A Trifecta of Military and Diplomatic Causes for Biden in Turkey

Groveling to an off the rails NATO member, Vice President Biden has a big agenda meeting with Turkish officials. Should Biden even be the point person for all of this as noted below? Hardly.

The matter of the Kurds has required high attention for Turkey and Biden.

The vice president also offered a stern warning to Kurdish forces on the ground in Syria that they would lose U.S. support if they don’t retreat to the eastern bank of the Euphrates, immediately to the east of Jarabulus.

“We have made it absolutely clear that they [pro-Kurdish forces] must go back across the [Euphrates] River. They cannot and will not, under no circumstances, get American support if they do not keep that commitment,” Biden said, according to Kurdish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News

Kurdish involvement in the two-year-old U.S.-led war against the Islamic State group has become a major sticking point between the NATO partners – Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria have proven one of the most capable and effective combat forces on the ground, for a conflict to which President Barack Obama has declined to deploy large formations of American ground troops. The Turks, however, fear empowering Kurdish fighters in neighboring Syria and Iraq could further embolden separatist sentiments among the Kurdish population in Turkey.  More here.

Due to the coup attempt, Erdogan wants Fettulah Gulen returned to Turkey. Biden?

He said it would be an impeachable offence for US President Barack Obama to order the extradition of a foreign national.

“We have no reason other than to cooperate with you (Turkey)… It always takes time… It is never understood why the wheels of justice move deliberately and slowly. It is totally understandable why the people of Turkey are angry,” he said.

Turkish officials have warned that if Pennsylvania-based Gulen is not extradited, relations will suffer further and anti-American sentiment will deepen in the country.

A senior US official said Wednesday Turkey has submitted four extradition requests for Gulen but offered no evidence tying him to last month’s failed coup. More here.

Turkey open to Russian planes at US Incirlik hub

Stripes: STUTTGART, Germany — Could U.S. warplanes soon be sharing the runway at Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base with Russian bombers?

That’s up to Moscow, according to a top Turkish official, whose comments on possibly opening the strategic Turkish facility to Russian personnel comes ahead of a damage control visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

When asked on Saturday whether Russia could use Incirlik for airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim answered in the affirmative. “If necessary, the Incirlik base can be used (by the Russians),” Yildirim told reporters.

The prospect of opening Incirlik to Russia, a move that would likely infuriate NATO allies, would put the U.S. military in the awkward position of working and possibly living side by side with an adversary. In addition to being home to about 2,500 U.S. troops, Incirlik houses about 50 U.S. nuclear weapons, according to various watchdog groups.

For Russia, Incirlik is unlikely to offer much tactical value, since its fighter-bombers and attack helicopters already operate from bases in Syria closer to the actual battlefields, and Yildirim made clear that Moscow hadn’t requested use of the air base. Still, a move into Incirlik could offer Russia an opportunity to chip at NATO unity.

Whether Yildirim was serious about the Incirlik offer to Moscow or floating the idea as a sign of leverage against the United States isn’t clear. But what has become apparent in recent weeks is that inside Turkey, where conspiracies abound about the U.S. having covertly backed the attempted July coup attempt, there is growing frustration with the Washington.

In the aftermath of the attempted mutiny by elements of the Turkish military, U.S. officials have publicly backed the government of President Recep Tayyip Erodgan, but also voiced concern about a sweeping purge in Turkey that has resulted in the detention of thousands of military officers, academics and political opposition figures. Such criticisms from America and its NATO allies have prompted a furious response from Erdogan’s supporters, including from pro-government news outlets that have interpreted such criticisms as a sure sign of U.S. sympathy for the mutineers.

The Obama administration has firmly rejected such charges. Still, Ankara also has lashed out at Washington, which it accuses of foot-dragging on a demand that Fethullah Gulen, a cleric who lives in Pennsylvania, be extradited in connection with Turkish allegations he masterminded the coup plot, something the Gulen has denied.

The U.S. has sought to reassure Turkey of its political and military standing inside NATO, and two of the U.S. military’s top generals have made recent visits to Ankara. On Monday, U.S. European Command’s Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti praised Turkey, saying it has a unique standing within the military alliance.

“It sits at the crossroads of the many challenges we face in Europe, from the refugee crisis, to terrorism, to human trafficking,” said Scaparrotti, in a statement after his Monday stop in Ankara for talks. “We are thankful for their leadership and contributions in each of these areas, and for access they have granted us to their bases, which are critical to our operations.”

Still, Turkey has sought closer ties with Russia since the coup, patching up a relationship with Moscow that was deeply damaged after Turkey shot down a Russian bomber around its southern border in November. At the time, Russian took a tough stance, severing many diplomatic and economic ties. Since then, Turkey has apologized for the incident with Erdogan making a formal visit to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin earlier this month.

With relations on the mend, there could be an opportunity for Moscow to play Turkey off the West in an attempt to sow divisions in institutions such as NATO and the European Union, some analysts warn.

“Will Russia’s long game of undermining the EU’s cohesion, the U.S. status as the major superpower, or the role of NATO find fertile ground in post-coup Turkey? One hypothesis is that Russia may go for a long-term game-changing move and lure Turkey away from the West as part of a broader geopolitical reconfiguration,” wrote Marc Pierini, a scholar with the Carnegie Europe think tank and former EU ambassador to Turkey.

For the U.S. and its NATO allies, Incirlik during the past year has emerged as a primary hub for airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

It also has been a place of upheaval.

In March, EUCOM ordered military family members off the post, where dependents have been a presence for decades amid security concerns. The move forced schools to close and likely marked the end of Incirlik as an accompanied tour destination for the Air Force for the foreseeable future. Some experts have questioned the long-term viability of Incirlik as a hub for U.S. Air Force personnel, given the political tensions with Ankara.

The Washington-based Stimson Center also has said the U.S. should consider moving its nuclear weapons out of Turkey, citing possible security concerns in the wake of the attempted coup, which resulted in power being cut off at the base for nearly a week as Turkish authorities sought to regain control. The U.S. was forced to rely on generators to carry out its mission.

“Whether the US could have maintained control of the weapons in the event of a protracted civil conflict in Turkey is an unanswerable question,” said the Stimson report, which examined various ways to reform the U.S. nuclear program.

EUCOM, which as a matter of policy doesn’t comment on locations of nuclear weapons, nonetheless said that during the attempted coup no U.S. personnel or assets were ever threatened.

“We do not discuss the location of strategic assets,” said EUCOM spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez. “Broadly, we continue to take appropriate security steps to maintain the safety and security of our personnel, our civilian and military personnel, their families and facilities.”

Hillary or Donald Ready for Iran in Iraq, Syria or Yemen?

Iranian general: We formed Shiite army to fight in Iraq, Syria and Yemen

Retired General Mohammad Ali Falaki, who is currently one of the Iranian forces leaders in Syria, has recently revealed that Iran has formed a “Shiite Liberation Army” led by Quds Force commander, General Qassem Soleimani.

 

The Quds Force also known as Pasdaran in Persian is a special forces unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and is responsible for the Islamic Republic’s extraterritorial operation.

“The Shiite Liberation Army is currently fighting on three fronts – Iraq, Syria and Yemen,” he told Mashregh news agency, which is close to the IRGC, in an interview published on Thursday.

The retired general said “This army is not only composed of Iranians but it recruits locally from the regions witnessing fighting.”

Falaki, who is leading part of the IRGC fight in Syria to give support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, advised that it was “not wise to directly involve Iranian forces into the Syrian conflict.”

“The role of our personnel should be limited to training, preparing and equipping the Syrians to fight in their areas, ” he added.

Related reading: IRGC’s Plan to Destroy Israel

Eradicating Israel

Falaki said that the main objective behind the formation of the first nucleus of the ‘Shiite Liberation Army’ is to “eradicate Israel after 23 years, especially that these battalions are now on Israeli borders.”

The general, who is also an Iranian-Iraqi war veteran, also criticized Tehran for its failure to recruit Afghans and not creating a strong group with a tough leader for them on the lines of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement or militia group and its head Hassan Nasrallah.

“We’ve been considering Afghan refugees as dangerous offenders and mercenaries for the past 30 years,” he said. “We did not work on having Afghan groups and leaders like we did with the Shiites of Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain.”

The UN says there are about 950,000 registered Afghan citizens living in Iran but Tehran puts the total number at around 3 million.

However, Falaki praised sacrifices by the ‘Fatemiyon’ Afghan militias in Syria. He said that they only receive $100 for volunteering to fight there, dismissing reports that they expected to receive large sums of money.

He said the Afghan militias in Syria are “sacrificing their lives for nothing” especially that their government in Kabul has decided to arrest those who fought in Syria, with up to 18 years of jail sentence.

IRGC is still having “trouble when dealing with the Afghans in a friendly and brotherly way, because through Iranian eyes they are seen as inferior.”

He said Pakistanis have their ‘Zeynabioun’ militia group, Iraqis have their ‘Heydarioun’ while the Lebanese have Hezbollah.

Falaki also said there is another division for the Hezbollah, grouping both Iraqi and Syrian militias.

All of these militia groups are fighting under IRGC’s command, all wearing the “same uniform” under the same flag.

The article was first published in the Arabic-language website for Al Arabiya News Channel

*****

SoufanGroup: In mid-August, the U.S. Department of Defense released the summary of its annual report on Iran’s military strategy and capabilities. This year’s report was the first to account for the effects of the July 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran. Though the summary is brief, it revealed a considerable amount about the strategic threat that Iran continues to pose to the U.S. and its allies, in spite of the nuclear deal.  

The clearest conclusion the report reaches is that Iran is developing a wide variety of missiles—as well as an offensive cyber warfare capability—in order to project power far beyond its borders. Iran is developing a large arsenal of short-range missiles, both ballistic and cruise, to be able to deny an adversary control of the waters around Iran. When combined with what the report describes as Iran’s acquisition of naval attack craft—‘small but capable’ submarines, a large arsenal of ‘advanced naval mines,’ and armed unmanned aerial vehicles—Iran is positioned to threaten military and commercial shipping in the vital Strait of Hormuz. About one-third of all seaborne traded oil flows through the Strait daily. Iran’s capabilities call into question longstanding assertions by U.S. and allied naval commanders that Iran does not possess the capability to close the Strait of Hormuz for prolonged periods. The assessment has direct relevance; in mid-August, the IRGC reiterated its threat to close the waterway if Iran were attacked.  

Iran’s long-range missiles could place a wide array of U.S. and allied targets within striking distance. Iran’s existing ballistic missile arsenal can already reach all of Israel, as well as U.S. bases in Turkey and southeastern Europe. The Pentagon report mentions Iran’s intent to conduct a launch of its Simorgh space vehicle later in 2016—a vehicle that could be capable of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) ranges (3,000 miles or more) ‘if configured as a ballistic missile.’ An Iranian ICBM would immediately put all of Europe, and perhaps even the U.S. mainland, within Iran’s reach. Still, given Iran’s shortfalls in missile accuracy, these missiles would mainly serve to terrorize civilian populations in targeted countries rather than destroy hardened military targets.         

What is particularly noteworthy about Iran’s advances is that the gains have come primarily from within country. Iran’s missile programs began in the 1980s, largely with technology and skills provided by RussiaChina, and North Korea. Missile assistance to Iran has been precluded by international sanctions since 2006, although there continue to be reports of Iran-North Korea missile cooperation in violation of these restrictions. Conventional arms sales and military training for Iran were banned in 2010, and remain so until 2020 under U.N. Resolution 2231, which implemented the Iran nuclear deal.  While Iran-Russia military cooperation in Syria has deepened and the countries have discussed new arms sales to Iran, Russia has not shown any inclination to violate the resolution outright. The resolution does not prohibit joint military activities such as Russia’s use of Iran’s airbases for bomber strikes or Russia-Iran ground cooperation in Syria. 

The Pentagon report also addresses a key question that has clouded the nuclear deal since its inception—how Iran’s regional strategy and activities might change as a consequence of the deal. The report assesses that ‘Iran’s covert activities also are continuing unabated. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Qods Force (IRGC-QF) remains a key tool of Iran’s foreign policy and power projection, particularly in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Yemen.’ This assessment contradicts more hopeful assessments that the nuclear deal would moderate Iran’s behavior and suggests that Iran is harnessing its expanding weapons arsenal in efforts to increase its regional influence. Iran’s weapons supplies to its regional allies and proxies have helped keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power; empowered Zaydi Shi’a Houthi rebels in Yemen against a Saudi-led coalition; supported 80,000 Shi’a militia fighters in Iraq; and enabled radical underground Shi’a factions in Bahrain to conduct successful improvised explosive device attacks on security forces. All of these activities have put military and political pressure on Iran’s foremost regional rival, Saudi Arabia, which is undertaking activities opposed to those of Iran in virtually all of these theaters. Iran has been known to provide advanced weaponry to its key proxy, Lebanese Hizballah, in the past. The transfer of even modest amounts of its most sophisticated missiles to Hizballah will likely ensure that any new Israel-Hizballah war could escalate into a regional, and potentially even global, conflagration.

.

The Empire State Building a New Taliban Home?

Remember when Obama released the top 5 Taliban commanders from Gitmo in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl? Qatar became their new home where they were allowed to move freely.

Sure the headline is a stretch…or is it?

As recently as last year, Qatar was hosting peace talks with the Taliban while today, the Taliban holds more territory in Afghanistan than any other time in history. As a reminder, it was and is the Taliban that protects al Qaeda factions going back to the attacks on America on 9/11.

 

One more fact: How Qatar is funding the rise of Islamist extremists

The fabulously wealthy Gulf state, which owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East, is a prime sponsor of violent Islamists

So, American icons such as the Empire State Building is in the ownership of a terror state? Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr are rolling in their graves with disgust.

 <– His son graduated from West Point and Obama was there the same weekend that the Gitmo prisoner swap happened with Bergdahl.

VOA: Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has made an iconic purchase in America — a stake in the company that owns New York’s Empire State Building.

The $622-million purchase by the Qatar Investment Authority comes as the Doha fund increases its investments in the U.S. as the small country on the Arabian Peninsula tries to cope with low global oil and gas prices.

The Empire State Realty Trust Inc., which manages the 102-story, 1,454-foot (443-meter) -tall building, announced the Qatari purchase late Tuesday, saying the fund would gain a 9.9-percent stake in the company. The trust owns a total of 14 office properties and six retail properties around the New York area.

The Qatar Investment Authority did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The pointed top of the Art Deco-style Empire State Building, once the tallest structure in the world, still stands out in New York’s famed skyline. It remains a major tourist attraction and has been the centerpiece of major American films from “King Kong” to “Sleepless in Seattle.”

Tiny Qatar, an OPEC member, is a strong regional ally for Washington and hosts American bombers and the forward headquarters of the U.S. military’s Central Command at its vast al-Udeid air base. Aircraft and personnel there are involved in the ongoing U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup and has been on a building boom, mirroring on a smaller scale the one that gripped the United Arab Emirates’ city-state of Dubai. However, its government coffers have been hard hit by the drop of global oil prices, which have fallen from over $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014 to around $50 now.

The nation’s investment authority, estimated to be worth some $335 billion by the Las Vegas-based Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, has been increasingly eyeing opportunities in the U.S. Last September, it announced plans to open an office in New York and committed to investing $35 billion in the U.S. over the next five years.

Related reading: Qatar Investment Authority allocates $2bn to Russian fund

The fund’s existing American holdings include a more than 10-percent stake in New York-based luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co. It sold its share of the American film studio Miramax to Qatar-based media group beIN in March for an undisclosed sum.

Government-backed Qatar Airways, meanwhile, has been rapidly expanding its operations in the U.S., provoking a backlash from American carriers.

Also among the Qatari fund’s interests in America is a 44-percent stake in the $8.6 billion redevelopment project in New York known as Manhattan West, which includes remodeling the building that’s now home to the global headquarters of The Associated Press. The AP announced in August 2015 it planned to move from that building to another near the World Trade Center.

AP’s Report on Access to Hillary After the Checks Cashed

Hillary’s top people are calling this comprehensive report by Associated Press cherry-picking. Given the vast list of names, organizations and timeline, it is hardly cherry-picking. Hat tip to AP.

We cant know at this point the wider implications when it comes to government money authorized and spent via the State Department and other agencies as a result of requests from donors and collusion stemming from the Clinton Foundation and policy coming out of the White House and the State Department. Another question is how much was known by the White House and approved?

Foreign governments, organizations and leaders knew and know what we have not, in order to get a meeting or a phone call, just write a check first. No wonder we are hated due to RICO and yet we fret over Davos and the Bilderbergers. Sheesh….We fret over the money that went into the Foundation(s) but not much if at all is reported about charity distributions.

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.

At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.

Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton’s help with a visa problem; and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm’s corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa.

The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors.

The AP’s findings represent the first systematic effort to calculate the scope of the intersecting interests of Clinton Foundation donors and people who met personally with Clinton or spoke to her by phone about their needs.

The 154 did not include U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives. Clinton met with representatives of at least 16 foreign governments that donated as much as $170 million to the Clinton charity, but they were not included in AP’s calculations because such meetings would presumably have been part of her diplomatic duties.

Clinton’s campaign said the AP analysis was flawed because it did not include in its calculations meetings with foreign diplomats or U.S. government officials, and the meetings AP examined covered only the first half of Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

“It is outrageous to misrepresent Secretary Clinton’s basis for meeting with these individuals,” spokesman Brian Fallon said. He called it “a distorted portrayal of how often she crossed paths with individuals connected to charitable donations to the Clinton Foundation.”

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump fiercely criticized the links between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department, saying his general election opponent had delivered “lie after lie after lie.”

“Hillary Clinton is totally unfit to hold public office,” he said at a rally Tuesday night in Austin, Texas. “It is impossible to figure out where the Clinton Foundation ends and the State Department begins. It is now abundantly clear that the Clintons set up a business to profit from public office.”

Last week, the Clinton Foundation moved to head off ethics concerns about future donations by announcing changes planned if Clinton is elected.

On Monday, Bill Clinton said in a statement that if his wife were to win, he would step down from the foundation’s board and stop all fundraising for it. The foundation would also accept donations only from U.S. citizens and what it described as independent philanthropies, while no longer taking gifts from foreign groups, U.S. companies or corporate charities. Clinton said the foundation would no longer hold annual meetings of its international aid program, the Clinton Global Initiative, and it would spin off its foreign-based programs to other charities.

Those planned changes would not affect more than 6,000 donors who have already provided the Clinton charity with more than $2 billion in funding since its creation in 2000.

“There’s a lot of potential conflicts and a lot of potential problems,” said Douglas White, an expert on nonprofits who previously directed Columbia University’s graduate fundraising management program. “The point is, she can’t just walk away from these 6,000 donors.”

Former senior White House ethics officials said a Clinton administration would have to take careful steps to ensure that past foundation donors would not have the same access as she allowed at the State Department.

“If Secretary Clinton puts the right people in and she’s tough about it and has the right procedures in place and sends a message consistent with a strong commitment to ethics, it can be done,” said Norman L. Eisen, who was President Barack Obama’s top ethics counsel and later worked for Clinton as ambassador to the Czech Republic.

Eisen, now a governance studies fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that at a minimum, Clinton should retain the Obama administration’s current ethics commitments and oversight, which include lobbying restrictions and other rules. Richard Painter, a former ethics adviser to President George W. Bush and currently a University of Minnesota law school professor, said Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton should remove themselves completely from foundation leadership roles, but he added that potential conflicts would shadow any policy decision affecting past donors.

Fallon did not respond to the AP’s questions about Clinton transition plans regarding ethics, but said in a statement the standard set by the Clinton Foundation’s ethics restrictions was “unprecedented, even if it may never satisfy some critics.”

State Department officials have said they are not aware of any agency actions influenced by the Clinton Foundation. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday night that there are no prohibitions against agency contacts with “political campaigns, nonprofits or foundations — including the Clinton Foundation.” He added that “meeting requests, recommendations and proposals come to the department through a variety of channels, both formal and informal.”

Some of Clinton’s most influential visitors donated millions to the Clinton Foundation and to her and her husband’s political coffers. They are among scores of Clinton visitors and phone contacts in her official calendar turned over by the State Department to AP last year and in more-detailed planning schedules that so far have covered about half her four-year tenure. The AP sought Clinton’s calendar and schedules three years ago, but delays led the AP to sue the State Department last year in federal court for those materials and other records.

S. Daniel Abraham, whose name also was included in emails released by the State Department as part of another lawsuit, is a Clinton fundraising bundler who was listed in Clinton’s planners for eight meetings with her at various times. A billionaire behind the Slim-Fast diet and founder of the Center for Middle East Peace, Abraham told the AP last year his talks with Clinton concerned Mideast issues.

Big Clinton Foundation donors with no history of political giving to the Clintons also met or talked by phone with Hillary Clinton and top aides, AP’s review showed.

Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering low-interest “microcredit” for poor business owners, met with Clinton three times and talked with her by phone during a period when Bangladeshi government authorities investigated his oversight of a nonprofit bank and ultimately pressured him to resign from the bank’s board. Throughout the process, he pleaded for help in messages routed to Clinton, and she ordered aides to find ways to assist him.

American affiliates of his nonprofit Grameen Bank had been working with the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative programs as early as 2005, pledging millions of dollars in microloans for the poor. Grameen America, the bank’s nonprofit U.S. flagship, which Yunus chairs, has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the foundation — a figure that bank spokeswoman Becky Asch said reflects the institution’s annual fees to attend CGI meetings. Another Grameen arm chaired by Yunus, Grameen Research, has donated between $25,000 and $50,000.

As a U.S. senator from New York, Clinton, as well as then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and two other senators in 2007 sponsored a bill to award a congressional gold medal to Yunus. He got one but not until 2010, a year after Obama awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Yunus first met with Clinton in Washington in April 2009. That was followed six months later by an announcement by USAID, the State Department’s foreign aid arm, that it was partnering with the Grameen Foundation, a nonprofit charity run by Yunus, in a $162 million commitment to extend its microfinance concept abroad. USAID also began providing loans and grants to the Grameen Foundation, totaling $2.2 million over Clinton’s tenure.

By September 2009, Yunus began complaining to Clinton’s top aides about what he perceived as poor treatment by Bangladesh’s government. His bank was accused of financial mismanagement of Norwegian government aid money — a charge that Norway later dismissed as baseless. But Yunus told Melanne Verveer, a long-time Clinton aide who was an ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues, that Bangladesh officials refused to meet with him and asked the State Department for help in pressing his case.

“Please see if the issues of Grameen Bank can be raised in a friendly way,” he asked Verveer. Yunus sent “regards to H” and cited an upcoming Clinton Global Initiative event he planned to attend.

Clinton ordered an aide: “Give to EAP rep,” referring the problem to the agency’s top east Asia expert.

Yunus continued writing to Verveer as pressure mounted on his bank. In December 2010, responding to a news report that Bangladesh’s prime minister was urging an investigation of Grameen Bank, Clinton told Verveer that she wanted to discuss the matter with her East Asia expert “ASAP.”

Clinton called Yunus in March 2011 after the Bangladesh government opened an inquiry into his oversight of Grameen Bank. Yunus had told Verveer by email that “the situation does not allow me to leave the country.” By mid-May, the Bangladesh government had forced Yunus to step down from the bank’s board. Yunus sent Clinton a copy of his resignation letter. In a separate note to Verveer, Clinton wrote: “Sad indeed.”

Clinton met with Yunus a second time in Washington in August 2011 and again in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka in May 2012. Clinton’s arrival in Bangladesh came after Bangladesh authorities moved to seize control of Grameen Bank’s effort to find new leaders. Speaking to a town hall audience, Clinton warned the Bangladesh government that “we do not want to see any action taken that would in any way undermine or interfere in the operations of the Grameen Bank.”

Grameen America’s Asch referred other questions about Yunus to his office, but he had not responded by Tuesday.

In another case, Clinton was host at a September 2009 breakfast meeting at the New York Stock Exchange that listed Blackstone Group chairman Stephen Schwarzman as one of the attendees. Schwarzman’s firm is a major Clinton Foundation donor, but he personally donates heavily to GOP candidates and causes. One day after the breakfast, according to Clinton emails, the State Department was working on a visa issue at Schwarzman’s request. In December that same year, Schwarzman’s wife, Christine, sat at Clinton’s table during the Kennedy Center Honors. Clinton also introduced Schwarzman, then chairman of the Kennedy Center, before he spoke.

Blackstone donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Eight Blackstone executives also gave between $375,000 and $800,000 to the foundation. And Blackstone’s charitable arm has pledged millions of dollars in commitments to three Clinton Global aid projects ranging from the U.S. to the Mideast. Blackstone officials did not make Schwarzman available for comment.

Clinton also met in June 2011 with Nancy Mahon of the MAC AIDS, the charitable arm of MAC Cosmetics, which is owned by Estee Lauder. The meeting occurred before an announcement about a State Department partnership to raise money to finance AIDS education and prevention. The public-private partnership was formed to fight gender-based violence in South Africa, the State Department said at the time.

The MAC AIDS fund donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In 2008, Mahon and the MAC AIDS fund made a three-year unspecified commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. That same year, the fund partnered with two other organizations to beef up a USAID program in Malawi and Ghana. And in 2011, the fund was one of eight organizations to pledge a total of $2 million over a three-year period to help girls in southern Africa. The fund has not made a commitment to CGI since 2011.

Estee Lauder executive Fabrizio Freda also met with Clinton at the same Wall Street event attended by Schwarzman. Later that month, Freda was on a list of attendees for a meeting between Clinton and a U.S.-China trade group. Estee Lauder has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The company made a commitment to CGI in 2013 with four other organizations to help survivors of sexual slavery in Cambodia.

MAC AIDS officials did not make Mahon available to AP for comment.

When Clinton appeared before the U.S. Senate in early 2009 for her confirmation hearing as secretary of state, then- Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, questioned her at length about the foundation and potential conflicts of interest. His concerns were focused on foreign government donations, mostly to CGI. Lugar wanted more transparency than was ultimately agreed upon between the foundation and Obama’s transition team.

Now, Lugar hopes Hillary and Bill Clinton make a clean break from the foundation.

“The Clintons, as they approach the presidency, if they are successful, will have to work with their attorneys to make certain that rules of the road are drawn up to give confidence to them and the American public that there will not be favoritism,” Lugar said.

The Clinton’s History with Iran and Cuba and Latin America

Posted earlier on this site, Iran’s Cuba and Latin American Tours and Trouble Ahead forced a deeper examination of the Iran, Cuba and Latin America relationship. As Iran is now at least $1.7 billion dollars richer, larger questions develop on Iran’s global expansion. Being in our hemisphere and right in the backyard of America some chilling conditions emerge.

Reported in 2010, Cuba has expressed support for Iran’s nuclear program and has defended Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology in the face of UN sanctions. Cuban President Raul Castro also serves as the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement, which released a statement in July 2008 declaring that its member states “welcomed the continuing cooperation being extended by the Islamic Republic of Iran to the IAEA” and “reaffirmed that states’ choices and decisions, including those of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear technology and its fuel cycle policies must be respected.”[1]

In late November 2009, the IAEA passed a rebuke of Iran for building a second enrichment plan in secret.[2] Cuba, along with Venezuela and Malaysia, opposed the resolution.[3] The resolution by the 35-member IAEA Board of Governors calls on Iran to halt uranium enrichment and immediately freeze the construction of its Fordo nuclear facility, located near Qom.[4]  Cuba and Iran cooperate bilaterally and multilaterally through the Non-Aligned Movement. In a June 2008 memorandum of understanding, Iranian President Ahmadinejad explained that the two countries expressed their continued support for “each other on the international scene.” [17]  In September 2008, Iran began funding medical students from the Solomon Islands to study in Cuba, including airfare and computers for medical students unable to finance their own way to Havana to study.[18]  More here.

Related reading: It’s time to start worrying about what Russia’s been up to in Latin America

There is a long and nefarious history between the United States and Cuba but we don’t have to go back much further than the Clinton administration. Seems with enough money to the Clinton’s or to the Democrat National Committee, lots of things can be overlooked.

****

THREAT TO THE HOMELAND

Iran’s Extending Influence in the Western Hemisphere

Iran not only continues to expand its presence in and bilateral relationships with countries like Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, but it also maintains a network of intelligence agents specifically tasked with sponsoring and executing terrorist attacks in the western hemisphere. True, the unclassified annex to a recent State Department report on Iranian activity in the western hemisphere downplayed Iran’s activities in the region; this material, however, appeared in an introductory section of the annex that listed the author’s self-described “assumptions.” While one assumption noted that “Iranian interest in Latin America is of concern,” another stated that as a result of U.S. and allied efforts “Iranian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean is waning.” More here from the Washington Institute.

Back in 1996, seems the Clintons were doing then what they are doing today, hanging with criminals that donate.

WASHINGTON DESK – The Justice Department released on Wednesday photographs showing a convicted Miami cocaine trafficer who is seen standing next to and posing with vice president Al Gore. The two were attending a party in Florida last December.

Apparently, Cabrera was asked to make a large donation to the Clinton-Gore campaign in exchange for perks like hob-nobbing with Al Gore and the first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Jorge Cabrera’s cash contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign were so generous, that Cabrera was also invited to the White House and gained entrance there without any FBI & Secret Service security clearance.

CNN reported Wednesday that Cabrera’s attorney, Stephen Bronis, said $20,000(given to the Clinton-Gore campaign) was not intended to buy protection for drug smuggling.

‘He had a lobster and stone crab fishery in the Keys and felt that contribution might promote that future course,’ Bronis said.

The Clinton-Gore campaign only returned the $20,000 last week after the full story had reached ABC News, and the Clinton administration had been asked for comment by the media.

Cabrera was arrested in January during a Miami drug bust of nearly three tons of cocaine. Cabrera was arrested and pleaded guilty to one drug count. He was also imprisoned in the 1980s on narcotics charges.

A report that the picture of Cabrera and Gore had been impounded by the Justice Department prompted an angry reaction from Republicans, including Bob Dole’s presidential campaign, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Republicans sent letters to Attorney General Janet Reno and the directors of the FBI and the Secret Service seeking information about Cabrera and the campaign contribution.

Livingston asked the federal agencies for a complete accounting of the facts relating to the story within three days: whether Cabrera had dined at the White House, details of his relationship with Clinton and Gore and, if he did dine with them, how he passed FBI & Secret Service scrutiny to gain access to them.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Miami was contacted by reporters. Justice said it would not provide photographs of Cabrera and Gore in Florida and at the White House when reporters requested them on Monday. The Justice Department attempted to claim that Cabrera’s story is coverd by the Privacy Act law in turning down the media request for information on the arrest for cocaine possession of tons of the illegat drug and dealing.

Jant Reno put out information that the photo of Cabrera with Gore and Clinton could not be released without the consent of Cabrera. Later, the Justice Department did release the photographs after Cabrera submitted written authorization.

The delay by the Justice Department appeared to be an effort to distance itself from accusations that are mounting from the American public that the Justice Department is receiving guidance from the Clinton White House and the vice president’s office on the timing of Janet Reno’s investigation.

Justice says it is looking into the breach of National Security by Cabrera’s ready access to secured areas of the White House and its grounds when he entered as an invited quest of president Clinton for dinner and photo-ops.

Then much more recently, like February of 2016, Hillary was busy nurturing the pro-Iran lobby including a fund-raiser.

Clinton will participate in a Menlo Park fundraiser on Sunday hosted by Twitter executive Omid Kordestani and his wife Gisel Hiscock, as well as National Iranian American Council (NIAC) board member Lily Sarafan and Noosheen Hashemi, who serves on the board of the pro-Iran advocacy group Ploughshares, a major funder of pro-Iran efforts.

NIAC, an advocacy group formed by Iranian-Americans to work against the pro-Israel community, has long been accused of lobbying on Iran’s behalf against sanctions and other measures that could harm the Islamic Republic’s interest.

Ploughshares, which partners with NIAC, is joining the White House in efforts to pressure the Jewish community and others to back the recently implemented Iran nuclear agreement, the Free Beacon reported.

The organization has also spent millions to influence coverage of Iran and protect the Obama administration’s diplomatic relations with Iran.

NIAC has emerged a key pro-Iran player in the United States, working with the White House and liberal groups to spin the deal as a positive for U.S. national security.

The group is currently leading the charge to block recent counter-terrorism legislation that would require individuals who have travelled to Iran to obtain a visa before entering the United States. More from FreeBeacon.

Alright so we have established historical relationships with Cuba and Iran and the Clintons. Is there more that we should know? Yes.

  1. Cuban spies in America
  2. The DEA did it’s job but Bill Clinton remained loyal to the Castro brothers
  3. Hillary’s personal global spy, Sidney Blumenthal collaborated on Hezbollah’s new office in Cuba.
  4. In 2011, Hillary’s State Department sent their old friend Bill Richardson to Cuba to bring back an American, Alan Gross, who was an embedded spy working for USAID.
  5. In 2009, Obama and Hillary began the normalization process with Cuba.
  6. Bill Clinton’s old buddy Strobe Talbott collaborated on Cuba with Hillary’s State Department.
  7. Hillary announced that Iran would be invited to an upcoming  multinational conference on Afghanistan
  8. Documents reveal Bill Clinton’s secret contact with Iran
  9. Sid Blumenthal, Jake Sullivan and Hillary on Iran and Israel