Asia trade deal: Obama's pivot to nowhere
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Story highlights
- House Democrats mounted a revolt against their own president on Friday in refusing to back a key step to achieving a pan-Asian trade deal
- There are fears of an unintentional clash between U.S. and Chinese ships and planes in the region
Washington (CNN)There's more than President Barack Obama's legacy, or his wounded pride, on the line in the showdown with Congress over a huge pan-Pacific trade deal.
As lawmakers appear ready to thwart Obama's renewed effort this week to secure the power to conclude pacts such as the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, the implications for U.S. global power and prestige could linger long after he leaves office in January 2017.
With U.S. regional allies anxious about China's rise and willingness to project military power, Obama has made what is known as his "Asian pivot" -- an increase in U.S. economic, military and diplomatic resources to the region -- a central foreign policy priority.
The TPP is a cornerstone of that process and is meant ensure the world's most dynamic emerging market evolves into a rules-based system that benefits all nations, and it's meant to check China's ability to bully smaller ones, such as America's friends in Southeast Asia.
But if the TPP is thwarted, U.S. credibility in Asia will suffer, and allies will again wonder whether Obama's assurances that the United States will remain an essential Pacific power and guarantor of security in the region will be fulfilled. On Monday night, House Republicans appeared to be buying time as they planned to add an extension for a vote on trade adjustment assistance until July 30.
"You are either in or you are out," stressed Singapore Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Monday, assessing the implications of a busted trade agreement for the U.S. role in Asia.
"It's very, very serious. The President wants it, everybody knows this is important, and you can't get it through. How credible are you going to be? The world doesn't wait. Not even for the United States."
A stern warning from an Asian ally
Shanmugam's remarks, coming from a senior official of an influential ally fully invested in Obama's policy of rebalancing U.S. power toward Asia, represented a stunning warning to the United States.
His comments came after Democrats in the House of Representatives mounted a revolt against their own President on Friday, refusing to back a Trade Adjustment Assistance program that compensates workers harmed by global trade. The program's defeat was part of a wider effort to prevent the President getting so-called "fast track" powers to negotiate trade deals.
Such powers would allow Obama to submit completed trade deals to Congress for a vote without amendments -- a crucial factor in getting U.S. trade partners such as Japan to make politically painful concessions on reducing tariffs and increasing market access.
The White House has not given up on finding a way to unblock what it has called a "legislative snafu," but Obama needs to persuade large numbers of Democrats to reverse their growing opposition to the concept of free trade deals, which they see as responsible for sending millions of American jobs to low-wage economies overseas.
One senior diplomat from a TPP nation, speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive trade issues, said the events in the House were so unusual that it was not clear exactly what would happen, though his government had not given up hope for a resolution.
But many foreign policy hands in Washington fear short-term political implications could harm long-term U.S. interests.
"The repudiation of the TPP would neuter the U.S. presidency for the next 19 months," said former Obama senior economic adviser Lawrence Summers in an op-ed piece in Monday's Washington Post.
"It would reinforce global concerns that the vicissitudes of domestic politics are increasingly rendering the United States a less reliable ally ... it would signal a lack of U.S. commitment to Asia at a time when China is flexing its muscles."
Obama tried to use this argument as he pleaded with lawmakers in his weekly radio address on Saturday to change their minds on the compensation program.
"Simply put, America has to write the rules of the 21st century economy in a way that benefits American workers. If we don't, countries like China will write those rules in a way that benefits their workers," said Obama.
The pivot strategy in jeopardy
In not convincing his party on this point, Obama's entire Asia pivot strategy is in jeopardy.
While Obama has struggled to stamp his authority on the globe, his Asia policy had until now been seen as a bright spot given the fracturing of nations in the Middle East, the rise of extremist groups such as ISIS and the return of Cold War-style hostilities with Russia.
His promise to channel power and resources toward Asia was widely welcomed in the region as an antidote to China's rising might among allies deeply concerned about Beijing's territorial ambitions on the East and South China seas.
Japan, for instance, was deeply appreciative of Obama's forceful statement in April 2014 that U.S. treaty commitments to its ally were "absolute" amidst rising territorial tensions between Tokyo and Beijing.
Japanese Prime Minsister Sinzo Abe and U.S. President Barack Obama attend the opening session of the at the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit on March 24, 2014 in The Hague, Netherlands.
While denying that he was trying to contain China, Obama upped the U.S. military footprint in the region, sending Marines to Australia and signing a defense agreement that will allow U.S. troops access to bases in the Philippines.
The administration helped lure Myanmar, once in China's orbit, out of isolation, despite a rocky transition that has not yet led to democracy. He repaired ragged U.S. relations with Malaysia and played upon his ties with regional giant Indonesia after spending four years living there as a boy.
But supporters of the TPP argue that if the U.S. falls short of its trade goals in Asia, its capacity to project power will be overly reliant on military means, a factor that could further increase tensions with Beijing.
"If you are out of the region ... not playing a useful role, your only lever to shape the architecture, to shape the region, to influence events is the Seventh Fleet. That is not the lever you want to use," said Shanmugam.
As it is, growing territorial tensions in East Asia are sparking fears of a military miscalculation between China's forces and U.S. ships and aircraft deployed in the region.
Fears of a military confrontation
Beijing's recently announced that it wants to build a navy that can project power far from its own shores, at the same time that China is trading accusations with Washington over its expansion of man-made islands among South China Sea navigational routes crucial to the global economy. There are fears of an unintentional clash between U.S. and Chinese ships and planes in the region.
When it comes to an economic clash, Daniel Price, a former senior trade official in the George W. Bush administration, said lawmakers who voted against the TAA deal as a way of slowing it down had squandered U.S. capacity to write global trade rules.
"This is a cynical repudiation of the President's international economic and security agenda and a victory for isolationists and fear-mongers," Price said.
Ernest Bower, a veteran observer of U.S.-East Asian relations, said he believes that ultimately Congress will grant Obama the power to make the deal. But he believes that the theatrics in the House have already dented American interests.
"Friday's drama was damaging because American partners, particularly in Southeast Asia, are really worried about a narrative they see in Beijing -- that is, the Chinese see weakness in Washington right now," said Bower, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"I think this scares Southeast Asia because it emboldens China to move even more quickly on its plans to organize Asia's economic integration and, quickly following that, to try to push the United States out as guarantor of security."
While a future president could seek to reinvigorate Trans-Pacific Partnership talks if Obama is unable to do so, there's no guarantee that political conditions outside the United States will prove conducive to doing so.
Read the whole story
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On Friday, House Democrats shocked almost everyone by rejecting key provisions needed to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement the White House wants but much of the party doesn’t. On Saturday Hillary Clinton formally began her campaign for president, and surprised most observers with an unapologetically liberal and populist speech.
These are, of course, related events. The Democratic Party is becoming more assertive about its traditional values, a point driven home by Mrs. Clinton’s decision to speak on Roosevelt Island. You could say that Democrats are moving left. But the story is more complicated and interesting than this simple statement can convey.
You see, ever since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, Democrats have been on the ideological defensive. Even when they won elections they seemed afraid to endorse clearly progressive positions, eager to demonstrate their centrism by supporting policies like cuts to Social Security that their base hated. But that era appears to be over. Why?
Part of the answer is that Democrats, despite defeats in midterm elections, believe — rightly or wrongly — that the political wind is at their backs. Growing ethnic diversity is producing what should be a more favorable electorate; growing tolerance is turning social issues, once a source of Republican strength, into a Democratic advantage instead. Reagan was elected by a nation in which half the public still disapproved of interracial marriage; Mrs. Clinton is running to lead a nation in which 60 percent support same-sex marriage.
At the same time, Democrats seem finally to have taken on board something political scientists have been telling us for years: adopting “centrist” positions in an attempt to attract swing voters is a mug’s game, because such voters don’t exist. Most supposed independents are in fact strongly aligned with one party or the other, and the handful who aren’t are mainly just confused. So you might as well take a stand for what you believe in.
But the party’s change isn’t just about politics, it’s also about policy.
On one side, the success of Obamacare and related policies — millions covered for substantially less than expected, surprisingly effective cost control for Medicare — have helped to inoculate the party against blanket assertions that government programs never work. And on the other side, the Davos Democrats who used to be a powerful force arguing against progressive policies have lost much of their credibility.
I’m referring to the kind of people — many, though not all, from Wall Street — who go to lots of international meetings where they assure each other that prosperity is all about competing in the global economy, and that this means supporting trade agreements and cutting social spending. Such people have influence in part because of their campaign contributions, but also because of the belief that they really know how the world works.
As it turns out, however, they don’t. In the 1990s the purported wise men blithely assured us that we had nothing to fear from financial deregulation; we did. After crisis struck, thanks in large part to that very deregulation, they warned us that we should be very afraid of bond investors, who would punish America for its budget deficits; they didn’t. So why believe them when they insist that we must approve an unpopular trade deal?
And this loss of credibility means that if Mrs. Clinton makes it to the White House she’ll govern very differently from the way her husband did in the 1990s.
As I said, you can describe all of this as a move to the left, but there’s more to it than that — and it’s not at all symmetric to the Republican move right. Democrats are adopting ideas that work and rejecting ideas that don’t, whereas Republicans are doing the opposite.
And no, I’m not being unfair. Obamacare, which was once a conservative idea, is working better than even supporters expected; so Democrats are committed to defending its achievements, while Republicans are more fanatical than ever in their efforts to destroy it. Modestly higher taxes on the wealthy haven’t hurt the economy, while promises that tax cuts will have magical effects have proved disastrously wrong; so Democrats have become more comfortable with a modest tax-and-spend agenda, while Republicans are more firmly in the grip of tax-cutting cranks than ever. And so on down the line.
Of course, changes in ideology matter only to the extent that they can influence policy. And while the electoral odds probably favor Mrs. Clinton, and Democrats could retake the Senate, they have very little chance of retaking the House. So changes in the Democratic Party may take a while to change America as a whole. But something important is happening, and in the long run it will matter a great deal.
Read the whole story
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THIS month, the headlines were about a Muslim man in Boston who was accused of threateningpolice officers with a knife. Last month, two Muslims attacked an anti-Islamic conference in Garland, Tex. The month before, a Muslim man was charged with plotting to drive a truck bomb onto a military installation in Kansas. If you keep up with the news, you know that a small but steady stream of American Muslims, radicalized by overseas extremists, are engaging in violence here in the United States.
But headlines can mislead. The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right-wing extremists. Just ask the police.
In a survey we conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum last year of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction; 39 percent listed extremism connected with Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist organizations. And only 3 percent identified the threat from Muslim extremists as severe, compared with 7 percent for anti-government and other forms of extremism.
The self-proclaimed Islamic State’s efforts to radicalize American Muslims, which began just after the survey ended, may have increased threat perceptions somewhat, but not by much, as we found in follow-up interviews over the past year with counterterrorism specialists at 19 law enforcement agencies. These officers, selected from urban and rural areas around the country, said that radicalization from the Middle East was a concern, but not as dangerous as radicalization among right-wing extremists.
An officer from a large metropolitan area said that “militias, neo-Nazis and sovereign citizens” are the biggest threat we face in regard to extremism. One officer explained that he ranked the right-wing threat higher because “it is an emerging threat that we don’t have as good of a grip on, even with our intelligence unit, as we do with the Al Shabab/Al Qaeda issue, which we have been dealing with for some time.” An officer on the West Coast explained that the “sovereign citizen” anti-government threat has “really taken off,” whereas terrorism by American Muslim is something “we just haven’t experienced yet.”
Last year, for example, a man who identified with the sovereign citizen movement — which claims not to recognize the authority of federal or local government — attacked a courthouse in Forsyth County, Ga., firing an assault rifle at police officers and trying to cover his approach with tear gas and smoke grenades. The suspect was killed by the police, who returned fire. In Nevada, anti-government militants reportedly walked up to and shot two police officers at a restaurant, then placed a “Don’t tread on me” flag on their bodies. An anti-government extremist in Pennsylvania was arrested on suspicion of shooting two state troopers, killing one of them, before leading authorities on a 48-day manhunt. A right-wing militant in Texas declared a “revolution” and was arrested on suspicion of attempting to rob an armored car in order to buy weapons and explosives and attack law enforcement. These individuals on the fringes of right-wing politics increasingly worry law enforcement officials.
Law enforcement agencies around the country are training their officers to recognize signs of anti-government extremism and to exercise caution during routine traffic stops, criminal investigations and other interactions with potential extremists. “The threat is real,” says the handout from one training program sponsored by the Department of Justice. Since 2000, the handout notes, 25 law enforcement officers have been killed by right-wing extremists, who share a “fear that government will confiscate firearms” and a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.”
Despite public anxiety about extremists inspired by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, the number of violent plots by such individuals has remained very low. Since 9/11, an average of nine American Muslims per year have been involved in an average of six terrorism-related plots against targets in the United States. Most were disrupted, but the 20 plots that were carried out accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years.
In contrast, right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities, according to a study by Perliger, a professor at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. The toll has increased since the study was released in 2012.
Other data sets, using different definitions of political violence, tell comparable stories. The Global Terrorism Database maintained by the Start Center at the University of Maryland includes 65 attacks in the United States associated with right-wing ideologies and 24 by Muslim extremists since 9/11. The International Security Program at the New America Foundation identifies 39 fatalities from “non-jihadist” homegrown extremists and 26 fatalities from “jihadist” extremists.
Meanwhile, terrorism of all forms has accounted for a tiny proportion of violence in America. There have been more than 215,000 murders in the United States since 9/11. For every person killed by Muslim extremists, there have been 4,300 homicides from other threats.
Public debates on terrorism focus intensely on Muslims. But this focus does not square with the low number of plots in the United States by Muslims, and it does a disservice to a minority group that suffers from increasingly hostile public opinion. As state and local police agencies remind us, right-wing, anti-government extremism is the leading source of ideological violence in America.
Read the whole story
· · ·
On Monday, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan fled arrest in South Africa and is now safely back in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. His escape is another blow to the International Criminal Court, which has been struggling to bring him to trial for six years on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide.
This could not have happened without the complicity of the South African government, which deserves international condemnation. The biggest losers are the innocent victims of Mr. Bashir’s cruel policies in Darfur who are still being denied justice
Members of the international court like South Africa are supposed to respect its warrants. The charges against Mr. Bashir include murder, acts of extermination and rape among other abuses in Darfur, where 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced since 2003.
The court has been unable to enforce its writ partly because of opposition in Sudan and partly because some African governments believe the court has unfairly focused on African leaders. The court asked the United Nations Security Council in March to help it enforce the warrant for Mr. Bashir, he apparently felt he could travel safely to Johannesburg to attend an African Union summit meeting because the South African government insisted he had immunity .
The one principled actor in this sordid affair is the South African High Court, which, on Sunday, ordered authorities to prevent Mr. Bashir from leaving the country. After Mr. Bashir’s private jet was allowed to take off from a military airport near Pretoria, the court accused the government of violating its order and the country’s Constitution. The court has also ordered the government to explain itself. Whatever its answer, the government has clearly defied the country’s highest court and should be held accountable in some way. South Africa cannot help but compromise its leadership position in Africa if it insists on reneging on its international commitments and protecting ruthless leaders accused of war crimes.
Despite his escape, Mr. Bashir’s world is shrinking. In recent years, he has been unable to travel to Indonesia, Malawi, Botswana, Turkey and Malaysia either because he fears arrest or because eaders made clear he was not welcome. Human rights groups have become increasingly vigorous in demanding his arrest. At some pont he may even have to think twice about visiting South Africa.
WASHINGTON — Emails that a longtime confidant to Hillary Rodham Clinton recently handed over to the House committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, raise new questions about whether the State Department and Mrs. Clinton have complied with a series of requests from the panel.
The emails, provided by Sidney Blumenthal, a close adviser to Mrs. Clinton, include information about weapons that were circulating in Libya and about the security situation in Benghazi in the year and a half before the attacks. The committee has asked the State Department and Mrs. Clinton several times in the past year for emails from her and other department officials about “weapons located or found in” Libya and about the decision to open and maintain a diplomatic mission in Benghazi.
The emails from Mr. Blumenthal have widened a rift between the State Department and the committee. State Department officials said that they had complied only with requests and subpoenas related directly to the attacks because the committee’s demands were too broad. The department has “provided the committee with a subset of documents that matched its request and will continue to work with them going forward,” said a spokesman, Alec Gerlach.
But the panel has called that an excuse to protect Mrs. Clinton and to slow the investigation of the attacks, which occurred on Sept. 11, 2012, and resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
It is not clear whether the State Department possesses the emails between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Blumenthal and did not hand them over. It is also possible that Mrs. Clinton never provided them to the department and deleted them off the server that housed the personal account she used exclusively when she was secretary of state.
Mr. Gerlach said that the committee had not told the department which emails Mr. Blumenthal handed over and that it would take some time for officials to determine whether the department had the emails.
In response to a subpoena from the committee, Mr. Blumenthal on Friday handed over dozens of pages of emails between him and Mrs. Clinton. The emails are similar to others between Mr. Blumenthal and Mrs. Clinton that were provided to the committee by the State Department in February.
Those included dozens of memos about Libya that Mr. Blumenthal sent to Mrs. Clinton. She forwarded many of them to her deputies to seek feedback. The deputies often said that Mr. Blumenthal’s information was false or misleading.
Mr. Blumenthal, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, is scheduled to be deposed by the committee on Tuesday. Its chairman, Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, wants to question him about where he was getting his information and why he was writing intelligence memos for Mrs. Clinton. At the time, Mr. Blumenthal was being paid by the Clinton Foundation.
In the emails he gave to the committee, there are several references to weapons in Libya. One describes how a Libyan opposition leader feared that the United States did not want to provide weapons to opposition groups because the arms could fall into the hands of Al Qaeda or other radical Islamist groups. Another email included a list of weapons said to be possessed by the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
Last year, the State Department asked Mrs. Clinton for any documents she had that may be government records. In response, she gave the department about 30,000 emails that she said related to her work. The State Department in February provided the committee with about 900 pages of Mrs. Clinton’s emails that the department said were handed over in response to the panel’s requests, which included a subpoena that the committee had sent to Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton has said that she deleted about 30,000 other emails from the account that were personal. Republicans have contended that this gave Mrs. Clinton an opportunity to cherry-pick the documents that would be considered government records.
After The New York Times first reported in March that she had exclusively used the personal email account, she said that she had asked the State Department to make her emails public. That process is likely to take months, if not years.
“The department is working diligently to publish to its public website all of the emails received from former Secretary Clinton through the FOIA process,” Mr. Gerlach said, referring to the Freedom of Information Act.
Read the whole story
· · ·
To the Editor:
Re “Concern for the Men Still Behind Bars” (news article, June 15):
A decade ago I testified before a commission convened by the Vera Institute about what makes New York’s correctional facilities more or less secure. I’d been a prisoner’s wife for 10 years then, and my husband had done part of his time at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., from which two prisoners recently escaped.
What I said in 2005 holds true today. Families are part of what makes prisons more, not less, safe. Familial engagement often stabilizes facilities because families give prisoners reason to hope and work toward release without incident. Despite the public humiliation too often served up by guards against us, families and prisoners channeled our hurt and anger into love, lest we lose some small but precious privilege: a phone call, a letter, a visit.
The way that men at Clinton are now being held basically incommunicado from their families only exacerbates tensions and lays a frame for future resentment. It punishes men beyond what the court has imposed, and it punishes their families, especially the children.
Clinton should, even now, allow families to be in touch via letters delivered in a timely fashion and phone calls home. I’d have hoped that with the focus on our failed criminal justice system, we’d have learned not to impose sweeping, reactionary punishments that do more harm than good. Just because we hold a hammer doesn’t mean that everything is a nail.
ASHA BANDELE
Brooklyn
The writer is the author of “The Prisoner’s Wife: A Memoir.”
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Two reports published this month provide fresh evidence of the hard-to-justify high prices that many hospitals charge for common procedures. The prices drive up premiums for many privately insured patients and can be ruinously expensive for those who are uninsured or inadequately insured or who go to a hospital or doctor outside their insurance network.
A study published in the June issue of Health Affairs, a policy journal, found that the 50 hospitals with the highest prices in 2012, the latest data available, charged an average of 10 times what is allowed by Medicare, which was used as a baseline for cost. Although hospitals routinely complain that Medicare pays too little, the allowable charges under Medicare are what the government, after extensive analysis, considers the cost of the procedure plus a reasonable amount to invest in hospital improvements and keep up with medical inflation.
Of the 50 highest-charging hospitals, 49 were for-profit institutions, most of them operated by big chains like Community Health Systems and Hospital Corporation of America. Under the Affordable Care Act, nonprofit hospitals are required to provide charity care or discounts to low-income people but that mandate does not apply to for-profit hospitals.
Some for-profit hospitals offer discounts voluntarily, and several states have laws or regulations requiring all hospitals, including for-profit hospitals, to offer price discounts to eligible uninsured patients. No federal law regulates what hospitals can charge; only two states, Maryland and West Virginia, have such laws. The highest-charging hospitals were in 13 states, mostly in the south. Prices varied greatly depending on the specialty. Anesthesiology and diagnostic radiology had very high markups, nursery services were much lower.
The typical response from the hospitals is that their list prices are not relevant to most patients because they don’t pay the full price. The two big government insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, pay far less than the list prices; private insurers typically bargain for discounts. Even so, high list prices raise the ceiling from which discounts are negotiated and thus drive up premiums for many privately insured patients.
High prices will hit millions of people who will remain uninsured in coming years for one reason or another despite passage of the Affordable Care Act, according to the Health Affairs study. Patients with private insurance who receive care out-of-network don’t generally benefit from their insurer’s negotiated discounts may have to pay a high proportion of the full charges.
A second report, released on June 1 by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,showed a similar pattern. For a major joint replacement, the most common reason for hospitalization, the average hospital charged more than $54,000 in 2013 while Medicare on average paid less than $15,000. In addition, the list prices that hospitals asked traditional Medicare patients to pay rose by more than 10 percent between 2011 and 2013, more than double the rate of inflation.
Market forces are often not powerful enough to restrain very high prices in areas where dominant hospitals and chains can pretty much charge what they please. The best remedy might be legislation, at the federal and state levels, to limit hospital prices that have no connection to the cost of delivering the services.
Read the whole story
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This time last year, migrants from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied minors,were streaming into the United States, creating a problem for border communities and Obama administration officials. With far fewer people reaching American soil this year, it is tempting to conclude that the crisis is ebbing.
That would be a mistake.
Thousands of desperate Central Americans fleeing violence, poverty and, in some cases, persecution, are continuing to embark on perilous journeys north. A growing share, though, are being turned back at Mexico’s southern border.
“The root causes of migration haven’t gone away,” said Maureen Meyer, an expert on migration trends who has analyzed recent data from immigration authorities in Mexico and the United States. “Things are certainly not getting any better.”
American immigration authorities along the southern border detained more than 70,400 non-Mexican migrants between October and April of this year, a majority of whom are from Central America. That represented a considerable decline from 162,700 detained during the same period 12 months earlier. Meanwhile, Mexican officials stopped nearly 93,000 Central American migrants between October and April of this year, far exceeding the 49,800 detained in the same period 12 months earlier.
As the White House scrambled to find solutions to the border crisis last year, officials urged Mexico to do more to protect its southern border. The Mexican government deployed more law enforcementofficers along the border and made it harder for migrants to travel as stowaways aboard freight trains. That has meant that fewer Central Americans who have reason to seek asylum are getting a chance to make their case. During the first nine months of 2014, the Mexican government, which has a backlogged and lengthy asylum application process, approved only 16 percent of claims filed by Central Americans.
The United States has invested heavily in security along the southwestern border over the past decade, in large part to stop unlawful immigration. The Border Patrol, which has more than 20,000 agents, doubled its manpower over the past decade. Its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, has seen its budget balloon from $5.9 billion in 2004 to more than $12 billion this year.
Yet American politicians have shown little interest in devoting resources to address the underlying reasons Central Americans continue to head north. They include gang violence, chronic poverty, high unemployment and weak government institutions. Last year, Obama administration officials studied closely where the most recent migrants were coming from in drawing up a plan to improve the region’s economies and curb violence.
The Obama administration asked Congress for $1 billion for the effort, arguing that the border crisis last year underscored the severity of problems in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the countries where most of the migrants come from.
Last week, congressional appropriators in the House of Representatives marking up the bill that allocates foreign aid set aside less than $300 million for Central America. The lion’s share of the financing was approved for security initiatives. That is extremely shortsighted.
The United States can afford to play a bigger, more constructive role in helping Central American nations. Letting the problems fester will inevitably mean that people seeking safety and a better life will keep heading north in large numbers, which will continue to drive up the cost of keeping them out.
Read the whole story
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A series of alarming data breaches over the last two years have cast doubt on our government’s competence with regard to cyber warfare. Glenn Reynolds writes about the most recent instance inUSA Today:
“Hackers linked to China have gained access to the sensitive background information submitted by intelligence and military personnel for security clearances, U.S. officials said Friday, describing a cyberbreach of federal records dramatically worse than first acknowledged.” …Aside from regular federal personnel records, which provide a royal route to blackmail, intimidation and identity theft for present and retired federal workers, the hackers also stole a trove of military and intelligence records that could be even more valuable. The forms stolen were Standard Form 86, in which employees in sensitive positions list their weaknesses: past arrests, bankruptcies, drug and alcohol problems, etc. The 120 plus pages of questions also include civil lawsuits, divorce information, Social Security numbers, and information on friends, roommates, spouses and relatives.The result? About 14 million current and former federal employees are in a state of collective panic over the loss of their information.
If the federal government can’t keep confidential sensitive information about its own employees, what reason is there to believe that it can keep secret the data it relentlessly collects about the rest of us? None.
Our government’s inability to prevent cyber hacks, or even detect them in timely fashion, is a serious national security issue:
[T]his trove of information is perfect for “fourth-generation warfare,” in which conventional strengths are bypassed in favor of targeted attacks on a stronger nation’s weaknesses. With this sort of information, China will find it much easier to recruit agents, blackmail decision-makers and — in the event of a straight-up conflict — strike directly at Americans in the government, all without launching a single missile.That’s why experts are calling this security breach a “debacle” and “potentially devastating.” Some are even calling it a “cyber Pearl Harbor.”
I don’t see how one can disagree with Glenn’s conclusion:
The United States is highly vulnerable to cyberwar, and not very good about defending against it, especially in the lame-and-inept government IT sector, which has not distinguished itself in terms of competence. (Remember HealthCare.gov?)
This is particularly true, given that the Chinese intrusion was not the first. Shortly before the presidential election in 2012, it leaked out that a foreign power had successfully penetrated the White House’s computer system, as well as that of the State Department. We were tipped off to this by a reader, and were the only news outlet to cover the incident extensively. I suspect that mainstream reporters and editors downplayed the intrusion so as not to imperil President Obama’s re-election chances. It eventually was reported that the Russians were behind that breach, and our own government never did discover it. Rather, we were informed by an ally that the White House’s computers had been penetrated.
Glenn Reynolds proposes a rather radical solution, i.e., that the government re-discover the virtues of paper records. That is an interesting idea, especially for the very most secret data. (I wonder whether there is already a practice of keeping such information off government computers.) But it surely is not practical for the government to revert to the pre-email era for any but its most sensitive secrets. That being the case, our apparent incompetence at defending against cyber warfare is extremely worrisome. I can offer only one modest suggestion: perhaps the Obama administration should spend less time waging cyber and social media warfare against Republicans and identifying Democratic voters, and more time figuring out how to defend ourselves against hostile hackers.
Read the whole story
· · ·
Part of the reason I am a bit blasé about the Office of Personnel Management hack, is if the Chinese government is indeed behind it, it’s not by any stretch the most dastardly thing they have done in cyberspace. It’s just the most recent one that we know about. It’s getting a lot of press because personally identifiable information (PII) was compromised.
The Obama administration has decided to eat its own dog food on disclosure, and is abiding by its own legislative proposal that would require companies to disclose a breach like this. OPM has disclosed what investigators reasonably believe intruders took. That information includes names, social security numbers, date and place of birth, and current and former addresses according to theOPM FAQ. It may also include job assignments, training records and benefit information.
According to the same FAQ, here’s no indication that information related to contractors or family members was compromised. That strongly suggests that, at this point, the investigation has not concluded that security clearance data or the associated investigative files were taken. Given thatOPM is following the administration’s draft data breach legislation, I fully expect that if the investigation concludes this data was lost, OPM will disclose it. Stay tuned.
This breach has crossed streams with a breach a year ago that did involve investigative files. David Sanger and Julie Hirschfeld Davis at the New York Times do a good job of untangling these two incidents in their recent article. It takes some close reading to understand that the headline, “Hackers May Have Obtained Names of Chinese With Ties to U.S. Government”, isn’t about this incident but the hack of an OPM contractor a year ago.
So, based on what we know now, this incident is a big loss of PII but it’s not that big a loss of information of intelligence value. We may find out later that the hackers also got their hands on the SF-86s—the forms you fill out when you apply for a security clearance. I am fully confident that if the investigation uncovers those losses, there will be a second statement from OPM and an offer for credit monitoring for contractors and family members.
To put all of this in perspective, here are five Chinese hacks that are worse than the breach at OPMbased on a list of significant cyber incidents compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies:
- February 2013. DHS says that between December 2011 and June 2012, cyber criminals targeted twenty-three gas pipeline companies and stole information that could be used for sabotage purposes. Forensic data suggests the probes originated in China.
Why it’s worse: Espionage is one thing, sabotage is another. This incident crosses into what might be called “preparation of the battlefield”—laying the groundwork for military operations. In this incident, the hackers targeted an entire sector. They weren’t going after business data or stealing designs. The worst you can do with PII? Gain account access. The worst you can do with this info? Blow up pipelines. - March 2015. Canadian researchers say Chinese hackers attacked U.S. hosting site GitHub. GitHub said the attack involved “a wide combination of attack vectors” and used new techniques to involve unsuspecting web users in the flood of traffic to the site. According to the researchers, the attack targeted pages for two GitHub users—GreatFire and the New York Times’ Chinese mirror site—both of which circumvent China’s firewall.
Why it’s worse: This incident gets closer to the line North Korea crossed—interfering with our right to free speech. We haven’t quite articulated a norm in this area, but theInternational Strategy for Cyberspace comes close. In this case, China targeted GitHub because it was hosting pages for organizations that circumvent its Great Firewall. It may be time we put out a Monroe Doctrine for cyberspace, which would, make clear that trying to stifle freedom of speech in this country crosses a red line. We could go further and make it official policy to bring dissidents from other countries under this veil of protection. Taking a page from the Kennedy doctrine, the United States could declare that it will pay any price, bear any burden, host any website and defeat any denial of service attack in the cause of Internet freedom. - October 2011. Networks of forty-eight companies in the chemical, defense, and other industries were penetrated for at least six months by a hacker looking for intellectual property. Some of the attacks are attributed to computers in Hebei, China.
Why it’s worse: This campaign was carried out on a massive scale. It’s information that’s of direct value and it crosses the line from espionage to downright theft by targeting intellectual property. - January 2010. Google announced that a sophisticated attack had penetrated its networks, along with the networks of more than thirty other U.S. companies. The goal of the penetrations, which Google ascribed to China, was to collect technology, gain access to activist Gmail accounts and to Google’s Gaea password management system.
Why it’s worse: Like the October 2011 incident, this campaign was done at scale and sucked many of our technical giants dry. The hackers also appear to have targeted dissidents, crossing not one but two lines (though many believe the targeting of dissidents was a red herring). - February 2012. Media reports say that Chinese hackers stole classified information about the technologies onboard F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
Why it’s worse: Under current norms, military technology is fair game but this one is devastating if true. The hack targeted classified information on one of our most advanced weapons platforms. The info could save the Chinese decades in research and development. Worse, it could be used to find vulnerabilities that could be exploited in combat—think the pilot episode of Battlestar Gallactica.
This post appears courtesy of CFR.org.
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The Central Intelligence Agency had explicit guidelines for “human experimentation” before, during and after its post-9/11 torture of terrorism detainees, the Guardian has learned, which raise new questions about the limits on internal oversight over the agency’s in-house and contracted medical research.
Sections of a previously classified CIA document, made public by the Guardian on Monday, empower the agency’s director to “approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research”. The leeway provides the director, who has never in the agency’s history been a medical doctor, with significant influence over limitations the US government sets to preserve safe, humane and ethical procedures on people.
CIA director George Tenet approved abusive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, designed by CIA contractor psychologists. He further instructed the agency’s health personnel to oversee the brutal interrogations – the beginning of years of controversy, still ongoing, about US torture as a violation of medical ethics.
But the revelation of the guidelines has prompted critics of CIA torture to question how the agency could have ever implemented what it calls “enhanced interrogation techniques” – despite apparently having rules against “research on human subjects” without their informed consent.
Indeed, despite the lurid name, doctors, human-rights workers and intelligence experts consulted by the Guardian said the agency’s human-experimentation rules were consistent with responsible medical practices. The CIA, however, redacted one of the four subsections on human experimentation.
“The more words you have, the more you can twist them, but it’s not a bad definition,” said Scott Allen, an internist and medical adviser to Physicians for Human Rights.
The agency confirmed to the Guardian that the document was still in effect during the lifespan of the controversial rendition, detention and interrogation program.
After reviewing the document, one watchdog said the timeline suggested the CIA manipulated basic definitions of human experimentation to ensure the torture program proceeded.
“Crime one was torture. The second crime was research without consent in order to say it wasn’t torture,” said Nathaniel Raymond, a former war-crimes investigator with Physicians for Human Rights and now a researcher with Harvard University’s Humanitarian Initiative.
The document containing the guidelines, dated 1987 but updated over the years and still in effect at the CIA, was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the ACLU and shared with the Guardian, which is publishing it for the first time.
The relevant section of the CIA document, “Law and Policy Governing the Conduct of Intelligence Agencies”, instructs that the agency “shall not sponsor, contract for, or conduct research on human subjects” outside of instructions on responsible and humane medical practices set for the entire US government by its Department of Health and Human Services.
A keystone of those instructions, the document notes, is the “subject’s informed consent”.
That language echoes the public, if obscure, language of Executive Order 12333 – the seminal, Reagan-era document spelling out the powers and limitations of the intelligence agencies, including rules governing surveillance by the National Security Agency. But the discretion given to the CIA director to “approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research” has not previously been public.
The entire 41-page CIA document exists to instruct the agency on what Executive Order 12333 permits and prohibits, after legislative action in the 1970s curbed intelligence powers in response to perceived abuses – including the CIA’s old practice of experimenting on human beings through programs like the infamous MK-Ultra project, which, among other things, dosed unwitting participants with LSD as an experiment.
The previously unknown section of the guidelines empower the CIA director and an advisory board on “human subject research” to “evaluate all documentation and certifications pertaining to human research sponsored by, contracted for, or conducted by the CIA”.
Experts assessing the document for the Guardian said the human-experimentation guidelines were critical to understanding the CIA’s baseline view of the limits of its medical research – limits they said the agency and its medical personnel violated during its interrogations, detentions and renditions program after 9/11.
The presence of medical personnel during brutal interrogations of men like Abu Zubaydah, they said, was difficult to reconcile with both the CIA’s internal requirement of “informed consent” on human experimentation subjects and responsible medical practices.
When Zubaydah, the first detainee known to be waterboarded in CIA custody, “became completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth”, he was revived by CIA medical personnel – known as the Office of Medical Services (OMS) – according to a CIA account in the Senate intelligence committee’s landmark torture report.
OMS staff assigned to the agency’s black sites wrote emails with subject lines like: “Re: acceptable lower ambient temperatures”.
The CIA, which does not formally concede that it tortured people, insists that the presence of medical personnel ensured its torture techniques were conducted according to medical rigor. Several instances in the Senate torture report, partially declassified six months ago, record unease among OMS staff with their role in interrogations.
But other physicians and human rights experts who have long criticized the role of medical staff in torture said the extensive notes from CIA doctors on the interrogations – as they unfolded – brought OMS into the realm of human experimentation, particularly as they helped blur the lines between providing medical aid to detainees and keeping them capable of enduring further abusive interrogations.
Doctors take oaths to guarantee they inflict no harm on their patients.
Zubaydah “seems very resistant to the water board”, an OMS official emailed in August 2002. “No useful information so far ... He did vomit a couple of times during the water board with some beans and rice. It’s been 10 hours since he ate so this is surprising and disturbing. We plan to only feed Ensure for a while now. I’m head[ing] back for another water board session.”
Doctors and intelligence experts said they could imagine legitimate, non-abusive CIA uses for human experimentation.
Steven Aftergood, a scholar of the intelligence agencies with the Federation of American Scientists, suggested that the agency might need to study polygraph effects on its agents; evaluate their performance under conditions of stress; or study physiological indicators of deception.
But all said that such examples of human experimentation would require something that the CIA never had during the interrogation program: the informed consent of its subjects.
“There is a disconnect between the requirement of this regulation and the conduct of the interrogation program,” said Aftergood. “They do not represent consistent policy.”
A director’s decision, oversight and an evolving rulebook
Months after Zubaydah’s interrogation, Tenet issued formal guidance approving brutal interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. Tenet explicitly ordered medical staff to be present – a decision carrying the effect of having them extensively document and evaluate the torture sessions.
“[A]ppropriate medical or psychological personnel must be on site during all detainee interrogations employing Enhanced Techniques,” Tenet wrote in January 2003. “In each case, the medical and psychological staff shall suspend the interrogation if they determine that significant and prolonged physical or mental injury, pain or suffering is likely to result if the interrogation is not suspended.”
In response to the Guardian’s questions about the newly disclosed document and its implications for the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program, CIA spokesperson Ryan Trapani provided the following statement:
“CIA has had internal guidelines interpreting Executive Order 1233 in place continuously from 1987 to present. While some provisions in these guidelines have been amended since September 11, 2001, none of those amendments changed provisions governing human experimentation or were made in response to the detention and interrogation program.”
Ironically, the only part of the CIA’s torture program in which agency officials claimed they were hamstrung by prohibitions on human experimentation is when they were asked by John Helgerson, their internal inspector general, if torture was effective.
Their response was framed as an example of the agency respecting its own prohibition on human experimentation. In more recent days, the CIA has used it as a cudgel against the Senate report’s extensive conclusions that the torture was ultimately worthless.
“[S]ystematic study over time of the effectiveness of the techniques would have been encumbered by a number of factors,” reads a CIA response given to Helgerson in June 2003, a point the agency reiterated in its formal response to the Senate intelligence committee. Among them: “Federal policy on the protection of human subjects.”
Harvard’s Raymond, using the agency’s acronym for its “enhanced interrogation technique” euphemism, said the CIA must have known its guidelines on human experimentation ruled out its psychologist-designed brutal interrogations.
“If they were abiding by this policy when EIT came up, they wouldn’t have been allowed to do it,” Raymond said. “Anyone in good faith would have known that was human subject research.”
Spencer Ackerman writes for The Guardian from Washington, DC.
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The ballot box could be the next target for cyber terrorists looking to hack elections some experts are warning, according to Fox News.
A Commonwealth Security and Risk Management for Virginia Information Technologies Agencyreport detailed ballot box vulnerabilities, warning that since 2002, Virginia’s system has used “flimsy security,” making voting boxes vulnerable. (RELATED: Chinese Government Won’t Deny It Was Behind Cyberattack)
Hackers with only minimal experience could play a part in corrupting the outcomes of future elections. With the wide breadth of information available on the internet, learning to alter an election’s results isn’t far out of reach for the average Joe.
Experts argue that the problems often fall into two categories. One of these problems is due to a lack of testing by manufacturers prior to installing the systems in the field. Oftentimes these companies are selling “off-the-shelf hardware,” meaning they’re more interested in turning a profit rather than providing a quality product. The second problem comes from local governments not having the resources to certify that these machines are properly safeguarded. Without the needed funds, these governments are forced to assume that the machines are secure enough to protect from cyber attacks. (RELATED: Investigations Underway, Suspected Voter Fraud In Virginia And Maryland)
Currently there are a variety of different options being discussed in order to prevent these attacks. The most cost and time effective option appears to be an “opti-scan ballot.” This machine counts votes on par with a computer scanner while also keeping the original paper ballots, so that electronic votes can be verified.
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Opinion
In the latest in a string of intrusions into U.S. agencies' high-tech systems, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM,) pictured June 5, 2015, suffered what appeared to be one of the largest breaches of information ever on government workers. The office handles employee records and security clearances Gary Cameron/Reuters
ISIS goes underground for guerilla warfare against new US “lily pad” strategy in Iraq
While the Obama administration was compiling a plan to send American advisers to work with Iraqi troops and tribesmen in “lily pad” bases near the frontlines, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant adopted a new strategy. debkafile’s exclusive military and counter-terror sources disclose that ISIS is going underground to pursue guerilla tactics on all five of its active fronts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egyptian Sinai and the Palestinian Gaza Strip. They turned to this strategy after being impressed by the effectiveness of Hamas' assault and smuggling tunnel system for terrorist assaults on Israel and Egyptian forces in Sinai.
Military experts expect to see soon small, highly-trained squads of ISIS fighters jumping out of underground lairs to strike their victims.
One Western intelligence source told debkafile: This is the end of the long columns of armed jihadis appearing on the horizon to fall on major locations, such as we last saw in mid-May when 400 US-made trucks loaded with thousands of jihadis carrying a variety of weapons captured the central Iraqi city of Ramadi. A similar column from the ISIS base in Raqqa seized the strategic Syrian heritage town of Palmyra.
According to our military experts, the new Islamic State strategy is designed to combat the American “lily pad” plan, whereby small US bases can float from point to point affording small US contingents great flexibility of movement for action.
ISIS is already moving ahead. US pilots have started complaining that as targets for air strikes on the ground ISIS forces have become few and far between.
In Syria, the Islamic State has turned to guerrilla tactics for undermining Hizballah forces on the Qalamoun mountains on the Lebanese border. They keep their heads down until Hizballah seizes territory - and then surround the new positions and pick them off. Nusra Front has joined ISIS in this sector and together they have killed more than 100 Hizballah fighters in the last ten days.
In Syria, the Islamic State has turned to guerrilla tactics for undermining Hizballah forces on the Qalamoun mountains on the Lebanese border. They keep their heads down until Hizballah seizes territory - and then surround the new positions and pick them off. Nusra Front has joined ISIS in this sector and together they have killed more than 100 Hizballah fighters in the last ten days.
Image credit: Gil C / <a href="http://Shutterstock.com" rel="nofollow">Shutterstock.com</a>
The CIA chose to declassify the OIG’s report, along with two responses from former CIA Director George Tenet, “to further contribute to the public record on these events."
Randy DeSoto June 15, 2015 at 12:58pm
The CIA declassified and released a report Friday outlining multiple “systemic problems” within the agency before 9/11.
Some of the failures outlined in the nearly 500-page report, prepared by the CIA’s Inspector General (OIG) in 2005 include: missing the clear signs of an impending attack, not recognizing the potential of using aircraft as weapons, inadequate watchlisting of potential terrorists, problems with information sharing within the CIA and among the non-intelligence communities within the government, and the lack of gathering of human intelligence from the field.
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Overall, the government watchdog found that the CIA and its officers “did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner.”
The report in many aspects reached the same conclusions as the 9/11 Commission Report (2004), which was available to the public. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees also prepared aJoint Inquiry (2002) of the performance of the U.S. intelligence communities, which the OIG was asked to review and assess.
The CIA chose to declassify the OIG’s report, along with two responses from former CIA Director George Tenet, “to further contribute to the public record on these events.”
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“The events of 9/11 will be forever seared into the memories of all Americans who bore witness to the single greatest tragedy to befall our homeland in recent history,” the CIA said. “The documents released today reflect differing views formed roughly a decade ago within CIA about the Agency’s performance prior to 9/11.”
In a June 2005 letter, Tenet called the OIG’s analysis “nonsense,” “simply in error,” “devoid of any information” from senior policy makers, and said that it “ignores” key facts, The Hill noted.
“Your report does not fairly or accurately portray my actions, or the heroic work of the men and women of the Intelligence Community,” he claimed. “It is simply not fair to make judgments about my performance without having a complete understanding of the facts.”
In the final section of the report, entitled “Issues Related to Saudi Arabia,” the OIG finds that “The team encountered no evidence that the Saudi government knowingly and willingly supported al Qaeda terrorists.” Most of this 30-page section is redacted.
Vice News reports: “Last October, French-born al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui, the suspected 20th 9/11 hijacker, made an explosive claim. He told lawyers for families of 9/11 victims suing the Saudi government that he had met with high-ranking members of the royal family who financed al Qaeda in the 1990s, including Saudi Arabia’s then intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, as well as longtime ambassador to the US Prince Bandar Bin Sulan, and Prince Salman, who became king earlier this year.”
The Saudi Embassy released a statement in February addressing Moussaoui’s claims:
There is no evidence to support Zacarias Moussaoui’s claim. The September 11 attack has been the most intensely investigated crime in history and the findings show no involvement by the Saudi government or Saudi officials. As confirmed by the 9/11 Commission, there is “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization [Al-Qaeda].”Moussaoui is a deranged criminal whose own lawyers presented evidence that he was mentally incompetent. His words have no credibility.His goal in making these statements only serves to get attention for himself and try to do what he could not do through acts of terrorism – to undermine Saudi-U.S. relations.
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The American Civil Liberties Union published a batch of documents obtained from the CIA on how it complies with and understands Executive Order 12333, an executive order issued by President Ronald Reagan which mandates the powers and responsibilities of US intelligence agencies. The documents strongly suggest that the agency engages in an extensive amount of domestic spying operations that are largely kept secret from the American people.
Of the 49 documents released, many of them are policy briefings on what the CIA can and cannot collect on US persons when conducting spying operations. They largely have to do with the rules that the agency is expected to follow and how the agency goes about complying with them. However, many of the documents are highly censored.
The CIA claims much of the information in the documents involves “classified secret matters or national defense or foreign policy.” It also believes that the National Security Act partly exempts the agency from the Freedom of Information Act, which is why many of the documents have huge chunks of information missing.
What can be gleaned from the documents is that the agency has a secret definition of “monitoring” as it relates to surveillance of US persons that the public is not allowed to know:
The definition of “electronic surveillance” in regards to US persons is partially censored too, however, the CIA will let the public know that “electronic surveillance” involves the “acquisition of a non-public communication by electronic means without the consent of any party to the communication or, in the case of a non-electronic communication, without the consent of a person who is visibly present at the place of communication.”
Part of the definition for “unconsented physical searches,” which requires Attorney General approval, is censored.
Details from a “memorandum of understanding” [PDF] between the FBI and CIA provides a glimpse at how the two agencies coordinate spying activities:
Another document, “CIA and EO 12333: Overview for the ICIG Boston Review Forum” [PDF], dated June 2013, outlines detailed talking points, which includes some details on the loopholes the agency might be able to use to obtain information on US citizens.
The CIA is allowed to “provide specialized equipment and technical knowledge to assist another department or agency in the conduct by that department or agency of lawful and authorized electronic surveillance in the United States.”
There are apparently times when the CIA may operate “monitoring devices” in the US:
However, there are details related to when those “monitoring devices” may be used that are classified.
There seems to be an array of reasons to justify retaining or hanging on to information about US persons if the CIA collects or “inadvertently” happens to get their hands on such data.
Of particular note is the part of that policy that says the data may be retained if it is “information needed to protect the safety of persons or organizations; information needed to protect foreign intelligence or counterintelligence sources [including informants] and methods from unauthorized disclosure; information concerning personnel, physical, or communications security; information acquired by overhead reconnaissance [FBI spy planes?]; information that may indicate involvement in activities that may violate federal, state, local or foreign laws; or information necessary for administrative purposes.” [Emphasis added.]
The same document says the CIA may share any data on US persons with other employees in the agency in order to help them figure out if the information is relevant to “mission responsibilities” and can be “lawfully retained.” It can even be shared with people outside the CIA to help determine if the information was collected lawfully and relates to missions the CIA is authorized to conduct.
Identity information is typically supposed to not be maintained with the data. But the CIA may keep a US person’s identifying information if it is “reasonably believed” it “may become necessary” to understanding or assessing the information.
Here’s a briefing slide that indicates spying on US persons can be done to figure out if a person may be suitable to become an informant for the CIA (see bottom bullet point):
To what extent is the CIA spying on American Muslims, who they believe should be recruited to serve their agenda in overseas missions? How is the FBI cooperating with the CIA to provide names of potential informants for missions?
It is highly intrusive activity to enter the live of someone for the purpose of manipulating them into being part of a counterterrorism operation. If they do not comply, often there may be coercive measures or a sting operation that follows. This effectively is retaliation for not helping the government.
From another briefing, this shows how information may be shared with agencies outside of the CIA:
The CIA has an arrangement with the Drug Enforcement Agency, but the document describing the coordination between the two agencies as it relates to US persons is almost entirely censored.
The agency functions in a manner where it will collect first and ask questions about the data later. Specifically, if there is a “risk of intelligence loss,” the agent or analyst collects the information and then whether to keep the information or not may be decided later.
Just about all of the documents between the CIA and the oversight intelligence committees in Congress are entirely censored. There is not a lot to be gleaned in regards to oversight, but there is a copy of an August 2002 report from the agency’s inspector general, which indicates there were some significant issues between 1995 and 2000.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), which a group of hawkish Republicans aretrying to gut, is in the midst of a review of CIA operations under Executive Order 12333 (in addition to NSA operations).
What is at issue here is how the CIA understands policies and laws governing and prohibiting domestic surveillance. There are certain details the agency should not be able to keep secret from the public, especially since it has a rich history of abusing its authority and violating the rights of citizens.
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Former CIA officer speaks out about Bergdahl desertion claim
EXCLUSIVE: Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was apparently “high” with a small group of Afghan soldiers when they were picked up by nomads in 2009, according to a former CIA operative who was running a network of informants on the ground.
The information brings some additional detail to the otherwise murky picture of the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance and capture, five years before the Obama administration traded five Guantanamo prisoners for Bergdahl’s freedom. The former CIA operative told Fox News Bergdahl was captured along with others, and sold to the Haqqani terrorist network in Pakistan within four days.
"The call came in and what it said was they had just broken out the message that an American soldier along with two or three Afghan soldiers had been captured or taken by a group of nomads,"Duane 'Dewey' Clarridge told Fox News, speaking for the first time publicly about the incident.
He added that the call said, “they were using the Pashto ‘diwana,’ which in this case meant high on hashish."
At the height of the Afghan war, Clarridge says he set up a network of informants to secure the release of a western journalist. Sometime after midnight, on June 30, 2009, the network came across surprising information about this other case.
Initially, Clarridge -- a 30-year veteran of the CIA who was involved in Iran-Contra -- said he had no idea who the soldier was until his informants reported that Army search teams were scouring the Afghan villages, calling out an unusual name.
"The patrols were moving around aggressively and were shouting ‘Bowe Bowe,’ and the guys down-range wanted to know, what was Bowe?” Clarridge explained. “It was at that point, we were told that the soldier was Bowe Bergdahl."
The unclassified information -- that Bergdahl was apparently high, and held by Afghan nomads, before being sold to the Haqqani terrorist network across the border in Pakistan -- was passed through the proper intelligence channels and pushed forward into Afghanistan.
Asked whether the revelations factored into the White House's decision to swap Bergdahl for the Taliban Five, there was no denial.
"There is an ongoing military justice inquiry into the circumstances of his disappearance, and I don't want to say anything about that ongoing investigation that may in any way interfere,"White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Retired Lt. Gen. David Fridovich, a former senior special operations commander who watched events unfold in 2009, told Fox News the information was deemed "credible" and "highly useful."
Within four days of the initial on-the-ground intelligence reporting, Bergdahl had apparently been sold to the Haqqani terrorist network, and was well beyond U.S. government reach in Pakistan.
"[Operatives on the ground] had an opinion that the nomads would try and sell the soldiers probably to the Haqqanis. ... I can't say precisely, but I think it was certainly within four days and maybe less," Clarridge said, though he added the opinion was not shared by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies, and the dangerous village-to-village search continued.The death of six American soldiers at that time is publicly linked to the Bergdahl search.
Bergdahl's military hearing in Texas for alleged desertion was pushed back until September. His lawyer Eugene Fidell declined to answer questions from Fox News for a second time.
Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.
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John Ellis Bush, better known as Jeb, entered the 2016 presidential race as expected on Monday in Miami, Florida, where he forged his own political career as a successful businessman and then two-time governor of the key battleground state. Like Hillary Clinton two days before him, Bush stressed his personal accomplishments rather than the family dynasty that launched him into the political spotlight, and notably avoided focusing on foreign policy, a fraught subject for the brother and son of two war-time presidents.
Bush sounded an optimistic note, promoting himself as the candidate of “Today and Tomorrow,” his campaign’s new slogan. But the baggage of his brother and father seemed to weigh on him. “Our country is on a very bad course,” he said. “The question for me is: What am I going to do about it? And I have decided. I am a candidate for president of the United States.” Amid cheers and off-script, he exhaled with an audible “whoo” that communicated grim resignation, a Here we go.
The question is inevitable: how will he distance himself from his brother’s unpopular foreign policy without repudiating his own family? Yet Bush has struggled to answer it.
On Monday, he quipped, “In this country of ours, the most improbable things can happen. Take that from a guy who met his first president on the day he was born, and his second on the day he was brought home from the hospital.” But in his first foreign policy speech as a prospective 2016 candidate in February, he emphasized, “For the record, one more time, I love my father and my brother. But I am my own man.”
Still, Bush has plumbed the deep donor network of his family and surrounded himself with his father and brother’s neocon advisors. For several days last month, he fumbled to answer whether he would’ve also invaded Iraq. He first told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, “I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody.”
Last week, Bush travelled to Germany, Poland and Estonia, checking off the campaign rite of passage of a trip abroad to burnish security credentials in Europe. He spent much of his trip shaking his first at Vladimir Putin. “Who can doubt that Russia will do what it pleases if its aggression goes unanswered?” he said. He called for NATO to consider permanently stationing troops in Poland and Eastern Europe, a proposal members have previously rejected. Over the weekend, officials told theNew York Times that the administration is considering stationing enough heavy military equipment in the region to support as many as 5,000 American troops.
Though Bush’s trip received mixed reviews, it ultimately was largely deemed a success compared to the international trips of rivals such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Bush’s campaign staff emphasized that despite more than a decade between his last run and little national security experience, he’s made 89 trips to 22 countries since leaving the governor’s office. Spokesman Tim Miller told Defense One, “Governor Bush [is] the type of person not to shirk from issues.”
Bush looked to be losing steam going into his announcement, after shakeups at the top of his campaign staff, reports that he’ll fall short of his much-touted $100 million fundraising benchmark by the end of this month, and a recent surge in polls by former protégé Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is positioning himself as commander-in-chief material with his short national security resume.
Though Rubio sent out a welcome note to Bush ahead of his afternoon speech, calling him a friend, the governor had pointed remarks for his rival GOP candidates hailing from the Senate.
“There’s no passing off responsibility when you’re a governor, no blending into the legislative crowd or filing an amendment and calling that success,” Bush said. “As our whole nation has learned since 2008, executive experience is another term for preparation, and there is no substitute for that.”
Bush’s announcement came two days after Hillary Clinton, another heir to a political dynasty, similarly presented herself as a fighter. Bush lost his first run for governor in 1994 but came back to win it in 1998. Clinton lost to then-Sen. Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic nomination, but went on to serve as his first secretary of state. Now she is the presumptive Democratic nominee. Yet she too just touched on foreign policy and national security in her relaunch speech.
Rather than focus on Obama like much of the GOP field, Bush on Monday directed much of his criticism at Clinton. He said Democrats plan a “no-change election” and “to slog on with the same agenda under another name.”
“From the beginning, our president and his foreign-policy team have been so eager to be the history makers that they have failed to be the peacemakers,” Bush continued. “With their phone-it-in foreign policy, the Obama-Clinton-Kerry team is leaving a legacy of crises uncontained, violence unopposed, enemies unnamed, friends undefended, and alliances unraveling.”
Though he pledged in March not to “fake anger to placate people’s angst,” he placed the Islamic State’s brutal rise on the White House doorstep. “Americans don’t need lectures on the Middle Ages when we are dealing abroad with modern horrors committed by fanatics,” he said.
And Bush, like virtually every speech by every candidate, including Clinton, checked the boxes of increasing defense spending, veterans’ care, and Israeli reassurances. “This supposedly risk-averse administration is also running us straight in the direction of the greatest risk of all – military inferiority,” he said. “It will go on automatically until a president steps in to rebuild our armed forces and take care of our troops and our veterans.”
Defense spending skyrocketed with the wars President George W. Bush started in Iraq and Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, and military personnel costs have ballooned. Military officials want to bring those costs down and have asked Congress to make reforms to do so. Even with the budget caps enacted by Congress, Obama still spends more on the military than Bush did during much of his administration, Todd Harrison, senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told Politifact.
Such statements cater to current Republican voter priorities. An early May NBC News/WSJ poll found that twice as many Republicans as Democrats (27 percent versus 13 percent) view terrorism and national security as the most important issues in the 2016 election.
“I know that there are good people running for president. Quite a few, in fact,” Bush joked. “And not a one of us deserves the job by right of resume, party, seniority, family, or family narrative. It’s nobody’s turn. It’s everybody’s test, and it’s wide open – exactly as a contest for president should be.”
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Former CIA Head Hayden: How China Might Recruit Spies
6/15/2015 9:46PMAt the Wall Street Journal's CFO Conference, former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden described how millions of personnel records stolen by suspected Chinese hackers could help China recruit spies. Photo: Paul Morse
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the Department of Defense confirmed that long-wanted Mokhtar Belmokhtar was the target of a U.S. airstrike in Libya.
A US airstrike in Libya over the weekend reportedly killed Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the mastermind of a 2013 attack on an Algerian gas plant that left 38 hostages dead.
Libya’s internationally recognized government said in a statement that Mr. Belmokhtar and “a number” of Libyan terrorists were killed in the airstrike on a farmhouse in the city of Ajdabiya.
While Pentagon officials said Belmokhtar had been targeted, they added that forensic proof is needed to confirm his death. Given the likely extent of the airstrike damage, that determination could take time, according to The New York Times, unless Belmokhtar’s own group issues a statement of mourning.
As a leader of jihadis across North Africa, Belmokhtar was dubbed "The Uncatchable" by the French military, Reuters reports. He had been reported as successfully killed several previous times, including in 2013 when he was believed to have died while fighting in Mali.
If confirmed, his death would be a major counterterrorism victory for the US. But the report of his demise may be no different than the previous reports according to The Associated Press:
An Islamist with ties to Libyan militants said the airstrikes missed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, instead killing four members of a Libyan extremist group the U.S. has linked to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans …The Islamist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals in restive Libya, told The Associated Press early Monday that Belmokhtar wasn’t at the site of the U.S. airstrike.
Born in Algeria, Belmokhtar became a former senior figure in Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). But he then left to form his own militia. The US filed terrorism charges against him in 2013 after the attack on the Amenas gas plant in Algeria. Three Americans were among the 38 hostages killed at the plant, which was partially operated by BP and Norway's Statoil.
The AP reports that Belmokhtar essentially “built a bridge between AQIM and the underworld.” He created a system where outlaws could network and support each other and recruit young people.
The Times writes that Belmokhtar was considered the last surviving well-known leader among his generation of jihadists in North Africa – and one of the most feared.
Mr. Belmokhtar’s success in maneuvering largely unhindered for years in the deserts of northern Mali and southern Algeria and Libya was a result of his masterful integration into the local populations. He married a woman from Timbuktu, Mali; spoke the local dialects; and shared some of his rich takings from more than a decade of kidnapping Westerners …Among his militant names is Laaouar, or the One-Eyed, because it is said he may have lost an eye while fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, where he learned combat skills. A major cigarette trafficker, he is also known as Marlboro Man.
The weekend airstrike comes amid ongoing fighting between Al Qaeda-linked militants and those tied to the self-declared Islamic State in eastern Libya. For his part, Belmokhtar has remained loyal to Al Qaeda, denouncing former members who defected to IS.
The attack marked the first time the US military has carried out any kind of airstrike in Libya since 2011, when NATO launched an air campaign to help oust former dictator Muammar Qaddafi. The Libyan government, which is based in the east of the country, said in its statement that the attack was carried out in consultation with it.
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Washington (CNN)"Don't party and tell," might be the new White House motto.
Administration officials are remaining tight-lipped on a private party featuring Prince and Stevie Wonder at the White House over the weekend. During Monday's daily briefing, reporters drilled Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, for details on the star-studded event. It was not included in the President's public schedule but was documented by guests on social media.
"The President and first lady did hold a private party at the White House over the weekend, but given the private nature of that event, I don't have a lot of details to discuss from here," Earnest said.
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson let the public live vicariously through him -- posting a picture with his arms around his on-again-off-again singer girlfriend Ciara to Instagram. Wilson captioned the photo "Dancing at The @WhiteHouse to Prince and Stevie Wonder with my lady Ciara. Thanks Mr. President and First Lady!"
According to Page Six of the New York Post, 500 guests were in attendance at the private Saturday night concert, including CEOs and an assemblage of movie and TV stars; however, the White House said it does not anticipate releasing that sure-to-be-glamorous guest list at any point.
The White House made clear that the Obamas paid for the party out of their own pocket.
"The President and the first lady reserve the right to hold private parties at the White House, and they did it on their own dime," Earnest said. He added that "most people across the country would acknowledge" that the Obamas should be able to "open their home up to guests for a private party on a Saturday night."
And open up their home they did -- hosting what director/screen writer and party-goer Ava DuVernay called one of the "best house parties" she had ever been to hands down.
Race and violent crime in America
Jun. 15, 2015 - 6:21 - Civil Rights leader Michael Meyers on criminality and the African American community
Iraq’s former prime minister is playing a critical, backroom role in undermining the Obama administration’s push for a more inclusive government in Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials say, warning that Shiite hard-liner Nouri al-Maliki is still pulling the strings behind the scenes in a bid to return to power in the years ahead.
The White House and State Department have put their weight behind Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, seen as a more moderate Shiite politician compared with the uncooperative and sectarian Mr. al-Maliki. Mr. al-Abadi came to power last year on a promise to usher in a “Sunni Awakening 2.0” against the jihadi Islamic State group, reversing Mr. al-Maliki’s strong Shiite favoritism.
But little visible progress has been made toward that goal over the past year, in large part because of internal political resistance from Mr. al-Maliki, the top player in Iraq’s Shiite Islamic Dawa Party. Mr. al-Maliki remains a part of the government as vice president after the Obama administrationpressured him to resign as prime minister in September.
At the time, administration officials, including President Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry, openly blamed Mr. al-Maliki for the rise in Iraq of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL. They said Mr. al-Maliki’s aggressively pro-Shiite policies had alienated the minority Iraqi Sunni population and created fertile ground for the extremists to flourish.
Although many in Washington hoped Mr. al-Maliki would fade away, Khalid Mufriji, a Sunni who chairs the Iraqi parliament’s Committee on Regions and Provinces, said, “Maliki is still controlling a lot of the power.”
Mr. Mufriji said many Sunnis in parliament are eager to work with Mr. al-Abadi but believe the prime minister’s hands are tied. He said Mr. al-Maliki continues to hold significantly more influence over the coalition of Shiite parties that effectively control the government.
“Abadi cannot get out of the circle of what they decide,” Mr. Mufriji said in an interview with The Washington Times.
The Obama administration continues to publicly back Mr. al-Abadi. But in private, several high-level U.S. officials from the intelligence community and the administration echoed Mr. Mufriji’s assertions and voiced frustration that Mr. al-Maliki is trying to play the spoiler.
Those officials, who spoke anonymously with The Times, said a big part of the problem is that Mr. al-Maliki — not Mr. al-Abadi — holds the most sway over Shiite militias leading the fight against the Islamic State, despite a desire by many Sunni tribes in the nation to take up arms against the extremists. Iraq’s national army, all sides agree, has not performed well in direct engagements with Islamic State fighters.
Powerful militias
The Shiite militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, came to the fore during Mr. al-Maliki’s tenure as prime minister, a reality that one U.S. official said “underscores his connections to the militias.”
The official suggested that Mr. al-Maliki also has considerably closer ties than Mr. al-Abadi to the Shiite government in Iran — precisely because of his influence over the militias and the Shiite political bloc in Baghdad. Mr. al-Maliki spent years in exile in Iran as a dissident fighting the regime of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and 1990s.
“His legacy of pushing sectarian policies that favored Shia hard-liners lends him credence with those unhappy with Baghdad’s initiatives,” the official said.
The Obama administration’s posture is to avoid publicly criticizing Mr. al-Maliki’s influence — mostly because he may re-emerge as the most powerful Shiite candidate when Iraqis return to the polls in 2018. Speaking out against Mr. al-Maliki may make future relations more difficult.
White House critics argue that President Obama’s eagerness to reach a nuclear deal with Iran has prompted the administration to turn a blind eye to Iran’s meddling in Iraq — and to Mr. al-Maliki’s baleful influence on Baghdad’s political dynamic. Administration officials strongly reject these assertions.
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President Obama’s stunning loss in a showdown trade vote last week didn’t just complicate his relations with fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill.
American credibility with its Asian-Pacific trading partners could also be on the line as allies and adversaries around the world reflect on Mr. Obama’s loss and what it says about his economic clout for his remaining time in the White House.
The House vote not to give the president “fast-track” authority to negotiate trade deals has jump-started concerns among Pacific Rim countries that the president’s own party could force the downfall of the biggest free trade deal in history if not passed during a re-vote set for Tuesday night, analysts said.
“Lack of approval could be taken as a lack of commitment by the United States to free trade,” said Barbara Kotschwar, a research fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “I think it’s important the U.S. is seen as engaging as the rest of the world is waiting to see what happens.”
Singapore Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam was even more blunt, saying at an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “If you don’t do this deal, what are your levers of power?”
“The choice is a very stark one: Do you want to be part of the region, or do you want to be out of the region? And if you are out of the region, your only lever to shape the architecture, to influence events, is the Seventh Fleet and that’s not the lever you want to use,” Mr. Shanmugam said.
Unless Mr. Obama can change some minds in Congress, he risks seeing both his 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and an equally ambitious Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union bog down, deals meant to reassert American economic primacy and diminish China’s rising push as an economic counterweight and rival center of economic gravity in Asia.
A rejection of the deal further muddied Mr. Obama’s foreign policy plans, but some analysts predicted it will likely only be a temporary setback to agreements that have been years in the making.
“It’s not the end of Obama’s legacy,” said Jason Marczak, deputy director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council. “Even if the trade fails again this week, there’s still a door open for some time for a deal with the Senate to be put back to the House.”
“Most TPP countries already have a free-trade agreement with us. [They] know full well how difficult it can be to get something passed through Congress,” he added.
Even some of America’s top trading partners say they remain optimistic of an eventual deal, one that proponents say would open up foreign markets to American goods, lower tariffs, prevent currency manipulation and set restrictions to protect patents and other intellectual properties.
“The fastest schedule for reaching a broad agreement at the ministerial level has become more difficult,” Japan’s Economy Minister Akira Amari said following the vote, “but we don’t need to be too pessimistic.”
Added Andrew Robb, Australia’s trade minister, “I remain hopeful the relevant legislation will ultimately pass, which would provide the necessary momentum to conclude negotiations. There is always a lot of cut and thrust in these things and politics being played out.”
But U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman reportedly spent much of the weekend calling fellow trade ministers in Asia to calm nerves and assure them of the Obama administration’s support for open trade, the Financial Times reported.
The Obama administration hoped to nail down a final agreement in 2012, but negotiations suffered from controversy surrounding the secrecy of the terms of the agreement and from attacks by labor unions and environmentalists who argued that it would cost U.S. jobs, degrade labor and environmental regulations, and help corporations while doing little for American workers.
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Renewed fighting in Ukraine has in turn renewed calls to arm Ukraine, including in the United States Congress. Yet there is an enormous and largely unacknowledged flaw in the argument to provide the Kiev government with lethal weapons.
Advocates of this approach assert that sending anti-tank missiles, mortars and other arms to Ukraine will help Ukrainian forces to kill more of the Russian troops fighting alongside separatist forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine. Since Russian president Vladimir Putin and other senior officials have repeatedly denied that Russian soldiers are in the country, they say, he must be trying to hide Moscow’s involvement from the Russian people because he fears political opposition from soldiers’ mothers (a significant political constraint during the first war in Chechnya, not to mention in Afghanistan a decade earlier) and others. If we can only kill enough of Putin’s troops, they continue, Putin will no longer be able to conceal the scale of Russia’s engagement in the conflict and will face public pressure to limit it or even to withdraw.
While this might appear logical on its face, this line of thinking ignores a fundamental reality of the politics of war-fighting that Americans should well understand from their own experiences: how many soldiers are dying in combat is considerably less important than why they are doing it.
Think about this. Most Americans supported the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq when the goals were to oust the Taliban in the former case, and to prevent Iraq from using (mostly nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to oust Saddam Hussein in the latter. Had those initial goals taken longer to achieve, and had U.S. troops discovered significant WMD stockpiles following some of their early victories in Iraq, the American people may well have tolerated higher casualties to achieve these objectives. Conversely, rising casualties alone did not drive opposition to these wars; Americans turned against them because of the combination of the casualties with the evolution of U.S. aims in each country toward costly and open-ended nation building that few supported, particularly after the 2008 financial crisis.
Americans easily grasp these “facts of life” in their own country. Thus, they—and their elected (in Congress) and self-appointed (in the media) representatives—expect presidents who want to go to war or continue or escalate in lasting conflicts to make a clear and compelling case for doing so. Presidents, in turn, seek to make the most powerful arguments they can and to sell them in major speeches, conversations and briefings with Congressional leaders, and interviews.
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When the U.S. government played a greater role in American media during World War II, Washington went so far as to produce a series of propaganda films to explain “why we fight,” among other steps.
How does this relate to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine? The answer is simple. If the United States arms Ukraine—and announces that the policy is an explicit effort to kill more Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine—its impact on Russian public opinion is likely to be the opposite of what advocates say they intend. Indeed, it could transform the war there from a popular but essentially optional effort to help separatist forces and civilians in eastern Ukraine into a necessary conflict against a hostile American proxy. At the same time, for most Russians, it will probably confirm their government’s overheated rhetoric about U.S. ambitions in Ukraine and alleged American plans to force Russia to its knees or overthrow its government. Taken together, these shifts might increase Russians’ tolerance of battlefield deaths and injuries rather more rapidly than new U.S. arms will (or can) increase Russian casualties.
Moreover, the idea that more Russian deaths in Ukraine will “expose” Moscow’s role in the fighting is ludicrous. While Vladimir Putin and others may deny that Russian troops are in Ukraine in official meetings and statements, commentators on government-controlled television channels discuss Russia’s assistance to the separatists extensively. If the Kremlin were truly trying to conceal its participation, surely the Russian government would start by limiting this. On the contrary, Moscow’s denials are a diplomatic position in communicating with foreign audiences—a polite fiction—and are widely understood as such inside the country.
From this perspective, forcing Russia to publicly acknowledge its support for the separatists may not be such a good idea, especially if Washington pursues this in tandem with an effort to increase Russian casualties. In that environment, Vladimir Putin may find it not only politically easier, but even politically important to escalate Russia’s intervention. In fact, Russia’s government could use American arms supplies to justify cross-border airstrikes and/or much larger ground deployments. Kiev is in a poor position to defend itself in anything that approaches a real war with Russia.
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One (admittedly American-centric) history of the Cold War is that Democrats did stupid sh*t and Republicans cleaned up after them. Whether it was Korea, Vietnam or Jimmy Carter, Republican administrations frequently found themselves fixing the messes of their Democratic predecessors.
The pattern of Democrats doing stupid stuff and Republicans cleaning up after them has largely been absent in the post-Cold War era. This may be changing.
In his new book, The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today, Colin Dueck not only argues that Obama’s foreign policy has been a disaster for the United States, but also outlines a Republican grand strategy to fix America’s foreign affairs.
An associate professor of political science at George Mason University, Dueck is well-qualified to discuss these topics. His first book, Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy, explored how America’s liberal principles have combined with international pressures to push the country to adopt certain grand strategies at crucial historical turning points. Dueck’s second book, Hard Line: The Republican Party and U.S. Foreign Policy since World War II,traces the evolution (and especially the continuities) in Republican foreign policy from Robert Taft to George W. Bush.
The Obama Doctrine is almost two books in one. In the first half, Dueck puts forth a relentless critique of Obama’s foreign policy, the gist of which he has outlined on The National Interest before. As Dueck writes in The Obama Doctrine, the “most distinctive and consistent emphasis” of Obama’s foreign policy “is on U.S. retrenchment and international accommodation in order to focus on progressive policy legacies at home.”
This strategy, Dueck contends, has largely prevented global affairs from impeding on Obama’s ability to implement his liberal domestic agenda, which he argues president has been fairly successful at passing. Moreover, he acknowledges that Obama has had some notable successes abroad, including killing bin Laden and using drone strikes to keep al-Qaeda on the run.
Nonetheless, Dueck argues that Obama’s foreign policy successes have been “more modest, uneven, and episodic” than the president would have you believe. He also points out that most of these successes have come “by embracing more hard-line strategies of deterrence, containment, or even (in the case of al-Qaeda) rollback.”
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In general, Dueck concludes that Obama’s foreign policy has been a failure, the consequences of which America is only beginning to feel. “In reality,” he writes, “Obama’s primary and overarching emphasis on strategic retrenchment, international accommodation, and domestic priorities has allowed multiple security threats to germinate overseas in ways that already hold very dangerous consequences for American interests.”
Dueck sees little reason to believe that Obama will begin correcting his foreign policy mistakes during his remaining years in office. For one thing, as noted above, one of the central objectives of the Obama doctrine was to prevent international affairs from encroaching on the president’s ability to advance his progressive domestic policies. “From his particular perspective [then], the Obama doctrine has been a striking success.”
More to the point, Dueck notes that “political psychology and historical example” have both shown that “most presidents tend to keep operating on inbuilt policy assumptions, even when contrary evidence piles up.” This tendency is particularly prevalent in “highly educated, self-confident, and intelligent people with certain core ideological convictions—a description that certainly fits the current president.” Obama, Dueck concludes, “is therefore particularly unlikely to admit or even perceive that a foreign policy based upon faulty international assumptions is failing or has failed.”
It will thus be up to Obama’s successor to save U.S. foreign policy. The second part of The Obama Doctrine provides a blueprint for how a Republican administration can go about doing this.
Dueck begins the second part of The Obama Doctrine by sizing up the contemporary foreign policy landscape within the Republican Party. While maintaining that “Republicans are engaged in a healthy internal debate over some alternative foreign policy approaches, which is exactly what you would expect of a party out of power,” Dueck nonetheless concedes that “Republicans are more evenly divided over foreign policy issues today than at any time since the early 1950s.”
Dueck maps out three major foreign policy camps within the Republican Party. The first camp is the “conservative anti-interventionists” led by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who “are a significant political force and faction in relation to foreign policy issues within the Republican Party.” While Dueck believes that Paul is a serious presidential contender, and anti-interventionism is growing especially among the grassroots, he usefully points out that anti-interventionism is not even widely held among members of the Tea Party, much less the Republican Party as a whole.
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Brother-in-law of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accuses fellow officials of embezzling state funds
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Jeb Bush makes presidential pitch: 'We will take command of our future again' by Dan Roberts and Richard Luscombe in Miami
The former Florida governor formally announces his presidential campaign in Miami with re-invention of his brother’s ‘compassionate conservatism’
Jeb Bush sought to cast himself as a political outsider during his first big speech as a presidential candidate on Monday, drawing on his record as governor of Florida to counter criticism that he represents the establishment wing of the Republican party.
“We will take Washington – the static capital of this dynamic country – out of the business of causing problems,” Bush was expected to say as he took to the stage in a college sports hall in Miami.
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Jeb Bush has formally launched his 2016 White House bid, telling supporters in Miami he is the candidate to steer America back from its "very bad course".
 Voice of America |
House Majority Leader Urges Congress to Pass Trade Bill
Voice of America U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the House needs to pass legislation giving President Barack Obama "fast-track" authority to negotiate foreign trade deals, but acknowledged it will be difficult to do. McCarthy, a Republican ... and more » |
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- Former Florida governor will launch campaign from Miami
- Bush faces voters’ concerns over family name
- See Jeb Bush’s campaign résumé – as seen by the Guardian
“Leaders have to think big and we have a tax code filled with small-time thinking.”
“With the IRS, EPA and the entire bureaucracy have done with overregulation we can undo with acts of Congress and order of the president.”
He then talks about his record as governor of Florida.
“We made Florida number one in job creation and number one in small business creation: 1.3 million new jobs, 4.4% growth, higher family income, eight balanced budgets, and tax cuts eight years in a row that saved our people and businesses $19 billion.
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Foreign ownership of US Treasury securities drops to $6.14 trillion in April
Published on Jun 15, 2015
Matt McMullen is developing a sex robot that uses technology to create the illusion of sentience. But is it enough to generate real emotions in its user?
Matt McMullen is developing a sex robot that uses technology to create the illusion of sentience. But is it enough to generate real emotions in its user?
Produced by: Zackary Canepari, Drea Cooper and Emma Cott
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Russia's Foreign Ministry said on June 15 that it hoped a reported U.S. plan to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia's border would not go ahead.
Prosecutor says ex-South Carolina police chief killed unarmed man over trumped-up warrant
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BEIRUT (AP) -- U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters captured large sections of a strategic town on the Syria-Turkish border on Monday, dealing the biggest setback yet to the Islamic State group, which lost a key supply line for their nearby self-proclaimed capital....
How the Dow Jones industrial average and other major indexes fared on Monday
A British newspaper claims Chinese and Russian spy agencies have decoded secret documents about Western intelligence operations, leaked by Edward Snowden. The former U.S. national security contractor stole and leaked details of the United States and its allies’ intelligence programs in 2013, before fleeing to Hong Kong and then Moscow. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Former Florida governor Jeb Bush finally launched his US presidential campaign Monday, pledging to "run with heart" as he seeks to move beyond his contentious political pedigree.
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Reports from Yemen say that the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, has been killed in a US drone strike.
 Bloomberg |
Ukraine Leader Says $3 Billion Russian 'Bribe' Needs Discussing
Bloomberg Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko urged top-level talks over a $3 billion Russian loan to his country, labeling the cash a “bribe” sealed by his ousted predecessor. Poroshenko said the money was provided to keep Ukraine in Russia's orbit and out of ... Twitter Discourse Around Putin and Poroshenko in Ukraine and RussiaGlobal Voices Online From Siberia To Mariupol: Teen Flees Russia, Fights Against Separatists In...RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty Ukraine, Russia protest over attacks on each other's diplomatic missionsYahoo News Kyiv Post -Press TV all 377 news articles » |
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 Bloomberg View |
Why Russia Still Attracts Immigrants
Bloomberg View Russia isn't often thought of as a country of immigration. Yet the country's enormous territory and shrinking indigenous population invite a striking number of immigrants: Last year, despite the collapse of oil prices and the Ukraine crisis, Russia was ... |
A monitoring group says Kurdish forces have seized almost full control of the Syrian border of Tal Abyad from the Islamic State (IS) group after forcing most of the militants to flee.
 Дни.Ру |
МИД Украины возмущен визитом Дмитрия Медведева в Крым
Коммерсантъ МИД Украины выражает протест в связи с поездкой премьер-министра России Дмитрия Медведева в Крым, сообщает сайт украинского внешнеполитического министерства. Господин Медведев в понедельник провел в Крыму совещание по вопросам развития малого бизнеса на ... МИД Украины выразил протест в связи с визитом Медведева в КрымРИА Новости МИД Украины назвал визит Медведева в Крым пренебрежением Уставом ООНГазета.Ru МИД Украины недоволен поездками Дмитрия Медведева в КрымВести.Ru Московский комсомолец -ИА REGNUM Все похожие статьи: 204 » |
Fate of jihadi Mokhtar Belmokhtar unclear after US air strike in Libya by Ian Black, Middle East editor, and Chris Stephen in Tunis
US says enormous care taken to avoid harming civilians, as Libyan media says strike left 33 dead and many wounded
The US air force has said it targeted a notorious jihadi leader linked to al-Qaida in a weekend air strike on Libya. But there was no confirmation of the reported death of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who was accused of leading an attack on a gas plant in Algeria in 2013 that killed 40 hostages. Saturday’s raid near Adjabiya was carried out by F-15E aircraft using precision weapons.
The US air force secretary, Deborah Lee James, said “enormous care” had been taken to avoid harming civilians. “The impact of the raid is still being assessed,” she told reporters at the Paris air show. “I have absolute confidence in our people and the intelligence, but this is not exact science.” She said Belmokhtar had “a long history of terror with al-Qaida affiliates”. Continue reading...
California Supreme Court rules cities can require affordable housing in building projects
A Kurdish YPG spokesman said the militia had surrounded the town by the Turkish border, cutting the vital supply route to the ISIS capital Raqqa, which the militants have held for two years.
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