Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
War Watch October 27 , 2013 - NSA spying on the world updates ..... Iraq death dealing update ..... Syria war and chemical weapon destruction watch ..... Afghanistan watch !
Obama caught lying regarding US spying on German Prime Minister Merkel and every other leader, promises it will play nice....
Continuing to play Obama like a fiddle, the Snowden revelations have done more to change US foreign policy in a few short months, than all laws passed since the advent of the Patriot Act. In the latest example of just this, moments ago,USA Today first and the WSJ and others subsequently, reported that according to Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and an NSA supporter, the National Security Agency has stopped gathering intelligence on allied political leaders, a practice that has drawn global criticism. "The White House has informed me that collection on our allies will not continue, which I support," according to Feinstein. It was not immediately clear if this is an implicit admission that the White House actually did know about the NSA's spying on foreign leaders over the past decade, and lied about being unaware. Recall that Obama denied just this last night, but at this point the pit of lies is so deep, few actually care or are keeping track.
Ironically, in an attempt to redirect once again, Feinstein "criticized President Obama over reports he only recently learned about the monitoring that included German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "It is my understanding that President Obama was not aware Chancellor Merkel's communications were being collected since 2002," she said. "That is a big problem." Don't worry Dianne, he knew everything, but an autocrat-in-waiting has to lie do what an autocrat-in-waiting has to lie do.
As a growing chorus of nations protest U.S. surveillance policies, Obama's spokesman said Monday that an ongoing review will address the concerns of allies.
The review of NSA programs is designed to insure that intelligence gathering protects "both the security of our citizens and our allies and the privacy concerns shared by Americans and citizens around the world," said White House press secretary Jay Carney.
Administration officials refused to comment on a report indicating that Obama learned only this year about a program that monitored the communications of foreign leaders -- a situation that wouldn't be particularly unusual, said an intelligence expert.
Paul Pillar, a former senior intelligence officer, said most presidents don't know about "the targeting decisions" made by their intelligence agencies.
"It would be a horrible drain on the president's time and attention," Pillar said.
So instead the president can focus all his time and energy on creating 40-ing websites and taking over the public healthcare system?
As reported earlier, Spain was the latest country to be exposed as having been the target of the NSA's extensive espionage (at a massive cost to US taxpayers), resulting in just the latest ambassadorial summoning. Which of course was merely more theater, set in motion merely to appease the locals.
Pillar said it's not the tactics themselves that create international friction as much as the fact that they have now been publicized.
"Not only do allies spy on each other all the time, allies know about it all the time," Pillar said.
Normally, he said, nations that discover surveillance from other countries would tighten their security procedures and not make "a public stink" about it.
But the news coverage – inspired by the Snowden revelations and fueled by outrage from their domestic constituents – forces leaders to confront the United States.
The issue is particularly sensitive in Germany, where memories of the nation's Cold War divisions remain fresh. That includes domestic spying by police forces in Communist-run East Germany – the native region of Chancellor Merkel, an outspoken critic of NSA tactics.
"Their history is speaking very loudly to them," said Heather Conley, senior fellow and director of the Europe Program with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Conley and Pillar said intelligence agencies do gather information on each other, on items ranging from positions on trade negotiations to the political troubles of the targeted government.
The difference these days? "It's a public discussion," Conley said.
Precisely. Because the public has had enough of governments scheming behind their backs, always to the detriment of common people. And the person to thank for all of this is none other than Edward Snowden, who instead of being praised as a hero in his home country, has been forced into exile into the country that once upon a time was the "evil empire." How the times have changed in the despotic New Normal.
As for Feinstein's promise that the US will stop spying either on foreign leaders, or domestically, that is about as good as any other promise made by an insolvent empire, not only spying on everyone else - that is expected of everyone - but terrified of its own people and thus much more intent on isolating and silencing "all enemies domestic" - in full decline.
Following the latest Snowden revelations this time exposing the NSA's spying practices in Spain, which apparently included spending billions in taxpayer funds to spy on 60 million Spanish phone calls, it was only a matter of time before Spain had an official response. Sure enough it came moments ago:
Spain Asks U.S. to Disclose All Information on Phone Taps
Good luck with that. However, the US response was quick:
U.S. Ambassador to Spain Says NSA Programs Protected U.S. Allies.
In other words, it was all for the greater good. Oddly enough, Rajoy has not yet summoned the US ambassador: one would think he would at least ask for all the NSA intercepted text message to Barcenas...
However, while the "indignation" by America's allies will come and go, the punchline in the overnight response to NSA's ongoing reputational hammering came not from Europe, but from China.
CHINA FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESWOMAN HUA CHUNYING COMMENTS ON NSA
CHINA SAYS NSA PHONE TAPS VIOLATE LEADERS' PRIVACY
Because when even China makes fun of your spying practices, it's probably time to call it a ballgame.
The Obama administration, which has a spotless track record in taking credit for everything that goes right (all of which is thanks to Bernanke's flooding the world with record liquidity as when the No Free Lunch bill comes due, it will be some other president's clean up), has an even more impeccable history of deflecting responsibility for all that goes wrong.
Most recently, it was the horrific rollout of Obamacare which as we observed earlier in the week, was all "someone else's fault" but certainly not the government's. Now, as the Snowden whistleblowing scandal has found its third (or fourth) wind courtesy of a furious international response following revelations that Obama was listening in to Merkel and at least 34 other world leaders', it is time for perhaps the most stunning revelation of all: you see, Obama is shocked, shocked to learn that cell phone spying - of virtually everyone on the planet - is going on in here.
The White House cut off some monitoring programs after learning of them, including the one tracking Ms. Merkel and some other world leaders, a senior U.S. official said. Other programs have been slated for termination but haven't been phased out completely yet, officials said.
The account suggests President Barack Obama went nearly five years without knowing his own spies were bugging the phones of world leaders. Officials said the NSA has so many eavesdropping operations under way that it wouldn't have been practical to brief him on all of them.
They added that the president was briefed on and approved of broader intelligence-collection "priorities,"but that those below him make decisions about specific intelligence targets.
The senior U.S. official said that the current practice has been for these types of surveillance decisions to be made at the agency level. "These decisions are made at NSA," the official said. "The president doesn't sign off on this stuff." That protocol now is under review, the official added.
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said NSA based its operations on priorities set across the U.S. government. "The agency's activities stem from the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, which guides prioritization for the operation, planning and programming of U.S. intelligence analysis and collection," she said.
The administration didn't end all operations involving world leaders following this summer's revelations because some of the programs are producing intelligence of use to the U.S.
Time to throw the low-cost alternative: where besides every single bank in the past 5 years have we seen this model? But more importantly, as so many were predicting, five years of zero knowledge means... it was all Bush's fault again!
Which after seeing the following snapshots from 2006, makes some sense.
It makes just as perfect sense that supposedly mid-level janitors decide which leaders of the free and not so free world they will decide to eavesdrop on without even informally informing the president.
It makes even greater sense that a government which is desperately strapped for money, can spend billions on wiretaps in Spain, where El Mundo reports, the NSA monitored 60.5 million Spanish phone calls between December 2012 and January 2013.
Because when in doubt, spend taxpayer money when not even the president has any idea why the entire world is suddenly quite angry with him and America. And then panic when the government shutdown results in the furlough of thousands of spies otherwise busy eavesdropping on Frau Merkel.
But going back to the original point: with just under 3 years to go in his term, an economy that is foundering and which not all the moneyprinting in history can offset the inevitable, a budget deficit that depsite recent dips is still the largest until 2008, does Obama actually have any idea what the US Government is spending money on, or is his daily teleprompted address the only thing that Obama actually has a hand in.
As for the punchline: remember when Obama said he would have disclosed all the Snowden revelations anyway? That is now in the running for funniest phrase of the year.
Losing track of all the loose ends as the NSA handed out Obamaphones to virtually every world leader? Here is the latest summary via BBG and other outlets:
NSA boss Keith Alexander personally informed Obama in 2010 about secret operations targeting German chancellor and president didn’t demand to stop it, Bild am Sonntag reported, citing unidentified U.S. intelligence sources: Bild
President Obama was aware of NSA spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel since 2010, German media have revealed. An NSA spokeswoman later denied the allegations.
According to German Bild am Sonntag newspaper, which cited US intelligence sources, National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander briefed Obama on the bugging operation against Merkel in 2010.
"Obama did not halt the operation but rather let it continue," an unnamed high-ranking NSA official told the newspaper.
Moreover, the paper said, the US president later ordered the NSA to prepare a comprehensive dossier on Merkel.
That contradicts earlier reports that Obama personally assured Merkel he didn’t know – and that he would have stopped it if he had.
An NSA spokeswoman released a statement on Sunday after the Bild am Sonntag revelations came to light that: "Alexander did not discuss with President Obama in 2010 an alleged foreign intelligence operation involving German Chancellor Merkel," adding that "news reports claiming otherwise are not true."
The newspaper report added that the NSA was listening in to the chancellor’s both work phone provided by her political party, and supposedly her secure phone that she only received this summer. This, the paper said, is evidence that the operation continued until the "immediate past."
NSA spy activity was reportedly conducted on the fourth floor of the US Embassy in central Berlin, just a stone’s throw from the German government’s headquarters.
The NSA's findings, SMS messages and phone calls, were directly reported to the White House in Washington, unlike as usual to NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, the paper’s source said.
Earlier this week Berlin said that Merkel's communications were "absolutely safe," since she was conducting her important "state political" conversations on encrypted fixed-circuit phone lines. This secure landline phone in her office is allegedly the only one that NSA did not have access to, according to Bild am Sonntag.
Chancellor Merkel turns out to be not the first German leader to be bugged. According to the report, the NSA also spied on Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, after then-President George W. Bush launched a surveillance program in 2002.
On Saturday, Der Spiegel reported that Merkel’s mobile phone had been on an NSA target list since 2002, and had been under the name “GE Chancellor Merkel.” The monitoring operation was reportedly still in force as recently as a few weeks before Obama's visit to Berlin in June 2013.
In its report, the newspaper disclosed details of a recent conversation between Obama and Merkel. During the phone call Wednesday, Obama allegedly assured Merkel that he had not been aware that her phone had been bugged, and that if he had known, he would have immediately stopped it.
Merkel made clear to Obama that if the information was proven to be true, it would be “completely unacceptable” and represented a “grave breach of trust,” her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said after the call.
Germany said Saturday it would send the chiefs of its foreign and domestic intelligence agencies to Washington for talks with the White House and the National Security Agency to investigate the spying allegations.
"What exactly is going to be regulated, how and in what form it will be negotiated and by whom, I cannot tell you right now," German government spokesman Georg Streiter told reporters.
German media, citing sources close to the intelligence services, confirmed Saturday that the German delegation to the US would include top officials from the German secret service.
Both Germany and France have said they want “a no-spy deal” with the US to be signed by the end of the year.
At least 88 people were killed and 203 more were wounded in a series of coordinated bombings in Baghdad and other bloodshed. Mosul suffered a series of apparently unrelated attacks, while other towns experienced the usual background violence.
Western officials have been trying to downplay the lack of rebel support for the Geneva II peace conference as them being “undecided,” but yet another rebel leader’s comments today underscore how broad rebel opposition to the talks really is.
Ahmad al-Sheikh, the leader of the influential Suqur al-Sham Brigade, issued a statement on behalf of 19 Islamist rebel factions dubbing the talks a “conspiracy” designed to end their war of revolution.
The statement went on to declare attending the talks as tantamount to “treason,” and warned that any rebels caught attending “would have to answer for it before our courts.”
The Geneva II conference was supposed to be held in June, and is now tentatively scheduled for late November. Though the Assad government has promised to attend, not a single rebel faction has done so, and many have openly ruled it out. Today’s overt threats against any participants are likely the death knell for the peace process, and will mean the talks will just amount to what Geneva I did, the US and Russia trading blame for the war not being over already.
Three days of “heavy battles” along the Syrian side of the Iraqi border are over, according to reports, and Kurdish militiamen have defeated al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) fighters, claiming control over the Yaaroubiyeh border crossing.
The toll of the fighting is unclear, though witnesses said that there were deaths on both sides. Al-Qaeda has increasingly been trying to encroach into West Kurdistan, thenortheastern portion of Syria, but has faced stiff resistance in recent months.
The loss of the crossing could be a major blow to al-Qaeda factions in Syria, as they have used control on both sides of the Iraqi border to ship fighters and weapons around with impunity.
On the other hand, the capture of the crossing by Syrian Kurds effectively links Syrian Kurdistan with Iraqi Kurdistan, at a time when the Syrians are looking to establish de facto autonomy in the face of a civil war, and as the Iraqi Kurdish leaders have been openly talking about more direct involvement in the region.
Syria files weapons destruction plan
October 27, 201310:48AM ET
The international watchdog overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical arsenal said the process is on schedule
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) director-general Ahmet Uzumcu speaks during a press conference in The Hague on Oct. 11, 2013.Bas Czerwinski/AFP/Getty Images
Syria has filed details of its poison gas and nerve agent program and an initial plan to destroy it to the world's chemical weapons regulator, the organization announced Sunday.
The group, based in The Hague, Netherlands, and which was awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, said Syria made the declaration Thursday. The announcement provides "the basis on which plans are devised for a systematic, total and verified destruction of declared chemical weapons and production facilities," the group said.
Such declarations made to the organization are confidential. No details of Syria's program were released.
Syria already had given preliminary details to the OPCW when it said it was joining the organization in September. The move warded off possible U.S. military strikes in the aftermath of an Aug. 21 chemical weapon attack on a Damascus suburb. Syria denies responsibility for the deadly attack.
OPCW inspectors were hastily dispatched to Syria this month and have visited most of the 23 sites Damascus declared. They have also begun overseeing destruction work to ensure that machines used to mix chemicals and fill munitions with poisons are no longer functioning.
Syria is believed to possess around 1,000 metric tons of chemical weapons, including mustard gas and sarin.
It has not yet been decided how or where destruction of Syria's chemical weapons will happen. Syria's declaration includes a general plan for destruction that will be considered by the OPCW's 41-nation executive council on Nov. 15.
Norway's foreign minister announced Friday that the country had turned down a U.S. request to receive the bulk of Syria's chemical weapons for destruction, because it doesn't have the capabilities to complete the task by the deadlines given.
War grinds on
The announcement came amid renewed fighting in Syria. In the Christian town of Sadad north of Damascus, where Al-Qaeda-linked rebels and government soldiers are fighting for control, a rocket smashed into a home and killed five members of a family, activists said.
At least three women were among the dead, said Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a group that opposes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He said it wasn't clear whether the projectile was fired by Syrian soldiers or the hardline rebels who have been trying to seize the town for the past week.
The rebels appear to have targeted Sadad because of its strategic location near the main highway north from Damascus, not because it is inhabited primarily by Christians. But extremists among the rebels are hostile to Syria's Christian minority, which has largely backed Assad during the conflict. Other Al-Qaeda-linked fighters have damaged and desecrated churches in areas they have overrun.
The official Syrian news agency said troops wrested back control of eastern parts of Sadad, but were clashing in other areas.
Also Sunday, Syrian Kurdish gunmen clashed with Al-Qaeda-linked groups to cement their control of a major border crossing with Iraq.
Syria's chaotic three-year-old civil war pits Assad's forces against a disunited array of rebel groups. Al-Qaeda-linked fighters have battled other groups as well as Kurdish militias who have taken advantage of the government's weakness to cement control over territory dominated by the ethnic minority.
International military forces prepare to blow up explosive items found during a joint operation in Ghazni on Sept. 20, 2013.2013 AFP
A roadside bomb killed 18 civilians, mostly women and one child, when it struck a small bus coming from a wedding Sunday in eastern Afghanistan's Ghazni province, police said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The attack took place in one of the few districts in Ghazni where the Taliban retain some measure of control and often attack security forces, mostly by laying bombs along roads. Roadside bombs are the Taliban's weapon of choice and are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties.
Violence has spiked around Afghanistan in recent months as insurgents try to take advantage of a security handover from foreign forces to the Afghans. The handover is the latest step in the gradual withdrawal of troops from the U.S.-led international military coalition, a transfer set to be completed at the end of 2014.
Deputy provincial police chief Col. Asadullah Ensafi said the latest blast occurred in the Andar district as the bus was traveling from one village to another just before dusk.
The dead included 14 women, three men and a child, Ensafi said, adding that the blast wounded five other women, two of whom were in critical condition.
He said he had no other details, as the remote area was not easily accessible to security forces.
The United Nations said that in the first six months of this year 1,319 civilians were killed and 2,533 were wounded in the ongoing 12-year Afghan conflict. The majority of the casualties were caused by roadside bombs.
Earlier Sunday, a bomb apparently targeting a group of soldiers killed a civilian in a market in the capital, Kabul.
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the bomb went off as military personnel waited for a vehicle to take them to work. He said five soldiers were wounded.
Good morning, My busy weekend got me behind but working on catching up. Wow, lake FUBAR update was like a blast from the past, amazing how out of sight out of mind works. Thank you for bringing back that topic. Fukushima is a hot mess, I have to think that removing the fuel rods is a start. I wish somebody other than TEPCO was going to do it but removing radioactive material from that out of control plant has got to be a good idea.
Morning Kev , I hadn't checked on that for awhile ( Lake FUBAR ) , but it seems to still be growing whether the media covers the story or not !
Tepco should not be in charge of removing the fuel rods - that should be the work of the best minds on the planet and Japan needs to call / scream for international help before rather after screwing this up. But they won't , we will just hear " Oops " .... and then the bowing and apologies will be forthcoming......
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/28/2013 18:43 -0400
Ahmad al-Sheikh, the leader of the influential Suqur al-Sham Brigade, issued a statement on behalf of 19 Islamist rebel factions dubbing the talks a “conspiracy” designed to end their war of revolution.
The toll of the fighting is unclear, though witnesses said that there were deaths on both sides. Al-Qaeda has increasingly been trying to encroach into West Kurdistan, thenortheastern portion of Syria, but has faced stiff resistance in recent months.
Good morning,
ReplyDeleteMy busy weekend got me behind but working on catching up. Wow, lake FUBAR update was like a blast from the past, amazing how out of sight out of mind works.
Thank you for bringing back that topic. Fukushima is a hot mess, I have to think that removing the fuel rods is a start. I wish somebody other than TEPCO was going to do it but removing radioactive material from that out of control plant has got to be a good idea.
Morning Kev , I hadn't checked on that for awhile ( Lake FUBAR ) , but it seems to still be growing whether the media covers the story or not !
ReplyDeleteTepco should not be in charge of removing the fuel rods - that should be the work of the best minds on the planet and Japan needs to call / scream for international help before rather after screwing this up. But they won't , we will just hear " Oops " .... and then the bowing and apologies will be forthcoming......