Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

No Longer Nuclear Zero

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The nuclear weapons chatter is rising by the day. The Saudis paid for much of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program that included an agreement to access to weapons at a future date. The ongoing talks the P5+1 with Iran has Saudi Arabia dusting off their immediate options. The White House and John Kerry are seeing a final date slippage with regard to the June 30 deadline, but to what end?

There has been recent inquiries into Israel’s nuclear program exposing their weapons systems, something that has never been previously discussed.

Vladimir Putin has recently increased his own nuclear points and expansion of flights by his nuclear bombers that include the Ukraine, Poland and northern Europe. This has NATO expressing distress and a counter-measures strategy.

Yet Russia has had some chilling nuclear weapons program history putting the world that includes jihadi network into the equation.

Breakdown in U.S.-Russia relations raises risk of nuclear-armed jihadists

In the last several years, a number of troubling events have revealed weaknesses in Russian nuclear security. A Russian general in command of nuclear weapon storage sites was fired due to massive corruption. A colonel in the Russian Ministry of Interior in charge of nuclear security inspections was arrested for soliciting bribes to overlook security violations. One American researcher visiting a nuclear facility was told it would take merely $100 to bribe his way in.

Graft in Russia is rife, and corruption plus available uranium is a troubling combination. This vulnerability is heightened by the fact that at many nuclear sites the accounting systems to track uranium and plutonium could not sufficiently identify thefts of newly manufactured or older stored fissile materials. More broadly, Russia does not possess a master baseline inventory of all nuclear materials produced in the former Soviet Union — and where all of it is today.

At a 2010 summit of world leaders, President Barack Obama described nuclear terrorism as “the single biggest threat to U.S. security.” He’s right — but as the crisis in Ukraine festers, recent U.S. actions have unraveled decades of successful cooperation with Russia to reduce the risk.

While some argue that the United States needs to “punish” Russia due to Moscow’s contribution to the crisis in Ukraine, this is akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face. Given the threat from “loose nukes” to our national security, the United States should take steps to jump-start U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American policymakers suddenly faced a frightening new threat: Poverty and chaos caused a complete breakdown in security throughout the former Soviet nuclear complex. Insiders at top-secret Russian nuclear weapons plants tried to steal and sell nuclear materials on the black market. Unpaid guards at nuclear sites left their posts to search for food. A senior White House science adviser even discovered more than 150 pounds of highly enriched uranium — enough for several nuclear bombs — sitting unguarded in lockers in the middle of Moscow.

In response to this threat, the United States spent billions of dollars under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to help Russia secure its nuclear materials and facilities. From the deactivation of almost 8,000 Russian nuclear warheads to the building of a massive storage facility for 27 tons of fissile materials, CTR was arguably the most successful American foreign aid program in history.

Following the conclusion of the CTR program in 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom signed a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. This agreement, which was designed to build trust between the two countries, called for projects ranging from the development of advanced nuclear security and safety technologies, to visits by each side’s scientists to the other’s most sensitive nuclear labs and facilities.

Less than seven months after the agreement was signed, however, the DOE dealt a devastating blow to Russian-American nuclear security cooperation, banning Russian nuclear scientists from visiting the United States while also banning DOE nuclear scientists from visiting Russia.

The current defense budget, passed seven months after the DOE’s action, also bars all funding for nuclear nonproliferation activities and assistance in Russia.

Its pride wounded, Russia retaliated, first announcing it would boycott the 2016 nuclear security summit in Chicago and then informing U.S. officials it would no longer accept American aid to help secure Russia’s weapons-grade uranium and plutonium — a significant blow to U.S. national security.

Nuclear security in Russia is undoubtedly better than it was in the 1990s. Guards at nuclear sites are paid on time. Perimeter fences surrounding these sites no longer have holes. Fissile materials are no longer stored in lockers. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that while physical security at nuclear sites is greatly improved, real problems still remain. Russia continues to have the world’s largest nuclear stockpile and there are more than 200 buildings and bunkers where highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is stored. Sophisticated criminals could still exploit the remaining weaknesses in Russian nuclear security.

We know that Osama bin Laden considered a nuclear attack targeting American civilians to be a legitimate action, and last year Islamic State stole 88 pounds of non-enriched uranium compounds from a university in Mosul. With nearly 2,000 Russian citizens fighting with Middle East extremist groups, if fissile material does end up in the hands of militants, it is quite possible it will have originated from Russia.

The DOE should work with Rosatom to restart the September 2013 agreement and implement the reciprocal nuclear site visits, scientist-to-scientist cooperation and joint-research the agreement envisions. The personal relationships developed over decades of cooperation between Russian and American scientists are too important to jeopardize — we are only shooting ourselves in the foot by cutting these off.

The United States should also understand that the narrative from the 1990s whereby the United States is a donor and Russia is an aid recipient is no longer acceptable in Moscow. Going forward, nuclear cooperation must be reframed as a partnership of equals, with both sides contributing to the conversation about how and why to strengthen security. Republicans and Democrats should put aside partisan differences and fully fund U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation — whatever that ultimately involves. The Obama administration is proposing to spend $348 billion upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next ten years. It’s worth spending a tiny fraction of that money to prevent loose nukes.

All of these steps require that the United States end the linkage between nuclear security cooperation with Russia and the crisis in Ukraine. While the current political environment makes this difficult, not doing so is foolhardy.

*** Yet there is nuclear weapons and testing history that is important to understand and an example is the Marshall Islands and the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Fascinating read is here. A declassified video is below:

 

al Qaeda, ISIS Success at Force Multiplying

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For heavy reading, the UN report on ISIS is here.

Islamist fighters drawn from half the world’s countries, says UN

Report says there are more than 25,000 ‘foreign terrorist fighters’ from 100 countries in jihadi conflicts, who pose an ‘immediate and long-term threat’

More than half the countries in the world are currently generating Islamist extremist fighters for groups such as al-Qaida and Islamic State, the UN has said.

A report by the UN security council says there are more than 25,000 “foreign terrorist fighters” currently involved in jihadi conflicts and they are “travelling from more than 100 member states”.

The number of fighters may have increased by more than 70% worldwide in the past nine months or so, the report says, adding that they “pose an “immediate and long-term [terrorist] threat”.

The sudden rise, though possibly explained by better data, will raise concern about the apparently growing appeal of extremism. The geographic spread of states touched by the phenomenon has expanded, too.

The report notes continuing problems with understanding the processes of radicalisation, but says, despite a concentration on the internet, social networks in conflict zones and western cities play a key role.

“Those who eat together and bond together can bomb together,” the report says.

The report is the first from the UN to take a global view of the problem of “foreign terrorist fighters”, and includes those in Afghanistan, Africa and other theatres as well as Syria and Iraq.

Officials described the estimate of numbers as conservative and said the true total may be more than 30,000. “The rate of flow is higher than ever and mainly focused on movement into the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq, with a growing problem also evident in Libya,” the report says.

The security council is meeting on Friday to discuss the problem of foreign terrorist fighters and potential measures to combat the threat.

The report comes amid a fierce debate over western strategies to counter Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Read more here.

The success comes from several tracks, death or solidarity, money and threats of doom to the infidel. Social media efforts by al Qaeda and ISIS wins the hearts and minds, a ground game better defined by mafia tactics. The Muslim Brotherhood invented the concept.

A Twitter account associated with the Syrian branch of al Qaeda (screenshot)

Al Qaeda in Syria ‘Tweeting Jihad to Over 200,000 Followers’

Twitter support for terror group hits high point

Al Qaeda is experiencing a resurgence on Twitter, as feeds associated with the terrorist group are reaching up to 200,000 extremist followers, according to a new report, which criticizes the social networking service for failing to crack down on radical terror groups.

As Twitter works to crack down on accounts affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, it is failing to do the same with al Qaeda-associated accounts, which are routinely “tweeting jihad and martyrdom” to a growing audience of radical followers, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which has been tracking the issue for some time.

With terrorist groups becoming increasingly sophisticated on the Internet, Twitter and other social networking services have become key tools for the dissemination of radical propaganda and recruitment.

Though al Qaeda’s ongoing operations have taken a backseat to the exploits of IS, the group founded by Osama bin Laden is thriving on Twitter, according to MEMRI.

“It should be noted that as Twitter’s removal of accounts on its platform linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) has gotten a lot of attention, accounts belonging to many other Designated Terrorist Organizations, notably to Jabhat Al-Nusra (JN), Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria that was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in December 2012, have not received any attention, and its many accounts, which have a total of over 200,000 followers, are thriving,” MEMRI wrote in a recent report.

“This is another reminder of Twitter’s failure to effectively address this issue and its lack of a true strategy for doing so,” the group concluded.

With the attention focused on IS, al Qaeda’s affiliates are freely operating online and continuing to recruit new followers.

“Despite the fact that when people focus on terrorist use of Twitter it is ISIS that comes to mind, many other jihadi groups are using it,” according to MEMRI.

The al Qaeda groups have used Twitter to post graphic footage of public floggings and executions it has performed in lawless areas of Syria under the terrorist group’s control.

MEMRI also found that these accounts have published internal JN documents about its terrorist activity, as well as “military advancements and updates, including official communications documents; and its outreach to children.”

Earlier this month, for instance, JN leader Sheikh Mostafa Mohamed held a two-day question-and-answer session with radical Twitter users in English.

“In his Q&A, [Mohamed] praises JN and its affiliation with Al-Qaeda, stating that they are genuinely Salafi-jihadi organizations, unlike ISIS, and denies that JN aims to end ties with Al-Qaeda,” according to an excerpt of the Twitter conversation published by MEMRI.

Mohamed discussed with users plans by JN and al Qaeda to assume power in Syria following the ouster by rebels of President Bashar al-Assad.

The terrorist leader also “encourages and advises jihadis in Australia” during the session.

Indoctrination is also a key goal for these groups, as Twitter allows them to reach a broad audience both in the Middle East and across the globe.

“The Twitter accounts include many photos of the group’s efforts to indoctrinate the next generation of JN—distributing sweets to children, conducting games and lessons for them and presenting them with achievement awards, providing them with military and religious training for jihad and martyrdom, and more,” according to MEMRI. “The accounts also tweet images of battles and combat situations and their aftermath, including of dead bodies, destroyed buildings, and captured prisoners.”

Twitter has come under counting pressure from advocacy groups and federal lawmakers to crack down on a flurry of jihadist Twitter accounts, which routinely use the service for fundraising and recruiting.

In March, a bipartisan group of lawmakers petitioned Twitter to shut down accounts associated with any foreign terrorist organization designated as such by the United States.

5th Circuit Dealt Blow to WH Immigration Scheme

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Simply stated, on a 2-1 decision, the court ruled the ‘stay’ on Barack Obama’s executive action remains in place however, two options remain. The 5th Circuit Court sends the case back down to the lower court while the other option is for the administration to ‘rocket-docket’ the case to the Supreme Court. To advance the case to SCOTUS may not be a prudent decision as the next judge in line of rotation at the Supreme Court is Justice Scalia, who would likely rule adversely on Obama’s executive action. The Obama legal team as well as Hillary Clinton have pushed back hard on the court’s decision, so the showdown will likely continue or where the administration will alter terms used for immigration to redefine those here, as told are in the shadows to a refugee or under asylum status. Another nefarious plan B could be in place and about to be launched.

If you are under the notion that members of congress are not doing anything on the Obama executive action, mostly you would be correct. However, there are some that are taking an aggressive stance and they need our support. Senator Ron Johnson and Senator Sessions are two that are pushing back hard. Please note Senator Johnson’s position here.

Meanwhile, eyes should be also focused again on the insurgency season upon America for the 2015 incursion at the Southern border. The United States is a generous and benevolent country and such is the condition with those desperately needing to escape violence.

The only viable solution is to install solutions in home countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador such that safety and viability is restored. No politician speaks to that solution, demand those answers.

Deaths, gang activity surge as illegals flood border, 30,000 expected

A crackdown on children attempting to illegally enter the United States by Mexico and other Latin American nations has cut this year’s surge to a still-high 30,000, but proponents believe that has made the situation even more desperate for kids, leading to greater crime and deaths.

“Those that are fleeing and trying to get out of their countries are now using even more dangerous tactics with more criminal entities and costing them even more money to get through to safety,” said Kimberly Haynes, director of children’s services for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Baltimore-based LIRS is a key player in caring for unaccompanied children crossing into the United States and advocates for joining the kids with their parents already in the United States. Haynes told Secrets that those they have interviewed this year arrive with horrible stories of how smugglers got them through Mexico and into the United States.

Worse, she said, many arrive minus a brother or sister, believed to have died in the process.

“While riding the [illegal immigration freight] train was horrendous in its own right and the journey was already scary enough, being locked in the back of a truck for four days or being smuggled in other ways through the border has only created a heightened amount of risk,” Haynes said of how illegals now travel.

“There are several siblings that we know never made it. We don’t know what happened to them. One of their brothers made it, one sister made it, there’s something, but there’s no understanding, no knowledge. They left at the same time, smuggler’s separated them, nobody knows. So there’s a huge population of loss that’s happening out of these countries that can’t even try to immigrate back if things become stable enough because they’re just a lost generation,” she said.

“Nobody’s heard from them, nobody knows what’s happened, so whether they got exploited, killed, went into criminal entities or died in the process, it’s an unknown,” added Haynes.

What’s more, she said the smuggling prices has jumped from $1,000 to at least $1,600, and sometimes gangs demand more money before making the final delivery.

So far, the numbers of illegals crossing into the United States has been about half of last year’s numbers. Haynes said that while about 68,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border last year, current numbers suggest a total of about 30,000 this year.

But at 30,000, it is still very high and equal to fiscal 2013’s numbers.

She said that Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have cracked down on families and children trying to leave. And, she added, that some still try is a sign that the political and humanitarian situation in those countries has not improved.

“To know that families are risking that level of life means that there is something bigger going on down there,” said Haynes.

 

Another Secret Clinton Corporation?

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Notice the ‘To’ and ‘From’ in this document and the subject line.

 

Bill Clinton company shows complexity of family finances

WASHINGTON (AP) — The newly released financial files on Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s growing fortune omit a company with no apparent employees or assets that the former president has legally used to provide consulting and other services, but which demonstrates the complexity of the family’s finances.

Because the company, WJC, LLC, has no financial assets, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was not obligated to report its existence in her recent financial disclosure report, officials with Bill Clinton’s private office and the Clinton campaign said. They were responding to questions by The Associated Press, which reviewed corporate documents.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide private details of the former president’s finances on the record, said the entity was a “pass-through” company designed to channel payments to the former president.

Under federal ethics disclosure rules, declared candidates do not have to report assets worth less than $1,000. But the company’s existence demonstrates the complexity of tracking the Clintons’ finances as Hillary Clinton ramps up her presidential bid.

While Bill Clinton’s lucrative speeches have provided the bulk of the couple’s income, earning as much as $50 million during his wife’s four-year term as secretary of state in the Obama administration, the former president has also sought to branch out into other business activities in recent years. Little is known about the exact nature and financial worth of Bill Clinton’s non-speech business interests.

The identities of several U.S and foreign-based companies and foundations that Bill Clinton worked for have been disclosed in Hillary Clinton’s recent financial report as well as in earlier reports during her stint as secretary of state.

Under federal disclosure rules for spouses’ earned income, Hillary Clinton was only obligated to identify the source of her spouse’s income and confirm that he received more than $1,000. As a result, the precise amounts of Bill Clinton’s earned income from consulting have not been disclosed, and it’s not known how much was routed through WJC, LLC.

WJC, LLC was set up in Delaware in 2008 and again in 2013 and in New York in 2009, according to documents obtained by The AP. The company did not appear among holdings in the Clintons’ financial disclosure released last week or in previous Hillary Clinton disclosure reports between 2008 and 2013, when she resigned as secretary of state. Bill Clinton signed a document as its “authorizing person” in a corporate filing in Delaware in 2013.

A limited liability company is a commonly used business structure that provides tax advantages and limited legal protection for the assets of company owners and partners.

The purpose of Bill Clinton’s U.S.-based company was not disclosed in any of the corporate filings in Delaware and New York, but State Department files recently reviewed by the AP show that WJC, LLC surfaced in emails from Bill Clinton’s aides to the department’s ethics officials.

In February 2009, Clinton’s counselor, Douglas Band, asked State Department ethics officials to clear Bill Clinton’s consulting work for three companies owned by influential Democratic party donors. Memos sent by Band proposed that Bill Clinton would provide “consulting services regarding geopolitical, economic and social trends affecting the entity and philanthropic opportunities” through the WJC, LLC entity.

State Department officials approved Bill Clinton’s consulting work for longtime friend Steve Bing’s Shangri-La Industries and another with Wasserman Investments, GP, a firm run by entertainment executive and Democratic party donor Casey Wasserman. The ethics officials turned down Bill Clinton’s proposed work with a firm run by entertainment magnate and Democratic donor Haim Saban because of Saban’s active role in Mideast political affairs.

WJC, LLC was also cited by Band in a June 2011 memo sent to State Department ethics officials asking for clearance to allow Bill Clinton to advise Band’s international consulting company, Teneo Strategy LLC. Band’s request said Teneo would use “consulting services provided by President Clinton through WJC, LLC.” State Department officials approved the three-year contract between the two companies.

None of the proposals detailed how much Bill Clinton would be paid.

While Hillary Clinton’s 2011 federal disclosure report did not mention WJC, LLC, it reported that Bill Clinton received “non-employee compensation over $1,000 from Teneo,” but did not disclose a more precise amount. Federal disclosure rules require the spouses of filers to disclose the identity of any income sources over $1,000, but they do not have to provide exact figures.

Pass-through, or shell, companies became an issue in the 2012 presidential campaign when Republican candidate Mitt Romney disclosed a private equity entity worth $1.9 million despite failing to report the company on his previous federal disclosure. Romney aides said the company previously held no assets but then received the $1.9 million “true up” payment — a catch-up payment to make up for private equity fees from defunct investment advisory businesses that had not been previously paid.

Hillary, Libya, Goldman Sachs and Rebels

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Okay, call holding for Trey Gowdy…perhaps he should know about lifted sanctions where surely a certain server has some emails. Seems there are billions at stake even today and Hillary knew it and frankly still does know it. So many more moving parts. Going back to 2011….

Libyan Power Struggle Threatens Fund’s Goldman, SocGen Suits

A fight for control of Libya’s $60 billion sovereign wealth fund threatens to derail its multibillion dollar lawsuits against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA.

Since the Libyan Investment Authority’s London law firm quit in April, two competing factions have claimed control, hiring separate lawyers and public relations firms.

There is a “state of chaos” in the litigation, lawyer Andrew Hunter told a London judge Friday. He represents a potential witness in the Societe Generale case who says confidential files have been mishandled.

 

“It hasn’t been possible to get consent from the LIA” over the documents, Hunter said, “because there is no one at the LIA to get consent from.”

Libya’s sovereign wealth fund sued Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale, each for more than $1 billion, over investment deals that turned sour. Since the cases were filed last year, armed conflict between rival administrations in Tripoli and Tobruk has led to escalating violence and turmoil in the North African nation, ruled for 42 years by dictator Muammar Qaddafi before his death in 2011.

The Libyan Investment Authority has been shrouded in secrecy.

In one of Africa’s largest and most secretive foreign agricultural investment deals, oil-rich Libya, under the leadership of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, signed a 50-year, renewable lease for the land with Mali’s government in 2008.

20150525malibyaThe land in the Office of Niger, the agricultural heart of the West African country, was provided rent free, with water rights included, on the condition that Libya build canals and roads to cultivate rice and cattle there. Read more here.

Hillary had sanctions lifted.

U.S. Seeks to Use Frozen Gadhafi Assets to Aid Rebels

The U.S. is moving to free up more than $30 billion in frozen Libyan assets, a small part of which would go to fund opposition forces, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, in a move that could bolster a world-wide effort to finance Libya’s struggling rebel movement.

Speaking ahead of a meeting with other top diplomats in Rome, Mrs. Clinton said the Obama administration was working with Congress to pass legislation allowing the Treasury Department to release Gadhafi-regime assets that it had frozen earlier this year in the wake of the Libyan dictator’s violent crackdown on protesters.

Libya’s deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, told reporters in Tripoli that giving the frozen assets to the rebels would be illegal, “like piracy on the high seas.”

In a first step, once the funds are unfrozen, the U.S. is considering sending more than $150 million to humanitarian agencies for use in rebel territory, a State Department official said.

The U.S. efforts come as 22 nations agreed at a meeting in Rome Thursday to set up an internationally monitored multibillion-dollar fund aimed at helping Libya’s rebel government, the Transitional National Council, fund basic provisions such as food and medicine, pay military salaries and rebuild hospitals and schools, according to several officials at the meeting.

The allied countries have already pledged $250 million in humanitarian aid, said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

Money from the fund won’t be used to pay for arms, said Mahmoud Jibril, the Libyan rebel group’s de-facto foreign minister, who also attended the meeting.

“Two weeks ago nobody was talking about… giving the [rebels] the means to defend themselves, but now I think it’s more accepted,” Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr al-Thani said after the meeting.

Sheikh Hamad added that the fund would be overseen by a five-member board, including three people appointed by the rebel council, one named by Qatar and another representing France and Italy on a six-month rotating basis.

Officials envisioned that the fund could in part be filled by assets of the Gadhafi government that have over the past few months been frozen by the United Nations and the European Union.

In March, the E.U. froze foreign assets owned by the Gadhafi family and the dictator’s close lieutenants. The E.U. also froze stakes that Libya’s central bank and its sovereign-wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority, hold in large European companies, ranging from banks to defense contractors.

On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury department announced that it planned to freeze assets under U.S. jurisdiction that are linked to Libya’s state broadcaster and two Libyan investment funds.

For the U.S., however, unlocking and using the frozen Gadhafi-government funds is difficult for legal reasons. Though the U.S. has allocated $25 million to help the rebels procure supplies, Washington hasn’t recognized the rebel leadership council as Libya’s rightful government—as some European countries have done—complicating the U.S.’s ability to provide funding.

If Congress passes legislation allowing those frozen assets to be tapped “we can make those funds available to help the Libyan people,” Mrs. Clinton said at the meeting.

Mrs. Clinton also called on her counterparts to turn up diplomatic pressure on Col. Gadhafi by sending envoys to Benghazi. Isolating his regime, she said, “includes suspending the operations of Gadhafi’s embassies and expelling pro-Gadhafi diplomats, as the U.S. and other countries have done, and sending envoys to Benghazi and facilitating the creation of [Transitional National Council] representative offices in capitals world-wide.”

The U.S. has sent an envoy to Benghazi. Mahmoud Jibril, the rebels’ de facto foreign minister, is expected visit Washington next week and meet with Treasury officials.

During the meeting, the group of allies also discussed conditions for security a cease-fire in Libya that would include easing the departure of the Gadhafi family from Libya and urging the country’s national assembly to write a new constitution, Mr. Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, said. He said “a few weeks is a realistic period” to secure a truce.