India doesn’t need a working relationship with US Central Command
By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | March 23, 2018
The Indian media reported that following the 2+2 talks in Washington last week at the level of the foreign and defence secretaries of India and the US, a “path-breaking” decision has been firmed up to station a naval attaché at the US Naval Forces Command (NAVCENT) in Bahrain. The Defence Ministry officials in Delhi have reportedly said that the Indian attaché’s mandate will be to ‘ensure that the US and Indian navies are on the same page’ and to ‘ensure better coordination and logistic support for warships and aircraft carriers of the two countries.’
The NAVCENT, which comes under the US Central Command, has an area of responsibility that comprises the Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain is in charge of naval operations in the Persian Gulf region, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The highly secretive American base at Diego Garcia deep down in the Indian Ocean provides the underpinning for the NAVCENT.
If the proposed Indian deputation to the NAVCENT takes place, the US Pacific Command and Central Command will ‘share’ India, which would signify India’s growing importance to the US’ global strategies. The NAVCENT is currently fighting wars in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But then, India has nothing to do with any of these wars.
Does the US-Indian project to monitor the movement of Chinese ships in the Indian Ocean warrant such a step? Can’t we keep a tab on the Gwadar naval base without an attaché deployed to Bahrain? Are we contemplating force projection in the Indian Ocean?
On the other hand, this decision drips with profound symbolism and will be noted keenly by all regional states – especially, Iran and Pakistan – and global powers – Russia and China, in particular. Indeed, the stunning part is that, sadly, our policymakers can be so myopic about the country’s geography and the dangerous security environment surrounding it.
All indications are that a major escalation of the war in Syria is imminent. Tensions are rising alarmingly and last weekend Moscow openly warned of retaliation against US targets if it again attacked the Syrian government forces. Only two days ago, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in Moscow, “We have been warning the United States about the need to abandon these plans unconditionally. Any illegal use of force… would be an act of aggression against a sovereign state.” Read the latest analysis by the Russian think tank on security issues entitled The Russian Military Warns: a Major War in Syria Is Imminent.
Again, there are sub-plots – the US plans to balkanize Syria with the help of Kurds and Turkey’s trenchant opposition to it; the US-Israeli strategy to contain Iran’s influence in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon; the NATO’s intent to evict Russia from its Syrian bases and Eastern Mediterranean and so on. Furthermore, it is only the US military support that is sustaining the brutal war waged by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Yemen. A recent op-Ed in the Washington Post co-authored by 3 senior US senators – Bernie Sanders, Mike Lee and Chris Murphy says: “U.S. military is making the crisis (in Yemen) worse by helping one side in the conflict bomb innocent civilians… U.S. forces are coordinating, refueling and targeting with the Saudi-led coalition, as confirmed last December by Defence Secretary Jim Mattis.”
Above all, what India needs to be most vigilant about is the real possibility of a US-Iranian confrontation as a near-term scenario. The appointment of John Bolton as the new US National Security Advisor is indeed ominous. Read an analysis by the well-known investigative journalist and author Gareth Porter in the American Conservative entitled The Untold Story of John Bolton’s Campaign for War With Iran.
Our faujis are besotted with Uncle Sam. For the lucky bloke who gets the slot in Bahrain it may be an attractive ‘phoren posting’, but for India what does it add up to? India will be foolish to get entangled in the US’ military adventures. It simply won’t cut ice to say our chap will remain single-mindedly focused on the movement of Chinese ships.
Politics is largely a matter of perceptions. India gains nothing by displaying a working relationship with the US Central Command when the gathering storms on the horizon are already visible to the naked eye. The prudent thing will be to begin preparations to sequester our country from collateral damage when the tsunami actually arrives. Only fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
US to allocate $250mn to ‘tackle Russian influence’ amid soaring military spending & budget deficit
RT | March 22, 2018
The US is allocating $250 million to counter Russian influence, according to a government spending bill, which also provides for a record boost in US defense spending and a significant sum for military assistance to Ukraine.
With claims and allegations of Russian meddling swirling around Washington DC since the 2016 election, “not less than $250,000,000 shall be made available to carry out the purposes of the Countering Russian Influence Fund,” the 2,200-page Consolidated Appropriations Act, unveiled by the US Congress on Wednesday, states.
While accusing Moscow of interference in the US election, the bill makes no effort to hide America’s own plans to meddle in Russia’s internal affairs. “Funds appropriated by this Act shall be made available to support democracy programs in the Russian Federation, including to promote Internet freedom,” the document reads.
The US has been increasingly focused on trying to detect and counter the perceived Kremlin-backed attack on American democracy on all fronts since the 2016 elections. In early March, the US State Department and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson even faced criticism, after it was revealed that the agency didn’t spend a single dollar out of the $120 million it received for countering “Russian and Chinese propaganda.”
In February, a US Special Counsel indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities on charges of trying to sow discord in America via their activities on social media. The document, however, did not mention the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack or indicate that there was any collusion with the Trump campaign. It also confirmed there was no evidence of any impact on the outcome of the election or links to the Russian government. Moscow has repeatedly denied Washington’s accusations, with Vladimir Putin again telling the NBC in early March that those indicted had nothing to do with the Russian government.
Nevertheless, the $1.3 trillion government spending draft also provides $380 million to protect the US voting system from cyberattacks. Despite the Department of Homeland Security saying last year that there was no evidence of any votes being altered by Russian or any other hackers in 2016, the US intelligence officials have been warning that midterm elections in November could be targeted.
Among other things, the Consolidated Appropriations Act provides an $80 billion increase in defense funding, the largest in 15 years, also earmarking $1.6 billion in funds for the construction of the fence along the Mexican border, one of Trump’s most controversial campaign promises.
The US budget also allocated $200 million for military assistance to Ukraine, which included ‘lethal defensive weapons’ aid to Kiev. “For the ‘Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative’, $200,000,000 is hereby appropriated, to remain available until September 30, 2018,” the document mandates.
The funds are expected to be spent on “training; equipment; lethal weapons of a defensive nature; logistics support, supplies and services sustainment; and intelligence support to the military and national security forces of Ukraine, and for replacement of any weapons or defensive articles provided to the Government of Ukraine.”
US President Donald Trump has to approve the bill by Friday in order to avoid a government shutdown. The US government already briefly stopped operating in January and February as the lawmakers were unable to agree on the funding. “The president supports the bill, looks forward to signing it,” Mick Mulvaney, Office of Management and Budget director, said on Thursday.
Daesh Resumes Training Child Soldiers in Deir ez-Zor Safe Zone – Reports
Sputnik – 23.03.2018
According to Arab media, the Daesh terrorist group is using the de-escalation zones controlled by the US-led international coalition to reorganize and launch fresh strikes on the Syrian government army in a bid to return its former bases in al-Mayadeen and abu-Kamal.
The Arabic-language al-Manar news outlet, citing sources affiliated with the Syrian government’s armed opposition, reported that Daesh has resumed training children for its deadly operations in the Deir ez-Zor province, allegedly protected by the US and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Daesh is reportedly preparing to attack the Syrian army after the US-backed SDF declared an end to operations against the terrorist group, and following the US military expanding its presence in the region.
The terrorist group has allegedly established a military base in order to train what it described as “The Caliphate’s Lion Cubs” in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province, adjacent to Iraq, Arab media reported. The training center for child soldiers has allegedly been set up under the supervision of the former commander of Daesh bases in Raqqa, Abu Mohammed al-Fransi; the group is said to have been recruiting a large number of Syrian and foreign children to conduct suicide operations.
Recently, the Syrian government accused Washington of providing support for Daesh and other terrorist groups in the country, including intelligence allowing the militants to attack Syrian army positions. Syrian state media, such as the SANA news agency, have also repeatedly reported that US helicopters evacuated Daesh jihadists from several areas across Deir ez-Zor, with wounded militants allegedly being sent to receive medical assistance from Medecins Sans Frontieres doctors.
According to Damascus, US air power has purportedly been used on numerous occasions to rescue terrorist leaders from elimination at the hands of the government army, and even to stage “accidental” attacks on Syrian troops as they advanced against the terrorists.
The US-led anti-Daesh coalition kicked off its campaign in Syria in 2014 without a UN mandate or the country’s government’s consent. Damascus has repeatedly denounced the offensive as a violation of its sovereignty, reiterating that Washington and its allies were never invited into the country by the internationally recognized government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Ghost of Hillary
By Nick Pemberton | CounterPunch | March 23, 2018
The Ghost of Hillary Clinton still haunts the minds of many Americans. She is paraded around America like a fallen angel. A Washington Post article as recent as March 14th stated: “America Needs Hillary More Than Ever”. The investigation into Russia collusion drags on a year and a half after Donald Trump’s victory. Earlier this month Hillary was still making excuses for why she lost. The latest one: she had two-thirds of the GDP on her side: “But what the map doesn’t show you is that I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward”. Even Hillary is usually more skilled at hiding her class bias.
This was one of Hillary’s more telling quotes. She believes the rich are dynamic and forward thinking and that the poor are not. She believes that to be poor is to be backward and ignorant. She believes that only angry white dudes are poor and she doesn’t even give a thought to anyone else. She believes that the smart and worthy people are for her and that the losers are not. And of course she believes that there is something inherently wrong with an election that is decided by poor people. The rich are also according to Hillary, more “optimistic.” No shit. Who could possibly be “optimistic” about the state of America right now besides the rich?
To be fair, Hillary is not the only one obsessed with Hillary. Trump and Fox News spread mad and sexist conspiracies about her. And who could blame Hillary for being obsessed with herself? Imagine waking up tomorrow as Hillary Clinton. Could anything be stranger?!
I told myself that I wasn’t going to read What Happened. Despite my obsession with Hillary Clinton, even I had my fair share by the end of the 2016 election. Yet I almost tripped over it in the library, laying out on a cart, castaway, begging to be read. My first response was, as always with Hillary, “won’t you just go away?” But there was something that beckoned me back into her arms. Hillary, as captivating as she is awkward, wooed me back.
I am far from the only man obsessed with Hillary. But what kind of man am I? Am I the bitter Bernie Bro who pours minutely over each detail of the DNC’s corruption? Am I the deplorable Trumper who sees Hillary lurking behind every conspiracy of liberalism on Fox News? Or am I the sanctimonious liberal man who bends over backwards to prove that he is a feminist through his Hillary fetish? This kind of man is so acutely portrayed in Get Out. The liberal suburban Dad proudly tells the black man he is about to slice up that he “would have voted for Obama a third time.”
Yet I wonder if there is a fourth type of man obsessed with Hillary. Someone who finds the entire political scene so farcical that he can’t help but be drawn in by somebody who is so uniquely dishonest, entitled, and oblivious.
There was always a certain bond that I felt with Hillary’s mangled soul. She is just so out of touch with most people. She needed translators to relate to the everyday American, and her translators weren’t that good either. She couldn’t walk into a room, as her husband did, and adapt to the sheer absurdity of the human mind, let alone the American mind. If she did not find her own mind to be so far above what she couldn’t understand maybe she would have won. With that thought, I jumped in.
The book felt hectic, but not in the Virginia Woolf stream-of-consciousness sense. There is something quite dulling about all of Hillary’s anecdotes. She has been in the political machine for far too long. She seems to be frozen in platitudes of what should be. Her mind is not free, it is trapped inside someone who works too hard and feels too little. She feels the need to attack all dissenters. In the first few pages she gushes over her phone call from “George” (yes, George W. Bush). She seems to be just fine with anyone more rightwing than her, for it leaves her room to shimmy to their side, always the willing (and superior) partner in crimes against humanity. Anyone more left than Hillary must be crazy, for that side has already been taken up by Hers truly.
Before every chapter there is some sort of self-help quote from a famous person. Hillary has the blasphemy to begin the book with a quote from “super-predator” Harriet Tubman (she goes on to celebrate Harriet’s face on the 20$ bill. If Hillary ever had to touch a 20 she might not have been so complementary). Hillary’s book fits in with the therapy driven, pill popping self-love narratives that has ascendancy over liberal circles. Compassion for mental illness is important (although not for the mental illness that brings slavery to Haiti and Libya). But the overall craze with self-loving fits with the capitalist notion that mental health is indeed a problem to be blamed on the individual, and if only they could be a little more selfish they would be happier. This self-love narrative doesn’t acknowledge that the happiest regions in the world are the ones with the strongest communities and the least inequality.
About every self-help quote has something to do with “it doesn’t matter if you lose, it matters that you keep going.” The first assumption here is that because Hillary lost, we all lost. Why again should we feel that Hillary Clinton’s loss was our loss? Wasn’t she the second most unpopular candidate ever? There is an assumption throughout the book that Hillary represented all that is good about the new liberal order. How many people is this order helping? And to the extent that it does work, can you name one way in which the Clintons have helped, rather than betrayed the very principles of a liberal society? The second assumption that Hillary makes is that nobody should look at the outcomes of an event that surprised them. Instead they should just double down on what they already thought. Hillary’s world is the entire world and no event—not even losing a Presidential election to Donald Trump?!!! should result in any sort of curiosity or reflection. The answer to all problems in America and in HillaryLand is work harder and don’t look anywhere you aren’t supposed to.
The other problem for the Clintons in this book is how much their brand is stuck in the 90s. They are a show about nothing without the humor or self-awareness. The 60s brought idealism through thriving social movements. Following their defeat it was cynicism and Nixon that rose from the ashes. Cynicism was then institutionalized through Reagan and the 80s with a full on embrace of individualism and neoliberalism. What followed was the Clintons, who rebranded the Democratic Party as a place for liberal individuals rather than collective society. Follow this with a win for the common man George W., a celebration of individual simpleness as collective identity. Hope for a smarter (but not a more collective) world came through Barack Obama, and predictably hope fell flat on its face despite Obama’s popularity. Hillary Clinton then tried to make a cheery reboot of her 90s family sitcom, but talking about nothing no longer was appealing. Talking about something, some doom for us all, was the pulse of the times and Donald Trump fit perfectly. Proud of lying, bullying and destruction, the end times had come for us. Born again Christians rejoice and free market liberals rebuke. Hillary still can’t believe Trump won but it was ultimately her ideology that won out. Rich individuals matter, society does not.
The Clintons are as sloppy as they are shameless. The fact that they thought they deserved another chance showed how much they took the American people, especially the left, for granted. To write a tale of victimhood assumes that none of us remembered the Clintons or if we did, that they deserved to get away with it. It is true that women and men are held to different standards in our society. But the complaint by Hillary is that she couldn’t get away with criminality, corruption and cruelty. How bold a claim it is to act like you deserve to get away with such things! Imagine even if a less prolific gangster, such as Al Capone, was half as indignant about his crimes! This is why What Happened, once you get past the ridiculousness of it, is a potentially engrossing read.
There was something strangely satisfying about Hillary bashing Bernie Sanders in this book. I am not sure which side of the Left brain it appealed to—that of masochism or that of martyrdom. There was just something so false and small about that old man. He at the end of the day got what he was looking for—a seat at the table of the Democratic Party.
As for Russia, everything got really personal in this book. it was like all of us were at the mercy of grudges between royal figures. Putin hates me, I hate Putin, let’s go to war and you can cheer for me! The media too has taken Putin’s “attack on American democracy” quite personally. It is after all, their democracy that Putin messed with. Only the American corporate media can decide what we think, no outside propaganda allowed! Hillary also throws in that America was doing better than any other major country.
Another favorite moment of the book was when an older woman dragged her younger daughter over to Hillary to confess that she didn’t vote. The younger woman bowed her head before the pulpit and apologized for her sin. Hillary complained about forgiving this woman, acting as if one “lazy millennial” had more to do with her own loss than she did. Want to know why younger people aren’t voting? This is why.
The first couple of chapters are rather slow as Hillary tries to pretend like she has a personal life and a soul. Hillary informs us that she asked her father if he would still love her even if she murdered someone. Maybe he should have said no…. It gets even more tiresome when she raves about the Clinton Foundation. Then there are the details of her campaign staff and their analytics. I must admit that I skipped this part. Maybe Trump had spoiled me, but I wanted the dirt!
It takes a while to get going. The book is filled with pop culture references and cute anecdotes that are dated, overused and uninspiring. Hillary desperately shoves her humanity on top of us and it is hard to believe it. There are so many quaint stories that happen to “ordinary” people in this book. Including to Hillary herself. What she ate, what she wore, who she went on a walk with. Lots of “jokes” and “moments” that helped to get her through the day. Aren’t these things that come naturally to human beings? Do they have to be so forced?
I came to the next chapter: “A Day In The Life”. Get me out of here! Finally, the section on “Sisterhood”. I can’t believe I am saying this, but I miss Elitist Hillary! Everyday Hillary is way too folksy. There are three chapters devoted to “Sisterhood”. In Hillary’s world there are two sides: those who are with men and those who are with Her. Hillary, Establishment Democrats and even Establishment Republicans are on the side of women. Anyone outside of this establishment—whether they be Trump voters (in Hillary’s mind, poor people, evil men and acquiescent women) or Bernie voters (idealistic privileged men) are the enemy of Hillary, and therefore the enemy of women.
What is truly odd about Hillary is that she sees feminism in the establishment and sexism as an outside force that come from the unenlightened masses. This is consistent with her aggressive use of the police state and military-industrial complex. She views these patriarchal forms of control as civilizing forces for predatory men and their victims. What war does to women is irrelevant. What prison does to women is irrelevant. What cutting welfare does to women is irrelevant. What widening inequality does to women is irrelevant. Distrust the masses and trust the powerful is Hillary’s mantra.
There may also be truth in that Hillary’s strategy of lying, stealing, and yes, even marrying, to the top of our capitalist patriarchal society produced better results for her. As sad as this may be, such a strategy of global pillage should be denounced as not worth whatever Hillary thinks she symbolizes. Hillary’s book did feature some nice statements on women’s leadership, and hopefully it encourages more women to get involved in politics. Having no beliefs other than narcissism though, Hillary again stuck to empty and vague maxims in this section.
I had to stop. I was going mad. This was such a long road and it meant nothing. The lies weren’t even interesting anymore. She wasn’t trying to convince me, she was trying to fatigue me. I knew slightly more fruitful ground was ahead. I wanted to see her rail against Russia and Bernie. The index indicated her “Grievances” would go on for several hundred pages. I wanted to see the “real” Hillary. I wanted to see her express her real believes and real emotions. But I had to skim, and soon after I had to close the book. I saw my life ticking away as I became increasingly engrossed by the petty grievances of one of the most sinister people in the world. I was, if anything, more confused now than I had ever been. But far too worn down to keep going. I anticipated reading the whole book but I could barely get through the first couple chapters. This was a painful, painful read. Don’t try it. If you think you want to read this book, just run away.
This book is awful. Not especially because of the politics it embraces, which are obviously horrendous. Rather it is the attitude of a politician so distant from reality, so distant from what it means to be alive, that she has to construct it entirely from her partner’s notes. She says she doesn’t want to be like Ms. Havisham from Great Expectations but this is exactly who she is. She is a ghost, stuck in a moment in time, unable to make any sense of it. 70 years of denying the existence of a world with struggle and dignity has left her incapable of accepting reality. She hires advisors to give excuses, she hires writers to construct a life, and she hires think tanks to run the government.
For Hillary the world will go on through the ever improving free market, where all victories are natural and all losses are inexplicable. It is from America, the most rude and selfish place in the world, where democracy shines. As for the people, they just haven’t quite caught up to this hip lady with the pantsuits and techies. Have these Trump people even been to Chipotle, she wonders.
What is this world? Who are you, Hillary Clinton? Even the way she explained yoga was so exhausting. She acted like it was some slick American innovation that was best applied for the overbooked. I don’t know, gosh, who cares. But there was just something so frustrating about Hillary’s zombie-like quest in this book. Eat the enemy. Learn human. Using google translate.
Where was I? Where had Hillary taken me? Life began slipping away, I was trapped within a white picket fence. I would be driving a mini van to see small children play soccer games. I would engage in humanitarian projects to remind myself the world was there. I would be happily married—somehow both owning and respecting my wife and 3 children. I would be endlessly busy, stressed, and exhausted. Occasionally I would take a moment to say “isn’t life just great.” I would have a few cute quirks that we could all laugh about, as I was a character in this act too. I would be the uncivilized man needing to be civilized, and no matter how far I might stray, they would assure me “you’ll come back” and indeed, I would. I saw each benchmark of a successful life pass by, and each time, I would tell myself “life was not wasted.” I would lose touch with all those but the most persistent, not really liking any of my friends, but liking to gossip about them. I would turn on CNN, listen to the experts, vote for a centrist Democrat who talked about getting along, donate to the charity of my choice, scold somebody, but no one in particular, feel good about myself, become utterly bored, pick up another hobby that did nothing for anybody, I would become stressed, I would go to Starbucks, I would figure out the best ways to “manage” such a balanced life between work and family and projects, and I would do my best to civilize the world in my image. I would grow more conservative with age, more cross with those younger than me, more trusting in authority, and more cynical about government. I would one day get cancer, be covered by ObamaCare, thank God for the Democrats, beat it once, have a small thought that my whole life was a sham, but soon go back to routine. I would then one day die, in the middle of the night, and those of my creed would regard me as a “good man” and a “happy man” and I would be buried next to my loving wife, who was really the pillar of the family, and the mystery would remain, how on earth did Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton?
By the end of the book I scratched my head and concluded that none of it really mattered. The whole event of the 2016 election and its dramatic reveal through this book seemed to just be based in petty details, meanness and elitism. Naturally, Donald Trump, the most petty, the most mean and the most elite of the crop won the cake. Actually, Hillary Clinton, losing the 2016 election is the most decent thing you have ever done.
What began a couple hours ago as intrigue ended in a woozy haze. I wasn’t asking What Happened I was asking What Just Happened? This was a tedious expedition. I was hoping for Desperate Housewives but I got Gone Girl meets Gilmore Girls. This was a brutal cocktail of sensationalized victimhood and mind numbing anecdotes. There were some slightly more wild sucker punches in the later chapters but I couldn’t appreciate many of them. As bad as Hillary is at being a politician, she is much worse at being a human being.
Naturally I had to turn to Russian born singer Regina Spektor and her song “Ghost Of Corporate Future” to get my sanity back. She sings over an overflowing piano rhythm:
And people make you nervous
You’d think the world was ending
And everybody’s features have somehow started blending
And everything is plastic
And everyone’s sarcastic
And all your food is frozen
It needs to be defrosted
You’d think the world was ending
You’d think the world was ending
You’d think the world was ending right now
Hillary is indeed the ghost of a corporate future. When she was running for President it was very reasonable to ask: is she alive? She is so cynical, so fake, and so out of touch. She has built her fences and her causes and has hid behind them.
Now she is a different sort of ghost. She remains stuck in a moment in time. We are reminded of her far too often. When she lost we lost “democracy” and gained “fascism.” Hillary’s death was the death of America. The greatest country on earth had fallen. Hillary haunts our imaginations. She deludes our memory. What would have happened if she had won?
Look no further than this quote about nuclear weapons during the Presidential debate: “The bottom line on nuclear weapons is: when the President gives the order it must be followed… that’s why ten people who have had that awesome responsibility have come out and said they would not trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes.”
A person so distant from reality naturally lives in deep paranoia. Hillary is deeply fearful of the poor, blacks, young women, and foreign foes. When she said that a nuclear order “must be obeyed” she was implying that she was entitled to give such an order. She was right to criticize Donald Trump’s judgement but may I ask when is the right time to blow up the entire world? One who is level headed about such a possibility is much more frightening than a madman like Trump.
As Secretary of State Hillary was reckless. Given the current climate in Syria (no thanks to her nemesis Vladimir), what would a no-fly zone have meant? What would it have mattered to Hillary? If she didn’t understand Wisconsin, what makes us think she would have understood Syria? A hot nuclear war would have been one way to defrost Hillary’s frozen food and warm her cold hands. We all may have been ghosts of Hillary’s corporate future if the White Pantsuit had descended upon us. Now that she can’t take our bodies, she settles for our souls.
Nick Pemberton is a student at Gustavus Adolphus College. He is currently employed by Gustavus Dining Services. Nick was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. He can be reached at pemberton.nick@gmail.com
Facebook Scandal Blows Away ‘Russiagate’
By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Startegic Culture Foundation | 23.03.2018
Now, at last, a real “election influence” scandal – and, laughably, it’s got nothing to do with Russia. The protagonists are none other than the “all-American” US social media giant Facebook and a British data consultancy firm with the academic-sounding name Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is being called upon by British and European parliamentarians to explain his company’s role in a data-mining scandal in which up to 50 million users of the social media platform appear to have had their private information exploited for electioneering purposes.
Exploited, that is, without their consent or knowledge. Facebook is being investigated by US federal authorities for alleged breach of privacy and, possibly, electoral laws. Meanwhile, Cambridge Analytica looks less an academic outfit and more like a cheap marketing scam.
Zuckerberg has professed “shock” that his company may have unwittingly been involved in betraying the privacy of its users. Some two billion people worldwide are estimated to use the social media networking site to share personal data, photos, family news and so on, with “friends”.
Now it transpires that at least one firm, London-based Cambridge Analytica, ran a profitable business by harvesting the publicly available data on Facebook for electioneering purposes for which it was contracted to do. The harvested information was then used to help target election campaigning.
Cambridge Analytica was reportedly contracted by the Trump campaign for the 2016 presidential election. It was also used during the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016 when Britons voted to leave the European Union.
This week the British news outlet Channel 4 broadcast a stunning investigation in which chief executives at Cambridge Analytica were filmed secretly boasting about how their firm helped win the US presidential election for Donald Trump.
More criminally, the data company boss, Alexander Nix, also revealed that they were prepared to gather information which could be used for blackmailing and bribing politicians, including with the use of online sex traps.
The repercussions from the scandal have been torrid. Following the Channel 4 broadcast, Cambridge Analytica has suspended its chief executive pending further investigation. British authorities have sought a warrant to search the company’s computer servers.
Moreover, Zuckerberg’s Facebook has seen $50 billion wiped of its stock value in a matter of days. What is at issue is the loss of confidence among its ordinary citizen-users about how their personal data is vulnerable to third party exploitation without their consent.
Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of an iceberg. The issue has raised concerns that other third parties, including criminal identity-theft gangs, are also mining Facebook as a mammoth marketing resource. A resource that is free to exploit because of the way that ordinary users willingly publish their personal profiles.
The open, seemingly innocent nature of Facebook connecting millions of people – a “place where friends meet” as its advertising jingle goes – could turn out to be an ethical nightmare over privacy abuse.
Other social media companies like Amazon, Google, WhatsApp and Twitter are reportedly apprehensive about the consequences of widespread loss of confidence among consumers in privacy security. One of the biggest economic growth areas over the past decade – social media – could turn out to be another digital bubble that bursts spectacularly due to the latest Facebook scandal.
But one other, perhaps more, significant fallout from the scandal is the realistic perspective it provides on the so-called “Russiagate” debacle.
For well over a year now, the US and European corporate news media have been peddling claims about how Russian state agents allegedly “interfered” in several national elections.
The Russian authorities have consistently rejected the alleged “influence campaigns” as nothing but a fabrication to slander Russia. Moscow has repeatedly asked for evidence to verify the relentless claims – and none has been presented.
The US congress has carried out two probes into “Russiagate” without much to show for their laborious endeavors. A special counsel headed up by former FBI chief Robert Mueller has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to produce a flimsy indictment list of 19 Russian individuals who are said to have run influence campaigns out of a nondescript “troll farm” in St Petersburg.
It still remains unclear and unconvincing how, or if, the supposed Russian hackers were linked to the Russian state, and how they had any impact on the voting intentions of millions of Americans.
Alternatively, there is plausible reason to believe that the so-called Russian troll farm in St Petersburg, the Internet Research Agency, may have been nothing other than a dingy marketing vehicle, trying to use the internet like thousands of other firms around the world hustling for advertising business. Firms like Cambridge Analytica.
The whole Russiagate affair has been a storm in a teacup, and Mueller seems to be desperate to produce some, indeed any, result for his inquisitorial extravaganza.
The amazing thing to behold is how the alleged Russian “influence campaign” narrative has become an accepted truth, propagated and repeated by Western governments and media without question.
Pentagon defense strategy papers, European Union policy documents, NATO military planning, among others, have all cited alleged “Russian interference” in American and European elections as “evidence” of Moscow’s “malign” geopolitical agenda.
The purported Russiagate allegations have led to a grave deepening of Cold War tensions between Western states and Russia to the point where an all-out war is at risk of breaking out.
Last week, the Trump administration slapped more sanctions on Russian individuals and state security services for “election meddling”.
No proof or plausible explanation has ever been provided to substantiate the allegations of a Russian state “influence campaign’. The concept largely revolves around innuendo and a deplorable prejudice against Russia based on irrational Cold War-style Russophobia.
However, one possible beneficial outcome from the latest revelations of an actual worldwide Facebook election-influence campaign, driven by an ever-so British data consultancy, is that the scandal puts the claims against Russia into stark, corrective perspective.
A perspective which shows that the heap of official Western claims against Russia of “influencing elections” is in actual fact negligible if not wholly ridiculous.
It’s a mountain versus a hill of beans. A tornado versus a storm in a teacup. Time to get real on how Western citizens are being really manipulated by their own consumer-capitalist cultures.
Trump’s Call to Putin… A Gesture Amid Ominous Signs
Strategic Culture Foundation | 23.03.2018
It is to be welcomed that US President Donald Trump got on the phone this week to congratulate Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the latter’s presidential election victory last weekend.
Trump said it was “a good call” and that both leaders discussed cooperation on a range of international issues, including avoiding an arms race, North Korea, and Syria. They have reportedly agreed to hold a bilateral meeting soon.
It is deplorable that the leaders of the two most powerful nuclear states have not yet held a full bilateral meeting either in Washington DC or in Moscow. The inertia stems from the American side, despite Trump’s avowed desire to restore friendly relations with Russia.
Trump and Putin have met only briefly on two occasions over the past 14 months since Trump’s inauguration in January 2016. But those meetings were rather passing encounters while both were attending multilateral forums. A summit-style meeting held over several days between the two leaders is long overdue.
But of course, the anti-Russia politics holding sway in the US and among certain American NATO allies have made any such proper meeting a toxic prospect.
Trump is accused of being somehow beholden to Putin due to far-fetched allegations of Russian electoral collusion or interference. Russia on the other hand is assailed for all sorts of imagined transgressions, including alleged aggression in Ukraine.
The polarized geopolitical situation is lamentable. Especially given the apparent willingness on the part of Trump and Putin to make progress towards normalizing relations. The leaders are being held hostage by an agenda of Russophobia pushed by certain political circles in Washington and other Western capitals.
Trump was immediately attacked this week by Republicans and Democrats following his phone call to Putin. He was rebuked for not challenging Putin over allegations of Russian meddling in US elections and over the apparent poisoning of a former British double agent in England earlier this month.
These charges against Russia, like so many others, are ridiculously overblown. Unsubstantiated and unproven, the charges are repeated and multiplied in a climate of hysteria. The British alleged poison case is but the latest classic example from the mold of presumption of Russian guilt without evidence.
Trump was right to make the call to Putin. It is customary diplomatic protocol for world leaders to exchange good wishes over elections. It is only the hyped-up anti-Russia claims over the past few years and in particular the latest episode regarding Britain that have instilled an unwarranted toxicity into what should be normal international relations.
But it is disturbing that the American president was obliged to defend himself from his political detractors over what should have been a normal courtesy call.
The furore over Trump’s call to Putin demonstrates how destructive the bilateral relation between the US and Russia has become.
Trump deserves credit for not caving into the irrational hostility towards Russia shown by too many in Washington and among the US news media.
Nevertheless one phone call and vague pledges of cooperation are far from satisfactory given the ominous geopolitical climate. President Trump may have a reasonable personal view towards Russia, but he appears to be surrounded by a milieu of inveterate hostility towards Moscow.
There are several ominous scenarios for potential catastrophic conflict. American threats to militarily strike Syria over contrived pretexts concerning chemical weapons; the US supplying lethal weapons to the fascistic Kiev regime in Ukraine; and Washington’s threats of sanctions disrupting Russia’s gas exports to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline – are all urgent risks to global peace. Fears of a world war breaking out are not at all misplaced.
American animosity towards Russia, as well as towards China, is strategic and structural in nature. It has to do with American loss of hegemonic power in the context of an emerging multipolar world order. The epochal problem can hardly be resolved through the aegis of individual political leaders working in isolation from systemic causes.
Given the climate of tensions and ominous dangers of confrontation, the American and Russian leaderships must at the very least engage in earnest dialogue to try to transcend systemic contradictions.
The occasional cordial phone call from an American president to the Russian leader is far from satisfactory in the face of global challenges to world peace.
The Russian leadership under President Vladimir Putin has grasped the vital importance of an earnest engagement for world peace. Lamentably, there appears to be no reciprocal American leadership under Donald Trump. That is a foreboding failure of American politics.
Forty Hospitalized, Nobody Intoxicated: Who Has Access to A-234 Nerve Agent
Sputnik | March 23, 2018
Britain’s Skripal case evokes strong memories of Colin Powell’s narrative of Saddam Hussein’s developing weapons of mass destruction, Sputnik contributor Daniele Pozzati writes, stressing that in contrast to the US and the UK, Russia completely destroyed its chemical arms stockpiles.
No one among dozens of patients who went to a Salisbury hospital after the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia has experienced similar symptoms, independent journalist Daniele Pozzati highlighted in his op-ed for Sputnik, citing Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust Stephen Davies’ letter.
On March 14, The Sun reported that “nearly 40 people [had] experienced symptoms related to the Salisbury nerve agent poisoning.” The doctor rushed to deny the claim, stressing in his open letter that there have been only three patients with significant poisoning, namely Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey.
“Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved,” Davies’ letter reads.
On March 22, news emerged that a second policeman involved in the Skripal probe has shown potential signs of poisoning. However, it was reported that the signs are not on the same scale as those of the Skripals and Bailey, who is now stable. For their part, the Skripals remain in critical condition in hospital.Last week British Prime Minister Theresa May accused Russia of using the A-234 nerve agent in an attempt to kill former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. However, London refused to present samples of the poisonous substance to Russia as well as evidence found during the investigation.
Pozzati pointed out that according to the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the UK ought to provide Russia with the nerve agent used to poison Skripal and give Russia 10 days to respond. Nevertheless, May didn’t provide any evidence to Moscow and gave it just 24 hours to react to London’s ultimatum.
The independent journalist cited Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, who claimed in an interview to The Guardian that the Russian city of Shikhany “was the sole location for development and production” of the A-234 nerve agent.
Pozzati highlighted that although Bretton-Gordon dismissed the assumption that the poisonous substance could be produced in other states of the post-Soviet space, a 1999 report by The New York Times revealed that the US took part in an effort to decontaminate the Chemical Research Institute in Nukus, Uzbekistan.The media outlet noted, citing Soviet defectors and American officials, that “the Nukus plant was a major research and testing site for a new class of secret, highly lethal chemical weapons,” A-234.
Thus, since 1999 the US has had access to gas, Pozzati stressed, adding that for its part Russia completed the destruction of its arsenal of chemical weapons on September 27, 2017.
Commenting on Russia’s move, head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ahmet Uzumcu, stated: “The completion of the verified destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons program is a major milestone in the achievement of the goals of the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
“In contrast, both the United States and the United Kingdom still have a chemical weapons program,” Pozzati highlighted. “The American [chemical weapons] project will be dismantled only in the next five years. In the light of Dr. Davis’s statements, we can face yet another fake a-la Colin Powell’s narrative about the chemical weapons of Saddam Hussein.”
On March 4, the British police found former intelligence agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, unconscious near a shopping center in Salisbury. Following the alleged nerve gas attack, the British government pointed the finger of blame at Moscow despite the investigation into the Skripal case having not been completed. British PM May initiated the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats which triggered a mirror response by Russia.
On March 19, experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) got the samples of the poisonous substance used in a supposed attack against the Skripals. According to the OPCW, it will take at least three weeks to study the nerve agent provided by the British authorities.
Trump assailed for phoning Putin, but feting blood-soaked Saudi dictator is OK
By Finian Cunningham | RT | March 22, 2018
Donald Trump sparked outrage this week in the US over his congratulatory phone call to Russian leader Vladimir Putin on his re-election. But his obscene indulgence of a Saudi despot in the White House hardly ruffled any concern.
How disconnected from reality can you get?
There was furious reaction across US media to news that Trump phoned Russia’s President Putin to congratulate him on his landslide election victory last weekend. Republicans and Democrats were up in arms about what is just basic protocol of one leader calling another to express customary election compliments.
After all, former president Barack Obama did the same when Putin won the previous 2012 presidential election.
This time, however, US-Russian relations have become toxic after a raft of unproven allegations against Moscow, including alleged meddling in the American presidential vote in November 2016 in which Trump was elected, and the latest row over the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in England.
All these anti-Russian claims are unsubstantiated, if not outlandish, but they are repeated often enough to cast a permanent cloud over international relations. Republican Senator John McCain was widely quoted by way of expressing the bipartisan outrage over Trump’s phone call. “An American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators,” he said.
American critics of Russia’s Putin can quibble all they like about the merits of his re-election. They contend the vote was a foregone conclusion, rigged in his favor. But such sniping seems churlish against the overwhelming fact that Putin was supported by a huge majority of voters – nearly 77 percent.
In any case, another way of looking at this outpouring of American bile is to enquire just how credible are the detractors?
Their consternation with regard to Putin and Trump’s customary phone call seems way out of proportion, and strangely at odds with their relative silence over the visit in the same week to the White House by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS).
Bin Salman is the de facto leader of the desert kingdom in place of his ailing father, King Salman. The 32-year-old crown prince consolidated his autocratic power last year in a purge against other members of the House of Saud, in which hundreds of rivals where rounded up, detained, reportedly tortured, and shaken down for billions of dollars.
MBS was feted by Trump in the White House mainly because of the giant weapons purchases he has made since the American president visited the oil kingdom last year – which was Trump’s first official overseas visit.
In a bizarre photo-op, Trump held up gaudy cardboard posters proclaiming various multi-million-dollar arms sales to the Saudi regime. One such deal was depicted as being worth $525 million, to which the president quipped to his Saudi guest, “That’s peanuts to you.”
It was a grubby spectacle of just how sordid the decades-old relationship is between the US and its Arab client regime. All in the seeming salubrious setting of the Oval Office.
If the outrage over Trump’s perfunctory call to Putin had any principle over the matter of elections and autocratic rule, then the critics in Washington would have more than ample cause to fulminate against the Saudi Crown Prince being greeted in the White House. But there was barely any protest.
Admittedly, there was an attempt this week by some senators to pass a resolution limiting American military support for the Saudi war in Yemen. In the end though, the resolution was rejected by a majority of lawmakers.
However, aside from that minor show of dissent, in the scale of things the disconnect with reality in Washington and the US corporate media shows a grotesque distortion of moral priorities.
MBS was visiting Washington in the same week, marking three relentless years of US-backed Saudi slaughter in Yemen. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who also holds the position of defense minister, is the architect of the Saudi war in Yemen.
The United Nations has called the conflict in the Arab region’s poorest country “the worst humanitarian crisis in decades.”
Some eight million people – a third of the population – are facing starvation, largely because the Saudi-led war has blockaded the country from receiving food imports, medicines, and other humanitarian aid.
Thousands of civilians have been killed in airstrikes by Saudi warplanes that are supplied and refueled by the Americans, British and French. The Americans also share intelligence to direct the Saudi bombing campaign, which even pro-Western human rights groups have reported as being indiscriminate in striking civilian centers. In other words, the US and its NATO allies are fully complicit in this ongoing barbarity.
Saudi claims of fighting against Houthi rebels because the latter are orchestrated by Iran to destabilize the region are not credible. The war is all about trying to re-install a puppet leader, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who was kicked out by rebel fighters in January 2015. The Saudis launched their war with Washington’s approval in March 2015, partly out of spite over the international nuclear accord that was being negotiated at the time. The Iran nuclear deal was finalized in July 2015. Trump wants to axe it to further placate his Saudi clients.
What is going on in Yemen is nothing short of a bloodbath. Arguably, it is a genocide, given the collective punishment imposed on the entire nation by the Saudi military coalition supported by Washington.
Trump’s hosting of the Saudi crown prince this week in the White House is an obscenity. Celebrating the sale of warplanes, tanks, missiles and other munitions was a macabre drooling over the slaughter of thousands of innocents.
Of course, Trump participated in the charade that the war in Yemen is a “just cause” to counter Iranian malign influence. Iran denies any involvement, as do the Yemeni rebels. There is no evidence to support the US-Saudi claim. Besides, how could Iran supply weapons to a country that is blockaded by land, air and sea?
What is truly disturbing is how little concern the US-enabled carnage in Yemen provokes in official Washington circles and among the corporate media. Millions of Yemeni children are dying from bombardments, hunger, and diseases. The horror is real and unalloyed, unlike the situation in Syria, where the Western media have distorted Syrian Army and Russian liberation of towns besieged by NATO-backed terrorists.
For Yemen, the official silence in Washington is astounding. The very personification of the Yemeni horror – a blood-soaked Saudi despot – is welcomed and cheered, with barely a murmur of protest in Washington or the mainstream news media.
Such people have no moral compass or integrity when all they seem concerned about is their president making a phone call to an elected Russian leader.
Thus, anything they have to say regarding Putin, Russia, its elections and foreign policy is best ignored. People with such a glaring disconnect from reality are impossible to reason with. They are beneath contempt.
Read more:
Pentagon chief calls on Saudi crown prince to cease Yemen aggression
Press TV – March 22, 2018
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has called upon Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to find an “urgent” political solution to the devastating three-year-old conflict in neighboring Yemen, which has claimed the lives of thousands of people and left the impoverished nation’s infrastructure in ruins.
Mattis and bin Salman met at the Pentagon on Thursday as the de facto ruler of the Arab kingdom is on a tour of the United States, which began earlier this week with a White House visit.
“As you discussed with President (Donald) Trump on Tuesday, we must also reinvigorate urgent efforts to seek a peaceful resolution to the civil war in Yemen and we support you in this regard,” the US defense secretary told his Saudi counterpart.
“We are going to end this war; that is the bottom line. And we are going to end it on positive terms for the people of Yemen but also security for the nations in the peninsula,” Mattis added.
The Saudi crown prince, speaking through a translator, told Mattis that cooperation between the Pentagon and Saudi Arabia has “improved tremendously” of late.
The remarks came only two days after the US Senate killed a bipartisan bid seeking to end US support for Saudi Arabia’s aerial bombardment campaign in Yemen.
Mattis had lobbied Congress to reject the bill, claiming that restrictions could increase civilian casualties in Yemen, jeopardize the so-called counter-terrorism cooperation between Washington and Riyadh, and “reduce” Washington’s “influence with the Saudis.”
About 14,000 people have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen in March 2015. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country’s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war.
The United Nations says a record 22.2 million people are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.
A high-ranking UN aid official recently warned against the “catastrophic” living conditions in Yemen, stating that there is a growing risk of famine and cholera there.
“After three years of conflict, conditions in Yemen are catastrophic,” John Ging, UN director of aid operations, told the UN Security Council on February 27.
He added, “People’s lives have continued unraveling. Conflict has escalated since November driving an estimated 100,000 people from their homes.”
Ging further noted that cholera has infected 1.1 million people in Yemen since last April, and a new outbreak of diphtheria has occurred in the war-ravaged Arab country since 1982.
US OKs $1bn in Saudi military deals
Meanwhile, the US State Department said in a statement it had approved military contracts with Saudi Arabia worth over $1 billion.
According to the State Department, 6,600 TOW 2B anti-tank missiles are to be supplied under the biggest contract, which is worth $670 million.
A $106 million deal for helicopter maintenance and another contract for ground vehicle parts worth $300 million were also approved on Thursday.
The State Department said it had notified the US Congress of the possible military equipment contracts.
“This proposed sale will support US foreign policy and national security objectives by improving the security of a friendly country which has been, and continues to be, an important force for political stability and economic growth in the Middle East,” the statement said.
The three contracts are highly expected to be approved by Congress in the wake of the Senate’s Tuesday rejection of the bill to end US support for the Saudi war.
A report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) revealed earlier this month that the US has increased its arms sales by 25 percent over the past five years.
According to the SIPRI report, Saudi Arabia increased its arms purchases by 225 percent over the past five years, importing 98 percent of its weapons from the US and EU countries.
Trump replaces national security adviser McMaster with John Bolton
Sputnik – March 22, 2018
HR McMaster will exit the role of National Security Adviser to United States President Donald Trump. Former UN Ambassador John Bolton, a prominent war hawk, will replace McMaster, Trump announced on Twitter Thursday evening.
It had been reported for weeks that McMaster and Trump were butting heads and that the US Army lieutenant general was on the brink of being removed. McMaster is the most recent of more than two dozen officials to be fired or resign from the Trump administration since the president took office 14 months ago.
“After thirty-four years of service to our nation, I am requesting retirement from the US Army effective this summer,” McMaster said in a Thursday statement, adding, “I am thankful to President Donald J. Trump for the opportunity to serve him and our nation as National Security Adviser.” McMaster will leave public service after retiring from the military.
Bolton will be Trump’s third national security adviser, following the very brief tenure of Iran hawk Michael Flynn and now McMaster.
Bolton was a major proponent of the US’ 2003 invasion of Iraq and an advocate for the overthrow of leader Saddam Hussein, positions he still defends more than a decade later.
He wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in late February outlining “the legal case for striking North Korea first.” Historian Gareth Porter told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear last week that Bolton’s nomination would likely lead to a White House that is more eager to pursue a war with Iran. “During the [George W.] Bush administration,” when Bolton was the US ambassador to the UN, “there was a plan for war with Iran,” Porter said.
Like Trump, Bolton opposes the multilateral 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the milestone agreement intended to provide limits to and transparency on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump in January recertified the deal for what he said would be the last 120-day period without major changes.
Speaking to reporters at the White House while Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was visiting this week, Trump stated, “The Iran deal is coming up. It’s probably another month or so, and you’re going to see what I do.” Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, one of the voices said to have counseled Trump that scrapping the JCPOA was a bad idea, was recently dismissed from his position in favor of former CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
Since his time in the Bush administration, Bolton has worked as a foreign policy fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a Fox News contributor and frequently appears on TV as a conservative pundit.
March Madness Washington Style
By Andrew Napolitano • Unz Review • March 22, 2018
For the past few days, the nation’s media and political class have been fixated on the firing of the No. 2 person in the FBI, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe became embroiled in the investigation of President Donald Trump because of his alleged approval of the use of a political dossier, written about Trump and paid for by the Democrats and not entirely substantiated, as a basis to secure a search warrant for surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser who once boasted that he worked for the Kremlin at the same time that he was advising candidate Trump.
The dossier itself and whatever was learned from the surveillance formed the basis for commencing the investigation of the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia by the Obama Department of Justice, which is now being run by special counsel Robert Mueller and has been expanded into other areas. The surveillance of the Trump campaign based on arguably flimsy evidence put McCabe into President Trump’s crosshairs. Indeed, Trump attacked McCabe many times on social media and even rejoiced when Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired him at 10 p.m. last Friday, just 26 hours before his retirement was to have begun.
Why the fixation on this? Here is the back story.
After the unlawful use of the FBI and CIA by the Nixon administration to spy on President Nixon’s domestic political opponents, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. This statute outlawed all domestic surveillance except that which is authorized by the Constitution or by the new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
That court, the statute declared, could authorize surveillance of foreigners physically located in the United States on a legal standard lesser than that which the Constitution requires. Even though this meant Congress could avoid the Constitution — an event that every high school social studies student knows is unconstitutional — the FISC enthusiastically embraced its protocol.
That protocol was a recipe for the constitutional crisis that is now approaching. The recipe consists of a secret court whose records and rulings are not available to the public. It’s a court where only the government’s lawyers appear; hence there is no challenge to the government’s submissions. And it’s a court that applies a legal standard profoundly at odds with the Constitution. The Constitution requires the presentation of evidence of probable cause of a crime as the trigger for a search warrant, yet FISA requires only probable cause of a relationship to a foreign power.
In the years in which the FISC authorized spying only on foreigners, few Americans complained. Some of us warned at FISA’s inception that this system violates the Constitution and is ripe for abuse, yet we did not know then how corrupt the system would become. The corruption was subtle, as it consisted of government lawyers, in secret and without opposition, persuading the FISC to permit spying on Americans.
The logic was laughable, but it went like this: We need to spy on all foreigners, whether they’re working for a foreign government or not; we need to spy on anyone who communicates with a foreigner; and we need to spy on anyone who has communicated with anyone else who has ever communicated with a foreigner.
These absurd extrapolations, pressed on the FISC and accepted by it in secret, turned FISA — a statute written to prevent spying on Americans — into a tool that facilitates it. Now, back to McCabe.
Though the use of FISA for domestic spying on ordinary Americans came about gradually and was generally known only to those in the federal intelligence and law enforcement communities and to members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, by the time McCabe became deputy director of the FBI, this spying was commonplace. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (is it really a court, given that its rulings are secret and it hears only the government and it rejects the constraints of the Constitution?) has granted 99.9 percent of government surveillance requests.
So when McCabe and his colleagues went to the FISC in October 2016 looking for a search warrant to conduct surveillance of officials in the Trump campaign, they knew that their request would be granted, but they never expected that their application, their work and the purpose of their request — as far removed as it was from the original purpose of FISA — would come under public scrutiny.
Indeed, it was not until the surveillance of Trump and his colleagues in the campaign and the transition came to light — with McCabe as the poster boy for it — that most Americans even knew how insidiously governmental powers are being abused.
The stated reason for McCabe’s firing was not his abuse of FISA but his absence of candor to FBI investigators about his use of FISA. I don’t know whether those allegations are the true reasons for his firing or McCabe was sacrificed at the altar of government abuse — because those who fired him also have abused FISA.
But I do know that there are lessons to learn in all this. Courts are bound by the Constitution, just as are Congress and the president. Just because Congress says something is lawful does not mean it is constitutional. Secret courts are the tools of tyrants and lead to the corruption of the judicial process and the erosion of freedom.
And courts that hear no challenge to the government and grant whatever it wants are not courts as we understand them; they are government hacks. They and the folks who have facilitated all this have undermined personal liberty in our once free society.
The whole purpose of the Constitution is to restrain the government and to protect personal liberty. FISA and its enablers in both major political parties have done the opposite. They have infused government with corruption and have assaulted the privacy of us all.
Copyright 2018 Andrew P. Napolitano. Distributed by Creators.com.
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British Intel Tried to Make N Irish Gang ‘Shoot Up’ School, Documentary Claims
Sputnik – 23.02.2019
A new documentary, based on an interview with a self-confessed member of the Glennane Gang, gives some insights into allegations that British military intelligence was behind a shocking murder plot to cause the situation in Northern Ireland to “spiral out of control”.
In a documentary, Unquiet Graves: The Story of the Glennane Gang, John Weir, a former officer from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), alleges that British intelligence tried to persuade paramilitary group Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) to attack a Catholic primary school at Belleeks in County Armagh.
Weir claimed that the UVF was urged to kill children and teachers in retaliation for the 1976 Kingsmill massacre, in which gunmen stopped a minibus carrying twelve workmen and shot them; only one person survived despite having been shot 18 times.
“The plan that was decided on was to shoot up a school in Belleeks”, he said, adding that the British intelligence plot was to make the situation in Northern Ireland “spiral out of control”. … continue
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