The Mad Chase for Russia-gate Prey
By Daniel Lazare | Consortium News | June 30, 2017
June is turning out to be the cruelest month for the Russia-gate industry. The pain began on June 8 when ex-FBI Director James Comey testified that a sensational New York Times article declaring that “members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials” was “in the main … not true.”
Then came Republican Karen Handel’s June 20 victory in a special election in Georgia’s sixth congressional district, sparking bitter recriminations among Democrats who had hoped to ride to victory on a Russia-gate-propelled wave of resistance to Trump.
More evidence that the strategy was not working came a day later when the Harris Poll and Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies produced a devastating survey showing that 62 percent of voters see no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, while 54 percent believe the “Deep State” is trying to unseat the President by leaking classified information. The poll even showed a small bounce in Trump’s popularity, with 45 percent viewing him favorably as opposed to only 39 percent for his defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
The mainstream news media also came in for some lumps. On June 23, CNN retracted a story that had claimed that Congress was looking into reports that the Trump transition team met secretly with a Russian investment fund under sanction from the U.S. government. Three days later, CNN announced that three staffers responsible for the blooper – reporter and Pulitzer Prize-nominee Thomas Frank; Pulitzer-winner Eric Lichtblau, late of the New York Times ; and Lex Haris, executive editor in charge of investigations – had resigned.
Adding to CNN’s embarrassment, Project Veritas, the brainchild of rightwing provocateur James O’Keefe, released an undercover video in which a CNN producer named John Bonifield explained that the network can’t stop talking about Russia because it boosts ratings and then went on to say about Russia-gate:
“Could be bullshit, I mean it’s mostly bullshit right now. Like, we don’t have any big giant proof. But … the leaks keep leaking, and there are so many great leaks, and it’s amazing, and I just refuse to believe that if they had something really good like that, that wouldn’t leak because we’ve been getting all these other leaks. So I just feel like they don’t really have it but they want to keep digging. And so I think the president is probably right to say, like, look, you’re witch-hunting me, like, you have no smoking gun, you have no real proof.”
Project Veritas also released an undercover video interview with CNN contributor Van Jones calling the long-running probe into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia a “nothing-burger,” a position similar to the skepticism that Jones has displayed in his on-air comments.
True, the Bonifield video was only a medical reporter sounding off about a story that he’s not even covering and doing so to a dirty-trickster who has received financing from Trump and who, after another undercover film stunt, was ordered in 2013 to apologize and pay $100,000 to an anti-poverty worker whose privacy he had invaded.
Good for Ratings
But, still, Bonifield’s “president-is-probably-right” comment is hard to shake. Ditto Van Jones’ “nothing-burger.” Unless both quotes are completely doctored, it appears that the scuttlebutt among CNNers is that Russia-gate is a lot of hot air but no one cares because it’s sending viewership through the roof.
And if that’s what CNN thinks, then it may be what MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow thinks as she also plays the Russia card for all it’s worth. It may also be what The Washington Post has in the back of its mind even while hyperventilating about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “crime of the century, an unprecedented and largely successful destabilizing attack on American democracy.”
The New York Times also got caught up in its enthusiasm to hype the Russia-gate case on June 25 when it ran a story slamming Trump for “refus[ing] to acknowledge a basic fact agreed upon by 17 American intelligence agencies that he now oversees: Russia orchestrated the attacks [on Democratic emails], and did it to help get him elected.”
The “17-intelligence-agency” canard has been a favorite go-to assertion for both Democrats and the mainstream news media, although it was repudiated in May by President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan.
So, on June 29, the Times apparently found itself with no choice but to issue a correction stating: “The [Russia-hacking] assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.”
This point is important because, as Consortiumnews.com and other non-mainstream news outlets have argued for more than a month, it is much easier to manipulate a finding by hand-picking analysts from a small number of intelligence agencies than by seeking the judgments and dissents from all 17.
Despite the correction, the Times soon returned to its pattern of shading the truth regarding the U.S. intelligence assessment. On June 30, a Times article reported: “Mr. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the unanimous conclusion of United States intelligence agencies that Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 race.”
The Times’ phrase “unanimous conclusion” conveys the false impression that all 17 agencies were onboard without specifically saying so, although we now know that the Times’ editors are aware that only selected analysts from three agencies plus the DNI’s office were involved.
In other words, the Times cited a “unanimous conclusion of United States intelligence agencies” to mislead its readers without specifically repeating the “all-17-agencies” falsehood. This behavior suggests that the Times is so blinded by its anti-Trump animus that it wants to conceal from its readers how shaky the whole tale is.
Holes from the Start
But the problems with Russia-gate date back to the beginning. Where Watergate was about a real burglary, this one began with a cyber break-in that may or may not have occurred. In his June 8 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey conceded that the FBI never checked the DNC’s servers to confirm that they had truly been hacked.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN RICHARD BURR: Did you ever have access to the actual hardware that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the data that they had collected?
COMEY: In the case of the DNC, and, I believe, the DCCC [i.e. the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], but I’m sure the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. But we didn’t get direct access.
BURR: But no content?
COMEY: Correct.
BURR: Isn’t content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?
COMEY: It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks — the people who were my folks at the time – is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016.
The FBI apparently was confident that it could rely on such “a high-class entity” as CrowdStrike to tell it what it needed to know. Yet neither the Democratic National Committee nor CrowdStrike, the Irvine, California, cyber-security firm the DNC hired, was remotely objective.
Hillary Clinton was on record calling Putin a “bully” whose goal was “to stymie, to confront, to undermine American power” while Dmitri Aperovitch, CrowdStrike’s chief technical officer, is a Russian émigré who is both anti-Putin personally and an associate of the Atlantic Council, a pro-Clinton/anti-Russian think tank that is funded by the Saudis, the United Arab Emirates and the Ukrainian World Congress. The Atlantic Council is one of the most anti-Russian voices in Washington.
So, an anti-Putin DNC hired an anti-Putin security specialist, who, to absolutely no one’s surprise, “immediately” determined that the break-in was the work of hackers “closely linked to the Russian government’s powerful and highly capable intelligence services.”
Comey’s trust in CrowdStrike was akin to cops trusting a private eye not only to investigate a murder, but to determine if it even occurred. Yet the mainstream media’s pack journalists saw no reason to question the FBI because doing so would not accord with an anti-Trump bias so pronounced that even journalism profs have begun to notice.
Doubts about CrowdStrike
Since CrowdStrike issued its findings, it has come under wide-ranging criticism. Cyber experts have called its analysis inconsistent because while praising the alleged hackers to the skies (“our team considers them some of the best adversaries out of all the numerous nation-state, criminal and hacktivist/terrorist groups we encounter on a daily basis”), CrowdStrike says it was able to uncover their identity because they made kindergarten-level mistakes, most notably uploading documents in a Russian-language format under the name “Felix Edmundovich,” a reference to Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police.
“Raise your hand if you think that a GRU or FSB officer would add Iron Felix’s name to the metadata of a stolen document before he released it to the world while pretending to be a Romanian hacker,” wisecracked cyber-skeptic Jeffrey Carr.
Others noted how easy it is for even novice hackers to leave a false trail. In Seattle, cyber-sleuths Mark Maunder and Rob McMahon of Wordfence, makers of a popular computer-security program, discovered that “malware” found in the DNC was an early version of a publicly available program developed in the Ukraine – which was strange, they said, because one would expect Russian intelligence to develop its own tools or use ones that were more up to date.
But even if the malware was Russian, experts pointed out that its use in this instance no more implicates Russian intelligence than the use of an Uzi in a bank robbery implicates Mossad.
Other loose threads appeared. In January, Carr poured cold water on a subsequent CrowdStrike report charging that pro-Russian separatists had used similar malware to zero in on pro-government artillery units in the eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian ministry of defense and the London think tank from which CrowdStrike obtained much of its data agreed that the company didn’t know what it was talking about. But if CrowdStrike was wrong about the Ukraine case, how could everyone be sure it was right about the DNC?
In March, Wikileaks went public with its “Vault 7” findings showing, among other things, that the CIA has developed sophisticated software in order to scatter false clues – which inevitably led to dark mutterings that maybe the agency had hacked the DNC itself in order to blame it on the Russians.
Finally, although Wikileaks policy is never to comment on its sources, Julian Assange, the group’s founder, decided to make an exception.
“The Clinton camp has been able to project a neo-McCarthyist hysteria that Russia is responsible for everything,” he told journalist John Pilger in November. “Hillary Clinton has stated multiple times, falsely, that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That’s false – we can say that the Russian government is not the source.”
Craig Murray, an ex-British diplomat who is a Wikileaks adviser, disclosed that he personally flew to Washington to meet with a person who was either the original source or an associate of the source. Murray said the motive for the leak was “disgust at the corruption of the Clinton Foundation and the tilting of the primary election playing field against Bernie Sanders.”
Conceivably, such contacts could have been cutouts to conceal from WikiLeaks the actual sources. Still, Wikileaks’ record of veracity should be enough to give anyone pause. Yet the press either ignored the WikiLeaks comments or, in the case of The Washington Post, struggled to prove that WikiLeaks was lying.
Unstable Foundation
The stories that have been built upon this unstable foundation have proved shaky, too. In March, the Times published a front-page exposé asserting that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort “had regular communications with his longtime associate – a former Russian military translator in Kiev who has been investigated in Ukraine on suspicion of being a Russian intelligence agent.” But if the man was merely a suspected spy as opposed to a convicted one, then what’s the problem?
The article also noted that Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump lawyer who is now a special White House representative for international negotiations, met last summer with Rabbi Berel Lazar, “the chief rabbi of Russia and an ally of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.” But an Orthodox Jew paying a call on Russia’s chief rabbi is hardly extraordinary. Neither is the fact that the rabbi is a Putin ally since Putin enjoys broad support in the Russian Jewish community.
In April, the Times published another innuendo-laden front-page story about businessman Carter Page whose July 2016 trip to Moscow proved to be “a catalyst for the F.B.I. investigation into connections between Russia and President Trump’s campaign.”
Page’s sins chiefly consist of lecturing at a Moscow academic institute about U.S.-Russian relations in terms that The New York Times believed “echoed the position of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia” and, on another occasion, meeting with a suspected Russian intelligence agent in New York.
“There is no evidence that Mr. Page knew the man was an intelligence officer,” the article added. So is it now a crime to talk with a Russian or some other foreign national who, unbeknownst to you, may turn out to be an intelligence agent?
Then there is poor Mike Flynn, driven out as national security adviser after just 24 days in office for allegedly misrepresenting conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak – exchanges during the Trump transition that supposedly exposed him to the possibility of Russian blackmail although U.S. intelligence was monitoring the talks and therefore knew their exact contents. And, since the Russians no doubt assumed as much, it’s hard to see what they could have blackmailed him with. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Turning Gen. Flynn into Road Kill.”]
Yet the mainstream media eagerly gobbled up this blackmail possibility while presenting with a straight face the claim by Obama holdovers at the Justice Department that the Flynn-Kislyak conversations might have violated the 1799 Logan Act, an ancient relic that has never been used to prosecute anyone in its entire two-century history.
So, if the scandal is looking increasingly threadbare now, could the reason be that there was little or nothing to it when it was first announced during the final weeks of the 2016 campaign?
Although it’s impossible to say what evidence might eventually emerge, Russia-gate is looking more and more like a Democratic version of Benghazi, a pseudo-scandal that no one could ever figure out but which wound up making Hillary Clinton look like a persecuted hero and the Republicans seem like obsessed idiots.
As much as that epic inquiry turned out to be mostly a witch-hunt, Americans are beginning to sense the same about Washington’s latest game of “gotcha.”
The United States is still a democracy in some vague sense of the word, and “We the People” are losing patience with subterranean maneuvers on the part of the Democrats, the neoconservatives, and the intelligence agencies seeking to reverse a presidential election.
Like Benghazi or possibly even the Birthergate scam about President Obama’s Kenyan birthplace, the whole convoluted Russia-gate tale grows stranger by the day.
Daniel Lazare is the author of several books including The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace).
‘Forcing us to give up Russian gas to sell own is unacceptable’ – German FM blasts US sanctions bill
RT | June 30, 2017
A US bill threatening to sanction European companies taking part in construction of a Russian pipeline is seen as unacceptable in Berlin, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said, especially if it actually aims to push America’s own gas exports.
“We deem it absolutely unacceptable when a bill demands that Europeans give up on Russian gas so that they could sell American instead, at a much higher price,” Gabriel said in Krasnodar, Russia, on Thursday as cited by Handelsblatt daily.
Gabriel was referring to new sanctions passed by the US Senate in mid-June. Initially outlined as an amendment to a bill imposing sanctions against Iran, the Russian part of the document threatens penalties for companies doing business with Russian oil and gas firms, possibly affecting the participation of BASF, Shell, Engie, OMV, Wintershall and Uniper in the Nord Stream 2 project.
It also states clearly that US exports are on the agenda.
“The United States government should prioritize the export of United States energy resources in order to create American jobs, help United States allies and partners, and strengthen United States foreign policy,” the bill says, as cited by Bloomberg.
The amendment was approved by the US Senate in mid-June by a majority of 98 to two, but still requires approval by the House of Representatives and the signature of the US president.
The move caused a wave of indignation in the EU and particularly in Germany, which is a prime beneficiary of Nord Stream 2. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also called the bill a “peculiar move” while Gabriel released a statement saying that “Europe’s energy supply is a matter for Europe, and not the United States of America!”
“Sanctions as a political instrument should not be linked to economic interests,” the statement read, adding “the actual goal” of the bill is “to provide jobs for the US gas and oil industry.”
Foreign Minister Gabriel, who has been visiting Russia for the third time since his appointment in February, also said on Thursday that Berlin was determined “to open a new, positive chapter in the history of our relations,” as quoted by RIA Novosti.
“We have differences in terms of political values, but we don’t have to abandon cooperation between our societies as it is important to establish better relations on a societal level,” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with German Minister for Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel © Sergey Guneev / Sputnik
President Vladimir Putin, who received the German diplomat later on Thursday, said Russia also wanted to do its part to strengthen ties between Moscow and Berlin. “Our relations are developing despite certain difficulties,” Putin said in Moscow, praising “positive trends” in the dialogue.
BMD Program in Europe and Asia Undermines US and Allies’ Security
By Peter KORZUN | Strategic Culture Foundation | 30.06.2017
The US is pursuing an ambitious space policy to include vast missile defense plans. True, the existing systems may not be the most effective means to counter the ballistic missiles, but the United States is working hard to achieve technological breakthroughs to make missile defenses more reliable. Moreover, a US conventional Prompt Global Strike could hypothetically provide the potential capability for a disarming first strike against Russia to downgrade its retaliatory strike potential successfully neutralized by enhanced ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems.
On June 21, a US and Japanese missile test conducted in Hawaii missed its target. The firing involved a sea-based SM-3 Block IIA missile which is built for the Aegis ballistic missile defense system (BMD) destined to shoot down medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. This was the missile’s second intercept test. The first, which took place in February, was a success. The event goes to show that the US and its allies continue to apply intensive efforts to create BMD potential in the proximity of Russian borders.
All in all, the US Navy has 22 guided-missile cruisers and 62 guided-missile destroyers equipped with the Aegis system. Japan has six Aegis destroyers with plans for more. South Korea also operates Aegis-equipped destroyers.
The Aegis system operates similar to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) system which has been partially deployed in South Korea. Each THAAD unit consists of six truck-mounted launchers, 49 interceptors, a fire control and communications unit, and AN/TPY-2 radar. The X-band radar can spot missile as far as 2,000 km with forward-based mode and 600 km with terminal mode. It can be changed into the radar with a much longer detectable range.
It should be taken into consideration that the THAAD deployed in South Korea will be added to the THAAD battery deployed on Guam, two AN/TPY-2 radars deployed in Japan (at Shariki and Kyogamisaki), space-based assets, plus a range of ship-borne radars and larger land-based radars in other parts of the Pacific theatre. The deployment in South Korea might not guarantee the interception of ICBMs as they move fast while sophisticated penetration-aids confuse missile interceptors but it will greatly improve early tracking of Russian and Chinese missiles, depending on their launch point.
The first operational deployment of the system was to Hawaii in 2009, followed by Guam in 2013 and there are currently five THAAD batteries worldwide, including in the United Arab Emirates. The THAAD system has been deployed in South Korea on the basis of military-to-military agreement without the knowledge of the president and parliament.
Russia and China see the US BMD systems in the region as destabilizing. Last year, Russia warned that the US deployment of an advanced missile defense system in South Korea would have «irreparable consequences». Speaking at an economic forum in St Petersburg (June 1-3, 2017), Russian President Vladimir Putin said, «What is happening is a very serious and alarming process. In Alaska, and now in South Korea, elements of the anti-missile defense system are emerging. Should we just stand idly by and watch this? Of course not. We are thinking about how to respond to these challenges. This is a challenge for us». «This destroys the strategic balance in the world», he added.
Russia and China have been saying that the deployment is unnecessary and would tip the balance of power in the Pacific towards the United States. Beijing sees THAAD as a serious threat. For example, the US-deployed system would potentially be able to intercept Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Beijing also believes the radar deployed with THAAD is able to see far into its territory. It will give Washington the potential to track China’s military capabilities. The deployment of the AN/TPY-2 radar system lays down the basis for regional BMD upgrade and expansion to counter Russian and Chinese strategic nuclear potentials.
Japan is also considering the option of deploying THAAD. It is reasonable to expect Russia and China to develop technology that would render THAAD useless; thus the beginnings of an arms race. The deployment of THAAD to South Korea could be the catalyst that sets the United States and Russia/China) on a collision course.
In late May, a Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, system located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California successfully intercepted a mock intercontinental ballistic missile target. In May, a group of senators introduced a bipartisan bill that seeks to bolster homeland missile defense and sharply increase the number of GMD interceptors.
In May, 2016, the Aegis Ashore system in Deveselu, a US naval support facility in southern Romania, was operationally certified. The land-based BMD system is designed to detect, track, engage, and destroy ballistic missiles in flight outside the atmosphere. It is equipped with the same phased-array SPY-1 radars and Aegis Combat Systems as are installed on many of the US Navy’s surface ships. The SM-3 Block IB missile has a range of up to 1,200 km. It has a robust capability against medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The Deveselu site comprises three batteries (24 missiles) of SM-3 Block IB interceptors. After the system is ramped up, it’s easy to increase the number of missile launchers.
In response, the Russian Ministry of Defense has taken a decision to deploy a squadron of long-range, supersonic bombers Tu-22М3 with variable sweep wing to Crimea with the option of eventually sending an entire regiment to the peninsula in response to Eastern European NATO allies’ reinforcement plans.
The ground-based missile defense site is an element of a larger European shield and US global ballistic missile defense effort to be expanded to cover Europe, Turkey, the Middle East, Japan and South Korea. Another Aegis Ashore system based in the missile defense site located at Redzikowo, Poland, near the Baltic Sea is to become operational next year. The European Interceptor Site (EIS) in Poland will consist of 24 SM-3Block IIA middle range missile interceptors.
The missile defense system in Europe also includes a radar in Turkey, a command center in Ramstein, Germany and interceptor ships. An early warning radar station in Malatya, Turkey, has been in service since 2012. The operational center became active the same year. Four missile defense-capable Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers were deployed to Rota, Spain, in 2015 for rotational patrols in the Mediterranean.
The construction of sophisticated new radar system known as Globus 3 in Vardø, Norway, has already been launched. The site is an element of the US-led NATO BMD. The radar located in Svalbard (the Arctic) can also be used by US military for missile defense purposes. The radar is installed in violation of the 1925 treaty which states that Svalbard has a demilitarized status.
The North Korean threat in the Asia Pacific and a threat from Iran for NATO European allies are used as pretexts for efforts aimed at reducing Russia’s capability to respond in case it comes under a nuclear attack. The Iranian program is under international control now, leaving NATO with no explanation for proceeding with its BMD plans.
The Aegis Ashore systems installed in Europe use the naval Mk-41 launching system, which is capable of firing long-range cruise missiles. The Aegis Ashore launchpad is practically identical to a system used aboard Aegis warships that is capable of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles. This is an outright violation of the INF Treaty, banning land-based cruise and medium-range missiles with a range from 300 to 3,400 miles. This fact has been emphasized by Russia’s officials.
The short flight time of these missiles diminished to mere minutes provides little time to decide whether to launch a second strike, raising the risks of mishaps. Military leaders are prone to believe that if the enemy’s intentions are unclear they should be interpreted as aggressive (otherwise, they could be late to respond). That leaves the military alone in a vicious spiral of inevitable decisions.
Russia has put forward a number of proposals related to cooperation with NATO in the field of missile defense making conditional the right of joint decision over the configuration and parameters of the system, as well as international legal guarantees that the system will not undermine Russia’s nuclear potential, to no avail. It has also come up with the initiative on introduction of sectoral missile defense, in which the Russian armed forces would take responsibility for the defence of NATO’s eastern region. All the proposals have been rejected.
The decision to continue with BMD plans is fraught with very serious consequences. The Aegis Ashore systems pose a threat to Russia’s key infrastructure installations located in the western part of the country. Russia has no choice but to respond in kind. Missile defenses provide a false sense of security, as they invite more tensions with Russia – which has recently placed Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad to target the Polish site. The Russian military has also placed Bastion missile launchers in Kaliningrad, the exclave bordering NATO members Poland and Lithuania. This could threaten the prospective NATO BMD site in Poland. Russia could respond to the BMD plans by increasing its cyber weapons potential to target BMD sites as well spurring its efforts to create space-based anti-missile systems. Russia also could increase the number of fake missiles it has coming down on targets so more interceptors go to the wrong missile. And the tactical aviation is in high readiness to knock out the NATO BMD installations.
The United States abandoned the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) in 2002 to greatly complicate further arms control talks. The document had been the cornerstone of the strategic weapon limitation process for the previous thirty years. The countries which host BMD sites, such as Romania, Poland, South Korea and, if the plans go through, Japan automatically become targets for Russia’s military.
The BMD shield which the United States has activated in Europe and is activating in Asia is a step to a new arms race. The BMD deployment dashes hopes for achieving progress in nuclear disarmament talks at a time the arms control regime is disintegrating. Russian officials say there is no »political logic and common sense in proposals ‘to disarm’ in conditions when the current US administration has been making concerted effort to undermine the defense and the military-industrial potential of Russia through its sanctions policy for a long time».
The BMD plans have become a major obstacle on the way of reviving the arms control dialogue between the US and Russia. The administration will have to address Russia’s deep concerns about US missile defense in Europe and elsewhere if it believes the arms control regime to be important enough to get the dialogue out of the present deadlock. According to Steven Pifer from the Brookings Institution, «A future U.S. administration interested in a treaty providing for further cuts in strategic nuclear forces may find that it can go no further if it is not prepared to negotiate a treaty on missile defense».
The US allies who host the systems should realize that such moves greatly reduce their security, turning them into the first strike targets for the Russian military. This BMD is a burning issue to be immediately addressed at the round table. Instead, the United States is stubbornly intensifying efforts to boost its BMD capabilities in an attempt to intimidate Russia. The result could be quite the opposite than expected – the policy would undermine the security of the United States and its allies.
NORTH KOREA’S FAST TRACK MISSILE DEVELOPMENT: How Far It’s Come and Why it Has the U.S. on Edge
By Gregory Elich | Zoom In Korea | June 29, 2017
Since President Trump took office, North Korea has conducted a flurry of missile tests, triggering a wave of condemnation by U.S. media and political figures. The reaction contains more than an element of fear-mongering, and it is sometimes implied that once North Korea has an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), it is liable to launch an unprovoked attack on the U.S. mainland.
What tends to be lacking in such reports is any sense of sober reflection, and much confusion is sown concerning the actual state of North Korea’s program. This article takes a closer look at North Korea’s recent missile launches and argues that they pose a threat–not to the safety of the U.S. population, as the corporate media claim, but to the United States’ strategic calculus in the region.
Pukguksong-2
First tested on February 11, the Pukguksong-2 is a medium-range ballistic missile based on the design of the submarine-launched Pukguksong -1. The main advantage the Pukguksong-2 has over North Korea’s other land-based ballistic missiles is that it relies on solid fuel. For that reason, the Pukguksong-2 is far more mobile and survivable than North Korea’s other medium-range missiles that outperform it. The other missiles are liquid-fueled and therefore hampered by the need to be accompanied by tanker trucks while on the move. Their necessity of a lengthy fueling process before launch makes them vulnerable to attack.
Flying on a nearly vertical trajectory, the Pukguksong-2 travelled 500 kilometers and soared to an apogee of 550 kilometers. That translates into a range of 1,200 kilometers, were the missile to be fired at a regular trajectory using the same payload.
One of the reasons for the unusually steep trajectory of the test was so that technicians would be within technical monitoring range to gather data on performance. The unusual flight path may have also been undertaken, as North Korea indicates, to avoid the political sensitivities of overflying Japan.
The missile was again tested on May 21 and followed a trajectory similar to the first. Despite North Korea’s claim that the missile should go into mass production, more testing is needed to solidify reliability and accuracy. It does not appear that the reentry vehicle was tested on this occasion, as it lacked the fins or thrusters necessary for terminal guidance capability. According to missile expert John Schilling, it “will likely take at least five years” for the Pukguksong-2 to become “the mainstay of North Korea’s strategic missile force, and even then, only in a first-generation version with a non-maneuvering warhead.”
The differing performance of the two tests indicates that there are unmet challenges in the engine manufacturing process so that it can produce consistent results.
Hwasong-12
After three failed launches in April of this year, the intermediate-range Hwasong-12 finally achieved success on May 14. Unlike the Pukguksong-2, this missile is liquid fueled. By all accounts, the performance of the Hwasong-12 demonstrated a significant technological advance over any of North Korea’s other missiles. In the last test, the missile flew at a steep 85-degree angle and achieved a height of 2,111 kilometers. It is calculated that a normal trajectory would give the missile a range of 4,500 kilometers, making it capable of striking the U.S. strategic bomber force in Guam.
More importantly, this marked North Korea’s first successful test of a reentry vehicle. A nuclear warhead must be able to withstand the enormous heat generated from reentering the earth’s atmosphere for it to reach its target. Without that capability, North Korea would not have an effective nuclear deterrent. South Korean monitoring equipment picked up data communications between the descending warhead and North Korean ground control, confirming the success of the test.
Anti-Ship Missiles
On May 29, North Korea tested an upgraded version of the Hwasong-7. Among the improvements were fins to improve stability during the boost phase, an engine in the middle section for speed control, and terminal guidance technology to provide greater accuracy. The missile is said to have a range of 1,000 kilometers and is intended to strike targets at sea.
Little more than a week later, North Korea launched several anti-ship cruise missiles, which demonstrated excellent maneuverability and precision. According to North Korean media, the missiles “accurately detected and hit the floating targets on the East Sea of Korea after making circular flights.” The flight distance was estimated at 200 kilometers, and like North Korea’s other missiles tested this year, the cruise missiles are newly designed.
The cruise missiles were fired from tracked transport vehicles that are capable of travelling across rough terrain, thus allowing them to go where they would be harder to spot and destroy.
The ICBM in North Korea’s Future
Western media, long on speculation and short on information, would have us believe that North Korea is on the verge of testing an ICBM any day now. There are technological challenges involved in developing an ICBM that will be much harder for North Korea to overcome than was the case with the Hwasong-12.
The longer the range of a ballistic missile, the higher the amount of total heat a reentry vehicle must be able to withstand. The rate of heat associated with range – and therefore speed – increases so rapidly that a successful test of an intermediate ballistic missile’s reentry vehicle says nothing about how it would fare in an ICBM. A reentry vehicle launched by an ICBM must absorb far more punishment than is the case with shorter-range missiles. It took the United States several years to master the challenge of designing a survivable ICBM reentry vehicle.
A nuclear warhead must be miniaturized to reduce the weight enough for it to be deliverable in a missile. As military technology specialists Markus Schiller and Theodore Postol point out, “It is unlikely that North Korea now has a nuclear weapon that weighs as little as 1000 kg. It is also unlikely that such a first-generation nuclear weapon would be capable of surviving the unavoidable 50 G deceleration during warhead reentry from a range of nearly 10,000 kilometers.”
It is thought that the Hwasong-12 could provide the basis for developing an ICBM. However, the missile would need to be redesigned to add another stage to do so. Recently, North Korea ground tested a rocket engine, which U.S. officials speculated could be intended to power the last stage of an ICBM. Based only on satellite imagery, that conclusion is nothing more than supposition. Regardless of the nature of the engine test, a significant amount of work remains to be done to retool an existing missile as an ICBM and to perfect associated technology, such as the guidance system and reentry vehicle.
Moreover, before a missile can be considered operationally ready, it must undergo multiple tests to ensure that it meets performance and reliability standards. The Hwasong-12 was only successful in one of its four tests.
Threats and Provocations
It is an article of faith in the West that each missile test by North Korea is a “threat” or “provocation.” But is it true? Over the last several months, India tested its Agni-2 medium-range and Agni-3 intermediate-range ballistic missiles, as well as an Agni-5 ICBM, producing only yawns of indifference. Pakistan fired an Ababeel medium-range ballistic missile, capable of delivering multiple warheads, while China and Russia both tested ICBMs. The United States, as it was roundly condemning North Korea for its tests, launched Minuteman 3 and Trident missiles. None of these tests by nuclear powers were deemed provocative. Nor was note taken of the hypocrisy of the Trump administration in expressing outrage over North Korea doing what it was doing.
Objectively speaking, there is no difference between North Korea’s missile tests and the others, although it should be pointed out that the U.S. arsenal of nearly 7,000 nuclear warheads dwarfs that of North Korea.
As the North Korean foreign ministry observed, “Not a single article or provision in the UN Charter and other international laws stipulates that nuclear test or ballistic rocket launch poses a threat to international peace and security.” The political and economic might of the United States gave it the means to prod other members of the UN Security Council to agree to its demand to impose sanctions on North Korea. As a result, North Korea is the only nation singled out by UN sanctions that forbid it from testing the same types of missiles as other countries are free to do. There is no legal basis for this double standard, which is primarily a product of U.S. influence.
From the North Korean perspective, the large-scale military exercises that the United States regularly conducts in tandem with South Korea are threatening. These drills rehearse the invasion of North Korea, including decapitation operations to kill North Korean leaders. Recently, American B-1B bomber planes executed a series of flights over South Korea, practicing the carpet bombing of North Korea. Originally designed to deliver nuclear weapons, the B-1B underwent conversion to a conventional weapons only role ten years ago. The plane is still a formidable weapon, however, and can carry three times the payload of a B-52.
In the Western mindset, none of these actions can be construed as being “provocative” or a “threat” to North Korea. But it is easy enough to imagine the hysterical reaction if Russia were to conduct joint military exercises in Cuba, practicing the bombing and invasion of the United States, along with the assassination of U.S. political leaders.
Refusal to Recognize North Korea as a Nuclear State
Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure and engagement” is based on the principle that the United States will not recognize North Korea as a nuclear state. But what does this mean? North Korea, as everyone knows, is a nuclear state.
What the U.S. means is that it won’t recognize North Korea’s right to be a nuclear state. Why is this important?
According to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), only the five countries that already had nuclear weapons when the treaty went into force in 1970—the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China—are internationally recognized as nuclear weapon states. The treaty requires them to reduce their nuclear arsenal towards eventual elimination and prohibits all other signatories from possessing nuclear weapons.
Never mind that the five nuclear weapon states are far from achieving their commitment to disarmament and that the United States is spending $1 trillion to modernize its nuclear arsenal. The United States’ primary concern is the second half of the NPT’s stated goal—that no one else besides the five officially-recognized nuclear weapon states should have nuclear weapons. As such, North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, in the U.S.’ view, is an affront to this doctrine and the country should be punished accordingly.
But what about India, Pakistan and Israel—also countries with nuclear weapons that are not parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), you might ask. Does the United States refuse to recognize them as nuclear states?
Therein lies the greatest hypocrisy behind U.S. condemnation of North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests. Because the U.S. has no problem with India, Pakistan and Israel possessing nuclear weapons, it has seen no need to make such a pronouncement.
North Korea’s Accelerating Missile Development: Threat to U.S. Hegemony
It has not gone unnoticed that the pace of North Korea’s missile testing has accelerated in recent months. When the year began, North Korea found itself in a somewhat vulnerable position, given the Trump administration’s aggressive rhetoric. North Korea had a nuclear weapons program but no tested reentry vehicle–which meant that it had no means of delivery. The north’s conventional arms are sufficient to inflict heavy damage on South Korea. But in a conflict, harm to U.S. forces would be relatively mild, especially if the U.S. launched a first strike to eliminate much of North Korea’s military capability. The window of opportunity for attacking North Korea would permanently close once it could demonstrate an effective means of delivering a nuclear weapon and the ability to strike U.S. warplanes stationed in Guam and aircraft carriers off the coast of the Korean Peninsula. Thus for North Korea, the race was on.
The North Koreans have taken note of the experience of Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, and arrived at the conclusion that a small nation relying on conventional arms alone has no chance of deterring attack by the United States. North Korea says its nuclear program “is a legitimate and righteous measure for self-defense to protect the sovereignty and the right to existence” of the nation.
That is a conclusion the U.S. is keen to discourage. For the United States, it is a fundamental principle of its foreign policy that it should be able to attack any nation of its choosing, and that no country ought to have the means of defending itself. And therein lies the source of U.S. concern. The reason why stopping North Korea’s nuclear and long-range missile program is a priority for the Trump administration is not because it truly believes North Korea will launch an ICBM at the United States. Rather, it’s that if North Korea succeeds in establishing an effective nuclear deterrent, then this could have serious geopolitical implications for U.S. policy, as other targeted nations may follow North Korea’s example to ensure their survival.
For this reason, the United States has branded North Korea a pariah state and sponsored harsh UN sanctions. North Korea faces a dichotomy between policy objectives. If it does not denuclearize, then it risks succumbing to the economic strangulation imposed by the United States. But if it abandons its nuclear program, it becomes far more vulnerable to military strikes by a hostile U.S. The lesson of Libya’s fate after it abandoned its nuclear weapons program is not forgotten.
The United States declares that it will not engage in talks with North Korea unless it denuclearizes as a precondition while receiving nothing in return. That position shuts down any possibility of diplomacy, and it is hard to visualize any way out of the current impasse as long as Washington clings to that attitude. It is to be hoped that South Korean President Moon Jae-in can persuade the Trump administration to adopt a more flexible approach. The time has come for South Korea to take the lead in finding a peaceful resolution of the nuclear dispute.
Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific.
NYT Finally Retracts Russia-gate Canard
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | June 29, 2017
The New York Times has finally admitted that one of the favorite Russia-gate canards – that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred on the assessment of Russian hacking of Democratic emails – is false.
On Thursday, the Times appended a correction to a June 25 article that had repeated the false claim, which has been used by Democrats and the mainstream media for months to brush aside any doubts about the foundation of the Russia-gate scandal and portray President Trump as delusional for doubting what all 17 intelligence agencies supposedly knew to be true.
In the Times’ White House Memo of June 25, correspondent Maggie Haberman mocked Trump for “still refus[ing] to acknowledge a basic fact agreed upon by 17 American intelligence agencies that he now oversees: Russia orchestrated the attacks, and did it to help get him elected.”
However, on Thursday, the Times – while leaving most of Haberman’s ridicule of Trump in place – noted in a correction that the relevant intelligence “assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.”
The Times’ grudging correction was vindication for some Russia-gate skeptics who had questioned the claim of a full-scale intelligence assessment, which would usually take the form of a National Intelligence Estimate (or NIE), a product that seeks out the views of the entire Intelligence Community and includes dissents.
The reality of a more narrowly based Russia-gate assessment was admitted in May by President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan in sworn congressional testimony.
Clapper testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 8 that the Russia-hacking claim came from a “special intelligence community assessment” (or ICA) produced by selected analysts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, “a coordinated product from three agencies – CIA, NSA, and the FBI – not all 17 components of the intelligence community,” the former DNI said.
Clapper further acknowledged that the analysts who produced the Jan. 6 assessment on alleged Russian hacking were “hand-picked” from the CIA, FBI and NSA.
Yet, as any intelligence expert will tell you, if you “hand-pick” the analysts, you are really hand-picking the conclusion. For instance, if the analysts were known to be hard-liners on Russia or supporters of Hillary Clinton, they could be expected to deliver the one-sided report that they did.
Politicized Intelligence
In the history of U.S. intelligence, we have seen how this selective approach has worked, such as the phony determination of the Reagan administration pinning the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II and other acts of terror on the Soviet Union.
CIA Director William Casey and Deputy Director Robert Gates shepherded the desired findings through the process by putting the assessment under the control of pliable analysts and sidelining those who objected to this politicization of intelligence.
The point of enlisting the broader intelligence community – and incorporating dissents into a final report – is to guard against such “stove-piping” of intelligence that delivers the politically desired result but ultimately distorts reality.
Another painful example of politicized intelligence was President George W. Bush’s 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s WMD that removed State Department and other dissents from the declassified version that was given to the public.
Since Clapper’s and Brennan’s testimony in May, the Times and other mainstream news outlets have avoided a direct contradiction of their earlier acceptance of the 17-intelligence-agencies canard by simply referring to a judgment by “the intelligence community.”
That finessing of their earlier errors has allowed Hillary Clinton and other senior Democrats to continue referencing this fictional consensus without challenge, at least in the mainstream media.
For instance, on May 31 at a technology conference in California, Clinton referred to the Jan. 6 report, asserting that “Seventeen agencies, all in agreement, which I know from my experience as a Senator and Secretary of State, is hard to get. They concluded with high confidence that the Russians ran an extensive information war campaign against my campaign, to influence voters in the election.”
The failure of the major news organizations to clarify this point about the 17 agencies may have contributed to Haberman’s mistake on June 25 as she simply repeated the groupthink that nearly all the Important People in Washington just knew to be true.
But the Times’ belated correction also underscores the growing sense that the U.S. mainstream media has joined in a political vendetta against Trump and has cast aside professional standards to the point of repeating false claims designed to denigrate him.
That, in turn, plays into Trump’s Twitter complaints that he and his administration are the targets of a “witch hunt” led by the “fake news” media, a grievance that appears to be energizing his supporters and could discredit whatever ongoing investigations eventually conclude.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
US senators propose $558mn more for Israeli missile defense
RT | June 29, 2017
A Senate committee markup of the 2018 Pentagon funding bill would give $705 million to Israeli “cooperative” missile defense programs, a $588 million increase from the budget request made by President Donald Trump.
The Senate Armed Services Committee draft of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would allocate $268.5 million for research, development, testing and evaluation for “multi-tiered missile defense systems” and another $290 million for purchasing them.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) identified the systems that would benefit from the funding as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow-2 and Arrow-3.
“These funds will help Israel defend its citizens against rocket and missile threats, and contribute to America’s missile defense programs,” AIPAC said Thursday, in a statement thanking the Senate and House armed services committees.
The David’s Sling weapon system and the Arrow program would receive $120 million apiece, while $92 million would go towards Israeli procurement of Tamir interceptors for the Iron Dome short-range system through co-production in the United States, according to the Senate committee markup.
The 2018 Senate proposal would be a $105 million increase over the funds approved for 2017, AIPAC noted.
“As Israel faces dramatically rising security challenges, AIPAC urges inclusion of these vital funds in the final versions of the Fiscal Year 2018 defense authorization and appropriations bills,” the lobbying group said.
The US has “a very strong cooperative missile defense partnership” with Israel, the head of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) told lawmakers earlier this month.
The MDA budget includes funding for “co-development and co-production” of the David’s Sling and Arrow weapon systems. The Senate markup of the 2018 NDAA allocates $8.5 billion to the agency “to strengthen homeland, regional, and space missile defenses.”
MDA also plans to test the Arrow-3 system, intended to defeat intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), from a site at Kodiak Island, Alaska sometime in 2018.
Despite the substantial investments, missile defense remains a hit-or-miss proposition. Earlier this month, the MDA made the first successful intercept on an ICBM-like target over the Pacific Ocean. However, last week’s test of a joint US-Japanese ship-mounted interceptor off the coast of Hawaii was a failure.
Missile defense funding was one of the bones of contention during the 2016 negotiations between the US and Israel over a 10-year military aid package. One of the conditions the Obama administration insisted on was that eventually all the funding would go back to purchases of US weapons, which Israel eventually agreed to.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has enjoyed a more cordial relationship with Trump, calling him a “good friend.” Trump visited Israel as part of his first overseas tour in May, becoming the first serving US president to pray at the Western Wall.
Read more:
El-Sisi: Egypt’s Antihero And The Broader Regional Implications
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich | Dissident Voice | June 29, 2017
In Egyptian mythology, gods were considered heroes. In more modern times, it is men who are the heroes. Without a doubt, General Gamal Abdul Nasser has secured his legacy as a hero – a revolutionary who fought for Egypt and strived for Arab unity against Israel and Western imperialism. This month marks the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war; a pre-planned war of aggression and expansion by Israel against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, aided by the US and Britain.
Israel’s cronies assisted in the planning and execution of the war which led to the seizure and occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Syria Golan (Golan Heights) and the Sinai Peninsula. Prior to the start of the war, as early as May, Lyndon Johnson, who assumed the presidency after the tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy, authorized air shipment of arms to Israel.1 Furthermore, the United States facilitated Israeli air attacks and advances by sending reconnaissance aircraft to track movement of Egyptian ground forces and American spy satellites provided imagery to Israel.2 According to reports American and British carrier-based aircraft flew sorties against the Egyptians and U.S. aircraft attacked Egypt. Judging by their cover-up, the American leadership had as little compassion for American blood as it did for Arab blood. The Israeli attack against USS Liberty that killed and injured American servicemen was buried in a sea of lies.
Fifty years on, the war rages on and Israel has a different set of cronies. In sharp contrast to Nasser, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s antihero, has thrown his lot in with Israel and Saudi Arabia against his Arab brethren. El-Sisi’s betrayal has been so outlandish and stark that even the neocon leaning New York Times published a scathing article titled: “Egypt’s Lost Islands, Sisi’s Shame” by Adhaf Soueif. This is a remarkable piece rarely seen in the pages of the NYT given its reputation (see LOOT for example).
Soueif rightly calls el-Sisi to task for handing over the Tiran and Sanafir Islands at the mouth of Gulf of Aqaba to Saudi Arabia. More telling is the fact that the transfer had been discussed with — and had received the blessings of — Israel, according to Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. The implications of an Israeli-Saudi-Egyptian alliance are enormous; though hardly the first act of treason by el-Sisi.
In his article Soueif also touches on the dam being built by Ethiopia (the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam) which was opposed by former President Mohamed Morsi who was ousted in a coup by el-Sisi. It is crucial that this project be further explored as it relates not only to Egypt, but also the past and future politics and geopolitics of the region.
Before moving on, however, it is important to recall that Morsi was democratically elected to office in the aftermath of the Egyptian ‘revolution’. His support of the Palestinians and his opposition to the dam did not sit well with Israel. Morsi had even called Jews “descendants of pigs and apes”. Both Hamas and the U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed Morsi’s election. Abbas called Morsi “the choice of the great people of Egypt” while one of his senior aides, Saeb Erekat, said the democratic vote for Morsi “meant the Palestinian cause was the Number One priority for all Egyptians. Though perhaps the greater concern for Israel was Morsi’s opposition to the construction of the dam, a construction favored by Israel and Saudi Arabia.
In 2012, it was reported that Saudi Arabia had claimed a stake in the Nile. Israel’s ambitions went much further back. First initiated by Theodore Herzl in 1903, the diversion plan was dropped due to British and Egyptian opposition to it only to be picked up again in the 1970s. At that time, Israeli’s idea was to convince Egypt to divert Nile water to Israel. In 1978, President Anwar Sadat “declared in Haifa to the Israeli public that he would transfer Nile water to the Negev. Shortly afterward, in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Sadat promised that Nile water would go to Jerusalem. During Mubarak’s presidency, published reports indicated that Israeli experts were helping Ethiopia to plan 40 dams along the Blue Nile.”3
On May 30, 2013, The Times of Israel reported that the construction on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (on the Blue Nile) had sparked a major diplomatic crisis with Egypt. The article also reported (citing Al-Arabiya) that Major General Mohammed Ali Bilal, the deputy chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces, had said Egypt was not in a position to confront the project (countries). “The only solution lies in the US intervening to convince Ethiopia to alleviate the impact of the dam on Egypt.” No such solutions from the U.S.
On June 3rd, Morsi met with his cabinet to discuss the dam and its implications. Cabinet members were surprised to learn that the meeting was aired live. During the meeting, a cabinet member said: “Imagine what 80 million of us would do to Israel and America if our water was turned off”. Morsi contended that “We have very serious measures to protect every drop of Nile water.”
With el-Sisi’s “democratic coup” which was handsomely rewarded, the dam project is on schedule to be completed by year’s end. As Israel expands and accelerates its wars of aggression, the wider implications of el-Sisi will reverberate throughout the region as serve-serving Arab leaders fight their own to execute Israel’s agenda.
- Camille Mansour. Beyond Alliance: Israel and U.S. Foreign Policy, Columbia 1994, p.89
- Stephen J. Green. Taking Sides: America’s Secret Relations With A Militant Israel. William Morrow and Co., NY 1984
- “Will Nile water go to Israel? North Sinai pipelines and the politics of scarcity”, Middle East Policy (September 1997): 113-124.
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is a Public Diplomacy Scholar, independent researcher, and blogger with a focus on U.S. foreign policy and the role of lobby groups.
US court verdict allows seizure of tower owned by Alavi Foundation
Press TV – June 29, 2017
A US court verdict has allowed the American government to seize an office tower in New York City owned largely by an Iranian charity organization, the Alavi Foundation.
A jury on Wednesday claimed that the charity was controlled by the Iranian government and the rent generated from the tower constituted a violation of US sanctions against Iran.
The verdict means that federal prosecutors can move ahead with their attempt to seize the building at 650 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The Alavi Foundation is likely to appeal the verdict.
The government plans to sell the property, which is valued at more than $500 million, and distribute much of the proceeds to victims of terrorist attacks.
The finding “represents the largest civil forfeiture jury verdict and the largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in US history,” Joon H. Kim, the acting US Attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement.
The Iranian government has said it has no links with the Alavi Foundation.
Prosecutors first sought to seize the tower in 2008.
In 2014, US District Judge Katherine Forrest granted authority to federal prosecutors to confiscate the building. However, an appeals court reversed that ruling last year.
The assets of the Alavi Foundation included the building in Manhattan, as well as Islamic centers consisting of schools and mosques in New York City, Maryland, California, Texas and Virginia.
American Legal scholars said they know of only a few cases in US history in which law enforcement authorities have seized a house of worship. Without rent from the office building, the Alavi Foundation would have almost no way to continue supporting the Islamic centers.
The Alavi Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 1978, works to advance the Islamic and Persian culture in the US.
In the last four decades, the organization has also given millions of dollars to American schools, universities and charitable organizations; among them Harvard, Columbia and Rutgers university.
Trump’s travails may spill over to Euphrates valley
By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | June 29, 2017
So it wasn’t mere coincidence that Russia ‘test-fired’ on Tuesday from a submerged state-of the-art submarine its most advanced ICBM with a capability to carry 10 nuclear warheads of 100 kilotons each that can destroy the United States. (See my blog Trump-Putin meeting is so near and so far away.) At a ceremony in Moscow on Wednesday in honor of officers who have graduated with distinction from Russian military academies and universities, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is bolstering its military power against “potential aggressors”.
He said, “Only advanced powerful mobile armed forces are capable of securing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country and protecting us and our allies from any potential aggressor, as well as from pressure and intimidation by those who do not like the independent sovereign Russia.” Putin revisited the subject from another angle at a different venue in Moscow, also on Wednesday, when he addressed the Foreign Intelligence Service staff and veterans on the 95th anniversary of Russian “illegal intelligence”. (For those not familiar with the terminology, “illegal intelligence” is what Pakistan says Kulbhushan Jadhav had undertaken – see the full text and video of Jadhav’s “confessional statement”, here.)
Putin made a stirring speech, here, packed with emotion. (Putin doesn’t hide his unvarnished admiration for the men who undertake “illegal intelligence” work whom he knew during his professional career in the Soviet-era KGB.) Putin told his audience: “You are well aware of the challenges faced by Russia. They include attempts to hinder our development, to provoke confrontation, and to destabilise the regions near our borders. In particular, terrorist and extremist groups are being used as tools. It is no secret that some of them are being diligently looked after, and even receive direct support from special services of a number of states. In general, it is clear that the activity of foreign intelligence services directed against Russia and our allies is on the rise.”
Hmmm. Temperature is palpably rising in Russia-US relations. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakhavrova today leveled a litany of complaints against the US behavior (here). One plausible explanation could be that the Trump administration is on a roller coaster and things are simply spinning out of the president’s control. ‘Chaos’ could be the apt word.
Putin’s top advisor on foreign policy, Ambassador Yuri Ushakov attributes the current turbulence to an “internal power struggle” in the US, which is undermining the White House policies. However, increasingly, the signs are that the White House itself is a house divided. Politico carried a stunning report yesterday that there were fireworks at a recent White House meeting between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and a close aide to Trump. It seems tensions had been steadily building and, finally, Tillerson exploded in anger and frustration that the White House guys are interfering to disrupt his best-laid plans.
Curiously enough, the foreign-policy wonk in the Trump team, the old man’s Orthodox Jew son-in-law Jared Kushner who was present at the meeting, later criticized Tillerson’s behaviour – and of course had that bit of vital info leaked to the press as well – casting the state secretary (an erstwhile boss of ExxonMobil) as an immature fellow. And, come to think of it, Tillerson was supposed to have been one inspired choice that Trump had made while picking his cabinet team. What happens now if Tillerson throws in the towel in disgust and returns to Texas to resume his retired life? (Read the Politico report.)
The real danger is that Trump may feel tempted take recourse to doing something very rash in sheer desperation, which he wouldn’t have done in calmer times – such as getting into a military standoff with Russia. Trump must be smart enough to know that in this murky political climate in Washington, he will be talking to Putin from a position of disadvantage if they hold a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 at Hamburg. (There is already a Guardian report that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has a plan to isolate Trump totally at the G20 on climate change.)
The Russian FO spokesperson Zakharova said today that the recent US allegations about Syrian government planning chemical attacks could be the “harbinger of a new (US) intervention” and that Moscow is apprehensive that the US military may resort to a “large scale provocation” under propaganda cover, “which is directed not only against the Syrian authorities, but also against Russia.” Interestingly, this perception is also prevalent amongst US analysts (here and here).
$700bn Pentagon bill funds US presence in E. Europe & weapons for Ukraine
RT | June 29, 2017
A Senate committee proposal for the 2018 military budget would further boost Pentagon spending on troops and equipment, make the US presence in Eastern Europe a persistent feature, and supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, among other things.
Adopted in the Senate Armed Services Committee by a vote of 27-0, the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would add $97 billion to the total military budget proposed by President Donald Trump last month.
Citing the need to “deter Russian aggression,” committee chairman John McCain (R-Arizona) shifted the funding for US deployments in Eastern Europe to the base Pentagon budget, and renamed it the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI). The NDAA also requires the Pentagon to submit future plans for the EDI, “including an assessment of permanently stationing troops in Eastern Europe.”
“In an unparalleled attack on our core interests and values, Russia engaged in an active, purposeful campaign to undermine the integrity of American democracy and affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election,” said the summary version of the bill, published late on Wednesday. “The committee believes the United States must do more to deter Russian aggression, whether across its borders or in cyberspace.”
The $500 million earmarked for “security assistance” to the government of Ukraine includes “defensive lethal assistance.” However, half of this funding will be conditional on “substantial action” by Kiev to “make defense institutional reforms critical to sustaining capabilities developed using security assistance.” This would have to be certified by the US secretary of defense.
The 2018 NDAA extends the prohibition of military cooperation with Russia first imposed in 2014 – which, among other things, prevents the US-led coalition from coordinating operations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria. It also bans the Pentagon from using software developed by Kaspersky Lab, “due to reports that the Moscow-based company might be vulnerable to Russian government influence.”
Arguing that a massive increase in funding is necessary to “restore readiness, rebuild capacity, and modernize the force for future challenges,” the NDAA codifies a policy that the US Navy should have at least 355 ships of “the optimal mix” and calls for the construction of 13 ships next year, five more than in the White House request.
It also funds 94 new F-35 Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighters – 60 for the Air Force, 24 for the Marines and 10 for the Navy – altogether 24 more than Trump’s budget requested.
The Senate markup calls for an additional 15,000 soldiers and 1,000 marines over Trump’s budget request and authorizes a 2.1 percent across-the-board pay raise for members of the US Armed Forces.
By far the biggest increase in funding relates to cooperative missile defense programs between the US and Israel, which would get $558.5 million more than Trump requested for a total of $705 million.
An earlier markup released by the House Armed Services Committee was $4 billion less, but still higher than Trump’s original budget proposal of $603 billion. All three proposals are much higher than the $549 billion spending cap under the 2011 Budget Control Act, and will require a deal with the minority Democrats to get passed.
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Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
By Professor David Miller | August 18, 2026
Recent disclosures by the Zionist regime show that some 2,069 British nationals were serving in the IDF as of March 2025, according to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests submitted to the occupation forces (1,686 dual British-Israeli, plus 383 multinational). We cannot tell from the figures how many of these were already settler colonists and intend to stay in the colony, and how many will return or have returned to the UK. Presumably, those returning to the UK will number far fewer than 2,000, since many are known to have become permanently residents of the colony.
Additionally, the IDF figures only provide a snapshot, and do not tell us how many have served in the Jewish supremacist military either before or after March 2025. One way into the question of how many genocidaires are living in Britain is to ask how many current British residents were born in the Zionist colony. There is data on that, as we shall see. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
- German CDU MPs Seek Climate “Misinformation” List
- The ‘Gaza Treatment’: How Media Headlines Obscure Who is Bombing Yemen
- Ro Khanna urges Democrats to strip Israel ‘integration’ provision from defense bill
- Why Iran designated British MI6, Royal Navy, and RAF as hostile, terrorist organizations
- Armenian opposition politician dies in custody
- US still trying to recycle failed hypersonic missile programs
- France’s ‘Cold War’: Paris blames Tehran for supermarket fridge hacks
- Psywar no more? 77th Brigade’s sudden death
- Ukraine Already Carved Up… Before Talks Begin? /Prof. Richard Sakwa
- If Americans Knew
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- No Tricks Zone
- German Authorities Start Initiative To Evaluate Public Register For Climate “Disinformation” Spreaders!
- Zonal Asymmetry of Temperature Change in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current
- New Study: The Net Fossil Fuel Contribution To Rising Atmospheric CO2 Has Been Zero For 500 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
