WAR 02-28-2015-to-03-06-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(151) 01-31-2015-to-02-06-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...06-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(152) 02-07-2015-to-02-13-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...13-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(153) 02-14-2015-to-02-20-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...20-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(154) 02-21-2015-to-02-27-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...27-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/New...of-Syrian-rebels-in-Turkey-in-4-6-weeks-.html

Training of Syrian rebels to begin ‘in weeks’

By AFP | Washington
Saturday, 28 February 2015

The U.S. military said Friday the training of moderate Syrian rebels will likely begin within four to six weeks in Turkey after the two NATO allies clinched an agreement last week.

Potential recruits still needed to be vetted for the training sessions, Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told a news conference.

About 1,500 Syrian rebels had been identified to take part and of those 100 had been screened and approved, Kirby said.

“I won’t put a date certain on when the training will begin, but our assessment is that we could be ready sometime within the next four to six weeks to begin actual training,” Kirby said.

There will be roughly 200 to 300 people in each course as part of a plan to train about 5,000 over a year, he said.

About 1,000 US troops will be heading to the region to oversee the training and to provide logistical support, and an advance team of 100 is already on the ground making final preparations, he said.

“Things are moving in the right direction” but there is a “long way to go,” Kirby said. “Nobody’s underestimating the challenges here.”

A spokesman for Turkey’s foreign ministry said earlier Friday that the train-and-equip program for the Syrian opposition fighters would begin on Sunday. But it was unclear if his comments meant the training courses would be launched on March 1 or other preliminary steps.

Following months of negotiations, Ankara and Washington signed an agreement on February 19 to train and arm “moderate” Syrian rebels.

Turkey, an outspoken critic of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, hopes rebel factions to be trained will battle the regime in Damascus as well as insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, who have seized large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, right up to the Turkish border.

But Washington has said the fighters it trains will be focused only on the ISIS militants initially, with any campaign against the Assad regime to come at some point in the future.

Turkey’s hesitation to take decisive action against ISIS militants has led to friction with the United States.

U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper said on Thursday that Turkey did not place a high priority on fighting ISIS militants and as a result foreign fighters had been able to travel through the country into Syria.

Ankara argues it has bolstered border security and that Western governments should provide Turkey with more intelligence and a full list of suspects to be monitored.

Last Update: Saturday, 28 February 2015 KSA 07:43 - GMT 04:43

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/white-h...ary-force-over-irans-nuclear-hopes-1425081061

White House Plays Down Use of Military Force Over Iran’s Nuclear Hopes

Recent comments by officials suggest shift from Obama’s previous threats

By Jay Solomon

Jay.Solomon@wsj.com
Feb. 27, 2015 6:51 p.m. ET
9 COMMENTS

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration, seeking to strike a nuclear agreement with Tehran by late March, is significantly playing down the utility of using military force to deny Iran an atomic bomb.

Recent comments by senior U.S. officials suggest a shift in emphasis from President Barack Obama’s previous threats to use military force. Officials now are arguing that any military action would only guarantee Iran’s Islamist leaders would move to develop nuclear weapons.

“With respect to military action, [a] diplomatic resolution is the only verifiable way” to guarantee Iran doesn’t get a bomb, said a senior U.S. official at a briefing held Friday to discuss international nuclear talks. “The use of military action would likely insure that Iran would break out and acquire nuclear weapons.”

The senior administration official said Tehran would likely decide to move its nuclear infrastructure underground after any U.S. or Israeli airstrikes. Iran’s leadership then would commit to building a bomb as a deterrent against future attacks, he said.

Other senior officials have made voiced similar views on military force in recent weeks.

Earlier in his presidency, Mr. Obama stressed that neither Iranian nor Israeli leaders should doubt his resolve to use military force. “I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff. I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are,” Mr. Obama had said in a 2012 interview with the Atlantic magazine.

He added: “But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.”

Diplomacy aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program is entering a critical phase in March as Washington and Tehran try to meet an end of March deadline.

Secretary of State John Kerry is resuming direct talks this coming week in Switzerland with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is set to speak before both Congress and Washington’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Israeli officials have said Mr. Netanyahu will speak out against the direction of the Iran talks and call for a complete dismantling of Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure. The Israeli leader has regularly argued the credible threat of force is required to win concessions from Tehran.

Senior U.S. officials said chances of an accord by the end of March are about even. But the senior U.S. official also said the negotiations have “advanced substantially” in recent weeks.

Some officials involved in the diplomacy, including the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, Federica Mogherini, have said in recent days that global powers and Tehran were “getting close” to an agreement.

Obama administration officials briefed on the negotiations said the major issues that still need to be resolved include the size of Iran’s future capacity to produce nuclear fuel, the duration under which its capacity will be constrained, and the pace at which international sanctions against Tehran would be removed.

European and Iranian officials have suggested a final deal could allow Tehran to maintain around 6,500 centrifuge machines, which are used to enrich uranium into nuclear fuel.

U.S. officials wouldn’t confirm the number on Friday, but acknowledged Tehran would maintain a capacity. They also said constraints on Iran’s nuclear program would last into “double digits’’ of years, which analysts have interpreted to mean as little as a decade.

Mr. Netanyahu and many Arab leaders have argued that such a formula would allow Tehran to maintain a latent nuclear weapons program, with the prospect of Iran being completely unrestrained by 2025.

U.S. officials were clear they would publicly challenge Mr. Netanyahu during his Washington visit. Both National Security Adviser Susan Rice and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, are addressing the American Israel committee next week.

“To say…no domestic enrichment capacity is to have no agreement. We would be setting a threshold that’s unreachable,” the senior U.S. official said. “We are going to make the case…for our Iran policy.”

The official acknowledged significant tensions between the White House and Israel’s government. But he blamed Mr. Netanyahu and congressional Republicans for going behind the White House’s back and setting up the speech before Congress.

“We did not seek out this dynamic that currently exists,” the official said.

The pace at which sanctions will be removed is shaping up as one of the major issues possibly blocking the deal, said U.S. and European officials.

Iran publicly has been demanding the immediate removal of sanctions as part of an agreement. Obama administration officials said they’re pursuing a phased lifting of the sanctions and the potential that they could be “snapped back” if Tehran is found to have violated the agreement.

—Carol E. Lee
contributed to this article.

Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150228/ml--islamic_state-4343db632e.html

Kurdish fighters rout IS militants from town near Iraq

Feb 27, 8:17 PM (ET)
By ZEINA KARAM

(AP) Iraqis hold a protest a day after Islamic State militants posted an online video...
Full Image

BEIRUT (AP) — Backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, Kurdish fighters fought their way Friday into a northeastern Syrian town that was a key stronghold of Islamic State militants, only days after the group abducted dozens of Christians in the volatile region, Syrian activists and Kurdish officials said.

The victory marks a second blow to the extremist IS group in a month, highlighting the growing role of Syria's Kurds as the most effective fighting force against the Islamic State. In January, Kurdish forces drove IS militants from the town of Kobani near the Turkish border after a months-long fight, dealing a very public defeat to the extremists.

But it is also tempered by this week's horrific abductions by IS militants of more than 220 Christian Assyrians in the same area, along the fluid and fast shifting front line in Syria.

The town of Tel Hamees in Syria's northeastern Hassakeh province is strategically important because it links territory controlled by IS in Syria and Iraq.

(AP) Irina Bokova, Director General of the U.N.'s culture agency UNESCO, speaks during a...
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The province, which borders Turkey and Iraq, is predominantly Kurdish but also has populations of Arabs and predominantly Christian Assyrians and Armenians.

"We are now combing the town for explosives and remnants of terrorists," said Redur Khalil, a spokesman for the Kurdish fighters, known as the People's Protection Units or YPG.

Speaking to The Associated Press over the phone from the outskirts of Tel Hamees, he said the town was a key stronghold for IS and had served as a staging ground for the group's operations in the Iraqi town of Sinjar and the city of Mosul.

Dislodging the group from Tel Hamees cuts a supply line from Iraq, Khalil said.

The push on the town's eastern and southeastern edges came after the Kurdish troops, working with Christian militias and Arab tribal fighters, seized dozens of nearby villages from the Islamic State extremists. U.S.-led coalition forces provided cover, striking at IS infrastructure in the region for days.

(AP) Iraqi artists held an exhibition on antiquities a day after Islamic State militants...
Full Image

More than 200 militants died in the fighting, and at least eight troops fighting alongside YPG, including an Australian national who has been with the Kurdish forces for three months, Khalil said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said IS defenses collapsed and the militants fled after Kurdish fighters broke into Tel Hamees from the east and south.

The Observatory's director, Rami Abdurrahman, said the Kurds seized more than 100 villages around Tel Hamees and that ground battles and air strikes around the town have killed at least 175 IS fighters in the past several days in some of the latest losses for the group since Kobani.

Some 15,000 villagers have fled the fighting, he added.

The Kurds in Syria and Iraq have emerged as the most effective force fighting IS, which controls about a third of Iraq and Syria — much of it captured in a lighting blitz last spring and summer, as Iraqi army forces melted away in the face of the militant onslaught.

In Syria, they have teamed up with moderate rebels for territorial gains against the group.

Elsewhere in Hassakeh, IS fighters this week captured dozens of mostly Christian villages to the west of Tel Hamees — taking at least 220 Assyrian Christians hostage, according to activists. The fate of those abducted was still unknown.

On Thursday, video emerged of IS militants smashing ancient Mesopotamian artifacts in a museum in Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.

The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the ongoing "barbaric terrorist acts" by the Islamic State group including attacks "and the deliberate destruction of irreplaceable religious and cultural artifacts housed in the Mosul Museum and burning of thousands of books and rare manuscripts from the Mosul Library."

A council statement said income from looted cultural items in Iraq and Syria is being used to support the group's recruitment efforts and strengthen its ability to organize and carry out terrorism acts.

"The members of the Security Council stressed again that ISIL must be defeated and that the intolerance, violence, and hatred it espouses must be stamped out," the statement said, using one of several alternative acronyms for the group.

Irina Bokova, the head of the U.N. cultural agency, UNESCO, denounced the group's destruction of ancient statues and artifacts as "cultural cleansing" and a war crime that the world must punish.

From Paris, where the agency is based, Bokova said she could not watch to the end the Islamic State video posted Thursday that shows men using sledgehammers to smash Mesopotamian artworks in Iraq's northern city of Mosul. She called the video "a real shock."

The Louvre Museum in Paris said the destruction "marks a new stage in the violence and horror, because all of humanity's memory is being targeted in this region that was the cradle of civilization, the written word, and history."

French President Francois Hollande also condemned the "barbarity" of the destructions.

"What the terrorists want is to destroy all that makes humanity," he said Friday during a visit to the Philippines.

Elsewhere in Syria, at least eight civilians were killed in a car bomb that exploded outside the Bilal Mosque in the rebel-held town of Dumeir, east of Damascus. Many others were wounded in the blast, which occurred as worshippers were leaving the mosque following Friday prayers.

Another car bomb went off outside a mosque in Nasseriya, near Dumeir, also causing multiple casualties. It was not immediately clear who was behind the bombings.

---

Associated Press writers Ashraf Khalil in Beirut and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150227/af-somalia-piracy-f61e4f20b3.html

Somali pirates release 4 Thai sailors held nearly 5 years

Feb 27, 11:53 AM (ET)
By ABDI GULED

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somali pirates have released four Thai sailors who were held hostage for nearly five years, the longest period of captivity of hostages held by Somali pirates, a U.N. official said Friday.

The four released on Wednesday were sailors of the MV Prantalay 12 vessel, a Taiwanese flagged fishing vessel seized by Somali pirates on April 18 2010, said the U.N. Special Representative for Somalia Nicholas Kay.

The ship was used by the pirates as a base before it eventually capsized in July 2011 and the remaining crew members were taken ashore, said Kay.

Six members of the original crew of 24 succumbed to illness and 14 crew members from Myanmar were released to the Puntland Maritime Police authorities and repatriated in May 2011, Kay said in a statement.

The mission to recover the hostages was conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), funded by the Contact Group for Piracy off the Coast of Somalia's Trust Fund, Kay said.

"I am grateful to see the longest held hostages released from Somalia, and thank all those involved who made it happen, especially the regional authorities in Galmudug," Kay said.

Somali pirates are still holding 26 more hostages, abducted from the FV Naham 3, Kay said.

A $1 million ransom was paid for the release of the four Thai crew members, said Bile Hussein, a Somali pirate. His claim could not be independently verified.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia once was a serious threat to the global shipping industry, but attacks have dropped dramatically the last several years after ships began carrying armed guards.

The majority of hostages held by Somali pirates have been sailors on merchant ships, though European families have also been kidnapped from their yachts while traveling in the dangerous Indian Ocean coastal waters. Four Americans were killed in February 2011 when pirates boarded their ship despite the presence of U.S. warships nearby.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31670899

28 February 2015 Last updated at 00:39 ET

Reaction to death of Boris Nemtsov

The brazen killing of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in central Moscow on Friday sent shockwaves across Russia and beyond.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick to condemn the shooting, which happened just outside the walls of the Kremlin.

"Putin noted that this cruel murder has all the makings of a contract hit and is extremely provocative," Dmitry Peskov told reporters, noting that the president had ordered Russia's top police chiefs to personally oversee the murder investigation.

But there was immediate pressure from inside Russia and out for the inquiry to be more thorough than those that have come before.

US President Barack Obama called on Russia's government to launch "a prompt, impartial, and transparent" investigation to ensure that "those responsible for this vicious killing are brought to justice".

Mr Obama, who met Nemtsov in Moscow in 2009, said he had admired the former deputy prime minister's "courageous dedication to the struggle against corruption in Russia".

'Friend of Ukraine'

Nemtsov had been working on a report into Russia's involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine in the weeks before his death.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attends ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz - 27 January 2015 President Petro Poroshenko said Nemtsov was a "bridge between Ukraine and Russia"
Russia denies supplying Ukrainian rebels with heavy weapons and troops, but the West and the government in Kiev say they have evidence to the contrary. It appears Nemtsov believed he too had acquired such evidence.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's prime minister, tweeted (in Ukrainian) shortly after Nemtsov's death was confirmed, saying: "Patriot of Russia, at same time a friend of Ukraine. This is what will remain in our memory of Boris Nemtsov. RIP".

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Nemtsov a "bridge between Ukraine and Russia".

"The murderers' shot has destroyed it. I think it is not by accident," Mr Poroshenko wrote on Facebook (in Ukrainian).

Death threats

Fellow Russian opposition politician Garry Kasparov said he was "devastated" by news of the killing.

Tweet by Garry Kasparov - 27 February 2015
"He always believed Russia could change from inside without violence; after 2012 I disagreed," Mr Kasparov wrote.

"When we argued, Boris would tell me I was too hasty, that in Russia you had to live a long time to see change. Now he'll never see it. RIP."

He blamed Nemtsov's killing on Mr Putin's "atmosphere of hatred and violence, abroad and in Russia," saying bloodshed is "the prerequisite to show loyalty".

Garry Kasparov, right, speaks with Boris Nemtsov at a press conference in Moscow - 6 February 2009 Fellow opposition politician Garry Kasparov described Nemtsov's death as a "brutal murder"
Nemtsov's lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said the politician had received several death threats on social media in recent months, but said authorities did not take them seriously.

Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Russian prime minister who is now in opposition, said he was shocked.

"In the 21st century, a leader of the opposition is being demonstratively shot just outside the walls of the Kremlin!" he told reporters at the scene of the murder. "The country is rolling into the abyss."

Opposition activist Ilya Yashin said he had no doubt that the killing was politically motivated.

"Boris Nemtsov was a stark opposition leader who criticized the most important state officials in our country," Mr Yashin said. "As we have seen, such criticism in Russia is dangerous for one's life."

Tweet by Michael McFaul - 27 February 2015
Michael McFaul, US ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014, said the shooting was one of the "most shocking things that I can remember happening in Russia for a long, long time".

"100 meters from the Kremlin and none of those militsiya [police] working around there could stop the murderers?" he tweeted.

Opposition activists were due to hold a rally in Moscow on Sunday but said they would be staging a funeral march through the city instead.

"We are in a new political reality," one of the rally organisers, Leonid Volkov, said on Twitter (in Russian).

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/27/us-libya-security-crash-idUSKBN0LV2OJ20150227

Libyan aircraft crashes near Tunisian border: state news agency

TUNIS Fri Feb 27, 2015 6:07pm EST

(Reuters) - An aircraft from Libyan forces controlling Tripoli crashed near the Tunisian border and may have been shot down, Tunisia's state news agency TAP reported on Friday.

The aircraft went down 5 kilometers from the frontier inside Libya, TAP said, but did not provide any further details. Libyan officials did not immediately confirm the incident.

Libya is embroiled in a battle between two rival governments and their armed forces; one an internationally recognized administration operating out of the east of the country, and the other, a faction that took over the capital Tripoli in the summer.

The forces allied with Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni's recognized government and Tripoli's armed forces have been conducting air strikes on each other. A jet from Tripoli's forces this week attacked an airport in the western town of Zintan near the Tunisian border.

The United Nations is trying to negotiate a deal between the factions to form a unity government to stop the North African country's slide into wider civil war, with Islamist militants increasingly using the chaos to gain a foothold in Libya.


(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Pat Markey; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/28/us-china-military-corruption-idUSKBN0LW07A20150228

China military official booted from parliament in anti-graft drive

BEIJING Sat Feb 28, 2015 1:23am EST

(Reuters) - China has booted a senior military official who is embroiled in a corruption scandal from its parliament, state media reported on Saturday.

The development, which comes as China's leadership pursues a campaign to weed out corruption and excess in its armed forces, is significant because it means Liu Zheng has been stripped of immunity from prosecution as a member of parliament, state media reported, citing a statement from the standing committee of the National People's Congress, the largely rubber-stamp legislature.

Liu, a former deputy director of the powerful General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army, is under investigation, the Ministry of Defense said in January, accused of "seriously violating party discipline" - a common euphemism for graft.

Serving and retired Chinese military officers have said graft in the armed forces is so pervasive it could undermine China's ability to wage war.

China's campaign to rid its military of corruption has ensnared several high-ranking officials, including Xu Caihou, who retired as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission last year.

China said last summer it was investigating Xu for graft.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to target high-flying "tigers" as well as lowly "flies" in his anti-corruption campaign.


(Reporting By Megha Rajagopalan; Editing by Michael Perry)

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defenseone.com/technolog...z-middle-east-arms-show/106218/?oref=d-skybox

Inside the Glitz of a Middle East Arms Show

February 26, 2015 By Marcus Weisgerber

IDEX has become a must-attend event for defense firms and consultants alike as conversation with a powerful decision maker could translate into billions of dollars in weapon sales.

ABU DHABI — For defense firms, it’s simply all about “being there” at an event like the International Defence Exposition and Conference, better know as IDEX.

You never know who will show up: presidents, princes, defense ministers, generals and admirals from all corners of the world are here. And flashiness matters even for companies and even countries that like to keep low profiles. The goal is to catch the eye of a power player, one who could ink a multimillion or even multibillion dollar deal. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that some countries have acquisition systems that simply depend on the depth of a wealthy individual’s pockets, and not approval by the U.S. Congress.

American firms have tamped down their presence at U.S. and European trade shows, but you couldn’t tell it here. They’re beefing up their presence at a shows like IDEX, as Middle Eastern leaders look to stock up on arms to counter Islamic State militants and deter Iran.

Over the next five years, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan are expected to spend more $165 billion on arms, according to Avascent Analytics, including ships, armored trucks and fighter jets.

At an event like IDEX, the groundwork is laid for these types of deals. Here business gets done in private conference rooms built into firms’ elaborate display pavilions and booths, much like the way invitation-only corporate chalets serve as the venue for power player meetings at air shows in Paris and London. Generals and other government leaders are often seen with company representatives coming and going from these closed-door meetings.


There are company-to-company deals as well. Firms lock-in partnering deals with one another. In one deal that went down this week at IDEX, Motor Sich JSC, a Ukrainian aircraft maintenance and repair company, signed an agreement with South African defense company Paramount Group to jointly modernize helicopters.

Prior to the announcement, representatives for each side were seen scurrying back and forth between the adjacent Paramount and Ukrainian pavilions. At one point, a Paramount banner was carried into the Ukrainian pavilion. Intertwined Ukrainian and South African flags were placed on a table, signaling a deal between the two firms had occurred.



IDEX is much like Washington’s mega-military tradeshow and convention known as AUSA, by the Association of the United States Army. But the show in Abu Dhabi is much larger, thanks to the attendance of many international firms, including U.S. adversaries. Arms made in China, Russia and even Sudan, countries that don’t attend tradeshows in the United States, are all on display here and their military leaders roam – and deal – freely.

IDEX is a mix of buyers and of sellers, with more than 1,000 companies showing off the latest technology in ground, naval and drone combat. But everyone watches the buyers.

The United Arab Emirates, the host of the event, is typically a buyer. The UAE military has signed more than $4.2 billion in arms deals since IDEX started on Sunday.

The Jordanians, who have recently stepped up contributions to the American-led coalition attacking ISIS, are expected buyers. “They’re here with the checkbook open,” one industry source said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko showed up and became an unexpected buyer, even though it is not clear what he purchased. Poroshenko also signed a military pact with UAE, although the terms are not clear. Even though the U.S. government has approved the sale of lethal defensive weapons to Kiev, it didn’t stop Poroshenko for checking out American defense firms’ products.

Another potential buyer is Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, the newly appointed Saudi Arabian defense minister, who was spotted viewing the exhibits.



The sellers include defense titans like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Airbus, BAE Systems, Finmeccanica and Thales. Their display pavilions are sprawling, oftentimes with the company’s signature product as the centerpiece. Depending on the company’s specialty, it could be a missile, tank, armored truck, helicopter, drone or sometimes a mixture of all these weapons.

But there are a larger number of smaller firms, like Defendec, an Estonian company that makes networked border security sensors. These small business usually have tiny booths, with a backdrop, desk and a much more public table to hold a meeting.

Companies could turn into buyers too, as a small company could catch the eye of a defense heavyweight looking to beef up or create a new area of business.

Planning to attend one of these events? Here’s what you need to know:


Location, Location, Location


Companies pay big bucks to set up a pavilion or booth in the high-end real estate of the exhibit hall, like at any convention. But IDEX is one of those events where having a flashy display could land you a contract, as mentioned earlier.


You Never Know Who Will Show Up


Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stole the show at IDEX with his unannounced visit. With an entourage in tow and a throng of curious onlookers, he very visibly strolled around the exhibit hall, received briefings on American and European military equipment that would like to buy for his Army, which has been battling pro-Russian separatists for the past year. Poroshenko even walked right by the Russian displays, according to Ukrainian officials. Others spotted include: Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, the new Saudi Arabian defense minister and a high-ranking Chinese People’s Liberation Army general.


Spies are Everywhere


With so much military technology right out in the open, the spy game is on for G-men and companies. At times, it’s not even covert. When the previously mentioned Chinese general walked through the large American pavilion, many in his entourage – some in uniform, some not – snapped pictures of all the equipment out in the open. It’s also a chance for some corporate espionage, an opportunity to check out what your competition is up to.


Military Officials Wear Suits to Blend


While military officers in uniform are everywhere at IDEX, you’ll find many allies wearing suits in an attempt to blend in at events in Washington. No need to draw attention to yourself where there are reporters everywhere. Typically, embassy military affairs staff wear suits in Washington except to formal events. They break out the dress uniforms for those shindigs.


Check Out the Unique Exhibits


For an American, an event like IDEX allows you to see foreign military equipment that you might not get to see anywhere else. The Russians and Chinese are not lining up to display their goods at U.S. tradeshows, after all. The Chinese had an assortment of drones on hand, including a small helicopter drone that looked like the U.S. Navy Fire Scout and the Wing Loong, another drone that closely resembles the U.S. Air Force Reaper. Huge air and missile defense launchers, tanks, missiles, guns — they’re all three.




BYOL: That’s Bring Your Own Lanyard


This is a real pro tip, so pay attention, particularly if you’re in the industry. Bring your own lanyard. Everyone always needs to wear an identification badge for security reasons and a lanyard is a must. While the conference registration desk has plenty of lanyards on site, a company always sponsors them. Do you really want to be the Boeing guy wearing the Lockheed lanyard? Didn’t think so.


Eat, Drink, Network


Many of the larger defense firms hold receptions either at their tradeshow booth or a local hotel. Free food and drinks are always plentiful. While the company receptions are common, the power players typically show up at shindigs hosted by the local embassies. If you want to hobnob with the decision makers, this is the place to be. Ambassadors, defense ministers and even heads of state tend to come to these parties. This year, the Americans had an invite-only reception on the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, which is making a port stop here. The Americans held a similar reception on the USS Harry Truman in November 2013 during the Dubai Air Show.




Wear Comfortable Shoes


IDEX is huge. How huge? Check out the video above. On an average day, one reporter walked about 13,000 steps, according to a nifty FitBit. That’s about 6 miles. The event fills the entire Abu Dhabi National Exposition Centre. That’s 375,000 square feet of exhibits. As one reporter in a pair of black wingtips lamented, “I need to pick up a pair of Rockports for these things. I have blisters everywhere.” Flats are a good option over heels, we’re told. This is even more important at an airshow when you’ll be outside on unpaved surfaces.


Getting Your Eat On


Just about every company’s pavilion or booth has a basket of breath mints or candy perfectly positioned within reach as you walk on by. Before you know it, you’ve had eight lifesavers, five Kit Kats and a 3 Musketeers bar. For some reason, there always seem to be 3 Musketeers. Resist the urge and eat some real food, which in these cavernous exhibit halls is often expensive because you’re trapped there. And usually the quality of the food is not great either. Companies, particularly at airshow, have invite-only chalets with a fully-catered lunch. At the airshows, that’s the best place to find the best food.


The Corporate Swag


Companies offer up tons of giveaways, everything from pens to stuffed animals, emblemized with corporate logos. In recent years, some firms started giving out reusable supermarket bags to collect to hold these tchotchkes. But with so many giveaways, your arms might get tired. Now there are rolling suitcase-style cardboard boxes. Seriously. Wouldn’t want to get a hernia carrying those all those free golf balls. Reporters: hands off the swag.


“Booth Babes”


You don’t see this at defense tradeshows in the United States, but at international events some companies hire models to pass out product cards. The large American companies don’t do this, but Russians companies are notorious for this. These ladies often wear high heals, short skirts, low-cut tops and at an airshow, tight-fitting flight suits.


There’s No Time to Sightsee


Here you are in exotic country X and the best part is you’re company is paying the bill. Surely, you’ll be able to escape to take in some of the sights and pick up some souvenirs. Don’t count on it. You’ll probably be at the show for eight to 10 hours, then off to mandatory corporate dinners and receptions (see above). By the time that’s over, all you want to do is get back to your hotel and crash. Chances are, the only sights you’ll some are through the window of a taxi. If you want to shop and sightsee, book extra days at the end of the trip. If you add to the beginning, you’ll still be fighting jetlag, taking away from the fun. That said, you’ll be exhausted after the show ends. So it’s all about personal preference here.


What To Expect in the Future


Since its inception in 1993, IDEX continues to grow, the event’s organizers say. U.S. and European company executives say their attendance at the exposition is critical to deepening their ties with the United Arab Emirates and other militaries in the region. As government officials and experts forecast a long campaign against ISIS, an arms bazaar like IDEX will continue to remain an essential stop for defense leaders and firms.

Author

Marcus Weisgerber is the global business reporter for Defense One covering the intersection of business and national security. He has been covering defense and national security issues for nearly a decade, previously as Pentagon correspondent for Defense News and chief editor of Inside the Air ... Full Bio

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/02/anti-isis-summit-mecca/106314/?oref=d-river

An Anti-ISIS Summit in Mecca

February 27, 2015 By Edward Delman The Atlantic

A little-noticed conference in Mecca on 'Islam and Counterterrorism' offers a counterpoint to the Obama administration's narrative on how to defeat ISIS.

President Obama isn’t alone in grappling with how best to counter ISIS and its brand of Islamic extremism—and convening summits for just that purpose. Earlier this week, the Muslim World League, a Saudi-backed alliance of Islamic NGOs, wrapped up a little-noticed three-day conference in Mecca on “Islam and Counterterrorism.” With the patronage of Saudi Arabia’s newly minted King Salman bin Abdulaziz and a keynote address by Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Sunni Islam’s most prestigious university, al-Azhar in Egypt, the program sought to address the nature of terrorism, its relationship to Islam, and what the Muslim community can do to prevent its members from becoming radicalized. The proceedings offered a counterpoint to the U.S. government’s narrative about the nature of the Islamic State and how to confront the group.

Obama has been criticized recently for attempting to delink ISIS (or ISIL, as he would put it) and other terrorist groups from Islam. The president has been sounding this note since the fall, when he insisted, “ISIL is not Islamic.” And there’s reason behind his rhetoric. Obama is seeking to combat rising Islamophobia in many parts of the world, assure Muslims that the United States is not at war with Islam, and fight a war against a barbarous terrorist organization that seeks its legitimacy through Islamic theology. Earlier this month, the White House and State Department hosted a Summit on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), during which the president once again insisted, “We are at war with people who have perverted Islam,” and “No religion is responsible for terrorism. People are responsible for violence and terrorism.” The president hasn’t gone so far as to deny any connection between terrorism and Islam, but he tends to acknowledge the link by noting how ISIS and similar groups exploit Islam to justify violence while their true motivations are wholly distinct from their faith.

At the conference in Mecca, by contrast, speakers seem to have been less certain that Islamist terror can be divorced from Islam. Some statements did echo those made by the White House. According to a translation by the Muslim World League, al-Tayeb argued, “The violence and terrorism … of these groups are strange to Islam. They have nothing to do with our creed, Sharia, ethic, history, and civilization.” And much as Obama sought to expand the discussion of violent extremism to include examples like the Oklahoma City bombing and the attack against a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, participants at the Mecca conference similarly argued that terrorism is associated with no one religion,remarking that “if a Muslim … commits an act of terror, it is linked to Islam. But if the same terror act is committed by a Christian, Jew, Hindu, or Buddhist, it is seldom linked to the perpetrator’s religion,” according to a report by the Saudi Gazette.

At other times, though, speakers asserted that ISIS could not be disassociated from Islam. After discounting poverty, social marginalization, and incarceration as the primary causes of radicalization, al-Tayeb said that in his opinion, “the most prominent” source of radicalization among Muslims is the “historical accumulations of extremism and militancy in our heritage.” Abdullah bin Abdelmohsin al-Turki, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, was even blunter: “The terrorism that we face within the Muslim Ummah and our own homelands today … is religiously motivated. It has been founded on extremism, and the misconception of some distorted Sharia concept.” King Salman’s speech referred to the phenomenon of “Islamized terrorism,” and the program for the conference explicitly stated that “our own children” are responsible for extremist violence.

According to Will McCants, director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, there’s a logic behind the divergence in messaging from Washington and Mecca. “This conversation can’t really happen in the U.S., or in the West, because the [Obama] administration is determined not to frame this [conflict] or have it be interpreted as a religious war,” he told me. “It wants to take that talking point away from its enemies.” McCants added that Muslim leaders may also feel more comfortable speaking openly about an issue that is afflicting their own community. When the U.S. tries to adjudicate theological issues, he said, “it can discredit the people who reach the same conclusions we do. If Muslims and the U.S. government say these guys don’t represent Islam, it makes the Muslims look like pawns of the United States.”

The priorities of the CVE and Muslim World League summits were also distinct. The impetus for the conference in Mecca appears to have been the Saudi government’s belief that Islamist terrorism represents not only a threat to the security of the region, but also an existential threat to Islam itself. It would therefore have been impossible for the speakers to ignore ISIS’s Islamic roots. The conference’s organizers cast their mission as developing a coordinated campaign to promote a moderate, peaceful vision of Islam that disavows the violence and apostasy that ISIS thrives on. The program, above all, emphasized that this is a specifically Muslim issue, and placed the onus on the Muslim community to craft a narrative that overpowers the Islamic State’s.

In comparison, the CVE summit was more concerned with addressing radicalization in all its forms, and emphasized the economic and social conditions in which people tend to become radicalized. The agenda also had a largely domestic focus despite the United States being low on the list of countries contributing foreign fighters to jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq.

But whether ISIS’s deeds are labeled “violent extremism” or “Islamized terrorism,” the conversations in Washington and Mecca had at least one thing in common: They deepened the debate over whether ISIS and its fellow travelers are “Islamic,” and whether the answer matters in the first place. That debate is not just academic. It has real consequences for how the Islamic State’s opponents mount their counteroffensive.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/...uts-china-s-mediterranean-plans-back-on-track

Greece’s Reversal Puts China’s Mediterranean Plans Back on Track

By Emanuele Scimia, Feb. 27, 2015, Briefing

While the world watches the ongoing debt negotiations between Greece and its international creditors mainly for their impact on the Greek and eurozone economies, the talks have already put Beijing’s plans for a strategic transport system meant to further integrate Europe and the Mediterranean with the Chinese market back on track. The new leftist government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens had initially announced plans to halt the privatization of Greece’s largest seaport, Piraeus, alarming investors from the Chinese shipping giant Cosco, which is keen to take a majority share in the Greek facility. But as part of the four-month bailout extension reached earlier this week between Greece and the so-called troika made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Greece has reversed course and will go ahead with previously agreed-upon privatizations, including Piraeus.

Cosco is counting on turning the port into a key junction of its proposed “One Belt and One Road” transport system, a mammoth project in which Beijing aims to build both an overland corridor and a maritime route connecting eastern China to Western Europe. This major attempt at Eurasian interconnectivity under the Chinese flag, which will simultaneously offer a boost to Euro-Mediterranean integration, now has one fewer obstacle to clear.

In 2008, Cosco secured a 35-year concession for managing two piers at the Port of Piraeus. Last November, the company also signed a deal with the Greece’s then-conservative government led by former Prime Minister Anton Samaras to channel $263 million into the expansion of the most important harbor in Greece. Cosco was also considered the frontrunner in the tender for the sale of a 67 percent stake in the Piraeus Port Authority. Thanks to Chinese capital, Piraeus is now poised to become the biggest Mediterranean port in terms of cargo traffic, with Beijing planning to make Greece the main entry point for its exports toward northern and Western Europe through the Danube River Basin.

With its One Belt and One Road transport network, China hopes to revive the economic and cultural ties established along the ancient Silk Road that connected East Asia and Europe up until the 15th century. The planned transport system consists of two distinct passageways: the “Silk Road Economic Belt,” which is expected to connect eastern China with Western Europe via Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” a sea lane that would link China’s east coast to the Piraeus port via the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

The announced cancellation of the Piraeus tender earlier this month by Tsipras’ Syriza-dominated Cabinet brought those plans into question. But with the tender back on track, the impact of Beijing’s ambitious project will be felt beyond just China and Greece. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang views these grand designs for new East-West trade routes as a way to connect the Mediterranean basin with continental Europe and, accordingly, speed up European integration. Li made that position clear in remarks last December at the China-Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) Summit.

Such a grandiose vision may seem provocative and even self-serving coming from a Chinese premier, but it is not. China has a broad strategy to boost transit links and economic integration in the Euro-Mediterranean region, something that the European Union appears to lack. Beijing’s political and financial engagement in the Balkans and Middle Eastern countries in the eastern Mediterranean, for example, outweighs that of the Union for the Mediterranean, an EU-sponsored multilateral partnership tasked with those very same objectives but which has done little to achieve them.

While Piraeus is China’s planned entry point into Europe, establishing a maritime axis between Piraeus and the Israeli port of Ashdod is the cornerstone of China’s Mediterranean ambitions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last September that a Beijing-based company, China Harbor, had landed a $930 million contract to construct a new port in Ashdod by 2020. Ashdod is key to the Maritime Silk Road, as it sits at the northern tip of a projected railway that would cross Israel’s southern Negev desert and connect to the Red Sea port of Eilat. Beijing has already agreed to fund part of this rail project through its China Development Industrial Bank.

Once completed, Israel’s “Red-Med” railway between Eilat and Ashdod will give Piraeus-bound shippers from Asia and Africa a price-competitive alternative to Egypt’s Suez Canal. The proposed Israeli railroad could even extend from Eilat to neighboring Aqaba, in Jordan, and on to the Arabian Peninsula through the wider regional long-distance rail transport system planned by the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The Union for the Mediterranean has recently restarted talks about its own Trans-Mediterranean Transport Network, a system of transportation infrastructure to boost links between Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. But its various projects, including new rail links, highways, sea routes and logistic platforms, are moving forward at a slow pace because of a shortage of funding. The lack of financing has also delayed the EU’s own Trans-European Transport Network, a planned $800 billion investment through 2030 to upgrade and provide new rail links to existing ports and airports across Europe.

Exhausted by a prolonged period of economic malaise, and haunted by the threat of spillover from the Middle East’s conflicts and steady violence in Ukraine, EU countries are in no position to reject China’s bid for mutually beneficial cooperation to improve and expand infrastructure. A win-win scenario of sorts could see the EU and China advance joint ventures to align their respective transportation network projects. That could have other benefits, helping to stabilize the Middle East and North Africa through greater integration and economic opportunity across the Mediterranean.

For now, however, while the EU lags, China is pressing forward. Before the Piraeus tender was resolved, Keqiang had already promised more investment in Greece to get the deal back on track, and Beijing will probably find ways to improve relations with Tsipras’ government to further shore up its position in Greece. The stakes are high for China and Europe, as well as for both shores of the Mediterranean.

Emanuele Scimia is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst.

More on this Region
Strategic Horizons: Making Libya a U.N. Protectorate Would Be Wise but Impossible
The Realist Prism: With Cease-Fire, Ukraine Remains Stuck Between Russia and the West
Global Insights: As China Ponders BMD Options, U.S. Must Consider Responses
Diplomatic Fallout: Europe Needs Strategy to Address Libya, Ukraine Crises—Not Panic
Fishing Wars: China’s Aggression Could Stoke Future Conflict

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-...tion-kirchner-rousseff/c3s18228/#.VPIAwE03PIV

Venezuela: From 21st Century Socialism To Plain Old Fascism

Hampered by plummeting oil prices and fading public support, President Nicolas Maduro and his crafty sidekick, Assembly leader Diosdado Cabello, are trying to provoke an opposition outburst. Last week's arrest of Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma was a case in point.

Darío Acevedo Carmona (2015-02-27)

-OpEd-

BOGOTA — Democrats in the Americas can no longer doubt that Venezuela's impostor president, Nicolás Maduro, and Diosdado Cabello, the murky speaker of parliament some have accused of running a trafficking ring from within the state apparatus, are imposing a veritable dictatorship on Venezuela. It's also clear that their economic model, which is producing widespread food shortages, is a thundering failure.

The arrest on Feb. 19 of Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, a key figure in the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition, coincides with the rather painful anniversary of the detention of another government opponent, Leopoldo López. Outspoken former MP María Corina Machado and other regime critics, in the meantime, have been receiving constant threats.

The pressure being exerted on these opposition leaders shows just how determined the "Castro-Chavista" regime is to maintain its grip on power and deepen its Cuba-inspired "revolution of 21st century socialism.".......

 

[Housecarl]

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http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/where-is-indias-carrier-fleet-going/

Where Is India's Carrier Fleet Going?

India should think long and hard about the logistics necessary to operate a nuclear propulsion carrier.

By Robert Farley
February 27, 2015

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India is pushing hard on its carrier fleet, but does it have a good sense of where it’s going?

Reports have emerged that India’s second indigenously built carrier, expected to be the third carrier to enter service in the next two decades, may utilize nuclear propulsion. This is alongside a set of other innovations that the Vishal might adopt, including EMALS catapult technology (possibly developed in association with the United States). India has taken strides on nuclear propulsion recently, with the launch of INS Arihant, its first domestically constructed nuclear submarine.

Why would India need a nuclear powered aircraft carrier? Nuclear power doesn’t eliminate the need for local basing (even the all-nuclear task forces the USN assembled in the 1970s and 1980s required support vessels for repair and munitions), although it does reduce a task force’s overall requirements. Countries that build nuclear aircraft carriers (a group that currently includes only the United States and France) typically have either worldwide military responsibilities or worldwide military ambitions. By decreasing fueling requirements, nuclear power increases range and improves operational tempo.

But that’s only particularly useful if India expects to conduct high intensity carrier operations at some distance from its home waters. And as of the moment, it’s hard to envision missions in which nuclear power would prove decisive. The most plausible contingency might involve some kind of extended deployment in the Pacific, but it’s a struggle to figure out why the Indian Navy would seek to decisively engage the PLAN (or whomever else it might want to fight) in the Pacific, rather than astride China’s maritime supply lines in the Indian Ocean.

It also means that the maintenance, training, and operational requirements of India’s three carriers will diverge even more. India is effectively pursuing a naval aviation program that will struggle to share aircraft, pilots, and sailors. And until India’s second nuclear carrier comes on line (some sources suggest interest in an overall fleet of five flattops), INS Vishal will be the only of the three ships capable of conducting the missions that nuclear propulsion allows.

None of this is to say that the Indian Navy should eschew nuclear propulsion. But it should do so for good strategic and operational reasons. Even the United Kingdom, a country which does understand itself to have global military responsibilities, has decided against nuclear power for its carriers. If India is considering nuclear propulsion, it will need to think very hard about the kind of long-distance logistics that are necessary to support a CVN.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/no-war-russia-dont-be-so-sure-10177

No War with Russia? Don't Be Too Sure.

There is still a real risk that crisis will metastasize into conflict.

Paul J. Saunders
February 26, 2015

Though Moscow now appears willing to talk about Ukraine, it is far from clear that Russia’s terms will be acceptable to the United States—or, more important, to Kiev. Meanwhile, according to NATO’s commanding General Philip Breedlove, Russia’s troops could seize southern and eastern Ukraine within three to five days. With such high stakes, it’s time to reexamine some of our fundamental assumptions about war.

Nineteenth-century American humorist Josh Billings—a contemporary and rival of Mark Twain—is credited as the originator of the often-cited warning that “it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Unfortunately, after two decades of sole-superpowerdom, our president, politicians and pundits seem to know a great deal that ain’t so about wars. Thus as Washington debates its response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, all sides agree on only one thing: America will not go to war with Russia. Unfortunately, their certainty may rest upon a series of dangerously false assumptions.

Most assume that as the world’s preeminent military power, the United States gets to choose whether it goes to war or not. After two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus interventions in the Balkans and Libya and a decision to skip Syria, Americans have become accustomed to the idea that we can comfortably discuss our military options while others wait because none would dare challenge us. Though Leon Trotsky was wrong about everything else, policymakers should remember his statement that “you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

Would Russia directly attack U.S. forces or other targets? This is unlikely, as America’s military is far more powerful than Moscow’s—something Russian officials admit. Nevertheless, the fact that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has correctly calculated that the United States would not respond militarily to his actions so far does not mean that he will continue to be correct indefinitely in judging how far he can go. He knows more than a little that isn’t so himself.

This connects directly to a second assumption: that we, Putin, the European Union, Ukraine’s new government and Crimean leaders can collectively control or manage events. The collapse of the February 21 agreement between ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and his opponents-turned-successors demonstrates unmistakably that this is untrue—the deal fell apart because protestors on the Maidan demanded Yanukovych’s immediate removal when the U.S., the EU and the leaders of the Ukrainian opposition were all on board with the agreement and when Putin and Crimea’s leaders would have reluctantly accepted it. Yanukovych fled Kiev and Ukraine because he feared the mob, not establishment opposition leaders.

The relative absence of violence in Crimea has been remarkable. Conditions in eastern and southern Ukraine have been more troubling, and could get worse. How long can the current relative calm last? If demonstrations and counterdemonstrations devolve into violence, might Russia intervene elsewhere in Ukraine? What would NATO do if Ukraine’s weak army and paramilitary groups resisted? Where is the border between eastern Ukraine and western Ukraine? Would Russia’s general staff knowingly create a Pakistan-style haven for irregular fighters in western Ukraine by stopping their advance at that arbitrary point? Might Moscow attack the arms shipments some advocate or escalate in other ways? Carl von Clausewitz noted that once a war starts, it has its own logic of relentless escalation to extremes. We forget this at our peril.

Many prefer “crippling” sanctions, arguing that draconian economic measures could force Moscow to change course, or just inflict a devastating cost, while avoiding armed conflict. This popular view rests on a third assumption: that sanctions are an alternative to war rather than a prelude to it. Iran, Iraq, North Korea and some others have been prepared to absorb sanctions without attempting armed retaliation—but none is a major power. The last time the United States imposed crippling sanctions on another major power was in 1940–41, when Washington ratcheted up restrictions on trade with Imperial Japan, culminating in a de facto oil embargo and including bans on exports of iron, steel, copper and other metals as well as aviation fuel. Though President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was concerned about provoking Japan, U.S. officials thought that it would be irrational for Tokyo to attack the United States. Japanese leaders saw giving in to Washington as a greater danger. How would Putin respond to similar pressures?

Some take comfort in a critical difference between 1941 and 2014—the United States and Russia are nuclear superpowers. They assume that since nuclear deterrence succeeded in preventing U.S.-Soviet conflict during the Cold War it will do so again. But are Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin prepared to use nuclear weapons? More important, does each believe that the other could use nuclear weapons in an escalating conventional conflict over Ukraine? If either leader believes that the other will flinch, nuclear deterrence of conventional war could suddenly fail. Nuclear deterrence of conventional escalation could also fail. Moscow has already been waving its nuclear card.

Avoiding a war while resolutely defending U.S. national interests—and deterring Russia’s further intervention in Ukraine—requires a policy starkly different from the Obama administration’s. Greater resolve is essential, but there is also a fine balance between deterrence and provocation. President Barack Obama’s statement in Europe that Russia cannot be “deterred from further escalation by military force” is especially dangerous because it abandons a central foundation of post-World War II American strategy—the idea that U.S. dominance at each stage in a potential escalation chain deters conflict. From this perspective, Mr. Obama may be our first true post-Cold War president. Too bad that neither America nor the rest of the world may be quite ready for him.

Paul J. Saunders is Executive Director of the Center for the National Interest. He was a State Department Senior Advisor in the George W. Bush Administration. Follow him on Twitter: @psaunderscftni.

The above first appeared in April 2014. It is being reposted due to reader interest.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/02/27/natos_nuclear_nightmare_over_ukraine_107670.html

February 27, 2015

NATO's Nuclear Nightmare over Ukraine

By Rebeccah Heinrichs

While experts and analysts proffer suggestions for how the U.S. should respond to Putin’s intractable assault on Ukraine, like this recent excellent piece by Tom Nichols in RCD or by this Brookings report (not exactly authored by hawks), some still wonder why Moscow’s actions have anything to do with the U.S. in the first place. Part of the blame for this ignorance is willful, derived from a strong desire to keep the U.S. uninvolved in another conflict. And yet for those who have been listening to President Obama or former Secretary of State Clinton during the “reset” days, we’ve been led to believe that Russia is a cooperative partner, one that has many more shared interests with the U.S. than disagreements, let alone any that might lead to war. Indeed, the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review declared, “Russia and the United States are no longer adversaries, and prospects for military confrontation have declined dramatically.”

Commander of European Command General Breedlove testified before the House Armed Services Committee recently and gave one of the most compelling explanations from a U.S. official as to why Russia’s provocation and aggression is indeed a security crisis for the United States.

No doubt appreciating that the Russians would be listening closely, Breedlove began his testimony with a clear defense of the NATO alliance, underscoring its importance to the U.S. In sum, “Maintaining our strategic Alliance with Europe is vital to maintaining U.S. national security and is not to be taken for granted.” This is the crux. The stronger the NATO alliance is, the more stable Europe is and the less likely the U.S. will be drawn into a catastrophic war, mainly with Russia. Then, he clearly stated the U.S. commitment to NATO’s defense. “Coupled with our visible commitment to maintain capabilities, readiness, responsiveness and our strategic level messaging, our presence demonstrates, to friend and foe alike, our absolute commitment to the sovereignty and security of every Ally.”

But this begs the question, why isn’t what the General laid out working? Russia’s direct aid and support of continued aggression in Ukraine in the middle of a just-agreed ceasefire, once again belie Moscow’s willingness to end the conflict and reach a peaceful settlement. But this is no surprise when one considers Ukraine is not what Russia’s ultimately after. It’s after something much bigger. According to General Breedlove, “Since the beginning of 2014 President Putin’s Russia has abandoned all pretense of participating in a collaborative security process with its neighbors and the international community.” And then, “Russia uses these conflicts to maintain its influence and deny these states’ ability to make their own foreign and security policy choices and chart their own futures.”

Russia’s war with Ukraine is just the tip of the iceberg. What Moscow is really after is the undoing of the NATO alliance, one it has never recognized as legitimate. It sees NATO countries, or those countries who seek to become members of or align themselves with NATO, as part of its sphere of influence, and therefore as a threat to its power and ability to affect and determine the outcomes in the region. And so a growing NATO, either in geography or power, is perceived as a direct threat to Russia. This adversarial stance towards NATO is not mere speculation. In the latest Russian military doctrine released in December of last year, it branded NATO a threat.

As mentioned above, Tom Nichols’ piece “Russia Can’t Beat NATO—but Putin may Try” explains well why the conventional arms of NATO, along with its recent years of war, have kept its war-fighting prowess current and able to dominate Russian conventional war-fighting ability.

But then, in the most critical section of the piece, Nichols teases out why all of this could mean Russia’s employment of nuclear weapons. He writes, “In the end, if Putin orders his forces West, the Russians will lose, and lose badly. At that point, Putin will only have two options: he can sue for peace (something he seems constitutionally incapable of doing) or he can resort to nuclear weapons.”

This is where I take a slight but important difference in analysis with Nichols. While it’s true the Russians haven’t employed nuclear weapons, they are already on the table as a means of coercion. As Dr. Matthew Kroenig of Georgetown University argued in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing recently, “The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is very much a nuclear crisis.” While the U.S. has made great pains to marginalize nuclear weapons in its strategy, over the past two decades Russia has moved nuclear weapons front and center to its national strategy. Not only do Russia’s national leaders, including Putin himself, imply or sometimes explicitly threaten to employ nuclear weapons, the military conducts exercises showing just how it would do it. Russian foreign minister Lavrov, even stated that Russia had the “right” to deploy nuclear weapons in Crimea.

The Russians hold to a theory that by employing “tactical nuclear weapons” that is, ones that will incur limited damage, as opposed to total destruction, the enemy (i.e. NATO), would immediately sue for peace, deeming any further conventional fight not with the cost. Ambassador Robert Joseph explained at a recent conference that, “Russia’s doctrine assumes an asymmetry of interests and a lack of willingness on the part of the enemy to risk nuclear war.” Moscow may calculate that it wants to put an end to NATO more than the alliance, including the U.S., wants to engage in a retaliatory strike. The Russians are surely wrong about this, and that means a quickly escalating catastrophic war. And to be sure, Russia has a great number more of these lower yield battlefield nuclear weapons than what the U.S. has—some estimate as many as ten times as many. This is why the number and type of nuclear weapons the U.S possess matters and matters greatly.

Ambassador Joseph continued, “And Russian deterrence thinking is backed by an expansion of nuclear capabilities across the spectrum – heavy and mobile ICBMs, new SSBNs and SLBMs, upgrading of Bear Hs and Backfire bombers, and of course, the maintenance of vastly superior theater nuclear forces. Just days ago the chief of Russia’s armed forces (General Gerasimov) -- pointing to a large-scale military modernization plan through the next 5 years--said that "a strong nuclear arsenal will ensure military superiority over the West." "

Russian planners have been thinking, calculating and evaluating how to assert itself in the region, and how to use America’s treatment of its nuclear weapons to its advantage. What to do with U.S. nuclear weapons is not a debate relegated to arms control academics and wonky theorists. The U.S. has failed to adequately modernize its force and President Obama remains determined to take the U.S. levels of strategic nuclear weapons down by another third after satisfying the limits of the New START Treaty; a treaty that did not include any limitations on Russian tactical nuclear weapons, which we are now paying a direct price for.

Aside from the obvious need to modernize the force, including delivery platforms, the U.S. should now make it clear that lower-yield nuclear weapons are very much in play, including by assessing the possibility of deploying strategic bombers to Eastern Europe. (Dr. Kroenig presented such an option in his appearance before the Congressional Committee and his entire testimony is worth considering.)

Even this won’t be enough. In tandem with these deployments President Obama should make unmistakably clear that any nuclear attack against a NATO ally will result in nuclear retaliation. Failing to do this increases the prospects of a nuclear war.

General Breedlove closed with words the current and any future Commander should internalize: “If we do not stand up and take the initiative to set the theater, someone else will. We need credible, enduring capabilities that will assure, deter, and defend while shaping the theater with a coordinated whole of government approach. As long as I have the watch over EUCOM, I will relentlessly pursue a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace.”


Rebeccah Heinrichs is a fellow at the George C. Marshall Institute, writes about security policy, and specializes in nuclear deterrence and missile defense. She is the former manager of the House Missile Defense Caucus. You can follow her on twitter at @RLHeinrichs.

 

[Housecarl]

Well here's a DOT!.....Are they going to follow this up in Gaza?

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http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Egypt-court-declares-Hamas-a-terrorist-group-20150228

Egypt court declares Hamas a terrorist group

2015-02-28 20:19

Cairo - An Egyptian court on Saturday declared Hamas a "terrorist" organisation, a judicial source said, weeks after the Palestinian Islamist movement's armed wing was given the same designation.

Since Egypt's military ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013, the authorities have accused Hamas of aiding jihadists who have waged a string of deadly attacks on security forces in the Sinai Peninsula.

An Egyptian court on 31 January banned the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, declaring it a "terrorist" group.

In March last year, Egypt banned Hamas from carrying out any activities on its soil and froze the assets of the Islamist movement, which controls the Gaza Strip.

The court of first instance issued its verdict on Saturday after two complaints were filed against Hamas implicating it in deadly attacks against the police force and army in the Sinai, said the judicial source.

Jihadists on the peninsula have killed scores of policemen and soldiers since Morsi's overthrow, vowing revenge for a crackdown on his supporters that has left more than 1 400 people dead.

Saturday's ruling comes just days after Egypt adopted a new anti-terrorism law allowing the authorities to close the premises of any declared "terrorist" organisation, and to freeze its assets as well as those of its members.

- AFP

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....Probably why there wasn't any shooting between the PKK and the Turkish Army when the Turks made their run into Syria last week.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.voanews.com/content/turkey-kurdish-leader-call-for-disarmament-conference/2662927.html

Turkey, Kurdish Leaders Call for Disarmament Conference

Dorian Jones
February 28, 2015 12:07 PM

ISTANBUL — The imprisoned leader of the Kurdish rebel group the PKK has called on it to attend a conference on disarmament in Turkey. The announcement was made in a joint statement by government ministers and pro-Kurdish deputies. Disarmament has become a major stumbling block in efforts to end a decades long insurgency.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party says Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdish rebel group PKK, is urging his supporters to attend a conference in Turkey on disarmament. The announcement was made after talks with the government. Pro-Kurdish deputy Sirri Sureyya​, reading the statement, described the decision as a key moment in peace efforts.

"This is a historic declaration of will to replace armed struggle with democratic politics," he said.

Disarmament has become a stumbling block to efforts to end a four-decade-long insurgency that has claimed more than 40,000 lives. The PKK is fighting for greater rights for minority Kurds in Turkey.

The government is insisting that disarmament should start before announcing any reforms. But the PKK and Kurdish leaders are demanding the government should make a move first.

Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan described the PKK leader’s move as significant.

"We have reached an important point in the settlement process. Silencing arms would contribute in democratic development," he said.

No date has been given for the disarmament conference, other than it being held in spring. Saturday’s announcement is likely to give some impetus to the peace process. That, observers say, is important with a general election due in June and both the ruling AK Party and pro-Kurdish BDP hoping to see political dividends from the peace efforts.

But major obstacles remain. The government is continuing to push through a controversial security bill that pro-Kurdish groups have condemned and say could destroy the peace process. PKK leaders based in neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan also have questioned the sincerity of the government.

Disarmament is also being complicated by the war against Islamic state. PKK rebels fighting with Syrian affiliated groups remain in the forefront of fighting the Jihadists.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150228/af--south_sudan-abducted_boys-b688465011.html

UNICEF: Hundreds of South Sudanese boys believed abducted

Feb 28, 11:20 AM (ET)
By JASON PATINKIN

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — The U.N. children's agency said on Saturday that hundreds of children were abducted two weeks ago by an armed group in South Sudan that is suspected to have ties with the country's military.

UNICEF had previously said about 89 boys, some as young as 13, were forcibly recruited by an armed group near the town of Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile state, in mid-February. The agency said the boys were taken while doing their exams, in a recruitment operation that appeared to target mostly adults in the area known as Wau Shilluk.

UNICEF said in a statement Saturday that it is now "confident that the armed group which took the children ... is aligned with" South Sudan's military. It said the group is led by Johnson Oloni, a general who once fought against the government but joined the national army in 2013.

Oloni now holds the rank of major general in the South Sudanese military after the integration of his militia, according to Brig. Malaak Ayuen, a South Sudanese military official in charge of information and public relations. Oloni had been summoned to Juba, the South Sudanese capital, by President Salva Kiir over the alleged abductions, he said.

South Sudan's government has condemned the abductions and said an investigation is under way.

A weekly situation report on humanitarian affairs in South Sudan released Friday night said "more than 1,000" men and children were pressed into armed service in the Wau Shilluk recruitment exercise.

The evidence they have gathered indicates the children are being prepared to be sent to Kaka, near the Upper Nile oil fields, said UNICEF's representative in South Sudan, Jonathan Veitch.

"We fear they are going from the classroom to the front line," he said.

Last year 12,000 children were used as soldiers by armed forces and groups across South Sudan, according UNICEF.

Watchdog groups have persistently accused South Sudan's warring factions of actively recruiting and using child soldiers. South Sudan's military and rebels are actively enlisting children despite promises to the contrary, according to Human Rights Watch.

 

[Housecarl]

So from this and the Russian deals, along with the US being "withdrawn" since the Muslim Brotherhood was thrown out, Egypt should be considered "in play".....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/28/us-egypt-france-loan-idUSKBN0LW0ZN20150228

3.2 billion euros of Egypt-French arms deal financed by loan from Paris: Sisi

CAIRO Sat Feb 28, 2015 6:36pm EST

(Reuters) - The French government loaned Egypt 3.2 billion euros to finance the recent multibillion-euro purchase of French military equipment, Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in an interview on al-Arabiya TV on Saturday.

Egypt signed an agreement this month to buy 5.2 billion euros worth of French weapons, including 24 Rafale combat jets made by Dassault Aviation, a multi-mission naval frigate, and air-to-air missiles.

"The last equipment we got from France was with a French loan worth 3.2 billion euros and this loan was extended from the French government," President Abdel Fatatah al-Sisi said in the interview.

France said at the time the deal was agreed to that more than half the purchase price would be financed by French banks with a state-backed Coface guarantee.


(Reporting By Shadi Bushra and Ali Abdelatti; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Steve Orlofsky)

 

[Housecarl]

Someone's been reading Peron's and Chavez's biographies......And considering some of what when on in Ukraine before the current "unpleasantness" I wouldn't want to be Erdogan's chauffer or food taster......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/28/us-turkey-economy-erdogan-idUSKBN0LW0Y520150228

Turkey's Erdogan says high interest rate 'lobby' guilty of treason

ISTANBUL Sat Feb 28, 2015 4:42pm EST

(Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday said anyone opposing interest rates cuts was guilty of treason, piling more political pressure on the central bank.

Governor Erdem Basci on Friday dismissed rumors that Erdogan's criticisms of the central bank for not cutting rates swiftly enough would force him to resign.

On Saturday, the president stepped up his rhetoric: "There is a very serous threat from the interest-rate lobby," he told a news conference broadcast live on NTV.

"Anyone who defends this (high rates) is at the beck and call of the interest-rate lobby, this is treason against this nation."

Erdogan's criticisms of monetary policy are a concern to investors who fear the central bank could lose its independence, speculation that has helped push the lira to record lows.

The president believes current rates are impeding economic growth, which could dent his party's support as it heads into a general election in June.

The bank lowered its main one-week repo rate for the second straight month on Tuesday, trimming it by 25 basis points to 7.5 percent.

"With rates this high, can there be investment in this country? Without investment, there won't be employment or production. Your exports won't get the chance to compete in the competitive market," Erdogan said.

He also dismissed as gossip the rumors that Governor Basci and Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan would resign in the face of his criticisms.


(Reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/28/us-yemen-security-iran-aviation-idUSKBN0LW0RK20150228

Yemen signs aviation deal with Iran: state news agency

SANAA Sat Feb 28, 2015 11:34am EST

(Reuters) - Yemen and Iran signed a civil aviation deal on Saturday, Yemeni state news agency SABA reported, a move that may reflect Tehran's support for the Shi'ite Muslim militia that now controls Sanaa.

The deal signed in Tehran by the aviation authorities of both countries allows Yemen and Iran each to fly up to 14 flights a week in both directions, SABA said. The websites of the Iranian and Yemeni national airlines indicated there were currently no flights between the two.

The Shi'ite Muslim Houthi militia seized Yemen's capital in September, which eventually led President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee this month to the port city of Aden where he is seeking to set up a rival power center.

Sunni countries in the Gulf fear that events in Yemen show Shi'ite power Iran asserting its influence, something Tehran denies.

U.S. officials have also expressed concern that the rule of the resolutely anti-American Houthis will harm their counter-terrorism efforts in a country that has one of the most active branches of the Sunni Islamist militant group al Qaeda.


(Reporting by Mohamed Ghobari; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://news.yahoo.com/military-operations-force-boko-haram-back-urban-warfare-055425351.html

Military operations force Boko Haram back to urban warfare
AFP
By Phil Hazlewood 23 hours ago

Lagos (AFP) - Bomb attacks in Nigerian towns and cities look likely to increase in the run-up to forthcoming elections, despite the military claiming increasing successes against Boko Haram in captured territory.

At least 86 people were killed in explosions blamed on Boko Haram this week alone, all of them at crowded bus stations in the northeast, wider north and also in the country's central region.

The style of attack -- using either explosives left in bags or suicide bombers -- has prompted the government in Abuja to issue a warning for increased vigilance at "soft targets".

But with elections on March 28 that Boko Haram has already vowed to disrupt, security experts said there will be renewed fears about the safety of voters, particularly at polling stations.

"I think it's safe to say that as multi-national counter-insurgency operations continue in the northeast, Boko Haram will intensify its urban terror campaign," Ryan Cummings, chief Africa analyst at Red24 risk consultants, told AFP.

"Boko Haram will know that it lacks the resources or capacity to engage the Nigerian Army and its allies in conventional warfare, so its retributive attacks will increasingly focus on asymmetric warfare, which is resource-light but nevertheless damaging."

- Tactical shift -

Attacking towns and cities recalls Boko Haram's previous tactics before it began capturing and seizing territory in the northeast in mid-2014, declaring some part of an Islamic caliphate.

Cities such as Kano and particularly the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, were hit regularly until the government declared a state of emergency in May 2013 in three northeast states.

The military and civilian vigilante forces managed to push the rebels out into more remote, rural areas, where violence continued and in many cases intensified.

With soldiers thin on the ground in the countryside -- and with apparent dissent in the ranks about the provision of weapons and equipment -- Boko Haram launched its unprecedented land grab.

But since the attack on Baga on January 3, where hundreds of civilians, if not more, are thought to have been killed, and rebel strikes in Chad and Niger, there has been a concerted fight-back.

Nigerian troops, aided by soldiers from Cameroon, Chad and Niger, have bombarded rebel strongholds in northeast Nigeria and claim to have recaptured territory, including Baga last weekend.

President Goodluck Jonathan visited the ravaged town on the shores of Lake Chad on Thursday, telling troops that the conflict, which has killed more than 13,000 since 2009, would soon be over.

Observers have framed the claimed successes against the backdrop of upcoming elections in Nigeria, which were postponed for six weeks from February 14 because of the ongoing military operations.

Nigeria's national security advisor said at the time that troops would not be available to provide security on polling day.

- Further delay? -

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau vowed in a recent video that the elections, now scheduled for March 28, "will not be held, even if we are dead".

Militants have even distributed fliers calling on people not to vote.

Mark Schroeder, from political and security risk analysts Stratfor, said the recent bombings in Kano -- the north's biggest city -- and the central city of Jos, raised a new security threat.

"The Nigerian military, with renewed government backing, may achieve the easy steps of a counter-insurgency of asserting control in remote urban areas of the northeast," said Schroeder.

"But stopping Boko Haram from counter-attacks against civilians elsewhere is very difficult.

"You could say Boko Haram is merely being displaced while the Nigerian government publicises gains in Baga and elsewhere."

Boko Haram, which has invigorated its propaganda campaign with slick, Islamic State-style videos, will no doubt claim that such attacks put paid to government claims that it is being defeated.

Cummings argued that the return to guerrilla tactics in towns and cities could stretch security resources.

Abdullahi Bawa Wase, a Nigerian security analyst who tracks the Boko Haram conflict, described the bombings as "desperation" on the part of the militants.

But he noted that such attacks had not stopped during the change in tactics to seize territory but were now taking place in tandem with hit-and-run strikes, "to show they still have the capability".

"We are only going to see an intense increase of this bombing in the next weeks," which could possibly force another postponement in the election, he added.

View Comments (54)

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Nigerian military claims recapture of Baga from Boko Haram AFP

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen/aden-seethes-with-separatist-agendas-1.1464289

Aden seethes with separatist agendas

Yemen’s north-south divide remains raw despite merger in 1990

By Patrick J. McDonnell
Published: 03:45 March 1, 2015

Aden: A replica Big Ben still looks down on the harbour. Queen Victoria casts a dour gaze from her bronzed throne in a patch of green fronting the port.

But this one-time jewel of the British Empire has fallen on hard times — and now seethes with sedition as Yemen lurches toward civil war and possible disintegration.

The return last week of ousted President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a southerner, after weeks of house arrest in the capital, Sana’a, has done little to quell separatist sentiment in Yemen’s south.

Blue-tinged flags of an erstwhile new independent nation are ubiquitous. Gaggles of pro-independence protesters march on the streets. Separatist slogans line the walls. Talk of rebellion is rampant.

“If there is no secession, then this area will become the biggest conflict in the Middle East — bigger than Iraq or Syria,” warned Mohammad Nasser Hattab, who heads a “popular committee” militia that has commandeered a police station across from the tattered park where a stolid and plump Victoria still observes the horizon.

“The situation has gotten to the point that it is us or them on this land,” said Nasser, amid nods of agreement from fellow militiamen with Kalashnikovs and checkered head scarves gathered on the second floor of a dingy police precinct office in the port-side Tawahi district, known as Steamer Point during British rule.

This fractured nation of 26 million has many hot spots in the aftermath of the fall of the capital, Sana’a, to the northern-based Al Houthi faction. The Al Houthis overran the capital in September and consolidated control in recent weeks, placing Hadi and others in his administration under house arrest and dissolving parliament.

The emergence of the Al Houthis, who are allies of Iran, threatens to turn Yemen into yet another geopolitical battleground with profound implications for US policy. The nation has until now been relatively free of the sectarian-fuelled violence that has ravaged Iraq and Syria.

Fostering stability in the country has been a major goal of the Obama administration, which has touted Yemen as a success of its counter-terrorism strategy. The nation is home to Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap), regarded as among the most potent of the global terrorist network’s branches. US drone strikes continue to hit Al Qaida targets in Yemen, despite the Al Houthi takeover.

The port of Aden, still bustling but much depleted since its colonial era days as one of the world’s busiest harbours, was the site of a signature Al Qaida attack: The 2000 strike on the US destroyer Cole that left 17 US service members dead and 39 wounded.

The Al Houthis have vowed to destroy Al Qaida since the terrorists have repeatedly targeted them. But others argue that the Al Houthi advance has become an Al Qaida recruiting bonanza, drawing in Sunni youth and tribesmen.

“Many tribes had abandoned Al Qaida, but the arrival of Al Houthis in Sana’a pushed the tribes back to Al Qaida,” Aden’s Governor Abdul Aziz Bin Habtoor said in an interview in Aden.

To the east of Sana’a, Sunni tribes, some allied with Al Qaida, are arming against a possible Al Houthi thrust into resource-rich Marib province, source of much of the nation’s oil and gas and its major energy infrastructure. Sunni tribal leaders have vowed to resist.

Meanwhile, the central government in Sana’a appears to have lost much of its control over the south.

Northern and southern Yemen were two countries until merging in 1990, but tensions between the two distinct regions never completely dissipated. Now, the nation’s political turmoil has given a renewed boost to the secessionist agenda.

The Al Houthis have relatively little support in the south. There is widespread disdain for what southerners call an Al Houthi power grab — though the Al Houthis insist that their goal is a democratic and united state in which all regions are represented.

Hadi, a former general, as well as a former vice-president under longtime strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, fled from house arrest and arrived in Aden.

Many in Aden were outraged that Hadi did not embrace secession upon his return. Instead, he pledged to work toward a political settlement to maintain a unified Yemen — the goal of United Nations-brokered talks.

“The situation is very dangerous now,” said Mohsin Mohammad Bin Farid, who heads a coalition seeking to create “South Arabia” among eight southern provinces. “The people of the south were hoping that Hadi would be with us, be with independence.”

Although Hadi has many supporters in Aden, street protesters greeted his statement of unity with the chant: “Hadi, you are contemptible, the blood of the sons of the south is not cheap.”

So-called popular committee militiamen, on the payroll of political factions and tribes, have set up checkpoints and usurped the security services in parts of the south, including Aden. They bristle with indignation at the idea of Al Houthi-led rule.

“They [Al Houthis] do not represent a Yemeni point of view,” said Nasser, the popular committee commander near the port, in an apparent reference to Al Houthis’ links to Iran. “They are influenced by external dictates.”

The future role of Hadi, backed by the United States and its Gulf allies, remains a question mark. Hadi appears to have rescinded his resignation from the presidency — tendered on January 22 while he was under house arrest — and signalled that he favours continued dialogue among all of Yemen’s factions to keep the nation intact. His allies insist that most southerners prefer to remain part of Yemen.

“The great majority of people in the south support the idea of unity and adhere to the concept of a federal state,” said Bin Habtoor, the Aden governor, who spoke after meeting with the president in Aden.

But Hadi insists that all appointments and government actions made since September 21, when the Al Houthis overran Sana’a, are null and void. The governor also said talks should be moved from Al Houthi-controlled Sana’a to Aden.

“Al Houthi forcibly seized power with the gun and he must relinquish power whether he wants to or not,” said Bin Habtoor.

In Sana’a, however, the Al Houthis have showed no sign of pulling back. With regional, sectarian and tribal tensions rising, the prospect for compromise appears to be narrowing.

“What we see in Yemen is a potential humanitarian crisis, the prospect of economic collapse, and possible areas of conflict,” Jamal Bin Omar, the UN special envoy for Yemen, said in an interview in Sana’a. “The prospect for fragmentation is clearly there. We are saying that there is no other way but for all the political parties to come together and make a deal sometime soon.”

— Los Angeles Times

 

[Housecarl]

Venezuela captures US citizens, Maduro says for espionage; orders US embassy staff reduced
Started by Lilbitsnana‎, Yesterday 05:15 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...for-espionage-orders-US-embassy-staff-reduced

Well this is set to go "dumb and loud"......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/venezuelan-president-claims-americans-detained-espionage-n314956

Venezuelan President Claims Americans Detained for 'Espionage'

— Reuters and NBC News
First published February 28th 2015, 6:54 pm

CARACAS — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Saturday his government had captured Americans, including a pilot, involved in espionage activities and said U.S. citizens in the future will have to seek visas to come to the OPEC nation.

Speaking during a rally, he said his government will prohibit some U.S. officials from entering Venezuela in retaliation for a similar measure by the government of President Barack Obama against a group of Venezuelan public officials.

"We have captured some U.S. citizens in undercover activities, espionage, trying to win over people in towns along the Venezuelan coast," he said, adding one was a U.S. pilot taken in the convulsed border state of Tachira.

"In Tachira we captured a pilot of a U.S. plane (who is) of Latin origin (carrying) all kinds of documentation," Maduro said, without offering details. A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Caracas said he was unable to comment, citing a lack of any official diplomatic communication with the Venezuelan government.

Maduro also banned a number of prominent U.S. citizens from entering the country, adding George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the former head of the CIA George Tenent and some members of Congress to a "terrorist list." One of those banned, U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, was unimpressed.

"I've always wanted to travel to a corrupt country that is not a free democracy. And now Castro's lap dog won't let me!" the Republican from Florida said in a tweet. U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen were also banned.

IN-DEPTH

Venezuela Officials Detain, Free 4 North Dakota Missionaries
Uproar in Venezuela Over Opposition Leader's Arrest
Venezuelans Suffer Amid Shortages and Tension

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nypost.com/2015/02/28/a-saudi-nuke/

A Saudi nuke

By Post Editorial Board
February 28, 2015 | 8:25pm

Do we want Saudi Arabia to get nuclear weapons?

That’s what will certainly happen if the Obama administration, as now looks increasingly likely, reaches a deal that preserves Iran as a nuclear “breakout” power.

“Breakout” is a key word. It means that instead of permanently ensuring Tehran never gets a nuke, the goal of the deal would be to keep Tehran a year away from the ability to develop nuclear weapons for at least a decade.

By that time, of course, President Obama will be long gone.

But Saudi Arabia has already made clear that it will insist on the right to develop the same nuclear capability awarded Iran.

As Prince Turki al-Faisal, former head of Saudi intelligence, said recently, Riyadh will “seek to have the same terms in developing our nuclear energy.”

That spells a Middle East arms race — and a direct path to more nuclear proliferation in the world’s most dangerous and unstable region.

Even as the Obama administration moves the goalposts on what it is trying to achieve, the International Atomic Energy Agency is reporting that Iran continues to stonewall inspectors, which means no one knows just how close Tehran really is to producing nukes.

Meanwhile, critics of the deal point out that if Iran went ahead and violated the agreement, by the time we detected its action it would probably be too late.

This is the ugly reality behind a battle the Obama administration prefers to cast as a personal clash of wills between the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Not that there isn’t a clash. Netanyahu has plainly been a burr under the Obama saddle. But it’s not personality. It’s because he’s complaining about a deal that could allow Iran to destroy his country.

Make no mistake, though: It’s not just Israel lining up against America on this issue these days.

Indeed, in its reckless pursuit of a deal with Iran, the Obama administration has managed to unite the Arabs with the Israelis — because both have good reason to fear a nuclear-armed Iran.

The focus on Netanyahu conveniently disguises the most important fact about the Middle East: Virtually the entire region is united in its understanding that nukes for Iran would be a disaster.

If the Saudis responded by seeking a nuke to protect themselves, could you really fault them?

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...d-russia-opposition-traitors?CMP=share_btn_tw

Was Boris Nemtsov killed because in Russia opposition figures are deemed traitors?

Vladimir Putin and media are violently hostile to challenges to the state, an intolerance that has helped end the life of another opposition figure

People gather at the spot, where Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was shot dead, near Saint-Basil’s Cathedral, in the centre of Moscow on 28 February. Photograph: Alexander Utkin/AFP/Getty Images

Shaun Walker Moscow

Saturday 28 February 2015 15.33 EST Last modified on Saturday 28 February 2015 19.08 EST

Boris Nemtsov’s dead body was still lying on the icy asphalt when Vladimir Putin’s spokesman announced that the president believed the murder to be a “provocation”.

“With all due respect to the memory of Boris Nemtsov, in political terms he did not pose any threat to the current Russian leadership or Vladimir Putin. If we compare popularity levels, Putin’s and the government’s ratings and so on, in general Boris Nemtsov was just a little bit more than an average citizen,” Dmitry Peskov added later on.

Despite the astonishing tone of the statement, its sentiment has some truth to it. Nemtsov’s anti-corruption investigations and criticisms of the Putin regime were scathing, but did not reach many outside the “liberal bubble” of the small urban opposition.

The proximity of one of the Kremlin towers to the spot where Nemtsov was shot in the back is darkly melodramatic, and the symbolism could not be clearer. But this is not the way that the Kremlin has tended to deal with its internal political enemies. Take Alexei Navalny, arguably a far greater potential threat than Nemtsov, who has instead been frustrated with numerous court cases, house arrests, detentions and other harassment. Thuggish irritations and intimidations, not murder, have been the tools to disarm the opposition.

None of this is to suggest that the possible reasons for Nemtsov’s murder announced by Russia’s investigative committee are convincing. According to spokesman Vladimir Markin, the murder was either a set-up by the opposition to use Nemtsov as a “sacrificial victim”, a personal issue, a settling of scores between radical groups fighting on either side of the Ukraine conflict, or an act of Islamic terrorism. Not a mention of the frequent smearing of opposition politicians by groups close to the Kremlin, or of Nemtsov’s frequent appearance on online lists of “national traitors”.

Anyone who watches Russian state television – and that includes the vast majority of Russians – will have seen a picture painted over the past year of a victimised Russia attacked by voracious western vultures who want, at least, to make Russia irrelevant on the world stage, and at worst to mount a coup and install a puppet government. According to this narrative, the Russian opposition are traitors, working to destroy the country.

The Russian president and his TV channels have worked relentlessly to push this theory. Putin may have sent a telegram expressing his condolences to Nemtsov’s 87-year-old mother, in which he said Nemtsov always argued his points “directly and honestly”, but his tone in public has been rather different.

When he was asked about what Nemtsov and other opposition leaders wanted during a televised phone-in session back in 2010, Putin said they had stolen billions while in power in the 1990s, and if they were allowed back they would “not stop at billions but sell off the whole of Russia”.

As the conflict in Ukraine has intensified, the rhetoric has hardened. Now the opposition are not just corrupt, but “traitors”. In December, Putin was asked by a journalist whether he felt his use of the term “fifth column” and speaking about the political opposition as traitors was causing dangerous divisions in society.

“The line that separates opposition activists from the fifth column is hard to see from the outside,” said the Russian president. “What’s the difference? Opposition activists may be very harsh in their criticism, but at the end of the day they are defending the interests of the motherland. And the fifth column is those who serve the interests of other countries, and who are only tools for others’ political goals.”

Putin may have slightly fudged his answer, but much of the television propaganda makes it very clear on which side of this division patriotic citizens should locate the current political opposition.

NTV, which has run a series of programmes on Russia’s opposition and their apparent links to foreign intelligence services and other nefarious interests, had another dubious exposé lined up for Sunday night, in which allegations about Nemtsov were apparently due to feature. The programme was quietly removed from the schedule after Nemtsov’s murder.

At a recent launch of the Anti-Maidan movement in Russia, the leader of a biker gang, known as “the Surgeon”, who has been photographed many times with Putin, said foreign powers were sharpening their teeth to attack Russia. The Anti-Maidan movement would ensure that they could not do so, with violence if necessary. Another name for the movement was “death to faggots”, said the Surgeon.

Nemtsov frequently appeared on lists of “traitors” published online by extremist groups, and given that many radical Russian nationalists have been fighting a war in east Ukraine for the past six months, there have long been fears that the bloodshed could at some point move to the streets of Moscow.

The well-organised hit, in one of the most closely watched parts of Moscow, of a man who was undoubtedly under state surveillance just two days before a major opposition march, does not smack of an amateur job. Assuming a jealous lover or angry fellow liberal would not be able to organise a drive-by shooting in the shadows of the Kremlin towers, the remaining options are disturbing.

If, as Peskov says, it was senseless for the Kremlin to kill someone who posed very little threat, that leaves another option that is perhaps even more terrifying: that the campaign of hate that has erupted over the past year is spiralling out of the control of those who manufactured it.

“Actually it would be in some way less worrying if Putin had ordered Nemtsov’s killing,” wrote Ksenia Sobchak, a socialite turned journalist and opposition activist. “It would be an awful system, but at least a system, a manageable system. But I feel, unfortunately, this is not the case. There is no Putin who gave a command to kill. But there is a Putin who has built an appalling terminator, and he has lost control of it.”

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150301/ml-iraq-98d63b6c5f.html

Iraqi premier gives ultimatum ahead of hinted Tikrit attack

Mar 1, 3:37 PM (ET)
By SAMEER N. YACOUB

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's prime minister called on Sunni tribal fighters to abandon the Islamic State group Sunday, ahead of a promised offensive to retake Saddam Hussein's hometown from the extremists.

Haider al-Abadi offered no timeline for an attack on Tikrit, the hometown of the late Iraqi dictator some 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad that fell into the hands of the Islamic State group last summer. However, Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces have stationed themselves around Tikrit as state-run media has warned that the city "will soon return to its people."

But sending Shiite militias into the Sunni city of Tikrit, the capital of Iraq's Salahuddin province, could reprise the bloody, street-by-street insurgent battles that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. On Saturday, two suicide car bombers killed 16 nearby Shiite militiamen and wounded 31.

Al-Abadi offered what he called "the last chance" for Sunni tribal fighters, promising them a pardon during a news conference in Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad. His office said he arrived in Samarra to "supervise the operation to liberate Tikrit from the terrorist gangs."

"I call upon those who have been misled or committed a mistake to lay down arms and join their people and security forces in order to liberate their cities," al-Abadi said.

Al-Abadi said the operation will see troops come from several directions, but he declined to give an exact time for the operation's start. However, his presence in Samarra suggests it could come soon. A statement from his office late Sunday announced the start of a security operation to "liberate" Salahuddin province, though there were no initial reports of any military action underway.

The Iraqi military previously launched an operation in late June to try to wrest back control of Tikrit, but that quickly stalled. Other planned offensives by Iraq's military, which collapsed under the initial Islamic State group blitz, also have failed to make up ground, though soldiers have taken back the nearby refinery town of Beiji, backed by airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition.

Tikrit, which occasionally saw attacks on U.S. forces during the American occupation of the country, is one of the biggest cities held by the Islamic State group. It also sits on the road to Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, which is also held by the extremists. Any operation to take Mosul likely would require Iraq to seize Tikrit first.

Al-Abadi's comments appear to be targeting former members of Iraq's outlawed Baath party, loyalists to Saddam Hussein, who joined the Islamic State group during its offensive, as well as other Sunnis who were dissatisfied with Baghdad's Shiite-led government. The premier likely hopes to peel away some support from the Islamic State group, especially as Iraqis grow increasingly horrified by the extremists' mass killings and other atrocities.

In February alone, violence across Iraq killed at least 1,100 Iraqis, including more than 600 civilians, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq said Sunday.

U.N. envoy Nickolay Mladenov blamed the deaths on the extremist group, government forces and pro-government Shiite militias.

"Daily terrorist attacks perpetrated by ISIL continue to deliberately target all Iraqis," Mladenov said, using an alternate acronym for the Islamic State group. "There are also concerning reports of a number of revenge killings by armed groups in areas recently liberated from ISIL."

Last year was the deadliest in Iraq since its 2006-2007 sectarian bloodshed, with a total of 12,282 people killed and 23,126 wounded, according to the U.N.

---

Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/02/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-idUSKBN0LX1QL20150302

Iraq says launches offensive on Islamic State north of Baghdad

By Dominic Evans
BAGHDAD Sun Mar 1, 2015 10:59pm EST

(Reuters) - Iraq's army and Shi'ite militia have launched a long-awaited offensive against Islamic State in Salahuddin province, a stronghold of the radical Islamist fighters north of Baghdad, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday.

The ultra-radical fighters control several strongholds in the mainly Sunni Muslim province of Salahuddin, including Tikrit, hometown of executed former president Saddam Hussein.

They also hold other towns on the Tigris river, north of the government-held city of Samarra which Abadi visited on Sunday.

"The prime minister and armed forces chief ... announce the start of the security campaign to liberate Salahuddin," a statement issued by Abadi's office said as he met military leaders in the province, where thousands of troops and militia have gathered for battle.

In comments broadcast on Iraqi television, Abadi said the Islamist militants would be pushed out of all of Salahuddin and offered their supporters a final opportunity to hand themselves in. "I call upon all those who have been deluded and made mistakes in past to lay down arms today," he said.

"This is their last chance. If they insist on staying on their wrong path they will receive the fair punishment they deserve because they ... stood with terrorism."

Thousands of troops and fighters from Shi'ite militias known as Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilization) have been mobilized for the campaign against Islamic State in Salahuddin.

On Saturday residents reported heavy clashes around Samarra after suicide bombers blew themselves up near to security forces in attacks which may have aimed at disrupting the army and militia preparations for the campaign.

Abadi's announcement follows several failed attempts to drive the militants out of Tikrit since they swept towards Baghdad last June, adding large parts of north and west Iraq to the swathes of neighboring Syria already under their control.

Months of U.S.-led air strikes, backed up by the Shi'ite militias, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iraqi soldiers have contained Islamic State and pushed them back from around Baghdad, the Kurdish north, and the eastern province of Diyala.

But they have held most of their strongholds in Salahuddin and taken new territory in the western province of Anbar. Fighting around al-Baghdadi in Anbar has highlighted the challenge of defeating Islamic State fighters.

A senior U.S. officer said last week 800 Iraqi forces were participating in the battle and appeared set to drive the militants back. His optimistic comments echoed those of Iraq's defense minister.

But nearly two weeks after launching the operation to retake what are little more than a handful of villages on the Euphrates river, five miles from a major military base, Baghdad has yet to declare victory.

Abadi also visited Samarra's restored Shi'ite Askari shrine, which was blown up in a 2006 attack which triggered the worst period of Iraq's sectarian bloodshed, Iraqi television said.

(Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-020315.html

Middle East
Mar 2, '15
COMMENT
The Middle East and perpetual war
By Leon Anderson

There is a popular idea in Washington, DC, that the United States ought to be doing more to quash the Islamic State: if we don't, they will send terrorists to plague our lives. Previously, the canard was that we had to intervene in the Middle East to protect the flow of oil to the West. So why in fact are we there? The only answer is: "Israel".

PHILADELPHIA - There is a currently popular idea in Washington, D.C. that the United States ought to be doing more to quash the recently born Islamic States of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), because if we don't, they will send terrorists to plague our lives.

Incredibly, most of the decision makers and policy influencers in Washington also agree that America has no standing in the Middle East; that is, the US has no natural influence based on territorial proximity, ethnicity, religion, culture, politics or shared history. In short, the only apparent reason for our presence in the Middle East is to support Israel.

To say that the United States is universally resented by everyone in the region is a massive understatement. That we are hated, despised, and the sworn enemies of many, is not difficult to understand. There is no moral ground under our feet in any religion. Stealing is universally condemned.

Abetting in the pillaging of Palestinians and their land is hard to justify. Yet we keep sending Israel military and financial aid, we support them in the United Nations, and we ignore the pleas of Israel's neighbors to stop the spread of settlers on more stolen land.

There was once an old canard that we had to intervene in the Middle East to protect the flow of oil to Western Europe and America. But since the defeat of Nazi Germany in North Africa, that threat has never again existed. The fact is that the source of most of the wealth in the Middle East is oil, which is a commodity; there's a lot of it all over the world.

If it's not sold, the producer countries' economies collapse, because that's all they have on which to survive. They are, few of them in the Middle East, industrial economies, or mercantile economies. They are almost completely dependent on oil exports to Europe and Asia for their economic survival.

The oil crunch in 1973 that saw prices rise in the West and shortages grow was a temporary phenomenon produced by the Persian Gulf countries that was impossible to sustain. It was like a protest movement, a strike. It ended by costing OPEC a lot of money and by spurring a world-wide surge in exploration and drilling for more oil supplies.

Oil is not a weapon as some would have us believe. As the Middle East, and now Russia, knows all too well, it is a crutch.

Therefore, we get down to the real reasons why the United States is involved militarily in the Middle East. One, we clearly don't need their oil. A possible reason for being there is conquest: we covet Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan for ourselves. I think we can dismiss that notion as absurd and move on.

Then the question screams: Why are we there? Why are we continuing to give ISIS and other extremist, nationalistic groups a reason to hate us and want to destroy us?

The only answer is Israel. We have made Israel the artificial hegemonic power in the region against the will of everyone who is native to the area. We have lost all credibility among Arabs, all moral standing and nearly all hope of ever restoring either.

The United States has become a pariah in the Middle East, and the result is that we will be faced with endless war and terrorist attacks for ages to come unless we make a dramatic change of course in our foreign policy - namely, stop supporting an Israeli regime that will not make peace with its neighbors.

An organisztion called the Jewish Voice for Peace has endorsed a call from Palestinians for a boycott of Israel, divestment of economic ties, and sanctions (on the order of those imposed on Iran and Russia) to encourage Israel to end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied since 1967.

The JVP urges Israel to dismantle the grotesque wall they have built to keep the Palestinians out of territory that was once theirs; to recognize Palestinians as citizens of Israel with equal rights; and to recognize the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties in Israel as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

The argument that we are fighting ISIS because they threaten our democracy is absurdly infantile. That's another of those political throwaways we hear because our leaders think we're all simpletons who can't figure things out for ourselves.

How on earth could 40,000 or 100,000 disaffected Arabs destroy American democracy? They are fighting us because we are there fighting them. Let us go home, and they would have no reason to fight us.

I suggest this avenue knowing full well that some may say that we must instill the spirit of democracy among these people or there will never be peace in the world. Excuse me, but there will never be peace in the world. We all thought that when Gorbachev gave up the Soviet Empire a new era of Russian democracy would ensue.

Instead, Russia got drunken and loutish leadership until a strongman, in the Russian historical context, Vladimir Putin, took over. Democracy cannot be exported. It has to be wanted and won in the light of local historical, religious, social and economic needs. If they want what we have, Arab women will find a way to get it.

In spite of all this more or less common knowledge, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, warns us that if we don't crush Iran, if we don't continue to support Israel and back their hegemony, the world will collapse in anarchy, and democracy will be lost to all of us. I ask you: how much of this nonsense are you willing to take? Someone has to begin a discussion on what the hell we're doing in the Middle East - and do it soon.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS-Inter Press Service.

Leon Anderson is a retired American businessman and author who worked extensively in international markets.

(Inter Press Service)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/counting-the-cost-of-nemtsovs-death/516754.html

Counting the Cost of Boris Nemtsov's Death

By Georgy Bovt
Mar. 01 2015 21:16
Last edited 21:16

His killing has once again shaken the world of Russian politics and has shown just how sick it is with hatred, mistrust and intolerance — even toward a former senior Russian official. Many have expressed their condolences. Some of those sentiments were sincere — even coming from his political opponents, while some were insincere — even coming from his political "friends."

Many different theories concerning his murder have already been put forward, including an increasing number that point to the moral degeneracy of the people. It is difficult to shake the feeling that those who maligned Nemtsov while he was alive by, for example, publishing transcripts of his telephone conversations — continue that perverted abuse after his death.

Of course, there are also plausible theories for his murder. But somehow it seems that the "Nemtsov case" is one of those that will drag on for years without a definite resolution. And even if the actual perpetrators are caught and punished, I think the public will never learn all of the circumstances surrounding his murder — at least not in the current political era.

Prior to this, the killing of Galina Starovoitova in November 1998 was the most high-profile political assassination in Russia. That case was finally solved last spring with the identification of the perpetrators and one of the individuals who ordered the killing.

However, the motives for the murder were never clarified: Investigators chose not to delve into the wilds of the complex relations between politicians and the St. Petersburg mafia. One line of inquiry that drew particular attention — the theory that Vladimir Barsukov, the "dark lord" of St. Petersburg in the 1990s, was linked to the killing — quickly fizzled out.

The authorities also claim to have apprehended and convicted the killers of former Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya. And yet, the authorities have never bothered to explain why her alleged killers — Chechens and a former member of the siloviki — killed an opposition journalist.

That case carried political repercussions beyond Russia's borders, just like Nemtsov's murder, that some are already calling the second "Flight MH17" for the Kremlin — a reference to the downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane over separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine last July.

The two crimes share a cynical type of symbolism: Politkovskaya was murdered on President Vladimir Putin's birthday, while Nemtsov was murdered in what appears to be a special operation just a few dozen meters from the Kremlin, and on Putin's newly minted "Polite People Day" that honors Russia's Special Operations Forces.

The specific motives behind political murders are often less important than the impact those crimes have on the country's larger political processes. It is noteworthy that some observers are already comparing the murder of Nemtsov with the "Reichstag fire" or the murder of Sergei Kirov. The former marked the start of the Nazi terror in Germany while the latter served as a pretext for former Soviet leader Josef Stalin to unleash his political repression.

They note that the murder has already elicited a response from senior Western officials, including U.S. President Barack Obama, and that it is seen in the West not only as the murder of a politician, but also as the murder of one of Putin's most implacable opponents. Now their names are forever linked in this regard and the demonization of the Putin regime will only intensify in the West. It is even possible that the organizers were counting on that result.

Russia's right-wing political conservatives have already begun circulating the theory that the U.S. State Department and CIA instructed the Ukrainian Security Service to kill Nemtsov and provided the intelligence needed to carry it out. The alleged reason: Nemtsov had "failed to meet their expectations" in organizing an "Orange Revolution" in Russia or they had simply wanted to "strike a blow against Putin" and to use Nemtsov's death to spark a Maidan-style uprising all across Russia.

The same reactionary politicians and journalists have also put forward the no less cynical theory that Nemtsov was made a "sacred sacrifice" in order to revive and unify the moribund Russian opposition.

At the same time, Nemtsov's supporters claim that he was preparing to publish a report filled with facts and figures proving the Russian military's involvement in the Donbass. However, this version of events has exactly the same amount of supporting evidence as that put forward by the Russian ultra-patriots — that is, none at all.

One particularly interesting theory concerns Nemtsov's anti-corruption activities. He might very well have made enemies during his term as an uncompromising politician in the Yaroslavl region. He not only gained a State Duma seat from that region, but was also squeaky clean in his conduct, a fact that rumor suggests led to several prominent figures there losing their jobs.

According to this theory, those disgruntled individuals might have staged his murder just outside the Kremlin walls to make it look like a high-profile political assassination — theoretically a very effective diversionary tactic.

The same applies to still another theory. Immediately after the murder, an assistant to Nemtsov wrote on Twitter that the politician had been investigating corruption among medical professionals in the oncology field. If rumors are true that doctors blackmail terminally ill cancer patients into signing over the titles to their apartments in return for treatment, it would seem that such people would stop at nothing to prevent Nemtsov from revealing their crimes to a wholly unsuspecting public. However, there is no evidence to support that theory either.

The only thing that is definitely clear about the Nemtsov case is that it takes Russian society yet one more step along its very dangerous evolutionary path. That evolution began in connection with the war in Ukraine, and the war will continue to drive the process further.

Worse, this seems to be only the beginning of the journey, with a long way remaining before we hit bottom. It is difficult to imagine all of the political consequences this downward evolution will engender, but there is a growing sense that, whatever they are, they will be very dire, indeed.

Georgy Bovt is a political analyst.

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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/putin-clausewitz-and-ukraine

Journal Article | March 1, 2015 - 7:34am

Putin, Clausewitz, and Ukraine

Alex Deep

Russia has applied limited war as a means by which to achieve its political goals since the early 1990s. Conflicts in Moldova, Georgia, and Azerbaijan displayed Russia’s willingness to use the defense of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers as a justification to undermine the territorial integrity of neighboring states in order to maintain its influence over the former Soviet Bloc. However, Russia escalated its formula of limited war through indigenous ethnic forces when it annexed the Crimean Peninsula. The separatist struggle that ensued in Eastern Ukraine marked a return to Russia’s traditional model, but with increased visibility from the West, and economic sanctions that Russia did not see with its previous endeavors. Going back to Clausewitz, Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to balance the trinity of passion, military means, and political aims in executing a plan that relies on friction and mass to succeed on the ground. However, the real question might not be whether Putin’s strategy is Clausewitzian, but whether he is choosing the correct means by which to accomplish the goal of increasing Russian influence along its borders.

Clausewitz would laud Putin’s ability to use war as a way of achieving political ends. Russia only chose to initiate hostilities after other forms of political power had failed to maintain its influence over Ukraine such as gas subsidies and support to the regime of Viktor Yanukovych, especially towards joining Russia’s burgeoning Eurasian custom house.[ii] However, the removal of Yanukovych and the immediate shift of the new Ukrainian government towards Europe caused Russia to respond with military force through the annexation of Crimea and subsequent support to separatists in Eastern Ukraine. Russia views these actions as its best chance to maintain its influence over a state that it cannot “lose” to Europe. Russia will continue to view Ukraine as absolutely essential to its national security framework as Russia considers the expansion of NATO and the potential deployment of land- and sea-based missile defense systems near its border as encirclement by the West.[iii]

Russia has used the passion of ethnic nationalism both domestically and within the Russian Diaspora to justify its military intervention in Ukraine. Konstantin Dolgov, the Foreign Ministry official in charge of defending the right of ethnic Russians living abroad, remarked that, “the bacteria of neo-Nazism is spreading across Europe.”[iv] At the same time, Vladimir Putin has publicly vowed to defend “Russian citizens” and “Russian speakers” from this perceived danger of persecution at the hands of fascist radicals including offensive action if necessary.[v] This rhetoric is popular in Russia and amongst ethnic Russians in Ukraine as many see the actions of the new Ukrainian regime as a direct challenge not only to Russian national security, but also as a threat of a “fascist” regime against ethnic Russians. However, the danger of overly relying on the passion of the population rises as support fades, and Russian public support for its government’s interventionist policies has continued to wane. As economic sanctions take their toll on the Russian economy combined with a devaluation of the ruble and eroding standards of living, “enthusiasm for war and isolation is diminishing fast.”[vi] If this is the case, Russia might have to face the possibility of waging an unpopular war in Ukraine[vii] and falling into recession in 2015.

Shifting from the strategic to the operational and tactical levels, Russia is leveraging the Clausewitzian concepts of friction and mass to its advantage in Ukraine. The persistent ambiguity over Russian overt military involvement due to a lack of information coming out of Eastern Ukraine has been advantageous to Russian strategy as it causes friction and a fog of war to develop for both Ukrainian forces and the international community. Russian news media has greatest access to the region as reporters embedded with separatist units provide a propagandized version of the conflict for consumption both in Russia and, more importantly, with the targeted Russian Diaspora in Eastern Ukraine that watches predominantly Russian television.[viii] The idea that information technology has somehow lifted Clausewitz’s fog of war does not apply when Russia is able to maintain information dominance over the narrative coming out of Eastern Ukraine.[ix]

Despite taking advantage of friction during the initial phases of the conflict, Russia was also the victim of this concept when separatists shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 777. Despite publicly blaming this tragedy on the Ukrainian government, Putin had to mitigate this event through a massive propaganda campaign within Russia and by temporarily limiting overt support to separatist rebels even as Russian troops continued to mass on the border.[x] During this time, the Ukrainian military seemed poised to reclaim all the territory that separatist rebels had seized at the beginning of the conflict.

When faced with the decision of whether to allow Ukrainian advance or escalate the conflict further, Russia decided to mass additional weapons, armor, and personnel in Eastern Ukraine with immediate effects. The Russian application of mass allowed the separatists to regain the offensive and extend their territorial control in the east. Had Russia decided not to mass combat power at this decisive moment, the conflict in Ukraine could have either ended with a restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty over the breakaway region, or forced Russia to escalate further to a conventional invasion.

According to Clausewitz, the nature of the commander is essential towards the execution of a military campaign to achieve political ends. However, he warns that the military and political structures should be separate with the former subordinate to the latter. In Russia, Vladimir Putin has essentially combined the roles of military commander and political leader, driving Russian political policy and the military means by which to achieve those goals. Putin has displayed characteristics of a leader that Clausewitz equated to “genius” such as decisiveness, political awareness, and determination, in the execution of a nuanced strategy to expand Russian influence.[xi] However, Clausewitz also understood that leaders must be able to alter actions and decisions based on the effectiveness of a strategy. Whether Putin can do this is still undetermined, but his staunchness in continuing to execute a strategy that alienates the states he wants to influence, seems counterintuitive.

As Clausewitz used historic examples to display general concepts, comparing Russian strategy in Ukraine with pre-WWI sheds historic light on Russian behavior. Prior to WWI, Russia equated its great power status to territorial expansion and influence over its Slavic Diaspora in the Balkans as Czar Nicholas II drove the decision-making process based on the nature of the authoritarian regime. However, this obsession with expansion led Russia to decline as defeats in the Russo-Japanese War and Crimean War weakened its status prior to 1914, and WWI led to social revolution.[xii] Today, Russia is executing an aggressive strategy to reclaim its great power status through a hybrid of conventional and irregular warfare under the auspice of protecting the Russian Diaspora. However, this obsession with destabilizing the territorial integrity of neighboring states, now including territorial expansion in Crimea, has weakened Russia financially and encouraged states within its perceived sphere to move towards the West. Russia is following concepts from Clausewitz in Ukraine, but might be selecting the wrong strategy to achieve its political goals.

Works Cited

Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Edited by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Cohen, Stephen. “Patriotic Heresy vs. The New Cold War.” Nation. 15 September 2014, Vol. 299, Issue 11, p. 22-26.

Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Mankoff, Jeffrey. “Russia’s Latest Land Grab.” Foreign Affairs. May 2014, Vol.93, Issue 3, p. 60-68.

“Russian and Ukraine: Putin’s People.” The Economist. 13 December 2014, available online at: http://www.economist.com/news/europ...-ukrainian-adventure-could-change-faster-many.

Shuster, Simon and Charlotte McDonald-Gibson. “Russia’s Fifth Column.” Time. 15 December 2014, Vol. 184, Issue 23, p. 46-49.

Shuster, Simon et al, “Crime Without Punishment,” Time, 04 August 2104, Vol. 184 Issue 5, p. 26-35.

Strachen, Hew. The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Szostek, Joanna. “Russia and the News Media in Ukraine: A Case of Soft Power.” East European Politics and Societies. August 2014, Vol. 28 Issue 3, p. 463-486.

End Notes

Jeffrey Mankoff, “Russia’s Latest Land Grab,” Foreign Affairs, May 2014, Vol.93, Issue 3, 60.

[ii] Ibid, 63.

[iii] Stephen Cohen, “Patriotic Heresy vs. The New Cold War,” Nation, 15 September 2014, Vol. 299, Issue 11, 22.

[iv] Simon Shuster and Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, “Russia’s Fifth Column,” Time, 15 December 2014, Vol. 184, Issue 23, 47.

[v] Mankoff, 62.

[vi] “Russian and Ukraine: Putin’s People,” The Economist, 13 December 2014, available online at: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21636047-president-remains-popular-....

[vii] According to the Economist article “Russia and Ukraine: Putin’s People” from 13 December 2014, “Over the past nine months opinion polls find that support for the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine have fallen from 74% to 23%.”

[viii] Joanna Szostek, “Russia and the News Media in Ukraine: A Case of Soft Power,” East European Politics and Societies, August 2014, Vol. 28 Issue 3, 463.

[ix] Hew Strachen, The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective, (Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 48.

[x] Simon Shuster et al, “Crime Without Punishment,” Time, 04 August 2014, Vol. 184, Issue 5, 28.

[xi] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Edited by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 103.

[xii] Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 173-175.


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About the Author
Alex Deep

Captain Alex Deep is currently a Master of Arts in International Relations and International Economics candidate at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), focusing on Strategic Studies. Alex was previously assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. During his most recent combat deployments, Captain Deep served as a Special Forces Operational Detachment – Alpha Commander operating throughout Eastern Afghanistan, and Chief of Operations for Special Operations Task Force - Northeast. Captain Deep has been selected to instruct International Relations and Comparative Politics at the United States Military Academy upon completion of his studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-braude/a-growing-rift-between-wa_b_6778594.html

Joseph Braude
Author, broadcaster, and Middle East specialist

A Growing Rift Between Washington and the Gulf States on Yemen

Posted: 03/01/2015 10:12 am EST Updated: 03/01/2015 10:59 am EST

Activity intensified over the past week at the United Nations with respect to the deteriorating situation in Yemen -- amid further evidence of a rift over the country's future between Washington and its traditional Gulf allies.

Jamal Benomar, the United Nations special envoy to Yemen, met with Yemeni president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi at his new headquarters in Aden. He reiterated support for Hadi as the country's legitimately elected leader, told reporters that his "resumption of duties would help to pull the country together," and called for a resolution of the crisis within the framework of the "Gulf Initiative." Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council decided to extend the mandate of the "group of four" experts on Yemen, which was established to oversee sanctions measures employed against individuals and entities designated as threatening "peace, security or stability "in the country. And the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Friday raised alarms about a growing number of "unlawful arrests, arbitrary detention, and the targeting of journalists" in the country.

The seeming consistency of the UN position stood in contrast to conflicting signals from Washington. On the one hand, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Monday that her government would like "all parties" to "recommit themselves to the GCC initiative, National Dialogue Conference outcomes, and relevant UN Security Council resolutions." But over a week in which GCC embassies relocated to Aden in solidarity with the Yemeni president, Psaki stated that no one in the Administration had been in touch with Hadi since he arrived in Yemen, and went on to say two days later that she was "unsure about whether there had been any US contact with Hadi since Monday."

A flurry of media reports in the United States have meanwhile appeared suggesting that the United States is growing closer to Iran with respect to its Yemeni policies. Michael Vickers, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, has confirmed that the United States has an intelligence relationship with the Houthi insurgent group to counter al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Secretary of State John Kerry, for his part, told U.S. lawmakers last week that he "knows" that the Tehran government was "surprised" at the Houthi takeover of the capital Sanaa. The statement appeared to indicate that Kerry has been in talks with the Tehran regime over Yemen, and was persuaded by the Iranian line. Following his March 2 address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Kerry will again meet with Iranian foreign minister Jawad Zarif as part of negotiations over the Iranian nuclear project -- then visit Riyadh and London to discuss Yemen and other matters with Gulf foreign ministers.

On a related matter, "Stratfor," an American private intelligence company, released a report Thursday alleging that private talks were underway in the Gulf with respect to a possible "two-state solution" for Yemen. Such a settlement would eventually place new pressures on the Houthis in Sanaa: According to Muhammad Lutf al-Uryani, Yemen's former minister of water and the environment, Yemeni has approached a "state of water emergency" - and the capital itself, which stands 3300 meters above sea level with a population of more than 2.5 million, will eventually have to be moved. This costly endeavor will be extremely difficult, particularly if the Houthi rebels do not manage to wrest control over the oil fields of Marib, as they are currently attempting to do in their ongoing military campaign.

This post is a translation from Joseph Braude's weekly column in the Moroccan Arabic-language daily Al-Ahdath al-Maghrebiya,. Follow Joseph Braude on Twitter @josephbraude.

 

[Shacknasty Shagrat]

The Russians make a big geopolitical move.
The US and NATO does nothing but talk.
Both articles cover the same situation.
So the Russians will be controlling the Greenstream gas pipeline to Europe? 10% of the gas supply for Italy or 11 billion cubic meters of treated gas per year!!
And a short hop to Hassi R'Mel and three more pipelines to Europe!!
This could be a brilliant stratagem for Mr. Putin.
It is not a problem to get the Russians to come, but getting them out is a different matter.
The first article sources DEBKA, fyi.
SS

'Various unconfirmed reports are emerging indicating that there may be joint international action planned in Libya as early as next week.

Egypt is already conducting air strikes against ISIS-linked targets in Derna, close to where Egyptian Coptics were massacred recently, as displayed in a gruesome video. Debka reports that Egypt’s president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi is planning further action in Libya, including more air strikes and possible ground troops, within a few days. According to the report, Egyptian commando and marine forces are preparing for sea landings to seize Derna and destroy the terrorist elements there. If this attack is actually launched, it will be the first time in modern times that an Arab country has sent ground forces into another Arab country.

Al-Jazeera television reports that the Italian navy is getting ready to carry off sophisticated military drills off the coast of Libya as early as Monday. Although Italy claims that it will be a regular exercise, there are many more vessels taking part in this year’s exercise than have in the past, which Italy explains by saying that they are testing out sophisticated new technologies.

There are several reasons why Italy is pursuing this show of force:

Italy considers the flood of migrants from Libya into Italy to be an existential threat to Italy itself, because there may be ISIS-trained terrorists smuggled in, along with the other migrants. Italy may be planning some kind of military action in Libya in conjunction with Egypt’s air strikes and other operations.
The GreenStream pipeline is a gas pipeline running underneath the Mediterranan Sea from Libya to Sicily. The pipeline is vital to economic relations between Italy and Libya. In recent months, there have been attacks by gunmen on oil installations in Libya, forcing some ports to shut down. The new show of naval force may be related to threats of attack or sabotage on the pipeline.
For over a year, Italy ran a search and rescue program called “Mare Nostrum” (“Our Sea”) that saved the lives of thousands of migrants attempting to travel from Libya to Italy. This program required Italian naval vessels near the Libyan coast. In November, the program ended and an EU program called Triton replaced it, but Triton restricts its operations to only 30 miles off the Italian coast. Triton has been considered unsatisfactory because many more migrants are drowning. Italy’s new show of naval force may be an attempt to restore a portion of the Mare Nostrum program.
Related to the last point, on Saturday there were large demonstrations in Rome by Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League party for the government to do more to keep immigrants out. The naval show of force may help to mollify the protestors.

Some reports indicate that Russia has hinted at a willingness to participate in a naval blockade of Libya to prevent arm supplies from leaving Libya for other countries. Russia could play a role in this because it already has a naval fleet in the Mediterranean.

These are all unconfirmed reports of possible military action in Libya by Egypt, Italy and Russia. There are no reports of possible participation by Nato or the United States.
http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...aly-russia-planning-military-action-in-libya/

'Navy ships off the coast of Libya, officially engaged in an exercise but - according to the newspaper La Stampa that he anticipated the news - "ready to intervene in case of need."

The ships should stop at the border of the territorial waters of Tripoli. Italian naval group is part of the "San Giorgio", started from Brindisi, who has embarked in La Spezia the raiders of the battalion San Marco, the power elite army.

According to the newspaper, the arrival of the Italian ship off the coast of Libya would be required to protect the strategic and commercial interests of Italy, beginning Greenstream, the underwater pipeline of 'Eni, which runs for 520 kilometers in the Mediterranean , from the compression station Mellitah up to the terminal of Gela, Sicily. So far, the structure is protected by 20 000 men of the guard loyal to the legitimate government of Tobruk but, given the precarious balance of the area, the Italian naval force would be ready to intervene.

The government Renzi has ruled out any military operation and in fact the St. George and the convoy should stay in Italian waters but, concludes the article in the Turin daily, "in recent weeks the Navy is stepping maneuvers in the Mediterranean and from March 2 to return perform the 'Open Sea exercise in the waters of the Tyrrhenian and interrelated with the deployment of a large part of the available units. It will be an opportunity to flex its muscles in the face of a crisis very delicate. "

For the General Claudio Graziano, Chief of Staff of Defense "exercise Offshore is repeated over time. Evidently exercises and training also play the role of deterrence. Other surveillance activities and protection are always in place - he said - then there is the readiness and preparation to execute policy directives and to ensure security. "

February 28, 2015
http://www.si24.it/2015/02/28/la-na...nta-a-intervenire-in-caso-di-necessita/82144/
(I used Google translate)

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150302/eu--united_states-iran-nuclear-fee47ccfe2.html

Iran nuke talks resume amid contentious US-Israel debate

Mar 2, 12:00 PM (ET)
By MATTHEW LEE and GEORGE JAHN

MONTREUX, Switzerland (AP) — As U.S. and Israeli officials sparred in Washington over the wisdom of a nuclear deal with Iran, negotiations on a potential agreement resumed Monday, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying the sides are still far apart and warning Israel's leader that leaks about the talks will hurt their chances for success.

Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif sat down in the Swiss resort town of Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline for their sixth round of discussions this year. They face an end-of-March target to reach the outline of a deal that would eliminate Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons over the length of the agreement in exchange for sanctions relief.

The stakes have been raised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who adamantly opposes the deal and will address a joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday about the dangers it poses to Israel and others. The Obama administration has sought to blunt that criticism and on Monday stressed its commitment to Israel's security.

In Geneva, Kerry defended Israel at the U.N. Human Rights Council, pledging that the United States would continue to oppose anti-Israel action and bias at the United Nations and elsewhere. The U.S. envoy to the U.N., Samantha Power, made similar remarks in Washington to the American Israel Public Affairs Council, where President Barack Obama's national security adviser Susan Rice was expected to echo those sentiments later Monday.

The behind-the-scenes action driving the public rhetoric in Washington, however, was in Montreux where Kerry, Zarif and their teams were meeting.

Pushing back against the content of Netanyahu's expected speech, Kerry maintained that the United States would never allow Iran to get the bomb. And, he insisted, in a jab at Netanyahu, that critics of the emerging deal were wrong and should not publicize details of the as-yet incomplete agreement as senior Israeli officials have said the prime minister will do.

"Right now, no deal exists, no partial deal exists," he told a news conference in Geneva. "And unless Iran is able to make the difficult decisions that will be required, there won't be a deal. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. That is the standard by which this negotiation is taking place, and anyone who tells you otherwise is simply misinformed."

That said, he suggested that revealing details of any preliminary understandings with Iran could be fatal to the goal of a diplomatic resolution to fears of a nuclear-armed Iran.

"We are concerned by reports that suggest selective details of the ongoing negotiations will be discussed publicly in the coming days," Kerry said. "I want to say clearly that doing so would make it more difficult to reach the goal that Israel and others say they share in order to get a good deal."

"Israel's security is absolutely at the forefront of all of our minds, but frankly, so is the security of all the other countries in the region, so is our security in the United States," he added.

Reflecting U.S. concerns about Netanyahu's impending congressional speech, Kerry's comments were unprompted by any reporters' question.

The Montreux talks are expected to last until Wednesday and will be underway when Netanyahu delivers his speech.

Among unresolved issues meant to be part of an agreement is a ruling by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency on whether Iran worked on nuclear arms in the past.

Tehran denies that but the agency says it has information suggesting such activity. It has remained essentially stalemated for a decade, however, in attempts to follow up on its suspicions. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano showed some exasperation Monday with Iran's refusal to cooperate with his probe, telling reporters outside a 35-nation IAEA board meeting that "not engaging with us is not a solution."

---

Noura Maan contributed to this report from Vienna.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150302/eu--greece-turkey-f87e4bb95d.html

Greece: Turkey withdraws planned military exercise in Aegean

Mar 2, 12:55 PM (ET)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece says Turkey has withdrawn a recent notice seeking to reserve a large swathe of airspace over the Aegean Sea for military maneuvers until the end of the year.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Constantinos Koutras said Monday that Turkey has withdrawn the Notice to Airmen, or NOTAM, which it had issued to reserve extensive airspace over the Aegean Sea for military use from March 2 to Dec. 31.

Greece had complained about the planned manoeuvers, which it said would have intruded into Greek airspace, interfered with traffic to two regional airports and affected two international air traffic routes.

Although they are NATO allies, Greece and Turkey are traditional rivals and have been at odds for decades over territorial issues in the Aegean Sea, including over airspace and territorial waters.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150302/as--afghanistan-military_offensive-1f9f0e23fe.html

Afghan army takes on Taliban in first solo offensive

Mar 2, 6:08 AM (ET)
By LYNNE O'DONNELL

(AP) In this Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015 photo, Afghan security police stand guard at...
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan army is waging its largest-ever solo offensive against the Taliban, hoping to strike a decisive blow ahead of the spring fighting season and prove it can rout the insurgents without the aid of U.S. and NATO combat troops.

Afghan troops have been slowly pushing up through a fertile river valley in the southern Helmand province, with special forces mounting nighttime helicopter raids into mud brick compounds and ground troops gradually advancing across the poppy fields that in past years have furnished the insurgents' main cash crop.

U.S. and British troops suffered some of their biggest losses of the decade-long war here, seizing territory that was later lost by ill-equipped and poorly trained Afghan forces. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has vowed to break the grim cycle, and the latest offensive is widely seen as a test for his efforts to overhaul the army and police since taking office in September.

Ghani was personally involved in planning the operation, which is codenamed Zolfiqar — meaning double-edged sword — and which began on Feb. 10, according to Maj. Gen. Kurt Fuller, deputy chief of staff for U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan. Ghani heads to Washington later this month, where he is expected to seek enhanced U.S. military backup, particularly air support.

(AP) In this Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015 photo, an injured Afghan policeman is treated at...
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"This is an incredibly important operation," said a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the secret operation. "This is Ghani's attempt to demonstrate to the U.S. and the U.S. Congress that Afghan ground forces are able to take the lead and conduct offensive operations if they have the right enablers to support them."

The assault coincides with Afghan government efforts to open a preliminary dialogue with insurgent leaders in the hope of moving toward peace talks, and ahead of the Taliban's traditional spring fighting season, which is expected to be particularly violent as the militants test Afghan forces now fighting without battlefield backup from American and NATO troops.

While it could be a more than a year before the prospect of peace becomes a reality, an Afghan official said Monday that preliminary "trust-building" discussions are expected "in the near future." Both sides will be aiming to enter any meetings from a position of strength gained on the battlefield, officials and diplomats said.

"For Ghani, failure (in Helmand) is simply not an option," the Western diplomat said.

U.S. and Afghan officials say local security forces are so far proving they can take the fight to the Taliban without the aid of foreign combat troops. There are 13,000 foreign soldiers in the country, down from a peak of 140,000 in 2009-2010, with 5,000 U.S. troops engaged in counterterrorism operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

(AP) In this Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015 photo, Afghans carry an injured boy at an emergency...
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U.S. military leaders have advised the troops in Helmand and helped plan the operation, but American troops are not involved in the fighting.

Fuller said the troops have already cleared large areas where the insurgents had been entrenched for more than a decade, saying the Taliban's casualties were higher than those of government forces by "a factor of 10 to one."

He said Afghan forces had found bunkers, tunnels, trench lines, and a giant slingshot apparently used to fling grenades at government forces.

He said the Sangin district, which had seen months of heavy fighting, was declared clear on Friday, adding that Afghan forces had "met with heavy resistance that was more than they anticipated."

Gen. Mohammad Salim Ahses, the head of the national police, told The Associated Press by telephone from Sangin that 385 Taliban fighters had been killed there, including 31 commanders. It was not possible to confirm those figures. The areas where the fighting is taking place are not accessible to journalists, and few Afghan officials were willing to speak about the operation.

The international charity Emergency said its hospitals in Lashkar Gah, Helmand's capital, and the national capital Kabul had seen casualties almost double in February to 226 over the same month last year due to increased insurgent violence across the country, according to program coordinator Luca Radaelli.

"We are definitely seeing a spike in the number of war casualties coming in from the operation in Helmand," he said, adding that most were men and many were policemen. Further details on the casualties, including a breakdown of dead and wounded on each side, were not immediately available.

The real test will come later, when Afghan forces try to hold hard-won territory.

Fuller said Afghan officials have begun meeting with local leaders to plan the building of new schools, clinics, police stations and courthouses. He said tribal elders are already helping to recruit residents for the local police and border guard.

Helmand's deputy governor, Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar, said small army and police posts, each of which will house 100 men, are being built across the valley. "This time we are moving according to a proper plan" to keep the Taliban from returning, he said. "We will not leave this place alone."

---

Associated Press correspondents Mirwais Khan in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, and Rahim Faiez and Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this story.

---

Follow Lynne O'Donnell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lynnekodonnell

 

[Housecarl]

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150302/as-china-harsh-words--b9283ad122.html

China state media seen stepping-up anti-Western rhetoric

Mar 2, 9:01 AM (ET)
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

(AP) In this June 15, 2013 photo, supporters of NSA leaker Edward Snowden hold...
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BEIJING (AP) — Western values are a "ticket to hell," a newspaper published by China's Communist Party said in a recent editorial that held up Ukraine and some Arab countries as examples of outside ideas causing turmoil.

It was the latest colorful example of a rising level of invective targeting critics of the authoritarian government. In the two-plus years since President Xi Jinping took the helm of the ruling Communist Party, state media have become more strident in defending the one-party system and stoking nationalism.

Events of recent months have accelerated the trend. Last fall's pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong opened floodgates of disdain against "anti-China" forces. Last week, the party tabloid Global Times laid into well-known blogger Ren Zhiqiang for questioning official warnings against Western values infiltrating Chinese college classrooms.

The newspaper pointed to turmoil in Ukraine and the Arab world to show how any adoption of Western models by non-Western countries "basically amounts to the copying of failure."

(AP) Foreigners chat as they walk past a digital display board stating "Long live the...
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"No matter how beautiful they appear on the surface, they are in fact a ticket to hell, and can only bring disaster to the Chinese nation," the newspaper said.

While Cold War brickbats such as "running dogs of the American imperialists" have yet to return, there's been an overall revival of tough language laying down the party's bottom line and seeking to undermine opposing arguments.

Some critics fear a reversion to the extreme intolerance of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, and will scrutinize the speeches at China's annual ceremonial legislature opening Thursday for more signs of the trend.

"Over the last two years or so, the propaganda has become less refined. There's a big market for this kind of crude nationalism," said Willy Lam, a Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong's Chinese University.

The exchange involving the blogger followed a stern warning in January by Education Minister Yuan Guiren against threats to communist ideological purity in higher education. His comments, in turn, reflected an internal party document, leaked in 2013, that warned against Western values such as constitutionalism, respect for civil society and press freedom.

A further echo was heard last week, when the president of the Supreme People's Court, Zhou Qiang, demanded that judges stand strong against Western concepts of judicial independence and division of powers.

"Resolutely resist the influence of erroneous Western thought," Zhou said.

Such pronouncements are clearly being dictated from the highest party echelons, said Li Datong, a political commentator who has been removed from a state media senior editing job for broaching sensitive subjects.

"These people talking so harshly now were only recently espousing greater openness, not less. Clearly things have changed," Li said.

Foreign countries and leaders are also frequent targets.

The state media pilloried Britain after Prime Minister David Cameron met with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader reviled by Beijing. Britain, the Global Times said in a December 2013 commentary, is no longer seen as a "big power" among Chinese, but as "just an old European country apt for travel and study."

Especially strident outrage from Beijing was sparked by last year's "Occupy Central" protest movement in China's semiautonomous region of Hong Kong. Beijing rejected the protesters' demands for open nominations for elections for Hong Kong's top executive.

Protest leaders were accused of being pawns of shady outside forces and foreign governments. An October, the party's flagship newspaper People's Daily accused organizers of seeking to "arouse social conflict and incite illegal activities under the name of election issues." They were leading democracy "into peril," it said in an editorial.

Government allies and retired officials condemning the demonstrators included former ambassador to the United Nations Zhou Nan, who warned that "anti-China forces inside and outside Hong Kong" were conspiring against the city and could threaten China's socialist regime.

Observers see the more combative language as an outgrowth of Xi's calls for stronger party control and a more vigorous role for China on the world stage.

"I do think this is very much an initiative that Xi Jinping approved, if not started," said Steve Tsang, senior fellow at the University of Nottingham's China Policy Institute.

Shortly after taking over as party leader in 2012, Xi took a hard line on issues of national sovereignty and state survival. He said that while China seeks a peaceful international environment, "No country should presume that we will engage in trading our core interests or that we will swallow the 'bitter fruit' of harming our sovereignty, security or development interests."

Tsang said that approach underscores Xi's confidence in the political model he's adopted, but also betrays his nervousness about the party's ability to retain power. The Hong Kong protests were especially nerve-rattling because they showed the influence of Western thinking over public attitudes in the former British colony, which enjoys its own legal system and other freedoms.

"Hence the current warning against Western values," Tsang said.

Beijing political commentator Zhang Lifan warned of a "vicious cycle" of insecurity leading to ever-sharpening criticism. Political debate already has fallen behind that of the relatively open 1980s, and threatens to revert to the violent intolerance of the Cultural Revolution, Zhang said.

Despite that, Lam said internal party polling shows the stridency has resonance with patriotic young Chinese, seen for example in the rising number of university graduates volunteering for the armed forces.

"Xi's major objective is to stoke the flames of nationalism, especially among the young people. They're proud of what Xi is doing for China's position in the world," Lam said.

Yet, while surveys show high levels of patriotism, Chinese society also displays a strangely contradictory attitude toward the West.

Despite their willingness to defend their nation and join in condemnations of its enemies — particularly arch-foe Japan — many Chinese are voting with their feet when it comes to their futures, with the West receiving the strongest endorsements.

An estimated 274,000 Chinese are studying in the United States alone, with tens of thousands more in Australia, Britain and elsewhere.

And while estimates vary, millions more are believed to have obtained foreign residency or purchased property abroad, particularly among the elite. So large are the numbers that financial experts have begun to warn of the dangers of capital flight, though China's economy remains on a firm footing.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150302/as--china-military_corruption-0a2f6bd998.html

China lists 14 generals snared in anti-corruption campaign

Mar 2, 7:52 AM (ET)

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese military prosecutors on Monday released a list of 14 generals convicted of graft or placed under investigation in an accelerating nationwide anti-corruption drive.

Those under investigation include Rear Adm. Guo Zhenggang, the son of the Guo Boxiong, the retired former deputy head of the Central Military Commission that oversees the armed forces.

Guo Zhenggang was suspected of "serious legal violations and criminal offenses," the notice said, without giving further details.

Others included leading officers in provincial military commands, as well as ones in the navy, missile corps and National Defense University.

The notice said Lan Weijie, a former deputy commander in the central province of Hubei, was sentenced to life in prison in January for corruption and illegal firearms possession.

Last year, prosecutors indicted Xu Caihou, the military's former No. 2 official, on bribery charges, in a show by President Xi Jinping that no officials would be off-limits.

Corruption in the military is believed to have thrived under Xi's predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, neither of whom had a military background or much standing with top officers. Embezzlement and kickbacks related to military housing and other contracts were believed to be rife, along with the selling of ranks and positions, a practice that is believed to have had a strong negative effect on morale, command and control, and combat preparedness.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20150302.aspx

Leadership: China Throws The Fat Into The Fire

March 2, 2015: The Chinese Communist Party recently issued an order that all promotions in the military now require candidates to meet strict weight and physical fitness requirements. This is yet another attempt to curb corruption in the military. In this case the thinking is that one way to curb paying bribes get promotions (enabling the promoted officer to steal even more) is to take advantage of the fact that corrupt officers tend to be overweight because they are more interested in getting rich than in being good soldiers. The corrupt officers drink more, eat more and exercise less than officers devoted to their military duties. Thus is anyone bribes their way past the new regulation they would be instantly recognizable as dirty (and fat).

Decades of anti-corruption efforts have had little impact on the military. Then again corruption in the military has been a problem in China for thousands of years. Yet this new rule is clever in that it takes advantage of the fact that fat officers have become symbolic of corrupt officers and it is hoped that any officers who continue to bribe their way past the new regulations will be called out by an angry public with access to photos of the fat officers on the Internet. For the new rule to work at all the Communist Party has to resist calls for exceptions for “special cases” (seen by most Chinese as yet another form of corruption) which would be publically ridiculed anyway. So far bribery has had little impact on public ridicule, especially via the Internet. Not that corrupt officials don’t try, by hiring (from firms that specialize in this sort of thing) Internet shills to try and shout down those ridiculing the chubby and probably corrupt officers.

Westerners might wonder why it is the Chinese Communist Party that is taking the lead in all this. That’s because in China the Communist Party has run the government since the late 1940s. It does this by controlling the military, literally. Officers and troops swear loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party and not the nation of China. But as China has undergone economic reforms (ditching communism for capitalism) since the 1980s there was more temptation for all communist leaders (civil and military) to steal and take bribes. Party and government officials proved easier to prosecute and punish than military officers who, after all, control all those guys with guns and other weapons. But in this case the party could point to the fact that Western armed forces, which the Chinese officers have been deliberately studying and copying, put great emphasis on physical fitness. So the Chinese Communist Party is pitching this as a military reform not an anti-corruption measure. But the officers, and Chinese in general know what is really going on here.

Meanwhile the West has indeed become increasingly strict about physical fitness in the military, especially in combat units. The Americans have taken the lead here. Yet even the American use of this physical fitness policy has had its ups and downs. For example in late 2012 officers and NCOs attending U.S. Army Professional Military Education (PME) schools had to meet all weight and physical fitness standards first. Otherwise, the soldier would not be allowed to attend. This would show up on their record as “failed to achieve course standards.” This would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the soldier to get promoted. If you don't get promoted within a certain amount of time you must leave the service.

This was the reinstatement of a rule that was suspended during the height of the fighting in Iraq. Thus since 2007 troops could attend PME courses without meeting weight and physical fitness tests. That was because there was a war on and the army could not afford to lose otherwise qualified leaders. But by 2012 the war was considered over and in peacetime the army tends to rely more on appearance than reality.

Meanwhile the weight issue had become particularly acute as many troops endured multiple, and very stressful, combat tours. While overseas, booze was forbidden, smoking was discouraged, and using illegal drugs got you tossed out of the service. Prostitutes (and local women in general) were off-limits. What’s left were gyms or workout equipment (in some areas) and lots of food everywhere. Guess what the favorite stress-reliever was? The flab followed you home, as does a lot of the stress. It’s tough being a skinny combat veteran. What this demonstrated was that in wartime another set of physical standards took over, standards that were secondary to troops remaining effective (physically and psychologically) in combat. Note that the combat troops had fewer weight problems in the combat zone because their job was extremely physically active. But all those support troops were eating themselves out of a job.

In peacetime there is no way to measure and monitor such wartime standards, so the substitute is insisting that troops “look” effective. Thus the emphasis on thin was one of many similar changes that imposed more restrictions on how you can look. That means more conservative haircuts, shaving every day (even when off duty), fewer tattoos, and no visible piercings. Male troops cannot wear earrings at any time. No dental decorations, including gold caps. For female troops this means less makeup and dyed hair as well as shorter fingernails. There will be restrictions on what kind of civilian clothes can be worn on base. There are also a bunch of other petty restrictions, all intended to improve the appearance of the troops.

While fighting continues in Afghanistan, for the lifestyle police in the U.S. Army the war is over. Senior officers and NCOs who were dismayed at the usual wartime relaxation of appearance standards are now putting more emphasis on marching and similar drills, as well as greater attention to wearing uniforms correctly and saluting every time you are supposed to. More effort is being directed at improving appearances. On the positive side, there will be growing emphasis on being physically fit, with more soldiers discharged for being too fat or unable to pass the physical fitness test.

But overall, emphasis will shift from being combat ready to appearing (especially to politicians and the media) combat ready. The troops call this "mickey mouse" (or a lot of less printable phrases). The troops don't like it but the senior officers and NCOs do. This time around the brass promised to change promotion standards to see that more pro-mickey mouse officers and NCOs rise in the ranks. This means going to the right service schools and getting the right assignments, as well as looking and acting like a good soldier should. It's the old "getting your ticket punched" mentality again.

During wartime the lifestyle police still try to take control but are stymied by wartime realities. For example, back in 2006, the U.S. Army was forced to back off on its "zero tolerance" rules on tattoos. "Zero tolerance" meant that if you had any tattoo showing (when you are dressed, wearing a long sleeve shirt and long pants) the army would not take you. But after turning away so many otherwise qualified recruits the army changed the rule to allow innocuous tattoos to be showing. Moreover, the army didn't set any precise standards about what was acceptable and what was not. Enforcement was a judgment thing, with recruiters and staff at basic training centers often disagreeing over what was acceptable. The brass had been increasingly allowing recruiters to have the final say. After all, if the guys (and some gals) with visible tattoos, as a group, make good soldiers the tattoo policies themselves may be in danger. But now that fewer proven warriors are required the trend has moved towards appearance. In peacetime this is important because there is no trial by combat to prove who can fight and how well.

China has not yet reached the point where they are seriously concerned about combat performance. They are still struggling to keep the troops from cheating and stealing.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/02/us-ukraine-crisis-merkel-idUSKBN0LY2JM20150302

OSCE should play greater role in eastern Ukraine, leaders say

By Katya Golubkova, Erik Kirschbaum and Geert De Clercq
MOSCOW/BERLIN/PARIS Mon Mar 2, 2015 5:38pm EST

(Reuters) - The leaders of Russia, Germany and France agreed to Ukraine's proposal to ask the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to help with the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in eastern Ukraine, officials said after a four-way phone call on Monday evening.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande took part in the phone call in which the leaders also welcomed progress in implementing the ceasefire.

They also said that there is an urgent need for an exchange of prisoners in the conflict region and for humanitarian aid, according to German government spokesman Steffen Seibert.

"The parties involved were in agreement about the urgency of an exchange of prisoners and the deployment of humanitarian aid through the International Red Cross," Seibert said in a statement after the call.

"As soon as the conditions have been fulfilled, the working group that was set up in Minsk should move forward in tackling further steps, such as preparing the local elections in the regions of Lugansk and Donetsk."

Seibert said that the four leaders "welcomed progress with the agreed-upon ceasefire and the removal of heavy weapons."

He said they agreed that OSCE should play a greater role as observers of the ceasefire agreement and the removal of weapons. They sent a request to the OSCE to publish a daily report on the current developments.

In Paris, Hollande's office said the four leaders had agreed to ask the OSCE to play a more direct role in order to improve the application of the ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy arms.

Hollande said in a statement they had discussed the application of the Feb. 12 Minsk agreement. "Progress has been noted, but the situation needs to improve," the statement said.

Liberation of prisoners and humanitarian aid need to be facilitated in relation with the Red Cross. Foreign ministry officials will meet on Friday to ensure the monitoring of the application of the Minsk agreement, the statement added.

In Kiev, Poroshenko said in a statement published on his website the three other leaders support Kiev's proposal to put observers from the OSCE security watchdog into areas of eastern Ukraine where the ceasefire is not being observed.

In Moscow, the Kremlin stressed in a statement the importance of strict observation of the ceasefire, continuing the process of withdrawal of heavy weapons under OSCE supervision.


(Reporting by Geert De Clercq in Paris, Dmitry Antonov and Katya Golubkova in Moscow; Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by James Dalgleish)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/02/us-nigeria-violence-chad-idUSKBN0LY2FY20150302

Chad troops seize Nigerian town of Dikwa from Boko Haram

DIKWA, Chad Mon Mar 2, 2015 5:37pm EST

(Reuters) - Chadian troops have driven Boko Haram militants out of the northeast Nigerian town of Dikwa, losing one soldier in the battle, an army spokesman said on Monday.

Chad has deployed thousands of soldiers in strategic positions around Lake Chad in an effort to contain the radical jihadist group within Nigeria, sometimes chasing them across the border. Its efforts have intensified since Boko Haram attacked the Chadian village of Ngouboua last month, killing several people in the first known lethal attack in the country.

"We have total control of the town," said Colonel Azem Bermandoua. He added that many Boko Haram fighters had also been killed in the clashes on Monday in northeastern Nigeria, the Islamist group's stronghold.

A Reuters reporter on the scene said black and white Boko Haram flags still flew in a town deserted of residents after several weeks of occupation.

In a separate incident, Niger, whose army is also fighting the militants, said it had killed six Boko Haram fighters on Saturday near the village of Bossi. Two of their vehicles were then destroyed by Chad's air forces, the army said.

Boko Haram has killed thousands of people and kidnapped hundreds in its attempt to create an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria, although the tide appears to be turning. Nigeria's army has won significant battles against them in recent weeks, raising hopes that the country's delayed presidential election will go ahead peacefully on March 28.


(Reporting by Madjiasra Nako, writing by Emma Farge; editing by Ralph Boulton, G Crosse)