The United States has slapped additional sanctions on Russian individuals and a company over Crimea’s re-integration with Russia in 2014.
“The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today imposed additional sanctions in response to Russia’s continuing malign activity and destabilizing behavior by designating three individuals and nine entities under Ukraine-related authorities,” it announced on Wednesday.
“Our sanctions are a clear reminder that efforts seeking to normalize investment and economic relationships with those operating in Crimea will not be tolerated,” said US Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Sigal Mandelker.
The sanctions will freeze any US-based assets and ban financial transactions with the targets, who include Vladimir Zaritsky, the former commander-in-chief of Russia’s missile forces and artillery who is leading a hotel project in Crimea.
Zaritsky’s firm bought three hotels in Crimea that had been owned by the Ukraine state and were taken over after the integration.
Under the new sanctions is the Mriya Resort and Spa, a luxury hotel that opened in the resort of Yalta shortly after the annexation and which the Treasury Department called “the main Russian platform for showcasing investment opportunities in Crimea.”
One of the entities sanctioned – the Limited Liability Company Southern Project – was linked to Bank Rossiya and Russian businessman Yuri Kovulchuk, the Treasury said in a statement.
The US Congress had mandated the latest round of sanctions slapped on Russia.
The sanctions come as the US State Department says it is preparing more sanctions against Russia, as required by Congress, over an alleged nerve attack carried out in Salisbury, UK against a former double agent and his daughter.
Russia has hit back over US sanctions and vowed reciprocal measures, further damaging the US-Russia relationship despite President Donald Trump’s stated goal of forming a closer relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump has described an affinity for Putin and has at times appeared to be following a different agenda than his administration when it comes to punishing Russia over Crimea.
Both leaders are expected to attend events in Paris this weekend commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
During a press conference at the White House on Wednesday, Trump did not rule out the possibility when asked about a meeting with Putin in Paris.
Instead, Trump referred to his “good” July summit in Helsinki with Putin. “I had a very, very good meeting — a very, very good meeting with President Putin, and a lot was discussed about security, about Syria, about Ukraine, about the fact that President Obama allowed a very large part of Ukraine to be taken,” Trump said.
When a reporter pointed out it was Putin who decided to integrate Crimea, President Trump insisted, “No, no. It was President Obama that allowed it to happen.”
In 2014, after a referendum Russia integrated Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula whose population is largely ethnically Russian but was part of Ukraine. Western powers have vowed never to recognize the integration.
Last week we saw how Baroness Jenny Tonge was cruelly maligned in the House of Lords by Lords Pickles and Polak. Pickles invited the minister and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) to join him in condemning Jenny for “suggesting that the murders in Pittsburgh were caused by the actions of the Israeli Government”. He accused her of causing “great pain in Pittsburgh” and (horror of horrors) falling foul of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.
Jewish News reported that Pickles and Polak, both high-ranking figures in the Israel lobby, slammed her “callous inflammatory” remarks which, they claimed, were “in clear violation of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the UK Government. For a Member of the House of Lords to publish such hateful thoughts brings Parliament into disrepute.” Polak, according to this report in The Guardian, appears to work pretty much full-time for Israel and has abused the privilege of peerage. Many might think that brings the British Parliament into far greater disrepute.
So what did Baroness Jenny say on her Facebook page to warrant such a nasty personal attack? “Absolutely appalling and a criminal act, but does it ever occur to Bibi and the present Israeli government that its actions against Palestinians may be reigniting anti-Semitism? I suppose someone will say that it is anti-Semitic to say so?”
The PSC issued a statement complaining she “suggested Israel’s policies and its treatment of the Palestinians could be contributing to a rise in anti-Semitism generally” and the PSC regarded her post as “deeply troubling… and risked being read as implying that anti-Semitism can only be understood in the context of a response to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Such a view risks justifying or minimising anti-Semitism.”
As if their snottiness towards one of its founders and patrons wasn’t enough the PSC told Jewish News they were considering “further steps.”
Baroness Jenny is a founder and long-time member of the PSC and a courageous fighter for Palestinian rights. At that point, given the PSC Management’s uncalled-for hostility, she thought it best to spare her many friends embarrassment and resign.
Now a petition is being put to the PSC by members expressing outrage that instead of defending her the PSC’s Executive joined in the Zio attacks. It insists that nothing she said was anti-Semitic, adding that “it is perfectly reasonable to link Israel’s murderous behaviour with attacks on Jews”. It calls for the Executive to apologise and ask Jenny to reconsider her decision to resign.
But would she? Jenny Tonge might do better hitching her wagon to a reinvigorated, turbocharged BDS movement, at least until the PSC is purged of its head office idiots.
‘The Inquisition rules’
Two weeks earlier the Jewish Chronicle and the British Medical Journal reported another craven act against the Baroness, this time by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine which withdrew its invitation to Jenny to be a panellist at a meeting on maternal health. The reason? Because of “very recent media reports and allegations of anti-Semitic sentiment which are contradictory to our organisational ethos, and which we do not feel are complementary to this event.” What sort of organisational ethos confuses anti-Semitism with maternal health issues in developing countries?
Jenny said: “I was un-invited after complaints from an unknown source, claiming that my presence would disrupt the meeting. I was not allowed to know who the complainant was… How they thought I could bring criticism of the government of Israel into maternal health I do not know.
“Criticise the Israeli government and you are excluded from other things too. The inquisition rules.”
The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine subsequently told the BMJ : “There was external concern that a successful debate… would be sidetracked by public questions related to the extensive anti-Semitic issues linked to the Labour Party that were dominating the UK media at the time of the event.”
Feeble excuse. It doesn’t say much for whoever chairs their meetings if they cannot stop the discussion from being sidetracked and going off-topic.
How many anti-Semitism claims have a legal basis?
Hugh Tomlinson QC recently warned that if a public authority did decide to adopt the IHRA definition (though it wasn’t obliged to) then it must interpret it in a way that’s consistent with its statutory obligations and doesn’t cut across the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. Freedom of expression applies not only to information and ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive, but also to those that “offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population”. Unless, of course, they amount to a call for violence, hatred or intolerance.
A further obligation put on public authorities is “to create a favourable environment for participation in public debates for all concerned, allowing them to express their opinions and ideas without fear, even if these opinions and ideas are contrary to those defended by the official authorities or by a large part of public opinion, or even if those opinions and ideas are irritating or offensive to the public”. A public authority seeking to apply the IHRA definition to prohibit or punish such expressions “would be acting unlawfully.”
Pickles and Polak should remember this next time they rise to speak in the House of Lords or anywhere else.
Retired Lord Justice of Appeal, Sir Stephen Sedley, pointed out that the 1986 Education Act established an individual right of free expression in all higher education institutions “which cannot be cut back by governmental policies”. He called for the Government to retreat from its “naively adopted” stance.
So according to top legal opinion the IHRA Definition does not make calling Israel an apartheid state or advocating boycott, divestment or sanctions (BDS) against Israel anti-Semitic. Also, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes “the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
As for the ghastly truth about Israel on top of all the other evidence, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) produced a report establishing that Israel, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is a thoroughly vile apartheid regime. Such was the fuss kicked up when it appeared that it has been withdrawn from UN websites.
The authors urge the United Nations to implement this finding by fulfilling its international responsibilities in relation to international law and the rights of the Palestinian people as a matter of urgency, for two reasons.
First, the situation addressed in the report is ongoing….. In the case of Israel-Palestine, any delay compounds the crime by prolonging the subjugation of Palestinians to the active practice of apartheid by Israel. Prompt action is accordingly imperative….
Secondly…. since the 1970s, when the international campaign to oppose apartheid in southern Africa gathered momentum, apartheid has been considered in the annals of the United Nations and world public opinion to be second only to genocide in the hierarchy of criminality.
This report accordingly recommends that the international community act immediately, without waiting for a more formal pronouncement regarding the culpability of the State of Israel, its Government and its officials for the commission of the crime of apartheid….
The prohibition of apartheid is considered ‘jus cogens’ in international customary law. States have a separate and collective duty (a) not to recognize an apartheid regime as lawful; (b) not to aid or assist a State in maintaining an apartheid regime; and (c) to cooperate with the United Nations and other States in bringing apartheid regimes to an end. A State that fails to fulfil those duties could itself be held legally responsible for engaging in wrongful acts involving complicity with maintaining an apartheid regime.
No wonder it was hushed up.
What next?
Miko Peled, in my recent interview with him, underlined the need for activists to shift up a gear and accelerate from solidarity to full-on resistance. This means wider involvement, better co-ordination, revised targeting and sharper strategy. In effect a BDS Mk2, turbocharged. And it involves treating Zionism and those who promote or support it with far less tolerance. As Miko said on another occasion, “If opposing Israel is anti-Semitism then what do you call supporting a state that has been engaged in brutal ethnic cleansing for seven decades?”
Indeed. And what do you call people in public life who adore and defend that state and intimidate anyone who voices disapproval?
Things are changing. The Stop the War Coalition last weekend brought together a number of experts in a conference about “re-framing the debate” on Palestine. That whole discussion is long overdue and I’m waiting to hear what came out of it. For example, robust measures must be put in place to counter bogus accusations of anti-Semitism stifling free speech
It would be no bad thing if someone came forward with a proposal for a centralised legal unit to reprimand the Zio-extremists who overstep the mark and use false accusations of anti-Semitism to pour hatred on the likes of Jenny Tonge. Efforts must be made to ensure public institutions like Parliament don’t provide a platform for such odious behaviour. It would also be the unit’s task to launch into the public domain a working definition of anti-Palestinian racism similar to the one recently proposed by Jewish Voice for Labour.
Al-Wefaq Islamic Association in Bahrain on Thursday maintained that normalizing ties with the Zionist entity is a treason, stressing that Netanyahu and all the Israelis can never visit the Gulf country.
In a statement, Al-Wefaq considered that the media reports which mentioned that the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu received an invitation from the Bahraini regime to visit Bahrain represents a new challenge which must be addressed by all the Bahrainis.
This challenge indicates that there is major shift in the regime’s policy, which would confiscate all the values, covenants and humanitarian as well as the Islamic commitments of Bahrainis to the Umma causes, especially that of the occupied Palestine, according to the statement.
Al-Wfaq also considered that the silence of the regime figures about the circulated reports indicates that Netanyahu’s visit is probable, stressing that Netanyahu must know that his visit to Bahrain is categorically rejected and will be confronted by all the Bahrainis.
Calling on all the Arabs and Muslims to denounce this provocative move, Al-Wefaq emphasized that all the forms of normalization with the Zionist entity are rejected.
At the most obvious level, it signals the realization among the Gulf States that the brutal war to overthrow the Syrian government has ended. But the pragmatism is stunning. There isn’t even going to be any ‘cooling-off’ period!
What explains the urgency? Analysts may say it is to counter Iran’s influence. After all, the Saudis with UAE backing tried a similar approach in Iraq through the past year – to counter Iran’s multi-vectored influence in Iraq.
But the UAE cannot but be unaware of the exceptionally strong bonding between Damascus and Tehran. Syria may have uses for ‘green money’ to advance its reconstruction agenda but Iran’s backing has existential dimensions.
The western analysts tend to view the Iran factor as the leitmotif of Middle Eastern developments. However, in this cacophony over Iran, we are largely overlooking that simmering differences among the major Sunni states have also surged to the centre stage lately.
Through the past 2-3 year period, a Turkish-Qatari alignment has crystallized. For Qatar, Turkey’s support is invaluable for resisting the pressures on its strategic autonomy from the regimes in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The establishment of a Turkish military base in Qatar underscores this new axis. Lately, Qatar has become a pillar of financial support for the Turkish economy.
Neither Qatar nor Turkey is flustered by Iran’s rise. Neither is seeking Iran’s isolation, either. Washington recently ‘granted’ a waiver to Turkey to continue to buy oil from Iran, but Ankara shot back saying it opposed US sanctions anyway, calling them ‘imperialistic’.
For Turkey too, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the principal regional adversaries today. Turkey viewed with disquiet the UAE’s support of terrorist groups in Libya, Yemen and Syria. In next-door Syria, the Saudi and Emirati openly supported ISIS groups and al-Qaeda affiliates. Circles close to Turkey’s ruling elite have alleged that UAE is targeting Erdogan in a concerted way.
However, the ‘red line’ was crossed when the two Gulf oligarchies lent support to the failed coup in 2016 in Turkey to assassinate President Recep Erdogan. (After the coup failed, it took 16 hours for Riyadh to even issue a statement!) Turkey estimated that the UAE provided a staging post for the coup plotters.
As Turkey sees it, the UAE is implementing a western project to weaken it. Meanwhile, reports also appeared that the two Gulf oligarchies have been funding the Kurdish militant groups (who are the US’ allies in Syria.)
No doubt, it is a combustible mix. But what makes it really explosive is the perception in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh that Turkey and Qatar are patronizing the Muslim Brotherhood as a potent vehicle for the democratic transformation of the Muslim Middle East.
Both regimes (Saudi Arabia and the UAE) regard the Brotherhood as existential threat. Their visceral hatred of Brothers is such that they bankrolled the coup d’état against elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 in a multi-billion dollar project.
Enter Syria. Given the above backdrop, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are inclined to sense a convergence with the Syrian regime on pushing back at Erdogan’s perceived aspirations of ‘neo-Ottomanism’ in general and his support of the Brotherhood as a vehicle of change in particular.
A tantalizing question will be: Where does the US stand apropos the Brotherhood? The Barack Obama administration with a sense of history saw in the Brotherhood much potential to finesse the Arab Spring toward establishment of ‘Islamic democracy’ in the Middle East. The US had dealings with the Brotherhood in Egypt based on estimation that it could do business with them and even influence them to democratize the Muslim Middle East. Of course, the premature end to the transition in Egypt in 2013 changed everything.
The Muslim Brotherhood lobbying US Congress, May 2017
Erdogan always hoped that the US (and the West as a whole) would appreciate that Turkey is uniquely placed to play the leadership role in the transition to a New Middle East. The Khashoggi affair has noticeably rekindled those hopes. (Interestingly, the spokesmen of the US intelligence establishment who have been very vocal about the Kahshoggi affair have also suddenly mellowed toward Erdogan.)
Now, this subtle shift on the part of the ‘Deep State’ in America toward Erdogan couldn’t have gone unnoticed in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. It has probably prompted them to open a line to Damascus as early as possible.
How this delicate tango will play out remains to be seen, since there are far too many variables. With the US midterm elections over, President Trump may come under pressure to ‘do something’ on the Khashoggi affair.
Meanwhile, the Saudi and Emirati presence in Syria will be a matter of concern for Turkey in the ‘post-truth’ politics after Khashoggi’s murder.
Legislation arising from tragedies is almost uniformly bad. One need only look at the domestic surveillance growth industry kick started by the Patriot Act to see that fear-based legislation works out very badly for constituents.
Eric Adams, the president of Brooklyn Borough, and state Senator Kevin Palmer are currently writing the proposed legislation, which would give law enforcement authorities the power to check up to three years of an individual’s social media accounts and internet search history before they are allowed to buy a gun, WCBS Newsradio 880 reported. One of the main aims is to identify any hate speech shared by the users, as the politicians noted that such offensive comments are generally only discovered after mass shootings occur.
The facile explanation for this ridiculous piece of legislation is this: somehow the Pittsburgh shooter might have been prevented from buying a gun because he posted anti-Semitic content to a social media platform.
This premise will only make sense to those incapable of giving it more than a superficial examination. First off, gun ownership is Constitutionally-protected, whether these legislators like it or not. It doesn’t make sense to abridge someone’s rights over social media posts, even if the posts contain bigoted speech. That speech is also protected by the Constitution, so combining the two simply doubles the chance the law will be struck down as unconstitutional. Plenty of people engage in ignorant bigotry. Not all of them are would-be criminals.
This law would treat every gun buyer as a suspected criminal who may only take advantage of their guaranteed rights by engaging in government-approved speech. That’s completely the wrong way around. This Brooklyn lawmaker doesn’t seem to understand this inversion even when he directly, if inadvertently, addresses it.
“If the police department is reviewing a gang assault, a robbery, some type of shooting, they go and do a social media profile investigation,” the borough president pointed out.
Yes. But in these cases, a criminal act has occurred and an investigation is warranted. This legislative proposal treats gun buying as a crime and people’s social media history as some weird form of evidence. That’s fucked up, no matter how you might feel about the Second Amendment. Lots of shitposting and venting can look dangerous if viewed solely in the context of finding a reason to deny someone a gun.
Then there’s the still unaddressed question of what law enforcement is supposed to do if it decides someone’s social media posts are worrying enough they should be denied gun ownership. Are officers supposed to head out and arrest this person for being aggressively racist? Is that where this is headed? Are these legislators actually going to enable literal policing of speech?
And how is this supposed to be accomplished? Would potential gun buyers be forced to relinquish account info and passwords to ensure law enforcement is able to see everything purchasers have posted?
These are all worrying questions, none of which anyone involved with this bill seems to have answers for. Sure, it’s still early the legislative process, but these lawmakers are speaking about it publicly using specious reasoning and inapt comparisons. This suggests they like the idea they’ve had, but haven’t really thought about it past the point of “the Pittsburgh shooter posted racist memes, therefore this would definitely work.”
Adams said the bills take the First Amendment right to free speech and the Second Amendment right to bear arms into the equation.
“We’re not talking about a person advertising ‘I hate a particular elected official. I hate a policy that’s passed,’” Adams said. “If there’s something that a law enforcement officer of a reasonable mind reviewed that shows this person does not hold the mental capacity to own a gun, then he should not be able to get a permit. We should use the same standard that determines whether a police officer can carry a gun.”
It doesn’t take either of those rights into account. It simply says police will now be allowed to view three years of social media history (along with search history from Google, Yahoo, and Bing) to determine gun ownership eligibility. All Adams says is it won’t be used to punish certain protected speech. (And it will be used to punish this specific protected speech because any law that can be abused by the government will be abused by it.)
To add to surreality of the proposal, Gab won’t be included in the social media monitoring despite this being the site where the Pittsburgh shooter posted the comments these legislators point to as the impetus for this terrible legislation.
No matter how it’s pitched, it all comes down to this: no Second Amendment rights for New Yorkers if they don’t use their First Amendment rights in a way their government approves.
A $25 million study on the effects of cellphone radiation on rats found clear evidence of tumors. But the Food and Drug Administration, which had requested the study in the first place, is casting doubt on its conclusions. RT America’s Dan Cohen has the details.
Government agencies that are skilled at invading nearly everyone’s privacy worldwide are sometimes totally inept at keeping their own internal communications secure. The problem is particularly acute for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which must maintain secure contact with thousands of foreign agents scattered all over the world. By secure contact one means being able to provide specific targeting to the agents and receive in return detailed information that responds to what is being sought without any third party being able to intercept or interpret what is being shared.
Communicating is the most vulnerable element in any foreign agent operation, particularly as counter-intelligence services commit major resources to cracking the systems used to link an agent in the field with his case officer or handler, who might be in the same country under diplomatic cover but just as easily might be in another nearby country or halfway around the world.
Various media reports have lately been detailing a catastrophic communications security failure by the CIA that took place between 2007 and 2013. In simple terms, what took place was this: the Agency developed a method of covertly communicating with its agents through the internet that involved sites which enabled two way communications that were believed to be both secure and efficient. It presumably operated like social media sites where you have to log in, provide a password and then are able to send and receive messages. It almost certainly had some level of encryption built into it and there may have been several layers of passwords and/or questions that the user had to answer to gain access.
Once developed, the system, which was originally intended only for occasional low-level use, was then deployed to handle nearly all the CIA’s agent communications worldwide, including a number of key countries targeted by Washington, to include Iran and China. Each country had a separate site and the sites themselves were set up under innocuous business or social cover arrangements which presumably would have made them of no interest to prowling counterintelligence services.
What exactly went wrong is not completely clear, but the mechanism was discovered by Iranian counterintelligence, possibly employing information provided by a double agent. The Iranians determined what kind of indicators and components the CIA site had and then went on a Google search to find other similar sites. They then watched their site as well as the others, noting both their activity and their idiosyncrasies, and were presumably able to penetrate the site directed against them. At some point, they passed what they had learned on to the Chinese and possibly others.
The Chinese expanded on the Iranian work by breaking through the firewall in their country’s site and getting into the entire system. It was possible to identify all the CIA agents in China. More than two dozen were arrested, tortured and killed and a like number were found and executed in Iran, though some were warned by the CIA and were able to escape. Agents in other countries were also exfiltrated as a security measure because it was not known to what extent the information on the system had been compromised and shared. The damage is still being assessed, but one thing that is known is that the United States knew little or nothing about what was going on in China and Iran at a critical time when negotiations over nuclear programs and North Korea were taking place.
The internet communications system was used so extensively because it was easy to use. When it eventually crashed, fully 70% of CIA communications with agents were potentially compromised. Ironically, a CIA contractor had, in 2008, warned that the internet system had major flaws that could be exploited. He was fired for his pains.
Secret communications to protect spies are as old as the Greeks and Romans, who used codes and substitution ciphers. The leap into internet communications by the CIA demonstrated that no system is infallible. The CIA got lazy and did not do its homework when setting up communications plans with agents. The reality is that running agents in a hostile foreign country is more an art than a science. You communicate with a spy in a way that fits in with his lifestyle so as not to arouse suspicion. He or she might be able to take phone calls, or receive letters with invisible writing. They might have the privacy to do burst communications from a computer to a satellite. Or they might prefer to use the old-fashioned methods — to include chalk marks signaling dead drops, brush passes and encrypted communications using one-time pads. CIA, which lost many of its skilled spies post 9/11 after it went crazy over electronics, drones and paramilitary operations, will now have to relearn Basic Espionage 101. It will not be easy and will take years to do if it is even possible. Some might argue, perhaps, that the world would be a better and safer place if it is not done at all.
A week ago, we were told that climate change was worse than we thought. But the underlying science contains a major error.
Independent climate scientist Nicholas Lewis has uncovered a major error in a recent scientific paper that was given blanket coverage in the English-speaking media. The paper, written by a team led by Princeton oceanographer Laure Resplandy, claimed that the oceans have been warming faster than previously thought. It was announced, in news outlets including the BBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Scientific American that this meant that the Earth may warm even faster than currently estimated.
However Lewis, who has authored several peer-reviewed papers on the question of climate sensitivity and has worked with some of the world’s leading climate scientists, has found that the warming trend in the Resplandy paper differs from that calculated from the underlying data included with the paper.
“If you calculate the trend correctly, the warming rate is not worse than we thought – it’s very much in line with previous estimates,” says Lewis.
In fact, says Lewis, some of the other claims made in the paper and reported by the media, are wrong too.
“Their claims about the effect of faster ocean warming on estimates of climate sensitivity (and hence future global warming) and carbon budgets are just incorrect anyway, but that’s a moot point now we know that about their calculation error”.
And now that the errors have been uncovered, Lewis points out that it is important that the record is corrected.
“The original findings of the Resplandy paper were given blanket coverage by the media, who rarely question hyped-up findings of this kind. Let’s hope some of them are willing to correct the record”.
In the 1990s, US officials, all of whom would go on to serve in the George W. Bush White House, authored two short, but deeply important policy documents that have subsequently been the guiding force behind every major US foreign policy decision taken since the year 2000 and particularly since 9/11.
The other major document, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, from 1996 was authored by former Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee in the administration of George W. Bush, Richard Norman Perle.
Both documents provide a simplistic but highly unambiguous blueprint for US foreign police in the Middle East, Russia’s near abroad and East Asia. The contents of the Wolfowitz Doctrine were first published by the New York Times in 1992 after they were leaked to the media. Shortly thereafter, many of the specific threats made in the document were re-written using broader language. In this sense, when comparing the official version with the leaked version, it reads in the manner of the proverbial ‘what I said versus what I meant’ adage.
By contrast, A Clean Break was written in 1996 as a kind of gift to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who apparently was not impressed with the document at the time. In spite of this, the US has implemented many of the recommendations in the document in spite of who was/is in power in Tel Aviv.
While many of the recommendations in both documents have indeed been implemented, their overall success rate has been staggeringly bad.
Below are major points from the documents followed by an assessment of their success or failure. … continue
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A week ago, we were told that climate change was worse than we thought. But the underlying science contains a major error.
Aletho News 