the search warrant on all of Verizon’s customers. This is what happens when judges hear only one side of a dispute and do so in secret.
The FISA amendments for which Nunes and other House members voted, which are likely to pass in the Senate, would purport to make bulk surveillance on all Americans lawful. At present, it is lawful only because the FISC has authorized it. The FISA amendments would write this into federal legislation for the next six years.
And these amendments would permit the FBI and any American prosecutor or law enforcement agency — federal, state or local — to sweep into the NSA’s databases, ostensibly looking for evidence of crime. If this were to become law, there would no longer be any unmasking scandals, because the stored data contains the names of the participants in the communications and would be readily available for harassment, blackmail or political use.
It would also mean that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution — which guarantees privacy in our persons, houses, papers and effects — would have been gutted by the very officeholders who swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend it.
Does the American public know this? Does the president?
Last week, I made an impassioned plea on Fox News Channel directly to the president. I reminded him that he personally has been victimized by unlawful surveillance and the political use of sensitive surveillance-captured data; that the Constitution requires warrants for surveillance and they must specifically describe the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized; that warrants must be based on probable cause of individual behavior, not an area code or customer list; that the purpose of these requirements is to preserve personal privacy and prohibit bulk surveillance; and that he took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
About an hour later, the president issued a tweet blasting bulk surveillance and unmasking. Two hours after that, he issued another tweet supporting the enactment of the FISA amendments.
What’s going on here?
I suspect that leaders in the intelligence community hurriedly convinced the president that if he sets aside his personal unhappy experiences with them and any constitutional qualms, they will use the carte blanche in the FISA amendments to keep us safe. This is a sad state of affairs. It means that Donald Trump changed his mind 180 degrees on the primacy of personal liberty in our once-free society.
The elites in the federal government and the deep state — the parts of the government that are unauthorized by the Constitution and that operate in the dark, what candidate Trump called “the swamp” — have formed a consensus that marches the might of the government toward total Orwellian surveillance.
This is a march that will be nearly impossible to stop. This is the permanent destruction of the right to privacy. This is the exaltation of safety over liberty, and it will lead to neither. This is the undoing of limited government, right before our eyes.
Copyright 2018 Andrew P. Napolitano. Distributed by Creators.com.
January 18, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | CIA, FBI, Human rights, NSA, United States |
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US policy is a distraction from the ongoing Korean talks, which Seoul hopes will eventually lead to the denuclearization of the entire peninsula, security analyst Charles Shoebridge told RT.
The third session of inter-Korean talks in a week signalled a significant breakthrough in the frosty ties between the two Koreas. And while the thaw in relations was welcomed by Seoul, the recent rapprochement was greeted with skepticism by 20 foreign ministers of the so-called “Vancouver Group,” which defended South Korea during the Korean War more than five decades ago.
“It is particularly ironic… That while this… Thawing of tensions is going on between North and South… It’s happening… In Vancouver, the former allies of South Korea are tightening the noose, increasing the rhetoric, raising the temperature,” Shoebridge told RT after the US-led group decided to consider unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang Tuesday.
The US is adamant that it will apply not only economic and diplomatic pressure, but also issue military threats to force N. Korea to disarm. On Wednesday, Seoul and Washington “reaffirmed its security commitment to the defense of South Korea using all categories of its military capabilities,” the Ministry of National Defense said. The allies also “agreed to continue the rotational deployment of US strategic assets to South Korea and nearby areas as long as North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats persist.”
The decision to keep up with military threats comes the same day as Donald Trump expressed doubt that the intra-Korean talks will lead to “anything meaningful.” The US president also warned that it is “very possible” that the standoff with North Korea might not be resolved peacefully. Charles Shoebridge criticized Washington’s foreign policy, pointing out that Seoul and Pyongyang can achieve much more if the US stops interfering in their “considerable diplomatic achievement.”
“These talks themselves started on the back of South Korea agreeing to persuade America to at least pause its military exercises,” Shoebridge told RT. “It appears to be the case when the interests and the foreign policy, and the actions of the United States are put to one side, local players are, to some degree at least, able to start finding local solutions, [and] make some progress towards securing their local interests, which are usually peace and stability.”
China and Russia – two major regional players who were not invited to participate in the Vancouver summit this week – criticized Washington’s pessimistic outlook of the Korean diplomatic process. Participants that gathered in Canada, while rejecting the Chinese-Russian ‘double freeze’ roadmap for easing Korean tensions, failed to provide any alternative, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
In July 2017, Moscow and Beijing proposed the initiative that would see the US and its allies halting all major military exercises in the region in exchange for Pyongyang suspending its nuclear and ballistic missile program. The ‘double freeze’ initiative, however, was once again rebuffed by Washington Tuesday during the Vancouver summit.
Beijing also slammed the meeting, saying it was driven by a Cold War mentality. “When major parties to the Korean Peninsula issue are not present, such a meeting will not contribute to properly resolving the issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang pointed out Wednesday. “All parties should cherish the hard-won momentum of easing tension on the peninsula, support the efforts made by the DPRK and the ROK in improving ties, and double their commitment in alleviating the situation and promoting dialogues.”
On Wednesday, North Korea agreed to allow a joint women’s ice hockey team to participate at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics (February 9-25) and march together as one with their southern neighbor under a “unified Korea” flag at the opening ceremony.
The North also consented to send a 150-member delegation of athletes and cheerleaders to the Paralympic games in March. South Korean President Moon Jae-in once again expressed hope Wednesday that the inter-Korean talks will pave the way for broader dialogue between the United States and the North which could eventually lead to the resolution of the North Korean nuclear standoff.
January 18, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Canada, North Korea, South Korea, United States |
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The US State Department has approved a possible $500-million sale of missile system support services to Saudi Arabia in defiance of global calls for Washington to stop providing Riyadh with military support due to the regime’s war crimes in Yemen.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency made the announcement in a statement on Wednesday, saying Congress had been notified of the decision.
Congress now has 30 days to review the proposed sale, but it is not required to take any action.
The potential sale follows a request by Saudi Arabia for continued technical assistance for Patriot Legacy Field Surveillance Program (FSP), the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) and the Patriot Engineering Services Program (ESP).
The package also includes spare parts and logistical support for Patriot and Hawk missile systems.
Last week, the US Army awarded Sikorsky, a leading American aircraft manufacturer, a contract worth nearly $200 million to supply 17 Black Hawk helicopters to Saudi Arabia.
The deals come as the US is under pressure to suspend its arms sales to the Saudi regime, which has been waging a deadly military aggression against Yemen since 2015.
At least 13,600 people have been killed since the start of the war.
During his first trip to Saudi Arabia last year, President Donald Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with the Saudis, with options to sell up to $350 billion over a decade.
Facilitated by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, the massive package includes missiles, bombs, armored personnel carriers, combat ships, terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) missile systems and munitions.
The announcement generated backlash in Congress, with Republican Senator Rand Paul promising to work to block at least parts of the package.
The Trump administration is looking to loosen restrictions on American arms sales to boost the country’s weapons industry.
The move seeks to ease export rules for military equipment “from fighter jets and drones to warships and artillery,” according to officials familiar with the plan.
January 18, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | Saudi Arabia, United States, Yemen |
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The European Commission is preparing a strategy to counter fake news, which will be published this spring, European Commissioner for the Security Union Julian King said during a debate at the EU Parliament on Wednesday.
“There’s been a focus on a wider phenomenon of fake news. It’s one of the European Commission’s priorities for the coming year… In November last year, we established a high-level expert group which has now started its work to advise the commission on scooping the phenomenon … and presenting recommendations. It will contribute to the preparation of a strategy addressing the challenge of fake news, which we’ll issue in spring this year,” King said at the European Parliament’s debates entitled “Russia — the influence of propaganda on EU countries.”
According to King, there was little doubt that a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign was an orchestrated strategy aimed at spreading disinformation in various languages and through various channels.
“Russian disinformation can be extremely successful. So that’s why we need to redouble efforts to debunk this propaganda,” King stressed. Western politicians have repeatedly accused the Kremlin of orchestrating disinformation and propaganda campaigns and spoken about threats allegedly posed by Russian media, specifically emphasizing the role of Sputnik news agency and RT broadcaster. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed such allegations.
However, current EU polices on countering fake news and propaganda are focused on Russian media exclusively, with some other outlets like Fox News and Al Jazeera not being under the radar, the European Parliament member from the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Tanja Fajon, said on Wednesday.
“I agree that monitoring the impact of the media on the politics in society is necessary … but I have a few critical remarks. Firstly, why are we dealing only with Russian propaganda, how do we view the news on the American Fox News, do we have a problem with the stakes of the US media corporations in EU media outlets whose views are reported by Al Jazeera? And if we remain in Europe, how do we feel about the national media owned by a political party members and related persons, in Slovenia we have such a media outlet,” Fajon said during a debate at the EU Parliament dubbed “Russia — the influence of propaganda on EU countries.”
She added that RT broadcaster and Sputnik news agency perhaps should be seen as an attempt of Russia to find its place in the media world, which had long been dominated by the West.Meanwhile, several other lawmakers also pointed at the hypocrisy of the European Parliament. Joerg Meuthen from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party noted that the term “fake news” was often used to discredit unwanted facts and opinions.
“Today’s debate about alleged election influence by Russian fake news is for the established European parties like Easter and Christmas at once … This is pure hypocrisy, since this Parliament will lead an election campaign in pure self-interest in the 2019 European elections. The self-supporting slogans of EU officials and campaigners will produce their own truths, which will be propaganda of the best calibre. Anyone who acts like that has no right to complain about alleged election interferences by Russia. You are sitting in a glasshouse here in Strasburg, you should therefore not throw stones,” Meuthen warned.
Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in Scotland, David Coburn, stressed that it was the European Union that spent millions in propaganda to prevent Brexit, and that was destroying impartiality or credibility of this debate about alleged Russian influence.
“The EU is still doing it by setting up the Orwellian machine to push the EU project and subvert national democracies, in its own words, ‘challenging Euroscepticism.’ It is pure Soviet ‘Pravda’ [newspaper]. I am more concerned with EU propaganda than with their clunky Russian version,” he said. Moreover, Coburn recalled that RT broadcaster gave the UKIP an opportunity to voice its position when they could not get on the BBC.
Western politicians have repeatedly accused the Kremlin of orchestrating disinformation and propaganda campaigns and spoke about threats allegedly posed by Russian media. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed all such allegations.In November 2016, the European Parliament adopted a Polish-initiated resolution which declared that Russia was waging an “information war” against the European Union and claimed the need to “fight” Russian “disinformation.” Commenting on that decision, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the adoption of the resolution demonstrated the degradation of the perception of democracy in the European society and expressed hope that the common sense would prevail.
Since then, the European External Action Service East Stratcom Task Force, set up in 2015, has secured over $1 million in funding and published multiple articles “debunking” alleged cases of “disinformation” by Russian outlets. A lot of these cases appeared to “debunk” news pieces reporting about opinionated remarks by Russian officials and overblown tabloid headlines.
January 18, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | European Union |
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