Tuesday, January 8, 2013
ITS ON ITS WAY TO US PEOPLE! Amid Federal Land Grab in Brazil, Whole Towns Evicted at Gunpoint
Since the latest controversial operation began in November in the state of Mato Grosso, according to authorities and news reports, citizens opposed to being stripped of their property and homes have been doing everything in their power to stop the assault — setting up road blocks, battling heavily armed federal forces with stones, sticks, and Molotov cocktails, torching government trucks, protesting, and refusing to leave. Others cried as they tore down their own simple houses under armed guard.
Reporters on the scene and even federal lawmakers suspect bloodshed may be near. The government, however, has vowed to expel the communities at any cost, threatening those who refuse to comply with criminal charges and even confiscation of what little remains of their personal property. Rubber bullets, tear gas, and threats of real bullets and prosecution have all been employed to forcibly remove the locals, whom the government continues to dehumanize as “invaders” and “intruders.”
Critics and local residents have accused the government of Brazil of mass corruption, saying the end goal is to smash private property ownership and all potential resistance — starting with the rural population. They argue, among other points, that federal authorities are doing the bidding of foreign interests and are in cahoots with the UN, massive international corporations, Western-based non-governmental organizations like Greenpeace, and other interests.
“This is just one more case among many. The policy of Brazil’s leftist government is to dismantle the country to deliver it all to ‘native reserves,’ which are nothing more than instruments of billionaire foreign Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs),” explained renowned Brazilian writer and philosopher Professor Olavo de Carvalho, who has played a key role in exposing the well-orchestrated socialist takeover of Latin America.
The so-called “pink tide” sweeping over the region is being led in part by top Brazilian Labor Party (PT) officials, who currently hold power, collaborating with totalitarian regimes in the region. As The New American has documented extensively, a shadowy network of socialist and communist political parties as well as Marxist terror groups known as Foro de São Paulo — founded by former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, communist tyrant Fidel Castro, the Sandinistas, and others — now dominates Latin American politics.
The justification used in the most recent land grab case in Mato Grosso’s Suiá-Missu, however, is unparalleled in terms of cynicism, Carvalho, the conservative Brazilian leader, told The New American. “Ages ago, Brazilian Indians used to avoid settling in a particular place; they traveled long distances and created temporary residences along the way,” he explained. “The Brazilian government accepted the thesis of some anthropologists that wherever Indians left one of their dead buried in the ground, suddenly the land belongs to them. The population of Suiá-Missu is poor and working people who have no way to respond to the brute force of the communist government.”
Some 400,000 acres of land in the state of Mato Grosso with numerous towns — at least one of the communities in Estrela do Araguaia was home to an estimated 7,500 residents complete with churches, schools, hospitals, a graveyard and more, though the government claims the figures are smaller — was reportedly handed to a group of nearby Indians in the 1990s by official decree. Property owners’ deeds were nullified and no compensation was offered. Authorities began the forced relocation of all non-Indians late last year after giving existing residents just 30 days to vacate their land “voluntarily.” Most refused to go.
“In the final days of December, the federal government’s task force working on expelling local residents from the Marãiwatsédé indigenous land in Mato Grosso prioritized the expulsion of the community of Posto da Mata, a center of fierce resistance against returning the land to the Xavante Indians,” the federal National Indian Foundation (Funai), part of the Justice Ministry, said in a statement in early January. “Justice officials set a January 4 deadline for residents to evacuate the area. Whoever does not leave by that date will have their belongings confiscated by Justice and will have to answer for the crime of disobedience.” Tensions are still brewing, though, and the evictions are far from completed.
About 3,000 people lived in Posto da Mata, including 700 school children who will now be homeless if the government gets its way. "Where are we going to stay? Where are we going to live? What are we going to live off of? What are we going to eat going forward?" wondered a tearful girl outside one of the town's two schools in a TV interview. "I've lived here all my 17 years and I'm not leaving."
An 8-year-old boy, also crying, read a letter to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, a “former” self-styled communist terrorist during the military regime, begging her not to let the police knock down his family’s house. Rousseff and her administration, however, appear unmoved, with the powerful Brazilian regime marching onward regardless of the human tragedy left in its wake.
“The federal government is sticking to the judicial decision with firmness and serenity,” Chief Minister Gilberto Carvalho with the General Secretariat of the President said in a press release. “Violent and illegal actions will not be tolerated and adequate measures are already being taken.”
Locals, however, are still petitioning the government to stop the barbaric relocation, which they say will shatter thousands of lives. Protesters have been tearing down and burning Brazilian flags while local, state, and even federal political leaders have expressed outrage about the brutal relocation. Congressman Valtenir Pereira, for instance, warned a top executive branch official about the increasing risk of bloodshed as the battle rages on. He also said that the forced relocation of families risked damaging Brazil's image and reputation in front of the international community.
"I told him that the international community is aware of the problem. We are running the risk of allowing bloodshed to occur. The conflict has already started, we've had incidents between police and locals who did not want to leave the area," he said. "I also said that this conflict can become a blood stain on the presidency. President Dilma and her vice president cannot let this happen, otherwise they will stain Brazil's image internationally. The solution depends only on the president."
The history of the land is in dispute, but it appears that in the 1960s, Brazilian authorities may have expelled local Indians from the region and moved them hundreds of miles away before selling off the land. The goal was supposedly to encourage Brazilians and agricultural producers in particular to settle the area, which saw a steady influx of new residents over the following decades.
Many locals and even outside analysts question whether the land was really inhabited by Indians at all. Even some Xavante Indians have spoken out, explaining that their people always lived in another region with another climate and type of vegetation.
The UN and Greenpeace, though, were heavily involved in promoting the idea during the recent Rio+20 “sustainable development” conference in Rio de Janeiro, parading a group of Indians around the premises in between bizarre ceremonies worshiping “Mother Earth” and calls for a planetary regime. Greenpeace, of course, has an atrocious record when it comes to indigenous people and has destroyed more than a few Native American communities over the years under the guise of pseudo-environmentalism.
Nevertheless, the courts ruled in 2010 that the executive decree kicking all non-Indian residents out of the area without compensation for the loss of their property and homes could move forward. Shortly after that, the decision to force residents off their land was put on hold. In May of 2012, however, another court said the relocation could proceed.
That decision was also halted, but the Brazilian Supreme Court eventually decided that the evictions could proceed as planned. Residents were notified on November 7 that they should pack what they could and go within 30 days, or face the full fury of the federal government. A few reportedly left, enticed by government promises of welfare and new land somewhere else for certain eligible small farmers, but many more stayed. Ranchers and farmers with larger properties were offered nothing.
“According to Brazilian law, as the invaders remained illegally on Indian land, knowing that it is federal property, they are not entitled to any compensation,” a spokesperson for Funai, the Justice Ministry’s Indian department, told The New American in a statement without addressing the now-voided property deeds held by residents. “Nevertheless, the Brazilian government acts to resettle those who meet the criteria of the Brazilian Agrarian Reform Policy.”
Of course, land expropriation in Brazil is nothing new — for decades, the government has been demonizing “big” farmers and “wealthy” ranchers, seizing and redistributing their property in the push for so-called “agrarian reform.” Even recently, longtime residents in other regions have also been expelled under the guise of “Indian lands,” too. In neighboring Venezuela, meanwhile, socialist strongman Hugo Chavez has been stealing massive amounts of land from its owners as well, citing the alleged need to “redistribute wealth.”
But like Mao’s “agrarian reform” in Communist China, which was portrayed as an innocent movement until it ultimately contributed to the murder of tens of millions, farmers and opponents of the assault in Latin America fear the worst. “The goal of destroying the rural sector in Brazil, one of the strongest in the world, is far from complete,” conservative Brazilian activist and farmer Walber Guerreiro told The New American, noting that, like all communists, the current government leaders of Brazil hope to smash independent-minded farmers and ranchers. “But it is an absolute priority for the Marxist agenda.”
Guerreiro, who knows some of the victims in Mato Grosso, also cited international treaties declaring forced relocation to be a crime against humanity, saying it was time for the world community to speak out about the rampant and increasingly serious abuses being perpetrated by the Brazilian regime. He worries that if authorities are allowed to continue running wild with impunity, bigger towns will be next, and more victims will soon be forcibly stripped of their homes and property at the barrel of a gun.
Also alarming, he said, was that some of the military vehicles being used to terrorize and evict local residents bore the same UN insignia used by international so-called “peace keeping” forces. Video documentation showed, and Brazilian federal authorities confirmed to The New American, that troops and equipment sporting the UN logo are indeed involved in the operation. However, officials claimed that the controversial global organization was not actually involved and that the soldiers and equipment had recently returned from “peace keeping” operations abroad, hence the insignia.
“My family has been on the lands we work since the '50s, but it is clear that nothing, not even our work time, our obedience to laws, the deed for the land, our huge production volume — nothing can protect us,” he said. “We can suddenly be informed that there is ‘Indian land’ under our farms, and from that point onwards we cannot do anything in our defense.”
After the regime is done with farmers and ranchers, though, new classes of victims will find themselves in the crosshairs. “Nothing guarantees civil security in the Labor Party’s (PT) Brazil, and this process will not end with just the persecution of farmers,” Guerreiro concluded. “In the end, everyone will have their property expropriated, exactly like what happened in Cuba, the paradise of the PT’s dreams.”
As The New American reported years ago, socialist and communist forces are making significant progress throughout Latin America, with major support from abroad and just a handful of national governments resisting the trend. However, considering the recent birth of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUL or UNASUR) — a European Union-like transnational regime dominated by self-identified socialists — the people of the entire continent are facing the very real prospect of brutal tyranny in the not-too-distant future. And without a massive outcry, the farmers and poor workers of Suiá Missú will definitely not be the last victims.
Could Obama be first 3-term president since FDR?
Should the bill become a law, it could allow President Barack Obama to run for reelection yet again in 2016.
The bill, H.J. Res. 15, offers “an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.”
New York Democratic Rep. Jose Serrano reintroduced the measure on January 4, after it did not make it to a floor vote in January 2011, the Daily Caller reports. Serrano has attempted to repeal the amendment for decades and proposed similar bills in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007.
Rep. Serrano’s initiatives are not dependent on any particular party, since he has tried to get the measure passed under the presidencies of both Democrats and Republicans. But if the bill makes it to the floor for a vote this year, President Obama, a Democrat, might have a chance at a third term in the White House, which would make him the first president to possibly seek a third term since Franklin Roosevelt.
Even though a repeal has not made it far in Congress, there have been several attempts at bringing it to the floor, which have garnered support from past presidents and prominent legislators. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) repeatedly proposed repealing the 22nd Amendment while both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were in office, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to repeal it in 1995. In 1989, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced a similar resolution.
Former President Ronald Reagan told Barbara Walters in a 1986 interview that the 22nd Amendment “was a mistake,” while former President Bill Clinton has always believed in the option for a president to seek reelection at a later time – even if he has already served twice.
“Shouldn’t a president be able to take two terms, take time off and run again?” Clinton said in an MSNBC interview in November. “I’ve always thought that should be the rule. I think as a practical matter, you couldn’t apply this to anyone who has already served, but going forward, I personally believe that should be the rule.”
Repealing the 22nd Amendment has been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, but has never garnered enough votes to go into effect.
Congress passed the 22nd Amendment on March 21, 1947. It was ratified by 41 states and rejected by only two. It limits each president to two terms, but did not apply to the sitting president, former President Harry Truman, who withdrew as a candidate for re-election in 1952.
Egypt Seeks $500B from Israel for Sinai Damage
| Egypt Seeks $500 billion reparations from Israel for Sinai Damage |
In December of 2011 Egypt sent the United Nations a report detailing the reasons for which Israel owes the government of Egypt $500 billion for damage sustained by the Sinai Peninsula when it was controlled by Israel between 1967 and 1982. Following one year of inaction by the UN, the report has now been sent to the US administration in the hopes that it will press its ally, Israel, into paying the debt. The monetary demand is based on the claim that in its occupation and exit of the Sinai Peninsula, Israel disabled all ways of life and methods for progress in the region. It is based off of Article VIII of the 1979 peace agreement between the nations, which said, “The parties agree to establish a claims commission for the mutual settlement of all financial claims.” The report notes that former president Hosni Mubarak did not introduce claims regarding any of the stolen goods or physical damage throughout his time as ruler. The 750 page report describes the plethora of ways in which Israel shattered the local economy. It asserts that Israel destroyed the fishing industry and 40 percent of the coral reefs; took valuable oil, gold, and gems, leaving only “worthless” rock behind. It goes on to say that maritime trade through the Suez Canal was disrupted between 1967 and 1975, thus depriving Egypt of millions of dollars’ worth of revenue; Israel stole just under $50 billion worth of sand; and conducted excavations, stealing valuable artifacts from both the land and museums in the area. Israel also allegedly took 30 percent of the region’s freshwater sources, redirecting them towards its own population. Militarily, the report claims that Israeli soldiers ransacked all Egyptian banks in the Gaza Strip following the conclusion of the 1967 war, and Israel obliterated the Egyptian Air Force in 1967. Now, Egyptian leaders are asserting their rights to reparations for the wrongs committed through the 1970s’. The timing is important, as Egypt is desperate for funding right now. Talks with the IMF regarding a $4.8 billion loan will be restarting shortly. |
GREENWALD: CIA Nominee John Brennan Is Being Rewarded For Extremism And Dishonesty
This "victory" of forcing Brennan's withdrawal proved somewhat Pyrrhic, as Obama then appointed him as his top counter-terrorism adviser, where he exerted at least as much influence as he would have had as CIA Director, if not more. In that position, Brennan last year got caught outright lying when he claimed Obama's drone program caused no civilian deaths in Pakistan over the prior year. He also spouted complete though highly influential falsehoods to the world in the immediate aftermath of the Osama bin Laden killing, including claiming that bin Laden "engaged in a firefight" with Navy SEALS and had "used his wife as a human shield". Brennan has also been in charge of many of Obama's most controversial and radical policies, including "signature strikes" in Yemen - targeting people without even knowing who they are - and generally seizing the power to determine who will be marked for execution without any due process, oversight or transparency.
As it typically does in the US National Security State, all of that deceit and radicalism is resulting not in recrimination or loss of credibility for Brennan, but in reward and promotion. At 1 pm EST today, Obama will announce that he has selected Brennan to replace Gen. David Petraeus as CIA chief: the same position for which, four short years ago, Brennan's pro-torture-and-rendition past rendered him unfit and unconfirmable.
Although I actively opposed Brennan's CIA nomination in 2008, I can't quite muster the energy or commitment to do so now. Indeed, the very idea that someone should be disqualified from service in the Obama administration because of involvement in and support for extremist Bush terrorism polices seems quaint and obsolete, given the great continuity between Bush and Obama on these issues. Whereas in 2008 it seemed uncertain in which direction Obama would go, making it important who wielded influence, that issue is now settled: Brennan is merely a symptom of Obama's own extremism in these areas, not a cause. This continuity will continue with or without Brennan because they are, rather obviously, Obama's preferred policies.
Still, this is worth commenting on because the drastic change between the reaction to Brennan in 2008 and now is revealing. The New York Times article this morning on the appointment claims that "it is uncertain whether the torture issue will now cause any problems for Mr. Brennan." Of course, there is nothing at all uncertain about that: "the torture issue" won't cause any problems for Brennan, as it did in 2008, because Obama has buried that issue with his "Look Forward, not Backward" decrees; because most people who claimed concern over such issues back in 2008 have resigned themselves to Obama's posture in this area; and because, with very rare exception, there are no more serious campaigns mounted against Obama's decisions except from the American Right.
It is a perfect illustration of the Obama legacy that a person who was untouchable as CIA chief in 2008 because of his support for Bush's most radical policies is not only Obama's choice for the same position now, but will encounter very little resistance. Within this change one finds one of the most significant aspects of the Obama presidency: his conversion of what were once highly contentious right-wing policies into harmonious dogma of the DC bipartisan consensus. Then again, given how the CIA operates, one could fairly argue that Brennan's eagerness to deceive and his long record of supporting radical and unaccountable powers make him the perfect person to run that agency. It seems clear that this is Obama's calculus.
UPDATE
There's one more point worth noting: the reason Obama needs a new CIA chief is because David Petraeus was forced to resign. Here we see the ethos and morality of imperial Washington: past support for torture and rendition does not disqualify one for a top national security position; only an extramarital affair can do that.Ahead of Chuck Hagel, John Brennan nominations, US intel official in Cairo
; "Chuck Hagel nominated US Defense Secretary")
Hagel faced a preliminary storm over his attitudes on Israel and Iran, whereas Brennan, as counterterrorism adviser to the president, has been responsible for shaping administration policy in this sphere in Libya, Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula.
The United States has still not taken steps against the Libyan Ansar al-Sharia group, which assassinated the ambassador and three US staffers on Sept. 11. 2012, and numbered Egyptian al Qaeda jihadis who came in from Cairo.
This cross-alliance still functions with impunity as the Libyan group enforces its control over large areas of Benghazi and eastern Libya, funded by the smuggling of arms from Libya and pumping them into the big smuggling pipelines running through Sinai via Egypt.
Jihadist terror is also rampant in Sinai. On Nov. 21, President Obama, in a phone call to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, pledged the immediate deployment of US troops for leading a comprehensive Egyptian campaign against the al Qaeda and Salafist Bedouin extremists who have settled in northern and central Sinai after driving the Egyptian administration out. This pledge was part of the ceasefire deal which ended Israel’s Gaza Strip operation. But so far, according to our military and counterterrorism sources, very little has been done except for a visit to Sinai by a small study group of American officers and servicemen.
The delay is accounted for mainly by the weighty challenges confronting Egyptian President Mohamed Mors in the last couple of months. Morso is practically the only office-holder in Cairo ready to endorse an covert military US operation in Sinai for eradicating the terrorist bane. Egyptian Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah Al-Sissi was his only ally, but in recent weeks the Egyptian army has come out against an anti-al Qaeda expedition in Sinai.
The security situation there is constantly deteriorating as Egypt struggles to retain some grip on the territory. In mid-December, the defense minister in Cairo quietly issued an order, with made hardly a ripple outside Egypt, “restricting the right to buy property in Sinai to second-generation Egyptian citizens.”
This prohibition was made necessary, our sources disclose, by the land grab in force by partnerships of Persian Gulf tycoons, mainly Qatar, and Gazan Palestinian, mostly Hamas adherents. They were quietly snapping up choice coastal strips of Sinai to gain control of the peninsula’s Mediterranean and Gulf of Aqaba shores, as well as the western and eastern regions.
The Egyptian military passed the new law to save the territory from slipping out of its hands to Palestinian Hamas and Gulf oil interests. Hamas is also believed to be in cahoots with allies in the armed terrorist groups of Libya and Sinai.
Delayed American action in Sinai has produced three results:
1. The Sinai arms smuggling route (which also serves Iran) is thriving as never before. The expanded earnings of Ansar al-Sharia are bolstering its grip on power in Libya;
2. Sinai has been allowed to evolve into al Qaeda’s primary operational-logistical hub for Africa and the Middle East, its jumping-off base for action in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Yemen;
3. In the absence of any resistance, al Qaeda is bringing its positions close to the Israeli border. All Egyptian military efforts to curtail the terrorist creep into the northern Sinai towns of El Arish and Rafah have had no effect.
Sunday, Jan. 6, a band of Salafist Bedouin came up to a parked car on the El Arish main street and shot the driver dead. debkafile reports that the victim, one of the top men in Egypt’s counter-terror campaign in northern Sinai, was on a surveillance mission in civilian dress. The terrorists knew who he was – indicating they have established a clandestine presence inside Egypt’s security services.
Germany begins deployment of Patriot missiles to Turkey
Following suit with the US, Germany and the Netherlands have begun deployment of troops and Patriot missiles along the Syrian-Turkish border. Despite claims they will protect against a Syrian threat, some fear Turkey is now the real "security risk".
Tuesday morning saw a ship carrying two Patriot missiles set out from a northeastern German seaport and a convoy of German soldiers fly out of the Dutch city of Eindhoven. They will assemble along the Turkish-Syrian border in preparation for the arrival of the defense systems in several weeks’ time.
Germany is sending a total of 350 troops to reinforce the border zone between the two countries, along with the US, which has pledged to send up to 400 troops and two missile batteries. The Netherlands will be providing the remaining two missile batteries.
All six missile batteries are expected to be fully operational by the end of January.
NATO, which is coordinating the deployment of the forces along the border, says that Syria poses a significant threat to neighboring Turkey and has described the move as purely defensive.
The Dutch Chief of Defense, General Tom Middendorp, told reporters that the risk of missile fire from Syria should not be downplayed.
"We want to prevent what could amount to large numbers of casualties among innocent civilians," he said, adding that "scud missiles have a potential range of hundreds of kilometers, so they could easily hit Turkish cities. Besides explosives, they can also carry other types of payload, for instance chemical warheads."
Fears have been growing over the possible use of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile in the conflict and their falling into extremist hands. Moscow, however, has labeled these claims a pretext to push for foreign intervention in Syria.
Russia has criticized the NATO decision to deploy Patriots along the border on the basis that they could be used for offensive purposes as well as defensive, potentially escalating the ongoing conflict.
"The government is not acting in public interests or in the interests of national security,” he said, stating the German government was kowtowing to NATO’s and the Western community’s interests.
Ochsenreiter said that deploying weapons and soldiers to the area was already an offensive act, especially given the Syrian opposition’s numerous calls for reinforcements and arms.
He described the troop build-up along the border as “a high risk for the entire region,” perhaps preempting a situation similar to the conflict in Afghanistan where the conflict dragged out for over 10 years.
Syrian President Bashar Assad outlined a peace solution to the conflict in Syria on Sunday, starting with the withdrawal of international support for opposition agents he condemned as “terrorists linked with Al-Qaeda.”
Assad’s plan was rejected by the nascent opposition group the Syrian Coalition as “empty rhetoric” and said that his stepping down could be the only prerequisite to negotiations.
Germany is sending a total of 350 troops to reinforce the border zone between the two countries, along with the US, which has pledged to send up to 400 troops and two missile batteries. The Netherlands will be providing the remaining two missile batteries.
All six missile batteries are expected to be fully operational by the end of January.
NATO, which is coordinating the deployment of the forces along the border, says that Syria poses a significant threat to neighboring Turkey and has described the move as purely defensive.
The Dutch Chief of Defense, General Tom Middendorp, told reporters that the risk of missile fire from Syria should not be downplayed.
"We want to prevent what could amount to large numbers of casualties among innocent civilians," he said, adding that "scud missiles have a potential range of hundreds of kilometers, so they could easily hit Turkish cities. Besides explosives, they can also carry other types of payload, for instance chemical warheads."
Fears have been growing over the possible use of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile in the conflict and their falling into extremist hands. Moscow, however, has labeled these claims a pretext to push for foreign intervention in Syria.
Russia has criticized the NATO decision to deploy Patriots along the border on the basis that they could be used for offensive purposes as well as defensive, potentially escalating the ongoing conflict.
‘Turkey the real risk’
Concern has been voiced that the reinforcement along the Turkish border could be used as a platform to enforcement a no-fly zone above Syria or mount attacks on targets inside the country. Manuel Ochsenreiter, a German journalist told RT that the deployment of the troops and missiles was "questionable"."The government is not acting in public interests or in the interests of national security,” he said, stating the German government was kowtowing to NATO’s and the Western community’s interests.
Ochsenreiter said that deploying weapons and soldiers to the area was already an offensive act, especially given the Syrian opposition’s numerous calls for reinforcements and arms.
He described the troop build-up along the border as “a high risk for the entire region,” perhaps preempting a situation similar to the conflict in Afghanistan where the conflict dragged out for over 10 years.
Syrian President Bashar Assad outlined a peace solution to the conflict in Syria on Sunday, starting with the withdrawal of international support for opposition agents he condemned as “terrorists linked with Al-Qaeda.”
Assad’s plan was rejected by the nascent opposition group the Syrian Coalition as “empty rhetoric” and said that his stepping down could be the only prerequisite to negotiations.
Hints of Syrian Chemical Push Set Off Global Effort to Stop It
WASHINGTON — In the last days of November, Israel’s top military commanders called the Pentagon to discuss troubling intelligence that was showing up on satellite imagery: Syrian troops appeared to be mixing chemicals at two storage sites, probably the deadly nerve gas sarin, and filling dozens of 500-pounds bombs that could be loaded on airplanes.
Within hours President Obama was notified, and the alarm grew over the weekend, as the munitions were loaded onto vehicles near Syrian air bases. In briefings, administration officials were told that if Syria’s increasingly desperate president, Bashar al-Assad, ordered the weapons to be used, they could be airborne in less than two hours — too fast for the United States to act, in all likelihood.
What followed next, officials said, was a remarkable show of international cooperation over a civil war in which the United States, Arab states, Russia and China have almost never agreed on a common course of action.
The combination of a public warning by Mr. Obama and more sharply worded private messages sent to the Syrian leader and his military commanders through Russia and others, including Iraq, Turkey and possibly Jordan, stopped the chemical mixing and the bomb preparation. A week later Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the worst fears were over — for the time being.
But concern remains that Mr. Assad could now use the weapons produced that week at any moment. American and European officials say that while a crisis was averted in that week from late November to early December, they are by no means resting easy.
“I think the Russians understood this is the one thing that could get us to intervene in the war,” one senior defense official said last week. “What Assad understood, and whether that understanding changes if he gets cornered in the next few months, that’s anyone’s guess.”
While chemical weapons are technically considered a “weapon of mass destruction” — along with biological and nuclear weapons — in fact they are hard to use and hard to deliver. Whether an attack is effective can depend on the winds and the terrain. Sometimes attacks are hard to detect, even after the fact. Syrian forces could employ them in a village or a neighborhood, some officials say, and it would take time for the outside world to know.
But the scare a month ago has renewed debate about whether the West should help the Syrian opposition destroy Mr. Assad’s air force, which he would need to deliver those 500-pound bombs.
The chemical munitions are still in storage areas that are near or on Syrian air bases, ready for deployment on short notice, officials said.
The Obama administration and other governments have said little in public about the chemical weapons movements, in part because of concern about compromising sources of intelligence about the activities of Mr. Assad’s forces. This account is based on interviews with more than half a dozen military, intelligence and diplomatic officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the intelligence matters involved.
The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, warned in a confidential assessment last month that the weapons could now be deployed four to six hours after orders were issued, and that Mr. Assad had a special adviser at his side who oversaw control of the weapons, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported. Some American and other allied officials, however, said in interviews that the sarin-laden bombs could be loaded on planes and airborne in less than two hours.
“Let’s just say right now, it would be a relatively easy thing to load this quickly onto aircraft,” said one Western diplomat.
How the United States and Israel, along with Arab states, would respond remains a mystery. American and allied officials have talked vaguely of having developed “contingency plans” in case they decided to intervene in an effort to neutralize the chemical weapons, a task that the Pentagon estimates would require upward of 75,000 troops. But there have been no evident signs of preparations for any such effort.
The United States military has quietly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan to help the armed forces there, among other things, prepare for the possibility that Syria will lose control of its chemical weapons.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was reported to have traveled to Jordan in recent weeks, and the Israeli news media have said the topic of discussion was how to deal with Syrian weapons if it appeared that they could be transferred to Lebanon, where Hezbollah could lob them over the border to Israel. But the plans, to the extent they exist, remain secret.
American, Israeli and other allied officials remained fixed on this potential crisis, especially as the opposition appears to have gained more momentum, seizing several Syrian military bases and the weapons stored there, and have been closing in on Damascus, the Syrian capital.
In response, Syria has reached deeper into its conventional arsenal, including firing Scud ballistic missiles at rebel positions near Aleppo. Over the past week a new concern emerged: Syrian forces began shooting new, accurate short-range missiles, believed to have been manufactured in Iran. None had chemical warheads. But their use showed that the Syrian military was now deploying a more accurate weapon than the notoriously inaccurate Scud missiles they have used in previous attacks.
As the fighting has escalated, American and other allied officials have said that government troops have moved some of the chemical stockpiles to safer locations, a consolidation that, if it continues, could actually help Western forces should they have to enter Syria to seize control of the munitions or destroy them.
Syria’s chemical weapons are under the control of a secretive Syrian air force organization called Unit 450, a highly vetted outfit that is deemed one of the most loyal to the Assad government given the importance of the weapons in its custody.
American officials said that some of the back-channel messages in recent weeks were directed at the commanders of this unit, warning them — as Mr. Obama warned Mr. Assad on Dec. 3 — that they would be held personally responsible if the government used its chemical weapons.
Asked about these communications and whether they have been successful, an American intelligence official said only, “The topic is extremely sensitive, and public discussion, even on background, will be problematic.”
Allied officials say whatever safeguards the Syrian government have taken, there remains great concern that the weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist extremists fighting the government or the militant group Hezbollah, which has established small training camps near some of the storage sites.
“Militants who got their hands on such munitions would find it difficult to deploy them effectively without the associated aircraft, artillery or rocket launcher systems,” said Jeremy Binnie, a terrorism and insurgency specialist at IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly. “That said, Hezbollah would probably be able to deploy them effectively against Israel with a bit of help.”
What are they really doing? This is CNN mainstream will get you focused on one subject to have you miss what is really happening!
Residents of Washington may be surprised by a helicopter flying low overhead this week, endlessly prowling the city to map its radiation signature.
The helicopter is crisscrossing the city, like a lawn mower covering a lawn, flying as low as just 150 feet off the ground. CNN spotted it northwest of downtown on Monday, flying low over the buildings, back and forth, east to west.
The purpose: to produce a baseline scan of the natural radiological readings in the capital. Once the map is done, any new anomalies - or suspicious radioactive activity - could be more easily detected.
If authorities ever need to find stolen radioactive material in the capital or a dirty bomb, they would want to be able to separate out any new spikes in the radioactivity readings.
"If sometime in the future you have a reason to be looking for something radiological, it's very necessary to have the original background so you don't chase a high-radiation area that's part of the background," said Joseph Krol of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, which is conducting the work.
"If there was some type of threat," he said, "we would do the aerial survey first." Then, officers with sensors would go on foot to the location where an anomaly was found. A team could be deployed anywhere in the country within two hours, he said.
"The way we operate," he said, "we assume every time we get a call, that this is the big one."
The scan of the District of Columbia will cover 70 square miles and take about two weeks to complete. But if authorities were urgently trying to find nuclear material, Krol said, "we would hope that scanning the entire city would not be necessary. You always have other indicators, like intelligence, that narrows down the search area."
A dirty bomb - a bomb with no atomic explosion, but spewing enough radioactive material to require evacuations and quarantines - is a method of attack that terrorists would be highly interested in, according to Randy Larsen with the Institute for Homeland Security.
"The good news is, it wouldn't kill a lot of people," he said. "But if you did it here in downtown Washington D.C., or Wall Street in New York City, and the people can't go back in that area for a long time, that's a pretty significant event."
But could a hidden dirty bomb be detected from a helicopter?
"Absolutely," said Larsen, but only after a detailed scan has been done. "This would tend to make something stick out like a sore thumb. Without it, it would be looking for a needle in a haystack."
Two pilots, a scientist, a technician and equipment for detecting gamma radiation are aboard the flights.
Everyday radiation can come from several common urban sources, including industrial sites, construction sites, hospitals that use radiological materials, and even the stone used in buildings and monuments.
The agency has already scanned the capital once before, as well as New York, Baltimore, and San Francisco.
Larsen said the New York scan turned up unexpected sources of radiation - industrial accidents that were never been reported. "They were surprised how many hot spots they found," he said.
The helicopter in Washington is making an exception for the National Zoo, giving it a wider berth to avoid scaring the animals. But Krol said the public should not be worried about the survey's potential impact on people.
"These scanners are passive," he said. "All they're doing is measuring the emanations coming from the ground."
Planned Parenthood's New Annual Report: We Did 333,964 Abortions; 1 Every 94 Seconds
That works out to an average of one abortion every 94 seconds.
The 333,964 abortion Planned Parenthood did in fiscal 2011 is an increase of 4,519 from the 329,445 abortions it did in 2010, according to a fact sheet that Planned Parenthood published last year.
Over two years, Planned Parenthood says, it has aborted 663,409.
The 2011-2012 report states that Planned Parenthood received $542.4 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements,” which it states includes “payments from Medicaid managed care plans.”
The report also shows that Planned Parenthood’s total assets top $1 billion dollars, specifically $1,244.7 billion.
“We are so proud of the year’s many successes, and deeply grateful for all the partners, sponsors, volunteers, staff and friends who helped make them possible,” states the report's introductory letter, signed by PPFA president Cecile Richards and Cecelia Boone, chairwoman of the organization.
Supreme Court won't stop embryonic stem cell research
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court won't stop the government's funding of embryonic stem cell research, despite some researchers' complaints that the work relies on destroyed human embryos.
The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from two scientists who have been challenging the funding for the work.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia earlier this year threw out their lawsuit challenging federal funding for the research, which is used in pursuit of cures to deadly diseases. Opponents claimed the National Institutes of Health was violating the 1996 Dickey-Wicker law that prohibits taxpayer financing for work that harms an embryo.
Researchers hope one day to use stem cells in ways that cure spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments.
The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from two scientists who have been challenging the funding for the work.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia earlier this year threw out their lawsuit challenging federal funding for the research, which is used in pursuit of cures to deadly diseases. Opponents claimed the National Institutes of Health was violating the 1996 Dickey-Wicker law that prohibits taxpayer financing for work that harms an embryo.
Researchers hope one day to use stem cells in ways that cure spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease and other ailments.
Iran defense official says 2,000 ‘enemy bases’ are in range
General boasts of armed forces’ progress
A senior Iranian defense official said that the Islamic Republic can now target thousands of “enemy bases,” the Fars News Agency reported on Monday.
“Iran has now reached a point of progress that can target 2,000 enemy bases within a range of 2,000 km,” said General Morteza Qorbani, senior adviser to the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces.
Last month, the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said that although Iran could build longer range missiles if it wanted to, getting warheads as far as Israel is enough.
“We don’t need missiles with a range of more than 2,000 km, but we have the technology to build them,” Hajizadeh told reporters in December. He underscored that “Israel is our longest-range target.”
Syria 'has chemical weapons that could be used within two hours'
The Syrian regime has “dozens of 500-lb bombs” being armed with Sarin nerve gas, according to reports of satellite imagery from seen by the Pentagon at the end of last year.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
delivers a rare televised speech to the nation Photo:
BBC
The bombs were being loaded on to vehicles near Syrian airbases and could be
airborne within two hours, if President Bashar al-Assad ordered their use, the
officials told President Barack Obama.
The details of the briefing were released to the
New York Times and explain a sudden
warning issued by Mr Obama to the Syrian regime at the beginning of December.
His statement, which said that any use of chemical weapons would have
“consequences” and that “the world would act”, was followed by private messages
to the Syrian authorities from Russia and neighbours including Turkey and Iraq
that they would be held “personally responsible”.
Those messages, which diplomats told the paper were coordinated from
American, European and Arab capitals, seem to have been enough to deter the
weapons’ use for the time being, if it were intended.
Leon Panetta, the US Defence Secretary, who said the regime would cross a
“red line” triggering military intervention if it used the bombs, followed up a
week later by saying the worst fears were over.
Syrians expect war after Assad's speech of peace
Isaiah 17:1
The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city,
and it shall be a ruinous heap.
BEIRUT - Syrians said on Monday they expected only war after a speech by President Bashar Assad that was billed as a peace plan, and fighting resumed in the capital just a few miles from where he spoke.
The opposition-linked group said artillery hit the district of Arqaba, 3 miles (5 km) from the Opera House. Fighting continued all night and into Monday around the capital, as well as in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, it said.
Damascus residents said the speech was met with celebratory gunfire in pro-Assad neighborhoods. But even there, some saw no sign peace was any closer, although the cabinet was due to begin implementing the plan to "solve the crisis in Syria."
In the wake of Assad's speech and renewed violence in Syria, Pope Benedict on Monday urged the international community to end what he called the endless slaughter before the entire country became a "a field of ruins."
He made the appeal in particularly strong terms during a yearly "state of the world" address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican.
He said Syria, where the United Nations estimates that 60,000 people have been killed, was "torn apart by endless slaughter and [is] the scene of dreadful suffering among its civilian population."
He called for an "end to a conflict which will know no victors but only vanquished if it continues, leaving behind it nothing but a field of ruins."
Syria's Prime Minister Wael al-Halki called on Monday for a special cabinet meeting to implement the "national program announced by President Bashar al-Assad yesterday to solve the crisis in Syria," the state news agency SANA said.
However, George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, said the putative peace plan "did not even deserve to be called an initiative."
"We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people," he told Reuters.
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the speech "yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power."
"His initiative is detached from reality, undermines the efforts of (UN peace envoy) Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, and would only allow the regime to further perpetuate its bloody oppression of the Syrian people."
France joined the United States in saying Assad's speech showed he had lost touch with reality.
Assad's main ally Iran defended the speech as offering a "comprehensive political process."
"This plan rejects violence and terrorism and any foreign interference," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in a statement.
There was no immediate response from Moscow, which has acted as Assad's main protector on the diplomatic stage. Sunday and Monday were part of the orthodox Christmas holiday when Russian state offices are mainly quiet.
Israel has also been watching warily from the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in the 1967 war and which, prior to the anti-Assad insurgency, had been mostly quiet for decades.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday Israel would erect a fence along the Golan armistice line to keep out jihadist rebels who, he said, had dislodged Assad's troops on the Syrian side. Much of the Golan is already fenced, and Israel has been reinforcing the fence for months after pro-Palestinian demonstrators twice tried to storm across in 2011.
On Monday, Netanyahu reiterated his concern over Syrian chemical weapons, stating they not only pose a threat to the civilians in Syria, and to Israel, but to the entire region.
"Chemical weapons not only endanger civilians in Syria, but also other parties in the Middle East, burdening the entire region as well as the United States and Russia," Netanyahu said.
He added that Israel is closely monitoring the situation, and is in communication with various governments in order to "prevent the chemical weapons reaching terrorist hands."
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