Month: March 2019

Authored by Yossef Bodansky via Defense and Foreign Affairs,

A new bloc is emerging in the greater Middle East with the declared objectives of dominating the entire Arab world, confronting and containing the US and its allies; and controlling and benefiting from the entire hydro-carbon economy, from production to transportation.

The leading members of the new bloc are Turkey, Iran, and Qatar; with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan submitting to the new bloc.

Russian experts call the new bloc “the Middle Eastern Entente”.

The key to the success of the bloc is the emerging correlation of influence of the great powers in the aftermath of the wars in Syria and Iraq. Russia and the People’s Republic of China are ready to compromise with the regional powers in order to secure their vital and global interests, while the US, Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, Israel, are the nemeses of the bloc.

The roots of “the Middle Eastern Entente” are in Doha. Qatar in Summer 2017 initiated a myriad of bilat-eral and trilateral discussions with Iran and Turkey after Saudi Arabia and the GCC allies imposed the siege on Qatar in June of that year. However, it was not until the second half of 2018, with the initial impact of the siege largely ameliorated, that the long-term post-war posture of the greater Middle East became a major priority.

It was then that Doha, Tehran, and Ankara started talking about forming a coherent strategic bloc.

According to Iman Zayat, the Managing Editor of The Arab Weekly, in late November 2018, the three coun-tries struck a deal in Tehran to create a “joint working group to facilitate the transit of goods between the three countries”. This was the beginning of a profound realignment of the three regional powers. “Qatar has irrevocably joined with Ankara and Tehran against its former Arab allies. It has conclusively positioned itself in a regional alliance that pursues geopolitical dominance by driving instability,” Zayat noted.

It did not take long for the three powers to realize that for such a bloc to succeed it must focus on security issues and not just economic issues.

Hectic negotiations followed. In mid-December 2018, the three foreign ministers — Muhammad bin Ab-dulrahman al-Thani, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Mevlut Çavusoglu — signed the protocols and agree-ments for the new bloc on the sidelines of the 18th Doha Forum. In the Forum, Qatar formally called for “a new alliance that would replace the four-decade-old Gulf Cooperation Council”. Since then, specific and concrete negotiations on the consolidation of the bloc have been taking place. The final modalities for joint actions and common priorities, particularly the integration of the Arab states, were formulated in ear-ly March 2019.

Iran was the dominant force in this phase.

The last decisive push for the Arab integration took place during Bashar al-Assad’s visit to Tehran on Feb-ruary 25, 2019. There, he submitted to the demands of the Iranian mullahs and to tight supervision by Teh-ran. Significantly, during his stay in Tehran, Assad was constantly escorted by Qassem Soleimani, Mahmoud Alavi, and Ali Akbar Velayati, who attended all his meetings with Iranian leaders. In Tehran, Assad commit-ted to supporting the new bloc and to support the greater Middle East the bloc members were trying to create.

The geo-strategic and geo-economic objectives of the bloc are huge, and, as things stand in late March 2019, largely attainable.

The first objective of “the Middle Eastern Entente” was to quickly consolidate strong influence, if not he-gemony, over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan before the Fertile Crescent of Minorities could re-emerge as a viable geo-strategic and political entity. The primary rôle of the revived Fertile Crescent of Minorities was to constitute a buffer containing the upsurge of the Sunni Arab milieu and blocking the access of both Iran and Turkey to the heartlands of al-Jazira.

The greatest fear of the bloc members, however, was the possible ascent of the Kurds as a regional power once they internalized the US betrayal and were ready to strike deals with Moscow and Damascus. The overall susceptibility of the four Arab countries to the new regional posture was evident from their blatant disregard of the US sanctions on Iran. Hence, this region would soon become the key to a new grand-strategic and grand-economic posture for the entire greater Middle East.

Tehran emerged as the dominant power in the security posture.

The surge has been conducted under the command of Maj.-Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC: Pasdaran). Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i on March 11, 2019, awarded Soleimani a unique and high State honor: the Order of Zolfaghar. [Significantly, this order, established in 1856 as The Decoration of the Commander of the Faithful by Em-peror Naser al-Din Shah, was awarded until 1925 where it was renamed as The Order of Zolfaghar by Em-peror Reza Shah I. It had not been awarded since the downfall of the Shah in 1979 until the award — pre-sumably in the highest of the three classes of the Order — to Maj.-Gen. Soleimani.]

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the Mehr News Agency that Soleimani received the award on account of his leading “the fight against terrorism and extremism in the region”. Zarif stressed that So-leimani’s achievements “have prepared the grounds for creating a strong and stable region free from vio-lence and radicalization”.

On March 18, 2019, the military commanders of Iran, Syria, and Iraq convened in Damascus in order to discuss long-term strategic and operational cooperation. The delegations were led by Mohammad Bagheri (Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces), Ali Abdullah Ayyoub (the Syrian Defense Minister), and Othman al-Ghanmi (Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Military). Officially, the summit addressed coordination in counter-terrorism operations, joint securing and opening of borders, and restoring Damascus’ control over the en-tire Syrian territory.

In reality, the tripartite summit discussed the emerging regional posture now that the wars in Syria and Iraq are nearing their end. Bashar al-Assad addressed the summit and stressed long-term security and policy issues.

Bagheri explained that the objective of “the tripartite summit between Iran, Syria and Iraq with the partici-pation of their senior commanders [was] to coordinate efforts on the fight against terrorist groups in the region. … Over the last few years, excellent coordination has been achieved between Iran, Syria, Russia and Iraq, and there has been solidarity with the Resistance Axis that led to significant victories in counter-ing terrorism, and today, on the basis of these victories, the consolidation of sovereignty and progress to-wards the liberation of the rest of Syria is taking place.”

Concurrently, the initial indications of things to come were already unfolding.

In mid-March 2019, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Muhterem Ince and his Iranian counterpart, Hussein Zulfiqari, reached “an agreement on launching a simultaneous operation against terror groups that threat-en the security of both countries” during a meeting in Ankara. If successful, this would be the first of many operations. The first joint operation was conducted on March 18-23, 2019, mainly in northern Iraq. In addi-tion to widespread bombing and shelling, around 600 Turkish and Iranian special forces carried out joint raiding operations against Kurdish “terrorist camps”. In the last days of the operation, aerial bombings were directed at all Kurdish nemeses in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. On March 24, 2019, Ankara and Teh-ran announced that they “are determined to continue carrying out such joint counter-terrorism opera-tions”.

Meanwhile, Qatar has emerged as the dominant power regarding all issues pertaining to the regional economy.

The first priority was to build Qatar’s new oil and gas pipelines to the Mediterranean via Iran-Iraq-Syria and also connect to the pipelines in Turkey. These pipelines would substitute for the originally planned “Sunni pipelines” which were to transverse Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Iraq-Syria and which had originally led to the Qata-ri support for the Syrian jihad. The new pipelines would move to the shores of the Mediterranean — mainly the Syrian port of Latakia — gas and oil from both Qatar and Iran. The pipelines would be followed by elec-tricity lines and a fully integrated transportation infrastructure on a regional basis.

The long-term strategic infrastructure envisioned by “the Middle Eastern Entente” reflected the grand-strategic aspirations of Iran and Turkey.

The key arteries would be from Iran to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from western Turkey to the Red Sea and the Hijaz. Ultimately, these roads would be supplanted by railways. Iran and Iraq have already started constructing the railway line from the Shalamcheh border crossing to Basra in Iraq. This is the first segment of a line which would reach Latakia. Tehran is negotiating with Damascus Iranian management of the civilian port in Latakia (the Russians control the military facilities) in the next few months as a major outlet for Iran’s international trade.

Taken together, the new railroads would provide access for the New Silk Road to the eastern Mediterra-nean and the Red Sea; would connect the Russia-Iran north-south route with the Mediterranean; and would constitute an extension of the Europe-Turkey rail-line much like the old Baghdad and Persian Gulf railway. The existing Iranian railroad system connects the north-south rail-line to the Pakistani border and, thus, ultimately to western China.

Both Beijing and Moscow are most interested in the speedy completion of these rail-lines as part of the extended Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Taken together, the transportation cooperation agreement between the three bloc members (Qatar, Iran, and Turkey), and the transportation agreement between Iran, Iraq, and Syria, provide for a road and rail-way system linking all these states. This makes Iran the lynchpin of the regional transportation networks, and, thus, a crucial purveyor of access for the PRC. Indeed, PRC senior officials consider Iran to be “a key pivot to China’s BRI in the region”.

On March 19, 2019, PRC Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan stressed the rôle of Iran as “the strategic part-ner” in the greater Middle East for “the further development of economic and trade ties” with the entire region. “Iran is China’s strategic partner in the Middle-East and China is the biggest trade partner and im-porter of oil from Iran,” Zhong said. Ultimately, this would secure for Iran a central place in the overall PRC strategic and economic calculations.

The second objective of “the Middle Eastern Entente” was to use the Arab bloc, particularly its Sunni ele-ments, in conjunction with escalation in Yemen and growing hostility of (non-Sunni, but Ibadi) Oman, in order to smother and subdue Saudi Arabia. With Saudi Arabia already near implosion as a result of the er-ratic reign of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin ‘Abd al-’Aziz al-Saud, the leaders in Doha, Tehran, and Ankara appear convinced that it would only take little pressure in order to bring about the break-up and self-dismemberment of Saudi Arabia.

The key to the bloc’s anticipated success was in its capitalizing on heritage-based trends already growing throughout Saudi Arabia. The aggregate impact of the Turkish-Jordanian and Islamist-jihadist subversion in the Hejaz, the growing impact of the anti-al-Saud tribal and jihadist movements organizing in the Nejdi highlands, and the Iran-facilitated radicalization and militancy of the Shi’ite communities in the Saudi Ara-bian east would accelerate the self-dismemberment of Saudi Arabia along traditional lines. Even if the House of al-Saud did not lose power soon, the myriad of internal problems would prevent Saudi Arabia from playing a regional rôle against the new bloc and its allies.

A large number of intelligence officials and experts throughout the Middle East concur with this assessment.

Russia has been placed in a quandary by the emergence of “the Middle Eastern Entente”.

Russian experts explained in late December 2018 that “Turkey, Iran, and Qatar are moving in a direct course towards creating a full-fledged alliance in the Middle East, threatening to make serious adjustments to the status quo in the region.” And even though the tripartite summit in Damascus and other regional fora hailed their friendship with Russia, the Kremlin was apprehensive regarding the ascent of the bloc. Russia’s numerous tripartite summits and working groups have highlighted repeatedly the complete mis-trust of both Iran and Turkey. The huge Russian weapons sales to both countries need not confuse, as they are mainly instruments of keeping both countries beholden to Russia and on a collision course with the US.

As well, Russia has a longstanding dispute with Qatar on account of its support for jihadists from the North Caucasus (both in Qatar and in Syria-Iraq).

Most important, the Kremlin’s grand design for the future of the greater Middle East rests on the ascent of the Fertile Crescent of Minorities — where the Kurds are assigned a key rôle — as a buffer zone containing the upsurge of the Sunni Arab milieu and blocking the access of both Iran and Turkey into the heartlands of al-Jazira. Russia is cognizant that both Iran and Turkey are implacable enemies of the Kurds and would never permit the Kurds to establish a viable entity on their border despite Russian support. The Turkish-Iranian joint operations against the Kurds in northern Iraq are a harbinger of the anti-Kurdish escalation to come, an escalation which Russia cannot prevent.

At the same time, Russia is still the main great power in the region, and the facilitator of the PRC’s access and development projects.

To retain their vital interests in the context of the ascent of the bloc, Russia might have to face the impera-tive for significant compromises. Russian experts and officials acknowledge the existence of a worst-case scenario focusing on the Russian presence along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean (beyond the Aleppo-Damascus highway) while blocking US/Western encroachment. To attain this, Russia would have to forge closer alliance with the ‘Alawites, the Druze, and Syria’s urban élites, as well as shield Israel (and its huge Russia-origin population) from both Iran and Turkey. That said, holding onto the belt along the shores of the Mediterranean would also mean blocking the vital arteries of transportation which both Iran and Turkey are determined to establish.

Hence, the Kremlin concedes, confrontation might be inevitable.

As a result, on March 19, 2019, as the tripartite military summit convened in Damascus, Russia Pres. Vladi-mir Putin dispatched Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to Damascus. The primary objective of Shoigu’s visit was to guarantee Russian interests in the context of the new regional posture.

He met first with Pres. Bashar al-Assad and conveyed a special message from Putin. Minister Shoigu held talks with Pres. Assad, the entire Syrian defense leadership, and senior Russian generals. Assad and his generals conceded that there was no substitute to the Russian military aid, and that without Russia it would be impossible to complete the defeat of the jihadists and liberate Syrian territory.

Shoigu responded that Russia “would continue to support efforts to regain the Syrian regime’s control of all the country” under the conditions of a genuine alliance. “Syria, with the support of Russia, undoubtedly achieved significant success in the fight against international terrorism,” Shoigu reminded his interlocutors. He explained that the Kremlin was most interested in “the issues related to fighting international terrorism along with various aspects of Mideast security and post-conflict settlement”.

Assad was effusive in his praise for Putin and the Russian help, but Shuigo was not convinced.

Meanwhile, the Qataris and their allies have made it clear that they do not fear a US reaction to the emer-gence of “the Middle Eastern Entente”.

Qatari senior officials attribute this to repeated threats from Doha that should the US interfere with the new bloc and its ascent to prominence, Doha would order the immediate closure of the huge US base in Al-Udeid, Qatar, and would also stop interceding with Tehran to prevent Iran-sponsored Shi’ite jihadists from attacking the US Navy base in Bahrain. As well, the growing dependence of the US Intelligence Community on Turkish Intelligence (Milli ?stihbarat Te?kilat?: MIT) for clandestine operations in Central Asia and in sup-port of the secessionist Muslim communities of both Russia and China accounts for the US muted reaction to the Turkish abandonment of NATO.

The same logic would negate US resistance to the ascent of the bloc. Similarly, the US eagerness for a Trump-Rouhani summit (tailored after the Trump-Kim summit), where Qatar and Oman were the chief me-diators, would also restrain a harsh reaction to Iran’s growing regional rôle.

The Trump Administration is cognizant of the US limitations in the greater Middle East.

At the same time, the US remains adamant on preventing the PRC and Russia from consolidating their in-fluence in the greater Middle East and bringing the New Silk Road into the region. Senior US officials, main-ly National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have warned repeatedly that there could be no compromise with the PRC, nor tolerance of the ascent of the PRC anywhere. “This is a very big issue, how to deal with China in this century — probably the biggest international issue we face,” Bolton said on March 21, 2019.

Since US influence in the Arab Middle East had, by 2019, become close to non-existent, despite the pres-ence of US forces in Syria-Iraq-Jordan and special relations with Saudi Arabia, the US focus has been on stifling the primary north-south and east-west arteries between Russia, the PRC, and the greater Middle East by hitting the weakest link: Azerbaijan.

Washington is convinced that if great pressure is applied, then Baku would cut the crucial transportation arteries passing through, and interlinking in, Azerbaijan to the detriment of the New Silk Road and the bloc supporting it. This, however, would only galvanize both Turkey and Iran into further anti-US actions in and around the greater Middle East, thus further empowering “the Middle Eastern Entente”.

Moreover, Washington’s logic dismisses the reality that if Azerbaijan complied, it would be substantially isolated and without the means to have its exports reach their markets.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2THkDRu Tyler Durden

Anybody who has been following (or at least trying to follow) the interminable Brexit trainwreck has probably, from time to time, felt a twinge of muted, inchoate rage while struggling to understand exactly why the Tories and DUP have made such a big deal out of the “Irish Backstop” when the goal of the whole process is to never put it into practice  – and why, nearly three years after the historic vote, MPs just can’t put their sniping and bickering aside and get on with it.

Unsurprisingly, the European bureaucrats who effectively hung their esteemed colleague Theresa May out to dry by refusing to reopen negotiations, even after a third vote on the deal failed the pass, feel the same way.  And on Saturday, one senior German official decided to let it all out during a profanity-laced rant delivered during what many had probably expected would be an unremarkable meeting of party functionaries.

Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Roth, who has in the past delivered a few politely-worded exhortations that the Commons implement the withdrawal agreement before all hell breaks loose, slammed May and her cabinet as “clueless boarding school graduates” who have been setting the common man up for disaster, per BBG.

“Brexit is a big shitshow, I say that now very undiplomatically.” Michael Roth said at an event of his Social Democratic Party in Berlin on Saturday, accusing “90 percent” of the British cabinet of having “no idea how workers think, live, work and behave.”

Roth said it would not be those U.K. politicians “born with silver spoons in their mouths, who went to private schools and elite universities” that will suffer the consequences of the mess.

We imagine that will go over well in the Commons on Monday. Roth continued by saying even Shakespeare himself couldn’t have dreamed up such an abject tragedy as Brexit.

“I don’t know if William Shakespeare could have come up with such a tragedy but who will foot the bill?,” I the German diplomat said.

Before indulging in a little self-aggrandizement of his own by declaring that Europe is “life insurance” during “times of crisis,” before insulting members of the populist movement that helped make Brexit a reality.

“Europe is a life insurance in times of crisis and Europe brings the opportunity to cross borders, destroy walls, bring people together and foster solidarity,” Roth said.

“We are seeing these days how fragile that is, and how little we can take that for granted. When people give themselves up to nationalists and populists, they are betrayed.”

While Roth probably failed to pick up on the condescension and self-righteousness inherent in his comments, in the UK, MPs haven’t been doing themselves any favors on this front, either. Take for example, this snippet from a Commons debate earlier this week that went viral after Jacob-Rees Mogg taunted one of his colleagues for attending Winchester College instead of Eton.

Nick Boles says he can distinguish between confidence in the Government and its Brexit policy.

He adds: ” I have been consistently voting with the Government, in which I have confidence, to give effect to that decision and he has been voting against.”

— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) March 27, 2019

Then it gets niche.

Rees-Mogg (Eton) accuses Boles (Winchester) of making a Wykehamist point: “highly intelligent but fundamentally wrong.”

Then he throws public school shade on Old Etonian Letwin of being more Winchester than Eton.

Can’t see Letwin coming back from that.

— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) March 27, 2019

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TLe2Fx Tyler Durden

Authored by Murray Gunn via WorldOutOfWhack.com,

The luxury British car maker Aston Martin has learned a hard lesson; namely, diamonds may be forever, but the market for $400,000 cars is not.

A February 28 Guardian article confirms that since going public on the London Stock Exchange last October, Aston Martin’s shares have plummeted 40% amidst billions of dollars in losses. To be fair, some of the loss can be attributed to the company’s IPO costs, but we believe that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The IPO, in and of itself, is a splendid signal that the credit cycle, and the positive social mood which fueled a massive expansion of credit and rising stock values, is undergoing a bearish shift. A fall in Aston Martin’s fortunes equally represents a fall out of favor of one of the most recognizable bull market icons — Bond, James Bond.

Since Ian Fleming wrote the caddish secret agent into being in 1952 amidst the postwar bull market, Bond’s popularity has risen and fallen with the Dow. (See chapter 10 of Socionomic Studies of Society and Culture here.) And since Bond drove onto the big screen in 1964’s “Goldfinger” in his epochal Silver Birch DB5, the character has been synonymous with the luxury car brand.

In 2005, during the great stock market boom and one year before the 2006 blockbuster hit “Casino Royale,” Aston Martin experienced its best year on record and turned a profit for the first time in its 90-year history. Optimism was so high that a June 26, 2007 Motortrend piece affirmed that the company’s new owners, who just bought it for $1 billion, planned to “recover a good chunk of their investment through an initial public offering in the London Stock Exchanges within five years.” Those plans were soon derailed by the 2007 stock market peak and ensuing global financial crisis. Aston’s IPO hopes went up in smoke, as a December 1, 2008 Telegraph article revealed, the car maker’s drastic cut of “one-third of its workforce amidst the extraordinary market condition we all now face.”

Flash ahead to 2018, the 2007-9 Great Recession firmly in the rearview amidst a record-shattering bull market, and Aston Martin decides to “remake the Classic James Bond DB5” at a sky-high price of $3.5 million (Put it on “M’s” tab!). Coincidentally, the car maker announced take two of its plans for an IPO. In an August 29 report titled “Live and Let Die,” I published the following long-term chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average which showed five instances when Aston Martin’s insolvency or deep financial stress coincided with troughs in the global economy and wrote:

Aston Martin Lagonda’s first day of trading as a public company was on October 3, 2018 the exact day of the top in the Dow. Fittingly, global James Bond Day was October 5. The Dow then declined by 19% into December, while Aston’s stock plunged 40%, no doubt making investors feel like Goldfinger did when Bond took away his gold.

The 25th installment of the James Bond franchise, “Bond 25,” is slated to hit theaters in 2020. Meanwhile, Aston Martin hinted of a partnership with “aerospace experts to develop a new model with takeoff and landing capabilities.” (September 20 USA Today). I can envision no better symbol of soaring optimism than a flying Aston in the next Bond film. But should the villain of a bear climb into the passenger side of the market as it is whisking through the clouds, investors are going to wish for a Q-worthy ejector button to cast it out.

Discover how the popularity of James Bond films has fluctuated with the Dow Jones Industrial Average in this free chapter from Socionomic Studies of Society and Culture. Read the chapter now.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2I2Teak Tyler Durden

Turkey has slammed the door on Washington’s demands that it cancel its S-400 contract with Moscow in the wake of continued US threats that it will deny transfer of F-35s to Turkey over the Erdogan government’s plans to move forward with taking delivery of the advanced Russian anti-air defense system. 

This after on Thursday four US senators introduced a bipartisan bill to prohibit the transfer of the F-35 until the US can certify that Ankara will reject the S-400 deal. But Turkish officials reiterated their prior stance that it’s a “done deal” and that Turkey won’t back down. 

“We have signed a deal with Russia, and this deal is valid. Now we are discussing the delivery process,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday during a press conference while standing beside his Russian counterpart. He added that “We have an agreement with Russia and we are bound by it.”

Confirming Turkey is set to take delivery from the Russians in July of this year, Cavusoglu added that every aspect of Turkish defense purchases were legitimate and in accord with international law.

He noted Ankara has met its obligations to Lockheed Martin, producer of the advanced F-35 stealth fighter. “Turkey is also a partner in the F-35 project. Some parts are being made in here in Turkey. Turkey has fulfilled its responsibilities in this regard,” the minister said.

The first Russian S-400 delivery is expected in July, and the Turkish and Russian FMs confirmed delivery process details are now being hashed out. 

The advanced Russian-made S-400 air defense system purchased by Turkey has been seen as a threat by the United States, given the potential for compromising the F-35 advanced radar evading and electronics capabilities. 

The main argument for blocking the F-35 transfer is the fear that Russia would get access to the extremely advanced Joint Strike Fighter stealth aircraft, enabling Moscow to detect and exploit its vulnerabilities, meaning Russia could ultimately learn how the S-400 could take out an F-35. 

Early this month Erdogan warned Washington during a Turkish TV interview to cease from coercion or “disciplinary measures” in the form of sanctions or restrictive trade action, noting Turkey has considered potential retaliatory measures itself. 

Erdogan said emphatically at the time: “There can never be a turning back. This would not be ethical, it would be immoral. Nobody should ask us to lick up what we spat.” 

Thus it appears the imminent transfer of the S-400s is a done deal, perhaps also sealing future years of permanently damaged US-Turkey relations, after Washington has for months tried to simultaneously coerce Turkey into spending $3.5 billion on US Patriot missiles.

The issue has introduced severe tensions between NATO and Turkey, as NATO fears increased Turkish closeness and cooperation to Putin’s Russia could compromise the alliance, and its technology and strategic readiness. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FQNL3Z Tyler Durden

Authored by Nina Cross via 21stCenturyWire.com,

It is now apparent with the release of the Mueller investigation findings, that the great storm that has embattled the US government and establishment since 2016 over supposed Russia-Trump collusion during the US elections, originates not from a genuine tangible source, but a constant stream of rhetoric  driven by partisan corporate media.   One certainty though is the Western narrative of Russia as a ‘malign influence’ will not go away. 

While America’s liberal establishment continues to rage at Trump, Europe allies, under the influence of Washington, maintain their aggressive stance towards Russia following the catastrophic US meddling in Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent reunification of Crimea with Russia. 

The question is how can the narrative of ‘malign Russian influence’ be kept going?  Mainstream media will continue its role in this,  but Western governments are also pouring resources into promulgating certain narratives while containing others. 

This week, hackers released more documents from the UK government-funded project known as the Integrity Initiative, revealing British government plans to build an umbrella network of organisations across Europe to counter ‘Russian disinformation’. 

The following is a look  at one of the EU projects already operating to ensure European populations do not stray from this constructed narrative that at times crosses over into real xenophobic racism, or Russophobia. While researching this phenomenon, it was impossible not to find some of the EU’s counter-propaganda material quite funny.

If we want to know the meaning of disinformation, the American think tank known as the National Endowment for Democracy which funds regime change in the service of US corporate interests, has its own definition, but it’s not important –  so long as we believe Russia or the Nazis invented the problem.  In fact, if we search the word ‘disinformation,’ a good number of the results tell us it originated in Russia and is the baby of Stalin or the KGB.  If we are not careful, we could end up thinking that dishonesty is an inherent characteristic of Russians, a view actually promoted by the former US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who, coincidentally was caught ‘wilfully’ lying to Congress.

The view of Russians being hard-wired for corruption was also promoted by the New York Timesin an article published in February, The Putin I knew; the Putin I know, written by Franz J Sedelmeyer, exposing deep prejudice behind the corporate media’s shallow identity politics.

Five years into the annexation, Crimea is still not “ours,” still not a part of Russia. Insisting on that is to disinform, and repeating the slogan does not make it happen. https://t.co/fEECm1zsoV

— EU Mythbusters (@EUvsDisinfo) February 18, 2019

But this narrative fails to credit the CIA, which has spent decades crafting skills carrying out the most grotesque deceptions in history targeted abroad and at home.  To leave out the role of the CIA in disinformation must be the equivalent of writing an omelette recipe and leaving out the eggs. In fact, the CIA doesn’t just carry out disinformation campaigns, as Victor Marchetti, former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA described it:  the CIA manufactures history.  Not to recognise American intelligence services or government in the history of disinformation while painting Russia as its mother is to deprive America of the recognition it deserves for one of its most notable institutions.  Somewhat ironically, you can learn all about the history of disinformation from both Google and the National Endowment for Democracy which are two entities which have received financial support from the CIA.

What about the EU? Does Brussels think that Russia is an inherently dishonest nation? Are they aware that the CIA could be manufacturing Europe’s history this very moment?  Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) so concerned about disinformation might want to study the documented atrocities of the CIA, some of which were carried out in Europe. Perhaps they are not aware of the US intelligence services’ role  in the history of subterfuge in Europe:

…memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.

Paradoxically, given the probability rate of the CIA meddling in the EU, MEPs should consider putting out a public warning:

The CIA is the most likely source of disinformation in Europe today. It manufactures crises – and we’ve plenty of those.

But none of it.  Instead, the European Parliament is fixated on ensuring its populations fear Russia and are accepting of the narratives pushed on them.  The EU released a new report this month repeating the narratives it has been accumulating to justify increasing actions against Russia, particularly since 2014 following the reunification of Crimea. It has passed a resolution stating that Russia could no longer be considered a strategic partner of the EU:

While condemning the illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea, as well as Russia’s continued violation of the territorial integrity of Georgia and Moldova, Members stressed that the EU cannot envisage a gradual return to business as usual until Russia fully implements the Minsk Agreement and restores the territorial integrity of Ukraine…

Members condemned Russia’s involvement in the Skripal case, and in disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks carried out by the Russian intelligence services aimed at destabilising public and private communications infrastructure and at increasing tensions within the EU and its Member States…

They are concerned about the relations between the Russian government and the extreme right-wing and populist nationalist parties and governments in the EU, such as in Hungary. They also recalled that the interference of Russian state actors in the referendum campaign on Brexit is currently under investigation by the UK authorities…

As Russia can no longer be considered a strategic partner in the current circumstances, Members believe that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement should be reconsidered…

Ministry of Truth?

@anneapplebaum Never said anything like that!

— Federica Mogherini (@FedericaMog) January 14, 2015

As well as the coordinated strategic isolation of Russia by the EU, members of the G7 have signed up to a Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) designed to:

see hostile states publicly ‘called out’ for their egregious behaviour – with coordinated international attribution of cyber and other attacks.

The agreement involves sharing intelligence, attribution of hostile activity and forming a common narrative and response, effectively a military-like propaganda coordination between the countries that can be applied for a chosen agenda.

To protect its version of history the EU has created mechanisms to fight off alternative realities, narratives, or truths – which ever word fits – claiming any fact or opinion contrary to those of the stated EU decree must be condemned as pro-Kremlin, pro-Russian, or ‘Putinist’, a derogatory depiction presently supported by the corporate media.  The EU claims these ‘alternative narratives’ are the product of a Russian disinformation campaign and has developed resources to ‘disprove’ that disinformation. These are the EU vanguards of truth set up and funded by the European Council in 2015: the European External Action Service East Stratcom Task Force or unaffectionately known here as Team East Stratcom.  A brief study of their work only leads to further concerns about who is manufacturing history, but also to the likely conclusion that Team East Stratcom is made up of media studies students who drink beer and watch RT all day.

Here’s how Team East Stratcom describes itself in a Q&A:

Does the team engage in counter-propaganda?

No. It …identifies and corrects disinformation

Counter-propaganda vs correct disinformation (you say tomatto, I say tomayto).

Julian King, the EU’s security commissioner, has described it as a counter-propaganda cell.  Come on Brussels, make up your mind.

What does Team East StratCom do, and what is the role of its website EUVDisinfo?

The Task Force reports on and analyses disinformation trends, explains and exposes disinformation narratives, and raises awareness of disinformation coming from Russian State, Russian sources and spread in the Eastern neighbourhood media space

RUSSIAN MEMES: Official EU conspiracy theory diagram explains how ‘Russian disinfo’ permeates mainstream western discourse (EU External Action 2017)

Firstly, who defines what is disinformation? Is it just assumed that any information emanating from a Russian media outlet is automatically disinformation?

Narratives and sources. Does this mean that any narrative which matches a Russian one is then classed as Russian in origin? If a Western alternative media outlet publishes a narrative which happens to match that of a Russian media outlet, does this then mean that the said alternative media outlet is ‘under Russian influence’, or ‘in league with the Kremlin’?  Could such a politicized method of labelling lead to potential McCarthyite targeting of independent journalists?

The Task Force does not target opinions and does not seek to “blacklist” anyone. It checks facts and identifies disinformation coming from Russian State, Russian language and Eastern Neighbourhood media. It focuses on the disinformation message, not the messenger.

Yet, individual journalists are identified in many of these so-called ‘disinformation cases’ and described as supporters of one leader or other on the EU’s list of bogeymen. Team East StratCom – there is no need to be shy about McCarthyism.   Certain mainstream media stalwarts of establishment narratives are more upfront about whom they do and do not want in the club, as Oliver Kamm of The Times has demonstrated:

That’s right. If your CV includes RT or Sputnik, you’re not going to get an interview, let alone a job, with a serious news org. Hence my periodic advice to young people ambitious for a career in journalism that these places are definitive career-enders.

— Oliver Kamm (@OliverKamm) January 5, 2019

For an agency already struggling with the concept of truth, Team East StratCom is not off to a great start.

So how does Team East StratCom protect EU narratives?  The European Council made it clear in 2015 they wanted to counter narratives about regime change in Ukraine and its consequences. In fact, about half of its ‘disinformation cases’ are about Ukraine:

Ukraine tops the EUvsDisinfo database as the most frequent target with 461 references among a total of 1,000 disinformation cases reported in the course of 2018.

So how does Team East StratCom counter propaganda… sorry… correct disinformation?  The following are a few case samples that help to illuminate their methodologies (although with a budget increase from €1.1 million in 2018 to €3 million in 2019,  it may find new and diverse ones):

Disinformation Example 1: Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe

Team East StratCom argues that undermining the credibility of Ukraine benefits Russia.  It reports that RT Deutsch described Ukraine as the most corrupt country in Europe.  It then tries to debunk this using Transparency International’s corruption perception index, a chart which is created and paid for by Western neoliberal governments – the same ones that help to keep corrupt governments in power so long as they provide opportunities to serve Western corporate interests.

Team East StratCom tries to disprove this case by drawing our attention away from corruption in Europe to corruption worldwide.  This puts 60 countries ahead of Ukraine.  That is sneaky Team East StratCom because, aside from Russia, which we must believe is the most corrupt country in Europe, Ukraine actually tops the list.  So why does the EU want to hide the extent of corruption in Ukraine and is it the only thing being hidden about the country?  According to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova the West wants to stop the world from recognising Crimea as part of Russia’s territory.  In order to do this it must maintain a manufactured reality; the narrative of Ukraine being a victim of Russian aggression and in no way a liability due, at least in part, to the West’s meddling. This approach also entails downplaying any suggestion that the West planned and orchestrated a coup d’etat in Kiev in February 2014.

Disinformation Example 2: Far-right groups in Ukraine

This extract by Team East StratCom criticises the reporting of far-right groups in Ukraine:

Dehumanise, demoralise, make Ukraine the guilty party

Pro-Kremlin disinformation about Ukraine targets audiences in Russia, in Ukraine and in third countries, including the West.  Domestic audiences in Russia are e.g. faced with narratives which dehumanise Ukrainians and show the authorities in Kyiv as a cynical modern heir to 20th century Nazism. Such a strategy can turn Ukraine into an acceptable target of the Kremlin’s military aggression.

The involvement of far right groups in the run-up to and during 2014 Maidan events and since, has already been widely reported across much of the global mainstream media, for example, here, here, here, here and here, as well as in alternate media.  To suggest that this narrative is Russian disinformation is ludicrous. What’s more, the European Parliament have already recognised in 2012 the threat of the far-right parties like Svoboda and Pravi Sektor in Ukrainian politics:

Parliament goes on to express concern about the rising nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda Party, which, as a result, is one of the two new parties to enter the Verkhovna Rada. It recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the EU’s fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to pro-democratic parties in the Verkhovna Rada not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party.

Team East StratCom, you are implying the EU dehumanised Ukraine! But then the EU did later drop its objection as members of the same racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic party gained positions in Ukraine’s government, so perhaps you will be forgiven. Perhaps sowing a little confusion of its own, is Brussels.

Disinformation Example 3: Russia is depicted as a ‘defender’ and a ‘peacekeeper’ and the West – as the villain.

Team East Stratcom likes using Twitter graphics as evidence when ‘disproving pro-Kremlin disinformation.’  Never mind history, reason and common sense – just bring out a nice Twitter graphic!  According to disinfo mavens, any spike in Twitter activity with the words ‘Russia’ ‘Moscow’ or ‘Putin’ in reference to Venezuela is proof of a ‘pro-Kremlin’ disinformation campaign, says Team East StratCom. Here is their graphical chart of Twitter traffic:

But Russia is an ally of Venezuela so why would this not be reflected on Twitter when there is a blatant attempt by a Western aggressor to impose its military and economic will on Venezuela? Such was the situation in February when the US tried to pressure the Venezuelan government into allowing in trucks, supposedly carrying humanitarian aid, into the country. Aid as a Trojan Horse for weapons has historical context, especially with regards to the US and its new special envoy to Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, a convicted war criminal who illicitly supplied weapons to death squads in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala on behalf of the Reagan presidency in the 1980s.  Now that he is special envoy to Venezuela, it is common sense to suspect foul play. Can such people really be seen as peacekeepers, Team East Stratcom? And using a Twitter graphic to divert attention from a flagrant coup attempt by an aggressive power is more than a little contemptible.  What’s more, a few days afterwards, one of those trucks carrying supplies was found to contain nails and other materials useful for making barricades:

#Venezuela 🇻🇪 Trojan horse: ‘Aid trucks’ carry nails & wire for barricades –
Venezuelan FM @jaarreaza #HandsoffVenezuela
pic.twitter.com/BFKFRiZ07S

— nonouzi (@Gerrrty) February 27, 2019

And so to sum up the tactics used by Team East StratCom for ‘disproving pro-Kremlin disinformation’, based on the above cases alone, a list could include for starters:

• Categorical denial of any wrongdoing by Western powers or NATO members

• Label any information emanating from a Russia media outlet as ‘disinformation’ or ‘Kremlin propaganda’

• Discredit alternate media journalists who stray from Official Washington/London/Brussels position

• Diversion and distraction – dazzle the public with colourful Twitter graphics

• Remove any key political, geopolitical context

• Obscure or erase history

• Use of online tools like the Corruption Index promoted by same Western governments that fund bloody imperialist wars

• Use emotive, jingoistic themes

• Associate perceived ideological opponents with leaders on Western bogeyman list

• Repetition of pejorative terms and ad hominem smears such as ‘pro-Kremlin’ and’ ‘Putinist’ to create division

• Infer that any dissenter in the West is a ‘traitor.’

Here’s our @bbcnewsnight film on Sputnik News in UK. With tensions between Russian and UK growing I was on my diplomatic best behaviour. 1st Q: “what’s it like being a traitor?” https://t.co/nml6KTxc9S
https://t.co/MVeaopZP0f

— John Sweeney (@johnsweeneyroar) January 17, 2019

But Team East StratCom can’t erase history or delete context or bore us half to death with those Twitter graphics and still expect to retain their credibility.

What’s more, given the Russia-Trump collusion narrative has been exposed as a hoax, Team East StratCom really ought to let that one go.

Anyone for a pint?

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2V6gMio Tyler Durden

Authored by US Army Major Danny Sjursen (ret.) via TruthDig.com,

Still Waiting: 2020 Fever and the Quest for a Progressive Foreign Policy

The 2020 election will not turn on global issues – and more’s the pity. After all, thanks to decades upon decades of accumulating executive power in an increasingly imperial presidency, it is in foreign affairs that the commander-in-chief possesses near dictatorial power. Conversely, in domestic policy, a hostile Congress can – just ask Barry Obama – effectively block most of a president’s agenda.

Still, the vast majority of Americans don’t give a hoot about issues of war, peace, and international diplomacy. Why should they care? It’s not as though anything is asked of them as citizens. By cynically ditching the draft, Tricky Dick Nixon took the wind out of the sails of current and future antiwar movements, and permanently cleaved a gap between the U.S. people and their military. Mothers no longer lose sleep over their teenage sons serving their country and they – along with the rest of the family – quit caring about foreign policy. Such it is, and so it will be, that the 2020 presidential election is likely to be decided by “kitchen-table” affairs like healthcare, immigration, race, and taxes.

Be that as it may, serious observers should pay plenty of attention to international strategy.

• First, because the occupant of the Oval Office makes policy almost unilaterally – including the decision of whether or not to end the human race with America’s suicidal nuclear button.

• Second, because 2020 is likely to be another close contest, turning on the votes of a few hundred thousand swing state voters. As such, Trump’s opponent will need to win every vote on every issue – including foreign affairs. What’s more, there are still some folks who genuinely care about a potential commander-in-chief’s international bonafides.

So, while Dems can’t win the White House with foreign policy alone, they can lose it by ignoring these issues or – oh so typically – presenting a muddled overseas strategy.

This is serious.

Just in case there are any out there still underestimating Trump – I, for one, predict he’ll win in 2020 – make no mistake, he’s no pushover on foreign policy. Sure he doesn’t know much – but neither does the average voter. Nonetheless, Trump is no dope. He’s got the pulse of (white) voters across this country and senses that the populace is tired of spending blood and cash (but mostly its cash) on Mideast forever wars. In 2016, he (correctly) made Hillary”regime change” Clinton out to be the true hawk in the race. Trump, on the other hand, combined tough guy bravado (he’d “bomb the shit” out of ISIS) with earthy good sense (there’d be no more “stupid” Iraq invasions. And it worked.

So, with 2020 in mind, whether you’re a progressive, a libertarian, or just a Trump-hater, its vital that the opposition (most likely the Dems) nominate a candidate who can hang with Trump in foreign affairs.

Mark my words: if the DNC – which apparently picks the party’s candidates – backs a conventional neoliberal foreign policy nominee, Trump will wipe the floor with him or her. And, if the Dems national security platform reads like a jumbled, jargon-filled sheet full of boring (like it usually does) than Joe the proverbial plumber is going to back The Donald.

That’s what has me worried. As one candidate after another enters an already crowded field, this author is left wondering whether any of them are commander-in-chief material. So far I see a huge crew (Liz, Kirsten, Kamala, Beto) that live and die by domestic policy; two potentially conventional foreign policy guys (Biden and Booker); and two other wildcards (Bernie and Tulsi). That’s not a comprehensive list, but you get the point. If they want to stand a chance in 2020, the Dems had better back a nominee with a clear, alternative progressive foreign policy or get one the domestic-focused candidates up to speed…and fast.

So here’s how my mental math works: a progressive candidate needs to win over libertarian-minded Republicans and Independents (think Rand Paul-types) by force of their commonsense alternative to Trump’s foreign policy. That means getting the troops out of the Mideast, pulling the plug from other mindless interventions and cutting runaway defense spending. Then, and only then, can the two sides begin arguing about what to do with the resultant cash surplus. That’s an argument for another day, sure, but here and now our imaginary Democratic (or Third Party?) nominee needs to end the wars and curtail the excesses of empire. I know many libertarians – some still nominally Republican – who could get behind that agenda pretty quickly!

Still, there’s more than a little reason for concern. Look at how “Nasty” Nancy Pelosi and the establishment Dems came down on Ilhan Omar for that representative’s essentially accurate tweets criticizing the Israel Lobby. Then there’s Joe Biden. Look, he’s definitely running. He’s also definitely been wrong time and again on foreign policy – like how he was for the Iraq War before he was against it (how’d that turn out for John Kerry in 2004?). And, for all the talk of a progressive “blue wave” in the party ranks, Biden still polls as the top choice for Democratic primary voters. Yikes.

Behind him, thankfully, is old Bernie – who sometimes shows potential in foreign affairs – the only candidate who has both backed Omar and been consistent in a career of generally antiwar votes. Still, Bernie won his household name with domestic policy one-liners – trashing Wall Street and pushing populist economic tropes. Whether he can transform into a more balanced candidate, one that can confidently compose and deliver a strong alternative foreign policy remains to be seen. Tulsi Gabbard, though she still looks the long shot, remains intriguing given here genuine antiwar (and combat veteran) credentials. Still, she’ll have her hands full overcoming problematic skeletons in her own closet: ties to Indian Hindu nationalists, opposition to the Iran deal, and sometime backing of authoritarians and Islamophobes. Then again, even Bernie has his foreign affairs flaws – such as reflexively denouncing the BDS movement and occasionally calling for regime change in Syria. Nevertheless, both Bernie and Tulsi demonstrate that there’s some promise for fresh opposition foreign policy.

Here’s (some) of what that would look like:

speedily withdraw all U.S. troops from the (at least) seven shooting wars in the Greater Middle East;

choke off excessive arms deals and expensive military handouts to Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other frenemies;

quit bombing or enabling the bombing of impoverished civilians in places like Yemen and Gaza; begin dismantling America’s “empire of bases” overseas;

seek firm détente rather than conflict with Russia and China;

and cut defense and war-related spending down to size.

Our imaginary candidate would need to convey this commonsense course to a war-weary American people as plainly and coherently as Trump can. No jargon, no Clintonian wonky crap – simple and to the point. Imagine it: a commonsense course for a clear-eyed country!

Less war and more investment at home. Less war and more middle-class tax cuts. Whatever. That fight will come and the progressives and independents/libertarians will fight it out. For now, though, what’s essential is checking the war machine and military-industrial behemoth before its too late (it may be already!).

None of this will be easy or likely, of course. But count on this much: the establishment Democrats, media-mogul “left,” and centrist DC think tanks won’t save us from the imperial monster or deliver a Trump-defeating strategy in foreign affairs. The Mueller-will-save-us, Mattis-was-a-hero, reflexively anti-Trump, born-again hawks like Rachel Maddow and the other disappointing chumps at MSNBC or CNN aren’t on our side. Worse yet, they’re born losers when it comes to delivering elections.

All of this may be far-fetched, but is not impossible. Neither libertarians nor progressives can countenance Trump. Nor should they. One of their only true hopes for compromise rest on foreign policy and a genuine antiwar message. It can be done.

Look, on a personal note, even America’s beloved and over-adulated soldiers are reachable on this issue – that’s how you know the foreign policy alliance has potential! For every rah-rah war-fever cheerleader in uniform, there’s an exhausted foot soldier on his Nth tour in the Mideast. There’s also a huge chunk (40%!) who are racial minorities – usually a reliably anti-Trump demographic. Finally, among the white men and women in uniform I’ve personally met a solid core of libertarians. And the data backs up my anecdotal observation – Ron Paul was highly popular among active-duty military members and their families. A progressive foreign policy alliance with the libertarian wing of Republicans and Independents would sell better with these such voters both in and out of uniform. You know the type: sick of war but justas sick of stereotypical liberal snowflakes.

So here’s a plea to the “opposition” such at it is: avoid the usual mistakes – don’t cede foreign affairs to the Trump and the Republicans; don’t nominate anyone remotely resembling Joe Biden; don’t alienate libertarians and independents with wonky or muddled international policy.

Try something new. Like winning…

*  *  *

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and regular contributor to antiwar.com. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2WsJla2 Tyler Durden

Residents in an upscale San Francisco neighborhood have raised tens of thousands of dollars to oppose a 24-hour, 200 bed waterfront homeless “Navigation Center” in a 2.3 acre empty parking lot just south of the Bay Bridge. It would allow people to bring in partners and pets, and would work to connect them to local resources and services with the ultimate goal of finding permanent housing. 

The center was approved earlier this month by Mayor London Breed in the hopes of a Summer opening, while the Port Commission is expected to consider the project in April. 

Over the past 8 days, over $60,000 out of a $100,000 goal has been raised by 152 people opposed to the project. One donor contributed $10,000. The funds for “Safe Embarcadero” will be used for legal expenses to fight the homeless shelter. 

Wallace Lee, the father of a two-year-old who lives two blocks from the proposed site, said he is helping to organize against the project out of concerns for his family’s safety. “It is increasingly a place where people are starting families,” he said. “There are a lot of strollers in the neighborhood that weren’t here when I moved in 2013.”

While little research has been done on the impact shelters have on communities, the campaign cites one study done in Vancouver that found a sharp increase in thefts. –The Guardian

Meanwhile, a competing GoFundMe has been established in support of the homeless shelter – which quickly received a $5,000 donation from GoFundMe itself, and has raised over $40,000 of its $50,000 goal from $705 people in 22 hours. 

Kelley Cutler, a human rights organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness, argues that the fears are rooted in stigma, and that they are not unique to San Francisco. “No matter where the location is, folks say this is not the right space. Not in our community. So they are going through that right now in the Embarcadero,” she said. –The Guardian

Homelessness is a crisis in our city and we need to act to get people off the streets and into housing. We’re happy to demonstrate how these Nav Centers work and the benefits they’ve brought to other neighborhoods, but we can’t afford unnecessary delays. https://t.co/WlqpQYahsd

— London Breed (@LondonBreed) March 27, 2019

“People want us to address the challenges on our streets and help our unsheltered residents into housing, and I am committed to doing the hard work to make that happen,” Breed told the San Francisco Chronicle. “But it’s incredibly frustrating and disappointing that as soon as we put forward a solution to build a new shelter, people begin to threaten legal action.” 

“Parking lots are important, but places for people to live where they’re inside, in shelter, I think are that much more important, particularly on city-owned land,” district representative Matt Haney told KPIX 5 earlier this month. “We have a lot of city-owned parking lots, I think this is a piece of land that can be used to address our most urgent problem as a city.” 

According to Haney, around half of the city’s 3,500 homeless residents are in his district. According to THe Guardian, around 1,400 homeless people are waiting for temporary spots to open. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Ul9Qka Tyler Durden

Authored by Dagny Taggart via The Organic Prepper blog,

Warning: If you care about parental rights, this story will infuriate you.

On February 25, a pregnant mother took her 2-year-old son to the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine clinic in Tempe, Arizona because he had a fever of over 100. The doctor instructed the mother to take him to the emergency room because he is unvaccinated and she feared he could have meningitis.

The doctor called the emergency room at Banner Cardon Children’s Medical Center in Mesa to let them know the boy would be arriving.

But after leaving the doctor’s office, the boy showed signs of improvement. He was laughing and playing with his siblings, and his temperature moved closer to normal. Around 6:30 pm, the mother called the doctor to let her know the toddler no longer had a fever and she would not be taking him to the emergency room.

In Arizona, parents may decline vaccinations for their child based on personal, religious, or medical exemptions, but the mother was still concerned that the Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) would come after her. One can’t blame her for being afraid, as unvaccinated families have been targets of dystopian crackdowns and witch hunts of late.

The doctor assured her DCS would not come after her. According to police records, the mother then agreed to take her son to the hospital.

This is when things took a particularly nasty turn, reports AZCentral:

About three hours later, the hospital contacted the doctor to advise her that the child had not shown up and the mother wasn’t answering her phone, according to police records. The doctor contacted DCS.

A DCS caseworker called Chandler Police and “requested officers to check the welfare of a two year old infant,” according to police records. A caseworker said he was on his way to the house.

It was about 10:30 p.m. when two police officers knocked on the family’s door. The officers heard someone coughing.

Officer Tyler Cascio wrote in a police report that he knocked on the door several times but no one answered. (source)

The police then asked a neighbor to call the mother to let her know they wanted to speak to her. Meanwhile, the boy’s father contacted the police:

Police dispatch told the officers that a man at the home had called requesting that they call him. They called, and the man identified himself as the sick boy’s father.

The officer said they told the father they needed to enter the home for DCS to check on the child. The father refused, explaining that his son’s “fever broke and he was fine,” according to police records. (source)

Then things escalated.

Despite the father’s attempt to assure police his child was fine, things escalated.

The caseworker informed officers that DCS planned to obtain a “temporary custody notice” from a judge to remove the child for emergency medical aid.

Officers then consulted with the police criminal investigations bureau and SWAT.

Yes, SWAT.

I know – it is outrageous and terrifying.

After 1:00 AM, officers kicked down the family’s door.

One officer carried a shield, while another was described as having “lethal coverage.” Officers pointing guns yelled, “Chandler Police Department,” and entered the house.

The father came to the door. Officers placed him in handcuffs and took him and the mother outside. (source)

Neither of the parents was arrested.

Officials took all three children to Banner Cardon Medical Center.

Let’s pause here for a moment to reflect on something: Authorities took the children under the guise of caring about their well-being. The fact that armed strangers snatching children away from their parents and siblings in the middle of the night could be, I don’t know – TRAUMATIC – didn’t seem to cross their minds.

Unbelievable.

Then the “legal process” took 10 days.

The parents had to wait 10 days to see a judge and begin fighting to get their children back.

Attorneys for the parents said the children hadn’t seen each other since being taken from their parents’ home. The parents had only had one visit with their older children. DCS officials told the parents the toddler couldn’t make that visit because he was at a medical appointment.

The state’s attorney argued that the children shouldn’t be returned to their parents yet because they’d been hostile to DCS workers and weren’t cooperating. He said the parents had attended a DCS visit with members of Arizona DCS Oversight Group who were combative toward DCS workers. He said the grandfather had tried to videotape a meeting with DCS, and recording is not allowed to protect the privacy of the children. (source)

DCS wanted the parents to undergo psychological evaluations, the father was required to undergo drug testing, and the grandparents agreed to background checks so they could become temporary caregivers for the children.

While everything about this case is horrifying, there is a bit of good news.

The family has a powerful ally:

Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, who helped craft legislation requiring DCS to obtain a warrant before removing a child from their parents or guardians in non-emergency circumstances, said she was outraged by the response of police and DCS officials in the case.

“It was not the intent (of the law) that the level of force after obtaining a warrant was to bring in a SWAT team,” Townsend said. “The imagery is horrifying. What has our country become that we can tear down the doorway of a family who has a child with a high fever that disagrees with their doctor?” (source)

In Arizona, DCS used to be able to remove children from their homes without warrants, but that changed last July when lawmakers designated limited circumstances for removing a child from their parent without a warrant:

DCS must have probable cause to believe a child is at imminent risk of harm and there’s no less-intrusive alternative to removal, or DCS must have probable cause to believe a child is a victim of sexual or physical abuse that can only be evaluated by trained medical personnel…

…Concern over DCS abusing loopholes in the system prompted a second round of legislation in 2018. The restrictions designated “exigent circumstances” when DCS may remove children without a warrant. Removing the child must be so dire that there’s no time to use the electronic system to gain authorization from a judge who’s on call 24/7. (source)

Townsend wants a review of this legislation.

Townsend wants lawmakers to review the procedures that led to police using force, traumatizing a family, and putting three children in state custody.

She said that the fact that DCS obtained a court-approved warrant proves there wasn’t a life-threatening emergency.

Outside the courthouse, Townsend said she didn’t know the parents personally but was disturbed by the case.

“It was brought to my attention that these parents may have been targeted by the medical community because they hadn’t vaccinated their children,” she said.

Townsend said parents who don’t vaccinate their children because of medical concerns aren’t criminals and shouldn’t be treated as such. She worried physicians were using it as a reason to refer parents to DCS.

“I think if DCS decides to use this as a factor they would be violating a parent’s right to have a personal exemption, a religious exemption and perhaps a medical exemption,” she said. (source)

The family wants to warn others about DCS.

The father sent The Republic a statement. His family is scared, he said, but they feel compelled to warn other families:

We have been through a very traumatic experience with our encounter with DCS. We would like other parents out there to know and realize the amount of power DCS has over the welfare of your children. Even though we remain confident in our innocence through our case, it is immediately an uphill struggle of what to do or not to do. Even if you do not agree with them or the process in which they follow.

We thought they did not have the right to check on our children because they were getting better, from what they last heard about from us. We were in our home tending to our sick kids and did not want to be bothered in this tough time of illness.  With multiple children it is difficult to keep up their needs while they are ill, and to be bothered in the middle of the night by DCS was not something we were ready to tackle.

No matter what we though was right, it turned tragic with the removal of all of our children. The process of removal in our opinion was uncalled for and we would like to see the laws/process change when dealing with expedited removal of children.

Our children have sure been through a traumatizing experience and hope they have not been harmed psychologically or emotionally as we are a very happy family who love each other and would do anything for each other.

We hope to see a positive outcome for our trial, but worry about what the kids have been though. We would like to see some sort of public service announcement by DCS to inform other parents out there that this could happen to them, because nobody, especially children should have to go through what we are going through. We love our children and are doing everything possible to get them back to us. (source)

“What about parents’ rights to decide what’s best for their child?” Townsend said. “Parents felt the child was fine. Next thing we know, the Gestapo is at their door.”

The three children have been placed with their grandparents, and the parents are able to see them but have no idea when – or if – they will get them back.

H/T to Reason

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2U9sD2P Tyler Durden

A former French spy has been murdered six months into an investigation for allegedly plotting to assassinate an opponent of Congolese President Sassou Nguesso, according to The Times. 

The body of 57-year-old Daniel Forestier was found with five bullet wounds, including to the head and heart, in a remote car park near his home on the shores of Lake Geneva in the Alps. 

France Bleu radio in Haute-Savoie said Forestier lived in the village of Lucinges, nine miles (15km) from where his body was found, with his wife and two children and had served as a local councillor until he was put under investigation last September.

The public prosecutor said the killing was probably a settling of scores. “There’s almost no doubt about it,” Philippe Toccanier said. Forestier had been shot five times in the thorax and the head, he added. –The Guardian

Forestier spent 14 years working for France’s General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), which is tasked with so-called black operations, including assassination, abduction and sabotage. The former agent was arrested after French officers with the internal security service (DGSI) reportedly overheard him admitting to spearheading a plot to murder former Congolese General Ferdinand Mbaou, the former head of Congo’s presidential guard. 

Mr Forestier, a career soldier who worked in the clandestine DGSE “action service”, had been notified of preliminary charges of heading a plan to kill General Ferdinand Mbaou, the former head of the presidential guard of Congo who has lived in France for two decades. Mr Forestier was also charged with possessing explosives. –The Times

The ex-French spy was charged along with former DGSE colleague Bruno Susini. 

Mbou – who has been living in France for 20 years, is seen as an opponent of President Nguesso. In 2015, Mbou survived being shot in the back as he left his home.

Mbaou, 62, was head of the presidential guard to Sassou-Nguesso’s predecessor, Pascal Lissouba, but fled the country when Lissouba was overthrown in a coup in 1997. He has been a fierce critic of the Sassou-Nguesso regime since and still has a bullet lodged near his heart from a previous assassination attempt. He told Paris Match last year he only learned of the plot to kill him when he read about it in the French newspapers. –The Guardian

French media has speculated that Forestier’s murder was either revenge, or the elimination of a witness. Meanwhile, some have suggested that the French secret service – which is still deeply involved in Africa – may have played a part. 

“I know why they want to kill me. I was warned and also I received threats in text messages. I tried to warn the [security] services but they didn’t do anything,” said Mbaou. 

Lawyers for Forestier, Susini and Mbaou have all weighed in on the murder which French prosecutors in Lyons are treating as a hit-job. 

Cédric Huissoud, Mr Forestier’s lawyer, emphasised that the former agent had always denied involvement in the alleged plot.

Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard, a lawyer for Mr Susini, said: “This affair has been strange since the outset. The acts that the two former agents were accused of are vehemently contested.” The agents had been “very worried about their safety”, she added.

General Mbaou’s lawyers said: “No one involved in this case is safe, starting with our client.” The general said that he had been saddened by Mr Forestier’s death but added: “He wasn’t alone. There are other suspects who will enable justice to be done.”  –The Times

Forestier made no secret about his cloak-and-dagger past, penning several espionage thrillers while running a café in Lucinges, a small town near the Swiss border.

“He’d written several spy novels, but he never gave us any details of what he did,” Lucinges resident Jean-Luc Soulat told a local radio station. “He was very well settled here. He ran a bar-tobacconist here and only 15 days ago he helped me organise the opening of a village hall.” 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YBCJYJ Tyler Durden

Authored by Whitney Webb via MintPressNews.com,

With its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions – such as those described in the RED Team document – are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing “regime change” effort in Venezuela.

Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed “interim president of Venezuela” who is supported by the United States government, recently announced coming “tactical actions” that will be taken by his supporters starting April 6 as part of “Operation Freedom,” an alleged grassroots effort to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

That operation, according to Guaidó, will be led by “Freedom and Aid Committees” that in turn create “freedom cells” throughout the country — “cells” that will spring to action when Guaidó gives the signal on April 6 and launch large-scale community protests. Guaidó’s stated plan involves the Venezuelan military then taking his side, but his insistence that “all options are still on the table” (i.e., foreign military intervention) reveals his impatience with the military, which has continued to stay loyal to Maduro throughout Guaidó’s “interim presidency.”

El 6 de abril serán las primeras acciones tácticas de la #OperaciónLibertad en todo el país. Ese día debemos estar listos, preparados y organizados, con los Comités de Ayuda y Libertad ya conformados.

¡El rescate de Venezuela está en nuestras manos!#VamosOperaciónLibertad pic.twitter.com/V20vpocV4w

— Juan Guaidó (@jguaido) March 27, 2019

However, a document released by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in February, and highlighted last month in a report by Devex, details the creation of networks of small teams, or cells, that would operate in a way very similar to what Guaidó describes in his plan for “Operation Freedom.”

Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID’s sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) — and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as “interim president” and his return to Venezuela following the “humanitarian aid” showdown — it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led “tactical actions” that will comprise “Operation Freedom.”

RED Teams

Titled “Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment,” the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the “widespread sentiment” among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report’s authors interviewed “that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments,” including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report’s authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela.

The approach put forth in this report involves the creation of rapid expeditionary development (RED) teams, who would “be deployed as two-person teams and placed with ‘non-traditional’ USAID partners executing a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations in extremis conditions.” The report notes later on that these “non-traditional” partners are U.S. Special Forces (SF) and the CIA.

The report goes on to state that “RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners.” It further states that “[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)” and that “RED Team members would be ‘super enablers,’ observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities.”

In other words, these teams of combined intelligence, military and/or “democracy promoting” personnel would work as “super enablers” of “small-scale activities” focused on “social movement theory” and community mobilizations, such as the mobilizations of protests.

The decentralized nature of RED teams and their focus on engineering “social movements” and “mobilizations” is very similar to Guaidó’s plan for “Operation Freedom.” Operation Freedom is set to begin through “Freedom and Aid committees” that cultivate decentralized “freedom cells” throughout the country and that create mass mobilizations when Guaidó gives the go ahead on April 6. The ultimate goal of Operation Freedom is to have those “freedom cell”-generated protests converge on Venezuela’s presidential palace, where Nicolás Maduro resides. Given Guaidó lack of momentum and popularity within Venezuela, it seems highly likely that U.S. government “catalytic actors” may be a key part of his upcoming plan to topple Maduro in little over a week.

Furthermore, an appendix included in the report states that RED Team members, in addition to being trained in social movement theory and community mobilization techniques, would also be trained in “weapons handling and use,” suggesting that their role as “catalytic actors” could also involve Maidan-esque behavior. This is a distinct possibility raised by the report’s claim that RED Team members be trained in the use of both “offensive” and “defensive” weaponry.

In addition, another appendix states that RED Team members would help “identify allies and mobilize small amounts of cash to establish community buy-in/relationship” —  i.e., bribes — and would particularly benefit the CIA by offering a way to “transition covert action into community engagement activities.”

Feeling Bolsonaro’s breath on its neck

Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that “South American countries were ripe for pilots” of the RED Team program, adding that “These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government.”

This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington’s interests no secret. During Bolsonaro’s recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that “We have a great alliance with Brazil — better than we’ve ever had before” and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO.

Though Bolsonaro’s government has claimed late in February that it would not allow the U.S. to launch a military intervention from its territory, Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro — an adviser to his father and a Brazilian congressman — said last week that “use of force will be necessary” in Venezuela “at some point” and, echoing the Trump administration, added that “all options are on the table.” If Bolsonaro’s government does allow the “use of force,” but not a full-blown foreign military intervention per se, its closeness to the Trump administration and the CIA suggests that covert actions, such as those carried out by the proposed RED Teams, are a distinct possibility.

Frontier Design Group

The RED Team report was authored by members of Frontier Design Group (FDG) for USAID’s Global Development Lab. FDG is a national security contractor and its mission statement on its website is quite revealing:

Since our founding, Frontier has focused on the challenges and opportunities that concern the “3Ds” of Defense, Development and Diplomacy and critical intersections with the intelligence community. Our work has focused on the wicked and sometimes overlapping problem sets of fragility, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war, and insurgency. Our work on these complex issues has included projects with the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, USAID, the National Counterterrorism Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace.”

FDG also states on is website that it also regularly does work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Omidyar Group — which is controlled by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire with deep ties to the U.S. national security establishment that were the subject of a recent MintPress series. According to journalist Tim Shorrock, who mentions the document in a recent investigation focusing on Pierre Omidyar for Washington Babylon, FDG was the “sole contractor” hired by USAID to create a “new counterinsurgency doctrine for the Trump administration” and the fruit of that effort is the “RED Team” document described above.

One of the co-authors of the document is Alexa Courtney, FDG founder and former USAID liaison officer with the Department of Defense; former manager of civilian counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan for USAID; and former counterinsurgency specialist for U.S. intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

In addition, according to Shorrock, Courtney’s name has also been found “on several Caerus [Associates] contracts with USAID and US intelligence that were leaked to me on a thumb drive, including a $77 million USAID project to track ‘licit and illicit networks’ in Honduras.” Courtney, according to her LinkedIn account, was also recently honored by Chevron Corporation for her “demonstrated leadership and impact on development results.” MintPressrecently reported on the role of Chevron in the current U.S.-led effort to topple Maduro and replace him with Guaidó.

Send in the USAID

Though Devex was told last month that USAID was “still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams initiative,” Courtney stated that the report’s contents had been “received really favorably” by “very senior” and “influential” former and current government officials she had interviewed during the creation of the document.

For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would “restore the long-lost doing capacity of USAID.” Another USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in “extremely denied environments,” stated that:

We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody who doesn’t think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant … USAID is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must happen.”

Given that the document represents the efforts of the sole contractor tasked with developing the current administration’s new counterterrorism strategy, there is plenty of reason to believe that its contents — published for over a year — have been or are set to be put to use in Venezuela, potentially as part of the upcoming “Operation Freedom,” set to begin on April 6.

This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led “sabotage” by the country’s government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS — which trained Juan Guaidó — described in detail how the potential collapse of the country’s electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be “a watershed event” that “would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate.”

The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was “sabotage” conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela.

Furthermore, it would make sense for the Trump administration to attempt to enact such an initiative as that described in the document, given its apparent inability to launch a military intervention in Venezuela, despite its frequent claims that “all options are on the table.” Indeed, U.S. allies — including those close to Venezuela, like Colombia — have rejected military intervention, given the U.S.’ past role in bloody coups and civil wars throughout the region.

Thus, with its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions — such as those described in the RED Team document — are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing “regime change” effort in Venezuela.

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