Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
War watch October 30 , 2013 - NSA Spying updates for the day.... Iraq's PM sees role as major regional player as he seeks more weapons from the US - pesky civil war in his country doen't seem to be an impediment to the dreams of Mr Maliki ..... Syria updates of the day ..... Iran updates regarding the possibilities of productive nuclear talks in light of US push for more sanctions..... Building barracks for the Taliban in Afghanistan - at the end of the day , who else is going to take possession of these barracks if they even want them ?
NSA updates....
Al Jazeera.....
Revealed: NSA pushed 9/11 as key 'sound bite' to justify surveillance
Gen. Keith Alexander, National Security Agency chief, testifies earlier this year.Mark Wilson/Getty
The National Security Agency advised its officials to cite the 9/11 attacks as justification for its mass surveillance activities, according to a master list of NSA talking points.
The document – obtained by Al Jazeera through a Freedom of Information Act request – containstalking points and suggested statements for NSA officials (PDF) responding to the fallout from media revelations that originated with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Invoking the events of 9/11 to justify the controversial NSA programs, which have caused major diplomatic fallout around the world, was the top item on the talking points agency officials were encouraged to use.
Under the sub-heading, “Sound Bites that Resonate,” the document suggests the statement: “I much prefer to be here today explaining these programs, than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent.”
NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander used a slightly different version of that statement when he testified before Congress June 18 in defense of the agency’s surveillance programs.
Asked for comment on the document, an NSA media representative Vanee M. Vines pointed Al Jazeera to Gen. Alexander’s congressional testimony on Tuesday, and said the Agency had no further comment. In keeping with the themes listed in the talking points, the NSA head told legislators “It is much more important for this country that we defend this nation and take the beatings than it is to give up a program that would result in this nation being attacked.”
Critics have long noted the tendency of senior U.S. politicians and security officials to use the fear of attacks like the one that killed almost 3,000 Americans to justify policies ranging from increased defense spending to the invasion of Iraq.
Al Jazeera obtained the 27 pages of talking points from the NSA this week in response to a FOIA request filed June 13. The statements had been prepared for agency officials facing questions from Congress or the media over the revelations contained in classified documents former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Barton Gellman and others.
A letter accompanying the documents notes that the talking points “are prepared and approved for a speaker to use and do not necessarily represent what the speaker actually said at the event.”
The NSA has not yet turned over to Al Jazeera the documents the agency used to prepare the talking points, saying those materials require additional review before they could be released.
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon also appear at the top of another talking-points document titled “Media leaks one card”, that contains thirteen bullet points to explain the rationale behind the surveillance programs. Those bullet points include “First responsibility is to defend the nation” and “NSA and its partners must make sure we connect the dots so that the nation is never attacked again like it was on 9/11.”
The master media talking points list goes on to explain, under a subheading titled “We Needed to Connect the Dots,” that “post-9/11 we made several changes and added a number of capabilities to enable us to connect the dots.”
The talking points document advises officials to emphasize the word “lawful” when discussing NSA surveillance programs, and to state that “our allies have benefited … just as we have.”
“We believe that over 100 nations are capable of collecting signals intelligence or operating a lawful intercept capability that enable them to monitor communications,” the document continued.
Critics have called into question the veracity of the claim that NSA surveillance have thwarted more than 50 “potential” attacks, claiming a lack of evidence to support the assertions.
NSA officials are advised to respond to any questions about any potential civil liberties violations by citing talking points that says there have not been any “willful violations,” and that the NSA is committed to “upholding the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.”
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From Hot Air
New Snowden bombshell: NSA secretly tapping Google’s, Yahoo’s data pipelines to harvest metadata — and content
POSTED AT 5:21 PM ON OCTOBER 30, 2013 BY ALLAHPUNDIT
And of course, some of that metadata and content was generated by Americans. How can the NSA get away with that? In theory, because of geography. Some of Google’s and Yahoo’s data centers and the fiber-optic pipelines that connect them are located outside the United States, and the rules on foreign surveillance are less strict than Fourth Amendment/FISA limitations on domestic surveillance. Is it okay for the U.S. government to hack an American company as long as the hacking occurs outside the borders of the United States? Does that magically transform domestic surveillance into “foreign”?
According to a top secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — ranging from “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, to content such as text, audio and video.
The NSA’s principal tool to exploit the data links is a project called MUSCULAR, operated jointly with the agency’s British counterpart, GCHQ. From undisclosed interception points, the NSA and GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information between the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants…
In an NSA presentation slide on “Google Cloud Exploitation,” … a sketch shows where the “Public Internet” meets the internal “Google Cloud” where their data resides. In hand-printed letters, the drawing notes that encryption is “added and removed here!” The artist adds a smiley face, a cheeky celebration of victory over Google security.
Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing. “I hope you publish this,” one of them said…
The Google and Yahoo operations call attention to an asymmetry in U.S. surveillance law: While Congress has lifted some restrictions on NSA domestic surveillance on the grounds that purely foreign communications sometimes pass over U.S. switches and cables, it has not added restrictions overseas, where American communications or data stores now cross over foreign switches.
One of the briefing documents on MUSCULAR swiped by Snowden asserts that it’s “produced important intelligence leads against hostile foreign governments.” Interestingly, rather than make that argument, NSA chief Keith Alexander flatly denied that the NSA is engaged in any pipeline-tapping when asked for comment on the new WaPo story this afternoon. (He’s denied Snowden’s allegations before, though, notes NBC, only to have them proved true later.) If all of this sounds vaguely familiar, there’s a reason. The NSA also tapped fiber-optic data pipelines located inside the U.S. a few years ago and got a rare rebuke from the FISA Court for it. I mentioned it in this post. Siphoning off data “upstream” here at home ended up pushing too many communications by American citizens into the NSA’s net, which the Court declared was a violation of the Fourth Amendment. WaPo notes in its new story on MUSCULAR that it’s “not clear” how much data is collected from American clients of Google/Yahoo by the NSA, and there is, apparently, some attempt to minimize the amount via search filters. But given the sheer volume of what’s being sucked up, that can only do so much.
What’s novel about this new scoop is that it’s less about the NSA potentially violating the privacy of individual Americans than it is about the feds engaging in cyberespionage against American companies — and not just any companies, but companies that have been cooperative in sharing user data with the NSA under programs like PRISM. It confirms the impression of an agency whose appetite for information is so voracious that it’ll happily cannibalize its partners just to get a little extra, even if they’re U.S. entities. If they’re reduced to arguing that it’s technically legal because they “only” hacked the parts of Google’s and Yahoo’s systems that are located in Europe, not the ones located here, that’ll hurt them even more, I think. That distinction seems far too formalistic to rebut the basic objection that Uncle Sam shouldn’t be in the practice of quietly stealing mountains of intellectual property from American businesses.
The irony is, per the last paragraph of the excerpt above, this might further tie the NSA’s hands abroad, where nearly everyone agrees they should have a freer hand to operate because it’s easier to target foreigners exclusively there. They’re already back on their heels because of the uproar over them tapping Merkel’s phone; now, if there’s a new uproar over this, Congress may feel pressured to impose new restrictions on how the agency operates internationally to limit its ability to target U.S. citizens or corporations overseas. What a backfire, if it happens. Exit question: Why did they feel the need to tap Google’s and Yahoo’s data centers if they were already being handed information by the companies under PRISM?WaPo tries to explain but I’m not seeing it.
Zero Hedge......
"NSA Tapped The Pope", Spied On Vatican To Prevent "Threats To Financial System"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 13:11 -0400
In the latest blow, and a new low, for the US spying agency, earlier today Italian magazine Panorama blasted a preview of an article due for publication tomorrow, with the simple premise: "NSA had tapped the pope." According to a Reuters report, the "spy agency had eavesdropped on Vatican phone calls, possibly including when former Pope Benedict's successor was under discussion, but the Holy See said it had no knowledge of any such activity. Panorama magazine said that among 46 million phone calls followed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in Italy from December 10, 2012, to January 8, 2013, were conversations in and out of the Vatican." But while it is unclear just what divine information the NSA had hoped to uncover by spying on the Vatican, what is an absolute headbanger, is that according to Panorama one of the reasons for the illegal wiretaps was to be abreast of "threats to the financial system." We can only assume this means keeping on top of Goldman's activities around the globe: after all, when one intercepts god's phone calls, one is mostly interested what the bank that does god's will is doing.
Asked to comment on the report, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said: "We are not aware of anything on this issue and in any case we have no concerns about it."
Media reports based on revelations from Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. intelligence operative granted asylum in Russia, have said the NSA had spied on French citizens over the same period in December in January.
Panorama said the recorded Vatican phone calls were catalogued by the NSA in four categories - leadership intentions, threats to the financial system, foreign policy objectives and human rights.
Benedict resigned on February 28 this year and his successor, Pope Francis, was elected on March 13.
"It is feared" that calls were listened to up until the start of the conclave that elected Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, Panorama said.
The magazine said there was also a suspicion that the Rome residence where some cardinals lived before the conclave, including the future pope, was monitored.
Cue another US ambassador being summoned by an "ally" country, more questions about just what US taxpayer funds are being spent on, more public indignation, and even more bad will (if that is even possible) toward the great, globalist US superstate that is no longer accountable to anyone but itself and a few select oligarchs.
Reports in Le Monde and El Mundo alleging broad NSA surveillance of French and Spanish citizens didn’t come out of thin air, but rather were a product of Edward Snowden’s leaks. The documents associated with those stories were also published alongside the reports.
So once again the cat is out of the bag, and once again the NSA is scrambling to issue blanket denials, insisting that the documents were “misinterpreted,” and that the claims of NSA surveillance of the nations was “completely false.” NSA Chief Gen. Keith Alexander went on to insist that just because documents say something happened doesn’t mean it did, and that only the NSA could really understand what they’re looking at.
Or at least a little false. While Alexander denied anything and everything, his boss the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued a much more tepid statement insisting that all surveillance conducted was legal and for “valid foreign intelligence purposes.”
The big scandals of the leak surrounded tapping the leaders of allied nations, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and while some officials issue on-again, off-again denials of that as well, Clapper was likewise unapologetic, insisting that “it’s invaluable to us to know where countries are coming from.”
Clapper faced intense questioning from the House Intelligence Committee over the fact that such surveillance violated legal obligations to keep the committee informed, and though Clapper didn’t dispute that Congress wasn’t told, he simply insisted that in the future “I guess we could discuss” whether or not such disclosures were necessary, but he believed that not telling Congress “lived up to the letter and spirit of the requirement.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki may be facing an ever-worsening security situation both internally and regionally, but seems to be styling himself as a major regional player, as he visits Washington today for several days of talks with top US officials.
Maliki is also expected to present himself as a potential mediator for the US in dealing with Syria and Iran. US officials insisted there was no real need for mediation, however.
Maliki may also find that he’s not nearly as popular with US officials as he was during America’s occupation of Iraq, as a number of Senators have issued a statement condemning his “mismanagement” of the nation, and accusing him of being under the control of Iran.
Syrian Vice Premier Qadri Jamil has been relieved of duty today according to the Syrian state media, after he missed a week of work to take an unauthorized trip to Switzerland to talk with US Ambassador Robert Ford.
The official reason for his dismissal was absence from work without prior permission, but reports suggest there was much more to his abortive trip to Switzerland than the statement would indicate.
Political sources say Jamil, a member of an opposition party in Syria that was included in the current government in an effort to placate protesters, tried to convince Ford to allow him to simultaneously represent Syria’s government and rebels in the Geneva II talks.
Ford rejected the proposal, saying it made no sense for Jamil to try to represent both sides at once, and it’s not clear how he imagined he’d be acceptable as the representative for the rebels, though since the rebels don’t have anyone going to the conference he may have been betting on the US preferring him to nothing.
With a lot of effort by the Syrian Red Crescent and other civilian groups, a deal was reached between the Syrian military and rebels to allow civilians trapped in the middle of ongoing fighting over Mouadamiya.
1,800 civilians were able to flee today, according to Syria’s Social Affairs Ministry, and the UN says that 3,000 women and children have fled over the course of three different exoduses.
Mouadamiya is a suburb of Damascus and has been contested for months. Rebels have claimed 12,000 civilians are trapped in the ruins of the town and facing imminent starvation, though the exact figure is somewhat disputed, as many have fled as the opportunity presents itself.
Civilians trapped in the middle of combat zones is a nation-wide problem in Syria, and deals allowing then opportunities to safely flee have been few and far between. Hopefully, this deal will set a precedent allowing civilians out of other heavy fighting zones across the nation.
The IAEA has issued an upbeat statement today about “very productive” talks they’ve held with Iran’s nuclear officials, the latest in a series of promising developments on negotiations with Iran.
The prospects of an Iranian deal are growing, but could be killed at any time, many fear, by the US Congress and its reluctance to allow any deal to move forward. They have ruled out easing sanctions, and continue to push for new sanctions in the middle of the talks.
Sen. Robert Menendez (R – NJ) announced his latest plan to members of AIPAC, a top Israel lobbying faction, saying the goal of his new sanctions would be to cut Iran’s oil exports in half within the next year. Menendez insisted that Iran has to dismantle its entire civilian nuclear program before there is any consideration of easing sanctions.
Convincing AIPAC isn’t going to be easy, but the assumption is that getting them on board means getting Congress on board as well, since materially all of the hawkish Congressmen pushing sanctions and calls for war are using Israel’s position as justification.
Posted By Dan Lamothe Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - 1:09 PM Share
The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan has no idea how many Afghan troops are living in barracks funded by the American taxpayer, and how many beds remain empty. But that's not stopping the coalition from planning more and more housing for these forces -- even as the number of Afghan forces is supposed to drop dramatically in the years to come. The result will be more barracks than are needed for Afghan National Security Forces -- yet another example of money wasted as the United States prepares to pull the plug on combat operations by the end of 2014.
John Sopko, the Pentagon's special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, is expected to tell the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on oversight and investigations that Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan lacks a "comprehensive basing plan" for Afghan forces, more than 12 years after the war began. That is a serious issue, since the entire American war plan depends on training and equipping these indigenous fighters.
"This is significant because current construction requirements do not take into account planned reductions in the number of [Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF)] from the currently approved 352,000 to the expected final troop strength of 228,500," Sopko's prepared testimony says. "As a result, ANSF facilities will have excess capacity, a problem we have identified in some of our inspections."
Sopko credits the coalition with establishing a process to review and analyze existing coalition facilities for transfer to the Afghan government. Some 235 facilities have been closed, and 352 have been transferred to Afghan forces, allowing the coalition to cancel 318 construction projects and cut costs by $2 billion, Sopko says.
Even more is still at play, however. Since 2005, Congress has approved nearly $52.8 billion to equip, train, and base Afghan forces, according to a special inspector general report released in September. As of April, about $4.7 billion of it was tied up in construction projects that were either still underway or in early planning.
The construction gaffes have not occurred just with Afghan facilities, either. In one example, Sopko reported in July that the United States constructed a lavish, unneeded $34 million headquarters facility at Camp Leatherneck, the largest U.S. base in Helmand province. The 64,000 square-foot building was completed this year despite a general there, then-Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, asking for the project to be stopped as early as May 2010.
The latest criticism comes almost three years after the watchdog's office recommended that the International Security Assistance Force get a handle on the Afghan military's long-term construction needs. Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, the headquarters with purported oversight, did not full concur at the time, but acknowledged it could better document future priorities.
Sopko also will highlight Tuesday that the United States' ability to oversee future construction projects will be severely hampered by the U.S. drawdown in forces in Afghanistan. Large swathes of the country will be inaccessible to U.S. officials, and at least 52 projects may not meet the December 2014 deadline to complete construction, his testimony says.
Women face increasing threats in Afghanistan as coalition forces withdraw from the country, too. Despite the United States spending more than $600 million on programs designed to support Afghan women and improve educational opportunities for them, they remain largely marginalized, Sopko's testimony says.
In one example, Afghanistan's electoral body, the Independent Election Commission, said this summer that it needs 12,000 female police officers to search women at polling stations. The Afghan National Police currently has about 1,570 women -- 1 percent of the overall force, Sopko says.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-01-301013.html Afghanistan 'zero option' takes shape By Frud Bezhan
What if the United States pulled all its troops out of Afghanistan?
The general assumption is that as Washington and Kabul work to hammer out a long-term security agreement, a way will be found to maintain a US troop presence after 2014.
The two sides have reached a preliminary agreement on a deal. But a key US demand - that its troops be granted immunity from prosecution under Afghan law and be tried only in the United States - remains a major sticking point.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has put the final decision on a deal to a Loya Jirga - a traditional gathering of tribal, ethnic, and religious leaders - that will meet and give its verdict next month.
Washington has made clear that the "zero option" of pulling its forces out entirely - as it did in Iraq after it failed to work out a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Baghdad - is a very real option.
Graeme Smith, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group in Kabul, says a complete US pullout would be a game changer, given Washington's vast footprint in Afghanistan.
"The US presence is tremendously entrenched in all spheres of life in Afghanistan," Smith says. "So much of life in this country hinges on this question of whether or not there will be US forces after 2014."
The zero option, if it comes to that, would exacerbate the already formidable security, financial, and regional challenges facing the Afghan government:
Security The United States would not keep a residual force in Afghanistan to train, advise, and assist the Afghan National Security Forces, nor would it maintain a counter-terrorism force there to pursue remnants of Al-Qaeda. Likewise, NATO would not keep a training mission, as that is dependent on Afghanistan and the United States reaching a security deal.
The absence of any Western forces would deprive Afghanistan's nascent security forces of much-needed assistance with logistics, air support, and intelligence.
A complete pullout would also likely see Kabul receiving much less of the $4 billion in annual military aid pledged by foreign donors to sustain the Afghan army and police.
David Young, a civilian adviser to NATO in eastern Afghanistan and an adjunct fellow at the American Security Project in Washington, says the "zero option" would fundamentally change the whole military state of play.
"No troops means fewer people to monitor how Western military financial support is spent, which, in my eyes, translates to less financial support," Young says. "So then, with morale sunk, attrition will be even higher, costing security forces even more money that isn't coming in. While Afghan forces can continue a stalemate with the Taliban without constant US supervision, I don't think they can continue it without adequate funding."
Economy A complete withdrawal of US troops could also translate into much less of the $4 billion in annual civilian aid pledged by foreign donors reaching Afghanistan.
Smith says that could prove disastrous for the many Afghan industries and the economy as a whole, which is heavily dependent on foreign funding.
"Just the sheer amount of money that's going to be pulled out has the potential to be a fundamentally disruptive thing," Smith says. "There would be an abrupt deflation of that war bubble in the economy."
Waning international aid could compound the ominous economic conditions in the country. With most foreign forces leaving, many Afghan businesses have already closed shop and their owners have left the country, taking much-needed cash with them.
One sector of the economy that has already been hit is real estate. The housing bubble, fueled largely by the war economy, has already burst, with prices in the capital slashed by about half in the past three years.
Businesses tied to US military The financial effects of a US withdrawal could be compounded by the absence of the US military, which is a key employer of Afghan civilians and contributes significantly to the Afghan economy.
Many lucrative businesses have been propped up by military spending.
The logistics and construction sectors profit most. The US military hires Afghan companies to transport supplies, equipment, food, water, and fuel to and from US military bases from ports in Pakistan. Afghans have also been employed to build bases, including constructing watchtowers and other facilities.
Afghan companies have also been paid to produce supplies for the US military. As an example, several large bottle factories have sprung up to provide US personnel with bottled water.
Civil society The international presence has also allowed a new civil society to take root in Afghanistan.
Scores of women's groups, political movements, and organizations dedicated to upholding human rights and press freedoms and fighting corruption have sprung up in the past 12 years.
Young says that without a US military presence and accompanying financial support, many civil society organizations would be unable to work effectively, if at all.
"Without Western troops, there won't be a safety net for international donors, which means less nonmilitary aid coming in," Young says. "There would be less support for improving political institutions, government accountability, women's access to resources, and countless other vital needs."
Foreign NGOs Similarly, many foreign nongovernmental organizations, which rely on protection provided by the international military presence to work, could halt their operations.
In anticipation of the scheduled drawdown, many such groups have already either left or cut their staff numbers to include only essential personnel. A complete withdrawal could deter even the most hardened NGOs from reevaluating such moves.
Regional impact A complete withdrawal of US troops after 2014 could have a destabilizing effect across Afghanistan's borders but might also be welcomed by powers eager to expand their regional influence.
Central Asian neighbors have already beefed up border security to stop the infiltration of militants, and also of drugs, from Afghanistan. Concern over those issues can be expected to rise with US forces removed from the equation.
But as Smith suggests, the "zero option" may be welcomed by other countries in the region.
"US troops withdrawals in the western provinces of Afghanistan may be welcomed by Iran, and could encourage Tehran's cooperation with the central government in Kabul," Smith says. "Similarly, some authorities in Pakistan are eager to see the Americans leave. On the whole, however, the neighborhood around Afghanistan is watching the situation with some concern."
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 13:11 -0400
So once again the cat is out of the bag, and once again the NSA is scrambling to issue blanket denials, insisting that the documents were “misinterpreted,” and that the claims of NSA surveillance of the nations was “completely false.” NSA Chief Gen. Keith Alexander went on to insist that just because documents say something happened doesn’t mean it did, and that only the NSA could really understand what they’re looking at.
The main goal of Maliki’s visit is to convince the Obama Administration to provide him with large amounts of additional weapons, including attack helicopters, with a near-term focus on fighting against Islamist factions along the Syrian border.
The official reason for his dismissal was absence from work without prior permission, but reports suggest there was much more to his abortive trip to Switzerland than the statement would indicate.
The prospects of an Iranian deal are growing, but could be killed at any time, many fear, by the US Congress and its reluctance to allow any deal to move forward. They have ruled out easing sanctions, and continue to push for new sanctions in the middle of the talks.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - 1:09 PM 
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