Category Archives: Citizens Duty

General Flynn on Iran and 450 to Al-Taqaddum Air Base

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The original request for additional U.S. troops to Iraq was 1000, yet the White House authorized 450 for purposes of intelligence gathering and training as well as some ground surveillance.

al Taqaddum is 74 kilometers from Baghdad and the ultimate mission is to retake Ramadi and Fallujah. This was a Marine base comprised of The airfield is served by two runways 13,000 and 12,000 feet (3,700 m) long. that was eventually turned over to the Iraqi military in 2009.

Meanwhile, today, June 10, 2015, General Flynn gave testimony before the Joint Foreign Affairs and HASC Subcommittees on Iran’s hegemony in the region.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency until August 2014
He testified Wednesday in a congressional hearing that the administration doesn’t have ‘a permanent fix but merely a placeholder’ for the Iran crisis
Flynn said the notion that the U.S. can ‘snap back’ sanctions on Tehran if it breaks an agreement is ‘fiction’
Warned that ‘Iran’s nuclear program has significant – and not fully disclosed – military dimensions’
Obama administration has less than three weeks to finalize a nuclear agreement that would pare back Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon.

His full written presentation is found here. In part however, his situation report is not only chilling but demonstrates what the future predictions include.

Wishful Thinking:

In lengthy written remarks, Flynn asserted that Iran has “every intention” of building a nuclear weapon, and their desire to destroy Israel is “very real.”

“Iran has not once (not once) contributed to the greater good of the security of the region,” he said in his remarks, noting their fighters “killed or maimed thousands of Americans and Iraqis” in Iraq.

The administration is working alongside five other world powers to try and strike a nuclear deal – which would aim to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief – by the end of the month. But Flynn said Iran already has made it clear they will put limits on inspections, making for “incomplete verification.” Plus he said it’s “unreasonable” to believe international sanctions could be resumed once lifted.

He also echoed concerns of some other analysts in saying the “perceived acceptance” of Iran’s program will likely “touch off a dangerous domino effect in the region” as Saudi Arabia and other nations seek nuclear capability.

As for the rising threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Flynn voiced concern that the U.S. is not keeping up with the crisis. He said there is “absolutely no end in sight,” and “no clear U.S. policy” for dealing with it.

 

The Carnage and Weapons in Sudan, UN Ignores

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If there is an historical failure by the United Nations, it is Sudan. The global body publishes a report demonstrating the destruction. It is not a new condition, so one must ask where was Susan Rice when she was the UN ambassador? Where was Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State and where is now John Kerry? How about the White House who is so concerned with human rights? Or, is the matter of rogue nations need weapons and Sudan is the source?

Syrian rebels, frustrated by the West’s reluctance to provide arms, have found a supplier in an unlikely source: Sudan, a country that has been under international arms embargoes and maintains close ties with a stalwart backer of the Syrian government, Iran.

In deals that have not been publicly acknowledged, Western officials and Syrian rebels say, Sudan’s government sold Sudanese- and Chinese-made arms to Qatar, which arranged delivery through Turkey to the rebels.

The shipments included antiaircraft missiles and newly manufactured small-arms cartridges, which were seen on the battlefield in Syria — all of which have helped the rebels combat the Syrian government’s better-armed forces and loyalist militias.

Emerging evidence that Sudan has fed the secret arms pipeline to rebels adds to a growing body of knowledge about where the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is getting its military equipment, often paid for by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia or other sympathetic donors.

Map of the Day: Hungry and Displaced in South Sudan

This map, from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, succinctly shows the number people displaced by fighting in South Sudan and where they have fled.

Screen Shot 2015-06-10 at 10.20.32 AM

There is a deeper story to this map.

Over the last four weeks, fighting has intensified in South Sudan. Over 100,000 people have been displaced in this newest round of fighting. The prospect of mass starvation is very real. The International Committee for the Red Cross warned today that unless “urgent action” is taken, thousands of people may soon starve.

What is that ‘urgent action?’ Mostly, it’s securing more funding for the humanitarian relief effort. The ICRC needs an additional $23 million to provide food aid and help subsistence farmers make it through the lean season while also providing them seeds for the next planting season.

That money, though, is simply not materializing. Yesterday, UNICEF warned that it would have to shut down most of its operations in South Sudan by the end of the month because they are running out of money.  

The acute needs of children in Sudan are huge and go far beyond the impact of the South Sudan crisis. More than 3.2 million children require humanitarian assistance. To date UNICEF in Sudan has received generous support from a wide range of donors. Unfortunately, the funding received covers only 16% of the 117 million USD required. By the end of June, UNICEF will no longer have funding available to support children affected by the war in South Sudan.

UNICEF and ICRC’s funding difficulties in South Sudan are symptomatic of a larger problem facing the international community. The world’s humanitarian system is on the brink of collapse right now, with several ongoing complex emergencies stretching donors and relief agencies thin.  Between Iraq, Syria, Nepal, CAR and Mali these emergencies are essentially competing for the same donor dollars and donors have so far been unable or unwilling to fully fund the relief operations of each of these emergencies. Unless donors step up in a big way, it would seem that relief operations in South Sudan may be the next to fall.

The war no one is fighting or winning. An highly researched 4 part series is found here.

An in-depth timeline for Sudan is found here, but since 2012:

2012 June – Week-long student protests in Khartoum against austerity measures spread from to the wider public after the government cuts fuel and other subsidies in response to the drop in oil revenue after the independence of South Sudan.

2012 August – Some 655,000 have been displaced or severely affected by fighting between the army and rebels in states bordering on South Sudan, the UN reports.

Sudan and South Sudan strike a last-minute deal on the South’s export of oil via Sudan’s pipelines.

2012 September – The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan agree on plans for a demilitarised buffer zone and resuming oil sales after days of talks in Ethiopia, but fail to resolve border issues, including Abyei.

Clashes with rebels in Darfur and South Kordofan region.

2012 October – Explosions destroy an arms factory in Khartoum. Sudan accuses Israel of the attack on what is believed to be an Iranian-run plant making weapons for Hamas in Gaza. Israel declines to comment.

2013 March – Sudan and South Sudan agree to resume pumping oil, ending a shutdown caused by a dispute over fees more than a year ago, and to withdraw troops from their borders to create a demilitarised zone.

2013 September – Wave of demonstrations across the country over the government’s decision to cut fuel subsidies. Scores of people die in clashes with police.

Ruling party splits

2013 October – Dissident members of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) announce plans for a breakaway party aimed at reaching out to secularists and leftists, in what is seen as the most serious split in the elite since Hassan al-Turabi went into opposition in 1999.

2013 December – President Bashir drops long-time ally and first vice president Ali Osman Taha from the cabinet in a major shake-up.

2014 May – A court in Khartoum prompts an international outcry by sentencing a pregnant woman born to a Muslim father but raised as a Christian to death for apostasy after failing to recant her Christianity.

2014 December – The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court halts investigations into war crimes in Darfur for lack of support from the UN Security Council.

2015 April – President Bashir is re-elected for another five year term. He wins nearly 95 percent of the vote in a poll marked by low turnout and boycotted by most opposition parties.

 

Obamacare = O’boondoggle

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Everything has a consequence and there are many attached to Obamacare, many not in the mainstream knowledge base. Jobs and innovation in the United States is the latest victim of the law. The Supreme Court will decide the fate of the law under the King vs. Burwell case at the end of the month. A description of the case is found here. There are some key facts on the case that need to be known as noted here. Additional destructive consequences still loom in the future.

ObamaCare’s Anti-Innovation Effect

by Scott W. Atlas

Of the many unintended consequences of the Affordable Care Act, perhaps the least noticed is its threat to innovation. Although most discussions center on the law’s more immediate effects on hiring, insurance rates and access to doctors and care, attention should also be paid to its impact on U.S. research and development and health-care technology.

The overwhelming majority of the world’s health-care innovation occurs in the U.S. This includes ground-breaking drug treatments, surgical procedures, medical devices, patents, diagnostics and much more. Most of the funding for that innovation—about 71% of U.S. R&D investment—comes from private industry. A recent R&D Magazine survey of industry leaders in 63 countries ranked the U.S. No. 1 in the world for health-care innovation.

But that environment is changing. According to R&D Magazine and the research firm Battelle, growth of R&D spending in the U.S. from 2012 to 2014 averaged just 2.1%, down from an average of 6% over the previous 15 years. In that same 15-year period, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, India and the European Union saw faster R&D spending growth than the U.S. China’s grew on average 22% per year.

The recent slowdown in R&D spending in the U.S. is in part caused by weak economic growth since the 2008 financial crisis. But the economy’s weakness itself has been exacerbated by the negative impact of new taxes and regulations under ObamaCare. According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the new health-care law will levy more than $500 billion in new taxes over its first 10 years to help pay for insurance subsidies and Medicaid expansion. These new taxes include significant levies on key health-care industries, such as manufacturers of medical devices and drugs, and their investors.

As a result, small and large U.S. health-care technology companies are moving R&D centers and jobs overseas. The CEO of one of the largest health-care companies in America recently told me that the device tax his company paid last year exceeded his company’s entire R&D budget. Already a long list of companies—including Boston Scientific , Stryker and Cook Medical—have announced job cuts and plans to open new centers for R&D, manufacturing and clinical trials overseas.

The bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration are also hindering medical-technology and drug development. According to a 2010 survey of more than 200 medical-device companies by medical professor and entrepreneur Josh Makower and his colleagues at Stanford University, delays of approvals for new medical devices are now far longer in the U.S. than in many other developed countries. In the European Union—not exactly known for cutting through red tape—it takes on average seven months to gain approval for low- to moderate-risk devices. In the U.S., FDA approval for similar devices takes on average 31 months.

The 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers Medical Technology Innovation Scorecard found that “the gap between innovation leaders and emerging economies is rapidly narrowing.” And that “although the United States will hold its lead, the country will continue to lose ground during the next decade.” It goes on to say that “China, India, and Brazil will experience the strongest gains during the next 10 years.”

Since the signing of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, private-equity investment in new U.S. health-care startups has also diminished. Annual capital investment has decreased to $41 billion in 2013 from $61 billion in 2011, according to quarterly reports by the accounting and audit firm McGladrey LLP. Similarly, the Silicon Valley-based law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati reported in its semiannual Life Sciences Reports decreases from the first half of 2010 through the second half of 2013 in deal closings and capital raised for startups in biopharmaceuticals, medical devices and equipment, and diagnostics, with only a slight uptick in health-information systems investment.

Meanwhile, many of the best and brightest who come to the U.S. to study science, technology, engineering and math—the STEM subjects that are so crucial to innovation—are choosing to return to their home countries upon graduation. In 2008, a survey conducted by Vivek Wadhwa and his team of researchers at Duke, Harvard and the University of California found that only 6% of Indian, 10% of Chinese and 15% of European students expected to make America their permanent home. Much of this is Congress’s fault. Lawmakers have been slow to increase limits on H-1B visas for high-skill foreign workers. Pressure has been brought to bear on Congress to take action, but it may be too late for an increase in the visas to have much effect in health care, given the decline in R&D spending that would make use of their talents.

What can be done to reverse these damaging trends? First, strip back the heavy tax burdens that currently inhibit innovation, starting with repealing the Affordable Care Act’s $29 billion medical-device excise tax and the $80 billion tax on brand-name drugs. Change the tax code to add incentives for investment in early-stage medical technology and life-science companies, as well as for philanthropic gifts to academic institutions that promote tech entrepreneurs.

And finally, simplify processes for new device and drug approvals, so that the FDA becomes a favorable rather than an obstructionist environment for these life-saving and cost-saving discoveries. It’s a tall order, especially in today’s Washington. But America’s health—and wealth—depend on it.

*** Obama’s ‘King v. Burwell’ Speech Displayed The Very Ideological Fervor That Led Him To Break The Law

In a case called King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court will soon decide whether it agrees with two lower courts that President Obama is breaking the law by subjecting 57 million employers and individuals to illegal taxes, and spending the illegal proceeds to hide the cost of HealthCare.gov coverage from 6.5 million enrollees. Today the president delivered a speech designed to cow the Supremes into turning a blind eye to the law. Instead, he offered what for some is the missing piece of the King v. Burwell puzzle. He displayed the very ideological fervor that leads powerful people to break the rules.

“We have an obligation to put ourselves in our neighbor’s shoes, and to see the common humanity in each other,” the president said. Yet the president of the United States has an even more important obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”  It’s right there in Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which President Obama swore to uphold. King v. Burwell is about his failure to meet that obligation.

 

Putin’s Plan for a Military Artic Region

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Despite sanctions against Russia, the Artic is still at risk. The recent G-7 meeting brought more solidarity agreement of sanctions on Russia but only due to Putin’s hostilities against Ukraine and in violation on the Minsk Agreement. The full text of the agreement is here in English. No conversations have taken place with regard to Putin’s operations in the Artic.

Going back to 2103, Putin not only announced his aggressions for the Artic region, he is intensifying operations while there is no mission to stop his objectives. Two years later, he is succeeding.

Russia has been building new ships and preparing to deploy troops along its northern border as melting Arctic ice will make it possible for more commercial traffic to transit the so called Northern Sea route. There is also the potential for large mineral deposits in the region.

“There are plans to create a group of troops and forces to ensure military security and protection of the Russian Federation’s national interests in the Arctic in 2014,” Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at the same meeting.

Putin’s declaration highlights several military moves the Russians have made in relation to the Arctic in the last few years.

Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Security Council, announced in mid-2012 it would create ten naval bases along its northern coast. In May, Russia announced it would be constructing up to four new ships for duty in the Arctic.

Putin’s remarks follow Canada’s plan to claim Arctic territories — including the North Pole — as sovereign Canadian territory, the country’s foreign minister announced on Monday.

“We are determined to ensure that all Canadians benefit from the tremendous resources that are to be found in Canada’s far north,” John Baird said, according to an Associated Press report.

Last week, Canada made preliminary claims to some Arctic regions and plans to make more.

Russia, of all the eight members of the Arctic Council, has the most naval assets to patrol the surface of the Arctic.

Russia has more than 37 government icebreakers compared to Canada’s six and America’s five, according to a July review from the U.S. Coast Guard.

However Canada is currently constructing a new surface naval force, complete with a collection of ships that would be designed to operate in cold climates.

Under the sea, the U.S. nuclear submarine force remains as the dominant power in the region.

Russia is interested in the Arctic for a number of reasons, though natural resources and pure geopolitical imperatives are the major driving forces behind Moscow’s thinking. The Arctic contains an estimated 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil reserves, regarded by Moscow as important sources of foreign investment that are critical to the country’s economic development. The Northern Sea Route from East Asia to Europe via the Arctic Ocean provides another economic opportunity for developing infrastructure in northern Russia.

Militarizing the Arctic will be a key imperative for the Russian military throughout 2015 and beyond — alongside modernization in general and bolstering forces in Crimea and the Kaliningrad exclave. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Soviet-era bases in the Arctic are being reactivated in response to NATO’s renewed interest in the region.

The airstrip on the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya is being renovated to accommodate modern and next generation fighter aircraft in addition to advanced S400 air defense systems. Part of the Northern Fleet will also be based on the island chain, which is ideally positioned for operations in the Arctic region. The Northern Fleet represents two-thirds of the entire Russian Navy, which is the only navy in the world to operate nuclear-powered icebreaker ships. Great detail can be read here.

ISIS Tactics Include Taxes and Treasures

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With a multi-country coalition, air strikes, ground intelligence gathering, surveillance drones and up to 1000 more troops being deployed to Iraq, the White House has no strategy and blames the Pentagon.

The Pentagon has a division that is assigned to war-gaming and planning in all conditions across the globe that is based on human intelligence, information gathered from diplomatic staff in all embassies, use of software, estimations, locations of military assets, threats from the enemy, money, transportation, secret deals, ordnance positioning and more. The Pentagon always has several strategies that are current and nimble that require dynamic alterations as even minor conditions change. For Obama to blame the Pentagon is childish and misguided.

Despite nine months and $2.44 billion in U.S. airstrikes against the fighters and their oil facilities and smuggling networks, the self-proclaimed Islamic State has proven to be as resilient financially as it’s been militarily.

The group that President Barack Obama dismissed in January 2014 as a junior varsity team last year seized an estimated $675 million from banks, plus $145 million in oil sales and ransom payments and tens of millions more from other commercial enterprises, looting and extortion, according to U.S. Treasury and United Nations figures.

“This isn’t your average terrorist group operating from your average safe haven,” said Juan Zarate, a former assistant secretary of Treasury for terrorist financing and financial crimes who spent years targeting al-Qaeda funding. “They have access to oil in Iraq and Syria; access to major population centers; access to banks, antiquities and smuggling groups — all of that allows them to be more agile and have access to more capital and resources than your average terrorist group.”

“The truth is nobody really knows how much they’re making now,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The U.S. government is getting closer to pegging the group’s finances because of things like last month’s raid in eastern Syria. But no one knows how much they’re getting versus their spending.”

Islamic State “is in some ways a proto-state, in some ways a terrorist organization, in some ways an insurgency and in some ways a transnational criminal group,” he said. Like drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico and al-Qaeda offshoots in Somalia, northern Mali and Yemen, the group is extorting taxes, plundering local resources and taking a cut of commercial enterprises, he said. Read much more detail here.

ISIS has published their objectives on the internet for the world to see and yet operates with unhindered. ISIS is fully functional in an estimated 12 countries while the Obama administration is in neutral to lead the coalition in both offensive and defensive measures. The impact of the coalition is inert.

Egypt, a country working to recover from a power revolution is at particular risk.

From Oren Kessler in part: Egypt’s once-foundering economy is slowly rising from the abyss. President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has cut costly fuel and food subsidies, cut red tape on investments, instructed the Central Bank to tackle the black market in foreign currencies and vowed to bring unemployment under 10 percent.

His efforts are beginning to bear fruit. In May, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s revised Egypt’s country outlook from stable to positive, predicting real GDP growth over the next three years of 4.3 percent – double the average of the four years since the revolution. Meanwhile, the government’s suspension of the capital gains tax sent stocks soaring 6.5 percent in a single day.

Still, no economic turnaround will be complete without a recovery in tourism. The U.S. State Department currently urges citizens to exercise caution in traveling to the country, and advises against any non-essential travel in Sinai, where an insurgency by Islamic State-linked militants has raged since the military ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. At the same time, shadowy pro-Brotherhood groups calling themselves Ajnad Misr (“Soldiers of Egypt”) and the “Popular Resistance Movement” are increasingly targeting the populous mainland, including Cairo, Alexandria and the cities of the Nile Delta. The government accuses the now-banned Brotherhood of responsibility for virtually every attack, but the extent to which the group is actually orchestrating the violence remains unclear.

What is clear is that continued terrorism, particularly against tourists, has the capacity to set back the fragile gains Cairo has made in restoring stability and reviving its economy. For Egypt, persuading visitors to come soak up the country’s sights and sun will require convincing them beyond a reasonable doubt that traveling to the land of the Pharaohs will not be a one-way ticket. More detail here.