Justice Dept. Refuses to Comply With Court Order

Posted on February 4, 2016February 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

The excuses are stupid…

Justice Dept. Fights Subpoenas for Bank Records About Russian Assets

Visitors look through books before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the library of the Schneerson family of Hasidic rabbis in the Jewish Museum in Moscow, Thursday, June 13, 2013. The vast collection of Jewish books and documents is the focus of a dispute between Moscow and Washington.

Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Updated at 1:10 p.m.

The U.S. Department of Justice is fighting efforts by a Jewish group to subpoena banks for information about assets owned by the Russian Federation, which owes more than $43 million in sanctions for rebuffing a U.S. judge’s order to return a collection of religious texts.

In papers filed on Wednesday night, the Justice Department warned that allowing lawyers for Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States to subpoena information about Russian assets from five financial institutions—JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Computershare—could harm U.S. foreign policy interests. The subpoenas seek information about accounts that belong to the Russian government and to individuals, including President Vladimir Putin.

“Such efforts are antithetical to the goal of securing the return of the collection to Chabad, open the doors to reciprocal measures being taken against the United States by Russia, and would be out of step with international practice such that they could cause considerable friction with other foreign governments,” the Justice Department wrote.

The U.S. government supports Chabad’s claim to the Schneerson Collection—more than 12,000 books and manuscripts seized in Russia in the early 20th century, and 25,000 pages of texts stolen by the Nazis and then taken as war loot by the Soviet Red Army. Chabad has fought in court for the return of the collection for more than a decade. The Russian government stopped participating in the litigation in 2009.

The Justice Department has opposed efforts by Chabad’s lawyers to pursue Russian assets to force compliance with a 2010 court ruling that ordered Russia to return the collection to Chabad.

Steven Lieberman, a partner at Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck and a lead attorney for Chabad, said in a joint statement with lawyers from Lewin & Lewin in Washington that the Justice Department was “simply trying to re-litigate an issue it has already lost.”

“We are reviewing the government’s position, and we will consider asking [the judge] to take appropriate steps to ensure that our efforts to identify Russian assets will proceed without further interference,” Lieberman said. “However, it is shocking that the Departments of Justice and State now appear to be representing Russian interests more aggressively than their private counsel ever did.”

In 2013, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington—over the Justice Department’s objections—entered a civil contempt order against Russia that included a fine of $50,000 per day. In September 2015, Lamberth entered a judgment for Chabad for $43.7 million, the sanctions total at the time.

With the judgment on record, Chabad’s lawyers ramped up their search for Russian assets in the United States. They subpoenaed the five financial institutions in December.

The Justice Department argues that even with Lamberth’s sanctions order in place, the court wouldn’t be allowed under federal law to actually enforce it. And if the court can’t enforce its order, the government said, Chabad shouldn’t be allowed to subpoena information or otherwise use the court system to investigate Russian assets that it can’t attach.

“The sanctions judgment at issue here … while resulting from Russia’s noncompliance with a default judgment ordering it to return certain property to Chabad, does not in and of itself grant any property rights to Chabad. Instead, it simply sanctions Russia for its noncompliance with the court’s specific performance order,” the Justice Department wrote.

In a Feb. 2 letter included in the government’s court papers from Katherine McManus, deputy legal adviser at the U.S. Department of State, to Justice Department Civil Division Principal Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Mizer, McManus wrote that the Chabad case had already created diplomatic problems.

“For several years, senior Russian officials have regularly raised this litigation with their U.S. counterparts. They have done so more frequently, and at higher levels, since the issuance of the district court’s sanctions order,” McManus wrote. The sanctions order and efforts to enforce it would only hurt efforts to negotiate the return of the Schneerson Collection, she added.

More broadly, the Justice Department said in its court papers that if Chabad were allowed to conduct “sweeping discovery” into Russian assets, it would create “friction” with other foreign governments and risk similar orders being entered against the United States abroad. The U.S. last year was granted immunity from contempt sanctions in a Spanish court, the Justice Department noted.

“Any constraint placed on property of the Russian entities named in the subpoenas in the context of this case would isolate the United States in the international community and raise doubts about the United States’ respect for other foreign sovereigns,” the government argued.

Updated with comment from Chabad’s lawyers.

Price of Gas at the Pump too Low, Barack’s Proposal

Posted on February 4, 2016February 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Obama to call for $10-per-barrel oil tax to fund clean transport

FNC: President Obama will propose a $10 fee for every barrel of oil to be paid by oil companies in order to fund clean energy transport system, the White House announced Thursday — although Republicans were quick to declare the plan “dead on arrival” in Congress.

The fee would be phased in over five years and would provide $20 billion per year for traffic reduction, investment in transit systems and other modes of transport such as high-speed rail, the White House said. It would also offer $10 billion to encourage investment in clean transport at the regional level.

Obama is expected to formalize the proposal Tuesday when he releases his final budget request to Congress. However, the proposal immediately faced resistance from Republicans.

“Once again, the president expects hardworking consumers to pay for his out of touch climate agenda,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement, arguing it would lead to higher energy prices and hurt poor Americans.

Ryan went on to describe Obama’s plan as “dead on arrival” in Congress.

“The good news is this plan is little more than an election-year distraction. As this lame-duck president knows, it’s dead on arrival in Congress, because House Republicans are committed to affordable American energy and a strong U.S. economy,” Ryan said.

The White House claims the added cost of gasoline would incentivize the private sector to reduce the reliance on oil and to increase investment in clean energy technology.

The plan also saw opposition from advocates for the oil industry, who warned it would only harm consumers.

“The White House thinks Americans are not paying enough for gasoline, so they have proposed a new tax that could raise the cost of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon, harm consumers that are enjoying low energy prices, destroy American jobs and reverse America’s emergence as a global energy leader,” API President and CEO Jack Gerard:

“On his way out of office, President Obama has now proposed making the United States less competitive.” Gerard said.

*****

In part from Bloomberg: With the proceeds targeted to transportation and climate initiatives, the proposal announced Thursday deepens Obama’s environmental credentials and signifies his ambitions to aggressively push action on climate change during his final year in office.

“By placing a fee on oil, the president’s plan creates a clear incentive for private-sector innovation to reduce our reliance on oil and at the same time invests in clean energy technologies that will power our future,” the White House said in a statement.

It is unclear who, exactly would pay the tax if it were to pass, and how it would be structured. White House officials repeatedly stressed that the fee would fall on oil companies, but said it wouldn’t be charged at the wellhead and they look forward to working with Congress on the details.

The fee, which drew swift objections from oil industry groups and Republicans, is part of a broader administration plan to shift the nation away from transportation systems reliant on internal combustion engines and fossil fuels. The proposal envisions investing $20 billion to reduce traffic and improve commuting, $10 billion for state and local transportation and climate programs and $2 billion for research on clean vehicles and aircraft.

Environmentalists applauded the move. “President Obama’s vision underscores the inevitable transition away from oil, and investments like this speed us along the way to a 100% clean energy future,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in an e-mail.

Inadequate infrastructure raises costs for businesses and consumers, including motorists stuck in traffic — a “hidden tax” and a harm to the environment, said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. More here.

Dutch Report: Life Under Islamic State

Posted on February 4, 2016February 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Dutch Intelligence Report Exposes Horrors of Daily Life Under ISIS

by Abigail R. Esman

IPT: When the leaders of ISIS declared the caliphate of the Islamic State in June 2014, the world already had a strong idea of who they were: a jihadist group so violent, so barbaric, so extreme, that even al-Qaida, with whom they had once been affiliated, wanted nothing more to do with them.

But as the world soon learned, it would get even worse.

The founding of the Islamic State brought some of the most inhumane violence of modern civilization: captives held in cages and burned alive; beheadings captured on video and broadcast on the Internet; mass enslavement and rape of non-Muslim women; and the genocide of Iraq’s Yazidi tribe.

Coupled with this has been a perverse propaganda campaign that makes the Caliphate look like a teenage summer camp, aimed at recruiting Westerners to join the jihad and enjoy life in their idyllic, Allah-blessed commune-on-the-sea. And for thousands of Western Muslims, it has worked, either by inducing them to make the journey, or hijrah, to Syria and Iraq, or by motivating them to carry out terrorist attacks on Western towns and cities.

This is what we know.

What we have not known has been the reality of life in the Islamic State, including the social order, the availability of housing and health care and other basic necessities and the treatment of women and children.

A new report by the Dutch Intelligence Service (AIVD) now shines a spotlight into the heart of the Islamic State, its workings, and the psychology of its leaders. The picture it paints is no less terrifying than one might expect, a society increasingly paranoid and totalitarian, devoid of human empathy, lacking in the most vital resources, and yet somehow, still surviving through a combination of propaganda, lies, oppression, violence, and the profound power of delusion.

It is that delusion which seems most apparent in the AIVD report: the myth of a life of comfort and companionship and a coziness with God that ISIS’s propaganda promulgates, promotes, and perpetuates on social media; the delusion of those who manage to equate murder and enslavement with religious duty and moral good; and those delusions with which ISIS leaders fill the minds of children raised in their domain – and so, build and secure the future of their narrative and their jihad.

“Violence is inherent to ISIS,” the report says. “On a daily basis, it is practiced, glorified, and preached.” Through that violence has emerged a state (such as it is) that is at once overbearing, tyrannical, and powerful and yet, at its core, vulnerable, fragile, and afraid.

Following are highlights of the AIVD report, which was compiled on the basis of 18 months of research.

DAILY LIFE

While many Westerners make hijrah not to fight, per se, but for the glory of living in a true Muslim state, the reality that greets them is not what they likely anticipate, the AIVD reveals. Constant bombardments from Assad troops, allied forces, and Russia mean that every day is lived in perpetual fear and danger. The trauma this brings to children, especially, and particularly those who travel to the caliphate with their parents from the West, is incalculable.

Moreover, despite photographs ISIS distributes on the Internet of houses with exquisite views and happy families, most homes are in disrepair. There are food shortages. Medical care is as minimal as one might expect in a war zone that receives no legal imports or medicines, where there are excruciatingly few doctors or nurses, and daily streams of wounded. Electricity is also scarce; most homes can rely on only an hour or two of power every day.

And while all men receive a state salary (with supplements for wives and children), those salaries were recently halved– an unwelcome development for Caliphate citizens at a time when oil income has fallen and prices for basic necessities, especially food, skyrocket.

MEN

Men and women are separated on arrival, according to the AIVD. Men are required to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph, before being interrogated to ensure they aren’t spies. They are then sent into military training. Though not all men sign up to fight, all must be prepared to join the battle if called upon and participate actively “in ISIS-led executions, torture, and rape.”

From here, they are generally able to select their own roles, be it as marketing advisers, bus drivers, doctors, or warriors. Some, however, are assigned roles. Reports the AIVD, “specifically-selected men can be trained by ISIS and sent back to stage attacks in Europe.”

WOMEN

While many women make hijrah with the idea of joining in battle, in actuality women are forbidden to participate in what is viewed as men’s work. They also cannot work closely with men who are not family, a law that further bars them from the battlefield.

They have their own parts to play in the Caliphate, the most important of which is childbearing: as many and as fast as possible. Reports the AIVD, “Mothers are [then] required to raise their sons to be ISIS fighters. Daughters, for their part, are to marry fighters and, with the same purpose as their own mothers, to bear children.”

In addition, women can play an active role in recruiting, largely through social media. Others join the all-women Al-Khansaa brigade, which enforces sharia law as it applies to women, be it their manner of dress or their public behavior. “If a woman is apprehended by the brigade and convicted, then another woman carries out the punishment,” the AIVD report explains. “Hence even Western women who have joined Al-Khansaa will execute the lashings of women who have, according to ISIS, violated rules and boundaries.”

CHILDREN

It is the children, however, who suffer most in the Islamic State – children whose lives are made of daily confrontations with death and agony and fear. Nonetheless, shockingly more and more Western families are making their way to ISIS territory with their children, or with pregnant mothers wishing to give birth there. And then there are the children born not just to ISIS brides, but to rape victims and sexual slaves such as the Yazidis.

But where most boys of 7- or 8 years of age may go on fishing trips with their fathers or play soccer in local parks, these frequently are brought to observe public executions and beatings. Parents may pose their child with the head of a beheaded enemy. At school, they learn English, Arabic, and the tenets of ISIS doctrine alongside lessons in the use of firearms and “execution practice.” By the age of 9, girls are expected to cover themselves in public, while their male schoolmates are ushered off to training camps to learn to fight.

“Children take an increasingly frequent role in ISIS propaganda,” states the report. “In various execution videos made by the group in the first half of 2015, boys between the ages of ten and twelve served as executioner, shooting or beheading prisoners. The use of children in propaganda fits the strategy of ISIS, which largely hopes to use media images to shock and so, gain attention. Through this propaganda, which is often picked up by regular mass media, it becomes clear that parents who travel to the ISIS territory have a fully realistic view of what awaits their children when they get there.”

The Overview

Increasingly, it appears that life in the Caliphate is becoming tougher. A growing paranoia and fear that disillusioned fighters might leave and counter their propaganda with the truth – not to mention a concern about spies attacking from within – haunts ISIS leaders. They are cracking down in response. It is becoming harder and harder to leave the Islamic State, even for temporary, medical reasons.

Similarly, contact between residents of the Caliphate and those on the outside is being increasingly controlled. “Since July, 2015, it is no longer permissible to use wireless internet in Raqqah,” according to the report. “The Internet can only be accessed through ISIS-approved Internet cafes, where careful watch is kept over which sites are visited. In some cases, permission must be granted by a military leader or emir to spread information to the outside. Whoever fails to observe these rules must appear before a sharia court.”

Such measures ensure that the myth of an idyllic state continues, along with the flow of new warriors and the women who will give birth to them.

Ultimately, concludes the intelligence agency, “the so-called caliphate of ISIS stands far from what the organization purports it to be. The region that is occupied by ISIS is not a holy state or ideal society in its infancy. ISIS functions as a totalitarian regime. Whoever emigrates to the ISIS territory makes a conscious, deliberate choice to take part in an organization, an institution that commits terrorist activities and conducts attacks in Europe. In practice, this means that men as well as women who join the Islamic State, armed or otherwise, take part in ISIS’s jihad.”

Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, ofRadical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands.

***

October 14, 2014

Bikers Vs. ISIS: Dutch Motorcycle Gang Fighting ISIS In Syria After Getting Legal Green Light

Jonathan Vankin

ISIS will now be facing a new foe as the terror group continues its brutal and bloody campaign to take over Syria and bring it under the so called Islamic State “caliphate.” Members of a Dutch biker gang known as “No Surrender” have already joined the battle against ISIS in Iraq, and on Tuesday authoities in the Netherlands gave them a legal green light to keep up the battle.

“Joining a foreign armed force was previously punishable, now it’s no longer forbidden,” said Wim De Bruin, a spokesperson for the Dutch public prosecutor, to the French Press Agency Agency. “You just can’t join a fight against the Netherlands.”

According to Klaas Otto, the leader of the notorious motorcycle thug gang, said that three No Surrender members made the trip to Syria last week and had taken up the fight against ISIS alongside Kurdish forces, such as those struggling to fend off heavily armed ISIS militants now besieging the crucial town of Kobani, on the border between Syria and Turkey.

A biker identified only as Ron was recently seen on Kurdish television alongside Kurdish fighters. Ron was shown dressed in battle fatigues and wielding a Kalashnikov rifle and is heard to say, “the Kurds have been under pressure for a long time.”

About 70,000 Kurds, the majority of them political refugees from Turkey, now live in Holland.

De Bruin made clear, however, that while Dutch bikers or other citizens would not be prosecuted for joining the Kurdish fight against ISIS, any Dutch national leaving the country in order to fight on the ISIS side of the conflict would be prosecuted as a criminal.

The reason for the difference is simply that ISIS is classified as a terrorist organization, and joining a terrorist group is illegal under Dutch law. By the same token, even Dutch bikers who fight against ISIS, but do so by joining with the Kurdistan Workers Party — generally known as the PKK — are also committing a crime.

The PKK is categorized as a terrorist group by the Dutch, as well as by most of the international community. The United States State Department has listed the PKK on its roster of foreign terrorist organizations since 1997.

De Bruin cautioned that the Dutch bikers fighting ISIS do not have a free hand to commit other crimes, such as rape, or torturing captives. But De Bruin conceded that even such heinous offenses would not likely be prosecuted because the fight against ISIS “is happening a long way away.”

Finally, Hillary’s Security Clearance in Jeopardy?

Posted on February 4, 2016February 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Humm –> Expect to undergo one or more interviews and often a polygraph as part of the clearance process. These steps are used by investigators to get a better understanding of your character, conduct and integrity. You might also have to answer questions designed to clear up discrepancies or clarify unfavorable data discovered during the background investigation. The ultimate goal is for government security personnel to determine your eligibility for a clearance, a decision based on the totality of the evidence and information collected.

August of last year: Intelligence community wants Clinton’s security clearance suspended

WashingtonTimes: Security experts say that if Hillary Rodham Clinton retained her government security clearance when she left the State Department, as is normal practice, it should be suspended now that it is known her unprotected private email server contained top secret material.

“Standard procedure is that when there is evidence of a security breach, the clearance of the individual is suspended in many, but not all, cases,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who was deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the George W. Bush administration. “This rises to the level of requiring a suspension.”

“The department does not comment on individuals’ security clearance status,” the official said.

Mrs. Clinton is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. A campaign spokesman did not reply to a query, but she did get a vote of support from a key congressional Democrat.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said Thursday there is no evidence Mrs. Clinton herself sent classified information and that the emails now under scrutiny were not marked classified at the time she sent them.

Clinton’s Security Clearance Is Under Scrutiny

Bloomberg: Now that several e-mails on Hillary Clinton’s private server have been classified, there is a more immediate question than the outcome of the investigation: Should the former secretary of state retain her security clearance during the inquiry? Congressional Republicans and Democrats offer predictably different answers.

The State Department announced Friday that it would not release 22 e-mails from Clinton’s private server after a review found they contained information designated as top secret. U.S. officials who reviewed the e-mails tell us they contain the names of U.S. intelligence officers overseas, but not the identities of undercover spies; summaries of sensitive meetings with foreign officials; and information on classified programs like drone strikes and intelligence-collection efforts in North Korea.

The FBI is investigating the use of Clinton’s home server when she was secretary of state, which the bureau now has. The New York Times reported in August that Clinton is not a target of that investigation. We reported in September that one goal is to discover whether a foreign intelligence service hacked in.

Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Clinton should not lose her security clearance for receiving information that was not marked classified at the time. “I’m sure she does hold a clearance, and she should,” he told us.

Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of that committee who also has read the e-mails, told us, “It’s important, given all the information we now know, that the House of Representatives work alongside the executive branch to determine whether it’s appropriate for Secretary Clinton to continue to hold her security clearances.”

Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr told us the decision lies with the White House. “I think that’s up to what the National Security Council is comfortable with,” he said.

Burr, who has also read all 22 e-mails, said Clinton should have known to better protect the information they contain. “They are definitely sensitive,” he said. “Anybody in the intelligence world would know that the content was sensitive.”

His Democratic counterpart, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who also read them, told us that Clinton didn’t originally send any of the e-mails and that they were largely from her staff, although she did sometimes reply. Feinstein said the intelligence community is being overly cautious by designating the e-mails as top secret.

“There’s no question that they are over-classifying this stuff,” she said.

Clinton’s discussion of classified programs on an unclassified e-mail system is hardly rare. The issue, called “spillage,” has plagued the government for years. It can apply to anything from a spoken conversation about intelligence programs outside of a secure facility, to printing out a document with classified information on an unsecure printer.

Still, it is forbidden. The State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual says “transmitting classified information over a communication channel that is unauthorized for the level of information being transmitted” is a “security violation.” Such violations must be investigated by the State Department’s own bureaus of human resources and diplomatic security. Punishment can vary from a letter of reprimand to loss of security clearance, according to the manual.

When asked about the status of Clinton’s security clearance, State Department spokesman John Kirby said: “The State Department does not comment on individuals’ security clearance status. We will say, however, that generally speaking there is a long tradition of secretaries of state making themselves available to future secretaries and presidents. Secretaries are typically allowed to maintain their security clearance and access to their own records for use in writing their memoirs and the like.”

The Clinton campaign declined to comment.

During the Obama administration, it has not been automatic for officials to lose their security clearance while an investigation is underway. Just last week, the Washington Post reported that the chief of naval intelligence, Vice Adm. Ted Branch, had his security clearance suspended because he is wrapped up in a Justice Department investigation into contracting corruption. He has not been able to read, see, or hear classified information since November 2013. Branch has not been charged with any crime and continues to serve in that post.

But when then-CIA director David Petraeus came under FBI investigation at the end of 2012, his security clearance was not formally revoked. After he resigned, his access to classified information was suspended, according to U.S. officials. In that case, Petraeus had provided notebooks with highly classified information to his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell, whose security clearances did not permit her to receive it.

Unlike Broadwell, officials familiar with the e-mails tell us that Clinton and her e-mail correspondents were cleared to receive the information that has been classified after the fact. Steven Aftergood, who heads the project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, told us, “It’s entirely possible for information to start out as unclassified and to be classified only when the question of public disclosure arises.”

William Leonard, who oversaw the government’s security classification process between 2002 and 2008 as the director of the Information Security Oversight Office, told us this kind of “spillage” was common. “The bottom line is this, if you have the opportunity to pore through any cleared individual’s unclassified e-mail account, it’s almost inevitable you would find material that someone, some way would point out should be classified.” He also said that in Clinton’s case, “there is no indication that she deliberately disregarded the rules for handling classified information so I see no reason why she should not remain eligible for a security clearance.”

Nonetheless, Leonard added that Clinton’s decision to use the private e-mail server as secretary of state “reflected exceedingly poor judgment, and those that advised her on this did not serve her well.”

The FBI investigation may determine that neither Clinton nor her aides broke the law, but Clinton herself has said she used poor judgment. It’s an open question how that poor judgment will affect her access to state secrets, during and after the FBI’s investigation.

Pathetic, Kerry is Begging Russia

Posted on February 4, 2016February 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

As Syria Talks Fizzle, ‘War Has No Meaning Anymore’

NYT: GENEVA — Four Syrian rebel commanders huddled in a knot, all broad shoulders and shiny gray suits, surveying the hotel lounge. Gigantic portraits of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix gazed down at the carpet, a checkerboard of faux zebra-hide in squares of orange and magenta. On a low sofa, a couple snuggled to the sounds of Amy Winehouse. The fighters decamped to a smokers’ enclosure behind a plate-glass window, its back wall a trompe-l’oeil image of electric-blue waves that made it seem as though they were submerged in a fish tank. It was an effect that fit their mood. They were in Geneva, notionally at least, for peace talks, but back in Syria, the government and its Russian allies were battering insurgents with scores of airstrikes. With their men under fire, the commanders were asking themselves how much longer they could credibly stay.

“Maybe a day,” one, Maj. Hassan Ibrahim, said on Monday night.

By Wednesday, the talks were indeed suspended, as the intense fighting on the ground proved there was as little to talk about as ever.

In an interview earlier, under the watchful eye of an adviser from Saudi Arabia, Major Ibrahim had dutifully projected strength and determination. But when the Saudi man walked away, the Syrian, who had defected from the government army in 2011, leaned forward and confided that the fighters he led in southern Syria were struggling. Supplies of weapons and salaries from the United States and its allies are dwindling. Moving in and out of Jordan is getting harder.

“They are doing it to put pressure on us to accept a political process,” he said, one in which he doubted that the Syrian government — or Russia, a sponsor of the talks — would make any compromise.

Major Ibrahim was reflecting a growing foreboding among the opposition’s fighters and civilians, mirrored by growing hope on the government side, that Washington, interested only in bombing the Islamic State militant group, is ceding the field to Russia and leaving the opposition on its own.

So much in Geneva this week was exactly like the last round of Syria peace talks in the city two years ago. Soft-lit hotel lobbies sweltered in the heat of glass fireplaces. Room service offered staple Syrian food — “Oriental mezze” — for about $40, which in Syria might constitute two weeks’ decent wages. Government and opposition delegates still seemed to be coming from different planets and witnessing different wars. Continue here.

Russia ignores Kerry plea to stop Syria bombing, deploys advanced fighter jets

FNC: Russia seemingly has ignored Secretary of State John Kerry’s appeals to stop bombing civilians and allow critical humanitarian aid to starving Syrians – and is instead escalating its military involvement, deploying four of its most capable fighter jets to Syria, two defense officials confirmed to Fox News.

The decision to send the Su-35S jets poses yet another hurdle for Kerry’s efforts to proceed with peace talks. The Su-35S is Russia’s most advanced warplane, capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, one official familiar with the jet said.

Already, continued Russian airstrikes against Syrian opposition fighters, some backed by the CIA, were enough to derail proposed peace talks in Geneva Wednesday.

Despite backing two U.N. resolutions in support of a ceasefire, Russia reneged on its promise to stop bombing civilians in Syria, a prerequisite for the U.N.-backed talks in Geneva.

“[T]here will be a ceasefire,” Kerry predicted Tuesday in Rome. “We expect a ceasefire. And we expect adherence to the ceasefire. And we expect full humanitarian access.”

Two days later, the Russian bombing hasn’t stopped and thousands of Syrians remain starving.

Kerry said he was assured by his Russian counterpart the Russians would stop bombing.

“I talked to Foreign Minister Lavrov a couple of days ago and I specifically discussed a ceasefire with him, and he said they are prepared to have a ceasefire,” Kerry said.

But Kerry’s counterpart responded the next day saying the strikes would continue.

“Russian strikes will not cease [in Syria] … I don’t see why these airstrikes should be stopped,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday in Oman. Hours later, the U.N. talks fell apart.

Kerry continued calling on Russia to stop bombing Thursday in London.

“It could not be more clear. That is an obligation that is not tied to talks. It is an obligation accepted by all parties in the United Nations resolution. Russia voted for that, Russia has a responsibility, as do all parties, to live up to it,” he said.

The Russians have carried out 270 airstrikes since Monday, according to its defense ministry.

On Wednesday, a United Nations special envoy suspended the peace talks, which include participation from Russia and Iran, just hours after they began.

“It is not the end and it is not a failure of the talks,” said U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan di Mistura.

The State Department denied the peace conference was a waste of time.

“It’s not a charade because they were there and because there was a beginning,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.

The top U.S. general in Iraq said the U.S. wants to avoid a confrontation with Russia, despite Russia bombing U.S.-backed rebels.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as a proxy war. I would say that we are pursuing different goals,” Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland told reporters, speaking from Baghdad earlier this week.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Syrians are starving inside the country, besieged by Russian airstrikes preventing humanitarian aid from reaching them.

The U.N. chief humanitarian coordinator says close to 500,000 Syrians are cut off from food assistance surrounded by Bashar Assad’s forces. Fifty-one people have died of hunger in Madaya, a town of 20,000, located an hour outside Damascus and just 10 miles from Lebanon and 40 miles from the Israeli border.

Aid workers who arrived with the first and only food convoy last month said they have never seen such devastation.

“We saw people who are clearly malnourished, especially children, we saw people who are extremely thin, skeletons, that are now barely moving,” said Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria to Reuters.

There are currently no plans for the U.S. military to help the U.N. get food to the hundreds of thousands trapped in Syria.

“There are no plans for that at this time,” said Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman for the coalition based in Baghdad. “We’ll, of course, support them if asked and able, but our focus is the defeat of ISIL.”

“We haven’t seen a catastrophe like this since World War II,” said Kerry in Rome. “[I]n recent months its people have been reduced to eating grass,” he added.

A Washington Post editorial blamed Secretary Kerry’s compromise with Russia in the pursuit of peace talks, in part, for the prolonged starvation crisis: “Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s handling of the Syrian crisis appears to be enabling those very war crimes.”

In a statement late Wednesday, the State Department said the peace talks in Geneva were “paused” and would resume later this month.