Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Stemming the new Völkerwaenderung" by Balint Somkuti, Ph. D.

 

 

The current migrant situation because of which Hungary is again in the headlines has a number of reasons. Please find below a local’s short summary of the events. 

Let me start with a some basic observations. There has been a growing disillusionment with the European Union all over the member countries, due to the current state of affairs. This is especially true in the case of the so called newly joined countries, even though some (like Hungary) joined more than 10 years ago in 2004. Without going into details suffice to say that in a number of occasions it was proven that the ex-communist countries are treated as colony lights. Lower quailty products of the same brand sold in eastern EU countries, complete disrespect of local laws etc. There is and there has ever been an agreement that we don’t want wars, and poverty, so we need a Union.  But the distance between deeds and promises has become too great to be covered by any kind of verbal magic. The veil of poliitical correctness has been finally lifted and instead of noble ideas pure and cruel interest advancement was found beneath.

Double standards (the favourite tool of the liberals) have become obvious. Collective punishment is forbidden yet the Benes decrees collectively condemning the germans and hungarians were not revoked as of today, minority rights are widely supported with the notable exception of some. Like the more than 3 million hungarians living in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia. And hungarian liberal turned communists have done completely nothing against it apart from almost bankrupting the country way ahead of the crisis in 2006.

In this decidedly anti-EU, anti-liberal, but not anti european  mood, was the new govt elected in 2010. In order to balance the budget instead of further taxing the already overtaxed population, the new govt has milked the holy cows of the current EU instead, namely international banks, and big multinational companies. This has caused such an uproar, along with some unforced errors and unnecessary sabre rattling against mainstream neoliberals and US interests by the govt, that ever since Hungary is the black sheep of the EU. We have bad press since 2010 and have been scrutinized for the smallest divergence from the flock ever since.

On the positive side the present govt has strong ties with CDU/CSU and there are signs that Mr. Orban says and acts mostly with covert support of them especially the bavarian and religious CSU. We can say and do what the germans are forbidden to. 

This was the case when the current flood of migrants hit Hungary beginning this summer.  Both the population and the govt seemed shocked since we are a poor landlocked country, with no colonial background, and on the way to our borders there are either EU or EU aspirant countries who should have been acted according to EU standards. At least theoretically. Greece, with some minor efforts Macedonia (known alos as FYROM – Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, due to greek intrasingence), and Serbia has done nothing to stop the flood. On the top of that only on  EU pressure have been serb border guards and policemen arrested, and charged with actively participating in human trafficking. The number of the immigrants flooding the southern border and Budapest public areas around the railway stations, topped with the threat of reviving the dormant Dublin agreement about shipping the illegal immigrants to the EU country, where they have entered EU area spurred immediate action. Posessing 3 out of the 10 poorest EU regions it is not difficult to see why the flood of daily 1500-3500 migrants cannot be handled with the usualy methods.

Hungary is the southern border of the so-called Schengen area meaning, who enters here is free to travel without further checking within the EU. Initially most official comments (EU, german, french) on the hungarian fence were supportive of it or even threatening Hungary with consrquences of neglecting to protect the common border. Now it seems like the spin doctors have returned  from holidays and the MSM media targeted Hungary again.

But this fence, border, wall call it what you want will be built. Not because we are racist. Due to turkish devastation and the following forced and supported migration from within and outside the Habsburg Empire hungarians are probably the most mixed people in Europe. The author for example has ancient hungarian (noble since the 12th century), german, and armenian ancestors. With the biggest jewish community of Eastern Europe (some  100 000) and no serious antisemitism I can assure you, that with the exception of an ever present small group of idiots,  hungarians are at most somewat xenophobic, like Jack Nicholson’s character in ’As good as it gets’. 

We have our own problem with our minority the gypsies (no NOT roma, sinti whatever – forget PC !).  Speaking of gypsies the current migration crisis was foreseeable. In 2007 when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU their gypsy minorities have fled by tens of thousands to Italy and Spain, creating tent camps in and around the cities with the „usual” hygenic and security problems. While the joint military/police patrols in Italy made headlines, the silent payoff and forced repatriation to their favellas in their country have not. 

 To sum it up we say we are the country of some 10 million grumpy soccer, economics, miltary and politics experts. But this time what the govt does has almost unison popular support, some even demand more hard handedness, and most people supporting opposition parties agree with the minister president’s steps even if they dont like him personally. 

Polk on the danger of nuclear war

"I fear that we are again heading into dangerous times.

–Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is often said to be “stable” under certain conditions. It follows that it becomes unstable under others. Thus, we can predict that since our world is in rapid transformation, we cannot rely upon temporary stability.

For years, as former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara observed, we have had at least 500 missiles armed with nuclear weapons on “hair trigger” alert in Europe. If you multiply the number of missiles by the number of months, the scattering of sites over a large area and continuous changes of personnel, it is obvious that even the best designed systems of command and control are always fragile.

Much more fragile is the situation in countries that do not spend the enormous amount of money (and talent) required to maintain missiles and nuclear weapons. Without “upkeep,” both missiles and bombs are inherently dangerous. And dangerous both to the country in which they are located and to their assumed targets. I find this particularly worrisome in the confrontation between India and Pakistan."  Polk 

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/08/28/pushing-the-edge-on-nuclear-war/

Wasserman Schultz blocked DNC favorable vote on Iran deal

"Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz prevented consideration of a resolution at the party’s summer meeting here that praised President Obama and offered backing for the nuclear agreement with Iran, according to knowledgeable Democrats.

The resolution was drafted with the intention of putting the national committee on record in support of the agreement as Congress prepares to take up the issue when members return from their August recess."  Balz

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Seems like a good reason to get a new DNC chair.   BTW, a 31st senator revealed today that he would vote to uphold a presidential veto.  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/29/dems-say-party-chair-blocked-iran-resolution-at-dnc-meeting/

What's wrong with the Hungarians?

 

 

"The crush of migrants escaping danger in places like Syria nearly claimed the lives of three children.

They were in critical condition Saturday after becoming dehydrated while riding in a packed truck in Austria, hoping to find safety in Europe.

In neighboring Hungary, CBS News visited the train station in Budapest to see why desperate refugees are willing to risk their lives in the back of freezer trucks.

Prosecutors in Hungary are asking to keep four suspects in custody in connection with the discovery of 72 bodies locked inside a truck in Austria...

It's the only way out for those stranded here at the train station, forbidden from boarding trains to Germany.

But Syrian refugees like Mohammed Saleh, who did not want to appear on camera, said Hungarian police stopped him and his family from going any further.

He told CBS News they left Syria 17 days ago and have been living on the floor of the train station in Budapest for days.

The entire family, including seven children under 5, was brought to a refugee camp.

Saleh said they were made to sign documents promising to leave Hungary in 72 hours.

But when they went back to the station to board a train to Munich, police stopped them dead in their tracks."  cbsnews

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I have spent quite a lot of time in Hungary.  A beautiful country, lovely people, great food and drink, so what on earth do they think they are doing in keeping these poor be-deviled refugees bottled up at the railhead in Budapest?

The Germans say they will take 800,000 refuges this year.

Hungarian bureaucrats are preventing these people boarding trains for Germany and beyond.  Their excuse is that the refugees' travel papers are not in order.

Families are existing in filth and deprivation at the Budapest main train station.

Hungary had a long experience of oppression at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.  There is a lot of anti-Muslim feeling in the country.  I hope that sentiment is not part of this sad situation.  pl 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/syrian-refugees-stuck-in-limbo-at-budapest-train-station/

"The Awakening" by Richard Sale

 

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2015/08/the-awakening-by-richard-sale-there-was-once-a-pretty-delicate-lively-girl-with-a-beautiful-and-touching-face-who.html

TV shooting proves that Americans are greatest threat to Americans - TTG

Donnie Johnston/The Free Lance-Star/28 August 2015 

“WHAT IS WRONG with the people of this country? Why are they so angry? Why are they so mean? Americans routinely condemn the violence in the Middle East and refer to the people there as barbarians. Then a disgruntled former Roanoke TV reporter kills two innocent people for no sane reason and wounds another on live television. Worse yet, he films the entire scenario and puts it on the Internet for the world to see. This ranks right up there with ISIS beheading prisoners and filming the horrific act. The only difference is the weapon used. Again, I ask: Why are Americans so angry? If the Roanoke shooting was an isolated incident it might be easier to comprehend, but it is only the latest in a long series of violent killings that make no sense whatsoever.”

Read the rest of Donnie Johnston’s column at the Free Lance-Star

***********************************************************

Donnie Johnston’s musings are part of my morning ritual of having a big mug of tea while reading my local paper. I enjoy reading about how his garden is doing and how the local critters are fairing. I share his childlike joy of eating warm, garden fresh tomatoes. The old Culpeper farm boy’s columns often venture into opinions about local and regional happenings. Judging by letters to the editor, Donnie manages to piss off plenty of people. Well, at least he got them thinking and writing to the editor. 

Today Donnie hit it out of the park with his essay on angry Americans. I heartedly recommend reading the rest of his column. He’s wrong on one thing, though. He says, “Americans seem to hate one another to a degree unprecedented in the rest of the world.” I guess he hasn’t traveled much. But he makes a good point. A lot of angry Americans have it pretty damned good. Most of us don’t have to sleep under a bridge, scrounge for scraps in a dumpster or hide from those who want to kill us… literally kill us. Like Richard Sale’s little fish, we may live quite modestly and have unrequited dreams, but our lot in life isn’t that bad. That doesn’t mean we should live as if we are in a Rousseau like peaceable kingdom. We all know people who just piss us off or do things we just can’t stomach. But how about a little self control in our firm and reasoned opposition? I first remember seeing signs and bumper stickers saying “obnoxious in victory, bitter in defeat” when I was in high school. Is that kind of behavior something to be aspired to or should it be seen as shamefully boorish and worthy only of a spoiled brat? I firmly believe that should not be the American way.

In fifth grade, we were required to memorize a work of poetry that appealed to us and recite it to the class. I chose “If” by Rudyard Kipling. I’m glad I did. I wish more Americans would read, memorize and study this poem. More importantly, I wish more Americans would live by those words. We would all be better for it. 

TTG

 

"From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State" by Cole Bunzel

 "The Islamic State’s harsh strain of Jihadi-Salafi ideology is now more popular today than ever. As long as the Islamic State maintains the trappings of an actual state in Iraq and Syria—or beyond—governing territory and dispensing justice, support for the group and its ideology will continue to grow. While the U.S.-led air campaign beginning in August 2014 has so far arrested the Islamic State’s momentum, it remains unclear whether the campaign will reverse its advance. At all events, political turmoil elsewhere in the Middle East, particularly in Libya and Yemen, is creating conditions conducive to the Islamic State’s intended expansion.
Regardless of the coalition’s long-term success, the military campaign can actually strengthen the Islamic State’s ideology by lending credence to its conspiratorial worldview: namely, the view that the region’s Shi‘a are conspiring with the United States and secular Arab rulers to limit Sunni power in the Middle East. The U.S. pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran contributes to this perception."  Bunzel 

 http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/03/ideology-of-islamic-state-bunzel/the-ideology-of-the-islamic-state.pdf

My senate "Whip Count" on the Iran Deal

 

I am told that the WH had at least 34 signed, written pledges of support in the US Senate BEFORE Schumer made his tepid statement of opposition.  What they are doing now is seeking to run up the score.  Schumer knew this and IMO that makes him even less worthwhile than I had thought

In Israel, there is general consternation at AIPAC's failure in spite of all that PR money, all that arm twisting of media executives, all the general nastiness of this direct attempt to control the US Congress.  It seems that Bibi was not right in haughtily expressing a belief that the goyim were easily manipulated.

It is heartwarming that so many Jewish senators are going to vote with the administration.  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/14/whip-count-where-the-senate-stands-on-the-iran-deal/

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/.premium-1.672416 

The Moneta Massacre

pl

"The fish that wanted to fly" by Richard Sale

"A certain little fish had always wanted to fly. It was kept in a very small, clear bowl, and swam round endlessly in circles during the day, and slept a bit at night, at the bottom of its bowl. The fish liked the clear water of his bowl, and he liked the flakes of the fish food which drifted down like tiny, dead leaves."  Richard Sale

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2015/08/the-fish-that-wanted-to-fly-by-richard-sale.html

 

"How Turkey Plays the War on Terror" by Phil Geraldi

 

"As of last week, the Turkish Air Force had conducted more than 300 strikes against Kurdish targets versus only three against ISIS. Turkey’s war against ISIS was quickly and by design directed against the Kurds, including the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units YPG militia which, together with the Iraqi Kurds, is supported by the United States and has been the most effective force in opposing ISIS. So Turkey, pretending to oppose ISIS, is actually attacking ISIS’s enemies and even placing in danger the American advisers known to be working with the Kurds.

All of which means that the United States is again looking on in astonishment over having been bamboozled, recalling Rudyard Kipling’s famous epitaph “A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.” One angry American general calls the development a “bait and switch,” while another commented that Erdogan “needed a hook” to go after the Kurds and lied to Washington to accomplish that. I might even suggest that the original suicide bombing that sparked the whole chain of events, which was carried out by a 20-year-old ethnic Kurd, might itself have been a false flag operation by MIT, designed to ease Turkish entry into a hot war ostensibly against ISIS but which would really be directed at the Kurds."  Geraldi

 http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-turkey-plays-the-war-on-terror/

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Phil was so kind as to write to me approvingly of my recent scribblings on Turkey and Syria.  Here we have his much better comment on the same phenomenon.

At the same time we have this linked McClatchy story in which it is made  clear that the Syrian unicorns think the Turkish government betrayed them to Erdogan's Nusra friends.  pl

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/middle-east/article32206167.html

WRITING ON THE WALL: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RECENT TRENDS AND PATTERNS IN JIHADI TERRORISM

By Patrick BAHZAD

 

 
IRA graffiti in Northern Ireland

 

With the frequency in "lone gunmen" attacks – or attempted and foiled attacks – increasing ever more since the start of this year, it may be time to highlight certain patterns that have become apparent and represent potentially crucial challenges for societies in Western Europe. The paradigm shift regarding both qualitative and quantitative aspects of Islamic terrorism is now clearer than ever before to law enforcement and officials, but the implications of this shift still needs to be emphasized, as there are possibly tough choices ahead of us.

Back in the 1990s, when Western Europe and France in particular were first targeted by groups whose members would later be sucked into the maelstrom of global Jihad, it was fairly easier for law enforcement to identify potential threats. Admittedly, the number of individuals on watch lists was much smaller, leaving counter-terrorism with more resources to monitor activities. But Islamic radicals were still operating genuine cells, and their leaders or logistics experts were often foreigners having been allowed into the country as political refugees. They did not blend into civil society and stuck to their own. Once infiltrated, which happened usually quite quickly, it was only a matter of time before these groups were taken apart by law enforcement, generally before even staging an attack.

Changing patterns and profiles

Those days are gone. Jihad and Islamic terrorism in the West has become an entrepreneurial activity for a underclass holding a grudge. Basically, people are now being groomed or grooming themselves into ticking time-bombs, waiting for a reason to go into self-destruct mode. The crux is, there is no single pattern that fits this new type of terrorism. Too many variables have blurred the line for a simple grid to allow us singling out dangerous individuals from the general population.

Some people cry "racial discrimination" and "ethnic profiling" when they hear targeted surveillance and increased monitoring of certain groups, facilities or web sites. The truth though is that about 30 % of the individuals on the continent's terror watch lists have a fully European (Caucasian) and often domestic background. Another 30 % is made up of European nationals having an immigration background that has nothing to do with the Middle-East or North-Africa. These are mostly second generation immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, but also from the Caribbean or South America, who have been won over by radical Islam through years of indoctrination in desolate suburbs that are now strongholds of Salafi beliefs, or during a prison stay in which they chose to join the most powerful "brotherhood" in European jails, the Islamic radicals. Only 40 % approximately of security risks – depending on the country – have a Middle-Eastern, North African or Asian background.  

The US media and elections

 

"The adversarial relationship between Mr. Trump and the Spanish-language news media, which has simmered publicly since he announced his candidacy in June, boiled over on Tuesday at a news conference in Dubuque, Iowa, when the candidate erupted at Jorge Ramos, the main news anchor at Univision and Fusion, when he tried to ask a question without being called on. Mr. Trump signaled to one of his security guards, who physically removed Mr. Ramos from the event.      

“Don’t touch me, sir. Don’t touch me,” Mr. Ramos said, as he was marched out of the room. “I have the right to ask a question.”

Mr. Ramos was eventually allowed to return. But for the Spanish-language press, which has grown in size and influence in politics, the tense exchange was a highly public flexing of muscle against a candidate who many outlets no longer pretend to cover objectively: They are offended by Mr. Trump’s words and tactics — and they are showing it."  NY Times

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 I watched the Trump-Ramos imbroglio this morning and I would agree with the Morning Joe crew and Donald Trump that Ramos was  WAY, WAY out of line.

Ramos who has fixed and parochial views on all things related to Latinos in the US, traveled to Iowa and attended, uninvited, a Donald Trump presser in a Trump hired hotel meeting room where he stood up while Trump was answering another reporter's question and began to harangue Trump on Ramos' favorite agenda:

- You cannot build a sufficient border barrier.

- You cannot deport 11 million illegal immigrants.

- You cannot stop "birthright citizenship."

- You cannot change the constitution.

- I am a reporter. I have a right to question you.

- I am an immigrant and a citizen and you must listen to me.

None of this was expressed as question.  It was all accusatory diatribe.  Well, pilgrims, Ramos does not have a RIGHT to ask anything of Trump or anyone else and to demand a response.  He was at a private meeting, paid for by Trump.   Trump is under no obligation at all to accept this kind of ethno-centric harangue from someone who, IMO, has no respect at all for the American political process or American law if it is inconvenient to his ethnic brethren.  He behaved in much the same way toward President Obama, calling him "deporter in chief."

Ramos may be a citizen of the United States but, like a lot of non-Latino media people he needs to learn how to behave himself in the context of AMERICAN society and to accept the idea that journalists DO NOT determine our political future.

What Ramos has done is win more votes for Trump.  pl  

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/us/politics/latino-news-media-offended-by-donald-trump-shows-it-in-broadcasts.html?_r=0

Jonathan Daniels, VMI '61

Fifty years ago Jonathan Daniels Virginia Military Institute Class of 61 was shot supporting Civil Rights demonstrations in Alabama.  

The coming collapse of the Syrian government

 
"A spokesman for Ahrar Al Sham said that the organization accepted to negotiate. The talks started in the beginning of August in Istanbul and ended with a deal on a short cease fire without solving the problem. “The Iranians have gone mad. They want us to give up Zabadani, move its people out, and in return they will move all the inhabitants of Kafraya and Foua’a and relocate them in a site close to the Lebanese borders or in the Rif of Hama. They warned us and the Turks that if we capture the two villages, they will move the Shia inhabitants out anyway but will then reduce the two villages to rubbles. They will level them to earth. We refused the offer”, the Spokesman said.

The Iranians have not gone mad. They are simply implementing what we described previously as “Plan B”. It is obvious that the trilateral alliance has a clear concept of how Syria will be partitioned. Zabadani will be the spring board to clear the southern Damascus belt of either opposition presence or Sunni presence or both if necessary. The idea is to secure Qalamoun and Damascus, re-enforce defenses around the controlled stretch of territory that includes Hama and then see what will come in the diplomatic channels.

While it is normal that the joint Assad-Hezbollah-IRGC command has a clear division of labor that serves one clear plan, it is not obvious that the Syrian opposition has a unified parallel plan, either to abort the trilateral partitioning intentions or to wage a meaningful counter-attack."  Middle East Briefing

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It is clear now that the scheming and maneuvering of the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have finally weakened the Syrian government enough to being about its downfall in the not too far distant future.

The impending emergence of Iran from international isolation reduces the willingness of the Iranian government to endlessly, and expensively continue to support the Syrian government.  The IRGC may wish to fight on forever in Syria but the government and the Ayatollahs probably do not.

The Arab author of this piece is hostile to the Syrian government but IMO he has it right when he speculates that what he calls the "trilateral alliance" (Syrian Army/IRGC/Hizbullah) now see their best chance of salvaging something from the coming "train wreck" as being a demography based partition agreed to at some negotiating table.  Such a partition will require considerable ethno-sectarian cleansing and transfer of populations from areas to areas, something like the Ataturk/Venizelos transfer of the 20s.   

IMO the jihadis of various colorations will dominate post Assad Syria.  They will struggle over the extent of their territories and the Alawis, Shia and Christians will become residents of a besieged coastal enclave or reduced to dhimmitude under the jihadis.

Will the "trilateral alliance" be able to hold Damascus very long after Assad departs?  I doubt it, and then the butchery will really begin.  pl  

http://mebriefing.com/?p=1872

http://iswsyria.blogspot.com/2015/08/syrian-rebel-forces-pressure-regime.html 

PROFILE OF A WANNABE MASS-MURDERER: AYOUB AL-KHAZZANI, THE SHOOTER OF THE AMSTERDAM TO PARIS TRAIN

By Patrick BAHZAD - updated on August 25th, 5 a.m. EST




It has been three days now since Ayoub Al-Khazzani, the shooter of the Amsterdam to Paris train, was taken into custody. Under French anti-terrorism law, investigators can keep a suspect for up to 96 hours (4 days) before charging him with anything. What is known so far fits a pattern that has been seen previously in several  high-profile terrorism cases.

Similarities with other notorious Jihadi gunmen are striking in more than just one way, yet authorities are still reluctant to admit Khazzani is an Islamic terrorist. Investigators and counter-terrorism experts however have much less doubt about the kind of individual they are dealing with. All too often already, they have come across the type of personality and curriculum such as Ayoub Al-Khazzani's.

From Morocco to Spain

Born in Morocco in 1989, Khazzani grew up in the North of the country, in the city of Tetuan. Interestingly, this city has a long history as a hotbed of Jihadi terrorism. In January 2007 for example, the most important Moroccan network sending fighters into Iraq was dismantled in Tetuan. At the time, 32 locals were arrested and later sentenced to long prison terms.

Additionally, the five Moroccan nationals who had perpetrated the terrible Madrid train attacks of 2004 were all from Tetuan. Three weeks after the bombings, they were rounded up by Spanish police and blew themselves up rather than surrender. A sizable fraction of Moroccan suicide bombers who went to Iraq in the mid-2000s were also from Tetuan.

And finally, it has to be mentioned that no later than two months ago, a public demonstration of the city's Salafi preachers and their followers took place officially - quite an event in its own right in the Sherifian Realm - calling for implementation of Sharia law in the country.

Ayoub was 18 when his family left Tetuan for Spain, in 2007. They first lived in Madrid for three years, before moving south to Algesiras. Oddly enough, it seems the Khazzani family had a particular talent for picking up places known for their Islamic radicalism. Just as the slums of "Jamaë Mezouak" in Tetuan were and still are a stronghold of Salafism, so was the neigbhorhood of  "El Saladillo" in Algesiras, home to the Khazzani family since 2010.

Looks like it is "in the bag" for the Iran deal.

"Jewish supporters of the Iran nuclear deal have published a full-page New York Times ad backing the agreement signed by 26 current and former prominent communal leaders.

The signers include heads of national Jewish organizations, leaders from major federations and former lawmakers, all calling on Congress to approve the deal.

“While not perfect, this deal is the best available option to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” they state.

Among the Jewish leaders joining the call are three former chairs of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which is a national umbrella group representing the community on foreign policy issues.

“I would like for those engaged in public discussion as well as for members of Congress to understand that the community doesn’t have a single view on this issue,” said Alan Solow, former chairman of the Presidents’ Conference who is among the signers. “It’s important for them to know there is a variety of opinions on this issue among supporters of Israel.”" The Forward

Read more: http://forward.com/news/319481/full-page-new-york-times-ad-backs-iran-deal/#ixzz3jeGDSuxt

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It appears that AIPAC's propaganda effort against the Iran deal has failed.  They have spent vast amounts of money in the US media and have gotten the "anti" polling number up to 56% but that really doesn't mean anything.  There will not be a national referendum on the deal and actual leaders have rallied to the common sense arguments in favor of the deal.  Jewish lobbies,  alliances of scientists, engineers, retired generals and admirals, and various old timey spooks have formed in support of the deal.  Perhaps most importantly the same kinds of groups have formed in Israel among Israelis with similar qualifications as the Americans.   The IDF's leadership supports the deal.  In US politics, Jewish members of the US Congress in both houses are "signed up" to support the deal.  Among them are Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Representative Jerold Nadler who represents a heavily Jewish district in New York City.  All are persuaded by the persistent and well argued points made by the Obama Administration.  AIPAC's quixotic and failed effort will have deep and long term effect in US politics and policy.  Hopefully, wiser people among American and Israeli Jews will have ameliorated long term reactions to what Bibi has tried to do.  pl 

SHORT AND SHARP: UPDATE ON FOILED TERROR ATACK AGAINST AMSTERDAM TO PARIS TRAIN

 

By Patrick BAHZAD - updated on August 22nd, 7.30 am EST

 
In yet another case of "lone gunman syndrome", a potentially catastrophic terror attack was foiled yesterday by two US servicemen on the "Thalys" highspeed train going from Amsterdam to Paris.

 

As more details are trickling in about the incident that happened Friday afternoon, it has become clear to law enforcement that we are dealing again with a lone gunman/terrorist carrying out yet another isolated attack.

Although the French Ministry of the Interior has cautioned against jumping to conclusions, Belgian Prime-Minister Charles Michel has acknowledged that a major terror attack had been avoided. Given that the incident took place on a train between Belgium and France, two investigative teams (the French Counter-terrorism Task Force and the Belgian Federal Prosecution Office) are closely cooperating and currently looking into the events as well as into the alleged shooter's identity and past.

What happened and who was involved ?

It was 5.45 pm local time and the "Thalys" was just short of the border to France, when a man sitting in the last carriage of the highspeed train opened fire, shooting at least one round with his handgun and seriously wounding one man.

Among the passengers, who immediately ducked down, were three American tourists (two of them US servicemen) who saw the gunman pass them by as he was pursuing one of the train conductors. The shooter was trying to continue firing his handgun and was carrying an AK-47.

As it turned out, the primer of the AK was faulty, so that the rifle didn't go off when the shooter had first tried to use it. Instead he had picked a handgun out of his backpack but only managed to fire one bullet. Somehow, in his frenzy, he ejected the magasine of his weapon and carried on pulling the trigger as he went after the conductor. With no ammunition in the chamber and no magasine engaged, he was however unable to do anymore damage.

Turkey is an absolute obstacle to defeating IS

The present strategy of the US for defeat of IS is ultimately dependent on the Turks.  Turkey is the main pathway through which IS receives recruits of both sexes and the main pathway through which IS continues to export oil to raise money.  Erdogan's Turkey has until very recently barred the US from the use against IS of air bases built and maintained by the US for NATO.  These bases are at Incirlik, Diyarbakir, and Batman.

Retired USMC general John Allen has arrived at an agreement with Erdogan for use of these bases for surveillance, attack and SAR purposes in the war against IS.  This will be a great convenience to the US air forces.

The problem with this deal is that Turkey and the US have different expectations and goals in this arrangement.

The US wants the bases for the IS war.

The Turks want to facilitate the downfall of the present Syrian government in order to advance the cause of Sunni triumphalism in the Levant.  In this, they are complicit with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni moneyed parties in the Gulf.  The prospect of a Syria dominated by a Nusra Front led government does not bother Erdogan at all.  He has much the same result in mind for Turkey if he can only get enough seats in parliament to change the pesky constitution with its elements of Kemalist secularism.  He also must complete his purge of the officer corps of the Turkish armed forces who remain a threat while brooding over the present government of their country.

The Turks also want the US to help them bomb the Kurds (ALL THE KURDS) into submission or extinction, whichever comes first.  To this end the Turks will use their own forces and to extent that they can persuade, the forces of the United States and the Europeans.  the "allied" Arab air forces have little more than a symbolic political value in this. 

For the United States, Turkey's desire to crush Kurdish nationalism is a major problem.  The notion that the Pesh Merga, YDP and PKK Kurds are indifferent to each others' fates is an example of the kind of ignorant magical thinking that has run American policy in the ME since the neocons and R2P "crowds" have come to be dominant.  In fact the Kurds despite their political and tribal differences are one people.  If the United States is complicit in attacks on Kurdish fighters of any kind, it will risk with a high probability of occurrence the loss of the Kurdish ally.

I have been increasingly inclined to reluctantly accept the notion that the US should fight IS directly on the ground and in the air with its own forces and without regard for Arab "allies," not because the jihadis are an existential threat to the US but, rather because they menace civilized life in the Islamic World and across the rest of the world as well.  In this context the obstacles presented by Erdogan's policies and crypto alliance with the Islamists are an obstacle to any future destruction of the Islamic State's caliphate.  Without true Turkish cooperation victory over the IS phenomenon is not possible and the US should not attempt it.  Turkey is IS's de facto protector.

The destruction of IS and Nusra would not mean that future jihadi movements would not someday arise, but such destruction would win time, and that would be enough.  pl

PS  Marcus says he has rejected the world and will not return but adds that I can use his image as an emblem of my musings. 

The GOP and the US Armed Forces

I keep hearing the Republican Gang of 17 talk about "building up the armed forces."  What the hell do they mean?  We already spend over 600 billion dollars a year on the armed forces and even more on overseas military operations.  We have close to a million people in the US Army, the USMC and their reserve components.  We have all manner of "goodies" in high tech equipment, aircraft and ships.  What are they talking about?

We now live in a society that is so oriented toward the self-conscious welfare of the individual that therapists describe such antique concepts as "duty" to be mere obstacle to self-fulfillment.  This not the kind of society from which our soldiers once emerged.

IMO the ground forces are at or near their limits in voluntary recruitment.  There was a certain enthusiasm after 9/11.  That eased recruiting problems for a while but it also brought us such sterling "sojers" as the former sergeant Bales, Chelsea Manning and Bergdahl.  That fit of enthusiasm has passed.

Now recruits have to be actively sought, one person at a time.  Standards are high.  Recruits must be physically and mentally qualified and must be American citizens or legal residents of the US or its possessions and this is checked.

Where would they get a lot more people for the ground forces?  Women?  The LGBT "community?"  Minorities?  Blacks seem to prefer non-shooting occupations in the military.  Foreign mercenaries under new law? (the Oaxaca Legion?)

What the hell are the elephants talking about?  Do they have any idea at all?  pl

Whatcha gonna do now, Ranger? - TTG

Two female soldiers will graduate from the Army’s grueling Ranger School on Friday, becoming the first women to ever complete one of the U.S. military’s premier courses to develop elite fighters and leaders, Army officials said Monday night.

The accomplishment marks a major breakthrough for women in the armed services at a time when each of the military branches is required to examine how to integrate women into jobs like infantryman in which they have never been allowed to serve. But even as the two new female graduates will be the first women allowed to wear the prestigious Ranger Tab on their uniforms, they still are not allowed to try out for the elite 75th Ranger Regiment, a Special Operations force that remains closed to women and has its own separate, exhausting requirements and training. The women will receive the Ranger Tab alongside 94 male service members in a ceremony at Fort Benning, Ga., the home of Ranger School’s headquarters. They overcame fatigue, hunger and extreme stress to graduate, Army officials said.

“Congratulations to all of our new Rangers,” Army Secretary John McHugh said in a statement. “Each Ranger School graduate has shown the physical and mental toughness to successfully lead organizations at any level. This course has proven that every soldier, regardless of gender, can achieve his or her full potential. We owe soldiers the opportunity to serve successfully in any position where they are qualified and capable, and we continue to look for ways to select, train, and retain the best Soldiers to meet our nation’s needs.” (Washington Post)
************************************
I agree with much of what our new Army Secretary John McHugh said. But something struck me as wrong about his statement. Do we really owe soldiers the opportunity to serve successfully in any position? Service in the Army is about giving and sacrificing to a greater goal, not about self actualization and career advancement. That is the crux of why is I think this push for women in combat units is misguided and dangerous. It’s being done for the wrong reasons.

The Ranger Course is a leadership development course, not a combat training course. It uses patrolling in a simulated combat environment as a means to develop small unit leaders. Soldiers from any branch can attend. A finance officer friend was one of my classmates. It is also open to other services and to allied foreign officers. A Nicaraguan lieutenant was one of two students that froze to death in my class. The other was a US Army Engineer lieutenant.

We now know the identity of these two Ranger qualified female soldiers. They are CPT Shaye Haver, an Apache pilot from the 101st ID, and 1LT Kristen Griest, a Military Police officer. Both failed the Darby Phase twice and were allowed to recycle. Most recycles and drops are for medical reasons. They also had to pass several peer reviews from their fellow students. I’m sure these two officers learned something important about themselves during the Ranger Course. I hope they will be better officers for it. They will have to ignore the media circus and the shrill cries of those calling for tearing down more barriers to women’s career advancement in the armed services in order to be those better officers.

That will be difficult. I read several news articles and opinion pieces and watched several CNN interviews on YouTube. The strident calls for gender equality in the combat arms and the total cluelessness about the difference between the Ranger Tab and the 75th Ranger Regiment are astounding. This is from a New York Daily News opinion piece.

“Right off the bat, the Ranger regiment should be open to the two women, their assignments to be matched to their skills, just as would happen with male Rangers. If they choose not to seek entry to the regiment, their promotion paths should be equal to those of males.”

Complete and utter claptrap. The writer doesn’t know his/her ass from a hole in the ground. That's SWMBO's assessment as well. And from an AP piece in Voice of America.

“Undercutting the Marines' reservations is that Special Operations Command is likely to allow women to compete for the most demanding military commando jobs - including the Navy SEALs and the Army's Delta Force - though with the knowledge that it may be years before women even try to enter those fields.”

There are so many calls for these female soldiers to be allowed to join the Ranger Regiment. No one is allowed to join the Ranger Regiment just because he/she has successfully completed the Ranger Course. There’s a different selection process for that along with prerequisites for applying. Foremost among these prerequisites is that you have to volunteer for it. Did any of these “chairborne commandos" ask these officers if they wanted to be in the Ranger Regiment? Does the Ranger Regiment need a helicopter pilot or an MP? There are positions for several support officers like JAG, medical, logistics, but no one is going to lead a Ranger platoon or company without first doing a bang up job as an Infantry platoon leader or company commander… and that’s what the culture warriors are fighting for.

I have no doubt there will be efforts to put women through the Army Infantry Officer Basic Course just as there are ongoing efforts to put woman Marines through the Infantry Leader Course at Quantico. So far no woman Marine has made it past the first few days. I just heard it announced today that SEAL training will soon be open to female applicants. I’m sure the SF Officers Qualification Course will be among the next targets for gender equality. I’d bet there are women who can pass the course, but lead an SF detachment on an MTT to Mali, Nigeria or Malaysia? I can’t see that. Will any of these gender equality efforts benefit these units? Hell no and I’m prepared to argue that. But that question isn’t being asked. It’s all about career opportunities. Unit mission is secondary at best. I consider myself a very progressive and open minded person, but I find the current push for gender equality in the combat arms to be misguided at best and dangerous at worst.

Bring on the arguments.

TTG

BLAST FROM THE PAST: August 2005 - the Al Qaeda chemical attack that never happened …

By Patrick Bahzad

In the last few days, a flow of media reports surfaced claiming that the "Islamic State" had launched chemical attacks against Kurdish fighters in Northern Iraq, using shells containing mustard gas. Even if the news of the alleged use of such weapons by al-Baghdadi's troops seems absolutely possible, there must be something about the month of August, chemical attacks and the Middle-East ... Two years ago, almost to this day, news of another terrible attack almost triggered Western intervention in the Syrian quagmire. Unknown to most however, August 2013 in Eastern Damascus was not the first and only instance in which a large scale and deadly attack using a chemical agent may have happened in the post-2003 madhouse the Middle-East has turned into.

While US Central Command has been very careful in its reaction to the recent news about prohibited weapons being used against the Kurds, with its spokesman Col. Ryder stating that "we really don't know what if anything may have been used", major news outlets – the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News to name but a few - were very quick to pick up that story, often adding as an explanation that the chemical agent must have come from Bashar al-Assad's allegedly destroyed stockpile of WMDs. 

Events of Eastern Ghouta in August 2013

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which had already supervised the destruction of the Syrian arsenal of chemical and biological weapons in 2013-2014, is now going to launch an inquiry into this supposed breach of international law. We will see what conclusions the OPCW can draw from its analysis on the ground. Most likely, nothing conclusive will surface and no smoking gun will turn up … What is more interesting about this story is that it emerged two years exactly after the Eastern Ghouta events of August 2013, which almost triggered an Western intervention in the Syrian civil war.

What happened back then is still open to a certain level of conjecture. Western intelligence agencies and NGOs quickly condemned a Syrian military operation using a nerve agent (sarin) against insurgents and civilian populations in the South Eastern suburbs of Damascus. A special investigation by the UN however refrained from specifically designating which party could have launched the attack and an independent review by the MIT even alleged the rockets used to deliver the deadly payload could only have been launched – if at all – from rebel controlled areas.

The UN report also noted a couple of inconsistencies in the evidence that was collected at the time in Damascus, inconsistencies that have not been explained so far by any party involved. The death toll of the Ghouta events is also open for debate, with the casualties varying between 287 victims (according to French intelligence), 355 (according to the NGO "Médecins sans Frontières"), 502 (according to the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights") and 1702 (according to the "Free Syrian Army").

ISW SITREP Iraq 14-17 August 2015

ISIS launched a large complex attack against ISF and Iraqi Shi’a militia positions in Baiji district on August 14, recapturing several parts of the city in an offensive that involved between 7-10 VBIEDs, direct and indirect re, and up to 200 gunmen. The attack was ISIS’s largest in the area since its complex attack on the Baiji Oil Refinery, north of the city, on April 14. ISIS exploited the ISF campaign to recapture Ramadi in Anbar by launching this offensive in northern Salah ad Din, a typical maneuver used by ISIS when one of the cities under its control comes under heavy counter-attack. By attacking on another front, ISIS not only diverts attention away from its main defenses, but it also maximizes its opportunity to make new gains while the ISF is massed elsewhere. ISIS also deployed VBIEDs in Baghdad and Diyala as continuous diversionary eorts. ISF and Iraqi Shi’a militias continue to clash with ISIS in Baiji and west of the city.   ISF has maintained pressure on ISIS in Anbar, however, advancing into southeastern Ramadi for the rst time since operations to recapture the city were announced on July 13. Clearing operations continued north, east, and south of Ramadi. Continued successes near Ramadi will strengthen PM Haidar al-Abadi’s independence from the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi’a militias only if those successes do not coincide with simultaneous security failures in other parts of the country, such as Baiji.  ISW

----------------

IS is behaving as though it occupies interior lines and can, through superior mobility and freedon from air action move against ISF to fight them in detail.  This is a recipe for disaster.  At the same time there are demonstrations against central government control in the south and proceedings have begun to try Maliki and his henchmen for their failure to prevent a resurgence of Sunni terrorism in the country.

This sounds like a disintegrating situation to Marcus and me.  pl

http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/iraq%20SITREP%202015-8-17.pdf

Data Request

Having finished my memoir, "Tattoo,"  (now being copy edited) I have begun work on another novel, this one to be set in the Egypt of Khedive Ismail in the 1870s.   

I have amassed books, journal articles and such like that on the period but I would ask one and all to send me links or docs pertaining to such things as:

- Possible names for women of the khedival family.  I will not use any actual names.  The family is still extant.

- Maps and photos of Cairo at that time

- Information on the Egyptian (Ottoman) Army of the time (ranks, uniforms, etc."

pl

The Donald and the Constitution

I confess to finding the Trump phenomenon to be immensely entertaining.   Joe McQuaid, the publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, a very conservative newspaper, has said that Trump's supporters are people who would have held season tickets for the Gladiatorial Games at the Coliseum.  I think that is about right but, guess what, pilgrims, there are a lot of such folk. 

"The people" are mighty tired of Washington's fumbling, Washington's inept warfighting, job flight under trade agreements, etc.  The list is long.  In my opinion,  Trumpism and Sanderism are, in fact, two sides of the same coin, minted from the same metal of discontent.  I really like Bernie, my fellow antique curmudgeon.  I don't like a lot of his desired outcomes, but I like the way he voices them.  But, I don't think he has a chance of obtaining the nomination so his policy positions don't matter a lot.  The Democrats are likely to nominate Biden or even Webb as a black horse rather than Sanders.

The Donald is a different horse.  Perhaps "hobby horse" would be a better term with which to describe him.  There really are enough wildly unhappy people in flyover America to make the notion of a Trump Republican Party nomination plausible.  Failing that, the idea that his ego might fuel an independent candidacy with three major candidates is also plausible.  Something like that might end in the House of Representatives where the outcome is beyond reasonable speculation. 

For the sake of argument, let us accept the notion that Trump might be president of the United States.   IMO he has no solid comprehension of the limits of presidential power.  He may vaguely perceive the idea but only that.  As a "bidness" man and entrepreneur he has virtually absolute control over the actions of the corporations, partnerships, LLCs, etc., that are parts of his financial empire.  Boards of directors, stockholders meetings and the like are just "speed bumps" for him to race across with the energy of which he boasts.  He is accustomed to negotiations with business entities both at home and in foreign countries in which any kind of guile, deception, threats and bluff are fair game.  He evidently thinks he can deal with American government branches in the same way

I do not think he fully grasps how different the US federal government is from what he is used to dealing with.  The three branches of the federal government REALLY ARE separate and equal.  The Framers divided power for the specific purpose of preventing someone like Trump achieving the kind of undiluted power that he says he will wield over Defense, Immigration, Foreign Trade, Lobbying, etc.  To be blunt, the presidency lacks the independent power to do many of the things Trump wants to do.  To achieve these policy goals ANY president would need the cooperation of Congress and the federal courts.  Obama has been trying to close the detention camp at Gitmo for six and a half years and Congress has simply blocked him by passing laws against his program.

What would happen when Congress or the courts similarly blocked Trump?  IMO he would try to ignore the constitutional limits of his power and that would be the end of him.  Don't think for a moment that the US military would do anything to support him against the rest of the government.  That would not happen.  pl 

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/donald-trump-undocumented-immigrants-have-go-n410501

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump 

Schumer must be punished.

"Several aspects of the current political situation are bothering me, and I am also worried about a few small problems in my personal life. So, yesterday morning, I decided to take a walk around the city. The weather was beautiful. As I walked, I noticed that the neighborhood was peppered with homemade signs, questioning the integrity of Senator Chuck Schumer. The first was on 77th and Lexington, right next to the subway entrance: - See more at:

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/08/schumer-pushback-upper#sthash.KIeDQcCD.dpuf

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Schumer must be punished for his obedience to the will of a racist foreign leader.  A good start would be to deny him the minority leadership of the US Senate.  Let him make Aliya.  That is where he belongs.  pl

 

Open Thread - 15 August 2015

pl

News of the day - 14 August 2015

(Marcus sends greetings from his temporary refuge in Costa Rica)

Turkey - The Turkish foreign minister yesterday announced on Turkish TV that no Turkish soldiers will be sent into the "buffer zone" to defend it.  Well, then who will defend it?  "Turkmen Volunteers?"  This would be a transparent ploy, something like the Chinese "volunteering" to fight the US in Korea.  The first time a Turkish soldier or jandarm para-military bitches to the media about being "volunteered" Erdogan will have a lot of trouble.  Perhaps the unicorn army of non-jihadi anti-Assad resistants?  Their leading wave of conquest was just handed its hat, ass and overcoat by the Nusra Front.  The effort to train such people is revealed to be totally ineffective.   I ask again - Who and what is defending Incerlik Air Base in turkey?  IS has demonstrated its ability to operate within Turkey.  Air base defense is not an idle question.

HC - News on the jungle telegraph in Washington holds that contrary to any expectation of Clintonian sanity in the e-mailgate caper, HC's staff transmitted information over her non-government e-mail account that they knew had previously been judged to be classified.  If that is true, she is in a lot of trouble both politically and legally as are people who were in her former staff.  This behavior would be vastly different from transmitting information that had not yet been classified by State or some other government department.

IS chemical weapon use - There is some evidence that IS has repeatedly used chlorine gas or mustard gas against Kurdiah fighters.  The Borg's immediate knee-jerk reaction is to suggest that perhaps IS obtained these munitions from the Assad government.  Well, pilgrims, these chemical agents are not all that hard to make.

Ramadi - The US and Iraq tell us that Ramadi is about to fall to the forces of light.  Well, we are waiting...

Odierno's parting shot - The departing US Army Chief of Staff, Ray Odierno, affectionately known as "The Desert Ox," announced at a final presser that it might be necessary to partition Iraq.  Abadi's government reacted in fury to that, and why not.  The Shia Arabs want to rule Iraq as it was and in one piece.  It will be interesting to see what the new CoS is like.  He is a Princeton grad rather than WP.

Political projection for 2016 - A Republican ticket made up of Kasich/Fiorino or Kasich/Rubio.  pl 

Lest we forget

Yes, the NYTimes: Grass still not greener, but they are not shooting one another.

"Seventeen months after Mr. Putin deployed Special Forces troops to seize Crimea from Ukraine, prompting the deepest confrontation with the West since the Cold War, life on this Black Sea peninsula remains in disarray."  (NYT, August 13)

I suppose there is a joke somewhere that goes like this: What is the difference between a Russian oligarch and a Ukrainian oligarch? The joke? None?

And then: Is Putin bored with the whole dog and pony show? What the West Gets Wrong.

Margaret Steinfels

Bibi is a menace to Jews

"In the war between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama that is being waged at the whim of a single compulsive Israeli leader who is endangering the country’s population of eight million – the voices of those in charge of intelligence assessment have fallen silent.   

The head of the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Corps, Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevy, and the chief of his research division, Brig. Gen. Eli Ben-Meir, are lying low like carp who don’t relish a future on a plate as gefilte fish. They are hushing up the voices of those in the Intelligence Corps, whose opinions the populace whom they have sworn to serve – and not the prime minister – must hear.   

Halevy and Ben-Meir’s predecessors, Aviv Kochavi and Itai Brun, dared make their assessments public, but Halevy and Ben-Meir don’t want to get tripped up, don’t want to be proven wrong, making fools of themselves publicly or riling Benjamin Netanyahu.   

 

The eternal catch phrase – about how Israel will never be caught unprepared as it was in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and how IDF personnel will no longer blindly follow their higher-ups – has suddenly fallen by the wayside.   

These people are falling into line toward the right. Eating with their mouths closed, in unison. Hiding any disturbing thoughts.   

They are emptying of any substance the pretensions of the Agranat Commission that investigated the failings of the Yom Kippur War, which put most of the responsibility on the shoulders of the intelligence services, to be redeemed by the top brass – as if they and not the people at the command and policy levels have been given the authority to decide and act — and then they disseminate the assessments and warnings so that in addition to the IDF, the Mossad espionage agency and the Foreign Ministry will also speak out."  Haaretz 

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.670504

*********

"... it is appropriate to suggest that America’s Jewish population and the organizations representing it look inward and do some serious reflection. Even if we attribute only the best of intentions to them, these intentions again lead to a well-known place.   

It’s hard to overstate Netanyahu’s insolence. In a Web speech given from his office and with the Israeli flag behind him, he called on American Jews to unite against the accord, “regardless of your political affiliation.” It’s even harder to understand how the leaders representing these Jews didn’t recognize the trap Netanyahu was leading them into – regardless of their political affiliation. The apex was the surreal meeting between 20 U.S.-Jewish leaders and President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. I can’t recall a meeting between a U.S. president and vice president with U.S.-German leaders in order to discuss American relations with Europe. Or a conversation with U.S.-Japanese businessmen prior to the signing of a trade agreement between the United States and Japan."  Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.670275

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IMO Natanyahu, in his rejection of a life for Jews outside Israel is actually fostering ant-Semitism in the world and most especially in the United States, a country that had freed itself of this historic incubus.

Bibi has created a situation in which those who oppose the Iran agreement are almost invariably referred to in the media as Jewish this or Jewish that.  This is not unnoticed by the other 98% of Americans. 

For this to occur is to signal to all the existence of a bloc of Jewish Americans who obey a foreign leader on the basis of their shared ethno-religious identity.  I am Catholic.  We remember well the cry throughout the 19th and into the 20th Centuries that Catholics were disloyal servants of the pope in Rome.

--------

As for the muzzling of IDF Intelligence, it should be remembered that Aman (IDF intelligence) is the senior service in Israel and the national estimator, not Mossad.  pl 

"True Detective" a review by PL

 

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2015/08/true-detective-a-socio-cultural-review.html

pl

Straws in the Middle East wind (FB Ali)

Having performed the modern equivalent of the ancient practice of predicting the future based on examining the entrails of a sacrificial animal, I'd like to share my findings with this Committee.

The young Saudi Prince Muhammad, having sown his wild oats in Yemen, seems to have now been taken in hand by the elders of the clan. In the process, of course, he perpetrated the most notable war crime of the post-WW2 era. Having drawn in the US as a (probably reluctant) aider and abettor, he has also ruled out any valid grounds for the US media and sundry 'keepers of the world's conscience' to expostulate in horror every time Rami Abdelrahman announces from his London basement that the vile Assad's forces had killed a dozen or two civilians. Not that this will stop them, of course. 

The clan elders steered Prince Muhammad (still the face of the regime, being the apple of his father the King's eye) to Cairo, where he was lectured on the facts of life by President el-Sisi (and then signed a pact between Egypt and Saudi Arabia). In the 'world according to Sisi', the villains are Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the various jihadi groups, while anyone fighting them, such as Assad of Syria, are good guys. Turkey is up to no good; it backed the MB and now supports the jihadis; it aims to re-establish its rule over the Arabs. Iran and Hizbullah are undoubtedly suspect as Shia, but have their hearts in the right place as they also fight jihadis. And, of course, all this needs lots of money, so thank you in advance for your generous assistance.

Field Marshal el-Sisi himself is currently on a roll, but his future is anything but certain. Having been let out from the penalty box where he'd been put for a while by the US, he has been compensated by a shower of F-16s, money, high-level visits, etc. With the blood he has already shed, and his continuing tough ways, he may have a suicide bomber get close enough some day. Or, if things start to go downhill in the country, another general or a junta may remove him.

Congress meets Amano; the IAEA and 'Atoms for Peace' (by CP)

vs.

Recently, Washington was the scene of another round of absurdist congressional political theatre: The secretary general of the IAEA, Yuki Amano was 'grilled' by US lawmakers, who sternly demanded he disclose details about the implementation of the deal the US had made with Iran. Predicatably, Amano referred to the IAEA's  obligation to confidentiality.

Because the details are confidential, and they knew Amano wouldn't, couldn't disclose anything, they were able to fill the resulting vacuum with hot air. That was the very point of the exercise.

And so, the phalanx of pro-Israel/anti-deal congress critters were "not reassured" (Bob Corker, R – TN) or "worried" (Bob Menendez, D – NJ), and one could be forgiven to add "deeply cynical" or "dumb as a bag of hammers" to the list of descriptions of congressional distress.

IAEA confidentiality

Confidentiality is essential for effective cooperation between the IAEA with the Iranians. The US and every other member state enjoy the same privileges of confidentuality as Iran does i.e. the confidentiality is entirely normal and necessary.

The US wouldn't be pleased, and it would adversely affect US cooperation, if the IAEA released its confidential details about inspections of DoE sites to the Russians or Chinese. Amano is right that if the IAEA shared such details, not just for Iran, states would cease cooperation, rendering the agencies' work impossible.

Antiwar's Jason Ditz points out that

"Iran has complained that US inspectors working for IAEA have previously acted as de facto spies, leading them to insist the IAEA maintain a level of secrecy on their legal activities, particularly as they relate to conventional military programs."

The work of the IAEA has gotten a sharply political dimension over Iraq and Iran, given the extent to which political players have seized on its work to further their own political goals (notably regime change). The IAEA must be one of the primary espionage and penetration targets for western and in particular Israeli intelligence services. Neutrality is crucial for the IAEA being effective. Confidentiality is part of that.

What the IAEA is

The IAEA is an international agency, founded to implement the IAEA statute and it was later tasked to implement the NPT. It's employees are international public servants, sworn to implement these treaties. That means that their mandate is bound by what the member states have comitted themselves to under the treaty. That is the limit of their mandate, and that limited mandate is a reflection of the sovereignty of the signing member states.

That said, the IAEA does not answer to Congress. Even if the IAEA answered to the US, which it doesn't, it wouldn't answer to Congress. They answer to the executive branch of the US government which is its 'contracting partner' so to speak. It's a bit of a mystery to me why Amano was speaking with Congress to begin with. If Congress wants anwers on the deal, they need to go to Obama, not invite Amano.

Taif 2? - I think not.

"The basic fundamentals of the Doha talks were: 1) A rejection of the scenario of partitioning Syria, as it will create more instability and provides no end to the war, 2) Adopting the parameters laid by the UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura and by Moscow, 3) Working on an unofficial demarcation of areas of influence, 4) Negotiating, separately first, with Arab Sunni players and the Iranians to determine the final status of these areas of influence, a la Taif agreement, while leaving the door opened to direct talks later on, 5) General elections in Syria with a prior understanding that Assad will not run and that the new government will include representatives of all components of the Syrian society.

(Taif was the deal that ended the Lebanese civil war. It was based on an unofficial partitioning of the country to areas of “natural” sectarian and political control combined under a sectarian dosed central government)"  MEB

-----------------------

The author recognizes that this "solution" is partition in all but name as it was in Taif1 -Lebanon.

That agreement was negotiated over the heads of the Lebanese combatant factions and Hafez al-Assad by the triad of; Philip Habib, Dick Murphy and Rafik Hariri.  Habib was then Reagan's world-wide diplomatic mister fix-it.  He had been raised in New York City in a Jewish neighborhood although he was the child of Lebanese Maronite immigrants.  He spoke Yiddish and supposedly had a magic touch with those who spoke the language (and their overseas kin).  Rafik Hariri was the darling of the Sudeiri faction of the Saudi Royal family.  He had begun life as a poor boy in Sidon, Lebanon, had emigrated to SA, had become a Wahhabi and made vast amounts of money constructing public buildings for the royals.  Rumors abound as to what the connection was but I will not list them here.  He was a Saudi "citizen" at the time of negotiations.  And then there was Richard W. Murphy, the US ambassador in Saudi Arabia.  I worked for him there at the time.  He and Habib were busy most of the time traveling around the ME in Hariri's plane trying to unravel various Gordian Knots.  They schmoozed their way to what looked like a peace deal between the Lebanese (Gemayel) government of the day and Israel.  That fell apart when Hafez al-Assad learned of it.   The Lebanese were desperate for an end to their self immolation and the Habib/Murphy/Hariri flying carpet managed to arrange a meeting at Taif in Saudi Arabia.  Interestingly, this was held in one of the royal guest houses that Hariri had built.  There, the Saudis and the Americans arranged a deal that effectively partitioned Lebanon while preserving the image of a single sovereign country.  The deal did not require Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon.  Hafez-al-Assad gave his assent with the understanding that Lebanon would be within Syria's sphere of influence.  The Saudis required that Hariri resume his former Lebanese citizenship and be appointed prime minister by the rump parliament that theoretically still existed in Beirut or what was left of Beirut.  The US assented and someone informed the Lebanese of the agreement. Lebanon has been a mess ever since with massive sectarian and political tensions just below the surface of daily life.  Lebanon continues to be treated as a regional pawn by all those interested.  Perhaps the Lebanese deserve this for allowing themselves to be abused and participating in the abuse.  Perhaps Lebanon, a colonial construct, should never have been a single country.  It was, after all, merely a French conceit.  For this deal to be made required not only the total exhaustion of the Lebanese fighting factions but also the acquiescence of all external players.

The Saudis have now been busy buying off Sisi.  That should work in this context.  Turkey will be enthusiastically "on board" under present management.  Are Russia, Hizbullah and Iran likely to accept defeat at the hands of; the Children's Crusade, the Izzies, and the 'Desert Irish?"

I doubt this is possible considering the mischief the US is fostering against Russia, the general attitude towards Iran of The Borg, and American insistence at Israel's direction that Hizbullah are merely terrorists.  pl 

http://mebriefing.com/?p=1847

Mike Flynn's Al-Jazeera Interview

"Hasan: You are basically saying that                 even in government at the time you knew these groups were around,                 you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who                 wasn’t listening?

Flynn: I think the administration.

Hasan: So the administration turned a blind eye                 to your analysis?

Flynn: I don’t know that they turned a blind                 eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision.

Hasan: A willful decision to support an insurgency                 that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?

Flynn: It was a willful decision to do what they’re                 doing.

**********

 "Hasan: In 2012 the U.S. was helping coordinate arms   transfers to those same groups [Salafists, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda in Iraq],   why did you not stop that if you’re worried about the rise of quote-unquote   Islamic extremists?

Flynn: I hate to say it’s not my job…but   that…my job was to…was to to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence   that was being presented was as good as it could be."  Hoff quoting parts of the Flynn interview

-----------

IMO Hasan did not do a good job on this interview.

- Hasan has the usual third world notion lodged in his head that Flynn as Director of DIA had some executive authority over Obama Administration policy in Syria or Iraq (or anywhere else).  He did not.  As he said (quoted above) "It's not my job..."  He does state in the interview that he tried to persuade people in the Obama Administration not to provide assistance to the Nusra group.  They are clearly an AQ group.  Nusra is not the same as IS.  In fact they are competitors for world-wide leadership of the 'umma , (the world wide community of Islam).  It is not really his job to try to persuade the civilian government that they should not adopt a particular policy but when you are that high up in the intelligence world the temptation to tell dummies that they are wrong is overwhelming.  That kind of honesty eventually cost him his real job.

- Flynn says in the interview that the Obama Administration in its eagerness to obey Bibi's dog whistle demand for Assad's destruction decided quite willfully to accept the presence of Nusra in the coalition of forces it was (and is) trying to assemble against Assad.

- Flynn tries to explain that the foreign paper that is the basis of the additional DIA analysis PREDICTED that something like IS would arise.  This is not to say that DIA  accused the Obama Administration of assisting what became IS.

- The DIA paper did say that the DIA analysts believed that those who supported the destruction of the Syrian Government would welcome the rise of a "caliphate."  The paper does not accuse the US government of being among those who would welcome this development.   It must be remembered that the basis of the DIA paper was the analysis of a foreign intelligence paper received in liaison. pl  

http://original.antiwar.com/Brad_Hoff/2015/08/06/former-dia-chief-warned-white-house-of-isis-rise/

"Sharpsburg"

 

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2015/08/sharpsburg-by-w-patrick-lang.html

A Uniquely French Solution to Libya by Harper

 

While the United States remains hopelessly caught up in the fantasy about "nation building," as evidenced by our decades-long adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan (and now, looking ahead, in Syria as well?), the French have demonstrated a clear understanding of the difference between targeted counterinsurgency and the permanent presence of a "nation building" program.  Perhaps they learned the proper lessons of Vietnam and Algeria, lessons that have evaded many American thinkers, such as Gen. David Petraeus, who remains enamored with the COIN/nation building approach, despite the stubborn message coming out of our Iraq and Afghanistan experiences. 

The French demonstrated their astuteness in the recent crisis in Mali, where French forces went in to support the government on a limited scale, for a limited duration, and accomplished a shift in the balance, which has enabled the Mali government and military to bring the country back under a semblance of control. 

This same approach could be beneficial in Libya, where a Salafist insurgency has created a deep and unending crisis. The elected government is, in effect, operating from quasi-exile, the capital is under the control of a coalition of Salafist groups, whose actual center of power is the Benghazi-Derna area of eastern Libya.  A concentrated French military action, targeted at the Benghazi-Derna stronghold of the jihadists could be sufficient to tilt the entire balance.  The French are more than capable of carrying out such a mission, and it would likely split the Salafists, who are only unified around a common opposition to the duly elected government.  Hardcore ISIS and Al Qaeda elements have always been able to recruit in the Benghazi-Derna area.  Knocking out their critical base and providing a limited residual mop-up presence could be the difference between success and failure. 

Libya has different demographics, geography and history/culture than Syria or Iraq.  It is tribal, relatively underpopulated and chaotic.   

Under the former presidency of Sarkozy, the French played a destructive role in promoting the ouster of Qadaffi and his ultimate execution.  A limited, targeted "correction" of that blunder might very well be the best option available at this moment.   I am open to suggestions, corrections, more indepth analysis.  What do you think?

Bibi or President Obama - Let America choose.

 

"“It’s somewhat dangerous, because there’s a kind of a dog whistle here that some people are going to hear as ‘it’s time to go after people,’ and not just rhetorically,” said David Makovsky, a former Middle East adviser for the Obama administration and now an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. But Aipac’s claims, he said, had been just as overheated. “There’s almost a bunker mentality on both sides.”"  NY Times

-------------------

"David Makovsky?"  A former adviser to the Obama Administration?  IMO he is an unregistered agent of Israel as are all the people at WINEP.  "... time to go after people?"  Well, pilgrims, IMO he and AIPAC know all about how to do that.

FARA clearly does not apply to WINEP or AIPAC. The FBI has on many occasions sought to force these groups to register under FARA but political pressure from Israel's friends (like Schumer) have always managed tp block that.

AIPAC was, in fact, created in response to US Government demands that AIPAC's predecessor group register under FARA.

"The American Israel Public Affairs Committee was founded in 1951 by Isaiah L. "Si" Kenen.^[14] Kenen originally ran the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs as a lobbying division of the American Zionist Council. Before that, Kenen was an employee of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs..."  wiki on AIPAC

Bibi has cast the dice and opted for a struggle to the bitter end with Obama for control of US foreign policy.

We will see, pilgrims, we will see...  pl 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/world/middleeast/fears-of-lasting-rift-as-obama-battles-pro-israel-group-on-iran.html?_r=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Israel_Public_Affairs_Committee 

 

Baiting the bear

"America is heading for war with Russia. Some call the current situation  “an increase of hostility” or “Cold War II.” There are two sides to this story. I believe that American journalists from all political persuasions are not offering critical analysis. Understanding the Russian side and taking their arguments seriously can help prevent serious consequences.

Americans believe that Russians are fed propaganda by the state-controlled media. If Russians only could hear the truth, the thinking goes, they would welcome the US position. This is not so. There are more than 300 TV stations available in Moscow. Only 6 are state-controlled. The truth is that Russians prefer hearing the news from the state rather than the Internet or other sources. This is different from almost any other country. It is not North Korea where the news is censored. Each night during the Crimea crisis, anyone could watch CNN or the BBC bash Russia.

With regard to Ukraine, Russia has drawn a red line: It will never allow Ukraine to be part of NATO. Russia sees the US as the aggressor, surrounding Russia with military bases in Eastern Europe at every opportunity since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US sees Russia as the aggressor against its neighbors. A small misstep could lead to war. This time the war will not be “over there.” The Russian bombers flying off the California coast on July 4^th clearly demonstrate this point. Russians understand that the US has not fought a war on its soil since the civil war. If new hostilities start, Russia will not let the war be a proxy war where the US supplies weapons and advisors and lets others do the “boots on the ground” combat. Russia will take the war to the US. How did we reach this critical point in such a short time?"  Jack Hanick

-----------------

Somehow the United States has become a militaristic state obsessed with force and enemies.  It is true, of course that we face real enemies at present.  The jihadis could hardly be more real or dangerous, not as an existential threat to the US, but as all too real a threat for individuals or for targets that might at some point grow to the size of cities. 

Nevertheless, it must be said that the US, often at the urging of special interests like AIPAC, is manufacturing enemies as well as allies.  It has now become "axiomatic" in the American  media to refer to Israel as "our greatest ally."  That must be a revelation for Britain, France and Germany!

The Republican debaters this week were totally "on board" in their response to Bibi's dog whistle.  Bibi insists that Iran is a country ruled by mad mullah anti-Semites who will never change and who are sobbing and wheezing with desire for the day when they can immolate Israel's Jews (and presumably Arabs as well) in a nuclear strike.  That this would result in the destruction of Iran in a counter strike is, for Bibi not anything to be considered since they are, well, mad mullahs.  Senator Schumer (D - New York) evidently a man with ears that hear the dog whistle) has announced rather quietly that he will oppose the Iran deal BECAUSE THE IRANIANS WILL NOT CHANGE  Hear the dog whistle?   He did it as quietly using the GOP debate and Jon Stewart's departure for New Jersey political pastures as cover.  IMO Jewish Americans who roll over barking in response to the dog whistle are doing Jewish Americans as a whole a great disservice.  The media does not hesitate to say that those in opposition are Jews.  The dog whistle connection is impossible to ignore.

Russia does not want to fight us.  From our actions and statements in obedience to The Borg, we seem to want to fight them.

A puzzling thing repeated many times by the debate creatures was a line about "re-building our armed forces."  What the hell are they talking about?  How many more hundreds of billions do they want to spend every year?

pl

Read more at http://observer.com/2015/08/can-the-united-states-stop-a-war-with-russia/#ixzz3i8qci1bw Follow us: @observer on Twitter | Observer on Facebook 

 

The Yemen war - 8 August 2015

"Saudi Arabia sent new military equipment including tanks into Yemen to support loyalists fighting Iran-backed Huthi rebels, tribal and military sources said Thursday.

"Dozens of tanks, armored vehicles and personnel carriers, as well as hundreds of Yemeni soldiers trained in Saudi Arabia, arrived in Yemen overnight" via the Wadia border post in the north of the country, a Yemeni military source told AFP.

"These military reinforcements came from Saudi Arabia's Sharura region and are intended for the popular resistance and the national army," another military source said, referring to forces loyal to Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, currently in exile in Riyadh." Defensenews

--------------

 SA evidently is shipping all this in from their major base at Sharura in the Rub' al-Khali (Empty Quarter).  It goes down the hard surface road to this Wadi'a border crossing (pictured above) and thence down through the Sunni territory of the Hadramaut into Shabwa Governorate and on to Aden.  Some also goes west to Marib Governorate of Yemen.  There are also sea shipments int othe port of Aden directly.

The Saudis are well advised to avoid the Najran to Sa'da to San'a axis.  That is real "Indian Country" from their point view.  pl  

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/mideast-africa/2015/08/06/military-reinforcements-enter-yemen-saudi-arabia/31231199/

BERNIE SANDERS - HALFWAY THERE? by Michael Brenner

 
No - not to the nomination, much less the White House. What Sanders has done is to establish himself as a force in the Democratic Party's selection process. He has done so by demonstrating two qualities that have largely disappeared from America's political life over the past few decades. One is conviction and intellectual honesty. The other is articulate statement of a progressive creed that was the party's heart and soul when it dominated the country's electoral life, before lapsing into the "me-too" wing of our current Establishment uniparty. Sanders, thereby, has flinted a spark of life into those nominally liberal circles whose lazy and complacent inertia had led them to declare the compromised Hillary Clinton as their latest champion. 

None of this was foreseen by the commentators and strategists who set the tone for our political discourse. Their domination of the electronic airways generates the Washington Consensus that few dare dispute. That consensus is invariably wrong - on almost every matter of electoral and policy consequences. They boast a record of unrelieved obtuseness that does nothing to undermine their authority in delimiting what or who qualifies for "serious" discussion. One could amass a fortune simply by betting against the Washington Consensus. A quicker and more socially responsible alternative to joining in the corrupt shenanigans that pass for finance these days.  

The "experts," in their typical blinkered way, overlooked or grossly underestimated some stark truths. Most Americans are poorer today than they were 45 years ago. Stagnant salaries may have left them on a par with or very slightly ahead of where they were in 1970 in absolute terms, but they have lost all purchase on the kind of lives led by those who are infinitely better off in relative terms. In America's status society where well-being is measured in life style terms, that counts for a lot. Especially so, when the outlook for your children is a struggle even to keep up with their parents. Moreover, tens of millions of earnest workers have seen themselves degraded and downgraded as "temps" and part-timers, shorn of job security and benefits, in the name of "productivity" and "efficiency."  They are marooned in a limbo just a layer above migrant agricultural workers. This is taken by their leaders to be the inescapable price to pay in order to keep up with the Malaysians and the Chinese. Democratic President Barack Obama rubs their noses in it by promoting the Trans-Pacific commercial Pact, largely written by big business, which will undercut the authority of the United States government to alleviate their condition.

Obama's Iran speech

"...  when I ran for president eight years ago as a candidate who had opposed the decision to go to war in Iraq, I said that America didn't just have to end that war. We had to end the mindset that got us there in the first place.

It was a mindset characterized by a preference for military action over diplomacy, a mindset that put a premium on unilateral U.S. action over the painstaking work of building international consensus, a mindset that exaggerated threats beyond what the intelligence supported.

Leaders did not level with the American people about the costs of war, insisting that we could easily impose our will on a part of the world with a profoundly different culture and history.

And, of course, those calling for war labeled themselves strong and decisive while dismissing those who disagreed as weak, even appeasers of a malevolent adversary.

More than a decade later, we still live with the consequences of the decision to invade Iraq. Our troops achieved every mission they were given, but thousands of lives were lost, tens of thousands wounded. That doesn't count the lives lost among Iraqis. Nearly a trillion dollars was spent.

Today, Iraq remains gripped by sectarian conflict, and the emergence of al-Qaida in Iraq has now evolved into ISIL. And ironically, the single greatest beneficiary in the region of that war was the Islamic Republic of Iran, which saw its strategic position strengthened by the removal of its long-standing enemy, Saddam Hussein.

I raise this recent history because now more than ever, we need clear thinking in our foreign policy, and I raise this history because it bears directly on how we respond to the Iranian nuclear program. That program has been around for decades, dating back to the Shah's efforts, with U.S. support, in the 1960s and '70s to develop nuclear power. The theocracy that overthrew the Shah accelerated the program after the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, a war in which Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons to brutal effect, and Iran's nuclear program advanced steadily through the 1990s despite unilateral U.S. sanctions."

---------------

IMO, Obama has decided that there will be no Republican support for his deal with Iran, none.  This wall to wall opposition is a continuation of the reaction that has weakened his efforts since he was first inaugurated.  You can ascribe whatever motives you wish to this opposition, but the opposition is real and it is potent.

Unable to obtain bi-partisan support, he is now appealing to the American people over the noise being created by the collective narrative presented by The Borg.  That narrative has little to do with reality.  Moniz, Kerry and many others have successfully answered what honest questions there were about the deal.  What remains is opposition motivated by AIPAC and Natanyahu, opposition directed at the deal through their minions in the US Congress and media.

Natanyahu seeks permanent hegemony in the Middle East, hegemony for an Israel that would be the only modern state in a region filled with pastoralists, makers of sandals for tourists, secular and religious tourism and sheikhly fat cats in the Gulf who care for nothing but themselves. 

To achieve that goal Bibi will stoop to any lie, subvert any institution and play the carrot and stick game with all who are available in the media.

Obama has decided to settle for a minimalist survival of his Iran deal in a veto over-ride situation.  He surely believes that the aftermath of implementation will bring him long term victory of the kind that has occurred in the case of the ACA. 

That may work or alternatively someone like Walker may be elected president and the US will go to war again.  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/05/text-obama-gives-a-speech-about-the-iran-nuclear-deal/

Color Me Suspicious

"The conversation was initiated at Mr. Trump’s request, according to one person briefed on the call, who said the real-estate developer tried Mr. Clinton’s office a few times before the former president returned the call.

According to the Washington Post account, some people privy to the call described Mr. Clinton, who is often typically solicitous of whomever he is speaking to, as suggesting to the candidate-to-be that he was “striking a chord” with the Republican base.

Others described it as a friendly phone call in which Mrs. Clinton and her campaign didn’t come up.

An aide to Mr. Trump declined comment. An aide to Mr. Clinton confirmed “that Mr. Trump reached out to President Clinton a few times.”"  NY Times

------------------

"A few times?"

"Mrs Clinton and her campaign didn't come up?"

Sure, that could have happened.

Or, how about a conversation or conversations in which expressions of good will are exchanged along with possible assurances that "the GOP needs someone like you to shake them up," and "you know that she understands the limits of the kind of thing that Warren wants to do..."

That could have happened also.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/05/donald-trump-and-bill-clinton-chatted-by-phone-before-trump-announced-candidacy/

SHORT AND SHARP: "Middle Eastern Men" Intimidating Military Families In Colorado and Wyoming ?

 By Patrick BAHZAD

They say, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. Or more generally speaking, the Devil is in the detail, like in the small print of an insurance contract. The same argument could be made in criminal matters, or terrorism related matters.

Take this story for example: http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/08/04/fbi-middle-eastern-men-intimidating-u-s-military-families-in-colorado-wyoming/ … A non-starter almost. Just good enough to make it as small print in CBS' Denver office. Yet, the pointers this "evidence" gives are clearly part of a wider picture that makes for an increasingly worrying trend.

There's not much to be said here in terms of statistics or crime rates, at least not if by statistics, you mean purely metrics. Nonetheless, this little story is another of those unnoticed quantum leaps. Another "qualitative" threshold being over-stepped and almost nobody in the public or the media takes notice.

Yet, people in State and federal law-enforcement clearly see the danger, whether it is already present or just potential. FBI director James Comey in particular has been quite vocal in his warnings about hard to identify domestic threats. 

Being quite familiar with the way these things work, I'm not overly optimistic. Usually, it takes some major "fireworks" before the public becomes genuinely aware of what has been going on for a while. Then and only then, proper action is taken.

In this context, proper doesn't mean more surveillance, more police and more intel gathering ... Just adding this for those who might confuse "quality" intel and police work with a metrics based approach of those issues.

I maybe be wrong of course and things may very well be under control, but I would seriously doubt it. And connecting the dots between various micro-events might be just as important as compiling huge amounts of data about each and everyone of us.

In any case, to paraphrase that famous "Heroic Fantasy" movie, "things have been set in motion that cannot be undone", not even in America …

Semper Paratus! (by BableFish)

Happy 225th birthday to the US Coast Guard.  Semper Paratus - Always Prepared.

"We're always ready for the call, We place our trust in Thee.

Through surf and storm and howling gale, High shall our purpose be,

"Semper Paratus" is our guide, Our fame, our glory, too.

To fight to save or fight and die! Aye! Coast Guard, we are for you.

From the Semper Paratus March

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard

 

 

The coming political revolt of 2016

 

US federal elections have taken some strange turns in the past.  The general election 0f 1860 is probably the greatest example of this.  As the map above shows the disintegration of the Whig Party and the sectional and emotional split in the Democratic Party created a situation in which there were four major contenders for the presidency.  As a result Abraham Lincoln was elected with zero support in the South.  Division and a catastrophic war followed.

We have a potential this year for something similar.  As I have written before, there is a profound dissatisfaction abroad in the land.  The media and elite complex that I call The Borg has succeeded in establishing a "new normal" in American mores and now in law.  All that "hopey, changey" business that has prevailed since Bill Clinton was elected president on a platform of "don't stop thinking about tomorrow," has succeeded in changing the terms of reference in the United States.

The stated agenda of The Borg is altogether about individual liberty and rights and very little about social responsibility as understood by Americans in "flyover" America.  The result is a massive discontent with government by the intelligentsia and their minority clients.

As a result, those who liked America as it was before Berkeley in 1964 are raising the flags of political revolt against the establishment and their pundit agents in New York, etc.  Joe Scarborough today said that "people ALL OVER THE CITY, PEOPLE WE RESPECT" have called him and Mika to chide for giving credence to the Trump phenomenon.   ALL OVER THE CITY.

The Borgist media seem oblivious to red majorities in the US Congress and in many states.  Perhaps that is because these majorities are NOT IN THE CITY.

I foolishly thought Trump was a clown.  Well, if he is a clown the Fundament of Borgists will have little to laugh about in this electoral cycle.  pl 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-poll-donald-trump-leads-gop-field-in-2016-presidential-race/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

Health

Pete Deer

How be you?  pat

Syria has unveiled Haass.

 
Joe Scarborough is a small-bore thinker but he worries his way through problems of perception until he approaches comprehension.  His street rat instincts then lead him through a maze of double speak on the air as he seeks to force Mika's kaffeeklatch to acknowledge the obvious.  Why is he so devious?  Simple - he knows that "the masters" in The Borg will do him in if he is perceived to be too independent.  When was the last time you saw Freeman interviewed on network TV?

This morning  while the birdies were perched around the stammtisch table, Joe asked Richard Haass, president of the CFR, if it is really necessary to rid Syria of Bashar Assad.  Haas blinked a few times and then said that Assad was the cause of both rebellion in general and the growth of IS and Nusra.  Joe let that go of course.  He will return to the subject like a dog returning to a ripe bone long buried in the back garden. 

Haass has been president of CFR since 1990 -?  He has long presented himself as a deep thinker and a neutral party (almost) in the great struggle of the Zionist state to realize its self perceived destiny in the ME.  His predecessor at CFR, Les Gelb, was, IMO, almost comically one sided in this matter however crudely he sought to disguise the fact. 

Haass has been more careful, but today the look of surprise and something like alarm that came over him was striking.  What was visible in that moment was a deep need to reinforce the message, the message that people like him and Dennis Ross are, IMO, engaged in injecting into the blood stream of The Borg.

Israel is deeply in thrall to a Revisionist Zionist fantasy in which all the surrounding states must be rendered impotent and harmless.  That kind of thought led AIPAC and its more covert allies to drive the US towards war and invasion in Iraq.  It mattered not at all that the case to be made about WMD programs in Iraq was a total fabrication.  It mattered not at all.

Now, the main visible theme in the Likudnik effort is the idea that Hizbullah, the Syrian Government and Iran are, in combination, the greatest threat to the dream yet faced.   In fact, Syria has long supplied Hizbullah and has served as a port of entry for Iranian weaponry and advisers on their way to Hizbullah.  The present Syrian government must therefore be destroyed.

Joe asked Haass what would replace Assad.

The answer was that a junta of Alawi generals is the mostly likely outcome when Assad is removed.

In this response can be seen the vision of a Syria that will accept a role as a Morgenthau Plan style entity that accepts its fate as a pastoral vassal of Israel.

What next, Joe?  pl  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_N._Haass

Gatekeeper for the Decision Making Process

*

Adam L. Silverman

The National Security Archive has just this past week posted the all of the recently/newly declassified Ford Administration documents pertaining to the Church Committee's inquiry into the behavior of the Central Intelligence Agency (h/t: Booman Tribune). It should surprise no one that the Ford Administration official at the heart of trying to hinder the Church Committee's inquiry was none other than a young Dick Cheney. Not only did the future Vice President have his fingers all over that administration's response, he made sure that everything was routed through him. So he was able to see and shape everything before it was ever presented to President Ford. This is very interesting because it has been reported that he did the same thing to promote his preferred policy preferences and to stymie those of other officials in the first term of the Bush 43 Administration. Basically, VP Cheney was a ruthlessly efficient gatekeeper in both the Ford and Bush 43 Administrations. This allowed him to advance his preferred policies and strategies and frustrate his rivals - a hallmark of a very effective bureaucratic infighter. His gatekeeping expertise, has, unfortunately, now done incalculable damage to the civilian intelligence community and US foreign and defense policy in two different administrations.

* Picture of President Ford meeting with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld was found here.

An Update to How Did He Get the Gun

*

Adam L. Silverman

Last weekend's post on how the Lafayette movie theater shooter got his gun included the links to the relevant portions of the Alabama and Georgia codes in regard to mental health commitment being a disqualifying event for the purchase of a firearm. What it appeared to be, based on the Georgia code, was that the commitment had aged out under Georgia law. At The Truth About Guns, Nick Leghorn argued that the shooter would have had to falsify his answers to the Form 4473, which is, of course, a crime. We now know that neither his involuntary commitment, nor his answers on From 4473 were disqualifying accounts or a criminal act. The reason for this is because Houser was not involuntarily committed. He was subjected to an Order to Apprehend by a probate court judge in Carroll County. An Order to Apprehend is the first step in the evaluation process - a process that is intended to NOT run roughshod over anyone's civil rights and liberties. Houser was brought in, evaluated, and the recommendation from the mental health professionals was not hospitalization - i.e. involuntary commitment. As such, nothing regarding his mental health status would have or should have been entered into NICS. As for all of his other run ins with the law: the link to the Ledger-Enquirer story has a full run down of everything he was alleged to have done, as well as how and why none of it ever, in the end, resulted in a felony conviction.

* Hi-Point .40. Image found here. Houser used a Hi-Point .40, my apologies to all GLOCKophiles/GLOCK fanboys that felt besmirched by last weekends graphic of the Plastic Fantastic...

** I know I promised a review of Winkler's Gunfight. I want to reread the book before I do it up as I originally read it last August. I have an analytical project I'm working on for work, which should be done by the end of the week. So I'll endeavor to get it up in a ten-day or so.