Israeli Getting Serious Out There, Con't

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu failed miserably to protect the Jewish state from Hamas, and whether it was intentional or not, the world will pay a heavy price in the weeks and months ahead.

 

Hamas’ massacre of more than 1,400 Israelis and kidnapping of over 200 others on Oct. 7 was more than a national tragedy for Israel — it was also a massive intelligence failure. Now, as Israel goes to war against Hamas, vital questions abound: Why didn’t Israeli leadership see this coming? If Israel defeats Hamas, what will take its place? And what are the odds that Israel’s greatest ally, the United States, could get pulled into a direct role in the conflict?

Amos Yadlin has unique insights into all these questions. The 71-year-old former Israeli intelligence chief, who oversaw the destruction of Syria’s nascent nuclear program and the serial sabotage of Iran’s, has emerged as a key voice on the crisis, briefing members of Israel’s war cabinet. For the last 12 years, he’s served as the head of Israel’s highly influential Institute for National Security Studies, and he remains a security eminence grise.

In a new interview with POLITICO Magazine conducted via Zoom over two days last week, Yadlin offered a useful window into official Israeli thinking on the escalating war — from solutions to the ongoing hostage crisis to the challenge of avoiding Palestinian civilian casualties.

Yadlin made clear that Israel’s policy in this war was not simply to retaliate for the massacre or weaken Hamas, but to definitively end the jihadist group’s 16-year rule in Gaza.

“We are going to destroy Hamas, as Nazi Germany was destroyed,” he said, adding that Israel would mount a global assassination campaign against Hamas leaders akin to the one it launched following the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.

Aligned politically with the country’s center left — he was the Labor Party’s candidate for defense minister in the 2015 elections — Yadlin attributed much of the blame for the catastrophe to the national distraction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to overhaul the country’s judiciary: “Netanyahu got all the warnings — from his defense minister, from the chief of staff, from the head of intelligence, from the head of Shin Bet and from independent writers like me, like others — that this is weakening Israel deterrence and endangering Israeli national security.”

Complicating matters in recent days, the Israeli media has been abuzz with reports of internal Israeli government deliberations over a second front with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, with the defense minister and other Israeli officials reportedly advocating a preemptive strike on the militant group and the U.S. cautioning against it.

Yadlin said Hezbollah’s “very cautious” behavior indicated a low likelihood of a second front developing. But while declining to go into details, Yadlin — who is privy to recent discussions between U.S. and Israeli officials — hinted that, in the event Hezbollah were to initiate a full-blown war with Israel, the U.S. might join “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel: “If Hezbollah attacks first, don’t be surprised — the U.S. may participate in this war.”

 

So yeah, expert after expert agree on two things: Bibi dropped the ball, and that the odds of a much bigger -- if not global -- conflict are ridiculously high as a result. This should all look familiar to Americans after 9/11, because we're headed down the same path with the same results.

Meanwhile, the ground invasion in Gaza is getting underway.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Friday that they are "expanding ground operations" in the Gaza Strip, according IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.

“In addition to offensive operations we carried over the past few days, the IDF ground forces are expanding their ground operation this evening,” Hagari said.

“Hundreds of thousands of IDF soldiers are all around the borders of the state — in the air, ground, and the sea — to protect the state," he added.

The announcement comes as CNN reports a large series of explosions rocked Gaza City on Friday night. 

 

Gaza is without power, telecommunications, or internet and is being bombed to ashes.

Large swaths of buildings around Gaza City, Beit Lahya and Beit Hanoun have been destroyed. A big amount of the damage that CNN was able to confirm is in northern Gaza.

Hundreds of craters across northern Gaza have also been identified.

CNN was able to identify the areas of destruction in Gaza through satellite imagery from Planet Labs, and by working with Synthetaic — a company that utilizes AI to identify and classify data, including satellite imagery.

Using imagery of the entire Gaza Strip from Planet Labs, Synthetaic is analyzing and comparing it through its proprietary AI-driven Rapid Automatic Image Categorization (RAIC) system, looking for destruction such as damaged and destroyed buildings, as well as impact craters. Aided by what RAIC identified as destruction, CNN is taking the Planet Labs imagery and conducting its own analysis to independently confirm the destruction.

The result is a snapshot of the destruction that's occurred across Gaza.

 

Hundreds, if not thousands of foreign nationals remain trapped. 

More than two weeks of intense negotiations to evacuate foreign nationals out of Gaza have yielded few signs of progress, leaving hundreds of desperate civilians stranded inside the war-torn strip of land as Israeli ground operations expanded amid a barrage of airstrikes on Friday.

Multiple sources involved in the diplomatic talks tell CNN that the effort to open a key border crossing in southern Gaza remains stymied by Hamas’ control of the enclave, Israel’s blockade and bombing, as well as Egyptian security concerns.

Now that the Israeli defense forces have announced an expansion of their ground operations, the situation for civilians and foreign nationals who remain trapped in Gaza has become even more dire. Aid officials and other individuals on the ground had expressed fears even before the expansion of operations that nowhere in Gaza was safe, and despite US officials saying they were working with Israel to establish civilian safe zones, such areas have not been fully stood up.

People who have family in Gaza told CNN on Friday they have not been able to make contact with them after communications went down in the strip amid the barrage of strikes.

Negotiators have been furiously working to find a solution to appease Egypt’s concerns about refugees entering the country through the Rafah crossing in southwestern Gaza, the border between Egypt and the Sinai. Complicating things are Israeli and American claims that Hamas has blocked the way out, as well as the inherent difficulties that come with processing thousands of people who claim to be foreign nationals.

The US had also been rushing to negotiate the release of hostages held by Hamas ahead of the incursion, talks that the US government insisted will continue amid Friday’s intensified airstrikes.

The Biden administration said Thursday it was hopeful that a deal will be reached in the coming days to allow US citizens to evacuate Gaza through Egypt, though the State Department had previously issued an alert saying the crossing into Egypt would open but it never did.

 

The catastrophe continues as the UN demands a cease fire, falling on deaf ears in Tel Aviv and Washington.

 

The U.N. General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution Friday calling for a “humanitarian truce” in Gaza leading to a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, the first United Nations response to the ongoing war.

The 193-member world body adopted the Arab-drafted resolution by a vote of 120-14 with 45 abstentions after rejecting a Canadian amendment backed by the United States. It would have unequivocally condemned the Oct. 7 “terrorist attacks” on Israel by Hamas and demanded the immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas.

The votes came part way through a list of 113 speakers at an emergency special session on Israeli actions in occupied Palestinian territories. Jordan’s U.N. Ambassador Mahmoud Hmoud, speaking on behalf of the U.N.’s 22-nation Arab group, had called for action on the resolution because of the urgency of the escalating situation on the ground.

The Arab group went to the General Assembly after the more powerful 15-member Security Council failed to agree on a resolution after four attempts over the past two weeks. While council resolutions are legally binding, assembly resolutions are not, but they do serve as a barometer of world opinion.

 

Things always get darker right before it goes pitch black.

The Passing Of Two Ambassadors

Two men who represented vastly different things, and yet were both ambassadors of worldwide renown, have passed. First, tropical rocker Jimmy Buffett, the Mayor of Margaritaville himself, has gone into his final sandy sunset. Buffett's fame was so pervasive that even President Biden noted his passing.

A poet of paradise, Jimmy Buffett was an American music icon who inspired generations to step back and find the joy in life and in one another.

His witty, wistful songs celebrate a uniquely American cast of characters and seaside folkways, weaving together an unforgettable musical mix of country, folk, rock, pop, and calypso into something uniquely his own.

We had the honor to meet and get to know Jimmy over the years, and he was in life as he was performing on stage – full of goodwill and joy, using his gift to bring people together.

Over more than 50 studio and live albums and thousands of performances to devoted Parrot Heads around the world, Jimmy reminded us how much the simple things in life matter – the people we love, the places we’re from, the hopes we have on the horizon.

A two-time Grammy nominee and winner of multiple country music awards, he was also a best-selling writer, businessman, pilot, and conservationist who championed the waters and Gulf Coast that he so loved.

Jill and I send our love to his wife of 46 years, Jane; to their children, Savannah, Sarah, and Cameron; to their grandchildren; and to the millions of fans who will continue to love him even as his ship now sails for new shores.

 

A second ambassador has also left us, former UN Ambassador and Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

Bill Richardson, a two-term Democratic governor of New Mexico and an American ambassador to the United Nations who also worked for years to secure the release of Americans detained by foreign adversaries, has died. He was 75.

The Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which he founded and led, said in a statement Saturday that he died in his sleep at his home in Chatham, Massachusetts.

“He lived his entire life in the service of others — including both his time in government and his subsequent career helping to free people held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad,” said Mickey Bergman, the center’s vice president. “There was no person that Gov. Richardson would not speak with if it held the promise of returning a person to freedom. The world has lost a champion for those held unjustly abroad and I have lost a mentor and a dear friend.”

Before his election in 2002 as governor, Richardson was the U.S. envoy to the United Nations and energy secretary under President Bill Clinton and served 14 years as a congressman representing northern New Mexico.

But he also forged an identity as an unofficial diplomatic troubleshooter. He traveled the globe negotiating the release of hostages and American servicemen from North Korea, Iraq, Cuba and Sudan and bargained with a who’s who of America’s adversaries, including Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It was a role that Richardson relished, once describing himself as “the informal undersecretary for thugs.”

“I plead guilty to photo-ops and getting human beings rescued and improving the lives of human beings,” he once told reporters.

He helped secure the 2021 release of American journalist Danny Fenster from a Myanmar prison and this year negotiated the freedom of Taylor Dudley, who crossed the border from Poland into Russia. He flew to Moscow for a meeting with Russian government officials in the months before the release last year of Marine veteran Trevor Reed in a prisoner swap and also worked on the cases of Brittney Griner, the WNBA star freed by Moscow last year, and Michael White, a Navy veteran freed by Iran in 2020.

 

Both men made the world a better place with their decades of work.

 

Eight Billion Reasons

The UN reports that Earth's population of variably miserable humans has now reached eight billion after hitting seven billion just 11 years ago, but population growth is now slowing considerably and expected to continue to slow in the years ahead.

People around the world are living longer and having fewer children. Those are just a few of the trends the United Nations described in a report on the world's population.

While the average life expectancy is projected to rise from 72.98 in 2019 to 77.2 in 2050, the rate of growth will continue to slow down across the globe, according to the report released Tuesday.

The world reached 7 billion people in 2011 and the U.N. predicts it will not reach 9 billion for another 15 years.

While the milestone is notable, the exact size of the global population is less critical than the dynamics of where people are living, working and moving, says Jack Goldstone, a professor of public policy at George Mason University.

"I think what's important about 8 billion is that were going to be connected, and so we have to get used to the idea that what happens in other places will directly affect our quality of life here," Goldstone tells NPR's Morning Edition.

This decelerated growth in population is explained by a number of factors, including more readily available birth control and better education. Some countries have birth rates so low the U.N. predicts they will not be able to maintain their populations.

Life expectancy for the least developed countries lagged seven years behind that of the most developed countries as of last year. The U.N. cautions that countries with older populations will need to develop better systems to take care of their elders, including social security and universally available health care.

Goldstone says that despite finite resources and climate change, the world could still manage with a population of 9 or even 10 billion as long as it's paying attention to "what people are doing, how they live and which specific areas or groups are growing the fastest."

The report also forecasts a reordering of the most populous countries. China will be overtaken by India as the number one most populous country in 2023 and remain so through 2050, the report predicts. The United States will be displaced by Nigeria for the third most populous country in that same time period.

 

And this is without factoring in more pandemic waves, which I think are going to be a major factor in limiting population growth and even reversing it in some places. We can't foresee all the factors ahead, but it seems like slowing population growth worldwide is a smart bet. Sustainability is going to be an issue, as will climate change.

 

We'll see.

Climate Of Destruction, Con't

As the COP27 UN Climate Change conference gets underway this week in Egypt, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is warning the world that without a climate pact between industrialized and developing countries, the planet is on the "highway to climate hell".

As presidents and prime ministers from around the globe gathered on Monday to tell the world what they are doing to tackle climate change, the United Nations secretary-general delivered a characteristically dire message about the rapidly warming planet, warning: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”

The secretary general, António Guterres, set the tone for the annual United Nations-led international climate talks, which officially began on Sunday as the accumulating threats of war, warming and economic crisis take a toll on every continent, hitting the world’s most vulnerable people the hardest.

“We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing,” Mr. Guterres said in opening remarks at the summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Dozens of world leaders delivered brief addresses at the event on Monday.

The talks opened under the shadow of grim new data: The World Meteorological Organization said on Sunday that the planet had likely witnessed its warmest eight years on record, including every year since countries came together in 2015 to create the landmark Paris agreement. That was aimed at pivoting the global economy away from fossil fuels and slowing down warming.

The biggest fault line of this year’s talks is the question of what rich, industrialized countries that account for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions owe to those bearing the brunt of climate hazards. On that there was a small breakthrough on Sunday — progress on the contentious issue of who will pay for the irreversible damage that climate change is wreaking on the world’s most vulnerable.

In his opening remarks, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt called on leaders to act with urgency to implement their commitments. “For the sake of future generations, here and now we are facing a unique historical moment, a last chance to meet our responsibilities,” he said.

The government’s policies, however, have undermined its attempts to frame Egypt as a climate champion of the developing world, and some have called into question its role as host, given its troubling records on the environment and human rights. The country’s most prominent dissident, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who has spent more than 200 days on a hunger strike in an effort to pressure the authorities to let him go, vowed to begin a water strike as the summit began.

The climate talks are the 27th session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations convention, which is why the event is known as COP27. Over 44,000 people have registered to attend, including representatives of government, business, and civil society groups.

The talks come at the end of a year that saw extraordinary heat waves across the northern hemisphere, catastrophic flooding in Pakistan and Nigeria, and a punishing drought in China.

According to a list posted by the United Nations, 110 heads of state and government are addressing the conference, a larger number than at many previous climate conferences. Of those, just seven are women.

 

Remember, the number one reason why there isn't a global climate agreement remains the existence of the Senate filibuster and the GOP using it every single time one is proposed.  We're deep into the triage phase of climate change, and Republicans will deny any action on that, too.

Unless you think the massive hurricanes that have hit the Gulf Coast in the last several years and the flooding accompanying them are flukes.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Less than 24 hours after a UN-brokered agreement to allow Ukraine to resume shipment of grain to the rest of the world from the port city of Odessa, Russia all but scrapped the deal and blasted the port facilities with missile strikes.

Russian missiles hit the Black Sea port of Odessa on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said a day after Moscow and Kyiv reached a deal to release millions of tons of trapped grain and ease a global food crisis.

The military command in southern Ukraine said two Kalibr cruise missiles hit the infrastructure of the port but not its grain silos in the city of Odessa — one of the country’s largest and most important seaside trading hubs.

Air raid warnings rang at about 11 a.m. local time as the sounds of explosions rocked the city. The military’s southern command reported no casualties. It said air defense systems shot down two other missiles in the attack, which the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine described as “outrageous.”

The strike imperils an agreement that U.N. and Turkish officials, less than 24 hours earlier, had hailed as a breakthrough after months of negotiations. Friday’s deal, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, would help lift a blockade that has exposed countries around the world to the threat of rising hunger, especially in Africa and the Middle East.

The deal depends in part on Russian promises not to attack Odessa and two other ports involved in the shipments. It included security assurances for both Ukraine and Russia, who agreed not to “undertake any attacks against merchant vessels and other civilian vessels and port facilities” tied to the initiative.

Kyiv accused the Kremlin of jeopardizing the deal, which guarantees the safe passage of merchant ships from the three ports, to restart the flow of grain cut off by a Russian naval blockade.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey said the attack showed the deal with Russia wasn’t “even worth the signed paper,” while a Ukrainian foreign ministry official called it a “spit in the face” of the U.N. chief and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“It took less than 24 hours for Russia to launch a missile attack on Odessa’s port,” said Oleg Nikolenko, a Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, shared an image on Telegram that appeared to show smoking rising from the facility. “How will the safety of vessels in the port of Odessa be ensured, if Russia continues shelling?” he wrote.

 

The answer is that safety cannot be assured without risking a major naval confrontation on the Black Sea.  Russia either gets the Ukrainian concessions it wants, or it gets to starve out millions as grain rots in port. Russia cutting off natural gas to Europe is accomplishing much the same. 

 

Moscow isn't holding all the cards, but the hands they have put on the table have won again and again. 

As I've said previously, the current situation in Ukraine is untenable.  Russia's takeover of the Donbas region isn't complete yet, with Ukraine forces mounting counter-offensives thanks to US howitzers and HIMARS rocket artillery systems.

The Biden White House announced another $270 million in security assistance for Ukraine, including four more mobile rocket launchers — a weapon that officials say has caused severe damage to Russian forces.

John Kirby, a National Security Council spokesman, told reporters that the Biden administration will deliver four additional truck-mounted, multiple-rocket launchers — called High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS — bringing the number the United States has sent to 16.

Mr. Kirby said the United States would also send Ukraine more HIMARS ammunition, as well as 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition for howitzers already delivered to Kyiv. Those items will be drawn down from existing Defense Department stocks, Mr. Kirby said.

In addition, Mr. Kirby said, the Defense Department will provide Ukraine with up to 580 Phoenix Ghost tactical drones. Similar to the better-known Switchblade drone, the drones are capable of surveillance but can also be flown into targets and detonated on impact.

Lloyd J. Austin III, the secretary of defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, previewed the coming HIMARS delivery during remarks to reporters at the Pentagon earlier this week. General Milley said that Ukrainian forces were “effectively employing these HIMARS, with strikes against Russian command and control nodes, their logistical networks, their field artillery near defense sites and many other targets.”

“These strikes are steadily degrading the Russian ability to supply their troops, command and control of their forces, and carry out their illegal war of aggression,” General Milley said.

Mr. Kirby said the new deliveries would bring the Biden administration’s total military assistance to Ukraine to $8.2 billion, and that more aid packages would be announced in the coming weeks. “The president’s been clear that we’re going to continue to support the government of Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes,” Mr. Kirby said.

 

The US is showing how effective its weapons are. But Russia has its own weapons, and as we're seeing this weekend, those weapons are effective too, both tactically and strategically.

 

 

Last Call For Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Kyiv has survived another week, while Vladimir Putin's credibility has not. The bigger problem is that Putin seems bound and determined to commit enough war crimes to force a direct military confrontation with NATO and the US, which would be catastrophic for the globe in any conceivable scenario.

The United Nations human rights office has received “credible reports” that Russian forces are using cluster munitions in Ukraine, including in populated areas which is prohibited under international humanitarian law, the U.N. political chief said Friday.

Undersecretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo told a U.N. Security Council meeting that residential areas and civilian infrastructure are being shelled in Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv and “the utter devastation being visited on these cities is horrific.”

Most of the civilian casualties recorded by the U.N. human rights office — 564 killed and 982 injured as of Thursday — “have been caused by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,” she said.

“Indiscriminate attacks, including those using cluster munitions, which are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction, are prohibited under international humanitarian law,” DiCarlo said. “Directing attacks against civilian and civilian objects, as well as so-called area bombardment in towns and villages, are also prohibited under international law and may amount to war crimes.”

As of Thursday the U.N. World Health Organization has verified 26 attacks on health facilities, health workers and ambulances, including the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital, which caused 12 deaths and 34 injuries, DiCarlo said.

All alleged violations of international humanitarian law must be investigated and those found responsible must be held accountable, she said.

DiCarlo stressed that “the need for negotiations to stop the war in Ukraine could not be more urgent.”

Footage recorded on the outskirts of Kyiv by Radio Free Europe on Wednesday shows Ukrainian soldiers with rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers slung over their shoulders traversing snow-dusted fields and woods and expressing disdain toward the Russians.

One unidentified soldier called their adversaries “orcs,” a reference to the monstrous and malevolent foot soldiers in the “Lord of the Rings” series.

Another soldier said they planned to kill all their enemies over the bombing of Mariupol.

“We’ll multiply them by zero,” the unidentified soldier said.

Gunfire and explosions erupt during the 3-minute, 30-second clip. At one point in the woods, shots split the air near the group, and soldiers drop to their stomachs in an instant and return fire. The assailants are not visible in the clip, but the crack-crack-crack from the gunfire exchange carries on for 15 seconds in one part of the clip.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has opened an online portal to gather evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, as he renewed his call to combatants to abide by the laws of war.

 

The problem of course is that Putin can tell both the ICC and the UN to go to hell and already basically have done so.  Pulling out Assad's playbook in Syria, the choice is going to be accept Putin's control of Ukraine or direct military conflict with NATO, which President Biden has already said would lead to World War III.

President Biden on Friday stressed that the U.S. and NATO allies would not fight Russia in Ukraine, describing such a scenario as "World War III."

"We’re going to continue to stand together with our allies in Europe and send an unmistakable message. We will defend every single inch of NATO territory with the full might of the united and galvanized NATO," Biden said after announcing additional sanctions on Russia. "We will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine. Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent."

The president's comments were his starkest warning yet as some experts and journalists have asked what type of Russian escalation might trigger a U.S. military response.

Some lawmakers have pushed for establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, something White House officials have ruled out because it would involve U.S. and allied forces potentially shooting down Russian planes in Ukrainian airspace.

And multiple reporters have asked in recent days whether the use of chemical weapons by Russia would trigger a U.S. military response.

 

Things are getting worse In Ukraine, and they could go to hell very quickly if this spirals out of control.  On the other hand, nobody is more aware of this than Ukrainian President Zelenskiy himself, and at this point we have to keep in mind that he has now dropped the idea of NATO membership.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he had "cooled down" about Ukraine's bid to join NATO amid Russia's war with the Eastern European country.

"Regarding NATO, I have cooled down regarding this question long ago after we understood that NATO is not prepared to accept Ukraine," Zelensky told ABC News in an exclusive interview that aired Monday night.

Zelensky added: "The alliance is afraid of controversial things and confrontation with Russia. I never wanted to be a country which is begging something on its knees. We are not going to be that country, and I don't want to be that president."

Ukraine's pursuit of NATO membership has been cited by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a justification for his decision to invade Ukraine.

 

We knew from the start that NATO membership for Ukraine now would mean WW III.  It was never happening. What does happen now depends on if there are any realistic military plans to push Russian troops out of Ukraine with materiel and equipment from NATO through Poland.

All bets are off and have been for two weeks.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

With the final diplomatic stumbling blocks over Russian sanctions from the EU and especially Germany gone, the economic pain for Putin and his crew of oligarchs is now in full swing.

The United States, Britain, Europe and Canada on Saturday moved to block Russia's access to the SWIFT international payment system as part of another round of sanctions against Moscow as it continues its assault against Ukraine.

The measures, which will also include restriction on the Russian central bank's international reserves, will be implemented in the coming days, the nations said in a joint statement.

"We commit to ensuring that a certain number of Russian banks are removed from SWIFT," Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the European Union's executive, said in a statement to the media.

"This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally."

She said that cutting Russian banks off the system will stop them from conducting most of their financial transactions worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports.

She said allies would stop Russia from "using its war chest," paralysing the assets of its central bank, freezing its transactions and making it impossible for the central bank to liquidate its assets.

"Finally, we will work to prohibit Russian oligarchs from using their financial assets on our markets," she said.

EU foreign ministers will discuss the sanctions package at a virtual meeting on Sunday evening, the fourth time they come together in a week.

 

The move effectively freezes Russia's finances and is the global finance equivalent of unplugging Russia from the world's financial grid. The UN Security Council is expected to formally call for a special meeting tomorrow as well, the move effectively disables any veto from the five permanent members, including Russia.

Putin picked a fight and at this point with Kyiv still holding after 72 hours and a world of financial hurt coming for Monday, he's got a fight.

Whether it's the fight he wanted, we'll see.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Now Bracing For Pain

After an alarmingly belligerent speech this evening where Russian Vladimir Putin declared that the "breakaway republics" in Ukraine would be given Russian military support (and throwing years of diplomacy out of the window, he does that a lot) he apparently ordered 150,000 or so Russian troops on the border with Ukraine to come on in and say hi.

 

The Kremlin has ordered Russia’s defense ministry to deploy troops in two Russia-backed separatist territories that have loomed large in the conflict over Ukraine.

Moscow announced that it would carry out “peacekeeping functions” in decrees published late Monday, shortly after President Vladimir V. Putin told his nation that he had decided to recognize Russia-backed separatists in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

It was not immediately certain whether the Russian troops would remain only on the territory controlled by the separatist republics, or whether they would seek to capture the rest of the two Ukrainian regions whose territory they claim.

And so it was unclear if a long-feared Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine had begun. The separatists might have invited Russian forces in, but neither Ukraine nor the rest of the world views the so-called republics as anything but Ukrainian territory.

While Mr. Putin’s ultimate plans remain a mystery, a full invasion would constitute the largest military action in Europe since World War II.

By seeking to redraw the post-Cold War boundaries of Europe and force Ukraine back into Moscow’s orbit, Mr. Putin is attempting nothing less than to upend the security structure that has helped maintain an uneasy peace on the continent for the past three decades.

Now edging toward the twilight of his political career, Mr. Putin, 69, is determined to burnish his legacy and to correct what he has long viewed as one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century: the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Asserting Moscow’s power over Ukraine, a country of 44 million people that was previously part of the bloc and shares a 1,200-mile border with Russia, is part of his aim of restoring what he views as Russia’s rightful place among the world’s great powers, the United States and China.

Mr. Putin has increasingly portrayed NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, and insists that Moscow’s military buildup is a reaction to Ukraine’s deepening partnership with the alliance.

Essentially, he appears intent on winding back the clock 30 years, to just before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

The US is responding with sanctions on the breakaway groups, but not on Russia. Yet. Still, this is going to get out of hand, very quickly, if things go wrong here, and yeah, we've got Russian troops in Ukraine.

I assume we're going to have a UN Security Council emergency meeting within days, but by then, well. Smart observers will notice that this is a repeat of Putin's 2008 invasion of Georgia.

Of course, maybe Putin doesn't have the adamant hold on everything like he used to.

Putin may hope to provoke an armed response from Ukraine that would provide a pretext for a larger assault. But the initial “peacekeeping” move into Donetsk and Luhansk was limited, and a senior Biden administration official was careful to avoid describing it as an invasion, noting that Russian forces have been operating covertly in the two enclaves for nearly eight years.

The Biden administration seemed to be calibrating its response, reacting less sharply to Putin’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk than did some other world leaders. The administration clearly wants to leave the door open for Moscow to stop short of an attack on Ukraine that is opposed not only by a unified NATO alliance but — perhaps more sobering for the Russian leader — by China as well.

Putin is “the ultimate political performance artist,” as Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy put it in a new biography. Monday’s carefully staged events evoked both the majesty of imperial Russia and the pettiness and paranoia of its modern-day leader.

The day’s events began with a televised command performance of Putin’s security council in the ornate Kremlin chamber. Putin asked each of his ministers for their recommendation about recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk. Many responses were dutifully on script, but there were several surprises.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia’s demands for security guarantees were “not an ultimatum,” and he seemed ready to meet Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for more talks. Lavrov also conceded NATO’s unity, advising Putin that at this past weekend’s Munich Security Conference, “every Western representative declared their absolute commitment to a unified approach,” which “confirmed that we need to negotiate with Washington.”

Some of Putin’s other ministers fed his passion to subdue Kyiv. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Ukraine could obtain nuclear weapons and pose a greater threat than Iran or North Korea. And Nikolai Patrushev, head of the security council, said Western nations “are hiding their true goal — to destroy the Russian federation,” a favorite Putin theme.

But the big surprise came when Putin quizzed Sergei Naryshkin, head of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service. Naryshkin advised that threatening to recognize Donetsk and Luhansk would be useful leverage for implementing the 2015 Minsk agreements to settle the conflict in the eastern region. Russia has claimed to support Minsk, but Monday’s recognition of the two breakaway enclaves as independent will probably derail any chance for the agreement. In response to Naryshkin’s answers, Putin got antsy.

What followed was a rare Kremlin moment of quasi-dissent. “Speak clearly, do you support recognition?” demanded Putin. “I will,” answered his spy chief. “You will, or you do?” demanded Putin. When Naryshkin waffled and said he would support “bringing them into Russia,” Putin shot back, “That’s not what we are discussing. Do you support recognizing independence?” To which the vexed spymaster answered, “yes.”

The SVR chief may have been rattled by the astonishing ability of U.S. intelligence to read (and publicize) Russian intelligence plans about Ukraine. Whatever the reason, Max Seddon, Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times who translated the exchange in Twitter posts, noted that the session was “like the finale of the Sopranos.”

 

One thing's for sure, like the seminal HBO drama, we'll be talking about this day for quite some time to come, if not years later, and what it all ultimately meant.

Myanmar, Military Coups, And Menace

Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi is facing four years in prison on COVID-19 "violations" and incitement charges as UN Human Rights head Michelle Bachelet is blasting the trial and verdict conducted by the country's military junta.

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Monday denounced a four-year jail term handed down to Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi after a "sham trial" and called for her immediate release.

The conviction of Suu Kyi "closes yet another door to political dialogue" in Myanmar, where the military took power on Feb. 1, and "will only deepen rejection of the coup", Bachelet said in a statement in Geneva.

A court jailed Suu Kyi for four years on Monday on charges of incitement and breaching coronavirus restrictions, said a source in a case that critics described as "farcical".

“The conviction of the State Counsellor following a sham trial in secretive proceedings before a military-controlled court is nothing but politically motivated,” Bachelet said.

“The military is attempting to instrumentalize the courts to remove all political opposition."

Ravina Shamdasani, a Bachelet spokesperson, told Reuters Television that the proceedings had failed to meet the country's domestic and international legal obligations for a fair trial.

Suu Kyi, 76, still faces charges of corruption and electoral fraud, Bachelet said.

She also said that the army, known as the Tatmadaw, had detained more than 10,000 opponents since the coup and that at least 175 people, including many members of Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy (NLD) party, were reported to have died in custody "most likely due to ill-treatment or torture".

She called for the immediate release of all those unlawfully detained.

 

At least five people have died so far in the junta's resulting crackdown on protests, and it's only going to get worse.

And, as I keep saying, "putting their political enemies in jail" is something I absolutely expect from the next inevitable GOP administration. Trust that the Republicans in Trump's orbit are paying attention.

Sunday Long Read: Time To Unplug Big Tech

Not only are Facebook and Google destroying information systems around the globe with their clickbait ad greed, it turns out they are actively funding disinformation brokers around the world in order to profit from it, and the results are an open door to destabilize a nation-state or three if you have the money or the resources.

 

In 2015, six of the 10 websites in Myanmar getting the most engagement on Facebook were from legitimate media, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-run tool. A year later, Facebook (which recently rebranded to Meta) offered global access to Instant Articles, a program publishers could use to monetize their content.

One year after that rollout, legitimate publishers accounted for only two of the top 10 publishers on Facebook in Myanmar. By 2018, they accounted for zero. All the engagement had instead gone to fake news and clickbait websites. In a country where Facebook is synonymous with the internet, the low-grade content overwhelmed other information sources.

It was during this rapid degradation of Myanmar’s digital environment that a militant group of Rohingya—a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority—attacked and killed a dozen members of the security forces, in August of 2017. As police and military began to crack down on the Rohingya and push out anti-Muslim propaganda, fake news articles capitalizing on the sentiment went viral. They claimed that Muslims were armed, that they were gathering in mobs 1,000 strong, that they were around the corner coming to kill you.

It’s still not clear today whether the fake news came primarily from political actors or from financially motivated ones. But either way, the sheer volume of fake news and clickbait acted like fuel on the flames of already dangerously high ethnic and religious tensions. It shifted public opinion and escalated the conflict, which ultimately led to the death of 10,000 Rohingya, by conservative estimates, and the displacement of 700,000 more.

In 2018, a United Nations investigation determined that the violence against the Rohingya constituted a genocide and that Facebook had played a “determining role” in the atrocities. Months later, Facebook admitted it hadn’t done enough “to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence.”

Over the last few weeks, the revelations from the Facebook Papers, a collection of internal documents provided to Congress and a consortium of news organizations by whistleblower Frances Haugen, have reaffirmed what civil society groups have been saying for years: Facebook’s algorithmic amplification of inflammatory content, combined with its failure to prioritize content moderation outside the US and Europe, has fueled the spread of hate speech and misinformation, dangerously destabilizing countries around the world.

But there’s a crucial piece missing from the story. Facebook isn’t just amplifying misinformation.

The company is also funding it.

An MIT Technology Review investigation, based on expert interviews, data analyses, and documents that were not included in the Facebook Papers, has found that Facebook and Google are paying millions of ad dollars to bankroll clickbait actors, fueling the deterioration of information ecosystems around the world.

It's not just the US media that Facebook and Google are deliberately destroying in order to become the only media sources in town. And this is just an astonishing reminder that the disinformation these companies are pushing has very bloody real-world consequences.

 

Even more, it's deliberate.

Time to break up the tech giants.

Iraq Back In The News

Iraqi PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an attempted drone strike assassination attempt as the post-US future of the Middle East continues to reshape itself in violence.

A drone targeted the residence of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Baghdad early Sunday, the army said, signaling a major escalation as Iran-linked groups contest the results of last month’s elections.

“I am fine,” Kadhimi posted in a message to Twitter, thanking God and calling for restraint. The military described the attack as a “failed assassination attempt” and said that security forces were taking the “necessary measures” to follow up.

The explosion, as well as follow-up gunfire, was heard throughout central Baghdad. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

A source close to Kadhimi said that several members of his security detail had suffered light injuries in Sunday’s attack, but they did not provide a full accounting of the damage.

The drone attack came hours after Iraqi supporters of Iran-linked militia groups held a funeral march for a man killed by security forces Friday when crowds tried to storm the Green Zone — which houses Iraqi government offices and Western embassies — from two sides.

More than 125 people were wounded in those clashes, most of them members of the security forces, as militia supporters decried Iraq’s Oct. 10 parliamentary elections as fraudulent.

Although broadly accepted as legitimate by international observers, the results have sparked growing tensions in the country. As populist cleric Shiite Moqtada al-Sadr emerged with the biggest share of the country’s parliamentary seats, the Iran-linked Fatah alliance saw its share cut by around two-thirds, despite winning the largest numbers of votes.

Iran-linked armed groups have been blamed for dozens of rocket and drone strikes on the Green Zone and other U.S.-linked military targets in recent years, with the pace often increasing during sensitive political moments.

Iraqi and U.S. officials have grown increasingly alarmed over the recent use of small fixed-wing drones that have evaded detection systems around military bases and diplomatic facilities. Military officials and diplomats say that the drones sometimes fly too low to be picked up by defensive systems.

The U.S. State Department condemned the attack as “an apparent act of terrorism” and said it was in contact with the Iraqi security forces and had offered assistance in the investigation.

The spike in tensions here over the weekend followed indications that Sadr may be pushing ahead with the formation of a government that marginalizes Fatah. The Iran-backed alliance has lost popularity in Iraq in recent years, after its militias participated in the slaying of hundreds of young men and women who joined an anti-government uprising in 2019. The demonstrations began as a cry against corruption but swiftly morphed into a revolt against the entire political system.

Kadhimi came to power in May of last year, after those demonstrations toppled his predecessor Adel Abdul Mahdi. The Oct. 10 elections were held early as a concession to the demonstrators, but most Iraqis chose not to vote in the end, citing deep disillusionment in the possibility for elections to change what they see as a largely unaccountable political system forged in the wake of America’s 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

 

Ironically, the attempt on al-Kadhimi might be more of a warning than an assassination.

Most analysts saw the attack as a warning to Mr. al-Kadhimi and his allies rather than as an assassination attempt. The prime minister has remained in power by balancing Iraqi relations between Iran and the United States, and he is seeking another term.

“What we’ve seen in the past is the use of violence, not necessarily to assassinate, but to warn that, ‘We’re here,’” said Renad Mansour, head of the Iraq Initiative at the think tank Chatham House. “I think this would also be a warning perhaps gone wrong because you can gain a bit more popularity and sympathy as the prime minister who survived an assassination attempt.”

The attack, though, significantly complicates efforts to form a government. Such efforts rely on forging alliances among parties, some of them with armed wings, to form the biggest bloc in Parliament.

 

So in other words, the use of violence to greatly impede the formation of a duly elected new government.

 

Now, in which country have we seen that performed in this year?

Klep-Trump-Cracy Update, September 2021 Edition

With The Former Guy gone, we're still finding out examples where Trump officials engaged in open grift and pay-for-play with the goal of enriching their Orange Emperor at the expense of our closest international neighbors.

 

Kelly Craft, who was appointed to two ambassadorships under President Donald Trump, directed government business to Trump’s hotel in Washington while in office, emails released by the State Department show.

In November 2018, Craft — then the U.S. ambassador to Canada — received an email about an upcoming conference in Washington for ambassadors and other chiefs of mission. The email included a list of five recommended hotels in Washington that had blocks of rooms set aside for conference attendees, along with specially negotiated rates between $119 and $181 per night.

Craft apparently ignored those recommendations.

“Is this a meeting I should attend? If so, I would prefer the TRUMP HOTEL,” Craft wrote after forwarding the email to a staffer, referring to the Trump International Hotel, which was owned by Trump’s company and in a building leased from the federal government.

The staffer replied that the conference was one Craft would “definitely” want to attend.

“I’ll make reservations at the Trump Intl Hotel,” the staffer added.

Craft’s emails were obtained from the State Department by the nonprofit legal watchdog group American Oversight through a records request under the Freedom of Information Act, and they were reported earlier Thursday by Forbes. The watchdog group accused Craft of using her position as an American diplomat “to line the president’s pockets” and said it was “an example of the casual corruption that permeated the Trump administration and undermines confidence in the United States.”

“Ambassador Craft’s apparent eagerness to direct business to a Trump-owned hotel sends a signal that U.S. foreign policy is pay-to-play,” American Oversight spokesman Jack Patterson said in a statement.

Craft could not be reached for comment Thursday.

It was not the first time Craft showed an affinity for the hotel owned by Trump’s company. According to the emails, Craft stayed at the Trump International Hotel multiple times while in Washington. On Jan. 8, 2018, a staffer sent a “friendly reminder” for Craft to provide the name and contact details for the Trump hotel manager “so that I could arrange a suite for you” later that month.

In April 2018, the obtained emails showed Craft had a reservation at the Trump hotel to catch an event with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

In June 2018, Craft was scheduled to attend a conference at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., about 10 miles away from the Trump hotel in Washington. According to the emails, a staffer asked Craft in May if she would be interested “in a boutique hotel near the Gaylord” for the conference.

“Let’s keep TRUMP Hotel,” Craft replied from her BlackBerry device.

On June 18, 2018, Craft and her husband, Joe Craft, were expected to check in to the Trump hotel in Washington for a three-night stay, according to an internal hotel “VIP Arrivals” list obtained by The Washington Post. The list, which allowed hotel staff to recognize important guests, listed the Crafts as repeat customers paying a “high rate,” and as gold-level members of the company’s Trump Card rewards program.

Separately, The Post obtained government receipts showing more than $3,500 in spending by the State Department or its employees at the Trump International Hotel in Washington during Trump’s term. None of those receipts referenced a stay by Craft, but they give a sense of the rates that the Trump hotel charged the State Department: In those cases, it was between $175 and $251 per night.

During Trump’s term, millions of government and GOP dollars flowed to his properties, and high-ranking Republican officials and newsmakers could often be seen at his luxury hotel in Washington, less than a mile from the White House. Even after leaving office, Trump has continued to direct taxpayer dollars to his businesses, in May charging the Secret Service nearly $10,200 for agents’ rooms at his Florida resort.

Trump appointed Craft to two ambassadorships while in office: as ambassador to Canada in 2017 and as ambassador to the United Nations in 2019. Craft has since continued to tout her connections to the Trump administration and to praise the former president as she reportedly eyes a run for Kentucky governor.

Yes, Craft is from right here in Kentucky, and if you think the fact she's corrupt as hell in the name of Donald Trump is going to in any way hurt her chances of being the state's next governor, you're out of your mind. Republican primary voters here in Kentucky expect GOP politicians to serve Donald Trump as his vassals. That's what ambassadors are supposed to do, you see.

No doubt Trump will reward her with an endorsement, which is how American politics works these days.

And that's the point. Politics of open vassal states to the high lord.

Last Call For Prince Of Darkness, Con't

Our old friend Erik Prince is back in the news, former Trump Miseducation minister Betsy DeVos's brother has been a very, very naughty boy.

Erik Prince, the former head of the security contractor Blackwater Worldwide and a prominent supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya by sending weapons to a militia commander who was attempting to overthrow the internationally backed government, according to U.N. investigators.

A confidential U.N. report obtained by The New York Times and delivered by investigators to the Security Council on Thursday reveals how Mr. Prince deployed a force of foreign mercenaries, armed with attack aircraft, gunboats and cyberwarfare capabilities, to eastern Libya at the height of a major battle in 2019.

As part of the operation, which the report said cost $80 million, the mercenaries also planned to form a hit squad that could track down and kill selected Libyan commanders.

Mr. Prince, a former Navy SEAL and the brother of Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s education secretary, became a symbol of the excesses of privatized American military force when his Blackwater contractors killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.

In the past decade he has relaunched himself as an executive who strikes deals — sometimes for minerals, other times involving military force — in war-addled but resource-rich countries, mostly in Africa.

During the Trump administration, Mr. Prince was a generous donor and a staunch ally of the president, often in league with figures like Steve Bannon and Roger Stone as they sought to undermine Mr. Trump’s critics. And Mr. Prince came under scrutiny from the Trump-Russia inquiry over his meeting with a Russian banker in 2017.

Mr. Prince refused to cooperate with the U.N. inquiry; his lawyer did not respond to questions about the report. Last year the lawyer, Matthew L. Schwartz, told the Times that Mr. Prince “had nothing whatsoever” to do with military operations in Libya.

The report raises the question of whether Mr. Prince played on his ties to the Trump administration to pull off the Libya operation.

It describes how a friend and former partner of Mr. Prince traveled to Jordan to buy surplus, American-made Cobra helicopters from the Jordanian military — a sale that ordinarily would require American government permission, according to military experts. The friend, assured officials in Jordan that he had “clearances from everywhere” and his team’s work had been approved “at the highest level,” the report found.

But the Jordanians, unimpressed by those claims, stopped the sale, forcing the mercenaries to source new aircraft from South Africa.

A Western official, speaking to the Times on the condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to discuss confidential work, said the investigators had also obtained phone records showing that Mr. Prince’s friend and former partner made several calls to the main White House switchboard in late July 2019, after the mercenary operation ran into trouble.

The accusation that Mr. Prince violated the U.N.’s arms embargo on Libya exposes him to possible U.N. sanctions, including a travel ban and a freeze on his bank accounts and other assets — though such an outcome is uncertain.

Mr. Prince is not the only one to have been accused of violating the decade-old arms embargo on Libya. Rampant meddling by regional and global powers has fueled years of fighting, drawing mercenaries and other profiteers seeking riches from a war that has brought only death and misery to a great many Libyans.

The sheer breadth of evidence in the latest U.N. report — 121 pages of code names, cover stories, offshore bank accounts and secretive weapons transfers spanning eight countries, not to mention a brief appearance by a Hollywood friend of Mr. Prince — provides a glimpse into the secretive world of international mercenaries.

 

Let's be honest, the guy's actual job title is "James Bond Supervillain".  And if the UN has evidence of Prince violating Libya sanctions, then the US has it...and the Justice Department.

 

Have fun, Erik.

The Drums Of War, Con't

It's hard to overstate just how much Trump screwed up by assassinating Iran's Gen. Suleimani on Iraqi soil on Friday, but we're about to reap that whirlwind in an impressive way.

Lawmakers in Iraq heeded the demands of angry citizens and voted on Sunday to expel United States troops from the country, as hundreds of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of Iran to pay their respects to the slain leader of the elite Quds Force, Maj. General Qassim Suleimani.

The vote in Parliament on Sunday to oust the United States-led coalition is not final until Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi signs the draft bill. Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Mahdi indicated he would, having urged lawmakers to take action after President Trump ordered a fatal drone strike against General Suleimani in Baghdad.

The body of the general, the most powerful figure in Iran after the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was brought back early Sunday from Iraq, where he was killed on Friday near the Baghdad airport. Among the others killed in the attack was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, which includes at least half a dozen pro-Iranian militias.

Members of Iraq’s Parliament were divided on the demands to expel American troops from the country. While factions that grew out of Shiite militia organizations have pushed hard for the expulsion, Sunni Muslim factions and the Kurds want the United States to stay.

The legal agreement between Baghdad and Washington states that American troops are in Iraq “at the invitation” of the Iraqi government. Presumably, if Baghdad withdrew that invitation, the United States would have to withdraw.

The killing of General Suleimani unleashed calls for vengeance in both Iraq and Iran, and reinforced a general solidarity among hard-liners and moderates in Iran against the United States. In Iraq, the attack was seen as a violation of the nation’s sovereignty. On Sunday, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the American ambassador in Baghdad.

In Iran, it was viewed as tantamount to an act of war. Hossein Dehghan, a military adviser to Mr. Khamenei, told CNN that Iran’s response would include an attack on “U.S. military targets.”

As the Middle East braced for Iranian retaliation, which analysts said was all but inevitable and American officials said they expected within weeks, Tehran and Washington ratcheted up the rhetoric.

We're getting kicked out of Iraq, the anti-ISIS coalition headed by the US is now all but over as troops scramble to defend themselves on the way out, and Trump has united Iran under the banner of hating his orange ass.  The miscalculations by the Trump regime on this go all the way down the line.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday defended the continued U.S. presence in Iraq even as the Iraqi parliament convened a special session to discuss expelling American troops after the U.S. killing of Iranian military commander Qasim Soleimani in Baghdad.

“The prime minister is the acting prime minister … he’s under enormous threats from the very Iranian leadership that we are pushing back against,” Pompeo said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding “we’re confident the Iraqi people want the United States to continue to be there.”

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi told the nation’s parliament on Sunday the Iraqi government must establish a timetable for the exit of all foreign troops "for the sake of our national sovereignty."

Asked by Fox’s Chris Wallace how the U.S. would respond if the Iraqi government calls for the expulsion of U.S. troops, Pompeo said “we’ll have to take a look at what we do when the Iraqi leadership and government makes a decision.”

Well, that decision was made, and it's "Yankee go home."

Or are we going to invade Iraq all over again?

At this point, who knows?  Trump's as likely to tweet that we're staying in Iraq as he is to claim getting us kicked out was his plan all along and that he's "the one who got our troops home out of Baghdad".

Trump had no plan beyond this.  That much is absolutely clear.

In the chaotic days leading to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most powerful commander, top American military officials put the option of killing him — which they viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq — on the menu they presented to President Trump.

They didn’t think he would take it. In the wars waged since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents to make other possibilities appear more palatable.

After initially rejecting the Suleimani option on Dec. 28 and authorizing airstrikes on an Iranian-backed Shia militia group instead, a few days later Mr. Trump watched, fuming, as television reports showed Iranian-backed attacks on the American Embassy in Baghdad, according to Defense Department and administration officials.

By late Thursday, the president had gone for the extreme option. Top Pentagon officials were stunned.

Here there be dragons. Once again, Trump started a war to derail his impeachment trial.  This cannot be repeated enough.  Nobody knows for sure what happens next.

Nobody.

Holidaze: Death Of A Journalist

The Saudis have found a sufficient number of scapegoats to sacrifice for the death of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, and the United States will continue to pretend that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman didn't personally order Khashoggi's execution, because the Trump regime owes the Saudi royal family hundreds of millions of dollars.

Saudi Arabia on Monday sentenced five people to death and three more to jail over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year and said the killing was not premeditated, a verdict criticized by a U.N. investigator as a “mockery” of justice.

The court dismissed charges against the remaining three of the 11 people that had been on trial, finding them not guilty, Saudi Deputy Public Prosecutor and spokesman Shalaan al-Shalaan said. None of the defendants’ names was immediately released.

“The investigation showed that the killing was not premeditated ... The decision was taken at the spur of the moment,” Shalaan said, a position contradicting the findings of a United Nations-led investigation.

Khashoggi was a U.S. resident and critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler. He was last seen at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, where he had gone to obtain documents for his impending wedding. His body was reportedly dismembered and removed from the building, and his remains have not been found.

Eleven Saudi suspects were put on trial over his death in secretive proceedings in the capital Riyadh.

Khashoggi’s murder caused a global uproar, tarnishing the crown prince’s image. The CIA and some Western governments have said they believe Prince Mohammed, also known as MbS, ordered the killing.

The CIA, the UK, Canada, and the UN all know the truth, they've all said it multiple times, and nobody cares.  If the Saudis ever spilled the beans on Jared Kushner and Donald Trump, they'd be facing prison, but of course the Trump regime response is that everything is fine.

The United States considers Saudi Arabia’s sentencing of five people to death and three more to jail over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi “an important step” in holding those responsible for the crime accountable, a senior official of the U.S. administration said on Monday.

“This is an important step in holding those responsible for this terrible crime accountable, and we encourage Saudi Arabia to continue with a fair and transparent judicial process,” said the official, who did not wish to be otherwise identified.

Profiles in courage.  Then again, when you're dealing with a psychopath who orders dissidents vivisected and dismembered with a bone saw, perhaps treading lightly is smart.  Especially when you owe them money.

There's a reason why Trump is willing to go all the way to the Supreme Court to stop anyone from seeing his tax returns, folks.

Last Call For Climate of Disaster, Con't

The Trump regime pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords may be a massive, intractable problem for the world, but the rest of the planet isn't exactly coming together on climate solutions either.

Marathon international climate talks ended Sunday with major polluters resisting calls to ramp up efforts to keep global warming at bay and negotiators postponing the regulation of global carbon markets until next year.

Those failures came even after organizers added two more days to the 12 days of scheduled talks in Madrid. In the end, delegates from almost 200 nations endorsed a declaration to help poor countries that are suffering the effects of climate change, although they didn’t allocate any new funds to do so.

The final declaration called on the “urgent need” to cut planet-heating greenhouse gases in line with the goals of the landmark 2015 Paris climate change accord. That fell far short of promising to enhance countries’ pledges to cut planet-heating greenhouse gases next year, which developing countries and environmentalists had lobbied the delegates to achieve.

The Paris accord established the common goal of avoiding a temperature increase of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. So far, the world is on course for a 3- to 4-degree Celsius rise, with potentially dramatic consequences for many countries, including rising sea levels and fiercer storms.

Negotiators in Madrid left some of the thorniest issues for the next climate summit in Glasgow in a year, including the liability for damages caused by rising temperatures that developing countries were insisting on. That demand was resisted mainly by the United States.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “disappointed” by the meeting’s outcome.

“The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance to tackle the climate crisis,” he said. “We must not give up and I will not give up.”

“It’s sad that we couldn’t reach a final agreement” on carbon markets, admitted the climate summit’s chair, Carolina Schmidt, Chile’s environment minister.

“We were on the verge,” she said, adding that the goal was to establish markets that are “robust and environmentally sustainable.”

Economists say putting a price on emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, would allow countries or companies to trade emissions permits that can be steadily reduced — encouraging businesses to transition to low-emission technologies.

The carbon-market failure did not upset everyone. Countries in Europe and elsewhere had said that no deal on how to govern the exchange of carbon credits was better than a weak one that could undermine a dozen or so existing regional carbon mechanisms.

“Thankfully, the weak rules on a market based mechanism, promoted by Brazil and Australia, that would have undermined efforts to reduce emissions has been shelved,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a campaign group.

Helen Mountford, from the environmental think-tank World Resources Institute, said that “given the high risks of loopholes discussed in Madrid, it was better to delay than accept rules that would have compromised the integrity of the Paris Agreement.”

So the world will try again in 2020, as they have for decades, and that too will most likely end in failure.  A quarter-century after Kyoto should have been ratified and put into place globally at the cost of billions, we're now arguing over who will pay for the planetary triage that will cost trillions instead.

I'm a great uncle these days, my brother's daughter gave birth this week to an adorable baby boy, and I'm wondering what world the little one will grow up in. 

When he becomes an adult, what will he think of the world he will inherit from us, and how much will he despise us for it?

Last Call For Crafting A Mess

As expected, the Senate GOP has confirmed former Trump regime Ambassador to Canada, Kelly Knight Craft, to Nikki Haley's old post as UN Ambassador.  Sadly, Craft has even less experience than Haley did, considering she was absent from her job in Ottawa for more than a third of her assignment.

Craft’s confirmation was all but certain, thanks to a Republican Senate majority and her family’s close ties to fellow Kentuckian Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who recommended her for the ambassadorship.

That doesn’t mean her nomination was without controversy.

Craft came under scrutiny during her confirmation hearing in June over a slew of absences from Ottawa, where she was posted as US ambassador to Canada. Democrats pressed Craft on her attendance record, with Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) saying State Department records showed that Craft had been absent for more than 300 days between October 23, 2017, and June 19, 2019.

Craft defended her days away, stating that she was traveling to negotiate and promote the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the updated version of NAFTA that was negotiated during her tenure.

Democrats didn’t really accept that answer, and have largely continued to resist her nomination. Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee published a lengthy minority report on Wednesday, which outlined her poor qualifications for the UN ambassadorship, including her lack of relevant experience for such an important job and her excessive number of absences in Ottawa, which diminished her service as US ambassador to Canada. Democrats also cited potential conflicts of interest, specifically her family’s ties to the coal industry.

“Ambassador Craft has neither the experience nor the skillset to represent U.S. interests or challenge the world’s most seasoned diplomats on the global stage,” the report said.

But that opposition did little to change the final result.

Now Craft has an enormous challenge ahead of her as UN ambassador. Her diplomatic experience is still pretty thin, and she revealed at her hearing that she doesn’t have a great grasp on some of the workings of the United Nations.

She will also represent the United States as part of an administration that sometimes doesn’t have its messaging straight, including on foreign policy. And she’ll have to deal with UN-skeptical officials like National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And, unlike Haley, Craft likely won’t have the benefit of serving in a Cabinet-level post.

Craft will need to balance the president’s agenda while collaborating and finding compromises with partners at the United Nations — something Haley was largely able to achieve. She will also need to move quickly to rebuild the US leadership at the United Nations, which has eroded in the more than half a year without a confirmed ambassador in the office.

And her biggest test is coming soon, when the UN General Assembly kicks off toward the end of September.

At this point, the Trump regime no longer cares about the United Nations in any meaningful way, and the UN no longer cares about the Trump regime, so Craft is doomed to an embarrassing failure.  John Bolton will steamroll her, and when he finally convinces Trump that war with Iran is the only course of action, Craft will be crucified on the world stage.

I'd feel sorry for her, but she chose to join these villains, and deserves what she gets.

The Reach To Impeach, Con't

Nancy Pelosi is not going to allow impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump anytime soon, and she's not giving an inch on the matter.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi told senior Democrats that she’d like to see President Donald Trump “in prison” as she clashed with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler in a meeting on Tuesday night over whether to launch impeachment proceedings.

Pelosi met with Nadler (D-N.Y.) and several other top Democrats who are aggressively pursuing investigations against the president, according to multiple sources. Nadler and other committee leaders have been embroiled in a behind-the-scenes turf battle for weeks over ownership of the Democrats’ sprawling investigation into Trump.

Nadler pressed Pelosi to allow his committee to launch an impeachment inquiry against Trump — the second such request he’s made in recent weeks only to be rebuffed by the California Democrat and other senior leaders. Pelosi stood firm, reiterating that she isn’t open to the idea of impeaching Trump at this time.

“I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,” Pelosi said, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with the meeting. Instead of impeachment, Pelosi still prefers to see Trump defeated at the ballot box and then prosecuted for his alleged crimes, according to the sources.
They said she was expressing solidarity with pro-impeachment Democrats who want to hold the president accountable while disputing the idea that it is now time to take that step. Pelosi has long argued that certain conditions must be met before Democrats begin impeachment — public support and strong bipartisan backing, neither of which have so far materialized.

Other Democrats said Pelosi’s comment wasn’t that surprising given her previous criticisms of the president, including saying Trump “is engaged in a cover-up,” that his staff and family should stage an intervention and that the president’s actions “are villainous to the Constitution of the United States.”

Ashley Etienne, a Pelosi spokeswoman said Pelosi and the chairmen “had a productive meeting about the state of play with the Mueller report. They agreed to keep all options on the table and continue to move forward with an aggressive hearing and legislative strategy, as early as next week, to address the president’s corruption and abuses of power uncovered in the report.”

Pelosi is counting on the House Democratic hearings this month to generate the kind of public support for impeachment.  FOX News won't cover them at all, of course, and who knows what Trump will do to knock the hearings off the front page?

We may already have the answer to that question.

The United Arab Emirates will present to U.N. Security Council members on Thursday the results of an investigation into attacks targeting four oil tanker vessels off the UAE coast last month, two diplomats said.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the briefing was expected to take place at the UAE Mission to the United Nations at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT). One diplomat said Saudi Arabia and Norway were also expected to take part in the briefing.

Abu Dhabi-based television channel Sky News Arabia first reported the briefing.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said on May 29 that the attacks were the work of “naval mines almost certainly from Iran”. Tehran denied the accusations.

The UAE wants a US war with Iran even more than John Bolton's mustache does.  Stay tuned.

White Supremacy, Naturally

There should be screaming alarm bells across the country after yesterday's statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on "rethinking" the concept of human rights.

The Trump administration plans to launch a new panel to offer "fresh thinking” on international human rights and “natural law,” a move some activists fear is aimed at narrowing protections for women and members of the LGBT community.

The new body, to be called the Commission on Unalienable Rights, will advise Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to a notice the State Department quietly published Thursday on the Federal Register.

“The Commission will provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation's founding principles of natural law and natural rights,” states the notice, which is dated May 22.
Several human rights activists said Thursday that they were surprised by the move and trying to learn details. Some privately said they worry that talk of the “nation’s founding principles” and “natural law” are coded signals of plans to focus less on protecting women and LGBT people.

The word “natural” in such context is often interpreted to mean “God-given,” a phrasing that is less common in modern human rights literature but which could signal a religious component, experts said.

Activists and former U.S. officials noted that the Trump administration’s record on human rights so far is spotty at best.

“Many in the human rights community will welcome an opportunity to advise the Trump Administration on where its policies contradict America’s founding principles. There will be much to discuss,” said Rob Berschinski, a top official with Human Rights First.

The State Department already has an entire bureau devoted to the issues of human rights, democracy and labor, and it was not clear whether officials in that bureau were involved or even aware of the plans for the new commission.

The top State Department contact listed on the notice was Kiron Skinner, Pompeo's director of policy planning. Her team acts like an in-house think tank that considers long-term foreign policy strategy.

Skinner drew criticism recently for seeming to suggest that China, a rising power, is such a fundamentally different culture from the United States that arguments about human rights may not have much effect in dialogue with Beijing. Skinner’s defenders have argued she is a serious thinker who probably simply stumbled in trying to articulate her point.

State Department officials were not able to offer details about the planned commission on Thursday.

But in remarks to reporters after this article was first published, Pompeo said the goal of the panel was to sort out “how do we connect up what it is we’re trying to achieve throughout the world, and how do we make sure that we have a solid definition of human rights upon which to tell all our diplomats around the world.”

Let's be frank here. "Natural law" means the Trump State Department getting ready to tell the world that it will no longer comply with international human rights treaties and agreements where they differ from the platform of the Trump regime on civil rights.  If you thought we were going backwards at breakneck speed on abortion rights and climate change, wait until Pompeo gets recommendations from this "panel".

It will very soon be the official position of the United States government that "natural law" supersedes international law, and that the US will no longer go along with protections for people who aren't white Trump voters.

If you thought it was a travesty when we dropped out of the Paris climate accords and nuclear agreements with Russia, wait until we decide that the United Nations has no business telling the US what to do, and that we will no longer honor international human rights norms.

We're this close to declaring White Supremacy as the official religion of the country.  We will be even more of an international pariah than we already are, and the rest of the world will maybe decide that something has to be done to contain us.