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ISIS Is Proof Of The Failed “War On Terror”

It was the US, Europe, and their regional allies in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates that created the conditions for the rise of ISIS.

Today al-Qaeda-type movements rule a vast area in northern and western Iraq and eastern and northern Syria, several hundred times larger than any territory ever controlled by Osama bin Laden.

In January 2014, ISIS took over Fallujah just forty miles west of Baghdad, a city famously besieged and stormed by US Marines ten years earlier. Within a few months they had also captured Mosul and Tikrit. The battle lines may continue to change, but the overall expansion of their power will be difficult to reverse. With their swift and multipronged assault across central and northern Iraq in June 2014, the ISIS militants had superseded al-Qaeda as the most powerful and effective jihadi group in the world.

These developments came as a shock to many in the West, including politicians and specialists whose view of what was happening often seemed outpaced by events. One reason for this was that it was too risky for journalists and outside observers to visit the areas where ISIS was operating, because of the extreme danger of being kidnapped or murdered. “Those who used to protect the foreign media can no longer protect themselves,” one intrepid correspondent told me, explaining why he would not be returning to rebel-held Syria.

This lack of coverage had been convenient for the US and other Western governments because it enabled them to play down the extent to which the “war on terror” had failed so catastrophically in the years since 9/11. This failure is also masked by deceptions and self-deceptions on the part of governments.


The failure of the “war on terror” and the resurgence of al-Qaeda is further explained by a phenomenon which had become apparent within hours of the 9/11 attacks. The first moves from Washington made it clear that the anti-terror war would be waged without any confrontation with Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, two close US allies, despite the fact that without the involvement of these two countries 9/11 was unlikely to have happened. Of the nineteen hijackers that day, fifteen were Saudi. Bin Laden came from the Saudi elite. Subsequent US official documents stress repeatedly that financing for al-Qaeda and jihadi groups came from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies. As for Pakistan, its army and military service had played a central role since the early 1990s in propelling the Taliban into power in Afghanistan where they hosted bin Laden and al-Qaeda. After a brief hiatus during and after 9/11, Pakistan resumed its support for the Afghan Taliban.

It was the US, Europe, and their regional allies in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates that created the conditions for the rise of ISIS. They kept the war going in Syria, though it was obvious from 2012 that Assad would not fall. He never controlled less than thirteen out of fourteen Syrian provincial capitals and was backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah. Nevertheless, the only peace terms he was offered at the Geneva II peace talks in January 2014 was to leave power. He was not about to go, and ideal conditions were created for ISIS to prosper. The US and its allies are now trying to turn the Sunni communities in Iraq and Syria against the militants, but this will be difficult to do while these countries are convulsed by war.

The resurgence of al-Qaeda–type groups is not a threat confined to Syria, Iraq, and their near neighbors. What is happening in these countries, combined with the growing dominance of intolerant and exclusive Wahhabite beliefs within the worldwide Sunni community, means that all 1.6 billion Muslims, almost a quarter of the world’s population, will be increasingly affected. It seems unlikely that non-Muslims, including many in the West, will be untouched by the conflict. Today’s resurgent jihadism, having shifted the political terrain in Iraq and Syria, is already having far-reaching effects on global politics, with dire consequences for us all.

Redacted from: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41103.htm

Terrorism poses no existential threat to America. We must stop pretending otherwise

One of the most unchallenged, zany assertions during the war on terror has been that terrorists present an existential threat to the United States, the modern state and civilization itself. This is important because the overwrought expression, if accepted as valid, could close off evaluation of security efforts. For example, no defence of civil liberties is likely to be terribly effective if people believe the threat from terrorism to be existential.

At long last, President Barack Obama and other top officials are beginning to back away from this absurd position. This much overdue development may not last, however. Extravagant alarmism about the pathological but self-destructive Islamic State (Isis) in areas of Syria and Iraq may cause us to backslide.

The notion that international terrorism presents an existential threat was spawned by the traumatized in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York at the time, recalls that all “security experts” expected “dozens and dozens and multiyears of attacks like this” and, in her book The Dark Side, Jane Mayer observed that “the only certainty shared by virtually the entire American intelligence community” was that “a second wave of even more devastating terrorist attacks on America was imminent”. Duly terrified, US intelligence services were soon imaginatively calculating the number of trained al-Qaida operatives in the United States to be between 2,000 and 5,000.

Also compelling was the extrapolation that, because the 9/11 terrorists were successful with box-cutters, they might well be able to turn out nuclear weapons. Soon it was being authoritatively proclaimed that atomic terrorists could “destroy civilization as we know it” and that it was likely that a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States would transpire by 2014.

No atomic terrorists have yet appeared and intelligence has been far better at counting al-Qaida operatives in the country than at finding them. But the notion that terrorism presents an existential threat has played on.

In 2014, however, things began to change.

In a speech at Harvard in October, Vice President Joseph Biden offered the thought that “we face no existential threat – none – to our way of life or our ultimate security.” After a decent interval of three months, President Barack Obama reiterated this point at a press conference, and then expanded in an interview a few weeks later, adding that the US should not “provide a victory to these terrorist networks by over-inflating their importance and suggesting in some fashion that they are an existential threat to the United States or the world order.” Later, his national security advisor, Susan Rice, echoed the point in a formal speech.

It is astounding that these utterances – “blindingly obvious” as security specialist Bruce Schneier puts it – appear to mark the first time any officials in the United States have had the notion and the courage to say so in public.

And General Michael Flynn, recently retired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has been insisting that the terrorist enemy is “committed to the destruction of freedom and the American way of life” while seeking “world domination, achieved through violence and bloodshed.” It was reported that his remarks provoked nods of approval, cheers and “ultimately a standing ovation” from the audience.

Thus even the most modest imaginable effort to rein in the war on terror hyperbole may fail to gel.

Redacted from: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/24/terrorism-poses-no-existential-threat-to-america

Ukraine: It's about WHO controlls the breadbasket of Europe, the people or NATO

Russian energy giant Gazprom threatened (NYT) to cut off gas supplies to Ukraine within two days over a payment dispute. Meanwhile, the UK announced it would send a small group of military personnel to provide training to government forces, and a U.S. military official said the Pentagon would send between five and ten troops to Ukraine to offer medical training (AP).

Ukraine's central bank banned (WSJ) the purchase of foreign currency, citing a struggling currency, and President Petro Poroshenko announced a deal with the United Arab Emirates to buy defensive weapons (Defense News). Separately, Lithuania is set to reintroduce conscription (BBC), citing concerns about the current geopolitical climate, though not explicitly referencing developments in Ukraine.

Analysis

"This war is not a land grab, and it is not a war about specific leaders. What is being decided in Ukraine—the largest country in Europe—is whether the post-Soviet space will be allowed to free itself from a vicious cycle of inefficiency, corruption, violence and failed governments to build instead modern, open, democratic societies," argues former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili at the Washington Post.

"If the current president and prime minister lose their grip on power, the right wing and the military, unhappy with their commanders and political leaders and angered by recent defeats at the hands of pro-Russian rebels, are the likeliest force to make a bid for dominance. That's a big reason to wish Ukraine's current leaders success," writes Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg View.

"Putin is not fighting for control over a few economically depressed areas of the Donbass. He is fighting for the right to sit at the same table with the 'great powers' where they redraw national borders," writes Alexander Golts at the Moscow Times.

From: cfr.org

President Obama's Push for Fast-Track Trade Authority

There are many issues in the TPP that our trading partners don't like. They don't like rules that will force them to pay more for drugs from Pfizer and Merck, nor do they like rules that will make them pay more money to Time Warner for Hollywood movies, or to Microsoft for software. But President Obama seems willing to risk a rebellion from our trading partners to get higher profits for the pharmaceutical, entertainment, and software industries. It is only when the question is one of jobs for U.S. workers that the risk of such a rebellion becomes an unacceptable price.

This administration as well as the Clinton administration suppoort for Nafta and GAT could have sponsored trade deals that would advance the interests of workers in the United States. For example, if we focused on reducing patent and copyright protections nationally and internationally, we could save hundreds of billions annually on drugs and other products. We could also loosen professional barriers that cause our doctors to earn twice as much as their counterparts in other wealthy countries, leading to huge savings in healthcare costs.

But these items are not on President Obama's trade agenda. Rather, it is dominated by a list of measures that are likely to increase inequality. And if his trade deals are defeated because they refuse to take any steps to redress the trade deficit and the loss of well-paying manufacturing jobs to trade, it will not be bad news for the country.

Redacted from ; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/trade-crazy-the-push-for_b_6740130.html

"How Many Americans Will Die If The Supreme Court Chooses To Gut Obamacare?"

A brief filed on behalf of multiple public health scholars and the American Public Health Association, estimates that “over 9,800 additional Americans” will die if the justices side with the King plaintiffs. It reaches this conclusion by starting with an Urban Institute study showing that 8.2 million people will become uninsured in this scenario. As other research examining Obamacare-like reforms in the state of Massachusetts found that “for every 830 adults gaining insurance coverage there was one fewer death per year,” that translates to between 9,800 and 9,900 deaths if the justices back the plaintiffs in King.

Another method produces slightly less grim numbers, although it still indicates that thousands will die unnecessarily if the Supreme Court does not uphold the tax credits at issue in King. The Harvard study mentioned above concludes that there were “approximately 44,789 deaths among Americans aged 18 to 64 years in 2005 associated with lack of health insurance.” It also states that, at the time of the study, “46 million Americans lack health coverage.” The 8.2 million people who will lose health care according to the Urban Institute equals just under 18 percent of 46 million. Thus, assuming that the pool of 8.2 million people who could lose health insurance in King has a similar mix of healthy and sick individuals as the 46 million examined by the Harvard study, that suggests that approximately 8,000 people will die every year if the King plaintiffs prevail.

(Snip)

The other factor is that approximately 8.4 million children are enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the justices could take insurance away from 5 million of these children as well in King. That’s because a provision ensuring that CHIP beneficiaries remain insured even if Congress failed to extend CHIP funding beyond this September uses very similar language to the language at issue in King. So if the justices decide to cut off tax credits, they are likely to cut off CHIP funds as well for millions of children unless Congress intervenes by the deadline.

That means that, should the justices side with the King plaintiffs, the fate of 5 million children rests with a Republican-controlled Congress.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/02/24/3626080/many-americans-will-die-supreme-court-chooses-gut-obamacare/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tptop3&elq=~~eloqua..type--emailfield..syntax--recipientid~~&elqCampaignId=~~eloqua..type--campaign..campaignid--0..fieldname--id~~