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US Foreign Policy

Why Washington Is Terrified Of Russia, China

April 24, 2017 Pepe Escobar, www.informationclearinghouse.info , , ,
By Pepe Escobar for Information Clearing House - April 22, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - "Sputnik" - The Russia-China strategic partnership, uniting the Pentagon's avowed top two "existential" threats to America, does not come with a formal treaty signed with pomp, circumstance - and a military parade. Enveloped in layers of subtle sophistication, there's no way to know the deeper terms Beijing and Moscow have agreed upon behind those innumerable Putin-Xi Jinping high-level meetings. Diplomats, off the record, occasionally let it slip there may have been a coded message delivered to NATO to the effect that if one of the strategic members is seriously harassed — be it in Ukraine or in the South China Sea – NATO will have to deal with both. For now, let's concentrate on two instances of how the partnership works in practice, and why Washington is clueless on how to deal with it. Exhibit A is the imminent visit to Moscow by the Director of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Li Zhanshu, invited by the head of the Presidential Administration in the Kremlin, Anton Vaino.

US Moves Toward Major Intervention In Yemen

April 21, 2017 Thomas Mountain, www.counterpunch.org , ,
By Thomas Mountain for Counter Punch - The USA, according to Defense Secretary “Mad Dog” Mattis, he who ordered the use of chemical weapons in Fallujah, Iraq, is about to take a major step towards direct intervention in support of the Saudi Arabia war on the Yemeni people. According to Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of CounterPunch, this war has already seen 90,000 Saudi airstrikes on Yemen, or one every 12 minutes, 123 a day for two years now. With direct US military involvement it will only get worse for the USA has been limiting its involvement to fueling, arming and target selection for the Saudi military. The UN and the international media claim only 12,000 or so deaths in Yemen but this just doesn’t add up. If there have been 90,000 airstrikes that means that only one Yemeni is killed for every 8 strikes? They must take us for idiots, or more likely, just to ignorant and brainwashed to know better. One airstrike is a big deal, for it involves the use of several thousand kilograms of high explosives, enough to incinerate an entire village. And then there are the cluster bombs in their thousands, and the hundreds of markets bombed…so if only 3 Yemenis have been killed per air strike then we are talking upwards of 250,000 dead Yemenis and counting.

58% Increase In Electronic Device Searches On International Air Passengers In U.S.

April 21, 2017 Mark Nensel, www.atwonline.com , , , ,
By Mark Nensel for ATW - US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) searched approximately 4,600 electronic devices, or 0.008%, of approximately 58 million incoming international air passengers and crew in the first six months of the US government’s FY 2017 (October 2016-March 2017), according to CBP statistics released April 11. The figure represents a 57.6% increase in the number of electronic devices searched during the six-month period compared to approximately 2,900 devices searched on incoming international air passengers and crew in the first six months of FY 2016. Compared to two years ago, the number of electronic devices searched has more than tripled. CBP said its increase of electronic device searches corresponds to how the agency “adjusted its actions to align with current threat information.” “Electronic device searches are integral in some cases to determining an individual’s intentions upon entering the US,” CBP deputy executive assistant commissioner, Office of Field Operations, John Wagner said. CBP said its searches have resulted in evidence helpful in combating terrorist activity, child pornography, export control violations, intellectual property rights violations and visa fraud.

US Has Given Green Light For Coup In Venezuela: Maduro

April 20, 2017 Staff, www.telesurtv.net , , ,
By Staff of Tele Sur - According to the Bolivarian leader, the U.S. government wrote up a coup scenario for opposition leader Julio Borges. A day before opposition leaders convened more protests in Caracas calling for the ouster of Venezuela's government, the country's leader has accused the United States of working with right-wing leaders towards a coup. "The U.S. government, the State Department has given the green light, the approval for a coup process to intervene in Venezuela," President Nicolas Maduro said, speaking from the Miraflores Palace. Maduro said that security forces had arrested an “armed commando group sent by the opposition in order to attack the mobilization called by the right-wing for Wednesday to generate violence and deaths in the country.” An investigation has been opened to determine who is behind the plan. According to the Venezuelan leader, who also pointed to a U.S. State Department statement issued Tuesday evening warning of an "international response" should "peaceful protests" face repression, the U.S. government wrote up a coup scenario for opposition leader Julio Borges.

Critique Of White House Claims About Syria’s Use Of Gas

April 19, 2017 Theodore A. Postol, www.informationclearinghouse.info , , ,
By Theodore A. Postol for Information Clearing House - "Truth Dig"- This is my third report assessing the White House intelligence Report (WHR) of April 11. My first report was titled “A Quick Turnaround Assessment of the White House Intelligence Report Issued on April 11, 2017 About the Nerve Agent Attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria,” and my second report was an addendum to the first report. This report provides unambiguous evidence that the White House Intelligence Report contains false and misleading claims that could not possibly have been accepted in any professional review by impartial intelligence experts. The WHR was produced by the National Security Council under the oversight of national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster. The evidence presented herein is from two selected videos that are part of a larger cache of videos that are available on YouTube. These videos were uploaded to YouTube by the SMART News Agency between April 5 and April 7. Analysis of the videos shows that all the scenes taken at the site the WHR claims was the location of a sarin release indicate significant tampering with the site.

What Russia-Gate Has Wrought

April 18, 2017 Robert Parry, www.consortiumnews.com , ,
By Robert Parry for Consortium News - Since Trump took those actions – in accordance with the neocon desires for more “regime change” in the Middle East and a costly New Cold War with Russia – Russia-gate has almost vanished from the news.On April 4, Trump fully capitulated to the neoconservative bash-Russia narrative amid dubious claims about a chemical attack in Syria. On April 6, Trump fired off 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase; he also restored the neocon demand for “regime change” in Syria; and he alleged that Russia was possibly complicit in the supposed chemical attack. I did find a little story in the lower right-hand corner of page A12 of Saturday’s New York Times about a still-eager Democratic congressman, Mike Quigley of Illinois, who spent a couple of days in Cyprus which attracted his interest because it is a known site for Russian money-laundering, but he seemed to leave more baffled than when he arrived. “The more I learn, the more complex, layered and textured I see the Russia issue is – and that reinforces the need for professional full-time investigators,” Quigley said, suggesting that the investigation’s failure to strike oil is not that the holes are dry but that he needs better drill bits.

What Does Kim Jong Un Want?

April 12, 2017 John Feffer, www.english.hani.co.kr ,
By John Feffer for Foreign Policy In Focus - Virtually every week, politicians and journalists and policy experts attempt the impossible: mind reading. Specifically, they want to know what’s going on inside one man’s mind. They want to know what Kim Jong Un is thinking and, more importantly, what he wants. It’s impossible to know for sure what another person is thinking. And yet figuring out what the current North Korean leader wants – in the absence of any substantial engagement with him – is the basis of all policy options for how to address the country. These policy options fall into three main categories: military force, non-military force, and diplomacy.

Is US Policy To Prolonge The Syrian War?

April 10, 2017 Sam Husseini, www.counterpunch.org , , ,
By Sam Husseini for Counter Punch - Many are claiming that Trump is being inconsistent in illegally attacking the Syrian regime with cruise missiles. After all, he had been saying the U.S. should focus on defeating ISIS, and now he seems to be going after Assad. But contradictions from Trump are a dime a dozen. A closer examination shows a deeper pattern of remarkable consistency in U.S. policy toward Syria that is far more critical than the perennial contradictions of politicians like Trump. To summarize U.S. actions and non-actions in terms of direct publicly announced U.S. air attacks targeting the Syrian regime: In 2013, when Assad was losing the war, Obama refrained from strikes that may well have ended his regime.

Stop U.S. From Making Syria War Even Worse

April 10, 2017 Diane Randall, www.fcnl.org , , , ,
By Diane Randall for FCNL - This week's abhorrent chemical weapons attack was an act of unspeakable violence against civilians, and we are heartbroken over the deaths of Syrians, including many children. The Trump administration’s escalation is not the solution, and will only cause more killing and suffering for Syrian civilians. The U.S. should fully support the ongoing investigation of the chemical weapons attack and work with the international community to bring the perpetrators to justice. In all decisions about the U.S. course of action, policymakers must recognize that years of direct U.S. military intervention, support of extremist armed groups, and weapons shipments to anti-government rebels in Syria have only added fuel to the fire and put Syrian civilians in greater danger.

Escalation In Syria A Mistake No Matter Who Did Chemical Attack

April 7, 2017 Joshua Frank, www.counterpunch.org ,
By Joshua Frank for Counter Punch - It was a false flag! Al Qaeda did it! Why would Assad use chemical weapons when he’s winning the war? It had to be those evil terrorists. These are the petty cries by some on the conspiracy-minded left with regard to this week’s barbaric chemical attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, which took the lives of at least 74 and injured another 350. Of course the United States lays all the blame for the attack at the feet of President Bashar al-Assad, who has been implicated in many war crimes over the years. And unsurprisingly, the Russians, Assad’s chief allies, have countered, claiming the Syrians bombed a toxic weapons depot that unleashed the deadly nerve agent.

Another Dangerous Rush To Judgment In Syria

April 6, 2017 Robert Parry, www.consortiumnews.com , ,
By Robert Parry for Consurtium News - One possible scenario was that Syrian warplanes bombed a rebel weapons depot where the poison gas was stored, causing the containers to rupture. Another possibility was a staged event by increasingly desperate Al Qaeda jihadists who are known for their disregard for innocent human life. While it’s hard to know at this early stage what’s true and what’s not, these alternative explanations, I’m told, are being seriously examined by U.S. intelligence. One source cited the possibility that Turkey had supplied the rebels with the poison gas (the exact type still not determined) for potential use against Kurdish forces operating in northern Syria near the Turkish border or for a terror attack in a government-controlled city like the capital of Damascus.

Trump Meets Egypt’s Sisi, Human RIghts Violations Continue

April 4, 2017 Staff, www.reprieve.org.ukwww.thehill.com , ,
By Staff of Reprieve and The Hill - This is the state of human rights in Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who meet President Trump at the White House on April 3, 2017. Weeks after overthrowing Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013, Sisi's security forces stormed pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo, killing at least 817 people in one day, the worst peacetime massacre of Egypt's modern history. Since then, the right to protest has all but vanished in Egypt. Police routinely suppress anti-government demonstrations with violence. The authorities have imprisoned tens of thousands of political opponents of Sisi's government, often in appalling conditions, with lack of access to medical care that in some cases has led to death. Police and National Security agents routinely use torture and enforced disappearances against criminal suspects and political opponents alike with near impunity. In North Sinai, the military commits egregious abuses including extrajudicial executions and unjustified home demolitions in its fight with the local franchise of the extremist group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Wars Expand As Trump Seems To Give Pentagon Decision Making Power

April 4, 2017 Lolita C. Baldor, www.chicagotribune.com , , , ,
By Lolita C. Baldor for Associated Press - Week by week, country by country, the Pentagon is quietly seizing more control over warfighting decisions, sending hundreds more troops to war with little public debate and seeking greater authority to battle extremists across the Middle East and Africa. This week it was Somalia, where President Donald Trump gave the U.S. military more authority to conduct offensive airstrikes on al-Qaida-linked militants. Next week it could be Yemen, where military leaders want to provide more help for the United Arab Emirates' battle against Iranian-backed rebels. Key decisions on Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are looming, from ending troop number limits to loosening rules that guide commanders in the field. The changes in Trump's first two months in office underscore his willingness to let the Pentagon manage its own day-to-day combat. Under the Obama administration, military leaders chafed about micromanagement that included commanders needing approval for routine tactical decisions about targets and personnel moves.

Blaming Russia For Everything

April 3, 2017 Robert Parry, www.consortiumnews.com , ,
By Robert Parry for Consurtium News - It’s almost getting comical how everything that happens in the United States gets blamed on Russia! Russia! Russia! And, if any American points out the absurdity of this argument, he or she must be a “Moscow stooge” or a “Putin puppet.” The FX series, “The Americans,” a spy thriller about two deep-cover Soviet spies in the 1980s. When Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign fails seemingly because he was a wet-behind-the-ears candidate who performed like a robot during debates repeating the same talking points over and over, you might have cited those shortcomings to explain why “Little Marco” flamed out. However, if you did, that would make you a Russian “useful idiot”!

Dominican Republic, Haiti & El Salvador Reject US Threats

April 3, 2017 Sergio Alejandro Gómez, www.en.granma.cu , , , ,
By Sergio Alejandro Gómez for Granma - Rubio directly threatened the governments of the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Haiti, and in an interview with El Nuevo Herald, stating that the vote of these countries at the meeting on Venezuela of the OAS Permanent Council could have repercussions on economic assistance provided by the United States. Certain politicians strolling through the U.S. Capitol in Washington - the first bricks of which were laid at the time of the Haitian Revolution - still believe that Latin America and the Caribbean is the backyard that the United States must “put in order” from time to time. One such advocate of this obsolete U.S. ideology today is Marco Rubio...
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