Category Archives: al Qaida al Nusra Boko Haram

Former Argentina President Kirchner, Arrested for Treason

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NYT’s: One morning last week, Argentines woke up to a political earthquake: A judge had charged a former president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, with “treason against the homeland,” punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Her crime? Nothing less than covering up Iran’s role in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the Americas before Sept. 11.

On July 18, 1994, Ibrahim Hussein Berro, an operative of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, drove a van filled with 606 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil into the Buenos Aires Jewish community center, known as AMIA. More than 300 Argentines were wounded; 85 were murdered. It remains the bloodiest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.

From 2004 until 2015, our friend, the prosecutor Alberto Nisman, tirelessly pursued the truth behind this crime. He knew from his investigation that the attack was an Iranian-planned operation. And he determined that Ms. Kirchner was behind a cover-up designed to whitewash Iran’s role.

What drove Ms. Kirchner? Argentina faced deep economic problems at the time, and the financial benefits of closer relations with Iran might have tempted her. Her government also had populist ties to Iran and the Bolivarian bloc of nations led by Venezuela. Whatever the reason, never has Ms. Kirchner been formally charged in the crime. Until now.

When the federal judge Claudio Bonadio handed down the 491-page indictment against Ms. Kirchner; her foreign minister, Hector Timerman; her handpicked intelligence chief; her top legal adviser; two pro-Iran activists; and 10 others, he didn’t mince words. He called the attack on the Jewish community center an “act of war” by Iran and accused Ms. Kirchner of covering up the role of senior Iranian leaders and their Hezbollah proxies in exchange for a trade deal.

If only Alberto Nisman were alive to see justice finally being pursued.

Three years ago, Mr. Nisman was set to testify to the country’s Congress on Ms. Kirchner’s role in the cover up. The day before his testimony, on Jan. 18, 2015, he was found dead in his apartment in Buenos Aires, with a bullet in his head. This, despite the fact that he had a 10-man security detail paid to protect him.

Within hours, Ms. Kirchner announced that Mr. Nisman had committed suicide. In the days that followed, she strangely claimed his death was part of a lovers’ spat. Finally, she changed her story once more: His death may have been the result of rogue intelligence operatives.

When we heard the news of Mr. Nisman’s death and of Ms. Kirchner’s suspected cover-up, we were horrified, but not entirely shocked. Anyone who had followed Mr. Nisman’s pursuit of this case knew that he was assuming grave risks by taking on both a terrorist state and his own government. Through a decade of investigation, Mr. Nisman received death threats against not only him but his children as well. One email he told us about had a picture of bloodied and brutalized bodies lying on the ground, with a note saying this would be the fate of his young daughters if he did not cease his investigation.

None of it stopped him. Fearless and resolute, Mr. Nisman and his team had determined that former Iranian and Hezbollah officials planned the AMIA attack. He was able to show definitively that the plan included no less than Iran’s former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; its minister of intelligence; its foreign minister; the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the head of the corps’ elite Quds force; the Iranian cultural attaché in Argentina; and the third secretary at Iran’s Embassy in Buenos Aires, as well as the former head of Hezbollah’s external security. His investigation led Interpol to issue red notices — akin to international arrest warrants — against six of the perpetrators. Argentina itself issued arrest warrants for Mr. Rafsanjani and Ali Akbar Velayati, then foreign minister, which Iran predictably disregarded.

But Mr. Nisman did not stop there.

In May 2013, he released a 500-page indictment outlining how Iran had penetrated not just Argentina, but also Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Guyana, Paraguay, Trinidad, Tobago and Suriname, and how it used mosques, social service organizations and its own embassies to radicalize and recruit terrorists. Mr. Nisman also shared information that helped American authorities determine that Mohsen Rabbani, the Iranian embassy cultural attaché and one of the AMIA bombing masterminds, helped four men, including his disciple, a Guyanese official named Abdul Kadir, plot to blow up the fuel lines at Kennedy International Airport in New York. Mr. Kadir is serving a life sentence in the United States for the foiled plot, which could have led to the loss of countless lives.

In a normal democracy, investigating the murder of a man like Alberto Nisman would be a top priority. But Ms. Kirchner and her allies assured that justice for Mr. Nisman’s murder was stymied for years.

That changed three months ago, when, under Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri, a fresh investigation by the Argentine national police found that Mr. Nisman had been drugged with Ketamine, a drug used to sedate animals, then brutally beaten before he was shot in the head.

The case against Ms. Kirchner is based on more than 40,000 legal wiretaps and other evidence, much of it collected by Mr. Nisman, which reveals a secret backchannel between her government and Iran. On Ms. Kirchner’s personal orders, she and her associates used the backchannel to negotiate a public memorandum of understanding that would purportedly have the two countries establish a “truth commission” to jointly identify the culprits of the bombing. Mr. Nisman believed it was designed to expunge the Interpol red notices against the plot’s perpetrators.

One thing is entirely clear: Ms. Kirchner and her allies went to great lengths to establish this backchannel. For example, in 2011, Mr. Timerman, Ms. Kirchner’s foreign minister, made a secret trip to Syria to iron out the plan with Ali Akbar Salehi, then Iran’s foreign minister. This trip was revealed earlier this year by a former Argentine ambassador to Syria in court testimony. Further implicating Ms. Kirchner and Mr. Timerman is a voice recording of him acknowledging Iran’s responsibility in the bombing.

Ramón Allan Bogado, who claims to be a one-time Argentine intelligence agent and is one of those recently indicted, testified last month that the backchannel included an arrangement for Argentina to provide Iran with nuclear technology, with front companies in Argentina and Uruguay to conduct the transactions. He alleged that officials at the highest levels of Argentina’s government were aware of the scheme. If true, this would be even worse than Mr. Nisman had uncovered and may provide a further explanation about why someone wanted him dead.

The judge in the case has asked the Argentine Congress, where Ms. Kirchner serves as a recently elected senator, to strip her of immunity so that she can be arrested and tried. But regardless of what happens to her, Argentina is on track to make amends for more than two decades of gross injustice. President Macri has abandoned Ms. Kirchner’s revisionist history of the 1994 bombing, and he supports an independent investigation that would finally identify who ordered Alberto Nisman’s death.

But President Macri has more challenges ahead. As Mr. Nisman documented, Iran and Hezbollah have penetrated Latin America, and still pose a grave threat to the security of Argentina, the region and the United States.

Trump Declares Jerusalem the Capitol of Israel

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Huge speech and decision. If the Palestinians can have their own capitol, why not Israel? In reality and presently the United States does have a consulate in Jerusalem already. Marine FAST teams (elite security forces) and increased security have already been ordered at most U.S. diplomatic operations in key locations around the world, expecting protests.

Additionally, did you know the Palestinians have an embassy in Washington DC?

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The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
December 06, 2017

President Donald J. Trump’s Proclamation on Jerusalem as the Capital of the State of Israel

“My announcement today marks the beginning of a new approach to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” – President Donald J. Trump

RECOGNIZING JERUSALEM: President Donald J. Trump is following through on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and has instructed the State Department to begin to relocate the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

  • Today, December 6, 2017, President Trump recognized Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Jewish people, as the capital of the State of Israel.
    • In taking this action, President Trump fulfilled a major campaign promise of his and many previous Presidential candidates.
  • The Trump Administration is fully coordinated in supporting this historic action by the President, and has engaged broadly with both our Congressional and international partners on this issue.
    • President Trump’s action enjoys broad, bipartisan support in Congress, including as expressed in the Jerusalem Recognition Act of 1995.  This Act was reaffirmed by a unanimous vote of the Senate only six months ago.
  • President Trump has instructed the State Department to develop a plan to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
  • Departments and Agencies have implemented a robust security plan to ensure the safety of our citizens and assets in the region.

STATUS OF JERUSALEM: President Trump recognizes that specific boundaries of sovereignty in Jerusalem is highly sensitive and subject to final status negotiations. 

  • President Trump recognizes that the status of Jerusalem is a highly-sensitive issue, but he does not think the peace process is aided by ignoring the simple truth that Jerusalem is home to Israel’s legislature, supreme court, President, and Prime Minister.
  • President Trump recognizes that the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties.
  • President Trump reaffirms United States support for the status quo at the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al Sharif.

COMMITTED TO THE PEACE PROCESS: President Trump is committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

  • President Trump remains committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, and he is optimistic that peace can be achieved.
  • Delaying the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has not helped achieve peace over the past two decades.
  • President Trump is prepared to support a two-state solution to the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians, if agreed to by the parties.

*** This proclamation will hurt the peace process? Really? 70 years with of talks and countless deals offered where they were ALL rejected by the Palestinian leadership? It is not clear however what the current talks include with regard to a peace deal, where full sovereignty of Israel is included or borders much less construction of housing of which all anti-Israel types call settlements.

*** How about this timeline that went back to President Truman?

The United States and the Recognition of Israel: A Chronology

Compiled by Raymond H. Geselbracht from Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel (Westport, Connecticut, 1997) by Michael T. Benson

[ 1939 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 ]
 

May 17, 1939: British White Paper on Palestine

May 25, 1939: Senator Harry S. Truman inserts in the Congressional Record strong criticism of the British White Paper on Palestine, saying it is a dishonorable repudiation by Britain of her obligations.

August 24, 1945: Loy Henderson, director of the State Department’s Near East Agency, writes to Secretary of State James Byrnes that the United States would lose its moral prestige in the Middle East if it supported Jewish aspirations in Palestine.

August 24, 1945: The report of the Intergovernment Committee on Refugees, called the Harrison Report, is presented to President Truman. The report is very critical of the treatment by Allied forces of refugees, particularly Jewish refugees, in Germany.

August 31, 1945: President Truman writes British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, citing the Harrison Report and urging Attlee to allow a reasonable number of Europe’s Jews to emigrate to Palestine.

October 22, 1945: Senators Robert Wagner of New York and Robert Taft of Ohio introduce a resolution expressing support for a Jewish state in Palestine.

November 13, 1945: The British government announces the formation of an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to investigate Britain’s handling of the Palestine situation. The committee begins work on January 4, 1946.

November 29, 1945: At a press conference, President Truman expresses opposition to the Taft-Wagner resolution. He says he wants to await and consider the report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.

April 20, 1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry submits its report, which recommends that Britain immediately authorize the admission of 100,000 Jews into Palestine.

May 8, 1946: President Truman writes to Prime Minister Attlee, citing the report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, and expressing the hope that Britain would begin lifting the barriers to Jewish immigration to Palestine.

June 21, 1946: A Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum to the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee warns that if the United States uses armed force to support the implementation of the recommendations of the report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the Soviet Union might be able to increase its power and influence in the Middle East, and United States access to Middle East oil could be jeopardized.

September 24, 1946: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford writes to the President to warn that the Soviet Union wishes to achieve complete economic, military and political domination in the Middle East. Toward this end, Clifford argues, they will encourage the emigration of Jews from Europe into Palestine and at the same time denounce British and American policies toward Palestine and inflame the Arabs against these policies.

October 4, 1946: On the eve of Yom Kippur, President Truman issues a statement indicating United States support for the creation of a “viable Jewish state.”

October 23, 1946: Loy Henderson, director of the State Department’s Near East Agency, warns that the immigration of Jewish Communists into Palestine will increase Soviet influence there.

October 28, 1946: President Truman writes to King Saud of Saudi Arabia, informing the king that he believes “that a national home for the Jewish people should be established in Palestine.”

1947-48: The White House receives 48,600 telegrams, 790,575 cards, and 81,200 other pieces of mail on the subject of Palestine.

February 7, 1947: The British government announces that it will terminate its mandate for Palestine.

February 14, 1947: The British government announces that it will refer the problem of the future of Palestine to the United Nations.

April 2, 1947: The British Government submits to the General Assembly of the United Nations an account of its administration of Palestine under the League of Nations mandate, and asks the General Assembly to make recommendations regarding the future government of Palestine.

May 13, 1947: The United Nations General Assembly appoints an eleven nation Special Committee on Palestine to study the Palestine problem and report by September 1947.

August 31, 1947: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine issues its report, which recommends unanimously (all 11 member states voting in favor) that Great Britain terminate their mandate for Palestine and grant it independence at the earliest possible date; and which also recommends by majority vote (7 of the member nations voting in favor) that Palestine be partitioned into Jewish and Arab states.

September 17, 1947: Secretary of State George Marshall, in an address to the United Nations, indicates that the United States is reluctant to endorse the partition of Palestine.

September 22, 1947: Loy Henderson, director the State Department’s Near East Agency, addresses a memorandum to Secretary of State George Marshall in which he argues against United States’ advocacy of the United Nations proposal to partition Palestine.

October 10, 1947: The Joint Chiefs of Staff argue in a memorandum entitled “The Problem of Palestine” that the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states would enable the Soviet Union to replace the United States and Great Britain in the region and would endanger United States access to Middle East oil.

October 11, 1947: Herschel Johnson, United States deputy representative on the United Nations Security Council, announces United States support for the partition plan of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine.

October 17, 1947: President Truman writes to Senator Claude Pepper: “I received about 35,000 pieces of mail and propaganda from the Jews in this country while this matter [the issue of the partition of Palestine, which was being considered by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine from May 13, 1947 to August 31, 1947] was pending. I put it all in a pile and struck a match to it — I never looked at a single one of the letters because I felt the United Nations Committee [United Nations Special Committee on Palestine] was acting in a judicial capacity and should not be interfered with.”

Ca. November 1947: A subcommittee of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine establishes a timetable for British withdrawal from Palestine.

November 19, 1947: Chaim Weizmann meets with President Truman and argues that the Negev region has great importance to the future Jewish state.

November 24, 1947: Secretary of State George Marshall writes to Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett to inform him that British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had told him that British intelligence indicated that Jewish groups moving illegally from the Balkan states to Palestine included many Communists.

November 29, 1947: The United Nations General Assembly approves the partition plan for Palestine put forward by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The 1947 UN Partition divided the area into three entities: a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone around Jerusalem.

December 2, 1947: President Truman writes to former Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., encouraging him to tell his Jewish friends that it is time for restraint and caution. “The vote in the U.N.,” Truman wrote, “is only the beginning and the Jews must now display tolerance and consideration for the other people in Palestine with whom they will necessarily have to be neighbors.”

December 5, 1947: Secretary of State George Marshall announces that the State Department is imposing an embargo on all shipments of arms to the Middle East.

December 12, 1947: President Truman writes to Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, that it is essential that restraint and tolerance be exercised by all parties if a peaceful settlement is to be reached in the Middle East.

February 4, 1948: Chaim Wiezmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, arrives in New York.

February 12, 1948: Secretary of Defense James Forrestal says at a meeting of the National Security Council that any serious attempt to implement partition in Palestine would set in motion events that would result in at least a partial mobilization of United States armed forces.

February 19, 1948: Secretary of State George Marshall says at a press conference, when asked if the United States would continue to support partition, that the “whole Palestine thing,” was under “constant consideration.”

February 21, 1948: Eddie Jacobson, a longtime and close personal friend of President Truman, sends atelegram to Truman, asking him to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization.

February 22, 1948: President Truman instructs Secretary of State George Marshall that while he approves in principle a draft prepared by the State Department of a position paper which mentions as a possible contingency a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine, he does not want anything presented to the United Nations Security Council that could be interpreted as a change from the position in favor of partition that the United States announced in the General Assembly on November 29, 1947. He further instructs Marshall to send him for review the final draft of the remarks that Warren Austin, the United States representative to the United Nations, is to give before the Security Council on March 19, 1948.

February 27, 1948: President Truman writes to his friend Eddie Jacobson, refusing to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization.

March 8, 1948: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford writes to President Truman, in a memorandum entitled “United States Policy with Regard to Palestine,” that Truman’s actions in support of partition are “in complete conformity with the settled policy of the United States.”

March 9, 1948: Secretary of State George Marshall instructs Warren Austin, United States representative to the United Nations, that if a United Nations special assembly on Palestine were convened, the United States would support a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine.

March 12, 1948: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine reports that “present indications point to the inescapable conclusion that when the [British] mandate is terminated, Palestine is likely to suffer severely from administrative chaos and widespread strife and bloodshed.”

March 13, 1948: President Truman’s friend Eddie Jacobson walks into the White House without an appointment and pleads with Truman to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization. Truman responds: “You win, you baldheaded son-of-a-bitch. I will see him.”

March 18, 1948: President Truman meets with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization. Truman says he wishes to see justice done in Palestine without bloodshed, and that if the Jewish state were declared and the United Nations remained stalled in its attempt to establish a temporary trusteeship over Palestine, the United States would recognize the new state immediately.

March 18, 1948: The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine reports to the United Nations Security Council that it has failed to arrange any compromise between Jews and Arabs, and it recommends that the United Nations undertake a temporary trusteeship for Palestine in order to restore peace.

March 19, 1948: United States representative to the United Nations Warren Austin announces to the United Nations Security Council that the United States position is that the partition of Palestine is no longer a viable option.

March 20, 1948: Secretary of State George Marshall announces that the United States will seek to work within the United Nations to bring a peaceful settlement to Palestine, and that the proposal for a temporary United Nations trusteeship for Palestine is the only idea presently being considered that will allow the United Nations to address the difficult situation in Palestine.

March 21, 1948: President Truman writes in his diary regarding the confusion caused by the State Department’s handling of the trusteeship issue: “I spend the day trying to right what has happened. No luck. Marshall makes a statement. Doesn’t help a bit.”

March 21, 1948: President Truman writes to his sister Mary Jane Truman that the “striped pants conspirators” in the State Department had “completely balled up the Palestine situation.” But, he writes, “it may work out anyway in spite of them.”

March 22, 1948: President Truman writes to his brother Vivian Truman regarding Palestine: “I think the proper thing to do, and the thing I have been doing, is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell.”

March 25, 1948: President Truman says at a press conference that a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine would be only a temporary measure, intended to establish the peaceful conditions that would be the essential foundation for a final political settlement. He says that trusteeship is not a substitute for partition.

April 11, 1948: President Truman’s friend Eddie Jacobson enters the White House unnoticed by the East Gate and meets with Truman. Jacobson recorded of this meeting: “He reaffirmed, very strongly, the promises he had made to Dr. Weizmann and to me; and he gave me permission to tell Dr. Weizmann so, which I did. It was at this meeting that I also discussed with the President the vital matter of recognizing the new state, and to this he agreed with a whole heart.”

May 12, 1948: President Truman meets in the Oval Office with Secretary of State George Marshall, Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett, Counsel to the President Clark Clifford and several others to discuss the Palestine situation. Clifford argues in favor of recognizing the new Jewish state in accordance with the United Nations resolution of November 29, 1947. Marshall opposes Clifford’s arguments, and contends they are based on domestic political considerations. He says that if Truman follows Clifford’s advice and recognizes the Jewish state, then he (Marshall) would vote against Truman in the election. Truman does not clearly state his views in the meeting.

May 12, 13, and 14, 1948: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford and Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett discuss the different views held in the White House and the State Department regarding whether the United States should recognize the Jewish state. Lovett reports to Clifford on May 14 that Marshall will neither support nor oppose Truman’s plan to recognize the Jewish state, that he will stay out of the entire matter.

May 13, 1948: Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, writes to President Truman: “I deeply hope that the United States, which under your leadership has done so much to find a just solution [to the Palestine situation], will promptly recognize the Provisional Government of the new Jewish state. The world, I think, would regard it as especially appropriate that the greatest living democracy should be the first to welcome the newest into the family of nations.”

May 14, 1948: late morning eastern standard time (late afternoon in Palestine): David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, reads a “Declaration of Independence,” which proclaims the existence of a Jewish state called Israel beginning on May 15, 1948, at 12:00 midnight Palestine time (6:00 p.m., May 14, 1948,eastern standard time).

May 14, 1948, 6 p.m. eastern standard time (12:00 midnight in Palestine): The British mandate for Palestine expires, and the state of Israel comes into being.

May 14, 1948, 6:11 p.m. eastern standard time: The United States recognizes Israel on a de facto basis. The White House issues the following statement: “This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional government thereof. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the State of Israel.” To see a color copy of this document click here.

May 14, 1948, shortly after 6:11 p.m. eastern standard time: United States representative to the United Nations Warren Austin leaves his office at the United Nations and goes home. Secretary of State Marshall sends a State Department official to the United Nations to prevent the entire United States delegation from resigning.

May 15, 1948: On May 15, 1948, the Arab states issued their response statement and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq attack Israel.

January 25, 1949: A permanent government takes office in Israel following popular elections.

January 31, 1949: The United States recognizes Israel on a de jure basis.

February 24 to July 20, 1949: Israel signs armistice agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Tillerson: Child Soldiers Conscription Violations

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The United Nations has a list of shame, fine but it is merely a list and a gesture.

Child soldiers are children (under 18) who are used for military purposes.

Some child soldiers are used for fighting – they’re forced to take part in wars and conflicts, forced to kill, and commit other acts of violence. Some are forced to act as suicide bombers. Some join ‘voluntarily’, driven by poverty, sense of duty, or circumstance.

Other children are used as cooks, porters, messengers, informants, spies or anything their commanders want them to do. Child soldiers are sometimes sexually abused.

Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Myanmar, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Thailand, the UK and Yemen all use child soldiers, meaning on person under the age of 18. 

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Exclusive – State Dept. revolt: Tillerson accused of violating U.S. law on child soldiers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.

A confidential State Department “dissent” memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries.[tmsnrt.rs/2jJ7pav]

Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China’s influence in Southeast Asia.

Documents reviewed by Reuters also show Tillerson’s decision was at odds with a unanimous recommendation by the heads of the State Department’s regional bureaus overseeing embassies in the Middle East and Asia, the U.S. envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the department’s human rights office and its own in-house lawyers. [tmsnrt.rs/2Ah6tB4]

“Beyond contravening U.S. law, this decision risks marring the credibility of a broad range of State Department reports and analyses and has weakened one of the U.S. government’s primary diplomatic tools to deter governmental armed forces and government-supported armed groups from recruiting and using children in combat and support roles around the world,” said the July 28 memo.

Reuters reported in June that Tillerson had disregarded internal recommendations on Iraq, Myanmar and Afghanistan. The new documents reveal the scale of the opposition in the State Department, including the rare use of what is known as the “dissent channel,” which allows officials to object to policies without fear of reprisals.

The views expressed by the U.S. officials illustrate ongoing tensions between career diplomats and the former chief of Exxon Mobil Corp appointed by President Donald Trump to pursue an “America First” approach to diplomacy.

INTERPRETING THE LAW

The child soldiers law passed in 2008 states that the U.S. government must be satisfied that no children under the age of 18 “are recruited, conscripted or otherwise compelled to serve as child soldiers” for a country to be removed from the list. It currently includes the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Mali, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

”The Secretary thoroughly reviewed all of the information presented to him and made a determination about whether the facts presented justified a listing pursuant to the law,” a State Department spokesperson said when asked about the officials’ allegation that he had violated the law.

In a written response to the dissent memo on Sept. 1, Tillerson adviser Brian Hook acknowledged that the three countries did use child soldiers. He said, however, it was necessary to distinguish between governments “making little or no effort to correct their child soldier violations … and those which are making sincere – if as yet incomplete – efforts.”

Hook made clear that America’s top diplomat used what he sees as his discretion to interpret the law.

‘A POWERFUL MESSAGE’

Foreign militaries on the list are prohibited from receiving aid, training and weapons from Washington unless the White House issues a waiver based on U.S. “national interest.” In 2016, under the Obama administration, both Iraq and Myanmar, as well as others such as Nigeria and Somalia, received waivers.

At times, the human rights community chided President Barack Obama for being too willing to issue waivers and exemptions, especially for governments that had security ties with Washington, instead of sanctioning more of those countries.

“Human Rights Watch frequently criticized President Barack Obama for giving too many countries waivers, but the law has made a real difference,” Jo Becker, advocacy director for the children’s rights division of Human Rights Watch, wrote in June in a critique of Tillerson’s decision.

The dissenting U.S. officials stressed that Tillerson’s decision to exclude Iraq, Afghanistan and Myanmar went a step further than the Obama administration’s waiver policy by contravening the law and effectively easing pressure on the countries to eradicate the use of child soldiers.

The officials acknowledged in the documents reviewed by Reuters that those three countries had made progress. But in their reading of the law, they said that was not enough to be kept off a list that has been used to shame governments into completely eradicating the use of child soldiers.

‘UNCONSCIONABLE ACTIONS’

Ben Cardin, ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to Tillerson on Friday saying there were “serious concerns that the State Department may not be complying” with the law and that the secretary’s decision “sent a powerful message to these countries that they were receiving a pass on their unconscionable actions.”

The memo was among a series of previously unreported documents sent this month to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the State Department’s independent inspector general’s office that relate to allegations that Tillerson violated the child soldiers law.

Legal scholars say that because of the executive branch’s latitude in foreign policy there is little legal recourse to counter Tillerson’s decision.

Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law professor at American University in Washington, said U.S. courts would be unlikely to accept any challenge to Tillerson’s interpretation of the child soldiers law as allowing him to remove a country from the list on his own discretion.

The signatories to the document were largely senior policy experts with years of involvement in the issues, said an official familiar with the matter. Reuters saw a copy of the document that did not include the names of those who signed it.

Tillerson’s decision to remove Iraq and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, from the list and reject a recommendation by U.S. officials to add Afghanistan was announced in the release of the government’s annual human trafficking report on June 27.

Six days earlier, a previously unreported memo emailed to Tillerson from a range of senior diplomats said the three countries violated the law based on evidence gathered by U.S. officials in 2016 and recommended that he approve them for the new list.

It noted that in Iraq, the United Nations and non-governmental organizations “reported that some Sunni tribal forces … recruited and used persons younger than the age of 18, including instances of children taking a direct part in hostilities.”

Ali Kareem, who heads Iraq’s High Committee for Human Rights, denied the country’s military or state-backed militias use child soldiers. ”We can say today with full confidence that we have a clean slate on child recruitment issues,” he said.

The memo also said “two confirmed cases of child recruitment” by the Myanmar military “were documented during the reporting period.” Human rights advocates have estimated that dozens of children are still conscripted there.

Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay challenged accusers to provide details of where and how child soldiers are being used. He noted that in the latest State Department report on human trafficking, “they already recognized (Myanmar) for reducing of child soldiers” – though the report also made clear some children were still conscripted.

The memo said further there was “credible evidence” that a government-supported militia in Afghanistan “recruited and used a child,” meeting the minimum threshold of a single confirmed case that the State Department had previously used as the legal basis for putting a country on the list.

The Afghan defense and interior ministries both denied there were any child soldiers in Afghan national security forces, an assertion that contradicts the State Department’s reports and human rights activists.

Drug Cartels Upped the Game with Weaponized Drones

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Police in Mexico pulled over four men in a pickup truck near the city of Salamanca in Guanajuato state on October 20 and got a nasty surprise. Along with an AK-47 assault rifle, the men had in their possession an unmanned aerial vehicle fitted with a “large explosive device” and a remote detonator.

That’s right: a weaponized drone.

Police didn’t say whether they suspected the men of ties to drug cartels. But Guanajuato is currently contested by several drug gangs, including the Sinaloa cartel, Los Zetas, and Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG, according to Dr. Robert Bunker, a fellow with Small Wars Journal, a military trade publication.

ISIS set up factories in Iraq and Syria to modify mortar bombs—basically, small artillery shells—to fit on small drones. During intensive fighting in the Iraqi city of Mosul in February, ISIS’s drones were “the main problem” for coalition troops, Captain Ali, an Iraqi officer, told War Is Boring.

The cartels, for their part, have been using so-called “potato bombs”—hand-grenade-size improvised explosive devices—in attacks on each other and authorities. Bunker said the explosive the police found alongside the drone in Guanajuato is “consistent” with a potato bomb.

The cartels could also draw inspiration from online-retailer Amazon and its delivery drones. “As both Islamic State and Amazon have shown, small drones are an efficient way of carrying a payload to a target,” said Nick Waters, a former British Army officer and independent drone expert. “Whether that payload is your new book or several hundred grams of explosive is up to the sender.”

But don’t panic, Waters and other experts said. Drug cartels were plenty dangerous before they weaponized flying robots. Potato bomb-hauling drones might just give narcos more options for perpetrating crimes they are perfectly capable of pulling off some other way. “Considering their already impressive traditional capability, I think this will probably be another tool rather than a game-changing capability,” Waters said.

You should be “no more worried than you should be by cartels also using machine guns, car bombs, machetes, etc,” Singer said. More here.

New report shows how Mexican cartels are infiltrating Texas

Mexican cartels smuggle more drugs into the U.S. than any other criminal group, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration said in a new report.

The 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment released in October lists six cartels as having major influences across the country and Texas.

Cartels’ influence in Texas is far-reaching, affecting cities hundreds of miles from the state’s border with Mexico.

San Antonio is the only city in the state with a drug trade controlled by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which deals mostly with methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana, according to the DEA.

The Gulf Cartel has a hold on cities in Texas’ tip and coastal bend. McAllen, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Galveston, Houston and Beaumont are impacted most by the Gulf Cartel which mostly brings marijuana and cocaine into the area, according to the DEA. Drugs smuggled through the Gulf Cartel are mostly brought in through the area between the Rio Grande Valley and South Padre Island.

Every week in Houston, a relative of a Gulf Cartel leader receives 100 kilograms of cocaine, according to the DEA.

Moving West, Los Zetas control two cities and the Juarez Cartel has a hold on Alpine, Midland, El Paso and Lubbock.

While the arrests of two Los Zetas leaders has weakened the cartel’s influence on Eagle Pass and Laredo, its presence is still felt because of members who have assumed control, bringing cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into Texas.

The Sinaloa Cartel, formerly run by prison escape artist Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman,” is most found in Dallas, Lubbock and Fort Worth, according to the DEA.

DEA map of Mexican cartels in the US photo

The FY 2017 OCDETF Program Budget Request comprises 2,975 positions, 2,902 FTE,
and $522.135 million in funding for the Interagency Crime and Drug Enforcement (ICDE)
Appropriation, to be used for investigative and prosecutorial costs associated with OCDETF cases targeting high-level criminal drug and money laundering networks as well as priority transnational poly-crime organizations whose primary criminal activity may not necessarily be drug-related. Go here to read the full report.
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Fracking the Saudi Kingdom, Cash Needed to Survive

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When the price of oil at the barrel hovers in the range of $50.00, oil rich nations start to see red on the balance sheets due in part to U.S. fracking.

This too is a reason that Russia and Saudi Arabia are making some desperate decisions. While Russia has no intention of altering internal operations with regard to employment and consumption, the Saudi Kingdom has countless moving parts under consideration for a long term survival strategy especially with a rather new leadership in the order of Princes.

This is not a recent condition for the Saudi royals as it began with real attempts to control the outflow of money and playboy princes spending money globally including in fraudulent and illicit activities.

The kingdom has big plans for the future to compete and must remove all internal obstacles first to gain investment money.

Rhiayad has made a decision to no longer rely on oil for economic sustainability.

The future of Saudi Arabia is described here and is known as ‘Vision 2030‘.

It was once procedure to keep chaos in the Kingdom quiet, but not so much anymore.

King Salman’s sweep may have been foreshadowed two weeks ago, when Maan al-Sanea, a raffish Kuwaiti billionaire, was arrested at his home on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia.

An exceedingly messy affair ensued. The head of the Gosaibi family accused Sanea of opening the bank—which was called the International Banking Corporation, or T.I.B.C.—without his consent, and of systematically defrauding the family and the bank’s customers. Corporate investigators subsequently uncovered what they believed was evidence of a scheme involving forged signatures and the issuing of fake loans. Lawyers for Sanea claimed in court that the Gosaibis knew what he was doing all along, but they never explained the signatures or loans the investigators had raised questions about.

The financial complexities of the case were daunting—in part because of the opacity of the Saudi legal system. The dispute between the Gosaibis and Sanea played out in separate lawsuits in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, Bahrain, the U.A.E., and other legal jurisdictions around the world. Yet only one jurisdiction, Sanea’s lawyers claimed, truly mattered. “Our client’s position has always been that the substantive dispute between him and the al-Gosaibi family can be dealt with properly in Saudi Arabia,” they said. More details here.

*** Then there is the case of Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd. Is he dead or not? The Kingdom says no he only being detained. Others say hold on….this too appears to be about flaunting money in some cases…dark corners, other places globally. Some real fascinating details are here.

Saudi Arabia has some competitors for economic survival, those being Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Then there is of course Iran, an even more devilish enemy to Saudi Arabia in many cases than it is to Israel and the United States.

Saudi Arabia has been at war in Yemen due to the Iranian back Houthi rebels for a few years and still has to contend with Bahrain which too has a Shia majority, often inspired by Tehran as was seen in the 2011 Arab Spring protests.

Then there is Lebanon. While Lebanon does have a sizable Christian population, it is essentially controlled by Iran’s Hezbollah and too holds the largest number of refugees from the Syrian civil war. Lebanon’s Prime Minister took a trip to Washington DC and the Trump White House in July, likely to explain conditions in the country taking a tailspin. In early November, Prime Minister Hariri traveled then to Saudi Arabia, probably at the Kingdom’s demand and soon resigned. He is reported to still in in Rhiayad under consultation and protection as he feared for his life in Lebanon as it is reported. Hariri may be hold up at the Ritz Carlton along with the dozen other detained princes under a tight military security condition.

photo

Iran is controlling Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and is working to do the same in Yemen. The Saudi Mission in the United Nations has justified a new blockade on Yemen by accusing Iran  of “direct military aggression”, linking Iranians and Hezbollah to a Burkan H2 missile fired by Houthi rebels towards Riyadh airport and oil facilities, as stakes raised between regional rivals. Iran’s president Rouhani declared Saudi Arabia to stay out of the business in Lebanon.

So is a larger conflict looming? The tea leaves reveal that probability. So, if that is the case, the Kingdom needs all wayward princes out of the way including those in opposition to the modernization of the Kingdom and money will be an issue. $800 billion is on the line so far and rumored to be confiscated.

What is notable is Saudi Arabia issued a declaration directly after Prime Minister Hariri resigned for all Saudi citizens in Lebanon to leave Lebanon immediately as Bahrain has done the same.

So, with regard to funds. a Saudi attorney general said legal probe underway suggests at least $100 billion has been misused in corruption and embezzlement over several decades. 208 were part of the legal probe and have been released, while others are detained and more investigations continue.

So far: The UAE, particularly its most commercially prominent emirate Dubai, is one of the main places where wealthy Saudis park their money abroad. In addition to bank accounts, they buy luxury apartments and villas in Dubai and invest in the emirate’s volatile stock market.

Huge amounts of money may be at stake. Corruption has over the years siphoned off $800 billion from Saudi state revenues, an official at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry has estimated; bankers believe much of it is held abroad, in countries including Switzerland and Britain.

ASSETS SOLD

Some wealthy Saudi individuals have been liquidating assets within Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf countries this week, apparently in an effort to move money out of the region and escape the crackdown, private bankers and fund managers said.

*** Whenever and wherever there is political unrest, Russia is always lurking. That is part in parcel why Russia was mentioned at the top of this article.

There is little doubt that Putin’s foreign policy centers on reviving Russia as a major international power, which seeks to undermine the global American alliance that has underwritten international security since the end of the Cold War.

Stretching across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, this alliance has continually thwarted Russia’s primary foreign policy ambitions. Seeking to break Russia free from America’s preeminence, Putin persistently employs tactics below the threshold of war to fracture the global system and artfully exploits the unintended consequences this inevitably creates.

Putin’s asymmetrical moves have sought to cast doubt on the credibility of American security guarantees in Eastern Europe and in the Baltic. And while alarm bells have sounded, Putin has shied away from direct military confrontation with NATO.

Putin has also now turned to a second front by exploiting the void left by U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East. The projection of Russian military power in Syria in the summer of 2015 ushered in a new era of expansion in the Arab world – particularly through arm sales and limited military involvement. In Moscow’s view, the Middle East is ripe for disruption, with lower risks of a direct confrontation with the United States.

Putin’s show of force unsurprisingly has found him new friends and new buyers. Regional powers are hedging against U.S. unpredictability and seeking out Russian benevolence. Furthering the sense of uncertainty is the lingering crisis between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Qatar. While the Gulf sees uncertainty, Russia sees an opportunity to prey on their doubts.

The announced sale of the S-400 missile defense system to Riyadh during the October visit of King Salman to Moscow, the first Saudi monarch to visit Russia, is a further sign of the deepening role Moscow is playing in an area of the world where the U.S. has traditionally been predominant.

This is not the first time Putin has ventured into arm sales in the Middle East, a region that is typically dominated by the U.S. weapons industry. Previous sales of the S-300 have been delivered to Iran, while Turkey recently signed a deal with Moscow to acquire the S-400 as well. Furthermore, Bahrain and Qatar, the home to the U.S.’s Fifth Fleet and the Al Udeid military base respectively, have also expressed interest in acquiring the system, according to Russian media. Its acquisition, if completed, raises important implications for the U.S.’s strategic posture in the Gulf. The proliferation of such systems is certainly not in America’s interest.

The acquisition of the S-400 by Riyadh comes after the U.S. recently sold $15 billion worth of THAAD equipment to the Kingdom. This system will be the premier ballistic missile defense system in the Middle East, with the exception of Israel’s. But for its new air defense system, Saudi Arabia felt the need to turn to Russia.

Riyadh’s rapprochement with Moscow is a way to hedge against a more uncertain U.S. engagement and to gain some leverage in its relationship with Washington. While the U.S. has tried to assuage Saudi concerns about its own steadfastness in the region, Moscow has been able to sow enough doubt in Riyadh to undermine American efforts. Riyadh is careful to show that it won’t completely fall in line either with Washington or Moscow but will try to balance one relationship with the other. While the agreement to purchase the S-400 is a signal towards Washington, it is equally telling that the sale of the THAAD missile defense system was approved amidst Salman’s visit to Moscow. More here by Andrew Bowen.

Not even a crystal ball or a higher power can really sort all of this out…but now you have some facts giving rise to some clues and can make a better estimation….right?