U.S. Foreign Policy

[Heracleum Persicum]

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Spengler :

The Islamic State is led by Sunni officers armed and funded by General David Petraeus, the US commander during the 2007-2008 "surge".
The observation is correct, to be sure :
ISIS shows impressive leadership capacity and mastery of large-unit tactics involving sophisticated equipment, and it learned much of this from the Americans.
But the Americans acted out of short-term political expediency rather than medium-term malevolence.


.. interesting ATOL article confirming ISIS an American baby


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[Heracleum Persicum]

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Using terrorists for regime change is unacceptable


Lebanon, Syria and now in Ukraine

will backfire, already does


State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin suggested that NATO members should expel the United States from the bloc, asserting such a move should return the security situation in Europe to normal levels.

“I have one fantastical proposal – I would suggest that European partners oust the USA from NATO,” Naryshkin said on Tuesday, as he spoke at an international conference dedicated to looking at possible ways of overcoming the current crisis in Europe.

“I am sure that after this step, the level of stability and security in Europe would quite soon return to its proper state,” the Russian politician added, as quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

The NATO charter allows any member-state to leave the alliance with a year’s notice, but so far the bloc has only been enlarging and encompassing former Eastern European nations. The United States provides about 72 percent of the 28-member alliance’s budget and over 1.4 million servicemen in a 3.3 million-strong NATO force.

In late October, Naryshkin told a Russian newspaper he believed the United States wanted to end mutual dialogue between Russia and Europe. He also noted that this would not happen, as Russia would keep looking for every opportunity to mend ties with its neighbors.

“Let us not play by their rules, not do what they are pressing for. If we help them in this it would be a big present to the ‘hawks.’ On the contrary, we will seek for every opportunity to hold a dialogue so that everyone can hear our position,” the Duma speaker said.

In September, Naryshkin told fellow lawmakers, in a parliamentary speech, that recent steps taken by the US and its allies were “cynical and irresponsible” and could cause a new Cold War.

.. makes sense


and

Putin is now the wise guy :

Russia won't get involved in geopolitical intrigues and conflicts - Putin

“We are not threatening anyone and are not planning to get involved in any geopolitical games, intrigues and especially conflicts, no matter who would want to pull us into them,” Putin said at a meeting with military chiefs in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Wednesday.

makes sense

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[Heracleum Persicum]

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Radio Free Europe

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The commander of Iran's Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, has reportedly assisted Iraqi Kurdish and Shi'ite militias to defeat Islamic State (IS) militants in the towns of Jalawla and Saadiya in Diyala Province.

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[Endovelico]

Meet the new US, NATO and EU "allies" in the Ukraine

[Endovelico]

OPEC Decision Is "Major Strike Against The American Market", Russian Tycoon Says

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-2 ... ycoon-says

As we warned yesterday, the last time that U.S. oil drillers got caught up in a price war orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, it ended badly for the Americans. OPEC's decision not to cut production, and Nigeria's comments on the need for burden-sharing among non-OPEC members, ensures a crash in the US shale industry according to Leonid Fedun (Russia's Lukoil board member). The Russian finance minister's comments that oil at $80 in coming years is moderately optimistic and as Fedun ominously warns, this is a "major strike against the American market." Isolated, much?

As Bloomberg reports,

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries kept output targets unchanged at a meeting in Vienna today even after this year’s slump in the oil price caused by surging supply from U.S shale fields.

American producers risk becoming victims of their own success. At today’s prices of just over $70 a barrel, drilling is close to becoming unprofitable for some explorers, Leonid Fedun, vice president and board member at OAO Lukoil, said in an interview in London.

“In 2016, when OPEC completes this objective of cleaning up the American marginal market, the oil price will start growing again,” said Fedun, who’s made a fortune of more than $4 billion in the oil business, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “The shale boom is on a par with the dot-com boom. The strong players will remain, the weak ones will vanish.”



...

In Russia, where Lukoil is the second-largest producer behind state-run OAO Rosneft, the industry is much less exposed to oil’s slump, Fedun said. Companies are protected by lower costs and the slide in the ruble that lessens the impact of falling prices in local currency terms, he said.

Even so, output in Russia, the biggest producer after Saudi Arabia in 2013, is likely to fall slightly next year as lower prices force producers to rein in investment, Fedun said.

“The major strike is against the American market,” Fedun said.

“Everybody is trying to put a very happy spin on their ability to weather $80 oil, but a lot of that is just smoke,” said
Daniel Dicker, president of MercBloc Wealth Management Solutions with 25 years’ experience trading crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange. “The shale revolution doesn’t work at $80, period.”

If the idea of lowering oil prices was to create problems for Russia, it seems that policy has seriously backfired.

[Doc]

Meet the new US, NATO and EU "allies" in the Ukraine

Link?

[Heracleum Persicum]

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. . . Newsweek

NEMESIS.jpg (156.06 KiB) Viewed 1098 times

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[Heracleum Persicum]

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What went wrong ?

According to an Iranian source close to the negotiations, the main obstacle was the inability of the US negotiators to convince Iranian counterparts that the administration could persuade Congress to repeal relevant sanctions provisions.

Of course, the American negotiators offered executive waivers to exempt banks and exporters from US penalties for violating US sanctions legislation. But for the Iranian negotiators, a promise of waivers was not enough.

The Iranians reasoned-not unreasonably-that the promise of waivers could be ignored by President Barack Obama’s successor. They were well aware that European banks, some of which have been hit in recent years by gargantuan US fines, are unlikely to risk further such blows post-Obama by resuming normal business with Iran. On the contrary, non-US financial and trading companies are likely to be inhibited by the knowledge that this Damoclean sword, fashioned in the smithies of Capitol Hill, hangs over them.

This is but one explanation of why an agreement proved elusive on Monday. No doubt there are others. But this one rings true. It is certainly the case that European banks have become very wary of US sanctions provisions, and that they will not respond to the repeal of EU bilateral sanctions as Iran would wish while the threat of US penalties remains.

It is tempting to lament the lack of foresight of the first Obama administration. Their misguided belief that Iran could be coerced through sanctions into dismantling its uranium enrichment program led them to acquiesce to Congressional legislation that now stands between President Obama and the only achievement likely to stifle a hollow laugh, when future generations recall that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

But lamenting gets one nowhere. What’s needed is a solution to this problem-since, absent a solution, it looks unlikely that any number of extensions to the negotiation with Iran will lead to a comprehensive agreement.

I feel disabled by citizenship and ignorance from contributing anything more than a question. Could a concerted and determined European lobbying campaign help to sway enough senators into repealing or amending the problematic provisions?

The news that reaches my side of the Atlantic suggests the answer is “no.”

Congress has been in a highly partisan mood and is likely to remain so when it reassembles in January; so Senate Republicans are unlikely to be ready to facilitate a foreign policy success-even one that is in the US national interest.

If these days any country has a “special relationship” with the US, it is not the United Kingdom or other European nations; it is Israel. And we can all predict, based on his own public statements over the years, that Israel’s prime minister will fight tooth and claw to prevent the repeal of the legislation in question. Pitted against Israeli anxieties, and Congressional campaign funding considerations, Britain’s strategic loyalty to its US ally on many occasions, as well as cultural affinities, will count for very little.

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[Parodite]

What speaks for Americans is that given the enormous fire power they have at their disposal, at home and by their government, not more destructive violence is being seen around the world. Hand that amount of power over to Putin, the Chinese gvt or any other cleptocrat/autocrat gang.. or the players in the Meddle East.. and see how the world looks within 5 years.

[Endovelico]

What speaks for Americans is that given the enormous fire power they have at their disposal, at home and by their government, not more destructive violence is being seen around the world. Hand that amount of power over to Putin, the Chinese gvt or any other cleptocrat/autocrat gang.. or the players in the Meddle East.. and see how the world looks within 5 years.

Neither Russia nor China have ever shown any interest in that type of power. The only imperialistic nut around is the US...

[Parodite]

What speaks for Americans is that given the enormous fire power they have at their disposal, at home and by their government, not more destructive violence is being seen around the world. Hand that amount of power over to Putin, the Chinese gvt or any other cleptocrat/autocrat gang.. or the players in the Meddle East.. and see how the world looks within 5 years.

Neither Russia nor China have ever shown any interest in that type of power. The only imperialistic nut around is the US...

You are factually wrong. China itself is an empire of 1+ billion people ruled by a technocrat class dictatorship. The Putin of Russia seeks to restore as much as possble its former USSR empire and recently proved it is willing to act. Crimea annexed and not allowing the Ukraine to make up its own (granted.. troubled) mind by supporting with arms and military personel Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists. That you are whoring here for these crooks won't change the facts.

As for US empire.. you fail to see the obvious. Starting the Vietnam, all US post-WW2 wars are lost wars. L-O-S-T... El-Oh-Es-Tee... with none of the intended objectives achieved. If you want to call these wars imperial wars... then they failed and you should be dancing in the streets right now!

The debacles in the Meddle East speak volumes. The American public understands. US military adventures abroad that were not thought through enough failed big time. And these wars weren't about empire; they were the result of misguided messianism and blind corporate military interests bribing the usual suspects in politics. But now the US is withdrawing back home. It will help fighting ISIS from the air.. but for now that's about it.

As for military bases around the world, which seems to be your other worry.. as Typhoon pointed out to HP... these bases are not forced onto those nations.. but on request as an insurence policy against the real imperial ambitions and manouvers of people like Putin. Small dictators fear big dictators - see Kazachstan.

[Heracleum Persicum]

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Haaretz : Coordination with the U.S. military

. . it is highly unlikely that fighter-jets would be operating in the same area where dozens of American planes, along with those of other air-forces of the international coalition, are also carrying out attacks against ISIS, without significant coordination. Iran has only a limited number of antiquated combat aircraft, such as the F-4, purchased during the rule of the Shah, before the 1979 Islamic revolution, and still flying for nearly four decades thanks to a great deal of creative maintenance. They wouldn't be risking these in American-dominated airspace if they hadn't received assurances that they were liable to be shot down. The Phantom captured by an Al Jazeera camera crew is proof that coordination between the two sides is going at some level.

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[Heracleum Persicum]

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1992-1995, Jaresko served as the first Chief of the Economic Section of the US Embassy in Ukraine.
Before that she occupied several economic positions in the US State Department.

The position of health minister went to Aleksandr Kvitashvili, who occupied a similar post in the Georgian government in 2009-2012.

..

Lithuanian Aivaras Abromavicius has been approved as the economy minister by the new parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.

Abromavicius, who is a partner at the $3.6 billion-worth East Capital asset management group, conducts his operations from Kiev after marrying a Ukrainian.

“There’s hard work ahead of us because Ukraine is a very poor and corrupt country and we’ll have to use radical measures,” he told MPs from the Rada tribune.

..

Earlier on the Tuesday, the president has signed special a decree granting Ukrainian citizenship to Jaresko, Kvitashvili and Abromavicius.

Dual nationality is forbidden in Ukraine and the trio has already written applications to give up the citizenship of foreign states, Yury Lutsenko, the head of the Petro Poroshenko Block (PPB), said.

Poroshenko said that there’ll be even more foreigners on administrative positions in Ukraine as the county “must attract the best international experience, which includes assigning positions in the government to representative of states friendly to Ukraine.”

..

Poroshenko also promised to grant the citizenship of Ukraine to all foreigners fighting for Kiev against the militias in the country’s eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

“I’m going to sign a decree conferring Ukrainian citizenship to those, who defended Ukraine with arms in their hands,” he wrote on Twitter.

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[Endovelico]

...That you are whoring here for these crooks won't change the facts...

Very elegantly put, as it was to be expected...

The facts are that China has never shown any imperial ambitions, and that, with the exception of the Baltic states and the latest partition of Poland with Hitler, neither has Russia as from the inception of the 20th century. The Ukrainian de facto partition was imposed on Russia by idiotic American and European policies. To blame Russia for our stupid mistakes will not change the facts.

[Nonc Hilaire]

...That you are whoring here for these crooks won't change the facts...

Very elegantly put, as it was to be expected...

The facts are that China has never shown any imperial ambitions, and that, with the exception of the Baltic states and the latest partition of Poland with Hitler, neither has Russia as from the inception of the 20th century. The Ukrainian de facto partition was imposed on Russia by idiotic American and European policies. To blame Russia for our stupid mistakes will not change the facts.

I think China's actions in Africa qualify as imperial ambitions, as do many African countries. Plus there is Nepal, Taiwan, Mongolia The BRICS banking system seems to be a clone of the iMF/World Bank and an attempt to establish a Chinese economic hegemony.

China may be more patient and subtle than the U.S., but I don't think they get a free pass.

[Heracleum Persicum]

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H. RES. 758

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/green-ligh ... on/5417489


US – Russia relations have deteriorated severely in the past decade and they are about to get worse, if the House passes H. Res. 758.

NATO encirclement, the US-backed coup in Ukraine, an attempt to use an agreement with the European Union to bring NATO into Ukraine at the Russian border, a US nuclear first-strike policy, are all policies which attempt to substitute force for diplomacy.

Russia’s response to the terror unleashed by western-backed neo-nazis in Crimea and Odessa came after the local population appealed to Russia to protect them from the violence. Russia then agreed to Crimea joining the Russian Federation, a reaffirmation of an historic relationship.

The Western press begins its narrative on the Crimea situation with the annexation, but completely ignores the provocations by the West and other causal factors which resulted in the annexation. This distortion of reality is artificially creating an hysteria about Russian aggressiveness, another distortion which could pose an exceptionally dangerous situation for the world, if acted upon by other nations. The US Congress is responding to the distortions, not to the reality.

Similar distortions are developing now in the coverage of events in the eastern part of Ukraine, in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Tensions between Russia and the US are being fueled every day by players who would benefit financially from a resumption of the Cold War which, from 1948 to 1991 cost US taxpayers $20 TRILLION dollars (in 2014 dollars), an amount exceeding our $18 trillion National Debt.

With wars re-igniting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Syria being a staging ground for an ongoing proxy war between the great powers, the US treasury is being drained for military adventures, our national debt is piling up, and we are demonstrably less safe.

Tomorrow the US House will debate and vote on H. Res. 758 which is tantamount to a ‘Declaration of Cold War’ against Russia, reciting a host of grievances, old and new, against Russia which represent complaints that Russia could well make against the US, given our nation’s most recent military actions: Violating territorial integrity, violations of international law, violations of nuclear arms agreements.

Congress’ solution? Restart the Cold War!

The resolution demands Russia to be isolated and for “the President, in consultation with Congress, to conduct a review of the force posture, readiness and responsibilities of United States Armed Forces and the forces of other members of NATO to determine if the contributions and actions of each are sufficient to meet the obligations of collective self-defense [my emphasis] under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, and to specify the measures needed to remedy any deficiencies…” In other words, ‘let’s get ready for war with Russia.’

This is exactly the type of sabre rattling which led to the initiation and escalation of the Cold War. It is time we demanded that the US employ diplomacy, not more military expenditures, in the quest for international order.

It is time the US stepped out of this expensive dialectic of conflict and seek to rebuild diplomatic relations with Russia and set aside the risky adventurism in the name of NATO.

If you agree, please contact your congressperson today, 202-224-3121, and ask them to vote against H. Res. 758.

Sincerely,


Dennis

@Dennis_Kucinich


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[Heracleum Persicum]

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Eggheads in US dreaming of Iranian Kurds this and that .. or, even all Kurds this and that

Well,

Mister Bolton & company

it ain't so : FT : Iran’s Kurds seek coexistence with Shia as life improves

“The era [of armed struggled] is history,” says Hossein Firouzi, a reform-minded deputy governor. “Now people expect good governance.”

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[YMix]

[...]

4. A Failed Experiment in War: Above all, it’s a wonder that all those journalists and commentators writing about Hagel expressed neither amazement nor befuddlement when it came to accepted thinking in Washington about war, American-style. The nation’s capital has been conducting an experiment in war-making for more than 13 years now: there have been full-scale invasions and occupations, counterinsurgency struggles that lasted years, special ops raids of every sort, the application of overwhelming air power in a variety of ways, including an air intervention in Libya, drone assassination campaigns across the backlands of the Greater Middle East, the loosing of cruise missiles, even the first cyberwar in history. Trillions of dollars have been spent; American troops have been deployed to war zones over and over again; almost 7,000 American lives have been lost (while thousands of active duty soldiers and reservists have, in the same period, committed suicide); tens of thousands of Americans have been wounded in action, hundreds of thousands of civilians and enemy fighters in those war zones have died, and millions of people have been uprooted and sent into internal exile or forced out of their countries. In the process, significant parts of the Greater Middle East and more recently Africa have been destabilized in devastating ways.

Think of it as a radical experiment involving what our latest two presidents have called “the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world” and “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known.” Despite ongoing wars and operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia, among other places, the results of that experiment are in. No single war, intervention, or minor conflict in which the U.S. military has taken part in these years has even come close to achieving the objectives set out by Washington and most have proven outright disasters. In just about every case, armed intervention, whatever form it took, demonstrably made matters worse, increased the destabilization of whatever country or region was involved, and led to the creation of more extremists and terrorists.

Imagine for a moment a lab that ran a series of experiments for 13 straight years in almost every imaginable combination through one disastrous failure after another and then promoted the experimenters and agreed to let them repeat the process all over again. This would defy logic or simply good sense anywhere but in Washington.

[...]

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175930/ ... e_horizon/

[Heracleum Persicum]

DmCcTSyowhY

[Heracleum Persicum]

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Hungary's Foreign Ministry has summoned the US envoy after US Senator John McCain called Prime Minister Viktor Orban a “neo-fascist dictator.”


East Europe's interest not taken into account by West .. that could have backlash

and

did not know 200,000 ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine want autonomy .. why not

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[Heracleum Persicum]

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Disgusted, Russia officially gives up any pretense of "dialog" with the AngloZionist Empire

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014

Disgusted, Russia officially gives up any pretense of "dialog" with the AngloZionist Empire
Dear friends,

The full address of President Putin to the Federal Assembly is now available online and, since this is a very long text, I will no re-post it here. What I propose to do here is to bring to your attention four verbatim excerpts from his speech with some key segments bolded out.

Most of the speech was on economic and internal matters, but I think that these four points and, especially, the expressions chosen by Putin really "tell the story" of what the Kremlin's position vis-à-vis the West is nowadays. See for yourself:

1) Crimea is Russian forever:

It was an event of special significance for the country and the people, because Crimea is where our people live, and the peninsula is of strategic importance for Russia as the spiritual source of the development of a multifaceted but solid Russian nation and a centralised Russian state. It was in Crimea, in the ancient city of Chersonesus or Korsun, as ancient Russian chroniclers called it, that Grand Prince Vladimir was baptised before bringing Christianity to Rus.

In addition to ethnic similarity, a common language, common elements of their material culture, a common territory, even though its borders were not marked then, and a nascent common economy and government, Christianity was a powerful spiritual unifying force that helped involve various tribes and tribal unions of the vast Eastern Slavic world in the creation of a Russian nation and Russian state. It was thanks to this spiritual unity that our forefathers for the first time and forevermore saw themselves as a united nation. All of this allows us to say that Crimea, the ancient Korsun or Chersonesus, and Sevastopol have invaluable civilisational and even sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the followers of Islam and Judaism. And this is how we will always consider it.

2) Russia will never become an EU colony:

By the way, Russia has already made a major contribution to helping Ukraine. Let me reiterate that Russian banks already invested some $25 billion in Ukraine. Last year, Russia’s Finance Ministry extended a loan worth another $3 billion. Gazprom provided another $5.5 billion to Ukraine and even offered a discount that no one promised, requiring the country to pay $4.5 billion. Add it all up and you get as much as $ 32.5-33.5 billion that were provided only recently.

Of course, we have the right to ask questions. What was this Ukrainian tragedy for? Wasn’t it possible to settle all the issues, even disputed issues, through dialogue, within a legal framework and legitimately? But now we are being told that this was actually competent, balanced politics that we should comply with unquestionably and blindfolded.

This will never happen. If for some European countries national pride is a long-forgotten concept and sovereignty is too much of a luxury, true sovereignty for Russia is absolutely necessary for survival.

3) The Empire was Russia's mortal enemy long before Crimea

We remember well how and who, almost openly, supported separatism back then and even outright terrorism in Russia, referred to murderers, whose hands were stained with blood, none other than rebels and organised high-level receptions for them. These “rebels” showed up in Chechnya again. I'm sure the local guys, the local law enforcement authorities, will take proper care of them. They are now working to eliminate another terrorist raid. Let’s support them.

Let me reiterate, we remember high-level receptions for terrorists dubbed as fighters for freedom and democracy. Back then, we realised that the more ground we give and the more excuses we make, the more our opponents become brazen and the more cynical and aggressive their demeanor becomes.

Despite our unprecedented openness back then and our willingness to cooperate in all, even the most sensitive issues, despite the fact that we considered – and all of you are aware of this and remember it – our former adversaries as close friends and even allies, the support for separatism in Russia from across the pond, including information, political and financial support and support provided by the special services – was absolutely obvious and left no doubt that they would gladly let Russia follow the Yugoslav scenario of disintegration and dismemberment. With all the tragic fallout for the people of Russia.

It didn’t work. We didn’t allow that to happen.

Just as it did not work for Hitler with his people-hating ideas, who set out to destroy Russia and push us back beyond the Urals. Everyone should remember how it ended.

4) Russia will not be bullied

No one will ever attain military superiority over Russia. We have a modern and combat ready army. As they now put it, a polite, but formidable army. We have the strength, will and courage to protect our freedom.

We will protect the diversity of the world. We will tell the truth to people abroad, so that everyone can see the real and not distorted and false image of Russia. We will actively promote business and humanitarian relations, as well as scientific, education and cultural relations. We will do this even if some governments attempt to create a new iron curtain around Russia.

We will never enter the path of self-isolation, xenophobia, suspicion and the search for enemies. All this is evidence of weakness, while we are strong and confident.

In my opinion what we are seeing a a big "coming out". For a variety of reasons, Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov chose not to say this kind of things in the past, but for several months already we have seen a sense of utter disgust manifest itself more and more openly from the Russian. Today, it finally truly came out in the open.

It is painfully clear that Russia considers the USA a an arrogant bully which Russia can stop and that Russia considers the regimes in power in the EU as voiceless colonies. Equally clear is the fact that the Russians are fed up with trying to plead or reason with anybody in the West. The Americans are too arrogant, the Europeans too spineless.

Unlike the Americans, Russians always talk to their enemies and some form of "talking" with the West will continue. But it is rather obvious that the Kremlin has given up any hope of achieving anything through any kind of dialog. From now on, Russia will mostly rely on unilateral actions. And since Russians never threaten, these actions will always come as a shock and a surprise to the Western plutocracies.

I have said this many times: the AngloZionist Empire has launched a real war against Russia, one in which military forces are less important than the informational war, but a real war nonetheless. What the Empire probably did not realize, is that this would not be a short war, but a long one. And while the Empire has already used most of its weapons, the Russians have just begun their defensive operations. This will be a long war and it will only end when one of the two sides basically breaks down and collapses.

On March 1st of this year I wrote a piece entitled "Obama just made things much, much worse in the Ukraine - now Russia is ready for war". Russia did not want that war, it was imposed on her at a time when Russia was not ready. Nevertheless, today Putin informed us all that Russia refuses to submit, that she accepts the challenge and that she will prevail.

The Saker

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[YMix]

CIA torture report: summary
The Senate Intelligence Committee has released the executive summary of its five-year review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme

1. The CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” were not effective.

2. The CIA provided extensive inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to policymakers and the public.

3. The CIA’s management of the program was inadequate and deeply flawed.

4. The CIA program was far more brutal than the CIA represented to policymakers and the American public.

[...]

The committee reviewed 20 of the most frequent and prominent examples of purported counterterrorism “successes” that the CIA has attributed to the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques. Each of those examples was found to be wrong in fundamental respects. In some cases, there was no relationship between the claimed counterterrorism “success” and any information provided by a CIA detainee during or after the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. In the remaining cases, the CIA inaccurately represented that unique information was acquired from a CIA detainee as a result of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, when in fact the information was either (a) acquired from the CIA detainee prior to the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques or (b) corroborative of information already available to the intelligence community from sources other than the CIA detainee, and therefore not unique or “otherwise unavailable,” which was the standard for effectiveness the CIA presented to the Department of Justice and policymakers.

[...]

In an attempt to justify the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, the CIA provided examples of supposedly “thwarted” terrorist plots and the capture of specific terrorists that the CIA attributed to the use of its techniques. The CIA representations were inaccurate and contradicted by the CIA’s own records. The CIA’s internal Panetta Review also identified numerous inaccuracies in the CIA’s effectiveness representations—including representations to the President.

[...]

One clear example of flawed CIA management was the poorly-managed second detention facility, which began operations in September 2002. This facility is referred to as “COBALT,” a fictitious name created just for the report. The facility kept few formal records of detainees housed there and untrained CIA officers conducted frequent, unauthorized, unsupervised interrogations using techniques that were not—and never became—part of the CIA’s formal interrogation program.

The CIA placed a junior officer with no relevant experience in charge of COBALT. In November 2002 a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor died from suspected hypothermia at the facility. In interviews conducted in 2003 by the Office of the Inspector General, CIA’s leadership acknowledged that they had little or no awareness of operations at COBALT, and some believed that the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques were not used there.

The CIA did not employ adequately trained and vetted personnel. The CIA deployed individuals without relevant training or experience. CIA also deployed officers who had documented personal and professional problems of a serious nature—including histories of violence and abusive treatment of others—that should have called into question their employment, let alone their suitability to participate in the sensitive CIA program.

[...]

Records do not support CIA representations that the CIA initially used an “an open, non-threatening approach,” or that interrogations began with the “least coercive technique possible” and escalated to more coercive techniques only as necessary. Instead, in many cases the most aggressive techniques were used immediately, in combination and nonstop. Sleep deprivation involved keeping detainees awake for up to 180 hours, usually standing or in painful stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads. The CIA led several detainees to believe they would never be allowed to leave CIA custody alive, suggesting to one detainee that he would only leave in a coffin-shaped box.

[...]

The CIA hereby wishes to thank all those who bought the "ticking time bomb" lie at the time.

[Heracleum Persicum]

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The released documents show .. and Haaretz article confirms :

CIA used "Israeli Example" to back torture .. CIA relied on "Israeli Supreme Court" ruling

What a disaster .. what a disaster

Bush, Chaney authorized this, they should be court marshalled

100s of yrs of our beloved American good reputation into toilet


Look, guys, this might be news to you, but not so to Ahmadinejat

CIA & Mossad, both, into this kind of fun since long long time .. Iranian Savak, trained and supervised by CIA & Mossad instructors, were pulling nails, putting electric shocks to testicles, inserting coke bottles into all sort of cavities etc in Iran since 1953 .. many of those rulers in Iran, including Ayatollahs and others, experienced these games.

CIA report just a distraction from real disaster, West trained and armed those animals now turning against west .. seems, west now betting again on Assad

There is also another development in Assad saga .. Turkey now "deep" in bed with Putin, Russia making Turkey a major HUB for Russian Gas .. that makes Turkey an Ally of Russia for long run .. West positioning as an adversary to Russia .. things dont rime .. Will Turkey exit NATO ? ?

In that context, seems KSA also warming up to Assad

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/12/09 ... ith-assad/


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[Heracleum Persicum]

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Reuter : .. U.N. investigator calls for prosecuting Bush and Cheney

(Reuters) - A U.N. human rights expert said a report that the U.S. Senate released on Tuesday revealed a "clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration" and called for prosecution of U.S. officials who ordered crimes, including torture, against detainees.

Ben Emmerson, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, said senior Bush administration officials who planned and authorized crimes must be prosecuted, along with as CIA and other U.S. government officials who committed torture such as waterboarding.

"As a matter of international law, the U.S. is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice," Emmerson said in a statement issued in Geneva. "The U.S. Attorney General is under a legal duty to bring criminal charges against those responsible."

The CIA routinely misled the White House and Congress over its harsh interrogation program for terrorism suspects, and its methods, which included waterboarding, were more brutal than the agency acknowledged, a Senate report said on Tuesday.

Emmerson, a British international lawyer serving in the independent post since 2010, welcomed the belated release of the report, commending the Obama administration "for resisting domestic pressure to suppress these important findings".

"It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today's report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes," he said.

International law prohibits granting immunity to public officials who have engaged in acts of torture, he said.

"The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability," Emmerson said.

Torture is an international crime and perpetrators may be prosecuted by any other country to which they might travel, he added.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee, which reviewed the U.S. record in upholding civil and political rights in March, called for the release of the report then.

Critics, including independent experts on that U.N. rights panel, say the CIA program set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States included harsh interrogation methods that constituted torture banned by international law.

What a disaster, Doc, what a disaster

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/12/0 ... R120141209

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldohe ... s-n1929589

Somebody now could bring this case to ICC and UN is obliged to issue arrest warrant for those responsible


Looks and smells a "Zionist" conspiracy" .. getting advice from "Israeli supreme court"

A disaster par excellence, Doc

.

[Doc]

.


Reuter : .. U.N. investigator calls for prosecuting Bush and Cheney

(Reuters) - A U.N. human rights expert said a report that the U.S. Senate released on Tuesday revealed a "clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration" and called for prosecution of U.S. officials who ordered crimes, including torture, against detainees.

Ben Emmerson, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, said senior Bush administration officials who planned and authorized crimes must be prosecuted, along with as CIA and other U.S. government officials who committed torture such as waterboarding.

"As a matter of international law, the U.S. is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice," Emmerson said in a statement issued in Geneva. "The U.S. Attorney General is under a legal duty to bring criminal charges against those responsible."

The CIA routinely misled the White House and Congress over its harsh interrogation program for terrorism suspects, and its methods, which included waterboarding, were more brutal than the agency acknowledged, a Senate report said on Tuesday.

Emmerson, a British international lawyer serving in the independent post since 2010, welcomed the belated release of the report, commending the Obama administration "for resisting domestic pressure to suppress these important findings".

"It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today's report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes," he said.

International law prohibits granting immunity to public officials who have engaged in acts of torture, he said.

"The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability," Emmerson said.

Torture is an international crime and perpetrators may be prosecuted by any other country to which they might travel, he added.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee, which reviewed the U.S. record in upholding civil and political rights in March, called for the release of the report then.

Critics, including independent experts on that U.N. rights panel, say the CIA program set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States included harsh interrogation methods that constituted torture banned by international law.

What a disaster, Doc, what a disaster

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/12/0 ... R120141209

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldohe ... s-n1929589

Somebody now could bring this case to ICC and UN is obliged to issue arrest warrant for those responsible


Looks and smells a "Zionist" conspiracy" .. getting advice from "Israeli supreme court"

A disaster par excellence, Doc

.

The CIA report says that it was reporting on things that Bush and Cheney were not told. SO perhaps the UN investigator needs to be held accountable for liable then. What's more none of the former heads of the CIA or the people running these programs were ever interviewed by the Senate committee Not one. Plus a lot of this report deals with things that happened right after 911. When people were not sure what they were supposed to do because 911 came out of the blue.

BUt I guess people figure that Obama has a better plan. --- Don't take any prisoners alive. Kill whoever you have to, to kill the people you want to kill. Even children. Yes so much easier if there are no prisoners taken.