Fading List to Replace Hagel

Posted on November 28, 2014November 28, 2014 by Denise Simon

SecDef Chuck Hagel has an on camera reputation of being slow and lagging in control. But more that comes out since his termination that tells us otherwise. The position of Secretary of Defense is the least sought position in the Obama administration due in part to two wars, the Guantanamo detainee release program and most of all the shrinking budget for defense.

Politico explains why no one wants the job. Then there is the matter of releasing more detainees from Gitmo which is under the full authority of the Pentagon, and Hagel fought back hard under pressure from the White House to apply his signature for releases. More detainees are slated for release, trade or transfer.

Deputy Defense Secretary Work flew to Afghanistan to spend Thanksgiving with the troops and for meetings on the matter of recent Taliban attacks on ISAF. It was only yesterday that the Taliban attacked a NATO base. Matters in Afghanistan are sliding south and the Pentagon officials went to the White House demanding immediate action to prevent a rise in the Taliban and al Qaeda. Simply put a military leadership revolt occurred a few weeks ago such that Obama finally got the message and secretly approved an extended operation in Afghanistan including more aggressive operations.

Sequestration is the biggest threat to protecting national security at home and globally. If sequestration continues, Hagel said last week when he presented his “Strategic Choices and Management Review,” DOD might try to end civilian pensions for retired military troops who work for DOD, or cut unemployment payments.

Carter said changes in pensions, health care and other benefits would likely be grandfathered. Still, a $100 million dollar cut would do damage to DOD and its personnel that officials currently can’t calculate.

The Daesh containment strategy which is to manage the terror group to Iraq and Syria has already failed as Islamic State has moved into North Africa and Libya has fallen.

Little support and attention has been paid to NATO, Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States except to throw money at building defenses. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel pledged to defend the continent and announced $1 billion in additional military measures aimed at deterring Russia. They also pleaded with NATO members to use their bully pulpits to convince their governments to boost defense spending. U.S. leaders promised that America would fulfill its obligations to protect Europe and urged other NATO members to do to the same. Obama cited the U.S. Article 5 commitment to Poland – referring to the portion of the NATO charter which states that a threat against one nation is a threat against all. “As president, I’ve made sure that the United States is upholding that commitment.”

So who will approve staying on the list to replace SefDef Hagel? There are rumors that include Colin Powel and Tom Donilon, beyond that others are being considered. None of them frankly will have the military in their best interest and national security will likely continue to suffer.

Obama proposed his Pentagon budget for 2015 and it is less than 2014 while the global threat matrix increases. Another matter of great importance is keeping pace of the higher quality, readiness and assets of adversaries of the United States, those countries like China and Russia who are both jointly cooperating in military advancements.

The Irony of Ferguson

Posted on November 26, 2014November 26, 2014 by Denise Simon

In recent days we have watched terrorists in Ferguson burn the town, many of whom were not even from Missouri. Protests in solidarity for Justice for Michael Brown are occurring in cities across the nation including Oakland, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston and Atlanta.

The protests in Ferguson burned their own community over the Grand Jury decision not to indict Officer Daren Wilson. What is left of Ferguson and what will the future be? Furthermore, testimony and scientific forensic evidence spelled out without dispute that Michael Brown never put his hand in the air, the signature of submission to police orders. If he had, he would clearly be alive today.

The Ferguson Fraud

The bitter irony of the Michael Brown case is that if he had actually put his hands up and said don’t shoot, he would almost certainly be alive today. His family would have been spared an unspeakable loss, and Ferguson, Missouri wouldn’t have experienced multiple bouts of rioting, including the torching of at least a dozen businesses the night it was announced that Officer Darren Wilson wouldn’t be charged with a crime.

Instead, the credible evidence (i.e., the testimony that doesn’t contradict itself or the physical evidence) suggests that Michael Brown had no interest in surrendering. After committing an act of petty robbery at a local business, he attacked Officer Wilson when he stopped him on the street. Brown punched Wilson when the officer was still in his patrol car and attempted to take his gun from him.

The first shots were fired within the car in the struggle over the gun. Then, Michael Brown ran. Even if he hadn’t put his hands up, but merely kept running away, he would also almost certainly be alive today. Again, according to the credible evidence, he turned back and rushed Wilson. The officer shot several times, but Brown kept on coming until Wilson killed him.

This is a terrible tragedy. It isn’t a metaphor for police brutality or race repression or anything else, and never was. Aided and abetted by a compliant national media, the Ferguson protestors spun a dishonest or misinformed version of what happened—Michael Brown murdered in cold blood while trying to give up—into a chant (“hands up, don’t shoot”) and then a mini-movement.

When the facts didn’t back their narrative, they dismissed the facts and retreated into paranoid suspicion of the legal system. It apparently required more intellectual effort than almost any liberal could muster even to say, “You know, I believe policing in America is deeply unjust, but in this case the evidence is murky and not enough to indict, let alone convict anyone of a crime.”

They preferred to charge that the grand jury process was rigged, because St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch didn’t seek an indictment of Wilson and allowed the grand jury to hear all the evidence and make its own decision. This, Chris Hayes of MSNBC deemed so removed from normal procedure that it’s unrecognizable.

It’s unusual, yes, but not unheard of for prosecutors to present a case to a grand jury without a recommendation to indict. Regardless, who could really object to a grand jury hearing everything in such a sensitive case? If any of the evidence were excluded that, surely, would have been the basis of other howls of an intolerably stacked deck.

It’s a further travesty, according to the Left, that Officer Wilson was allowed to testify to the grand jury. Never mind that it is standard operating procedure. As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out, guilty parties usually don’t testify because they have to do it without their lawyer present and anything they say can be used against them.

It is also alleged that the prosecutor McCulloch is biased because his father was a cop who was killed by a criminal. Follow this argument though to its logical conclusion and McCulloch would be unable to handle almost all cases, because of his engrained bias against criminality.

Finally, there is the argument that Wilson should have been indicted so there could be a trial “to determine the facts.” Realistically, if a jury of Wilson’s peers didn’t believe there was enough evidence to establish probable cause to indict him, there was no way a jury of his peers was going to convict him of a crime, which requires the more stringent standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Besides, we don’t try people for crimes they almost certainly didn’t commit just to satisfy a mob that will throw things at the police and burn down local businesses if it doesn’t get its way. If the grand jury had given into the pressure from the streets and indicted as an act of appeasement, the mayhem most likely would have only been delayed until the inevitable acquittal in a trial.

The agitators of Ferguson have proven themselves proficient at destroying other people’s property, no matter what the rationale. This summer, they rioted when the police response was “militarized” and rioted when the police response was un-militarized. Local businesses like the beauty-supply shops Beauty Town (hit repeatedly) and Beauty World (burned on Monday night) have been targeted for the offense of existing, not to mention employing people and serving customers.

Liberal commentators come back again and again to the fact that Michael Brown was unarmed and that, in the struggle between the two, Officer Wilson only sustained bruises to his face, or what Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo calls an “irritated cheek.” The subtext is that if only Wilson had allowed Brown to beat him up and perhaps take his gun, things wouldn’t have had to escalate.

There is good reason for a police officer to be in mortal fear in the situation Officer Wilson faced, though. In upstate New York last March, a police officer responded to a disturbance call at an office, when suddenly a disturbed man pummeled the officer as he was attempting to exit his vehicle and then grabbed his gun and shot him dead. The case didn’t become a national metaphor for anything.

Ferguson, on the other hand, has never lacked for media coverage, although the narrative of a police execution always seemed dubious and now has been exposed as essentially a fraud. “Hands up, don’t shoot” is a good slogan. If only it was what Michael Brown had done last August.

Circa 1607, the Tradition of Thanksgiving

Posted on November 26, 2014November 26, 2014 by Denise Simon

David Barton – 11/2002

Thanksgiving in AmericaThe tradition of Thanksgiving as a time to focus on God and His blessings dates back almost four centuries in America. While such celebrations occurred at Cape Henry Virginia as early as 1607,[1] it is from the Pilgrims that we derive the current tradition of Thanksgiving.

The Pilgrims set sail for America on September 6, 1620, and for two months braved the harsh elements of a storm-tossed sea. After disembarking at Plymouth Rock, they had a prayer service and began building hasty shelters, but unprepared for a harsh New England winter, nearly half died before spring.[2]

Yet, persevering in prayer, and assisted by helpful Indians,[3] they reaped a bountiful harvest the following summer.[4] The grateful Pilgrims then declared a three-day feast in December 1621 to thank God and to celebrate with their Indian friends[5] America’s first Thanksgiving Festival. This began an annual tradition in the New England Colonies that slowly spread into other Colonies.[6]

The first national Thanksgiving occurred in 1789. According to the Congressional Record for September 25 of that year, immediately after approving the Bill of Rights:

Mr. [Elias] Boudinot said he could not think of letting the [congressional] session pass without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining with one voice in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings He had poured down upon them. With this view, therefore, he would move the following resolution:

Resolved, That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. . . .

Mr. Roger Sherman justified the practice of thanksgiving, on any single event, not only as a laudable one in itself but also as warranted by a number of precedents in Holy Writ. . . . This example he thought worthy of a Christian imitation on the present occasion.[7]

The resolution was delivered to President George Washington, who heartily concurred with the congressional request, declaring:

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor. . . . Now, therefore, I do appoint Thursday, the 26th day of November 1789 . . . that we may all unite to render unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection.[8]

National Thanksgiving Proclamations occurred sporadically following this one,[9] and most official Thanksgiving observances still occurred only at the State level. Much of the credit for the adoption of an annual national Thanksgiving may be attributed to Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. For over twenty years, she promoted the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day,[10] contacting President after President until Abraham Lincoln responded in 1863 by setting aside the last Thursday of November, declaring:

We are prone to forget the Source from which [the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies] come. . . . No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God. . . . I do, therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States . . . to observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father Who dwelleth in the heavens.[11]

For the next seventy-five years, Presidents followed LincolnÌs precedent, annually declaring a national Thanksgiving Day. Then, in 1941, Congress permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as a national holiday.[12]

As you celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday this year, remember to retain the original gratefulness to God that has always been the spirit of this, the oldest of all American holidays.

It is also recommended that during this Thanksgiving weekend of celebration, that some time to watch the movie ‘America’. Click here it is always streaming.

[Congress] recommended [a day of] . . . thanksgiving and praise [so] that the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts and join . . . their supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ to forgive [our sins] and . . .to enlarge [His] kingdom which consisteth in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. (Continental Congress, 1777 – Written by Signers of the Declaration Samuel Adams and Richard Henry Lee)[13]

[I] appoint . . . a day of public Thanksgiving to Almighty God. . . to [ask] Him that He would . . . pour out His Holy Spirit on all ministers of the Gospel; that He would . . . spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth; . . . and that He would establish these United States upon the basis of religion and virtue. (Governor Thomas Jefferson, 1779)[14]

. appoint . . . a day of public thanksgiving and praise . . . to render to God the tribute of praise for His unmerited goodness towards us . . . [by giving to] us . . . the Holy Scriptures which are able to enlighten and make us wise to eternal salvation. And [to] present our supplications…that He would forgive our manifold sins and . . . cause the benign religion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to be known, understood, and practiced among all the inhabitants of the earth. (Governor John Hancock, 1790)[15]

[1] Benson Lossing, Our Country. A Household History of the United States (New York: James A. Bailey, 1895), Vol. 1, pp. 181-182; see also National Park Service, “Robert Hunt: Jamestown’s First Chaplain” (at http://www.nps.gov/archive/colo/Jthanout/RHunt.html).

[2] William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1856), pp. 74, 78, 80, 91.

[3] William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1856), p. 100.

[4] William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1856), p. 105.

[5] Ashbel Steele, Chief of the Pilgrims: Or the Life and Time of William Brewster (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co, 1857), pp. 269-270.

[6] William DeLoss Love, Jr, The Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England (Boston: Houghton,, Mifflin & Co, 1895), pp. 87-90.

[7] The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United State (Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1834), Vol. I, pp. 949-950.

[8]George Washington, Writings of George Washington, Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Russell, Odiorne and Metcalf, 1838), Vol. XII, p. 119, Proclamation for a National Thanksgiving on October 3, 1789.

[9] See, for example: H.S.J. Sickel, Thanksgiving: Its Source, Philosophy and History With All National Proclamations (Philadelphia: International Printing Co, 1940), pp. 154-155, “Thanksgiving Day- 1795” by George Washington, pp. 156-157, “Thanksgiving Day -1798” by John Adams, pp. 158-159, “Thanksgiving Day-1799” by John Adams, p. 160, “Thanksgiving Day- 1814” by James Madison, p. 161, “Thanksgiving Day-1815” by James Madison.

[10] Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography, James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, editors (New York: D. Appleton & Co, 1888), Vol. III, p. 35.

[11] The Works of Abraham Lincoln, John H. Clifford & Marion M. Miller, editors (New York: University Society Inc, 1908), Vol. VI, pp. 160-161, Proclamation for Thanksgiving, October 3, 1863, The American Presidency Project, “Abraham Lincoln: Proclamation- Thanksgiving Day, 1863” (at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=69900&st=&st1=)

[12] The National Archives, “Congress Establishes Thanksgiving” (at http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving/); see also Pilgrim Hall Museum, “Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations 1940-1949: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman” (at http://www.pilgrimhall.org/ThanxProc1940.htm), Proclamation 2571: Days of Prayer: Thanksgiving Day and New YearÌs Day, November 11, 1942, referring to a Ïjoint resolution of Congress approved December 26, 1941, which designates the fourth Thursday in November of each year as Thanksgiving Day.

[13]Journals of the Continental Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907), Vol. IX, p. 855, November 1, 1777.

[14] The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Julian P. Boyd, editor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), Vol. 3, p. 178, Proclamation Appointing a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, November 11, 1779.

[15] John Hancock: Proclamation for a Day of Public Thanksgiving (Boston, 1790), from an original in possession of the author.

Putin, Oligarchs, Wealth and More

Posted on November 26, 2014November 26, 2014 by Denise Simon

While there is so much going on globally, in recent weeks very little has been said about Russia, Putin and his aggressions.

Creating global wealth undercover to the masses does not go without recognition to many of the worldwide elite class and Russian collusion is no exception. You may very well know the names and locations. The list is fascinating.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has taken a jab at its U.S. counterpart by uploading a picture of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessors “digging out trenches of the Cold War.”

The loaded comment was made alongside a picture of the politicians holding spades at a construction site, taken last Thursday at a ceremony for a future museum at the U.S. Diplomacy Center in Washington.

“Let’s hope that this is not the mobilization of veterans on digging out trenches of the Cold War,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday on its Facebook account.

Also pictured in the photograph are former state secretaries Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, James Baker and Madeleine Albright.

Then comes Ukraine and why it has been rather easy for Putin’s aggressions going unchallenged by the West.

SPECIAL REPORT-Putin’s allies channelled billions to Ukraine oligarch

By Stephen Grey, Tom Bergin, Sevgil Musaieva and Roman Anin

MOSCOW/KIEV Nov 26 (Reuters) – In Russia, powerful friends helped him make a fortune. In the United States, officials want him extradited and put behind bars. In Austria, where he is currently free on bail of $155 million, authorities have yet to decide what to do with him.

He is Dmitry Firtash, a former fireman and soldier. In little more than a decade, the Ukrainian went from obscurity to wealth and renown, largely by buying gas from Russia and selling it in his home country. His success was built on remarkable sweetheart deals brokered by associates of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, at immense cost to Russian taxpayers, a Reuters investigation shows.

Russian government records reviewed for this article reveal for the first time the terms of recent deals between Firtash and Russia’s Gazprom, a giant gas company majority owned by the state.

According to Russian customs documents detailing the trades, Gazprom sold more than 20 billion cubic metres of gas well below market prices to Firtash over the past four years – about four times more than the Russian government has publicly acknowledged. The price Firtash paid was so low, Reuters calculates, that companies he controlled made more than $3 billion on the arrangement.

Over the same time period, other documents show, bankers close to Putin granted Firtash credit lines of up to $11 billion. That credit helped Firtash, who backed pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich’s successful 2010 bid to become Ukraine’s president, to buy a dominant position in the country’s chemical and fertiliser industry and expand his influence.

The Firtash story is more than one man’s grab for riches. It demonstrates how Putin uses Russian state assets to create streams of cash for political allies, and how he exported this model to Ukraine in an attempt to dominate his neighbour, which he sees as vital to Russia’s strategic interests. With the help of Firtash, Yanukovich won power and went on to rule Ukraine for four years. The relationship had great geopolitical value for Putin: Yanukovich ended up steering the nation of more than 44 million away from the West’s orbit and towards Moscow’s until he was overthrown in February.

“Firtash has always been an intermediary,” said Viktor Chumak, chairman of the anti-corruption committee in the previous Ukrainian parliament. “He is a political person representing Russia’s interests in Ukraine.”

A spokesman for Putin rejected claims that Firtash acted on behalf of Russia. “Firtash is an independent businessman and he pursues his own interests, I don’t believe he represents anyone else’s interests,” said Dmitry Peskov.

The findings are the latest in a Reuters examination of how elites favoured by the Kremlin profit from the state in the Putin era. In the wild years after the fall of the Soviet Union, state assets were seized or bought cheaply by the well connected. Today, resources and cash flows from public enterprises are diverted to private individuals with links to Putin, whether in Russia or abroad.

Putin’s system of comrade capitalism has had huge costs for the ordinary people of Russia: By granting special cheap deals to Firtash, Gazprom missed out on about $2 billion in revenue it could have made by selling that gas at market prices, according to European gas price data collected by Reuters. Four industry analysts said that Gazprom could have sold the gas at substantially higher prices to other customers in Europe.

At the same time, the citizens of both Russia and Ukraine have seen unelected oligarchs wield political influence.

Firtash, whose main company, Group DF, describes him as one of Ukraine’s leading entrepreneurs and philanthropists, was arrested in Austria on March 12 at the request of U.S. authorities. The Americans accuse him of bribery over a business deal in India unrelated to events examined in this article. Firtash denies those allegations and is currently free on bail.

Firtash imported the cheap Russian gas through a Cypriot company of which he is sole director, and a Swiss one set up by Group DF. He and Group DF declined to answer questions about those two companies and their gas dealings. A spokesman said Firtash was not available to discuss his business operations, and that Group DF did not wish to comment on “any of the questions you put forth.”

The Kremlin spokesman Peskov said Putin has met Firtash but that they are not close acquaintances. He said Russia supplied gas at “lower prices” to Ukraine because Yanukovich had asked for it and Russia wanted to help Ukraine’s petrochemical industry. Peskov said the deals were arranged through Firtash because “the Ukrainian government asked for it to be that way.”

Yanukovich, who fled to Russia in February after mass demonstrations against his government, could not be reached for comment.

THE MIDDLEMAN

From the moment he first became Russia’s president, Putin moved to take control of his country’s most valuable resource: natural gas. After assuming power in 2000, he replaced the management of Gazprom, put trusted allies in charge, and ensured the Russian state controlled more than half the shares.

The corporate behemoth now supplies about a third of Europe’s gas, generating vital revenue for Russia and giving Putin a powerful economic lever. “Gazprom is very much a tool of Russian foreign policy,” says Rem Korteweg, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. Every major deal that Gazprom signs is approved by Putin, people in the energy industry say.

Putin’s spokesman rejected such assertions: Gazprom, he said, “is a commercial, public company, which has international shareholders. It acts in the interests of its shareholders, which also include the Russian state.”

In normal times, Gazprom’s second biggest customer in Europe is Ukraine; Russian gas was piped directly across the border between the two countries until Russia cut off supplies earlier this year.

In the 2000s, though, Gazprom decided to sell gas not directly to Ukraine’s state gas company Naftogaz, but to intermediaries – in particular Firtash, an international gas dealer who had risen from humble origins.

Firtash grew up in west Ukraine, where his father worked in education and his mother in a sugar factory, according to an account Firtash gave during a meeting with the U.S. ambassador in Kiev in 2008. Both his parents disdained communism and lacked the contacts needed to get their son into university, he said.

He joined the army in 1986, then trained to be a fireman. When the Soviet Union collapsed, leading to Ukraine’s independence in 1991, Firtash found himself having to make a living in an uncertain world, according to his account to the ambassador. With his first wife, he set up a business in west Ukraine shipping canned goods to Uzbekistan, according to local media reports researched by the U.S. embassy.

A U.S. diplomatic cable, which summarised Firtash’s discussion with the ambassador, drily noted: “Due to his commodities business, (Firtash) became acquainted with several powerful business figures from the former Soviet Union.”

According to the cable, Firtash told the U.S. ambassador he had been forced to deal with suspected criminals because at that time it was impossible to do business in Ukraine cleanly. He said he had needed and received permission from a man named Semion Mogilevich to establish various businesses. Mogilevich, an alleged boss of organised crime in eastern Europe, is wanted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation for an alleged multi-million-dollar fraud in the 1990s involving a company headquartered in the United States. He was indicted in 2003, and described by the FBI in 2009 as having an “extensive international criminal network.”

Firtash has repeatedly denied having any close relationship with Mogilevich. Mogilevich could not be contacted for comment. He has previously denied any wrongdoing or any connection to the gas trade in Ukraine.

By 2002, a company called Eural Trans Gas, registered in Hungary, was transporting gas from Turkmenistan through Russia to Ukraine. Its ownership was unclear, but Firtash represented it. In July 2004, a new company, RosUkrEnergo, became the intermediary for gas deals between Russia and Ukraine. The owners of RUE were unknown at first, but it later emerged that nearly all of the company was owned by Firtash and Gazprom.

RUE bought gas cheaply and sold it on at a higher price in Ukraine and Europe. This arrangement guaranteed profits for RUE and was hugely controversial among Ukrainians who saw RUE as an unnecessary intermediary. Another U.S. diplomatic cable, from March 2009, described RUE as a “cash cow” and a “serious source of … political patronage.” In a website posting, RUE said that in 2007 it sold nearly $10 billion worth of gas and had net income of $795 million.

After Yulia Tymoshenko, herself a former gas trader, became prime minister of Ukraine in 2008, she reacted to public anger about the gas trade and moved to cut Firtash and RUE out of the business. She struck her own gas deal with Putin in 2009.

By that time, Firtash was rich. In the country’s 2010 presidential election, Firtash, by his own admission, aided the pro-Russian Yanukovich. A U.S. diplomatic cable described Firtash as a “major financial backer” of Yanukovich.

“Firtash supported Yanukovich in various ways,” said Vadym Karasiov, an aide to Viktor Yuschenko, Ukraine’s president from 2005 to 2010, in an interview. Karasiov said the mogul used his influence in the media to promote Yanukovich. In April 2010, in the aftermath of the election, Karasiov told the Kiev Post: “Without Dmitry Firtash there wouldn’t have been a (Yanukovich) victory.”

With Yanukovich president, Tymoshenko stepped down as prime minister. Business associates of Firtash were appointed to influential positions in the new administration. He had allies in the corridors of power, and ambitious plans to expand his business empire and get back into the gas trade. His friends in Russia were happy to help him.

THE LOANS

Tucked away in Nicosia, Cyprus, a bundle of tattered papers wrapped in string records Russian credit agreements made to Firtash companies. The documents, reviewed by Reuters, detail a series of financing deals worth billions of dollars.

The deals were arranged by a Russian lender called Gazprombank. Despite its name, the bank is not controlled by Gazprom, which holds only a minority stake. It is a separate business, overseen by people linked to Putin. They include Yuri Kovalchuk, a banker who until March 2014 controlled an investment firm that manages a majority stake in Gazprombank.

In a statement, Gazprombank said: “We do not receive any instructions from the Kremlin … The strategy of the bank is developed by its management board and approved by the board of directors. No other influence is possible.”

Asked whether Putin had any role in issuing the loans to Firtash companies, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said: “Putin, as president, does not have anything to do with this.”

Gazprombank began lending money to Firtash companies soon after Yanukovich took power in Ukraine in February 2010.

In June that year, Firtash established a company called Ostchem Investments in Cyprus. A month later, Gazprombank registered a credit line to the company of $815 million, according to the Cyprus documents. In September, Ostchem Investments bought a 90 percent stake in the Stirol fertiliser plant in Ukraine. It was perfect synergy: Firtash knew the gas business, and natural gas is a major feedstock for making fertiliser.

Further loans and deals with Firtash companies followed.

Reuters found that by March 2011, Gazprombank had registered credit lines of up to $11.15 billion to Firtash companies. The companies may not have borrowed that whole sum, but the documents indicate that loans up to that amount were available, according to Cyprus lawyers.

In the space of seven months in 2011 alone, Firtash acquired control of two more fertiliser plants in Ukraine, Severodonetsk Azot and Rivne Azot. He also bought the Nika Tera sea port, through which fertiliser and other dry bulk goods are shipped. He acquired a lender called Nadra Bank and invested in the titanium processing industry.

Such was his expansion that Firtash became the fifth largest fertiliser producer in Europe. Being a large employer brought not just potential profits but also political clout, he boasted. “We have relations with MPs,” Firtash told Die Presse in Austria in May. “We are big employers in the regions that they represent. Entire cities live on our factories. Election candidates seek our support.”

When asked in 2011 where the money came from to pay for his acquisitions, Firtash was coy. At a press conference called to announce his purchase of the Severdonetsk plant, he declined to name his major lenders. “It’s a secret,” he told Ukrainian journalists.

But a Gazprombank manager told Reuters that the Russian bank had led a consortium of lenders which in 2011 agreed to lend about $7 billion to Firtash. The official said Gazprombank itself lent Firtash $2.2 billion, and that Firtash still owed the bank $2.08 billion. The official declined to name other lenders in the consortium.

A $2.2 billion loan was a big commitment for Gazprombank: It amounted to nearly a quarter of the bank’s total capital, the maximum loan allowed by Russian banking rules for any single client or group. Based on regulatory filings, the loan facility made Firtash the biggest single borrower from Gazprombank.

Reuters was unable to establish exactly how much in total the Gazprombank consortium lent to Firtash companies.

In a statement, Gazprombank said that “the aggregate amount of loans disbursed to Ostchem Group” was “several times lower” than $11 billion. “And all capital requirements and limitations of the Central Bank of Russia in respect of loans granted have always been complied with by Gazprombank, including loans to Ostchem Group,” the statement said.

The bank declined to give any further details, saying it had to protect client confidentiality. The central bank had no comment.

GAS PROFITS

Firtash now had money, political connections and businesses that relied on large supplies of gas. What he needed next was fuel.

In January 2011, Firtash signed an unpublished agreement, seen by Reuters, with Gazprom to buy gas through a company called Ostchem Holding in Cyprus, where he is the sole director listed.

The gas deal was later extended to include sales to Ostchem Gas Trading AG in Switzerland. It was also agreed by Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned gas firm, where Yanukovich had installed new senior management. Firtash needed Naftogaz’s sign-off because it controlled pipelines delivering gas and, until that point, had an exclusive deal to import gas from Gazprom.

Naftogaz’s decision to agree to the deal was an odd one. Not only did it mean Naftogaz would surrender its monopoly on Russian gas imports, but the deal could also potentially damage the state firm. Naftogaz had previously agreed with Gazprom to pay for a set amount of gas whether it could sell it in Ukraine or not. Firtash’s deal could leave the Ukrainian state firm buying gas it would struggle to sell.

Firtash’s return to importing gas became public knowledge after Yanukovich’s election victory. But the price he paid Moscow, and how much cheap gas he bought, remained unclear. An Ostchem spokesman told Reuters the price was “confidential information.”

Russian customs records seen by Reuters show that in 2012, Moscow sold the gas to Firtash for $230 per 1,000 cubic metres (the standard unit used in gas sales). In 2013 the average cost was $267 per unit. Those prices were at least one-third less than those paid by Ukraine’s Naftogaz.

Ukrainian customs documents and corporate filings show that Firtash’s Ostchem companies in Cyprus and Switzerland resold the gas to his chemical plants in Ukraine for $430 per unit. The prices and volumes suggest that the two offshore Ostchem companies made an operating profit of approximately $3.7 billion in two years.

Naftogaz’s current management is highly critical of the way in which Gazprom favoured Firtash’s companies. Aliona Osmolovska, chief of press relations, said: “These special deals for Ostchem were not in the interest of Ukraine.”

The real loser in the deal, though, was Gazprom. The arrangement, which Putin described during a press conference as having been made with the “input of the Russian leadership,” meant Russia sold its gas to Firtash for at least $100 per unit less than it could have made in Western Europe, according to Emily Stromquist, head of Russian energy analysis at Eurasia Group, a political risk research firm.

In addition, the profits from the subsequent resale of the gas were all reaped offshore by companies that did not benefit the Russian taxpayer. Those profits in 2012 and 2013 would have meant an additional $2 billion for Gazprom, whose ultimate majority owners are Russia’s citizens.

Gazprom declined to comment on its sales to Firtash’s companies.

Putin’s spokesman Peskov said Naftogaz agreed to Firtash receiving gas at low prices because the deal was intended to help Ukraine’s petrochemical industry. Asked why the gas was sold to companies in Cyprus and Switzerland, Peskov said: “Putin doesn’t need to approve this action. These operations are technical and were made by Gazprom according to the structures which are always used by its Ukrainian partners.”

Neither of the two Firtash companies that bought gas from Russia publishes accounts. Firtash declined to comment on the firms or their results.

UNEASY STANDOFF

The new government in Ukraine alleges that Yanukovich had allowed corruption to flourish and stolen millions of dollars. In the longer term, the new government says it wants to forge closer ties with the European Union and reduce its dependence on Russian gas.

In June, Moscow cut off supplies of gas to Kiev, claiming that it was owed billions of dollars by Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz. Late last month, the two countries struck a deal allowing supplies to resume, but the agreement runs only until March. Firtash retains large stocks of gas but has not imported new supplies since Yanukovich was ousted.

Firtash remains in Austria awaiting the outcome of extradition hearings. According to a U.S. indictment unsealed in April, he is suspected of a scheme to bribe Indian government officials to procure titanium. Two U.S. government officials said the American investigation into Firtash is continuing; they declined to give further details.

The Ukrainian oligarch has said the allegations are “without foundation” and has accused Washington of acting for “purely political reasons.” He has hired an all-star legal defence team. It includes Lanny Davis, who helped President Bill Clinton weather a series of White House scandals in the 1990s.

In his time of trouble Firtash has not been deserted by the Russians. Since his arrest he has received another loan in order to pay his bail: $155 million from Vasily Anisimov, the billionaire who heads the Russian Judo Federation, the governing body in Russia of Putin’s beloved sport.

“I have known Mr. Firtash for a number of years, though he is neither my friend nor business partner,” Anisimov told Reuters in an email. “I confirm that I loaned 125 million euros to him. This was a purely business transaction.” (Additional reporting by Michele Kambas in Cyprus, Elizabeth Piper and Jason Bush in Moscow, Oleksandr Akymenko and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev, Jack Stubbs in London, Warren Strobel in Washington and Michele Martin in Berlin; Edited by Richard Woods and Michael Williams)

al Aqsa Mosque, Core of Hostilities

Posted on November 26, 2014November 26, 2014 by Denise Simon

The Al Aqsa Libel: A Brief History

Posted By Kenneth Levin On November 26, 2014

Repeated claims in recent weeks by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas that Israel was attacking or otherwise threatening the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, and Abbas’s calls for Palestinians and other Muslims to take action to defend Al Aqsa and “purify” the Temple Mount, have been a key factor in the latest spate of deadly Arab assaults on Israelis. Other PA officials have echoed and elaborated on Abbas’s message, with some calling explicitly for murdering Jews in response to supposed provocations against Al Aqsa. Palestinian Authority media have conveyed the same message, punctuated by cartoons depicting Jews attacking Al Aqsa and Palestinians defending it. A number of those involved in the assaults against Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere have asserted that they were acting in response to the calls of their leaders to protect Al-Aqsa. The false claims of Jewish threats against or damage to Al Aqsa have a long pedigree. They have been made by Abbas many times in the past and were a staple of Yasser Arafat’s screeds against Israel and against Jews more generally. Arafat labeled the terror war he launched in 2000 the “Al Aqsa Intifada.” He did so to cast the onslaught not as an aggressive campaign of mass murder of Israelis but as a struggle in defense of the Islamic holy site and to render the war not simply one of Palestinian pursuit of Israel’s destruction but as an Islamic fight against hostile, Al Aqsa-defiling non-believers. But such anti-Jewish libels have a still older history, pre-dating Arafat, pre-dating Israel’s gaining control over the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, even pre-dating Israel’s creation. In 1929, during the British Mandate, the rabidly anti-Jewish, British appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, claimed that Jews were threatening Al-Aqsa and sought to end Jewish prayer at the Western Wall (a Temple Mount retaining wall, which had become a place of Jewish prayer in the context of Jews being barred from ascending to the Temple Mount itself – the site of the First and Second Temples – for much of the preceding 2,000 years). According to the Mufti, the Western Wall was an Islamic holy place and Jewish prayer there was both an affront to Islam and a step towards Jewish attacks against Al-Aqsa. The Mufti is also reported to have distributed doctored photographs showing a damaged Al-Aqsa, with claims that the Jews were responsible. The Mufti’s incitement was accompanied by calls for the murder of Jews as revenge. Ensuing attacks by Arab mobs in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Mandate territory resulted in the death of 133 Jews and major injury to over 200 others. The most severely affected community was that of Hebron, where 64 Jews were slaughtered and another 85 injured. British authorities did virtually nothing to stop the attacks. They did evacuate the surviving Jews from Hebron. They also exonerated the Mufti from any responsibility for the murders and took almost no steps against those who actually carried out the carnage. (Only in 1937,when The Mufti began to instigate attacks against British forces, did the authorities seek to arrest him. El-Husseini, however, escaped and fled the Mandate, eventually making his way to Berlin, where he spent much of World War II as Hitler’s guest. Among his activities while in Europe were recruiting Balkan Muslims and Muslims in Nazi-occupied Soviet territory to Nazi SS units and broadcasting in Arabic to the Middle East and north Africa calling on Arabs to support the Nazis and to destroy the Jews in their midst.) Abbas has praised the Mufti as an inspiring hero of the Palestinian cause worthy of emulation. In reality, far from threatening Al Aqsa, Israel has repeatedly bowed to Arab claims of exclusive rights on the Temple Mount. In the wake of Israel’s gaining control of the Old City and the Temple Mount in 1967, the Israelis, with then defense minister Moshe Dayan delineating the policy, granted the Muslim religious authority, the Waqf, control over the Temple Mount. Jews would be allowed access to the Mount but forbidden to pray there. Christians and other non-Muslims would also be allowed access. The Israel Antiquities Authority was to oversee any construction or other physical changes on the Mount that would have an impact on this most sensitive of archaeological sites. The prohibition of Jewish prayer on the Mount has been strictly enforced by Israeli governments. While there is increasing support among Israelis for a small area of the Mount – far from Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock – to be set aside for Jewish prayer, no such arrangement has won government backing. Furthermore, Jewish and other non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount have commonly been harassed by Waqf guards and other Muslims, and Israeli officials have responded typically not by countering such harassment but by restricting non-Muslim access. Also, particularly between 1999 and 2001, the Waqf, in the context of establishing and expanding additional places of Muslim worship on the Mount and seeking to destroy evidence of historic Jewish (and Christian) connection to the Mount, brought heavy earth-moving equipment onto the Mount and dug up and hauled away thousands of tons of material. This material contained the remains of structures and other relics from pre-Muslim epochs, most notably from the First and Second Temple periods. In the context of any archaeological excavation of such a sensitive and historically rich site, the work would have been approached with archaeologists’ hand trowels and brushes. Yet the Israeli government – led for most of this period by Ehud Barak – did nothing to block this desecration of the Temple Mount, and the Israel Antiquities Authority likewise did nothing. A broad coalition of Israelis, drawn from across the nation’s political and religious spectra and including such luminaries as Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, formed “The Council for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount” and urged the Barak government to stop the desecration, but to little avail. So the Al Aqsa libel stands truth on its head: Muslim supremacism on the Temple Mount has not only been maintained since Israel gained control of the Old City, but has been expanded through aggressive Muslim actions and general Israeli acquiescence. Bur the anti-Jewish libel lives on, because it, and the violence it generates, serve its purveyors. Abbas uses it to build up his own anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bonafides against the popularity of Hamas among Palestinians. He also employs it to draw wider Arab attention away from the bloody chaos enveloping much of the Arab world, chaos that has led some Arab leaders to at least temporarily relate to Israel as an ally confronting shared threats. Abbas seeks to resurrect the focusing of Arab enmity on Israel. Abbas is also using the Al Aqsa libel and the accompanying bloodletting to advance his pursuit of UN and European “recognition” and international pressure on Israel for unilateral concessions, particularly withdrawal to the indefensible pre-1967 armistice lines. Abbas, like Arafat before him, seeks to achieve Israeli withdrawal while avoiding any bilateral agreement with Israel that would entail formal acceptance of Israel’s legitimacy within any borders. The Grand Mufti’s Al Aqsa libel and his incitement to the murder of Jews ultimately served him well. An investigating commission sent from London found the Arabs fully responsible for the bloodshed but then recommended steps be taken against the Jews so as to assuage Arab hostility, steps that violated Britain’s obligations to the Jewish community under the terms of its League of Nations mandate. European and some American media coverage of the recent violence, and the reactions of United Nations officials, various European governments and, with rare exception, the Obama administration, downplay or ignore entirely Abbas’s cynical use of the libel and incitement of murderous violence. Some distort the realities surrounding the violence into an indictment of Israel. And so again the libel and its murderous fallout redound to the perpetrator’s gain. If you need more:

This past week Israel’s south remained quiet, with two exceptions. In Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem the violence continues, partially to show solidarity with Al-Aqsa mosque. Rocks and stones are thrown, as are Molotov cocktails, and there have been stabbing and vehicular attacks. Hamas continues its anti-Israeli incitement campaign, while senior PA and Fatah figures claim Israel is responsible for the rioting and violence.
In recent weeks the Israel Security Agency exposed a Hamas terrorist squad whose members had served prison sentences in Israeli in the past. They planned to assassinate Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and had already begun gathering operational intelligence and preparing weapons.