Kerry Allowing Iran and Russia to Dictate Syria Peace Talks

Posted on January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 by Denise Simon

The Obama administration just ‘made a scary retreat’ in its Syria policy, and negotiations are quickly unraveling

BusinessInsider: In a meeting with members of Syria’s opposition in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry demanded that rebels accept a set of preconditions dictated by Russia and Iran in order to participate in peace talks, according to an explosive report by the daily pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat.

The terms Kerry reportedly asked the opposition Saudi-backed High Negotiation Committee (HNC) to accept — including a “national unity government” instead of a transitional governing body that would phase Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of power — represent “a scary retreat in the US position,” opposition sources told the head of Al Hayat’s Damascus bureau, Ibrahim Hamidi.

According to translations provided by multiple Middle East analysts on Twitter, Kerry told the opposition delegation that, based on an “understanding” he had reached with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Assad has the right to run for reelection and there will be no set timetable for his departure.

That stands in contrast to the White House’s previous position that while Assad does not have to go immediately, the timing of his departure should be addressed during negotiations.

Kerry also signaled the Obama administration’s endorsement of a four-point peace plan for Syria created by Iran, a staunch ally of Assad. The plan calls for an immediate ceasefire, the establishment of a national unity government, the anchoring of minority rights in the constitution, and internationally supervised presidential elections in Syria.

United Nations (U.N.) Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura attends a meeting on Syria with representatives of the five permanent members of the Security Council (P5) at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, January 13, 2016. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse Thomson ReutersUN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura pushed for the national ceasefire on Monday, saying in a press conference from Geneva that “the condition is it should be a real ceasefire and not just local.”

The ceasefire would apply to all warring parties but the ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. As Al Hayat has noted, that implicitly would grant legitimacy and “an official status” to the Shiite militias Iran has built in Syria to support Assad.

Including minority rights in the constitution, meanwhile, would serve as an attempt to “anchor sectarian tensions” between Sunni and Shiite Muslims within a legal framework.

These demands are “a desperate move” by the US to make the negotiations “look like progress,” tweeted Hassan Hassan, coauthor of “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror” and resident fellow at the DC-based think tank Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

“De Mistura also echoed Russia’s demands. Short-sighted of the US to think this will go well,” he added.

So far, it is not going anywhere. Members of the HNC reportedly rejected Kerry’s demands and have threatened to boycott the negotiations altogether. They reiterated that they will not attend the talks until the government halts air strikes and ends its sieges of rebel-held territory, in accordance with UN resolution 2254, adopted last month by the UN Security Council.

syria opposition aleppo Abdalrhman Ismail/ReutersProtesters carry banners and opposition flags as they march in Aleppo, Syria, asking for the release of prisoners held in government jails and the lifting of the siege on besieged areas.

The terms of that resolution have failed to materialize, but Kerry apparently pressured the opposition into attending the talks anyway. Rebel sources told Al Hayat that Kerry went one step further and threatened to cut off US aid to rebel groups if they failed to show up at the negotiating table.

On Monday, Kerry reiterated that preconditions are a nonstarter for negotiations. But he categorically denied that he had threatened to cut off aid to the rebel groups.

“The position of the United States is and hasn’t changed. We are still supporting the opposition, politically, financially and militarily,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “We completely empowered them. I don’t know where this is coming from.”

He noted, however, that “it’s up to the Syrians to decide what happens to Assad,” effectively echoing Russian officials.

Nawaf Obaid, an Al Hayat columnist and visiting fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, further noted the meeting’s most significant and “shocking” points in a series of tweets on Sunday: The series of tweets are here.

In the following six tweets, readout of yesterday’s meeting between @JohnKerry & Dr Riyad Hijab is outlined. It’s shocking to say the least!

While the HNC’s senior negotiator, Mohammad Aloush, promised a “strong reaction” to these demands in a press conference on Sunday, HNC spokesman Salim al-Muslat told Reuters that the meeting with Kerry had been “positive” overall.

Former Syrian opposition leader Hadi Albahra noted, too, that the reports circulating about Kerry’s requests for the HNC were “not fully accurate.”

On Monday, however, de Mistura announced that talks will be postponed at least four days, to January 29, while negotiators work to resolve lingering disagreements over which members of the opposition will be invited to participate.

Kerry apparently stipulated that the HNC has to include certain Moscow-friendly opposition leaders into its delegation, including Kurdish PYD leader Saleh Muslim, former Syrian deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil, and Haitham Manna, exiled leader of the non-Islamist Syrian Democratic Council.

Thomson ReutersUS Secretary of State John Kerry takes his seat across the table from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The Saudi-backed HNC has so far refused to expand its delegation, insisting that it represents all legitimate opposition players. In response, Bloomberg reported, the US and Russia are considering inviting a separate opposition delegation to the talks made up of rebel leaders Moscow has proposed and endorsed.

Middle East analyst Kyle Orton, an associate fellow at UK-based think tank The Henry Jackson Society, tweeted a grim analysis: “With the way things have stacked up, it’s hard not to see it as Obama and Kerry consciously working for the defeat of Syria’s opposition.”

Hassan Hassan put it bluntly: “US officials are telling Syrians what extremists have been telling them for years — the US isn’t your friend.”

Non-Stop Flight: NYC to Tehran?

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

As an aside note, one of the 7 in the prisoner swap and 14 people that Obama lifted the Interpol ‘red-notice’ on was the CEO of Mahan Air.

See more on Mahan Air here.

Obama Admin Denies Resumption of U.S.-Iran Commercial Flights

Iran claims talks taking place

Iran Air / Wikimedia Commons

BY: Adam Kredo
January 25, 2016 12:00 pm

Obama administration officials on Monday denied that they are holding talks with Iran aimed at resuming direct flights between the two countries, according to information provided by the administration to the Washington Free Beacon.

The head of Iran’s national air carrier, Iran Air, announced over the weekend that negotiations are taking place between the United States and Iran regarding the resumption of direct flights between the countries.

The announcement, which Obama administration officials denied Monday when asked by the Free Beacon, comes as Iran engages in talks with French airplane manufacturer Airbus about the purchase of more than 100 new planes.

Farhad Parvaresh, Iran Air chairman, said that talks are underway with the United States to begin direct flights from America to Iran now that international sanctions on the Islamic Republic have been lifted as part of the recent nuclear agreement.

The “Iran Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is conducting talks on direct flights between Iran and the US,” Parvaresh said, according to the country’s state-controlled press. “Daily flights to New York used to take place before the Islamic Revolution and they will hopefully get resumed in near future.”

Obama administration officials say this is not true, citing a number of concerns that would complicate any such resumption.

The administration officials maintain that, to their knowledge, no talks have take place between the U.S. government and Iran regarding the resumption of direct flights.

“There are no U.S. government officials involved in such talks,” a State Department official who was not authorized to speak on record told the Free Beacon.

A resumption of U.S.-Iran flights is “not something we’re considering,” the official said. “There are a number of issues, regulatory and otherwise, that would prevent direct flights between the U.S. and Iran.”

A second administration official also confirmed that direct U.S.-Iran flights are “not something we are considering.”

Primarily, Iranian travelers would be unable to obtain a U.S. travel visa since America has no diplomatic ties with Iran and does not maintain an embassy in the country.

However, dual U.S.-Iranian citizens might benefit from such an arrangement.

Iran is continuing to explore ways in which it can expand its aviation industry. A portion of the nuclear agreement centered on lifting restrictions on Iran’s ability to conduct business with international airlines and plane manufacturers.

Iran has long been operating an aged fleet of commercial planes that are in dire need of spare parts. Since the nuclear deal was implemented and international sanctions were lifted, Iranian officials have begun talks with European airliners and airports.

France’s Airbus confirmed Monday that talks are underway to sell Iran some of the newest commercial jetliners.

The sales could encompass “100-seat turboprops to the 555-seat twin-deck Airbus A380 superjumbo,” according to reports in the U.S. and Iranian media.

“We have been negotiating for 10 months” about the purchase, but “there was no way to pay for them because of banking sanctions,” Iran’s transportation minister told the country’s state-controlled press.

The release by the United States of some $150 billion in once-frozen cash assets has enabled Iran to more seriously negotiate a deal.

“Following the lifting of international economic sanctions, Iran seeks [to] purchase 114 Airbus jets to renovate the aging fleet,” said Iran Air chairman Parvaresh. “Hopefully, a part of the financing will be carried out by the National Development Fund of Iran.”

Iran also is in talks to boost relations with many European airports. This will enable Iran’s commercial airplanes to more easily land, refuel, and resupply.

“Currently, on the basis of a contract with France’s Total, Iran Air flights are supplied with necessary fuel in French airports,” Parvaresh was quoted as saying. “So far, London Heathrow, Amsterdam, Hamburg Fuhlsbuttel and Vienna airports have also resolved the issue for Iranian aircrafts while talks with other fuel companies are underway.”

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and terrorism analyst, dismissed the Obama administration’s denial, saying that time and again, Iranian press reports have more accurately reported the status of U.S.-Iran negotiations.

“The sad truth is that the Iranian press has been more accurate than the White House with regard to anything dealing with secret talks or American concessions,” Rubin said, saying the denial “means nothing.”

Rubin also warned that European nations should consider that boosting aviation ties with Iran means that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps will gain access to major airports.

“Why not trust airplane security to Revolutionary Guards baggage handlers?” Rubin asked. “And if they pilfered electronics from luggage, they could avoid the tricky issue of evading what few sanctions remain on electronics.”

In 2015: 84 million

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

Just imagine, the cyber espionage….industrial espionage….the hacking…..

Do you really want to continue to tell the world about everything you do and who you are connected with on Facebook?

Cybercriminals Making Computer Malware at a Record Rate: Researchers

NBC: Last year was a particularly bad year for hacks and computer intrusions, and it looks like 2016 will only get worse, Panda Security says.

The Spain-based Internet security company said its lab researchers detected and disabled more than 84 million new samples of malware in 2015 — 9 million more than the previous year. The figure means cybercriminals were churning out new malware samples at a rate of more than 230,000 a day throughout 2015.

In fact, more than a quarter (27 percent) of all malware samples ever recorded were produced in 2015, Panda Security said in a news release.

“We predict that the amount of malware created by cybercriminals will continue to grow,” said Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs. “We also can’t forget that the creation of millions of Trojans and other threats corresponds to the cybercriminals’ needs to infect as many users as possible in order to get more money.”

Malware is any type of software that is designed to gain access to and damage or disable a computer.

Trojans, a type of malware disguised as legitimate software, accounted for more than half the malware detected in 2015, according to Panda Security.

China topped the list of countries with the highest rate of infected computers, followed by Taiwan and Turkey. At the other end of the spectrum, nine of the top 10 countries with the lowest rates of infection were in Europe, led by Finland, Norway and Sweden.

***

Barack Obama has been a big user of BIG DATA but he experienced a huge firestorm after the exposure of the NSA programs by Edward Snowden. Barack Obama enlisted John Podesta, at the time his chief of staff and now Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign architect to commission a study. Sheesh…but nonetheless, here is what you should read in the findings.

From the White House: Over the past several days, severe storms have battered Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and other states. Dozens of people have been killed and entire neighborhoods turned to rubble and debris as tornadoes have touched down across the region. Natural disasters like these present a host of challenges for first responders. How many people are affected, injured, or dead? Where can they find food, shelter, and medical attention? What critical infrastructure might have been damaged?

Drawing on open government data sources, including Census demographics and NOAA weather data, along with their own demographic databases, Esri, a geospatial technology company, has created a real-time map showing where the twisters have been spotted and how the storm systems are moving. They have also used these data to show how many people live in the affected area, and summarize potential impacts from the storms. It’s a powerful tool for emergency services and communities. And it’s driven by big data technology.

In January, President Obama asked me to lead a wide-ranging review of “big data” and privacy—to explore how these technologies are changing our economy, our government, and our society, and to consider their implications for our personal privacy. Together with Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, the President’s Science Advisor John Holdren, the President’s Economic Advisor Jeff Zients, and other senior officials, our review sought to understand what is genuinely new and different about big data and to consider how best to encourage the potential of these technologies while minimizing risks to privacy and core American values.

Over the course of 90 days, we met with academic researchers and privacy advocates, with regulators and the technology industry, with advertisers and civil rights groups. The President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology conducted a parallel study of the technological trends underpinning big data. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy jointly organized three university conferences at MIT, NYU, and U.C. Berkeley. We issued a formal Request for Information seeking public comment, and hosted a survey to generate even more public input.

Today, we presented our findings to the President. We knew better than to try to answer every question about big data in three months. But we are able to draw important conclusions and make concrete recommendations for Administration attention and policy development in a few key areas.

There are a few technological trends that bear drawing out. The declining cost of collection, storage, and processing of data, combined with new sources of data like sensors, cameras, and geospatial technologies, mean that we live in a world of near-ubiquitous data collection. All this data is being crunched at a speed that is increasingly approaching real-time, meaning that big data algorithms could soon have immediate effects on decisions being made about our lives.

The big data revolution presents incredible opportunities in virtually every sector of the economy and every corner of society.

Big data is saving lives. Infections are dangerous—even deadly—for many babies born prematurely. By collecting and analyzing millions of data points from a NICU, one study was able to identify factors, like slight increases in body temperature and heart rate, that serve as early warning signs an infection may be taking root—subtle changes that even the most experienced doctors wouldn’t have noticed on their own.

Big data is making the economy work better. Jet engines and delivery trucks now come outfitted with sensors that continuously monitor hundreds of data points and send automatic alerts when maintenance is needed. Utility companies are starting to use big data to predict periods of peak electric demand, adjusting the grid to be more efficient and potentially averting brown-outs.

Big data is making government work better and saving taxpayer dollars. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have begun using predictive analytics—a big data technique—to flag likely instances of reimbursement fraud before claims are paid. The Fraud Prevention System helps identify the highest-risk health care providers for waste, fraud, and abuse in real time and has already stopped, prevented, or identified $115 million in fraudulent payments.

But big data raises serious questions, too, about how we protect our privacy and other values in a world where data collection is increasingly ubiquitous and where analysis is conducted at speeds approaching real time. In particular, our review raised the question of whether the “notice and consent” framework, in which a user grants permission for a service to collect and use information about them, still allows us to meaningfully control our privacy as data about us is increasingly used and reused in ways that could not have been anticipated when it was collected.

Big data raises other concerns, as well. One significant finding of our review was the potential for big data analytics to lead to discriminatory outcomes and to circumvent longstanding civil rights protections in housing, employment, credit, and the consumer marketplace.

No matter how quickly technology advances, it remains within our power to ensure that we both encourage innovation and protect our values through law, policy, and the practices we encourage in the public and private sector. To that end, we make six actionable policy recommendations in our report to the President:

Advance the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. Consumers deserve clear, understandable, reasonable standards for how their personal information is used in the big data era. We recommend the Department of Commerce take appropriate consultative steps to seek stakeholder and public comment on what changes, if any, are needed to the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, first proposed by the President in 2012, and to prepare draft legislative text for consideration by stakeholders and submission by the President to Congress.

Pass National Data Breach Legislation. Big data technologies make it possible to store significantly more data, and further derive intimate insights into a person’s character, habits, preferences, and activities. That makes the potential impacts of data breaches at businesses or other organizations even more serious. A patchwork of state laws currently governs requirements for reporting data breaches. Congress should pass legislation that provides for a single national data breach standard, along the lines of the Administration’s 2011 Cybersecurity legislative proposal.

Extend Privacy Protections to non-U.S. Persons. Privacy is a worldwide value that should be reflected in how the federal government handles personally identifiable information about non-U.S. citizens. The Office of Management and Budget should work with departments and agencies to apply the Privacy Act of 1974 to non-U.S. persons where practicable, or to establish alternative privacy policies that apply appropriate and meaningful protections to personal information regardless of a person’s nationality.

Ensure Data Collected on Students in School is used for Educational Purposes. Big data and other technological innovations, including new online course platforms that provide students real time feedback, promise to transform education by personalizing learning. At the same time, the federal government must ensure educational data linked to individual students gathered in school is used for educational purposes, and protect students against their data being shared or used inappropriately.

Expand Technical Expertise to Stop Discrimination. The detailed personal profiles held about many consumers, combined with automated, algorithm-driven decision-making, could lead—intentionally or inadvertently—to discriminatory outcomes, or what some are already calling “digital redlining.” The federal government’s lead civil rights and consumer protection agencies should expand their technical expertise to be able to identify practices and outcomes facilitated by big data analytics that have a discriminatory impact on protected classes, and develop a plan for investigating and resolving violations of law.

Amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The laws that govern protections afforded to our communications were written before email, the internet, and cloud computing came into wide use. Congress should amend ECPA to ensure the standard of protection for online, digital content is consistent with that afforded in the physical world—including by removing archaic distinctions between email left unread or over a certain age.

We also identify several broader areas ripe for further study, debate, and public engagement that, collectively, we hope will spark a national conversation about how to harness big data for the public good. We conclude that we must find a way to preserve our privacy values in both the domestic and international marketplace. We urgently need to build capacity in the federal government to identify and prevent new modes of discrimination that could be enabled by big data. We must ensure that law enforcement agencies using big data technologies do so responsibly, and that our fundamental privacy rights remain protected. Finally, we recognize that data is a valuable public resource, and call for continuing the Administration’s efforts to open more government data sources and make investments in research and technology.

While big data presents new challenges, it also presents immense opportunities to improve lives, the United States is perhaps better suited to lead this conversation than any other nation on earth. Our innovative spirit, technological know-how, and deep commitment to values of privacy, fairness, non-discrimination, and self-determination will help us harness the benefits of the big data revolution and encourage the free flow of information while working with our international partners to protect personal privacy. This review is but one piece of that effort, and we hope it spurs a conversation about big data across the country and around the world.

Read the Big Data Report.

See the fact sheet from today’s announcement.

‘Putin is corrupt’ says US Treasury

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

But like Iran, John Kerry and the White House are protecting Russia and never want to upset the Kremlin.

Syria’s leading opposition coalition is to decide Tuesday whether to attend peace talks in Geneva, following a tense meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, a member told AFP on Monday.

The member of the so-called High Negotiations Committee said Kerry applied “pressure” during a weekend meeting in Saudi Arabia, warning the opposition risked “losing friends” if they failed to attend the talks.

Fuad Aliko said the Committee would meet Tuesday to make a final decision on whether to attend the Geneva talks.

The Saturday meeting with Kerry was “neither comfortable, nor positive”, said Aliko, a member of the Committee’s designated delegation for the talks.

Kerry told the Committee’s chief Riad Hijab that they risked “losing friends”, Aliko said.

“This talk means a halt to political and military support to the opposition,” he added.

Syria’s warring parties were scheduled to begin the latest round of talks aimed at ending the country’s conflict on Monday in Geneva.

But they have been delayed at least in part by a dispute over who will represent the opposition.

The High Negotiations Committee, a coalition of opposition bodies formed last year in Riyadh, insists it should send a sole opposition delegation to the talks.

But the Committee excludes Syria’s main Kurdish force and other opposition figures, and Russia has branded some of its components as “terrorist” organizations.

Moscow reportedly wants to see excluded members allowed to participate in the talks either as part of the Committee’s delegation or in a second opposition delegation.

But the Committee has roundly rejected either option and threatened to boycott the talks altogether if other opposition figures are included.

Aliko said Kerry applied “pressure” during the Saturday talks, though he stopped short of saying the U.S. diplomat had used threats.

“He tried with all his efforts to insist on the necessity of us attending, saying we’d be able to do whatever we want there, but he was not able to reassure us that we are going into negotiations, rather than nothing more than a dialogue,” he said.

“We want negotiations that revolve around a political transition,” Aliko said.

The Geneva talks have also been held up by a dispute about some of the members of the negotiating team chosen by the Committee.

The Committee has selected Mohammed Alloush of the Islamist rebel group Army of Islam as its chief negotiator, drawing the ire of some of its other members.

Russia said last week it continues to consider the Army of Islam a “terrorist” organization.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura is expected to hold a press conference in Geneva later on Monday to discuss preparations for the talks.

‘Putin is corrupt’ says US Treasury

BBC: The US Treasury has told a BBC investigation that it considers Russian President Vladimir Putin to be corrupt.

The US government has already imposed sanctions on Mr Putin’s aides, but it is thought to be the first time it has directly accused him of corruption.

His spokesman told the BBC that “none of these questions or issues needs to be answered, as they are pure fiction”.

Last week a UK public inquiry said Mr Putin had “probably” approved the murder of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.

The broadcast is available here.

Secret wealth

Litvinenko, a former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agent and fierce critic of Mr Putin, was poisoned in London with radioactive polonium in 2006.

Adam Szubin, who oversees US Treasury sanctions, has told BBC Panorama that the Russian president is corrupt and that the US government has known this for “many, many years”.

He said: “We’ve seen him enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalising those who he doesn’t view as friends using state assets. Whether that’s Russia’s energy wealth, whether it’s other state contracts, he directs those to whom he believes will serve him and excludes those who don’t. To me, that is a picture of corruption.”

The US government imposed sanctions against a number of Kremlin insiders in 2014 and stated that Vladimir Putin had secret investments in the energy sector. However, the Americans did not directly accuse him of corruption at the time.

The sanctions – later expanded to include more individuals and organisations – coincided with similar EU measures against Russia. The trigger for them was Russia’s annexation of Crimea, during political turmoil in Ukraine.

Image caption The US Treasury’s Adam Szubin speaks of a “picture of corruption”

US government officials have been reluctant to be interviewed about President Putin’s wealth, but Mr Szubin agreed to take part in a BBC Panorama programme investigating the issue.

Mr Szubin would not comment on a secret CIA report from 2007 that put Mr Putin’s wealth at around $40bn (£28bn). But he said the Russian president had been amassing secret wealth.

“He supposedly draws a state salary of something like $110,000 a year. That is not an accurate statement of the man’s wealth, and he has long time training and practices in terms of how to mask his actual wealth.”

The Kremlin denies such allegations. In 2008, President Putin personally addressed claims that he was the richest man in Europe, saying: “It’s simply rubbish. They just picked all of it out of someone’s nose and smeared it across their little papers.”

Offshore company

But Panorama has spoken to former Russian insiders who say they have first-hand knowledge of Vladimir Putin’s secret riches.

Dmitry Skarga, who used to run the state shipping company Sovcomflot, says he oversaw the transfer of a $35m yacht to Mr Putin. Mr Skarga says the 57m-long Olympia was a gift from Britain’s most famous Russian – the Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich.

Image caption The Kremlin says the allegations against President Putin are “pure fiction”

“It’s a fact that Mr Abramovich, through his employee, transferred a yacht to Mr Putin,” he said. “I was on board of this yacht at the end of March 2002, in Amsterdam. And there was a representative of Mr Abramovich… He said that Roman is the owner of this yacht.”

Mr Skarga says the Olympia was then given to the Russian president via an offshore company. He then oversaw the management of the yacht for Vladimir Putin and prepared reports on the boat’s running costs.

He said: “This yacht was maintained and paid for running costs from the state budget.”

Mr Skarga says the yacht was kept secret because it belonged personally to Vladimir Putin, rather than the state.

Panorama asked Mr Abramovich about the yacht. His lawyers dismissed claims about him as speculation and rumour.

President Putin declined to be interviewed for Panorama.

#13 Hours, the Stand Down of American Power

Posted on January 23, 2016January 23, 2016 by Denise Simon

Having been so close to the mater of the Benghazi attack since it happened and deeply researching all the facts pre and post attack, seeing the movie was a personal quest to complete the circle of known circumstances and facts.

There were clearly political objectives by not only the U.S. State Department in cadence with other foreign diplomatic agencies with regard to Libya. This played out on the screen at the beginning of the movie. It is the common conclusion by the majority with interest in the matter of Libya, that the United States was running weapons from Libya to Syrian rebels. I still to this day somewhat dispute that notion, however, the bigger takeaway from the movie is the White House and State Department resolve to wean the U.S. military power from the global landscape and to install misguided diplomatic efforts in its place not only in Libya but several dozen countries across the globe.

For decades, the United States has been the leader in the world, and rightly so to maintain as much equilibrium as possible, often deploying in order, diplomatic efforts, CIA efforts and finally military efforts. Once Barack Obama made the case in the April 2009 famous Cairo speech, the forecast was clear that he was going to even out the power and positions of nations in the world with particular emphasis on securing Muslim based nations as protected and promoted states.

The last real offensive military operation with any kind of ‘win’ was Libya to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power. Since, we have seen the rise of al Qaeda, Khorasan, Islamic State and the Taliban, where rules of engagement have been so feeble the death tolls rise and the refugee numbers are staggering. This demonstrates that when there is a mission, strategy and resolve to an objective, it can be achieved.

13 Hours proved Libya was in complete chaos for quite some time prior to the attack on September 11, 2012. There had been countless terror attempts, growing militant factions and assassination attempts leading up to that fateful day. Was going back in to Libya to complete the task of establishing a real and functional government beyond the scope of attention and resolve by the State Department and the White House?

I would argue, the unspoken objective of Barack Obama is to no longer demonstrate the power of the United States including military might, but rather to have diplomatic achievements that are only gained by allowing the other side to completely prevail as is the case with Iran.

One of the jobs of the Global Response Staff is to protect people and interests by deploying all assets near and far, calculating responses, time, personnel and approvals. Such was not the case in Libya and in countless other countries during that entire week in September. Many locations had protests and attacks on U.S. posts.

The movie demonstrated that movement of U.S. personnel in Libya was by all foreign contractors or borrowed assets. This places the safety and security of people at risk from the start. No lessons were learned or heeded or laws followed from previous historical attacks.

In March of 2015, there was a growing terror condition in Yemen by the Iranian back Houthis. Yemen was a very large CIA operation there to address AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Moving into April, the United States under John Kerry at the State Department once again failed to respond and upwards of 5000 were at risk, their fate unknown had to fend for themselves. Global Response Staff teams or the military exfil FEST teams or the QRF, Quick Reaction Force were not deployed at the behest of the State Department. Thankfully, India provided the larger portion of the rescue operations.

The military does not leave anyone behind and neither does any human being with a shred of benevolence. The exceptions are Barack, Hillary and John. America and Americans fate is damned by this trio. Of this, there is no dispute.

By the way, leaving Benghazi, a borrowed oil company aircraft was used for the first flight out and a Libyan transport plane was use for the last flight out, carrying 4 dead Americans. Still no Americans as the lights went out in Benghazi.