organization:us administration

The President Has Mostly Wiped out US Refugee Resettlement. Other Countries Aren’t Picking up the Slack.

The lead White House official for immigration policy, Stephen Miller, is quoted as seeking to end all refugee resettlement in the United States. This has caused an uproar. But few appear to realize that the U.S. President, at Miller’s direction, is already most of the way there—and that this policy in the US has big implications for the rest of the world, especially if other countries fail to step up and fill the growing gap.

A look at the UN Refugee Agency’s data shows:

The current Administration has already eliminated three quarters of refugee arrivals

Due to the President’s policy, so far there are about 87,000 refugees “missing” from the US.

Other countries are not resettling more refugees to substantially offset the US decline

The US Administration has eliminated almost half of the world’s total resettlement spots for refugees

Here is how I arrive at those rough estimates. First, I need a way of approximately estimating how many refugees would have been resettled in the US if not for the current administration. After all, if refugee arrivals fell, that could be because fewer people needed resettlement.

To do that, I use refugee resettlement to the rest of the world, after 2016, to build an estimate of how many refugees would have arrived in the US after 2016 if it had continued to receive refugees as it had before. In the years 2008–2016, refugee arrivals in the US moved in tandem with arrivals in other countries: A year-to-year change of 1 in the number of resettled refugees arriving in a non-US country was associated with a year-to-year change of 1.82 refugees arriving in the U.S. in that year. And the number of refugees being resettled by non-US countries did fall somewhat after 2016. If the US numbers had fallen in tandem, according to the pre-2016 pattern, US refugee resettlement would have fallen even without a change in US policy.

This graph shows the actual number of resettled refugees to the US, in solid red, and to all other countries in solid green, in UN data. Between 2016 and 2018, refugee resettlement to the US fell by 61,648, and resettlement to other countries fell by 8,948. The dotted red line shows how much US resettlement would have fallen if its decline after 2016 had been proportionate to the non-US decline, following the pre-2016 pattern. US resettlement would only have fallen by 16,264.

https://i.imgur.com/MpUMZE7.png

This allows some back-of-the-envelope calculations of the magnitude of the US Administration’s change in policy. First, this means that in 2018, US refugee resettlement was down 73% from what it might have been if the US Administration had not sharply changed policy. That is a great deal of progress toward Miller’s reported goal of eliminating the program. In 2017 the difference between the solid red and dotted red lines was 41,515 refugees, and in 2018 the difference was an additional 45,384. Bottom line: By the end of 2018, there were a total of 86,899 refugees “missing” from the United States: people who would have received protection in America if the US Administration had not closed its doors.

Second, it means that other countries are not stepping in to resettle refugees who have been barred from the United States by the current Administration. It is possible that they are doing so in some measure: In the above graph, it is possible that the green line would have fallen even further if the US had not sharply changed policy. But what is clear is that the large majority of those barred from resettlement to the US are not being resettled elsewhere. They simply aren’t being resettled at all.

Third, this back-of-the-envelope estimate implies that the US change in policy is singlehandedly responsible for eliminating about half of the world’s refugee resettlement spots. Combining the total actual resettlement by non-US countries with the hypothetical resettlement by the US, total resettlement by the whole world is down 45% from what it would have been if not for the US Administration’s sharp change in policy. The US has singlehandedly eliminated about half of the annual refugee resettlement slots on earth.

Something to watch for in 2019: How will the rest of the world respond? Will it accept the de-facto elimination of most refugee resettlement, or pressure the US to alter its course, or increase its own resettlement in response?

▻https://www.cgdev.org/blog/president-has-mostly-wiped-out-us-refugee-resettlement-other-countries-arent-
#resettlement #réinstallation #asile migrations #réfugiés #USA #Etats-Unis #chiffres #statistiques #Trump

UNGA adopts five resolutions in favor of Palestine
Dec. 1, 2018 1:05 P.M. (Updated: Dec. 1, 2018 4:55 P.M.)
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=781954

NEW YORK (Ma’an) — The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted in favor of five resolutions regarding Palestine and a sixth resolution on the Golan Heights, on Friday evening.

One of the most important resolutions adopted called upon member states not to recognize any measures taken by Israel in Jerusalem and to maintain the current status-quo in the holy city.

Palestine’s Permanent Observer to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said that “by voting in favor of the five resolutions, the international community affirms its support of our national cause, despite the efforts made by the US administration in international forums to resist this.”

UNGA also adopted a sixth resolution on the occupied Syrian Golan, demanding the withdrawal of Israel from all of the territory and affirming Syria’s sovereignty over it, in line with the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council.

On November 17, the UNGA voted in favor of eight resolutions on Palestine and a ninth on the Syrian Golan Heights.

#ONU

US to Announce Rejection of Palestinian Right of Return | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization
▻https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-to-announce-rejection-of-palestinian-right-of-return/5652073?platform=hootsuite

https://www.globalresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/482956C-400x266.jpg

The United States Donald Trump administration will announce a suspension of funding to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and the rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

According to Hebrew-language news outlets, the US administration is expected to announce its new policy early September, which would effectively cancel the right of return for Palestinians through several steps.

The US administration will start enforcing its new policy with recognizing the existence of only half a million Palestinian refugees, who are legitimately considered refugees, out of the total of 5.3 million Palestinian refugees, which were estimated by UNRWA, demanding the right of return.The US administration intends to form a plan in which it rejects the United Nations designation under which millions of descendants of the original refugees are also considered refugees. Sources also reported that the US administration’s new policy would “from its point of view, essentially cancels the right of return.”

Israeli MK, Israel Katz, commended on the reports of the US administration’s future announcement by saying “this measure joins the historic decision to transfer the US embassy to Jerusalem and as such annuls two UN resolutions.”
The right of return is one of the core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians claim that about 5.3 million Palestinians, including tens of thousands of refugees who fled in the1948 and 1968 wars from what is now known as Israel, and their descendants, have a right of return to their homes.

Israel rejects the Palestinian demand, fearing that Palestinians would destroy Israel’s “Jewish-majority” state after the arrival of millions of non-Jewish individuals.

Israeli defense official threatened owners of Gaza bus companies in days before protest

▻https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/04/israel-gaza-liberman-hamas-abbas-violence.html

The “working assumption” in the Israeli security establishment, Eldar writes, “Is that faced with an internal crisis, Hamas is exploiting the plight of Gaza residents to enter into conflict with Israel. Nevertheless, even with tensions in the south rising, softer voices are also emerging from Hamas.”

Those “softer voices” include remarks by Salah al-Bardawil, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, on March 20, who said that his organization “is ready to engage in a dialogue with the US administration to achieve the aspirations of the Palestinian people in obtaining their rights, establishing a Palestinian state and lifting the siege on Gaza,” as Ahmad Abu Amer reports.

“Al-Monitor contacted several Hamas officials, but they all refused to comment on this issue," Abu Amer adds. “They noted that Bardawil’s statements reflect the movement’s official position, but they also stressed that they were neither contacted by the US administration for dialogue nor invited to attend the donor conference held at the White House mid-March. On the contrary, Hamas criticized the conference, which it described as a US attempt to absolve Israel of Gaza’s humanitarian and economic problems caused by the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007.”

How Qatar Is Winning The Diplomatic War In Its Dispute With Saudi Arabia And The UAE
▻https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2018/01/31/qatar-winning-war-saudi-uae

https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/600x315/smart/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fdam%2Fimageserve%2F912229816%2F960x0.jpg%3Ffit%3Dscale

The diplomatic efforts of Qatar to circumvent the economic and political embargo on the country by a number of erstwhile allies in the region appears to be working, with the US government now emphasizing its support for Doha while still calling for all sides to compromise.

The embargo was launched on Qatar in June last year by Bahrain, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with the last two of these countries the driving force behind the move. They accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism and destabilizing the region. Qatar rejected the accusations and has moved quickly to deepen its ties with other countries inside the region – such as Iran, Oman and Turkey – and those further afield, including the US.

Those efforts appear to be paying off, with a strategic dialogue held this week in Washington at which senior US administration figures emphasized the close ties between the two countries.

#nuit_torride clap de fin ?

Extrait de The Threat to Reason, Dan Hind, 2007, à propos des « perception managers » de la CIA, chargés de trouver les thèmes qui séduisent tel ou tel groupe de l’opinion (« hot buttons »), et la promotion de thèmes irrationnels mais testés selon les méthodes du marketing :

[…] Robert Party explained how the US government ignored US law and used the CIA’s expertise in psychological warfare to secure domestic support for a terrorist campaign against the leftist government in Nicaragua in the early 1980s. This wasn’t a matter of countering foreign disinformation and providing information to assist rational decision-mahing. This was about pressing buttons: ‘The documentation is... clear that the idea was to find our “hot buttons” and to see what – how they could rum, twist, spin certain infonnation to appeal to various special groups. They’d reached the point, and this was really being directed by the CIA, of breaking down the American people into subgroups.’ Themes were developed to appeal to particular subgroups. Journalists were likely to be concerned about the freedom of the press, so they were targeted with stories about Sandinista harassment of La Prensa, a Nicaraguan newspaper opposed to the government; Jewish Americans were told that the Sandinistas were anti-Semitic. Eventually, the CIA’s ‘perceptaon managers’ came up with something that played on popular xenophobia and worked particularly well in states on the border with Mexico:

[They’d] found out that most of the themes about the communist menace in Central America left people cold. They didn’t really take it that seriously - it just didn’t hit the hot buttons right. But they found that one hot button that really… they could really use was this idea of the Hispanic immigrants flooding into the United States. So they developed what they called the ‘feet people’ argument, which was that unless we stopped the communists in Nicaragua and San Salvador, 10 per cent – they came up with that figure somewhere – 10 per cent of all the people in Central America and Mexico will flood the United States.

In the ran-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, themes were developed for particular audiences in a manner strikingly reminiscent of the perception management campaign that secured public support for Reagan’s policies in Central America. Human rights abuses, Saddam Hussein’s alleged assassination attempt on the President’s father, links between Iraq and al Qaeda, fundamentalist fears that ‘Babylon’ stalked the ‘Holy Land’, all found their way into the mix. The emphasis increasingly fell on weapons of mass destruction, ‘the one issue everyone could agree on’. In a formula hardly conducive to rational decision-making by the American public, the then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice insisted that they couldn’t delay invasion until they had proof that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons: ‘We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud’. President Bush repeated the message: ‘we cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud’. The promotion of market-tested irrationality at the highest levels of the US administration calls to mind H. L. Mencken’s cynical comment that ‘the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.’

(Scanné d’après le post de Louis Allday sur Twitter.)

Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

28 December 2017
Press release

Detention of Manal Tamimi and Jamil Barghouti follows the arrest of Popular Struggle Coordination Committee(PSCC) Coordinator Munther Amira 48 years, and Ahed Tamimi 16 years, her mother Nariman and her cousin Nour by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank today.
Manal Tamimi from Nabi Saleh village and Jamil Barghouti from Deir Abu Mash’l village, prominent non-violent activists, have been arrested by Israeli soldiers in front of Ofer detention center during a demonstration at the same time as Ahed’s court hearing.
The popular committees and Palestinian women called for this demonstration as a response to the arrest of children and the assault of women since Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on December 6, 2017. In addition to the arrest of Manal and Jamil, the Israeli soldiers repressed this non-violent demonstration by throwing tear gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets on the protestors. The demonstration is one of dozens of peaceful demonstrations organized by Palestinians and repressed by the Israeli occupation violently since more than 3 weeks against Trump’s announcement to transfer the US embassy to Jerusalem.
The Israeli occupation has been escalating its systematic intimidation of Palestinians since Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on the 6th of December 2017.
Since the statement, 15 Palestinians were killed, including Ibrahim Abu Thoria. Moreover, they continue to escalate their wave of arrests. As of Wednesday morning, the coordinator of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, Munther Amira, 48, has been arrested by the Israeli occupation forces while participating in a demonstration at the northern entrance of Bethlehem city.
The Israeli occupation has been perpetually violating the rights of the Palestinians as well as contravening various international laws.
The number of Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces since Trump has risen to 610, including 170 children and 12 women. There are at least 6,831 Palestinians that were already being held in Israeli prisons and the latest arrests bring the total number of Palestinian prisoners to 7,443.
Palestinians are resisting the US announcement and Israeli occupation through popular unarmed resistance, including protests and different forms of nonviolent resistance to raise their voice to the world and to implement pressure on the Israeli occupation and the US Administration to withdraw the decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and the recognition of the occupied city as the capital of Israel.

It is evident that Israeli occupation forces have been employing excessive force against the demonstrators in a way of pushing Palestinians to violence in order to further kill, incarcerate and harrass Palestinians.
Palestinians continue to showcase their commitment to popular unarmed resistance especially in the last four weeks, as they against the Trump announcement.
The popular committees in the occupied Palestine call upon the international community and international organizations to intervene in order protect the basic rights of the Palestinian people. In addition we call on our people to continue organizing in order to reach mass mobilization and put an end to the Israeli occupation.
We also call upon the international community to organize demonstrations, and to take serious actions to support the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (#BDS) campaign against Israel, and to place pressure on their governments as to take actions towards the Israeli government and settlers’ violations of human rights.
Meanwhile, Palestinian children, men, youth and women are all united in resisting the occupation, risking their lives in face to face encounters with the occupation army, demonstrating in Gaza city, Jerusalem, Haifa, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Yaffa, and Hebron. We stand united across the different cities. As long as the occupation continues, we will keep resisting for a life of freedom, justice and dignity.

The NIC Global Trends Main Report
▻https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends/letter-nic-chairman
Là c’est gratuit, la traduction allemande vient de sortir pour ca. € 25,00

This version, the sixth in the series, is titled, “Global Trends: The Paradox of Progress,” and we are proud of it. It may look like a report, but it is really an invitation, an invitation to discuss, debate and inquire further about how the future could unfold. Certainly, we do not pretend to have the definitive “answer.”

Long-term thinking is critical to framing strategy. The Global Trends series pushes us to reexamine key assumptions, expectations, and uncertainties about the future. In a very messy and interconnected world, a longer perspective requires us to ask hard questions about which issues and choices will be most consequential in the decades ahead–even if they don’t necessarily generate the biggest headlines. A longer view also is essential because issues like terrorism, cyberattacks, biotechnology, and climate change invoke high stakes and will require sustained collaboration to address.

Peering into the future can be scary and surely is humbling. Events unfold in complex ways for which our brains are not naturally wired. Economic, political, social, technological, and cultural forces collide in dizzying ways, so we can be led to confuse recent, dramatic events with the more important ones. It is tempting, and usually fair, to assume people act “rationally,” but leaders, groups, mobs, and masses can behave very differently—and unexpectedly—under similar circumstances. For instance, we had known for decades how brittle most regimes in the Middle East were, yet some erupted in the Arab Spring in 2011 and others did not. Experience teaches us how much history unfolds through cycles and shifts, and still human nature commonly expects tomorrow to be pretty much like today—which is usually the safest bet on the future until it is not. I always remind myself that between Mr. Reagan’s “evil empire” speech and the demise of that empire, the Soviet Union, was only a scant decade, a relatively short time even in a human life.

Grasping the future is also complicated by the assumptions we carry around in our heads, often without quite knowing we do. I have been struck recently by the “prosperity presumption” that runs deep in most Americans but is often hardly recognized. We assume that with prosperity come all good things—people are happier, more democratic and less likely to go to war with one another. Yet, then we confront a group like ISIL, which shares none of the presumption.

Given these challenges to thinking about the future, we have engaged broadly and tried to stick to analytic basics rather than seizing any particular worldview. Two years ago, we started with exercises identifying key assumptions and uncertainties—the list of assumptions underlying US foreign policy was stunningly long, many of them half-buried. We conducted research and consulted with numerous experts in and outside the US Government to identify and test trends. We tested early themes and arguments on a blog. We visited more than 35 countries and one territory, soliciting ideas and feedback from over 2,500 people around the world from all walks of life. We developed multiple scenarios to imagine how key uncertainties might result in alternative futures. The NIC then compiled and refined the various streams into what you see here.

This edition of Global Trends revolves around a core argument about how the changing nature of power is increasing stress both within countries and between countries, and bearing on vexing transnational issues. The main section lays out the key trends, explores their implications, and offers up three scenarios to help readers imagine how different choices and developments could play out in very different ways over the next several decades. Two annexes lay out more detail. The first lays out five-year forecasts for each region of the world. The second provides more context on the key global trends in train.

The fact that the National Intelligence Council regularly publishes an unclassified assessment of the world surprises some people, but our intent is to encourage open and informed discussions about future risks and opportunities. Moreover, Global Trends is unclassified because those screens of secrets that dominate our daily work are not of much help in peering out beyond a year or two. What is a help is reaching out not just to experts and government officials but also to students, women’s groups, entrepreneurs, transparency advocates, and beyond.

Many minds and hands made this project happen. The heavy lifting was done by the NIC’s Strategic Futures Group, directed by Dr. Suzanne Fry, with her very talented team: Rich Engel, Phyllis Berry, Heather Brown, Kenneth Dyer, Daniel Flynn, Geanetta Ford, Steven Grube, Terrence Markin, Nicholas Muto, Robert Odell, Rod Schoonover, Thomas Stork, and dozens of Deputy National Intelligence Officers. We recognize as well the thoughtful, careful review by NIC editors, as well as CIA’s extremely talented graphic and web designers and production team.

Global Trends represents how the NIC is thinking about the future. It does not represent the official, coordinated view of the US Intelligence Community nor US policy. Longtime readers will note that this edition does not reference a year in the title (the previous edition was Global Trends 2030) because we think doing so conveys a false precision. For us, looking over the “long term” spans the next several decades, but we also have made room in this edition to explore the next five years to be more relevant in timeline for a new US administration.

#USA #politique #impérialisme #CIA #NSA #stratégie

Everything you need to know about Trump’s Venezuela san...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/5988433

http://www.nodal.am/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/trump%C2%B4-venezuela.jpg

Everything you need to know about Trump’s Venezuela sanctions

[NODAL](/people/99c59e60cb860134fbed0800274aa049) - original post

By Truth Mission September 1, 2017

2017 is an unprecedented year for several reasons: an aggressive cycle of internal violence led by the anti-Chavez leadership, which left serious economic and human damages for the country - even higher than the last test of 2014 - was accompanied by resources from financial warfare by the current US administration against the Venezuelan state.

The clamor of opposition leaders such as Julio Borges, Lilian Tintori, Luis Florido and Freddy Guevara, among others, was not limited to requesting sanctions against the country as an accompaniment: in the offices of the White House and the Senate were attended and backed by HR (...)

Bruce Cumings · A Murderous History of Korea · LRB 18 May 2017
▻https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n10/bruce-cumings/a-murderous-history-of-korea

South Korea’s stable democracy and vibrant economy from 1988 onwards seem to have overridden any need to acknowledge the previous forty years of history, during which the North could reasonably claim that its own autocracy was necessary to counter military rule in Seoul. It’s only in the present context that the North looks at best like a walking anachronism, at worst like a vicious tyranny. For 25 years now the world has been treated to scaremongering about North Korean nuclear weapons, but hardly anyone points out that it was the US that introduced nuclear weapons into the Korean peninsula, in 1958; hundreds were kept there until a worldwide pullback of tactical nukes occurred under George H.W. Bush. But every US administration since 1991 has challenged North Korea with frequent flights of nuclear-capable bombers in South Korean airspace, and any day of the week an Ohio-class submarine could demolish the North in a few hours. Today there are 28,000 US troops stationed in Korea, perpetuating an unwinnable stand-off with the nuclear-capable North. The occupation did indeed turn out to be one of ‘considerable duration’, but it’s also the result of a colossal strategic failure, now entering its eighth decade. It’s common for pundits to say that Washington just can’t take North Korea seriously, but North Korea has taken its measure more than once. And it doesn’t know how to respond.

#Corée #Etats-Unis

Obama’s Syria Policy and the Illusion of US Power in the Middle East
▻http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2016/10/10/obamas-syria-policy-illusion-us-power-middle-east

Comment l’administration étasunienne a surestimé son pouvoir au Moyen-Orient selon Gareth Porter

Le plan étasunien aurait été que...,

Le seul rôle des États-Unis dans la guerre sera une opération secrète conçue par le directeur de la CIA de l’époque David Petraeus, consistant à fournir des renseignements et une assistance logistique aux alliés, obtenir des armes aux groupes choisis par les régimes sunnites, qui les payeraient.

Bien sûr, il y avait ceux, dirigés par Clinton elle-même, qui voulaient aller plus loin et créer une « zone d’exclusion aérienne » où les insurgés pourraient être formés et évolueraient librement. Mais Obama, soutenu par le commandement militaire des États-Unis, ne soutiendra pas cette invitation à la guerre. Les États-Unis allaient être ceux qui tireraient les ficelles en Syrie sans avoir à armer une force d’opposition et donc sans avoir à se salir les mains.

US congressmen confirm unchanged support to Latvia’s security
On Wednesday, 24 August, Latvian Foreign Affairs Minister Edgars Rinkevics met with a delegation of US congressmen that arrived in Latvia with U.S. Congressional Armed Services Committee member Chris Gibson.

During the conversation, Rinkevics emphasized that Latvia highly values the visits regularly carried out by members of the US administration and Congress to the region and especially Latvia, because those visits hold a practical and symbolic meaning. Gibson noted that the main goal of the US Congress delegation’s visit is to demonstrate the support of US Republicans and Democrats to the statements made by US Vice-President Joe Biden about USA’s unchanged stance in regards to NATO principles and commitment to fulfil Article 5, as reported by Latvian Foreign Affairs Ministry.
▻http://bnn-news.com/us-congressmen-confirm-unchanged-support-to-latvia-s-security-149776

#Latvia #Latvija #Foreign_affairs #USA #NATO #Joe_Biden

Kerry: Critics of Obama administration’s Syria policy ’completely screwed up’
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/07/kerry-critics-obama-syria-policy-erdogan-coup-army.html

Laura Rozen reports, “The US proposal for deeper US-Russian coordination against Jabhat al-Nusra is controversial within the US administration, with some Pentagon, intelligence and State Department officials expressing doubt the Russians could be trusted to restrain the Syrian regime or not to use the intelligence to target US-backed rebels, given their track record of doing so in the past months.”

In a joint press conference with Lavrov, Kerry described critics of his initiative as “completely screwed up.” He reminded the “dissent” crowd that Jabhat al-Nusra, just like the Islamic State (IS), is designated as a terrorist organization under numerous UN Security Council resolutions. He said that “Nusra is plotting against countries in the world” and that “what happened in Nice last night could just as well have come from Nusra.” Kerry refused to characterize Jabhat al-Nusra as “opposition” and expressed confidence in the “non-terrorist organization opposition, the legitimate opposition, the opposition we have supported.”

Kerry noted that, in addition to the Syrian government, Jabhat al-Nusra and its allies have also violated the cessation of hostilities, as this column has reported — a fact often missing in press accounts. The secretary said opposition forces pairing up with Jabhat al-Nusra because of a shared commitment to fight President Bashar al-Assad’s forces “will not excuse it in our eyes. We saw what happened when people said the same thing about [IS] for a period of time — oh, don’t worry, they’re just a force against Assad, and down the road we can take them on. Well, they became more than just a force. And so I think that it is important for the United States, Russia, the entire coalition of ISSG [International Syria Support Group] to stand up against terrorism, and that is what we intend to continue to do.” Kerry made clear that the United States maintains that Syria can’t have peace while Assad is there,” and that Washington and Moscow disagree on this point.

ISIS Cell Behind West Europe Attacks Predates Caliphate
▻http://news.antiwar.com/2016/03/24/isis-cell-behind-west-europe-attacks-predates-caliphate

There is so much hype surrounding the ongoing US war against ISIS that it’s easy to forget that just a few years ago, the US administration was largely ambivalent toward the group as a whole, and many people were openly praising the Europeans who went to Syria to fight against Assad as freedom fighters.

The Financial Times ▻http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/98f2e504-f1d4-11e5-9f20-c3a047354386.html is reporting that’s where the cell blamed for both the Brussels and Paris attacks came from, and indeed that many of the attackers themselves went to Syria to join Islamist factions before ISIS had more than a token presence, back when the US involvement in Syria was exclusively backing rebel blocs.

#retour_de_bâton “#combattants_de_la_liberté”

Traduction de l’arabe à l’anglais d’un article dans al-Raï d’Elijah Magnier, commentateur qui me semble mériter d’être lu :
▻https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2016/02/06/finishing-off-isisdaesh-is-not-a-priority-for-the-west
"Finishing off Daesh is not a priority for the West"

When Anbar and Ninoy tribes raided the city of Mosul back in June 2014, these tribes, followed by ISIS, claimed the victory to itself and overshadowed the influence of the tribes. Iraq was governed by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki who threw the Americans out of Iraq, and opened the doors of cooperation with Iran, so much so that almost every deal between the Prime minister, government cabinet, as well as the major and minor political parties and blocks, whether Sunni, Shi’a, or Kurds, were sketched and brokered in Tehran and Beirut.
Washington stood by as armed opposition against Baghdad grew, especially ISIS. It wanted ISIS to sow the seeds of destruction in Syria and Iraq; these allegations were confirmed by retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), in a report he had submitted to the US administration back in 2012.
There is no doubt that Iran’s increasing influence in the region harms US interests, and the interests of other regional players. The US moved to contain ISIS but not to destroy it, when it headed towards the oil rich city of Kirkuk, and the Kurdish capital of Erbil, where regional and international interests are present, in the form of military cooperation, and oil extraction contracts, it is also used by the CIA as a launching base for its operations in the region.
From this we can conclude that destroying ISIS would harm US interests because there would be no military excuse to be there, and hence Tehran would regain control of Iraq. Baghdad under Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi is convinced that the US can provide aerial and technological assistance for the Iraqi intellegence community, thus enabling security forces to strike ISIS where it hurts. Iran has been able to use the call of Seyyed Ali Al-Sistani to form the Popular Mobilization Forces enabling Tehran to regain a foothold in Iraq, by forming an alternative to the current security forces, and offering an alternative to Haider Al-Abadi that can challenge him in the future.

Le même avait déjà expliqué pourquoi le régime ne se concentrait pas encore sur Daesh :
For Assad defeating al-Qaeda and its allies, rather than ISIS, is a top priority : ISIS is a “marionette”.
►https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/why-defeating-al-qaeda-and-its-allies-is-a-top-priority-for-assa

US uses ASEAN summit to escalate confrontation with Beijing - World Socialist Web Site

►http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/06/asea-a06.html

US uses ASEAN summit to escalate confrontation with Beijing
By Mike Head
6 August 2015

The US administration and its allies are ramping up their threats against China, using the annual foreign ministers’ summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) this week in Malaysia to accuse Beijing of “militarising” the South China Sea.

These allegations have intensified the tensions over these strategic waters that contain some of the world’s most heavily used shipping routes, raising the danger of triggering a US-China war, whether by deliberate provocation or miscalculation.

#anase #asean #états-unis #chine

US uses ASEAN summit to escalate confrontation with Beijing - World Socialist Web Site

►http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/06/asea-a06.html

US uses ASEAN summit to escalate confrontation with Beijing
By Mike Head
6 August 2015

The US administration and its allies are ramping up their threats against China, using the annual foreign ministers’ summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) this week in Malaysia to accuse Beijing of “militarising” the South China Sea.

These allegations have intensified the tensions over these strategic waters that contain some of the world’s most heavily used shipping routes, raising the danger of triggering a US-China war, whether by deliberate provocation or miscalculation.

#chine #états-unis #asean #asie_du_sud_est

Obama: After 9/11 ’we tortured some folks’
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/20976

President #Barack_Obama admitted Friday that US officials had “tortured some folks” in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, but urged they not be judged too harshly. The US administration is expected to release a declassified Senate report in the next few days that will detail alleged abuses by intelligence agents targeting extremist groups in the wake of the attacks. (AFP)

#CIA #Torture

US ‘deliberately kept Riyadh out of Iran deal’
▻http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/us-deliberately-kept-riyadh-out-of-iran-deal-1.1269182

... the fact that America and Iran were talking was “closely held” information even within the US administration. “There was a fundamental decision made that that was the best way to do it,” said the official. This was the surest way of achieving the “fundamental goal” of settling the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

US legal argument for #drone strikes revealed
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/02/20132517311796860.html

The US government’s internal guidelines for targeted killings of al-Qaeda suspects allow for such strikes against US citizens abroad, as long as they are believed to be senior leaders of the group and still engaged in operations, a leaked justice department memo shows.

The 16-page document, released by the US-based NBC news television service on Tuesday, provides a legal rationale behind the US administration’s use of drone strikes against al-Qaeda suspects.

The memo says that it is lawful for the US to target al-Qaeda-linked US citizens if they pose an “imminent” threat of violent attack against other US citizens, and that delaying action against such people would create an unacceptably high risk.

Such circumstances may necessitate expanding the concept of “imminent threat”, the memo says.

“The threat posed by al-Qaeda and its associated forces demands a broader concept of imminence in judging when a person continually planning terror attacks presents an imminent threat,” the document says.

[…]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the document is “profoundly disturbing”.

“According to the white paper, the government has the authority to carry out targeted killings of US citizens without presenting evidence to a judge before the fact or after, and indeed without even acknowledging to the courts or to the public that the authority has been exercised,” Jameel Jaffer, ACLU’s deputy legal director, wrote on the organisation’s website.

“Without saying so explicitly, the government claims the authority to kill American terrorism suspects in secret.”

He termed the limits set out in the memo to be “so vague and elastic that they will be easily manipulated”.

US #drone attacks ’counter-productive’, former Obama security adviser claims | World news | guardian.co.uk
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/07/obama-adviser-criticises-drone-policy

The United States’ use of drones is counter-productive, less effective than the White House claims, and is “encouraging a new arms race that will empower current and future rivals and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent”, according to a study by one of President Obama’s former security advisers.

Michael Boyle, who was on Obama’s counter-terrorism group in the run-up to his election in 2008, said the US administration’s growing reliance on drone technology was having “adverse strategic effects that have not been properly weighed against the tactical gains associated with killing terrorists”.

Civilian casualties were likely to be far higher than had been acknowledged, he said.

Amid the debate over the US withdrawal from Iraq: A new reading of the Baker-Hamilton Report
►http://english.dohainstitute.org/Home/Details/5ea4b31b-155d-4a9f-8f4d-a5b428135cd5/64ab6456-2cfa-452a-b2ee-d4b753809986

As for the domestic situation, the US administration does not appear to be serious about improving internal affairs, as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton Commission, especially in terms of achieving national reconciliation, security, and the improvement of services touching upon the daily lives of Iraqis: no timelines were ever set for the accomplishment of these targets. In addition, no standards were set for the US government to gauge the commitment of the Iraqi government to national reconciliation, security, and the improvement of services. Despite the apparent success in the holding of legislative elections in 2010, doubts regarding the results did not differ from those accompanying the 2005 elections, and the problems of national reconciliation, security, and the improvement of services remained the same.

Egypt’s military ruler Tantawi and the American siege of Gaza: revelations from Wikileaks | The Electronic Intifada
►http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/egypts-military-ruler-tantawi-and-american-siege-gaza-revelation

The US administration of President Barack Obama was even more actively involved than previously known in enforcing the siege of Gaza along Egypt’s border with the territory. And the Pentagon provided direct assistance and technology for these efforts, a newly released official document reveals.

The US Embassy cable dated 8 April 2009 and released yesterday by Wikileaks is a briefing document for US Representative Nita Lowey (D-NY) – a hardline supporter of Israel – who was in Egypt to meet with officials. At the time, Lowey chaired an important congressional committee that oversees aid to Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Moreover, the cable shows that the Americans coordinated Egypt’s efforts to keep Gaza sealed from the outside world directly with Egyptian Army chief Field Marshal Muhammad Tantawi – who is currently Egypt’s military ruler. Tantawi heads the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that has ruled Egypt since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak last February.

This may help explain why, despite high hopes, Egypt has reneged on repeated commitments to lift the Gaza siege.

#cablegate