Category Archives: Russia

Assad has North Korean Troops in Syria

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Primer for consideration:

North Korea’s Next Missile Test Could Kill

Chang/DailyBeast: Firing back with ‘unprecedented’ provocations against joint South Korean and American annual military exercises, Kim Jung Un could make a dangerously wrong move.

On Monday, North Korea fired five short-range missiles eastward. The projectiles fell into the Sea of Japan, what Koreans call the East Sea. The provocation followed Friday’s launch of two Nodong medium-range missiles, which can put a dent anywhere in South Korea and parts of Japan.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has launched 15 projectiles on four separate occasions since early last month in apparent shows of anger.

Friday’s and Monday’s belligerent acts follow a series of threats to kill all the residents of Manhattan and launch “preemptive and offensive” nuclear strikes. The regime has also taken the unprecedented step of releasing photographs of leader Kim Jong Un standing next to what it implied is a thermonuclear device. Full article here.

North Korea troops fighting in Syrian civil war, delegate says
Asaad Al-Zoubi said “fatally dangerous” North Korean soldiers are fighting on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad.

GENEVA, Switzerland, March 22 (UPI) — Two North Korean military units are fighting on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad in the Syria conflict.

Asaad Al-Zoubi, the head of the Syrian opposition’s High Negotiations Committee delegation, told Russian news agency TASS that North Koreans have committed troops to the civil war.

According to Al-Zoubi, the two units are called Chalma-1 and Chalma-2.

The Syrian delegate provided the information as he attended Syria peace talks at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva.

Al-Zoubi added there are fighters from Iran and Afghanistan fighting on behalf of Assad.

Russia’s Sputnik International also confirmed the Syrian representative’s statement on North Korean soldiers in the Middle East, and quoted Al-Zoubi as saying the “North Korean troops are fatally dangerous” during an explanation of the presence of foreign troops in the Syrian civil war.

The civil war has continued for five years, and the opposition and the Assad regime are at odds regarding the details of a peace negotiation.

But Pyongyang maintains friendly ties with the dictatorship in Damascus, and Russia has supported Assad’s rule.

North Korea’s presence in the Middle East conflict is unprecedented, but the two countries have cultivated military ties for many years.

North Korea has been a staunch ally of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, opposed by the Islamic State, and Pyongyang helped Syria build a nuclear facility destroyed by an Israeli air raid in 2007.

Last September Syria dedicated a park to former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.

****** 2013:

38North: When Kim Jong Un assumed power two years ago, foreign observers predicted North Korea would cut its losses short and disengage from Syria in the wake of the overthrow of friendly regimes in Algeria, Egypt and Libya. But this proved to be wishful thinking. On the contrary, Kim Jong Un got off the fence and has joined the Assad government to actively fight against the anti-government rebels in Syria, many of whom are affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Indeed, the DPRK says it is its duty to help a legitimate sovereign government in the fight against international terrorism in Syria.

Careful reading of the DPRK Foreign Ministry’s latest tepid and contorted denial[1] of the persistent rumors that Pyongyang supplies weapons to Syria or flies pilots in anti-rebel air raids suggests that North Korean arms and military advisors may indeed be engaged on the battlefields of the Syrian civil war but not necessarily in the exact manner alleged by the rebels and Western media. Pyongyang is known for its penchant to split hairs: it knows the facts, and even if the rumors come close to the reality, but do not exactly match it, Pyongyang will hit back hard. The fact that it hasn’t suggests that indeed there is fire where there is smoke.

Why Did Kim Jong Un Come to Assad’s Rescue?

In 2013, North Korea’s young leader stepped up military support for his country’s long-time strategic partner, the Assad regime, in the nationwide civil war against the radical Sunni rebels backed by the Western liberal democracies in alliance with conservative Gulf monarchies. Why is North Korea fighting for Assad?

The well-entrenched Kim family came to the rescue of the faltering Assad family, exporting its trademark anti-American “revolutionary spirit of the offensive,” for four reasons. First, birds of a feather flock together. Both countries are former Soviet client states that lost their patron after the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s. The collapse resulted in the loss of the strategic support that the Soviets had provided them, forcing Pyongyang and Damascus to abandon the dream of “strategic parity” with Seoul and Tel Aviv, respectively, and to adopt a new formula of “strategic deterrence,” vis-a-vis the ROK and Israel, as well as their allies and like-minded countries. In that context, both face an acute security dilemma in their respective neighborhood since they are also divided countries fighting to force out foreign troops that occupy what they believe are their homelands, namely the U.S. forces in the southern half of the Korean peninsula and Israeli troops in the Golan Heights. Finally, both have also been branded as “rogue states” and are isolated in the international community. The United States considers them as “states sponsoring international terrorism” and engaged in “nuclear proliferation” and, therefore, has imposed broad-ranging political and economic sanctions on both countries.

In that context, Pyongyang and Damascus have similar worldviews as part of the anti-US, anti-imperialist united front. Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) Chairman Choe Tae Bok once said: “The unity of our two peoples fighting in the same trench against the common enemy is everlasting, though Syria and Korea are geographically far away from each other. Our bilateral relations of friendship and cooperation will grow stronger and stronger.”[2] When the DPRK’s nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam met with the Syrian Prime Minister Wael Nader Al Halqi in Tehran in August 2013, the latter said that “Syria regards the DPRK as a military power with tremendous military force and a country of comrades-in-arms struggling against the common enemy.”[3]

This close political relationship is reflected in a number of ways. Neither country has been willing to normalize relations with the other’s enemies. The DPRK rejected Israeli overtures in the early 1990s[4] seeking to establish diplomatic relations,[5] despite Israeli promises to pay considerable compensation (up to USD 500 million) if Pyongyang were to abandon Syria and terminate its missile sales to the Middle East.[6] Similarly, Syria rejected past ROK attempts to normalize relations, unlike the former Soviet Union and China, despite its growing trade and investment links with Seoul.[7] Pyongyang and Damascus also support each other in the United Nations and other international organizations. For example, upon cues from Damascus, Pyongyang denounces US proposals for the Middle East peace process, Lebanon situation, Palestinian problem, and Arab-Israeli settlement.[8] In turn, Syria supports the DPRK’s positions in various talks on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and inter-Korea reconciliation.[9]

State-to-state and party-to-party ties are well developed and based on extensive institutional links and personal affinities. Since the beginning of this year alone, Kim Jong Un has exchanged personal letters with Bashar Al-Assad on ten different occasions—more than with any other foreign leader, including Chinese. Many senior DPRK leaders have either visited Syria over the past two decades or worked closely with its government.[10] For instance, Kim Yong Nam traveled to Syria as President of the SPA Presidium in July 2002 and June 2000, and as Foreign Minister in July 1992. Former KPA Chief of General Staff hardline general Kim Kyok Sik served as North Korea’s military liaison to Syria in the tumultuous 1970s, coordinating the North’s military assistance to the Assad regime during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War and post-war rehabilitation of Syrian armed forces in the mid-1970s. He also managed North Korean military sales and military construction projects there for almost a decade. As a result, many North Korean leaders have some personal knowledge of Syria and its leaders, as well as a good understanding of Pyongyang’s stakes in its relationship with Damascus.

Second, in addition to being birds of a feather, geopolitical considerations also push Pyongyang to assist Damascus. As a strategic partner of both Syria and Iran, North Korea may have been contracted by Iran to defend their mutual ally in Damascus. It is also plausible that there may be some DPRK-Syria-Russia connections in the area of military-technical cooperation, probably, in the development of Syrian air defense capabilities. Pyongyang takes full advantage of all-out Russian and Iranian support for Damascus “to defend the frontline of the joint anti-American and anti-imperialist struggle” on the Syrian battlefield without fear of being depicted as a pariah or having to pay diplomatic or political price for its actions.

Third, North Korea’s intervention in Syria’s civil war is aimed at stopping the “hostile forces” and “colored revolutions” they export at the far-flung gates to ensure they will never reach North Korea’s shores. Kim Jong Un allegedly discussed how his government might be able to help the Assad regime fight back against the rebels with a visiting Syrian government delegation on July 24, 2013, when he was accompanied by party secretaries Kim Ki Nam (ideology) and Kim Yang Gon (South Korea), and first vice-foreign minister Kim Gye Gwan, the regime’s heavyweights known for their concern about the possible impact of the Arab Spring on the North.[11] The North’s official mouthpiece, Rodong Sinmun, often discusses “the reactionary ideology and culture of imperialists that can be as effective as military capability in realizing their hegemonic ambition,” stressing that “the youth is the main target of the imperialists’ offensive” because “young people played a large role in bringing about “Egyptian-style change,” “Libyan-style victory,” and “Syrian calamity.”

Kim Jong Un holds talks with the high-ranking visiting delegation of Syrian Arab Republic in Pyongyang, on July 24, 2013. (Photo: Rodong Sinmun, July 25, 2013)

Pyongyang may also seek to divert Washington’s attention and resources away from the Korean peninsula by waging a proxy war against the United States and its allies in Syria. The North Korean leadership is not ignorant or naive. It does understand that if the US gets sucked into another war in the Middle East during “sequestration,” not only will it undermine the short-to-mid-term credibility of its defense commitment to South Korea, but it will also buy time for Pyongyang to further build up its own nuclear arsenal and advance its war preparations against the South.

Fourth, while not a military alliance based on legally binding mutual defense obligations, North Korea and Syria have a long history of extensive bilateral military-to-military ties based on their close political relationship. These ties include:

  • Fraternal assistance in several Middle Eastern wars: Since Israel joined the UN coalition troops fighting in the Korean War, the DPRK government has never considered it inappropriate or unwise to send troops to aid the Syrian government in the Arab-Israeli wars in the Middle East. For instance, the DPRK sent 25 pilots to Syria to defend the air space over Damascus during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.[12] In 1970, the DPRK dispatched 200 tank crewmen, 53 pilots, and 140 missile technicians to Syria. During the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the DPRK dispatched 30 pilots to Egypt and Syria, who provided training for Syrian pilots to fight against Israel.[13] Moreover, the North Korean Air Force pilots themselves flew the Soviet-made Egyptian and Syrian airplanes during some key air battles. In 1975 and 1976, Pyongyang sent 75 Air Force instructors and 40 MIG pilots to Damascus, respectively. In 1982, during the Lebanese civil war, the DPRK government dispatched SOF (special operations forces) servicemen to Syria to provide training for guerrilla operations, some killed by the Israeli military. In 1984-1986 and 1990, 50 and 30 North Korean military instructors were sent to Syria, respectively.
  • Military Education and Training: In the mid-1980s, Kim Jong Il approved the request of the Syrian government for its military officers’ to be educated and trained at DPRK military educational institutions at the expense of North Korea. Since then, the North Korean military has been training Syrian military officers at the Kim Il Sung Military University (an analogue of US National Defense University). Officers at the colonel rank usually participate in the one-year high-level officers’ course. Syrian officers at the captain rank are also admitted to the four-year course. They are taught military strategy, operational art, and military tactics, including guerrilla operations. Kim Jong Il is said to have followed with interest the successful careers of the Syrian general officers who graduated from the university.
  • Foreign military sales: Beginning in the late 1970s through the 1980s, the DPRK supplied Syria with various conventional weapons such as rifles, guns, mortars, ammunition, bombs, armored vehicles, anti-tank missiles, radars, and even military uniforms. In particular, in 1978, the DPRK sold 300 recoilless guns to Syria. In 1982, when the civil war broke out in Syria, the Syrian military killed 20,000 civilians by firing “BM-11, 122mm MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System),” the weapon system imported from the DPRK. The Israel military snatched the notorious “BM-11” from Syria during the Lebanon war in 1982, killing 25 KPA soldiers who serviced it. In 1992, Pyongyang shipped 20 tons of bombs to Damascus.
  • Weapons of Mass Destruction and Delivery Systems: There is evidence to suggest that North Korea provided technical assistance to Syria in acquiring key nuclear-related technologies in China and Europe as well as in constructing a covert nuclear reactor at Al Kibar that was bombed by the Israeli Air Force in 2007. On ballistic missiles, cooperation began in the late 1980s, with the North selling Scud-C transporter-erector-launchers (TELs) and cluster warheads to Syria, helping to construct two missile assembly plants in Hama and an electronic missile launch control facility near Aleppo and providing special training for Syrian missile technicians in North Korea. Aside from strengthening the self-defense potential of one of its anti-imperialist, anti-US allies, the North has earned good money doing it.[14] On chemical weapons, there is only limited evidence of cooperation, including the interception of DPRK ships heading for Syria carrying cargos that might be useful in defending against chemical attacks. There has also been speculation that the explosion on July 20, 2007, at a facility near the city of Halab was the result of an attempt by North Korean scientists working with Syrian officials to load a chemical warhead onto one of the North Korean missiles, likely the No-dong 1 model. On biological weapons, there is information about bilateral cooperation between the Ministries of Public Health, pharmaceutical companies, and university biotech research labs but little on weapons cooperation. Still, some observers have asserted that “Syria has a biological weapons research and development program, and it is seeking professional assistance from China and North Korea in this area.”[15]

The Syrian conflict provides the North Korean military with an opportunity to gain valuable “real world” experience. Reportedly, North Korean advisors provide technical assistance to Syria’s defense industry, especially factories southeast of Aleppo, in addition to engineering and construction assistance in repairing and rehabilitating destroyed military infrastructure. The KPA is also involved in operational planning and supervision of artillery warfare as demonstrated by the battle for Qusair.[16] The North Korean military advisors are probably involved in planning and execution of the air and air defense operations of the Syrian army as well as collecting battlefield intelligence on the combat use and performance of Western arms, especially those that can potentially be used in the Korean battlefield. Finally, the Syrian civil war offers the North Korean military planners the first-hand look at the combat tactics of anti-regime rebels trained and guided by the US and its allies. And for good measure, there is no doubt that North Korean military advisors are also tasked with erasing any traces of Pyongyang’s past assistance to Assad’s programs to build weapons of mass destruction just in case he does lose power.

The Bottom Line

Given the history of DPRK-Syrian relations, despite what the North might say in public, it would be surprising if the North had not dispatched a small contingent of military advisors and instructors to aid the brotherly Assad regime in its fight against the anti-government rebels. Although that assistance is probably limited and does not have the potential to fundamentally change the course of the civil war, North Korean military expertise can affect the outcomes of local tactical battles, adding to the winning momentum of the Assad forces. Moreover, North Korea’s involvement in Syria may be an indicator that the Kim regime discounts the likelihood of any possible breakthrough in relations with either Washington or Seoul in the near future and views the risk that its national policy goals will be adversely affected by increasing support for the Assad regime as manageable.

Pyongyang’s involvement in Syria characterizes Kim Jong Un more as a steady hand and traditional alliance manager than an erratic wanderer and opportunistic risk-taker. Although he is playing with fire in the shifting sands of far-flung lands like Syria, but he is simply staying the course set forth by his grandfather and upheld by his father, demonstrating continuity in North Korea’s foreign policy. Moreover, potential material and reputational rewards far outweigh possible security or diplomatic risks, especially if Kim’s bet on Assad’s eventual victory proves to be correct. The DPRK’s decision to cast its lot with Damascus may upset wealthy Gulf monarchies—like Kuwait and Qatar—sponsoring the anti-Assad rebel groups and cause them to rethink their employment of North Korean labor and services in construction and irrigation system development projects and their provision of low-interest funds for some of Pyongyang’s infrastructure projects.[17] On the other hand, it may help Pyongyang earn much greater financial or in-kind compensation from other states concerned, including Iran, Russia, and others, and develop new diplomatic clout in the Middle East if Assad eventually wins. Pyongyang’s support for Syria may provoke Jihadist elements to strike back, but it is more likely that the KPA will gain valuable combat experience against the new age enemy—irregular anti-government militia fighting in a suburban setting. Finally, North Korea’s support for Syria may provide new fodder for others to further demonize Pyongyang but it also offers the North a chance to stand by a long-time ally in need, to show its resolve to fight for state sovereignty and territorial integrity on the world stage, and to prove with deeds it is fighting against Al Qaeda and international terrorism, even when it might be more expedient to do otherwise.

 

 

Secret: EU to Deport 80,000

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Primer:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Foreign militants fighting under the black flag of ISIS are conquering territory in northern Afghanistan, terrorizing residents and outmatching the Taliban’s brutality, villagers and local officials told NBC News.

The development suggests ISIS is expanding its sphere of influence beyond the Middle East and North Africa, and are moving into areas previously controlled by the Afghan Taliban.

Most of the fighters hail from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the Caucuses — and are even more brutal than the Afghan Taliban, according to local lawmakers, police and residents interviewed.

America’s 14-year project to defeat the Taliban and build a stable Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of failure, according to a sobering report Friday by a government watchdog.

The Taliban controls more of the country than at any time since U.S. troops invaded in 2001, notes the quarterly report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The fragile economy is worsening. One of the few bright spots of the troubled reconstruction effort — getting more girls in school — has been tainted by allegations of fraud.

“The lack of security has made it almost impossible for many U.S. and even some Afghan officials to get out to manage and inspect U.S.-funded reconstruction projects,” wrote John Sopko, the inspector general.

Secret EU plan to deport 80,000 Afghans

Revealed: Confidential EU discussion document proposes using aid summit as ‘leverage’ for removal of migrants to Afghanistan, as Brussels relies on chequebook diplomacy to curtail the crisis

Telegraph: More than 80,000 Afghans will need to be deported from Europe “in the near future” under a secret EU plan, amid warnings of a new influx as parts of the country fall back under Taliban control.

The European Commission should threaten to reduce aid that provides 40 per cent of Afghanistan’s GDP unless the “difficult” Kabul government agrees to the mass removal of tens of thousands of failed asylum migrants, a leaked document suggests. It admits the threat, if carried through, could result in the collapse of the fragile state.

The Afghan elite will be rewarded with university places in Europe, under a new EU strategy to use aid and trade as “incentives” to secure deportation agreements for economic migrants from “safe” areas of Afghanistan.

The plan is revealed in a joint “non-paper” discussion document, marked EU Restricted, which was prepared by the European Commission and its foreign policy arm, the External Action Service, and sent to national ambassadors on March 3.

Record violence amid a Taliban insurgency, with 11,000 civilian casualties last year, and economic failure means there is a “high risk of further migratory flows to Europe,” it warns. There are 1.1 million internally displaced Afghans and 5.4 million sheltering in Pakistan and Iran, whose situation is “precarious without reliable long-term perspectives.”

A migrant man from Afghanistan carrying a baby cries during a demonstration at the Greece-Macedonia border near the village of Idomeni, northern GreeceA man from Afghanistan carrying a baby cries during a demonstration at the Greece-Macedonia border near the village of Idomeni, northern Greece  Photo: AFP

In October, the European Union is hosting an international donor summit for Afghanistan, with the intention of raising enough aid for the period 2017-20 to keep flows at their current levels.

Jean-Claude Juncker’s officials propose using the summit as “leverage” to secure a deportation deal, noting that the EU has pledged more to Afghanistan than any other country with €1.4 billion earmarked until 2020.

“The EU should stress that to reach the objective of the Brussels Conference to raise financial commitments ‘at or near current levels’ it is critical that substantial progress has been made in the negotiations with the Afghan Government on migration by early summer, giving the member states and other donors the confidence that Afghanistan is a reliable partner able to deliver,” it says.

Under a section entitled “Afghan interests,” it says President Ghani’s government is “highly aid dependent”. “Without the continued high levels of international transfers… [it] is unlikely to prevail, as it is being faced by multiple security, economic and political challenges”.

An Afghan migrant girl holds the hand of a woman as they arrive on a beach on the Greek island of KosAn Afghan migrant girl holds the hand of a woman as they arrive on a beach on the Greek island of Kos  Photo: AFP/Angelos Tzortzinis

Some 176,000 Afghans claimed asylum in the EU last year, with around six in ten eligible, a rate that has risen as the security situation deteriorates. They make up a quarter of refugees landing in Greece.

The paper, which was first obtained by the Statewatch civil liberties website, says the EU’s co-operation with Afghanistan so far has been “difficult and uneven”. Despite President Ghani’s public statements, “other members of the Government do not appear to facilitate the return of irregular migrants, while attempting to re-negotiate conditions to restrict the acceptance of returnees.”

In exchange for accepting “forced returns” of economic migrants from designated “safe areas” of the country, European universities could offer places to Afghan students and researchers under the Erasmus+ scholarship scheme, the paper says under a section entitled: “Possible components of EU incentives package”.

The document cautions, however, that “the risk that those students apply for asylum once in the EU and make their outmost not to return is however very high, as demonstrated by several cases recently.”

The CAPD development deal, which commits the EU to help in rural development, health, education and counter-drugs programs for a decade, could also be used as a bargaining chip to get a deportation agreement, the document says.

The EU will also provide training and healthcare to those who are deported.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (R) shakes hands with British Prime Minister David Cameron during a press conference at the Presidential palace in KabulAfghan President Ashraf Ghani (R) shakes hands with British Prime Minister David Cameron during a press conference at the Presidential palace in Kabul. The Ghani government is being “difficult”, the report says.   Photo: AFP/Getty Images

It admits that identifying the safe areas of Afghanistan when processing asylum claims is “not obvious, given the rising insecurity in many provinces”.

The plan also suggests using the laissez passer, a legally controversial deporting document issued by the EU to migrants who have lost or destroyed their own papers.

The EU has publicly embraced a strategy of chequebook diplomacy as it struggles to contain the biggest migrant crisis since 1945.

The proposed deal appears similar to a gambit rejected by African leaders in Malta last year, in which the EU offered €1.8 billion in aid , university places and looser conditions for holders of diplomatic passports in exchange for accepting the forcible deportation of hundreds of thousands of African economic migrants. In the end, leaders settled on a voluntary scheme of returns.

It follows a controversial deal on Friday with Turkey, which was awarded €6 billion and visa liberalisation in exchange for the near-automatic return of all asylum seekers reaching the Greek islands.

Earlier this month Theresa May won a Court of Appeal case to resume deportations to Afghanistan under a separate arrangement. Judges ruled that while several provinces are dangerous, Kabul is safe enough for returns.

Germany, a major destination for Afghan migrants, is pushing hard for its own deportation agreement.

Judge to WH: Unseal Records of Trump Business Partner?

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This site has published articles here and here about Felix Sater, a mafia linked frauster that is/was a partner of Donald Trump. It seems this unsavory character is known to many in New York and Washington DC including Attorney General, Loretta Lynch as well as Senator Jeff Sessions. Seems some interesting powers are working phones to determine future damage to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and others with their fingerprints on the matter.

Judge Wants US to Protect Trump Associate’s Secret History

ABC: A U.S. judge is urging the Obama administration to protect from public disclosure federal court records related to the once-secret criminal history of a former Donald Trump business partner.

In a highly unusual order prompted by The Associated Press, U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan said that unless the Justice Department acts before April 18, he will decide whether to make the court files public under the assumption that federal prosecutors don’t care.

The case involves Felix Sater, a Trump business associate who had pleaded guilty in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme and cooperated with the government. The AP reported in December that, even after learning about Sater’s background, Trump tapped Sater for a business development role in 2010 that included the title of senior adviser to Trump. Sater received Trump Organization business cards and was given an office within the Trump Organization’s headquarters, on the same floor as Trump’s own.

“It seems to me that the government has a unique interest in keeping documents that relate to cooperation agreements under seal,” the judge wrote in his order. “The government should speak and assert its position as to whether the public’s right to access each document in the record is outweighed by a compelling need for secrecy.”

Lawyers for the AP had asked the judge to justify sealing a five-year criminal contempt proceeding in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Not only did Cogan seal all documents in the contempt case, he also initially sealed the AP’s request that he unseal his justification for their sealing. When The New York Times asked the judge to unseal the AP’s request to unseal the sealing order, that request was sealed, too. Late last week, he made the requests by the AP and the newspaper publicly accessible — but ordered that the parties to the case file any response to them under seal.

The defendants in the contempt case, Frederick Oberlander and Richard Lerner, are attorneys whom the government said revealed once-secret court records about Sater’s crimes and cooperation. Sater’s lawyers, who once included Leslie Caldwell, now the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, have said that Sater’s cooperation was vital to national security and disclosures about his past put him in danger.

Oberlander and Lerner said they never revealed sealed records. Some of what they had been ordered not to disclose is already publicly available in the Congressional Record, they said.

“We wish that people could inspect the documents, because it would reveal judicial and prosecutorial misconduct of the highest levels,” Oberlander told the AP.

Also at issue in the case are statements that U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch — formerly the top prosecutor in Cogan’s district — made about Sater’s case before the Senate confirmed her last year. Oberlander and Lerner said the government improperly permitted Sater to use his status as a secret cooperator to commit new crimes and avoid paying restitution to past victims, who are owed millions of dollars.

In February 2015, Lynch told Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, of the Senate Judiciary Committee that information about Sater’s restitution “remains under seal,” and that the Justice Department would never waive victims’ right to restitution as part of a cooperation agreement. Court records already publicly available at the time showed that Sater was not ordered to pay restitution and the government never requested it. One of Sater’s attorneys said in a statement at the time that the government had waived restitution payments partly out of gratitude to Sater.

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Melanie Newman, told the AP that Lynch’s comments were accurate because some documents related to restitution in Sater’s case remain under seal.

Oberlander told the AP that the original cooperation agreement Sater signed in 1998, which has been publicly available since 2013, said Sater acknowledged that the penalty for his crime included roughly $60 million in restitution payments to victims.

The New York judge has twice asked the Justice Department to pursue contempt charges against the two lawyers who revealed Sater’s cooperation. In both cases, local federal prosecutors recused themselves over unspecified conflicts of interest after consulting with Justice Department officials in Washington. They referred the case to federal prosecutors in Albany, New York, who likewise did not act.

In his latest order, Cogan again urged prosecutors to go after Oberlander and Lerner.

“One would think that the desire to ensure that further informants cooperate in government investigations should also motivate the government to take swift action against individuals who seek to expose the identity of informants, their proffered criminal history and the details of their cooperation,” the judge wrote.

Sater’s attorney, Robert Wolf, said the judge was right.

“Mr. Sater shares and supports the court’s frustration and outrage as to why these rogue lawyers have not yet been criminally prosecuted,” Wolf said in a statement. He credited Sater with providing information that “potentially saved tens of thousands, if not millions, of our citizens’ lives.”

Sater pleaded guilty in 1998 to one count of racketeering for his role in a broad stock fraud scheme involving the prominent Genovese and Bonanno crime families, according to court records. Five years earlier, a New York State court had sentenced Sater to more than a year in prison for stabbing a man in the face with a broken margarita glass.

Cuba: Where is Barack and the Pope on This?

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Members of dissident group "Ladies in White", wives of former political prisoners, are detained during their protest on March 20, 2016 in Havana. President Barack Obama flew out of the United States on Sunday bound for a historic three-day visit to the communist-ruled island of Cuba. It is the first visit to Cuba by a sitting US president since Fidel Castro's guerrillas overthrew the US-backed government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and the first since President Calvin Coolidge's trip to the island 88 years ago. / AFP / ADALBERTO ROQUE (Photo credit should read ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images)

Traveling with a delegation of about 80, Barack Obama has arrived in Cuba, something no sitting president has done since Calvin Coolidge. It is not clear who Obama will have meetings with, but his first stop was the recently fully opened U.S. embassy.

Meanwhile, there are real things going on in Havana that many are ignoring especially media and the entire diplomatic delegation. Obama calls this a new day in relations but it is hardly so when it comes to human rights.

The Pope played a large role in re-starting talks but it all began in earnest at the Nelson Mandela funeral.

The average salary for Cubans is $20.00 USD per month. All monies that flow into the island have two destinations, the Castro regime and the military.

Facts about Cuba: Venezuela ships 100,000 barrels of oil to Cuba a day. Only a few years ago, Putin forgave $32 billion in Cuban debt. Cuba has a long history of human rights violations such that John Kerry’s advance trip, ahead of Obama’s was cancelled due to major disputes with diplomatic personnel. Cuba’s military is known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces and all people between the ages of 17-28 have mandatory service.

Russia has an intelligence and spy base in Lourdes, Cuba as does China which is located in Bejucal, Cuba. Both of these bases spy on telecom transmissions, phone, satellite ad internet.

Chinese telecommunications spybase in Bejucal, Cuba  Bejucal   Lourdes

Meanwhile……

Violent Arrests of Pro-Democracy Activists Precede Obama Landing in Cuba

Hours before President Barack Obama landed in Havana to meet with high-ranking members of the island’s repressive communist regime, more than 50 pro-democracy dissidents were beaten and arrested, shoved into buses to be shipped into the nation’s jails to prevent them from disturbing official activities.

Breitbart: At least 50 of those arrested are members of the Ladies in White, a mostly-Catholic dissident group comprised of the wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters of prisoners of conscience. The Ladies in White members joined a larger group of anti-communist dissidents in Havana following their weekly attendance at Mass. Service this Sunday is especially important to Catholics as they celebrate Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.

“It was brutal, there are people with fractures and contusions,” Antonio Rodiles, leader of the dissident group Estado de SATS, told the Spain-based Diario de Cuba. “They hit us with everything.” The newspaper notes that Rodiles spoke to them via telephone, and the chaos of mass arrests happening around him threatened to drown out his own voice on the phone. Rodiles was subsequently arrested.

In addition to the 50 members of the Ladies in White and Antonio Rodiles, Danilo Maldonado, an artist known as “El Sexto,” was arrested in the fray.

***

Maldonado was recently released from prison after serving a ten-month sentence for painting the names “Fidel” and “Raúl” on the backs of two pigs for an Animal Farm-themed art project.

The protesters all carried signs and chanted slogans directed at President Obama, calling for him to reconsider his friendly stance towards dictator Raúl Castro. The Ladies in White marched holding a sign reading “Obama, Nothing Has Changed Here.” Another group of dissidents held a sign reading “Obama, traveling to Cuba is not fun. No more violations of human rights.”

While Sunday’s arrests yielded much more dramatic images due to the unusually high number of media representatives on the island for President Obama’s visit, there is evidence that the communist government has been working all week to keep the nation’s most vocal opponents of communism silent. On Saturday, a man named Ciro Alexis Casanova Pérez was arrested for placing a sign on his window reading “Neither Obama nor Castro, Freedom for Cuba.” He was taken to the hospital after his arrest for severe body aches, a sign he was beaten by police during his arrest.

Pérez was among more than 200 arrested yesterday, according to Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) leader José Daniel Ferrer, who attested to the arrest of 209 members of his group in Oriente, the eastern end of Cuba. In contrast, the Cuban government arrested about 250 dissidents throughout the entirety of Pope Francis’ visit in September.

In addition to those taken to jail, at least one is being held under house arrest without charge. The man: Zaqueo Báez, who made international headlines in September for daring to approach Pope Francis’ vehicle in Havana and say the word “freedom” within earshot of the pontiff. Báez was beaten severely in front of the pope and taken to prison, facing criminal charges for disturbing the peace. Pope Francis later denied any knowledge of the incident despite his proximity to it.

The Cuban dissident community has loudly opposed President Obama’s visit, arguing that his presence on the island would embolden the Cuban government to act more violently against pro-democracy activists. “These sorts of visits bring a lot of collateral damage,” dissident Marta Beatriz Roque said in February.

Studies of Castro regime behavior following President Obama’s announcement in December 2017 that he would be establishing diplomatic ties with the Castro dictatorship show that Havana has become more oppressive and violent against those who demand to live in a democratic society. “There has been no substantial improvement in regard to human rights and individual freedoms on the island… [The Cuban government] has adapted its repressive methods in order to make them invisible to the scrutinizing, judgmental eyes of the international community, but it has not reduced the level of pressure or control over the opposition,” a report by the Czech NGO People in Need concluded in December.

Declaring Genocide: Does it Mean Anything?

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John Kerry and Barack Obama finally declared ‘genocide’ with regard to Islamic State but why stop with ISIS? What about Bashir al Assad but mostly what about Mahmoud Abbas? For the Obama White House, Iran certainly does not matter either.

Obama did finally declare genocide after the lawyers reviewed and advised him. But does it matter?

The Genocide Convention says it does matter.

 

In 2009, Barack Obama in Oslo accepting the Nobel Peace Prize award.

THE PRESIDENT:  Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility.  It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations — that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate.  Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.

And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated.  (Laughter.)  In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage.  Compared to some of the giants of history who’ve received this prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight.  And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics.  I cannot argue with those who find these men and women — some known, some obscure to all but those they help — to be far more deserving of this honor than I.

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars.  One of these wars is winding down.  The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I’m responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.  Some will kill, and some will be killed.  And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict — filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other. Full speech here.

What is worse a war, nuclear weapon or genocide? Dead is dead.

May: In the Yemeni port city of Aden earlier this month, Islamists attacked a Catholic home for the indigent elderly. The militants, believed to be soldiers of the Islamic State, shot the security guard, then entered the facility where they gunned down the old people and their care-givers, including four nuns. At least 16 people were murdered. Such atrocities are no longer seen as major news events. Most diplomats regard them – or dismiss them — as “violent extremism,” a phrase that describes without explaining. On America’s campuses, “activists” are deeply concerned about “trigger warnings” and “microaggressions.” Massacres of Christians in Muslim lands, by contrast, seem to trouble them not at all. More here.

Sure they do get it right on Islamic State, when Germany is forecasted as a future target as a matter of sampling.

GateStoneInstitute:

  • Hans-Georg Maaßen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV), warned that the Islamic State was deliberately planting jihadists among the refugees flowing into Europe, and reported that the number of Salafists in Germany has now risen to 7,900. This is up from 7,000 in 2014 and 5,500 in 2013.
  • “Salafists want to establish an Islamic state in Germany.” — Hans-Georg Maaßen, director, BfV, German intelligence.
  • More than 800 German residents — 60% of whom are German passport holders — have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Of these, roughly one-third have returned to Germany. — Federal Criminal Police Office.
  • Up to 5,000 European jihadists have returned to the continent after obtaining combat experience on the battlefields of the Middle East. — Rob Wainwright, head of Europol.

Going back to 2013: BBC: UN implicates Bashar al-Assad in Syria war crimes, “The UN’s human rights chief has said an inquiry has produced evidence that war crimes were authorised in Syria at the “highest level”, including by President Bashar al-Assad. It is the first time the UN’s human rights office has so directly implicated Mr Assad. Commissioner Navi Pillay said her office held a list of others implicated by the inquiry. The UN estimates more than 100,000 people have died in the conflict.”