Obama Applying Every Nasty Political Tactic to Close Gitmo

Bypass Congress, throw in the Iran deal, sanctions, vetoes and more. The White House may even threaten Secretary of Defense Ash Carter with his job as he did with former Secretary Hagel.

A sample detainee:

File:ISN 01103, Mohammed Zahir's Guantanamo detainee assessment.pdf

 

Bid to Shutter Gitmo Roils Pentagon, White House, Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration’s struggling quest to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is mired in state and federal politics. Frustrated White House and Pentagon officials are blaming each other for the slow progress releasing approved detainees and finding a new prison to house those still held.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter is facing criticism from some administration officials who complain that he has not approved enough transfers, even though 52 Guantanamo detainees are eligible. Carter’s predecessor, Chuck Hagel, was forced from the Pentagon job in part because the White House felt he was not moving quickly enough to send detainees to other countries.

Two officials said the White House is frustrated because President Barack Obama discussed the issue with Carter when he was hired this year to lead the Defense Department, and they believed Carter was on board with the White House’s plans to act faster.

Other U.S. officials note that Carter has approved some transfers and is pushing his staff to move quickly to get more to his desk. But many other proposed transfers are slogging through the bureaucracy, under review by a long list of defense, military, intelligence and other administration offices. The transfers cannot be approved unless officials believe the detainees will not return to terrorism or the battlefield upon release and that there is a host country willing to take them.

During his two years as Pentagon chief, Hagel approved 44 detainee transfers. Carter, in his first seven months, has transferred six.

Obama has promised to close the facility since he was a presidential candidate in 2008. He said it ran counter to American values to keep people in prison, many without criminal charges or due process.

Opponents have argued the detainees are essentially prisoners of war.

From a peak of 680 prisoners, 116 remain. Finding acceptable places for them has been an intractable problem.

“Finding a solution for these individuals involves complicated negotiations with international partners, extensive consultations with the leaders of the national security and legal organizations and final approval by me,” Carter told reporters.

A key player in the process is Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dempsey, who spent more than three years as a commander in Iraq, continues to be very cautious in his recommendations for transfers. His opinions carry a lot of weight.

According to U.S. officials familiar with the process, Carter recently notified Congress of two transfers, and has four whose files are ready to go to Capitol Hill, likely later this month. Congress has 30 days to review the transfers before they are made public.

A number of U.S. officials familiar with the ongoing discussions spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the subject publicly.

The movement of detainees is only part of the challenge. A greater hurdle will be finding a U.S.-based prison to house the 64 detainees considered too dangerous to be sent to another country. Congress has opposed any effort to bring detainees to America, so Obama’s long-stated goal of closing Guantanamo before he leaves office in January 2017 is more likely to die on the steps of Capitol Hill.

Aware of those objections, the White House last month stalled Pentagon efforts to send a plan to Congress outlining several U.S. prisons that could be upgraded and used for the detainees. Early drafts of the plan included some rough estimates of the costs and the time needed for renovations.

U.S. officials said the administration was worried that sending the plan to Congress could affect the crucial vote on the Iran nuclear deal by infuriating lawmakers who do not want the detainees moved to the U.S. or who adamantly oppose having them in a prison in their state or district. The resolution of disapproval of the Iran deal failed in the Senate, handing Obama a victory on that issue.

Three to five civilian facilities are being eyed as potential sites, officials said. A Pentagon team has gone to military facilities in South Carolina and Kansas to develop better estimates of construction and other changes that would be needed to house the detainees as well as conduct military commission trials for those accused of war crimes.

The visits to the Navy Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, and the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas triggered immediate outrage from lawmakers and governors there.

Republican Govs. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas have threatened to sue the administration if detainees are brought to either state.

Both the House and Senate have pending legislation that would maintain prohibitions on transferring detainees to U.S. facilities. The Senate legislation allows the restrictions to be lifted if the White House submits a plan to close the facility and it’s approved by Congress.

GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has made it known he would consider a comprehensive plan to close Guantanamo, but said it must include answers to a number of tough legal and policy questions, including whether detainees held in the U.S. would have additional rights.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has opposed using the Charleston brig because it is in a populated area.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has said flatly that, “Not on my watch will any terrorist be placed in Kansas.”

Carter has acknowledged the challenge of getting a U.S. facility approved by Congress, but has insisted that some lawmakers have indicated a willingness to consider a plan.

“This would be a good thing to do if – if we can all come together behind a plan to do it,” Carter told reporters. “Our responsibility is to provide them with a plan that they can consider that is a responsible one.”

 

Criminal Network Tactics on Europe’s Refugee CrISIS

ISIS Terrorist Arrested in Stuttgart “Refugee” Center; “Boxes” of Fake Syrian Passports Intercepted

An ISIS terrorist posing as an “asylum seeker” has been arrested by German police in a “refugee” center in Stuttgart, and German customs officers have seized boxes containing Syrian passports being smuggled into Europe.

masked-ISIS

According to a report carried by RTL’s German language service, the terrorist is a 21-year-old Moroccan using a “false identity” who had registered as an asylum seeker in the district of Ludwigsburg. He was identified after police linked him to a European arrest warrant issued by the Spanish authorities. He is accused of recruiting fighters for ISIS, where he acted as a contact person for fighters who wanted to travel to Syria or Iraq.

This first confirmed arrest of a bogus “asylum seeker” came simultaneously with the admission by a German finance ministry spokesman that “boxes” of fake Syrian passports, destined for sale and distribution to the hordes of nonwhite invaders seeking to settle in Europe as bogus “war refugees,” had been seized.

That news, carried in a report by the German Tagespiegel newspaper, also revealed that 10,000 fake Syrian passports were seized by police in Bulgaria, on their way to Germany.

The finance ministry official said both genuine and forged passports were in the packets intercepted in the post. Possession of these passports is a vital part of claiming “asylum” as “war refugees.”

The Tagespiegel also revealed that the fake Syrian passports are being sold for about $1,500 each—and the fact that many of the “refugees” can afford to buy multiple passports is yet another indication of the bogus nature of their claims to be “asylum seekers.”

Significantly, the Tagespiegel article continued, “It is not only Syrians who are interested in Syrian passports. Refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan want to become Syrian in order to secure their recognition as asylum seekers in Western Europe. According to press reports, nine out of ten refugees who came from Macedonia to Serbia claimed they were Syrians.”

The trade in fake Syrian passports was also confirmed by the head of the EU frontier police, Fabrice Leggeri, in a recent interview with the Europe 1 TV station.

Leggeri told Europe 1 that the trade in fake Syrian passports originated in Turkey. “There are people who are now in Turkey, buying false Syrian passports because they have obviously realized that it is a windfall since Syrians get asylum in all Member States in the European Union,” he said.

“People who use false Syrian passports often speak in Arabic. They may originate in North Africa or the Middle East, but have the profile of economic migrants.”

*** Second Tactic

Muslim Migrants Converting to Christianity to Improve Asylum Chances

Muslim migrants in Germany are converting to Christianity “in droves” in the hope it will improve their chances of winning asylum.

Hundreds of Iranians and Afghanis have been baptised at Trinity Church, a Lutheran church in Berlin, where Pastor Gottfried Martens offers a three-month “crash course” for new converts.

AP reports on one baptism where Martens asked Iranian refugee Mohammed Ali Zonoobi: “Will you break away from Satan and his evil deeds? Will you break away from Islam?” To which Zonoobi fervently responded: “Yes”.

Martens then baptised him “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” Mohammed renamed himself Martin.

Martin Zonoobi, a carpenter from Iran, arrived in Germany with his wife and children five months ago. He is one of many who have converted, with many claiming true belief has prompted them.

However, Pastor Martens admits that some convert just to improve their chances of winning asylum in Germany – as Christians who have apostatised from Islam they are likely to suffer heavy persecution if they are sent home.

Martens says motive is not important, however. “I know there are – again and again – people coming here because they have some kind of hope regarding their asylum,” he said.

“I am inviting them to join us because I know that whoever comes here will not be left unchanged.”

Many are so taken by the Christian message that they end up genuinely changing their beliefs anyway, Martens says. He adds that of those who have converted, only around one in ten stop attending church afterwards.

Although being Christian alone does not mean they will automatically win asylum – Merkel has even said that Islam “belongs in Germany” – many hope this will be enough to sway authorities.

None will openly admit converting just for asylum purposes as it could lead to them being deported as Christian coverts, possibly facing the death penalty when they return home.

Martens’s church is now reporting a surge in the congregation from 150 two years ago to more than 600 now. Some of the migrants coming to be converted are travelling from places as far afield as Rostock on the Baltic coast.

There no official figures on how many Muslims have converted to Christianity in Germany over the past few years, and the number is still tiny compared to the country’s four million strong Muslim population. Nonetheless, Martens describes the rate of conversions as a “miracle”.

He also claims to have at least 80 people, mostly migrants, waiting to be baptised.

Zonoobi’s wife Afsaneh, now known as Katarina, said the Christening marks a new beginning.

“Now we are free and can be ourselves,” she said.

“Most important, I am so happy that our children will have a good future here and can get a good education in Germany.”

*** Third Tactic

Since 2013, human smuggling of Syrians and other Middle Easterners into is viable industry

With The Help Of Smugglers, Syrian Refugees Sneak Into Europe

The 27-year-old Syrian, who once smuggled arms for Syrian rebels, is now waiting in Istanbul for a human smuggler to get him to Europe. He says his name is Mohammed. He does not offer a second name. He will go by air, he says, the safest route. He has paid a smuggler more than $8,000, and he’s sure he will get to Austria.

In the past week, he connected seven friends with smugglers.

“I know that most of them made it,” he says, with a tight smile. He is traveling light. Everything he owns is in a backpack.

“I am leaving Syria under a lot of pressure,” he explains.

He seems exhausted by the waiting. Twenty days ago, he got into a fight with an al-Qaida-linked group while helping a friend in the Syrian town of Sarqib. Mohammed says he killed two of their men.

“I needed to leave Syria because I was facing death,” he says.

He joins a surge of Syrian refugees smuggled to Europe. Many are from Syria’s educated, professional class, and have the means for the underground routes. The preferred destination is northern Europe, where economies are strong and the Syrians believe they can start over again.

The numbers seeking asylum in European Union countries doubled this year to more than 36,000, according to EU officials. The journey is long, but the travel is safe, depending on how much you are willing to pay.

Air routes are top of the line. The price tag for Sweden, the most desired destination, is $16,000.

The most dangerous route is by sea, where smugglers sell space on overcrowded fishing boats. The Italian coast guard recently rescued 120 mostly Syrian refugees off the Italian coast. In October, 30 Syrians drowned in a shipwreck between Malta and Italy.

More than 2 million Syrians have fled their homeland since Syria’s civil war broke out more than two years ago. Most have resettled in neighboring countries, including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

Many believed it was a temporary move. But as the war grinds on, some Syrians are making a different calculation. There may be nothing to go home to for years.

Negotiating The Best Deal A Matter Of Life And Death

Over the past several months, the Syrian exodus has increasingly focused on Europe. For many, the journey starts in Turkey, where the human smuggling trade has long flourished.

In the Fatih district of Istanbul, past an outdoor market and down a narrow alley, the tea houses and kabob shops caters to Syrian refugees.

The menus are in Arabic, and so are the conversations. This is the place to make contact with a smuggler and begin the negotiations over price and destination. The tables are full. Syrian men drink sugary tea and swap stories about the best routes and prices.

Abdel Ghani, a medical technician from Qamishli, in northern Syria, sold his house to finance his trip. He’s on his third try.

“It becomes an addiction. I would try 100 times,” he says and shakes his head and laughs at his latest failed attempt. His smuggler got him a fake Swiss passport, but the birthdate made him 20 years older than his actual age.

He grew his beard, tried to stick out his lip like the man pictured in the passport. He made it to the Istanbul boarding gate before his documents were spotted as fakes.

He watched other Syrian families with fake passports board the plane. His documents were confiscated, but he wasn’t detained.

“I’m going to try again the day after tomorrow. I hope to get to Sweden,” he pledges.

Another Syrian at the table, a real estate agent before the revolt, says he sold everything he owned, and paid a smuggler $35,000 to get his wife and daughters to Germany. The trip took four months to arrange. He interviewed more than one smuggler.

“I had to pick a smuggler for my kids; it’s a matter of life and death,” he says, noting that his family arrived safely in Germany a month ago. “We got the right smuggler.”

Every part of a smuggled trip is a matter of luck. Hiring the right smuggler is only the first hurdle; getting into Europe is just the beginning of the journey.

There’s been a surge in the number of Syrians arrested in Romania, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Thousands of Syrian refugees are languishing in Greek detention camps. These are the perils of the route to northern Europe that begins with an air ticket, but usually involves trains, buses and sometimes a final border crossing on foot.

As Demand Rises, So Do Prices

A smuggler, who gives his name as Abu Salman, doesn’t want to talk in the restaurant. He invites us to a shabby hotel lobby next door. He’s in his 50s, wearing a frayed gray suit. He says he owned a successful restaurant in Syria before the revolt. Now, his trade is in people.

“There are Turks we’ve been working with; there is a relationship of trust,” he says.

Since February, Abu Salman says he has arranged for more than 500 Syrians to get to Europe. Most made it, though 150 are still stuck in Bulgaria.

As he explains the business, his cell phone rings. His cousin is calling from the Netherlands, where he just arrived.

“There was a delay of a month,” explains Abu Salman. His cousin had to spend time in Bulgaria and Serbia before finally getting to the Netherlands. The delays add to the cost. But this still counts as a success. Abu Salman is building a reputation.

“People are starting to call me from Syria, ‘Please make all the arrangements,’ they say,” according to Abu Salman.

The prices are rising as the demand grows.

“It used to be $6,000 for a boat to France,” he says. Now it’s $10,000, and some smugglers are asking for more. But desperate Syrians continue to sell everything they have and pay whatever it takes.

Example: Depths of Chinese Hacking the U.S.

Former Top FBI Lawyer and Counterintelligence Official Admits Chinese Hacked His Home Computer

September 8, 2015

China Allegedly Hacked Top Former FBI Lawyer 

Jeff Stein, Newsweek

Marion “Spike” Bowman, a top former FBI lawyer and U.S. counterintelligence official who heads an influential organization of retired American spies, says a hacker from China penetrated his home computer, beginning with an innocent-looking email last spring.

“It was an email supposedly from a woman in China, and I exchanged correspondence with her a couple of times,” says Bowman, who was deputy general counsel to three FBI directors between 1995 and 2006. “She sent me a document that a friend of hers had supposedly written, in English, and wanted my opinion on it,” he tells Newsweek. She also sent him her picture.

“I never got around to replying, so I never heard from her again,” says Bowman, who went on to become deputy director of the National Counterintelligence Executive, which is tasked with developing policies to thwart foreign spies and terrorists.

But then, a week ago, he says, he got another message from China via his email account at George Washington University, where he has lectured on national security law since 2003.

“It was apparently from a university in China asking me come to speak at a conference on the environment”—not even remotely one of his areas of expertise, Bowman says. He called the FBI.

After a forensic examination of his machine, the FBI told him “they had found a malware type that’s designed to find out what’s on my computer,” Bowman says. “It wasn’t anything to infect it.” Still, just being able to read the contents of a target’s computer can reveal lots of valuable information like emails and documents, contact files with phone numbers and other personal data, like home addresses.

“Somebody who really knows what they’re doing” can wreak havoc, he says.

The FBI didn’t tell him exactly who was behind the hack, he says, “but they think they identified the woman” in a picture she sent along with one of her emails last spring. “It was somebody that they knew,” Bowman says. “I didn’t inquire any further.”

Before joining the FBI, Bowman was a Navy lawyer assigned to advise SEAL teams on clandestine operations, among other sensitive matters. His portfolio at the FBI gave him intimate knowledge of the details of operations to counter threats from foreign spy agencies.

“I still carry lots of deep Cold War secrets in my head,” he says, although not on his computer. But he is still very active in national security circles as chairman of the board of directors of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, an organization with several thousand members nationwide, about half of them former CIA personnel.

Bowman’s revelation follows several months of bad news about the vulnerability of government computers to foreign hackers, the latest being a report published Monday saying that Chinese and Russian intelligence agencies are “aggressively aggregating and cross-indexing hacked U.S. computer databases” to catch American spies working overseas. China-based hackers breached about 22 million files held by the federal Office of Personnel Management, officials say.

“At least one clandestine network of American engineers and scientists who provide technical assistance to U.S. undercover operatives and agents overseas has been compromised as a result” of the Russian and Chinese exploitation of the files, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing two U.S. officials.

The story, Bowman says, was “pretty much on target.”

*** It obviously is much worse than we know for the Obama administration to sign off on a sanction and or other consequence ahead of the Xi’s visit to the United States next week.

U.S. may punish Chinese hacking before Xi’s visit

Imposing sanctions before this month’s summit could derail other priorities.

Top government officials are floating the idea of retaliating within the next week to Chinese cyberattacks, possibly by imposing targeted sanctions on some officials and firms, people familiar with the discussions say. But outside experts say it would be wiser to wait until after this month’s White House summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“I heard from one person that it could be as early as next week,” Jim Lewis, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Strategic Technologies Program, told POLITICO. He added, “I still think it would be best to wait for the summit.”

Calls for U.S. retalation to Chinese hacking have risen to a furor since the China-linked breach of highly sensitive security clearance forms from 21.5 million current and former federal employees, disclosed in June.

But imposing sanctions before the late-September summit would risk derailing a serious conversation on cyber issues along with myriad other topics, including China’s economic troubles, Chinese belligerence in the South China Sea and cooperation on climate change.

Some China watchers even suspect that the White House is trying to improve its bargaining position in advance of the summit by floating the possibility of sanctions in a serious way.

“My sense is that they’re floating the idea to try to create some kind of leverage in the meetings,” said Adam Segal, a China scholar and director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

If the White House did impose sanctions before the meeting, it would be deeply embarrassing to the Chinese and to Xi personally and risk the Chinese doing something to downgrade the summit’s importance, Segal said. “I think if they’re going to do it before the summit, they’ve got to be prepared for the summit to really take a downward turn,” he said.

Business leaders are also dubious about imposing sanctions before Xi’s visit.

The White House should use the summit “as an opportunity to engage in effective dialogue on the cyber issue. If sanctions jeopardize that opportunity, we’d rather see them put it off,” the leader of a major industry organization said in an interview, speaking without attribution because he was speculating about government policy.

If the White House ultimately imposes targeted sanctions, the association leader added, the sanctions should be “based on transparent, credible evidence that’s legally sound.” They should also be designed with a clear path forward that, ultimately, leads to fewer China-linked cyberattacks, he said.

“Most business executives we’ve spoke with felt the indictments against Chinese PLA officers didn’t meet that test,” he added, referring to the May 2014 U.S. indictments of five hackers employed by China’s People’s Liberation Army. That was the Obama administration’s most significant diplomatic strike against Chinese hacking to date.

“[The indictments] didn’t seem to advance anything and they seemed to increase tension rather than reduce it around the issue,” the official said.

In the wake of the OPM hacks, some political leaders have called for much more belligerent responses to Chinese hacking. They include GOP White House contenders Mike Huckabee, who has urged the U.S. to hack back against the communist nation, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has suggested canceling the Obama-Xi summit entirely.

But even cyber hawks warned that aggressive action could backfire in advance of the summit.

“I think everything is going to basically be on hold until the Iran deal goes through and until after President Xi comes to meet with [President Obama],” said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), who was formerly ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee.

Ruppersberger added that “we have to eventually draw a line on cyberattacks,” and that the U.S. bargaining position relative to China may be improved now because of the tailspin in the Chinese stock market and other financial difficulties.

The White House has routinely declined to speak publicly about the possibility of sanctioning China for cyberattacks or any more forceful follow-up to the PLA indictments. Press secretary Josh Earnest has said several times that Obama plans to raise cyber concerns with Xi during their summit.

“There’s no doubt that the president will certainly raise, as he has in every previous meeting with his Chinese counterpart, concerns about China’s behavior in cyberspace,” Earnest said during an Aug. 26 news conference.

White House officials have determined they must respond to China’s hacking of OPM, but have been debating for months what the appropriate response should be and when to impose it, Lewis said.

The option of targeted cyber sanctions, which Obama created by executive order in April, has long been on the table along with additional indictments or some form of diplomatic protest, he said.

White House officials have fingered China for the OPM hack anonymously but have not done so, thus far, on the record.

A forceful response to the OPM hack and to Chinese theft of U.S. companies’ intellectual property and trade secrets has also been delayed by more pressing diplomatic priorities, Lewis said, including securing Chinese cooperation for a deal to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program

“This administration has done more than any other on cybersecurity, but, in a lot of cases, it ends up being No. 2 because of the need to get agreement on other things,” Lewis said. “Cyber always ends up coming in second place, particularly when it comes to China.”

 

 

 

 

 

The Temerity of Mook, Podesta and Hillary in Campaign Policy

Beyond the whole server-gate email hell scandal, the Hillary campaign policy team led by Robby Mook and John Podesta; they concocted a campaign finance reform plan that leaves one shuddering and in shock.

Hillary Clinton set to unveil campaign finance proposal

“We have to end the flood of secret, unaccountable money.”

 NEW YORK — Kicking off a post-Labor Day push to rally support as Bernie Sanders maintains momentum and Joe Biden contemplates a White House bid of his own, Hillary Clinton on Tuesday will unveil a three-pronged campaign finance proposal that her team hopes will help her appeal to unconvinced liberals.

The policy platform — which largely reflects principles that Clinton regularly mentions on the campaign trail, to reliable cheers from Democrats — calls for the overturning of 2010’s Citizens United v FEC decision that paved the way for the creation of super PACs; the implementation of a more rigorous political spending disclosure regime; and a new public matching system for small donations to presidential and congressional campaigns.

“We have to end the flood of secret, unaccountable money that is distorting our elections, corrupting our political system, and drowning out the voices of too many everyday Americans,” Clinton said in a statement. “Our democracy should be about expanding the franchise, not charging an entrance fee. It starts with overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and continues with structural reform to our campaign finance system so there’s real sunshine and increased participation.”

The Democratic front-runner, who raised the most campaign funds of any candidate on either side of the aisle in the second quarter ($47.5 million), regularly rails against the Citizens United decision on the stump, using it as an example of the malfunctioning political system. She also frequently insists that she would use overturning the decision as a litmus test for appointing Supreme Court justices, a line that delights progressive voters, and a point that is included in her new proposal.

But portions of her plan are anathema to Republican candidates and their colleagues in Congress, and Clinton is not the only Democrat making such noises on the campaign trail. Sanders, for example, has also pushed public financing for campaigns.

To further complicate matters, a collection of liberal groups have questioned Clinton’s close ties to Wall Street and its big-money donors due to her time as first lady and as a senator from New York — not to mention the existence of Priorities USA Action, the primary super PAC backing her bid, which raised $15.6 million in the first half of 2015.

Still, her plan amounts to liberal red meat, hitting a handful of points championed by campaign finance reformers. And it comes as her campaign appears set to fight back more aggressively against Sanders’ surge and the negative headlines about her private email arrangement.

Clinton’s campaign finance proposal includes a plan to provide matching funds for small donations, along with lower limits for contributions to candidates who opt into the system. Campaigns would only be eligible to receive up to a certain level of the public matching funds, and they would have to raise a minimum number of small donations in the first place to qualify. The specific numbers and dollar figures are yet to be determined.

The campaign’s plan, which will come alongside a new video to be released on Tuesday, also formally repeats the candidate’s plan to only appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Citizens United — a case that was originally brought over an anti-Clinton video in 2008. It also reiterates her support for a constitutional amendment that would “establish common sense rules to protect against the undue influence of billionaires and special interests and to restore the role of average voters in elections.”

The third prong of the plan includes a proposal to force outside groups with large political spending budgets to disclose their largest donors in a timely fashion, as well as to disclose “significant transfers between” such groups. It also supports a proposal in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission to force publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to shareholders.

As a Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to move on many of these proposals, Clinton also says she would sign an executive order that would require federal contractors to disclose their own political spending.

Clinton is set to campaign in the swing states of Ohio and Wisconsin this week, after an address explaining her support of the Iran agreement in Washington on Wednesday.

*** Now for just one interesting fact on Hillary and Bill:

Nemazee is well connected by the way.

There’s a Lot More to Arrested Financier Hassan Nemazee’s Past Than Just Being a ‘Clinton Fundraiser’

2009: Nemazee was much more than just a Clinton fundraiser — he was a bipartisan financier of the influence bazaar that American politics has become

WhoWhatWhy.com reports exclusively on the background of Hassan Nemazee, the top Hillary Clinton fundraiser who was arrested and charged with forging loan documents. Early media accounts cast the event as an embarrassment for Ms. Clinton and the Democratic Party involving the financial misdoings of one prominent backer. Actually it is much more.  Behind the Nemazee arrest lies a sprawling cautionary tale of presidents, would-be presidents, and the shadow world of wealthy operators who cozy up to them for their own gain.  It reaches into the Bush operation as well as that of the Clintons, and is a microcosm of an influence bazaar that has gone global along with the economy.

On August 25th, Hassan Nemazee, a top fundraiser for Hillary Clinton,  was arrested and charged with forging loan documents in order to borrow $74 million from Citibank. He could face up to 30 years in prison. Early media accounts cast the event as an embarrassment for Ms. Clinton involving the financial misdoings of one prominent backer. Actually it is much more.

Behind the Nemazee arrest lies a sprawling cautionary tale of presidents, would-be presidents, and the shadow world of wealthy operators who cozy up to them for their own gain.  It reaches into the Bush operation as well as that of the Clintons, and is a microcosm of an influence bazaar that has gone global along with the economy.

Hassan Nemazee, who served as a finance director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, began raising sizable sums for the Democratic National Committee in the mid-nineties. In 1998, in the midst of the Lewinsky affair, Nemazee collected $60,000 for Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund in $10,000 increments from relatives and friends.

The following year, President Clinton nominated the money manager and investor to be ambassador to Argentina. Then an article in Forbes raised questions about his business practices. Among other things, Nemazee, an Iranian-American, had magically turned himself into an “Hispanic” by acquiring Venezuelan citizenship in order to fulfill the minority-ownership requirement of a California public pension fund. The nomination was withdrawn.

That embarrassment did not, however, hamper Nemazee’s rise within the Democratic Party. By 2004 he was New York finance chair for John Kerry’s campaign, and in 2006 he served under Senator Chuck Schumer as the national finance chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).  During this period the committee raised about $25 million more than its Republican counterpart.
By 2008, Nemazee was one of Hillary Clinton’s inner circle, and was being publicly touted as a top foreign policy adviser. When another major fundraiser, a clothing manufacturer named Norman Hsu, was arrested and unmasked as a swindler, it was Nemazee who was trotted out to defend Ms. Clinton and argue that she knew little about Hsu.
But she should have known plenty about Nemazee. In 2005, Nemazee and his business partner, Alan Quasha, went deep into the Clinton circle to hire Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton confidante and former chairman of the Democratic Party, for Carret Asset Management, their newly acquired investment firm. During the interregnum between McAuliffe’s party chairmanship and the time he officially joined Hillary Clinton’s campaign as chairman, Nemazee and Quasha set McAuliffe up with a salary and opened a Washington office for him.  There he worked on his memoirs and laid the groundwork for Ms. Clinton’s presidential bid.
In March 2007, Nemazee, at the behest of McAuliffe, threw a dinner for Ms. Clinton at Manhattan’s swank Cipriani restaurant, which featured Bill Clinton and raised more than $500,000. In 2008, after Barack Obama gained the nomination, Nemazee raised a comparable sum for him.
But it is not fair to characterize Nemazee as an embarrassment to Democrats alone. Nemazee’s profile is considerably more complicated. For legal representation in his current troubles, for example, Nemazee has retained Marc Mukasey, a partner in Rudolph Giuliani’s law firm and the son of Michael Mukasey, who served as George W. Bush’s last Attorney General.
There’s more than choice of counsel involved. Before moving into the Democratic camp, Nemazee had backed such Republican senators as Jesse Helms, Sam Brownback and Alfonse D’Amato. None could be described as Clinton fans. Nemazee’s business partner, Alan Quasha, who specializes in buying up troubled companies, has also played both sides of the partisan divide. Quasha gave to both Bush and Al Gore in 2000, and in the 2008 race gave to Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani as well as Democrats Barack Obama and Chris Dodd.
The strikingly trans-partisan and trans-national nature of this high-stakes influence game is best exemplified by the relationship between Quasha’s oil company, Harken Energy, and George W. Bush. Harken provided a home for Bush in the 1980’s when his own oil businesses failed, offering him handsome compensation and a solid financial base from which to enter politics. Bush was named to the Harken board and received a range of benefits from the company while devoting most of his time to his father’s presidential campaign and then his own outside career efforts.
Harken is a curious outfit. Its early funding sources were opaque, and its investors and board members had a dizzying array of connections into global power centers — and ties to the Saudi leadership and the former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the Shah of Iran, as well as to the Swiss Bank, UBS, which has been charged by the US government with providing cover for  Americans who were evading taxes.
Around the time George W. Bush joined its board, Harken received an unusual and sizable cash infusion from the Harvard Management Company, which handles Harvard University’s endowment, the largest in the nation. Robert G. Stone, Jr., a figure with ties to US intelligence and to the Bushes, was head of the Harvard board of overseers that approved financial strategies. Former employees of Harvard Management have recently made highly-publicized charges that the company engaged in Enron-style investment practices. (Prior to going to work for Nemazee and Quasha, Terry McAuliffe had publicly criticized Bush for his financial dealings with Harken, disparaging that company’s own Enron-like accounting. Both Quasha and Nemazee, like Bush, have Harvard degrees, and both have sat on prestigious Harvard committees in recent years.)
Nemazee’s role as a foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton can be better understood through his own Iranian connections.  His father was a shipping magnate who was close with the Shah of Iran and served as the Shah’s commercial attaché in Washington; Nemazee was a founding member of the Iranian-American Political Action Committee, a lobbying group. Recent strains have been reported between President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over policy toward Iran. Clinton has advocated a harder line toward the Islamic fundamentalists who took over when the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979, while Obama has stressed dialogue.
With Nemazee’s arrest for financial fraud certain to attract some sustained coverage, it remains to be seen whether it will be treated as yet another isolated case of financial wrongdoing, or lead to a deeper look at the influence bazaar that American politics has become.

 

 

 

Released Guantanamo Back in the Battlefield

U.S. suspects more freed Guantanamo inmates returned to battlefield

Reuters: The number of detainees freed from the U.S. Guantanamo detention camp who are suspected of “re-engaging” with militant groups overseas increased over the first six months of 2015, the Obama administration said on Thursday.

Figures released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence showed that, as of July this year, of 121 detainees released since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, six were confirmed to have gone back to the battlefield and a further six were suspected of having done so.

Figures released in January had shown that Obama had released a total of 115 Guantanamo inmates, six of whom had returned to the battlefield, but only one of whom was then “suspected of re-engaging.”

Between January and July this year the administration released six detainees.

The data did not identify any individual detainees. The detention facility for terrorism suspects at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, which opened after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, now holds 116 prisoners.

The administration of Obama, a Democrat, has said the number of those who returned to fight after being transferred out of Guantanamo under his presidency is lower than under his Republican predecessor George W. Bush, who set up the facility.

Obama has vowed to close Guantanamo before he leaves office in January 2017 but he is hampered by a slow bureaucratic process and by laws passed by Republicans in Congress barring the transfer of detainees to prisons on U.S. soil.

Obama is due to submit a report to Congress soon outlining a new plan for closing the facility.

Gitmo detainee doc

 

 

 

 

 

The full 2 page document is located here.

TWS: In 2014, the report included: The semi-annual report on “Re-engagement of Detainees Formerly Held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba” was released on Wednesday by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Out of a total of 614 former prisoners (up from 603 six months ago), intelligence has confirmed that 104 (up from 100) have re-engaged in terrorism/insurgent activities while another 74 are suspected of doing so. The latest report nudged the recidivism rate up to an even 29 percent from 28.9 percent last September.

If there is good news to be found in the report, it is that 3 of the 4 detainees confirmed to have reengaged are now deceased.  Only one of the newly confirmed relapsed terrorist is still at large, joining the 56 other previously confirmed and 48 other suspected of reengaging presently not in custody.

Furthermore, it appears that the Secretary of the Defense Department, Ash Carter has some issues with the movement of Gitmo detainees. His signature has to be applied for approval of transfer. Carter is assuming the same posture as the Secretary of Defense Hagel, before him, this is a problem.

DOD Sec. Says Gitmo Terrorists Need Indefinite Lockup as Obama Tries Closing Prison

SEPTEMBER 04, 2015

While President Obama works to deliver on his longtime promise to close the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba his Defense Secretary offers a jolt of reality; around half of the detainees—the world’s most dangerous terrorists—need to be locked up “indefinitely.”

So what are the commander-in-chief’s plans for the radical Islamic jihadists currently incarcerated in the top-security compound at the U.S. Naval base in southeast Cuba? The all-star terrorist roster includes 9/11 masterminds Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi as well as Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the Al-Qaeda terrorist charged with orchestrating the 2000 attack on the Navy destroyer USS Cole. Where will the U.S. government take these terrorists if the president goes through with his plan, which started out as a campaign promise to restore America’s position as a global leader on human rights.

In all the years that Obama has talked of closing the Gitmo prison, he has never touched on what would happen to the terrorists held there. The president has tried emptying out the compound by releasing dozens of prisoners—many of them have rejoined terrorist causes—to foreign countries, but at least half of the remaining 116 are too dangerous to free. Obama’s own Defense Secretary, Ashton Carter, confirmed that recently, saying that “some of the people who are there at Guantanamo Bay have to be detained indefinitely, they’ve just got to be locked up.” This evidently applies to many of those who have been released over the years. For instance, an al Qaeda operative (Saudi Ibrahim al-Rubaysh) released from Gitmo appears on the U.S. government’s global terrorist list and Uncle Sam is offering a $5 million reward for information on his whereabouts.

The administration has considered relocating the captives to military facilities in the U.S., including Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas and the Navy Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. This has ignited outrage among officials in both states. Kansas Senator Pat Roberts was quick to say “not on my watch will any terrorists be placed in Kansas.” Roberts also co-authored a mainstream newspaper op-ed with South Carolina Senator Tim Scott vehemently rejecting the idea. “The notion that Kansas, South Carolina or any other state would be an ideal home for terrorist detainees is preposterous,” the piece reads. “Transferring these prisoners to the mainland puts the well-being of states in danger, posing security risks to the public and wasting taxpayer dollars. The detention facilities at Guantanamo are doing a fantastic job of holding these terrorists.”

The governors of both states—Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas—have also vowed to take any action in their power to stop the transfers, including suing the federal government. A South Carolina newspaper editorial points out that the state is already taking a hit for the team by serving as the “de facto permanent home” to high-level nuclear waste associated with the nation’s weapons programs. “Fearing South Carolina is again about to become the home that no other state wants to be has leaders rightly standing up against federal plans to transfer terrorist detainees from the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo Bay near Cuba to military prisons in South Carolina and Kansas,” the editorial states. “This goes beyond the states’ collective call of duty as there is no agreement on a plan for what to do with the detainees in the long term.”

Judicial Watch has covered Guantanamo extensively and has repeatedly traveled there to monitor the U.S. military commission proceedings against the world’s most dangerous terrorists. JW has witnessed a deep commitment to justice by military and civilian lawyers defending the captives and has reported on many of the perks that the incarcerated terrorists receive from American taxpayers. For instance, they get laptops and computer lessons, “Islamically permissible” halal meals and better medical care than U.S. veterans. Last year the Obama administration let Gitmo inmates operate a “Business School Behind Bars” with an accused Al Qaeda financier as the self-appointed “dean of students.” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was also permitted to dispatch propaganda from his Guantanamo jail cell (undoubtedly aiding and abetting more terrorism) and a fighter in Osama bin Laden’s 55th Arab Brigade was allowed to published a sob letter in an international media outlet describing the “humiliating and brutal treatments” he suffers at the U.S. military prison.