Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence"

 

"MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Was the “Russian Hack” an Inside Job?

Executive Summary

Forensic studies of “Russian hacking” into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computers, and then doctored to incriminate Russia.

After examining metadata from the “Guccifer 2.0” July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device, and that “telltale signs” implicating Russia were then inserted.

Key among the findings of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack. Of equal importance, the forensics show that the copying and doctoring were performed on the East coast of the U.S. Thus far, mainstream media have ignored the findings of these independent studies [see here and here].

Independent analyst Skip Folden, a retired IBM Program Manager for Information Technology US, who examined the recent forensic findings, is a co-author of this Memorandum. He has drafted a more detailed technical report titled “Cyber-Forensic Investigation of ‘Russian Hack’ and Missing Intelligence Community Disclaimers,” and sent it to the offices of the Special Counsel and the Attorney General. VIPS member William Binney, a former Technical Director at the National Security Agency, and other senior NSA “alumni” in VIPS attest to the professionalism of the independent forensic findings.

The recent forensic studies fill in a critical gap. Why the FBI neglected to perform any independent forensics on the original “Guccifer 2.0” material remains a mystery – as does the lack of any sign that the “hand-picked analysts” from the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who wrote the “Intelligence Community Assessment” dated January 6, 2017, gave any attention to forensics."  VIPS

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This makes a good "for the record" summary.  pl 

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/

An intruder in paradise ...

(a Red Tailed Hawk)

We have a back garden that is filled with an outdoor kitchen, stone terraces, and a small forest of evergreens that enclose the space as well as a willow tree and various flowering trees and shrubs,  There is a Tiffany Studios mosaic (1890) of stylized art nouveau flowers presiding over one of the terraces.  The whole thing has a "Wind in the Willows" atmosphere.

In a far corner there is a Redbud tree.  It is about 30 feet tall and in early Spring is a glory of red-purple flowers.  I have pruned the lower branches into projections from which to hang the various elements of my bird feeding station.  There is a double sided seed feeder with the weight adjustment set to accept birds no larger than a Cardinal.  There is a wooden platform feeder for those who don't want to perch on a moving bar to get fed.  There is a caged suet feeder for the Downy Woodpeckers.  They like cakes of suet studded with insect eggs.  There is another hanging feeder full of bread bits, old dry cereal, etc. 

I have a chair in place about thirty feet away where I can smoke Burma cheroots and watch the action among the birds and squirrels.   Catbirds, a tribe of Cardinals, Woodpeckers, Mourning Doves, Bluejays, and little brown things with great voices.  There are also European starlings (a nuisance), and tiny green hummingbirds who like my wife's flowers.  These are the habitués of my private utopia for birds.

Yesterday I was surveying the scene and puffing contentedly when a red tailed hawk arrived in this scene like a brown cannon ball .  It streaked in through a hole in the foliage along the fence and made a grab for a dove that had been pecking at seed on the platform feeder.  There was an explosion of birds and squirrels in every direction with much screeching and squawking.  The hawk missed the dove.  The intended prey fled across the back garden with the brown rocket in pursuit.  It passed me at about ten feet.  As it went by it saw me and turned its head to look even as it flew a wild course among the many head high plants.  It disappeared around a corner of the house still climbing and still chasing.

God help the dove.  pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-tailed_hawk

Kelly vs "the Mooch"

Having worked for a few extremely "scattered" bosses who loved to play their subordinates off against each other, I recognize the type in DJT. 

Reza Shah Pahlavi, the founder of the ancien regime Iranian imperial dynasty once said that "in Iran all the telegraph lines must run to my feet."  By that he evidently meant that he, personally, would run all aspects of life in Iran.  Clearly, he felt that this was the optimal management style. 

President Trump's style IMO resembles that of the first Pahlavi.  He does not have  a team.  He has people whom he sees as adjuncts of his glory as an entrepreneurial "grand master." He is a certain kind of "big businessman."  He believes that capitalism is entirely about personal self aggrandizement and ego reinforcement.   I once worked for a similar character, an entrepreneur with political ambitions.   That man could not formulate a manifesto that expressed his hopes for the people of his country.  He could not do it because he could not conceive of a program that was not about him personally.  In the end he hired a collection of professors to cobble together a collection of trite academic platitudes.  He lost the election.  IMO Trump is much like that man.  He is ego driven and will say or do anything he thinks needed to increase his position.  A corollary of his mentality is that he has no loyalty to anyone who works for him and he sees them all as potential rivals for the future.  We have now seen several examples of the depth of his disregard for those who have been willing to work for him.

To deal with the throng of incompetents and disloyals (irony alert) around him, DJT has now brought in a soul-mate, Anthony Scaramucchi (honest to god that is his name).  "The Mooch" as he is known to his associates is a junk-yard dog armed with a Harvard JD and a record of success at Goldman Sachs among all the other selfish, self-centered junk-yard dogs. 

In the other corner of the ring we will see John Kelly, USMC (ret.) who evidently has chosen to live by a code of self-sacrifice and service.  This man of honor is now going to lie down with the junk-yard dogs in order to serve his country.

I can hear the echo from the future of one of his encounters with "the Mooch."  "Well, solja-boy, who the f--k do you think you are to tell me what to do.?"

I predict that given the choice between Kelly and "the Mooch," DJT will keep his soul mate and discard Kelly.

I favor much of DJT's domestic program.  He probably has adopted that program for selfish, egotistical reasons but it is still a program that I favor.   In addition, his preference for an improvement in relations with Russia seems common sense. 

Nevertheless, I have no illusions about him.  pl

 

Derek Harvey - one less neocon

 

"Derek J. Harvey was the first Director of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Center of Excellence at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and a retired United States Army Colonel. He was selected by General David Petraeus in 2009 to lead the new organization.^[1] Harvey is a Senior Executive Service-member of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and was the previous senior analytical specialist for Iraq to Petraeus, then Commander, Multi-National Forces-Iraq."

wiki on Harvey

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A very odd biographical wiki.  It doesn't say much of anything about him.  It is as though he was born anew when he came to Petraeus' attention as a briefer/analyst working in the big FOB at the Baghdad airport.  Usually these things describe your life, parentage, education, marriage, etc.  There is none of that.  It is also rather out of date, being from the time when Mike Flynn brought him into DIA as a member of the Senior Executive Service.

I have known DH for a very long time.

1. He evidently does not like to talk about his service in DIA as a captain in the late '80s.  He was then a very green junior analyst in the Current Intelligence branch of DIA down in the basement of the Pentagon.  Bob Woodward in "The War Within..."  writes that in the late 80s Harvey wandered the back roads in Iraq traveling about 500 miles, chatting with villagers, headmen and tribal leaders to learn what the true state of affairs might be.  This is untrue.  If Harvey told Woodward that, he lied IMO.  Saddam was then fully in power and an American who wandered in Iraq would shortly have been in prison or worse.  No,  Harvey was scribbling away in his basement cubicle in the Pentagon and hanging around my upstairs offices whenever my staff were silly enough to let him in through the alarmed door.  I finally banned him from the office suite because he had no legitimate business there other than to try to obtain tutoring from me.
2. I should be clear about his supposed adventures in Saddam's Iraq.  Nobody in DIA would have sent or allowed this junior desk jockey to go do anything of the kind.  He would have required orders in writing to make this trip.  A number of people would have been needed as signatures on the permission, among them, me, and that never happened.  If there had been official orders they would have required the allocation of funds in the orders.  The idea that DIA would have funded this is laughable.  If he  had gone to Iraq on leave without permission the Iraqi police would have picked him up at the point of entry.  In any event he would have needed the permission of the US ambassador and the US DATT to be in the country.   That never happened either. In other words he seems to have built a "Harvey of Iraq" legend about himself out of whole cloth.
3. He speaks no Arabic.  None.  That would have made his Laurentian or Munchausian adventures somewhat more difficult.  In some web bios he is said to have an elementary knowledge of French and Farsi.  Farsi?  How would that have happened?
4. He does not seem to have ever had any training as a field intelligence collector.
5. He does not seem to have been board selected for senior Army schools like C&GSC and the War College.  Perhaps he did these schools by correspondence or was given constructive credit for "experience?"
6. So far as I know he never served in a Middle East or North African country before 9/11.
7. His teaching job at South Florida University does not seem to have involved teaching about the Middle East.  It was something about management that he taught.

Well, pilgrims, perhaps I have all this wrong, if so, then I will welcome your corrections.  I am sure there will be some.

In the present instance of his dismissal from the NSC staff it is now clear to me that he thought he could wrestle control of the ME policy function away from McMaster and Mattis.  He seems to have believed that he could do that with the slick persuasiveness that had worked so well for so long on so many and with the support of his neocon patrons.

Here is the statement he released yesterday on the occasion of his departure for greener pastures:

 

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 20170727

WESTERN VALUES™. I am weary of supposedly independent international survey in which Russia is always near the bottom. At last Denis Churilov has taken the trouble and effort to consider the methodology and "independence" of one of them. Specifically the Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders. RWB turns out – amazingly enough – to get money from the usual American GONGOs: USAID, NED and, of course, Soros. In short, what they used to call a "front" in the Cold War. Churilov looks at the methodology of the rating – selected people, subjective impressions – practically guaranteed to produce the "correct answer". Then he looks at the answer in which – of course! – Ukraine scores much better than Russia. Churilov then itemises how preposterous this ranking is. These things are part of the propaganda war and should be seen as such.

MAKS. The military airshow is over. Video. The PAK FA showed off. First deliveries next year.

SPENDING THE MONEY. Some spiffy urban projects in Moscow.

HISTORY. This year's pilgrimage to the site of the Romanovs' murder in Yekaterinburg.

AMERICA-HYSTERICA. Newsweek has had to retract two false articles after a lawsuit. A Clinton advisor doesn't blame Russia. Neither does the US Senate Minority Leader. The intensity of the insantity is shown by a poll that finds only 6% of US population is concerned about Russia while 75% of media coverage is about it. Only Democrats believe it, and not that many of them. Maybe the end is coming.

NEW NWO. As a quondam historian I know that empires take a long time to build up and a long time to decline. That having been said I remain stunned by the speed of the US decline. It has only been a couple of decades since the neocons triumphantly proclaimed a New American Century and Brzezinski drew the map of how to get there. "Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran... Averting this contingency... will require a display of U.S. geostrategic skill" said he. Well, that skill wasn't displayed, was it? But why would he think it was skill? The very program of American domination everywhere could only result in the formation of a resistance alliance. It is precisely the actions – arrogant, ignorant, one-sided, short-sighted, over-reaching and... failed – of the neocons and their humanitarian bomber allies that brought this about. The tectonic plates shift; here's this fortnight's collection.

CHINA The standout was Chinese warships in the Baltic. After passing through the Med (Chinese and Russian ships "prowling" the Med is old hat now.) And, "For China’s Global Ambitions, 'Iran Is at the Center of Everything'" And, China will be involved in rebuilding Syria. And will be creating a base in Djibouti. A Chinese military thinker brightly explains this as the "fanbian" strategy of approaching your enemy from a different direction. Or, bluntly, do things in the South China Sea and we'll do things close to you. (When will we see a Russian-Chinese "freedom of navigation" cruise in the Gulf of Mexico?)

TURKEY. Germany is leaving İncirlik. Reports say Ankara wants to buy S-400s and that negotiations proceed. (I cannot believe Russia would sell even an export version of a crown jewel weapons system to a NATO member so I don't know what to make of the story. Of course they will take some time to arrive...) A Turkish news agency leaked details and locations of secret US bases inside Syria. The coup attempt was a year ago; many in Ankara blame Washington; the aftershocks continue.

MENA. Iraq and Iran signed a defence cooperation agreement. Iraq will be buying Russian tanks. The Iraqi VP in Moscow said a Russian presence in Iraq would bring balance to the whole region, He thanked Russia: "if it were not for the Russian stance, the region would be fully destroyed... and in the end it would lead to the fall of Baghdad." Looks as if another American ally is tiptoeing out of the room.

SYRIA. Russia entered the war nearly two years ago. There is no doubt that that changed everything. Washington has ended the CIA funding for rebels in Syria (it says, has it really?). And pretty extensive it was too, if this report be true. Most of these weapons eventually got to – if they weren't not directly delivered to – Daesh. Which is one of the reasons the Iraqi VP is saying what he is saying. The Putin-Trump ceasefire seems to be holding and I suppose Netanyahu's dislike of it is evidence that it is. The Russian navy will be conducting exercises all month off the Syrian coast; in short, lots of air defence and strike missiles available.

SAAKASHVILI. Has been stripped of Ukrainian citizenship; he's lost Georgian already so he's a refugee I suppose. Ah, how thankless to be yesterday's regime change hero!

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

 

UAE helped North Korea by The Virginian

United Arab Emirates appears to have helped North Korea’s ballistic missile program through large arms purchases from the pariah state in violation of the U.S. and United Nations Security Council’s embargo, according to a secret State Department memo by the Institute for Gulf Affairs.

In the memo, the State Department warns the U.A.E. that the money spent to purchase of North Korean arms goes to fund its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs. “North Korea relies on revenue from overseas arms sales like this to sustain and advance its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs, which pose a threat to international peace and security as well as a direct threat to the United States,” the memo said.

https://www.gulfinstitute.org/secret-state-department-memo-u-a-e-helped-north-koreas-missile-program/

***************
 
That companies (see International Golden Group at http://www.iggroup.ae/ , they are mentioned in the alleged memo) based in the UAE have purchased weapons from North Korea is, if accurate, not necessarily surprising. Companies in the Emirates have previously acted as an intermediary for weapons (and cash) transfer between states, while the UAE has in the last decade or so sought to develop small arms plus more advanced weapons - including drones - in country, though not always from scratch (i.e. final assembly of parts made elsewhere). In previous year’s banks in Dubai were sanctioned for involvement in terrorist financing, while annual weapons shows and conventions bringing to Abu Dhabi (and the Dubai Air Show) a mix of would be sellers and buyers from across the world.
 
Given the Emirates ability to procure US, European, Russian and Chinese arms the need to go to North Korea (or others) is unneeded for equipping the UAE military, unless done for some unique capability. This seems likely to be a pass through to a third party in return for a percentage of the transaction value. The procurement of weapons would not go unnoticed by the Emirati government, and would have required official sanction with ruling family connections - even more so if any were destined for use inside the UAE.
 
At a minimum this type of action by a company based in a regional ally deserves further scrutiny to first assess validity, and if true, action that results in cessation of such activity going forward and appropriate punishment being handed out against the company and its management.

Trump Affirms the Military Ain't a Freak Show by Publius Tacitus

Well, let's give Donald Trump credit for one clear act of sanity. The White House announced today that the United States military is not going to surrender to the demands that transgenders be treated as normal people when it comes to fighting wars:

President Trump announced on Wednesday that the United States will no longer “accept or allow” transgender people in the United States military, saying American forces “must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory” and could not afford to accommodate them.

If you disagree with Trump then, in my view, you are an extremist and in denial by human biology. While transgender people exist, they are an extremely small minority. A biological rarity if you will. This is not to say that transgenders should be treated differently under the law. No. They should have the same basic rights as a biological man or woman. But the U.S. military is not a social biosphere for testing social and sexual justice theories. The Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Air Force are predominantly male and heavily dependent on unit cohesion.

The vast majority of the members of the U.S. military units are heterosexual. The social justice warriors who promote the mythology that you can have a gender neutral Army or Marine Corps, for example, have never been around 18 to 20 year old young men who are fully charged on testosterone and generally thinking a lot of the time about having sex with females. One of my old mentors, a retired Marine colonel told me the story of being in South Korea on maneuvers when he was a young lieutenant. As he came out of his tent one morning his nostrils were assaulted by the smell of human sweat and kimchi. The aroma was piercing and his nose led him to the last tent in the camp site. There he found two 18 year old privates enjoying the fleshly delights of a South Korean farm girl who, by the smell of things, had not been a frequent visitor to bath water. 

His lesson to me? "The troops will do anything for pussy." Whether you like it or not that remains a reality today. The vast majority of soldiers, sailors, pilots and marines are not focused on embracing or protecting transgender folks. When they step naked into a shower the vast majority are not ogling one another in hopes of spotting the dude who wants to be a woman. 

Trump made the smart and simple decision--he is not going to subordinate the war fighting role of the U.S. military to pandering to extreme minority political positions based on the notion that transgenderism is a normal, common phenomena. It is not.

"Donald Trump just kept his most important promise on the Mideast" - Mulshine

"When I called Lang the other day, he recalled going to seminars in D.C. a few years ago with "all these political science guys and think tankers" who would repeat the mantra of the moment: "Assad must go."

"I would ask at these conferences, 'What if he doesn't go?  What if they fight their way through this?'" Lang recalled. "They'd say, 'Oh it's not gonna happen. He's gonna go. He's a terrible man. There's no support for him.'"

In fact there was plenty of support from the minority Christians, Alawites and Shia Muslims who feared they'd be slaughtered by Sunni jihadis if the government fell - not an unrealistic fear given the actions of ISIS in the parts of Iraq and Syria it controlled.

By the time the 2016 campaign got going it was obvious to anyone paying attention that the strategy of regime change should have died with the Bush 43 administration. Yet the Republican  who aspired to be Bush 45 was still backing regime change, as was the eventual Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

They were the establishment favorites. But The Donald outraged  the establishment by coming out against the idea of toppling secular dictators. 

The big question was whether President Trump was going to be seduced by the Beltway crowd into reneging on his promise."  Mulshine

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

This article says it all.  pl 

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/07/dont_look_now_but_donald_trump_just_kept_his_most.html

"Mattis: Get unnecessary training off warfighters' backs" - TTG

“WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has ordered a review of all the administrative and training requirements that prevent trigger pullers and pilots alike from focusing on warfighting.

In the memo obtained by Military Times, Mattis on Friday directed the services, the National Guard Bureau and the combatant commanders to determine what changes are needed to give each branch increased flexibility to organize, train and equip more ready and lethal forces.” (Military Times)

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

Jubilation! Jubilation! I’ve been waiting for something along these lines since 20 January. It is sorely needed. Those of us who served in the military know the debilitating effect that the accumulation of unnecessary policies and requirements has on the mission readiness of a fighting unit. I’m sure that also goes for supporting units. This is an excerpt from the Mattis memo. It’s a good start. 

“Examples of policies requiring review include: relating to the retention or separation of permanently non-deployable Service members; professional military education to regain a concentration on the art and science of warfighting; requirements for mandatory force training that does not directly support core tasks; hiring practices for the civilian workforce; and a return to counterintelligence competencies for the Services law enforcement agencies.”

From this short list, we can see Mattis is starting with the big things. First, the military’s only purpose is to fight the nation’s wars. It is not a social welfare program or a place for social experimentation. Second, military training and especially military leadership training should be fanatically focused on fighting and winning wars. Third, anything that takes away from preparing to fight and win wars must be jettisoned. Fourth, the civilian workforce must also be focused on fighting and winning wars. Prepare for a push to make all DOD civilians into an excepted service. Last, all these years of leaks and such are obviously driving Mattis up the wall. He is intent on stopping that crap.

My advice is that those who lack the single-minded determination and discipline to prepare to fight and win our nation’s wars should get out now.

TTG

http://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2017/07/25/mattis-get-unnecessary-training-off-warfighters-backs/

What Are the Democrats Hiding? by Publius Tacitus

The mainstream media appears to be working overtime to ignore the following story:

EXCLUSIVE: FBI Seized Smashed Hard Drives From Wasserman Schultz IT Aide’s Home

This is the story of Pakistani born Imran Awan. In late May the NY Post reported that:

The criminal probe into a cadre of Capitol Hill techies who worked for dozens of Democratic lawmakers remains shrouded in mystery, months after their access to congressional IT systems was suspended.

It’s still not clear whether the investigation by the Capitol Police into the five staffers, who all have links to Pakistan, involves the theft of classified information.

The staffers are accused of stealing equipment and possible breaches of the House IT network, according to Politico, which first reported on the investigation in February. . . .

In the midst of the criminal probe, Imran and Abid Awan are now being accused of more wrongdoing, this time by a member of their own family. Last month, their stepmother accused them of threatening her in order to force her to sign a power of attorney to gain access to assets in Pakistan.

 

Beat Navy! Beat Russia! Beat everyone!

(Pompaeus as Plebian)

" CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Thursday Russia has no plans to leave Syria and will continue to try to meddle in U.S. affairs to "stick it to America."

He reiterated his belief that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election and described the U.S.-Russia relationship as "complicated."

"I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think they find that's something that's useful," he said

Pompeo also said he has seen only minimal evidence that Russia has pursued a serious strategy against Islamic State of Iraq and Syrica (ISIS) militants in Syria. He said any suggestion that Russia has been a U.S. ally in Syria is not borne out by what's happening on the ground."   CBS News

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Oh my!  Minimal evidence of Russia fighting IS in Syria?  Even CIA must know better than that.  This utterance at an Aspen Institute "fight rally" indicates to me that this fellow has a completely closed mind on the subject of Russia and undoubtedly Iran as well.  Clapper and Brennan expressed similar sentiments at the same meeting.  The great minds have met!  Clapper cannot keep himself from saying "Soviet" occasionally when what should be said is "Russia."  He was always a blockheaded group think schemer, so one should not be surprised.    As for Brennan it is easy to see Torquemada's spirit lurking behind the ruddy complexion and scowl.

When I was teaching at USMA (West Point) Pompeo's alma mater, I endured on a yearly basis the frenetic activities of the cadets as they prepared themselves emotionally for the annual titanic struggle against the USNA (Annapolis) football team.  There were rallies, building defacements with giant painted slogans "Beat Navy!"   There was a kidnapping of the Billy Goat which was USNA's mascot.  I seem to remember that some boy was dismissed for that caper. Good.

During one of these magic periods of anticipatory ecstasy, the Soviet military attaché came to visit.  He was the guest of the Russian language group in the Foreign Languages department.  I taught in the department and for some reason they asked me to the small dinner given for this general of the Red Army. 

We dined in the cadet mess where all the young ladies and gentlemen were fed together at one sitting.  This was in a cavernous space where centuries of re-modeling had freakishly produced an elevated platform between two buttresses  This was 20 feet or so above the floor on which the corps ate.  I think this place was called "the poop deck."  There was space  up there for a table that would seat ten or twelve while white jacketed waiters scurried around looking anxious overthe state of the napery, etc.  One could look over the stone rail at the masses below. 

During the dinner, various cadet cheerleaders were allowed upstairs in our sacred space to lead the corps in cheers against the US Navy (the navy undergrad school really)  The guest finally asked what all the noise was about.  I told him and he asked to lead the US Corps of Cadets in a cheer.  He took his place at the microphone where the cadets could see him, the very incarnation of the devil, and began. 

"Beat Navy!"  The kiddies cheered lustily.

"Beat Air Force!"  The cheering was more restrained.

"Beat Army!  Beat Everybody!"  After a moment's silence the kids began to boo him.  Since I was not an alumnus of this place I thought it was funny.

Former cadet Pompeo says that he has seen minimal evidence of Russia fighting IS?   Oh my!  Robert Fisk of the Independent has now reported (see link below) that he recently sat in a meeting in the dust bowl desert south of Raqqa, but hard by, in which SAA, and the YPG/SDF coordinated their joint fight against IS (ISIS).  A Russian Army colonel who called himself Yevgenii sat in the their midst as a full participant.  There were no Americans present.

The Soviet general took a great interest in what I was doing at WP.  IMO their biographic file on me started that evening.

Pompeo has a record of pompous (a sad linguistic joke) bellicosity.  He seems to desire enemies everywhere.  Perhaps someone should tell him that grown ups don't act like that.  pl 

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

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-chief-mike-pompeo-russia-loves-to-stick-it-to-america/

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-isis-russia-kurdish-ypg-happening-in-secret-a7857471.html

Open Thread - 23 July 2017

pl

The SVR

 

"The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (Russian: Слу́жба вне́шней разве́дки, tr. Sluzhba vneshney razvedki; IPA: [ˈsluʐbə ˈvnʲɛʂnʲɪj rɐˈzvʲɛtkʲɪ]) or SVR RF (Russian: СВР РФ) is Russia's external intelligence agency, mainly for civilian affairs. The military affairs espionage counterpart is the GRU. The SVR RF is the successor of the First Chief Directorate (PGU) of the KGB since December 1991.^[1] The headquarters of SVR are in the Yasenevo District of Moscow.

Unlike the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the SVR is responsible for intelligence and espionage activities outside the Russian Federation. It works in cooperation with the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (Russian: Гла́вное разве́дывательное управле́ние, tr. Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye; IPA: [ˈglavnəjə rɐzˈvʲɛdɨvətʲɪlʲnəjə ʊprɐˈvlʲenʲɪjə]) (GRU), which reportedly deployed six times as many spies in foreign countries as the SVR in 1997.^[2] The SVR is also authorized to negotiate anti-terrorist cooperation and intelligence-sharing arrangements with foreign intelligence agencies, and provides analysis and dissemination of intelligence to the Russian president. "  wiki

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Why do you people keep prattling on about the FSB?  The GRU and the SVR are Russia's external intelligence services, not the FSB who are essentially cops and internal security people like the FBI.  pl 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Service_(Russia)

Another felonious disclosure.

"Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. "  Washpost

******

"A former U.S. official who read the Kislyak reports said that the Russian ambassador reported speaking with Sessions about issues that were central to the campaign, including Trump’s positions on key policy matters of significance to Moscow."  Washpost

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The present or former official (or officials) who read these intercepts because of his or her clearance for hyper-sensitive compartmented information and have discussed them with the Washington Post have in IMO committed a felony for which they should be prosecuted.  

I know a lot of you are uninterested in protection of US SIGINT products but IMO that is an altogether irresponsible position.  pl  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-discussed-trump-campaign-related-matters-with-russian-ambassador-us-intelligence-intercepts-show/2017/07/21/3e704692-6e44-11e7-9c15-177740635e83_story.html?utm_term=.dc6f6599dac1

“Syrian Army on the verge of entering Deir Ezzor from Raqqa” - TTG

"DAMASCUS, SYRIA (3:40 P.M.) – Moments ago, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) captured two towns on the Euphrates River after advancing some 35 kilometers through ISIS-held territory in rural Raqqa.

Back by pro-government tribal fighters, the SAA’s Tiger Forces dashed across eastern Raqqa and captured the neighboring towns of Dalha and Al-Aukarishi, thus reaching the Euphrates River in one of its largest single advances in 2017.

After establishing a corridor from the government mainland, SAA troops have created yet another ISIS pocket directly south of Raqqa city and simultaneously cutoff the rival US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from snatching any more ISIS turf along the Euphrates River.

With Deir Ezzor city only 80 kilometers away, the Tiger Forces – commanded by Major General Suheil Al-Hassan – have been tasked with pushing southeast along the M4-Highway, ultimately looking to lift the long-standing siege." (Al Masdar News)

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

It won’t be long before General Suheil Al-Hassan is shaking hands with General Issam Zahreddine. Woe be to the jihadists when that happens. AMN reports the Tiger Forces caught the jihadists by surprise in this overnight assault. Here’s to more surprises.

TTG

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-syrian-army-advances-30-kilometers-isis-held-eastern-raqqa/

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-army-verge-entering-deir-ezzor-raqqa/

“US to Create Independent Military Cyber Command” - TTG

“After months of delay, the Trump administration is finalizing plans to revamp the nation's military command for defensive and offensive cyber operations in hopes of intensifying America's ability to wage cyberwar against the Islamic State group and other foes, according to U.S. officials. Under the plans, U.S. Cyber Command would eventually be split off from the intelligence-focused NSA.

Details are still being worked out, but officials say they expect a decision and announcement in the coming weeks. The officials weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter so requested anonymity.

The goal, they said, is to give U.S. Cyber Command more autonomy, freeing it from any constraints that stem from working alongside the NSA, which is responsible for monitoring and collecting telephone, internet and other intelligence data from around the world — a responsibility that can sometimes clash with military operations against enemy forces.

Making cyber an independent military command will put the fight in digital space on the same footing as more traditional realms of battle on land, in the air, at sea and in space. The move reflects the escalating threat of cyberattacks and intrusions from other nation states, terrorist groups and hackers, and comes as the U.S. faces ever-widening fears about Russian hacking following Moscow's efforts to meddle in the 2016 American election.”  (AP News)

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

This is a change that has been talked about for years and put into motion at the end of the Obama administration. I pointed it out last November. It looks like it will definitely happen. I learned today that Congress had enshrined the break up in the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed into law by Obama on 23 Dec 2016. Most significant in the elevation of CYBERCOM into a unified combatant command is a number of new authorities granted that are similar to those exercised by Special Operations Command including an acquisition arm. In effect many of the functions now exercised by the Services will pass to CYBERCOM. Although the ending of the dual-hatted command relationship of NSA and CYBERCOM is still a point of contention in Congress, I do not see how that could continue. 

Congress also empowered the Principal Cyber Advisor (PCA) to the SecDef “with the authority, direction and control over most of Cyber Command’s new activities.” This is a major enhancement of the PCA which was established in 2014, but filled on an ad hoc basis. The new PCA will be in a position similar to the Assistant Secretary for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict.

One thing that is not clear to me, and I gather is not clear to CYBERCOM or the USG, is if this new organization and new authorities will bring a new mission emphasis to the command. From the earliest days of Joint Task Force - Computer Network Defense (JTF-CND), the mission was to defend the GIG, the global information grid or DOD information network. It was never to defend the country’s information network. That fell to the FBI, later the DHS and mostly to those in private industry who built, control and defend the infrastructure of our information network. CYBERCOM is tasked to work through the geographical combatant commands. That’s clear for the overseas geographical commands. But does CYBERCOM work with NORTHCOM “to conduct Homeland Defense” and “to defend, protect, and secure the United States and its interests” as specified in the NORTHCOM mission? I’m certain our DOD would “fight them on the beaches” and in the streets, the fields and the hills if we were physically invaded. Will CYBERCOM fight them in the data centers, fight them in the networks and fight them in the home-based routers to defend our country from a serious cyber attack? If CYBERCOM is called upon to defend the homeland in our data centers and our networks, under what conditions and at what point does that defense kick in? 

I’ve often railed against pervasive NSA and FBI electronic surveillance of US citizens. I still find this pervasive mass surveillance abhorrent and want to see it curtailed. I've provided links to a few of my pieces on this to show just how seriously I view the matter. In spite of this, I think CYBERCOM should be prepared to fight in the data centers and in the networks and not just against some once in a lifetime existential cyber attack. This will require clear policies and procedures to be enunciated at the NCA level and accepted by the American public. It will also require a new relationship, not only among CYBERCOM, FBI and DHS, but also with private industry. It’s a tall order.

TTG

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/11/nsa-director-mike-rogers-could-be-removed-in-restructuring-ttg.html

https://www.apnews.com/08ddd54284554c4c8b4d5dc7a498c5bf

https://www.lawfareblog.com/decoding-2017-ndaas-provisions-dod-cyber-operations

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/05/the-lives-of-others-revisited-ttg.html

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2013/07/collect-it-all-ttg.html

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2013/06/the-lives-of-others-ttg.html 

A Syrian Cordon Sanitaire: Is Israel huffing & puffing, or is it serious ? Alastair Crooke

   

Israel has backtracked on the Amman ‘ceasefire’ agreement negotiated by the US, Russia and Jordan. The latter established the outline for a de-escalation zone in south-west Syria. From the outset, this accord was all about Israel, and its Jordanian junior partner.  Initially, Israel said ‘yes’, (and participated in some of the discussions), but earlier this week the Israeli PM had a change of mind. Israel now says that the ceasefire (which has been holding up well) is a very bad deal for Israel – and that none of its security demands were met. Ben Caspit, a senior Israeli commentator, quotes a source familiar with the matter: “This is not just some disagreement. This is a real clash, pitting Israel against Russia and the United States. It reflects Israel's conspicuous disappointment with the way that the Americans let Putin outmaneuver them, leading to the sellout of Israeli interests in the Golan Heights and Lebanon versus the Shiite axis.”  

The reverse is true: in fact the Amman negotiators’ intent from the outset had been to halt the Syrian army and its partner forces – on a roll, taking back swathes of its sovereign territory, as insurgent forces melted away – from getting too close to the Golan armistice line.  American negotiators at the talks were plain enough: the US had only two objectives in the talks – to protect Israel, and to defeat ISIS.  And these aims were fully reflected in the provisional agreement that froze the conflict, and imposed a "no foreign fighters” cordon of 20 kms on the Syrian side of the Golan armistice line and the Syrian-Jordanian border (that would exclude Iranian, Lebanese and Iraqi militia) for a defined period of time. Furthermore, this entire zone would be monitored and enforced by Russian police forces. 

On the face of it, the US negotiators did the job that they had set out to do. So, why is Israel backtracking, and escalating – post hoc – its demands ?  It now says that it will not tolerate a permament Iranian or Hizbullah presence in Syria - at all. The former head of the Israeli NSC has said explicity that Israel may use military force to halt any bases being established.  

Plainly, Netanyahu is disappointed and angry. His hopes for a Saudi-led, “Sunni" coalition that would confront, contain and roll-back Iranian influence - have imploded with the mess that constitutes the present intra-GCC fratricide. Equally, his hopes for a logistics corridor and buffer - running along the north of the Syrian-Iraqi border and extending to the Euphrates river - collapsed when the Iraqi government, angered by President Trump’s launch of an explicit anti-Shi’a alliance in Riyadh (when he bundled PMU militia and Hizbullah as principal actors in the terrorist problem), tipped the balance.  The Iraqi government gave the PMU the green light to open the Iraqi-Syrian border from both sides. 

I would guess that Netanyahu scents that Israel’s part in the Syrian conflict is inching towards an endgame – and that the future no longer portends a weak Syria, riven with Israeli-friendly jihadi forces, balkanising the territory, as expected. But rather, a Syria fully connected with Hizballah, Iran, and now, with an increasingly pro-active, if inchoate, Iraqi PMU constellation. 

Is Israel, in its frustration, then thinking to impose its own buffer zone, as it did in southern Lebanon?  At a guess, probably ‘no’. The lesson of southern Lebanon is still too raw to contemplate a ‘physical’ buffer zone. An Israeli troop presence in southern Syria would be an open invitation to guerrilla action, in order to repulse the invaders.  The threats from the Israeli PM, more likely, are an attempt to change the Syria ‘rules of the game’ – to broaden Israel’s military license to act unilaterally and without accountability, in the SW zone of Syria in support of their Israel-friendly jihadis around Quneitra. In practice, this has already begun – albeit under the pretext of Israel responding to cross-border ‘stray fire’. 

Possibly, Israel now presumes that the US Administration has lost patience with the regime-change agenda for Damascus (given the collapse of the Saudi-led GCC front).  Washington prefers a quick public victory over ISIS in Raqa’a – and then largely to wash its hands of Syria. US eyes are moving-on -- Trump has just decided to scrap the ‘covert’ CIA to arm “moderate” Syrian “rebels”. 

So PM Netanyahu probably is trying to salvage what he can of his anti-Iran campaign. On Tuesday, the White House issued a statement pushing Congress to authorise new ‘temporary' intermediate staging facilities in Iraq and Syria ‘as a part of the US-led campaign against the Islamic State’ (details on existing US bases have just been released by Turkey). But, as Corri Zoli, director of research at Syracuse University’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism told Al-Monitor.

Did Trump Get it Right by Accident? by Publius Tacitus

Following up on Colonel Lang's post regarding the Saudi Arabian/Egyptian debacle in trying to bully Qatar (please see Little Qatar has bested the GCC and Egypt. Mufaja'a!), there are two other major developments. First, Donald Trump reportedly has ordered the CIA to pull the plug on arming and training Islamic radicals bent on overthrowing Bashar Al Assad:

The program was a central plank of a policy begun by the Obama administration in 2013 to put pressure on Assad to step aside, but even its backers have questioned its efficacy once Russia deployed forces in Syria two years later. Preceding the CIA program was a Pentagon-led effort which was criticized by Foreign Policy for costing $500 million without yielding tangible results.

Officials said the phasing out of the secret program reflects Trump’s interest in finding ways to work with Russia after Trump's July 7 meeting with Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. It may also signal a lack of capability as well as desire in Washington to take steps to remove Assad from power in Syria. Officials told the Washington Post that Trump made the decision to scrap the CIA program nearly a month ago, after an Oval Office meeting with CIA Director Mike Pompeo and national security adviser H.R. McMaster.

After the Trump-Putin meeting, the United States and Russia announced an agreement to back a new cease-fire in southwest Syria, along the Jordanian border and adjoining the Israeli occupied Syrian Golan Heights, where many of the CIA-backed rebels have long operated. Trump described the limited cease-fire deal as one of the benefits of a constructive working relationship with Moscow. The ending of the CIA program was not a condition of the cease-fire negotiations according to officials.

Second, our "ally" Turkey has ratted out the location of US secret military bases in Syria and Iraq:

"What I know about the USS Liberty" re-published from October, 2007

 

Jim Ennes, who was a watch standing officer on the USS Liberty asked me for a statement as to what I knew of the transcripts of Israeil conversations and the ship.  This is what I sent him.  I was quoted about this in the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun on Monday.  pl 

(Wednesday, 19 July 2017)  I have re-published this because people have written to me saying that the transcripts were not prublished before the recent Haaretz article.  pl

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

"Dear Jim

I was a student in the Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course at Ft. Holabird, Maryland (Baltimore) in 1967-1968.  The course lasted about ten months.  We students were required to take several electives from a group offered and I took a course in Cryptology.  This was taught by people from the NSA School at nearby Ft. Meade.    This course was taught in the winter or early spring of 1967-1968.  There were several sub-courses, one of which had to do with voice intercepts.  In the course of this, the instructor introduced a booklet produced at Ft. Meade as material for the course.  It contained various course materials.  Among them were transcripts of the translated intercepts of radio conversations between the Israeli strike commander and his base before and during the attacks on USS Liberty.  The instructor, a retired cryptologic warrant officer or NCO identified the transcript as being of the Liberty incident.  It was also so marked in the booklet.

In the transcript, the flight leader spoke to his base to report that he had the ship in view, that it was the same ship that he had been briefed on and that it was clearly marked with the US flag.  I think he said that the ship was displaying the US flag on an upper deck, but my memory of that might be inexact.  He asked for confirmation of his orders to attack the ship and seemed reluctant (understandably) to attack the ship.  He asked more than once and was told to carry out his orders and attack the ship.

There was some further discussion of damage to the ship.

That is all I remember.

Regards

W. Patrick Lang
Colonel (Ret.)  US Army"

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/tuesday/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,1050179.story

 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2007/10/what-i-know-abo.html   

 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/httpwwwhaaretzcomus-news1800584.html                  

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

"Dear Jim

I was a student in the Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course at Ft. Holabird, Maryland (Baltimore) in 1967-1968.  The course lasted about ten months.  We students were required to take several electives from a group offered and I took a course in Cryptology.  This was taught by people from the NSA School at nearby Ft. Meade.    This course was taught in the winter or early spring of 1967-1968.  There were several sub-courses, one of which had to do with voice intercepts.  In the course of this, the instructor introduced a booklet produced at Ft. Meade as material for the course.  It contained various course materials.  Among them were transcripts of the translated intercepts of radio conversations between the Israeli strike commander and his base before and during the attacks on USS Liberty.  The instructor, a retired cryptologic warrant officer or NCO identified the transcript as being of the Liberty incident.  It was also so marked in the booklet.

In the transcript, the flight leader spoke to his base to report that he had the ship in view, that it was the same ship that he had been briefed on and that it was clearly marked with the US flag.  I think he said that the ship was displaying the US flag on an upper deck, but my memory of that might be inexact.  He asked for confirmation of his orders to attack the ship and seemed reluctant (understandably) to attack the ship.  He asked more than once and was told to carry out his orders and attack the ship.

There was some further discussion of damage to the ship.

That is all I remember.

Regards

W. Patrick Lang
Colonel (Ret.)  US Army"

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/tuesday/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,1050179.story

 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2007/10/what-i-know-abo.html   

 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/httpwwwhaaretzcomus-news1800584.html                  

Little Qatar has bested the GCC and Egypt. Mufaja'a!

 

"On Wednesday, the Saudi-led bloc dropped its list of 13 demands to Qatar after Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their allies had failed to push the tiny gulf state to accept the demands via diplomatic and economic measures and didn’t find the political will to intervene the country despite the agressive rhetorics that followed the whole diplomatic crisis.

The list of 13 demands was introduced to Qatar in June. It included shutting down the Al Jazeera news network, closing a Turkish military base, cutting ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and droppign cooperation with Iran. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain broke diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposed an economic blockade on the country. However, Doha, supported by Turkey and Iran, refused to follow the demands of the Saudi-led bloc.

So now, Saudi Arabia and its counterparts seek to push Doha to accept some ‘six broad principles’. This is a big PR victory for Qatar. However, the diplomatic crisis is still far from its end."  southfront

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

Nah, this is it.  The Saudis and mukhtar Trump tried snarling at Qatar, were ignored and now have lost.  The Saudi FM  (Adil Jubair - aka the Chihuahua) may be fired as cover for the idiot princelings who walked into this one thinking that the mukhtar's word would be treated as law by the al-thani.   Wrong!

As I observed in the earlier piece linked below the Saudis are even larger sponsors of jihadism than Qatar.  This whole squabble was a product of the new Saudi crown prince's fantasy life.  The same fantasy life that has led to the disastrous Saudi incited war in the Yemen.

mukhtar Trump, Kushner and the boys in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem must be puzzled by this development.  It all looked so easy unless you actually understood how the Great Arabian Dream Machine functions.  pl  

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/httpssouthfrontorgisraeli-intelligence-calls-saudi-king-invite-netanyahu-riyadh.html

https://southfront.org/saudi-led-bloc-drops-list-13-demands-qatar-introduces-demand-accept-six-broad-principles/

Woof! Woof! (What? Mice don't woof?)

 "“We will not let the Iranians and Hezbollah be the forces that will win the very brutal war in Syria” and then move their focus onto Israel, he said. Up until now Israel has been very careful to say out of the war in Syria, saying it will only intervene – and indeed only has intervened – to protect the red lines Netanyahu established: that game-changing weaponry is not transferred to Hezbollah via Syria, that Hezbollah and Iranian troops are not on the border with Israel, and that the Iranians do not establish permanent bases in Syria.

Amidror said that the cease fire plan was made without taking into sufficient consideration Israel’s need to defend itself.

“At the end of the day it is our responsibility, not the responsibility of the Americans, or the Russians, to guarantee ourselves, and we will take all the measures that are needed for that,” he said.

Explaining how the Americans and Russians -- with which Israel has good ties and a dialogue -- agreed to a deal that could allow for a permanent Iranian presence in Syria, Amidror said that the Russian strategic goal in the cease-fire was to ensure that Assad's regime remains, and the the American strategic goal was to destroy Islamic State.

Israel, he said, needs to “take care of its strategic goal,” which he defined as “keeping Iran and Syria from building launching pads in Syria.”

Amidror said that that while Israel obviously wants to see the killing in Syria end, “the price can't be having Iran and Hezbollah on our borders.”

He said that Israel has both diplomatic and military options to keep this from happening, and said “both options should be used.”"  Amidror in Jpost

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

Yesterday Natanyahu told some people in Paris that Israel does not approve of the ceasefire arranged by the US, Jordan and Russia in SW Syria.  Today this fellow (whoever he is) states baldly that "Izghayel"  (have to get the guttural R right) has a strategic goal of excluding Hizbullah and Iran from any role in Syria.  Is this supposed to have been a big secret?  To that end Israel was one of the major players in inciting American neocons and R2Pers to push for rebellion in Syria.  To that end Israel has provided direct military support to jihadis located just east of the Israeli occupied Syrian Golan Heights.  Israel continues to do that in the evident hope of creating a jihadi buffer zone in Quneitra Province.  The Izzies tried this thing once before in southeast Lebanon which they managed to effectively detach from Lebanese government control for some years until the whole scheme fell on its ass when the Israelis withdrew from SE Lebanon and the various kinds of Lebanese managed to talk to each other.

This kind of thing is a perpetual problem in dealing with the phenomenon of Israel as a factor in the ME.  They continuously try to punch so far above their weight that the effect would be comic if it were not so murderously dangerous.

Amidror needs to go talk to IDF General Staff intelligence.  They could tell him, (if they dared) that a program of air attacks on Hizbullah and Iran in Syria would very likely result in a barrage of 20,000 or so Hizbullah missiles and artillery rockets falling in the northern half of Israel.  These would not be the pathetic flying pipe bombs that the Gazans occasionally shoot out of their ghettoized city.  No, these would be the real thing and the IDF has no idea how they would deal with that.  

What's next, a threat to launch drone attacks in DC if the US does not behave?  pl 

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Israel-may-need-to-take-out-Iranian-bases-in-Syria-499937

On the Primacy of Combined Arms Maneuver Warfare - TTG

Last week, Colonel Lang referred to an article by David Ignatius “in which he [Ignatius] made reference to a RAND study in which the author tries to make the case that SOF forces (Green Berets, Rangers, Delta, SEALS, and other cats and dogs) are the key to success in warfare in the future.” I just want to elaborate on the colonel’s comments. The RAND study is written by Linda Robinson, a senior international policy analyst at RAND who, in addition to numerous articles, has written a couple of books about Special Forces and our special operations forces: “Masters of Chaos” in 2005 and “One Hundred Victories:  Special Ops and the Future of ” in 2013. I have not read either book and probably won’t. I did read her latest article which Ignatius referred to. Her article, “SOF’s Evolving Role: Warfare “By, With and Through” Local Forces”  does contribute to a misguided idea that SOF, rather than conventional forces, is the answer to future wars. I say “contributes to” because I think Robinson’s understanding of the problem and proposed solution is more nuanced than that, but she still doesn’t seem to accept the centrality of combined arms forces in future wars. This view is apparently shared by Ignatius and even General Votel at CENTCOM.

In the crudest sense, this view stems from the overblown publicity that has surrounded years of night raids by the door kickers of Delta, the SEALs and Rangers. Not only do these high speed, low drag operations sell books, but they have influenced a generation of commanders, think tankers and Pentagon bureaucrats to put their faith in SOF.

Not all is lost, however. As our heaviest engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq wound down, the Army took a close look at what they were doing and what they were doing to the Army itself. Armor and artillery units were employed as COIN area commands. Combined arms combat against combined arms foes was becoming a lost art. Conventional Army units were given the mission to organize and train Afghan and Iraqi forces on an ad hoc basis with predictable results. The Iraqi army  trained by the US in this fashion disintegrated in front of IS advances in 2014. The Afghan army is unsuitable and unsustainable without continued US presence and logistical support.

The first thing the Army to remedy the situation did was refocus on organizing and training for combined arms maneuver warfare against a near peer foe. The forward to the Nov 2016 publication of Army Doctrine Publication No. 3-0 (ADP 3-0) begins, “In 2011 the Army updated its warfighting doctrine to conduct unified land operations through decisive action and guided by mission command.” These may be new words, but they should be familiar to the oldest soldiers out there. The change, very slight in my opinion, can be seen in the definition of unified land operations.

“Simultaneous offensive, defensive and stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative and consolidate gains to prevent conflict, shape the operational environment, and win our nation’s wars as part of unified action.” 

I can’t argue with that. I do believe the Army is serious about getting their combined arms maneuver warfighting mojo back, but they’re not going to forget the experiences of the last fifteen years either. They will continue to organize, train and equip combined arms maneuver brigades with various mixes of infantry, armor, artillery and support units. There will also be lighter, more deployable forces built around Stryker, airborne and light infantry units. And, of course, there are the Special Forces groups and much ballyhooed commandos of JSOC. There is also a new kind of unit that was announced in March of this year. The Army intends to create six security force assistance brigades (SFAB).

These SFAB are to consist of roughly 500 officers, captain and above, and senior NCOs, staff sergeant and above. They will be organized along the lines of combined arms maneuver brigades, essentially taking a maneuver brigade and stripping away the junior officers and enlisted soldiers. All members with receive six weeks of training at a newly established Military Advisor Training Academy at Fort Benning. They will also receive training in foreign weapons at Fort Bragg from SF instructors from the JFK Special Warfare Center. There will also be SF among the approximately 70 instructors at the Military Advisor Training Academy. The SFAB will be regionally oriented and will receive language training after completing their training at Fort Benning. The first SFAB unit will be permanently stationed at Fort Benning. The second one, which is planned to stand up in the fall of 2018, will be a National Guard brigade. 

The rationale for these brigades stems from our experiences, both failures and successes, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Robinson, Ignatius and others claim OUR successes stem from our training and advising of local forces, the “by, through and with” of Robinson’s article. Many now see the creation, training and advising of foreign militaries and indigenous forces as the future of warfare. These people are wrong. 

I think this reading of the lessons of the last fifteen years is badly skewed. Firstly, any successes in these wars are not OUR successes. They belong to regional indigenous forces conducting as close to combined arms maneuver warfare as their resources allow. Whether it be IS technicals supported by a few T-72s and a barrage of VBIEDs, a similarly light YPG ground force employing the principles of surprise and maneuver to the hilt and supported by Coalition air support, or a Tiger Force column of Stora protected T-90s, BMPs, and technicals well supported by mortars, artillery and air support from Russian and Syrian Air Forces; it is these forces that bear the brunt of battle and determine success or defeat. The trainers and advisors, though important, are secondary to these combined arms maneuver forces.

Secondly, we only have to look at some of the regional failures to see that trainers and advisors are not a magical solution. In Afghanistan we have equipped, trained and advised our way to create a nationally unsustainable force of dubious utility to the government in Kabul. Our years of training and advising the Iraqi Army led to collapse and defeat in the face of the IS onslaught in 2014. And our arming, training and advising of the unicorn army of Syrian rebels is a national disgrace and embarrassment. If the stuff of a competent and capable army is not there to begin with, our equipping, training and advising will lead to nothing.  

Having said that, security force assistance (SFA) will remain a significant governmental and defense function for the United States. SFA encompasses foreign internal defense (FID), counterterrorism ((CT), counterinsurgency (COIN) and stability operations. These functions should not be ignored by the Army, but they should never be considered more important or as important as combined arms maneuver warfare.  

Now back to the SFAB. Many in SF see the creation of these brigades as another attempt to marginalize the SF. Some of that’s our own fault. In the years since 9/11 and even before that, many in SF listened to the siren call of direct action missions to the detriment of our skills in training, advising and conducting unconventional warfare. Even when we trained and advised conventional forces, we gave the impression that we only train and advise other SOF. Big Army and DOD encouraged this. They were also under the spell of the door kickers.

This was not always so. The 10th Special Forces Group was an important part of the USG effort to help Lebanon rebuild her armed forces beginning in late 1982. Working closely with the Office of Military Cooperation (OMC) in the American Embassy in Beirut, military training teams (MTT) from 10th Group set out to organize, train and advise a modernized and unified Lebanese Army within a factionally fractured and militia ridden country partially occupied by Israel and Syria. We set out to create nine combined arms brigades with a mixture of US and French tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery and mortars. This rebuilding was underway less than a year before all hell broke loose in late 1983. The newly formed 8th Infantry Brigade under General Aoun was rushed to the Suk al Gharb ridge to protect the Maronite Christian communities in the hills and Beirut itself from Walid Jumblatt’s advancing PSP Druze militia and the Syrian Army. While several of the newly formed brigades disintegrated and their soldiers sided with the various sectarian militias, the 8th held its ground.  It is my strongly held personal belief that the Lebanese Army and Lebanon herself were saved on that ridge. In the ensuing months and years of strife, the 8th Brigade, a true combined arms maneuver force, continued to distinguish itself.

There is no reason that Special Forces cannot continue in this tradition. We should not limit ourselves to conducting UW with resistance forces or training and advising foreign commando forces. It is obvious that the relationship between Special Forces and the SFABs will be close. Army has already said that command positions within the SFABs will be open to SF officers and SGMs. I don’t see the SFABs replacing the SF Groups. I also don’t see the Army capable of fielding six SFABs. They are already having trouble manning the first one and are offering a $5,000 bonus for a one year commitment. Six fully manned SFABs will be a drain on the Army. They will remove the leadership from six combined arms maneuver brigades. That would be a terrible trade off. I’d be surprised if we get past two full SFABs and that would be fine with me. The emphasis must remain on organizing, equipping, manning and training an Army fully capable of conducting combined arms maneuver warfare against peer and near peer foes over extended periods of time. All else will follow from that.

TTG

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/america-can-succeed-militarily-in-the-mideast-isiss-defeat-in-mosul-tells-us-how/2017/07/11/

https://www.rand.org/blog/2017/05/sofs-evolving-role-warfare-by-with-and-through-local.html

https://www.otc.army.mil/ADP3-0.pdf

 

Open Thread - 16 July 2017

pl

Syria military notes - 15 July 2017

1.  The Desert Hawks Brigade has been withdrawn to its base area in Lattakia Province.  IMO this is for R&R, re-fit with new Russian equipment and to receive replacements who have been in training under Russian supervision.  Their future commitments are unknown as yet.

2.  SAA 4th Division has been withdrawn to its base in the Damascus area.  IMO this is for the same set of reasons as in the case of the Desert Hawks.  If memory serves this division was original made up of units from  the "Defense Companies" (saraya difaa')  They are almost all Alawis and well trained.  They are reported to be going to the SW after re-fit, but we will see.

3.  The armor heavy mobile force spearheaded by the Tiger Forces are on the way SE from the Rasafa area (map).  If I were Suheil Basha (humorous historical reference) I would take the line of advance:  al qawm oasis - al tayyibiya - al-khawalliya to emerge onto the M 20 Highway well east of al sukhna.  This would IMO collapse the IS front at Sukhna as the rats try to escape to the east.  pl

Feedjit live traffic feed

I can't get this widget to load live traffic feed anymore as it did once.  I have both Firefox and IE available.  Any thoughts?  pl

Rules and policies for SST - 15 July 2017

 

1- This is in essence a salon.  I may or may not look like Madame de Stael but I will try to run the place as though she were an adviser.

2- The archive will remain active and will be available to all.

3- The essential conversation on SST will be among; the host of the salon, guest authors and junior authors appointed by the host.

4- Each guest author or junior author will have the authority to close or open comments for his or her own individual posts (articles).

5- Authors are encouraged to close comments if they believe that comments for that article will be disruptive or not contributory to the educational aim of SST.  They may do this when the piece is published or at any point in time.

6- Authors are also encouraged to recommend to the host the banning of commenters whose remarks are generally obscene or personal attacks on others.

7- The host reserves the right to delete any comments found offensive and to ban commenters who are disruptive or who display a lack of civility.

8- This is not a commercial enterprise.  It is my hobby in retirement.  From time to time I will solicit donations.  I don't need the money but I think you all should be given the chance to show that you value what we do here.  I will donate the money so gained to some charitable cause.

9- Comments that are clearly intended solely to wound and that are not contributory to the conversation will not be posted.

10- All comments will be moderated either by me or the guest author. 

These policies will be revised from time to time.  pl

A reminder

SST is my hobby.  If you don't like the way I run it, go elsewhere.  pl

Must See NeoCon TV by Publius Tacitus

Tucker Carlson is on fire. Gob bless him. He is taking on two of the more vocal, visible policy nerds eager to cheerlead the United States into a conflict with Russia and Iran. If you have not seen these verbal sparring events then you should carve out 20 minutes and enjoy.

The first is Tucker's interview with Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters. Important to note that Ralph Peters never made it to full bird Colonel. While treated by some media types as a 21st Century version of Clausewitz, I think that Peters is captive to a world view that will imperil America if implemented. Here is his interview with Tucker:

Next up, Max Boot. Boot is even crazier and more strident than Peters.

 

Tucker's position is very simple and wise--our support for certain countries and policies should hinge on whether or not a policy or relationship serves the interests of the American people. One of the lies that Max Boot pushes in his feckless attempt to best Tucker is the false assertion that Iran killed "hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq." Iran did no such thing. Of the total U.S. fatalities in Iraq during our ill-fated time there, about 10% of the casualties were attributable to groups with ties to Iran. One of these Iraq Shia groups was led by Moqtada al Sadr aka MOOKIE. Those familiar with MOOKIE and his moods understand that he is anything but an Iranian puppet. He marches to his own drum beat and does not readily nor easily take instructions from Iran. Those familiar with the intel during this period know that Iran was discouraging attacks on Americans. Why? Because we were doing their dirty work for them. We were helping destroy the Sunni leadership and infrastructure. Everything we did in that regard furthered the interests of Iran.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 20170713

WHICH G2? Another G20. People met inside, ate, said things and outside Sorosian rioters rioted – watch the video! – (but not spun as a Maidan-like celebration of Europeanness, just car burnings). But the important part was the G2 when Trump and Putin finally met. As everyone knows, the meeting seems to have gone well and went well over time. Some level of agreement on Syria, Ukraine and cyberstuff. But we'll see whether Washington keeps the agreement: with its inconsistent messaging and Deep State sabotage against Trump (did Comey cook the latest nothingburger?), it is unclear whether Trump can deliver. Or maybe the really important meeting was the other G2 with Putin and Xi in Moscow. Both of them can deliver on their promises. The "Chinese-Russian comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation" grows deeper and stronger. Europe sings "Freude, schöner Götterfunken" to the thump of Molotov cocktails and the pop of car windows blowing out. The world is changing.

CORRUPTION. Putin has signed a law creating an online register of former officials dismissed because of corruption. From which I deduce that there are a lot of them. By the way there is a Presidential Council for Countering Corruption which meets periodically.

WHERE IS PUTIN? It's time for another where is Putin panic. He just visited the monastery at Valaam where he often goes on retreat.

RUSSIA INC. "The Russian economy is increasingly becoming self-sufficient and less oil-price dependent." Sanctions do work! (Not necessarily as intended, however.)

FREE LAND. The program of free land in the Far East is about a year old and has been reasonably successful. A problem is that a hectare is either too big or too small. At any event, about 20,000 plots have been registered and nearly 100,000 people have applied.

AMERICA-HYSTERICA. More blows. Craig Murray, who claims inside knowledge, reminds us of Seth Rich's murder. Another lawsuit simmers away. An analysis shows the Guccifer 2.0 data had to be a local leak. The latest NYT nonsense is collapsing fast (and may boomerang). Carr remains unconvinced: "The public evidence isn’t enough to identify Russian government involvement, or even identify the nationality of the hackers involved." Oh, and "The FBI requested direct access to the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) hacked computer servers but was denied", "it was CrowdStrike that told the FBI that it was the Russians." A reminder on how unreliable Crowdstrike is. And how selective the "analysis" was; violating all of the post-Iraq-fiasco procedures, in fact. And, finally, the NYT admits not "all 17" (just a few "hand-picked" analysts, but that's next month's correction). The question remains: what are the Russians supposed to have done?

NONSENSE. Even Newsweek gets it: the US State Department, in its latest Russia-is-the-worst-place-in-the-world report, refers to a lonely bright spot – the city of Kitezh. Which is a mythical Russian city saved from the Mongols by miraculously sinking into a lake.

SYRIA. The ceasefire agreed to by Trump and Putin started on Sunday. Will it last? One must remember that the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire collapsed when the US attacked Syrian soldiers and, ominously, the US military claims ignorance. This one will be monitored by Russians; Chechen MPs actually. Who would dare meddle with Chechens? And, just out, Macron calls for a "new approach".

WHO YA GONNA BELIEVE? "[T]he Russians are there, they say to fight ISIS. They haven’t fought them much and mostly they just support Assad" says Secdef Mattis. Russians just killed our leader says Daesh. (By the way, you should read the interview – "Iran is certainly the most destabilizing influence in the Middle East". Really!!!! isn't he supposed to be such a student of history? And I guess his reputedly huge library doesn't include Mahan: "We fought on this planet mostly with ground armies until navies became something one hundred years ago." Sheesh!)

THE BUBBLE. Robinson reveals the "Overton Bubble" (read it) that our masters live in. The same people are asked to repeat the same things that they said before; nothing else is acceptable or imaginable.

UKRAINE. A recent Ukrainian poll shows positive views of Russia (44%) outweigh negative (37%) and the regional divide remains. If we add in Donbass, Crimea and the refugees in Russia, it's probably a positive majority. All that suffering, poverty and destruction and nothing's changed. How much longer until Rump Ukraine breaks into its immiscible parts?

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

'But Sir, It’s an American Ship.' - Haaretz

 

"Israeli pilot to IDF war room: This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?

IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Yes, follow orders.

Israeli pilot to IDF war room: But sir, it’s an American ship - I can see the flag!

IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Never mind; hit it.

Both the CIA document and the quote have already been published in the past. The book revives them as part of its attempt to prove its thesis."  Haaretz

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

This conversation was intercepted by NSA assets with the 6th Fleet during the event.  USS Liberty was a SIGINT collector engaged in monitoring Egyptian communications during the 6 day War.  She was off the Egyptian coast when attacked repeatedly by Israeli aircraft and patrol boats.  She was a converted freighter and virtually defenseless.  The USS America aircraft carrier battle group was in the general area and launched a strike against the Israelis but on the order of the WH the aircraft were recalled.  That is a puzzling thing.  LBJ quickly had the matter buried under the snowdrift of a suppressed naval investigation. 

In the course of my duties at the time I read the NSA transcripts quoted above.

Six months after the attack I was a student as a captain in the Military Intelligence Advanced Couse at Ft. Holabird, Maryland. This was a year long course for mid-career intelligence officers. We had a separate building for a classroom. The whole building was a SCIF. An MP checked you in and out of the building. All the students and instructors had TS/SCI clearances at the COMINT category III level. During the course I was required to take several electives off a menu, like a Chinese restaurant. One that I took was a survey course for senior officers in cryptology. This course was normally taught to colonels and generals at the NSA school at nearby Ft. Meade. There were several sub-courses; cryptanalysis, traffic analysis, direction finding and voice intercept operations. In the last of these, the instructor was a retired army cryptologic warrant officer. He brought his teaching materials from FT. Meade. Among them was a booklet illustrating voice intercept operations. Among the examples contained therein was the English translation transcript of the chatter between the Israeli air strike crews and their higher command. The quotation from this transcript as quoted in the Haaretz story is correct. New subject: to what extant was LBJ guilty in any way in the matter of these sailors deaths and wounding? pl

http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.800584

 

Colluding with Foreign Spies--It Apparently Ain't the Trumps by Publius Tacitus

When it comes to meeting with foreign spies to dish dirt on a Presidential candidate (or a President elect), John McCain is more at fault than anyone connected to Donald Trump. McCain was directly involved in spreading unverified slanderous material regarding President-elect Donald Trump as he consorted with operatives linked to a foreign government--in this case, the United Kingdom.

This should give Lindsay Graham pause after watching his his exchange with FBI nominee Christopher Wray at Wednesday's Senate Judiciary hearing. Graham, who rhetorically fell on a fainting couch overwhelmed by outrage from the news that an obscure Russian lawyer had sought a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. in order to dish dirt on Hillary Clinton, admonished the FBI nominee to deal harshly with his colleagues on the following:

“… So here’s what I want you to tell every politician: If you get a call from somebody suggesting that a foreign government  wants to help you by disparaging your opponent, tell us all to call the FBI.”  https://youtu.be/VzawbjQc4iM?t=1m34s

But Donald Trump Jr. is not guilty of doing this. Instead, it is Senator John McCain. He is the one who was fooling around with a foreign intelligence organization. 

What did McCain do? He twice received material generated by a foreign intelligence operative and passed this along as if it was valuable, verified intelligence. Here is the proof, thanks to Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times.

Aleksej Gubarev, a Cypriot based chief executive of the network solutions firm XBT Holdings, filed suit against Christopher Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, for defamation over their role in the publication of an unproven dossier (which appeared in Buzzfeed) on President Donald Trump’s purported activities involving Russia and allegations of Russian interference during last year’s U.S. election.

The businessman, Aleksej Gubarev, claims he and his companies were falsely linked in the dossier to the Russia-backed computer hacking of Democratic Party figures. Gubarev, 36, also is seeking unspecified damages from Buzzfeed and its top editor, Ben Smith, in a parallel lawsuit filed in Miami. 

 

Lawyers for Christopher Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence in the United Kingdom filed a response with the British court. Rowan Scarborough obtained a copy of the document and posted it on-line in April. The defense document is both illuminating and damning (I don't know how I missed this when it came out in April). This is like a statement under oath and it presents the following facts:

 

1. Orbis Business Intelligence was engaged by Fusion GPS sometime in early June 2016 to prepare a series of confidential memorandum based on intelligence concerning Russian efforts to influence the U.S. Presidential election process and links between Russia and Donald Trump (the first memo was dated 20 June 2016).

 

2. Fusion GPS is run by three former Wall Street Journal reporters: Glenn Simpson; Tom Catan; and Peter Fritsch. (According to the New York Times, Fusion GPS was originally hired by a Republican donor – who has not been publicly identified – to dig up dirt on Trump in 2015. After Trump won the nomination, the firm began working with Democrats and honed in on Trump's links to Russia.)

 

3. Senator John McCain, accompanied by David Kramer (a Senior Director at Senator McCain's Institute for International Leadership), met in London with an Associate of Orbis, former British Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, to arrange a subsequent meeting with Christopher Steele in order to read the now infamous Steele Dossier. 

 

4. David Kramer and Christopher Steele met in Surrey on 28 November 2016, where Kramer was briefed on the contents of the memos.

 

5. Once Senator McCain and David Kramer returned to the United States, arrangements were made for Fusion GPS to provide Senator McCain hard copies of the memoranda.

 

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

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

[Note--Michael Cohen denies he was ever in Prague.]

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

Sometime between December 14, 2016 and December 31, 2016, Senator McCain passed this salacious material to FBI director,  James Comey. 

As I pointed out in my previous piece (Trump Jr. Emails Prove No Collusion . . .), the Steele Dossier now stands completely discredited because the Trump Jr. emails provide prima facie evidence that there was no regular, sustained contact with Kremlin operatives. If there had been then there was no need to meet with an unknown lawyer peddling anti-Hillary material that, per the Steele Dossier, already had been delivered to the Trump team.

The role of Fusion GPS in this whole sordid affair needs to be thoroughly investigated. Circumstantial evidence opens them to charges of facilitating and enabling sedition. What they did appears to go beyond conventional opposition research and dirty tricks. Spreading a lie that Donald Trump and his team are Russian operatives crosses a line and, as we have witnessed over the last six months, roiled and disrupted the American political system.

McCain is not the only one guilty here. The work of Fusion GPS was paid for by unnamed Democrats (and one unnamed Republican). And this is not the only instance of collusion with a foreign intelligence organization. Hillary Clinton and her campaign reportedly consorted with Ukrainian operatives:

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

You can read the full story here. The hysteria on the part of Democrats over alleged Russian meddling and collusion with the Trumps shows a growing potential for blowback. As more actual evidence emerges of anti-trumpets receiving intelligence and sharing that intelligence in underhanded back channels, the greater the risk that public attention will hone in on the real actions as opposed to unsubstantiated allegations. Such a development would leave the Democrats very vulnerable and very exposed.

Ritter on the magic 17

 I have not had a high opinion of Scott Ritter in the past but this looks like a thorough piece of work.  I have thought him someone whose experience as a UN inspector in Iraq was exaggerated into something grander.  Perhaps I was wrong.  pl

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

 "According to reporting from the Washington Post, sometime during this period, CIA Director John Brennan gained access to a sensitive intelligence report from a foreign intelligence service. This service claimed to have technically penetrated the inner circle of Russian leadership to the extent that it could give voice to the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin as he articulated Russia’s objectives regarding the 2016 U.S. Presidential election—to defeat Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Trump, her Republican opponent. This intelligence was briefed to President Barack Obama and a handful of his closest advisors in early August, with strict instructions that it not be further disseminated.

The explosive nature of this intelligence report, both in terms of its sourcing and content, served to drive the investigation of Russian meddling in the American electoral process by the U.S. intelligence community. The problem, however, was that it wasn’t the U.S. intelligence community, per se, undertaking this investigation, but rather (according to the Washington Post) a task force composed of “several dozen analysts from the CIA, NSA and FBI,” hand-picked by the CIA director and set up at the CIA Headquarters who “functioned as a sealed compartment, its work hidden from the rest of the intelligence community.”

The result was a closed-circle of analysts who operated in complete isolation from the rest of the U.S. intelligence community. The premise of their work—that Vladimir Putin personally directed Russian meddling in the U.S. Presidential election to tip the balance in favor of Donald Trump—was never questioned in any meaningful fashion, despite its sourcing to a single intelligence report from a foreign service. President Obama ordered the U.S. intelligence community to undertake a comprehensive review of Russian electoral meddling. As a result, intelligence analysts began to reexamine old intelligence reports based upon the premise of Putin’s direct involvement, allowing a deeply disturbing picture to be created of a comprehensive Russian campaign to undermine the American electoral process.

These new reports were briefed to select members of Congress (the so-called “Gang of Eight,” comprising the heads of the intelligence oversight committees and their respective party leadership) on a regular basis starting in September 2016.  Almost immediately thereafter, Democratic members began clamoring for the president to call out Putin and Russia publicly on the issue of election meddling. These demands intensified after the November 2016 election, which saw Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. Intelligence collected after the election, when viewed from the prism of the foregone conclusion that Putin and Russia had worked to get Trump elected, seemed to confirm the worst suspicions of the intelligence analysts and their Congressional customers (in particular, the Democrats). Calls to make public intelligence that showed Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election intensified until finally, on December 9, 2016, President Obama ordered the U.S. intelligence community to prepare a classified review of the matter."  Ritter 

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/did-17-intelligence-agencies-really-come-to-consensus-on-russia/

Middle East Summary - 12 July 2017

1.  Iraq 

Mosul has finally fallen after many months of intense combat.  Iraqi government forces suffered severe casualties in close combat against an enemy committed to self-immolation unless ordered to withdraw to fight again elsewhere.  Many of these IS creatures withdrew to the west and south to participate evidently in a final apocalyptic attempt to capture deir al zor in Syria in the hope of establishing another population center under IS control.  The Iraqi assault on Mosul was greatly assisted by US coalition air support, but unfortunately this air support killed and wounded many Iraqi civilians.  This was inevitable.  The withdrawal of IS forces to the south into Syria was harassed and attacked all the way by RuAF and Syrian AF aircraft causing them many more casualties.  This is in contradiction to the repeated claims by the US and NATO that R+6 does not fight IS. 

The US seems to be losing its grip on the Iraqi government.  Iraq and Russia have concluded a deal for the sale of around a hundred Russian built T-90 tanks.  These will undoubtedly be accompanied to Iraq by a group of maintenance and training people.  There will be ammunition and spare parts sales that accompany this deal for many years.

The Iraqi government has begun conducting air attacks against IS in Syrian territory east of the Euphrates River.  This  is n accord with an agreement with what the US calls the Syrian "regime."  I see no evidence that the US was consulted in reaching this agreement.

2.  Syria 

The US coalition assault on Raqqa continues successfully.  It is probably going to be a fight that will last nearly as long as the Mosul battle and with similar civilian casualties.

The R+6 offensive into the depths of eastern Syria has been in preparation for weeks.  These preparations are near completion and an advance into the east for the purpose of driving IS out of Syria and for the relief of the Syrian garrison at deir al zor  which has been besieged in heavy combat for a very long time.  One can only hope that there will be no more accidental bombings by US coalition aircraft of R+6 troops involved in effecting the liberation of eastern Syria.  The main attack in this campaign will IMO be an armor heavy mobile force advancing on desert roads and tracks to the southeast with the mission of reaching the sukhna- deir al zor for the purpose of turning the IS forces SW of the point at which the road is reached out of their position to create a rout in IS ranks.  Presumably the column that had come from the Ithriya-Rasafa road area would combine with the Desert Hawks brigade of the SAA in continuing on to deir al zor.

 In the last few days both the R+6 and the Israeli Air force have broken the ceasefire established by the US, Russia and Jordan in the three southwestern provinces of Syria.  In the Israeli case they have continued to make air attacks against SAA forces near the occupied Golan Heights.  Their excuse is that they have received fire in Israeli occupied Syrian territory from these forces, but in my opinion the real purpose is assistance to their jihadi allies who are engaged with SAA forces.  The Israelis are supporting both IS and AQ affiliated forces.  The SAA has at the same time conducted an sizable operation into eastern Suweida Province that has largely cleared the region of US supported anti-government forces who are reported to have fled to the east to the protection of US coalition centers around al-tanf .  

idlib Province remains in the hands of AQ connected terrorists who are presently engaged in eradicating their IS jihadi rivals as well as FSA semi-jihadis.  Good!  They should keep it up.  At some point the province will have to be returned to government control but that can await the completion of other government efforts.

The Turks remain on the scene in northern Aleppo Province and just across the Syria-Turkey border.  Turkey seems to harbor deeply felt irredentist dreams against both Iraq and Syria.  That problem is unlikely to disappear.

Finally,  David Ignatius has  an article in the WP (Bezo's blog) today in which he makes reference to a RAND study in which the author tries to make the case that SOF forces (Green Berets, Rangers, Delta, SEALS, and other cats and dogs) are the key to success in warfare in the future.  I am a retired Special Forces officer and am deeply and persistently devoted to my regiment, a devotion I share with TTG, John Minnerath, Degringolade and others here, but I must tell you that although Green Berets are very good at working with local fighters, the rest of the SOF "crew" are direct action fighters.  Their business is killing enemies with their own weapons in their small groups rather than training, urging and helping to lead the local folks.  Armies through the ages are made up of dismounted fighters who are called Infantry, mounted fighters who are now called Armor and missile throwers called Artillery.  IMO it will always be thus.  pl

Trump Jr. Emails Prove No Russian Collusion by Publius Tacitus

This is so simple and so obvious that I am surprised many folks are overlooking the evidence that is right in front of us. The emails provided by Donald Trump Jr. show conclusively that the so-called Steele Dossier (you know, the "Golden Shower Russian Hooker Show) is a total fraud. How so? 

According to the dossier, regular exchanges between Mr Trump surrogates and the Kremlin actually dates back five years:

Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively, the Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting U.S. Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump for at least five years. . . .

In terms of specifics, Source A confided that the Kremlin had been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, for several years (see more below). This was confirmed by Source D, a close associate of Trump who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow, and who reported, also in June 2016, that this Russian intelligence had been "very helpful".

If all this true then why does Donald Trump Jr. need to take a meeting, which is arranged by a tabloid journalist, with an unknown Russian lawyer who claims to have dirt on Hillary? If the dossier is true then the Trump folks/surrogates already had that info. Why take info from an unknown source when, per the Democrat narrative, the Trumps have a direct pipeline to Putin and have been colluding with him for years?

The Trump Jr. emails expose "junior", Kushner and Manafort as terribly naive and totally ignorant of the alleged massive Russian intelligence effort to meddle in the U.S. election and install Putin's puppet, Donald Trump Sr., as President. The emails prove conclusively that Trump Jr., Kushner and Manafort had no idea about the alleged five year relationship with the dastardly Russians, who were busy collecting and funneling dirt on Hillary to team Trump. The fact that the Democrats (and apparently the Trump team as well) have not grasped this simple fact exposes the lot as not thinking clearly about the matter. 

 

The three NY Times sources ...

" ... according to three people with knowledge of the email.

The email to the younger Mr. Trump was sent by Rob Goldstone, a publicist and former British tabloid reporter who helped broker the June 2016 meeting. In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he was interested in receiving damaging information about Mrs. Clinton, but gave no indication that he thought the lawyer might have been a Kremlin proxy.

Mr. Goldstone’s message, as described to The New York Times by the three people, indicates that the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information. It does not elaborate on the wider effort by Moscow to help the Trump campaign.

There is no evidence to suggest that the promised damaging information was related to Russian government computer hacking that led to the release of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails. The meeting took place less than a week before it was widely reported that Russian hackers had infiltrated the committee’s servers."  NY Times

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

 Goldstone was not one of the magic three.  If that is so, then the magic three are people who had access or have current access to this e-mail message as a result of their public employment.  Because this was an e-mail message between two US residents, it must IMO have been collected under a FISA court warrant.  What the given justification to the court would have been, I cannot imagine, but I feel certain that the real purpose of the intercept was to surveil the Trump camp for whatever might be useful.   

What might the identities be of the magic three?  IMO people whose initials are: SR, JB and JC should not be excluded from consideration.

This disclosure by the magic three is IMO a felony.  pl 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-russia-email-candidacy.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

The Saudi and UAE "crownies" are AQ supporters ...

"“A leaked document in Qatar’s embassy and a letter to Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on October 26, 2016, show Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed’s support for certain key al-Qaeda members in the Arabian Peninsula,” Arabic language al-Badil newspaper wrote.

Based on the documents, US Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said that the Saudi and Abu Dhabi crown princes have established continued contacts with two Yemeni nationals, namely Ali Abkar al-Hassan and Abdollah Faisal Ahdal, who are on the US blacklist of most wanted terrorists."  southfront quoting al-badil newspaper

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

This is fun.

This information was contained in documents that have been in Qatari governments hands and which have now magically been revealed to al badil, an Egyotian newspaper with Qatari connections.

Guess what?

The Qatari government has struck back against the Saudi and GCC power play against it.   Mukhtar Trump enthusiastically signed up to support Saudi Gulf hegemony in Riyadh.  In so doing, he backed the long standing Saudi desire to totally dominate the Gulf.  This is of a piece with several other Saudi "projects" (mashari') that have been underway for decades.  One of the most notable has been the Saudi wish to establish Wahhabi Sunni control of Lebanon and Syria.  Another is the downfall of Shia majority government in Iraq.

DJT's son in law and his Israeli "minders" persuaded the president to accept Saudi tutelage in the Gulf.  The power play against Qatar was a direct consequence of that pledge of allegiance.

The claim that Qatar is a bigger supporter of AQ connected jihadi movements across the world than the rest of the GCC is ludicrous.  pl 

https://southfront.org/egyptian-daily-releases-documents-saudi-crown-princes-support-isil-al-qaeda/

A response to Publius Tacitus concerning those meddlesome Russians - TTG

Honorable Sir,

You, David Habakkuk and many others seem to rely on the questionable parentage and demeanor of Dimitri Alperovitch to justify your conviction that Russia had nothing to do with the DNC or Podesta hacks or did not attempt to influence our 2016 election.  Beyond your reasonable and justifiable skepticism of the IC, I think you’re all trying too hard to exonerate Putin and prevent any besmirchment of the immaculate glory of Trump’s election to the Presidency of the United States.

Alperovitch did not run the team investigating the DNC hack. It was Shawn Henry, a twenty plus year veteran FBI agent. He was assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division from 2008 to 2010 and is credited with boosting the FBI's computer crime and cybersecurity capabilities. I was intimately familiar with the FBI Cyber Division, their robust capabilities and the respect they received from their parent organization. I was envious of their resources and organizational support. While in the FBI, Henry was already tracking the activities of Russian intelligence and criminal hackers. That continued once he retired from the FBI and began working at CrowdStrike. Those in the FBI who took CrowdStrike’s research probably did so because of Henry’s reputation. 

And why didn’t the DNC turn their email servers over to the FBI? For one thing, remember that Hillary Clinton was under FBI investigation at the time for her own email troubles. She and the DNC saw no upside to turning over anything that the FBI could use against her in that investigation. That’s just as prudent as Trump not voluntarily handing over detailed records of his business and financial dealings with Russians. This is especially true since Mueller has assembled a team of experienced federal prosecutors, not investigators.

Henry was actually surprised that the FBI, like the DNC, did not take the initial indications of a hack of the DNC systems more serious. He spoke of this at a recent panel discussion.

“I made notification personally as the Assistant Director of the Cyber Division in 2008, to then‑candidate Obama, that his campaign ‑‑ actually, to Denis McDonough, that his campaign had been breached. Then we subsequently did it a week later to Senator McCain, because we recognized these significance, the severity, and the implications of a foreign government targeting a political campaign.

I personally, as the Assistant Director, made that notification. Fast forward, eight years later, and there was notification, as John described, that was a phone call, rather than somebody knocking on the door.

I was a little concerned about that, coming from that place. Looking at some of the details, and talking to some of the people who were engaged in that investigation, there were thousands of breaches that they were reporting. Obviously, the DNC should have been at the top of the list in terms of prioritization.

I believe that the agents that were engaged there just didn’t recognize it for what it was. I don’t think that they personally had a political agenda that they did something for partisan purposes, but I believe that they just didn’t pay enough attention to the severity of the attack, what was being targeted, by whom, and what the ultimate results might be.”

Israel cannot be pleased with tomorrow's SW cease fire in Syria

Quneitra , Deraa and Suweida province have been closely contested the last few months.  The Israelis have been flying Close Air Support for their favorite flavors of jihadi rebels in the area close to the Golan Heights (occupied Syria).  They have also been providing medical evacuation and support for the same. Why?  they seem to think that a jihadi controlled buffer zone between them and Damascus is better for them than Syrian government control.  They do this in spite of the factoid that until the civil war began in Syria, there had been quiet along the front there for a long time.

The Israelis are unable to cope with the missile and artillery rocket threat from Hizbullah north of the present front line north of the present line of contact.  They know that.  Neither air attacks or a possible massive Israeli ground attack into Lebanon would prevent HB firing a lot of their arsenal (30,000 weapons) into the northern half of Israel.  Their belief is that if they take down the Syrian government they can achieve an operational level envelopment of Hizbullah's firing positions in Lebanon.  They also believe that defeat of the SAG would fatally wound the Iranian government politically.  None of that seems very likely to me but the scheme fits well with US enmity toward the Syrian government.  Perhaps an eventual offensive toward Damascus is dreamt of in DC (certain circles). That doesn't seem very likely to me either. 

The prospect of such  a cease fire must seem a good thing to the SAG.  The SAA (R+6) are perennially short of troops.  A massive (for them) offensive in the east is imminent.  The objective will be the extermination of IS from eastern Syria and the relief of the long besieged Euphrates River city of deir al zor.  A temporary reduction of the level of commitment to the SW would be helpful.

Why did Trump and Tillerson agree to this "deal?"  I doubt that they understand the military situation and Kushner was not in the room to argue for the Israeli interest.  pl

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/us/politics/syria-ceasefire-agreement.html?_r=0

A couple of points on thinking things through ---

1. Analysis is not advocacy. 
2.  Both intent and capability must be considered in any analysis of potential threats.  pl

No, The Russians Did Not Meddle in Our Election by Publius Tacitus

I am writing this in response to a request from a longtime friend, a former CIA Operations Officer, who has watched the propaganda meme unfold, which declares that Russia stuck its runny red nose into our election and helped Trump win. My friend, a woman who had extensive field experience and worked on the Iraq weapons of mass destruction mess, has a personal experience witnessing the so-called "Intelligence Community" ignore real intel and seize on bullshit in order to justify a war that political masters were keen on launching. The actual intelligence was ignored (but that is a another story for another day).

She has a problem. She is a person of integrity and, despite her own politics, is unwilling to slant intelligence to serve a political agenda. She suffered terminal damage to her career because she refused to play the political game. God bless her. She exemplifies what a genuine intelligence officer is supposed to be.

She asked me the other day what I made of the repeated meme that the Russians--Vladimir Putin in particular--intervened in our election and put their (his) thumb on the political scale in order to help Trump. Here is my answer:

Let's begin with the continued refusal of the DNC to allow DHS or FBI to examine the computer/computers of the DNC where the alleged hack supposed took place. Instead of insisting that the FBI examine their computers, the DNC turned to a private organization--CrowdStrike. 

 

Forget the ME, think Korea

"Merry Christmas from Korea land of lice and diarrhea, from this land that we half mastered, Merry Christmas, you lucky bastards."  Korean War era Christmas card sent home to cheer everyone up.

North Korea invaded the south in June, 1950.  You all can argue whether or not Syngman Rhee provoked the attack.  I don't care.  There were no US forces in South Korea except for KMAG, the training group for the South Korean Army.  The NOKOs ran riot all over the place.  They had the nasty habit of torturing and killing PWs, unlike the nice Chinese who arrived later.

The UN resolved to resist.  US  troops were rushed from Japan where they had been enjoying the fruits of occupation duty.  To say that these US Army units had been allowed to wallow in the experience would be about right.  The NoKos kicked them around unmercifully.  A regiment of USMC showed up from somewhere (Okinawa maybe?)  They did a lot better initially until the Army brought some better units to the fight.  The 1st Cavalry Division comes to mind

That little pink patch was the Pusan Perimeter.  This was all the UN forces held by 14 September, 1950.  This was a dicey situation.  One more big push by the NoKos ...

And then Macarthur landed the 1st Marine Division at Inchon, the newly built up forces at Pusan broke out of the perimeter and by November the front line was up in NoKoland where that blue line shows on the map. 

Then the Chinese intervened and quick, quick the front line was back near the 38th Parallel.  There followed a lot of offensives and counter-offensives until Eisenhower negotiated an armistice in 1953.

In the course of all this, millions died and the economies of both countries were smashed to bits.

Kim Jung Un does not seem in the least interested in making nice with the US, Japan and the ROK.  He boasts of his intention to acquire a nuclear tipped ICBM that can range the US.  Maybe the NoKos don't have these yet, but it seems that they will have them soon.

IMO the US, under ANY administration will not accept having its cities held at risk in the bizarre spectacle of a NoKo counter-value strategy.

Would the US ultimately smash a lot of NoKo in a pre-emptive attack to reduce the threat? I think so.  Would the lack of a SoKo agreement on that stop the US?  I doubt that. 

We would undoubtedly try a Stuxie type solution first, but if that does not work ...

The NoKo reaction to  big, crippling, strikes is very likely to be a massive onslaught across the DMZ.  Could they capture large parts of Seoul?  Yes.

Would a back and forth reminiscent of 195-53 then occur?  Would millions die?  Probably.  Would most of the US Army and USMC end up in Korea?  Probably. 

So, in that context you could forget the ME (sorry AIPAC).   The fight against the jihadis would become the problem of US Greenies, Kurds, tribal Arabs, the SAG, the Iraqi government and Iran.  the Israelis and Saudis would continue to back their jihadis of choice.

A brave new world.  pl 

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People%27s_Army

 

The "Eastern Bloc" and the "Russia is a Communist Country" lines live on.

Today on Foxnews a couple of newsbimbos, one blonde, one brunette reflected the level of sophistication with regard to foreign affairs now prevalent in the American people.

1.  The brunette referred to Poland as an "east bloc country."  Evidently she has not heard that the Warsaw Pact and the USSR no longer exist and that Poland is a NATO country.

2..The newsblonde (dark roots) referred to Russia as one of the remaining Communist countries.  It is true that there is a neo-communist political party represented in the Russian parliament but they are a minority party and Putin is not a member, quite the opposite.

In general, Americans are ill equipped to deal with any level of complexity in world affairs above the "Captain America" and "Wonder Woman" level.  The Canadians should not feel smug about this.  They are basically a protectorate of the "Wonder Woman" crowd and Justin Trudeau is oh, so, precious.

pl

 

Bloody Brown Tracks to deir al zor - part two

 I have been examining the topography of the areas now held by the R+6 and IS in eastern Syria.  There are not very good maps for this but the ones available on Google Earth and Google Maps are good enough.  They show topographic terrain and the back roads.

I agree with TTG that the Tiger Forces Group under Suheil (the Stonewall of Syria) will be committed on the main axis of advance.  Other axes will be used to fix the IS fighters in position making it nearly impossible for them to maneuver against the main axis of advance.

Possible axes of advance:

1.  From possible positions east of al-tanf toward al bu kamal, and from al bu kamal north along the river road to deir al-zor.  This advance will be opposed by IS forces in position to defend al bu kamal and the road north where the road runs through population centers held by IS and presumably fortified by them.

2.  R+6 now hold the line of the ithria-rasafa highway.  There is the possibility of advance to the east from the rasafa area to the Euphrates River and thence south along the west bank to deir- al-zor.  This axis has the disadvantage of exposure of the left flank of the column and its line of supply to the SDF/YPG forces who at this point cannot be considered "friendly" by the R+6.

3.  Straight forward from present positions on the Palmyra-sukhna- deir al zor highway.  This has the disadvantage of being essentially a frontal attack on long emplaced IS forces.  Some minor flanking attacks can be made by hooking left or right from the present line, but the approach is essentially frontal.

4. A close inspection of the terrain reveals that there are at least two hard surface roads that run SE from either side of ithriya to sukhna approaching sukhna from the NW.  Employment of the Tiger Force Group on one or both of these roads would require them to move 80 miles or so to reach sukhna in a "turning movement" that will turn the enemy out of his present positions at sukhna and to the west where he is presently under severe pressure from R+6 forces east of Palmyra.

 I used to do this kind of analysis for a living for US and allied forces as a "Planner" for the JCS.  If I were asked my opinion I would recommend Couse Of Action 4 with supporting attacks on the other axes,  But, commanders often are unwilling to accept advice and any damned thing could actually happen.  pl

Independence Day -2017

pl

TTG and Pat Lang

Two different people.  Get it?  Posts that are not signed were written by Pat Lang.  pl

Bloody brown tracks to deir al-zor ... PL

The R+6 are rapidly clearing up the thinly manned IS remnants east  of Khanassar in the pocket formed when the road from Ithriya to Rasafa was secured a few days ago.  This process will make the main government supply road to Aleppo City much more secure although there is still a menace lurking in AQ jihadi occupied Idlib Province to the west.  According to the CIA public relations man David Ignatius (just back from Syria) the Russians have put a lot of effort into defining the line of contact between the US backed SDF forces around Raqqa and the SAA who are well ensconced south of that line and obviously looking SE toward the isolated fortress town of deir al zor  80-90 miles away across the hardpan stony desert of eastern Syria. 

There are several desert tracks and roads leading SE in the direction of deir al-zor from the present positions of the SAA at the leading edge of the newly captured area between Ithriya and Rasafa.  IMO the SAA are likely to choose a line of advance that originates closer rather than farther from Ithriya town because sch a route would greatly shorten the supply LOC for the grouping of motorized and mechanized forces likely to be employed for the main thrust to deir al-zor.  These forces will likely include the ubiquitous Tiger Forces under Suheil Hassan.

IS forces are in bad shape having lost many men and pieces of equipment in the fighting at Mosul and around Raqqa.  Surviving fighters have moved to the SE to join the fight around deir-al-zor evidently hoping to take the town and re-establish a governing capital to replace Raqqa.  They are constantly harassed by air attacks and are much weakened,

R+6 forces in SE Syria as well as the US coalition supported forces around al-tanf are exerting a strong containing effect on IS fighters, fixing them in position and unable to  to move north to resist the coming SAA drive to deir-al-zor from te Ithriya area.

This forecast of R+6 future operations is merely my opinion.  Others may well have a different opinion.  pl

https://southfront.org/syrian-war-report-july-3-2017-isis-collapsed-in-eastern-aleppo/

 

Freedom for Puerto Rico!

 

The island is not  a state.  It can go its own way taking its massive self inflicted debt with it.  They have their own Olympic Team.  the UN has considered the Ricans to be an oppressed people.  So far as I know those resident in the island pay no federal individual income tax.  I have been to the island many times over the last fifty years.  IMO most Puerto Ricans resident in the island do not think of themselves as Americans.  They think of themselves as Caribbean Latinos.  In the recent referendum on statehood  some 27% of the electorate voted.  They overwhelmingly voted for statehood.  IMO this is a self evident case of special pleading based on a desire for a federal bail-out at the expense of the rest of us.   Self identifying living Puert Ricans should be given a choice of PR citizenship or US but that should be the end of it.  Unfortunately we cannot deal similarly with Illinois.  pl

What does the 1st Amendment say about the press?

 "The amendment as adopted in 1791 reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."   Wiki

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For those who may not have noticed, the federal government has three co-equal and mutually independent branches:  Executive, Legislative and Judicial.  President Trump is not a member of the Congress, nor is he the Congress.  He clearly has no control over anything the Congress does.

Therefore the 1st Amendment's restriction does not apply to the president and he has made no effort to restrict the operations of the press.

Yes, he is a buffoon, but his utterances concerning the press are not a violation of the 1st Amedment.  pl  

 

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

"Another Day, Another Russia Retraction — This Time From Maggie Haberman At NYT" dailywire

 

"Remember Maggie Haberman, right? Y'all remember the Maggie Haberman who allowed Hillary Clinton to literally tie her up with a rope, correct? Y'all remember the Maggie Haberman who was caught red-handed via WikiLeaks as Hillary's secret operative at the New York Times, right? Y'all remember the Maggie Haberman who attacked everyday people as a means to protect her Precious Barry, right? Well, now you are gunna remember Maggie Haberman as a Platinum Member of the Russian Retraction Society.In yet another one of her overlong, leftwing diatrabes disguised as journalism, The Worst Journalist In The World attacks-attacks-attacks Trump, and does so sounding much more like a jilted girlfriend than anything resembling a reporter. There is just one problem... Because Haberman is nothing close to a journalist, she fell for one of those fake news, Internet canards about "17 WHOLE intelligence agencies believing Russia interfered with the American presidential election!"

Imagine that, 17; 17 intelligence agencies! A whole 17!

Except, nope. That number is not only untrue, it is not even close to true.

Wanna know what the true number is?

Four.

Yep, 4."  dailywire

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Actually Jimmy the Clap (Clapper) under pressure from Republican members of Congress admitted that the non-paper had been coordinated with only three members of the IC:  FBI (Comey), NSA (Rogers), and CIA (Brennan).  Clapper and Brennan evidently could not get the concurrence of any of the other agencies: Army, Treasury, Energy, etc.  They could not get the concurrence of DIA and State INR.  Did that slow up the MSM, NY Times, the 24/7 propagandists like Joe and Mika?  It did not.  Their program is to restore the revolution for which Obama and HC were enablers.  To do that they will lie, omit salient facts from the news and persecute all those who do not share their fanatic leftist dreams. 

DJT is giving them ammunition on a daily basis through the twitted evidence of his emotional and developmental maladies.

God help us.  pl 

 

http://www.dailywire.com/news/18162/another-day-another-russia-retraction-%E2%80%94-time-john-nolte