WAR 05-21-2016-to-05-27-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(216) 04-30-2016-to-05-06-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...06-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(217) 05-07-2016-to-05-13-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...13-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(218) 05-14-2016-to-05-20-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...20-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

-----

Well isn't this just SPECIAL......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7044...-helped-sell-iran-nuke-deal-also-funded-media

Group that helped sell Iran nuke deal also funded media

By BRADLEY KLAPPER
May. 20, 2016 3:43 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group's annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.

The Ploughshares Fund's mission is to "build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world's nuclear stockpiles," one that dovetails with President Barack Obama's arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the president's top foreign policy aides.

In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran's nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.

"We created an echo chamber," said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that "outside groups like Ploughshares" helped carry out the administration's message effectively.

The magazine piece revived Republican criticism of the Iran agreement as they suggested it was evidence of a White House spin machine misleading the American people. The administration accused opponents of trying to re-litigate the deal after failing to defeat it in congressional votes last year.

Outside groups of all stripes are increasingly giving money to news organizations for special projects or general news coverage. Most news organizations, including The Associated Press, have strict rules governing whom they can accept money from and how to protect journalistic independence.

Ploughshares' backing is more unusual, given its prominent role in the rancorous, partisan debate over the Iran deal.

The Ploughshares grant to NPR supported "national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran's nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security," according to Ploughshares' 2015 annual report, recently published online.

"It is common practice for foundations to fund media coverage of underreported stories," Ploughshares spokeswoman Jennifer Abrahamson said. Funding "does not influence the editorial content of their coverage in any way, nor would we want it to."

Ploughshares has funded NPR's coverage of national security since 2005, the radio network said. Ploughshares reports show at least $700,000 in funding over that time. All grant descriptions since 2010 specifically mention Iran.

"It's a valued partnership, without any conditions from Ploughshares on our specific reporting, beyond the broad issues of national and nuclear security, nuclear policy, and nonproliferation," NPR said in an emailed statement. "As with all support received, we have a rigorous editorial firewall process in place to ensure our coverage is independent and is not influenced by funders or special interests."

Republican lawmakers will have concerns nonetheless, especially as Congress supplies NPR with a small portion of its funding. Just this week, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee tried to summon Rhodes to a hearing entitled "White House Narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal," but he refused.

Ploughshares' links to media are "tremendously troubling," said Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, an Iran-deal critic.

Pompeo told the AP he repeatedly asked NPR to be interviewed last year as a counterweight to a Democratic supporter of the agreement, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who he said regularly appeared on the station. But NPR refused to put Pompeo on the air, he said. The station said it had no record of Pompeo's requests, and listed several prominent Republicans who were featured speaking about the deal or economic sanctions on Iran.

Another who appeared on NPR is Joseph Cirincione, Ploughshares' president. He spoke about the negotiations on air at least twice last year. The station identified Ploughshares as an NPR funder one of those times; the other time, it didn't.

Ploughshares boasts of helping to secure the deal. While success was "driven by the fearless leadership of the Obama administration and supporters in Congress," board chairwoman Mary Lloyd Estrin wrote in the annual report, "less known is the absolutely critical role that civil society played in tipping the scales towards this extraordinary policy victory."

The 33-page document lists the groups that Ploughshares funded last year to advance its nonproliferation agenda.

The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the Brookings Institution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500. They received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings and media outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work.

Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants.

J-Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal. More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.

Princeton University got $70,000 to support former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein Mousavian's "analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran's nuclear program."

Ploughshares has set its sights on other media organizations, too.

In a "Cultural Strategy Report" on its website, the group outlined a broader objective of "ensuring regular and accurate coverage of nuclear issues in reputable and strategic media outlets" such as The Guardian, Salon, the Huffington Post or Pro Publica.

Previous efforts failed to generate enough coverage, it noted. These included "funding of reporters at The Nation and Mother Jones and a partnership with The Center for Public Integrity to create a national security desk." It suggested using "web videos, podcasts, photo-based stories" and other "attention-grabbing formats" for "creatively reframing the issue."

The Center for Public Integrity's CEO, Peter Bale, confirmed the grant.

"None of the funding received by Ploughshares was for coverage of the Iran deal," said Bale, whose company received $70,000. "In general, we avoided that subject because the topic did not lend itself to the type of investigative reporting the Center does."

Caitlin Graf, a spokeswoman at The Nation, said her outlet had no partnership with Ploughshares. She referred queries to The Nation Institute, a nonprofit associated with the magazine that seeks to strengthen the independent press and advance social justice. Taya Kitman, the institute's director, said Ploughshares' one-year grant supported reporting on U.S.-Iran policy, but strict editorial control was maintained.

Mother Jones' media department didn't respond to several messages seeking comment.

The AP has taken grants from nonpolitical groups and journalism foundations such as the Knight Foundation. As with all grants, "AP retains complete editorial control of the final news product, which must fully meet AP standards for independence and integrity," Standards Editor Thomas Kent said.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.ploughshares.org/issues-analysis/article/setting-record-straight

Setting the Record Straight

As foes of the Iran deal strike back

An article published by AP reporter Bradley Klapper on May 20 implies that there is something nefarious to Ploughshares Fund’s work supporting independent media to report on nuclear weapons threats.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is common practice for foundations to fund media coverage of under-reported stories and perspectives. For some, this might be global health, poverty or the impact of conflict on civilians. For Ploughshares Fund, this means bringing much-needed attention to the dangers of nuclear weapons. Our support of independent media such as NPR and PRI does not influence the editorial content of their coverage in any way, nor would we want it to.

Ploughshares Fund has been making the world safer since the height of the Cold War. The core of our mission was and is to peacefully reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons threats. The media is essential to informing and educating Americans of the risks that nuclear weapons – and dangerous nuclear weapon policies – pose to humanity.

Mr. Bradley’s piece also insinuates that there is something underhanded about funding security experts, peace advocates, and when relevant, regional experts. No matter what the opponents of the Iran deal say, our work is not about politics. It’s about the future safety and security of our country, and of the world.

This article was no doubt influenced by a recent New York Times Magazine article that presents a grossly skewed version of reality as many – including members of Congress – have asserted. The author, David Samuels, spun the facts and quotes to feed his own fictional narrative. Preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb has been a key goal of Ploughshares Fund and many other security experts for decades. To suggest otherwise – as Samuels did – is absurd. Our expertise in this field is nationally recognized. We were promoting negotiations long before this administration took office.

Ploughshares Fund is firmly nonpartisan. Our support of the Iran deal was based on policy, not politics. We back the administration when they’re right, we oppose them when they’re wrong. We supported the administration’s New START Treaty with Russia and the historic Iran agreement because they make America safer. We oppose the administration’s $1 trillion plan to build new nuclear weapons because it makes the world more dangerous. We always act independently based on our own mission to reduce nuclear threats. We will continue to do so – no matter who is in the Oval Office.

About the Author
Ploughshares Fund
May 20, 2016

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://warisboring.com/watch-out-c...s-develop-closer-ties-439a8822fbb2#.g93pl0svc

War Is Boring
yesterday·6 min read

Watch Out, China — U.S. and Indian Militaries Develop Closer Ties

Washington and New Delhi approach a landmark military cooperation agreement

by KEVIN KNODELL

Washington and New Delhi are getting a lot more serious about military-to-military ties. As the United States and India become more wary of an increasingly assertive China, the two countries are gradually edging closer together.

On May 16, American and Indian officials met for a “maritime security dialogue” in New Delhi. “The dialogue covered issues of mutual interest, including exchange of perspectives on maritime security development in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region as well as prospects for further strengthening cooperation between India and the United States in this regard,” stated an Indian Ministry of External Affairs press release.

Washington and New Delhi are also close to formalizing a historic military cooperation agreement hazily called the “Logistics Support Agreement” — or LSA. The agreement would allow the two militaries to use each other’s land, air and naval bases for resupplies, repairs and conducting operations.

American and Indian officials agreed to hold the summit during an April visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Despite regular meetings and joint military training, the United States and India are not allies in any formal sense. India was officially unaligned in the Cold War but kept close relations with the Soviet Union — and the United States backed arch-rival Pakistan.

But there is a slow yet historic realignment underway. First of all, the United States and India are both growing warier of China’s rise as a major regional military power. Second, the U.S.-Pakistani relationship has deteriorated during the course of America’s decade-and-a-half-long war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan is the world’s top recipient of Chinese weapons.

In an April profile in The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that U.S. Pres. Barack Obama “privately questions why Pakistan, which he believes is a disastrously dysfunctional country, should be considered an ally of the U.S. at all.”

Then there’s the LSA, which — if signed — could enhance cooperation between the U.S. and Indian militaries to an unprecedented level.

Adm. Harry Harris, chief of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command, told Congress in February that America and India are negotiating the LSA, another agreement called the CISMOA that would allow secure communications when both militaries operate together, and a third agreement regarding the exchange of topographical, nautical and aeronautical data.

“We have not gotten to the point of signing them with India, but I think we’re close,” Harris told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.

During the last few months, the proposed agreements has come closer to being a reality. “Secretary Carter and I agreed in principle to conclude a logistics exchange memorandum of agreement in the coming months,” Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar said during Carter’s April visit.

These developments build on previous moves between the Indian and U.S. governments. In 2012, then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta directed Carter — at the time his deputy — to head an initiative to widen the scope of mil-to-mil cooperation between the two counties. The result was the U.S.-India Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI).

“The DTTI is not a treaty or a law,” the initiative’s website states. “It is a flexible mechanism to ensure that senior leaders from our nations are persistently focused on the opportunities and challenges associated with growing our defense partnership.”

Through DTTI, American and Indian officials have discussed sharing technology and boosting business ties between the two countries’ defense industries.

During Carter’s April visit, he discussed the possibility of sharing technology to help New Delhi build its first domestically produced aircraft carrier INS Vishal — a deal the two countries have been negotiating through DTTI under the auspice of the “Aircraft Carrier Working Group.”

Vishal, which New Delhi wants to be nuclear powered, is slated to set sail in 2028.

Carter also toured India’s imported aircraft carrier, the INS Vikramaditya. The Russian-built vessel has a troubled history. She arrived late, overbudget and lacking several vital components. India — currently the world’s number one arms importer — has long counted Russia as its largest supplier of military goods.

This relationship, as noted, dates back to the Soviet Union and the Cold War. But the Vikramaditya experience, along with Russian-built warplanes that frequently fail to meet Indian expectations, seems to have prompted New Delhi to shift some of its dealings to the West.

India’s military still relies heavily on Russian weapons and equipment — and business between the two countries certainly hasn’t stopped. However, it has changed. During the last few years, the U.S. has edged out the Kremlin as New Delhi’s largest source of military hardware.

The growing ties include more than just hardware and meetings between top brass. The U.S. and India have ramped up joint tactical combat training. In September, War Is Boring observed U.S. and Indian troops train together as part of the two countries’ annual Exercise Yudh Abhyas at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Teddy Kleisner said that though the exercise was mostly tactical rather than strategic, any interaction between the U.S. and Indian militaries is obviously significant. “On our end we’re keenly aware that our two countries are having conversations,” Kleisner explained. “What we’re doing here is making good on that dialogue.”

As the largest military installation on the West Coast, Lewis-McChord has played an increasingly important role in the “pivot to the Pacific” — the Obama administration’s strategy of increased military presence in the Asia-Pacific region. In January, the U.S. 1st Special Forces Group hosted Indian Special Forces for a joint maritime special ops exercise.

In June, the United States, India and Japan will hold the trilateral naval Exercise Malabar in the waters near Okinawa. The exercise began as a bilateral event between the U.S. and Indian navies, but for the last few years Japan has participated as a guest and has since become a permanent participant.

The three-country format has irked Chinese leaders, who assert that Beijing has sovereign rights to nearby islands in the South China Sea. As China flexes its military muscles and asserts itself as a rising superpower in the 21st century, it has become increasingly at odds with many of its neighbors — particularly India, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines.

As tensions mount, new alliances are beginning to form.

 

[Housecarl]

Iraqi Protesters Storm Baghdad's Green Zone, Shooting Erupts
Started by Possible Impactý, Yesterday 09:35 AM


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.businessinsider.com/protesters-killed-in-baghdad-green-zone-riots-2016-5

4 killed, 90 injured in Baghdad Green Zone riots

Reuters
Kareem Raheem and Maher Chmaytelli, Reuters
2h

At least four people were killed and 90 injured among anti-corruption protesters who stormed Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone on Friday, hospital sources said on Saturday.

Iraqi security forces used live and rubber bullets as well as tear gas to dislodge the protesters from the district that houses government buildings, parliament and embassies.

The toll, compiled from four hospitals where casualties were taken as well as Baghdad's central morgue, accounts for bullet wounds only, not cases of suffocation caused by tear gas.

The disturbance was the second breach of the Green Zone in less than a month.

Protesters included supporters of powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and people from other groups upset with the government's failure to approve anti-corruption reforms and improve security against bombings by Islamic State militants.

The government briefly imposed a curfew on Baghdad on Friday and authorities later said that order had returned after what they called rioting at the Green Zone.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, in a late-night speech, condemned the Green Zone breach and warned against chaos and strife: "The law must take its course with every transgressor."

Sadr expressed support for what he called a "peaceful spontaneous revolt" and condemned the government for "killing its children in cold blood".

 

[Housecarl]

Looks like Zimbabwe in slow motion......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-so...arm-sizes-to-speed-land-redistribution-2016-5

South Africa to limit farm sizes to speed land redistribution

Reuters
2h
By Ed Stoddard

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa (Reuters) - South Africa's government is planning to impose limits on farm sizes to free up parcels of land to hand over to blacks, a minister said on Saturday, giving an insight into the workings of a divisive redistribution scheme.

Gugile Nkwinti, the minister of rural development and land reform, told Reuters the government was planning to set a range of limits - from a 1,000-hectare (2,470-acre) "small-scale" farm, up to the largest allowed, at 12,000 hectares.

"If you are a small-scale farm and have 1,400 HA, we will buy the 400, and leave you with your 1,000. We will buy the extra and redistribute it to black people," the minister said.

South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC), facing local elections in August, has promised to speed up plans to redistribute land which remains predominantly in white hands two decades after the end of apartheid.

Some economists and farming groups have said the proposals could hit investment and production at a time when South Africa is emerging from a major drought - pointing to the economic damage linked to farm seizures in neighboring Zimbabwe.

They have also complained about a lack of clarity on how it will all work.

Setting out the farm size limits and specifically linking them to the redistribution scheme may further alarm owners, particularly of smaller plots.

But the government says the redistribution process needs to be accelerated, to rectify past wrongs and provide opportunities to the previously excluded, and has repeatedly said it will stick to the law and not follow Zimbabwe's example.


KRUGER COMPENSATION

"In South Africa you have a concentration of land ownership in the hands of a few people. That is something we have to correct," Nkwinti said before a ceremony in Kruger National Park where President Jacob Zuma handed over 84 million rand ($5.4 million) in compensation to black communities evicted decades ago.

Experts estimate about 8 million hectares of farmland have been transferred to black owners since the end of apartheid, 8 to 10 percent of the land in white hands in 1994 and only a third of the ANC's long-running 30 percent target.

The party has said it will speed up the process with a bill going through parliament allowing the state to expropriate land without the owner's consent.

Several black communities had land claims on the 2-million hectare Kruger Park because they were removed after the Native Land Act of 1913, which consigned South Africa's black majority to 13 percent of the country's territory.

But the government wants to keep the Kruger, a major tourist draw and home to many animal species, intact, so its policy is to compensate those with claims on it through cash instead of allowing them to resettle in the park's boundaries.

Perry Sambo, a 63-year-old school teacher who is one of the claimants being paid, said his parents had been removed from Kruger before he was born.

"It was very difficult. Transport was very scarce and they did not get any assistance in what they wanted to carry. And some of their belongs they had to leave because they could not carry everything. They lost also cattle on the way that were eaten by lions," he told Reuters.


(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/05/21/china-divides-asean-in-the-south-china-sea/

China divides ASEAN in the South China Sea

21 May 2016
Author: Sampa Kundu, IDSA

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s whirlwind tour of Brunei, Cambodia and Laos during 22–24 April 2016 courted support for his country’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. But the issue of China’s policy in the South China Sea has created a fault line across ASEAN, complicating the unity and effectiveness of the regional grouping.

The most pressing issue on Wang’s agenda during his visits to Brunei, Cambodia and Laos was dispute resolution in the South China Sea, though political and economic cooperation were also discussed. In Brunei, his first destination, Wang emphasised China’s ‘dual-track approach’ as a way to solve territorial disputes between China and Southeast Asian countries. This approach endorses the handling of disputes bilaterally by the directly affected countries, and the joint maintenance of peace and stability in the South China Sea by both China and ASEAN.

Following his visit to Brunei, Wang spent one day in Cambodia and met Foreign Minister Prak Sokhon. The following day in Laos, he met Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, General Secretary of the Party Central Committee and President Bounnhang Vorachith, and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith.

Wang’s visit to Laos received wide attention in the region since Laos, as the Chair of ASEAN in 2016, is expected to play a key role in mediating China’s disputes with its Southeast Asian neighbours. Wang emphasised during his visit that China’s One Belt One Road initiative, which proposes a China–Laos railway link, would boost Laos’ agenda of transforming itself from a land-locked to a land-linked nation. For Laos’ part, Saleumxay Kommasith conveyed that, as the current Chair of ASEAN, Laos will try to further mobilise discussion on the execution of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and negotiations on a formal Code of Conduct.

Wang’s tour of the three countries underscores China’s eagerness to develop substantial backing within the region as The Hague prepares to give its verdict on the Philippines’ arbitration case against China’s ‘nine-dash line’ claims. Any public support from the region will add legitimacy to China’s position against allowing third parties to intervene in South China Sea disputes.

Following the visits, the Chinese foreign ministry published a four-point consensus that Wang claimed was agreed upon with his counterparts in Brunei, Cambodia and Laos. The consensus stated that, first, disputes over the Spratly islands are not an ASEAN–China issue and should not have any implications on China–ASEAN relations. Second, every sovereign state is free to choose their own way to resolve rows and no unilateral decision can be imposed on them. Third, dialogues and consultations under Article 4 of the DOC are the best way to solve the South China Sea disputes. Fourth, China and ASEAN together can effectively maintain peace and security in the region.

This four-point consensus, alongside Wang’s tour of Southeast Asia, reiterates that China has once again successfully capitalised on divisions prevalent among the ASEAN nations when it comes to South China Sea disputes. By supporting China’s four-point consensus, Brunei, Cambodia and Laos have expressed that they will neither join Vietnam and the Philippines (and increasingly Indonesia too) in their fights against China’s assertiveness in South China Sea nor seek multilateral dispute resolution.

The last point in the ‘consensus’ stresses that China and these three ASEAN countries do not want the involvement of outside powers (like the United States) in South China Sea disputes, as they believe only regional powers should manage peace and stability in East Asia. But China’s assertive diplomacy in Southeast Asia has raised questions about Laos’ ability to promote unity and open dialogue across ASEAN in 2016. In light of the United States’ insistence that it will continue its freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, and US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s recent announcement of joint patrols with Manila, China is likely be more assertive in pushing its dispute resolution agenda onto its allies in the region.

This was not the first time China has been successful in drawing dividing lines within ASEAN. During Myanmar’s tenure as Chair of ASEAN in 2014 the smaller economy had to face the challenge of considering the interests of Vietnam and Philippines on the one hand and China on the other. After Wang Yi’s three-nation tour, Lao President Bounnhang Vorachith attempted a conciliatory gesture towards the other members of ASEAN by immediately paying a friendly visit to Hanoi. But it remains to be seen whether this visit will be enough to assure Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries, of Laos’ ability to lead ASEAN with a pragmatic diplomatic attitude.

Some argue that China is too big a power for ASEAN’s smaller economies to raise a tough voice against its territorial claims and its rejection of third-party dispute resolution. Yet Vietnam and the Philippines are passionate about maintaining their demands in the South China Sea. The involvement of extra-regional powers suits their interests. The confluence of these opposing interests is making Southeast Asia one of the most unsettled regions in the world. Managing this tension will be a considerable challenge for ASEAN into the future.

Dr. Sampa Kundu is a researcher at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/the_fictional_iran_deal.html#ixzz49IpUevV9

May 21, 2016

The Fictional Iran Deal

By Adam Turner
Comments 12

I can’t tell you just how shocked I am that a wannabe fiction writer, currently posing as the Deputy National Security Adviser, inserted his own fictional material to market the Iran Deal -- otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- to the media and public.

Many in the media went ballistic at Mr. Rhodes, and the author of the New York Times Magazine article that broke the news, for Rhodes’ confessions about deceiving the public to sell the Iran deal. I am not one of them. If anything, I believe this is all very appropriate. This whole Iran deal is, more than anything else, a totally fictional ‘deal’ that came out of a totally fictional process, and is being fictionally followed by Iran. It is also a complete and utter fiction for anyone to believe that the ‘deal’ will stop Iran from producing a nuclear weapon. So, doesn’t it make sense for a fiction writer to insert some fictional material to propagandize for it?

There is no common ‘deal’ between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The U.S. has a document of 159 pages, that it claims details the ‘deal.’ Iran, meanwhile, rejected that text. Instead, the Iranian majilis approved their own version of the JCPOA, more than 1000 pages long, which, among other things, strips the U.S.’ ability to “snapback” sanctions, forbids inspections of Iranian military sites, bars International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) interviews with Iranian military officers and scientists, calls on Iran to strengthen its military and missile arsenal, makes conversion of enriched uranium conditional, and calls for the dismantling of Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Leader Khamenei has endorsed this new version of the JCPOA, to which he attached some additional conditions.

Even if there was one document, there still wouldn’t be a real deal. According to the Obama administration, the JCPOA is a set of “political commitments” and not a treaty, an executive agreement, or even a legally binding document. That is because said document was never signed by both parties. If this doesn’t make it a fictional deal, I don’t know what would.

The congressional "passage" of the deal was ridiculous too.

The Obama administration promised that it would wait for the Congress to consider the ‘deal’ before it went for a vote at the UN. That was a fictional statement. The administration quickly rammed it through the UN, prompting even some Democrats to express outrage.

President Obama also forced an entirely fictional process on Congress to implement the ‘deal.’ He didn’t use the one mentioned in the U.S. Constitution – the treaty process. He knew he would lose the battle to get two-thirds of the U.S. Senate vote. He also didn’t use the executive agreement route. Instead, the president and his allies conned the Congress into creating a new way, through the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, i.e., the Corker legislation. This process allowed Obama and his allies to turn the constitutional procedures on their heads, requiring opponents of the ‘deal’ to get a two-thirds majority in the Senate and House.

One reason many opposition senators signed onto this Corker legislation was that it required the president and his team to reveal to them the entirety of the Iran ‘deal.’ This promise, it turns out, was another fiction. At least two side deals were never revealed by the administration. They only came to the public’s attention when they were accidently revealed to visiting American lawmakers. Thus, the Corker legislation was violated. Not that this negated the Corker process, which went ahead anyway. Therefore, the Corker legislative process became fictional, and there was no real buy in by the Congress for the Iran ‘deal.’

Speaking of the U.S. Congress, the entire debate period when the House and Senate were supposedly considering the merits of the ‘deal’ was largely fictional too. While there were exceptions, many, especially on the Democratic side supporting the ‘deal,’ voted for it because the Democratic president told them to, and if that wasn’t enough, probably threatened them politically as well. Watching pro-‘deal’ senators and congressmen lambast the ‘deal’ for its many faults but then lamely praise it as the only option should make this quite clear to any objective observer.

As most of us suspected, Iran’s promises to keep to the ‘deal’ have proven to be entirely fictional as well. For example, Iran refused to fully cooperate with the IAEA investigating its Possible Military Dimensions (PMD). During the PMD investigation, Iran enabled the IAEA to draw partial conclusions only on two of the 12 alleged elements. In five cases, the IAEA noted that PMD occurred despite Iran’s claims to the contrary. Nevertheless, the PMD investigation was closed. Also, Iran continues to produce heavy water at Arak in violation of the JCPOA, which forbids Iran from stockpiling more than 130 tons of it.

And these are just the Iranian violations we know about.

Of course, the biggest fiction of all is that this ‘deal’, even if followed, will actually stop Iran from producing a nuclear weapon. It won’t. It was just a way for President Obama to get his legacy.

I actually feel a little bad for Mr. Rhodes, whose critics have labeled him a “failed” fiction writer. Considering that the fictional material he produced helped to ram the fictional Iran ‘deal,’ which will not really stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, through a fictional Congressional buy in process, and the ‘deal’ is now only being fictionally adhered to by Iran, I would have to disagree. Ben Rhodes has been a tremendous success in the world of fiction.

Adam Turner is the General Counsel & Legislative Affairs Director for the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET).


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/the_fictional_iran_deal.html#ixzz49IptSMXG
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/beijing-warns-cut-contacts-taiwan-doesnt-toe-line-093027242.html

World

Beijing warns will cut contacts if Taiwan doesn't toe line

AFP 6 hours ago

Beijing (AFP) - Beijing warned Taiwan it would cut off critical contacts with the island if its new president Tsai Ing-wen does not state her support for the concept that there is only “one China”, state media reported Saturday.

The comments came a day after Beijing-sceptic Tsai's inauguration speech, where she called for "positive dialogue" with the Chinese mainland, but stopped short of any compromise on Beijing’s demands that she back its “one China” principle.

That principle was recognised by outgoing president Ma Ying-jeou of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang party, who oversaw an eight-year rapprochement between the former bitter rivals.

Although Taiwan is self-ruling after splitting with the mainland in 1949 following a civil war, it has never formally declared independence and Beijing still sees it as part of its territory awaiting reunification.

Beijing is highly suspicious of Tsai, whose Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is traditionally pro-independence and has warned her against any attempt at a breakaway.

Beijing and Taipei have held regular, official communications since 2014, but that will stop unless Tsai acknowledges the "1992 consensus", said Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office, according to a report by the official Xinhua news service.

The tacit agreement followed a 1992 meeting between Chinese officials and the KMT which laid out the “one China” ideology, but allowed each side its own interpretation.

"The communications mechanism between the two departments can only continue if the '92 consensus', which represents the common political foundation of the One China principle, is adhered to," Xinhua quoted Ma as saying.

Tsai and the DPP have never acknowledged the consensus. In her speech Friday, Tsai reiterated her previous stance of recognising the 1992 meeting took place, but did not endorse its conclusions.

Unofficial communication mechanisms will also be at risk, Chinese authorities said.

The Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), a semi-official organisation that works with its Taiwanese counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), deals with issues that are too legally or politically delicate to be handled through official government channels.

"As long as SEF receives authorisation to confirm to ARATS the adherence to the '92 consensus'… authorised negotiations and contact between the two organisations can be maintained," Xinhua quoted the head of ARATS as saying, without giving a specific name.

The two organisations, which have played a critical role in improving ties between Taipei and Beijing, renewed contact in 2008, following almost a decade of tension that ended with the election of Ma.

Comments (67)

 

[energy_wave]

Very good interview on NATO...

NATO’s move near Russia, preparation for war: Analyst



Press TV has interviewed Mike Billington, from the Asia Desk of the Executive Intelligence Review in Leesburg, about Russia condemning NATO for granting membership to Montenegro.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: It is pretty much obvious that the NATO members will ratify the accession of Montenegro. What does it mean to have Montenegro as a member of NATO?

Billington: It is just one small step actually but the process has been going on since the fall of the Soviet Union. This is well-known, at the time Mr. and Mrs. LaRouche, my organization put forward the idea for a New Silk Road to connect Europe and Asia through Russia and thereby bringing Eastern Europe and Russia up economically into collaboration with us on the building of a common aims of mankind approach to the world, this was accepted by the Chinese but it was ..., the Russians were in a crisis stage at that point but the Europeans absolutely rejected it and instead chose to begin the process of moving NATO right up to Russia’s border, creating a new enemy image in the Russians and to primarily prevent the kind of proposal that the LaRouche has put forward which is uniting the Eurasian nations - Europe, Russia and China - around development.

This was seen as an enemy. This was seen as the threat to the power of the London, New York financial institutions and that has now come full swing. We are at a point where not only is NATO moving up to Russia’s border but we are watching the most massive deployment of military forces by Obama with the British running this show right up to the Russian border preparing for the World War III, this is recognized in Russia as a preparation for World War III, then Montenegro is just one next step in a long process which is escalating towards an explosion which could happen as early as this summer.

They are very, very upset not about Putin in Ukraine, as they say, but about Putin in Syria where he exposed the fact that the West was allied with the Saudis in funding and arming terrorists and Putin demonstrated you could defeat terrorism if you cut off the supply line from Obama’s friends in Saudi Arabia and Turkey and so forth and in the last week, by the way, Putin has intervened very forcefully into Asia and the Obama encirclement of China with military forces and the Philippines efforts to get ballistic missiles in Korea has been given a severe blow by the fact that Putin and Prime Minister Abe from Japan have established an extremely ambitious agreement for the development of the Russian Far East moving towards the settlement of the World War II territorial issues and pulling the plug on Obama’s use of Japan as a military ally, as they like to call it, against China.

And as you probably know Putin is hosting the Southeast Asian countries in Sochi again on the basis of what they call a strategic alliance for the common good and it is this idea of a common good against the geopolitics of the British and the Americans, the bloc mentality, the alliance’s mentality. No, let’s build the world jointly. This is what is seen as the enemy to the Obama, British war machine is to stop this emergence of the BRICS, the New International Development Banks that they are putting together and to effectively enforce a breakdown policy.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/05/21/466749/Russia-NATO--Montenegro-China-US-Obama-Putin

 

[Be Well]

Ploughshares Fund is firmly nonpartisan. Our support of the Iran deal was based on policy, not politics. We back the administration when they’re right, we oppose them when they’re wrong. We supported the administration’s New START Treaty with Russia and the historic Iran agreement because they make America safer. We oppose the administration’s $1 trillion plan to build new nuclear weapons because it makes the world more dangerous. We always act independently based on our own mission to reduce nuclear threats. We will continue to do so – no matter who is in the Oval Office.

What sickening enemies of the US - they want the US defenseless, and Iran to have nukes. Are they just like that naturally, or are they getting $$$ for Iran (and/or others)?

 

[Be Well]

On Breitbart:

http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/...iran-nuclear-deal-funds-media-dc-think-tanks/

Soros-Backed Group that Helped Sell Iran Nuclear Deal Funds Media, DC Think Tanks

Aaron Klein 20 May 2016

TEL AVIV – A group that advocates a nuclear-free world and that was identified earlier this month by the White House as central in helping to market the Iran nuclear deal to the news media has funded National Public Radio since 2005, an Associated Press investigation has revealed.

Think tanks funded by the Ploughshares Fund include the Arms Control Association, Brookings Institution, and the Atlantic Council, the AP reported.

Unmentioned by the AP is that the Ploughshares Fund is financed by billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

The involvement of Ploughshares in selling the Iran agreement to the public was revealed in an extensive New York Times Magazine profile of Obama’s deputy national security advise Ben Rhodes titled, “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru.” The article contains interviews with Rhodes and scores of top Obama administration officials.

Robert Malley, senior director at the National Security Council, explained the genesis and execution of the marketing plan to sell the Iran deal.

Malley explained “experts” were utilized to create an “echo chamber” that disseminated administration claims about Iran to “hundreds of often-clueless reporters” in the news media.

In the spring of last year, legions of arms-control experts began popping up at think tanks and on social media, and then became key sources for hundreds of often-clueless reporters. “We created an echo chamber,” he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”​

Rhodes told Times reporter David Samuels that the marketing strategy took advantage of the “absence of rational discourse” and utilized outside groups, including Ploughshares.

When I suggested that all this dark metafictional play seemed a bit removed from rational debate over America’s future role in the world, Rhodes nodded. “In the absence of rational discourse, we are going to discourse the [expletive] out of this,” he said. “We had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project and whomever else. So we knew the tactics that worked.” He is proud of the way he sold the Iran deal. “We drove them crazy,” he said of the deal’s opponents.​

Now the AP has revealed the extent of Ploughshares funding to NPR and to influential foreign policy U.S. think tanks.

Besides $100,000 to NPR last year, the AP reports:

Ploughshares has funded NPR’s coverage of national security since 2005, the radio network said. Ploughshares reports show at least $700,000 in funding over that time. All grant descriptions since 2010 specifically mention Iran.

“It’s a valued partnership, without any conditions from Ploughshares on our specific reporting, beyond the broad issues of national and nuclear security, nuclear policy, and nonproliferation,” NPR said in an emailed statement. “As with all support received, we have a rigorous editorial firewall process in place to ensure our coverage is independent and is not influenced by funders or special interests.”​

Ploughshare’s president was interviewed on NPR, the AP reports:

Another who appeared on NPR is Joseph Cirincione, Ploughshares’ president. He spoke about the negotiations on air at least twice last year. The station identified Ploughshares as an NPR funder one of those times; the other time, it didn’t.​

Cirincione was an adviser on nuclear issues to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Ploughshares documents show funding last year to other groups to “advance its nonproliferation agenda,” according to the AP.

The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the Brookings Institution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500. They received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings and media outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work.

Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants.

J-Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal. More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.

Princeton University got $70,000 to support former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein Mousavian’s “analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran’s nuclear program.”​

Ploughshares says it has awarded hundreds of grants “whose aggregate value exceeded $60 million.”

A previous investigation by this reporter showed Ploughshares has partnered with a who’s who of the radical left, including Code Pink, the pro-Palestinian J Street, United for Peace & Justice, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and Demo, a progressive economic advisory group where President Obama’s controversial former green jobs czar, Van Jones, has served on the board.

The group says its mission is to support the “smartest minds and most effective organizations to reduce nuclear stockpiles, prevent new nuclear states, and increase global security.”

Ploughshares is in turn financed by Soros’ Open Society Institute, the Buffett Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Another Ploughshares donor is the Tides Foundation, which is one of the largest funders of the radical left. Tides is funded by Soros.

Ploughshares has donated to the Institute for Policy Studies, which calls for massive slashes in the U.S. defense budget.

It has also financed the International Crisis Group, a small organization that boasts Soros on its board.

 

[Housecarl]

This from the bunch that had Bin Laden living down the street from their version of West Point/Sandhurst and delineates between "good" and "bad" Taliban.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-taliban-idUSKCN0YC0P6

World | Sun May 22, 2016 2:02pm EDT
Related: World, Afghanistan

Pakistan says U.S. drone strike violated its sovereignty

KABUL/WASHINGTON | By Mirwais Harooni and Phil Stewart

Video


Pakistan on Sunday accused the United States of violating its sovereignty with a drone strike against the leader of the Afghan Taliban in a remote border area just inside Pakistan.

Afghanistan said the attack killed Mullah Akhtar Mansour. But a Pakistani passport found at the site bears the name Wali Muhammad and the passport holder was believed to have traveled to Pakistan from Iran on the day of the attack, according to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.

Mansour's death could trigger a succession battle and deepen fractures that emerged in the insurgent movement after the death of its founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was confirmed in 2015, more than two years after it occurred.

The Saturday drone strike, which U.S. officials said was authorized by President Barack Obama and included multiple drones, showed the United States was prepared to go after the Taliban leadership in Pakistan, which the government in Kabul has repeatedly accused of sheltering the insurgents.

But Pakistan protested on Sunday, saying the U.S. government did not inform Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif beforehand.

"This is a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty," Sharif told reporters in London.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that Washington had only notified Pakistan after the strike.

Afghan government chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, and the country's top intelligence agency, said the attack had been successful.

"Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour was killed in a drone strike ... His car was attacked in Dahl Bandin," Abdullah said in a post on Twitter, referring to a district in Pakistan's Baluchistan province just over the border with Afghanistan.

One of the charred bodies at the site has been identified as a local taxi driver but a badly burnt second body has not, according to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.


Related Coverage
› Taliban's Haqqani may be even more deadly foe than Mansour

The ministry did not directly comment on the possibility that Mansour had been traveling under another name. Photos of the Wali Muhammad passport found at the site, which were seen by Reuters, show a passing resemblance to old photos of Mansour. The ministry said the passport contained a valid Iranian visa.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told an interviewer it would be days before Washington could be certain that Mansour was dead. "At this point, we’re not quite prepared to confirm that he was killed, though it appears likely," he said on Fox News Sunday.


POSED 'CONTINUING, IMMINENT THREAT'

The drone strike underscored the belief among U.S. commanders that under Mansour's leadership, the Taliban have grown increasing close to militant groups like al Qaeda, posing a direct threat to U.S. security.

U.S Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had conducted a precision air strike that targeted Mansour "in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border".


Related Video

Video
Kerry says Taliban leader Mansour posed a 'continuing imminent threat'


Video
Afghan Taliban leader likely killed in U.S. strike

Mansour posed a "continuing, imminent threat" to U.S. personnel and Afghans, Kerry told a news conference while on a visit to Myanmar.

"If people want to stand in the way of peace and continue to threaten and kill and blow people up, we have no recourse but to respond and I think we responded appropriately," Kerry said.

The Taliban have made no official statement but two Taliban sources said the Rahbari Shura, or leadership council, met on Sunday to begin considering the succession, a move that strongly suggests they accept that he is dead.

They considered Siraj Haqqani, seen by supporters as a strong leader who would defy the U.S. and Afghan governments, and Mullah Omar’s son Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, a potential unifier because of his father’s name, as well as former Guantanamo detainee Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir and Mullah Sherin.

The meeting was expected to continue on Monday and naming a new leader could take days or weeks, the sources said.


Related Coverage
› Pakistan hints Mansour may have been in Iran before U.S. drone strike
› Kerry says Taliban leader Mansour posed a 'continuing imminent threat'

"Based purely on matters of hierarchy, (Haqqani) would be the favorite to succeed Mansour," said Michael Kugelman, a senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson Institute think-tank.

Efforts to broker talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban had already stalled after a suicide attack in Kabul last month that killed 64 people and prompted President Ashraf Ghani to prioritize military operations over negotiations.

However Ghani's office said on Sunday that the removal of Mansour could open the door to talks and said Taliban who wanted to end bloodshed should return from "alien soil" and join peace efforts.

Pakistan has in the past denounced U.S. strikes on its soil, calling them a violation of sovereignty, but U.S. officials have said Pakistan has approved some strikes, in particular on militants fighting the Pakistani state.

A Pakistani official in the area said a car had been blown up and two unidentified people had been killed. It was not clear how the vehicle was blown up and the two bodies had been taken to a hospital, said the official, who declined to be identified.

One of the Taliban commanders who dismissed the report of Mansour's killing said it had nevertheless spread alarm.

"This rumor has created panic among our followers across Afghanistan and Pakistan," the senior Taliban member said by phone, adding he was telling his comrades to ignore the report.

In December, Mansour was reportedly wounded and possibly killed in a shootout at the house of an insurgent leader in Pakistan. The Taliban eventually released an audio recording, purportedly from Mansour, to dispel the reports.


(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie, Drazen Jorgic and David Morgan; Editing by Ros Russell and Mary Milliken)

 

[Housecarl]

From the article and the video, the way things are trending it won't be too long until shooting starts at the fishing boat level and escalates up into coast guard and naval units engaging one another.....


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/22/asia/vietnam-fisherman-south-china-sea/

Vietnam fishermen on the front lines of South China Sea fray

By Pamela Boykoff, CNN
Updated 11:49 AM ET, Sun May 22, 2016

Video

(CNN) ¡X Again and again, Vietnamese fisherman, Le Tan, keeps finding trouble out at sea.

Last year, a group of men from a Chinese-flagged vessel chased his boat, catching him and his sons, and threatening them.

"They raided our boat. First they took our fish, then the essential equipment. If they liked it, they took it. If they didn't, they threw it away," he said.

He estimated his boat has been targeted four or five times over the past decade.

Once his son was held for three days; he was badly injured after being beaten and tasered at the spine.


"He had to stay home for three months and could not go to work," Tan told CNN.

Vietnamese authorities believe Tan and hundreds of other fishermen like him have become targets because they operate in the Paracel Islands, disputed territory claimed by Vietnam, China and Taiwan.

They are caught in an international spat over territory in the South China Sea -- a clash that's frayed diplomatic relations within Asia, and sits high on the agenda as U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Vietnam on Monday.

China says it owns nearly all of the South China Sea, and points to a 1947 map to justify claiming territory that lies hundreds of miles to the south and east of its island province, Hainan.

Many others object to that -- with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei all offering competing claims.

How the U.S., Vietnam became unlikely friends


Fisherman caught in the fray

Located off the east coast of Vietnam, the remote island of Ly Son is just 10 square kilometers (3.8 square miles) and wasn't connected to the national power grid until October 2014. It is home to around 1,000 fishermen who work in the Paracels, including Tan.

Map

According to the local government, 200 Ly Son fishermen and 17 fishing boats reported being attacked by Chinese vessels in 2015.

China's foreign ministry says it has no knowledge of Vietnamese fisherman beating beaten or expelled from the area, which it claims as "indisputable" Chinese territory.

Since 1999, China has instituted a summer moratorium on fishing in the South China Sea, saying it protects the sustainability of the industry.

"China has the authority to administer its territorial waters because of our sovereignty," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, said in response to a question from CNN.

"As I understand it, China's maritime authorities have always enforced laws in a civilized manner."

China wants to build floating nuclear plants


'This area belongs to Vietnam'

Despite the risk, Pham Thi Huong, a senior official in Ly Son, said authorities encourage the fishermen to keep going to the Paracels, which she describes as a traditional and crucial source of income for the island.

"By going out to the sea again, they confirm that this area belongs to Vietnam... That is undeniable," she said.

CNN wasn't allowed to speak to the Ly Son fishermen without a government minder present. But Vietnam's national government actively promotes the stories of the Ly Son fishermen and are keen to show them off as examples of China's aggression. Authorities support the fisherman with cash payments to replace lost fishing equipment and help pay for medical bills.

Because of their belief in Vietnam's ownership of the island, regular Vietnamese citizens also contribute money to the fishermen's cause, according to the President of Ly Son's Fisheries Association, Nguyen Quoc Trinh.

"This is the force, the motivating force that makes our fishermen feel safe when we go out to the sea," he said.


Opportunity for United States

Political analysts say China's assertiveness in the South China Sea has threatened regional players and opened up new opportunities for the United States to build ties in countries like Vietnam.

Over the past few years, China has made strategic moves to back its claim to most of the South China Sea, building man-made islands, adding landing strips and deploying surface-to-air missiles.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) has concluded, based on satellite imagery, that China has created 3,000 acres, or 12 square kilometers, of new land.

U.S. must beware China's 'Guam killer' missile

Vietnam has also engaged in reclamation activities, but on a smaller scale.

The AMTI estimated Vietnam has created just over 120 acres, or half a square kilometer, of new land.

Before President Obama's visit, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Daniel R. Russel, described Vietnam as "a partner in upholding the Law of the Sea and the rule of law in maritime space, in resolving peacefully the tensions and disputes in the South China Sea."


The Obama administration has repeatedly advocated for such a peaceful resolution to the disputes, calling for a halt in reclamation or militarization of the islands by any country.

The U.S. is also running "Freedom of Navigation" operations -- naval patrols or flights through the South China Sea -- to emphasize the American position that all nations have a right to transit these waters.

Such activities have angered China, which has repeatedly accused the United States of provoking conflict and jeopardizing stability in the region.

Showdown in South China Sea: How did we get here?

Vietnam, for its part, doesn't seem upset by the Freedom of Navigation operations.

In January, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Le Hai Binh, responded to one such operation by saying: "Vietnam respects the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea."

CNN's Steven Jiang and Rebecca Wright contributed to this report.


„Ý

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...ces-prepare-to-retake-Fallujah/1101463937018/

Iraqi forces prepare to retake Fallujah

By Allen Cone | May 22, 2016 at 2:27 PM

BAGHDAD, May 22 (UPI) -- The Iraqi government told residents of Fallujah on Sunday to flee their city because a military coalition plans to retake the city from the Islamic State.

Civilian families would be allowed to leave the city through designated safe zones, the military's Joint Operations Command said. Those who cannot leave should raise white flags, according to a broadcast on state TV.

The command did not say when the operation would take place by the Iraqi army, counterterrorism forces, police, tribal fighters and Shiite militias.

About 20,000 federal police officers with armored vehicles and artillery are on the outskirts of Fallujah "in preparation for storming the city," Lt Gen. Raeed Shakir Jawdat, commander of the federal police, said in a statement.

Fallujah is one of the last holdings in Iraq by the IS, also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh.

The city on the Euphrates River had a pre-war population of about 300,000. It has been encircled by Iraqi forces and a coalition of Shia Muslim armed groups known as Hashid Shaabi.

Eissa al-Issawi, the exiled mayor of Fallujah, said IS militants were retreating from the outskirts to the center of the city Sunday.

The recapture of Fallujah would leave Mosul as IS's only major foothold in Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi spoke with President Barack Obama on Saturday night, according to the White House. The prime minister gave an update on progress in Anbar province and vowed that Fallujah would be liberated soon.

Obama reaffirmed U.S. support for Iraqi Security Forces, emphasizing its key role in defeating IS. He noted the United States and the International Coalition will continue to train, advise and assist Iraqi forces.

The IS took control of Fallujah in December 2013.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realclearworld.com/artic...islamic_state_advice_from_sun_tzu_111864.html

Defeating the Islamic State: Advice from Sun Tzu

By Ronald Tiersky
May 20, 2016

Anti-Islamic State coalition military operations are underway. Their goal is to liberate the cities of Mosul, Raqqa, and Fallujah, as well as all ISIS-entrenched positions on the Euphrates River, beginning west of Baghdad and heading north all the way to Raqqa and beyond, to Syria’s border with Turkey. Since the Islamic State is fanatically committed to a single jihadist principle -- either victory or death (“martyrdom”), and a scorched-earth policy in retreat, any strategy to defeat and dismantle their so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq requires thinking outside usual frameworks.

American leaders sometimes say, in effect, ‘we don’t understand ISIS at all, it’s a totally new phenomenon.’ To the extent that this is true, it is at best a half-truth. ISIS is made up of two parts: the caliphate, and an always-changing transnational network of terrorists and local military forces.

Strategic priority is to destroy the caliphate. From the beginning, the jihadist organization’s goal has been to restore Islam’s power and religious prestige in world affairs by creating a new global theocratic institution. That credibility and prestige is what has attracted tens of thousands of fighters from more than 100 countries. The initial fanaticism has faded, but thousands in Syria and Iraq remain committed. The caliphate could, in fact, be destroyed militarily in a few weeks if major coalition powers were not so committed to limiting civilian casualties and the devastation of cities and infrastructure. As things are, it might be totally defeated and dismantled in a year or two, with the hardest struggles being to liberate the major cities that require siege and surgical attack. The Islamic State’s loose transnational network of terrorist operations will survive the demise of the caliphate. Diligently tracking down the forces of jihadism will take years, until the impulse to violent jihad finally burns itself out.

The Art of War Against ISIS

Ancient Chinese warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu’s slim treatise, “The Art of War,” has been read in military colleges for over two millennia. Immensely influential, its laconic considerations on how to prevail in war provide modern strategists with unexpected points of view.

The key to victory, writes Sun Tzu, is that “[y]ou should take away the energy of their armies, and take away the heart of their generals … When you do battle, it is necessary to kill people, so it is best to win without fighting.

“The best policy is to use strategy, influence, and the trend of events to cause the adversary to submit willingly…Therefore those who win every battle are not really skillful -- those who render others’ armies helpless without fighting are the best of all…” The translator, Thomas Cleary, says “the paradox of ‘The Art of War’ is its opposition to war. And as ‘The Art of War’ wars against war, it does so by its own principles; it infiltrates the enemy’s lines, uncovers the enemy’s secrets, and changes the hearts of the enemy’s troops.”

Sun Tzu is of course speaking philosophically, and not as an actual policymaker. It’s not a matter of giving battle plans and a scorecard to decide what victory “really” consists of. Sun Tzu’s main point is that war is first of all a matter of strategy, meaning intelligent conception, preparation, and execution -- plus luck. The important thing is to be able to think anew in every situation, not to automatically use a previously successful strategy, i.e., to fight the last war. Reconfiguring a country’s military with new strategy and weaponry adapted to new situations is the essence.

Is winning without fighting ever possible? There are many examples. Arraying for battle and intimidating an enemy into surrendering was a classic case: Alexander the Great and innumerable conquerors after him massed before a city and demanded surrender, promising annihilation to the recalcitrant. Forcing appeasement -- Hitler’s success at Munich with Britain and France -- is a modern example. If the best victory is to win without fighting through massing force, exploitation of psychological factors, and maneuver, second-best is surely to limit the damage as much as possible. Surrender or appeasement is sometimes a rational policy, rather than cowardice, when opposition is hopeless. In the modern world of human rights aspirations, making war with some emphasis on moral calculation adds that if war is necessary, as a last resort, a so-called just war is best, with its concern for morally adequate goals and methods of fighting, as opposed to an amoral “realist” war for national interest.

What is the situation in the war on ISIS? Government and military officials are rightly prudent in what they say. When things are going badly it’s useful to talk about ‘tactical retreat.’ When things are going well it’s useful to play down how well things are going. The war against the Islamic State turned in favor of coalition forces late last year. Right now it’s probably going better than the public is being told. An outsider such as this writer can be provocative: In spite of several spectacular terrorist bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere, the Islamic State’s situation in the Middle East looks grim. Possibly fewer than 20,000 or even 15,000 fighters with a decimated leadership structure are hunkered down in defensive occupation positions over a large territory, essentially waiting to be attacked and killed.

Only specialists remember the frighteningly plausible map issued two years ago revealing ISIS’s ambition to conquer most of the Middle East, Eurasia, and North Africa, or its plan to overthrow the House of Saud and incite internecine war in Muslim countries. The likelihood of such events unfolding has abated to zero, and even the mediatized individual and mass beheadings no longer keep international opinion awake at night.

What advice would Sun Tzu give concerning a plan for anti-Islamic State coalition military operations? A few more aphorisms from “The Art of War”: Instill confusion and conflict in the enemy, “throw them into disarray … Wait for them to become decadent and lazy … Cause division among them,” and disorganize their internal unity by working to intensify conflicts among their leaders, their fighters, and among each other.

Disorient leadership and chain of command and communication (which is already being done rather successfully). Sun Tzu also advises disrupting their “system of rewards and punishments.” Act surreptitiously to encourage killing among them. If punishments are immoderate, “there will be slaughter that does not result in awe.” Crucially, encourage conflict between those who, abandoning the ideology of martyrdom, at this point want to live, and those who will insist on being killed.

Use old tactics and new: Drop leaflets and use social media to demoralize fighters and give heart to the local population. Hack and troll their social media operations -- this is much more important than de-radicalization propaganda. Emphasize over and over again that the cause is lost and that ISIS has become a historic disgrace of Islam rather than its resurrection. Detail how many top leaders have been killed and give names. (Local fighters may be uninformed.) Emphasize the decline in number of new recruits (now reportedly 200 monthly, down from 2000 in 2014-2015). Emphasize the dismemberment of ISIS’s international terrorist network in Europe. Show that the strategic retreat to Libya is not succeeding. Emphasize deadly drone strikes by the United States, with dozens killed at a time.

The strategic goal is to eliminate the choice the leaders set at the beginning: only victory or a martyr’s death. Denying Islamic State this “success” -- i.e. they win even if they lose -- is the formula for getting them to move, to do something. Sitting under siege with no hope of new success will drag on fighters’ enthusiasm. In the end, ISIS forces might commit collective suicide, but suicide is generally forbidden in Islamic texts; even suicide/homicide bombings are controversial in religious terms.

Limit ISIS’s Options

Is it possible to talk in some productive way with Islamic State’s leaders? Originally, they wanted to lure the United States into a new ground war in the Middle East. This failed. U.S. President Barack Obama refused to fight on terrain chosen by the enemy. Perhaps ISIS leaders, or some of them, can be convinced to meet with the coalition. Could something of value be offered them to stand down instead of insisting on being killed?

The coalition could give minor legitimacy to ISIS if there were a public call (not an “appeal”) for talks. This would not involve negotiations, let alone diplomatic recognition as some kind of a state, but talks. The Islamic State caliphate structure has to go. Discussions would go on behind closed doors but their existence must be public, showing that ISIS is willing to discuss its future.

Two broad subjects could be discussed: war and the Islamic State as a structure, the caliphate As to the war, it’s a hard fact for the Islamic State that its fate in Syria and Iraq is sealed. The question then is: If the so-called caliphate is in the process of being destroyed, does ISIS leadership want to do anything other than submit to fate? It could well be -- and probably is -- that martyrdom will be prefered by the great majority.

Discussions on the Islamic State as an Islamic religious institution should obviously prioritize religious representatives, leaving perhaps a minimal role for governments. Privately and to some extent publicly, many Muslim leaders opposed declaring a caliphate and naming a caliph. Al-Qaeda, in the person of its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, opposed this and also condemned ISIS’s extreme brutality and in particular its targeting of Sunni Muslims. Al-Qaeda’s strategy is a long game, a patient strategy of infiltration and internal takeover, the main example of which is the Nusra Front in Syria. The offer of talks among Muslims should be put as an invitation to ISIS leaders to demonstrate their superiority as a religious and ideological leader in the Islamic world.

Could the Islamic State’s leaders be offered terms to abandon its occupation of cities? This is not absolutely unthinkable. Could they be allowed to surrender? What kind of surrender? For example, if they agree to leave the cities, could they be guaranteed free passage, if necessary taking human shields, leaving behind a population and city intact even if studded with improvised explosive devices and booby-traps? Many would go back into battle but some, experience shows, would be glad to be given the opportunity to get out of the business of jihad.

And who on the Islamic State’s side would make decisions? That is, who are the top leaders now besides the self-styled caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? If, through good intelligence and luck, al-Baghdadi were eliminated, would that change the structure of attitudes among the leadership? In Mosul, Raqqa, and Fallujah, among the local populations, many ISIS leaders are known. Could they be lured into talks, even separate talks in each city?

As bad as it is, civilian life in Mosul, Raqqa, and Fallujah today is far from the worst hell on earth. They are relatively peaceful, it seems, and made so by terror. But the level of ruthless violence is less than it once was. Given the human and property destruction in other cities where Islamic State was ousted -- Ramadi, Kobani, and others -- everything should be tried to stanch the Islamic State’s scorched-earth tendencies and to limit the damage and loss of life.

In the end, Sun Tzu’s advice is still good: “You should take away the energy of their armies, and take away the heart of their generals.”


The views expressed here are the author's own.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/obama-nuke-223412

foreign policy

Obama's Asian nuclear nightmare

Fueled by Trump's rhetoric and North Korea's threats, Japan and South Korea are eyeing nuclear weapons of their own.

By Michael Crowley
05/21/16 07:41 AM EDT
Comments 58

President Barack Obama's trip to Asia next week will be anchored by a stop in Hiroshima, where he will focus on its dark nuclear past.

But Obama’s visit comes at a moment when U.S. and Asian officials fear the region is entering a newly dangerous atomic future, threatening Obama’s vow to roll back the spread of nuclear arms and possibly touching off an Asian nuclear arms race.

North Korea is expanding its nuclear arsenal and upgrading its ballistic missiles. China is growing and modernizing its stockpile. Most strikingly, Pentagon planners worry that Japan and South Korea might for the first time explore developing nuclear arms of their own — promoted in part by the recent conclusion by U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies that North Korea’s bizarre regime can now mount a small nuclear warhead on missiles capable of striking Japan and South Korea.

Then there is Donald Trump, who recently questioned one of Asia’s core security assumptions: a nuclear-weapons free Japan. “Wouldn’t you rather, in a certain sense, have Japan have nuclear weapons when North Korea has nuclear weapons?” Trump asked in a March New York Times interview. Seared by the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan has forsworn nuclear weapons since World War II, though it runs a nuclear energy program.

Obama’s visit Friday to Hiroshima, which was incinerated by a U.S. atomic bomb in August 1945, will promote a message diametrically opposite from Trump’s. “It’s an opportunity to focus the world’s attention on the need to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and seek a world without them,” said deputy national adviser Ben Rhodes.

That’s part of Obama’s broader and long-stated goal of limiting nuclear proliferation — one he has pursued with mixed results. Obama sealed a nuclear deal with Iran that stopped its path to a bomb, for now, and has led efforts to secure loose nuclear material worldwide. But he has not achieved major reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, thanks in part to Russia’s resistance to making comparable cuts. Nor has he slowed dangerous atomic expansions in North Korea and Pakistan.

Now, after the Iran deal averted what Obama predicted would be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, Asia suddenly looms large as an atomic danger zone. Seemingly immune to sanctions and isolation, North Korea presses on with its weapons program: Recent satellite imagery suggests that North Korea may be building a new tunnel in preparation for its fifth nuclear test.

Officials in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are losing patience with international efforts to thwart Pyongyang’s program. Some suspect China is all too happy with a status quo that keeps North Korea contained and stable.

And those governments increasingly fret that the U.S., which has protected them for decades under a nuclear umbrella, may become a less reliable ally.

The issue is particularly fraught in Japan, which has a post-World War II policy of pacifism enshrined in its constitution. But last year Japan passed legislation reinterpreting its constitution to allow foreign military operations for the first time since World War II, though only ones that are defensive in nature.

Some officials and analysts say the anti-nuclear taboo is also being revisited, especially as China asserts new territorial claims, including over islands and waters claimed by Japan. At the same time, many Japanese leaders feel that Obama has not challenged Beijing forcefully enough. Trump’s suggestion that Japan and South Korea might need to fend for themselves has only exacerbated the concerns that America can no longer be relied on for protection.

“Careless American rhetoric that calls into question America’s security commitment in general and extended nuclear deterrent in particular fuels Tokyo’s security planners to develop hedging strategies,” said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

“It has often been thought that Japan has a bomb in the basement, and it would just have to assemble the parts to create a bomb,” Cronin added. “The technical challenges might actually be much greater than that, but it is the political hurdles that remain the real barriers to Japan acquiring nuclear weapons.”

Those barriers, while still high, may be eroding.

Shortly after Trump’s comments in March, for instance, the governor of Japan’s Osaka prefecture told reporters that the country should revisit the question of nuclear weapons.

“What do we do if America’s military strength [in Japan] disappears?” asked the governor, Ichiro Matsui. “Wishful thinking doesn’t get us anywhere.”

Other Japanese conservatives have made the same argument in recent years, including Shintaro Ishihara, who served as Tokyo’s governor until 2012 and said in 2011 that Japan “should absolutely possess nuclear weapons.”

Such talk has been striking to Japan experts in the U.S., who have assumed for decades that the country would remain non-nuclear. “Very few except the extreme fringes used to talk about nuclear weapons” in Japan, said Richard Samuels, director of MIT’s Center for International Studies.

Pro-nuclear weapons sentiment in Japan remains mostly on the far right, to be sure. But the same conversation is brewing in South Korea, where a 2013 poll found that two-thirds of South Koreans support developing nukes in response to its bellicose northern neighbor.

“Seoul can no longer sit idly by as the [nuclear] talks lead to no results and Washington and Beijing are busy blaming each other for their diplomatic failures,” argued an editorial in Seoul’s conservative Chosun Ilbo newspaper earlier this year.

Such talk “is driven by a deep fear of abandonment” by the U.S., Cronin said.

Obama himself was dismissive when asked at an April 1 news conference about Trump’s talk of allowing Japan and South Korea to build their own nuclear weapons, saying they reveal that “Trump doesn’t know much about foreign policy, or nuclear policy, or the Korean Peninsula, or the world generally.”

The U.S. alliance with Japan and South Korea, he added, “is one of the foundations, one of the cornerstones of our presence in the Asia-Pacific region,” he said, adding that it “has prevented the possibilities of a nuclear escalation” in the region.

“So you don’t mess with that,” Obama said.

 

[Housecarl]

US May Commit Troops on New Train-and-Advise Mission in Libya
Started by Mixin‎, Today 04:19 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...oops-on-New-Train-and-Advise-Mission-in-Libya


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/22/libya-wary-of-latest-pentagon-effort-to-train-arm-/

Libya wary of Pentagon’s latest effort to train, arm militias to fight Islamic State

By Carlo Muñoz - The Washington Times - Sunday, May 22, 2016

Libyan diplomats are urging caution over an evolving U.S. plan to arm and train the country’s militias again to battle the growing Islamic State threat, fearing a repeat of the abysmal Pentagon-led program that ended with only a few hundred trained fighters and U.S. weapons in the hands of Islamist militias in Libya.

Defense Department officials shuttered the military’s initial program to train and equip moderate rebel forces in Libya late last year after only 180 rebels successfully completed the program, at a cost of millions of dollars to U.S. taxpayers.

In the months after the closure of the Pentagon-led effort, the situation on the ground in Libya has grown only more complex. As the country’s various armed factions battle for control of the country, Islamist groups such as the Islamic State and Ansar al-Shariah, al Qaeda’s main faction in Libya, are taking advantage of the internal chaos.

With memories of the last U.S. attempt to raise a rebel army to battle the Islamists still fresh, members of Libya’s nascent Government of National Accord are urging caution and patience on the part of the Pentagon, where momentum to restart the train-and-equip program is again gaining traction.

“We have to be cautious. We cannot rush back into this,” Wafa Bugaighis, charge d’affaires at the Embassy of Libya, said during a panel discussion in Washington last week on the rise of the Islamic State group, also known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL.

Ms. Bugaighis also indicated that the failures in oversight and management that plagued the U.S. training program in Libya were also seen in the American-led program to train and equip Syrian rebels battling to oust President Bashar Assad’s regime from power. Coordinated mainly through the U.S. intelligence community, that effort also produced minimal numbers of fighters.

Jonathan Winer, the State Department’s special envoy for Libya, warned that the main goal for any U.S. or internationally led effort to train and arm Libya’s militias must be driven by the idea of bringing stability to the country. The concern, he said, is that regional participants in the U.S.-led program may try to press their own agendas for Libya and use the train-and-equip effort as a means to do so.

“Libya can’t afford to be divided up by people with their own regional interests [in mind]. I think everyone understands that,” Mr. Winer said at the same panel talk.

“Libya overall can be very fractious,” especially since the fall of strongman Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, he said.

U.S. troops are back on the ground in Libya, purportedly setting the stage for a long-term military training mission that Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says could receive the green light within days.

A small number of U.S. special operations teams have been spotted on the ground in northeast and western Libya for the better part of a year, conducting patrols and advising local militias as part of the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State.

U.S. forces have been rotating since last year in and out of two main bases in the country’s northeastern coastal cities — one around Misrata and the other near Benghazi slightly to the west, according to recent reports.

News of American deployments to the war-torn North African country emerged as the U.S. and its European allies acknowledged that they have begun shipping weapons and other equipment to Libya’s fragile Government of National Accord to battle the jihadi threat despite U.N. sanctions.

On Thursday, Gen. Dunford told reporters that a deal between the U.S. and Tripoli to open the door to American military trainers in the country is days from being ratified.

“There’s a lot of activity going on underneath the surface. We’re just not ready to deploy capabilities yet because there hasn’t been an agreement. And frankly, any day that could happen,” Gen. Dunford told reporters after a meeting with several NATO military leaders in Brussels.

Gen. David Rodriguez, the U.S. Africa Command chief, also has met repeatedly with Government of National Accord members in Tripoli to discuss where U.S. forces could provide on-the-ground support against Islamic State strongholds, particularly the group’s base in Sirte.

Boots on the ground

Libya had the basic building blocks of a viable, unified military force before rebels ousted and eventually killed Gadhafi in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring, Ms. Bugaighis said.

“The military institution existed” in Libya under Ghadafi, “and we think we have the nucleus of a [viable] military now,” she said.

The fatal flaw of the U.S. training program, Ms. Bugaighis said, was U.S. and allied advisers’ focus on vetting militia groups rather than building on the nucleus of what remained of Gadhafi’s military.

The lack of a viable Libyan institution to help U.S. and foreign forces vet candidates for the military training program also contributed to the program’s failure, Ms. Bugaighis said.

Libyan officials had nowhere to relay their vast knowledge of the country’s ethnic, sectarian and tribal cleavages, which would have been critical to selecting moderate militias for the program, she said.

But with the establishment of forces loyal to the Government of National Accord, based near Tripoli and western Libya, as well as militias fighting under the Libyan National Army in the eastern portion of the country, the new U.S. trainers and Western weaponry should be focused on “assisting what we have [in place] already.”

Ms. Bugaighis indicated that the decision not to leverage the forces at hand in Libya, particularly those who served under Gadhafi, was akin to another recent postwar American mistake in the Middle East — this time in Iraq. The U.S. decided after the invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein to exclude all members of the Iraqi military and Baath Party, which helped fuel the rise of the Sunni insurgency that plagued the American occupation.

The Pentagon is still awaiting assurances from Tripoli that it can unify the country’s factions before pressing ahead with additional troop deployments to the country.

“The biggest thing needed in Libya is a unity of effort,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters Friday. “That is ultimately what we are waiting on.”

Any discussion of potential troop numbers or types of weaponry en route to Libya is premature, Capt. Davis said, in part because “this [training] mission is not yet defined because the [Libyan] government is not defined.”

Chance passed?

But with an estimated 6,000 Islamic State fighters in Libya, time may be running out for a unity government to materialize amid the violence and bloodshed.

U.S. intelligence officials say the Islamic State’s “Libya province” has emerged as the biggest and most powerful of its affiliates. U.S. officials have said privately that the number of foreign fighters traveling to join the Libya province was surging.

“There has been a pretty big uptick,” the officials told The Washington Times earlier this year. Analysts believe Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is bent on expanding his group’s footprint in Libya as its hold on Syria and Iraq has come under increasing strain.

A recent report by Human Rights Watch documented in detail the vicious rule that the Islamic State has imposed in Sirte.

“Sirte residents described scenes of horror — public beheadings, corpses in orange jumpsuits hanging from scaffolding in what they referred to as ‘crucifixions’ and masked fighters snatching men from their beds in the night,” the human rights group said.

Residents also described how operatives with the group have fined and flogged men for “smoking, listening to music or failing to ensure their wives and sisters were covered in loose black abayas,” and have hauled “boys and men into mosques for prayer and religion classes.”

As a result, the Italian government in February gave the Pentagon the green light to begin armed drone strikes against Islamic State targets in Libya and elsewhere in North Africa from U.S. and NATO bases in southern Italy. A U.S. airstrike in the eastern city of Derna in November reportedly killed Abu Nabil, the group’s top commander in Libya.

Earlier this month, Gen. Dunford told reporters that the situation in Libya had deteriorated to the point where Washington and the international community had little choice but to offer to take action.

“They want assistance [and] you know that a number of countries, including the United States are prepared to do that,” the four-star general said at the time.

• Guy Taylor contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

Remember that Algeria has been fighting an fluctuating in intensity guerrilla war with the Muslim Brotherhood and spin-offs for years.....


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://english.aawsat.com/2016/05/a...ensifies-operations-thwart-isis-sleeper-cells

Algerian Army Intensifies Operations to Thwart ISIS Sleeper Cells

Asharq Al-Awsat
2 days ago

Algeria- The Ministry of National Defense in Algeria announced on Friday that the national army had reportedly killed an extremist at the Bouïra area, a tribal region east of the capital city.

The extremist was killed by a military operation which had been launched a week ago, leaving three extremists dead. The army has stepped up its activities in Bouïra after the military authorities received information indicating ISIS sleeper cells being present in the area.

Special forces, partaking in the military campaign, were seen approaching thick forest zones believed to be the terrorists’ hideout. It was at the same location that a French hiker was abducted in September 2014.

The national army had reportedly killed, in 2014, ISIS prominent leader Abdelmalek Kore who was allegedly responsible for the kidnap.

Three girls have recently escaped from Bouïra to join ISIS in Libya. All three of them are believed to be wives of Algerian militants who were killed by the national army in the past.

On the other hand, the national army announced destroying three terrorist hideouts and neutralizing explosive mines in the Tizi Ouzou province, located 100 kilometers away from the capital.

Tizi Ouzou is known for containing al Qaeda strongholds in the Islamic Maghreb. Abdelmalek Droukdel leader of the Algerian Islamic militant group Al-Qaeda, who has been chased by military intelligence since 2005, is also assumed to be sited there.

The highly tribal area of Tizi Ouzou recently has been experiencing increased security measures aiming to foil any sleeper cells sought for recruitment. The terrorist rings have been gradually terminated over the last few years.

Security reports show that Libyan ISIS members have been transferring units into tribal zones, in hopes of rebooting what they call “Jihad” activities. Border regulation authorities note Libya as an untold threat, which led thousands of army soldiers to line up across borders in order to prevent terrorists from crossing over or traffic arms into Algeria.

Minister of Maghreb Affairs, African Union and Arab League Abdelkader Messahel discussed terrorism crossing the borders shared by Algeria, Libya and Tunisia in his meeting with British diplomat Mark Lyall Grant.

When Messahel spoke to media, he mentioned that the two-days long meeting had delved into security details and has sought out solutions for posed threats. The state-of-affairs of the Sahel area- the biogeographic zone of transition in Africa between the Sahara Desert to the north and the Sudanian Savanna to the south- currently has the focus of ongoing deliberations with the British delegation.

Terrorism, organized crime, border control and extremist groups such as ISIS, al Qaeda and Boko Haram, said Messahel.

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?491829-Obama-lifts-U.S.-arms-ban-on-Vietnam

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/23/politics/obama-vietnam-trip/

Obama lifts U.S. arms ban on Vietnam

By Tiffany Ap, Jennifer Rizzo and Kevin Liptak, CNN
Updated 4:48 AM ET, Mon May 23, 2016


Hanoi, Vietnam (CNN) — President Obama has announced that the United States is fully lifting the ban on the sale of military equipment to Vietnam, which has been in place for decades.

In a joint news conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, Obama said that the removal of the ban on lethal weapons was part of a deeper defense co-operation with the country and dismissed suggestions it was aimed at countering China's growing strength in the region.

Will embargo lift raise South China Sea tensions?

Instead, it was the desire to continue normalizing relations between the U.S. and Vietnam and to do away with a ban "based on ideological division between our two countries," he said.

The Vietnam War ended in April 1975 with the fall of Saigon -- now called Ho Chi Minh City -- after the U.S. withdrew combat forces and the North Vietnamese launched a massive offensive to reunite their homeland under communism.


While Vietnam and China are neighbors that share a Communist ideology, China has aggressively claimed territory in the South China Sea, irking Vietnam and its other Southeast Asian neighbors and also raising concerns internationally.

In a recent and provocative show of force, China flew two jets jets close to U.S. aircraft stationed in airspace above the disputed region.

At a press briefing by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Monday, ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that it was appropriate for the ban to be lifted.

"(The) arms sales ban was a product of the Cold War and should no longer exist," she told reporters.

"We hope the lifting of all such bans will benefit regional peace and development. And we are happy to see the United States and Vietnam develop normal cooperative relations."

Vietnam fisherman on the front lines of South China Sea fray


Human rights concerns

Obama defended the decision to lift the arms ban despite Vietnam's dismal record on human rights -- involving the jailing of dissidents and stalled political reforms -- saying sales would be evaluated on a "case-by-case" basis.

However, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said via Twitter that Obama was opting to "arm Vietnam as (an) anti-China ally rather than care about its ongoing repression."

In 2014, the U.S. eased restrictions of an arms ban that was originally instated during the Vietnam war.

Obama also thanked Vietnam for its continued aid in addressing what he called "the painful legacy of war," referring to attempts to locate veterans missing in action, the removal of landmines and the cleaning up of Agent Orange.


'Symbol of renewed ties'

Earlier Monday, the two leaders shook hands in front of a large bronze bust of Vietnamese Communist Leader Ho Chi Minh inside the Presidential Palace.

"We've come here as a symbol of the renewed ties we have made over the last several decades and the comprehensive partnership we have created over the course of my presidency," Obama said.

Vietnam: From enemy to partner

Obama is on a week-long trip to Asia to boost economic and security cooperation in the region and is expected to head south to Ho Chi Minh City before traveling to Japan.

It was President Bill Clinton who reopened diplomatic ties with Vietnam in 1995, and in 2000 became the first president to travel there since U.S. civilian and military personnel were evacuated from there 25 years earlier.


Record plane deal

Earlier on Monday, Obama and Quang also witnessed the signing of a record $11.3 billion deal between plane-maker Boeing and local airline VietJet.

VietJet's order of 100 737 jets is the largest commercial plane order in Vietnamese history.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/05/23/iraqi-forces-battle-is-militants-outside-fallujah.html

Middle East

Iraqi forces battle IS militants outside Fallujah

Published May 23, 2016 · Associated Press

BAGHDAD – Officials say government forces have pushed Islamic State militants from some agricultural areas outside the city of Fallujah at the start of a military offensive aimed at recapturing the city from the Islamic State group.

Police 1st Lt. Ahmed Mahdi Salih said Monday that the ground fighting is taking place around the town of Garma, east of Fallujah, which is considered the main supply line to the militants. IS holds the center of Garma and some areas on its outskirts.

Col. Mahmoud al-Mardhi, who is in charge of paramilitary forces, says his troops recaptured at least three agricultural areas outside Garma.

Backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and paramilitary troops, Iraqi government forces launched the long-awaited military offensive on Fallujah late Sunday night.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/05/23/winning_the_salvo_competition__109387.html

May 23, 2016

Winning The Salvo Competition

Rebalancing America's Air And Missile Defenses

By Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark


Over the last fifteen years, the Department of Defense spent more than $24 billion buying a mix of capabilities to defeat guided missile threats to U.S. and partner naval forces and land installations. Despite DoD’s urgency, these investments have not resulted in air and missile defenses with sufficient capacity to counter large salvos of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and other precision-guided munitions (PGMs) that can now be launched by America’s enemies. This situation is partly the result of DoD’s longstanding emphasis on fielding costly, long-range surface-to-air interceptors to defeat a small salvo of anti-ship cruise missiles or a handful of ballistic missiles launched by rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. It is also because the U.S. military has never fought an enemy who had the capability to strike distant targets with precision. In future conflicts, however, America’s opponents can be expected to employ large numbers of sea-, air-, and ground-launched guided weapons to overwhelm limited defenses now protecting the U.S. military’s forces and bases.

Senior Fellows Mark Gunzinger and Bryan Clark’s report Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile Defenses includes a discussion of initiatives that could improve our nation’s ability to counter guided weapon salvos that threaten its future ability to project power. This analysis also examines the emerging dynamic between militaries that have PGMs and capabilities to counter precision strikes in order to assess promising operational concepts and capabilities for air and missile defense.


Read Full PDF.

This article originally appeared at Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/chinas-coming-revolution-16300

China's Coming Revolution

Growing tension within the regime, economic turmoil and a more energetic public.

Gordon G. Chang
May 21, 2016
Comments 148

The Chinese are anxious.

The fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has spurred concern that China is heading into another decade of chaos and madness or perhaps a period leading to regime failure.

Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic, triggered “ten years of catastrophe” on May 16, 1966. The campaign started as a ploy to rid himself of political adversaries. By the time it ended with his death in September 1976, however, society had torn itself apart and about a million people had either been killed or taken their own lives.

China, despite the passage of decades, has yet to heal. As Zhang Lifan, the outspoken Beijing-based commentator, notes, “The residual impact still poisons the country.”

And as Zhang Qianfan of Peking University says, “Without fully accounting for that tragic episode, the country can never come to terms with its past and will always live in lingering uncertainty: Would the similar tragedy come back again, in some other forms?”

The Communist Party, speaking through the authoritative People’s Daily this month, affirmed the verdict it rendered in 1981 by terming the Cultural Revolution “a complete mistake in both theory and practice.” The ruling organization’s essay was an attempt to close the door to a full airing, failing, for instance, to mention Mao’s involvement. The Party knows better than to expose its inherent failings and therefore undermine its legitimacy to rule.

Yet the attempt to end discussion has not worked in a noisy—and sometimes defiant—society, so conversation in China this year turned to the issue of whether there will be another Cultural Revolution. Xi Jinping, the current ruler, has stoked the concerns by continually wrapping himself in themes from the Maoist era. “Our red nation will never change color,” he declared in the middle of 2013, just before dedicating an exhibition that praised Mao and ignored his great crimes. Xi, in words and sometimes in deeds, embraces the man who had launched a decade of hysteria and frenzy.

As much as Comrade Jinping may fancy himself as this century’s version of the Great Helmsman, he will not start “large-scale political violence manipulated and launched from the top down,” the description of the Cultural Revolution by Liang Jing, a former official who has left China for a life of exile. Yet as Liang notes, turmoil in his former homeland in the future is not out of the question.

On the contrary, China looks like it is entering another period of extreme political instability. The Cultural Revolution, marked by the killings of high-level officials, has been followed by an era of relative calm brought about by Deng Xiaoping, who grabbed power from Mao’s designated successor, the hapless Hua Guofeng. Among other things, the canny Deng lowered the cost of losing political struggles, thereby reducing the incentive for cadres to fight to the end and tear the Communist Party apart.

Xi, however, has been raising the cost with an unprecedented campaign, which he has styled an attack on corruption. China’s ruler has in fact been jailing the venal, but only those who were his political enemies. The miscreants who are family and those who are supporters remain free. In short, Xi launched a purge.

The purge continues to this day, a sure sign that Xi still has not consolidated power.

Another indication that he is on shaky ground is that critics have come out into the open, now calling his audacity to rule like Mao a symptom of “new Caesarism.”

Like the wilful Caesar, Xi has enemies. Xi’s enemies the last few months have dared to challenge him in public. For instance, the Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, his main tool in the “anticorruption” effort, in early March posted on its website an attack on his authoritarianism in the form of an essay titled “A Thousand Yes-Men Cannot Equal One Honest Advisor.” There was also a call for Xi to step down, carried on a semiofficial website, and the official Xinhua News Agency published a piece identifying him as “China’s last leader.”

Furthermore, this month there was an extraordinary exchange between Xi and Li Keqiang, the country’s premier and No. 2 Party official, in the pages of People’s Daily and the website of the State Council. The nasty fight over the proper amount of stimulus to apply to the economy, normally an issue discussed behind-the-scenes by technocrats, betrays not only elite disagreement in Beijing but also an inability to adhere to Communist Party norms that have kept peace since Deng’s time.

China can fall apart not because Xi will organize the masses against his opponents—Mao’s sin that started the Cultural Revolution—but because the elite looks like it is fracturing on its own and will be unable to deal with, among other things, systemic economic problems.

The economy has been, since the end of the 1970s, the motor of China’s rise. At this moment, however, it could be the reason for the nation’s fall. Stimulus has become contentious in Beijing circles because this year the government, for the first time in more than a decade, has failed to create sustained growth, something apparent from Beijing’s panicked reaction to the economy’s weak start in the first two months of this year.

To jumpstart growth, Beijing added large amounts of credit in March as it abandoned all notions of reform and created debt like there was no tomorrow. The injection of almost $1 trillion into the economy in the first calendar quarter was more than twice that of the preceding quarter and the largest quarterly increase in history. All that money, however, could not prevent a disappointing April, when indicators almost uniformly pointed down.

The tumbling economy constitutes an emergency because the Communist Party’s legitimacy, for more than three decades, has been primarily based on the continual delivery of prosperity. Now, most Chinese know nothing but a continually improving life and have, as a result, become demanding.

Some of those demands the Party has been able to meet, yet Xi Jinping, the admirer of Mao but also a disciple of Lenin, has become increasingly coercive. His regressive moves, however, are hard to sustain in a modernizing society, especially because the state has provoked so many across China, such as those who want to choose their leaders, or pray with neighbors who share faith, or have children without official permit, or move to cities and start new lives, or simply live as Tibetan or Uighur.

China may be the fastest changing place anywhere, with a people sophisticated, confident, energized and ambitious. When the one-party state stands between them and their aspirations, which is often, they usually find a way to work around obstacles, but sometimes this rambunctious people will leave the safety of homes and confront officials, even in this day of the police state.

Because of the closing of factories, the poor have started a wave of labor protests. Yet the rich also air grievances at a time of heightened sensitivity. These days, almost no complaint is too small to attract a crowd—or spread from province to province. In the middle of this month, in Nanjing and at least five other cities in Jiangsu province and in Wuhan in Hubei, parents defied riot police and took to the streets to protest the reduction in number of spots for local students in universities.

Fifty years ago, the Chinese people followed Mao onto the streets, to “learn revolution by making revolution” as he exhorted them to do. Today, Xi Jinping glorifies the Great Helmsman and demands “ideological purification,” but few are prepared to follow him into a future that looks like the past and is therefore not relevant or attractive to them. The Chinese people are not yet fearless—that could come soon—but they now think and act for themselves, often moving in directions without permission from the Communist Party.

Today, if there is any revolution in China, it is not one promoted by the new Mao, Xi Jinping. It is the one started by the Chinese people, who on their own are remaking society, outside the realm of the orthodoxy of the Communist Party and its feuding leaders.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.

 

[Housecarl]

Interesting......


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.wsj.com/articles/india-afghanistan-and-iran-sign-deal-for-transport-corridor-1464022867

World

India, Afghanistan and Iran Sign Deal for Transport Corridor

Iran’s Chabahar port will be focal point of trade route that bypasses Pakistan

By Niharika Mandhana
May 23, 2016 1:01 p.m. ET
0 COMMENTS

NEW DELHI—Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani signed an agreement with Tehran on Monday for a transport corridor designed to open up a new route to Afghanistan via the Iranian port of Chabahar, circumventing Pakistan.

Chabahar port, which India will partially develop just across the border from Pakistan’s Chinese-run Gwadar port, is the centerpiece of the corridor. India and Iran on Monday signed an agreement in Tehran that allows New Delhi to begin work on Chabahar after a delay of more than a decade.

“To carve out new routes for peace and prosperity is our common goal,” Mr. Modi said. “Afghanistan will get an assured, effective and a more friendly route to trade with the rest of the world,” he said, in a veiled criticism of Pakistan, with whom both countries share turbulent ties and whose location in between them has stymied trade.

Mr. Modi said the deal could “alter the course of history of this region” and help the countries “to eventually build what we all desire and deserve—a friendly and healthy neighborhood.”

The agreements come as Beijing is building a $46 billion economic corridor with Gwadar as its focal point, potentially redrawing the region’s geopolitical map. India opposes construction of part of that corridor in an area of the disputed Kashmir region that is governed by Pakistan but claimed by India.

While Pakistan’s relations with the U.S. and Afghanistan have grown strained, its ties with China remain strong, raising hackles in New Delhi, where Gwadar is seen as a symbol of that partnership.

“Today, the nature of global engagement requires an attitude more suitable to this century, not the mindset of the century gone by,” Mr. Modi said, echoing a statement he made on a 2014 visit to Japan where he criticized some countries’ “expansionist mindset.” “Today, the watchwords of international ties are trust, not suspicion; cooperation, not dominance; inclusivity, not exclusion,” he said Monday.

While China is building and will run Gwadar, India’s engagement in Chabahar is much smaller. Under the deal with Iran, New Delhi will invest $200 million to develop two terminals and five berths at Chabahar, India’s Foreign Ministry said.

An additional $300 million would be available for the port and development of related infrastructure, according to a statement from Mr. Modi. Iran is also seeking investment from other nations to fully develop the port.

“There is no comparison in scale and intent between China’s role in Gwadar and India’s in Chabahar,” said Radha Kumar, director general of the Delhi Policy Group. “But that doesn’t take away from the fact that this is important for India and for Afghanistan, whose economic stability in turn is very important to India.”

Islamabad says Chabahar and Gwadar will complement each other rather than compete. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said last year that the two would be “sister ports.”

The corridor from Chabahar will run to Zaranj, an Afghan border town already connected by a 135-mile, Indian-built highway to Delaram, to the northeast. Development of the route is expected to strengthen ties between New Delhi and Kabul—a source of concern in Islamabad, which fears being encircled by India.

India provides millions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan. Mr. Modi inaugurated Kabul’s new Parliament building in December, which India built at a cost of $90 million. The Chabahar investment has been pending for years, in part owing to U.S. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, many of which were lifted earlier this year.

Like China, which is looking to boost transport and trade ties through its new “silk road,” India too has emphasized regional connectivity as Mr. Modi seeks to boost the country’s economy. It has moved forward on a deal to facilitate the movement of goods, vehicles and people across borders between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal.

New Delhi is also a part of the International North-South Transport Corridor, which seeks to link India, Iran, Central Asia and Russia. Dry runs in recent years have helped to identify bottlenecks, bringing the delayed project closer to being completed.

Write to Niharika Mandhana at Niharika.Mandhana@wsj.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://warontherocks.com/2016/05/the-price-of-perpetual-war/

The Price of Perpetual War

David Barno and Nora Bensahel
May 24, 2016
Comments 1

The United States has entered an era of perpetual war. The U.S. military has been at war for 15 straight years with no end in sight, and President Obama will soon have the dubious distinction of being the only American president to have been at war for all eight years of a two-term presidency. The traditional logic of American wars — that the United States would mobilize, fight, win, and end its wars through overwhelming force of arms — no longer seems to apply. Today’s wars can be characterized more as conflicts in the gray zone, ambiguous battles with less-defined shapes and even less-clear outcomes. This increasingly blurred line between peace and war is posing a range of new challenges for the U.S. military, for elected officials, and for the nation as a whole.

The United States did not choose this era of perpetual war. It is the price of living in a world where, for the first time, terrorist groups and malevolent individuals can reach the United States and wreak havoc from virtually any corner of the world. That threat was literally brought home by al Qaeda on 9/11 and reinforced all too recently by the terror attacks in Paris, Brussels, and San Bernardino.

Helping to prevent and disrupt further attacks from such groups also largely explains why the United States still has troops in Afghanistan and has redeployed troops to Iraq. The United States also now faces other far-flung threats abroad that include dangers from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and Boko Haram in Nigeria. These groups have conducted attacks across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Recent surveys show that more than 80 percent of Americans believe that ISIL and international terrorism are the biggest threat to the United States. While these worries may be overstated, they nevertheless drive policymakers to action. The United States has responded by deploying small teams of U.S. special operations forces to a range of countries — from Syria to Yemen to Libya to the Central African Republic — to help support local governments and their militaries in countering these malign actors.

What does this era of perpetual war mean for the U.S. military? First, “war” and “peace” are no longer binary conditions, as they had been for much of the nation’s history. This is one of the few times that the U.S. military has had to undertake the demands of continuous warfare while at the same time rigorously preparing for a wide range of potential future threats. Even the limited conflicts in Korea and Vietnam were fought within the context of a possible global war against the Soviet Union, and each had a relatively clear end. Today’s military must think in unconstrained ways about what could be the much different wars of the future, while simultaneously conducting wars with no prospective end points.

In the past, the periods of peace that followed periods of war gave the U.S. military time and space to prepare for the next war — to devote serious intellectual energy to thinking about scenarios for a range of these future challenges and to develop the doctrine, force structure, technologies, and capabilities to meet them. Even though the military often did not predict the next war correctly, that period of time, reflection, and investment helped make it more ready to adapt to the next set of challenges it faced. But that protected time and space no longer exist in this era of perpetual warfare, since the military will inevitably have to focus on fighting current battles and preventing them from worsening or expanding. Neither military nor civilian leaders can think deeply about the wars of 2030 when the roiling conflicts of today dominate the headlines and have immediate political and international impact.

Thus the U.S. military faces an inevitable tradeoff between maintaining readiness for today’s wars and building preparedness for the possible wars of tomorrow. Its need to focus on current conflicts clashes with the necessity to rebuild after two major wars and prepare for the possibility of the next big war. This makes it very difficult to maintain a ready, forward-looking, agile military force — and strict budget and troop limits make this challenge even harder. Wars that never end risk begetting militaries that are always fighting today’s fight and never quite looking ahead adequately to the bigger dangers of tomorrow.

Second, this era of perpetual war places significant stress on the force – not only because of the unending operational demands, but also because there is little national recognition that we remain at war. While the White House insists that U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are not involved in combat operations, they still face bullets and bombs, still are maimed and killed, and still return home bearing the scars and stress of war. Their experiences differ little from their predecessors in previous “big wars.” At least Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was truthful in describing the recent death of a SEAL team member in Iraq as a “combat death.” The men and women of the armed forces are willing to fight — and die, if necessary — to defend the nation. But asking them to do so without acknowledging that they are at war is simply wrong. Failing to provide a clear idea of the size, duration, and ultimate objectives of an ever-expanding set of hazily defined conflicts may eventually erode their willingness to fight and the readiness of young Americans to serve in the military in the first place.

This era of perpetual warfare also poses a big challenge for the civil-military relationship. In the past, the United States almost always made a clear decision to go to war at a defined moment — think Roosevelt going to Congress after Pearl Harbor, Truman deploying troops to defend Korea against invasion, or the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing Johnson’s major troop increases in Vietnam. Each of these conflicts started at a well-defined point and was authorized by Congress. More recently, Congress explicitly voted to authorize both the 2001 war in Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Yet today’s wars often expand beyond the places where they begin as the threats morph, change, and spread. Today, U.S. military operations are being conducted in Syria, Libya, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, and Nigeria. Because they mostly involve non-state actors operating within transnational networks, these wars stretch across continents and are nearly limitless in time horizon — even described in terms such as “multigenerational.” It’s not at all clear what success, much less victory, means in such operations.

What they all currently share, however, is a lack of Congressional authorization. Few of these new battlefronts have sparked substantive debates on Capitol Hill, and recent efforts to enact a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force have been swiftly defeated (including just last week). These wars have not engaged Congress or the American people in discussions about how, where, and why the nation should use military force. Sending young American men and women overseas into combat has always been a shared responsibility between executive and legislative branches. Congress continues to pay the bills, but the lack of further legislative involvement essentially gives the executive branch free rein to continue and expand today’s wars.

As a result, it is easier for the United States to go to war today without any connection to the American people — a trend already well underway for two other reasons. First, advanced capabilities such as unmanned armed drones, long-range standoff munitions, and highly lethal special forces now enable remote precision strikes with very little if any risk to U.S. military forces or American lives. Second, as we’ve argued elsewhere, the all-volunteer force means that fewer and fewer Americans have any connection to, let alone serve in, the U.S. military. Neither of those trends is likely to change, which makes Congressional involvement in the decision to go to war even more vital.

The price of perpetual war is high, but some of the costs can be lowered. U.S. military leaders, for example, will never be able to escape the tension between fighting today and preparing for tomorrow, but they can prioritize far-sighted investments in broader leader education, innovative scenario development, and aggressive red teaming. But the nation’s elected leaders — in the White House and in Congress — need to publicly acknowledge the reality of these wars: that they involve real combat, that traditional concepts of “success” and “victory” don’t apply, and that they require the support of the American people. The United States did not choose this era of perpetual warfare. The threats are real and must be countered. In this era of open-ended conflict, the nation’s leaders must do a better job of addressing the costs of this new reality.


Lt. General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.) is a Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, and Dr. Nora Bensahel is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence, at the School of International Service at American University. Both also serve as Nonresident Senior Fellows at the Atlantic Council. Their column appears in War on the Rocks every third Tuesday. To sign up for Barno and Bensahel’s Strategic Outpost newsletter, where you can track their articles as well as their public events, click here.

--

One thought on “The Price of Perpetual War”

Bob McKenna says:

May 24, 2016 at 9:33 am

The United States has been continuously conducting combat operations since the 1st of January 1981 (start day for award of the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for El Salvador), making President Obama the fourth President to have troops committed to combat service over the entirety of his two terms.

El Salvador: 1 Jan 81 to 1 February 92

Operations under the Iraq AUMF 1991
Desert Shield/Desert Storm 2 AUG 90-30 NOV 95
Operations Southern Watch 27 Aug 93-19 March 03
Operation Northern Watch 1 JAN 97-17 MAR 03
Note: Presidents Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama have kept the Combat Zone established under the authority of the 1991 AUMF to remain open continuously during the period.

War and Peace have rarely been binary conditions for the Army and Navy over our nations history. You can make a good argument that the Army’s operation on the American frontier between 1785 and 1890 were just other examples of “Grey Zone” conflicts.

While it would be convenient to have a clearer Congressional Authorization than the 9/11 AUMF (or 1992 Iraq AUMF which is also cited by the Administration for current operations in Iraq and Syria), its not legally necessary as Congress has bought off on the legal rational used by this and the previous administration. Even our increasing operations in the northern third of Africa against AQ and ISIL affiliates are authorized as they are being conducted within a Joint Operating Area which was established and reported to Congress in 2005.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/05/23/a_coast_guard_arms_race_109386.html

May 23, 2016

A Coast Guard Arms Race

By Todd Crowell


China and Japan are redefining the nature and purpose of the Coast Guard. Americans still think in terms of air-sea rescue or chasing drug smugglers when they think about their Coast Guard. China and Japan think about their Coast Guards in terms of realpolitik.

The two nominally civilian services are on the front lines of territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Both countries are adding to their coast guard fleets at a breakneck pace. One could almost call it a Coast Guard arms race, except that the vessels are lightly armed if armed at all.

Japan is reinforcing its Coast Guard contingent in the waters around the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea with 10 new 1,500-ton patrol craft and two new helicopter- equipped vessels. This is in addition to six other cutters already in the region. Tokyo will no longer have to borrow vessels from other Coast Guard districts allowing them to concentrate on routine Coast Guard duties such as rescuing ships in distress.

Tokyo is also overhauling its main operational base on the island of Ishikagi, the closest Japanese island to the Senkakus, with enlarged port facilities to handle the new vessels. It is close to another small island where Japan recently opened an army garrison to protect a new radar base (a well as asserting sovereignty in case China expands its designs on other islands in the Ryukyu chain.)

Both Japan and China assert their claims to the uninhabited Senkaku islands with coast guard cutters rather than ships of their regular navies. On an average of once every two weeks, two or three Chinese Coast Guard vessels enter Japanese territorial waters. They stay for a couple hours then leave. Meanwhile, Japanese Coast Guard vessels regularly patrol the disputed waters ordering anyone inside the territorial zone to leave.

China is also expanding its fleet and building ports of call to maintain them. The growing fleet allows Beijing to assert its claim and support its interests over the entire South China Sea. At present, Coast Guard ships are stationed near the Scarborough Shoal claimed by the Philippines; another routinely patrols the Laconia Reefs off the coast of Malaysia.

While it once depended on former naval frigates, China is now commissioning purpose-built cutters. It is currently commissioning two of the world’s largest Coast Guard cutters, ships that could alter the balance of power in the South and East China Seas (one ship is to be stationed in each sea).

Known only by their hull numbers, in this case Haijing 2901 and Haijing 3901 (the first digit denotes which sea it is to patrol). They displace 10,000 tons, possibly more when fully outfitted. That makes them larger than the U.S. Navy’s Ticonderoga- class cruisers and Japan’s 6,500-ton Shikishima- class Coast Guard cutters previously the largest in the world.

The U.S.S. Forth Worth, a Littoral Combat ship based in Singapore, which has undertaken Freedom of Navigation patrols in the Spratly islands, displaces a mere 1,200 tons. A warship like the Fort Worth could, of course, defend itself from a Chinese maritime enforcement vessel on a collision course, but it would mean firing the first shot.

This may be a coast guard “arms race” except that the competing vessels are not heavily armed. The new Japanese cutters are armed with 20 mm cannons and water cannons. The new Chinese super cutters are not necessarily heavily armed either. Pictures that have been published so far show that they lack gun turrets. It is not armaments that make these two Coast Guard Dreadnaughts so formidable; it is their sheer size.

Coast Guard vessels are not true warships. Usually, they are armed with machine guns or at most medium caliber deck guns, if they are armed at all. The Larger Japanese Coast Guard vessels are armed with 40 and 22 mm guns. But even without a lot of firepower, these new coast guard vessels, especially the new super cutters, can throw their weight around.

The military version of the People’s Daily, the press organ of the Chinese Communist Party, boasted that these powerful new ships could ram and possibly sink a 9,000-ton vessel without damaging itself. That makes them a potential threat to regular naval vessels of the U.S. and Japanese navies.

Ramming has been a tactic in territorial disputes in both the East and South China Seas, harkening back to the days of the Romans and Carthaginians. A large Chinese fishing vessel rammed a Japanese Coast Guard cutter near the Senkakus in 2011. Earlier this year another Chinese Coast Guard vessel rammed one of its own fishing trawlers that had been taken into custody by Indonesian authorities for allegedly illegally fishing in Jakarta’s 200-nautical miles exclusive economic zone.

Retired USN Captain James Fanell, formerly chief of intelligence for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, calls the Chinese Coast Guard, “A fulltime marine harassment organization. Unlike the U.S, Coast Guard, the Chinese service has no other mission but to harass other nations into submitting to China’s extravagant claims,” he says.

Fanell notes that China is building new Coast Guard vessels, like the two super cutters, at “an astonishing rate.”

The regular navies of Japan and China generally stay in the background, but Tokyo is also suspicious about the recent activities of the regular Chinese Navy in waters near the disputed islands. A contingent of Chinese frigates now hovers about 70 km away from the Senkaku, close enough to come to the aid of any of its coast guard vessels that gets in trouble.

For its part, the Japanese government recently made public what the cabinet had decided earlier in the year, that Japanese naval vessels might intervene should the Coast Guard be unable to do its normal “policing” duties. “If it becomes difficult for the police and the Japan Coast Guard, then the Maritime Self Defense Force (navy) could respond,” said defense minister Gen Nakatani. That could happen if Chinese navy ships actually entered Senkaku waters.

The use of “white hulls,” mostly unarmed or lightly armed Coast Guard cutters, rather than “gray hulls,” has been a stabilizing element in the numerous territorial encounters of the past few years. But the recent remarks suggest that Tokyo expects to see more gray hulls than white hulls in the coming year.



Todd Crowell is the author of The Coming War Between China and Japan, published by Amazon as a Kindle Single.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/asia/nuclear-standoff-south-asia-1095

Nuclear Standoff in South Asia

May 25, 2016 | Will Edwards

A May 15 test of India’s anti-ballistic missile system fanned the flames of a nuclear standoff 45 years in the making. Pakistan voiced “serious concern” over the test that it believes could nullify its nuclear deterrent against its long standing enemy. Of the nine nuclear armed states, Pakistan and India are the only two who face one another across a volatile border.

The 1974 “Smiling Buddha” nuclear test established India as the first nuclear power outside of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and ushered in a regional arms race that continues to destabilize South Asia. Pakistan, which had started its own program following its 1971 war with India, redoubled its efforts to make good on a declaration by Prime Minister Zulqifar Ali Bhutto who said, "we will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own." In 1998, when India tested five nuclear devices, Pakistan responded in kind by testing six and revealed its nuclear capability for the first time. The addition of nuclear weapons added a heightened degree of risk to the Kargil War of 1999, the Twin Peaks Crisis of 2002, and the Mumbai terror attack in 2008, and it will continue to do so in future conflicts.

This nuclear arms race is exacerbated by India’s recent and rapid economic growth, which has allowed for a proportional increase in defense spending. India’s prodigious growth over the last 15 years means its economy is now nine times larger than Pakistan’s. This has allowed it to increase defense spending in absolute terms while still decreasing spending in relative terms. In fact, it has decreased to around 2.5% of GDP. Pakistan, meanwhile, maintains a military budget that is 4.5% of GDP, according to an estimate from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), while still having no hope of closing the conventional arms gap with India.

Pakistan has long viewed nuclear weapons as a hedge against Indian aggression in disputed territories and a counterweight to India’s conventional military superiority. The difference is that now Pakistan has chosen to outstrip India’s nuclear forces by drastically increasing fissile materials production and to employ smaller, tactical nuclear devices in a bid to counteract India’s widening conventional supremacy. Currently, Pakistan out produces India in fissile material at a ratio of 4:1. In terms of estimated warhead production, Pakistan can produce anywhere from 14-27 warheads annually, whereas India can only produce 2-5 warheads per year.

Pakistan also has tactical nuclear devices mounted on short range missiles, which it sees as an essential piece of its concept for “full spectrum deterrence.” It aims to deter, not only a large scale conventional or nuclear attack, but also a smaller regional conflict. This doctrine raises important concerns over command and control and the risk of escalation to nuclear war, especially in light of the militant groups within Pakistan who can provoke conflict with India.

While India has many of its civil use reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision, Pakistan makes no distinction between military and civilian use reactors and has no international oversight. Islamabad claims that its nuclear weapons are vital to defending itself against India, and therefore it is reluctant to take any step towards committing to international arms control regimes before India.

India’s definition of what constitutes sufficient national defense and its comprehensive military modernization program are also exacerbating tensions. While Pakistan only wishes to deter India, India is attempting to deter both Pakistan and China with its conventional arms and an advanced nuclear triad. This compels Pakistan to double down in what it sees as its only area of comparative advantage: nuclear arms development that emphasizes quantity over quality. What remains to be seen is how far Pakistan feels it must go to achieve its own idea of a sufficient deterrent, and how this goal post will move with India’s continued push for military modernization.

This presents a difficult situation for the United States, as well as international nuclear nonproliferation efforts. There is no clear starting point where each side can find mutual grounds for agreement to stop the nuclear arms race. Gregory Koblentz, a professor of government and international affairs at George Mason University, believes that a return to the Lahore Declaration of 1999 could begin confidence building measures, and that the U.S. and the international community should encourage such a measure. Dr. Ashley Tellis, a former diplomat and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, believes that there is currently nothing the U.S. can do to sway either country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons that it has not already tried.

For the foreseeable future, it seems the standoff will continue, and Pakistan will be worse off for it. Pakistan’s slower economy and high rate of defense spending combined with a desire to keep pace with India mean that defense and nuclear deterrence comes at the cost of reinvestment in the country. Precarious domestic stability and an increasing number of nuclear facilities, fissile material stockpiles, and weapons poses a growing proliferation risk that could extend beyond the region. While the way forward is unclear and currently does not show promise, the risk of inaction is equally stark.

Will Edwards is an International Producer with The Cipher Brief.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realclearworld.com/artic...and_the_centrality_of_geopolitics_111868.html

Vietnam, the U.S., and the Centrality of Geopolitics

By George Friedman
May 25, 2016

Reprinted with permission from Geopolitical Futures.

U.S. President Barack Obama in Hanoi yesterday announced an end to the decades-long arms embargo on Vietnam. Vietnam may purchase weapons from the United States under the same terms as other nations. This would not be major news except for the fact that the United States fought and lost a seven-year war with Vietnam.

One would think that history and ideology would make arms trade impossible. But when we look at the post-war history of the region, the unimportance of ideology in the decisions that nations make is actually startling.

The reason for this decision is China. In my view, the Chinese do not yet pose a significant military threat globally or in the region. At the same time, their intent is to increase their capabilities and the United States must plan accordingly.

Geography dictates that the United States must find allies who have significant disputes with China and need support to cope with a potential threat. China and Vietnam were allied during the Vietnam War, with China providing massive amounts of weapons, material and some advisers to Vietnam. The Chinese saw the defeat of the United States as diminishing the American threat to China.

Even before the Vietnam War ended, Chinese and Soviet relations deteriorated. They fought a major battle in 1968 on the Ussuri River, which separates Siberia from China. Regardless of shared ideology, the Soviets feared the Chinese and vice versa.

American power – or at least the perception of American power – declined as it became increasingly obvious that the United States was losing the war. The American fear was that the Soviets would use that weakness to attempt to seize Western Europe. Lacking sufficient troops to reinforce Europe, the United States faced a strategic crisis.

The United States solved the crisis by reaching out to the Chinese. At the same time the Chinese were arming Vietnamese troops fighting Americans, the Nixon administration reached out to the Chinese and proposed an understanding. The U.S. would press the Soviets from the west and the Chinese from the east. The two apparently weaker powers would create pressures on the stronger power from two directions, making action by the Soviets impossible.

From the Chinese point of view, if Western Europe collapsed, the Soviets would be free to overwhelm China. From the American point of view, a Chinese reconciliation with the Soviets would make the communist bloc overwhelmingly powerful at a time of American weakness.

Once the Vietnam War ended, underlying tensions between Vietnam and China emerged. There was an old but still vivid national memory of China’s occupation of Vietnam. As the war ended and Vietnam became the dominant power in Indochina, the Chinese feared Vietnam’s growing power. In 1979, this turned into a shooting war. The Soviets, now dealing with a hostile China, allied with the Vietnamese.

The United States saw this as a satisfactory balance of power. It therefore remained hostile toward Vietnam for historical and strategic reasons. The enemies of the Chinese were American enemies, for the time being and to a limited extent.

The collapse of the Soviet Union eliminated China’s nightmare scenario. It proceeded to focus on economic growth and lost its intense interest in Vietnam. The United States lost interest in power politics for a while and then went to war with the jihadists. The intricacies of the Asian balance of power declined.

But with the downturn of China’s economy and the growth of its military, Vietnam became concerned that the Chinese might again consider military action. The United States, also seeing a growing possibility of confrontation, now thought differently of Vietnam than it had before.

U.S. forces are scattered from Europe to the Middle East and to northeast Asia. In the best case, the U.S. still would not have enough force to engage China on the mainland. Anything the United States could do to get China to divert and disperse its own forces lessens the possibility of needing to confront China directly.

And for the United States, the countries that are in the region and therefore can’t move out of danger are the best allies. The others might leave when needed most. Vietnam isn’t going anywhere, and its fear of China – and China’s fear of Vietnam – is long standing. Therefore, the stronger Vietnam is, the better it is for the United States.

So the United States agreed to sell weapons to Vietnam, open the door to an increased threat to China on its southern flank and, in the worst case, collaborate with Vietnam to pin China down in the south. Note that the Vietnamese regime is no less Marxist than it was in 1968, not much less repressive and ideologically no closer to the Americans.

But then look at the whole story and see how little ideology matters. The entire story is one of three Marxist regimes hostile to each other, and a Western capitalist regime using that hostility to balance the power.

From the point of view of geopolitical analysis, the unimportance of ideology in all that happened is clear. The importance of the nation-state, regardless of its official ideology is equally clear. None of these four nations behaved as their ideology demanded. All behaved as their national interest did.

This is why I find geopolitics an enormously more important method for understanding the world than beliefs and principles. These may matter in personal life. But the Marxism that defined Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong and Leonid Brezhnev – and they were very much believers – could not resist geopolitical imperatives. And therefore, the president of the United States went to a Marxist country and set the stage for arming it. This should not surprise us.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-savchenko-idUSKCN0YG0U8

World | Wed May 25, 2016 6:56am EDT
Related: World, Russia

Jailed Ukraine pilot heads home under prisoner swap with Russia: sources

MOSCOW/KIEV | By Maria Tsvetkova and Pavel Polityuk


Ukrainian servicewoman Nadiya Savchenko was heading home on a plane from Russian captivity on Wednesday, part of an exchange for two Russians detained in Ukraine, two sources close to the swap told Reuters.

Handing over Savchenko, whose release has been demanded by Western governments and who has become a national hero in Ukraine, would ease tensions between Moscow and the West a few weeks before the European Union decides whether to extend sanctions against Russia.

There was no official confirmation of the exchange, but the two sources close to the arrangements said it was already underway.

A plane was en route from Russia to Ukraine carrying Savchenko home, according to one of the sources. "They are coming back," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In parallel, the two Russians, Alexander Alexandrov and Yevgeny Yerofeyev, were in the process of being returned to Russian soil, the second source close to the swap said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was to make a statement later on Wednesday, his office said.

Earlier, Russia's Interfax news agency reported that Poroshenko himself had flown to Russia to collect Savchenko, but there was no confirmation of that in Kiev or Moscow.


Related Coverage
› Ukraine's Poroshenko to make statement at 1215 GMT


SYMBOL OF RESISTANCE

Savchenko, a military pilot, volunteered to fight with a ground unit against pro-Moscow separatists who rose up against Kiev's rule in eastern Ukraine.

She was captured and put on trial in southern Russia, charged with complicity in the deaths of Russian journalists who were killed by artillery while covering the conflict.

A Russian court in March sentenced her to 22 years in jail. While in a Russian jail, she was elected a member of the Ukrainian parliament and is widely seen in Ukraine as a symbol of resistance against Russia.

Yerofeyev and Alexandrov both told Reuters in interviews last year they were Russian special forces soldiers who were captured while carrying out a secret operation in eastern Ukraine.

But Moscow, which denies it had troops in eastern Ukraine, has never publicly acknowledged that the two men were acting on its orders.


Related Coverage
› Pilot Savchenko is on plane bound for Kiev from Russia

Russia's relations with its neighbour Ukraine have been toxic since an uprising in 2014 forced out the Moscow-backed Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich and installed a pro-Western administration.

Russia then annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula. Moscow said it was protecting the local Russian-speaking population from persecution by the new authorities in Kiev, but Western governments called it an illegal land-grab and imposed sanctions on Moscow.

Soon after, pro-Moscow separatists began an armed separatist rebellion in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, an area with a large-Russian speaking community. Fighting between the rebels and Ukraine's forces killed thousands of people.

A fragile ceasefire has been in place since last year, but there is no permanent settlement to the conflict.


(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Gareth Jones)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/retaking-raqqa-islamic-state

Retaking Raqqa From the Islamic State

Analysis
May 24, 2016 | 18:50 GMT

Summary

The battle for Raqqa, the Islamic State's self-declared capital in Syria, has begun. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are advancing toward the city, engaging the jihadist group in the villages of al-Hisha, Tal Samen and Mutamshirij along the way. Because of Raqqa's strategic importance, the Islamic State will do everything in its power to keep the city within its grasp. Driving the militants from their stronghold will not be easy or cheap, but if the SDF is successful, it will greatly accelerate the Islamic State's defeat in Syria.

Analysis

For months, the SDF, backed by the United States, has been positioned on the front lines roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Raqqa. Videos have emerged showing large convoys, including tank transporters carrying armored vehicles, moving throughout the area as the group prepared to retake the city from the Islamic State fighters who captured it in 2013. Over the past week, the United States began dropping leaflets on Raqqa urging its citizens to leave, proclaiming, "The time you have awaited has arrived. It's time to leave Raqqa." Then on May 21-22, U.S. Gen. Joseph Votel — the top U.S. Central Command general and the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to Syria during the conflict — visited SDF fighters in the country's north. As the signs of impending battle mounted, the Islamic State began making preparations of its own, ramping up its defenses throughout Raqqa. And on May 24, the SDF made its move, announcing the start of its long-awaited advance.

But just how close the group is able to get to the heart of the city will be determined by one thing: its ethnic composition. Raqqa is a city with an Arab majority. Because the SDF and its backers want to not only retake the city but also to hold and govern it, they will need a sizable Arab force if they hope to achieve their objectives with local support. However, the SDF is currently dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which have been effective against the Islamic State in territory they are familiar with in the north and northeast but are less inclined to spearhead operations farther south toward Raqqa. Moreover, the deeper the Kurds push into overwhelmingly Arab territory, the more they risk cementing local populations' suspicions of the rebels and support for the Islamic State.

Still, Arab fighters have been joining the SDF's ranks in droves. In fact, training these Syrian Arab Coalition fighters is one of the core purposes of the 250 U.S. special operations forces deployed to Syria in April, and Votel was likely checking up on their progress during his visit to the country. (The general subsequently traveled to Turkey to reassure Turkish officials of U.S. support for the SDF.)

Once the Syrian Arab Coalition grows to the ideal size and strength, and final preparations are complete, the SDF will shift its offensive to a direct attack on Raqqa. Because the Islamic State will not give up the city without a fight, the ensuing battle will likely be expensive and lengthy, easily lasting weeks if not months.

Stretching Islamic State Resources

The first and simplest phase of the operation will be the SDF's advance from its current position on the front line south of Ayn Issa toward the outskirts of Raqqa. This part of the offensive has already begun, and on May 24, the group captured the town of Fatisa, around 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Raqqa.

https://www.stratfor.com/sites/defa...aqqa-syria-transpor-524-use.jpg?itok=9yC1q9Zt

Once the SDF closes the distance between itself and the Islamic State's dug-in posts in and around Raqqa, the pace of the battle will slow considerably. In what will become a grinding and methodical advance, the SDF will have to contend with improvised explosive devices, mines, booby traps, suicide bombers, local counterattacks and indirect fire from mortars and artillery in the city. It will also have to rely on U.S. air support to take out the Islamic State's strongest positions, and despite efforts to minimize civilian casualties, the Islamic State's tendency to use human shields will probably lead to a high death toll. The effort to seize Raqqa, much like Iraq's endeavor to retake Ramadi, will come at a terrible cost, all but guaranteeing the city's destruction.

For the Islamic State, the loss of Raqqa would be a devastating blow. The city not only has symbolic value as the capital of the group's so-called caliphate, but it is also an important hub for transporting people and supplies. Raqqa sits on the Euphrates River and is the key to controlling several critical highways in Syria. Without it, the Islamic State would have a much harder time moving fighters and goods from Aleppo province to eastern Syria and beyond. Instead it would be forced to rely on the Resafa-Ash Shola road, which is increasingly threatened by the Syrian government's advances toward Deir el-Zour.

Given the city's significance to Islamic State operations in Syria, the group can be expected to funnel substantial resources and reinforcements toward its defense. In addition to sending more fighters to Raqqa, the Islamic State will likely launch counterattacks along the SDF's other front lines, including al-Hasaka, in an effort to distract its foe. However, the Islamic State will be at a disadvantage: While the SDF is focusing most of its attention on attacking the jihadist group, the Islamic State has to contend with the Syrian rebels, Syrian government troops, Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi forces. Devoting additional attention and resources to Raqqa when it is already overstretched will inevitably hurt the extremist group elsewhere on the battlefield.

 

[Housecarl]

Yeah the Turks aren't going to like this at all.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.alternet.org/world/massive-50000-kurdish-arab-force-begins-assault-free-raqqa

World

Massive 50,000 Kurdish-Arab Force Begins Assault to Liberate Key ISIS City

Syrian Kurdish group YPG and the Syrian Democratic Forces coalition kicked off the operation to free the city from the Islamic State group.

TeleSur
May 24, 2016

More than 50,000 fighters from Syria’s Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians, launched Tuesday a major offensive on Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State group in Syria, Kurdish news website Rudaw has reported.

Today our forces headed to Raqqa," a source from the the coalition told Rudaw as his forces kicked off operations from Tel Abyad town in northern Syria. "Our forces will be advancing to the villages of Fatse Big, Fatse Small and Tishi, in order to clear them of ISIS militants first," the source added, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.

Tel Abyad was freed from the extremist group in June 2015 by YPG forces. The town is located on the Turkish-Syrian border less than 15 miles north of Raqqa and was used as a major lifeline for the extremist group providing fighters and supplies from Turkey.

By launching the offensive against Raqqa, the source said, Kurdish forces along with Syrian Democratic Forces are responding to requests made by the residents of the city to liberate it from the extremist group. The Islamic State group declared Raqqa the capital of its caliphate on June, 29, 2014. Raqqa is located on the north bank of the Euphrates River, some 100 miles east of Aleppo.

Syrian Kurds have been hailed by several governments over their successful operations against the extremist group and retaking several towns and cities in Syria from them. The massive operation in Syria’s Raqqa comes as Iraqi forces are in the final stages of preparing an assault to retake Mosul, the largest city the extremist group controls in Iraq. The Iraqi army has also reportedly been moving closer to the town of Fallujah west of Baghdad Tuesday. Fallujah is the first city that fell to the Islamic State group in June 2014.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36371104

EU referendum: Ex-military officers fighting for EU exit

25 May 2016
From the section EU Referendum

EU policies are undermining the UK's combat effectiveness, a dozen former senior military officers have warned.

Speaking out in favour of Britain leaving the EU, they said that Nato, and not the EU, should remain the cornerstone of Europe's defence.

Among the group is General Sir Michael Rose, whose name was originally on a letter organised by Downing Street supporting UK membership of the EU.

The Remain campaign says membership of the EU and Nato is not contradictory.

Meanwhile 300 historians - including Simon Schama, Ian Kershaw and Niall Ferguson - have signed a letter saying the UK has had an "irreplaceable role to play in Europe" in the past and must not "cast itself adrift" in the future.

In other developments in the EU referendum campaign:
The Institute for Fiscal Studies is warning that leaving the EU could extend austerity by two years
It says an EU exit could save up to £8bn a year but this may be outweighed by the resultant fall in national income
The Vote Leave campaign is to focus on immigration in an attempt to appeal to its core voters
Ex-PM Gordon Brown is to address the European Parliament about the case for EU membership
Chancellor George Osborne is to stand in for David Cameron at PMQs
Follow the latest news on the BBC's EU referendum live page

There has already been a series of letters from UK, US and Nato commanders urging Britain to remain in the EU - or risk losing influence.

Now Veterans for Britain, a campaign group set up by serving and former military personnel, is making the case for Britain to leave.

The former senior military commanders - including Falklands veteran Major General Julian Thompson, former deputy chief of the defence staff Sir Jeremy Blackham and Lieutenant General Jonathon Riley, who commanded coalition forces in Afghanistan - have said the UK's national interest would be best served outside the EU.

General Sir Michael Rose, a former director of special forces and a commander in Bosnia, has expressed concerns that the EU is trying to set up its own army that could undermine the Nato alliance.

Downing Street admitted it had made a mistake earlier this year when it released a letter claiming he was among former military top brass who wanted Britain - which has the fifth largest defence budget in the world - to remain in the EU.

General Rose said sovereignty and defence were indivisible and that EU policy had already seriously undermined Britain's combat effectiveness.

"I believe that the UK's contribution to European defence can manifestly be better made solely through Nato than by trying to spread our limited resources too thinly, in order to include European defence and security policy initiatives into the UK's defence programme," he said.

"It is something of an insult to our European partners, in particular France and Germany, to imply that UK membership of the European Union is necessary to secure future peace in Europe."

'Gift to Putin'

In response, campaign group Britain Stronger in Europe said there was an "overwhelming consensus" among military chiefs, including four former chiefs of the defence staff, that Britain was "stronger and safer" in the EU.

And Labour MP Dan Jarvis, a former paratrooper who served in Iraq, has warned EU exit would be a "gift" to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, former Labour frontbencher Tristram Hunt has called on Jeremy Corbyn to "redouble his efforts" in the campaign for Britain to remain in the EU, saying the opposition leader "should be out there every day as we go up towards the poll".



More on this story:

Prime Minister's Questions: George Osborne v Angela Eagle
18 April 2016

EU referendum: Vote Leave focuses on immigration
25 May 2016

EU exit could add two years to austerity, IFS says
33 minutes ago

Row as ex-intelligence chiefs say EU membership protects UK security
8 May 2016

UK safer inside EU, former defence chiefs say
24 February 2016

 

[Housecarl]

EU Vows To Use New Powers To Block All Elected ‘Far Right’ Populists From Power
Started by imaginative‎, Today 04:27 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...sts-From-Power&p=6059117&posted=1#post6059117

http://www.breitbart.com/london/201...wers-block-elected-far-right-populists-power/

EU Vows To Use New Powers To Block All Elected ‘Far Right’ Populists From Power

by Liam Deacon
24 May 2016
Comments 3,403

The President of the unelected executive arm of the European Union (EU) has vowed to block all right wing populists from power across the continent, shortly after acquiring the power to exert “far-reaching sanctions” on elected governments.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, promised to exclude Norbert Hofer, the leader of Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), from all EU decision-making if elected ahead of yesterday’s presidential vote.

“There will be no debate or dialogue with the far-right,” the liberal bureaucrat told AFP.

The FPÖ has been Austria’s top-polling political force for some time. However, after leading the pack for most of the presidential race, the right-wing candidate lost out by 0.6 per cent to the Green party, after the inclusion of postal votes, and months of Europe’s mainstream media calling the centre-right populist “far right”.

Right wing populists are periodically topping the polls across the continent – in France, Sweden, Holland, and now Austria – and anti-migrant populists are already in power in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

Mr. Junker’s definition of “far right” is somewhat broad, noted by him previously describing Hungary’s conservative president, Viktor Orbán, as a “fascist.”

With the continent-wide democratic surge to the right, the anti-democratic Commission could be in for a challenge in their attempt to exclude each and every elected government they deem to be “far right.”

However, as of 2014, the Commission was handed a batch of new powers that it could plausibly use to do just this – powers already being mobilised against Poland’s elected, conservative leaders.

The Commission can now trigger a “rule of law mechanism” (Article 7 TEU) against nations it perceives as deviating from “the common constitutional traditions of all Member States.” Ultimately, “far-reaching sanctions” can be exerted, and a country can be stripped of all voting rights in the EU and have funding blocked.

In January this year, Frans Timmermans, the first ever unelected Commission “vice president,” who is in charge of “human rights,” triggered the mechanism for the first time against Poland’s government which came to power in a record-breaking, landslide election in 2015.

The new government has subsequently become embroiled in a showdown with their constitutional court over the appointment of new liberal judges and the organisation of Poland’s state broadcaster.

Mr. Timmerman and Commission gave Poland an ultimatum and deadline to back down by, which expired yesterday. As reported by Breitbart London today, the commissioner has now travelled to Poland to “negotiate” with the government there. There is no precedent to indicated what will happen next.

However, the backlash has already begun against the new, explicitly anti-democratic EU powers. Hungary’s Victor Orbàn has vowed to help Poland fight the Commission, and other Eastern, Visegrad nations are likely to join the growing coalition.

“In the future, please have more restraint in instructing and reprimanding the parliament and the government of a sovereign, democratic country,” Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro wrote to Mr. Timmermans in January.

“This is not the union, not the kind of membership that we have agreed to,” said Witold Waszczykowski, the Polish foreign minister.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...es_mullah_haibatullah_as_new_emir_109391.html

May 25, 2016

Taliban Names Mullah Haibatullah as new Emir

By Bill Roggio

The Afghan Taliban appointed Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, the group’s top judicial officer, as its new emir after confirming Mullah Mansour was killed by the US. Siraj Haqqani, the Taliban’s military commander, remains one of the Taliban’s top two deputies, and Mullah Mohammad Yaqoub, Mullah Omar’s eldest son, has been elevated to serve as a deputy to Haibatullah.

Haibatullah replaces Mansour, who was killed by the US in a drone strike in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province on May 21.

“With heavy heart, but full belief in Allah’s will, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan announces that the Commander of the Faithful Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was martyred in an American invading and evil forces’ drone strike on Saturday,” the Taliban said in a statement released by its spokesmen on social media.

Haibatullah was named to lead the Taliban after senior commanders and members of the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s executive leadership making council, met in Pakistan shortly after Mullah Mansour was killed.

“All the members of the leadership council [Quetta Shura] pledged allegiance to the newly appointed leader,” the statement continued.

Haibatullah has a long history with the Taliban. He served as a religious scholar and judge when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, and previously headed the Taliban’s judiciary branch, an important position within the group. As the top judicial figure, he issued fatwas, or religious decrees, that justified all aspect the Taliban’s operation, including suicide attacks.

After the Taliban admitted in July 2015 that Mullah Omar, the group’s founder and first emir, died in 2013, it appointed Mullah Mansour as its emir and Haibatullah and Siraj Haqqani as his two senior deputies. Haibatullah managed legal and religious affairs, while Siraj managed the military. Under this leadership, the Taliban made its greatest gains in Afghanistan since the US invaded in 2001. The Taliban are thought to control more territory today than at any point in time since 2001.

President Obama and the US government hope that the unprecedented airstrike in Baluchistan that killed Mansour will bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. However, under the leadership of Mansour, with Haibatullah and Siraj as his deputies, the Taliban went on the offensive and rejected peace talks. There is no indication that Haibatullah, with Siraj and Yaqoub as his deputies, will alter the Taliban’s current strategy.

Haibatullah may serve as a uniting force within the Taliban movement. Mansour’s appointment caused discord within the Taliban, with some mid-level commanders defecting to the Islamic State, and a significant faction led by Mullah Rasul forming a parallel branch. But with Mullah Yaqoub and Mullah Abdul Manan Akhund, a brother of Mullah Omar, returning to the fold and receiving senior positions with the group two months ago, there are indications that the rift with the Rasul faction may be mending.

Haibatullah is considered to be widely respected within the Taliban, and his previous position as top sharia official gives him the religious and legal credentials to lead the group.



Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of The Long War Journal.

This article originally appeared at The Long War Journal.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-belgium-attacks-arrests-idUSKCN0YG2ND

World | Wed May 25, 2016 2:16pm EDT
Related: World

Belgian police detain four on suspicion of belonging to terrorist group

Belgian police searched houses in the city of Antwerp on Wednesday and detained four people on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist group and trying to drum up recruits to fight with Islamist militants in Syria or Libya, state prosecutors said.

Two were formally arrested while the other two were given a conditional release.

"They are suspected of trying to recruit individuals to travel to conflict zones in Syria or Libya," a prosecutors' statement said.

It said no weapons or explosives were found in the house searches and there was no apparent link with the March 22 suicide bombings at the international airport and on the metro in Brussels which killed 31 people.

But it said some of the four planned to join the Islamic State militant group and a preliminary investigation showed they may also have been planning attacks in Belgium.


(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/05/25/whats-coming-up-g7-summit-japan/84919128/

What's coming up at the G7 summit in Japan

Kirk Spitzer, USA TODAY 3:14 p.m. EDT May 25, 2016

TOKYO — Leaders of the world's seven major industrial democracies meet for two days in Ise-Shima, Japan, beginning Thursday. While they have no plans to issue important new initiatives or commitments, leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States will discuss a range of political, economic and environmental issues.

Here’s a look at some of the highlights of the Group of Seven agenda, as outlined in a recent background briefings by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

GLOBAL ECONOMY

Promote sustainable growth, make “qualitative infrastructure investment,” advance the role of women, promote the rule of law in cyberspace, encourage a digital world based on the free flow of information and prevent corruption.


USA TODAY

Japan PM has no plans to go to Pearl Harbor


HUMAN RIGHTS

Discuss fundamental values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

TRADE

Issue a strong message on the importance of free trade, the need to fight protectionism and the advancement of large-scale free-trade agreements.

FOREIGN POLICY

Address terrorism, violent extremism and refugees, and exchange views on conflicts in the Middle East, including Syria's five-year-old civil war.

MARITIME SECURITY

Reaffirm the importance of the “rule of law” and peaceful resolution of disputes, oppose China's unilateral sovereignty claims and island-reclamation projects in the South China Sea — without naming China explicitly.


USA TODAY

President Obama calls Okinawa crime 'inexcusable'


NORTH KOREA

Confirm close collaboration on a comprehensive solution to issues of concern, including North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development programs and abduction of Japanese citizens.

RUSSIA AND UKRAINE

Confirm G7 solidarity in condemning Russia's actions in the Ukraine, including the seizure of Crimea and support for separatists in the east.

CLIMATE AND ENERGY

Discuss ways to lead the global community in addressing climate change, building on last December's Paris agreement to curb greenhouse gases and take a lead in addressing oil price declines and rapidly changing energy issues.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-summit-shrine-idUSKCN0YG0R2

World | Wed May 25, 2016 8:21am EDT
Related: World, Japan

Japan's Abe visits Shinto holy site before G7 summit

ISE, Japan | By Toru Hanai


Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday made a pilgrimage to the Ise Grand Shrine, the holiest site in Japan's Shinto religion, a day before he hosts a Group of Seven (G7) summit nearby.

Abe is expected to escort other G7 leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama to the expansive grounds of the shrine in central Japan on Thursday before they gather for the two-day annual meeting.

Abe, who like other Japanese leaders pays his respects at the shrine every January to mark the new year, has said the grounds are a good place to get a sense of the true Japanese spirit and culture.

Japanese wartime leaders used state Shinto ideology to mobilize the masses to fight World War Two in the name of a divine emperor, but Japan's post-war constitution established the separation of church and state.

Abe sparked outrage in China and South Korea for his December 2013 visit to Yasukuni Shrine for war dead in Tokyo, seen in those neighboring countries as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Far less attention was paid to what some see as his equally symbolic participation in October that year in a ceremony at Ise Shrine.

The ritual is held every 20 years, when Ise Shrine is rebuilt and sacred objects representing the emperor's mythical Sun Goddess ancestress are moved to a new shrine on the same grounds.

Abe became only the second premier to take part in the centuries-old ritual, and the first since World War Two, drawing attention to a conservative base that wants him to steer the nation back toward a traditional ethos mixing Shinto myth, patriotism and pride in an ancient imperial line.

"He's making these associations between his administration and sacred sites," said John Breen, a professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto.

"Ise is particularly important to him."

The shrine is made up of two main sets of buildings, the Inner and Outer Shrines. Abe will show the G7 leaders the Inner Shrine, dedicated to sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami.

Ordinary citizens can only view the buildings, said to hold religious articles such as a sacred mirror, from behind fences that leave only the rooftops visible.



(Writing by Linda Sieg and additional reporting by Elaine Lies in Tokyo; Editing by Robert Birsel)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-nato-idUSKCN0YG2BW

World | Wed May 25, 2016 12:43pm EDT
Related: World

Swedish parliament ratifies NATO accord amid Russia tensions

Sweden's parliament on Wednesday ratified a deal granting NATO more access to the neutral Nordic country for training exercises and in the event of a war in the region, a step reflecting heightened tensions with Russia.

Sweden is outside the U.S.-led NATO but has moved closer to the alliance in recent years, cooperating with NATO states like Denmark, Norway and Iceland and participating in operations in Afghanistan.

The center-left minority government won the parliamentary vote by a margin of 291-21.

"This deal will not change our relationship with NATO nor our security policy. We will remain non-aligned," Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist told parliament. "There will be no NATO troops on Swedish soil without an invitation."

Sweden's closeness to NATO has already angered Moscow. In April, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told daily Dagens Nyheter that Russia would take unspecified action if Sweden joined NATO.

The Ukraine and Crimea crises have wrought increased tension between Russia and the West and within the Baltic Sea region. Sweden has accused Russian warplanes of carrying out simulated bombing runs near its border and its security agency has warned of Russian spies active in the country.

Sweden's government has said it will not join NATO. However, the four main center-right opposition parties favor membership and polls show increasing numbers of Swedes agree.


(Reporting by Alistair Scrutton and Johan Sennero; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-duterte-killings-insight-idUSKCN0YG0EB

World | Wed May 25, 2016 3:16pm EDT
Related: World

Philippine death squads very much in business as Duterte set for presidency

DAVAO, Philippines | By Andrew R.C. Marshall and Manuel Mogato


On May 14, five days after voters in the Philippines chose Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte as their next president, two masked gunmen cruised this southern city's suburbs on a motorbike, looking for their kill.

Gil Gabrillo, 47, a drug user, was returning from a cockfight when the gunmen approached. One of them pumped four bullets into Gabrillo's head and body, killing the small-time trader of goods instantly. Then the motorbike roared off.

The murder made no headlines in Davao, where Duterte's loud approval for hundreds of execution-style killings of drug users and criminals over nearly two decades helped propel him to the highest office of a crime-weary land.

Human rights groups have documented at least 1,400 killings in Davao that they allege had been carried out by death squads since 1998. Most of those murdered were drug users, petty criminals and street children.

In a 2009 report, Human Rights Watch identified a consistent failure by police to seriously investigate targeted killings. It said acting and retired police officers worked as "handlers" for death-squad gunmen, giving them names and photos of targets - an allegation denied by Davao police.

But a four-year probe into such killings by the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippines' equivalent of the FBI, hasn't led to a single prosecution, and one senior NBI agent told Reuters it will probably be shelved now that Duterte is set to become president. The nation’s Justice Secretary last week told reporters the probe may not be able to proceed.

Such impunity, and Duterte's demands in recent weeks for more summary justice, could embolden death squads across the country, say human rights and church groups. Already there has been a spate of unsolved killings in nearby cities, with other mayors echoing Duterte's support for vigilante justice.

"We've seen it happen in Davao and we've seen copycat practices," Chito Gascon, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), an independent Philippine watchdog, told Reuters. "Now can you imagine he is president and the national model for crime-fighting is Davao?"

Ask Clarita Alia, 62, who still lives in the Davao slum where her four sons were murdered, and she gives a mirthless chuckle.

"Blood will flow like a river," she says.



DENIES DIRECTING KILLINGS

Duterte, who has been Davao's mayor or vice-mayor for most of the past 30 years, has denied any involvement in the murders. "I never did that," he said on the campaign trail in April, responding to allegations he had directed the killings. An Office of the Ombudsman investigation also found there was no evidence connecting Duterte to the murders.

He has, though, repeatedly condoned them.

For example, in comments to reporters in 2009, he warned: "If you are doing an illegal activity in my city, if you are a criminal or part of a syndicate that preys on the innocent people of the city, for as long as I am the mayor, you are a legitimate target of assassination.”

And more recently he has vowed to wipe out crime in six months across the country by killing criminals, drug pushers and "sons of bitches" after he takes office on June 30.

"Do not destroy my country, because I will kill you," the 71-year-old former prosecutor told a news conference in Davao on May 15.

He has also promised to restore the death penalty in the Philippines, warning he will hang the most heinous criminals twice: once to kill them, then again to "completely sever the head from the body".

People here remember pre-Duterte Davao as a lawless battleground for security forces and Communist rebels. The city's Agdao district was so violent it was nicknamed "Nicaragdao" after the then war-torn Central American nation.

Today, thanks to Duterte's campaigns against drugs and crime, Davao today feels much safer, say the locals. But it still ranks first among 15 Philippine cities for murder and second for rape, according to national police.



ON WATCH FOR ASSASSINS

Reuters interviews with the families of four Davao victims, one of whom was a 15-year-old, showed that murders continued even as Duterte campaigned for the presidency.

All four killings occurred in the past nine months and bore the hallmarks of a loose-knit group that the locals call the Davao Death Squad.

The victims were shot in daylight or at dusk, three of them on the same street in a riverside slum seething with people. The killers rode motorbikes with no license plates, their faces hidden by helmets and masks.

Reymar Tecson, 19, was executed last August while sleeping at the roadside. A week later, Romel Bantilan, 15, was shot dead while playing a computer game less than 30 paces away.

Tecson's family said Reymar was a drug user, but Bantilan's family insisted that Romel was clean.

Romel had a twin brother, and their father, Jun Bantilan, said he had heard "rumors" that the other boy would be next. Most days Jun sits at the end of the street, watching out for assassins.

Nearby, in her tumble-down shack, Norma Helardino still wondered why her husband Danilo, 53, was shot dead in January. He didn't use drugs, she said, although "maybe his friends did."

The police filed a report but Helardino said she saw no sign of an investigation: "No witnesses came forward." When asked who her husband's killers were, she pointed to her tin roof and said: "Only God knows."

The three dead males in the slum were "noted drug dealers," said Major Milgrace Driz, a Davao police spokeswoman.

"It is their destiny to be killed because they choose to be criminals," she said. "The mayor has already said there is no place for criminals in the city."

Driz described 15-year-old Bantilan as a "recidivist" with a "criminal attitude" who had been repeatedly warned to mend his ways. She said he had delivered drugs for a gang which had probably murdered him over a money dispute.

Lack of witnesses meant the three murders remained unsolved despite diligent efforts to investigate, Driz added.

Responding to the Human Rights Watch allegations that the police conspire with the death squads, Driz said the police get the names of local criminals through a public hotline but don't kill them.



CLOSED AND TERMINATED

Human rights activists say official investigations of death-squad killings have been hampered by a lack of witnesses, bureaucratic apathy and political influence.

The Human Rights Watch report called on the CHR to investigate whether Duterte and other officials had been involved or complicit in the deaths.

A CHR report three years later confirmed the "systematic practice of extrajudicial killings" by the Davao Death Squad. It, in turn, was successful in getting the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate whether Duterte was criminally liable for inaction in the face of evidence of numerous killings.

But in a January 2016 letter seen by Reuters, the Ombudsman told the CHR its investigation was "closed and terminated" because it had found no evidence that Duterte or the police were involved in the killings. The letter also dismissed the death squad as a product of "rumors and other gossips".

The CHR report also triggered a probe by the NBI. Four years later, it is still ongoing, an agency spokesman said.

However, Secretary of Justice Emmanuel Caparas, who oversees the NBI, told reporters on Friday that the status of the investigation was unclear because a key witness, a former gunman, had left protective custody. "It's really just a question now if the witness will surface," he said.

And another NBI source, who requested anonymity because he wasn't allowed to talk to the media, said the probe was now likely to be halted.

"Who will investigate the president?" he said.


(Editing by John Chalmers and Martin Howell)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/05/23/winning_the_salvo_competition__109387.html

May 23, 2016

Winning The Salvo Competition

Rebalancing America's Air And Missile Defenses

By Mark Gunzinger & Bryan Clark


Over the last fifteen years, the Department of Defense spent more than $24 billion buying a mix of capabilities to defeat guided missile threats to U.S. and partner naval forces and land installations. Despite DoD’s urgency, these investments have not resulted in air and missile defenses with sufficient capacity to counter large salvos of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and other precision-guided munitions (PGMs) that can now be launched by America’s enemies. This situation is partly the result of DoD’s longstanding emphasis on fielding costly, long-range surface-to-air interceptors to defeat a small salvo of anti-ship cruise missiles or a handful of ballistic missiles launched by rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. It is also because the U.S. military has never fought an enemy who had the capability to strike distant targets with precision. In future conflicts, however, America’s opponents can be expected to employ large numbers of sea-, air-, and ground-launched guided weapons to overwhelm limited defenses now protecting the U.S. military’s forces and bases.

Senior Fellows Mark Gunzinger and Bryan Clark’s report Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile Defenses includes a discussion of initiatives that could improve our nation’s ability to counter guided weapon salvos that threaten its future ability to project power. This analysis also examines the emerging dynamic between militaries that have PGMs and capabilities to counter precision strikes in order to assess promising operational concepts and capabilities for air and missile defense.


Read Full PDF.

This article originally appeared at Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/vid...americas_air_and_missile_defense_part_ii.html

Posted on May 24, 2016

CSBA's "Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America's Air and Missile Defense" Part II

Video

Editor David Craig sits down with Mark Gunzinger and Bryan Clark, Senior Fellows at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, to discuss CSBA's new report 'Winning The Salvo Competition: Rebalancing America’s Air And Missile Defenses,' which "includes a discussion of initiatives that could improve our nation’s ability to counter guided weapon salvos that threaten its future ability to project power." The report also "examines the emerging dynamic between militaries that have PGMs and capabilities to counter precision strikes in order to assess promising operational concepts and capabilities for air and missile defense." China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea already possess such weapons, and any assessment of the future threat environment will need to take these systems into account.

 

[Housecarl]

China reportedly will send nuclear-armed submarines to patrol Pacific
Started by geoffs‎, Today 05:46 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...nd-nuclear-armed-submarines-to-patrol-Pacific

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://observer.com/2016/05/president-xis-land-mine-of-debt-is-about-to-explode/

Opinion

President Xi’s Land Mine of Debt Is About to Explode

China's number one export is not steel, electronics, textiles or toys—It is deflation

By Jonathan Russo • 05/23/16 11:00am
Comments 7

Rarely do political writers and economic ones focus on the same topic. However, President Xi Jinping’s China has become the exception. The political side of Xi’s rule has received lots of attention. To name just a bit of the media coverage: The Guardian; the Council on Foreign Relations publications, Foreign Affairs; and most recently and chillingly, The New York Review of Books (April 21) by long time China watcher Orville Schell.

Mr. Schell paints a very gloomy picture as authorities crack down on the relative freedoms Chinese citizens enjoy. Worse, the nature of the repression is arbitrary, political and often illogical. Layer after layer of civil—and now military—authority is being concentrated in President Xi’s hands. Comparisons to Mao’s cult of personality are on everyone’s lips. It’s bad. Human rights lawyers, NGO officials, writers, business executives are all being jailed. Anyone who runs afoul of Xi is at risk… and no one knows his criteria for judging afoul.

Parallel to the coverage of the political unravelling is the coverage of the economic unravelling. While China ‘bears’ like James Chanos and Gordon Chang have been predicting economic collapse for years, never has there been this universal level of concern about the Chinese economy.

Even the ratings agencies, like Moody’s, are negative. The Wall Street Journal, both the NY (Times) and Financial Times, Bloomberg and Forbes are all covering the story. Private hedge fund reports (see Kyle Bass), predicting China’s economic collapse, circulate among the investing classes by email, the way Russian Samizdat reports in the 1970s circulated hand to hand. The coup de grace however might be the Economist Magazine’s May 7 issue with its 13-page special report on China’s land mine of debt and what happens when it blows up. It is must-reading for anyone with skin in the economy.

The explosion Xi prepares is already felt. According to a top commodity producer quoted in the Financial Times about Chinese trade policy, “This is war. This is not trade.”

American politicians, starting with Donald Trump, but quickly followed by Bernie Sanders and belatedly Hillary Clinton, are preparing their counter-attack strategies. China’s number one export is not steel, electronics, textiles or toys… It is deflation. China is dumping everything from finished steel to appliances. Just walk into Best Buy and you’ll see a wall of Chinese-made air conditioners priced so low it is clear no one is making money. In fact, a good friend of mine, who is in the commodity business and visits China at least 12 times a year, said the air conditioner factories cannot pay their suppliers or truckers in cash. They’re paid with air conditioners.

This exporting of heavily subsidized commodities and manufactured goods buys Xi and China time. Time to inject trillions of renminbi into China’s rust belt as he has just promised to do. No pesky fiscal conservatives in his congress to oppose an industry bailout. Xi is determined to ward off the social unrest that will follow the debt blow up.

Political and economic analysis points to one thing: China is in deep trouble. Xi knows this better than anyone. He has access to all the true economic numbers on debt and credit from his ministries, not the ones published for the naive abroad.

For Xi it is June 22,1941—the day the Germans launched operation Barbarossa against the Russians. On that day, and forever after, Stalin was in total control of everything. The Russian nation needed an iron hand to unify and counterattack. There was no room for dissent, doubt, or questioning of Stalin’s plans. Xi is now China’s Stalin. The war may not be fought against an invading enemy, but it is a war for survival none-the-less. The debt levels, shadow banking, hidden money abroad, and the asset swindles are as destructive a force as any invading army. Worse, they are already inside China. They need not breech the border.

Xi has to save China from itself, from the past mistakes that have kicked the planned-economy can down the road. If his authoritarian stance sets China back in the eyes of the democratic world, it is of no consequence. Xi’s audience is the hundreds of millions of Chinese who have relied on the Communist Party to raise their living standards. Not the writers of British editorials.

Of one thing I am certain: To hold back this tsunami of debt Xi will force his global trading partners to share his pain. China will ramp up its export of deflation. Prices of both industrial commodities and manufactured goods will continue to fall. Countries, from South Africa to Italy, will engage in trade wars in an effort to keep their citizens employed. Those put out on the street by a closed British steel mill or an American aluminum plant are not Xi’s concern. Another closed steel plant in Tangshan is.

When you understand Xi’s dilemma, you understand everything Xi does. He knows more about China’s problems than you. That’s why, in an effort to survive the coming economic fallout, Xi must put in place a new political order.

The only question is how much pain and disruption we are prepared to endure to accommodate him and China’s survival.

Jonathan Russo has been observing and writing about the Mid-East, domestic politics, and China for decades. In the last 10 years his articles have been published in The Huffington Post, Times of Israel, and his own site JavaJagMorning.com. He’s been an executive in NY media for over 40 years and resides in Manhattan.