US Foreign Policy

The Russian Hacking Fiasco

May 15, 2017 Mike Whitney, www.informationclearinghouse.info Educate! Hacking, Russia, US Foreign Policy

By Mike Whitney for Information Clearing House - There’s no proof that Russian officials or Russian agents colluded with members of the Trump campaign. There’s no proof that Russia provided material support of any kind for the Trump campaign or that Russian agents hacked Hillary Clinton’s emails or that Russian officials provided Wikileaks with emails that were intended to sabotage Hillary’s chances to win the election. So far, no one in any of the 17 US intelligence agencies has stepped forward and verified the claims of Russian meddling or produced a scintilla of hard evidence that Russia was in anyway involved in the 2016 elections. No proof means no proof. It means that the people and organizations that are making these uncorroborated claims have no basis for legal action, no presumption of wrongdoing, and no grounds for prosecution. They have nothing. Zilch. Their claims, charges and accusations are like the soap bubbles we give to our children and grandchildren. The brightly-colored bubbles wobble across the sky for a minute or two and then, Poof, they vanish into the ether. The claims of Russia hacking are like these bubbles. They are empty, unsubstantiated rumors completely devoid of substance. Poof.

Gorbachev: It Was Worse Than This, And We Fixed It

May 15, 2017 David Swanson, www.davidswanson.org Educate! Imperialism, Russia, United States, US Foreign Policy

By David Swanson for Lets Try Democracy - On Friday in Moscow I and a group from the United States met with former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. He said the current relationship between Washington and Moscow alarmed him. But, he said, it is possible to rebuild trust. “We had a situation that was worse, but we were able to rebuild trust. And people-to-people contacts helped to rebuild trust.” When Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan first met, presidents of the two countries had not met for six years. Members of Reagan’s cabinet opposed the meeting. Gorbachev came out of the meeting saying of Reagan “He’s not a hawk, he’s a dinosaur.” Reagan came out denouncing Gorbachev as “a die-hard communist.” But they kept meeting. Eventually and inevitably Reagan asked what the Soviets would do if the U.S. were attacked by a meteor or aliens. Both men said their countries would help each other. However, Reagan was a fan of Star Wars, both the weapons boondoggle and the movie — which he may have kept distinct from each other in his mind. Gorbachev and Reagan accomplished a great deal of disarmament, not to mention Gorbachev’s accomplishing the nonviolent dissolution of an empire.

Take Action! Dialogue, Not US Interference In Venezuela – No To S-1018

May 12, 2017 Staff, www.afgj.org Resist! US Foreign Policy, Venezuela

By Staff of Alliance for Global Justice - The bill claims there are 108 political prisoners, naming a number of opposition figures including some found responsible for deaths during the violent demonstrations following the 2015 presidential election won by President Maduro. While US-dominated financial institutions block international loans to Venezuela, the bill reverses the reality and “calls on Venezuelan President Maduro to permit humanitarian assistance, immediately release all political prisoners, and seek assistance from international financial institutions.” The bill authorizes $10 million for the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to provide “humanitarian assistance” which is code for funding the opposition, including the violent opposition. It backs OAS General Secretary Almagro’s campaign to invoke the OAS Democratic Charter against Venezuela as a means to directly intervene to allegedly “restore democracy.” Almagro’s campaign has failed to pass the OAS General Assembly and has resulted in Venezuela’s announcement to withdraw its membership from the OAS.

The United States Should Listen To South Korea—Or It Will Reap The Whirlwind

May 10, 2017 Tim Shorrock, www.thenation.com Resist! South Korea, US Foreign Policy

By Tim Shorrock for The Nation - Gwangju, South Korea—On May 2, Moon Jae-in, the Korean politician who is expected to win next Tuesday’s presidential election here, issued a stern warning to the United States. Pointing to the escalating tensions between North Korea and the United States, he told The Washington Post that South Korea must “take the lead on matters on the Korean Peninsula.” Seoul, he added, “should not take the back seat.” Moon, a progressive politician with deep roots in South Korea’s left, has repeated these words throughout his campaign. They signal his wish to change the dynamics of US-South Korean relations and meet his country’s desire for a more independent foreign policy. In particular, he wants to use economic and political incentives to ease tensions with the North—a position anathema to many in Washington. The US government, Congress, and the Pentagon should listen to Moon and his voters. Over the past two months, President Trump has done more to alienate South Korea than any American leader in the past 40 years. If Trump and the American politicians and pundits who support his militaristic approach to North Korea aren’t careful and continue to ignore this country’s wishes, they could spark the most serious wave of anti-Americanism in the South since 1980.

The CIA Has A Long History Of Helping To Kill Leaders Around The World

May 9, 2017 Ewen MacAskill, www.theguardian.com Educate! CIA, US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism

By Ewen MacAskill for The Guardian - Some of the most notorious of the CIA’s operations to kill world leaders were those targeting the late Cuban president, Fidel Castro. Attempts ranged from snipers to imaginative plots worthy of spy movie fantasies, such as the famous exploding cigars and a poison-lined scuba-diving suit. But although the CIA attempts proved fruitless in the case of Castro, the US intelligence agency has since 1945 succeeded in deposing or killing a string of leaders elsewhere around the world – either directly or, more often, using sympathetic local military, locally hired criminals or pliant dissidents. According to North Korea’s ministry of state security, the CIA has not abandoned its old ways. In a statement on Friday, it accused that the CIA and South Korea’s intelligence service of being behind an alleged recent an assassination attempt on its leader Kim Jong-un. The attempt, according to the ministry, involved “the use of biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance” and the advantage of this was it “does not require access to the target (as) their lethal results will appear after six or 12 months”. The person directly responsible was allegedly a North Korean working for the foreign intelligence agencies.

South Korea’s Likely Next President Warns US Not To Meddle In Nation’s Democracy

May 4, 2017 Jason Ditz, www.news.antiwar.com Educate! Democracy, South Korea, US Foreign Policy

By Jason Ditz for Anti-War - The split between Moon and Trump is so dramatic, in fact, that Moon has felt the need to publicly warn the US against “meddling” in the nation’s politics, not just directly in the election itself, but also with policy decisions made in the lead-up to the election. Indeed, Moon and his allies warn that the biggest problem is the US rushing through measures in the lame-duck government ahead of the election, noting that agreements on things like the THAAD anti-missile system, and then hastily putting the system in place before any public hearings or environmental assessments were allowed to take place. Analysts even suggest that President Trump’s talk of making South Korea pay for THAAD might help Moon,, because he is seen as more likely to stand up to the US on the deployment, and doesn’t feel particularly wedded to any agreements on the deployment, which were made in the post-impeachment, pre-election environment specifically to avoid real political debate.

North Korea Says U.S. Bomber Flights Push Peninsula To Brink Of Nuclear War

May 3, 2017 Staff, www.thomsonreuters.com Educate! North Korea, Nuclear War, US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism

By Staff of Thomson Reuters - The U.S. air force said in a statement the bombers had flown from Guam to conduct training exercises with the South Korean and Japanese air forces. North Korea said the bombers conducted "a nuclear bomb dropping drill against major objects" in its territory at a time when Trump and "other U.S. warmongers are crying out for making a preemptive nuclear strike" on the North. "The reckless military provocation is pushing the situation on the Korean peninsula closer to the brink of nuclear war," the North's official KCNA news agency said on Tuesday. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high for weeks, driven by concerns that the North might conduct its sixth nuclear test in defiance of pressure from the United States and Pyongyang's sole major ally, China. The U.S. military's THAAD anti-missile defence system has reached initial operational capacity in South Korea, U.S. officials told Reuters, although they cautioned that it would not be fully operational for some months. China has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the system, whose powerful radar it fears could reach inside Chinese territory.

US ‘Deep State’ Sold Out Counter-Terrorism To Keep Itself In Business

April 25, 2017 Gareth Porter, www.middleeasteye.net Educate! CIA, Deep State, Middle East, US Foreign Policy

By Gareth Porter for Middle East Eye - After it quickly became clear that the US war in Iraq was already motivating young men across the Middle East to wage jihad against the US in Iraq, the chief architect of the occupation of Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, came up with the patently false rationalisation that Iraq would be a "flytrap" for jihadists. But in January 2005, after a year of research, the CIA issued a major intelligence assessment warning that the war was breeding more al-Qaeda extremist militants from all over the Middle East and even giving them combat experience that they would eventually be able to use back home. In a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, the intelligence community warned that the number of people identifying themselves as jihadists was growing and was becoming more widespread geographically and even predicted growing terrorist threats from "self-radicalized cells" both in the US and abroad. The war managers continued to claim that their wars were making Americans safer. CIA director Michael Hayden not only sought to sell the flypaper argument on Iraq, but also bragged to the Washington Post in 2008 that the CIA was making great progress against al-Qaeda, based mainly on its burgeoning drone war in Pakistan.

Why Washington Is Terrified Of Russia, China

April 24, 2017 Pepe Escobar, www.informationclearinghouse.info Educate! China, Imperialism, Russia, US Foreign Policy

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 Educate! US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism, Yemen

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 Educate! Airport, International, Surveillance, US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism

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 Educate! coup, US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism, Venezuela

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 Educate! Propaganda, Syria, US Foreign Policy, White House

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 Educate! Propaganda, Russia, US Foreign Policy

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 Create! North Korea, US Foreign Policy

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.

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