Truths Surface via Whistleblowers on Intel Reports

In part from JC Chairman Dempsey in position closing words:

It has to be understood at the highest levels. “When I talk to my peers in the military and when I talk to our elected officials, I talk about options and I talk about whether we’re in a period that requires either a bias for action or a bias for inaction,” he said. “But what we can’t allow is this proliferation of information to do is generate an almost insatiable appetite for more information and more options, which can actually paralyze the system.”

People want an exquisite solution, the chairman explained, and they often believe that with just a bit more information and a bit more time that a perfect solution exists. “What I’m suggesting is, as I pass the torch of the chairmanship to [Marine Corps] Gen. [Joseph] Dunford, I think that reality of making strategy in public and the risk of paralysis is much more real than it was when I became the chairman, and I can only imagine how that environment could change over the next four years.”

Whistleblower: Iraq intel ‘grossly thrown’ aside

WashingtonExaminer:

Reports about terror activity in Iraq have been “grossly thrown to the side” by officials in U.S. Central Command since the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, according to a former Army official with the command, in an attempt to paint a rosy picture of the coalition’s efforts in the Middle East.

Retired Army Sgt. 1st Class William Kotel told the Washington Examiner that he was pushed out of his position after raising concerns about “missing pieces” in reports for Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East. He had attempted to include in his official reports information about an Iraqi target that had allegedly stolen U.S. money from the Central Bank of Iraq. But the intelligence was stripped from his final report at the behest of his superiors, he said.

Since it was first reported that dozens of intelligence analysts have accused Central Command of downplaying information that suggested terrorist groups such as the Islamic State were making strategic gains, five congressional committees have opened investigations into the matter, on top of a probe by the Pentagon’s inspector general.

Kotel, who was noncommissioned officer in charge of the Joint Targets Enterprise, said warnings about imminent terror attacks in Iraq were required to be routed through a maze of Pentagon channels, a process that could take weeks, instead of communicated directly with military units in harm’s way.

He said the policy of substituting economic or environmental information for terror-related intelligence in reports was never made explicit by Central Command’s leadership, but that he and his colleagues had “implied orders” not to report facts on the ground in Iraq.

The problem, Kotel said, is not necessarily that final reports were being edited for political reasons. Instead, it’s that key intelligence wasn’t allowed in those reports in the first place.

Kotel said it was “really disheartening” when credible intelligence about terror activity was discarded.

“They’ve spent more money and time trying to push down this intelligence … than they have actually spending time and effort on real security,” he said.

Bridget Serchak, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s inspector general, declined to answer questions about when the probe was opened or when it would conclude, but said the investigation is underway.

“The investigation will address whether there was any falsification, distortion, delay, suppression, or improper modification of intelligence information; any deviations from appropriate process, procedures, or internal controls regarding the intelligence analysis,” Serchak said.

She noted there would be “personal accountability for any misconduct or failure to follow established processes.”

Two Senate and three House committees are now investigating the matter as well.

A spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed her committee had met with a whistleblower about the issue.

Senate Armed Services Chairman. John McCain said his committee is investigating the whistleblower’s claims as well.

“This committee is disturbed by recent whistleblower allegations that officials at Central Command skewed intelligence assessments to paint an overly rosy picture of conditions on the ground,” the Arizona Republican said during a hearing last week.

Gen. Lloyd Austin, head of Central Command, told the committee he would “take appropriate action” if the Defense Department’s inspector general found evidence of wrongdoing.

“Because the allegations are currently under investigation, it would be premature and inappropriate for me to discuss this matter,” Austin said during the hearing. “I cannot speak to the specifics of the allegations.”

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has urged the Pentagon to conduct an anonymous survey of intelligence analysts throughout the Defense Department to get a sense of the political pressures those analysts might face.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, two Democrats and two Republicans in the House pressed Pentagon leadership to shield whistleblowers involved in the investigation from retaliation.

Reps. Jackie Speier and Mike Thompson, both Democrats, and Reps. Duncan Hunter and Mike Coffman, both Republicans, signed the letter, which was obtained by the Examiner.

The lawmakers asked the Pentagon to report to Congress any instances of potential retaliation against whistleblowers involved in the complaint.

They pushed Carter to arrange regular briefings on the inspector general’s investigation of the intelligence tampering for “interested members” of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.

Retaliation against whistleblowers?

Hunter sent another letter to Jon Rymer, Pentagon inspector general, urging the watchdog to look into instances of retaliation against soldiers who may be attempting to speak to Congress on behalf of Sgt. Charles Martland, who is being removed from his post after confronting an Afghan police commander who had kidnapped and raped a young boy.

The Army imposed gag orders on soldiers who wanted to reach out to members of Congress, Hunter said.

But the problem extends beyond Martland’s case. The Army has a reputation for silencing whistleblowers, the California Republican wrote in his letter last week.

What’s more, the Pentagon inspector general has in the past shared information with the Army that has then been used as fodder against officials who report wrongdoing.

Because some of the whistleblowers who raised concerns about the intelligence reports are from the Army, the congressman is concerned that the military branch could discover the identities of analysts who alerted the inspector general to the tainted intelligence reports and attempt to take action against them.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Ron DeSantis, chairman of Oversight’s National Security Subcommittee, asked Carter last week for more information about the military intelligence reports on the Islamic State’s progress.

DeSantis said the oversight committee “is taking these reports very seriously” and vowed to “investigate fully.”

Maj. Genieve David, spokesperson for Central Command, said the agency “welcomes” the inspector general review.

“While we cannot comment on the specific investigation cited in the article, we can speak to the process,” David said.

She noted security assessments are based on a collection of intelligence from a variety of sources, including from military commanders on the ground and from “key” advisers.

“The multi-source nature of the assessment process purposely guards against any single report or opinion unduly influencing leaders and decision-makers,” David said.

She declined to comment on allegations that the Central Command intelligence team focused on Iraq had been pressured to leave certain information out of their reports.

The intense congressional scrutiny of the intelligence reports, especially those that involve the Islamic State, has renewed criticism of the Obama administration’s strategy to combat extremism in the Middle East.

Lawmakers are escalating their calls for a review of the president’s plan for the Islamic State, with many voicing concern that airstrikes in Syria and Iraq are not effectively deterring the terrorist organization.

*** One piece of good news:

 

Cook confirmed the Sept. 10 death of senior ISIL leader Abu Bakr al Turkmani and the July 5 death of French national David Drugeon, an al-Qaida operative and explosives expert.

The press secretary said the coalition airstrike that killed Turkmani near Tal Afar, Iraq, “will help disrupt ISIL operations in the Tal Afar area and shows that their leadership is not beyond the coalition’s reach.”

Disrupting ISIL

Turkmani, an ISIL administrative amir, was part of al-Qaida in Iraq before joining ISIL and was a close associate of many ISIL senior leaders in Iraq, Cook said. Drugeon, killed by a coalition airstrike near Aleppo, Syria, belonged to a network of veteran al-Qaida operatives sometimes called the Khorasan group, who are plotting attacks against the United States, its allies and partners, Cook told reporters.

“As an explosives expert, he trained other extremists in Syria and sought to plan external attacks against Western targets,” the press secretary said.

The action, he added, will degrade and destroy ongoing al-Qaida external operations against the United States, its allies and partners. Read more detail here.

 

Senate Democrats, the Pope, Climate Change, Oil Investments

Back in April of 2015, The Vatican held a one days summit on Climate Change where Jeffrey Sachs was the keynote speaker.

For Pope Francis, he has his own ‘green agenda’ and is quite outspoken in this global issue.

He has become an outspoken advocate on environmental issues, saying acting on climate change is “essential to faith”and calling the destruction of nature a modern sin. He has vowed to only increase pressure on world leaders after his disappointment with the Lima climate talks. He is hoping that his encyclical will influence the climate talks in Paris at the end of the year.

Just in time for the Pope’s visit, enter the Senate Democrats and the climate change legislation they have introduced today.

Reuters: U.S. Senate Democrats on Tuesday unveiled energy legislation designed to hasten America’s adoption of cleaner energy, slash greenhouse gas emissions below the Obama administration’s goal, and help their party attract young voters in the 2016 elections.

The bill, announced by Senate Democratic party leaders and the energy committee’s top Democrat, Senator Maria Cantwell, laid out the party’s vision for cutting emissions at least 34 percent by 2025.

It contrasts with a Republican approach focused on increased oil and gas production. Senator Chuck Schumer, who is expected to take over as the Senate Democratic leader from Senator Harry Reid, called it “a refreshing reprieve from the tired Republican mantra of ‘drill baby, drill.’

Although the bill has no prospect of passing in a Republican-controlled Congress, Democrats hope voters will approve of the preview of their energy policy approach if they regain control of the Senate in 2016.

Democrats said the focus on clean energy will appeal to younger voters.

“This is going to be a huge issue in the 2016 campaign,” Schumer said at the news conference.

The bill would mandate a national reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by at least 2 percent each year through 2025. That would surpass the administration’s target of a reduction of 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by that year.

United Nations-sponsored talks on fighting climate change are scheduled to begin Nov. 30 in Paris.

So, could there be some real hypocrisy in all of this? You betcha. Throughout the United States, the Catholic church is deeply invested in drilling leases and holds stock in oil companies. The revenue is astounding for the church.

Reuters: Yet in the heart of U.S. oil country several dioceses and other Catholic institutions are leasing out drilling rights to oil and gas companies to bolster their finances, Reuters has found.

And in one archdiocese — Oklahoma City — Church officials have signed three new oil and gas leases since Francis’s missive on the environment, leasing documents show.

On Francis’ first visit to the United States this week, the business dealings suggest that some leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church are practicing a different approach to the environment than the pontiff is preaching.

Catholic institutions are not forbidden from dealing with or investing in the energy industry. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) guidelines on ethical investing warn Catholics and Catholic institutions against investing in companies related to abortion, contraception, pornography, tobacco, and war, but do not suggest avoiding energy stocks, and do not address the ownership of energy production interests.

A Reuters review of county documents found 235 oil and gas leasing deals signed by Catholic Church authorities in Texas and Oklahoma with energy and land firms since 2010, covering 56 counties across the two states. None of the Texas leases in the review were signed after the pope’s encyclical.

Those two states have been at the forefront of a boom in U.S. energy production in recent years, often through the controversial hydraulic fracturing production method, known as fracking.

There are other curious investments by the Vatican while most of the financial reports are never reported publically.

Holy See Revenue and Investments
In order to gain an understanding of the complex economy of the Vatican, it is important to establish the differences between Vatican City and the Holy See. The Holy See is the governing body of the nation. If you entered into a contract with the territory, you would do it with the Holy See, in most cases. Vatican City is the physical area where the Holy See resides.

The Holy See generates revenue from Peter’s Pence, an 8th Century term for donations that are received from Catholics all over the world. From individuals to dioceses, the Holy See collects the donations through a special department. The Holy See also gains revenue from interest and investments of its reserves.

Historically, the Holy See invested mainly in Italian industries, spreading its portfolio between stocks and bonds, and limiting its stake in companies to less than 6%. It has invested conservatively, choosing to buy and hold proven companies in strong industries; because of this, investments in the developing world are limited.

More recent investments have been more international, however, particularly in western European currencies and bonds, with some activity in the New York Stock Exchange. The Holy See also has investments in real estate around the world, particularly in land and churches.
There are some investments that the Holy See won’t make however; no investments are made in companies that go against church values, such as pharmaceutical companies that manufacture birth control.

Vatican City Revenue and Banking
The Vatican, by contrast, receives revenue from more traditional stately ventures. There are no formal tourism efforts but the Vatican also collects revenue through museum admissions, tours, highly sought-after stamps and coins and the sale of publications.

Vatican City, on the other hand, was $27 million in the black after 5 million visitors toured in 2012, buying up collectibles and visiting museums.

In January, the Bank of Italy conducted routine inspections and found that Deutsche Bank Italia hadn’t sought proper authorization to process credit card transactions on behalf of the Vatican.

When Deutsche Bank asked for permission, it was turned down due to the Vatican not meeting anti-money laundering standards. The Vatican said that it’s scrambling to meet all provisions to restore credit card payments but as of now, it’s cash only if you’re visiting.

 

Damascus Airport Renamed Putin International

Just kidding on that title, well rather, tongue in cheek. Syria has always been a military base for Russia and now more so with Hezbollah in the lead for the ground game directed by GRU forces redeployed from Ukraine.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his military team met with Putin this week to come to an accommodation on the role and threat risk of Hezbollah vs. Israel.

Israel will continue to conduct strikes on weapons locations, transfer routes and smuggling which was formally agreed to by both Israel and Moscow. Meanwhile the United States is completely out of the equation mostly due to ineptness and deference, fully isolating the United States.

Embedded image permalink

Only John Kerry is making demands that at some time during these Russian/Iranian operations, Bashir al Assad will be removed from power…..yawn.

Pro-Hezbollah daily says party
in Syria pact with Russia

Al-Akhbar claimed that Russian troops will fight alongside Hezbollah in Syria

BEIRUT – A leading pro-Hezbollah daily claimed on Tuesday that the party has joined a new counter-terror alliance with Moscow and that Russia will take part in military operations alongside the Syrian army and Hezbollah.

 

Al-Akhbar’s editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote that secret talks between Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq had resulted in the birth of the new alliance, which he described as “the most important in the region and the world for many years.”

 

“The agreement to form the alliance includes administrative mechanisms for cooperation on [the issues of] politics and intelligence and [for] military [cooperation] on the battlefield in several parts of the Middle East, primarily in Syria and Iraq,” the commentator said, citing well-informed sources.
“The parties to the alliance are the states of Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah as the fifth party,” he also said, adding that the joint-force would be called the “4+1 alliance” – a play on words referring to the P5+1 world powers that negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran.

 

The Al-Akhbar article came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow over the latter country’s major military build-up in Syria.

 

Following their meeting, Netanyahu announced that Russia and Israel had agreed to “a joint mechanism for preventing misunderstandings between our forces,” and reiterated that Tel Aviv’s commitment to preventing weapon transfers from Syria to Hezbollah.

 

Putin, in turn, told Netanyahu that the Syrian regime was in “no position” to open a new front against Israel, which has conducted regular airstrikes in Syria targeting weapon transfers as well as in retaliation to cross-border rocket fire.

 

 

 

Despite the reported agreement between Tel Aviv and Moscow, Al-Akhbar’s editor-in-chief said that Russian forces were coordinating with Hezbollah in Syria.

 

“[Several] days ago, Russian officers accompanied by specialists… from the Russian forces arriving in Syria toured a number of positions in Hama’s Al-Ghab Plain area and carried out a field survey accompanied by Syrian Army and Hezbollah officers,” Amin claimed.

 

“Similar tours took place in the [areas] around Idlib and in the mountain range overlooking Latakia.”

 

“It has become clear that the Russian force is made up of various specializations, from air force [units] to units specialized in sniper operations and artillery officers, as well as survey and observation teams.”

 

He also made the startling claim that Russia will “play a prominent role on the ground and will participate in combat on the battlefield with their advanced weaponry by leading operations and taking part in artillery shelling, air [raids] and otherwise, alongside the Syrian army and Hezbollah.”

 

“The Russians have also set up a coordination process with Kurdish forces and parties,” the article said.

 

“A Russian military delegate paid a secret visit to a number of Kurdish military commanders in Hasakeh and inspected areas of confrontation between the YPG and the armed groups.”

RT= Russia Today=Bigger Propaganda

I have always been suspect of this site….you?

UK watchdog raps RT for biased reports

LONDON — RT, the state-owned Russian news channel, was reprimanded by Britain’s communications watchdog Monday for airing biased and misleading reports on Ukraine and Syria.

Ofcom found “significant” breaches of U.K. broadcasting rules in three separate programs screened by RT last year. It ordered the news channel to broadcast statements correcting two of the reports, but stopped short of imposing a fine.

With the latest findings, RT has been found in breach of U.K. regulations 14 times since it began broadcasting a decade ago.

RT, formerly Russia Today, has been increasingly prominent in Britain in recent years, advertising itself as an alternative to the dominant news providers.

Some lawmakers and broadcasters are nervous about its growing influence, amid concerns that it peddles the Kremlin’s view on foreign policy matters.

Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief, said the network was “shocked and disappointed” at Ofcom’s findings. RT had submitted lengthy defences of the programs.

One of the breaches related to a program screened in July last year, The Truthseeker: Genocide of Eastern Ukraine, which aired claims that Ukraine’s government and military were committing atrocities in the east of the country, where the government is in conflict with pro-Russian separatists.

The 14-minute report drew parallels between Ukraine’s military and the Nazis. It concluded with a denial from Ukrainian officials that the government had committed atrocities, but this was insufficient for the program overall to appear impartial, Ofcom found.

Another episode of RT’s Truthseeker series, broadcast in March last year, which accused the BBC of “stunning fakery” in a report on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, was also found to be in breach of U.K. regulations.

RT misled viewers by implying that an official public investigation into the BBC report had uncovered wrongdoing, Ofcom said. The BBC was not treated fairly or given a chance to respond to the allegations, the regulator found.

“Ofcom found that RT broadcast content that was either materially misleading or not duly impartial,” the regulator said. “These are significant failings and we are therefore requiring RT to broadcast two clear statements on our decision which correct these failures.”

*** The next question is what about al Jazeera? In 2011, Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media penned a piece on RT. In part:

Russia Today, an English-language channel provided in the U.S. and other Western countries, is funded by the Moscow regime of Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, and recently hired an alleged Russian spy who is in the process of being deported from Britain.

Her first “story” for RT was to complain that Western governments have a “habit of lashing out at other countries for not listening to their people, while blithely ignoring public opinion on their own doorsteps.”

Russia Today has been described by Konstantin Preobrazhensky, himself a former Soviet KGB officer who defected to the West, as “a part of the Russian industry of misinformation and manipulation” designed to mislead foreign audiences about Russian intentions. He says Russia Today television utilizes methods of propaganda that are managed by Directorate “A” of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. He explains, “The specialty of Directorate ‘A’ is deceiving world public opinion and manipulating it. It has got a lot of experience over decades of the Cold War.”

In trying to attract and confuse an American audience, RT regularly features Marxist and radical commentators in the U.S. such as Noam Chomsky, Gloria La Riva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and 9/11 “inside job” advocate and radio host Alex Jones.

Hey Vegas, Seen this Clintonista at a Casino Lately?

Primer:

Charlie Trie’s and Ng Lap Seng’s Laundered Contributions to the DNC Introduction
Former Little Rock, Arkansas, restaurateur Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie and Macau-based businessman Ng Lap Seng collaborated in a scheme to contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars in foreign funds to the DNC. Ng wired over one million dollars from accounts he maintains in Macau and Hong Kong to accounts maintained by or accessible to Trie in Little Rock and Washington, D.C. Although Trie held himself out as an international trader (and, in fact, actively sought to develop an international trading business he called Daihatsu International Trading Corporation), he was never successful. Trie’s bank records and tax returns reveal that he received little or no income from sources other than Ng Lap Seng.
Although he failed to establish a successful, income-generating international trading business, Trie, his wife and his businesses managed to contribute a total of $220,000 to the DNC between 1994 and 1996. Trie and Ng also reimbursed the contributions made by a number of other DNC contributors who were recruited by Trie in order to further disguise the ultimate source of the contributions. As Trie earned little money through his own business activities, the Committee concludes that Trie used the foreign-source funds wired from Ng to make his (and his wife’s and businesses’) DNC contributions and to reimburse the conduit contributors. The Justice Department indicted Trie for these illegal activities on January 28, 1998. More here.

Over this past weekend:

Chinese Businessman Arrested For Sneaking $4.5M in Cash into US

FreeBeacon: A Chinese businessman accused of illegally funneling foreign money to the Democratic National Committee ahead of Bill Clinton’s reelection in 1996 has been arrested for sneaking upwards of $4.5 million into the United States.

The New York Post reported that 68-year-old Ng Lap Seng, a real estate developer, and interpreter Jeff Yin were arrested Saturday for smuggling millions in cash from China to U.S. airports over two years, Manhattan federal court records indicate.

Ng smuggled the total of more than $4.5 million in cash into the U.S. over roughly 10 trips between China and the states between 2013 and 2015, according to the criminal complaint.

The businessman and his interpreter were scooped up by authorities after they told Customs and Border Patrol that the $400,000 in cash they had on hand was for gambling and purchasing paintings and then brought the money to Queens, N.Y.

It is unclear what has happened to the rest of the money.

Though never ultimately charged, Ng played a role in the “Donorgate” scandal before the 1996 elections that resulted in Clinton ally Charlie Trie pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws in 1999.

Ng transferred approximately $1.4 million to Trie, also a Chinese businessman, who then gave the funds to the DNC before Bill Clinton’s reelection.