Putin’s Secret Submarines and Strategy

Russia has been placing, flying and deploying strategic military assets around the globe that appear in some curious locations, like aircraft near Newfoundland, aircraft near Alaska and ships near Nicaragua and Cuba.

Now it seems that a submarine that was detected and vanished has gained the attention of several countries.

Many countries are paying attention however, no one is saying if this is aggression, surveillance or part of a Putin Cold War Part 2 operation.

Few speak to the matter of Ukraine and even less when it comes to the risk of the Baltic States.

LONDONThe U.K. called in assistance to help hunt for a foreign submarine off the west coast of Scotland starting in late November.

Maritime patrol aircraft (MPAs) from France, Canada and the U.S. conducted patrols in conjunction with British surface warships in the search for the submarine in late November and the first week of December, operating out of RAF Lossiemouth in northern Scotland.

The incident began when a periscope was sighted in waters where U.K. and other submarines would normally surface as they head into or out of the Royal Navy’s submarine base at Faslane, home of the U.K.’s ballistic missile submarines.

At the height of the operation, aircraft involved in the hunt included two U.S. Navy P-3 Orions, a single CP-140 Aurora from the Royal Canadian Air Force and a Dassault Atlantique 2 of the French navy. Also involved was one of the U.K.’s Raytheon Sentinel radar-reconnaissance aircraft.

The U.K. defense ministry and the participating air arms have not confirmed they were hunting for a submarine. But a U.K. defense ministry spokesman told Aviation Week that Britain had “requested assistance from allied forces for basing of maritime patrol aircraft at RAF Lossiemouth for a limited period.

The aircraft are conducting Maritime Patrol activity with the Royal Navy; we do not discuss the detail of maritime operations.”

A spokesman for the Royal Canadian Air Force said: “Following a request for assistance from the United Kingdom, the Canadian Armed Forces deployed one CP-140 Aurora Aircraft to RAF Lossiemouth for a limited time.”

Maritime patrol aircraft are occasionally deployed to Scotland, mainly for NATO’s Joint Warrior exercise. Such exercises are usually announced in advance, but November’s deployment was unexpected, with the aircraft and supporting airlifters arriving around Nov. 26. The deployment appeared to end last last week.

The incident comes more than a month after Swedish authorities halted a search for a foreign submarine operating in its territorial waters in the Stockholm archipelago. While the Swedish search was unsuccessful, defense officials said there was no doubt that the country’s waters had been violated by a foreign power.

It is not clear whether the submarine being hunted by the U.K. and other Western nations had entered U.K. territorial waters, or if the maritime patrol aircraft successfully located the sub.

The Sentinel may have been using its radar to try to spot periscope-sized objects on the surface and then cue MPAs onto the target.

On Nov. 28, the U.K. reported it was tracking four Russian warships passing through the Strait of Dover and into the English Channel heading out into the Atlantic. The surface ships included a Ropucha-class landing ship and an Udaloy-class destroyer. These were shadowed by HMS Tyne, a Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel.

The U.K. retired its own fixed-wing maritime patrol capability provided by the Nimrod in 2010, and has been limited to the use of ships and helicopters for the anti-submarine mission.

Further, another look at Putin’s aggression and certain risks are worthy of immediate attention especially as the Russian currency is unstable due in part to the falling price of crude oil.

Russia and the West

The Geopolitical Nihilist

Putin’s Russia may be able to wreck the geopolitical status quo, but it doesn’t have the power to replace it.

Russia’s bold moves into Crimea and Eastern Ukraine give one the impression that a calculating strategist sits in the Kremlin. Putin’s own public pronouncements tell us that his apparent aim is to restore Muscovite power and influence over territories deemed by him to be historically Russian. Putin is thus feared to be a shrewd competitor willing to use all forms of Russian power—from nuclear innuendo to a superiority in conventional forces to relentless information warfare—in order to build methodically a new regional order. In other words, he may be a geopolitical master.

But there is another possibility. It’s plausible that he has no such well thought out vision of geopolitical reconstruction, and little or no planning for how to establish and maintain whatever new rules Moscow might impose. Even if Putin did have a new regional order in mind, he may be incapable of translating it into reality. By choice and by necessity, Putin may simply be eager to wreck the status quo with nary a thought given to what comes after. In other words, he may be a geopolitical nihilist.

Consider, for instance, that it is unclear what Putin’s desired “international order” would look like. His own statements on this subject are increasingly more detached from reality, rants fueled by his own propaganda. (He suggests, for instance, that Ukraine is oppressing Russians, or that the U.S. and the West more broadly have been aggressors against Russia for the better part of two decades.) Whether he believes this nonsense or not will never be known, but there is little in such harangues to suggest that he has a positive vision of an alternative political order. We know—and he knows—what he viscerally hates, but the destruction of what he hates does not imply a replacement.

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, even if Putin has a long-term vision of the order he wants to establish, he may be unable to implement it. Weak and declining revisionist powers, such as today’s Russia, do not have the capacity to establish a stable regional order. They lack the strength necessary to maintain it, even though they may have a deep desire to demolish the existing one. The best they can do is to increase uncertainty about their behavior, flailing here and there, expanding their influence and control in weakly defended adjacent regions, and more broadly, increasing the perception of risk in the mind of their opponents. The result is a volatile and unpredictable situation—costly to all, but seen by the declining revisionist as perhaps more costly to its rivals (and thus in the selfish logic of relative gains, beneficial!). A declining revisionist power is a wrecker of order.

The inability to formulate and implement a cogent and viable alternative does not mean, however, that Putin’s Russia is not a serious menace to the security of Europe and the interests of the United States. Geopolitical nihilism is not the same as geopolitical passivity. Russia presents perhaps a greater problem than a strong revisionist state with clear and implementable plans for how to reorganize the international or regional order.

Russia has neither the power nor the authority to maintain an order, but it has plenty of force and abundant desire to destroy the existing one.

Russia is in fact still a formidable military power. It has a massive nuclear arsenal that is presented to the world as superior to the American one and as a symbol, if not a symptom, of great resilience and strength. As many analysts have observed, Russian conventional forces have undergone a dramatic, though still limited, improvement since the 2008 war in Georgia (and in any case, they are superior in size, firepower, and sophistication to those of Russia’s European and Central Asian neighbors). Yet the economy is in shambles, producing little of value and drawing wealth mostly from the extraction of natural resources. Moreover, Russia’s authoritarian political system is fragile, based on the so far unchallenged rule of Putin and his clan, a large propaganda apparatus fanning nationalist hysteria and resentment toward the West, and a good dose of violence targeted at political opponents and potential claimants to power. Russia is a ramshackle gas station run by a small group of well-armed, delusional gangsters.

This political, social, and economic fragility means that Russia cannot replace the existing order on Europe’s eastern frontier—an order that is based on exactly those pillars fraying or outright missing in Russia. But she can destroy it because of her military might. Russia cannot compete as an economic potentate or as a politically attractive entity, but can and does employ its military force to destabilize the region. It is not surprising therefore that Ukraine can be Western and European by the Ukrainians’ free choice but may still fall under Russian vassalage by the sheer brutality of Muscovite firepower. This is 21st century competition meeting 19th century extortion.

Extortion—brute force—creates an order that lasts as long as the fear it generates lasts. Were Russia a rising power, that fear and the resulting order might have some staying power. But today’s Russia is not China; neither is she the post-World War II superpower that could roll over a large swath of the Eurasian landmass and impose a bloody Soviet order. Whatever Moscow may establish in its immediate region through its armor, artillery, and nuclear threats will be backed by a flimsy state, seeking its own justification through invented myths of Western frauds, perversions, and belligerence.

The fact that Russia is unable to replace the existing order with her own stable and durable one does not mean therefore that the threat is nonexistent. On the contrary, the threat is more pronounced because the risks presented by Russia are higher. If Moscow had a clear idea of what it wanted to achieve—how far it wants to extend its influence, and what new rules of international behavior and domestic comportment it will enforce—the uncertainty would be smaller. We may, as we should, still deeply dislike and oppose the proposed order, but at a minimum the boundaries of the conflict would be well defined.

In this case, however, the vision seems to be nihilistic in the long term. Hence the on-and-off Russian interventions in Ukraine, the constant provocations in the Baltic regions, the boasts about nuclear capabilities and the willingness to use them, the Russian aerial forays from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico, and so on. These are all attempts to shake the existing order. These actions have varied intensity and outcomes: While Ukraine is being broken apart by Russian artillery and armor, Alaska and Diego Garcia are safe from the occasional Tu-95s sputtering near their airspace. But the principle unifying all these actions is a negative one: to destabilize by introducing elements of greater risk.

Putin as the geopolitical nihilist is therefore different than the various tsars that he wants to emulate. In mostly unpleasant and violent ways, the past tsars built and rebuilt the Russian empire by expanding into adjacent lands while seeking some diplomatic arrangement with the more distant great powers. Putin expands into Russia’s southern and western neighborhood but with the aspiration to destroy the stability of the post-Cold War era. He seeks no grand diplomatic bargain that could underpin a new settlement.

What such a view of Russia entails is worrisome. Geopolitical nihilism indicates that a whole spectrum of actions, deemed unlikely because of the dangers they carry, is on the table. We now know, for instance, that Putin is willing to invade —not once, but twice (Georgia in 2008 preceded Ukraine). He is likely to continue that pattern and push farther westward irrespective of the costs. He has also engaged in nuclear saber-rattling for several years (for example, the Zapad 2009 military exercises ended with a simulated use of a nuclear weapon), and he is lowering the nuclear threshold. Nihilism is not order-building; it revels in destroying it. The spectrum of actions that establish an order is limited by their effectiveness at implementing the rules, whatever they may be, of behavior: their purposefulness is constraining. The spectrum of actions that destroy order, on the other hand, is much more open-ended.

The Western strategy of waiting Russia out through a 21st-century version of containment—a mix of economic sanctions, ostracism in global fora, and very modest, mostly rhetorical, shoring up of deterrence—will not suffice. Russia cannot be let to dwell on its internal decline and realize sooner or later its international ineptitude. Verbal rebukes and restatements of NATO’s Article 5 will not turn a geopolitical nihilist into a constructive partner or even into a rival with whom we can reach a negotiated settlement. Nothing in Putin’s statements and behavior suggests that Russia can be persuaded to accept the existing international rules and norms of behavior and to cease the belligerent posture it has adopted. On the contrary, this is a threat that is impossible to mitigate without a resolute and forceful policy that will physically stop and reverse the advance of Russian forces in Ukraine and be ready to do so in the future elsewhere. This can only be achieved now by arming Ukraine. The geopolitical nihilism of today’s Russia will not be persuaded or negotiated away or simply waited out. It has to be defeated.

Kerry/WH Rely on Lawyers to Manage Islamic State

To date, the strategy in Iraq and Syria, defeating Islamic State has been in the lap of Susan Rice working exclusively with Centcom. Meanwhile, John Kerry participated in a Senate hearing over war in Iraq and the core of the dispute is the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). Presently, the United States is operating on the original AUMF which includes al Qaeda and all associated terror networks.

Yet, there are additional disputes over the temporary authorization of the White House which does not require Congress. This temporary authorization limits the number of ground troops and John Kerry is demanding open options for additional forces when fighters from foreign countries are not reliable for defensive measures, more robust rules of engagement or rescue of personnel.

Presently, managing Daesh (Islamic State) is just that, managing, not even containing much less defeating and any strategy has not been forthcoming. In fact it can be said that no strategy was one of the conditions of the employment demise of Secretary Chuck Hagel at Defense as he demanded an operational strategy for Bashir al Assad and Syria from the White House. None has been revealed except to vet, hire and train opposition forces in various locations outside of Syria.

In the hearing/briefing, John Kerry delivered his reasons for having all options for Iraq and Syria including additional uniformed troops that do get proactively involved in hostilities without planning, rules or timelines. The exchange between Senator Menendez and Kerry has been heated for a long while. As days click by, still no resolutions are on the horizon.

Going back to September, the heated exchanges began between Senator(s) Menendez and Kerry.

Instead of asking Congress for new authority to go after terrorists in Syria and Iraq, the Obama administration is turning to “good lawyers within the White House, within the State Department,” Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday.

How is it that the Obama administration thinks it can rely on a 2001 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) to go into Syria and Iraq 13 years later, Sen. Robert Mendendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked Kerry at a hearing on Wednesday.

Kerry responded that “good lawyers” at the White House and State Department have concluded that the 2001 AUMF is sufficient because it “includes…al-Qaeda and associated forces.”

For the most recent hearing, the heated exchanges continued.

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State John Kerry clashed Tuesday with senators over using US ground combat forces in the fight against the Islamic State.

In several tense exchanges, mostly with Republican members, Kerry urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to strip from a draft authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) language limiting the deployment of American ground forces.

A force authorization measure drafted by panel Chairman Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., “does not authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces for the purpose of ground combat operations except as necessary.”

The measure would allow the use of American ground troops to rescue other US forces or citizens, as well as to conduct missions like intelligence collection, enabling “kinetic strikes” and providing “other forms of advice and assistance to forces fighting [Islamic State] in Iraq or Syria.”

CongressWatch obtained a copy of the draft AUMF on Tuesday. The panel is slated to mark it up on Thursday. Menendez urged his panel members to offer amendments at that time, should they have ideas not included or want to change what he has crafted.

Kerry told the senators the Obama administration has no intention of using American ground forces for combat operations in Iraq or Syria. That fighting, he says, will be done by “local forces.”

But he also pleaded several times with members to opt against crafting a force-authorization measure that would tie the president’s hands by taking ground troops off the table.

The draft AUMF would last three years, a timetable Kerry said the White House supports.

It also includes no language limiting the countries inside which President Barack Obama or future commanders in chief could launch operations targeting the violent Sunni group. Kerry gave the White House’s endorsement for that, as well.

Kerry and Menendez butted heads over the scope of any measure Congress might approve, almost certainly next year under two GOP-controlled chambers.

At one point, the chairman sharply told Kerry — who once chaired the panel — “if the White House wants an open-ended” AUMF, “they should just say it.” Menendez spoke passionately about his measure being tailored to keep America from getting involved in other “protracted” ground operations in the Middle East.

Kerry several times referred to the draft as a “good starting point,” saying White House officials intend to work with Congress in the coming weeks on the final shape of a force-authorization measure.

He traded barbs with GOP members who questioned why Obama, despite saying on Nov. 5 he wants an AUMF, has yet to write one and send it to the Hill.

And Menendez criticized the administration, saying despite having three conversations with the White House counsel, the panel has gotten little feedback. The proposed draft of the AUMF is found here.

Feinstein’s Acrimony for the CIA Revealed

Today, December 9, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Majority leader for the SSCI, stood on the Senate floor for almost an hour and delivered a chilling verbal summary of the $40 million dollar investigation into the CIA Torture Report. She spoke in a measured and assertive tone naming names all the way through. My bet is she delivered this performance for the sake of setting the table to close Guantanamo immediately.

Further, Feinstein put every American in peril wherever they may travel internationally as well as all foreign service officers and our very own troops. She has aided and abetted the enemy as her 500 page summary report has been publically published for all enemies to read. What is worse, several countries friendly to America are formally exposed and will likely never cooperate again with U.S. intelligence. We cannot know the future damage but the threat assessments have risen dramatically as all foreign U.S. military bases are presently on higher alert and some embassies are in fact closed for an undetermined period of time.

Feinstein de-facto denied all evidence that the CIA program saved lives, stopped terror plots and led us to other terrorists in the global network, then perhaps the fact that over the weekend, Pakistani forces killed the man who was believed to be al-Qaeda’s top operational commander, Adnan el Shukrijumah — a terrorist who was identified thanks to the CIA’s interrogation of two senior al-Qaeda operatives.

The enhanced interrogation program was terminated several years ago and since several laws were passed to ensure they were never applied again. For Feinstein to say her only motivation was to ensure this never happened again, is misguided at best.

What is worse, the DOJ has said they will not prosecute any participants of the program but the United Nations is saying otherwise such that many contractors and CIA operatives could be bought up on charges on international law.

This matter is by far not over yet, we have people in media that are in fact outing names of countries that cooperated and they are posting names of CIA operatives that had a hand in the program. Feinstein crossed the Rubicon and the wake of destruction, damage injury or life is still yet to be realized.

As a last note, this CIA Torture Report is highly partisan as no former or still active CIA operative was interviewed during this process nor was the top lawyer at CIA, John Rizzo. Rizzo formally asked to be interviewed and was denied. Rizzo then formally asked for a copy of the report and was denied.

If you don’t think that George Soros did not have a hand in the Feinstein investigation, you need to think again.

Jose Rodriguez who ran the rendition/interrogation program had his own response to Feinstein.

WASHINGTON – The Central Intelligence Agency officer who headed the agency’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program calls a damning Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA interrogation activities a “totally egregious falsehood.”

Jose Rodriguez, former director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, told WTOP in an exclusive interview, “For those of us who were there, who read the reporting coming out of our black sites and who acted upon that intelligence, the conclusions by the SSCI report that the program brought no value, and the CIA mislead the Congress is astounding.”

The committee, in a scathing, 600-page summary of a five-year, $40 million investigation into the now defunct Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program, says the agency of misled Congress about a program that essentially brought no value to U.S. efforts to track down the al-Qaida operatives responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The program included waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other techniques that have been classified as torture.

The Senate Committee report cited several key findings:

  • The CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” were not effective.
  • The CIA provided extensive inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to policymakers and the public.
  • The CIA’s management of the program was inadequate and deeply flawed.
  • The CIA program was far more brutal than the CIA represented to policymakers and the American public.

But Rodriguez says the value of the program was clear and convincing. He says the program produced connective intelligence that led U.S. authorities to the key players in al-Qaida’s hierarchy.

He laid out a pattern.

“Abu Zubayda was waterboarded for the first 20 days of August 2002. Two weeks later, we captured the first important high value target, Ramzi bin al-Shibh,” said Rodriguez.

Bin al-Shibh, was a key collaborator within al-Qaida’s Hamburg, Germany, cell comprised of Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi. They formed the cell that became the essential agents of the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the following days, weeks and months, CIA personnel and contract employees executed the enhanced interrogation program designed by the agency’s Counterterrorism Center to extract valuable information. They captured Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the perpetrator of the U.S.S. Cole attack. And using the intelligence they gathered, they systematically pieced together details that led them to the mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in March of 2003.

Gary Berntsen, the CIA officer who led a team of military and intelligence assets into Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001 looking for Osama bin Laden, said the tactics paid off.

“The information they turned over, gave us entire the second tier of al-Qaida, when they were attempting to launch attacks on the U.S.”

A key contention in the Senate report is the CIA misled members of Congress. But Rodriguez says “the Senate, the House intelligence committees were briefed more than 40 times during the life of the program.”

But in a long briefing before the Senate Tuesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein said the CIA’s destruction of the video tapes of the interrogation session was an attempt to keep Congress in the dark.

Rodriguez said the tapes were recorded to help intelligence operatives understand the people they were interrogating.

They were destroyed because, he said “our people in the field came back and said these tapes are vulnerability for us, because we don’t have a place to store them and our faces are all over the place in these tapes.”

“We acknowledge that the detention and interrogation program had shortcomings and that the Agency made mistakes. But the intelligence gained from the program was critical to understanding al-Qaida,” the CIA said in a statement, responding to the report.

“While we made mistakes, the record does not support the study’s inference that the agency systematically and intentionally misled each of these audiences on the effectiveness of the program. Moreover, the process undertaken by the committee when investigating the program provided an incomplete and selective picture of what occurred,” the statement reads.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement alluding to the intelligence community angst over the report, “President Obama has made clear, some things were done that should not have been done — and which transgressed our values.”

But Clapper indicated, this is not a new issue.

“We recognized this 10 years ago and stopped the program as it was originally conducted; even more important, we have since enacted laws, implemented presidential orders and established internal policies to ensure that such things never happen again.”

 

Below is ODNI Director, James Clapper’s response and Barack Obama’s response.

DNI Message to the Intelligence Community Workforce on the Release of the SSCI Report

December 9, 2014

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper sent the following message to the entire Intelligence Community workforce earlier this morning.

Today, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its report on the detention and interrogation program.  In all of my experience in intelligence, I am hard-pressed to recall another report—and the issues surrounding it—as fraught with controversy and passion as this one.  Virtually no one who has any familiarity with the report and what it describes is “neutral.”  The rebuttal to the majority report issued by the minority on the Committee is but one example of strong alternative views.  Proponents of publication ardently believe that the report must be issued to cleanse a stain on the pages of our history, and to ensure that the practices it describes are never repeated.  Others, with equal conviction, believe that the report is unfair and biased; fails to account for the immediate impact of the attacks on 9/11—on American citizens and on those in government charged with protecting the country; and will result in greater jeopardy to American citizens, facilities and interests overseas.

The officers who participated in the program believed with certainty that they were engaged in a program devised by our government on behalf of the President that was necessary to protect the nation, that had appropriate legal authorization, and that was sanctioned by at least some in the Congress.  But, as President Obama has made clear, some things were done that should not have been done —and which transgressed our values.  We recognized this ten years ago and stopped the program as it was originally conducted; even more important, we have since enacted laws, implemented Presidential orders and established internal policies to ensure that such things never happen again.

I don’t believe that any other nation would go to the lengths the United States does to bare its soul, admit mistakes when they are made and learn from those mistakes.  Certainly, no one can imagine such an effort by any of the adversaries we face today.  In the months leading up to today’s publication, we went through an exhaustive, good-faith dialogue with the Committee to reach a mutual agreement on what could be said publicly about the program, consistent with the enduring need to protect national security.  We made unprecedented efforts to enable the release of as much of the Committee’s report as possible.

Now that the report is public, there is certain to be much discussion of its contents—and of the alternative views of the program and the period during which it operated.  That discussion will go on, but the critical imperative for all of us who are privileged to work as members of the Intelligence Community is to remain sharply focused on our missions and the work before us.  We must sustain our vigilance to deal with the myriad threats and challenges that face the nation, including any that may arise in the coming days as a possible reaction to the report.  The women and men of the CIA specifically, and of the Intelligence Community generally, have helped to keep this nation safe for nearly 70 years.  That remains our ultimate mission; it reflects the trust that Americans have always placed in us.  I have every confidence that we will continue to meet those expectations and honor that sacred trust, just as we have always done.

James Clapper

Statement by President Obama — Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

December 9, 2014

Throughout our history, the United States of America has done more than any other nation to stand up for freedom, democracy, and the inherent dignity and human rights of people around the world.  As Americans, we owe a profound debt of gratitude to our fellow citizens who serve to keep us safe, among them the dedicated men and women of our intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency.  Since the horrific attacks of 9/11, these public servants have worked tirelessly to devastate core al Qaeda, deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, disrupt terrorist operations and thwart terrorist attacks.  Solemn rows of stars on the Memorial Wall at the CIA honor those who have given their lives to protect ours.  Our intelligence professionals are patriots, and we are safer because of their heroic service and sacrifices.

In the years after 9/11, with legitimate fears of further attacks and with the responsibility to prevent more catastrophic loss of life, the previous administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue al Qaeda and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country.  As I have said before, our nation did many things right in those difficult years.  At the same time, some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values.  That is why I unequivocally banned torture when I took office, because one of our most effective tools in fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe is staying true to our ideals at home and abroad.

Today’s report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence details one element of our nation’s response to 9/11—the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, which I formally ended on one of my first days in office.  The report documents a troubling program involving enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects in secret facilities outside the United States, and it reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests.  Moreover, these techniques did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners.  That is why I will continue to use my authority as President to make sure we never resort to those methods again.

As Commander in Chief, I have no greater responsibility than the safety and security of the American people.  We will therefore continue to be relentless in our fight against al Qaeda, its affiliates and other violent extremists.  We will rely on all elements of our national power, including the power and example of our founding ideals.  That is why I have consistently supported the declassification of today’s report.  No nation is perfect.  But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better.  Rather than another reason to refight old arguments, I hope that today’s report can help us leave these techniques where they belong—in the past.  Today is also a reminder that upholding the values we profess doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us stronger and that the United States of America will remain the greatest force for freedom and human dignity that the world has ever known.

Feinstein Publishing Torture Report is Dangerous

The 6000+ page Senate report is about to be published. The wake of damage within the Central Intelligence Agency and with relationships to leaders of other nations with regard to their cooperation is nothing more than immediate and future destruction.

Just recently, I interviewed Robert Grenier on the topic of the CIA report. That audio is here.

From Truth and Reconciliation to Lies and Obfuscation: The Senate RDI Report 

Posted:

On a bright spring day in 2005, in a country I cannot name, I entered a drab, unremarkable building, a gateway to a grim, unaccustomed world. Its spaces were impersonal, antiseptic, institutional. The residents of that alien world, both the guards and the guarded, were never exposed to natural light. They inhabited a claustrophobic universe of their own, a place suffused with a permanent air of foreboding, in which both time and external reality had been suspended. On entering that world one could sense an invisible bond among the inhabitants, the captors and the captured, impenetrable to outsiders. A harsh necessity had bound them together, condemning them both.

No one with a soul, upon first exposure to this place, could fail to be affected by it. And yet, when I spoke with the Americans there, it was to another reality, far outside their confined spaces, that I referred. I told them of the importance of what they were doing, how the information they generated, confirmed by investigations whose leads they had supplied and which had culminated in the arrests of committed terrorists, may well have saved the lives of hundreds and perhaps thousands of innocents, most of whom would forever remain blissfully unaware of their debt to the inhabitants of that room.

Over nine years have passed since my visit to a so-called CIA “black site,” where mass murderers — some actual, some merely aspirant — were detained and interrogated, but the issues with which some of us struggled in those days remain very much with us. Within the next few weeks, a redacted version of both the executive summary and the findings and conclusions of a highly classified report prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee will be formally declassified, and will hit the street. Dealing with the CIA’s now-defunct terrorist detention and interrogation program, which existed from 2002 to 2009, it is expected to be accompanied by a similarly redacted version of a CIA rebuttal, and by yet another commentary, this time from the minority Republican members of the same committee. If the reader is surprised that the Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would feel constrained to provide a separate assessment of what purports to be their own committee’s work, it is because I have left out an important detail regarding whose report this actually is. More on that later.

Over five years into the making of the Senate report, and virtually on the eve of its release, I and 14 other former senior CIA officials whose competence and integrity it purports to judge were at last to be given a belated, ten-day period in which to read it. Though perhaps the people most knowledgeable of the subject at hand, our views have never been sought. None of us — not one — was ever asked to be interviewed by the Senate staffers who compiled the report; nor indeed, to my knowledge, has any CIA employee, past or present. The brief privilege of reading the document was to be conditioned on our agreement not to discuss its contents until the report was released to the public. Alas, thus tantalized, most of us have had this opportunity snatched away. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is reported to have exploded in anger upon learning that we were to have the opportunity to read the un-redacted research of our accusers. The White House has acceded to her demands, and now our number has been reduced from 15 to five — all former CIA directors and deputy-directors from the period in question. For me, there is no disappointment in this. I had already decided not to avail myself of this opportunity, and thus to avoid its strictures. I had, in fact, already seen enough.

You see, the purported findings and conclusions of the Senate report, all 20 of them, had long since been leaked to the press. Of course, we cannot know whether these leaked details are accurate. But no one associated with their alleged preparation has denied or repudiated them. Let us not speculate fruitlessly as to how it has come mysteriously to pass that the particulars of the Senate committee’s highly classified allegations, and none of the CIA’s rebuttals, have made it prematurely into the public realm, there to influence the political climate for the report’s release; let us focus instead on the conclusions themselves.

Space does not allow their listing here, and of course they are otherwise available, but taken together they constitute quite an indictment. If one were to take them at face value — a course I do not advise — one would have to conclude that a very large number of CIA personnel, perhaps many dozens of them, engaged in a massive, years-long conspiracy in which they first lied to the Department of Justice about the interrogation techniques they planned to employ to gain formal legal support for them; recklessly incarcerated individuals who met no legal standard for detention, without even properly accounting for their number; systematically lied to their non-CIA overseers about the detainees’ conditions of detention and interrogation; brazenly impeded oversight by the White House, Congress, and their own Inspector General; ignored numerous critiques and objections from their own workforce; and then managed a coordinated program of targeted leaks of classified information in a bid to manipulate the U.S. media into inaccurately portraying the effectiveness of what they were doing — all so that, year after year, they could stubbornly maintain a program which was producing no intelligence of any worth.

Goodness. If even a substantial portion of this were true, I would be among the first to advise that CIA be razed to the ground and begun all over again. Let me instead modestly state that this version of events does not quite accord with my own recollection.

On March 11, 2014, Senator Feinstein rose to the floor of the Senate to deliver an extraordinary, and perhaps unintentionally revealing speech. In it, she summarized months of petty bickering between her own Senate staffers and the CIA personnel charged with making millions of pages of CIA documents available for their review, which had recently culminated in a criminal referral to the Department of Justice by CIA’s acting General Counsel, alleging Senatorial improprieties in gaining unauthorized access to CIA information. That whole imbroglio has since taken on a life of its own; but whatever one’s perspective on the many disputes involved, it is safe to say that these CIA-Senate dealings were not characterized by a high degree of mutual trust.

From the CIA side, it is not hard to imagine why, as the staffers appear to have reflected Senator Feinstein’s selective way of dealing with the truth — as in this instance: In that same March 11 speech, Senator Feinstein sought assiduously to highlight the involvement of Senator Bond, then-Vice Chairman and ranking Republican on her committee, in decisions related to the start of the investigation. She somehow neglected, though, to mention one salient fact: Shortly after the committee’s investigation got underway, its Republican members declined to participate further. The stated reason was that by this time, the Obama administration had decided to reopen criminal investigations of CIA interrogation activities which had already been thoroughly investigated by the Department of Justice — a blatantly and transparently political act — and that this development would likely make some current and former CIA officials reluctant to testify, thus compromising the investigation from the outset. Senator Feinstein and the committee Democrats were apparently untroubled by this — in fact, as they would subsequently demonstrate, she and her staffers had no interest in complicating their report with the testimony of CIA people in any case — and went ahead regardless. Thus, what purports to be a Senate Intelligence Committee report is in fact nothing of the sort; it is a partisan Democratic senate committee staff report, masquerading as something it is not.

Some of my former colleagues have expressed genuine wonderment as to why neither they nor any of their currently-serving colleagues were interviewed as part of the Senate study. The lame explanation from Senator Feinstein is that, in view of the criminal investigation ongoing at the time, CIA persons’ testimony could not be compelled. But in many, and perhaps most cases, no compulsion was necessary. Many of my former colleagues, myself included, would have been more than happy to testify, legal jeopardy or not. Again, we were not invited. My colleagues should wonder neither at this nor at Senator Feinstein’s adamant refusal to permit them an advance look at her handiwork. The reason is obvious: Nothing we would have said, then or now, would have been useful to the Senator’s purposes.

And just what are those purposes? That Senator Feinstein and her minions on the committee have produced a set of conclusions which reflect a blatant caricature of reality is beyond dispute, certainly in the minds of those who were there. But as to why — well, there’s the question. Surely it’s not just simple, bloody-minded hatred of CIA — though by now, that might be at work as well. Again, the Senator’s now famous speech of March 11 provides us a hint. In 2009, early in her tenure as chairman, she noted, staffers originally assigned by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), her predecessor, to review documents voluntarily provided by then-CIA director Mike Hayden returned with a report on their contents. The documents had been provided as a means of reassuring their readers that written accounts of the contents of destroyed videotapes of early CIA terrorist interrogations, which had been prepared by CIA’s independent Inspector General, in fact accorded with the original written accounts of the interrogations themselves. They did. But the staff’s description of these documents had an effect perhaps unanticipated by Director Hayden. According to Senator Feinstein, the staff report was “chilling” — revealing conditions “far different and far more harsh” than what had been described to her in briefings.

Such a reaction from persons unaccustomed, by many years in Congress, to having to confront the real-world consequences of actions in which they are implicated, but for which they never have to take genuine responsibility, is perhaps understandable. Those whose knowledge of war derives exclusively from historical accounts are likely to be shocked when confronted by the real thing. I myself was momentarily brought up short when confronted with the grim reality of the “black site” over which, as director of CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center, I was ultimately responsible, and on whose workings I had been thoroughly briefed. But a true adult understands these distinctions, and does not then conclude that the bloodless historical accounting must have been intentionally misleading — that is, unless he or she has an interest in doing so. In any case, this preliminary, limited examination of CIA’s documentary record of the detention and interrogation program spurred Senator Feinstein and her Democratic colleagues to launch a far broader investigation, one to which Feinstein’s embattled staffers devoted, in her words, “years of their lives … wading through the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed.” Ah. Now we’re getting to it. Whether Senator Feinstein reached this conclusion as a result of the staffers’ work, or whether this report was selectively constructed to make the case for a conclusion she had previously reached — perhaps after being so “chilled” by the preliminary report of Senator Rockefeller’s staffers — I can only speculate. But given the cartoonish findings in this report, and the fact that Senator Feinstein’s researchers were utterly uninterested in gaining any explanations or context for the information they supposedly unearthed, one might be forgiven for suspecting that the results of this study were a foregone conclusion.

After the March floor speech, on April 10, 2014, Senators Rockefeller and Feinstein collaborated on an op-ed which appeared in the pages of The Washington Post. In it, they stated that “The full [Senate Intelligence] committee was not briefed on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program until September 2006 — more than four years after the program had begun …” The uninitiated reader might conclude from this that CIA had avoided Senate oversight during that whole period, and that no Senators were briefed on CIA detentions and interrogations until just before the existence of the program was publicly acknowledged, by President George W. Bush, in that same month. But if so, the reader would have failed to note the key placement of the word “full.” You see, the fact is that Senator Rockefeller, as head of the committee, had been briefed much earlier than September 2006. If he had any objections to what CIA was doing at the time, neither I nor any of my former colleagues with whom I have spoken can remember it. And he was not alone.

The studied mendacity of that op-ed reflects a fact inconvenient to Feinstein and the defenders of her soon-to-be-released report: Senator Rockefeller and other Democratic colleagues stand to be accused of tacit complicity in the “horrible details” it reveals. Back in May 2009, Representative Nancy Pelosi, confronted with the fact that she had been briefed by CIA on waterboarding and other coercive techniques as early as September 2002, gave a series of frenzied, inconsistent responses. After initially denying having been briefed at all, she later stated that “We were not, I repeat, not, told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.” Her implausible explanation: CIA, despite the fact that it had already begun extensive waterboarding of Abu Zubayda in August 2002, chose to tell her in September only that a suite of coercive methods including water boarding had been approved by the Justice Department, and that their use was merely under consideration. Really. Her public statements to this effect, available on YouTube and the subject of much mirth at the time, did little to reinforce her credibility.

For the authors of the RDI report, getting out from under that cloud was going to require some exertion. If they could make the case, however, that CIA actively misled Congress about what it was doing, that it “avoided or impeded” congressional oversight, they’d have gone a long way toward exculpating their Democratic colleagues. Congress can’t be implicated in what was going on, you see, because it was misled as to what was going on. Just ask Nancy Pelosi. According to the Democratic staff report, all the blame, all of it, for everything from the legal judgments on which the CIA interrogation program was based to the supposed misleading leaks regarding the program in the press, falls neatly on a maniacally hellbent CIA.

Now, one might think that Democrats building a case alleging the moral equivalent of criminal conspiracy might be motivated to include the Bush administration in it. But there’s a little hang-up here. If the documentary record shows that CIA was telling everyone the same thing, that their briefings — from the Justice Department, to the White House, to Congress — were consistent, well, one would have to conclude that everyone was duped. If CIA lied to Congress, it lied to everyone. Denied the ability to tar everyone they might have hoped to, the Senate Democrats had to content themselves with tarring CIA.

However she may have come to her views on coercive interrogation, I happen to believe that Senator Feinstein is sincere — at least to a point. When she says, as she did on April 3, that “The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never be allowed to happen again,” there may be a lot of politically-inspired moral grandstanding at work, but I do believe she means what she says, and that also helps to explain what she has done. Her methods may be mendacious and blatantly unfair, but her motives, at least in the minds of herself and her colleagues, are pure — to ensure that America never again employs harsh interrogation tactics against its enemies. There may be more than a little irony here, but one suspects that she believes her virtuous ends justify her scurrilous means.

I can respect the opinions of others who equate past CIA tactics to torture, and who wish never to see them repeated — provided they are willing to back up their principles with a stated willingness to risk the deaths of fellow citizens to uphold them. But don’t look for any such statements from Feinstein and company. They know they lose their audience when blind devotion to principle risks the deaths of thousands of innocents, as happened at 9/11.

No, Senator Feinstein and others choose to occupy another universe — one in which counterterrorism requires no hard moral choices; a universe in which harsh, coercive interrogations are not only messy and wrong, but also never work. How convenient for Senator Feinstein and her intrepid document sleuths that this is precisely what they found when they made their years-long, unaided deep dive into that massive trove of CIA documents. Unfortunately for intelligence officers, this is not the moral universe in which they live. The choices they make are real ones, and no less so for being morally ambiguous. Their moral choices have genuine consequences — consequences which affect others’ lives — consequences they can’t walk away from when it becomes convenient.

But let us suppose for a moment that the Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee had opted instead to produce an honest, balanced report. That would not change their moral calculus — not if they were sincere. If harsh coercive interrogation is wrong when it is ineffective, it is no less morally wrong when effective. To argue considerations of efficacy on a moral question misses the point. What, then, would be the value in producing and publicly releasing such a report? I can think of two legitimate ones: One would be to conduct an exercise in “truth and reconciliation,” to inform the American people in detail of what has been done in their name, and of its results, and to have the honest moral discussion which thus far has been assiduously avoided by all. A second, related reason would be to build support for comprehensive legislation — that is what Congress is supposed to concern itself with, after all — to remove any of the interpretive legal ambiguity which permitted coercive interrogation to be considered in the first place, and ensure it never happens again.

There seems to be no taste in the Congress for either. First of all, it would be impossible to conduct genuine truth and reconciliation without implicating Congress in past sins as well — and that, as we can see, the Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, for all their self-regarding virtue, have no intention of doing.

But consider: What if they did? What would it look like? What if, instead of conducting a one-sided kangaroo trial of CIA, as though it were the only entity involved in the whole post-9/11 detention and interrogation drama, Senator Feinstein had instead been honest, and risen to the Senate floor to say, in effect, the following: “After the grievous, shocking losses of 9/11, the American government, out of understandable fear of future horrors which might lie in store, took vigorous and, in retrospect, sometimes ill-considered action to ensure no such attack would ever happen again. In the process, we lost our moral bearings, and violated some of the values we hold most dear, those that distinguish us from the terrorists, including the rights to privacy and the sanctity of the individual. There was broad complicity in these actions, extending from the White House, to the Department of Justice, to the Defense Department, to CIA and the Intelligence Community, and — yes — to the Congress as well. Let us therefore make a detailed examination of the past, to let the American people know precisely what was done in their name, who approved it and who condoned it, and on that basis to make legislative and other necessary reforms now, before the next such attack, when we may otherwise be tempted to repeat these mistakes.”

Sounds honest and high-minded, doesn’t it? And if it is as impossible for you, as it is for me, to imagine such words ever coming from the current leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee — or anywhere else in Congress, for that matter — it should give us some insight into the nature of the problem of which the forthcoming report on detention and interrogation is but a symptom.

As an individual citizen I can understand and even embrace the decision taken by the current administration to put harsh, coercive interrogation beyond the pale. But please do not misunderstand. This is not the statement of a repentant former intelligence officer seeking absolution — far from it, in fact. Yes, as a professional, I would accept the decision of the current administration, and do the best I could with the tools at hand. In fact, that is precisely what I proposed to do in early 2006, when passage of the McCain Amendment removed, for a time, the legal protections from CIA officers engaged in coercive interrogation. I refused to continue their use without such protections. But the fact is that I supported continued use of harsh interrogation methods — notably excluding waterboarding, which had been discontinued over a year before — when I became director of counterterrorism at CIA in late 2004. I didn’t have to. I could have denounced such methods, and walked away. I certainly wasn’t trying to support or to please my leaders at the time, either at CIA or in the White House. I was at constant war with them throughout my tenure, and they fired me after only 14 months. But given what I knew of the threat, given the clear effectiveness of our interrogation program, and, importantly, given the clear legal assurances we had that we remained on the right side of both U.S. and international law, I felt obliged, as a professional, to use all the legal means at my disposal, judiciously and when necessary, to protect Americans. Those days are over. But placed in an identical position now, I know I would make the same decision again.

The forthcoming release of this deeply flawed Senate committee report will be neither pretty nor salutary. It will slime the reputations of honorable people, and, given its tendentiousness and inaccuracies, little of genuine use will be learned from it. But that is not to say that everything in it will be false — far from it. The judgments we have seen may reflect selective use of the facts, and lack any sense of balance, perspective, or fairness. But no doubt some of the facts employed, reflecting mistakes and, in some cases, abuses, will be true enough. Though set upon by the Senate researchers with a sense of discovery, they are already well known in CIA and the Department of Justice. Remember, the researchers did not conduct an independent inquiry — they would have had to talk to people for that. They only did a document review. They will have learned of abuses only because they were reported by CIA itself, investigated by the CIA’s independent Inspector General, referred to the Department of Justice for potential criminal action, and investigated by federal prosecutors not once, but in most cases twice.

The official public revelation of these facts will merely permit the press to seize again on the most salacious bits, though most of these have already been reported by the same people; and to repeat the Senate staffers’ wild charges regarding CIA misrepresentations, however ill-founded. Those maligned will protest, of course, but at a distinct disadvantage: The charges against them will be brief, simple, and easily understood; the counters will be long, complicated, and require some subtle understanding. It’s not hard to predict the winner of that battle. Many in the public will accept the Senate Democratic charges at face value — why would they lie? — while others, on both sides of the issue, approaching the matter with fixed views, will seize on charge or counter-charge to underscore what they want to believe in any case. Practically no one, aside from zealots on either side of the issue, will take the time to develop an informed opinion — that would require too much work. Apart from those unfairly maligned, a good time will be had by all.

Many of my former colleagues already feel embittered and ill-used in this sham process, and justifiably so. But they should not be surprised. Given the controversies of which we are inevitably a part, any CIA officer, of any generation, who expects to receive the unadulterated thanks of a grateful nation is setting him- or herself up for disappointment. In this profession the satisfaction of service must be its own reward. I knew that going in. Speaking for myself, no one should feel sorry.

But that is not to say that no harm will come of this forthcoming bit of tendentious, intellectually dishonest political theater. It is not just the past which is at stake, but the present and the future as well. Make no mistake — those currently serving in CIA are watching these developments closely.

Senator Feinstein, we are told, though having great moral qualms about vigorously interrogating terrorists, appears to have no particular compunction about killing them — so long as it is done remotely, with little direct contact with the gruesome details. As anyone reading the press will know, the current, Democratic administration has shown great enthusiasm for directed killings, employing drones in lethal operations around the world to an extent that might have shocked their Republican predecessors in the Bush administration. Death by video game has its attractions, particularly for those lacking intestinal fortitude. It enables them to avoid confronting the essential and unavoidable brutality of what they are doing.

Just as was the case with harsh interrogations during the last administration, the current resort to directed killings, including so-called “signature strikes,” in which the specific identities of those targeted are unknown, though remarkably uncontroversial at the outset of the current administration, has become anything but uncontroversial since. Should the perceived threat from various bits of ungoverned, terrorist-dominated geography around the globe diminish, the controversy involving drone strikes will only grow further. At some point soon, if they haven’t already, the tribunes of the people in the U.S. Congress will begin to wonder about the political wisdom of their association with directed killings.

They needn’t worry — they have already demonstrated their ability to avoid all responsibility — but those charged with carrying out such strikes should, and they know it. Those in both the White House and the Congress who have chosen to comfort themselves by propagating the myths associated with drone strikes — that they are universally “surgical,” always precisely targeted, and that any civilian casualties associated with them are rare — will inevitably find themselves shocked — perhaps “chilled” is the word — by reality when political calculation dictates that they examine it more closely. Drone strikes, like any other aspect of war, are far more messy and imprecise than advertised, involving subjective judgments easily vulnerable to second-guessing and ex-post-facto recrimination. They benefit only by comparison with more primitive methods, including ground attacks and conventional air strikes, but those comparisons will no longer matter when political interest moves in the other direction. Some successor to Dianne Feinstein may well soon find political cover or political advantage, as the case may be, in a thorough, negative investigation of the drone program — we can watch for it.

Those in CIA, like other Americans, are prone to short memories. The memories of those currently engaged in counterterrorism, though, may not be short enough. In my own time in CIA, as perhaps in all times, there were those inside the organization who preached that the Agency should steadfastly avoid presidential directives to affect or shape events, rather than just report on them. “Stick to traditional intelligence collection,” they’d say. We hear similar voices now. But presidents always feel otherwise. Every president confronts foreign policy challenges for which a cheap, clandestine solution appears tempting. Given CIA’s unique capabilities, it’s often the right thing to do. But the opportunities to frustrate the president’s wishes and avoid such entanglements are rife for those who are so inclined. There is even a term for it: “slow rolling.” Current events, and the anticipated Senate report, will greatly strengthen the hand of the slow-rollers. It’s hard to disagree with them now.

Senate Democrats on the Intelligence Committee understand this, and embrace it. They are actually quite open about their intentions. If they wanted to shape future counterterrorism policy in a definitive way, they could do so with positive legislation. But there would be potential pitfalls in that. In greatly narrowing the options available to a future president, they stand to take the blame for the consequences. That is why virtually every piece of legislation nominally designed to influence foreign policy includes a so-called “national security exception,” giving the president the ability to avoid the presumed limits on his power by filing a lengthy and cumbersome justification for doing so. Congress generally does not really wish to control foreign policy — only to appear to be doing so by posturing convincingly.

The present case is no exception. Rather than taking responsibility for changes in counterterrorism policy on itself, it is a far safer, if more insidious course — one instinctive to Congress — to abuse the CIA to the point where it self-regulates. But as noted above, there are serious downsides to that approach. U.S. national security will not be served by fostering a culture within CIA in which the organization decides for itself which of its lawful orders it will choose to follow, and makes those judgments based on what CIA officers consider best for themselves and their institution, rather than on what their elected masters deem best for the country. That is not the way the system is supposed to work. The federal bureaucracy is supposed to follow legal orders. That is what CIA has always done, frequently to its cost, and that is what the American people need it to do. If they don’t like what their elected leaders have done, they can throw them out. They shouldn’t look to CIA to make these decisions for them — on their own, and for their own purposes. But if Senator Feinstein and her colleagues are successful, institutionalized insubordination is likely to be the unhealthy legacy of the Senate report on detention and interrogation. Actions have consequences. Gross injustice has its costs. Congress is incorrigible. But the American people should take notice.

___________________

Robert L. Grenier is Chairman of ERG Partners, a financial advisory and consulting firm. He retired from CIA in 2006 and was Director of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC) from 2004 to 2006. His forthcoming book, 88 Days to Kandahar, is due out from Simon and Schuster in early 2015. View his full bio here.

 

UN Begs Countries to Take Syrian Refugees

Nothing says failure like the United Nations admitting defeat. The number of failed states in the last six years is staggering. Libya, Somalia, Iraq, Syria…so presently the United Nations is calling countries to take in Syrian refugees up to 180,000.

If you don’t think that failed foreign policy impacts our homeland, think again. Amnesty International has a large hand in this demand.  The United States has already taken more than the annual quota.

Canada should admit up to 10,000 Syrian refugees says Amnesty International Canada and the Syrian Canadian Council.  Canada promised to resettle 1,300, most of whom were to be privately sponsored.  So far only 457 have arrived.

Around 3.8 million people who have fled the civil war in Syria are being hosted in five main countries in the region and only 1.7 per cent have been offered sanctuary, according Amnesty’s report. Some of the world’s wealthiest countries have failed to offer a single place.

Canada’s response called ‘miserly’

In a news conference the head of Amnesty International Canada, Alex Neve asked whether things would be different if the Syrian refugees weren’t Muslims and asked how else to explain the Canadian government’s “miserly” response.

UN asks countries to take in 180,000 Syrian refugees

Figure would represent just 5% of the projected refugee population by end of 2015

 That figure would represent five percent of the projected refugee population by the end of 2015, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The issue will be discussed at a conference in Geneva on Tuesday.

After three years of fighting in Syria, more than 3.2 million refugees are registered in neighboring countries and with little sign of the conflict coming to an end, the UNHCR believes the number could rise to nearly 3.6 million by the end of 2015.

The world must act to save a generation of traumatised, isolated and suffering Syrian children from catastrophe. If we do not move quickly, this generation of innocents will become lasting casualties of an appalling war.

This report highlights the painful challenges these children face every day. It details the horrors that Syrian children have suffered—loved ones dying around them, their schools closed, their friends lost.

Research conducted over four months in Lebanon and Jordan found that Syrian refugee children face a startling degree of isolation and insecurity. If they aren’t working as breadwinners—often doing menial labour on farms or in shops—they are confined to their homes.

Perhaps the statistic we should pay the most attention to is: 29 per cent of children interviewed said that they leave their home once a week or less. Home is often a crammed apartment, a makeshift shelter or a tent.

It should be no surprise that the needs of these children are vast. Too many have been wounded physically, psychologically or both. Some children have been drawn into the war—their innocence ruthlessly exploited.

A grave consequence of the conflict is that a generation is growing up without a formal education. More than half of all school-aged Syrian children in Jordan and Lebanon are not in school. In Lebanon, it is estimated that some 200,000 school-aged Syrian refugee children could remain out of school at the end of the year.

Another disturbing symptom of the crisis is the vast number of babies born in exile who do not have birth certificates. A recent UNHCR survey on birth registration in Lebanon revealed that 77 per cent of 781 refugee infants sampled did not have an official birth certificate. Between January and mid-October 2013, only 68 certificates were issued to babies born in Za’atari camp, Jordan.

Over 1.1 million Syrian children are refugees.

Read more here as a hired spokesperson for this mission is none other than Angelina Jolie. But what else is behind this quest where the United Nations is admitting defeat with regard to Syria? Money. There is no more money for food, medicine or housing.

The idea to remove Assad, which was the original failed objective of Obama and Hillary has been lost in discussions, then Daesh and al Nusra showed up. Hagel lost his job after demanding that the White House deliver a strategy with regard to Syria/Iraq and Islamic State. There is none. So, the issues with Syria manifest.

United Nations’ Food Program Halts Aid to Syrian Refugees

World Food Programme Cites Lack of Funding

By Dana Ballout

The United Nations World Food Programme on Monday said it would halt its aid to 1.7 million Syrian refugees on the cusp of winter due to lack of funding.

In a statement on their website, the WFP said the consequences of the decision will be “devastating” for the refugees and their host countries.

“A suspension of WFP food assistance will endanger the health and safety of these refugees and will potentially cause further tensions, instability and insecurity in the neighboring host countries,” WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin said in the statement.

The decision will impact refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt, and comes at a time when temperatures have begun to drop in the region, raising concerns around how refugees will be able to endure the potentially harsh winter.

Many Syrian refugees, especially in Lebanon, where the majority of refugees reside, live in makeshift tents and camps and suffer from a lack of fuel, clean water, proper sanitation and warm clothing.

The U.N. agency warned in September it was running out of funds and that cutbacks were inevitable if additional support wasn’t received.

The inability to secure the $64 million needed for the program to continue also ends the WFP’s electronic voucher program. The e-vouchers allowed refugee families access to a prepaid credit card that could be used in participating local stores. The program had contributed $800 million to the economies of the host countries, the statement said.

If sufficient financial support is secured, the program will resume immediately, the statement said.

As the Syrian crisis nears the end of its fourth year, the WFP isn’t the only U.N. agency struggling to meet its funding appeals, said Lama Fakih, Syria and Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Of the $3.7 billion request made in June 2014 by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Syria’s neighboring countries and other humanitarian agencies, only 51% of the funds have been received thus far.

“As the number of Syrian refugees increases, 3.2 million now, the needs increase, and despite international attention diverted to other crises, Syrians are still very much in need,” said Lama Fakih, Syria and Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch.

There are several reasons contributing to the lack of sufficient aid to Syrian refugees, most notably the various humanitarian emergencies happening simultaneously around the world that have diverted the world’s attention and wallets away from Syria.

According to Joelle Eid, the WFP’s communication officer stationed in Amman, Jordan, the need for humanitarian aid has skyrocketed this year. The WFP is currently dealing with five high priority emergencies around the world, including the Ebola crisis, Eid said.

“If we don’t urgently get this assistance, get the $64 million for December alone, people will simply go hungry,” she added.