CyberWar on America Costs Close to a $Trillion

Posted on December 18, 2014December 18, 2014 by Denise Simon

It is not just North Korea, the cyber warriors are also in Ukraine, China, Syria, Russian and Iran. America has some defenses, but normal users and the business industry has few robust and intolerant choices against cyber attacks.

We need to challenge Congress to declare cyber attacks as an act of war given the heavy costs to theft, risk and attacks on harden targets including the power grid systems, transportation, food, banks, water, yet most of all intelligence and military secrets.

The most recent attack on Sony intranet system is pointing to North Korea as having the cyber-soldiers and that brigade is called Unit 121.

Defense News: Military planners and security experts have intensified their shouts of concern about the development of cyber weapons and the distinct possibility of a cyber war. Cyber warfare is not new. It has been in modern military doctrine for the past decade not to mention the number of terrorist groups who have threatened the use of cyber weapons against the west. However, what has changed is the number of countries that posess these capabilities today.
The North Korean military created a new unit that focuses solely on cyber warfare. The unit, dubbed Unit 121, was first created in 1998 and has steadily grown in size and capability since then. Interest in establishing cyber war forces shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but North Koreas intense effort stands out among the top ten nations developing cyber weapons.
Unit 121 Capabilities Assessment:
Force Size: Originally 1,000 — Current Estimate:17,000
Budget: Total military budget $6 billion USD. Cyber Budget $70+ million. North Koreas military budget is estimated to be the 25th largest in the world.
Goal: To increase their military standing by advancing their asymmetric and cyber warfare.
Ambition: To dominate their enemys information infrastructure, create social unrest and inflict monetary damage.
Strategy: Integrate their cyber forces into an overall battle strategy as part of a combined arms campaign. Additionally they wish to use cyber weapons as a limited non-war time method to project their power and influence.
Experience: Hacked into the South Korea and caused substantial damage; hacked into the U.S. Defense Department Systems.
Threat Rating: North Korea is ranked 8th on the Spy-Ops cyber capabilities threat matrix developed in August of 2007.
Capabilities
Cyber Intelligence/Espionage: Basic to moderately advanced
weapons with significant ongoing development into cyber intelligence.
Offensive Cyber Weapons: Moderately advanced distributed
denial of service (DDoS) capabilities with moderate virus and malicious code capabilities.
North Korea now has the technical capability to construct and deploy an array of cyber weapons as well as battery-driven EMP (electro magnetic pulse) devices that could disrupt electronics and computers at a limited range.
In the late spring of 2007, North Korea conducted another test of one of the cyber weapons in their current arsenal. In October, the North Koreans tested its first logic bomb. A logic bomb is a computer program that contains a piece of malicious code that is designed to execute or be triggered should certain events occur or at a predetermined point of time. Once triggered, the logic bomb can take the computer down, delete data of trigger a denial of service attack by generating bogus transactions.
For example, a programmer might write some software for his employer that includes a logic bomb to disable the software if his contract is terminated.
The N Korean test led to a UN Security Council resolution banning sales of mainframe computers and laptop PCs to the East Asian nation. The action of the United Nations has had little impact and has not deterred the North Korean military for continuing their cyber weapons development program.
Keeping dangerous cyber weapons out of the hands of terrorists or outlaw regimes is next to impossible. As far back as 2002, White House technology adviser Richard Clarke told a congressional panel that North Korea, Iraq and Iran were training people for internet warfare. Most information security experts believe that it is just a matter of time before the world sees a significant cyber attack targeted at one specific country. Many suggest the danger posed by cyber weapons rank along side of nuclear weapons, but without the physical damage. The signs are there. We need to take action and prepare for the impact of a cyber war.

North Korea’s Elite Hackers Who Live Like Stars In Luxury Hotel

Unit 121 is known to have two distinct functions: to carry out disruptive attacks against systems primarily in the United States and South Korea, both for purposes of sabotage and intelligence gathering, and to defend North Korea from incoming cyber attacks.

North Korea, however, has very little internet infrastructure, which analysts say actually gives the country an advantage. While North Korea can launch massive attacks against the West — the Sony attack being just the latest — outside nations can do little to damage North Korea’s own internal digital systems because they largely don’t exist.

Inside North Korea, use of the internet is strictly limited to government approved personnel. Ordinary citizens may utilize only an intranet run by Kim Jong Un regime, which allows access to government approved sites and state-operated media, but no access to what the rest of the world knows as the internet and the World Wide Web.

Instead, according to a report prepared in 2009 by a U.S. military intelligence analyst, Steve Sin, the Unit 121 hackers operate mostly from the luxurious Chilbosan in Shenyang, China, pictured below, a facility with amenities that would be unknown to all but the top level government elites inside North Korea, an impoverished country racked by famine.

The hotel is located in a military-controlled region of China just three hours from the border with North Korea. The central headquarters of Unit 121 is located in Pyongyang, in a district called Moonshin-dong, near the Taedong River

In fact, by North Korean standards, the cyber hackers of Unit 121 (also referred to as “Bureau 121″) are treated like superstars, afforded high-class lifestyles inconceivable to the vast majority of North Korean citizens.

In addition to Sin’s report, the Hewlett-Packard corporation conducted its own investigation into the threat posed by Unit 121 — which was created in 1998 and operates with a budget of more than $6 billion. Much of the information known about the highly-secretive unit comes from those reports, and from North Korean defectors who have passed information to U.S. and South Korean intelligence.

According to those accounts, the hackers who comprise the unit are the cream of North Korea’s academic crop in math and computer science, hand-picked from high schools around the country, who are then sent to study at Keumseong, the top high school in the North Korea capital of Pyongyang.

From there, the candidates who pass a rigorous series of tests and trials are sent to study at top universities — and then sent to Russia and China for an additional year of specialized training in computer hacking and cyberwar techniques.

Unit 121 is believed responsible for an attack on 30,000 computers inside South Korean banks and media companies in 2013, an attack that security experts say bore strong similarities to the Sony hack.

Against South Korea, North Korea allegedly has already carried out a series of disruptive and destructive operations in the past few years. Discounting previous distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on websites, the first major cyber-attack attributed to North Korea was on April 12, 2011, which paralyzed online banking and credit card services of Nonghyup Agricultural Bank for its 30 million customers. This is the first instance where North Korea used a disc wiping tool. While its ATMs were fixed within a couple days, some of the online services had taken more than two weeks to return to normal operating status, with 273 out of 587 servers destroyed. The second incident occurred in March 20, 2013, which used similar but improved tactics from April 2011. It was timed to simultaneously target multiple banks and broadcasting agencies with disc wiping tools and was preceded by an extensive advanced persistent threat campaign. The scale of the March 20 attack demonstrated that North Korea has at least one dedicated, permanent cyber unit directed against carefully selected targets and that they have the means to penetrate, exploit, and disrupt target systems and networks with sufficient secrecy.

Congress Blind-Sided on Cuba Shift is False

Posted on December 18, 2014December 18, 2014 by Denise Simon

First the White House said no to Cuba and the prisoner swap. Alan Gross was a top asset sent to Cuba to investigate and impede the Cuba/Russian spy network designed to infiltrate United States Southern Command. There was some great success is the Cuban spies providing intelligence back to the island and then far beyond.

The White House going back to 2009 has announced a series of policy changes regarding Cuba. These objectives were in cadence with the State Department, the U.S. Treasury and the Commerce Secretary as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Several congressional committees were well aware of the epic shift of appeasement to the Communist country. Congress was hardly blind-sided including a prisoner swap as this has been a tactic of the White House.

It seems to grow the economy and to increase trade, the White House policy wonks think it is a prudent move to open diplomacy with a communist country after-all it works with China.

U.S. Policy
Congress has played an active role in shaping policy toward Cuba, including the enactment of legislation strengthening and at times easing various U.S. economic sanctions. While U.S. policy has consisted largely of isolating Cuba through economic sanctions, a second policy component has consisted of support measures for the Cuban people, including U.S. government-sponsored broadcasting (Radio and TV Martí) and support for human rights and democracy projects. The Obama Administration has continued this similar dual-track approach. While the Administration has lifted all restrictions on family travel and remittances, eased restrictions on other types of purposeful travel, and moved to reengage Cuba on several bilateral issues, it has also maintained most U.S. economic sanctions in place. On human rights, the Administration welcomed the release of many political prisoners in 2010 and 2011, but it has also criticized Cuba’s continued harsh repression of political dissidents through thousands of short-term detentions and targeted violence. The Administration has continued to call for the release of U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross, detained in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2011, and maintains that Gross’s detention remains an impediment to more constructive relations.
Legislative Activity
Strong interest in Cuba is continuing in the 113th Congress with attention focused on economic and political developments, especially the human rights situation, and U.S. policy toward the island nation, including sanctions. The continued imprisonment of Alan Gross remains a key concern for many Members. In March 2013, Congress completed action on full-year FY2013 appropriations with the approval of H.R. 933 (P.L. 113-6), and in January 2014, it completed action on an FY2014 omnibus appropriations measure, H.R. 3547 (P.L. 113-76)—both of these measures continued funding for Cuba democracy and human rights projects and Cuba broadcasting (Radio and TV Martí). Both the House and Senate versions of the FY2014 Financial Services and General Government appropriations measure, H.R. 2786 and S. 1371, had provisions that would have tightened and eased travel restrictions respectively, but none of these provisions were included in the FY2014 omnibus appropriations measure (P.L. 113-76).
For FY2015, the Administration is requesting $20 million for Cuba democracy projects (the same being provided for FY2014) and $23.130 million for Cuba broadcasting.

Congressional Research Service
Cuba: U.S. Policy and Issues for the 113th Congress FY2014)

The House Appropriation Committee reported out H.R. 5013 (H.Rept. 113-499), the FY2015 State Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Act, on June 27, 2014, which would make available $20 million “to promote democracy and strengthen civil society in Cuba,” and provide not less than $28.266 million for Cuba broadcasting. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported out its version of the appropriations measure, S. 2499 (S.Rept. 113-195), on June 19, 2014, which would provide up to $10 million for Cuba democracy programs and an additional $5 million for programs to provide technical and other assistance to support the development of private businesses in Cuba; the Senate measure would also provide $23.130 million for Cuba broadcasting.
With regard to U.S. sanctions on Cuba, the House version of the FY2015 Financial Services and General Government Appropriation bill, H.R. 5016 (H.Rept. 113-508), approved July 16, 2014, has a provision that would prohibit the use of any funds in the Act “to approve, license, facilitate, authorize or otherwise allow” people-to-people travel.
Several other initiatives on Cuba have been introduced in the 113th Congress. Several would lift or ease U.S. economic sanctions on Cuba: H.R. 214 and H.R. 872 (overall embargo); H.R. 871 (travel); and H.R. 873 (travel and agricultural exports). H.R. 215 would allow Cubans to play organized professional baseball in the United States. H.R. 1917 would lift the embargo and extend nondiscriminatory trade treatment to the products of Cuba after Cuba releases Alan Gross from prison. Identical initiatives, H.R. 778/S. 647 would modify a 1998 trademark sanction; in contrast, H.R. 214, H.R. 872, H.R. 873, and H.R. 1917 each have a provision that would repeal the sanction. H.Res. 121 would honor the work of Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez. H.Res. 262 would call for the immediate extradition or rendering of all U.S. fugitives from justices in Cuba.

So this begs the question, who really benefits on the Cuban side, when the benefits to America are in the zero category?

From Fox Business: There is a price that the Cuban regime will exact from American companies to do business there if U.S.-Cuba relations are fully normalized, a price that likely won’t benefit the country’s lower classes, but will instead line the pockets of Castro & Co., experts on Cuba warn.

Because of its tight grip, the Castro regime has kept Cuba’s GDP hamstrung. It’s economy is now at a tiny $72.3 billion, less than half that of the state of Iowa, notes Richard J. Peterson, senior director at S&P Capital IQ. In fact, the average worker earns less than $25 a month.

Cuba is in crisis, it needs a bailout. Its crony communism has failed, it is steeped in debt, and its money is running low. Historically, Cuba has enjoyed lifelines in the form of money and oil from Venezuela, which had been generously supplying 100,000 free barrels of oil a day, estimates show, nearly two-thirds of Cuba’s consumption needs.

But Venezuela is on the brink of financial collapse as oil continues to plunge toward $60 a barrel, according to sources there, and it cannot supply Cuba the oil it needs. Plus Venezuela is now enduring three health epidemics: Malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya. Russia has also subsidized Cuba’s economy, but it, too, faces a severe economic contraction as oil nosedives.

Cuba needs tourism dollars, it needs trade and bank credits to save itself from bankruptcy. But it wants all that even while it keeps its failed government model in place. But it wants all that even while it keeps its failed government model in place. Cuba is run by a Soviet-style nomenklatura filled with party elites who call the shots behind the scenes, and who have gotten spectacularly wealthy in the process, all while abusing its people and business partners. Critics of the government, perceived enemies of the state, even those calling for basic human rights continue to be arbitrarily imprisoned without charge or due process, many beaten, even killed.

The Cuban power elite are the Castro brothers and their families, their party chieftains and army leaders. The Cuban economy has changed little since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Unchecked by a probing, independent media or Congress, the Cuban power elite enjoy rich salaries, vacations overseas, yachts, Internet access, beach compounds and satellite dishes to see U.S. movies, notes Cuban émigré and lawyer Nelson Carbonell, author of “And the Russians Stayed: The Sovietization of Cuba” (William Morrow & Co., 1989). The communists in Cuba routinely expropriate the assets of foreign investors, and have seized and control everything of value, including hotels, car distributors, banks, the sugar industry, resorts.

Just as Friedrich Engel, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, once said holds true of Cuba today, that “once in the saddle,” a new ruling class “has never failed to consolidate its rule at the expense of the working class and to transform social leadership into exploitation.”

If relations are fully normalized, American tourist dollars would pour into companies owned by the Castro regime, since tourism is controlled by both the military and General Raul Castro, warns the Cuba Transition Project (CTP).

That means rum, tobacco, hotels and resorts are all owned and operated by the regime and its security forces. Cuba’s dominant company is the Grupo Gaesa, founded by Raul Castro in the nineties and controlled and operated by the Cuban military, which oversees all investments. Cuba’s Gaviota, run by the Cuban military, operates Cuba’s tourism trade, its hotels, resorts, car rentals, nightclubs, retail stores and restaurants. Gaesa is run by Raul’s son-in-law, Colonel Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas.

The number of foreign companies doing business in Cuba have been cut by more than half since the 1990s, to 190 from some 400. Reasons include: Being forced to partner with army-controlled groups; hire workers through state agencies; and the freezing of bank deposits. Complaints have poured in from former senior executives at Dow Chemical, General Mills, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Colgate-Palmolive, Bacardi, American Express Bank, PepsiCo, Warner Communications, Martin Marietta Aluminum and Amex Nickel Corporation. Iberia, Spain’s national airline which at one time accounted for 10% of foreign commerce with Cuba, killed its Havana routes because they were unprofitable.

If U.S.-Cuba relations are normalized, fresh, new American dollars will only enrich the elite, “dollars will trickle down to the Cuban poor in only small quantities, while state and foreign enterprises will benefit most,” warns CTP, adding U.S. travelers to Cuba could still be “subject to harassment and imprisonment.” Over the decades, tourists visiting Cuba from Canada, Europe and Latin America and spending money there have only strengthened Cuba’s totalitarian state, it notes. There is a chance the free-flow of information from free trade could spark change long-term, but that could trigger an immediate, violent crackdown from the Cuban government, much like what occurred during the Arab spring.

Another significant factor: Corruption is rampant in Cuba, it has no independent, transparent, legal system, Cuba appoints its judges and licenses lawyers, and it repeatedly arrests peaceful pro-democracy activists.

Plus it is a debtor nation with a long history of defaulting on its loans. U.S. businesses risk having their operations confiscated by the government, and/or never seeing their loans repaid.

Cuba exports nickel, but that is largely controlled by Canadian interests, and its sugar industry is on the ropes. About 600 European suppliers have had over $1 billion arbitrarily frozen by the government since 2009, “and several investments have been confiscated,” CTP says.

In fact, Cuban law lets the government confiscate foreign assets for “public utility” or “social interest,” CTP says. Three CEOs of companies doing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of business in Cuba were arrested and stuck in jail without charges or due process: Cy Tokmakjian of the Tokmakjian Group, Sarkis Yacoubian of Tri-Star Caribbean, from Canada, and Amado Fakhre of Coral Capital of Great Britain.

All of this is why Cuba is ranked 176th out of 177 countries on the index of economic freedom put out by the Heritage Foundation, beating North Korea at dead last, but ranking worse than Iran and Zimbabwe.

Taliban vs. Taliban or Not

Posted on December 17, 2014December 17, 2014 by Denise Simon

The War on Terror is left to the home countries to fight for themselves as the White House has ordered the footprint lifted from the region, leaving behind residual forces for training and oversight. So, in desperation, Pakistan is collaborating with Afghanistan on what to do now after the devastating bloody and deadly attack on a school.

Why does Afghanistan and Pakistan matter to the West? Be reminded that the attack on America on 9/11 was planned and funded in Afghanistan and the Taliban gave safe haven to al Qaeda on both sides of the border.

The WSJ writes: Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, flew to Kabul on a surprise visit Wednesday to discuss ways to combat the Taliban, reaching out a day after the massacre of schoolchildren in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Gen. Sharif, who was accompanied by the head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, is expected to discuss Islamabad’s security concerns with Afghan and U.S. officials in the aftermath of the attack that killed at least 148 people, including 132 children.

The Pakistani Taliban, some of whose leaders are based on Afghan soil, claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack, saying it was in retaliation against the Pakistani military’s operation against militants in the border area of North Waziristan.

The Pakistani Taliban use sanctuaries on both sides of the porous Afghan-Pakistan border, with the group’s leader, Mullah Fazlullah, operating out of Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces, according to Pakistani and Western diplomats.

Islamabad has previously accused elements of Afghanistan’s security establishment of using the Pakistani Taliban as proxies. Kabul has denied this allegation, and in turn has long accused Pakistan of harboring the separate Afghan Taliban insurgents and the Haqqani network. The U.S. has also criticized Pakistan and the ISI spy agency for their ties to the Afghan insurgents.

According to the Pakistani military, Gen. Sharif and ISI chief Lt. Gen. Rizwan Akhtar plan to meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and the head of the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. John Campbell.

In these meetings, Gen. Sharif is expected to press Afghanistan to hand over Mullah Fazlullah, a long-standing Pakistani demand.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, speaking at a meeting of political leaders in Peshawar on Wednesday, said that Pakistan and Afghanistan had agreed that their soils wouldn’t be used for actions against each other.

“This resolve should be acted upon,” said Prime Minister Sharif. “An operation is needed against those terrorist elements on that [Afghan] side. We are already doing an operation here.”

Since he came to office in September, President Ghani has sought to improve Afghanistan’s ties with Pakistan. During the Afghan leader’s visit to Islamabad last month, Prime Minister Sharif said he would support Afghanistan’s efforts to reach out to the Afghan Taliban, raising hope that Afghanistan’s stalled peace process could be revived.

The Afghan Taliban use Pakistan’s border regions as staging areas for attacks in Afghanistan, and U.S. and Afghan officials say the insurgent movement receives material support from Pakistan’s military establishment. Islamabad has repeatedly rejected these accusations.

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s attack, however, the alleged connections between Afghanistan and the Pakistani Taliban risk reigniting tensions between the two neighbors, and set back Mr. Ghani’s efforts to start peace talks.

Shoes lie in blood on the auditorium floor on Wednesday at the Army Public School in Peshawar, which was attacked by Taliban gunmen a day earlier. Fayaz Aziz/Reuters

The Pakistani military’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa, said that after the North Waziristan operation was launched by Pakistan in June, “hardly any action” was taken in response on the Afghan side of the border.

However, the situation has changed since the new Afghan government took over, he said. “We are hoping that there will be a very strong action, a corresponding action from Afghanistan’s side, from across the border in the coming days,” he said.

Earlier this month, U.S. forces handed over the Pakistani Taliban’s former No. 2, Latif Mehsud, to Pakistani authorities, a move that indicated improved cooperation between Washington and Islamabad.

U.S. forces captured Mr. Mehsud last year while he was with Afghan officials, an episode Islamabad saw as evidence that Afghanistan was supporting the Pakistani Taliban.

The U.S. military had kept Mr. Mehsud in custody in the sprawling base of Bagram Air Field, where the coalition recently ceased operating its detention center.

***

So one must also understand that both Taliban factions are highly connected.

Textbook terrorism in Peshawar

Pakistan’s darkest hour as Taliban kill more than 100 students in school attack

ISLAMABAD – As of this article’s publication, at least 100 children have been killed in an attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan. Five hundred students were held hostage before the army broke the siege. In total, 135 people have been killed so far. The Pakistani Taliban have taken responsibility for the massacre.

It truly is a Black Day for Pakistan, and it comes just days after Malala Yousafzai’s crowning as the youngest ever Nobel Prize winner.

The timing is not a coincidence. The Taliban’s abhorrence for education, especially girls’ education, is well known.

The attack on the school has a dual purpose. It should be understood as a message to those who value education and hold Malala as an icon. Secondly, and more importantly, the attack is retaliation against the Pakistani army. The Taliban have killed two birds with one stone.

The attack should be condemned for what it is: textbook terrorism. The word textbook is not used as a pun, for it is far more serious than that. The Taliban are targeting innocent civilians and, in this case, the most vulnerable members of society, in order to get back at the Pakistani state for its increasingly, albeit still limited, anti-Taliban policies. Holding civilians hostage for political ends is the very definition of terrorism — and the Taliban have shown over the last 10 years how adept they are in using this strategy, with thousands of Pakistanis dead in the wake of their relentless bloodletting.

Holding civilians hostage for political ends is the very definition of terrorism

The message for Pakistani society is ominous, and it has been since the Taliban insurgency inside Pakistan began, right after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Many ignored the danger despite the overwhelming evidence. With one intellectual stunt or another, the blame was shifted to some kind of outside conspiracy.

However, even the Pakistani army, the mother of all the Jihadi groups inside the country, realized a few years ago that the Taliban now pose a mortal threat to the country. The army’s doctrine has, somewhat, shifted from its hyper-focus on India to the internal challenge of the Taliban.

The Taliban have gained this much strength thanks to the army’s policy of allowing them to gather and recuperate in North and South Waziristan

The Taliban have gained this much strength thanks to the army’s policy of allowing them to gather and recuperate in North and South Waziristan, with the goal of eventually using them as a bargaining chip not only against the U.S. but also to do Pakistan’s bidding in the Afghan endgame. Now out of hand, battling the Taliban was always going to be a bloody affair. They are a dedicated force, capable of challenging the country’s army. Certainly, they are more than capable of making the people of Pakistan bleed.

What has also not helped is the army’s policy of ‘good vs. bad Taliban.’ The good Taliban are those who do the dirty work for Pakistan in Afghanistan (and in the rest of the Pakistani provinces for the dominant Punjab province) without ever turning the guns against the Pakistani state. The bad Taliban, on the other hand, are those who have gone rogue. Until this day, the Pakistani army maintains this dual policy. Only a few years ago, General Hamid Gul, former head of the Pakistani intelligence, defended this policy and said that the Taliban are the future in Afghanistan. Due to this, it is impossible to dismantle the entire ideological and material infrastructure of Jihad in Pakistan. Under such conditions, both the good and the bad Taliban continue to flourish since, at the end of the day, the difference between the two is minimal.

Added to this is the civil government’s policy of appeasing the militants with so-called peace talks. The government always approached these talks from a position of weakness, and after each and every round of negotiations the Taliban only gained further strength. Inviting the Taliban to the negotiating table also meant validating their demands and treating them as a legitimate stakeholder in the affairs of the country.

We have arrived at this day due to the myopic and self-serving policies of the civilian government and the Pakistani army. To even begin to right the wrongs of the past, Pakistan has to come to a consensus that the Taliban, whether ‘friendly’ or otherwise, are an existential threat to the very fabric of this society. Jihadism inside Pakistan cannot be blamed on any outside forces. Doing so would be at Pakistan’s own peril.

Inertia and inaction aside, even when the state does try to combat the Taliban, it does so in ways that unnecessarily backfire. For example, the army uses scorched-earth tactics of warfare and inflicts collective punishment on entire tribes in its operations in Waziristan. When millions of refugees are created in the aftermath of military operations, their rehabilitation is not done by the state but by the charity wings of different Jihadi organizations, who find recruits in the refugee ranks.

The Taliban have claimed that the Peshawar school attack was meant as a lesson for Pakistan: “We targeted school because army targets our families. We want them to feel our pain.” But the Taliban claim should be taken with a pinch of salt since their barbarism knows no principles. Certainly, their mission had an ideological bent to it since they asked the students to recite the Kalma (the Muslim declaration of allegiance to the faith) before shooting them.

Who is to say that a less heavy-handed method of dealing with the Taliban could have prevented this heinous act of revenge? When dealt with using peaceful methods, the Taliban have acted no different. Pakistan should not bow to the threats of terrorists.

Pakistan should not bow to the threats of terrorists.

The best hope is that this attack will finally convince the country’s leadership that meaningful, concentrated, and long-term action needs to be taken across the board.

One thing is evident: the Taliban have a coherent policy for dealing with Pakistan and its people. Pakistan should form one for dealing with the Taliban before it is too late.

Jahanzeb Hussain is Ricochet’s South Asian Bureau Chief, based in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Prisoner Swap Normalize Relations with Cuba

Posted on December 17, 2014December 17, 2014 by Denise Simon

It is another prisoner swap, this time with Cuba. New diplomatic relations are a top priority for the State Department and some rich Cuban that was an Obama campaign bundler could probably be the new Ambassador. Cuba’s bad behavior and past history has been rewarded by Barack Obama packaged under the wrappings of humanitarian and economic objectives.

This begs the question, does this ‘normalizing relations with Cuba have something to do with closing Guantanamo? What is the over and under bet on Obama turning over the military base completely to Castro and walking away from Guantanamo completely?

Obama has also demanded that Cuba release many of its prisoners. The Obama administration used Canada as the negotiations mediator.

Washington (CNN) — U.S. contractor Alan Gross, held by the Cuban government since 2009, was freed Wednesday as part of a landmark deal with Cuba that paves the way for a major overhaul in U.S. policy toward the island, senior administration officials tell CNN.

President Barack Obama spoke with Cuban President Raul Castro Tuesday in a phone call that lasted about an hour and reflected the first communication at the presidential level with Cuba since the Cuban revolution, according to White House officials. Obama is expected to announce Gross’ release and the new diplomatic stance at noon in Washington. At around the same time, Cuban president Raul Castro will speak in Havana

President Obama is also set to announce a major loosening of travel and economic restrictions on the country. And the two nations are set to re-open embassies, with preliminary discussions on that next step in normalizing diplomatic relations beginning in the coming weeks, a senior administration official tells CNN.

Talks between the U.S. and Cuba have been ongoing since June of 2013 and were facilitated by the Canadians and the Vatican in brokering the deal. Pope Francis — the first pope from Latin America — encouraged Obama in a letter and in their meeting this year to renew talks with Cuba on pursuing a closer relationship.

Gross’ “humanitarian” release by Cuba was accompanied by a separate spy swap, the officials said. Cuba also freed a U.S. intelligence source who has been jailed in Cuba for more than 20 years, although authorities did not identify that person for security reasons. The U.S. released three Cuban intelligence agents convicted of espionage in 2001.

The developments constitute what officials called the most sweeping change in U.S. policy toward Cuba since 1961, when the embassy closed and the embargo was imposed.

Officials described the planned actions as the most forceful changes the president could make without legislation passing through Congress.

For a President who took office promising to engage Cuba, the move could help shape Obama’s foreign policy legacy.

“We are charting a new course toward Cuba,” a senior administration official said. “The President understood the time was right to attempt a new approach, both because of the beginnings of changes in Cuba and because of the impediment this was causing for our regional policy.”

Gross was arrested after traveling under a program under the U.S. Agency for International Development to deliver satellite phones and other communications equipment to the island’s small Jewish population.

Cuban officials charged he was trying to foment a “Cuban Spring.” In 2011, he was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempting to set up an Internet network for Cuban dissidents “to promote destabilizing activities and subvert constitutional order.”

Senior administration officials and Cuba observers have said recent reforms on the island and changing attitudes in the United States have created an opening for improved relations. U.S. and Cuban officials say Washington and Havana in recent months have increased official technical-level contacts on a variety of issues.

Obama publicly acknowledged for the first time last week that Washington was negotiating with Havana for Gross’ release through a “variety of channels.”

“We’ve been in conversations about how we can get Alan Gross home for quite some time,” Obama said in an interview with Fusion television network. “We continue to be concerned about him.”

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Gross’ Maryland congressman, are on the plane with Alan Gross and his wife, Judy, according to government officials.

The group of members left at 4 a.m. ET Wednesday from Washington for Cuba.

Gross’ lawyer, Scott Gilbert, told CNN last month the years of confinement have taken their toll on his client. Gross has lost more than 100 pounds and is losing his teeth. His hips are so weak that he can barely walk and he has lost vision in one eye. He has also undertaken hunger strikes and threatened to take his own life.

With Gross’ health in decline, a bipartisan group of 66 senators wrote Obama a letter in November 2013 urging him to “act expeditiously to take whatever steps are in the national interest to obtain [Gross’s] release.”

The three Cubans released as a part of the deal belonged the so-called Cuban Five, a quintet of Cuban intelligence officers convicted in 2001 for espionage. They were part of what was called the Wasp Network, which collected intelligence on prominent Cuban-American exile leaders and U.S. military bases.

The leader of the five, Gerardo Hernandez, was linked to the February 1996 downing of the two civilian planes operated by the U.S.-based dissident group Brothers to the Rescue, in which four men died. He is serving a two life sentences. Luis Medina, also known as Ramon Labanino; and Antonio Guerrero have just a few years left on their sentences.

The remaining two — Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez — were released after serving most of their 15-year sentences and have already returned to Cuba, where they were hailed as heroes.

Wednesday’s announcement that the U.S. will move toward restoring diplomatic ties with Cuba will also make it easier for Americans to travel to Cuba and do business with the Cuban people by extending general licenses, officials said. While the more liberal travel restrictions won’t allow for tourism, they will permit greater American travel to the island.

Secretary of State John Kerry has also been instructed to review Cuba’s place on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, potentially paving the the way a lift on certain economic and political sanctions.

The revised relationship between the U.S. and Cuba comes ahead of the March 2015 Summit of the Americas, where the island country is set to participate for the first time. In the past, Washington has vetoed Havana’s participation on the grounds it is not a democracy. This year, several countries have said they would not participate if Cuba was once again barred.

While only Congress can formally overturn the five decades-long embargo, the White House has some authorities to liberalize trade and travel to the island.

The 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which enshrined the embargo into legislation, allows for the President to extend general or specific licenses through a presidential determination, which could be justified as providing support for the Cuban people or democratic change in Cuba. Both Presidents Clinton and Obama exercised such authority to ease certain provisions of the regulations implementing the Cuba sanctions program.

The remaining two — Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez — were released after serving most of their 15-year sentences and have already returned to Cuba, where they were hailed as heroes.

While only Congress can formally overturn the five decades-long embargo, the White House has some authorities to liberalize trade and travel to the island.

Then there is the Venezuela component and additional financial ramifications.

Castro Deal With U.S. Fuels Shift Away From Venezuela

Cuba’s decision to reach an accord with the U.S. over prisoner exchanges in return for the easing of a five-decade embargo comes as the Caribbean island’s economy slows and its key benefactor, Venezuela, struggles to avoid default.

Cuba’s economy collapsed in the early 1990s when its closest ally, the Soviet Union, fell. With Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro unable to contain the world’s fastest inflation and the country’s bonds trading at default levels, Cuba President Raul Castro has been working to diversify the Communist country away from Venezuela, which provides about 100,000 barrels of oil a day in exchange for medical personnel.

Since early 2013, Castro has eased travel restrictions, increased incentives to attract foreign investment and tried to reduce public payrolls. That hasn’t boosted the economy, which is poised to expand 0.8 percent this year according to Moody’s Investors Service, less than the 2.2 percent forecast by the government at the start of 2014.

“You only need to look at the economic disaster that is Venezuela and clearly it’s a bad bet to have all your chips in one basket,” Christopher Sabatini, policy director at Council of the Americas, said in phone interview from New York. “That 100,000 barrels per day gift of oil is going to end very soon.”

U.S. President Barack Obama today said he will use his authority to begin normalizing relations with Cuba, loosening a trade and travel embargo that dates back to the early days of the Cold War. The move came after Castro released an American aid contractor, Alan Gross, who had been imprisoned for five years and an unnamed U.S. intelligence agent.

Credit Cards

Under the new policies, U.S. travelers will be able to use credit and debit cards in Cuba and Americans will be able to legally bring home as much as $100 in previously illegal Cuban cigars treasured by aficionados.

U.S. companies will be permitted to export to Cuba telecommunications equipment, agricultural commodities, construction supplies and materials for small businesses. U.S. financial institutions will be allowed to open accounts with Cuban banks.

“It’s a huge step,” Philip Peters, a Cuba scholar and vice president of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia, said in a telephone interview. “The travel will help the economy, the sales from the private sector will help.”

For Putin and Russia it is Articulus (Crisis)

Posted on December 16, 2014December 16, 2014 by Denise Simon

Since hosting the winter Olympics, Russia has been in the spot light and that light is shining brighter from his aggression on Crimea and Ukraine, so deploying military assets globally. Russia has a spy and surveillance agenda in key locations worldwide but now, Putin is in crisis mode with the Russian economy.

Presently, anyone in Russia with money is spending it quickly before the value of the currency collapses. Russians are buying appliances, cars, homes and are converting currency.

The foundations on which Vladimir Putin built his 15 years in charge of Russia are giving way.

The meltdown of the ruble, which has plunged 18 percent against the dollar in the last two days alone, is endangering the mantra of stability around which Putin has based his rule. While his approval rating is near an all-time high on the back of his stance over Ukraine, the currency crisis risks eroding it and undermining his authority, Moscow-based analysts said. The president took over from an ailing Boris Yeltsin in 1999 with pledges to banish the chaos that characterized his nation’s post-communist transition, including the government’s 1998 devaluation and default. While he oversaw economic growth and wage increases in all but one of his years as leader, the collapse in oil prices coupled with U.S. and European sanctions present him with the biggest challenge of his presidency.

“People thought: ‘he’s a strong leader who brought order and helped improve our living standards,” said Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent political analyst in Moscow. “And now it’s the same Putin, he’s still got all the power, but everything is collapsing.”

In a surprise move yesterday, the Russian central bank raised interest rates by the most in 16 years, taking its benchmark to 17 percent. That failed to halt the rout in the ruble, which has plummeted to about 70 rubles a dollar from 34 as oil prices dived by almost half to below $60 a barrel. Russia relies on the energy industry for as much as a quarter of economic output, Moody’s Investors Service said in a Dec. 9 report.

New Era

The ruble meltdown and accompanying economic slump marks the collapse of Putin’s oil-fueled economic system of the past 15 years, said an executive at Gazprombank, the lender affiliated to Russia’s state gas exporter. He asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The higher interest rate will crush lending to households and businesses and deepen Russia’s looming recession, according to Neil Shearing, chief emerging-markets economist at London-based Capital Economics Ltd.

Gross domestic product will shrink 0.8 percent next year under the Economy Ministry’s latest projection. With oil at $60, it may drop 4.7 percent, the central bank said last week.

“How many bankruptcies await us in January?” opposition lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov said on Twitter. “People will be out of work, out of money. The nightmare is only just beginning.”

Near Critical

Vladimir Gutenev, a lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party, also fretted about the central bank’s actions, calling the scale of the rate increase “unacceptable.”

“The situation concerning the financing of industry from bank credits is getting ever closer to critical,” Gutenev, who’s also first deputy president of the Machinery Construction Union, said by e-mail.

The threats to economic stability have arisen with Putin’s popularity at 85 percent after Russians lauded his approach to Ukraine following ally Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster. In particular, they cheered his annexation of Crimea, part of Russia until 1954, and shrugged off the ensuing U.S. and European sanctions that target the finance and oil industries.

While the unfolding ruble crisis may lead to a gradual erosion of Putin’s support, any protests that occur will mainly be against lower-level officials rather than Putin, said Igor Bunin, head of Moscow’s Center for Political Technologies.

“Putin is the symbol of Russia and the state for ordinary Russians,” according to Bunin, who said some members of the government may be fired as a result of the ruble chaos. “People see him as a lucky star who’ll save them. So they’re afraid to lose him as a symbol.”

Government ‘Incompetent’

Tatiana Barusheva, a 63-year-old pensioner who lives in the Gelendzhik resort city in the southern Krasnodar region, blames Putin’s underlings for the current bout of uncertainty.

“We can’t go far with this government, it’s incompetent,” she said yesterday on Moscow’s Red Square. “It doesn’t matter how hard Putin tries, but his helpers are good-for-nothing.”

Putin has already weathered one economic storm. The global financial crisis that erupted in 2008 wiped out 7.8 percent of Russia’s GDP the following year amid a similar tumble in oil prices. On that occasion, the ruble sank by about a third. The economy has grown each year since.

Even so, the sanctions mean Putin’s in a tougher bind this time round, according to Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist studying the elite at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Measures to ease the situation, such as imposing capital controls or softening Russia’s position on Ukraine, both carry additional risks, she said.

What’s happening now is worse than five years ago, according to Kirill Rogov, a senior research fellow at the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy in Moscow. Putin risks losing his image as a leader who’s in control and can steer the country through turmoil, he said.

“After 2009, there was a quick recovery,” Rogov said. “Now we’re facing an uncontrollable shock. This undermines trust in Putin’s whole economic model.”

The other self imposed conditions adding to Putin’s crisis include the falling price of oil and his covert moves in Eastern Europe.

Putin Making Belarus Into Base For Attacking Kyiv, Minsk Analyst Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, December 15 – Even as Moscow appears to be reducing its military actions in southeastern Ukraine, a “reduction” that is at least in part a disinformation campaign, Putin is making Belarus into a base for attacking Kyiv.

The appearance of more Russian “little green men” in Gomel last week prompted some Ukrainians to ask whether the Kremlin was planning to stage a Novorossiya-style move into Belarus, notes Natalya Radina, the editor of the independent Belarusian site Charter97.org.

But such questions are based on a misperception of the situation: Putin has no need of invading Belarus as he did Ukraine, she says. Instead, he has full control of Ukraine’s northern neighbor and is taking steps to prepare it to become a place d’armes from which Moscow can attack Kyiv from the north.

For the last several years, Radina continues, Russian and Belarusian forces have been engaged in joint exercises based on the assumption of countering a NATO threat. But since at least last May, after Moscow moved into Ukraine, Russian military personnel have moved into Belarus, although in an effort to hide this activity, they have dressed in Belarusian uniforms.

At that time, there were roughly 3,000 Russian officers and soldiers in Belarusian garrisons. Now, their numbers are much greater. Moreover, as the Russian defense ministry has said, Moscow is advancing the date for the establishment of a completely Russian air base in Belarus so that it will be operational early next year.

One aspect of this situation is especially worrisome, Radina suggests. Moscow has said that its Belarusian base will have numerous Mi–8 helicopters which are used not for air defense but rather for moving troops. Such planes could be used to move troops quickly in the direction of Kyiv which is not far south of the Belarusian border.

Even if Moscow does not use this base to attack Ukraine, Russia’s ability to do precisely that will force Kyiv to divide its forces and thus make it easier for Putin to put pressure on the Ukrainian government, however much some in the West will try to see any “freezing” of movement in Ukraine’s southeast as a hopeful sign that the crisis is near an end.