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How General Kelly's Attitudes Reflect the U.S. of A

When retired Marine General John Kelly became White House Chief of Staff and thereby the leader of the ruling junta the media were effusive about the "grown-up," and "adult" man.

• General John F. Kelly: from Brighton to the White House - Boston Globe, July 12 2017

With Kelly, “you’ve got an adult in the room,” said Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary for Homeland Security and author based in Cambridge.

• John Kelly is a grown-up in command at White House - Washington Times, Juli 31 2017
• John Kelly: An adult in a childish president’s White House - Seattle Times, August 4 2017

Kelly just proved again that the lauded "adult" and "grown-up" is just another militaristic right-winger, has little knowledge outside of his narrow training and is as smug as the president he nominally serves:

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly on Monday called Robert E. Lee “an honorable man” and said that “the lack of an ability to compromise” led to the Civil War, once again thrusting himself into the public spotlight on an emotionally charged issue.

How does one compromise over slavery? The "right" to own and abuse other humans to increase the wealth of their owners was the main issue the southern states fought for:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.

General Lee was not a nice man. A slave owner himself. he liked to torture his "property" when it did not obey:

Wesley Norris, one of the slaves who was whipped, recalled that “not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.”

Was that the deed of "an honorable man"?

It is not the first time the "adult" Kelly has shown his real face:

Long seen as a force of order and discipline in the White House, the retired Marine general became part of the controversy over the president’s calls to Gold Star families this month when he defended Trump’s statements to a widow, made false claims about a Florida congresswoman who had criticized the White House and said he would only take questions from reporters who knew families that had lost service members overseas. He told Ingraham on Monday that he did not believe he had anything to apologize for.

There is nothing astonishing about this. Kelly did not become a 4-star Marine general for being an enlightened defender of humanity.

The illusions some liberal luminaries expose when the lament about Kelly is quite astonishing:

Ta-Nehisi Coates‏ @tanehisicoates - 9:29 AM - 31 Oct 2017

Shocking that someone charged with defending their country, in some profound way, does not comprehend the country they claim to defend.

The White House and the U.S. military are not about "defending their country". The U.S. is surrounded by two oceans and two weak neighbors. The coast guard and some local police forces are sufficient to defend its borders. How many of the hundred-some wars the U.S. has fought were truly defensive? Most, if not all of them, were and are fought for imperial power and for the enrichment of the people of the United States. The methods were and are brutal and the enemies were and are nearly always depicted in racist terms.

The differences between the motives and attitudes of the southern states in the civil war and the motives and attitudes of the U.S. of A towards the world are marginal. Kelly comprehends that well.

Lamenting about Kelly's biased view of history looks silly when the speaker then misconstrues the imperialism of the U.S. and the role of its military.

Kelly and the other members of the junta are, like Trump, not abnormities but reflections of the United States.

Posted by b on October 31, 2017 at 18:45 UTC | Permalink | Comments (103)

Open Thread 2017-39

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

October 23: Help Wanted - State Department Seeks Self-Consistent Secretary

In which I speculate that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hates his job and would be happy to leave.

October 24: Phoenix 2.0 - CIA To Unleash Vietnam Era Terror Campaign On Afghanistan

The White House approved a huge expansion of the CIA's torture and killing campaign in Afghanistan. The 'advantage': While the military has some minimum of accountability the CIA has none at all.

October 25: Nil

Draft piece moved to /dev/null for lack of substance.

October 26: British Involvement In "Trump Dossier" Needs Further Investigation

There are several strong indications that British secret services were deeply involved in the efforts to derail Trump's campaign. Did Brennan arrange for this or did  Clapper?

October 27: Cuba - U.S. Diplomats Retreat In Horror ... Because ... 'Crickets'

U.S. diplomats can't resist mating calls of Cuban gryllidae.

Please use the comments as open thread ...

Posted by b on October 30, 2017 at 14:36 UTC | Permalink | Comments (102)

UN On Khan Sheikhoun - Victims Hospitalized BEFORE Claimed Incident Happened

A UN commission concluded that the Syrian government is responsible for a widely discussed incident in Khan Sheikhoun. An alleged gas attack by air happened in April in an al-Qaeda controlled area in Syria. It was used by the White House to justify its bombing of a Syrian airbase.

The now released report was made to fit the narrative. The details below show that it was not the result of a serious investigation. This explains why Russia blocked the extension of the mandate of the reporting commission. 

On October 26 Reuters reported: Syrian government to blame for April sarin attack: U.N. report

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad is to blame for a chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people last April, according to a report sent to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.

“The Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April 2017,” the report from the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) said.

The official report has not been published. But someone obtained a copy of the Seventh report of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (pdf) and we make it herewith available.

The reports notes "irregularities" that makes one wonder how its writers could ever have come to this conclusion:

Based on the foregoing, the Leadership Panel is confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017. The findings of the Leadership Panel regarding the evidence in this case are based on the information set forth in detail in annex II.

Note the verbal choices the commission made: ".. is confident .." is not a wording that conveys surety and "..is responsible for the release" does not mean that the Syrian Arab Republic in fact did it.

The reports conclusions are NOT by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons or even endorsed by it. They were made by the "Joint Investigative Mechanism" which consists of a Guatemalan diplomat, an UN bureaucrat from Malaysia educated in the U.S. and a chemical expert who works for the Swiss government. It is a political board with a political judgement.

The reasons for that rather vague wording, which is not reflected in the news reports, can be found in the details. The report says on page 10:

The Mechanism determined that sarin was released from the location of a crater in the northern part of Khan Shaykhun between 0630 and 0700 hours on 4 April 2017.

Many of the reports findings are based on open source videos and photographs published by the opposition. It acquired witnesses statements from the area which is under control of al-Qaeda. It also examined forensic evidence for which no chain of custody existed. Some findings are strange.

In annex II, on page 36 (of 39) of the pdf, it notes:

Certain irregularities were observed in elements of information analysed. For example, several hospitals appeared to start admitting casualties of the attack between 0640 and 0645 hours. The Mechanism received the medical records of 247 patients from Khan Shaykhun who were admitted to various health-care facilities, including those of survivors and a number of victims who died from exposure to chemical agent. The admission times of the records range between 0600 and 1600 hours. Analysis of the aforementioned medical records revealed that in 57 cases, patients were admitted in five hospitals before the incident in Khan Shaykhun (at 0600, 0620 and 0640 hours). In 10 such cases, patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 125 km away from Khan Shaykhun at 0700 hours while another 42 patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 30 km away at 0700 hours. The Mechanism did not investigate these discrepancies and cannot determine whether they are linked to any possible staging scenario, or to poor record-keeping in chaotic conditions.

At least 23% of the alleged casualties of the incident WERE ADMITTED TO HOSPITALS BEFORE THE INCIDENT HAPPENED.

The hospital 125 km away, a two hour drive, must have been a regular one in Turkey. It is highly unlikely that such a well organized hospital would mix up the arrival time. It is impossible that the casualties admitted at 0700 hours were those of an incident in Khan Sheikhoun that happened, according to the commission, at 0630. The commission did not investigate the discrepancies and it asserts that it does not determine if the incident was staged or not.

Another curiosity:

An inconsistency was identified in one of the Fact-Finding Mission biomedical results from samples without a chain of custody. In sample number 133, the blood tested negative for sarin or a sarin-like substance, while the urine sample tested positive for the sarin degradation product isopropyl methylphosphonate. There is currently no explanation regarding the inconsistency.

The commission also notes a point that we had detailed back in April:

The Mechanism observed from open sources that treatment of victims from Khan Shaykhun frequently involved oxygen and cortisone therapy. This treatment is not recommended for sarin intoxication, but is mainly for lung damage, as would be caused by either chlorine or vacuum bombs.

The report misses the early reporting we had documented shortly after the incident happened:

First reports on that day by the Turkish government news agency Anadolu mentioned only chlorine ... The first OPCW statement on April 4 referred to chlorine, not sarin or similar ... The first report of the Turkish government also said chlorine

Moreover, according to local press reports the first 30 casualties that arrived at the Turkish border were diagnosed as chlorine affected, not as Sarin casualties. Neither did the patients in any of the videos show strong Sarin symptoms nor did the emergency personal take the necessary precautions for handling a Sarin incident.

The incident was most likely not caused by an air attack at 0630 that distributed Sarin. It was probably caused by a local Chlorine release that must have happened at an earlier point in time. The Sarin and air attack story was only later attached to it. The incident was adopted as a show the White House used to justify its bombing attack on Syria and to thereby divert from its domestic problems. It released an amateurish "intelligence assessment" on the incident that was not prepared by any intelligence agency but by the White House itself.

All evidence the investigation says it obtained from Khan Sheikhun, biomedical, environmental, physical sample as well as media, were obtained without a chain of custody. It was taken by Al-Qaeda or by groups Al-Qaeda allows to work in areas it controls. The terrorist and the opposition to the Syrian government, and certainly their sponsors, had an obvious interest in manipulating evidence of the incident to then blame it on the Syrian government.

The former prime minister of Qatar just admitted on TV that Qatar, in tight cooperation with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and under direction of the United States delivered weapons and money to the "opposition" in Syria, including to al-Qaeda, since the very beginning of the conflict:

Al-Thani even likened the covert operation to "hunting prey" - the prey being President Assad and his supporters - "prey" which he admits got away (as Assad is still in power; he used a Gulf Arabic dialect word, "al-sayda", which implies hunting animals or prey for sport). Though Thani denied credible allegations of support for ISIS, the former prime minister's words implied direct Gulf and US support for al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra Front) from the earliest years of the war, and even said Qatar has "full documents" and records proving that the war was planned to effect regime change.

These same forces, especially the U.S., are still determined to "regime change" Syria. To this purpose the U.S. military is preparing for a long-term occupation of the areas its Kurdish proxies in north-east Syria now control.

Note: Parts of the above are based on the work of Syricide

Posted by b on October 29, 2017 at 17:03 UTC | Permalink | Comments (40)

Cuba - U.S. Diplomats Retreat In Horror ... Because ... 'Crickets'

This incident earlier this month will probably go down in the annals as the most stupid diplomatic f***-up ever:

President Trump on Tuesday expelled 15 Cuban diplomats, escalating his response to a mysterious affliction that has stricken American Embassy personnel in Havana in a move that cast a Cold War chill over relations between the two countries.
...
American diplomats and their spouses began reporting symptoms that included hearing loss, dizziness, balance and visual problems, headaches and cognitive issues last December. By late January, the State Department realized that the illnesses were related and might have resulted from some sort of attack, perhaps by a sonic device, toxin or virus.

The U.S. diplomats were hearing strange noises at night. This within certain parts of their embassy as well as in some homes. Lots of mischief was suspected - from huge infrasound weapons to food poisoning. But no technical or medical explanation was found. The State Department described the noise as "specific attacks" on its diplomats. At least 21 were affected and half of the U.S. staff in Havana was ordered home. Cuban diplomats were expelled from the U.S.

Recordings of the mysterious sound were made available to AP. The agency noted:

It sounds sort of like a mass of crickets. A high-pitched whine, but from what?
...
The sound seemed to manifest in pulses of varying lengths — seven seconds, 12 seconds, two seconds — with some sustained periods of several minutes or more. Then there would be silence for a second, or 13 seconds, or four seconds, before the sound abruptly started again.

A Cuban investigation now found the obvious answer to the AP's "but what?" question - 'crickets':

Officials with Cuba’s Interior Ministry said that U.S. investigators had presented them with three recordings made by presumed victims of sonic attacks and that analysis of the sounds showed them to be extremely similar to those of crickets and cicadas that live along the northern coast of Cuba.

“It’s the same bandwidth and it’s audibly very similar,” said Lt. Col. Juan Carlos Molina, a telecommunications specialist with the Interior Ministry. “We compared the spectrums of the sounds and evidently this common sound is very similar to the sound of a cicada.”

Crickets can make noise as loud as 100 decibel, loud enough to cause health problems. The U.S. diplomats in Cuba were "attacked" by Cuban crickets which made enough noise to cause discomfort or even symptoms of illness. As someone only exposed to crickets when traveling abroad I can confirm that night-long cricket noise can be extremely unsettling to those who are not used to it.

But why did the State Department not know this? Why did the diplomats not recognize the noise for what it was? Cicadas and crickets are not uncommon in the southern U.S. states.

Presumable some in the CIA and in the State Department do not want better relations with Cuba and resisted the 2016 reopening of the embassy. It is possible that they used the cicada "attacks" to sabotage the relations.

Whatever. The incident lets the U.S. State Department look extremely silly. Imagine all the "crickets" jokes diplomats from other countries will make about their U.S. colleagues.

The mighty U.S. was defeated! Its diplomats retreated in panic! ... because ... 'crickets'.

Posted by b on October 27, 2017 at 7:50 UTC | Permalink | Comments (90)

British Involvement In "Trump Dossier" Needs Further Investigation

We noted back in July that the only relevant "collusion with the Russians" during the 2016 election cycle was the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton smear campaign against Donald Trump:

Hillary Clinton campaign cut-out hires the (former?) British intelligence agent Steele to pay money to (former?) Russian intelligence agents and high-level Kremlin employees for dirt about Donald Trump. They deliver some fairy tales. The resulting dossier is peddled far and wide throughout Washington DC with the intent of damaging Trump.

There was never evidence that Steele indeed talked to any Russian, or really had contact with his claimed sources. He has been for years persona non grata in Moscow and could not visit the country.

Yesterday, our assertion that Clinton campaign cut-outs paid for the dossier, was finally confirmed: Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research that led to Russia dossier

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.
..,
After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Told ya so ...

Michael Sussmann, a lawyer from the same firm that hired Fusion GPS on order of Democrats, hired the Crowdstrike cyber-outlet to investigate the leak of DNC emails. Crowdstrike and the DNC denied the FBI access to the relevant servers but asserted that "Russian hacking" was the source of the leak.

The "Trump dossier" was opposition research ordered up and paid for by the Clinton/DNC mafia. Most of its content was obviously fake or patched together from publicly known facts. But it took up to now for U.S. media to point that out. The fake dossier, paid for by the Democrats, was used by the FBI under Obama to get FISA warrants to spy on Republican party operatives.

We noted in January that the dossier was additionally used by the British and American deep state to sabotage Trump's plans for better relations with Russia (see  original for source quotes):

The "former" desk officer for Russia in the British MI6 Christopher Steele was the one who prepared the 35 pages of obviously false claims about Russian connections with and kompromat against Trump. There are so many inconsistencies in these pages that anyone knowledgeable about the workings in Moscow could immediately identify it as fake.
...
Steele spread the fakes throughout the press corps in Washington DC but no media published them because these were obviously false accusations.

Steele then decided to hand the papers to the FBI and to talk to its agents hoping they would start an official investigation. He cleared his move (or was ordered to proceed?) at the highest level of the British government:
...
When Steele's first move with the FBI in October did note deliver the hoped for results an attempt to stove pipe them through Senator John McCain was launched. A "former" British ambassador to Moscow arranged the hand over:
...
The MI6 is well known for launching fakes on behalf of the British government.

Even the second, more official handover to the FBI still did not result in the hoped for publication of the allegations. But by that time Clinton was widely expect to win the election anyway so no further steps were taken.

After Trump unexpectedly won the election a new effort was launched to publish the smears. The Director of National Intelligence decided (or was ordered to) "brief" the President, the President elect and Congress on the obviously dubious accusations.

It was this decision that made sure that the papers would eventually be published. As the NYT noted:
...
Only after Clapper or others leaked to CNN about the briefing of Obama, Trump and Congress, did CNN publish about the 35 pages:
...
The attack was a deep state attempt to stage a coup against Trump:

After the election the Democrats stopped paying for new Steele reports. But by then efforts to make the fake Steele reports public and to thereby sabotage Trump policies turned into high gear. McCain had already been involved in distributing the report and it was he or the Brits who who paid for the last fake report Steele delivered:

Let me remind you of the basic facts about the Dossier--It consists of 13 separate reports. The first is dated 20 June 2016. That date is important because it shows that it took a little more than two months [after the Democrats started paying] for Fusion GPS to generate its first report on Trump's alleged Russian activities. If Fusion GPS already had something in the can then I would expect them to have put something out in early May. Eleven more reports were generated between 26 July and 19 October 2016. That tracks with the letter from Perkins Coie that the engagement by the Clinton Campaign ended at the end of October.

But there is a big problem and unanswered question--The Dossier includes a final report that is dated 13 December 2016. Who paid for this? Was it John McCain?

The purpose of the final fake report Steele added to the dossier was to provide "evidence" that Trump was involved in the "Russian hacking" of the DNC:

After Donald Trump was elected, Christopher Steele prepared an additional memorandum (dated 13 December 2016) that made the following claims:

• Michael Cohen[, President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer,] held a secret meeting in Prague, Czechoslovakia in August 2016 with Kremlin operatives.
• Cohen, allegedly accompanied by 3 colleagues (Not Further Identified), met with Oleg SOLODUKHIM to discuss on how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had worked in Europe under Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign and various contingencies for covering up these operations and Moscow's secret liaison with the Trump team more generally.
• In Prague, Cohen agreed (sic) contingency plans for various scenarios to protect the operation, but in particular what was to be done in the event that Hillary Clinton won the Presidency.
• Sergei Ivanov's associate claimed that payments to hackers had been made by both Trump's team and the Kremlin.

...
Christopher Steele passed a copy of the December memo to a senior UK Government national security official and to Fusion GPS (via encrypted email) with the instruction to give a hard copy to Senator McCain via David Kramer.

Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, denies to have been in Prague. The meeting Steele "reported" did not happen.  The intent of this December Steele report was to further the meme of "Russian hacking" by providing fake evidence for alleged Trump involvement in it. But the report is false. Trump/Cohen did not hire "Russian hackers". Who's interest was it to plant this meme? Was this a British attempt to divert attention from their own hacking?

The Brits are knee deep involved in the Steele reports. There is the hiring of a (former?) British MI-6 agent to make up the dossier. Who came up with his name? The dossier was first peddled to McCain by a (former?) British ambassador. The British government green-lighted pushing the report to the FBI. It was one of the customers of the last Steele report.

The source said that Mr Steele spoke to officials in London to ask for permission to speak to the FBI, which was duly granted, and that Downing Street was informed.

The last Steele report was not paid for by the DNC. It was delivered to British government and to John McCain. The purpose of this last report was to plant false evidence that Trump paid for "Russian hacking".  There is a strong cooperation between U.S. and British intelligence.

Why were the highest levels of the British government involved in the "private investigation" that resulted in the Steele dossier. Did the Brits act on their own initiative or were they cut-outs for U.S. intelligence circles, especially for Obama's consigliere and CIA director John Brennan?

It his time for Congress to dig deeper into the undue British influence in this whole affair.

Posted by b on October 26, 2017 at 7:26 UTC | Permalink | Comments (151)

Phoenix 2.0 - CIA To Unleash Vietnam Era Terror Campaign On Afghanistan

Last week the new head of the CIA Mike Pompeo publicly threatened to make the CIA a "much more vicious agency". His first step towards that is to unleash CIA sponsored killer gangs onto the people of Afghanistan:

The C.I.A. is expanding its covert operations in Afghanistan, sending small teams of highly experienced officers and contractors alongside Afghan forces to hunt and kill Taliban militants across the country ...
...
The C.I.A.’s expanded role will augment missions carried out by military units, meaning more of the United States’ combat role in Afghanistan will be hidden from public view.

This will be mass murder campaign. People will be pulled from their houses at night and vanish - 'eliminated'. That has been happening in Afghanistan for years, but on a relatively small scale. So far the targets were 'al-Qaeda', a small terrorist group, not the local insurgency. The new campaign will target the Taliban, a mass insurgency against the U.S. occupation. Thus is will be a mass campaign and cause mass casualties.

It is not going to be a counter-insurgency campaign, even though some will assert it is. A counter-insurgency campaign combines political, security, economic, and informational components. It can only be successful in support of a legitimate authority.

The current Afghan government has little legitimacy. It was cobbled and bribed together by the U.S. embassy after wide and open election fraud threatened to devolve into total chaos. In August CIA director Pompeo met the Afghan president Ashraf Ghani and likely discussed the new plan. But the now announced campaign has neither a political nor an economic component. Solely centered on "security" it will end up as a random torture and killing expedition without the necessary context and with no positive results for the occupation.

The campaign will be a boon for the Taliban. While it will likely kill Taliban aligned insurgents here and there, it will also alienate many more Afghan people. Some 75%  of the Taliban fighters are locals fighting near their homes. Killing them creates new local recruits for the insurgency. It will also give the Taliban a more sympathetic population which it can use to cover its future operations.

A similar campaign during the Vietnam war was known as Operation Phoenix. Then some 50,000-100,000 South-Vietnamese, all 'suspected communists', were killed by the CIA's roving gangs. The polished Wikipedia version:

[Phoenix] was designed to identify and "neutralize" (via infiltration, capture, counter-terrorism, interrogation, and assassination) the infrastructure of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF or Viet Cong). The CIA described it as "a set of programs that sought to attack and destroy the political infrastructure of the Viet Cong". The major two components of the program were Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs) and regional interrogation centers. PRUs would kill or capture suspected NLF members, as well as civilians who were thought to have information on NLF activities. Many of these people were then taken to interrogation centers where many were allegedly tortured in an attempt to gain intelligence on VC activities in the area. The information extracted at the centers was then given to military commanders, who would use it to task the PRU with further capture and assassination missions.

The Phoenix program was embedded into a larger civil political and economic development program known as Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support. The civil part of CORDS partially failed over bribery and incompetence. It was too expensive and not sustainable. The accepted historical judgement is that the 'security' part, Phoenix, failed to achieve its purpose despite its wide conceptualization. Its utter brutality alienated the people. The passive support for the Viet Cong increased due to the campaign.

In recent years there have been revisionists efforts by the Pentagon's RAND Corporation to change that view. They claim that the campaign went well and was successful. But those who took part in Phoenix (Video: Part 1, part 2) paint a very different picture. The brutality of Phoenix, which enraged the public, was one of the reason that forced the U.S. government to end the war.

The now announced campaign looks similar to Phoenix but lacks any political component. It is not designed to pacify insurgents but to 'eliminate' any and all resistance:

The new effort will be led by small units known as counterterrorism pursuit teams. They are managed by C.I.A. paramilitary officers from the agency’s Special Activities Division and operatives from the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence arm, and include elite American troops from the Joint Special Operations Command. The majority of the forces, however, are Afghan militia members.

There are only a few dozen officers in the CIA Special Activities Division that can support such a campaign. The lede to the article suggests that 'contractors' will have a significant role. In August the former head of the mercenary outlet Blackwater, Eric Prince, lobbied the Trump administration for a contractor led war in Afghanistan. We can safely assume that Prince and some Blackwater offspring will be involved in the new CIA campaign. The major intelligence groundwork though will have to be done by the NDS.

The Afghan National Directorate of Security was build by the CIA from elements of the former Northern Alliance, the opponents of the original Taliban. In the late 1990s the Northern Alliance under Ahmed Shah Massoud was financed by the CIA. Shah Massoud's intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, a dual citizen, received CIA training. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan Saleh headed the new intelligence service, the NDS. Then President Hamid Karzai fired Saleh in 2010 when he resisted Karzai's efforts to reconcile with the Taliban. In March 2017 the current President Ashraf Ghani appointed Saleh as State Minister for Security Reforms. Saleh resigned(?) in June after Ghani reached a peace agreement with the anti-government warlord and former Taliban ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Saleh is an ethnic Tajik and an unforgiving hardliner. He is wary of Pashtun who are the most populous ethnic group in Afghanistan and the base population for the Taliban. Saleh recently founded his own political party. He obviously has further ambitions. He always had excellent relations with the CIA and especially its hardline counter-terrorism center. I find it highly likely that he was involved in the planning of this new campaign.

In the ethnically mixed north of Afghanistan the involvement of NDS led local militia will probably cause large scale ethnic cleansing. In the Pashtun south and east it will lack all local support as such NDS militia have terrorized the country for quite some time:

For years, the primary job of the C.I.A.’s paramilitary officers in the country has been training the Afghan militias. The C.I.A. has also used members of these indigenous militias to develop informant networks and collect intelligence.
...
The American commandos — part of the Pentagon’s Omega program, which lends Special Operations forces to the C.I.A. — allow the Afghan militias to work together with conventional troops by calling in airstrikes and medical evacuations.
...
The units have long had a wide run of the battlefield and have been accused of indiscriminately killing Afghan civilians in raids and with airstrikes.

It is utterly predictable how the intensified campaign will end up. The CIA itself has few, if any, independent sources in the country. It will depend on the NDS, stuffed with Saleh's Tajik kinsmen, as well as on ethnic and tribal militia. Each of these will have their own agenda. A 'security' campaign as the planned one depends on reliable intelligence. Who, in this or that hamlet, is a member of the Taliban? For lack of trusted local sources the militia, under CIA or contractor command, will resort to extremely brutal torture. They will squeeze 'informants' and 'suspects' with the most brutal torture until these come up with names of a new rounds of 'suspects'. Rinse-repeat - in the end all of the 'suspects' will have been killed.

The new plan was intentionally 'leaked' to the New York Times by "two senior American officials". It is set into a positive light:

[T]he mission is a tacit acknowledgment that to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table — a key component of Mr. Trump’s strategy for the country — the United States will need to aggressively fight the insurgents.

That claim is of course utter nonsense. The U.S. already has for 16+ years "aggressively fought the insurgents". The insurgency grew during that time. The Taliban were always willing to negotiate. Their main condition for a peace agreement is that U.S. forces end their occupation end and leave the country. The U.S. is simply not willing to do so. Killing more 'suspect' Taliban sympathizers will not change the Taliban's demand nor will it make serious negotiations more likely.

Five years from now, when the utter brutality and uselessness of the campaign will come into full light, the NYT will be shocked, SHOCKED, that such a campaign could ever have happened.

Posted by b on October 24, 2017 at 10:43 UTC | Permalink | Comments (87)

Help Wanted - State Department Seeks Self-Consistent Secretary

European business deals with Iran are safe: Tillerson - AFP, October 20 2017

Washington (AFP) - The United States does not intend to disrupt European business deals with Iran, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in comments published Friday.
...
"The president's been pretty clear that it's not his intent to interfere with business deals that the Europeans may have under way with Iran," Tillerson told The Wall Street Journal.

"He's said it clearly: 'That's fine. You guys do what you want to do.'"

Tillerson Warns Europe Against Iran Investments - NYT, October 22 2017

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia —
...
Speaking during a visit to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Tillerson said, “Both of our countries believe that those who conduct business with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, any of their entities — European companies or other companies around the globe — really do so at great risk.” Mr. Tillerson appeared at a brief news conference in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, with the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir.
...
Mr. Tillerson’s remarks were the administration’s most pointed warning to date ...

This not the way to get the European Union in line with U.S. policies. So what is going on here?

Trump in often inconsistent in what he says. That is his privilege. But it does not mean that the Secretary of State has to contradict himself each and every day. It is Tillerson's task to project a steady foreign policy. If there is none - for whatever reason - he must keep his comments vague. Contradictions like the above make him a joke.

'Rexxon' has experience in doing international businesses. He knows that consistency is one of the most important factors in getting things done. No one will make deals with a party that changes its mind every other day.

So why is Tillerson jumping around like this? He seeks to replace Ms. Jubeir as court jester in Riyadh? Or does he want to sabotage his own position?

One inevitably gets the impression that Tillerson wants out. That he wants to chuck his job rather sooner than later. That he longs for the inevitable day he will be fired.

Tillerson is a realist at heart. He is no fan of Netanyahoo. He despises the fake human rights blabber others use to hide their motives. The neo-conservatives would love to see him go. Josh Rogin lists their favorite candidates:

The most popular parlor game in Washington right now is speculating who will replace Rex Tillerson as President Trump’s next secretary of state ... two qualified and apparently willing candidates have emerged. ... The top two contenders, Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, ...

Haley is way too loud and incompetent. Pompeo is too narrow minded.

I wonder who the White House junta will prefer as new Secretary of State. One from its own stable? David Petraeus?

He would be another nail in the coffin of Trump's presidency.

 

Posted by b on October 23, 2017 at 13:28 UTC | Permalink | Comments (35)

Open Thread 2017-38

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

October 16: How The Washington Post Deceives Us About The War In Syria

Ahab Jezebel dissects the bullshit the Washington Post peddles on Syria.

October 16/17: Iraq - Thus Ends The Kurdish Independence Project

Egged on by Netanyahoo the Barzani mafia made a bid to steal Kirkuk and its oil from Iraq. The Iraqis disagreed with being robbed and took back their land. Barzani failed. The Kurdish bubble deflated. There will be no Kurdish independence.

Syria, Iraq - Why The Kurdish Independence Project Failed

Background analysis on the failure of Barzani's bid and thoughts on the consequences in Iraq and Syria.

October 18: Saudi Money Invades Raqqa - Sowing The Seeds Of ISIS 2.0

After having bused out the remaining ISIS fighter, the U.S. declared victory in Raqqa. But after more than 20,000 bomb impacts the city lies in ruins. U.S. envoy McGurk brought in the Saudis to pay for rebuilding it. They will pay, but only for new Wahhabi mosques that will then create the next incarnation of ISIS.

October 19: The U.S. Military - Pampered, Safe And Very Scared

Members of the U.S. military are well cared for and mostly live a safe life. There is factually little 'sacrifice' in being a U.S. soldier. While one side of the propaganda depicts the military as 'heroic', another side emphasis the ever growing 'fears' it allegedly has. That doesn't compute.

October 20: Emma Sky - British 'Mother of Daesh' Wants To Reoccupy Iraq

Three op-eds in four days? Clearly, someone hired Emma Sky for an influence campaign. She argues for keeping U.S. soldiers in Iraq. But the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and Emma Sky's very active role in it, created the mess in the first place.

October 21: "Above All" - The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power

The generals have consolidated their power within the White House. They are now moving to extend it over the public.

Please use the comments as open thread ...

Posted by b on October 22, 2017 at 15:32 UTC | Permalink | Comments (110)

"Above All" - The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power

In an advertising campaign in 2008 the U.S. Air Force declared itself to be "Above All". The slogan and symbol of the campaign was similar to the German "Deutschland Über Alles" campaign of 1933. It was a sign of things to come.

On Thursday Masha Gessen watched the press briefing of White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly and concluded:

The press briefing could serve as a preview of what a military coup in this country would look like, for it was in the logic of such a coup that Kelly advanced his four arguments.

1. Those who criticize the President don’t know what they’re talking about because they haven’t served in the military. ...
2. The President did the right thing because he did exactly what his general told him to do. ...
3. Communication between the President and a military widow is no one’s business but theirs. ...
4. Citizens are ranked based on their proximity to dying for their country. ...

Gessen is late. The coup happened months ago. A military junta is in strong control of White House polices. It is now widening its claim to power.

All along Trump has been the candidate of the military. The other two power centers of the power triangle, the corporate and the executive government (CIA), had gone for Clinton. The Pentagon's proxy defeated the CIA proxy. (Last months' fight over Raqqa was similar - with a similar outcome.)

On January 20, the first day of the Not-Hillary presidency, I warned:

The military will demand its due beyond the three generals now in Trump's cabinet.

With the help of the media the generals in the White House defeated their civilian adversary. In August the Trump ship dropped its ideological pilot. Steve Bannon went from board. Bannon's militarist enemy, National Security Advisor General McMaster, had won. I stated:

A military junta is now ruling the United States

and later explained:

Trump's success as the "Not-Hillary" candidate was based on an anti-establishment insurgency. Representatives of that insurgency, Flynn, Bannon and the MAGA voters, drove him through his first months in office. An intense media campaign was launched to counter them and the military took control of the White House. The anti-establishment insurgents were fired. Trump is now reduced to public figure head of a stratocracy - a military junta which nominally follows the rule of law.

The military took full control of White House processes and policies:

Everything of importance now passes through the Junta's hands ... To control Trump the Junta filters his information input and eliminates any potentially alternative view ... The Junta members dictate their policies to Trump by only proposing certain alternatives to him. The one that is most preferable to them, will be presented as the only desirable one. "There are no alternatives," Trump will be told again and again.

With the power center captured the Junta starts to implement its ideology and to suppress any and all criticism against itself. 

On Thursday the 19th Kelly criticized Congresswoman Frederica Wilson of South Florida for hearing in (invited) on a phone-call Trump had with some dead soldiers wife:

Kelly then continued his criticism of Wilson, mentioning the 2015 dedication of the Miramar FBI building, saying she focused in her speech that she “got the money” for the building.

The video of the Congresswoman's speech (above link) proves that Kelly's claim was a fabrication. But one is no longer allowed to point such out. The Junta, by definition, does not lie. When the next day journalists asked the White House Press Secretary about Kelly's unjustified attack she responded:

MS. SANDERS: If you want to go after General Kelly, that's up to you. But I think that that -- if you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that that's something highly inappropriate.

It is now "highly inappropriate" to even question the Junta that rules the empire.

U.S. soldiers, and especially commanding officers, have a well pampered and safe life. Many civilian jobs pay less and are more dangerous. A myth is build around the U.S. military with the help of hundreds of millions in public relations and marketing expenditures. The U.S. military does not win wars, but its soldiers are depicted as being better humans than the general population. The soldiers themselves drink that Kool-Aid. At the end of his press briefing General Kelly belittled everyone who never signed up for the military or took a swig:

Before walking off the stage, Kelly told Americans who haven’t served in the military that he pities them. “We don’t look down upon those of you who haven’t served,” he said. “In fact, in a way we are a little bit sorry because you’ll have never have experienced the wonderful joy you get in your heart when you do the kinds of things our servicemen and women do—not for any other reason than that they love this country.”

'We do not look down on you. We think of you as a pitiable minor creature.' What an asshole.

If the soldiers do not work "for any other reason than that they love this country" why do they ask to be paid? Why is the public asked to finance 200 military golf courses? Because the soldiers "love the country"? Only a few 10,000 of the 2,000,000 strong U.S. military will ever see an active front-line.

And imagine the "wonderful joy" Kelly "got in his heart" when he commanded the illegal torture camp of Guantanamo Bay:

Presiding over a population of detainees not charged or convicted of crimes, over whom he had maximum custodial control, Kelly treated them with brutality. His response to the detainees’ peaceful hunger strike in 2013 was punitive force-feeding, solitary confinement, and rubber bullets. Furthermore, he sabotaged efforts by the Obama administration to resettle detainees, consistently undermining the will of his commander in chief.

Former U.S. Army Captain and now CIA director Mike Pompeo was educated at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is part of the Junta circle, installed to control the competition. Pompeo also wants to again feel the "wonderful joy". On Friday he promised that the CIA would become a "much more vicious agency". Instead of merely waterboarding 'terrorists' and drone-bombing brown families, Pompeo's more vicious CIA will rape the 'terrorist's' kids and nuke whole villages. Pompeo's remark was made at a get-together of the Junta and neo-conservative warmongers.

On October 19 Defense Secretary General Mattis was asked in Congress about the recent incident in Niger during which, among others, several U.S. soldiers were killed. Mattis set (vid 5:29pm) a curious new metric for deploying U.S. troops:

Any time we commit out troops anywhere it is based on a simple first question and that is - is the well-being of the American people sufficiently enhanced by putting our troops there, by putting our troops in a position to die?

In his October 20 press briefing General Kelly also tried to explain why U.S. soldiers are in Niger:

So why were they there? They're there working with partners, local -- all across Africa -- in this case, Niger -- working with partners, teaching them how to be better soldiers; teaching them how to respect human rights ...

Is the U.S. military really qualified to teach anyone how to respect human rights? Did it learn that from committing mass atrocities in about each campaign it ever fought?

One of the soldiers who were killed in Niger while "teaching how to respect human rights" was a 39 year old "chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear specialist" with "more than a dozen awards and decorations".

The U.S. military sent a highly qualified WMD specialist on a "routine patrol" in Niger to teach local soldiers "to respect human rights" due to which presumably "the well-being of the American people" would be "sufficiently enhanced"?

Will anyone really buy that bridge?

But who would dare to ask more about this? It is"highly inappropriate" to doubt whatever the military says. Soon that will change into "verboten".  Any doubt, any question will be declared "fake news" and a sign of devious foreign influence. Whoever spreads such will be blocked from communicating.

The military is now indeed "Above All". That air force slogan was a remake of a 1933 "Über Alles" campaign in Germany. One wonders what other historic similarities will develop from it.

Posted by b on October 21, 2017 at 19:58 UTC | Permalink | Comments (69)

Emma Sky - British 'Mother of Daesh' Wants To Reoccupy Iraq

While the Iraqi government forces sweep Kirkuk clean of the Kurdish occupation, one writer strongly pushed pro-Kurdish/anti-Iranian views. Three pieces by Emma Sky appeared in three prestigious imperial outlets within just four days. They are noticeable for the slander and lies. Obviously they are part of a well prepared lobbying campaign.

The author is not an neutral observer or academic specialist. Emma Sky is the person most responsible for messing up Kirkuk. She is also a 'Mother of ISIS'.

On October 16 Emma Sky published in Foreign Affairs: Mission Still Not Accomplished in Iraq - Why the United States Should Not Leave.

On October 18 she plants the same notion in The Atlantic: America Has Become Dispensable in Iraq. The subtitle reveals what it is really about:

The conflict in Kirkuk offers further evidence of Iran’s steady rise.

Sky pushes hard to implant a sectarian, anti-Iran meme. Consider this howler:

Once more, Iran is playing the key role, helping to broker a deal between the PUK and the Iraqi government and guiding the Shia militias supporting the Iraqis.

What nationality please to the "Shia militia" in Iraq have? Are they from Mars?

When ISIS rose in 2014 U.S. President Obama held back support for the Iraqi government to get rid of the just reelected Prime Minister Maliki:

The reason, the president added, “that we did not just start taking a bunch of airstrikes all across Iraq as soon as ISIL came in was because that would have taken the pressure off of [Prime Minister Nuri Kamal] al-Maliki.

Iran with its Revolutionary Guards jumped in and hastily trained and equipped volunteers into Popular Mobilization Units. These groups managed to stop ISIS from taking Baghdad. The PMU  are under the exclusive command of the Iraqi government. They are official Iraqi government forces, not exclusively Shia and no longer accompanied by Iranian advisors. No Iranian troops or advisers were involved in the liberation of Kirkuk. Sky's claim is all wrong. Sky has a hobby horse:

A compromise of some sort could be reached on confederation for Kurdistan and a special status for Kirkuk.

On October 19 Emma Sky appears in The Guardian: Iraq’s Kurds have overplayed their hand. Now both sides must talk. Within that piece she claims:

When the Iraqi security forces fled in the face of Isis in 2014 it was the Kurds, with support from the US-led coalition, who fought back and pushed them out of Kirkuk.

That was definitely not the case. ISIS never touched Kirkuk. Indeed the piece Emma Sky links to as reference never says so. It mentions that Iraqi army deserters were fleeing from ISIS in Mosul towards Kirkuk. In June 2014 the Kurdish Peshmerga invaded Kirkuk, threw out disoriented Iraqi government forces and occupied the city. This was at the very same time as ISIS took Mosul. ISIS and Peshmerga fighters delineated their borders and had their checkpoints only a few meters apart. Video showed them inviting each other for dinner. Sky's core point in the piece is that the Kurds, for their falsely claimed "rescue" of Kirkuk from ISIS, now deserve some part of it:

It is time to revisit the idea of a special status for Kirkuk, with power-sharing between the different communities

A "special status" for Kirkuk is not reasonable. It is a normal Iraqi city and, like many others, has a religiously and ethnic diverse population. That Sky tries to justify a special status for Kurds in Kirkuk with a fight against ISIS that never happened demonstrates how dishonest the claim is.

The "special status" idea for Kirkuk came up in 2003 when an ignorant British governor of Kirkuk, imposed by the U.S./UK occupation, was lost in internecine claims to the oil rich province between Kurdish expansionists and local Arabs. That governor was one Emma Sky.

Like other imperial freaks Sky later found a warm place at Yale.

An extensive discussion of Emma Sky's prior misdeeds in Iraq was published in June 2016 by Maniza Naqvi. The author summarized:

Emma Sky—the woman who assisted in the unraveling of Iraq and the region, who became the right hand of General Odierno in Iraq—and the architect of the ‘Sunni Awakening'---is perhaps, the Mother of Daesh, the word for terror in Iraq and Syria and the entire region or as the West calls it, ISIS.

The piece follows Sky's way as imperial overlord throughout the U.S. occupation. It quotes from her questioning in front of the the British Iraq Inquiry Committee. The transcripts reflect how completely unprepared the U.S. and its British stooges were when they arrogantly imposed themselves onto the country.

Emma Sky first messed up Kirkuk. She later worked for the U.S. top commanders in the country and was instrumental in creating the ISIS predecessor "Sunni  Awakening". She had a main role in imposing it onto the Iraqi government.

Sky was parachuted into Iraq only days after the U.S. and UK invaded. By mere chance she was set up as the occupation governor of Kirkuk. She had no prior knowledge of the city, the country, or its issues and zero experience on the ground. She was 36 years old and single. In Kirkuk she fell for the siren songs of the Iraqi exiles mafia and Kurdish separatists. She, like the rest of the occupation force, ruled by looting Iraqi money. From her testimony to the Inquiry Committee:

MS EMMA SKY: We had done all this stuff. We had promised people all of these things. You know, construction was going on and we were bankrupt. Then we would go down to Baghdad. We would try to raid the banks which had Ba'ath funds. So there was always money and then we kept spending because we thought we had more. Then we would run out and we would have to go back and get more.

The situation in Kirkuk, which the Iraqi government just rescued from the Kurdish annexation attempt, is rooted in Sky's misdeeds.

It was Emma Sky who stoked the flames in Kirkuk for the political purpose of the occupiers:

[T]he Arab-Kurdish disputes are being played up, because ganging up on the Kurds would bring the Sunnis and the Shias together, or so think the likes of Maliki, Mutlag and [Emma] Sky.

She accepted Kurdish claims of a "right" to Kirkuk and pushed that claim as "special status" Article 140 into the U.S. written Iraqi constitution:

MS EMMA SKY: We tried very hard -- this was by August 2003 -- to get Kirkuk recognised with special status, that it was something different, because what was driving the insecurity was the final status of Kirkuk. Should it be part of Kurdistan or should it be part of the centre? What we tried to do right from the beginning is to say, "Look, this place is different. It has always been different. Could we have special status?"

When the Brits finally gave up and left Iraq, Emma Sky was hired as 'political advisor' to the U.S. overlords General Petraeus and then General Odierno:

Everywhere he went, every meeting he went to I went with him. ... My reporting line was purely to the General. All I had to look at was the General.

She was part of the small inner circle that initiated the "surge" and the relabeling of al-Qaeda insurgents into the "Sunni Awakening". While the cadre of al-Qaeda leaders (later the elite of the Islamic State) were groomed in U.S. prisons in Iraq, its past and future fighters were trained as "Sunni Awakening" by U.S. special forces.

From Sky's testimony:

So the [Iraqi] government is much, much more nervous of these people who one day are Al Qaeda and the next day take off the patch, put on another patch and say, "Now we are Sa'hwa, Sons of Iraq". So we worked very hard to get the government to come with us and meet these guys and get a sense of who they are. Sa'hwa then spread from Abu Ghraib into Amriya, so right into Baghdad, and we then started going round to other areas and working with the local community and said, "Look, don't you want to set up a Sa'hwa too?"

In 2015 Sky wrote a snobbish piece in The Atlantic, 'Iraq Is Finished', where she handed out guilty verdicts for the rise of the Islamic State against everyone - except of course to herself.

But it was she, personally, who helped to get al-Qaeda fighters under U.S. control and trained. She had a defining role in it.

As Maniza Naqvi concludes:

Draw a straight line from the bodies washing up on beaches in Turkey and Greece—the baby Aylan, his tiny body lying face down—a direct connection between drowned babies, whole families tragedies and the US military enterprise in Iraq and Syria and all who were and are involved with it and morphing it to more monstrous waves—draw a straight line from the likes of Emma Sky to Daesh known as ISIS.

Someone coughed up a quite decent sum of money to have Emmy Sky write three current piece to be launched in three well-known outlets within just four days. Someone who wants the Kurds to take Kirkuk's oil, the U.S. to reoccupy Iraq and to strangulate Iran. Who could have an interest in doing so?

Emma Sky is corrupt imperial scum. I recommend to read Naqvi's whole piece on her and especially the inquiry protocols attached to it.

Posted by b on October 20, 2017 at 19:43 UTC | Permalink | Comments (68)

The U.S. Military - Pampered, Safe And Very Scared

The U.S. military is a socialist paradise:

Service members and their families live for free on base. People living off base are given a stipend to cover their housing costs. They shop in commissaries and post exchanges where prices for food and basic goods are considerably lower than at civilian stores. Troops and their families count on high-quality education and responsive universal health care. They expect to be safe at home, as bases, on average, have less violence than American cities of comparable size. And residents enjoy a wide range of amenities—not just restaurants and movie theaters but fishing ponds, camp sites, and golf courses built for their use.

Of course, some bases are better than others. But even the most austere provides a comprehensive network of social welfare provisions and a safety net that does not differentiate between a junior employee and an executive.

For those who stay on, the military provides a generous retirement pay.

"But life in the military is dangerous!"

Not so.

According to a 2012 study by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC) the risk to ones life is lower for soldiers than for civilians:

In the past two decades (which include two periods of intense combat operations), the crude overall mortality rate among U.S. service members was 71.5 per 100,000 [person-years]. In 2005, in the general U.S. population, the crude overall mortality rate among 15-44 year olds was 127.5 per 100,000 p-yrs.

The huge difference is quite astonishing. The death rate for soldiers would still have been lower than for civilians if the U.S. had started another medium size war:

If the age-specific mortality rates that affected the U.S. general population in 2005 had affected the respective age-groups of active component military members throughout the period of interest for this report, there would have been approximately 13,198 (53%) more deaths among military members overall.

Those working in the U.S. military, even when the U.S. is at war, have a quite pampered life with lots of benefits. They have less risk to their lives than their civilian peers. But when some soldier dies by chance, the announcements speak of "sacrifice". The fishermen, transport and construction workers, who have the highest occupational death rates, don't get solemn obituaries and pompous burials.

There may be occasions where soldiers behave heroic and die for some good cause. But those are rather rare incidents. The reports thereof are at times manipulated for propaganda purposes.

The U.S. military spends more than a billion per year on advertisement.  It spends many uncounted millions on hidden information operations. These are not designed to influence an enemy but the people of the United States. In recent years the U.S. military and intelligence services have scripted or actively influenced 1,800 Hollywood and TV productions. Many of the top-rated movie scripts pass through a military censorship office which decides how much 'production assistance' the Department of Defense will provide for the flick.

A rather schizophrenic aspect of its safe life is the military's fear. Despite being cared for and secure, the soldiers seem to be a bunch of scaredy-cats. The military's  angst is very ambiguous. It meanders from issue to issue. This at least to various headlines:

• The U.S. Military Fears Russia's Electronic Warfare Capabilities
• Air Force Fears New 'Drug Craze'
• U.S. Military Fears Volcano Could Harm Jets
• U.S. Military Fears Outcome of Rape Trial
• U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely Within Five Years
• Why is the United States Navy afraid of the Pirates?
• After Kandahar massacre, U.S. military fears new Taliban reprisals
• The Military Is Afraid of Your iPhone
• Why the Pentagon Dreads the "Sale" of IBM's Chip Business
• Pentagon afraid of ignorance about Iran
• Why the FBI and Pentagon are afraid of new genetic technology
• The Pentagon Is Worried About Hacked GPS
• Some Marines Fear Innocent Men Are Being Convicted of Rape
• U.S. military fears Iraqis can't control security
• Air Force personnel fear what coming cuts will bring
• Why U.S. Military Fears Sexual Assault Reform
• The Air Force's 4 Biggest Fears
• ...

Members of the U.S. military live quite well. They are safe. Their propaganda depicts them as heroes. At the same time we are told that they are a bunch of woosies who fear about anything one can think of.

I find that a strange contradiction.

/snark

Posted by b on October 19, 2017 at 16:32 UTC | Permalink | Comments (120)

Saudi Money Invades Raqqa - Sowing The Seeds Of ISIS 2.0

There is dangerous news evolving from Raqqa, Syria. While ISIS is largely defeated seeds get sown for its reappearance.

The Kurdish forces under the label SDF and led by U.S. special forces have defeated ISIS in Raqqa. Cleanup operations continue. The victory came only after the the U.S. and its proxies agreed to give free passage to the last few hundreds of foreign and Syrian ISIS fighters and their families. Since these boarded buses and were moved out of Raqqa on Saturday night nothing has been heard of them.

On Monday the U.S. coordinator for the fight against ISIS, Brett McGurk, brought an unwelcome visitor to Syria.

Raqqa24 @24Raqqa - 9:49 AM - 17 Oct 2017

Brett McGurk visited Ayn Issa today with the Saudi minister Thamer al-Sabhan (former Ambassador to Iraq) & joined 3 different meetings. #R24

First meeting was with the local council of #Raqqa then with reconstruction committee at the least they met with elders of Raqqa

Picture of the visit of Brett McGurk and Thamer al-Sabhan. Source: Unknown

via Raqqa24 - bigger

The visit was confirmed by a (pro Kurd) journalist:

Wladimir‏ @vvanwilgenburg - 5:06 PM - 17 Oct 2017
Wladimir Retweeted Raqqa24

I was there. No pictures allowed. Meeting was indeed about reconstruction.

Thamer al-Sabhan is the Saudi Minister for Gulf Affairs. He is known to be extremely sectarian and anti-Shia.

In 2015 Thamer al-Sabhan was appointed as the first Saudi ambassador to Iraq since the Iraqi takeover of Kuwait in 1990. He made no friends in Baghdad when he ranted against the Popular Mobilization Units, which had stopped and fought back ISIS. He denigrated the most revered religious scholar in Iraq:

Sabhan asserted that “whoever listens to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s Friday sermons and Muqtada al-Sadr’s statements can feel the threat that Shiite religious authorities pose.”

Al-Sistani is well know for caring for all Iraqis and for speaking out against any form of sectarianism. This was an insult and threat to a very high religious authority with a huge following.

Sabhan's loose talk did not go down well with the Iraqi population and its political circles. Immediately demands were made to kick him out of Iraq. Sabhan then claimed that an Iraqi official had told him that Shia groups directed by Iran were out to kill him. The Iraqi government denied that claim. But Sabhan continued to stir inner-Iraqi strife. The government finally asked Riyadh to call him back. In October 2016 Sabham was recalled from Iraq and appointed minister. He recently demanded "to eliminate the rogue Iranian regime."

To invite him to Syria, as Brett McGurk (on order from the White House?) did, is a dangerous provocation.

The Trump administration is not willing to spend money on the rebuilding of Raqqa which was largely destroyed (video) by thousands of U.S. air and artillery strikes. The State Department promised to "lead" efforts to restore water and power supplies in Raqqa, but it wants to put the financial burden elsewhere:

"We will assist and take, essentially, the lead in bringing back the water, electricity and all of that," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing. "But eventually the governance of the country of Syria is something that I think all nations remain very interested in."

It is a complete wrong approach. The U.S. should ask the Syrian government to immediately take responsibility of Raqqa and then leave the country.

Now Thamer al-Sabhan is asked to cough up money for "reconstruction" and "governance". But Saudi Arabia does not have humanitarian interests. Just witness the slow genocidal war it is waging on Yemen. Saudi Arabia will only support groups and populations that are willing to follow its extreme Wahhabi version of Islam.

ISIS follows largely the same creed as the Saudis do. ISIS used Saudi schoolbooks in its schools. Many of its leading members come from Saudi Arabia. It is generally assumed, with some evidence, that Saudi donors financed ISIS - at least in its early days.

The ISIS members leaving Raqqa under free passage went where? The Syrian forces fighting ISIS along the Euphrates further east report that ISIS fighters have largely vanished from the area. They either melted into the general population or moved north of the Euphrates to hand themselves over to the U.S. proxy forces. What will happen to them? Who pays to feed their families?

ISIS was born out of the Sunni resistance against the U.S, occupation of Iraq. Around 2010/11 the resistance was perceived to be a dead force. But to others it was still a valuable anti-Shia instrument and money from the Sunni gulf regimes continued to flow. The Sunni terror groups in Iraq slowly grew back. The Obama administration saw ISIS develop but intentionally let it grow for its own political purposes. The U.S. military at times supported it in its fights against the Syrian state.

ISIS is not even completely defeated, yet the seeds for its next incarnation already get sown. Thamer al-Sabhan will use the money he spends in Syria to further stir the anti-Shia pot. He will finance those who will promise him to resist the "Shia axis" of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. "Former" ISIS members will be welcome to join the "rehabilitation" work.

One hopes that the "resistance" axis in Syria will finds ways and means to kill these weeds before they grow back to size.

Posted by b on October 18, 2017 at 14:04 UTC | Permalink | Comments (58)

Syria, Iraq - Why The Kurdish Independence Project Failed

The bid of the Kurdish Barzani clan for an independent Kurdistan in north Iraq and beyond has utterly failed. Masoud Barzani, the strongman of the Iraqi Kurdish  region, had called for the referendum to divert from his government's financial problems. Other Kurdish powerhouses saw it as a last attempt by Barzani to save his failing political position. The referendum asked for independence including in "Kurdistani areas outside the (Kurdistan) Region". It was an annexation bid. National Iraqi forces as well as the international powers turned against it. Masoud Barzani and his family are now likely to lose their leading position.

The various unilateral Kurdish assertions since 2003 will be driven back. The dream of Kurdish independence in Iraq and Syria is, for now, dead. This is a positive development for both countries.

bigger

Since 2003 and especially since 2014 the Kurds had pushed far beyond their original borders. They occupied areas with diverse populations and with critical Iraqi oil reserves. With backing from the Iraqi parliament, public opinion and international support the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Abadi had for months demanded a return of the 2003 borders. It condemned the illegal independence bid.

The ruling Barzani family mafia sold the oil and pocketed the money that by law was owned to Iraq's federal government. The Barzani militia mafia occupied the federal border stations to neighboring countries and kept all custom income to themselves. Meanwhile teachers and other public workers in the Kurdish region went unpaid.

The Barzani family clan is only one of the powers in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Historically its main competitors are the Talabani clan. Both clans control their own political parties (KDP and PUK) and militia. Both had been fighting against each other during a civil war in the 1990s. Then the Barzanis called in help from Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to defeat their local enemies.

Over the last decade the Talabanis were handicapped by their ailing patriarch Jalal Talabani. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq he eschewed a major role in the Kurdish region in exchange for the ceremonial position of a president of Iraq. When Jalal Talbani died on October 2 his family immediately asserted its position. It negotiated a deal with the central Iraqi government to reign in the Barzanis' quasi dictatorial powers. The Iranian General Qassam Suleiman helped to arrange the agreement.

When the Iraqi government forces, as previously announced, moved to retake Kirkuk from the Kurds the Kurdish militia forces (peshmerga) under PUK/Talibani command retreated as planned. The militia under KDP/Barzani command were left in an indefensible position and had to flee in haste.

Yesterday and today Iraqi national forces retook control of various large oil fields the Kurds had occupied. They are also back in control of border stations with Syria and Turkey. After three years the Yazidi can finally go back to Sinjar. The Mosul Dam is again in government hands. Without oil and customs dues the Kurdish region lacks the assets and income to finance any regional independence. While his project collapsed in front of everyone's eyes, not a word was heard from Masoud Barzani.

The Iraqi government will not only retake full control of the areas the Kurds under Brazani had illegally usurped. It will also demand new regional elections. It is doubtful that Masoud Barzani, or any of his sons, can win such local elections after all the mismanagement and disasters they caused.

In Syria the Kurdish YPG/SDF forces today took full control of Raqqa. It will take months to clear the last remands ISIS left behind. It will take years to rebuild the city as it was largely destroyed by U.S. air support during the fight against ISIS.

In Deir Ezzor the last Islamic State positions are collapsing under attacks of Syrian government forces. In a few more days and weeks the city and countryside will also be fully liberated.

The war against ISIS is coming to an end. The Kurdish independence project in Iraq has died. The Kurds in Syria will now also be cut back to size. With less than 8% of the population the YPG led Kurds had taken control of 20% of the land and some 40% of the hydrocarbon resources. They will have to give up those gains.

The Kurdish forces in Syria had material and personal support from U.S. forces. Most of the equipment and munition was transported by U.S. planes to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region in Iraq, and from there by land through Iraqi-Syrian border stations under Barzani's control. The Iraqi government in Baghdad will now be back in control of those crossings. The flow of U.S. material into the Kurdish-Syrian areas is no longer assured.

The U.S. had long supported Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. It has now taken the side of the Iraqi central government. The (Barzani) Kurds were left hanging. The Kurds in Syria surely recognized that and they will calculate appropriately.

Meanwhile Turkish forces have invaded Idelb governate in north-west Syria and nearly surrounded the Kurdish enclave of Efrin. Only Russia is holding Erdogan back from moving any further. Last weekend the military leader of the YPG/SDF in Syria, Sipan Hamo, visited Moscow. He wants Russian protection for Efrin but for that he will have to pay a price.

The Kurds in Syria will have to reconcile with the Syrian government. Political support from Washington is obviously not reliable. Without U.S. air support the Kurdish military positions are way overstretched. The flow of material support to them is now under latent control of the Baghdad which is allied with the Syrian government side. Only Damascus and its allies in Moscow can prevent the fall of Efrin.

There is no trump card left to play for the Kurds. They can hope that Russia will help them to achieve some bits of federal autonomy in areas of Syria where they are the majority. They will have to give up their other gains.

Zionist forces, which want to split up Syria, will try their best to prevent a U.S. retreat from Syria. Some in the U.S. military will want to continue their alliance with Syrian Kurds. But Turkey as well as Iraq are against further U.S. support for Kurdish forces. Without any assured air, land or sea route the U.S. military can not sustain a long term involvement in Syria. Moreover - there is nothing to gain for it.

I expect that President Trump and the U.S. media will declare a glorious U.S. victory over ISIS in its "capital" Raqqa. Trump will then order the U.S. military to leave the country. There will likely be some minor involvement for months to come but the main operation will be wrapped up. What is left of ISIS in Syria's east will be rolled up by the Syrian army and its allies.

Over the last decades, and especially since the (foreign induced) Salafi insurrection weakened the states of Syria and Iraq, the Kurds had made huge territorial and political gains. But they became overly greedy and did not see that these gains were not sustainable. Iraq and Syria reasserted themselves. The "western" allies of the Kurds rediscovered that their strategic interests are best served by intact nation states.

As I wrote elsewhere, the Kurds are an extremely diverse people:

There are four Kurdish languages which are not mutually understandable. There are a dozen religions among Kurds though a majority are (Sufi) Sunni. They have been schooled and socialized in four different states. There are tribal conglomerates or clans like the Barzani and Talibani which have their own political parties and are led by patriarchal family mafias. There are members of the anarcho-marxist cult of Özalan while neighboring Salafi Kurds have joined ISIS to then kill the neighboring Yezidi Kurds. None of these groups has any enlightened or democratic understanding of the world.

The Kurds never got a state and will never get one because they are so hugely diverse and have little national unity. They will rather fight each other than accept some common leadership.

Over centuries the Kurdish people never found the agreement among themselves that is needed to form a viable nation state. The fall of their latest independence bid only confirm this weakness.

Posted by b on October 17, 2017 at 13:49 UTC | Permalink | Comments (81)

How The Washington Post Deceives Us About The War In Syria

by Ahab Jezebel

One of the most prestigious US medias, The Washington Post clearly has no built-in review mechanism for monitoring the quality and veracity of its source material relating to the coverage of war zone news. This is particularly apparent with regard to the reporting of the ongoing war situation in Syria. At present these professional standards have slipped and the paper has placed itself outside the ranks of real journalism and professionalism on which it built its enviable reputation - long before the war in Syria.

Spreading propaganda, and relying only on activists, is not professional. It resembles paid publicity, designed to affect public opinion, and it takes advantage of less informed readers and politicians.

We can open a small window into one of the latest articles on Syria by The Washington Post entitled:”Civilian casualties spiral in Syria as air raids target areas marked for cease-fire”. The article was not written from Syria but from Beirut (Lebanon), although it speaks authoritatively about Syria in great detail – and this from a journalist who has never been to Syria, and certainly not during the six years of the war.

In its second paragraph the newspaper talks of "groups monitoring the conflict": but every single human being on Earth interested in the Syrian war is monitoring the conflict - including my 87 year-old neighbour, Louise (her name). She is able to tell me stories about daily bombing and "Daesh" (The "Islamic State" – ISIS) attacking "every day and maybe coming to Europe," according to her conclusions drawn from monitoring mainstream media. She believes Syria is a country of ghosts and that Assad, Daesh and the US are "working together against evil Russia".

The Washington Post further undermines its own credibility by quoting the “White Helmets,” who apparently report that “80% of ... attacks targeted civilian areas”. Not everybody knows how biased the White Helmets are: in fact some of their histrionic performances have been said to rival Shakespeare. Professional journalism by a reputable newspaper should be ill at ease when quoting “a fake professional exhibitionist group.” And where, indeed, in Syria were the White Helmets based? In an al-Qaeda controlled city, working very closely with that terrorist group- the very same group responsible for 9/11!

The newspaper doesn’t stop at that: it insinuates - according to its title and introduction - that "pro-government forces launched hundreds of bombing raids across areas marked for international protection": yet the same journalist who wrote that article re-tweeted that "there were also 1,278 declared Coalition strikes in Syria last month".

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So how that is possible to sustain a title (usually not under the control of the individual journalist) and an introduction stating the opposite? Readers absorb and trust the newspaper they are faithfully attached to, trusting that the information is reliable, corroborated and trustworthy. General readers find the truth hard to come by when "professional journalists" distort it.

The article continues, quoting the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Monitoring Group". This group is based in London with many sources on the ground, including activists. It is known to be biased and its orientation is anti-Syrian government. Any information provided by this partial source may be taken into consideration – provided there is serious corroboration and first hand trustworthy information. In fact, no such corroboration is presented: the information seems to be thrown together in an article to support the journalist’s idea or "newspaper policy," with the risk of misleading the readers.

But the problem persists: in the next paragraph, Tim al-Siyofi, defined as an activist from the besieged Damascus district of Douma, is quoted - as a way of consolidating the introduction. But why on earth would readers buy a newspaper to read what an activist is saying when the social media are full of them - and free?

But that is not the end of the article (only the beginning!): "Analysts took the violence as a sign that the piecemeal ceasefires struck in the Kazakh capital of Astana have done little to change the core objectives of the Syrian government" - whatever these are, or were (unstated). The "Analysts" are dead wrong, misleading and probably expressing wishful thinking. Astana stopped the war in three huge parts of Syria and allowed the Syrian Army to liberate tens of thousands of kilometers in al-Badiya (semi-desert) and to lift the siege of Deir-Ezzour by concentrating the majority of forces against the "Islamic State" (ISIS) group. The Syrian Army, supported by Russian Air Force, bombed for more than a week and killed dozens of al-Qaeda militants for violating the Astana de-escalation agreement related to the city of Idlib, when the group carried out several attacks on three different fronts. Simply, al-Qaeda wanted the war to carry on: an important detail the journalist perhaps ignored for being far from Syria.

In fact, the same article contradicts itself further down when quoting a former Syrian General based in Istanbul who says: "These de-escalations freeze the problem". So the question is: how it can be - according to the analyst quoted in the article - that Astana has done little, yet the Syrian anti-regime General believes it has frozen the problem? Is The Washington Post asking too much from the reader’s brain, or not enough! Is it relying on a lack of critical mind on the part of its readers? Difficult to know with such contradictions.

The article is using once more the same old rhetoric used in the last six years of the war, accusing the Syrian government (and now Russia) of "targeting hospitals" without quoting a source, any source, and omitting the U.S.’s own revelations that Jihadists in Syria and Iraq keep their headquarters in hospitals, if such information is correct.

But worse is to come: "Interviews with civilians in the area". Is it the journalist who is in Beirut who is running these interviews in the northern Al-Qaeda controlled city of Idlib? Of course, of course: it is "Abdulhamid"…. It sounds quite exotic.

Further down, the article goes on to deal with the human side of the war: "We just want to eat, to let up the siege, and to live in peace and not get bombed." The atrocities of the war in Syria are not up for discussion. In point of fact the city of Idlib is wide open to Turkey and fully supplied on a daily basis: the transit of goods is/was one of al-Qaeda’s main incomes. No one is actually starving these days in Syria: the besieged cities have shown themselves, after liberation, to be packed with food supplies and ammunition.

Generally speaking, the war in Syria has mushroomed all kinds of fake analysts and "journalists", who put bits and pieces together according to their (wishful) thinking, and call it an article. The problem would stop there, except that a very respectful newspaper, careless about the quality of its material and professional standards, allows this "cut and paste" journalism to happen, and endorses it.

But the world is not completely stupid. Dan, the pizza delivery driver, seems much more critical, and aware of the complexity of the war in Syria than The Washington Post with its misleading articles (not the first time neither surprising when ISIS is not indicated as a terrorist group but “local militia”).

Maybe readers are not as naïve as the newspaper apparently believes them to be.

Posted by b on October 16, 2017 at 13:21 UTC | Permalink | Comments (58)

Iraq - Thus Ends The Kurdish Independence Project

Today the Iraqi government took Kirkuk back from occupying Kurdish forces. This marks the end of the Kurdish independence project in Iraq.

in 2014 the Islamic State occupied Mosul.  At the same time the regional Kurdish government under Masoud Barzani sent its Peshmerga troops to take the oil rich city of Kirkuk from the collapsing forces of the central Iraqi government. There were plausible allegations and some evidence (vid) that the Kurds had made a deal with ISIS and coordinated the move.

In 2016 and 2017 Iraqi forces defeated ISIS in Mosul. Kurdish groups took the opportunity of the ISIS defeat to occupy further land, even as that did not have a Kurdish majority population and did not belong to their autonomous region.

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The red lined area is the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq as accepted by the Iraqi constitution. The red dotted line is the additional area the Kurds intended to take and at times controlled.

The Iraqi government insisted that the situation be turned back to the pre-2014 lines. The vast majority of the people in Kirkuk are Arab and Turkmen. Kirkuk produces two-third of all oil in north-Iraq. There was not a chance that any central government of Iraq would leave the city and these riches to Kurdish occupiers. The central government move to reassert federal authority is backed by parliament decisions and was announced in a press conference on Tuesday.

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But the Kurdish leaders did neither think nor listen. The leading Barzani clan and his KDP party, long associated with Israel, tried to solidify their resource robbery. On September 25 they held an "independence referendum" in all areas under their control. All countries, except Israel, spoke out against this move.

But Barzani was urged on by the Zionists and international neo-conservatives:

Bernard-Henri Lévy meeting Masoud Barzani - September 30 2017 - bigger

As I remarked at the time of that meeting:

This is the death sentence for the Kurdish independence project. No cause [Bernard-Henri Lévy] supported has ever had a happy ending.

Egged on, Barzani continued his path. He threatened to proclaim Kurdish independence from the Iraqi state.

The Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi could not condone such an unconstitutional insurrection. He sent his troops to restore the 2014 lines of control, starting with the oil rich areas around Kirkuk. During the last three days the Iraqi army, national police and counter-terrorism units, all hardened by the fight against the Islamic State, were marched onto Kirkuk. An ultimatum was issued for the Kurdish Peshmerga to leave the area. Barzani insisted on staying. He even called in PKK fighters from Turkey to help him keep the city.

Last night the inevitable happened. The Iraqi government forces moved forward and, after a few skirmishes, the Kurdish Peshmerga ran away. It is not clear who, if anyone, ordered them to retreat. Some Peshmerga units arrested other Peshmerga units. No one seemed to be in command.

As of now the Iraqi government is back in control at the Kirkuk airport, the military garrisons and the oil fields and refinery installations. Kirkuk city itself is untouched. There are reports that everyone associated with the Kurdish regional government is moving out.

The U.S., which had provided both sides with weapons and training, had no real idea what was going on and took no side. Without U.S. support the Kurdish forces had no air-support and no chance to win any fight. Kirkuk is lost for them and the other areas they occupied since 2014 will follow.

Barzani has lost his high stake gamble.

The dreams of an independent Kurdistan in Iraq have just been buried again. Masoud Barzani's position has been weakened significantly. This huge blunder might cost him his head. The Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi has gained in standing and is now in position to win next years election.

These events will also have consequences for the Kurdish position in Syria. They demonstrate that they can not hope for continued U.S. support and will have to reconcile with the Syrian government. The idea of some autonomous or even independent Kurdish entity in Syria is, as of today, also dead.

Posted by b on October 16, 2017 at 8:38 UTC | Permalink | Comments (58)

Open Thread 2017-37

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

October 7 - Syria - Erdogan Is Afraid Of Entering Idleb

Turkish forces eventually entered Idleb (see below). But not as the Astana agreement had foreseen.

October 8 - Missing - A Motive For The Las Vegas Killing Spree

There has been no new information on the massacre in Las Vegas. No new gun laws to restrict (semi-)automatic weapons seem to be forthcoming. The whole affair has vanished from the news.

October 9 - Syria - Turkey Violates Astana Agreement - Renews Alliance With Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda could do so much damage to Turkey that Erdogan has to ally with it. Here are details of the Idleb arrangement between Turkey and al-Qaeda as narrated by an al-Qaeda member. Turkey will not touch al-Qaeda and enters Idleb only to besiege the Kurds.

October 10 - Impressive Videos Of Santa Rosa Fires

The fires are still raging - 6,000 house so far have been completely destroyed (vids). Only the chimneys are left.

October 11 - Russia Interfered!" - By Purchasing Anti-Trump Ads?

The latest Russia nonsense comes from CNN which, in the headline and lede, say that Russia used the Pokemon game to influence Americans, but down in the piece admits that it has no evidence for the claim.

October 12 - Spy Spin Fuels Anti-Kaspersky Campaign

The U.S. secret services dislike the Kaspersky anti-virus package presumably because it is difficult to hack. They use their bullhorns to practically ban it from the market. This makes the Kaspersky suite the most recommendable anti-virus snake-oil.

October 13 - 8 Out Of 10 Will Only Read This Headline

Recent examples of headlines asserting facts that the pieces below those headlines do not back up or even refute.

October 14 - Iran - Trump Has No Strategy, Only Aims And No Way To Achieve Them

Trump acts like the proverbial bull in a china shop. Fun to watch - until one is part of the china.

Use as open thread ...

Posted by b on October 15, 2017 at 17:33 UTC | Permalink | Comments (105)

Free Passage Deal For ISIS In Raqqa - U.S. Denies Involvement - Video Proves It Lies

After free passage negotiations with the U.S. and its Kurdish proxy forces, ISIS is moving its fighters out of Raqqa city. When the Syrian government reached similar agreements the U.S. childishly criticized it. The U.S. coalition claims that it was "not involved in the discussions" that led to the Raqqa free passage agreement. A BBC News report shows that the opposite is true.

Over the last two years the U.S. and its Kurdish proxy force in Syria made several deals with the Islamic State. In 2016, for example, they negotiated a deal with Islamic State fighters to move from Manbij to the Turkish border to avoid further casualties in the fight about the city.

But when in August 2017 Hizbullah and the Lebanese and Syrian government negotiated a deal with some 300 besieged ISIS fighters and their families at the Lebanese-Syria border, the U.S. loudly protested. The U.S. military blocked and threatened to bomb the evacuation convoy over several days and the U.S. envoy McGurk ranted against it:

7:20 AM - 30 Aug 2017 - Brett McGurk @brett_mcgurk

Irreconcilable #ISIS terrorists should be killed on the battlefield, not bused across #Syria to the Iraqi border without #Iraq's consent 1/2
Our @coalition will help ensure that these terrorists can never enter #Iraq or escape from what remains of their dwindling "caliphate." 2/2

Over the last months U.S. supported Kurdish proxy fighters besieged the city of Raqqa and fought to take it from ISIS. An immense amount of U.S. bombs was released to lower the casualty numbers of the U.S.proxy forces. The city was literally "destroyed to save it". Many of its civilian inhabitants were killed. During the last days rumors abounded that a deal was made between the U.S. and ISIS. It would give ISIS fighters free passage when leaving the city. Today these rumors were confirmed:

[SOHR] received information from Knowledgeable and independent sources confirming reaching a deal between the International Coalition and the Syria Democratic Forces in one hand; and the “Islamic State” organization in the other hand, and the deal stated the exit of the remaining members of the “Islamic State” organization out of Al-Raqqah city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirms that this agreement has happened, and confirms that all the Syrian members were gotten out already, and if some members remained until now it is because they are of the non-Syrian nationalities of whom the French Intelligence objects getting them out of Al-Raqqah city, where the French Intelligence considers that some of those involved in Paris Attack are present inside the city ...

Other sources said that buses had arrived to take the leaving ISIS fighters towards the Syrian-Iraqi border area. Local officials say that foreign fighters with ISIS are also leaving. The U.S. coalition generally confirms the evacuation, but it denies any involvement:

A convoy of vehicles is staged to depart Raqqah Oct. 14 under an arrangement brokered by the Raqqah Civil Council and local Arab tribal elders Oct. 12.
...
The Coalition was not involved in the discussions that led to the arrangement, but believes it will save innocent lives and allow Syrian Democratic Forces and the Coalition to focus on defeating Daesh terrorists in Raqqah with less risk of civilian casualties.

The hypocrisy stinks to high heaven. A deal made by Hizbullah with besieged ISIS fighters and their families was condemned. The evacuation convoy was blocked for days in the desert by U.S. drones and air interdiction.

Now the U.S. and its allies make a similar deal and let ISIS leave its besieged position. They bus those fighters towards the Syrian-Iraqi border where Syrian government forces are engaged in heavy battles against ISIS.

What is next? CENTCOM providing ISIS with air transport to the Israeli border? There ISIS is free to openly train new forces. The area is safe from Syrian and Russian attacks. The Israeli airforce keeps anyone away who might be hostile to ISIS.

The U.S. says: "The Coalition was not involved in the discussions". That is a lie. Only two days ago BBC News reported on the meeting where the deal was discussed and then made. Here you can see (vid) U.S. General Jim Glynn meeting on October 12 with Raqqa officials to negotiate the deal. While the General claimed at that time that no deal was made, later news and the situation today proves the opposite. ISIS convoys are moving out of Raqqa and the U.S. and its proxy forces are sitting tight and simply watch them leave. No U.S. air asset is blocking the convoy and no Brett McGurk is raving against the deal.

The criticism of the Hizbullah deal in August by the U.S. military was unprofessional. The blockade of the earlier evacuation convoy was childish behavior. McGurks rants were puerile. To lie today about involvement in the deal making after having invited the BBC to film the negotiations is just utterly stupid. No grown-ups seem to be involved on the U.S. side of the Syria conflict.

 

Posted by b on October 14, 2017 at 17:51 UTC | Permalink | Comments (80)

Iran - Trump Has No Strategy, Only Aims And No Way To Achieve Them

Trump hates the international nuclear deal with Iran.  The agreement put temporary restriction of Iran's nuclear program and opened it up to deeper inspections. The other sides of the deal committed to lifting sanctions and to further economic cooperation. Trump wants to get rid of the deal; but he is unwilling to pay the political price.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was negotiated and signed by the five permanent UN Security Council members (U.S., Ch, Ru, UK, F), Germany, the EU and Iran. If the U.S. defaults on the deal it will be in a lone position. The diplomatic isolation would limit its abilities to use its influence on other issues.

Trump has little knowledge of Iran, the nuclear deal, the Middle East or anything else. What he knows comes from Fox News and from Netanyahoo and other Zionist whisperers who get to his ear. All he heard is that the deal with Iran is bad. Therefore, he concluded, it must end.

The White House handed a paper to the media which is supposed to describe President Donald J. Trump's New Strategy on Iran. But there is no strategy in that paper. It list a number of aims the Trump wants to achieve. But it does no explain how he plans to do that. It is a wish list, not a program to follow.

The "Core Elements of the Presidents New Iran Strategy" are:

• The United States new Iran strategy focuses on neutralizing the Government of Irans destabilizing influence and constraining its aggression, particularly its support for terrorism and militants.
• We will revitalize our traditional alliances and regional partnerships as bulwarks against Iranian subversion and restore a more stable balance of power in the region.
• We will work to deny the Iranian regime and especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) funding for its malign activities, and oppose IRGC activities that extort the wealth of the Iranian people.
• We will counter threats to the United States and our allies from ballistic missiles and other asymmetric weapons.
• We will rally the international community to condemn the IRGCs gross violations of human rights and its unjust detention of American citizens and other foreigners on specious charges.
• Most importantly, we will deny the Iranian regime all paths to a nuclear weapon.

The list is full of factual mistakes:

• Iran stabilized Iraq when the Islamic State was only days away from taking over Baghdad. Iran also helps to stabilize Syria and to defeat the Islamic State.
• Ballistic missiles are not "asymmetric weapons". Iran's neighbors Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have such missiles. Iran's missiles are no threat to the United States.
• The IRGC is the equivalent of the U.S. special forces. It is funded by the state. It does not "extort the wealth of the Iranian people". (The IRGC's pension funds (bonyads) hold significant industrial assets. But they are different entities.)
• The IRGC does not detain American citizens.
• Iran has repeatedly declared that it rejects all nuclear weapons out of religious reasons. It signed several international agreements which prohibit and prevent it from seeking such weapons.

The White House list of aims, "the strategy", is followed by "background" information on Iran and its alleged behavior.  Some White House intern must have copied it from a neoconservative version of Wikipedia. It is a conglomeration of general talking points which lack a factual basis.

When the JCOPA deal was closed, Congress legislated that the White House must certify every 90 days that Iran sticks to the deal. Trump will now stop to certify Iran's compliance even as everyone, including the White House, acknowledges that Iran is fulfilling all its parts. The White House claims that non-certification is not a breach of the agreement. The issue now falls back to Congress which might re-introduce the sanctions on Iran which the agreement had lifted. If it does that Trump will say that it is responsible for all consequences.

It is not clear if or what Congress will do. Senators Corker and Cotton are pushing for legislation that amounts to an unilateral change of the nuclear deal. It would introduce new sanctions if Iran does not accept their demands. Trump seems to support that.

But it is not going to work. It is an unilateral breach of the contract and no other country involved in deal will support it. Trump may introduce new economic sanctions on Iran but why would Iran care? Unless all other countries follow Trump's lead, it can simply buy and sell elsewhere. 

The EU countries were again craven and offered to push against Iran's ballistic missiles if Trump does not completely break the JCPOA deal. This was utterly stupid negotiation behavior. Why offer concessions to Trump even before he makes a self defeating move? Still - they will not support breaking the deal.

Iran will not give up to its rights and it will not disarm. Obama pushed sanctions onto sanctions to make Iran scream. But the country did not fold. Each new U.S. sanction step was responded to with an expansion of Iran's nuclear program. In the end Obama had to offer talks to Iran to get out of the hole he had dug himself.

Now Trump is saying that stopping Iran from getting nukes is the priority. And that Obama was wrong to focus on it. The result is a bungled policy which will have either catastrophic, or no consequences at all.

Posted by b on October 13, 2017 at 17:42 UTC | Permalink | Comments (87)

8 Out Of 10 Will Only Read This Headline

Headlines lie to catch attention. Only few read beyond them.

They will miss the facts, and the falsehood of the headlines. It is a dangerous development.

Here is an Australian example of current headline writing:

Top secret information about Australia’s military hacked

The lede:

TOP secret technical information about new fighter jets, navy vessels, and surveillance aircraft has been stolen from an Australian defence contractor.

The story could be relevant - if true. But it does not hold what the headline promises. The text says:

• ".. the firm was subcontracted four levels down from defence contracts."
•  ".. a mum and dad type business ... with about 50 employees"
• "the admin password, to enter the company’s web portal, was ‘admin’ and the guest password was ‘guest’"
• "the information ... included a diagram in which you could zoom in down to the captain’s chair and see that it was one metre away from the navigation chair"
• "the information disclosed was commercially sensitive, it was unclassified"

The last snippet completely rebuts the headline. It appears in 18th of the 20 paragraph story.

A truthful (but boring) headline might have said: "Mechanics rat-shop puts marketing stuff on open website". No one would have clicked on it.

Headlines disproved by the following text have become common:

• Trump threatens ‘fire and fury’ in response to N. Korean threats

"It was not immediately clear what Trump was responding to."

• Exclusive: Russian-linked Facebook ads targeted Michigan and Wisconsin

"A large number of ads appeared in [other] areas of the country that were not heavily contested in the elections."

• Duterte’s ‘drug war’ is fueling the spread of disease

"It is too soon to map out exactly how the drug war will affect the health of Filipinos."

News content is now of lesser relevance than ever. "Clicks" are generated by headlines:

• 70% of Facebook users only read the headline ...before commenting
• 6 in 10 of you will share this link without reading it ...
• 55% of Visitors Read .. Articles For 15 Seconds or Less

"Clicks" generate "visits" which convert into advertising revenue. Such headlines make economic sense - short-term. But the best paying advertisers seek a quality audience. In the long-term they will avoid such sites.

Once upon a time sensationalist false headlines were the loony realm of tabloid media. That is unfortunately no longer the case. Headlines of even reputable media no longer transmit facts. One has to dive deep into the stories to get to real information.

This trend will lead to a further stultification of the population. It makes it easier to manipulate the plebs.

Posted by b on October 12, 2017 at 16:43 UTC | Permalink | Comments (42)

Spy Spin Fuels Anti-Kaspersky Campaign

Since May 2017 certain U.S. circles openly campaign against security products provided by the Russian company Kaspersky Labs. Three recent stories claim involvement of the software in rather fantastic "Russian hackers" stories. It is renewed attack after a silent spy campaign in 2015 against Kaspersky had failed. The current stories seem inconsistent, lack logic and evidence.

If one believes all the now made claims then Israel hacked Kaspersky, which was hacking an NSA employee who had stolen NSA hacks, while being hacked by Russia which was hacked by the NSA, while the NSA was warned by Israel about Russian hacks. Makes sense?

The Russian company Kaspersky Lab makes and sells the probably best anti-virus protection software available. All anti-virus software packages need full access to the system they run on. It is the only way to assure that the packages themselves are not compromised by some super-virus. Anti-virus packages upload malware they find for further analysis. They also update themselves through a secure internet connection. This enables the product to detect new viruses soon after they have been discovered in the wild. Both of the characteristics, full system access and online-update, make these tools inherently dangerous. They can be abused either by their producer or by someone who infiltrates the producers systems.

Computer geeks call such products "snake-oil" as they promise a grade of security that can not be guaranteed, even while they themselves constitute a significant security risk. One either must trust such anti-virus packages or not use them at all.

Since May 2017 Congress made noise about banning Kaspersky products from the U.S. Defense Department and other government entities. In September the Department of Homeland Security order all federal agencies to remove Kaspersky software from their system. Kaspersky Lab makes some 60% of its total revenues in the United States. The DHS order and the resulting press reports will do very serious damage to its business. It will help to sell competing U.S. products.

Eugene Kaspersky, the owner of the company, has offered to provide the source code of the products for review by U.S. government specialists. He also offered to testify before Congress. Both to no avail.

There is fear mongering, without any evidence, that Kaspersky may cooperate with the Russian government. Similar accusations could be made about any anti-virus product. U.S. and British spies systematically target all anti-virus products and companies:

The British spy agency regarded the Kaspersky software in particular as a hindrance to its hacking operations and sought a way to neutralize it.
...
An NSA slide describing "Project CAMBERDADA" lists at least 23 antivirus and security firms that were in that spy agency's sights. They include the Finnish antivirus firm F-Secure, the Slovakian firm Eset, Avast software from the Czech Republic. and Bit-Defender from Romania. Notably missing from the list are the American anti-virus firms Symantec and McAfee as well as the UK-based firm Sophos.

That the NSA and the British GCHQ did not list U.S. and British made anti-virus products on their "to do" list lets one assume that these packages can already be controlled by them.

In February 2015 Kaspersky announced that it found U.S. and UK government spying and sabotage software infecting computers in some 42 countries. It released a detailed report about the "Equation group", its name for NSA and GCHQ spy tools. In June 2015 Kaspersky Lab detected a breach in its own systems by an Israeli government malware. It published an extensive autopsy of the breach and the malware programs used in it. Meanwhile the NSA attacked Kaspersky products and customers:

The NSA has also studied Kaspersky Lab’s software for weaknesses, obtaining sensitive customer information by monitoring communications between the software and Kaspersky servers, according to a draft top-secret report. The U.S. spy agency also appears to have examined emails inbound to security software companies flagging new viruses and vulnerabilities.

Later that year the CIA and FBI even tried to recruit Kaspersky employees but were warned off.

That the U.S. government now attempts to damage Kaspersky is likely a sign that Kaspersky Lab and its products continue to be a hard-target which the NSA and GCHQ find difficult to breach.

To justify the public campaign against Kaspersky, which began in May, U.S. officials recently started to provide a series of cover stories. A diligent reading of these stories reveals inconsistencies and a lack of logic.

On October 5 the Wall Street Journal reported: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense:

Hackers working for the Russian government stole details of how the U.S. penetrates foreign computer networks and defends against cyberattacks after a National Security Agency contractor removed the highly classified material and put it on his home computer, according to multiple people with knowledge of the matter.

The hackers appear to have targeted the contractor after identifying the files through the contractor’s use of a popular antivirus software made by Russia-based Kaspersky Lab, these people said.

A NSA employee copied code of top-secret NSA spy tools and put it on his private computer. (“It’s just that he was trying to complete the mission, and he needed the tools to do it.” said 'one person familiar with the case' to WaPo.)

The Kaspersky anti-virus software, which the NSA employee had installed, identified parts of these tools as malware and uploaded them for analysis to the Kapersky's central detection database. The Kaspersky software behaved exactly as it should. Any other anti-virus software behaves similar if it detects a possibly new virus.

The "multiple people with knowledge of the matter" talking to the WSJ seem to allege that this was a "Russian hacker" breach of NSA code. But nothing was hacked. If the story is correct, the Kaspersky tool was legally installed and worked as it should. The only person in the tale who did something illegal was the NSA employee. His case demonstrates that the NSA continues to have a massive insider security problem. There is no hint in the story to any evidence for its core claim of "Russian hackers".

Eugene Kaspersky himself strongly denies any cooperation with Russian government entities as well as any involvement with any NSA employee leak. The German government found no evidence that Kaspersky is spying for Russia. Its federal data security office (BSI) trashes the U.S. reports:

“The BSI has no indications at this time that the process occurred as described in the media.”

Further down the WSJ story says:

The incident occurred in 2015 but wasn’t discovered until spring of last year, said the people familiar with the matter."

The stolen material included details about how the NSA penetrates foreign computer networks, the computer code it uses for such spying and how it defends networks inside the U.S., these people said.

If the last sentence is true the employee must have had top access to multiple NSA programs.

A new story in the New York Times today builds on the WSJ tale above. It makes the claims therein even more suspicious. The headline - How Israel Caught Russian Hackers Scouring the World for U.S. Secrets:

It was a case of spies watching spies watching spies: Israeli intelligence officers looked on in real time as Russian government hackers searched computers around the world for the code names of American intelligence programs.

What gave the Russian hacking, detected more than two years ago, such global reach was its improvised search tool — antivirus software made by a Russian company, Kaspersky Lab, ...

The Israeli officials who had hacked into Kaspersky’s own network alerted the United States to the broad Russian intrusion, which has not been previously reported, leading to a decision just last month to order Kaspersky software removed from government computers.

The Russian operation, described by multiple people who have been briefed on the matter, is known to have stolen classified documents from a National Security Agency employee who had improperly stored them on his home computer.

The Washington Post version of the story is remarkable different. Unlike the NYT it does not claim any Russian government involvement in Kaspersky systems:

In 2015, Israeli government hackers saw something suspicious in the computers of a Moscow-based cybersecurity firm: hacking tools that could only have come from the National Security Agency.

Israel notified the NSA, where alarmed officials immediately began a hunt for the breach, according to people familiar with the matter, who said an investigation by the agency revealed that the tools were in the possession of the Russian government.

Israeli spies had found the hacking material on the network of Kaspersky Lab ...

While the NYT asserts that the Russian government had access to the Kaspersky systems, the Washington Post does not assert that at all.

The NYT claims that the Israelis alerted the NSA of Russian government knowledge of its tools while WaPo says that it was the NSA itself that found this out. That Israel alerts the NSA when it has its hands on a valuable source that reveals NSA tools is not believable. There is no love lost between Israeli and U.S. spy agencies. They spy on each other whenever they can with even deadly consequences.

The NYT story is based on "current and former government officials", not on the usual "U.S. officials". It might well be that Israeli spies are spinning the NYT tale.

We already knew that the Israeli government had in 2015 breached some Kaspersky systems. Kaspersky Lab itself alarmed the public about it and provided an extensive forensic report.

There are several important questions that the above quote stories do not ask:

If the Israelis detected NSA malware in the hand of the Russian government "more than two years ago" (NYT) how come that the NSA hole was only found in 2016  (WSJ)? Did the Israelis use their claimed knowledge for a year without alarming their "allies" at the NSA? Why?

And why would the detection of alleged Russian government intrusion into Kaspersky products lead to a ban of these products only in fall 2017?

If the story were true the NSA should have reacted immediately. All Kaspersky products should have been banned from U.S. government systems as soon as the problem was known. The NSA allowed the Russian government, for more than a year, to sniff through all systems of the more than two dozen American government agencies (including the military) which use the Kaspersky products? That does not make sense.

These recently provided stories stink. There is no evidence provided for the assertions therein. They make the false claim that the NSA employees computer was "hacked". Their timelines make no sense. If not complete fantasies they are likely to be heavily spun to achieve a specific goal: to justify the banning of Kaspersky products from U.S. markets.

I regard these stories as part of "blame Russia" campaign which is used by the military-industrial complex to justify new defense spending. They may also be useful in removing a good security product, which the NSA failed to breach, from the "western" markets.

Posted by b on October 11, 2017 at 12:14 UTC | Permalink | Comments (58)

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