Bill Clinton and Al Gore Discuss Climate Change with Charlie Rose

On September 25 former President Bill Clinton and former Vice-President Al Gore discussing climate change with Charlie Rose.

 

Whistleblower Reveals U.S. State Dept. Ships Arms Directly to al-Qaeda...

William Robert “Tosh” Plumlee started his career as a CIA contract pilot in the late 1950s, delivering guns and ammunition on behalf of the agency to Fidel Castro.

Plumlee confirmed that such arm deals are still common today, with the State Dept. shipping arms to al-Qaeda via the CIA.

During an interview with Alex Jones, Plumlee pointed out that Pat Smith, the mother of an information management officer also killed during the Benghazi attack, received little information from the Obama administration about her son’s murder.

“I began to wonder ‘why won’t they tell her anything?’” He asked. “Then a contact of mine in the Middle East, a high-ranking NATO official, mentioned to me that he had reports that the ambassador [J. Christopher Stevens] had been complaining about the dispatches and cables that he had got from the State Department about the weapons being received and [Islamic] radicals armed, including Stinger missiles.”

According to Plumlee, Steven was ordered to stand down after he asked the State Department what he should do about the American arm shipments to al-Qaeda.

“The ambassador and his people had written a series of field reports and cable dispatches advising our State Department that the rebel factions had been armed with U.S. weapons,” he said. “Now my contention is this: if that is the case, why is that classified as a national security matter?”

Plumlee mentioned that Steven’s field notes have not been released by the State Department.

These revelations suggest that after Stevens told the State Dept. that he did not want al-Qaeda receiving heat seeking missiles, he was killed in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi which was designed to take out witnesses to the arms transfer and to suppress Stevens’s reports.

The Obama administration then blamed the attack entirely on Islamic protestors enraged by the filmInnocence of Muslims while refusing to answer why U.S. special forces were ordered not to aid Stevens and others during the assault.

The missiles in question, as well as the other weapons given to al-Qaeda, were transported to Libya by C-130s under the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) program, which operates within the State Department.

As explained by New York Times best-selling author and former journalist Jim Marrs, the DCS program oversees the shipment of U.S. weapons and training to countries around the world.

Through its own internal investigations, the State Dept. admitted that firearms supplied by the DCS have ended up in the hands of foreign enemies.

Tying it all together, Plumlee stated that the weapons given to al-Qaeda were “U.S. made weapons that came from the DCS program, illegally transported by C-130s” into countries such as Turkey and Jordan and were “dispatched from CIA safe houses to the Syrian rebels.”

As we have documented in the past, the Syrian rebels are predominantly al-Qaeda fighters who want to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in order to install an Islamic state in Syria. More

 

September 25, 2013, 2:54 p.m. ET Italy Calls for Food Security to Be U.N. Priority

ROME--Italy wants to shepherd efforts to make food security a priority for global policy makers, Prime Minister Enrico Letta said in his debut speech at the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday.

"We should address the root causes of the ills afflicting our world rather than limit ourselves to the side effects," Mr. Letta said. "The time has come to launch a new global consensus on food," he said.

In 2008, Italy, with limited financial firepower due to chronic fiscal problems, tried to make food security a signature theme at the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, prodding the largest economies to pledge as much as $15 billion for the cause. The global financial crisis then commanded vast public resources and attention, even though the serious spike in basic food prices that helped trigger the so-called Arab Spring sparked fear that easy monetary policies in developed economies would trigger runaway inflation in basic staples.

Commodity prices have since stabilized, according to a price-monitoring index set up by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome.

Mr. Letta said that the 2015 Expo, or world's fair, in Milan should be a springboard for global initiatives, floating the idea that a multilateral pact might be reached there.

The Milan Expo, whose slogan is "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life," aims to draw 20 million visitors interested in issues linked to sustainability. The event should be seized upon to create a Milan Protocol, modelled on the Kyoto Protocol of the late 1990s that covers environmental issues, with nutritional education, sustainable farming practices and food waste as its cardinal points, according to the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition, a think tank backed by Barilla SpA, the pasta maker.

"Italy, with its rich food culture and heritage, is well-placed to show leadership in tackling the world's global food issues," said Danielle Nierenberg, an advisory board member at the Center.

Italy is also home to the U.N.'s main food-related agencies, the World Food Program, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the FAO, which after decades of advising farmers on how to boost yields is beginning to try to influence retail supply chains in an effort to reduce what it says is the waste of one-third of global food production. More

 

Pakistan tackles water crisis with rainwater harvesting

MORRY-JE-WANDH, Pakistan (AlertNet) – Wearing colourful traditional dresses with silver jewellery and bangles on their arms, the women of Tharparkar district look festive. But the empty earthen pots they carry tell a different story.

Women of Tharparkar district

“Walking for three miles and (hoisting) a ... bucket filled with water through a wooden pulley from a 130-feet-deep well twice a day is toilsome work,” says Marvi Bheel, who lives in isolated Morry-je-Wandh village in this arid district of Sindh province, some 450 km (280 miles) south-east of Karachi.

Increasing temperatures and lower rainfalls, believed to be associated with climate change, are creating intense water shortages in much of Pakistan, a situation which is likely to worsen if the country’s 170 million population doubles as projected in the next 25 years.

In response, non-governmental organizations are trying to improve water harvesting in rural areas. A pilot project in Morry-je-Wandh has seen the construction of a large covered pond with the capacity to supply the domestic and drinking water needs of 20 families (135 villagers) for more than eight months.

“The new rainwater harvesting facilities have transformed the lives of people, as we have now a safe source of clean water,” said Sobho Bheel, a farmer unrelated to Marvi Bheel.

The effects of having a good supply of drinking water at hand are far-reaching, he added: diseases have diminished, children can go to school and women have more time to spend on other economic activities.

IMPROVING LIFE FOR WOMEN

Women in Tharparker district, as in many places around the world, are charged with the task of gathering water. But as water becomes scarcer, travelling long distances to collect it can be arduous.

“Women fall unconscious on their way to these dug wells, while others develop pregnancy related complications due to being malnourished,” Marvi Bheel said. On summer days temperatures hover around 48 to 50 degrees Celsius (118 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit), and the falling water table means that water sometimes has to be hauled from a depth of 200 to 250 feet (62 to 77 metres).

Dug wells are the major source of water for over 90 percent of the approximately 1.4 million people living in Tharparkar, Pakistan’s largest arid district, which spreads over nearly 20,000 square kilometres (7,600 square miles) and comprises some 2,350 villages.

Water is taken from the wells for domestic, agriculture and livestock needs. But because of the inadequate number of wells in the district and demand for water exceeding supply, wells often produce too little water or dry up within several months of being recharged by rain.

Bharumal Armani of Chelhar village recalls that during August 2010, rains in the Thar Desert recharged parched shallow wells, raised the water table in deep wells and filled household cisterns.

But after four months, local people were without sufficient water even for drinking. Many villagers had to walk miles to fetch supplies, while herdsmen were forced to take their livestock to reservoirs to water them.

According to a study by the Pakistan Council for Research on Water Resources (PCRWR), a government body, the entire Thar Desert receives between 260 and 280 mm (1.0-1.1 inches) of rainfall annually. The scanty precipitation, however, could suffice to meet the domestic water needs of the locals and their livestock for three years, according to the PCRWR.

95 PERCENT OF RAINFALL LOST

But because of inadequate storage and rainwater harvesting facilities, more than 95 percent of the water is lost under sand dunes or evaporates in the summer heat.

“Hardly 0.06 percent of the total annual rainwater is harvested by the locals in their household cisterns or in other indigenous ways,” said A.D. Khan, director for groundwater management at the water council. Khan believes the water shortage problem can be addressed by scaling up rainwater harvesting to at least 0.25 percent of the annual rainfall.

In Morry-je-Wandh, a water storage pond with a cover to curb evaporation is part of that effort. The pond, constructed by the Sukkar Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, cost Rs. 125,000 (about $1,400) and relied on financial and technical support from WaterAid-UK’s Pakistan chapter.

“We lay a geo-membrane sheet under the floor of these (ponds) to check seepage, and cover them with roofs that help check evaporation of stored rainwater during the sizzling summer days,” said Abdul Hafeez, WaterAid’s national programme manager.

Using hand pumps connected to the storage ponds through pipes, women can fill their pitchers with water without any difficulty.

According to Qamar uz Zaman Chaudhry, Pakistan’s advisor on climate change affairs, the country is one of the world’s most arid. Most areas have little or no access to surface water. By international standards, Pakistan was already considered a water-scarce country in 1992 with an annual per capita availability of 1,700 cubic metres. This has now declined to fewer than 1,100 cubic metres, according to the government.

“The situation will grow tenser as rains are becoming more erratic and scarce due to climate change,” said Chaudhry, who is author of Pakistan’s national climate change policy.

Climate change and overuse of limited water is expected to create severe problems for the country in coming years, according to Simi Kamal, chairperson of the Hisar Foundation for Water, Food and Livelihood Security, promotes water conservation and management practices in Pakistan.

Annual per capita availability of water may fall to half its current level by 2020 if the depletion of water resources goes unchecked, she said. She believes much of the solution to growing water stress lies in planning and implementing workable rainwater harvesting programmes at medium and small levels.

Chaudhry agrees.

“More than adequate water can be made available for domestic, agriculture, industrial, livestock and other miscellaneous needs, provided that viable strategic plans are drawn up and implemented for rainwater harvesting at all levels,” he said. More

Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio are development reporters based in Karachi, Pakistan.

 

North African Countries Commit to Cooperative Management of Nubian Aquifer read more: http://land-l.iisd.org/news/north-african-countries-commit-to-cooperative-management-of-nubian-aquifer/

18 September 2013: Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan signed a Strategic Action Programme to establish a long-term framework for managing the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS), the world's largest known fossil water aquifer system.

The agreement establishes a Joint Authority for the NSAS, with the aim of strengthening regional coordination and optimizing equitable use among the four arid North African countries.

The Aquifer is the main water resource for humans, livestock, irrigation and industry in this region, and is under pressure from increasing populations, agricultural expansion and decreasing water availability from other sources. The agreement seeks to strengthen transboundary water cooperation among the four countries to ensure water removal does not threaten water quality, harm the surrounding desert ecosystem and its biodiversity, or accelerate land degradation. The agreement is based on an ecosystem-based management approach (EBMA) and integrated water resources management (IWRM), and includes transboundary actions and targets that individual countries are expected to translate into national actions.

The agreement resulted from a technical cooperation project among the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The project, which began in 2006, created an aquifer model to assist the countries in optimizing the aquifer's use for human needs and ecosystem protection. The project also improved understanding of the transboundary ecosystem threats and improved data sharing. The Programme will build upon this project by continuing to strengthen the countries' capacity to monitor groundwater quantity and quality, and providing a framework for transboundary cooperation.

UNDP Administrator Helen Clark congratulated the African countries on the agreement, saying cooperative management of their shared sub-surface waters “will help to ensure maintenance of livelihoods and ecosystems dependent upon the aquifer." The agreement was signed at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria. [UN Press Release] [UNDP Press Release] [GEF Press Release] [Strategic Action Programme Agreement]

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National Security Archive

Natanz Facility

Underground Facilities: Intelligence and Targeting Issues (New Documents)

U.S. Intelligence: Hiding of Military Assets by "Rogue Nations" and Other States a Major Security Challenge for 21st Century

U.S. Documents Describe Monitoring Effort Going Back to Early Cold War Years

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 439

UPDATE -- September 23, 2013

Originally Posted -- March 23, 2012

For more information contact:
Jeffrey T. Richelson - 202/994-7000
nsarchiv@gwu.edu


Washington, D.C., September 23, 2013 -- While the focus on Syria's chemical weapons use, and the possibility of military action against Syrian government targets pushed aside, for a while, the issue of how to deal with Iran's nuclear program, the two situations have one thing in common -- their reported reliance on underground facilities to shield the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction.

Documents posted today by the National Security Archive show that such sites in Syria are only the latest in a long line of alleged and real underground facilities that have posed a high priority challenge for U.S. and allied intelligence collection and analysis efforts, as well as for military planners. There may be more than 10,000 such facilities worldwide, many of them in hostile territory, and many presumably intended to hide or protect lethal military equipment and activities, including weapons of mass destruction, that could threaten U.S. or allied interests.

Today's posting features 21 new documents, in addition to the 41 records from the Archive's initial March 23, 2012, posting on this subject. The new materials include several concerning a key topic of Cold War intelligence collection and analysis -- hardened and underground communications facilities. Also included for the first time are draft charters for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) working group on hardened and buried targets. The majority of the new materials consist of reports from the Asian Studies Detachment (ASD) of the 500th Military Group of the Army Intelligence and Security Command. The ASD reports, based on open source intelligence, focus on various aspects of hardened and buried facilities in North Korea and China.

The 21 new items, with one exception, were acquired via Freedom of Information Act requests or research in the National Archives. The original posting described in detail the agencies and programs the U.S. government has brought to the task of identifying and assessing underground structures in foreign countries since World War II.


Check out today's posting at the National Security Archive website -http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB439/

Find us on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/NSArchive

Unredacted, the Archive blog - http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/


________________________________________________________
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.

 

OPCW Course on Assistance and Protection Against Chemical Weapons Held in Finland

“Working together for a world free of chemical weapons”

OPCW News 51/2013

The Hague, 23 September 2013

Course on Assistance and Protection Against Chemical Weapons Held in Finland

The Government of Finland and the OPCW jointly organised a course on Assistance and Protection Against Chemical Weapons in Kuopio from 9 to 13 September 2013 for 18 participants from 16 States Parties.*

The course relates to Article X of the Chemical Weapons Convention and offered training in the use of protective equipment and in monitoring, detection, and decontamination techniques that are used in response to attacks with chemical warfare agents. Participants were also familiarised with chemical emergency responses by the CBRNE-2013 Exercise, organised by the South Savo Regional Rescue Department in Mikkeli.

The course facilitated exchange of information and experience regarding Article X implementation and provided a forum to discuss future cooperation among participating Member States.

*Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Chile, India, Jordan, Libya, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tanzania, Ukraine and Yemen.

Emerging Scholars Award, Global Water Forum

The Global Water Forum (http://www.globalwaterforum.org) wishes to announce the launch of the 2013 Emerging Scholars Award.

This annual Award is an opportunity for early-career scholars and practitioners working in water-related fields to publish an 800-1000 word article presenting their research, projects, or opinions to a global audience.

The top three articles, as judged by a panel of leading water experts, will be awarded a monetary prize. The ten finalists will be published on the GWF site during December 2013. High-quality entries which are not selected as finalists may also be offered the opportunity to publish their articles at a later date.

Participants are required to:

- Submit an 800-1,000 word article relevant to the theme of ‘Water Cooperation’. This broad theme encompasses many aspects of water governance, including transboundary governance, development, economic approaches to resolving water disputes, solving water security issues, among many others.

- Be a PhD recipient or PhD candidate under 36 years of age on the date of submission.

Applications are currently open for the 2013 Award and will close at midnight (GMT) on 18 November 2013. Details regarding submissions can be found at:http://www.globalwaterforum.org/awards/2013-emerging-scholars-award/

All enquiries and submissions may be directed to emergingscholars@globalwaterforum.org

We hope you and your colleagues take advantage of this opportunity to highlight your research activities.

Paul Wyrwoll
Managing Editor, Global Water Forum
UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Governance
Australian National University

The Global Water Forum (GWF) is an initiative of the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance at the Australian National University (ANU). The GWF is an online resource presenting evidence-based, accessible, and freely available articles concerning freshwater governance. The site also acts as a hub for internally and externally produced education resources, and as a forum for discussion regarding water issues. The central objective of the site is to build the capacity of students, policy-makers, and the general public to understand and respond to complex freshwater problems.

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

US Air Force once dropped live hydrogen bomb on North Carolina - report

The US Air Force inadvertently dropped an atomic bomb over North Carolina in 1961. If a simple safety switch had not prevented the explosive from detonating, millions of lives across the northeast would have been at risk, a new document has revealed.

The revelation offers the first conclusive evidence after decades of speculation that the US military narrowly avoided a self-inflicted disaster. The incident is explained in detail in a recently declassified document written by Parker F. Jones, supervisor of the nuclear weapons safety department at Sandia National Laboratories.

The document - written in 1969 and titled “How I Learned to Mistrust the H-bomb,” a play on the Stanley Kubrick film title “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” - was disclosed to the Guardian by journalist Eric Schlosser.

Three days after President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, a B-52 bomber carrying two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs departed from Goldsboro, North Carolina on a routine flight along the East Coast. The plane soon went into a tailspin, throwing the bombs from the B-52 into the air within striking distance of multiple major metropolitan centers.

Each of the explosives carried a payload of 4 megatons - roughly the same as four million tons of TNT explosive - which could have triggered a blast 260 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that wiped out Hiroshima at the end of World War II.

One of the bombs performed in the same way as those dropped over Japan less than 20 years before - by opening its parachute and engaging its trigger mechanisms. The only thing that prevented untold thousands, or perhaps millions, from being killed was a simple low voltage switch that failed to flip.

That hydrogen bomb, known as MK 39 Mod 2, descended onto tree branches in Faro, North Carolina, while the second explosive landed peacefully off Big Daddy’s Road in Pikeville. Jones determined that three of the four switches designed to prevent unintended detonation on MK 39 Mod 2 failed to work properly, and when a final firing signal was triggered that fourth switch was the only safeguard that worked.

That hydrogen bomb, known as MK 39 Mod 2, descended onto tree branches in Faro, North Carolina, while the second explosive landed peacefully off Big Daddy’s Road in Pikeville. Jones determined that three of the four switches designed to prevent unintended detonation on MK 39 Mod 2 failed to work properly, and when a final firing signal was triggered that fourth switch was the only safeguard that worked.

Nuclear fallout from a detonation could have risked millions of lives in Baltimore, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York City, and the areas in between.

“The MK Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52,” Jones wrote in his 1969 assessment. He determined “one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe…It would have been bad news – in spades.”

Before Schlosser brought the document to light through a Freedom of Information Act request, the US government long denied that any such event ever took place.

“The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy,” he told the Guardian. “We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here’s one that very nearly did.”

In “Command and Control,” Schlosser’s new book on the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union, the journalist writes that he discovered a minimum of 700 “significant” accidents involving nuclear weapons in the years between 1950 and 1968. More

 

US killer robot policy: Full speed ahead

In November 2012, United States Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter signed directive 3000.09, establishing policy for the “design, development, acquisition, testing, fielding, and … application of lethal or non-lethal, kinetic or non-kinetic, force by autonomous or semi-autonomous weapon systems.” Without fanfare, the world had its first openly declared national policy for killer robots.

The policy has been widely misperceived as one of caution. According to one account, the directive promises that a human will always decide when a robot kills another human. Others even read it as imposing a 10-year moratorium to allow for discussion of ethics and safeguards. However, as a Defense Department spokesman confirmed for me, the 10-year expiration date is routine for such directives, and the policy itself is “not a moratorium on anything.”

A careful reading of the directive finds that it lists some broad and imprecise criteria and requires senior officials to certify that these criteria have been met if systems are intended to target and kill people by machine decision alone. But it fully supports developing, testing, and using the technology, without delay. Far from applying the brakes, the policy in effect overrides longstanding resistance within the military, establishes a framework for managing legal, ethical, and technical concerns, and signals to developers and vendors that the Pentagon is serious about autonomous weapons.

Did soldiers ask for killer robots? In the years before this new policy was announced, spokesmen routinely denied that the US military would even consider lethal autonomy for machines. Over the past year, speaking for themselves, some retired and even active duty officers have written passionately against both autonomous weapons and the overuse of remotely operated drones. In May 2013, the first nationwide poll ever taken on this topic found that Americans opposed to autonomous weapons outnumbered supporters by two to one. Strikingly, the closer people were to the military—family, former military, or active duty—the more likely they were to strongly oppose autonomous weapons and support efforts to ban them.

Since the 1990s, the military has exhibited what autonomy proponent Barry Watts has called “a cultural disinclination to turn attack decisions over to software algorithms.” Legacy weapons such as land and sea mines have been deemphasized and some futuristic programs canceled—or altered to provide greater capabilities for human control. Most notably, the Army’s Future Combat Systems program, which was to include a variety of networked drones and robots at an eventual cost estimated as high as $300 billion, was cancelled in 2009, with $16 billion already spent.

At the same time, calls for autonomous weapons have been rising both outside and from some inside the military. In 2001, retired Army lieutenant colonel T. K. Adams argued that humans were becoming the most vulnerable, burdensome, and performance-limiting components of manned systems. Communications links for remote operation would be vulnerable to disruption, and full autonomy would be needed as a fallback. Furthermore, warfare would become too fast and too complex for humans to direct. Realistic or not, such thinking, together with budget pressures and the perception that robots are cheaper than people, has supported a steady growth of autonomy research and development in military and contractor-supported labs. In March 2012, the Naval Research Lab opened a new facility dedicated to development and testing of autonomous systems, complete with simulated rainforest, desert, littoral, and shipboard or urban combat environments. But the killer roboticists’ brainchildren have continued to face what a 2012 Defense Science Board report, commissioned by then-Undersecretary Carter, called “material obstacles within the Department that are inhibiting the broad acceptance of autonomy.”

The discrimination problem. Navy scientist John Canning recounts a 2003 meeting at which high-level lawyers from the Navy and Pentagon objected to autonomous weapons. They assumed that robots could not comply with international humanitarian law, core principles of which include a responsibility to distinguish civilians from combatants and to refrain from attacks that would cause excessive harm to civilians. These principles, and the military rules of engagement intended to implement them, assume a level of awareness, understanding, and judgment that computers simply don’t have. Weapons are also subject to mandated legal review, and indiscriminate weapons—that is, weapons that cannot be selectively directed to attack lawful targets and avoid civilians—are forbidden. The lawyers did not think they would ever be able to sign off on autonomous weapons.

Georgia Tech roboticist Ron Arkin has argued that unemotional robots, following rigid programs, could actually be more ethical than human soldiers. But his proposals fail to solve the hard problems of distinguishing civilians, understanding and predicting social and tactical situations, or judging the proportionality of force. Others argue, philosophically, that only humans can make such targeting judgments legitimately. In a world getting used to talking about virtual assistants and self-driving cars, it may not be obvious what the limits of artificial intelligence will be, or what people will accept, in 10, 20, or 40 years. But for now, and for the immediate future, the robot discrimination problem is hard to dispute.

To break the legal deadlock, Canning suggested that robots might normally be granted autonomy to attack materiel, including other robots, but not humans. Yet in many situations it might be impossible to avoid the risk—or the intent—of killing or injuring people. For such cases, Canning proposed what he called “dial-a-level” autonomy; that is, the robot might ordinarily be required to ask a human what to do, but in some circumstances it could be authorized to take action on its own. More

 

Conversations with Great Minds - Lester Brown

Is civilization failing? http://youtu.be/9LVwaRLCNhc

 

Phone Companies Paid Millions to Cooperate with NSA

Senators Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a joint statement this week regarding admissions by senior intelligence officials that they did not fully understand the entirety of the NSA’s bulk collection programs.

NSA HQ

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court released a previously classified opinion this week asserting the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) controversial bulk phone log collection program. The 29-page opinion, written by Judge Claire V. Eagan, is the most extensive explanation yet for the massive program, defending the practice on the grounds that it is sanctioned by a provision of the Patriot Act, and that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment since it does not eavesdrop on contents of phone calls. Judge Eagan, a 2001 George W. Bush appointee assigned to the FISA court this year by Chief Justice Roberts, wrote that “any decision about whether to keep it was a political question, not a legal one.” Jameel Jaffer, a senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), was unconvinced by the court’s opinion, saying the opinion “only confirms the folly of entrusting privacy rights to a court that hears argument only from the government.”

The ACLU isn’t the only one not reassured by Judge Eagan’s opinion on the program’s legality.Senators Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a joint statement this week regarding admissions by senior intelligence officials that they did not fully understand the entirety of the NSA’s bulk collection programs. After revelations that intelligence officials routinely mislead the FISA court and consistently violated the court’s orders, the Senators argue that, “[i]f the assertion that ineptitude and not malice was the cause of these ongoing violations is taken at face value, it is perfectly reasonable for Congress and the American people to question whether a program that no one fully understood was an effective defense of American security at all. The fact that this program was allowed to operate this way raises serious concerns about the potential for blind spots in the NSA’s surveillance programs. It also supports our position that bulk collection ought to be ended.”

Judge Eagan’s opinion also revealed that no telecommunications company has ever challenged the legality of an NSA surveillance request. While technology companies like Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft have all filed petitions with the FISA court to disclose records proving their objection to the programs, the NSA pays AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon hundreds of millions of dollars for their willing compliance. Matthew Aid argues this means that these private companies “now actually do much of NSA’s SIGINT collection work, for which NSA pays them tens of millions of dollars every year. And the irony is that we American taxpayers pay for this through a series of surcharges, fees and taxes tacked on to our AT&T, Verizon and Sprint long-distance telephone bills.” A Verizon executive went so far as to say tech companies were “grandstanding” in public about their aversion to cooperating with the NSA. However, despite the controversy surrounding the NSA’s surveillance practices, President Obama’s review panel created specifically to reform the NSA’s programs did not discuss making any substantive changes during the panel’s first meeting.

In non-NSA news, while the NSA has the budget to pay telecommunications companies $278 million for user data, the FBI is facing serious government spending cuts. The agency has long agonized over the anticipated budget cuts, and recently decided that the bureau will be forced to shut down their headquarters and nation-wide offices for 10 days over the course of the next year. “Besides the short-term effect on morale, response time and focus on the mission, this will degrade the capabilities of the bureau in the long term as well,” according to former FBI deputy director Tim Murphy. “I think the long-term impact is not being considered by those having this budget debate in Congress. Mistakes will be made down the road because of these cuts, and they will be able to be traced back to these cuts.”

The ACLU is challenging the CIA’s refusal to release any documents on its use of drones in targeted killings. Since the ACLU submitted a FOIA request to the CIA for use of drones for such practices, the CIA has continually refused to list or describe any documents in its possession –in direct opposition to a federal court’s orders. The CIA is not only ignoring the federal courts on the basis that releasing any information would endanger national security, it is continuing to engage in what an appeals courts calls a “pattern of strategic and selective leaks at very high levels of the Government,” prompting the ACLU to state in its brief, “[i]ndeed, the CIA’s response is so obviously deficient that one can only assume that the CIA’s goal is not to prevail on this motion but simply to delay as long as possible the day on which the agency will finally be required to explain what documents it is withholding and why.” More

 

Is Capitalism to Blame For the Syrian War Drive?

Obama’s push for war in Syria seemed so deeply irrational, so crazed, that many people naturally asked, “Why is this happening?” And “who” wants it to happen?

Few Americans actually believed that Nobel Peace Prizing winning Obama suddenly wanted to bomb Syria because “Assad gassed his own people” (especially when zero evidence was given to prove this).

Many commentators have correctly stated that geopolitics is a main motivation for Obama wanting to bomb Syria, acting as a gateway to Iran. Other commentators have also correctly discussed the specific economic (capitalistic) interests as a war motive. And others still have, again correctly, focused on the importance of Israel as a factor towards pushing for war in Syria and eventually Iran. All three answers are correct, and have an inter-dependence that is complicated and difficult to quantify, since much of the truth is hidden from public view.

Problems arise in analysis, however, when one of these issues is separated from the broader context, as was done in a recent article by Jean Bricmont and Diana Johnstone. Their article, “The People Against the 800 Pound Gorilla,” focuses on the importance of the U.S. Israeli lobby — “the 800 Pound Gorilla” — and its push for war, while minimizing or dismissing other crucial economic and political motives.

The article makes many excellent points, especially how the Israeli lobby in the U.S., American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is fanatically pushing for war against Syria. Congress is also trying to be politically immune from ANY discussion about AIPAC activities, lest accusations of “anti-Semite” are indiscriminately flung at them.

The problem with the article, however, is that the authors elevate the Israeli gorilla to a weight class it doesn’t belong in; and in so doing the authors are forced to minimize the size of several other giant gorillas, whose combined weight overshadows the Israeli chimp.

One of the giant gorillas that the authors seek to shrink is the U.S. capitalist class. The following passage summarizes the author’s main point:

“People who think that capitalists want wars to make profits should spend time observing the board of directors of any big corporation: capitalists need stability, not chaos, and the recent wars only bring more chaos.”

This is, of course, true for many if not most U.S. corporations. The authors are also correct when they argue that the average writer who uses a capitalist-centered analysis to explain war wrongly “…sees capitalism as a unified actor issuing orders to obedient politicians on the basis of careful calculations.” The authors are correct that this type of clunky analysis lacks nuance and should be rejected.

But the authors also fail to give capitalism the nuance it deserves; they construct a capitalistic strawman so arid it spontaneously combusts. For example, the authors limit the definition of capitalism to a sector-specific basis, mentioning specific types of capitalists that are blamed for pushing war and dismissing them as lesser gorillas than the Israeli lobby.

In naming corporate names the authors make some good points, but somehow skip over the 1,600 pound gorilla in the room — the big banks, the motor force of capitalism in the U.S. The authors might respond to this criticism by saying the banks were purposely omitted because they do not “directly benefit” from war and are, therefore, not at the forefront of advocating it.

This would be false. As the dominant corporate sector in U.S. capitalism, the banks are also the most internationalist in scope; the recent second quarter profits of U.S. banks were $42.2 billion (!), most of this money was made in overseas investing using cheap Federal Reserve printed dollars. More

 

Signature Strike Investigation

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Resolving the Syrian Chemical Weapons Crisis: Sunlight and Shadows By Richard Falk

The Putin Moment: Not only did Vladimir Putin exhibit a new constructive role for Russia in 21^st statecraft, spare Syria and the Middle East from another cycleof escalating violence, but he articulated this Kremlin initiative in the form of a direct appeal to the American people.

There were reasons to be particularly surprised by this display of Russian diplomacy: not since Nikita Khrushchev helped save the world from experiencing the catastrophe of nuclear war in the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 by backing down and agreeing to a face-saving formula for both superpowers, had Moscow distinguished itself in any positive way with respect to the conduct of international relations; for Putin to be so forthcoming, without being belligerent, was particularly impressive in view of Obama’s rather ill-considered cancellation only a few weeks ago of a bilateral meeting with the Russian leader because of Washington’s supposed anger at the refusal of the Russian government to turn the NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, over to the United States for criminal prosecution under American espionage laws; and finally, considering that Putin has much blood on his hands given past policies pursued in relation to Chechnya and in the autocratic treatment of domestic political opposition, it was hard to expect anything benevolent during his watch. And so Putin is emerging as a virtual ‘geopolitical black swan,’ making unanticipated moves of such a major character as to have the potential to transform the character of conflict management and resolution in the 21^st century. It should be understood that Putin could have stayed on the sidelines, and benefitted from seeing Obama sink deeper and deeper into the Syrian quagmire, and instead he stepped in with a momentous move that seems to have served the regional and global interest.

Putin has explained in a coherent manner in his opinion piece that was published in the NY Times on September 11^th attacks) that his approach to Russian foreign policy relies on two instruments: soft power and economic diplomacy. He acknowledged American leadership, but only if exercised within a framework of respect for international law and the UN Charter. And he appropriately took issue with Obama’s sentiments expressed a night earlier to the effect that America in its leadership role had a unique entitlement to use force to overcome injustice in situations other than self-defense and even without authorization by the UN Security Council. It was Putin, perhaps disingenuously, who claimed (quite correctly) that such a prerogative was “extremely dangerous.” He rejected Obama’s pretension that a unilateral discretion with respect to the use of force could be inferred from American exceptionalism. Whether disingenuous or not, the requirement of a Security Council authorization for non-defensive uses of force, while sometimes preventing a peacekeeping response by the UN to certain tragic situations of civil strife and humanitarian crisis overall contributed to finding diplomatically agreed upon solutions for conflict and enabled the UN (unlike the League of Nations) to persist despite severe tensions among its dominant members. Let hope that this Putin vituoso exhibition of creative diplomacy prompts his counterpart in the White House to explore more diligently soft power opportunities that will better protect American national interests, while simultaneously serving the global interest in war prevention and the rejection of militarism, and might also have the added benefit of reversing the steady decline of American credibility as a benevolent global leader ever since the end of the Cold War.(without invoking the symbolism of the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11

Constitutional Balance: Perhaps what might be of even greater importance than averting an ill-considered punitive attack on Syria, is the grounding of recourse to war on the major republican premise of Congressional authorization. There is little doubt that here the efficient cause and anti-hero was David Cameron, who turned to Parliament to support his wish to join with Obama in the attack coalition despite the anti-war mood in British public opinion. Cameron was politically spared by the vote of the House of Commons to withhold authorization. It is hard to believe that Obama’s decision to seek authorization from the U.S. Congress was not a belated realization that if Britain deferred to its Parliament as an expression of constitutional democracy, it would be unseemly for the United States to go to war without the formal backing of Congress. Of course, the Putin initiative saved Obama from the near certain embarrassment of being turned down by Congress, which would mean that either he would follow in Cameron’s and face savage criticism from his hawkish boosters or insist upon his authority as Commander in Chief to act on his own, a prerogative that seems constitutional dubious to support a bill of impeachment. Beyond this, theWar Powers Act that would seem to require some emergency justification for the presidential bypassing of Congress in the context of a proposed military action. Hopefully, we are witnessing, without an accompanying acknowledgement, the downfall of the ‘imperial presidency’ that got its start during the Vietnam War. The governmental pendulum in the United States may have started to swing back toward the separation of powers and checks and balances, and thus be more in keeping with the original republican hopes of limited executive authority, especially in relation to war making. This renewal of republican constitutionalism, combined with growing populist skepticism about military adventures abroad, might make this Syrian crisis of decision a welcome tipping point, reversing the unhealthy subordination of Congress in war/peace situations during the last half century and anti-democratic disregard of the views of the citizenry. More

How to destroy chemical weapons by Paul Walker

The recent news that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is willing to accede to the international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) has raised the question: How might one actually go about eliminating Syria’s chemical munitions?

The CWC entered into force in 1997. Seven CWC member countries have declared existing chemical weapons stockpiles—Albania, India, Iraq, Libya, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. Three of these—Albania, India, and South Korea—completed stockpile destruction in the last few years. Three more—Libya, Russia, and the US—expect to complete their destruction programs over the next decade. And Iraq, which joined the convention in 2009, is planning the destruction of its chemical weapons equipment and agents left from the 1991 Gulf War.

There are essentially three broad categories of destruction approaches, all used successfully in the above programs. These approaches can be mixed and matched, depending on the type, size, quantity, and condition of the agents, munitions, and containers.

Incineration.The initial destruction technology used by the United States—which began operating its first prototype facility on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in 1990—involves burning chemical agents and munitions in high-temperature furnaces. Individual munitions such as rockets and artillery shells, likely similar to what has been used in Syria, are dismantled and drained of their liquid agents on a robotic disassembly line. The liquid agent is captured in holding tanks and then moved to a liquid furnace. Should the munitions include explosives or propellant, these are separated and burned in an explosives furnace, armored to withstand blasts. A metal parts furnace is used to burn any remaining residue of agent left in the metal containers and weapon shells A fourth “dunnage” furnace was designed to burn all other materials—wood pallets, plastics, fiberglass cases—but in practice, these potentially contaminated materials are fed through the metal parts furnace as well.

Tons of gaseous effluents from this process are then scrubbed by multiple wet and dry filters and released into the atmosphere through a tall smokestack; alarms notify workers if any agent is accidently released out the smokestack.

Neutralization.The preferred process of Russia and four American states has been a wet chemistry approach, typically called neutralization or hydrolysis. This requires that the chemical weapons container or weapon be drained; its liquid agent is placed in a mixing tank with hot water or a caustic reagent such as sodium hydroxide, or with both. Russia introduces its reagent directly into its large aerial bombs, allowing the chemical process to operate directly in the bomb for a month or more. The chemical reaction destroys the toxicity of the agent and the liquid effluent can then be further processed in a second stage, using either a liquid industrial incinerator or a bioremediation process similar to sewage treatment. The metal parts of weapons are processed in a metal parts furnace.

Explosive destruction systems. In a third option, countries seeking to destroy chemical weapons detonate or neutralize each weapon in a closed “bang box,” a heavy reactor designed to blow up or treat chemically each individual weapon in a contained and safe manner, capturing and treating all gas, liquid, and solid toxic effluents. This process is being used by the Japanese now to destroy the hundreds of thousands of abandoned Japanese chemical weapons being excavated at multiple sites around China; it is also used to treat unexploded ordnance, both chemical and conventional, unearthed in Europe after the world wars. It will also be used as a complementary treatment process in the United States for some weapons.

There are a variety of other possible treatments for destroying chemical weapons, including steam reactors, plasma reactors, and super-critical water oxidation reactors. The basic approach to chemical weapons destruction is typically conditioned on safety, public health, local preferences, cost, and schedule. In fact, the CWC mandates that such demilitarization programs be based primarily on the protection of public health, the environment, and workers. Ocean dumping, burial, and open burning are prohibited, even though these were common practice decades ago.

It will be difficult to predict the best destruction options for Syria until more specific details of its program are known: how many sites, how many weapons, what types of agents, the amount of precursor chemicals, and the condition of the stockpiles. The good news is that the governmental and private sectors of the United States, Russia, Germany, Japan, and other countries have many years of experience that can help guide the project. The bad news? It will be a long-term, expensive operation. More

 

“Working together for a world free of chemical weapons”

 

OPCW Press Release 11/2013

The Hague, 14 September 2013

OPCW Director-General Welcomes Agreement on Syrian Chemical Weapons

The Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, has welcomed the agreement on chemical weapons in Syria that wasannounced today following talks held in Geneva between the Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergey V. Lavrov, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The Director-General hopes that these agreements will facilitate the fulfilment of obligations by Syria deriving from the Chemical Weapons Convention, which it has decided to join. Following decisions that are proposed to be taken by the Executive Council of the OPCW, necessary measures will be adopted to implement an accelerated programme to verify the complete destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, production facilities and other relevant capabilities.

The Director-General envisages that this significant step will be fully supported by States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the wider international community. The CWC represents the sole multilateral mechanism to rid the world of chemical weapons and the OPCW,with over 16 years of experience, possesses the necessary skills and capacities to undertake such missions. OPCW experts are already at work preparing a roadmap that anticipates the various undertakings and missions in Syria. Nine OPCW experts recently participated in the UN investigation of alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.

These matters are expected to be discussed by the OPCW Executive Council in the coming week. More